Chapter published in:
Grammatical and Sociolinguistic Aspects of Ethiopian LanguagesEdited by Derib Ado, Almaz Wasse Gelagay and Janne Bondi Johannessen †
[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society 48] 2021
► pp. 345–364
Durational variations in Oromo vowels
Feda Negesse | Addis Ababa University
Tujube Amansa | Dembi Dolo University
An acoustic study of vowels of Cushitic languages has not been
undertaken, though their vowels seem to exhibit durational variations. We wanted to
identify factors that would affect vowel length in Oromo, a Cushitic language widely
spoken in the Horn of Africa. Sixty-four speakers (F = 32,
M = 32) from four dialect areas of the language in Ethiopia
produced vowel data in different environments. An acoustic analysis of the data
showed that duration of the vowels varies significantly across dialects, with the
longest duration in the Eastern dialect and the shortest duration in the Western
dialect. Gender has no significant effect on duration of the vowels, but the vowels
have significantly longer duration when followed by voiced singletons than
voiceless, and when followed by voiced singletons than by voiced geminates.
Collectively, phonologically long vowels are two times longer than short ones, and
this difference is significantly affected by dialect and environment, but not by
gender. A significant variation was also observed among the vowels with regard to
their intrinsic duration. It is concluded that, besides phonological length, the
regional background of speakers and phonetic environment are key factors determining
duration of Oromo vowels.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Oromo language
- 3.Methods
- 3.1Speakers
- 3.2Stimuli and procedures
- 3.3Statistical analysis
- 4.Results
- 4.1Intrinsic duration
- 4.2Phonological vowel length
- 4.3Consonantal environments
- 4.4Gender
- 4.5Dialect
- 5.Discussion
- 6.Conclusions
-
Acknowledgements -
References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.
Published online: 23 April 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.48.14neg
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.48.14neg
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