A Phonetic Study of the Middle Mongolian Language in Arabic Transcriptions

1.在个人计算机上建立了《MUQADDMAT al-ADAB》、《Ibn Muhanna词汇表》和《Leiden Glossary》收录的中西部蒙古语词汇数据库。对Muqaddmat al-Adab的蒙古语进行了如下研究：(1)在元音数量上没有图解上的区别。因此，一个以上元音字母的序列不是代表长元音或双元音，而是两个连续的元音，中间有一个间断或一个近似词。(2)阿拉伯字母的声母和韵尾以单词为中心表示音节边界，而不是语素边界。(3)辅音开头的后缀是否与词干分开书写取决于它所属的语法范畴。这意味着转写者(S)对蒙古语有很好的了解。(4)一些图形波动表明，元音在语言中发生了减少和删除。这些现象表明，西中蒙古语是一种自由重音的重音语言，重音往往放在单词的最后一个音节上。

1. A database of West Middle Mongolian words appearing in Muqaddimat al-Adab, Glossary of Ibn Muhanna and Leiden Glossary is made on personal computer.2. The following results are obtained concerning the Mongolian Language of Muqaddimat al-Adab :(1) No distinction in vowel quantity is made graphically. Therefore, the sequences of more than one vowel letter do not represent long vowels or diphthongs, but two vowels in succession intervened by a hiatus or by an approximant.(2) The initial and final forms of Arabic letters appearing word-medially indicate syllable boundaries rather than morpheme boundaries.(3) Whether a consonant-beginning suffix is written separately from the stem or not depends on the grammatical category to which it belongs. This fact implies that the transcriber (s) had a good knowledge of Mongolian.(4) Some graphic fluctuations indicate that vowel reduction and deletion were occurring in the language. These phenomena show that West Middle Mongolian was a free stress accent language where the stress tended to be placed on the last syllable of a word.