|
Compounds
|
|
Initial
|
Medial
|
|
|
ae
|
aera
|
‘a
kind of fish’
|
di gae?
|
‘short’
|
|
ai
|
ai
|
‘I’
|
mail
|
‘read’
|
|
ao
|
-
|
|
-
|
|
|
au
|
auri
|
‘not
yet ready’
|
maura
|
‘poison’
|
|
ea
|
eaga
|
‘interjection,expressing
pain’
|
kead
|
‘parrot’
|
|
eo
|
eon
|
‘to
awake’
|
deoøa
|
‘doctor’
|
|
|
|
ia
|
iam
|
‘to
be anxious’
|
miad
|
‘one’
|
|
iu
|
iur
|
‘cool
breeze’
|
siu?
|
'to plow’
|
|
oa
|
oagi
|
‘cooked
(rice)’
|
ļoar
|
‘salutation’
|
|
oe
|
oel
|
‘close-fisted’
|
goe?
|
‘to
kill’
|
|
ui
|
-
|
|
 uila
|
‘pluckedinstrument’
|
|
ua
|
|
-
|
hua?
|
‘to
grit’
|
|
|
|
|
Final
|
|
peøae
|
‘weaver’
|
|
jai
|
‘grand
(son etc.)’
|
|
pao
|
‘vain’
|
|
bau
|
‘elder
(in reltion)’
|
|
dea
|
‘back’
|
eo
|
‘to
fry’
|
haia
|
‘main
road’
|
|
giu
|
‘shame’
|
|
ļoa
|
‘check’
|
|
koe
|
‘to
beg’
|
|
cue
|
‘calf’
|
|
|
|
|
| Among the twelve
different combinations of two vowels at a time, there are distributional
restrictions with three of the sets. [ao] occurs only finally, while
[ua] and [ui] occur medially and finally, while there is strong possibility
that words with initial [ua] and [ui] might have been lost (since
in words like [uiun] ‘to wrap’ [ui] occurs with the third
vowel following), the combination [ao] |
| seems
to be an acquired one and it occurs abundantly always with the loan
words. The word given above is also a loan word [pao] from Sadani.
Therefore, due to these reasons we find a hole in the symmetry. |
| The combinations
which do not occur are ei, eu, ie, io, oi, ou, ue and uo. |
| Apart from these,
two identical vowels can occur in a single morpheme within the same
syllable, and behaves like a single unit of long vowel, vig., (i)
[aa], (ee), (ii), (oo), (uu), so that these illustrations complete
the number of twenyfive for the different combinations of the five
vowels. |
| 1.10.2.
Compound of three vowels (one of them being nonsyllabic): |
| There are at least
ten such instances where occurrence of three vowels together is frequent
within a morpheme. This may happen in between two consonants or between
¹-C
or C-¹,
but it is not possible to illustrate examples for each of them in
all the three positions. In such cases generally the middle ones become
non-syllabic except [oai], where the final vowel turns non-syllabic. |
|
Segments
|
|
Illustrations
|
|
aio
|
taiom
|
‘behind’
|
|
aia
|
baiar
|
‘string’
|
|
aiu
|
aium
|
‘to
hear’
|
|
eia
|
meia
|
‘day
after tomorrow’
|
|
eua
|
eua
|
‘a
kind of paddy’
|
|
iua
|
kiua
|
‘chin’
|
|
oia
|
soia
|
‘rotten’
|
|
oai
|
peroai
|
‘to
do business’
|
|
oio
|
loio
|
‘field’
|
|
|
|
|
| In seven
out of ten cases there is medial non -syllabic [i] and in two is medial
non-syllabic [u], only in one case is a full medial vowel [a]. |
