<OT> New Posting: ROA-789

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 789-1205

Floating phonotactics: Infixation and reduplication in Tagalog loanwords

Kie Zuraw <kie at ucla.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=789


Abstract:
When a phonological constraint is unviolated in a language,
but no lexical items exist for which the constraint is relevant,
the constraint's ranking cannot be determined. Language
contact can introduce loanwords which, if faithfully parsed,
violate the constraint, thus exposing its ranking. Tagalog
has many English and Spanish loanwords which, in the loaning
language, contain segments and sequences foreign to Tagalog.
Field data presented here show that constraints against
the foreign segments and sequences ("new" constraints) are
variably ranked with respect to established constraints
(phonotactic constraints which were active in Tagalog prior
to the loanwords' introduction, and the constraints which
enforce uniformity of allomorphs and faithfulness to the
lexical entry). That is, the new constraints may be obeyed
despite violations of established constraints, or may be
violated in order to obey the established constraints.


Constraints relevant to Spanish loanwords, which have been
in Tagalog longer, tend to be ranked lower, suggesting they
have drifted downward. Variable ranking is natural for a
constraint whose ranking was, until recently, indeterminate.
Older loanwords from Chinese and Sanskrit demonstrate that
similar variability existed at the time of their adoption
into Tagalog, although individual words have since become
fossilized in the absence of strong, continuing language
contact. Part II of the thesis presents an algorithm for
imperfect learning of variable data, which results in a
speech community's tolerating lower and lower ranking of
a variably-ranked constraint over time.

Comments: from 1996; equations in Appendix B suffered under conversion from an ancient word-processor
Keywords: Tagalog, reduplication, infixation, variation, loanword
Areas: Phonology
Type: Masters Dissertation

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=789