[Lingtyp] Contrastive vowel and consonant length?
Pier Marco Bertinetto
piermarco.bertinetto at sns.it
Sun Dec 20 21:10:47 UTC 2020
A possible source of phonologically long Cs is total assimilation of C
clusters.
I doubt that V quantity could have an impact on that.
Best
Pier Marco
Il giorno dom 20 dic 2020 alle ore 20:59 Peter Austin <pa2 at soas.ac.uk> ha
scritto:
> Some Western Micronesian languages have a consonant length contrast,
> including word-initially. Among them, Chuukese lacks long vowels but
> Pohnpeian has long vowels as well. I understand the consonant length
> contrast can be reconstructed for their ancestor.
>
> Peter
>
>
>
> On Sun, 20 Dec 2020 at 19:34, Larry M. HYMAN <hyman at berkeley.edu> wrote:
>
>> I have the same impression as Juergen that languages with a vowel length
>> contrast are vastly more numerous than those with a single/geminate
>> consonant contrast. (I could only think of Italian, myself, as having only
>> the latter, though good to see the others cited). On the other hand, the
>> few languages I have worked with that have geminates also have a vowel
>> length contrast, e.g. Luganda, Leggbó (with a fortis-lenis contrast that is
>> largely durational).
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 20, 2020 at 10:03 AM Bohnemeyer, Juergen <jb77 at buffalo.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all — Just for the sake of speculation, let me propose a possible
>>> causal link. The argument has multiple steps:
>>>
>>> 1. Presumably (but I haven’t looked at this empirically), length
>>> contrasts are easier to perceive in vowels than in consonants. And as a
>>> result, their production would also be easier to monitor and control in
>>> vowels than in consonants.
>>>
>>> 2. If the above is correct, then it would also stand to reason that
>>> phonemic length contrasts are more likely to occur in vowels than in
>>> consonants.
>>>
>>> 3. This in turn would mean that a likely scenario for the emergence of
>>> phonemic duration in consonants is that the members of a language community
>>> first become habituated to perceiving duration contrasts in vowels, and
>>> from there extend this type of categorization to consonant phonemes.
>>>
>>> Since we’ve already seen examples of languages with phonemic duration in
>>> consonants only in this thread, it is probably not the case that the
>>> emergence of phonemic duration in consonants presupposed the prior
>>> existence of phonemic duration in vowels. However, it is of course also
>>> conceivable that languages first acquire phonemic duration in vowels, then
>>> extend it to consonants, and then reinterpret duration contrasts in vowels
>>> as tone or quality contrasts, leaving the quantity opposition in consonants
>>> orphaned.
>>>
>>> Like I said, all idle speculation. — Best — Juergen
>>>
>>> > On Dec 20, 2020, at 12:42 PM, Pier Marco Bertinetto <
>>> piermarco.bertinetto at sns.it> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Dear Florian,
>>> > the question I would ask myself is the following: Since we know that
>>> vowel and consonant quantity are independent of each other (they can
>>> coexist, or one can have phonological value and the other, possibly, a mere
>>> allophonically conditioned behavior), does it make sense to look for an
>>> "implicational tendency"?
>>> > Unless one can prove that the existence of consonant quantity
>>> presupposes vowel quantity, I would leave out any "implicational" reasoning.
>>> > Needless to say, it might be interesting to know, say, that there are
>>> more languages with vowel quantity than languages with consonant quantity,
>>> but would this teach us anything more than a mere statistical fact?
>>> > Best
>>> > Pier Marco
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Il giorno dom 20 dic 2020 alle ore 18:17 Hartmut Haberland <
>>> hartmut at ruc.dk> ha scritto:
>>> > Apparent counterexamples seem to be Italian (no vowel length) and
>>> maybe Japanese (long vowels in Sinojapanese vocabulary like sū ‘number’
>>> seem to be genuine but in suu ‘sucks, inhales’ with a morpheme border it is
>>> often considered u+u. Both languages have long/double consonants.
>>> >
>>> >> Den 20. dec. 2020 kl. 17.49 skrev Michael Daniel <
>>> misha.daniel at gmail.com>:
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> ps Sorry, i shouldn't have sent it to the general list. I am aware
>>> that individual cases do not undermine the general correlation. But because
>>> Florian also asked for language-level evidence, I provided (my
>>> understanding of) the data I know of.
>>> >>
>>> >> Michael Daniel
>>> >>
>>> >> вс, 20 дек. 2020 г., 19:25 Michael Daniel <misha.daniel at gmail.com>:
>>> >> 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
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> _____________________________
>>> >> Universität Bern
>>> >> Institut für Sprachwissenschaft
>>> >> Florian Matter
>>> >>
>>> >> Länggassstrasse 49
>>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/L%C3%A4nggassstrasse+49+%0D%0A+CH-3012+Bern?entry=gmail&source=g>
>>>
>>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/L%C3%A4nggassstrasse+49+%0D%0A+CH-3012+Bern?entry=gmail&source=g>>>
>>> CH-3012 Bern
>>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/L%C3%A4nggassstrasse+49+%0D%0A+CH-3012+Bern?entry=gmail&source=g>
>>> >> Tel. +41 31 631 37 54
>>> >> Raum B 168
>>> >> florian.matter at isw.unibe.ch
>>> >> http://www.isw.unibe.ch
>>> >> _______________________________________________
>>> >> Lingtyp mailing list
>>> >> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>> >> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>> >> _______________________________________________
>>> >> Lingtyp mailing list
>>> >> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>> >> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > Lingtyp mailing list
>>> > Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>> > http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > =========================================================
>>> >
>>> > |||| Pier Marco Bertinetto
>>> > ------ professore emerito
>>> > /////// Scuola Normale Superiore
>>> > -------
>>> > p.za dei Cavalieri 7
>>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/Cavalieri+7+%0D%0A+%0D%0A+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+I-56126+PISA?entry=gmail&source=g>
>>>
>>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/Cavalieri+7+%0D%0A+%0D%0A+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+I-56126+PISA?entry=gmail&source=g>>
>>>
>>>
>>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/Cavalieri+7+%0D%0A+%0D%0A+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+I-56126+PISA?entry=gmail&source=g>
>>> > /////// I-56126 PISA
>>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/Cavalieri+7+%0D%0A+%0D%0A+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+I-56126+PISA?entry=gmail&source=g>
>>> > ------- phone: +39 050 509111
>>> > ///////
>>> > ------- HOME
>>> > /////// via Matteotti 197
>>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/via+Matteotti%C2%A0+197+%0D%0A+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+-------%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0I-55049+Viareggio?entry=gmail&source=g>
>>>
>>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/via+Matteotti%C2%A0+197+%0D%0A+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+-------%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0I-55049+Viareggio?entry=gmail&source=g>
>>> > ------- I-55049 Viareggio
>>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/via+Matteotti%C2%A0+197+%0D%0A+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+-------%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0I-55049+Viareggio?entry=gmail&source=g>
>>> LU
>>> > /////// phone: +39 0584 652417
>>> >
>>> > ------- cell.: +39 368 3830251
>>> > =========================================================
>>> > editor of "Italian Journal of Linguistics"
>>> >
>>> > webpage <https://www.sns.it/it/bertinetto-pier-marco
>>> > >
>>> > "Laboratorio di Linguistica" <
>>> > http://linguistica.sns.it
>>> > >
>>> > =========================================================
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > Lingtyp mailing list
>>> > Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>> > http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
>>> Professor, Department of Linguistics
>>> University at Buffalo
>>>
>>> Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
>>> Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
>>> Phone: (716) 645 0127
>>> Fax: (716) 645 3825
>>> Email: jb77 at buffalo.edu
>>> Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/
>>>
>>> Office hours will be held by Zoom. Email me to schedule a call at any
>>> time. I will in addition hold Tu/Th 4-5pm open specifically for remote
>>> office hours.
>>>
>>> There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
>>> (Leonard Cohen)
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Lingtyp mailing list
>>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Larry M. Hyman, Professor of Linguistics & Executive Director,
>> France-Berkeley Fund
>> Department of Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley
>> http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/people/person_detail.php?person=19
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lingtyp mailing list
>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>
> --
> Prof Peter K. Austin
> Emeritus Professor in Field Linguistics, SOAS
> Visiting Researcher, Oxford University
> Foundation Editor, EL Publishing
> Honorary Treasurer, Philological Society
> www.peterkaustin.com
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
--
=========================================================
|||| Pier Marco Bertinetto
------ professore emerito
/////// Scuola Normale Superiore
------- p.za dei Cavalieri 7
/////// I-56126 PISA
------- phone: +39 050 509111
///////
------- HOME
/////// via Matteotti 197
------- I-55049 Viareggio LU
/////// phone: +39 0584 652417
------- cell.: +39 368 3830251
=========================================================
editor of "Italian Journal of Linguistics"
webpage <https://www.sns.it/it/bertinetto-pier-marco>
"Laboratorio di Linguistica" <http://linguistica.sns.it>
=========================================================
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20201220/c8953f5b/attachment.htm>
More information about the Lingtyp
mailing list