<OT> New Posting: ROA-816

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ROA 816-0406

Transguttural Harmony in Gitksan: Its Development and Typological Implications

Noriko Yamane-Tanaka <nrkyamane at aol.com>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=816


Abstract:
Rigsby (1986) states translaryngeal harmony is observed
in Gitksan. But the data I obtained from Eastern Gitksan
consultants suggests that it is not just translaryngeal:
nonhigh vowels in the stem can be copied onto the pronominal
suffix across not only a glottal stop but also a uvular
consonant. The discrepancy between these two observations
can be seen as an ongoing change of the transguttural harmony
in the present-day Gitksan. In an Optimality Theory (Prince
& Smolensky (1993)) analysis, it will be shown that the
system with laryngeal transparency and the system with guttural
transparency are attained with the reranking of a HARMONY
constraint, along a language-specific markedness constraint
hierarchy. This approach limits variations among sets of
transparent consonants among gutturals, and tells us not
only 'how' but also 'why' harmony is being extended in the
way it is.

Comments: Proceedings of the 21st NorthWest Linguistics Conference
Keywords: Harmony, transparency, place markedness
Areas: Phonology
Type: Conference Proceedings Chapter

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=816