Startseite There is no correlation between the size of a community speaking a language and the size of the phonological inventory of that language
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There is no correlation between the size of a community speaking a language and the size of the phonological inventory of that language

  • Vladimir Pericliev
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 27. Juli 2005
Linguistic Typology
Aus der Zeitschrift Band 8 Heft 3

Abstract

In the target article, Trudgill assumes, based on the inspection of some Austronesian/Polynesian languages, that large community size favours medium-sized phonological inventories, whereas small community size favours either small phonological inventories or large inventories, and he then undertakes to explain these “facts”. A crosslinguistic empirical test, however, reveals conclusively that such assumptions are invalid and therefore Trudgill's explanation is fallacious in explaining a phenomenon that does not exist.

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Correspondence address: Mathematical Linguistics, Institut po matematika i informatika, bl. 8, Bălgarska Akademija na Naukite, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria; e-mail:

Published Online: 2005-07-27
Published in Print: 2004-10-20

© Walter de Gruyter

Heruntergeladen am 14.9.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/lity.2004.8.3.376/html
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