| Abstract | In certain Eastern Algonquian languages a nasal vowel developed from the long low vowel /a:/, regardless of consonantal context. A series of experiments showed that longer vowels (regardless of height) were perceived as more nasalized than shorter ones, but only when some nasalization was actually present. Further experiments revealed no evidence of an increase in nasalization for long vowels in oral contexts. If some nasalization was nonetheless introduced (either randomly or by a general increase in nasalization) into these languages, the vowels most likely to be perceived as nasalized were the long ones. This perceptual process may have been responsible for this unusual historical development. |
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