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there is a special letter <Ň> in Table 1 above which does not indicate any sound different from the one represented by < n >. The introduction of this special letter <Ň> is meant to help the language learner to recognize certain Hocąk forms which change their pronunciation when combined with other forms or words. For instance, there is a noun mąąhį meaning ‘knife’ in Hocąk. If you want to say ‘the knife’, you attach the definite article forming the word mąąhį=ra which is, however, pronounced mąąhįŇą in Hocąk. So, in this and many other combinations, the definite article =ra becomes =Ňą. In order to help the learner recognize the underlying grammatical form =ra in combinations like these, the < r > is replaced by a <Ň>. Note that the vowel /a/ in =ra changes, too. Since the /r/ becomes [n], the following vowel becomes [ã] (written <ą>), a nasal vowel.
Stress is indicated in this dictionary by an acute accent on the stressed syllable in all Hocak entries and the conjugated forms for the sake of the learner. Stress is not marked in words with only one syllable which bear stress by default; nor is it marked in the example sentences of the dictionary.