| 3. MORPHOPHONEMICS |
3.0. A morpheme, a minimal menaingful unit of a language, may occur in a single phonemic shape or in more than one phonemic shape in the total system of the language. For example, in Abujhmaria, the plural forms of the morphemes mara: ‘tree’ and le:nj ‘month’ are mara:-k and le:-sk respectively. The morpheme mara: remains unchanged in the singular and plural, whereas the morpheme le:nj occurs in two phonemic shape - le:nj in singular and le:- in plural. Where a morpheme is represented by more than one phonemic shape all such forms are said to stand in alternation with each other. The complex netwerk of such synchronic variations in the phonemic representation of morphemes constitutes the sandhi or morphophonemics of the languages. Where such variations are incidental to arrangements of morphemes within a word it is called ‘internal sandhi’; where they are incidental to arrangements of words within larger construcitons, they are called ‘external sandhi’ (Krishnamurti, 1969 : 213). The alternation le:nj  le: is an instance of internal sandhi. A word final / . . . . C/ occasionally alternating with /. . . CV:/ is slow narration or before utterance final juncture, as in # ad wa:t # or # adu: wa:tu: # both meaning ‘it (or she) came’ is an instance of external sandhi.
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| 3.1.0. External Sandhi |
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3.1.1. A word-fianl consonant /...C/ occasionally and also optionally alternates with /...Cu/ in slow narration or before a phrase or utterance final juncture / # /.
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| Examples: |
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/ # ad wa:t # / or |
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/ # adu: wa:t #/ or |
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/ # adu: wa:tu: #/ ‘it (or she) came’ |
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/ # na:k hi:m #/ or |
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/ # na:k hi:mu #/ ‘give (it) to me’ |
| All instances of word-final /u:/ are not, of course, of this sort. |
| Examples: |
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/ # aru: hat #/ ‘(it) also went’ versus |
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/ # ar had # / ‘it went (that) way’ |
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In vocabulary these lexical items are marked in parenthesis when a final /-u:/ occurs in free variation with its absence (or with a zero). It appears that those lexical items ending in certain inflectional morphemes which morphologically end in consonants seem to take this non-morphemic final /-u:/ more than others.
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The word-final consonant does not seem to be the conditioning factor, since Ø with variation of -u: occurs after most of the consonants. Given below are some of the examples of words ending in consonants that have occasional free variants in -u:.
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