<OT> New Posting: ROA-820

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 820-0406

Output-Output Faithfulness to Moraic Structure: Evidence from American English

Melissa Frazier <melfraz at email.unc.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=820


Abstract:
The paper presents a new analysis of the moraic structure
of English monomorphemic and dimorphemic monosyllables.
This analysis is based on experimental data which shows
that, in monomorphemic monosyllables, vowels are longer
when following by one coda consonant than when followed
by two (Munhall et al. 1992), and that, in dimorphemic monosyllab
les, vowels are longer than they are in monomorphemic words
composed of the same segments (as demonstrated by one perception
and two production experiments reported in this paper),
such that the word 'passed' has a longer vowel than the
word 'past'. In order to account for the consistent vowel
length differences, the bimoraic structures for these monosyllabl
es make use of mora-sharing (Broselow et al. 1997). The
distinction between mono- and dimorphemic words is explained
by high-ranking output-output constraints. The vowel in
'passed' is longer than the vowel in 'past' because the
word is being faithful to the moraic structure of its base
'pass'.


This analysis shows that moraic structure is predictable
in English monosyllables, i.e. it is governed by markedness
and OO faithfulness constraints. The moraic structure of
a given monosyllable is determined by the number of segments
in the rime and whether or not there is a morpheme boundary
in the rime. This paper thus motivates the need for OO constraint
s that reference moraic structure.

Comments: 
Keywords: mora, syllable, output-output faithfulness, mora-sharing, experimental phonology
Areas: Phonology, Morphology, Phonetics
Type: Conference Proceedings Chapter

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=820