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On the rarity of pre-aspirated stops

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2003

DANIEL SILVERMAN
DANIEL SILVERMAN
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
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Abstract

Pre-aspirated stops, known to be quite rare in the world's languages, are shown herein to be significantly rarer still. Their aspiration component is typically reinforced by an oral gesture that is influenced by the following stop and/or the preceding vowel. Alternatively, the aspiration component weakens to zero and is replaced by vowel length. In this typological study I document the phonetic details of so-called pre-aspirates and offer phonetic explanations for their rarity and their diachronic instability.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , November 2003 , pp. 575 - 598
Copyright
2003 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Thanks to Paul Foulkes, Gunnar Hansson, Hans Hock, Jose Hualde, Anatoly Liberman, and two Journal of Linguistics referees.