Oirat Tobi Intonational Structure of the Oirat Language a Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Division of the University of H
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OIRAT TOBI INTONATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE OIRAT LANGUAGE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN LINGUISTICS FEBRUARY 2009 By Elena Indjieva Dissertation Committee: Kenneth Rehg (UH, Linguistics Department), Co-chairperson Victoria Andersen (UH, Linguistics Department), Co-chairperson Stefan Georg (Bonn University, Germany) William O’Grady (UH, Linguistics Department) Robert Gibson (UH, Department of Second Language Studies) SIGATURE PAGE ii DEDICATIO I humbly dedicate this work to one of the kindest person I ever knew, my mother, who passed away when I was in China collecting data for this dissertation. iii ACKOWLEDGEMET Over several years of my graduate studies at the Linguistics Department of the University of Hawai’i at Manoa my knowledge in various field of linguistics has been enhanced immensely. It has been a great pleasure to interact with my fellow students and professors at this department who have provided me with useful ideas, inspiration, and comments on particular issues and sections of this dissertation. These include Victoria Anderson, Maria Faehndrich, Valerie Guerin, James Crippen, William O’Grady, Kenneth Rehg, and Alexander Vovin. Many thanks to them all, and deepest apologies to anyone whom I may have forgotten to mention. Special thanks to Maria Faehndrich for taking her time to help me with styles and formatting of the text. I also would like to express my special thanks to Laurie Durant for proofreading my dissertation. My sincere gratitude goes to Victoria Anderson, my main supervisor, who always had time to listen to me and comment on almost every chapter of this work. Victoria’s particular attention to the sound files and my labelling system are invaluable. Victoria’s comments and advice were extremely helpful and always inspiring. I can not thank enough Xinjiang Oirat shepherds for their incredible hospitality. During my fieldwork many families offered me the best they had, their yurts and home-made food. They were always willing to sacrifice their time and labor without expecting anything in return. I consider myself to be extremely lucky to experience such genuine hospitality. My deepest appreciation to all my language consultants for their endless patience and invaluable assistance. Without the data that they kindly provided me with, my dissertation would be impossible. Special thanks to Tsevig, my most dedicated language consultant, who not only helped me with the transcription of a substantial amount of utterances collected in the Xinjiang region (China), but who also served as a research assistant. I am grateful to Bain Dala, a teacher of Oirat at a Mongolian school in Heijin, who spent hours with me explaining the meanings of some undocumented Oirat morphemes. My deepest appreciation to Bair Tsetseg, Dava Bakshe, and Dorje for their dedication and encouragement. Aisa Bakshe and Gonchiq Bakshe at the Mongolian school in Urumqi helped me with accommodation and finding language consultants. Moenke Bakshe at the Xinjiang Pedagogical Institute helped me with the acquisition of some valuable statistics regarding the dwindling number of Mongolian schools in the Xinjiang region. I want to thank all my Oirat friends in China for teaching me my native language. Thanks to them, now I can proudly say that I can speak my native language, which gives me a feeling of greatest accomplishment. I would also like to thank Tamara Esenova and Petr Bitkeev (Elista) for sharing their knowledge about Kalmyk phonology and intonation. I would also like to gratefully acknowledge the support of the Hans Rausing Foundation (Field Trip Grant 0020), the National Science Foundation (Dissertation Improvement Grant, solicitation 05-574 BCS, proposal # 0617695) and a grant from Graduate Students Organization at UH Manoa. My dear sisters Natalia and Toevkae have provided invaluable support for the successful completion of my dissertation. They not only helped me to verify some of the data but also provided spiritual support and strongly encouraged me to write my dissertation on our native language, Oirat. To all my friends in Hawai’i go special thanks for their encouragement, moral support, and kind patience. Last but not least are my very special thanks to my friend Mel for sacrificing her sleep to help me with graphs and endless tables. Many people have helped me during the research and writing of this dissertation. Although I might have missed mentioning some of their names in these acknowledgement, they all deserve my special thanks. Their contributions to this research were invaluable, and I am very grateful. iv TABLE OF COTETS Signature Page.....................................................................................................................ii Dedication ..........................................................................................................................iii Acknowledgement..............................................................................................................iv Table of Contents ................................................................................................................v CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................1 I.1 Main points of the research.................................................................................1 I.1.1 O-ToBI as a primary goal................................................................................1 I.1.2 Fieldwork ........................................................................................................2 I.1.2.1 Researcher as a native speaker................................................................3 I.1.3 On the value of the present research ...............................................................3 CHAPTER II. OIRAT LANGUAGE..................................................................................5 II.1 On the classification of Oirat and Mongolic languages in general .....................5 II.2 Who speaks it and where it is spoken .................................................................5 II.3 Varieties of Oirat.................................................................................................6 II.3.1 Oirat vs. Kalmyk .........................................................................................6 II.3.1.1 A brief sketch of Oirat-Kalmyk history ..................................................6 II.3.2 Kalmyk varieties .........................................................................................8 II.3.3 Xinjiang Oirat varieties ...............................................................................9 II.4 Previous work....................................................................................................10 II.4.1 Previous work on the Oirat language in general .......................................10 II.4.2 Previous work on the phonetics and phonology of Oirat and other Mongolic languages ..................................................................................................11 II.4.3 Previous work on intonation of Oirat and other Mongolic languages ......12 II.4.3.1 Yesenova’s studies................................................................................12 II.4.3.1.a Cross-linguistic analysis of AP s ....................................................13 II.5 Brief description of Oirat phonology ................................................................18 II.5.1 Vowels.......................................................................................................18 II.5.1.1 Diachronic description of Oirat vowels ................................................19 II.5.1.1.a Palatal breaking...............................................................................19 II.5.1.1.b Palatal prebreaking .........................................................................19 II.5.1.1.c Vowel rotation ................................................................................20 II.5.1.1.d Palatal umlaut .................................................................................20 II.5.1.1.e Origin of long vowels .....................................................................21 II.5.1.2 Palato-velar vowel harmony..................................................................21 II.5.1.2.a Short *i vs. long *ii........................................................................22 II.5.1.2.b Violation of vowel harmony...........................................................22 II.5.1.3 Non-initial vowel reduction ..................................................................22 II.5.1.3.a Causes of vowel reduction..............................................................24 II.5.1.3.b Non-initial vowel reduction in Kalmyk..........................................24 II.5.1.3.c Non-initial vowel reduction in Xinjiang Oirat................................25 II.5.1.4 Syllabification of non-initial syllables in Kalmyk ................................26 II.5.1.4.a Epenthesis.......................................................................................26 v II.5.1.4.b Syllabification of monosyllabic loanwords....................................27 II.5.2 1.4.2 Consonants .......................................................................................27 II.5.2.1 Palatal consonants .................................................................................27