PHONOLOGICAL CLASSES OF DISTINCTIVE OPPOSITIONS
PHONOLOGICAL CLASSES OF DISTINCTIVE OPPOSITIONS
223
A. Isacenko, " Lcs parlers Slovenes du Podjunjc en Carinthie," in Revue des etudes slaves, XV ([1935], p. 57). However, apart from this /, the particular dialects do not have any palatal nasal with a complete oral closure, with which /would be in a relationship of bilateral opposition.
2l,»Cf. D. Westermann, Handbuch der Fid-Spraehe (Berlin, 1909), p. 197; Henri Gaden, l.e Poular, dialecle peul du Foula Senegalais {Collection de la Revue du moiide miisuliiian, 1 [Paris, 1913]), p. 2. It is interesting to note that at morpheme boundary, the contact between and b results neither in a b nor in an mh but in a geminated hh (H. Gaden, op. dt., 1, 8, 9, 15). The contact of the phonemes /, (/, /, b with d, g, and /, on the other hand, results in |he combinations nib, nd, ijg, nf (ibid., 9, par. 15, p. 6). After the nasals, the"oppositions b, d, g, j—h, d, g, j are neutralized (archiphoneme representative: b, d, g,j). On the other hand, the oppositions in, n, /;, /,;— b, d, g, j are neutralized before b, d, g, J (archiphoneme representative: in, n, n).
209 TCLP, I, 50 ff.
2ln Cf. N. S. Trubctzkoy, Anleitung zu phonologisclien Beschreibungen (Brno, 1935), pp. 21 fr.
211 In Bulletin de la Maison franco-japonaise" VIII (1936), no. 1, pp. 126 ff. Cases such as Peking Chinese "/4" (two) clearly speak against the above view by L. Hjelmslev (toward which B. Trnka, TCLP, VI, 62, also seems to tend), according to which a monophonematic word can only consist of one vowel: in contrast with German .v!, French rrr\, and Russian .v! c! Chinese I4 (two) is no interjection but a quite normal numeral.
2,2 This is true only of the standard language in its Stage German pronunciation. In the dialects and in dialectally colored standard German pronunciation, ;" and j are different phonemes. This is the case, for example, in those dialects where ii changed to / and where the combination ji is consequently permitted (jinar = jünger, jidis = jüdisch); or in North German where j is only a combinatory variant of the spirant y (before front vowels or after nonback vowels respectively).
213 In those languages where the syllable nuclei are exclusively monophone-matically evaluated vowel phonemes, the difference between vowel phonemes can be defined as follows: vowels arc those phonemes capable of functioning as syllable nuclei, while consonants arc those phonemes that cannot occur as syllable nuclei. One might be inclined to go even further in this direction: since there is no language in which the vowels would not occur as syllable nuclei, vowels could be defined as those phonemes that function as syllable nuclei either in the form of their basic variants or as unmarked members of a correlation of syllabicity, and consonants as those phonemes that are nonsyllabic in the form of their basic variants or as unmarked members of the correlation of syllabicity. This definition is defended by R. Jakobson. But several objections can be raised against it. First, it is not always possible to establish the basic variant objectively. Second, one can only speak of syllable nuclei in those languages that have distinctive prosodic properties. In languages such as Armenian or Georgian, which do not have any prosodic properties, the "syllable" is not a phonological but a phonetic concept which can only be defined by means of the "vowel" concept but which in no way can serve as basis for the definition of the vowel. The above definition (p. 94) of the difference between "vowel" and "consonant" must therefore be sustained.
214 Cf. N. S. Trubetzkoy, "Die phonologischen Grundlagen der sogenannten Quantität in den verschiedenen Sprachen," in Scritti in onore di Alfredo Trom-betti (Milan, 1936), pp. 155 ff.; Trubetzkoy's paper "Die Quantität als phono-logisches Problem" (Actes du IV Congrěs International de Linguistes [Copenhagen, 1938]); also R. Jakobson, "Über die Beschaffenheit der prosodischen Gegensatze," in Melanges offerts dj. van Ginneken (Paris, 1937), pp. 24 ff.
215 The "falling" diphthongs are, however, treated differently in Slovak; only their first vowel is considered a syllable nucleus. It is affected by the rhythmic law, only if it is long. Falling diphthongs in which the first vowel is short (e.g., aj, au) are considered combinations of a short vowel with a consonant. Accordingly they do not result in a shortening of the long vowels of the following syllable. Cf. R. Jakobson, "Z fonologie spisovné slovenštiny," in Slovenská miscellanea (Bratislava, 1931), pp. 156 ff.
216 Cf. H. W. T. Gairdner, "The Phonetics of Arabic," in The American University of Cairo Oriental Studies (1925), p. 71.
2n Cf. N. S. Trubetzkoy, " Polabische Studien," in Sitzb. men Akad., PhiL-hist. Kl., CCXI, no. 4, pp. 126 ff.
218 Edward Sapir, "Southern Paiute, a Shoshonean Language," in Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 65, nos. 1-3, pp. 37 ff.
219 Charles V. Voegelin, "Tübatulabal Grammar," in University of California Publ. in Amer. Archeol. and Ethnol., 34, no. 2, pp. 75 ff. In long syllables only the first mora may be accented. If, based on iambic rhythmic law, a secondary accent falls on the second mora of a long vowel, it is shifted to the first mora of that vowel. The secondary accents then continue regularly in distances of one mora.
220 This can be seen from the data published by Roland B. Dixon in Handbook of American Indian Languages, 1, 683 ff. (Rare deviations from this scheme can be explained without difficulty.) It seems that the secondary accents in Maidu are distributed in accordance with the same principle as those of Paiute: where R. B. Dixon indicates two accents in a word, the second always falls on one of the "even" morae (e.g., "külü'nanamaä't" [toward evening], "basa'kömoscü'mdi" [at the end of the stick], etc.). In some cases R. B. Dixon heard only this secondary accent (cf. transcriptions such as "önl'di," "äkä'nas," "ätsoia," "ää'nkano," "sämö'estodi," etc.). Incidentally, the Northeast dialect of Maidu geographically borders on Paiute.
221 In some North Chinese dialects the "short, low tone" is realized as falling, while the "short, high tone" is realized as rising. The "long, rising tone" accordingly has two peaks (i.e., falling-rising), while the "long, falling tone" is rising-falling, so that the longer syllables are still to be equated prosodically with the combination of two short syllables. Cf. E. D. Polivanov and N. Popov-Tativa, Posobije po kitajskoj transkripcii (Moscow, 1928), pp. 90 f., and E. Polivanov, Vvedenije v jazykoznunije dl'a vostokovednycli vuzov (Leningrad, 1928), pp. 118 f.
222 Cf. R. Jakobson in TCLP, IV, 180 f. 22.1 Melanges . . . van Ginneken, pp. 32 f.
224 Cf. Ida C. Ward, The Phonetic and Tonal Structure of Efik (Cambridge, 1933), p. 29: "A vowel on a rising or falling tone is generally longer than on a high or low level tone."
225 It is possible that this is the case in the Gě dialect of Ewe. The syllables