عنوان

Front vowels, coronal consonants and their interaction in nonlinear phonology

Number

TLpq303990431

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Front vowels, coronal consonants and their interaction in nonlinear phonology

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

E. V. Hume

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

G. N. Clements

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Cornell University

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

1992

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

356

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

Cornell University

Text preceding or following the note

1992

Text of Note

This work presents an indepth study of front vowels and coronal consonants. An examination of their interaction in a range of phonological processes provides strong evidence in support of the view that front vowels and coronal consonants are members of the same natural class. The view that (coronal) constitutes the phonologically salient feature for classifying front vowels and coronal consonants is developed in considerable detail, thus drawing on the earlier proposal of Clements (1976a). A revised definition of (coronal), as an articulation implemented by raising the tip, blade and/or front of the tongue, is shown to be necessary as a means of characterizing all coronal consonants (Halle & Stevens 1979). Defined in these terms, it is argued that the feature (coronal) naturally extends to the articulation of front vowels. Following Clements (1989), it is maintained that consonant and vowel place features are arrayed on independent planes. However, innovative in the present work is the view that all instances of a given place feature, consonantal or vocoidal, are arrayed on the same tier. This view is shown to be crucial in accounting for dissimilation and cooccurrence constraints in a number of languages. The second part of this work focusses on Maltese Arabic as a case study. This study examines, among other things, various parallelisms among front vowels and coronal consonants. For example, it is argued that the language has a unified rule of Coronal Assimilation in which both the imperfective prefix consonant and vowel assimilate to the coronality of a following coronal obstruent. Moreover, evidence is given for the existence of a single default rule assigning place of articulation in Maltese, i.e. place usd\tousd (coronal), which applies regardless of whether the segment in question is a consonant or vowel. The study of Maltese also has implications for the representation of metathesis in nonlinear phonology, and for the role of default rules in underspecification theory. With respect to the latter, evidence is provided in support of the view that default values are not unspecified in all segments in underlying representation.

Arabic

Language, literature and linguistics

Linguistics

Maltese Arabic

E. V. Hume

G. N. Clements

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y