<OT> New Posting: ROA-606

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ROA 606-0603

Confluence in phonology: evidence from Micronesian reduplication [Dissertation]

Robert Kennedy <kennedyr at u.arizona.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=606


Abstract:
This dissertation explores the phonological systems of Micronesia
n languages, in search of patterns that are consistent throughout
the family and others that are unique to subgroups and individual
languages. Using data from Pohnpeian, Mokilese, Pingilapese,
Puluwat, Chuukese, Woleaian, Marshallese, and Kosraean,
the study focuses on reduplicative morphology as an illustrative
window into the phonology of each language.


Each language is treated with an Optimality-Theoretic analysis,
and consequently the phonology of each is attributed to
the same set of principles. However, as a whole, the analyses
cannot explain the existence of common and unique patterns
within the family. A model of language change called Confluence
is presented in order to account for typological trends
among related languages.


The model acknowledges that learners of languages settle
on a grammar based on ambient data; thus, the acquired grammar
should approximate the grammar that produces the ambient
data. However, a number of perceptual and articulatory factors
have the result that the set of data that the learner perceives
is unlike the set of data that the ambient grammar would
predict. As a consequence, the learner¡¦s grammar may differ
from that of the ambient grammar.


Because of the inclusion of perceptual and articulatory
biases in the model, Confluence predicts several outcomes.
First, a particular pattern might be resistant to change,
or the same innovation might be likely to occur independently
in different languages, and either way it is an observable
property of otherwise divergent languages. Second, two or
more co-occurring grammatical traits of a particular language
can be shown to have a common source.


Each of the predictions of Confluence is supported in the
language analyses. Examples of robust patterns include coda
consonant restrictions, moraic feet, and bimoraic reduplicative
prefixes. Two examples of recurring innovations are the
introduction of final vowel deletion and the avoidance of
initial geminate consonants in favor of some other structure.
Phonological patterns that co-occur in a principled manner
include geminate inventories and morpheme alignment, foot
structure and final vowel lenition, and a cluster of properties
that consists of length contrasts, word maximality, morpheme
alignment, and segment inventories.

Keywords: reduplication, prosody, gemination, innovation, typology, diachrony, language change

Areas: Phonology,Morphology,Learnability,Historical Linguistics

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=606