[YG Conlang Archives] > [engelang group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
--- In engelang@yahoogroups.com, John Cowan <cowan@...> wrote: > What I didn't know before reading the WALS article is that complexity > of tone correlates positively with complexity of both consonant and > vowel systems. Languages with six tones have on average 26 consonants > and 7 vowels: ones like Gua\spi with only 20 consonants and 6 vowels > are unusual. That's really interesting! On the other hand, I think I have already heard something about *negative* correlation between syllable complexity and tones, but I'm not sure about that.