Duration vs. Weight-Based Vowel Reduction: The Interaction of the Economy and Least Effort Principles in the Kermani Variety

This study examines the factors that inhibit vowel reduction in the Kermani variety of Persian. While vowel reduction in this variety is typically conditioned by syllable weight (occurring in monomoraic syllables), it fails to apply in certain phonetic contexts. One such context is adjacency to laryngeal consonants. Analysis reveals that laryngeal consonants, lacking a place of articulation feature and being produced outside the oral/nasal cavity, do not have a formant target. Consequently, the articulatory features of adjacent vowels remain unchanged, leading to their longer formant frequencies. Another context involves words that exhibit consonant gemination in Standard Persian. Acoustic evidence from the Kermani variety reveals that consonants are not geminated in this dialect; instead, the preceding short vowel undergoes lengthening. This observation suggests a phonological constraint in this variety that blocks consonant gemination, spreading the moraic weight to the short vowel and rendering it bimoraic. A common feature in both contexts is the prolonged articulatory stability of short vowels, which prevents undershoot, thereby inhibiting vowel reduction and preserving vowel contrasts. What we observe in this language variety is the interaction between the Principle of Least Effort and the Principle of Economy. In monomoraic syllables, the Principle of Least Effort derives the neutralization of vowel contrasts, whereas in heavier syllables, the Principle of Economy preserves contrasts by inhibiting neutralization.