DESCRIPTION
Phonology
Punjabi Consonants and Vowels
In spoken Punjabi, velars vary slightly in their place
of articulation (either slightly pre-velar or post-velar) depending on the adjacent
vowels.
Palatal articulations are slightly fronted or pre-palatal with the tongue tip
depressed.
In retroflex articulations, the tip of the tongue is the articulator, never
the blade. The retroflection is generally weak.
Dental articulations are generally slightly post-dental.
Labial articulations are bilabial except for /f/ and /v/ which are labiodental.
Stops and nasals occur at five places of articulation: labial, palatal, retroflex,
dental, and labial. Within each of these five places of articulation, the Punjabi
sound inventory has four series: voiceless-unaspirated, voiceless-aspirated,
voiced-unaspirated, and nasal. The twenty phonemes that arise from this system
of stops and nasals can occur in any combination. Despite the use of diagraphs
in transcription, aspirated stops are considered as unit phonemes (as there
is a clear distinction made between the aspirated and unaspirated stops). This
simplifies the pattern of Punjabi phonology by eliminating any three-consonant
membered endings.
Stress Patterns
In Punjabi, stress may fall on any vowel phoneme within words. Unstressed vowels
that come before stressed syllables are reduced to schwa. Vowels that come after
stressed syllables maintain their full sounds. This works together with tone (see
below) to give a rhythmic pattern to spoken Punjabi.
Tones
Three tones affect the stressed syllables of words.
The tones are high, even, and low. They are differentiated form each other in
pitch, contour, and duration. Stress always falls on the syllable bearing either
high or low tone in Punjabi.
The high tone has a marked raised level of pitch with
a syllable that is shorter in duration than the other two tones.
The even tone has an intermediate pitch between the high
and low. Its duration is of intermediate length.
The low tone has a falling pitch and is noticeably longer
than the other two tones. In the Punjabi writing system (the Gurmukhi Script),
low tone is often implicitly marked by the /h/ phoneme.
Writing System
Punjabi uses the Gurmukhi Script, which developed from the Bhatakshari alphabet
in the 16th century by the guru Angad. The Script consists of 35 or signs (letters)
which are syllabic. Signs represent consonants plus a vowel.
Additional vowels sounds are indicated by means of diacritic signs written above
or below and before or after consonants.
Morphology
Punjabi uses prefixes and suffixes to define inflectional and derivational
word classes. Nouns, adjectives, and verbs are the major parts of speech that
are inflected. Adverbs are uninflected.
Nouns are inflected for number (singular or plural), gender (masculine or feminine),
and case (simple, oblique, and vocative).
With the exception of animate nouns that contain natural gender (e.g. boy, girl,
man, woman, etc.), gender inflections are arbitrary in Punjabi. As a general rule,
nouns ending in /a/ are masculine and nouns ending in /i/are feminine. · Number
is distinguished as either singular or plural. Masculine nouns ending in /a/ change
to /e/ to form the plural. Feminine nouns ending in /i/ change to /a/ to form
the plural.
The simple case in Punjabi marks nouns that are the subjects of sentences. The
oblique case notes nouns that take the position or direct or indirect objects.
Vocative case notes nouns used to indicate a person being addressed.
Adjectives in Punjabi agree with the noun they modify in number, gender, and
case.
Verbs are inflected to agree with their subjects and denote tense (present,
past, and future), mood (conditional, subjunctive, indicative, and imperative),
and aspect (perfect and imperfect).
Word Formation
Word Formation Basically occurs by means of compounding
or affixing (primarily suffixing). There are two main kinds of word formed by
compounding in Punjabi:
Co-odinating compounds - two independent components come
together to form a new word.
E.g. (Punjabi) mata-pita = (English) mother-father è
(meaning) parents
Descriptive compounds - adjective/adverb + root to make
a new adjective.
E.g. (Punjabi Adjective: mid) addi + (Punjabi noun: night)
rat = midnight
Syntax
Punjabi is a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) language with
a relatively fixed word order.
E.g. (English - SOV) I pushed the door. (Punjabi - SOV)
I the door pushed.
Most adjectives precede the noun they modify. Change
in the position of adjectives comes only when compound adjectival modifiers
containing two or more adjectives describing a noun are present. In this case,
the compound adjectives are moved as a unit to the end of the sentence. Separating
the unit and creating an adjective phrase adds emphasis to the modifiers.
Adverbs are placed before adjectives and most adverbial phases come at the beginning
of sentences. When an adverbial phrase comes at the end of a sentence it is
for emphatic purposes.
Postpositions are used to denote grammatical relationships. Postpositions, like
adverbs, are not inflected and so are not marked for number, gender, or case.
Syntactically they are placed after the object (either direct or indirect object)
and before the verb.