Yoruba vowel deletion involves compensatory lengthening: evidence from phonetics
Keywords:
yoruba, phonetics, phonology
Abstract
A phonetic study of Yoruba vowel deletion shows that the vowel that remains after deletion is slightly but significantly longer than a short vowel in non-deletional contexts (p<0.001). The experiment controlled for inherent vowel duration and voicing/manner of articulation of the surrounding consonants. Previous phonological accounts (e.g. Akinlabi & Oyebade 1987, Ola Orie & Pulleyblank 2002) analyze this process as full vowel deletion, this account is revised and the process is treated as a type of compensatory lengthening. This also relates to a similar result with Yoruba tone (Ajiboye et al. 2011) in the same syntactic configuration.Downloads
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Published
2020-06-29
How to Cite
Danis, N. (2020). Yoruba vowel deletion involves compensatory lengthening: evidence from phonetics. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, 60, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.5842/60-0-753
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Copyright (c) 2020 Nick Danis
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