| 2.7. Suprasegmental Phonemes |
| There are altogether five suprasegmental phonemes in Urali consisting of two junctures namely open and close and three terminals namely rising, falling and suspense. |
| 2.7.1. Juncture |
| Juncture is related to “the way in which phonemes follow each other or are “joined in the stream of speech” (Bloomfield, 1964, p.111). The two types of junctures marked in Urali are termed as open juncture and close juncture which are marked with /-/ and /+/ respectively. |
| 2.7.1.1. Open Juncture |
| Open juncture is characteristed by the non-occurrence of sandhi and the pause between the two consecutively spoken words. |
| /cinna na:y/ |
`small dog’ |
| /nana ku:re/ |
`my house’ |
|
| 2.7.1.2. Close Juncture |
| When two words W1 and W2 are combined with a close juncture, if W1 has a front vowel and W2 has a coiceless stop, the latter will be geminated. If both W1 and W2 are vowel ending and vowel beginning words respectively, the word final vowel of W1 will be become Φ |
| /nelli + ka:yi// |
> |
/nellikka:yi/ |
`gooseberry’ |
| /nellu + ummi/ |
> |
/nellummi/ |
`husk of a paddy’ |
|
| Contrast of open and close junctures |
| /ma:mė - ku:rekke po:kä/ |
`father-in-law is going go (his) house’ |
| /ma:mė + ku:rekke po:kä/ |
`(he) is going to father-in-law’s house’ |
|
| 2.7.2. Terminals |
2.7.2.1. Rising /  / |
| Interrogative, vocative, exclamatory and imperative utterances involving questioning a person or a thing; expressing sudden emotion or exclamation and ordering a person or a thing always have steep rise in the terminal with a high pitch. An empathic particle in a word or a sentence can also cause a steep rise in the terminal. |
| /illeya:/ |
/ / |
`is it not so? |
| /nancä:/ |
/ / |
`oh Nancha’ |
| /o: lasmi/ |
/ / |
`oh Lakshmi’ |
| /agvė:/ |
/ / |
`oh mother’ (an expression of pain or exclamation) |
| /ni: maøi/ |
/ / |
`speak (you)’ |
| /na:ne :/ |
/ / |
`I (with emphasis)’ |
| /aväde:/ |
/ / |
`It is he’ (with more emphasis) |
|
