<OT> New Posting: ROA-963

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 963-0408

Rhotic Metathesis Asymmetries in Romance: Formalizing the Effects of Articulation and Perception

Eric Russell Webb <erussell at ucdavis.edu>
Travis G. Bradley <tgbradley at ucdavis.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=963


Abstract:
Blevins & Garrett (1998, 2004) argue that rhotic metathesis
occurs when listeners reinterpret an elongated [low F3]
feature in a non-historical position. However, not all cases
are amenable to this account, as no single phonetic property
unifies the class of rhotics. We examine two cases involving
intrasyllabic rhotic metathesis: rightward movement of the
velar/uvular fricative in French and leftward movement of
the apical tap in Spanish. In Optimality Theory (Prince
& Smolensky 1993), we formalize diachronic metathesis in
terms of separate production and perception grammars, which
account for the source of variance and the selection of
innovative underlying forms, respectively. In production,
gestural alignment constraints favor complete overlap of
adjacent rhotic and vowel gestures, whose linear ordering
is thereby rendered indeterminate. The output of the production
grammar serves as input to the perception grammar, which
maps surface forms to underlying forms in accordance with
attested patterns of the language.

Comments: To appear in Romance Linguistics: Structures, Interfaces, and Microparametric Variation ed. by Pascual J. Masullo, Erin O'Rourke, and Chia-Hui Huang. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Keywords: rhotic metathesis, French, Spanish, gestural coordination, perception grammar
Areas: Phonology, Historical Linguistics
Type: Book Chapter

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=963