A moraic analysis of compensatory lengthening in the Kurdish dialect of Sorany

The process of compensatory lengthening characteristic of the of Kurdish dialect of Sorany is what this paper sets out to study. Within the framework of Moraic Theory, this process is assumed to be triggered by the deletion of a given moraic segment on the phoneme layer, with its mora remaining free on the mora level. This paper is devoted to investigating two types of compensatory lengthening: one resulting from the deletion of a moraic consonant and the other being triggered through vowel deletion. As far as the dialect under discussion is concerned, four consonants can be recognized: / /،/ h /،/  /and/ x. what the results of this paper show is that, preserving the word weight, and not the syllable weight as claimed by Hayes (1989), is the main offshoot of compensatory lengthening.