Mora (linguistics)

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Mora (linguistics)

Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in phonology

Phonology

Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system....
that determines syllable weight

Syllable weight

In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segment s in the syllable rime....
(which in turn determines stress

Stress (linguistics)

In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables....
or timing

Timing (linguistics)

Isochrony is the idea that a language rhythmically divides time into equal portions. Three types of divisions are postulated: 1) the temporal duration between two stressed syllables is equal ; 2) The duration of every syllable is equal ; 3) the duration of every Mora is equal ....
) in some languages. Like many technical linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
terms, the exact definition of mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D. McCawley

James D. McCawley

James D. McCawley was an American linguistics.He worked at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Chicago from 1964 until his sudden and unexpected death....
in 1968: a mora is “Something of which a long syllable consists of two and a short syllable consists of one.” The term comes from the Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
word for “linger, delay”, which was also used to translate the Greek word chronos (time) in its metrical sense.

A syllable

Syllable

A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of Speech communication sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter....
containing one mora is said to be monomoraic; one with two moras is called bimoraic.

In general, moras are formed as follows:

A syllable onset
Syllable onset

In phonetics and phonology, a syllable onset is the part of a syllable that precedes the syllable nucleus....
(the first consonant
Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx....
[s] of the syllable) does not represent any mora.

The syllable nucleus

Syllable nucleus

In phonetics and phonology, the nucleus is the central part of the syllable, most commonly a vowel. In addition to a nucleus, a syllable may begin with an syllable onset and end with a syllable coda, but in most languages the only part of a syllable that is mandatory is the nucleus....
represents one mora in the case of a short vowel, and two moras in the case of a long vowel or diphthong

Diphthong

In phonetics, a diphthong, or , is a contour vowel?that is, a unitary vowel that changes vowel quality during its pronunciation, or "glides", with a glissando of the tongue from one articulation to another, as in the English words eye, boy, and cow. This contrasts with "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, where the tongue is held s...
.

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Encyclopedia

Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in phonology

Phonology

Syllable weight

In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segment s in the syllable rime....
(which in turn determines stress

Stress (linguistics)

In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables....
or timing

Timing (linguistics)

Linguistics

James D. McCawley

Latin

Syllable

A syllable onset
Syllable onset

In phonetics and phonology, a syllable onset is the part of a syllable that precedes the syllable nucleus....
(the first consonant
Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx....
[s] of the syllable) does not represent any mora.
The syllable nucleus
Syllable nucleus

In phonetics and phonology, the nucleus is the central part of the syllable, most commonly a vowel. In addition to a nucleus, a syllable may begin with an syllable onset and end with a syllable coda, but in most languages the only part of a syllable that is mandatory is the nucleus....
represents one mora in the case of a short vowel, and two moras in the case of a long vowel or diphthong
Diphthong

In phonetics, a diphthong, or , is a contour vowel?that is, a unitary vowel that changes vowel quality during its pronunciation, or "glides", with a glissando of the tongue from one articulation to another, as in the English words eye, boy, and cow. This contrasts with "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, where the tongue is held s...
. Consonants serving as syllable nuclei also represent one mora if short and two if long. (Slovak
Slovak language

The Slovak language , sometimes incorrectly called ?Slovakian?, is an Indo-European languages that belongs to the West Slavic languages .The Czech and Slovak languages are Mutual intelligibility which means that even after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia Czech may be used in all official proceedings and documents in Slovakia, and vice ver...
is an example of a language that has both long and short consonantal nuclei.)
In some languages (for example, Japanese
Japanese language

IPA: [n?iho?go] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Ryukyuan languages....
), the coda
Syllable coda

In phonology, a syllable coda comprises the consonant sounds of a syllable that follow the syllable nucleus, which is usually a vowel. The combination of a nucleus and a coda is called a syllable rime....
represents one mora, and in others (for example, Irish
Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic languages of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people....
) it does not. In English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
, the codas of stressed syllables represent a mora (thus, the word cat is bimoraic), but for unstressed syllables it is not clear whether the codas do (the second syllable of the word rabbit might be monomoraic).
In some languages, a syllable with a long vowel or diphthong in the nucleus and one or more consonants in the coda is said to be trimoraic (see pluti
Pluti

Pluti is the term for overlong vowels in Sanskrit. Pluti vowels are usually noted with a numeral "3" , , also .Pluti is recorded only in two instances in the Rigveda, representing the intonation of a question, both in the late RV 10....
).

In general, monomoraic syllables are said to be light syllables, bimoraic syllables are said to be heavy syllables, and trimoraic syllables (in languages that have them) are said to be superheavy syllables. Most linguists believe that no language uses syllables containing four or more moras.

Japanese is a language famous for its moraic qualities

Japanese phonology

This article deals with the phonology of the Japanese language....
. Most dialects, including the standard, use moras (in Japanese, onji
Onji

On is a Japanese language word corresponding to a sound; onji corresponds to "sound symbol".On are the Mora_ that are counted in Japanese haiku, and in linguistics are called Mora ....
) as the basis of the sound system rather than syllables. For example, haiku

Haiku

' ', plural haiku, is a form of Japanese poetry, consisting of 17 Mora e , in three metrical phrases of 5, 7 and 5 morae respectively. Haiku typically contain a kigo, or seasonal reference, and a kireji or verbal caesura....
in modern Japanese do not follow the pattern 5 syllables/7 syllables/5 syllables, as commonly believed, but rather the pattern 5 moras/7 moras/5 moras. As one example, the Japanese syllable-final n is moraic, as is the first part of a geminate consonant. For example, the word Nippon (one of the pronunciations of ??, the name for "Japan

Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
" in Japanese) has four moras (ni-p-po-n); the four characters used in the hiragana

Hiragana

is a Japanese language syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the romanization of Japanese. Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each symbol represents one mora ....
spelling ???? match these four moras one to one. Thus, in Japanese, the words Tokyo (to-o-kyo-o ?????), Osaka (o-o-sa-ka ????), and Nagasaki (na-ga-sa-ki ????) all have four moras, even though they have two, three, and four syllables, respectively.

In Luganda

Luganda language

Luganda, sometimes known as Ganda, is a major language of Uganda, spoken by over ten million people mainly in Southern Uganda which includes the Ugandan capital city Kampala....
, a short vowel

Vowel length

In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one such as in Australian English....
constitutes one mora while a long vowel

Vowel length

Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx....
has no moras, and a doubled

Gemination

In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant.Consonant length is distinctive in some languages, for instance Arabic language, Estonian language, Finnish language, Russian language, Hebrew language, Hungarian language, Italian language, Japanese language, L...
or prenasalised consonant has one. No syllable

Syllable

A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of Speech communication sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter....
may contain more than three moras. The tone system in Luganda is based on moras.

In Hawaiian

Hawaiian language

The Hawaiian language is an Austronesian languages that takes its name from Hawaii , the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed....
, both syllables and moras are important. Stress falls on the penultimate mora, though in words long enough to have two stresses, only the final stress is predictable. However, although a diphthong, such as oi, consists of two moras, stress may only fall on the first, a restriction not found with other vowel sequences such as io. That is, there is a distinction between oi, a bimoraic syllable, and io, which is two syllables.

Mora (linguistics)

See also