<OT> New Posting: ROA-950

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 950-0108

Weighted constraints and gradient restrictions on place co-occurrence in Muna and Arabic

Andries W Coetzee <coetzee at umich.edu>
Joe Pater <pater at linguist.umass.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=950


Abstract:
This paper documents a restriction against the co-occurrence
of homorganic consonants in the root morphemes of Muna,
a western Austronesian language, and compares the Muna pattern
with the much-studied similar pattern in Arabic. As in Arabic,
the restriction applies gradiently: its force depends on
the place of articulation of the consonants involved, and
on whether the homorganic consonants are similar in terms
of other features. Muna differs from Arabic in the relative
strengths of these other features in affecting co-occurrence
rates of homorganic consonants. Along with the descriptions
of these patterns, this paper presents phonological analyses
of the Muna and Arabic patterns in terms of weighted constraints,
as in Harmonic Grammar. This account uses a gradual learning
algorithm that acquires weights that reflect the relative
frequency of different sequence types in the two languages.
The resulting grammars assign the sequences acceptability
scores that correlate with a measure of their attestedness
in the lexicon. This application of Harmonic Grammar illustrates
its ability to capture both gradient and categorical patterns.

Comments: Slightly revised version to appear in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory
Keywords: consonant co-occurrence restrictions, Muna, Arabic, phonotactics, learning, Harmonic Grammar
Areas: Phonology,Learnability
Type: Journal Article

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=950