Subject: sum : mongolian - g -

some weeks ago i posted a query as to the historical source of an epenthetic / g / , which appears between certain stem-final and suffix-initial vowels in mongolian . only sergej krylov knew about mongolian specifically , and his message appears below . > some remarks about the epenthetic / g / in mongolian . > as far as i know : > 1 ) in " hard " words it is not phonetically / g / , it is a > fricative sound ( written phonetically as the greek " gamma " ) . > in " soft " words it is / g / . ( note that the traditional terms for > " hard " and " soft " words are " back " and " front " recpectively , > but at least for khalkha the terms " hard " and " soft " are > preferable ) . > 2 ) historically it was not an epenthesis . on the contrary , in > proto - mongolian there was no long vowels , and between the > short vowels corresponding the modern mongolian " morae " > ( halves of the long syllables ) there was " g " . the old mongolian > script shows it rather clearly . then this " g " became > " weakened " between vowels , and then it was fully omitted , > and instead of two syllables appeared two-morae ( that is , > long ) syllables . > but there were some phonological positions where there > were no elision of " g " , namely , where two sequences of the > type v + g + v followed after each other . that is : vgv - - ) vv - - > long v ; but vgv + vgv - - ) vvgvv - - > long v + g + long v ( it was before > suffixes with initial vgv ) ( unfortunately i do n't know how to > represent " gamma " and the transcriptional symbol of length in ) this e-mail system and have to write " g " and " long " ) . > as a result of this process , the modern mongolian > epenthesis appeared . > the direction of the diachronic sound changes do not > necessarily coincide with the direction of the sound > alternation viewed from the purely synchronic point of view . > the example with the mongolian epenthesis is one of the > examples for it . > if my remarks are not clear enough , i can explain it > separately . > sincerely yours , > sergej a . krylov > ursula doleschal ( ursula . doleschal @ wu-wien . ac . at ) > institut f . slawische sprachen , wirtschaftsuniv . wien > augasse 9 , 1090 wien , austria > tel . : + + 43 - 1-31336 4115 , fax : + + 43 - 1-31336 744
