Evidence for three-level vowel length in Ageer Dinka
Three-level vowel length is typologically unusual, and the supporting evidence
is limited (Odden, 2011). One of the most compelling hypothesized cases for
this configuration is Dinka, a Western Nilotic language. This paper expands the
evidence base for Dinka, through an acoustic study of the Ageer dialect. Ageer
is geographically distant from the Agar dialect, for which three-level vowel
length was first postulated in Dinka (Andersen, 1987). It is also distant from
the Luanyjang and Bor dialects, on the basis of which this hypothesis was tested
acoustically. The results corroborate the three-level vowel length hypothesis for
Dinka: lexical and morphological quantity condition a salient three-way split
in vowel duration. Coda duration and vowel quality do not reveal comparable
differences.
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Cited by 1 other publications
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