<OT> New Posting: ROA-1060

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 1060-1209

Aspects of Tone and Voice in Phuthi

Simon Donnelly <simon.donnelly.rome at gmail.com>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=1060


Abstract:
This dissertation seeks to explore the architecture of tonal
structures in a formal phonological analysis of the tone
patterns found in Phuthi, a Bantu language. The focus of
the work is the phonological presence of high tone (H) in
Phuthi, the interaction of this H with potentially polysyllabic
tonal 'depression domains', triggered (often, but not always)
by phonologically breathy voiced segments that condition
low tone within the lexical phonology. Both theoretical
and empirical claims are made. Within a general Optimality
Theory framework, the Phuthi data requires a distinction
between the planning and execution of a H tone within a
tonal domain, modeled here with distinct PARSE and EXPRESS
constraints in the tone grammar, as there are frequently
found to be very significant mismatches between H tone domains--e
stablished by lexical tone placement--and domains of tonal
depression (consonant-triggered, or morphologically imposed).
The morphology that chiefly instantiates these tone phenomena
is the wide range of extremely productive verb paradigms
present in the language (though productive noun paradigms
are explored too).


A strong case is made for the presence of tonal low (L)
domains, which can be nested--even multiply--within a single
H domain. In such instances, the single H tone is argued
not to fission into two separate tone domains, nor in any
way to instantiate violation of locality.


Phuthi does instantiate, however, a wide range of L- and
H-domain edge conflicts. When these conflicts coincide with
a tone domain-head (a notion developed in the work), the
language attempts to force tone shift, a phenomenon widely
commented on for Nguni languages. Phuthi displays a number
of unprecedented variations on tone shift and tone block,
arising from a cline of tone-depression interactions not
observed in other languages. Phuthi is shown to be a language
that prohibits or severely restricts the coincidence of
H and L tone domains over the same interval. And yet the
grammar seems often to conspire with the lexicon to assign
both H and L features to syllabic nuclei in head positions
of phonological domains. The simultaneous assignment of
H and L tones introduces a feature conflict that is resolved
in a striking variety of ways across verbal and nominal
paradigms. Optimal Domains Theory (ODT) is argued to be
a theoretical framework capable of sufficiently expressing
this range of voice and tone data, in contrast to any type
of optimal constraint model that lacks the augmented domains
architecture. (Ch. 1 introduces the language, including
a short history and profile of its speech community, and
an indication of language-contact effects; Ch. 2 presents
a significant part of the phonology (segmental and prosodic)
and the morphology; Ch. 3 outlines the ODT theoretical model;
Ch. 4 and 5 present single H and multiple H-tone phenomena
in lexical paradigms; Ch. 6 examines H patterns in grammatical
(i.e. inflectional melodic) paradigms; Ch. 7 examines the
interplay of breathy voice, depression and H tone; Ch. 8
concludes. Five appendices are provided, including a Swadesh
list, a lengthy verb paradigm data set, and a limited English-Phu
thi Phuthi-English lexicon.)

Comments: The doctorate was filed in 2007. The ROA version is lightly edited, reducing typos and other minor errors.
Keywords: Bantu, Nguni, phonology, tone, domain, optimal domains theory (ODT), downstep, parse, express, anti-expression, breathy voice, phonation, depression, masking, phonation, locality, align, fusion, minimality, cophonology, overlap, foot, mora, shift, block
Areas: Morphology
Type: PhD Dissertation

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=1060