<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Hi all,<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">There’s a chapter on these issues in Maddieson 1986 Patterns of Sounds based on the UPSID 317 language sample.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">In the LAPSyD sample of 776 languages, looking for symbols, there are 721 languages with /i/, 709 with /a/, 655 with /u/,</div><div class="">528 with /o/, 491 with /e/ 304 with /ɛ/, and 271 with /ɔ/. Front /i, ɛ/ occur in more languages than their back counterparts</div><div class="">/u, ɔ/, but back /o/ occurs in more languages than /e/. This is because the highest back vowel in a significant number of</div><div class="">languages — mostly with small vowel inventories — is not high but mid. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Searching on features, 736 languages have a high front unrounded vowel, 733 a low central vowel, 674 a high </div><div class="">back rounded vowel, 551 a higher mid or unspecified mid back rounded vowel 516 a higher mid or unspecified </div><div class="">mid front unrounded, 313 a lower mid front unrounded vowel, and 285 have a lower mid back rounded vowel. </div><div class="">Naturally these reflect the same pattern as noted above but catch some ‘modified’ vowel cases, etc.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">In almost all languages with good frequency data, either from text or lexical counts, /a/ (or [ɐ]) is the most</div><div class="">frequent vowel (if such a vowel is in the inventory). </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Ian Maddieson <br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Sep 14, 2020, at 10:02, Guillaume Segerer <<a href="mailto:guillaume.segerer@cnrs.fr" class="">guillaume.segerer@cnrs.fr</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" class="">
<div class=""><p class="">Hello everybody</p><p class="">I tried a quick search in RefLex (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.reflex.cnrs.fr/Africa">www.reflex.cnrs.fr/Africa</a>),
only on the sources that have more than 10,000 lexical entries
(there are 7 of them). These very limited results don't seem to
confirm the hypotheses, although there might be some biasses due
to morphology (noun classes, verbal extensions, etc.). Here are
the figures</p><p class=""><span id="cid:part1.26535ABF.FB66956D@cnrs.fr"><cbhkjlkohacknjdi.png></span></p><p class="">Best,</p><p class="">Guillaume<br class="">
</p><p class=""><br class="">
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Le 14/09/2020 à 10:44, Sebastian
Nordhoff a écrit :<br class="">
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:110b5bc0-b82b-fea0-28cb-e0a9cc4733ee@glottotopia.de" class="">On
9/14/20 10:20 AM, JOO, Ian [Student] wrote:
<br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">Dear Sebastian,
<br class="">
<br class="">
Please check <a href="http://phoible.org" class="">phoible.org</a>
<br class="">
</blockquote>
<br class="">
Dear Ian,
<br class="">
phoible seems to confirm hypothesis 2) and 3) for types, but not
1) (numbers are percentages):
<br class="">
<br class="">
i 92 u 88
<br class="">
e 61 o 60
<br class="">
a 86
<br class="">
<br class="">
(one would have to include ɔ and epsilon where there is no e/o,
but I do not know how to do this in the web interface)
<br class="">
<br class="">
Is there any information about tokens? For instance, Spanish has
the following token frequencies in texts
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frecuencia_de_aparici%C3%B3n_de_letras">https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frecuencia_de_aparici%C3%B3n_de_letras</a>:
<br class="">
<br class="">
e: 13.68%
<br class="">
a: 12.53%
<br class="">
o: 8.68%
<br class="">
i: 6.25%
<br class="">
u: 3.93%
<br class="">
<br class="">
So the high vowels /i/ and /u/ are less frequent than the mid
vowels /e/ and /o/, disconfirming hypothesis 2. (This is based on
graphemes, but Spanish orthography is sufficiently phonemic).
<br class="">
<br class="">
Best wishes
<br class="">
Sebastian
<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<br class="">
Regards,
<br class="">
Ian
<br class="">
<br class="">
------------------------------------------------------------------------
<br class="">
*보낸 사람:* Sebastian Nordhoff
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:sebastian.nordhoff@glottotopia.de"><sebastian.nordhoff@glottotopia.de></a> 대신 Lingtyp
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org"><lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org></a>
<br class="">
*보낸 날짜:* Monday, September 14, 2020 4:18:08 PM
<br class="">
*받는 사람:* <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"><lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org></a>
<br class="">
*제목:* [Lingtyp] Frequency of front/back, high/mid vowels
<br class="">
Dear list members,
<br class="">
do we have any information about the cross-linguistic validity
of the
<br class="">
following hypotheses?
<br class="">
<br class="">
1) front vowels like /i/, /e/ are more frequent than back vowels
like
<br class="">
/u/, /o/
<br class="">
<br class="">
2) high vowels like /i/, /u/ are more frequent than mid vowels
like
<br class="">
/e/, /o/.
<br class="">
<br class="">
3) "corner vowels" /a/, /i/, /u/ are more frequent than anything
else.
<br class="">
<br class="">
I am interested in information about types (phonemic inventory)
as well
<br class="">
as tokens (counts in texts).
<br class="">
<br class="">
Best wishes and than you for your time
<br class="">
Sebastian
<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
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_______________________________________________<br class="">Lingtyp mailing list<br class=""><a href="mailto:Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" class="">Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a><br class="">http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp<br class=""></div></blockquote></div><br class=""><div class="">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal; border-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none;"><div class=""><div class="">Ian Maddieson</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Department of Linguistics</div><div class="">University of New Mexico</div><div class="">MSC03-2130</div><div class="">Albuquerque NM 87131-0001</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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