Universal #919

Legacy number: 919

 Number  916
 Original  As the number of contrastive segments in a language increases, the average length of a word will decrease.
 Standardized  The more numerous the contrastive segments, the shorter the average length of a word.
 Keywords  word length, phoneme inventory
 Domain  phonology, morphology
 Type  mutual implication
 Status  diachronic
 Quality  statistical
 Basis  sample of 10 languages in Nettle 1995
 Source  Nettle 1995: 359

← Back to Universals Archive

Discussion
Notes
1. Some such correlation between size of phoneme inventory and word or morpheme length has frequently been suggested before; see Plank 1998: 200-201 for references (Hockett, Saporta, Milewski, Hagège & Haudricourt, Décsy, Dressler; add Skalicka 1979 [1958]: 239: "Enthält eine Sprache wenig Vokale und zugleich wenig Konsonanten (wie die polynesischen Sprachen), wird dieser Mangel durch lange Wörter kompensiert."). See #656 for morpheme length. 2. See #659 for a related suggestion that the likelihood of homophony will decrease with inventory size, given the same word length average.3. As suggested by Roman Jakobson (or also by Skalicka 1979 [1964]: 308), an alternative to morpheme/word length of compensating for small phoneme inventories would be to be more liberal about phonotactics.
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
1. Some such correlation between size of phoneme inventory and word or morpheme length has frequently been suggested before; see Plank 1998: 200-201 for references (Hockett, Saporta, Milewski, Hagège & Haudricourt, Décsy, Dressler; add Skalicka 1979 [1958]: 239: "Enthält eine Sprache wenig Vokale und zugleich wenig Konsonanten (wie die polynesischen Sprachen), wird dieser Mangel durch lange Wörter kompensiert."). See <a class="innerLink" href="browse.php?entry_id=656"><img src="../img/entry.gif" border="0"> for morpheme length.

2. See <a class="innerLink" href="browse.php?entry_id=659"><img src="../img/entry.gif" border="0"> for a related suggestion that the likelihood of homophony will decrease with inventory size, given the same word length average.

3. As suggested by Roman Jakobson (or also by Skalicka 1979 [1964]: 308), an alternative to morpheme/word length of compensating for small phoneme inventories would be to be more liberal about phonotactics.