Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2020
Abstract
To use a hyperbole, any cl eaning lady was able to write or at least read a letter in Mari. How did they achieve this? They used a variety of aids on the lexical, semantic, and even phonological level.
The task of this article is to review these aids, with particul ar reference to introducing direct speech. A number of adverbial expressions were used for this purpose, containing a surprising frequency of the nasal sounds /m/ and /n/.
The system used in Mari challenges the validity of previous diachronic studies on this subject (von Soden, Deutscher).