Handbuch der orientalistik section eight central asia

CHAPTER THREE 149

* Notes.

Before and after s.

The closed variant - in the position of the so called Uyghur Umlaut (before a, i in the second syllable).

The closed variant - after j-, before back affricates and sibilants (s, c), the Common Oghuz *j (not before the secondary -j < *g) and v; oth­erwise - a.

-a- is a rather rare, probably dialectal, variant.

> e in the vicinity of palatals.

The variant e - in the position of the so called Uyghur Umlaut (be­fore a, i in the second syllable).

Details see in MyApaK 2002.

In the Upper dialect o, in the Lower dialect and in literary Chuvash - u; u in all dialects adjacent to the reflexes of *g and *b.

t> - before and after s; in Anlaut - j-b. Details see in MyApaK /\mcc.

*ubC > *uvC > uC. Labialization of t> is present in the Upper dialect (but one should mention that before and after labials this labializa­tion is automatic).

vu- in the Malokarachin dialect.

Dialectal variation.

Labialization of e is present in the Upper dialect (but one should mention that before and after labials this labialization is automatic).

In the vicinity of velars *6 merges with *u.

3.2. Mongolian [by O. Mudrak]

Unlike Turkic, all modern Mongolian languages can be sufficiently well derived from the attested Middle Mongolian language. Attempts to reconstruct for Proto-Mongolian any features absent in the written records have so far been unsuccessful. Thus, the Proto-Mongolian sys­tem reconstructed so far is practically identical with Middle Mongolian and has the following phonemes:

Consonants

b m w

t d n r 1

c 3 s j

k g h/y rj

Of these consonants, w, r and rj occur only word-medially; w is dis­tinct in Written Mongolian orthography and was probably distinct from -y- in Middle Mongolian, but the actual orthographic systems of

150

INTRODUCTION

Middle Mongolian do not make a difference between -w- and -y(u)-. On the other hand, h- occurs only word-initially and is in clear com­plementary distribution with -y-.

A general process characteristic of Southern Mongolian languages was the voicing of intervocalic stops and transfer of their original "voicelessness" to the preceding consonant: *ZVCV > CVZV. All Southern Mongolian languages reveal, to a larger or lesser extent, the working of this general rule, which was first formulated in Helimski 1984. This "voicelessness" phonetically was probably realized as aspi­ration, which - in cases when there was no initial consonant - resulted in the emergence of secondary h- in Southern Mongolian: *VCV > hVZV. This h- is to be carefully distinguished from the original *h- pre­served in MMong. and Dagur.

Vowels

i ii u

e 6 o

a

In non-initial syllables only i, e, ii, u and a are attested; there are, however, some indications that *-6 and *-o could originally also occur in this position.

Like Turkic, Proto-Mongolian and Middle Mongolian possessed vowel harmony, which has to a large extent disintegrated in modern languages, especially in Southern Mongolian. All words were subdi­vided into two types: "front" (with the vowels *i, *e, *ii, *6) and "back" (with the vowels *i, *u, *o, *a): the vowel *i, therefore, was neutral in respect to vowel harmony.

In the chart below we give only correspondences of the vowels of the first syllable: although the non-initial vowels are well enough re­corded in MMong. and preserved in WMong., in all modern languages they became hopelessly reduced, and their quality may for the most part only be restored on the basis of the behaviour of the initial vowel.

Below is a chart of phonetic correspondences between Mongolian languages.

CHAPTER THREE 151

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