[Lingtyp] Contrastive vowel and consonant length?

[Michael Daniel]

Dear Florian,

i guess this depends on how to define consonant length, and what to count
as presence of vowel quantity contrast. In East Caucasian, many languages
distinguish between geminate vs simple, alias strong vs weak, alias fortis
vs lenis, alias non-aspirated vs aspirated stops.

At the same time, vowel length, if present at all, is much less central to
the system, though this varies across languages. I'm afraid, in order to
fully assess the force of this implication, you should somehow account also
for the role of the two contrasts in the language.

As one example, there is an important contrast between fortis and lenis
stops in Archi, Lezgic.  Vowel length is also present, but is used in
expressive elements such as distance demonstratives; secondarily as
compensation for the loss of the intervocalic -q- in one (of several
hundred) of verbal forms; in some morphophonological contexts with the
coordinative clitic; and maybe in one or two other forms that do not
quickly come to my mind.

Sincerely,

Michael

вс, 20 дек. 2020 г., 19:13 <florian.matter at isw.unibe.ch>:

> Dear all,
>
> is anybody aware of large-scale studies investigating the distribution of
> contrastive length in consonants and vowels? Preliminary analysis of
> phoible data tells me that there is an implicational tendency where if a
> language has contrastive length in consonants, it also has it in vowels.
> Are there studies supporting this? I’m also interested in literature on the
> geographical and genealogical distribution of contrastive length.
>
> Best,
> Florian
>
>
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