Knowledge base · Part XX — Diachrony, Reconstruction, and Dialectology · this topic as a network

157. The Final-h Problem and Its Sakhalin Vowel-Length Reflex

What is the historical relationship between word-final h in Hokkaido Ainu and vowel length in Sakhalin Ainu?

5 sentences from 13 sources · every sentence names the pages it rests on

The h phoneme and the coda question in Hokkaido

Where does the consonant h occur in Hokkaido Ainu, and can it appear at the end of a syllable?

sik-ihi

eye-POSS

‘(someone's) eye; the affiliative/possessed form of sik’

· constructed

Debuccalization in Sakhalin and the affiliative evidence

How do syllable-final consonants change in Sakhalin Ainu, and what does the affiliative suffix show about this?

Syllable-coda consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, and /r/ merged into /h/ in West Coast Sakhalin Ainu. (Bugaeva 2016) Hokkaido Ainu word-final /p/, /t/, and /k/ correspond to /h/ (or /s/) in Sakhalin Ainu. (Nakagawa 2024: 106) Retention of syllable-final /p/, /t/, and /k/ in Sakhalin Ainu is restricted to the Taraika dialect. (Nakagawa 2024: 106) Syllable-final stops /p/, /t/, and /k/ debuccalized to /h/ in Sakhalin Ainu. (Shibatani 1990) In Sakhalin Ainu, the plural suffix -hci/-hcin shortens a preceding long vowel and surfaces as -ahci/-ahcin with underlying /p/, /t/, or /k/ surfacing from derived coda -h. (Tangiku 2022: 9.6)