7.826, Sum: Phoneme inventory size and word length

[The Linguist List]

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-7-826. Tue Jun 4 1996. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines:  85
 
Subject: 7.826, Sum: Phoneme inventory size and word length
 
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---------------------------------Directory-----------------------------------
1)
Date:  Tue, 04 Jun 1996 09:06:49 +0200
From:  martinha at zedat.fu-berlin.de (Martin Haspelmath)
Subject:  Sum: phoneme inventory size and word length
 
---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------
1)
Date:  Tue, 04 Jun 1996 09:06:49 +0200
From:  martinha at zedat.fu-berlin.de (Martin Haspelmath)
Subject:  Sum: phoneme inventory size and word length
 
In LINGUIST 7-739 I asked whether anyone had tested the often heard claim
that large phoneme inventory sizes correlate with short words, and vice
versa. Thanks to those who responded!
   I was pointed to the following recent article, where the claim is
tested and confirmed for a sample of ten languages:
 
NETTLE, David (1995), "Segmental inventory size, word length, and
communicative efficiency", Linguistics 33.2: 359-367.
 
Nettle explains the correlation in terms of competing motivations:
Different languages optimize either speed of performance or simplicity of
structure. These functional constraints are inevitably in conflict with
each other, and different languages resolve the conflict differently by
assigning different weights to the constraints.
  Nettle cites recent work in European "quantitative linguistics" for
related approaches. True, such claims can only be tested by using
quantitative methods, but are they irrelevant to phonological theory, and
linguistic theory more generally?
  Chilin Shih objects that Mandarin Chinese has a small phoneme inventory
and short words. In Nettle's study, Chinese is not exceptional because he
counts compounds as single words and includes the distinctive force of
tone in calculating the size of the phonemic inventory.
  Markus Hiller points out that it is not quite clear what should be
counted in each case -- do we include all Japanese words of Chinese
origin that are hardly used in the spoken language because of homonymy?
How do we exclude them? He suggests that only the core vocaabulary should
be taken into account. In addition, he proposes that not segments, but
gestures (in the sense of Browman & Goldstein 1986) should be counted,
because they are more easily classified as redundant vs. distinctive, and
they are less abstract than features. Nettle did not use such
sophisticated methods in his study, and the fact that he got
statistically significant results shows that the effect is so strong that
it is not obscured by all the "noise".
  Paul de Lacy notes that we need to distinguish between roots and words
(although the prediction of the functional theory probably applies to
both equally) and notes that Polynesian languages do not have
particularly long words. Maori, for instance, has only 14 segmental
phonemes, 80% of its roots are bimoraic, and it hasn't resorted to
increasing word length yet. In Nettle's study, though, Hawaiian does have
a fairly high average word length (7.08 segments, the thgird highest in
his sample).
  I am grateful to
 
And Rosta         (ucleaar at ucl.ac.uk)
Wolfgang Behr     (w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.d400.de)
Markus Hiller     (markus.hiller at zdv.uni-tuebingen.de)
Chilin Shih       (cayenne!cls at research.att.com)
Paul de Lacy      (delacy at voyager.co.nz)
 
 
Martin Haspelmath
Department of English
Free University of Berlin
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