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Word-final lengthening in Early Vedic

  • Götz Keydana EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: November 30, 2018

Abstract

In this paper, a prosodic account of word-final vowel lengthening in the Rigveda is given. It is argued that word-final lengthening, lengthening in compounds, and lengthening before pada-suffixes are instantiations of one and the same phonological process. This process targets the right edge of prosodic words if this edge does not align with the edge of a higher prosodic constituent. A functional account and an explicit analysis in an Optimality Theory framework are given and the proposal is strengthened by adducing typological parallels. The rhythmic patterns emerging from lengthening are shown to be epiphenomena. In the last section, the proposal is extended to lengthening in reduplicants and tentatively to word final lengthening in n-stem vocatives.

Acknowledgement

This paper grew out of a talk given at the workshop “What is a Word” at the University of Zurich in December 2017. I want to thank the audience, especially Dieter Gunkel and Kevin Ryan, for the stimulating discussion. I also thank Tim Felix Aufderheide and the anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on a previous version of this paper. As always, I alone am responsible for any remaining errors.

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Published Online: 2018-11-30
Published in Print: 2018-11-27

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