<OT> New Posting: ROA-635

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 635-0104

Syllabic-Consonant Formation in New Mexico Spanish

Carlos-Eduardo Pineros <carlos-eduardo-pineros at uiowa.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=635


Abstract:
This paper presents a constraint-based analysis of a process
that in New Mexico Spanish (NMS) generates a syllabic consonant
from a sonorant consonant + stressed high vowel combination.
Despite the fact that vowels make better prosodic heads
than consonants, it is demonstrated that a positional markedness
constraint that bars the marked value on the place-of-articulatio
n scale (e.g. Dorsal) from the position of foot DTE favors
consonants over vowels in the role of foot and syllable
head.  Contrary to previous approaches that assume that
vowel deletion is a condition for the syllabization of the
consonant, it is argued that the vowel that disappears in
the process of syllabizing a consonant is not deleted but
either absorbed by that consonant or assimilated to it.
It is shown that syllabic consonants are subject to two
universal alignment constraints that govern their distribution
by forcing them to be coarticulated with another consonant.
Although languages may vary as to whether the syllabic consonant
is coarticulated with a preceding or with a following consonant,
there are no languages where syllabic consonants appear
between two vowels or between a vowel and a pause, precisely
because in such environments there is not an adjacent consonant
available for coarticulation.  The requirement that the
syllabic consonants of NMS be coarticulated with a following
consonant is the reason why they are never found before
a vowel or a pause. Moreover, because they are also subject
to sonority-related constraints, the syllabic consonants
of NMS are more likely to occur after a vowel or a pause
than after another consonant.

Comments: 
Keywords: syllabic consonants, coalescence, sonority, prosodic heads, alignment, coarticulation
Areas: Phonology
Type: Journal Article

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=635