[Lingtyp] Contrastive vowel and consonant length?

[Denis CREISSELS]

Dear Florian,

 

Jóola Banjal (Atlantic) has contrasting length in consonants, but not in vowels, and is consequently a counterexample to the implicational tendency you have observed (Bassène, Alain Christian. 2007. Morphosyntaxe du Jóola Banjal. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe). Interestingly, closely related Jóola varieties (for example, Jóola Fóoñi) have contrasting length in vowels, but not in consonants, and there are correspondences such as Banjal nnɔm / Fooñi nɔɔm ‘buy’.

 

You might also consult the following article (‘Eegimaa’ is just an alternative name for ‘Banjal’): Hantgan-Sonko, A. (2017). A weight-based analysis of Jola Eegimaa lenition. In: Festschrift for Paul Newman’s 80th Birthday: Essays in Honor of Paul Newman. African Linguistics in the 21st Century. Series: Grammatical Analyses of African Languages Volume 55.

 

Best,

Denis

 

De : Lingtyp [mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org] De la part de florian.matter at isw.unibe.ch
Envoyé : dimanche 20 décembre 2020 17:13
À : lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
Objet : [Lingtyp] Contrastive vowel and consonant length?

 

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

 

 

_____________________________

Universität Bern

Institut für Sprachwissenschaft

Florian Matter 

 

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Raum B 168

 <mailto:florian.matter at isw.unibe.ch> florian.matter at isw.unibe.ch

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