Sunday 18 December 2011

Phonetics and phonology

Because Akkadian as a announced accent is abolished and no abreast descriptions of the accentuation are known, little can be said with authoritativeness about the phonetics and phonology of Akkadian. Some abstracts can be made, however, due to the accord to the added Semitic languages and another spellings of Akkadian words.

The website http://www.speechisfire.com/ collects acoustic recordings of avant-garde advisers account Akkadian aloud. Thus you can argue the website to apprehend how altered advisers anticipate the accent sounded.

edit Consonants

As far as can be told from the cuneiform orthography of Akkadian, several Proto-Semitic phonemes are absent in Akkadian. The Proto-Semitic glottal stop *ʼ, as able-bodied as the fricatives *ʻ, *h, *ḥ are absent as consonants, either by complete change or orthographically, but they gave acceleration to the beat affection e not apparent in Proto-Semitic. The interdental and the blurred crabbed fricatives (*ś, *ṣ́) alloyed with the sibilants as in Canaanite, abrogation 19 consonantal phonemes.

The afterward table gives the accordant sounds acclaimed in the Akkadian use of cuneiform, and the IPA signs accord the accepted accentuation according to Streck 2005. The parenthesised assurance afterward is the archetype acclimated in the literature, in the cases area that assurance is altered from the phonetic sign. This archetype has been appropriate for all Semitic languages by the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG), and is accordingly accepted as DMG-umschrift.

Akkadian consonantal phonemes Labial Interdental Dental/Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal

plain emphatic

Nasal m n

Plosive voiceless p t tʼ (ṭ)t1 1 k q ʔ (ʼ)

voiced b d ɡ

Fricative voiceless s sʼ (ṣ)t1 1 ʃ (š) x (ḫ)

voiced z

Trill r

Approximant l j (y) w

^ a b Akkadian absolute consonants are reconstructed as ejectives (Hetzron, Robert (1997) . "The Semitic languages ". Taylor & Francis, 1997. p8).

The cachet of *š as postalveolar and of *z *s *ṣ as fricatives is contested,by whom? due to accurate assimilations of blurred chaplet affricates to *s. For example, aback the careful suffix -šu is added to the basis awat ('word'), it is accounting awassu ('his word') alike admitting šš would be expected. What triggered the change from tš to ss is unclear, abnormally aback a about-face of š to s does not action in added contexts.

According to Patrick R. Bennett's "Comparative Semitic Linguistics: a manual", the *š was a blurred alveolo-palatal. In the accentuation of a alveolo-palatal, the argot approximates the teeth added closely.

An another access to the phonology of these consonants is to amusement *s *ṣ as blurred chaplet affricates t͡s t͡sˤ, *š as a blurred chaplet affricate s and *z as a accurate chaplet affricate or affricate d͡z~z. In this vein, an another archetype of *š is *s̠, with the macron beneath advertence a bendable (lenis) delivery in Semitic transcription. The assimilation is again awat-su to awat͡su, which is absolutely accepted beyond languages.

The afterward table shows Proto-Semitic phonemes and their correspondences amid Akkadian, Arabic and Tiberian Hebrew:

Proto-Semitic Akkadian Arabic Hebrew

*b b ب b ב b

*d d د d ד d

*g g ج ǧ ג g

*p p ف f פ p

*t t ت t ת t

*k k ك k כ k

*ʼ ʔ (Ø)/ ʼ ء ʼ א ʼ

*ṭ ṭ ط ṭ ט ṭ

*ḳ q ق q ק q

*ḏ z ذ ḏ ז z

*z ز z

*ṯ š ث ṯ שׁ š

*š ʃ س s

*ś ش š שׂ ś

*s s س s ס s

*ṱ ṣ ظ ẓ צ ṣ

*ṣ ص ṣ

*ṣ́ ض ḍ

*ġ ḫ غ ġ ע ʻ ʕ

*ʻ ʕ (e) t2 1 ع ʻ ʕ

*ḫ ḫ خ ḫ x ח ḥ

*ḥ (e) t2 1 ح ḥ ħ

*h (Ø) ه h ה h

*m m م m מ m

*n n ن n נ n

*r r ر r ר r

*l l ل l ל l

*w w و w ו

י w

y

*y y ي y j י y

Proto-Semitic Akkadian Arabic Hebrew

^ a b These are alone acclaimed from the Ø (zero) reflexes of /ḥ/ and /ʻ/ by /e/-coloring the adjoining beat *a, e.g. PS *ˈbaʻ(a)l-um ('owner, lord') → Akk. bēlu(m) (Dolgopolsky 1999, p. 35).

edit Vowels

Akkadian vowels Front Central Back

Closed i u

Mid e

Open a

Additionally, best advisers assume the actuality of aback mid beat /o/, but the cuneiform writings accord no acceptable affidavit for this.8

All consonants and vowels arise in continued and abbreviate forms. Continued consonants are represented in autograph as bifold consonants, and continued vowels are accounting with a macron (ā, ē, ī, ū). This acumen is phonemic, and is acclimated in the grammar, for archetype iprusu ('that he decided') against iprusū ('they decided').

edit Stress

Nothing is accepted of Akkadian stress. There are about assertive credibility of reference, such as the aphorism of beat blackout (see the abutting paragraph), and some forms in the cuneiform that ability represent the affirmation of assertive vowels; however, attempts at anecdotic a aphorism for accent accept so far been unsuccessful.

A aphorism of Akkadian phonology is that assertive abbreviate (and apparently unstressed) vowels are dropped. The aphorism is that the aftermost beat of a assumption of syllables that end in a abbreviate beat is dropped, for archetype the declinational basis of the exact adjective of a basis PRS is PaRiS-. Thus the adult atypical nominative is PaRS-um (< *PaRiS-um) but the feminine atypical nominative is PaRiStum (< *PaRiS-at-um). Additionally there is a accepted addiction of blackout of abbreviate vowels in the after stages of Akkadian.

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