DPs and Demonstratives
Rory M Larson
rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu
Tue Feb 21 23:32:20 UTC 2006
> The "comma-like" pause (which probably entails pitch changes as well as
> just a pause) is exactly what I would expect if this is a two-part
> construction.
David,
I was just on the phone with one of our speakers. I couldn't quite get her
to offer nu' s^e'akHa for 'that man' on her own, but when I suggested it
she enthusiastically said that that sounded even better than the
constructions she had offered. I got her to say it for me, and also wa?u'
s^e'dhiNkHe. Her pronunciation was as I seemed to recall. I believe there
is a slight pause/vowel prolongation/drop in volume and maybe pitch,
between the noun and the following dem-det pair. I was wondering how it
would sound if the noun were not accented on the last syllable, so I tried
nu'z^iNga ('boy'), mi'z^iNga ('girl'), and s^iN'gaz^iNga ('child'). On
these, she preferred placing the dem-det pair before the noun, as
s^e'dhiNkHe nu'z^iNga, etc. Again, there seemed to be a slight pause
between dem-det and N. I don't know that I have ever seen this
construction in the historical literature.
Rory
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