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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    Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission.
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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.

Item Type: Thesis (Masters)
URI: http://research.library.mun.ca/id/eprint/7307
Item ID: 7307
Additional Information: Bibliography: leaves [44]-45. Includes a Micmac word index (p. 48-64).
Department(s): Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of > Linguistics
Date: 1976
Date Type: Submission
Geographic Location: Canada--Newfoundland and Labrador
Library of Congress Subject Heading: Micmac language; Indians of North America--Newfoundland and Labrador--Languages

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