Syllable weight

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The syllable weight (also morality ) is in phonology a quantitative property of a syllable expressed in mores , which can be determined from the syllable structure according to the rules of moren theory .

In general, open syllables with a short vowel are of one-half duration and are referred to as light syllables . Two-core syllables are called heavy syllables . Open syllables with a long vowel are always two-core. If one now differentiates between the three syllable structures KV (open with a short vowel), KVː (open with a long vowel) and KVK (closed), the case of the closed syllable remains undetermined. In fact, there are examples of both: closed syllables are heavy in Latin , but light in Mongolian .

A similar term in phonology is syllable quantity , which distinguishes short and long syllables according to the phonological length of the syllables . Languages ​​in which long and short syllables contrast are then called quantity-sensitive . For example, Latin is a quantity-sensitive language in which, for example, a distinction is made between [liber] “book” and [liːber] “free”. Hawaiian , for example, is a non-quantity-sensitive language .

The distinction between light and heavy or short and long syllables is often manifested in the word accent rules of certain languages, such as the panultia rule of Latin.

In contrast to the concept of quantity , which comes from (ancient) metrics and can also be expressed in mores, syllable weight or syllable quantity are properties of the syllable itself that are independent of the context, while metric quantity is a property of the syllable in the context of the concrete verse, i.e. is determined among other things by the rhythm of the verse.

In the sense of the concept of weight language introduced by Theo Vennemann , easy and difficult is understood more generally and denotes different properties of syllables depending on the respective language or literature. In literatures with a quantitative verse principle, such as ancient Greek and Latin poetry, the light syllables correspond to the short and the heavy syllables; in literatures with an accentuated verse principle , the light syllables correspond to the unstressed and the heavy syllables the stressed syllables.

literature

  • Hadumod Bußmann (Ed.) With the collaboration of Hartmut Lauffer: Lexikon der Sprachwissenschaft. 4th, revised and bibliographically supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-520-45204-7 , p. 625, sv syllable weight .
  • Helmut Glück (Ed.): Metzler Lexicon Language. 4th, updated and revised. Edition. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2010, ISBN 978-3-476-02335-3 , p. 615, sv syllable weight .
  • T. Alan Hall: Phonology. An introduction. 2nd ed. De Gruyter, Berlin & New York 2011, ISBN 3-11-021588-8 , pp. 255-268.