Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2022
Abstract
Selice Romani has developed phonemic vowel length due to long-term bilingualism of the speakers in Hungarian. The present paper aims to provide a basic descriptive account of both the synchronic (phonological, phonotactic, and morphophonological) aspects of vowel length and its development in this Romani variety.
The major source of long vowels in the pre-Hungarian compartment was pretonic substitutive lengthening through contact-induced phonemicization of pre-existing allophonic variation. The subsequent contact-induced stress fixation licensed the hypoanalysis of vowel length as a lexical property of morphemes and analogical extension of long vowels.