How to ask potential school about funding availability?

[mi.re]

I have been accepted to one of my top choices for graduate school (MA) and am pretty certain I will be accepting their offer. I'm very excited and so flattered to have been accepted, but I am slightly worried about funding. The acceptance letter I received had a section about funding, but this section was left blank. I have no idea if this means I was not offered any funding, or if the decision regarding funding has not been made yet.

I will be contacting the department this week to ask them about possible funding, but I am unsure how to bring it up. What should I ask them? I have also received an offer from a different school that offers me a small amount of funding, should I bring this up? Or should I not mention the other funding offer since I do not even know if the first school was going to offer me funding in the first place? Should I let them know they are my first choice? Part of me wants to be completely honest with them, but then another part of me wonders if I should keep my cards close to my chest.

I guess what I am asking is, how do I ask the department if there will be any funding opportunities available to me without being rude or shooting myself in the foot?

[manicape]

Hey, I know I'm really late to this but I thought I'd jump on since I'm also wondering how to word this email haha.

FIrst, we are completely entitled to ask about the money as it's a BIG thing, but yeah, gotta be delicate about the wording. I think I've seen in past posts that saying you have other offers to consider is helpful to contextualize your circumstances for them, but you don't have to name the programs and their funding if you don't want to. I don't know if you have to mention they're your first choice but you're excited about the prospect of going. 

I don't know if you need it anymore, but in case someone else comes along to read this...