Vowel shortening in Persian: A phonological analysis

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>This study is a phonological analysis of the process of vowel shortening in Persian. The aim was to find out whether there are any rules governing the different cases of vowel shortening in simple and complex words of formal standard Persian, and to analyse the conditions under which the long vowels /a, i, u/ change into the corresponding short vowels /æ, e, o/. In doing so, data were gathered from a 75000-word contemporary dictionary of Persian, and all the instances undergoing vowel shortening were extracted. Analysing the data showed that the change of /a/ into [æ] is the most frequent type of vowel shortening in Persian. In addition, it turned out that vowel shortening rarely occurs inside simple words in the formal standard form of the language (only in 35 entries out of 519 words in total; i.e. 6.7%); while on the contrary, in complex words it happens quite frequently. Furthermore, regarding the phonemic environment in which vowels undergo shortening, it was found that vowel shortening is most frequent before the glottal consonant /h/, next frequent before nasals /n/ and /m/, and then before /r/. The process also occurs rather frequently in morpheme-final positions in affixation. Lastly, it turns out that another important factor in vowel shortening is the syllable structure of the word; as the super-heavy and ultra-heavy syllables of Persian tend to lose one mora and become lighter in certain positions in the word.</jats:p>

Underapplication Opacity Beyond the Non-Local Compensatory Lengthening in Modern Colloquial Persian

“…Syllable weight and restriction are crucial when accounting for syllable types in Modern Colloquial Persian. CV is the only light syllable since the onset in Modern Colloquial Persian is non-moraic (i.e., weightless), according to Elwell-Sutton (1976), Hayes (1979), Windfuhr (1979), Darzi (1991), Amini (1997), Bijankhan (2000), Hall (2007), Rahbar (2012), Heidarizadi (2014), Kambuziya et al (2017), Rahmani (2019), and Alqahtani (2019Alqahtani ( , 2020. Consider the following representation of [be] "to,"…”

“…Consider the following presentations of [sor.me] "kohl." (14) /surme/→ [sor.me] "kohl" (Alqahtani, 2023) Furthermore, according to Kambuziya et al (2017) and Alqahtani (2023), a long vowel in CVVC is subject to shortening when a coda consonant is nasal, as shown in the representation of [pe.hen] "dung" below:…”

“…Table 1 shows 23 consonants in Modern Colloquial Persian, which are set on the basis of place and manner of articulation (Alqahtani, 2020; Hosseini, 2014; Mahootian, 1997; Windfuhr, 1987). Vowels in Modern Colloquial Persian are divided into three short vowels, /e, æ, o/, of the [–long] feature, and three long counterparts, /i, u, ɑ/, of the [+long] feature, as shown in Table 2 (Aronow et al, 2017; Kambuziya et al, 2017; Miller, 2013).…”

“…Furthermore, according to Kambuziya et al (2017) and Alqahtani (2023), a long vowel in CVVC is subject to shortening when a coda consonant is nasal, as shown in the representation of [pe.hen] “dung” below:…”

“…The syllable types in Modern Colloquia Persian have been taken into consideration by scholars, such as Elwell-Sutton (1976), Hayes (1979), Windfuhr (1979), Darzi (1991), Amini (1997), Bijankhan (2000), Hall (2007), Rahbar (2012), and (Alqahtani, 2020;Hosseini, 2014;Mahootian, 1997;Windfuhr, 1987) Kambuziya et al, 2017;Miller, 2013).…”