チベット語現代ラサ方言の2音節間に現れる-b-について

Abstract

In Modern Lhasa Tibetan, a number of two-syllable compounds contain -b- between the two syllables, which does not appear with either member of the compounds in isolation. The inter-syllabic -b- appears as the coda of the first syllable which has no original coda. The inter-syllabic -b- in some cases could be interpreted as the initial consonant of the initial cluster of the second syllable, but there are many examples which cannot be explained phonologically. This paper shows that in some cases the inter-syllabic -b- is the additional consonant which does not belong to the first or the second member of the compound. The inter-syllabic -b- comes to existence by means of the following process : i. The initial b- and g- of initial clusters were neutralized in the word-initial position, though in the word-medial position they maintained the opposition. ii. They merged into -b- in the word-medial position. Because there are many compounds which consist of a noun stem (NS) plus a perfective stem (VS[PFT]) and in principle the perfective form had been marked by the initial b-, -b- occurs most frequently in the word-medial position. iii. After compounds with medial -b- were increased as a result of (ii), through the process of analogy, inter-syllabic -b- was inserted sporadically into the two-syllable compounds which have a codaless noun stem as the first member.