Alasha ([ɑɮʃɑ], in some Mongolian varieties [ɑɮɑ̆ɡʃɑ];[1] Mongolian script: ᠠᠯᠠᠱᠠ, Mongolian Cyrillic: Алшаа Alaša, Chinese: 阿拉善; pinyin: Ālāshàn), or Alaša-Eǰen-e, is a Mongolic variety with features of both Oirat and Mongolian[2] that historically used to belong to Oirat but has come under the influence of Mongolian proper. It has more than 40,000 speakers in Alxa League, Inner Mongolia, China and consists of two sub-dialects, Alasha proper and Eǰene.[3]

Phonology

/pɑɢ/ 'small' vs. /pɑɡ/ 'group', therefore /ɢ/. /øt͡səɡtər/, thus affricate depalatalization took place for /t͡ʃʰ/ and /t͡ʃ/ in any position except before *i.[4] /ɪr/ 'to thrust open' vs. /ir/ 'to come', thus /ɪ/.[5] The maximal syllable is CVCC, e.g. /tʰers.let/ converbal form of 'to counteract'.[6]

References

  1. ^ Here and in the following, the phoneme analysis proposed in Svantesson et al. 2005 is adapted for Alasha
  2. ^ Sečenbaγatur et al. 2005: 190-191 classify it as Mongolian according to morphological criteria, Svantesson et al. 2005: 148 classifies it as Oirat because of its vowel system.
  3. ^ Sečenbaγatur et al. 2005: 265-266
  4. ^ Sečenbaγatur et al. 2005: 272-273, but we follow Söngrüb 1988 (non vidi) who assumes an opposition of unaspirated devoiced and aspirated voiceless phonemes. As we reconstruct *t for Written Mongolian ⟨d⟩ etc. in accordance with Svantesson et al. 2005, Alasha /d̥/ is simply interpreted as /t/ from the outset.
  5. ^ Sečenbaγatur et al. 2005: 268
  6. ^ Sečenbaγatur et al. 2005: 276

Literature

Categories