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One question which arises is whether the glottal stop in the words == == ==
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== ‘1PL.EXCL’,
AA AA AA AA ‘2PL’ and ‘word’ is epenthetic. As we will see in the next section, there is some
evidence that a root-initial glottal stop in Mono verbs is epenthetic, and perhaps such an
analysis is appropriate for these nominal forms as well. The advantage to such an analysis
would be the existence of an underlying /V/ word shape for nouns, which is otherwise
unattested. I discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this in Section 2.1.4. Note,
however, that the number of lexical items at issue here is limited to three.
There is one additional form in Mono which appears to undergo SRA. This
concerns the interrogative pronoun AA AA AA AA ‘who’. This word is formally similar to the
interrogative pronoun C=A C=A C=A C=A ‘what’. One possible analysis of this latter word is that it
contains the prefix C= C= C= C= ‘towards’, although the meaning of the prefix is bleached, and the
root /A A A/. A If this is the case, then the form meaning ‘who’ could be considered to consist
of the same root having undergone SRA.
6.2 Verbal word shapes
Verbs in Mono take the infinitive prefix (H tone on prefix, L tone on vowels
of the root) when spoken in isolation. Consequently, all of the attested verbal word
patterns begin with a consonant:
(12) Word shapes of Mono verbs
CVCV ( ( ( ( ‘to attach, bind’
(CK (CK (CK (CK
‘to return’
CVCVCV (= (= (= (= ‘to boil over’
(@== (@== (@== (@== ‘to borrow’
CVCVCVCV (F=C=J= (F=C=J= (F=C=J= (F=C=J= ‘to forbid’
Note, however, that there is no contrast between the presence or absence of in
the initial position of the root. It is conceivable that roots beginning with could be
interpreted as having an initial vowel, and that is epenthesized by rule. Such an
interpretation would give us both C-initial and V-initial verb root patterns, more in line