Universal 1046:
- Original
- The number of tones on a long vowel seems never to be fewer than on a short vowel.
- Standardized
- The number of tones on a long vowel seems never to be fewer than on a short vowel.
- Keywords
- vowel, tone, length
- Domain
- phonology
- Type
- implication
- Status
- achronic
- Quality
- absolute
- Basis
- sample of almost 200 languages in Greenberg & Kaschube 1976
- Source
- Greenberg & Kaschube 1976: 10
- Counterexamples
For example Gbaya (Adamawa-Ubangian, Niger-Congo): high and low tones on short vowels; high, low, falling, and rising on long vowels- which are bimoraic, hence falling = HL and rising = LH.