A Phonetic Study of the Middle Mongolian Language in Arabic Transcriptions

1. 在个人计算机上建立了《穆卡迪马特·阿达布》、《伊本·穆哈纳词汇表》和《莱顿词汇表》中出现的中古蒙古语词汇库。对muqaddmat al-Adab蒙古语的研究结果如下：(1)元音数量在图形上没有区别。因此，多于一个元音字母的序列不代表长元音或双元音，而是两个元音连续被间隔或近音打断。(2)阿拉伯字母在单词中间出现的起尾形式表明音节边界，而不是语素边界。(3)以辅音开头的后缀是否与词干分开写，取决于它所属的语法类别。这一事实表明，抄写者具有良好的蒙古语知识。(4)图形上的一些波动表明，该语言中出现了元音的减少和删除。这些现象说明中西蒙语是一种重音倾向于放在单词最后一个音节上的自由重音语言。

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.