Dae ke NEPALESE LINGUISTICS nen BEEN Va A AN ea Oe 8 OE TN IN 08 888 ES AE Volume 2. neve ees ens Newari as a Language without vowel systems AY K. Sprigg ~/Patters of. Pronominalization in the Tibeto- Burman Area Some Issues in Communicology Preservation of Old Indo-Aryan Dialects in the Mid-Himalayas Bound Roots in Meitei \Gyllable Structure in Newari Obituary: Sir Ralph Lilley Tuner: 1888-1983. Ross C. Caughley N. Krishnaswamy DD. Sharma M.S. Ningomba Tej R. Kansakar Linguistic Society of Nepal Tribhuvan University Kirtipur, Kathmandu November 1983 AAD AA te eee Ten a EN TN ee ta TN RS 1-22 23-30 31-44 45-51 53-62 63-75 77-18Linguistic Society of Nepal Estd; 1979 ween Volume wees Office Holders: 1982-83 Dr. Churamani Bandhu, President v Mr. Bidya R, Bajracharya Vice-President Mr, Abhi Subedi, Secretary Mr, Nirmal M. Tuladhar, Joint-Secretary Ms Shanti Basnyat, Treasurer Dr. Ballabh M. Dabal, ‘Member Mr. Jaya Raj Acharya, Member Mr. Shiva Raj Upadhyaya, © Member Printed in Nepal at CRYSTAL PRINTING PRESS, Kantipath Kathmandu, GP 2-12216Boe G, Mabel self, T: and Bradlotl ek [98 citecs ee he Sino-Ti betan rea: The Conbera! The Aushel) ar 2 N EPALESE LINGUISTICS [ween nen arenas men wenn eine pas cree teees ees teeters eres eesseanranttenes Volume 2 November 1983 SAN ONE Ot wR ONE 08 T009 Vere rete kate eee tt ee eat etE tenet ett Fees, Wife 00d, GIVES. Pronouns vich agreanient sys “ Gl He Seb — 9 roupeig OL 71 befp-Baurwan- La fees OF wcqood mae artes) Lingua ae Tibetan es ie Sao Ke © SO ben: fhe Authalren Netconal Onieth, Chief Editor Tej R, Kansakar Editors Shreedhar P, Lohani Kamal R. Pandey Krishna B, Gurung Jaya R. Awasthi Linguis.ic Society of Nepal Tribhuvan University Kirtipur, KathmanduEWARI AS A LANGUAGE WITHOUT YOWEL SYSTEMS A Firthian approach to the Bhaktapur and Kathmandu Newari verb R. K. SPRIGG If tho syllabic and non =sjliabis vowels of Newsri verb lexical items are examined ‘not in aecordance with « phoneme theory but witha more ‘chunky’ approach, in which each Is studied ia its syntagmatic setting as part ofa ‘syllable-tinal” piece (nasal. vowel, lateral, or stop) and as part of ‘syllable-initial’ pieces based, firstly, on tip-action differences (y, w, 2) and se- condly, on aperture differences (close, meditim, open), it become impossible to distinguish systeins of vowels; and vocalie phonetic features ate supplied by the types of pieve by which each yerb tevical item is classified. This approach seems to be in close agceement with the traditional orthography. 1. INTRODUCTORY The fitst issue of Nepalese Linguistics drew attention to non-syilabie vowels (‘glides’) as an important feature of spoken Newari: ‘the status of Glides may be one of the most difficult single questions in the phonological description of Newari (Kansakar 1980: 9), While discussing this problem Kansakat mentions that Hale had earlier analysed Newari in terms of ‘a system of only four contrasting vowels” (1970: 313), later increased to five (Hale and Shresthacharya 1972: 4), before himself deciding in favour of ‘six vowel phonemes’ (i980: 9). A phonological analysis in accor dance with the theory of J. R, Firth, a‘ prosodic analysis’, is all but certain to differ from these three analyses in that respect, because one of the main principles of this type of analysis is that itis polysystemic, ana designcd to produce not a single inventory of vowel phonemes but a number of closed systems of vowels. or single yowels, each appropriate to different context or environment.? A further characteristic of prosodic analysis is that itis designed to be congruent with other levels of analysis, notably the grammatical; accordingly, my analysis is limited to verbs. Asaconsequence of this limitation setroflex post- alveolar sounds do not occur in any of my examples, (hough they would have done so if this analysis had included nouns, ¢. g,[ [Hu: ] dhah[ a measure of weight J. & In this study T have analysed the spoken Newari of Bhaktapur in parallel with that of Kathmandu, specifying forms as belonging to the Bhaktapur dialect (B) only where they differ from the Kathmandu, and oveasionally, as Kethmandu dialect (K) where they differ from the Bhaktapur. For the Kathmandu dialect it is a pleasnre to acknow- Jedge the help that I received from K.L. Muaandhar, Research Assistant in Newari al the School of Oriental and Africin Studies, University of Lyaton, during the session 1954-5; for the Bhaktapur dialect T had the good fortune to have S. B. Piwa, of Tri- chandra Cojlege, to work with mein Kathmandu in 1953 and 1956, aad to him tooT am 1) iceastNepalese Linguistics, Vol. 2 (1983) duly grateful. II, ‘Nasal-final-piece’ verbs Perhaps the most straight forward introduction to the problem of yowels in Newari verb lexical items is to limit the analysis, to begin with, to the ‘nasal-final-piece’ type, and resort to the other types of final only when they afford examples of features shat happen to be missing from the ‘nasal-final-piece’ type. A, Criteria ‘The ‘nasal-final’ type has either (1) nasality or (2) nasalization as « final feature of all forms of all verb lexical items (apart from the two grammatical forms of a very few verbs in the Bhaktapur dialect discussed later in this section), 1, NASALITY Where itis nasality that is the final feature, the nasality is () dental in contexts in which 2 yowel foilows (but (b) velar in the last-person present/pastj form in the Bhaktapur dialect) and (c) velar in velar contexts, in which a velar plosive follows, e, g. 1, a, [tone }, tone / twane® b. [tona], B [toNa] tona/ twana® c, [toNka], B [ toNka | (st) [ twaaNka ] tomka / twamias {) (@) shall drink’, (b) “@) duink/dcank’, (@) “(1) make/made drial’, 2. NASALIZATION The nasalization feature isassociated with word-final position, and therefore with (@) imperative forms and (b) 2nd/3rd-person preseat forms (in -wa), c. & 2 a[t(w)> QL B LS fst Ole b ft (wel Bite) [tsi 4@) tom ‘drink |’; cywm B cium ‘ beftiend!’* ; () tomya “(he) drinks’; cima * (he) befriend FINAL ORALITY ‘The lexical items of the nasal-final type that were mentioned above as being exceptional in the Bhaktapur dialect have an oral articulation in the final, presumably developed from an earlier (i) nas ) the last-person future form and (ii) the 3rd- person past form, ¢, a. B. [St] nor (ii) nasality, in i, [tSe] ciye ‘shall befriend’, [ je] iye ‘shall distribute’; Gi, [tSlta | eit ‘befriended’, [ 2 Ita] ita ‘distributed’ .7 ‘They belong to a prosodic class distinguisted as ‘y’ and as ‘close’ in sections (B. 1) (2]Newari without Vowel Systems and (C.1) below, Apart from these two forms verbs such as these conform lo the criterion Stated above, € ge 2a, [tSIni] ciuii ‘(he) will make friends’ b. [INa] ida “(1 distribute/distributed" 6, [INko] imku (he) makes distribuce’ 2, [tSit] eim (he) makes friends’ ; there is, therefore, no difficulty in treating them as a slightly aberrant sub-category of ‘nasal-final’, 4n a phonological analysis limited to tao aasal-final type of verb texical item Wve syllabic vowel units need to be distinguished, e. g. (the examples are of the Ist-person sent/past form, in phonetic transcription: {the vowel in question is. in the first syllable) i, [tSina], B [tSINa] cing “befriend” ii, [Sena], B[SeNa] sena/ syana ‘teach” ili, [kUna], B (KUNa] kuna ‘imprison’ » [tona ], B [toNa] tona/ twana ‘drink’ v, [gona ], B [ gaNa] gan ‘prohibit’.§ These examples of the five phonologically distinct syllabic-vowel units also ve as examples of one of the principles of prosodic analysis already referred, the syntagmatic principle, which requires the phonetic context to be taken into account Io their case the context comprises the syllabic vowel of the verb and its following (lexical- item- final) consonant, in complementary distribution with the nasalization exemplified at (2) above (apart from the exceptions in the Bhaktapur dialect in which orality is the final feature), and extending to initial features of a following lexical item, which is, in these examples, the verbal-particle lexical item ~ay This type of *piece*, extending, here, ‘over part of two syllables, contrasts with three Other types, the ‘vowel-final’ (IIT), the “ateral-final’ (IV), and the ‘stop-final‘ (distinguished in Toshi 1076 N.S. by -ne versus -yele. and -fe, e, g, (fusutusu) wane v, (teja) liye, tule, and sote; p. 114) but before passing to those types there are other features of nasal-final verbs to be considere “syslable-initial-piece‘ features (B.-C.). the ‘syliable-initial-piece’ is taken to comprise the syllabic vowel and whatever consonant and non-syllabic-vowel sounds can precede it within the syllable. 8. ‘Syllable-initiat piece” and lip - action system The justification for distinguishing this type of syllabe-initial piece is that certain syllable-initial consonant und non-syllabic-vowel sounds, and sequen— ces of both these types of sounds will combine with certain of the syllabic vowel sounds but not with others, and vice versa, The syllable-initial {tS} 131Nepalese Linguistics, Val. 2 (1983) ‘of example (i) above, for example, combines: with the syllabic vowel [i]. B [1] in that example, and will also combine with [ J, but not with{U[, [0] or [o] B [a]; and the same is true of the initial [S J, as in example (ii) (but for these two initials in combina tion with [a ]inthe ‘vowel-final piece’ see (III. B) below); and syllable-initial [k } combines with [U], as in example (iii), and will combine with [9] B [a]: bur not with fil or [©]. These and other syllablo-initial-piece syntagmatic relations are shown, for the nasal-final type of syllable, in the following table, in which there is a column for each, ‘afthe five types of vowel sound, with provision for variation by dialec!; and each column contains whatever syllable-initial consonant sounds have been observed im my data as. sombining with yowel shown at the head of the column, together with the appropriate non— syllabic vowel sounds, aad sequences of both of these, as they appear in the last-persom present/past form (containing the verbal particle ~a): LI! Lei Le] Led Leas 1) 20 [ts ts] [éz-] J dz.(w) -] (B) [s- s- s- (K) 1? =] [nj- n-]t8 Tie ke ke] {khj- kh- kh-] 2 khw—] (B) : te] fe te] Tw] (8) th-] a] {tH= f- p-] {fw-] (B) [phi fh-] [bi- v-] a (ve @) ij [m- m-] Oe < oo {H- HT 1 it w-]38 Table 1, Syntagmatic relations; ‘syllable-initialjpices? 141 ait. [Si 15. ‘SieNewari without Vowel Systems From the. point of view of syntagmatic relations between syllabic vowels and preceding non-ryllabic sounds this table suggests that [i] and [¢] should be grouped together in one type of ‘sylable-initial piece’, and [U] similarly with [0] the result that three types of ‘syllable-initial piece’ need to be distinguished, To the syllable-initiat piece, then, a three-term system can be applied, the terms of which might be named, fr-m their phonetic characteristics, ‘spread‘, ‘rounded’, and ‘natural’; but I have used the more convenient symbols y’, ‘w', and‘, The criteria for distinguishing each of the three terms of this prosodic system are as follows: ly a. Absolute criteria i, palato-alveolarity }frictiion 7 frontness and ii, palatalization+-velarity lip-spreading [S- khj-] [-i-] B[-I-] [s- KT [+-b ag [ Sina, khjina] B [SINa, khjINa } {Sena, kjena] B [SeNa, kjgNal (ft{ Sas, kja: ]) Sina, khina; ‘wear‘,?© “scatter; syama, kena,/kyana; ‘teach’, ‘show’. Further syllable-initial features, which combine with one or other of these two types of vowel sound but not with both (in my data, at least ), comprise: palatality-alveolarity +affrication [tS =i- } iv. palatality +nasality [nj- -¢~ 1 ©. B [1SINa ] B [1SINa J cina ‘befriend? [jena] B [njgNa] (ft [nja: ]) nyana ‘hear’, T assume that it isa matter of chance that one or other type of vowel sound should be absent from these two criteria: this assumption is supported by the fact that syllable-initial-piece combinations such as these occur in lexicalj items belonging to the lateral-final type of piece, e. g. [tScla, dzeia }27 chelajebyaln, jelafiyala ‘bring into use," ‘wear out’ {ajila) B [njcla} olla B nyala ‘twist’, [5]Nepalese Linguistics, Vol. 2 (1983) There are two other criteria ofthe y term: but these , unlike the four criteri= stated above, are limited to occurring with the half-open vowel [ ¢ ]; Ye non-sylicbic front spread vowel [ j-1 dentality — [ thj-dj ¢Hj-} vi. palatalization + 2 labiality —_[ phj- bi- ] Tater: Clin], e8 LigNka ] yamkals [tHjena] B [tHjeNa] (ft [ tHja:]) dhyana Epbignay B [phjeNa] (ft [ phja: ] phyana {ligeno] B [lena] (3rd-person past) tyana ‘take away with’, ‘cut’, ‘untie’, ‘was left overs Partial criteria The above are absolute criteria: they distinguish the y piece from both the wand the 9 types of piece: but there are also two partial criteria. One of these, (vii) gloital plosion alternating with syllable-initial syllabic vowel, serves to distinguish the y term from the @ but not fromthe w (and, further, this criterion applies only to the closer of the two y-piece vowels), ¢g.[ ?ina] B [INa] ina ‘distribute’; the other, (viii) bilabiality, serves to distinguish the y piece from the w piece but not from the a; and it too occurs only in association with the closer of the two vowel sounds (and, further, only in the ‘vawal-final’ type of lexical item ({11), e. g., [ bia ],{ phina ] B [phINa }, biya, phina, ‘give’, ‘wear’ ). ae Tablet also gives syntagmatic grounds for associating the two types of rounded owel unit, close and half - close, with each other in the type of syllabie~initial piece here termed ‘w', The criteria of the ‘w’ initial piece are the following: a, Absolute criteria i backness + closeness Jabio-dentality (2), two (2, teva: J tom, fo, eo, ‘drinkt? ‘taketoff ! ‘rinse 1: 1*(#) 9: twat, tsw9i] tomwa, towa, cowa, ‘drinks'j “takes off, ‘rinses? [7]Nepalese Linguistics, Vol. 2 (1983) i (the second and third in each of these two sets of examples is, respectively, ‘vowel final piece” and ‘Iateral-final-piece” (III, IV). b, Partial criteria ' the y iii Lexical items of the lateral-final and the vowel - final types provide a further | i, b ‘criterion for the w piece, but shared with the y piece, in the association of aa initial | |, glottal plosive (alternating with initial syllabie vowel) with the closer of the two types ee of vowel; [@) U-l & & form: [ Ule], [?Una} B [27UNa] ula, una, ‘open’, “cremate? { phoj There are several criteria that the w termshares with the aterm as against the y= 1x, alveolarity + [ts- dz s-], & g. to bot [isona, dzona] B [tsoNa, dzwoNa] cona/ewana, jonajjwana ‘stay’ (B also ‘live'), ‘ catch’; iti. a K [sona ] sona ‘establish’ (the B cognate is “vowel-final’: [ swaNa, swA: ]). For examples containing the closer of the two vowels it is necessary to go to the lateral-final and the vowel-final types of piece, €. g. fateral-final: [ tsUla] cula ‘grate’ : [syia] (st [suja]) saya ‘sew’, x dentality --nasality :[ n- ], © &- Tnona}, B [ nuNa] una ‘swallow’s xi. velarity : 1k Kh- g- Le. 3. [kUna] B [kUNa]} kia J Khwaja] khoya/khwaya ‘weep’ imprison’, and the vowel-final example { khwoja] B sk #, Absolute criteria For the aterm, the last term of the three-term lip-action system applicable to ‘the syllable-initial piece only one absolute criterion can be stated: { labio-velar | K half-open rounded back i. non-syllabic vowel B open non-rounded = /front K [-2-] (centralized) er B[-2-,e8 Tena] (st[ wana ]) B [waNa] (ft [wap wana” [8]Newari without Vowel Systems b. Partial criteria Bilabiality was stated in section (1) (viii) above as being a criterion shared with the y piece as against the w: ii, bilabiality | p-J,e- [pona] B [paNa] (ft par) pana terms of the lip-action system agein; for the o syliable — initial piece shows threefold phonetic variation according as it is also analysable into y, w, or 9; and, conversely, the phonetic expoazats of the y, w and e terms are somewhat different in the o piece from those which hive already bsen stated for them ia ths m piece and (for the yand w terms) taec piece, These differences will appear if table 1 is com- pared with table 4 below, In table 4 the range of initial consonant and non-syllabie~ vowel appropriate to the oy, ow, and op types of piece is plowed againt their matching yowel sounds; and the type of grammatical form chosen for this display is, again, tst— person present/past. y Gal w fae] © ja) [ts- tsw— ts-} [Sh] WZ- dz] {tsH-]=2 Is- aw] (14) syl lat no: of hbNewari without Vowel Systems nj- nw-] K [nj-] B [N-] B [kw-] B [ky [khw- kh] [gi- 1 [kHw- KH} [i- t-] Ithj- thw- th-} id «4 B phy ted {ohj-] B [fhw- ph-] [vw- b-] [lve 1] Tt [Hw He] vd Table 4: Syntagmatic relations ‘open’ syllable-initial piece Tn table 4 the y column contains the same types of inilial-consonant sound as have already been stated as exponents of y for the medium (i) piece: alyeolopalatal consonants, palatalized velar, dental, and labial consonants, and the front spread non- syllabic vowel, combined with an open front syllabic yowel. The w column contain jabiovelarized consonants, alveolar, velar, dental, and labio-dental, and the back rounded non-syllabic vowel, combined with an open back spread syllabic vowel, The labio-vel- arized velars and labio-yelarized {H] have already been associated with the w term ef the system in m-pieco cxamples (II. B. 2) for both dialects; and so have the Jabio-velarized alveolars, dentals, labio-dentals, and laterals, though only for the Bhakia— [15]Nepalese Linguistics, Vol. 2 (1983) pur dialect (IL. B. 2ili-iv); so only the following are new to the w type of syllable-initial™ piece: (both dialects) [nw-] (Kathmandu) [ewe fhw-, yw-, IW For the phonetic exponency of the e term with regard to the o piece the same types of syllable-initial consonant can stand as were stated for the o term in relation to the m piece (II. B.3) with the addition of velarity+nasality ([N-]), confined to the Bhaktapur dialect, e. g. [NaNa] nyana ‘bite’, for with the Kathmandu cognate has the y- piece initial [ny-] ©. g [nyana]; the type of syllabic vowel sound that these o-piece initial consonants combine with is the open front ([a]), but more retracted than for the y piece. ‘The following are examples of the o type of aperture syllable-initial piece, sud-divided into y, w, and a according to which of the lip-action types of syllable— initial piece they also serve to exemplify, from the Ist-person present/past from: oy: [jana, Sana] yana, syana ‘do’ “kill? w: [wana, kHwana] wana, ghwana ‘throw away‘, ‘push’ 2. [eala, IHana] gaya, tana ‘pass by’, *bury’” (I have given the Kathmandu forms of these examples; the Bhaktapur forms differ from them only in having yelarity ({N]) where the Kathmandu have dentality ({n]). It is interesting to note that although the oy and ow examples above can be provided tobe of the vowel-final type from their Ist-person futuse forms,c.g, [jA:, wA:] (not *[jane, wang], their Ist-person present/past forms do not have fa vocalic junction feature between stem and inflection like the oa-piece example [gala, analysable into (stem) [ga-] and inflection [-a] with [-I-] as an intervocalic junction feature, but nasality ([-n-] B [-N-). As an Baglish-speaker this use of nasality as a junction feature to link stem final vowel and inflection-initial vowel reminds me of the some- what similar use of nasality in vowel-vowel junction in English, e, g- an aim, as ‘pposed to yowel~consonant junction, e.g, a name. In Newari this junction use of nasality is not to be identified, except phonetically, with the stem-final nasality (alterna— ing with nasalization) of nasal-final-picce verb lexical items, ¢. g. [tong] tone/twane “shall drink’, {two:] tomwa ‘drinks’ (IL. A). Junction nasality applies to all verb lexical items of types oy and ow, & 2. Gana] B [jaNa] jana ‘do’, [wana] 8 [waNa] wana throw away. in this respect they [16] wheNewari without Vowel Systems differ fam the 02 type, of which about half (leven in my data) have nasality as = junction feature, e. g, [lHana] B [iHaNa] Thana ‘bary*; for the rest the junction is purely vocalic, eg gale] gaya ‘pass by from above’, as itis for all medium-piece vowel-final verbs too, e. g: fooja] B [maja] (1) eat/ate? maya. To thec-piece and m-piece examples of vowel-final verbs given in table 3 can now be added examples of the o-piece. Table 5 gives the final yowel or the final non— syllabic vowel and vowel sequence of all three aperture terms as they appear in the Ist person future form of the verb: y w 2 ©: Fl wit} =e: =wA: biye, buye eed ayaye, gaye, gaye IHAg yaye, ghwlaye, Ihay (© ‘give’, ‘wear’; (m) ‘exchange’, ‘shut’, ‘ride’; (0) do’. ‘push’, “bury? Table 5: ‘vowel-final’ piece; aperture system complete (for the Bhaktapur élose-piece alternatives see table 3) The same prosedic statement can be made for all forms of a vowel-final verb; the following are examples of the 2nd/3rd-person present: W 2 3} B [ga:] 1a] B [Haz] gyawa; mw: gwawa; mo:gawa: yawa ow: ghiawa;. oc: Thawa ves’, ‘wears’, exchanges’, shuts’, ‘rides’, does’, ‘pushes’, ‘buri Table 6. ‘aperture’ and ‘lip-action’; 3rd-person present. Verb lexical items almost always draw their forms from a single ‘aperture’ types thus, the following two vowel-final lexical items are eaceptional: they have ) am-piece form for the ist-person present/past form, but (ji) an o-piece form for the ist-person future and all other forms, e, 9, (Kathmandu) [17]Nepalese Linguistics, Vol. 2 (1983) G. m-piece: [fHoja] dhaya” ‘say’ [koja] kaya ‘take” o-piece: [tHA:] dhaye [kA:] kaye. IY, ‘Lateral-final piece’ The same sort of statement as for the vowel-final piece (tables 5-6) to some extent fits the lateral-final type of lexical item,e, g, (Kathmandu) Ist-person future 3rd-person present y wo w 2 ¢: [Hile wie wu] m[ligle folg _tholg ib: [Bale hile, hiwa, bule, buwa; tele, tewa; pole, powa; thale, thawa; hale, hawa. ‘exchange’, ‘oil’, ‘squeeze’, ‘peel’, ‘cut in two’, show’. Table 7: lateral-final pieces lip-action iad aperture The examples in table 7 show thet the close and medium types of Jateral-final piece example correspond to the nasal-final and yowel-final examples (table 2, tables 5-6) in having the five combined lip-action and uperture categories cx, cw, my, mv, and mo; but the open type differs from the vowel-final examples in being limited to the oterm of the lip-action system. V. Conclusion This analysis of Newari, based on the final ~ piece system (‘nasal’ (11), ‘vowel’ {UID, ‘Tateral’ (IV), and, though not systematically stated here, ‘plosive’) and on the two initial-piece systems, lip-uction (y, w, 9) and aperture (close, medium, open) disposes of the need to recognize syllabic vowel systems; for, once a verb lexical ifem has been iden tified whh the appropriate term ot each of the three systems, the appropriate syllabic vowel sound (and non-syllabie vowel sound, if any) has also been specified, provided that due allowance is made for some varistion ia phonetic features according to difference -o-] B [-ajit a: ), in dialect aud in tempo, e. g. n (sylleble-final) mo (syllableinit asin the ist-person present/past form [wona] 8 {waNa] ft ([w oj) (wana ‘go’/ Swent’and,. {-9] B [-ai,] as in the Ind/3rd person present from [ws: B [war] wamwa "go'/" goes’. For vowel-final lexical items, especially, this analysis provides an apt means ‘of dealing wich the vowel harmony that is such a prominent feature of the language [( W ) i:].. EC) 21, Lita: WC table 5). [18] |Newari without Vowel Systems Finally, my examples appear to meto show that the basis of Newari ortho graphy, especially in the form -preferred by S. B, Piwa, ismore prosodic than phonemic. NOTES CF, Palmer 1970, x-xiv. Cf. Nepali dhak ‘a measure of weight’ (Turner 1931/1980, 263). ‘There are two entries with initial t and d that have: been classified as verbs (keiya) in Joshi 1076 N.S; tucituciwaye and da-abokaye (102, 1 3); but itis only-waye and kaye that meet the criteria for classification as verbs; so these two ntries are not in conflict with my generalization. T have used the symbol [T] for the ohonetic value voiceless retroflex post= alveolar plosive, and [fH] for voiced glottal fricative, the‘voiced arytenoidal ciear phonation? of Sprigg 1978 (12-15, 16). The preceding sound shares the arytenoidal posture of the slottis with [H]; consequently, the [F] in thisexample is aot breathed but whispered. Further, Newari syllables containiug [4] are commonly distinguished by a pitch differe. ace from ovher syllables: €. g. Wwnere the latier have a fall in pitch the forier have a rise-fall, *Although my examples ate sinsle words, they have generally been checked, aad tape-recorded, in short sentences, ¢ g. jim tah tone ‘I shall (just) drink water, jm thwam tong ‘I drink beer’. For some words K. L. Manandir and S. B. Piva preferred different spellings; and in such cases T have given the variants. Tn particular, KLM. preferred spellings with € and o where S.B.P. used yaand wa respectively, perhaps influenced by phonetic differences between the two dialects, e, g. fo] B (st) [ws] in example (c) below. That the variation o versus wa is of Jong standing appears from Malla 1980: ‘In the Newari portions o and wa, na and na are used as interchangeables ......" (47, where he is referring to Amritananda’s usage one hundred and, fifty years ago (1831). 1 have compared the spelling with those given by Joshi 1076 N.S,, Tuladhar 1069 N. S,, for Bhaktapur, Hashimoto 1977, 4I have used [N] to symbolize a voiced velar nasal SLhave distinguished some phonetic forms as siow-tempo (st) and others as fast-tempa (it) *L have used [tS] to symbolize a voicoess palato-alveolar aflricate, 119)Nepalese Linguistics, Vol. 2 (1983) aT have used [1] to symbolize a somewhat centralized front spread yowel, between close and half close (as in big in British English) and [2] glottal plosive et have used [S] to symbolize a voiceless palato-alveolar fricative, and [U] to symbolize a somewhat centralized back rounded vowel between close and halt-close (as in good in British Fnglish). The vowell sound symbolized by [a] here is centralized, and in amore detailed phonetic transcription, would have a subscript plus sign to symbo- ize this:it reminds me of the French vowel homme (Armstrong 1932, 50-2), the degree. of lip-rounding being suificiently slight for it to be difficult, sometimes, to decide wn.ther fo] or [4] is the more appropriate symbol for it. seems to be complementarily distributed in + to yelar-plosive-initial syllables, ¢ g, [kbjlns] ein the Kathmandu dialect [-i relation to [-I, the latter being pec hina ‘move’; also, in both dialects {-u-] seems to be complementarily distributed with [-U-|, the former being peculiar to nasal-initial syilables, e g. [nuna] B [nuNa] muna, ‘swallow’. 20Some deg:ee of varintion in vowel sound from [-o-] bas been noted in the Bhaktapur dialect e. g. (-o-] ia [fhoNa] phwana ‘beg’, and [-wa~] in [HwaNa] hwana “join together’ [ywaNka] bwamka ‘make read’ ‘teach’; possibly the greater latitude enjoyed by the Bhaktapur dialect in this respect is duc to its having to distinguish only two lip sounded units, [o/>/wa] versus [U], as against the three in the Kathmandu dialect, [o] versus [U] versus [>]. The open vowel symbolized here as fa] varies in frontness-backness being notably retracted in labio-velar and velar-initial syllables, as well asin Jabiai-nasel-initrat syllables, to the point where I have somesimes symbolized it as[ aj e.g. [waNa] wana (L) ted’. went’ [Kang] kane ‘shall tell’, [maNa] mana ‘ro: ished (ed)? in 31The initial piece [so-] is supported by fsona] soma “(I) estat future form [Sone] sone, a3 in muhani sone; but ags not to the nasal-final but to the vowel-final— the Kathmendu dialect, cf. also the Bhaktapur cognate [swaNa] b prosodic class, as is proved by its Ist-person future from [swA:] swaye ‘shail establish {not “[song]) (the symbol [A} here has the valuz of front spread vowel between halt- ‘epen and open, for which the corresponding symbol in the Taternational phonetic Alpha- ‘bet is‘ash’; cf. the vowel sound of bad in British Bnglish). 28] haye used the digraph [ny] to symbolize voiced palatal nasal, Ie sness and 25] have used [b] to symbolize aspiration, and, therefore, v (20)Newari: without- Vowel Systems ‘reath as featiires of any non-syllabic vowel ([i] or [w) following the plosive or affricare, 34 S. B. Piwa’s usage seems to vary betweon [II] and( bh]. +6 The supporting Kathmandu example for initial [w], [wona] wana ‘go’, has been observed to have a slow-tempo variant [wana], 16 For the Bhaktapur dialect, also ‘gather’; but Joshi 1076 N. S. would require this to be classified as a ‘vowel-final’ lexical item: ‘siye’ (258), 27 I have used [4Z] to symbolize a voiced palato-alveolar afficate [of. [tS], note. 6)- *® Only the causative forms of this verb appear in my data; but Joshi 1076 N.S, gives ‘yame’ (226) ‘set upa loom’, ‘take away’, 219 Hashimoto 1977 gives sataygn (120); but sat- fails to symbolize the length of vowel. "0 But there is an example that is clearly of the aasal-final typé in Joshi 1076 N.S.: sune (ri). gamsnu, mala “adi unnu’ (16). 31 Velar initials are labio-velarized in both dialects, but apical initials only in tha Kathmandu, © g [two:] towa ‘takes off", 27 In addition to the nasal - final, Iateral-final, stop-final, and vowel-tinal types Thad originally included in my analysis a velar-final piece and a velar-cluster final piece, 2-8 (Ist-person future) [tSi:kje] elike ‘shall make move’, ‘shall shifts [TUNkje] pumke ‘shall make wear’, ‘shull dress’ (K only), and possibly a labial-final piece, e, g. [to:pje] tope ‘shall bide” but decided that the [-pjg] type was not stylistically comparable with the test of fhe data as being purely literary. After much hesitation T decidedth at the [-kig] and [-NKj forms were not comparable either, but were best treuted as causative forms, the [-Kig] forms as causatives of vowel-final and lateral-final verbs, and the [Nie] forms as caus -atives of nasal-final verbs, My main reason forclassifying these verbs with root-final [k] and [NK] as causative is that they have no causative forms of their own, and are obliged to bring an auxiliary verb into use, bi, in order to make a causative, e.g [tSiskl bi:] B [tSis ke bjg:] ciike biye ‘shall make,..... shift’. [ 21]Nepalese Linguistics, Vol. 2 (1983) ‘A further reason is that these forms have an imperative in [-i], ©. ge [tSi:kif iki ‘move (it)? of [Su (:)] im “move! 7; [fUNki] pumki ‘make ...... wear” ef, (£6:] pum ‘wear (it) !” T also note that there are very few examples of verb with root-final -k and —mk in Tuladhar 1948 (pp. 50-8) and Joshi 1076 N.S., seven in the former and three in the latter (pp 13, 168, 274). 43 The supporting example for {tsH-], [tsHala], would be possible only in & humorous utterance: for this verb is honorific, and therefore, incompatible with the Ast person: but [tsHa:] jhawa ‘goes’ will serve instead, References ‘Armstrong, L. EB, 1932. The phonetics of French, London, G. Bell and Sons, Ltd. Hale, A, 1970, ‘Newari segmental synopsis’, Occasional Papers of the Wolfenden Soclety om ‘ibeto-Burmen Linguistics, 3, 1, 300-7 Wale A, and 1, ‘Shresthacharya 1972 ‘Towards a revision of Hale's Roman Newari orthography’, Kathmandu, Summer Institute of Linguistics. Hashimoto, M. J. 1977. The Newari language, Tokyo, Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa Joshi, V. P. 1076 N, 5, Samksipta Nepals bhasa sabdu-kosa, Kathmanda, Nepal Press Kansakar f, R, 1980, ‘The treatment of glides in Newari phonology’, Nepalese Linguistics. 9-16, Linguistic Society of Nepal, Kirtipur, Kathmandu ‘Malla, K.P. 1980. ‘Amrita:nind’s Grammar A. D 1830’, Nepalese Linguistics, 41-9, Linguistic Society of Nepal, Kirtipur, Kathmandu Palmer, F. R 1970 ‘Introduction’, in F. R. Palmer (ed,), Prosodic Analyis, xi-xvi, London, Oxford University Press Sprigg, R. K. 1978. ‘Phonation types: a re-appraisal’, Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 8, 1-2, 2-17 ‘Duladbar, S, 1069 N. S. Nepala bhasa sabda-samgraha,bhiksu amrtananda, Saranath, Benares Turner, R. Lg 1931/1980. ‘ictionary of the Nepali language, New Delhi, Allied Publishers: Private, Ltd, | 22} re Bn of ae