Quantity (linguistics)
The quantity describes the duration of speech sounds . In phonetics it is about the absolute quantity, in phonology, on the other hand, it is about quantity that distinguishes meaning, for example the different vowel duration in the German minimal pair “lahm” / laːm / (long a) vs. "Lamm" / lam / (short a). Depending on the language, the quantity can play a role in vowels (cf. vowel quantity ) or consonants . The quantity of consonants is equated with gemination in many theories .
Quantity correlation
The quantity correlation means that the difference between sounds of the same type, which differ only in their length (quantity), is present several times in a language and serves to differentiate between words. The term comes from the Prague School ( Nikolai Trubetzkoy 1967: 77) and is for the phonology as significant as the morphology and thus for Linguistics ( Linguistics ) in general.
In addition to the quantity correlation, Trubetzkoy (1967: 77f.) Explicitly mentions the participation correlation and the aspiration correlation . Since this is always a series of pairs of opposing sounds, these correlations have a very strong impact on the corresponding sound systems .
On the importance of quantity in phonology
The German sound system, like its phonological system, is shaped by the quantity of its vowels . Words like “Bann” ([ ban ]) and “Bahn” ([ baːn ]), “Bett” ([ bɛt ]) and “Beet” ([ beːt ]) and many others differ only in the length of their vowel. "Length" means the relative speaking time of the sounds. Word pairs like those mentioned form so-called minimal pairs , i. H. Word pairs that only differ in one sound and at the same time have different meanings. Quantity correlation emphasizes the fact that this difference does not only exist in the case of a sound contrast, i.e. a certain pair of sounds, but also occurs in a whole series of vowels in German: for most short vowels there are corresponding long vowels and vice versa.
In Finnish - to take another language as an example - the quantity is even more important: They appear in vocalism, as in German: tulee 'he comes' - tuulee 'he / the wind is blowing' ; but also with the consonants : tuli 'fire' - tulli 'customs' . There are no such differences in length of consonants in German.
See also
literature
- Helmut Glück (Ed.), With the collaboration of Friederike Schmöe : Metzler Lexikon Sprache. 3rd, revised edition. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2005, ISBN 3-476-02056-8 .
- Nikolaj S. Trubetzkoy: Principles of Phonology. 4th edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1967. (1st edition posthumously Prague 1939)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Marja-Liisa Steiner, Dietrich Assmann: Finnish for you . Hueber, Munich 1971, p. 8: “The double consonants are twice as long as the simple ones.” Examples ibid. As Finnish has a very faithful script, phonetic transcription is not used.
