Tocharian – Phonology, Part 2
Fellner, Hannes A.
The topic of this lecture is the phonology of the two Tocharian languages, in particular suprasegmentals and stress.
 Hello and welcome to the second session of our module on tokerian. We'll continue our little survey of tokerian phonology and we'll be concerned with suprasegmentals and specifically with stress. Our focus will be on tokerian B because stress in tokerian B is relatively well understood. Our understanding of stress in tokerian A is actually only in its early stages, but this is a good thing because it means that there are still very important things to be figured out about tokerian. And this is something that makes working on tokerian really exciting. Tokerian B has a stress accent. How do we notice stress can be inferred from the alternation of the central vowels in classic tokerian B? Classic tokerian B is the language where most of our descriptions of tokerian B are based on. Tokerian B as opposed to tokerian A shows a great deal of variety. This variety is partially due to diachronic layers, partially due to dialectal layers, but the bulk of our tokerian B manuscript fragments is classical tokerian B. And classical tokerian B as opposed to, for example, archaic tokerian shows alternation in the central vowels that depends on where the stress in the word goes. So there are basically two patterns concerning the central vowels schwa and a. Pattern one is that underlying accented schwa, presumably phonetically rendered as the IPA barred i, so ʊ, is written with the frame-cycling, so the German omelot a, a with two dots on the top. And underlying accented schwa, presumably phonetically rendered as real schwa, so ʊ, is written with a. Pattern two is that underlying unexcented a, presumably phonetically rendered again as schwa, so ʊ, is also written with a. And underlyingly accented a, presumably phonetically rendered as a, is written with a makron, so long a. However, to be sure, only written with the long vowel diacritic in the Brahmi system, as you know, phonological contrast of length in vowels doesn't exist in tokerian. So these are the basic patterns of how to see the stress in tokerian B. Classic tokerian B has a fixed stress, as opposed to variable stress like in English or Russian. Stress in tokerian B, to a certain extent, is predictable. It falls on the penultimate syllable. There are certain exceptions to this rule that we'll be treating shortly. Stress falls on the penultimate syllable, as said, and descriptively this leads to the following rules for tokerian B. So first, dice-leveg words are stressed on the first syllable. So here we have ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ. And ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ. The second rule is, dice-leveg words are stressed on the second syllable. nominative plural t-r-g-r-v clouds and third plural preterite s-r-s-r-e-d-e-nu. As said before, there are certain exceptions to this basic rule. Here is the first amendment. Dysylabic words with stress on the second syllable are underlangly trisylabic. Here we have two examples, nominative singular pu-var with the nominative plural written, spelt p-var-a, that underlangly is pu-var-a. And nominative singular akalk wish that underlangly is akalk-k-l, the underlying final schwa surfaces on the one hand in inflection and derivation, but even more interesting it appears written as o in metrical texts, which are, as we will see in our next session, a strictly syllable counting. So for akalk in metrical text we frequently find akalko, because this rendering of final schwa as o is not obligatory and depending on the meter, it is called mobile o or o mobile. This might seem strange at first, but think for example about the pronunciation of French schwa, like in gloire, for spoken French gloire, in the second line of the French national anthem, or in poetry, in French poetry in general. A fun fact is that in songs of certain chanceniers you can actually hear the underlying schwa, a phonetically rendered as o just like in Toucariant B. Here is the second major amendment to the basic rule. Tricellabic words bear initial stress if the first syllable has a full vowel and full vowel for Toucariant purposes means e, a or o. So for example the preterite participle nominative singular jamuva, dan is stressed on the first syllable, so it's not jamuva as expected from a rule for tricellabic words. Or take patr, father from underlying tricellabic patr is also stressed on the first syllable and it's not patar on the second syllable as expected from a basic rule and its first amendment. Let's turn to an example of the stress rule in an actual text. Again you saw tb means to carry in b, of course and ketum refers to the online edition where you can actually also check out the whole text of this fragment. The call number, THT, stands for Touharische Handschrift in the Berliner Tourvernsammlung. The Tourvernsammlung are the exploits of the three German expeditions to the Tarim Basin at the beginning of the 20th century. That among other things brought to Carin too light. The manuscripts of the Tourvernsammlung are kept in the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin. The artifacts, some manuscripts and very prominently the wall paintings of Buddhist caves in Germany from the Tarim Basin will be on display in the Humboldt Forum in Berlin. So if we turn to our passage here I will read it to you. Again our passage here is of course from the Buddhist text, namely a Buddha stotra. That is a hymn to the Buddha. And we're interested here in two words, namely Nreschana here, this is just an adjective. In agreement here with Leclentha. And Leclentha is the nominative accusative plural of Ljakle. And Ljakle we find down here. And as you can see the stress in accusative singular Ljakle, suffering is the disillabic stress. So the stress is on the first syllable, but in Leclentha sufferings it's a tricelabic word with enter, the plural ending. So the stress is on the second syllable. And we can nicely see the alternation of the central vowel schwa, ö of course in the first syllable here. Thank you for your attention in the next session. We'll be looking at the Tukeran meter.
 Hello and welcome to the second session of our module on tokerian.  We'll continue our little survey of tokerian phonology and we'll be concerned with suprasegmentals and specifically with stress.  Our focus will be on tokerian B because stress in tokerian B is relatively well understood.  Our understanding of stress in tokerian A is actually only in its early stages, but this is a good thing because it means that there are still very important things to be figured out about tokerian.  And this is something that makes working on tokerian really exciting.  Tokerian B has a stress accent.  How do we notice stress can be inferred from the alternation of the central vowels in classic tokerian B?  Classic tokerian B is the language where most of our descriptions of tokerian B are based on.  Tokerian B as opposed to tokerian A shows a great deal of variety.  This variety is partially due to diachronic layers, partially due to dialectal layers, but the bulk of our tokerian B manuscript fragments is classical tokerian B.  And classical tokerian B as opposed to, for example, archaic tokerian shows alternation in the central vowels that depends on where the stress in the word goes.  So there are basically two patterns concerning the central vowels schwa and a.  Pattern one is that underlying accented schwa, presumably phonetically rendered as the IPA barred i, so ʊ, is written with the frame-cycling, so the German omelot a, a with two dots on the top.  And underlying accented schwa, presumably phonetically rendered as real schwa, so ʊ, is written with a.  Pattern two is that underlying unexcented a, presumably phonetically rendered again as schwa, so ʊ, is also written with a.  And underlyingly accented a, presumably phonetically rendered as a, is written with a makron, so long a.  However, to be sure, only written with the long vowel diacritic in the Brahmi system, as you know, phonological contrast of length in vowels doesn't exist in tokerian.  So these are the basic patterns of how to see the stress in tokerian B.  Classic tokerian B has a fixed stress, as opposed to variable stress like in English or Russian.  Stress in tokerian B, to a certain extent, is predictable. It falls on the penultimate syllable.  There are certain exceptions to this rule that we'll be treating shortly.  Stress falls on the penultimate syllable, as said, and descriptively this leads to the following rules for tokerian B.  So first, dice-leveg words are stressed on the first syllable.  So here we have ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ. And ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ. The second rule is, dice-leveg words are stressed on the second syllable.  nominative plural t-r-g-r-v clouds and third plural preterite s-r-s-r-e-d-e-nu.  As said before, there are certain exceptions to this basic rule. Here is the first amendment.  Dysylabic words with stress on the second syllable are underlangly trisylabic.  Here we have two examples, nominative singular pu-var with the nominative plural written, spelt p-var-a,  that underlangly is pu-var-a.  And nominative singular akalk wish that underlangly is akalk-k-l,  the underlying final schwa surfaces on the one hand in inflection and derivation,  but even more interesting it appears written as o in metrical texts,  which are, as we will see in our next session, a strictly syllable counting.  So for akalk in metrical text we frequently find akalko,  because this rendering of final schwa as o is not obligatory and depending on the meter,  it is called mobile o or o mobile.  This might seem strange at first, but think for example about the pronunciation of French schwa,  like in gloire, for spoken French gloire, in the second line of the French national anthem,  or in poetry, in French poetry in general.  A fun fact is that in songs of certain chanceniers you can actually hear the underlying schwa,  a phonetically rendered as o just like in Toucariant B.  Here is the second major amendment to the basic rule.  Tricellabic words bear initial stress if the first syllable has a full vowel  and full vowel for Toucariant purposes means e, a or o.  So for example the preterite participle nominative singular jamuva,  dan is stressed on the first syllable, so it's not jamuva as expected from a rule for tricellabic words.  Or take patr, father from underlying tricellabic patr is also stressed on the first syllable  and it's not patar on the second syllable as expected from a basic rule and its first amendment.  Let's turn to an example of the stress rule in an actual text.  Again you saw tb means to carry in b, of course and ketum refers to the online edition  where you can actually also check out the whole text of this fragment.  The call number, THT, stands for Touharische Handschrift in the Berliner Tourvernsammlung.  The Tourvernsammlung are the exploits of the three German expeditions to the Tarim Basin at the beginning of the 20th century.  That among other things brought to Carin too light.  The manuscripts of the Tourvernsammlung are kept in the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin.  The artifacts, some manuscripts and very prominently the wall paintings of Buddhist caves  in Germany from the Tarim Basin will be on display in the Humboldt Forum in Berlin.  So if we turn to our passage here I will read it to you.  Again our passage here is of course from the Buddhist text, namely a Buddha stotra.  That is a hymn to the Buddha.  And we're interested here in two words, namely Nreschana here, this is just an adjective.  In agreement here with Leclentha.  And Leclentha is the nominative accusative plural of Ljakle.  And Ljakle we find down here.  And as you can see the stress in accusative singular Ljakle, suffering is the disillabic stress.  So the stress is on the first syllable, but in Leclentha sufferings it's a tricelabic word with enter, the plural ending.  So the stress is on the second syllable.  And we can nicely see the alternation of the central vowel schwa, ö of course in the first syllable here.  Thank you for your attention in the next session.  We'll be looking at the Tukeran meter.
Tocharian_2_0_503.png Tocharian_2_504_2219.png Tocharian_2_2220_10607.png Tocharian_2_10608_11687.png Tocharian_2_11688_12431.png Tocharian_2_12432_12820.png
Hello and welcome to the second session of our module on tokerian. We'll continue our little survey of tokerian phonology and we'll be concerned with suprasegmentals and specifically with stress. Our focus will be on tokerian B because stress in tokerian B is relatively well understood. Our understanding of stress in tokerian A is actually only in its early stages, but this is a good thing because it means that there are still very important things to be figured out about tokerian. And this is something that makes working on tokerian really exciting. Tokerian B has a stress accent. How do we notice stress can be inferred from the alternation of the central vowels in classic tokerian B? Classic tokerian B is the language where most of our descriptions of tokerian B are based on. Tokerian B as opposed to tokerian A shows a great deal of variety. This variety is partially due to diachronic layers, partially due to dialectal layers, but the bulk of our tokerian B manuscript fragments is classical tokerian B. And classical tokerian B as opposed to, for example, archaic tokerian shows alternation in the central vowels that depends on where the stress in the word goes. So there are basically two patterns concerning the central vowels schwa and a. Pattern one is that underlying accented schwa, presumably phonetically rendered as the IPA barred i, so ʊ, is written with the frame-cycling, so the German omelot a, a with two dots on the top. And underlying accented schwa, presumably phonetically rendered as real schwa, so ʊ, is written with a. Pattern two is that underlying unexcented a, presumably phonetically rendered again as schwa, so ʊ, is also written with a. And underlyingly accented a, presumably phonetically rendered as a, is written with a makron, so long a. However, to be sure, only written with the long vowel diacritic in the Brahmi system, as you know, phonological contrast of length in vowels doesn't exist in tokerian. So these are the basic patterns of how to see the stress in tokerian B. Classic tokerian B has a fixed stress, as opposed to variable stress like in English or Russian. Stress in tokerian B, to a certain extent, is predictable. It falls on the penultimate syllable. There are certain exceptions to this rule that we'll be treating shortly. Stress falls on the penultimate syllable, as said, and descriptively this leads to the following rules for tokerian B. So first, dice-leveg words are stressed on the first syllable. So here we have ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ. And ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ ʃ. The second rule is, dice-leveg words are stressed on the second syllable. nominative plural t-r-g-r-v clouds and third plural preterite s-r-s-r-e-d-e-nu. As said before, there are certain exceptions to this basic rule. Here is the first amendment. Dysylabic words with stress on the second syllable are underlangly trisylabic. Here we have two examples, nominative singular pu-var with the nominative plural written, spelt p-var-a, that underlangly is pu-var-a. And nominative singular akalk wish that underlangly is akalk-k-l, the underlying final schwa surfaces on the one hand in inflection and derivation, but even more interesting it appears written as o in metrical texts, which are, as we will see in our next session, a strictly syllable counting. So for akalk in metrical text we frequently find akalko, because this rendering of final schwa as o is not obligatory and depending on the meter, it is called mobile o or o mobile. This might seem strange at first, but think for example about the pronunciation of French schwa, like in gloire, for spoken French gloire, in the second line of the French national anthem, or in poetry, in French poetry in general. A fun fact is that in songs of certain chanceniers you can actually hear the underlying schwa, a phonetically rendered as o just like in Toucariant B. Here is the second major amendment to the basic rule. Tricellabic words bear initial stress if the first syllable has a full vowel and full vowel for Toucariant purposes means e, a or o. So for example the preterite participle nominative singular jamuva, dan is stressed on the first syllable, so it's not jamuva as expected from a rule for tricellabic words. Or take patr, father from underlying tricellabic patr is also stressed on the first syllable and it's not patar on the second syllable as expected from a basic rule and its first amendment. Let's turn to an example of the stress rule in an actual text. Again you saw tb means to carry in b, of course and ketum refers to the online edition where you can actually also check out the whole text of this fragment. The call number, THT, stands for Touharische Handschrift in the Berliner Tourvernsammlung. The Tourvernsammlung are the exploits of the three German expeditions to the Tarim Basin at the beginning of the 20th century. That among other things brought to Carin too light. The manuscripts of the Tourvernsammlung are kept in the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin. The artifacts, some manuscripts and very prominently the wall paintings of Buddhist caves in Germany from the Tarim Basin will be on display in the Humboldt Forum in Berlin. So if we turn to our passage here I will read it to you. Again our passage here is of course from the Buddhist text, namely a Buddha stotra. That is a hymn to the Buddha. And we're interested here in two words, namely Nreschana here, this is just an adjective. In agreement here with Leclentha. And Leclentha is the nominative accusative plural of Ljakle. And Ljakle we find down here. And as you can see the stress in accusative singular Ljakle, suffering is the disillabic stress. So the stress is on the first syllable, but in Leclentha sufferings it's a tricelabic word with enter, the plural ending. So the stress is on the second syllable. And we can nicely see the alternation of the central vowel schwa, ö of course in the first syllable here. Thank you for your attention in the next session. We'll be looking at the Tukeran meter.
concerned with suprasegmentals and specifically whole text of this fragment. The call number, suffering is the disillabic stress. So the stress