Part I Phonology
2.9.5 Mid vowels
There are three mid vowels in Puma. They are /e/, /ʌ/ and /o/. They show contrast in all positions: word-initial, word-medial and word-final.
Table 30: Mid vowels
word-initial word-medial word-final
et ‘make listen’
ot ‘break’
ʌk ‘scoop out’
ok ‘crow of a cock’
khek ‘bite’
khok ‘crush oil’
khʌk ‘be bitter’
ke ‘we all’
gogo ‘cow’
ʌsʌ ‘two’
2.10 Vowel minimal pairs
There are numerous minimal pairs for all vowels of Puma that are presented in Table 31. All vowels8 except mid central vowel /ʌ/ can be lengthened in both past tense and non-past tense (see Section 2.35 for details) but no minimal pairs based on vowel length are attested. Minimal pairs for vowels are presented in Table 31.
Table 31: Vowels in minimal pairs
VOWELS EXAMPLES EXAMPLES
i ~ e it ‘bring down’
et ‘make listen’
sit ‘louse’
set ‘kill’
ʌ ~ a ʌpʌ ‘DET’ apa ‘father’
cʌkɖ ‘save’
chakɖ ‘send the ritual gift’
u ~ o und ‘push’
ond ‘grind’
khukd ‘strike with horn’
khokd ‘cut into pieces’
i ~ u ips ‘sleep’
ups ‘hold in the mouth’
pis ‘speak’
pus ‘begin’
e ~ ʌ ~ a khek ‘bite’
khʌk ‘be bitter’
ʌk ‘scoop out’
ok ‘crow of cock’
2.11 Diphthongs distribution
Diphthongs are marginal in Puma. The diphthong /ai/ is productive, compared to others which occur to about a dozen stems. The diphthongs /ui/, /au/, and /ʌi/ occur only in a couple of stems, while /ia/ and /ae/ occur only in one stem each. Whatever diphthongs are found in Puma are illustrated in Table 32.
8 Vowels a, o, i and u are lengthened as in: bha-a ‘cut-PST’, co-o ‘eat-PST’, chi-i ‘bind-PST’, and mu-u
‘do-PST’
91 Table 32: Diphthongs distribution
DIPHTHONGS TERMS GLOSS
/ai/
ai chai waitma cais
today childhood thirst be not well /ia/ siaku dead /au/ khau which /ua/ rauma
muama
lammergeyer9 creation /ae/ khaetma proclamation /ui/ kuiyama dark
/iu/ tuniu moulmain cedar /uo/ puoŋkha place of source /ʌi/ kʌisʌmak bad
/oi/ biyoi greeting 2.12 Nasal vowels
Nasalisation of vowels is not phonemic in many other Rai languages. For example, Bantawa (Rai 1985), Dumi (van Driem 1993) and Wambule (Opgenort 2002), however, it is phonemic in Camling (Rai 2003). No nasal vowels are attested in Puma. There are some nasalized vowels borrowed from Nepali, but in Puma they lose their nasal quality.
2.13 Syllable structure
In this section I first describe the basic concept of different constituents of a syllable and then I illustrate Puma syllable structure. Finally, I analyse root level phonotactics and syllable level phonotactics in Puma.
The syllable consists of three phonological constituents: the onset, the nucleus and the coda. It can be represented as an onset followed by a rhyme. The rhyme consists of the nucleus followed by the coda (Spencer 1996). The onset is the consonant or sequence of consonants at the beginning of a syllable, while the coda is the consonant or sequence of consonants at the end of a syllable. The nucleus of a syllable is the vowel. It is obligatory for a syllable, while the onset and the coda may be empty. Cross- linguistically the lack of a coda for a syllable is very common while the lack of onset is less common (Hayes 2009). The syllable is labeled with /σ/. The Puma syllable is illustrated in Figure 11.
9A large Eurasian bird of prey of the vulture family.
Figure 11: The syllable
σ
onset rhyme nucleus coda (i) (C)(G) V (C)(C) (ii) (N) C V C
As can be seen from Figure 11, the maximum syllable in Puma can be represented in two ways: the first for open syllables with complex onset and the second for closed syllables with complex onset. When the coda is optional or empty in a syllable, then that type of syllable is called an open syllable while a syllable that has a coda is called a closed syllable. Puma allows both open and closed syllables. Most verbs in Puma are polysyllabic.
Like other Kiranti languages, Puma has various patterns of syllables. The maximum syllable in Puma is (C) (G) V (C) (C) for complex onset open syllables and (N) C V C for complex onset closed syllables, where ‘G’ is a glide and ‘N’ is a nasal.
Borrowed words (mostly from Nepali) are excluded from this analysis. Rai et al. (2009) claim that initial consonant clusters are not found in Puma, except for one word pwa
‘stem of a plant or a tree’, but that was found to be in free variation with puwa with the same meaning. But, I find that more initial consonant clusters are attested in Puma.
As we can see from Figure 11 the nucleus can be preceded by not more than one consonant with a glide or a nasal and can be followed by not more than two consonants.
In Puma the nucleus is obligatory while the onset and the coda are optional (see Table 33).
2.14 Syllable patterns
In Puma there are eight types of syllable patterns. These types are based on the analysis from the chart of consonantal clusters (Table 23), description of consonants (Table 18) and the minimal pairs for vowels (Table 31).
93 Table 33: Syllable patterns
PATTERN ROOT GLOSS
CV
ba
ma su
weave fever wash V
i a o
come down our
DEM
VC
ot
is ʌk
break be unwell one CVC
ben
chor bil
come level pay
squeeze VCV
abo
ʌsʌ ogi
now two
sweet potato CVCC betd
cind
dhuks bring
teach collide CGV
pwa jya thaw
tree all
the same way NCVC
ŋsʌŋ ŋnʌŋ ŋkʌŋ
similar that much
ABL