Open AccessINVESTIGATING THE FAITHFULNESS REQUIREMENT OF ROOTS: EVIDENCE FROM MALAY DIALECTS.
Author(s) -
Sharifah Raihan Syed Jaafar
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
dialectologia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.112
H-Index - 8
ISSN - 2013-2247
DOI - 10.1344/dialectologia2019.24.9
Subject(s) - obstruent , morpheme , malay , linguistics , root (linguistics) , prefix , indonesian , sequence (biology) , substitution (logic) , history , voice , philosophy , biology , genetics
It has been claimed in literature that segments at root-internal are more resistant to phonological processes than segments at other positions of words. According to Pater (1999), nasal substitution in Indonesian language is not realised within the morphemes even though there is a sequence of nasal and voiceless obstruent, for example, the word /empat/ is realised as [əmpat]. However, the occurrence of the sequence across morphemes for instance, at prefix-root boundaries is resolved by nasal substitution. For example, /məŋ+pukul/ is realised as [məmukul]. In this paper, the resistance of root-internal segments to phonological processes is questioned. Evidences from two Malay dialects i.e. Kelantan and Negeri Sembilan show that root-internal segments are not exempted from undergoing some phonological processes to eliminate nasal and voiceless obstruent clusters. For instance, roots like /bantal/ and /ʤəmput/ are realised as [bata:] and [ʤaput] in Kelantan and Negeri Sembilan dialects respectively.