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Title: | An acoustic and phonological study of pre-pausal vowel length in Hausa |
Authors: | Newman, Roxana Ma Heuven, Vincent J. van |
Year: | 1981 |
Periodical: | Journal of African Languages and Linguistics |
Volume: | 3 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 1-18 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | West Africa |
Subject: | Hausa language |
Abstract: | Although pre-pausal glottal closure has been generally accepted as the defining characteristic of short final vowels and the major phonetic/auditory cue for identifying them, the actual practice of Hausa scholars in determining final vowel length has been to elicit forms in non-pausal frames. This method works well because, long and short final allophones are maximally differentiated in non-pausal position. But the method is workable only because it is assumed that phonological length remains constant irrespective of position before pause or not. The problems, however, that there are a number of poorly understood cases where a final vowel seems to have one length non-pausally-and another length pre-pausally, exhibiting what appears to be an environmentally conditioned alternation. Specifically, these are cases where the final vowel is clearly long in non-pausal position but is reported to be pronounced with final glottal closure in pre-pausal position, i.e. having the normal mark of a short final vowel in this position. It is not clear whether such pre-pausal vowels are actually the same phonetically as normal short final vowels nor what their phonological status is. App., fig., notes, ref., tab. |