phonology 21

2.1.6. Gemination
Consonant gemination exists in Mehri, though it plays almost no role
in derivational or inflectional morphology. Gemination is simply lexi-
cal in words like ġīggēn ‘boy’ (vars. ġiggēn, ġəggēn, ġīgēn, and ġaygēn),
ġəggēt ‘girl’, əllā ‘barber’, bə-əllay ‘at night’, sənnawrət ‘cat’, ʾamma
‘as for’ (§12.5.3), ənnawn ‘small’, and xəmmōh ‘five’.
Gemination does not occur word finally, and so a final geminate
cluster is simplified. This is most noticeable with verbs whose second
and third root consonants are identical (geminate verbs). A few exam-
ples are:

rəd ‘he came back’, cf. rəddəm ‘they came back’

ham ‘name’, cf. həmməh ‘his name’
kāl ‘all; each’, cf. kalləh ‘all of it’

Some nouns and adjectives exhibit gemination in the masculine, but

not in the feminine; others exhibit gemination in the plural, but not
in the singular. An example is xəddōmət ‘workers’ (sg. xōdəm).
Gemination here is obviously part of the morphology of the plural pat-
tern, but such examples are met infrequently and are mainly (or pos-
sibly all) borrowings from Arabic.
There are a number of nouns with the pattern CəCCōC or CəCCāC
that designate occupations. One might suggest that in this pattern the
gemination is a feature of derivational morphology. However, these
words are most likely just borrowings from Arabic. Examples are
əllā ‘barber’, əyyōd ‘fisherman’, aāb ‘butcher’, dəllōl ‘guide’, and
əddōd ‘blacksmith’.
With some T-Stem verbs, gemination results from assimilation,
e.g., naəb ‘fall off, drop (intrans.)’ (< *natəb) and əttūma ‘listen’
(< *əhtūma). See further in §6.5.1 and §6.5.3.

2.1.7. The Shift of b > m

There is an assimilatory sound change in Omani Mehri *bVn > mVn.
This is seen in the following words in the texts:
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məndaw ‘rifle’ < Arabic bunduq

mənēdəm ‘person’ < bənēdəm (lit. ‘son of Adam’)
(ʾəm)-mən ‘between’ < ʾəm-bən

Rubin, Aaron. Mehri Language of Oman, BRILL, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uic/detail.action?docID=1079746.
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 22 chapter two

The ML (p. 268) also lists a noun mənnəy ‘builder’, which must be
from the root bny (the ML also lists a noun bənnāy, p. 50). Forms of
the above words with the original b are found in Yemeni Mehri dia-
lects, e.g., beyn ‘between’ (Jahn 1905: 125; Bittner 1914a: 12) and
bnādam ‘person’ (Sima 2009: 230, text 45:2).

2.2. Mehri Vowels

Mehri vowels are a source of considerable disagreement, and I will
leave it to those who have done fieldwork to figure out the system pre-
cisely. In Johnstone’s system (as outlined in the ML), there are six long
vowels, two certain short vowels, and four diphthongs:

Long vowels: ā ɛ̄ ē ī ō ū
Short vowels: a ə (ɛ)
Diphthongs: ay aw əy əw

As already noted, the transcription of vowels in the texts (and in the

ML) is inconsistent. This is in part due to some variation in the pro-
nunciation itself. The vowels ī and ē are very often interchangeable, as
are ū and ō. This is reflected in the audio, as well. I have tried in this
grammar (except when citing passages from Johnstone’s texts) to be
consistent in the use of either ī or ē, ū or ō. The vowels ī and ū are sus-
ceptible to diphthongization (see below, §2.2.1 and §2.2.2) and this
fact helps to decide whether a form has an underlying ī or ē, ū or ō.
The long vowel ɛ̄ is in most cases an allophone of ā, but as Johnstone
points out (ML, p. xiii), minimal pairs can be found, e.g., bār ‘he went
at night’ ~ bɛ̄r ‘camels’. The short vowel ɛ does not seem to be phone-
mic. It is used in transcription as a variant of both ə and a, though
more often for the latter. Stressed ɛ́ is sometimes found in place of ɛ̄,
just as á is sometimes found in place of ā. Short ɛ is used most consis-
tently in the set of singular possessive suffixes attached to plural nouns
(§3.2.2). Note that the short vowel ə can, and very often does, carry
stress.
The diphthong ay seems to alternate with ā in the environment
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C__r, as in ġayr ~ ġār ‘except’, xayr ~ xār ‘better’. The preposition ð

ār
‘on’, which has the base ð
ayr- before suffixes (§8.22), also exhibits this
alternation, though in a predictable manner.
We also find other vowel symbols in Johnstone’s transcription.
Stressed ó (usually followed by h) is a variant transcription of ō (e.g.,
rōh ~ róh ‘two’; hō ~ hóh ‘I’). Stressed ú is a very rare variant tran-

Rubin, Aaron. Mehri Language of Oman, BRILL, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uic/detail.action?docID=1079746.
Created from uic on 2021-05-04 13:50:27.