Meitei Phonology

Chapter 2
Phonetics and phonology

This Chapter is a description of the consonant and vowel phonemes, syllable
structure, tone, and lexical and post-lexical phonological rules of Meithei.

2.1 The consonant phonemes

In this section I describe the consonant phonemes in Meithei. It is to be noted
that closely related languages, both in a geographical and a genetic sense, such
as Tangkhul Naga (Arokianathan 1980), do not exhibit the unaspirated and
aspirated voiced series that Meithei has. This feature of the Meithei consonant
system can be attributed to the impact of large scale borrowing of Indo-Aryan
words into Meithei.

2, LI Contrastive distribution

An inventory of the consonant phonemes in Meithei is given in Table 1.

Table 1. Chart of consonant phonemes

Labial

Alveolar

Palatal

Velar

Laryngeal

Stops

P
P^

t
t*^

k
k"

b

d

g

b»^

d^

g^

Affricates

c
c^

Fricatives

s

J

f

h

Nasals

m

n

q

Lateral/Flap

1

Trill

r

Semivowels

w

y

The phonemic status of the voiceless unaspirated stops and affricate /p, t, k,
c/ and the aspirated stops and affricate /p^, t^, k**, c^l is established through the

18 Chapter 2. Phonetics and phonology

minimal pairs in (1) taken from Thoudam (1989b). Note that roots may be
marked for high tone (indicated by an acute accent); unmarked roots have low
tone. The details of the tone system are described in section 2.4.

(1)

a. kd-

'roast'

khd

'south'

b. td-

'hear'

thd-

'send'

c. pd-

'thin'

phd-

'catch'

d. cd-

'eat'

sd- {Ichdf)

'dance'

The aspirated affricate /cV is phonetically realized as [s], [s^], [s] or [s**] in
native words. The argument for the existence of a /cV phoneme in Meithei
has been convincingly presented in Thoudam (1980: 57). He points out that
without the existence of /cV an awkward gap would be present in the aspirated
stop series. More importantly, the behavior of [s] or [s] in the morphopho-
nemic rule of Deaspiration (see section 2.5) parallels the behavior of the voice-
less aspirated stops. The statement and explanation for this rule is made evi-
dent if [s] or [s] is underlyingly /cV.

In most phonemic spellings of Meithei native words, /cV is written as s rather
than ch since the most common phonetic realization of /cV is [s] (Bhat and
Ningomba 1986a, P. Madhubala Devi 1979 and N. Nonigopal Singh 1987, for
ex-ample). In borrowed words such as chana ^strainer', a ch is used although
these may also occasionally surface with [s]. In other phonemic transcription
systems (for example, Thoudam 1980), /cV is spelled as ch regardless of its
phonetic value. I follow the first convention here because this is the more
common phonemic spelling system used.

In native words, voiceless stops contrast with the voiced stops in word medial
position only. Illustrative examples are given in (2). Voiced unaspirated stops
occur in word initial position only in borrowed words and in ideophones (see
Chapter 8 for ideophones). The contrastive examples of voiced stops given in
(3) are from words borrowed from English in (a) and Hindi in (b). The voiced
unaspirated affricate does occur in native words in both initial and medial posi-
tion. A contrastive example is given in (4).

(2) a. /p/ spokpd 'swollen'

b. /b/ dbok 'grandmother'

c. /t/ ldyt9t] 'basket holding about 12 kilos of grain'

d. /d/ layddij 'only God'

e. /k/ Isykm 'hard surface of earth'

f. /g/ laygm 'habitual buyer'

2.2 The consonant phonemes 19

(3)

a. /b/

/g/

bol
gol

'ball'
'goal'

b. /d/
/g/

dari
gari

'verandah'
'vehicle'

(4)

/J/
/k/

'rust'
'enter'

Contrastive examples of the voiced aspirated stops and affricate are given in
(5) from words borrowed from Hindi. These phonemes appear only in words
borrowed from Indo-Aryan languages.

(5) a. /bV bhara
/d"/ dhara

'fare'
'descendants'

b. /g*/ ghari
/bV than

'watch'
'heavy'

c. /jV Jhari
/£"/ churi

'drinking pot'
'knife'

The phonemic status of the fricatives /s/ and /h/ is established through the near
minimal pair (6). /s/ appears in borrowed words only; /h/ appears in both
native and borrowed words. The forms in (6) are borrowed from Hindi.

(6) /s/ S9kti 'power'

/h/ h9k 'right'

Finally, the phonemic status of the nasal stops, liquid and semi-vowels is es-
tablished through the near-minimal and minimal pairs in (7).

(7)

a. /m/

md

'bed bug'

b. /n/

na

'ear'

c. /rjf

m

'fish'

d.n/

Id

'banana leaf

e. /w/

wd

'bamboo'

f. /y/

yd

'tooth'

The trill /r/ occurs in borrowed words: compare ra// 'color' (borrowed from
Hindi), with the native word htj- 'cast, throw'.

20 Chapter 2. Phonetics and phonology

2J.2 Free variation

As noted above, the phoneme /cV has the unconditioned phonetic variants: [s],
[s], [s**] and [s**]. See section 2.1.3 for another conditioned variant of /ch/.

(8) a. [m9cdsu] b. [m9S^d]

mo- C9 -chu m9 -c/ia

NM- small -ALSO 3P -face

'the small one also' 'his face'

c. /c**6n/ [son] 'weak'

d. /cW [S^an] 'cow'

The aspirated bilabial stop /pV varies freely with the labiodental fricative [f]:
thus Imphal (the capital of Manipur), may be pronounced [imfal] or [imphal]
and phdba 'to catch' may be pronounced [phabs] or [faba]. The lateral / varies
freely with n syllable finally: thus, [Ion] or [161] 'language', /]/ alternates with
[z]: [oza] or [oja] 'teacher'.

2,1.3 Complementary distribution

HI has two allophones: [1] and a flapped [r] which occurs in intervocalic posi-
tion by a postlexical rule of Flapping (see section 2.6); [1] and [r] are written as
such in the spelling used in this grammar. The unaspirated velar stop /k/ gemi-
nates between vowels and subsequently reduces to [*>] (see section 2.6). /cV is
realized as an affricate [^ before HI: [^n] 'hill'. The phonemes /p/, /t/ and /k/
each have a voiced and voiceless allophone. The voiced allophone is derived
in intervocalic position through the application of the Voice Assimilation Rule.
This and other lexical rules are described in section 2.5.

2,2 The vowel phonemes ti

2.2 The vowel phonemes

An inventory of the vowel phonemes in Meithei is given in Table 2.

Table 2. Chart of vowel phonemes

front central back

high
mid
low

The minimal and near-minimal pairs in (9) establish the phonemic status of
these vowels.

(9) a. /a/ ph9' 'good'

b. /a/ phd' 'catch'

c. /i/ pi' 'give'

d. /o/ po' 'rest by lying down'

e. /u/ pU" 'borrow'

f. /e/ pe- 'weep'

The vowels /u/, M, HI and /e/ occur in final position as shown by the minimal
pairs in (10):

(10) a. paru

pa -lu -u
read -ADIR -IMP
'read over there'

b. paro

pa -la -0

read -PROX -SOLCT

'go ahead and read, won't you'

c. cdri
ca -li
eat -PROG
'eating'

d. cdre

ca -la -e
eat -PERF -ASRT
'has eaten'

TTiere are no indigenous words beginning with /a/.^ Word final [a] may have
tjyo origins: /a/ may occur in final position in words like ipa *mv father' or as
ilci^llQphoM of /a/ since in open sylJiilWp^ ^ lo^yers jto [aj*^

Chelliah, Shobhana L. 1997. A Grammar of Meithei.
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.