Towards a phonology of Hrusso Aka

Thesis

This thesis is a preliminary study of the phonology of Hrusso Aka, a minority language of Northeast India. Since Hrusso Aka is an understudied language, this general and broad study of Hrusso Aka phonology is aimed more at raising questions than providing answers, because it is not yet known what the questions are. The thesis has six chapters. In the first chapter I give general information on the Hrusso Aka language and discuss the data and the methodology. The second chapter will introduce the sound system of Hrusso Aka to the reader. I will be using the Featurally Underspecified Lexicon (FUL) model for the feature analysis of Hrusso Aka. In the third chapter I introduce this model and apply it to Hrusso Aka. The fourth chapter is dedicated to introducing some salient morpho-phonological processes such as high vowel devoicing, vowel harmony and vowel sequence constraints. The fifth chapter is on the Hrusso Aka syllable. There is also a brief excursus on stress, paving the way for further research on the Hrusso Aka prosody. The sixth chapter is on the Hrusso Aka consonant sequences. In this chapter I distinguish between various types of consonant sequences, discuss their phonological behaviour and raise pertinent issues for further research.

Authors: D'Souza, V

• Type of award: MPhil
• Level of award: Masters
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Arunachali Languages; Endangered languages of India; Tone in Hrusso Aka; Hruso Aka; Languages of Arunachal Pradesh; Featurally Underspecified Lexicon; Aka (Hrusso); syllable games; Hrusso Aka; Hrusso Aka syllable structure; Aka (Hruso); North-East Indian Languages; High Vowel Devoicing; Tibeto-Burman Linguistics; vowel devoicing; High vowel deletion; FUL model, Aditi Lahiri; Sino-Tibetan Languages
• Subjects: Tibeto-Burman Phonology; Tibeto-Burman languages; Descriptive Linguistics; Descriptive Phonology; Linguistics; Phonology