Modern Hindi Grammar - Indian Institute of Language Studies (IILS)

2. PHONOLOGY

8a. ija,MdgaI + maaOt ka @yaa Baraosaa
zindagi: + møt ka: kya: bharosa:
life death-gen what guarantee
There is no guarantee of life or death.

External juncture (#) occurs between each word and the words
joined by this juncture retain their separate identity.

8b. ija,MdgaI # maaOt ka @yaa Baraosaa
zindagi: # møt ka: kya: bharosa:
There is no guarantee of life or death.

2.4. Morphophonemics

Various morphological processes can be marked as loss, addition,
and replacement of phonemes.

2.4.1. Loss of Phoneme

The vowel /a/ in the last syllable is dropped when the suffix /-õ/ is
added to the word.

AaOrt ørat woman

AaOrtaoM øratõ women (obl)

pagala pa:gal mad

pagalaaoM (^) pa:glõ mad persons (obl)
The consonant na /n/ of a numeral system is lost before any numeral
suffix beginning with /t t-, r r-, h h-/ is added.
tIna ti:n three + rh rah ten marker = torh terah thirteen

2.4.2. Addition of Phoneme

The vowel e /-e/ is added to the root before the suffixes are added to
it.

itr tir + pna pan = itropna tirepan fifty-three
itr tir + saz sath = itrosaz tiresath sixty-three