Open AccessVOWELS DURATION IN THE EVENKI LANGUAGE
Author(s) -
Olga N. Morozova,
Svetlana V. Androsova,
Semyon V. Kolesnikov
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
teoretičeskaâ i prikladnaâ lingvistika
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2410-7190
DOI - 10.22250/24107190_2019_5_1_88_100
Subject(s) - duration (music) , vowel , syllable , vowel length , mathematics , linguistics , word (group theory) , realization (probability) , mid vowel , psychology , audiology , acoustics , statistics , formant , physics , philosophy , geometry , medicine
The present article focuses upon phonological length realization patterns of Selemdzha Evenki vowels. The material of 90 words pronounced in isolation was obtained from 4 subjects, native fluent speakers of Evenki (1 male and 3 females, aged 54-70). They were asked to read each word 3 times to imitate 3 positions in the utterance: initial, medial, and final. As a result of the acoustic analysis, it was found that phonologically long vowels possessed more than 2 times longer duration than that of short vowels. In the group of long vowels, the direct correlation was noted between vowel openness degree and their duration: the more closed the vowel was, the larger duration it had. In the group of short vowels, no dependence of that sort was found: the longest vowels turned out to be the ones of the main triangle /i-a-u/. Vowels /ɜ:-ɜ/ were characterized by the smallest duration in both groups. Comparison of vowel duration in different positions of the Evenki word suggests that, on average, the longest vowel is the one in the final syllable (before a pause), regardless of the number of syllables in the word.