Chapter 7.3

Chapter 7.3 Relationships between variables
The basis of comparison
When a categorical and a numerical variable are compared, the means of the numerical variable in each category form the basis of comparison
The purpose
1. to see if greater complexity on the two variables tends to co-occur
2. to see if a compensatory relationship exists
3. to if there is no overall trend of either kind.
Figure 7.1 the relationship between
syllable structure complexity
the size of the consonant inventory
Analysis variance shows
a highly significant effect of syllable category on consonant inventory size
al pairwise comparisons are highly significant in a post-hoc comparison
A correlation
an increase in tone vowel inventory size
the presence of a tone system
There is no systematic relationship
the number of vowel qualities
the number of consonants in the inventories of the languages
The final comparison
the two categorical variables reflecting complexity of syllable structure
tone system
tone system complexity does not associate with the complexity of syllable structure; rather the occurrence of complex syllable structure and lower tonal complexity are associated.