Some aspects of the phonology of Newfoundland Micmac

Bragg, Russell A. (1976) Some aspects of the phonology of Newfoundland Micmac. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

We have made an attempt in this paper to provide a concise description of some aspects of the phonology of Newfoundland Micmac, in particular those aspects as yet unsettled. -- We give first a brief introduction to the Micmacs in Newfoundland themselves as a prelude to the study of their language. Immediately following we have discussed the present phonological situation of the Micmac language in Newfoundland. -- We proceed to those specific aspects dealt with in this paper beginning with a description of the consonantal system. In the course of this description we discuss several problems and, in summing our conclusions, we suggest resolutions to such issues, among them the problem of “long” versus geminated liquids before liquids and the necessity of a separate phoneme, /q/, to account for the many variants of the velar plosives and fricatives found in our data. m-- An examination of the vowel phonemes follows, notably of the short vowels and their allophones. As well, mention is made of the status of /w/ and /y/ with reference to the vowels. -- We proceed then to the prosodics of Newfoundland Micmac with a description of stress, intonation and pitch and their relative importance in the language. -- The final part of this paper contains our conclusions on the phonological system of Newfoundland Micmac. Other avenues of study are suggested and emphasis is given to the need for immediate gathering of linguistic data before the complete disappearance of reliable sources of such information.

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