Nyelvtudományi Közlemények 79. kötet (1977)

Tanulmányok - cirill 3

ТОНАЛЬНЫЕ ОППОЗИЦИИ В УРАЛЬСКИХ ЯЗЫКАХ 55 языка (который достаточно далек от нганасанского), позволяет считать ее весьма архаичной и представляющей значительный интерес с точки зрения сравнительной уралистики. Е. Хелимский Tonal Oppositions in the Uralic Languages by E. HBLIMSKI The article contains some preliminary results of the investigations into the systems of tonal accentuation in the Uralic languages. The investigations were conducted by means of direct field work with native speakers. The studies in these little explored subjects resulted from the discovery of tonal phenomena in Yenisei Samoyed, Tawgi and Hungarian which did not seem to depend on the phonetic environment (these initial data had been collected and analyzed in cooperation with S. NIKOLAYEV and S. STAROSTIN). It appeared that at least ten languages within the Uralic Family — Finnish (the dialect of Savo), Estonian, Erza-Mordvin, Moksha-Mordvin, Cheremis, Votyak, Ziryene, Hungarian, Yenisei Samoyed and Tawgi — have tonal oppositions, which as a rule are in the form of a binary contrast between a «higher» tone (high-pitched or rising) and a «lower» tone (low-pitched or falling). The author managed to find in most of the investigated languages numerous examples of tonally differentiated phonetic homonyms, e.g.: fi (Savo) kúus 'six' — kiius 'spruce', est koor11 'chorus' — koor21 'bark (of a tree)', md E pet1

'cloud' — peP 'half, ch M 'bone' — lu 'ten', vty kur1 (jirze kur karini

'make cross, angry') — kur2 'bast', zr

кет

1 'reindeer' — ker2 'taste (of smth.)', hu ősz1 'autumn' — ősz2 'grey-haired', yn kásu 'ebb' — kású 'shaman's fee'.