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14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-14)San Francisco, CA, USA |
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14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-14)San Francisco, CA, USA |
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Telugu has been described as a two-way quantity language. However, the data indicates a need for reanalysis. Vowels as well as consonants have length opposition. The domain of vowel quantity is a segment and consonant quantity is disyllable. There are differences in duration of short and long ratios based on (1) final Vs. non-final contrasts and (2) phonological structure of word-pairs. Final vowel lengthening functions significantly as a marker of a variety of lexical, grammatical and suprasegmental features. Further, the functions man%ested by stress in stress-languages are manifested by length in Telugu. There is an interaction and integration of length with emphasis, juncture and intonation. The present study is designed to describe length contrasts and constraints; and to determine the extent to which durational differences are employed distinctly at word level as well as beyond it in Telugu.
Bibliographic reference. Reddy, K. Nagamma (1999): "Vowel and consonant length contrasts in Telugu", In ICPhS-14, 2231-2234.