<OT> New Posting: ROA-1021

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 1021-0309

Strong Positions and Laryngeal Features in Yukatek Maya

Scott AnderBois <shanders at ucsc.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=1021


Abstract:
Yukatek Maya has two phonological phenomena, allophonic
aspiration and [h]-epenthesis, which insert the feature
[spread glottis] at the right edge of the prosodic word
and phonological phrase respectively. Providing an OT analysis,
then, requires constraints which privilege [s.g.] in certain
`weak' positions. This sort of constraint, however, conflicts
with many theories of positional privilege since it prefers
a marked form in a ‘weak' position. Despite this, we show
that a limited class of such constraints are necessary to
account for aspiration and [h]-epenthesis in Yukatek Maya.
Furthermore, these processes are argued to instantiate a
cross-linguistic pattern favoring certain laryngeal features
at the right edge of larger prosodic constituents. This
pressure, which we term Final Laryngeal Strengthening, is
argued to be the phonologization of a gradient phonetic
pressure: the articulatory effort required to maintain persistent
voicing throughout longer prosodic units.

Comments: To appear in Proceedings of NELS 39.
Keywords: positional privilege, aspiration, final strengthening, prosody
Areas: Phonology
Type: Conference Proceedings Chapter

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=1021