Omaha-Ponca Long Vowls

[ardis eschenberg]

In regard to John's:
> 2) accented vowels do normally sound somewhat longer to me, so that in the
> examples above of 3rd vs. 1st contrasts I wouldn't care to say that the
> vowel in the third person cases sounded noticeably shorter to me.  But it
> certainly lacked the falling contour.

The first person cases are MARKEDLY longer.  This is not simply stress.  And
I do agree that a type of pitch contour seems to be associated.
BTW:
the 1pl also is long with 'like'  xtoNoNtha

 I've been trying to think of non-verb long vowels, which would thus not
necesarily be polymorphemic.  The other day in class we got
moNhi khe paai.    'The knife is sharp.'

where the word for sharp was long and not just stressed.  Note that it was
translated as singular and not plural so I don't think it's some kind of
reduplication.  I have an idea of how to get this in contrast...I'll try it
this week.

-Ardis