Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T14:27:45.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Ditidaht Vowel Alternations and Prosody

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Adam Werle*
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Abstract

Among the Southern Wakashan languages, Ditidaht has patterns of short vowel epenthesis and deletion that are unusually complex. It is shown that the surface presence or absence of short vowels is determined not by their underlying presence or absence, but by how segments are parsed by prosodic constituents. An optimality theoretic analysis is developed, according to which vowel alternations result from the low ranking of faithfulness constraints (Max/V and Dep/V) relative to constraints on the forms of syllables, feet, and prosodic words. Vowel presence creates ideal iambic feet, makes prosodic words minimally disyllabic, and ensures that adducted consonants (those that involve adducting the vocal folds for glottalization or voicing) are vowel-adjacent. Vowel absence ensures that prosodic words end in consonants, and eliminates unfooted syllables. An additional finding is that all adducted consonants must be postvocalic.

Résumé

Résumé

Parmi les langues wakashannes du sud, le ditidaht présente des processus d’épenthèse et d’effacement de voyelles courtes qui sont particulièrement complexes. Il est ici démontré que la présence ou l’absence en surface de voyelles courtes est régie non pas par leur présence ou absence sous-jacente, mais par les computations prosodiques des segments de mots. Une analyse formulée dans la théorie de l’optimalité est développée, selon laquelle les alternances vocaliques résultent du rangement bas des contraintes de préservation (Max/V et Dep/V) relativement aux contraintes sur la forme des syllabes, des pieds et des mots prosodiques. La présence d’une voyelle crée un pied iambique idéal, rendant les mots prosodiques minimalement dissyllabiques et assurant que les consonnes adductives (celles qui impliquent l’adduction des cordes vocales pour la glottalisation ou le voisement) soient adjacentes à une voyelle. L’absence d’une voyelle permet qu’un mot prosodique se termine avec une consonne et qu’ainsi, chaque syllabe appartienne à un pied. Une constatation additionnelle est que les consonnes adductives doivent être postvocaliques.

Type
Part II: Phonetic and Phonological Properties
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bagemihl, Bruce. 1991. Syllable structure in Bella Coola. Linguistic Inquiry 22:589646.Google Scholar
Czaykowska-Higgins, Ewa. 1998. The morphological and phonological constituent structure of words in Moses-Columbia Salish (Nxa’amxcin). In Salish languages and linguistics: Theoretical and descriptive perspectives, ed. Czaykowska-Higgins, Ewa and Kinkade, M. Dale, 153195. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Davidson, Matthew. 2002. Studies in Southern Wakashan (Nootkan) grammar. Doctoral dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo.Google Scholar
Hayes, Bruce. 1995. Metrical stress theory: Principles and case studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hoard, James E. 1978. Syllabication in Northwest Indian languages, with remarks on the nature of syllabic stops and affricates. In Syllables and segments, ed. Bell, Alan and Hooper, Joan Bybee, 5972. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Howe, Darin M. 2000. Oowekyala segmental phonology. Doctoral dissertation, University of British Columbia.Google Scholar
Howe, Darin M., and Pulleyblank, Douglas. 2001. Patterns and timing of glottalisation. Phonology 18:4580.Google Scholar
Ito, Junko, and Mester, Armin. 1999. The structure of the phonological lexicon. In The handbook of Japanese linguistics, ed. Tsujimura, Natsuko, 62100. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Jacobsen, William H. Jr., 1971. Makah vowel insertion and loss. Paper read at the 6th International Conference on Salish Languages, Victoria, BC.Google Scholar
Jacobsen, William H. Jr., 1996. ‘Hardening’ and ‘softening’ in Makah. Paper read at the 31st International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages, Vancouver, BC.Google Scholar
Kager, René. 1996. Stem disyllabicity in Guugu Yimidhirr. In Dam phonology: HILphonol-ogy papers 2, ed. Nespor, Marina and Smith, Norval, 59101. The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics.Google Scholar
Kim, Eun-Sook. 2001. Glottalization in Southern Wakashan: A comparative study. In University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics 6: ICSNL XXXVI, the 36th International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages, ed. Bar-el, Leora, Watt, Linda Tamburri, and Wilson, Ian, 175188.Google Scholar
McCarthy, John J. 1993. A case of surface constraint violation. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 38:169195.Google Scholar
McCarthy, John J., and Prince, Alan S.. 1993. Prosodie morphology I: Constraint interaction and satisfaction. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science.Google Scholar
McCarthy, John J., and Prince, Alan S.. 1995. Faithfulness and reduplicative identity. In University of Massachusetts occasional papers 18: Papers in Optimality Theory, ed. Beekman, Jill N., Dickey, Laura Walsh, and Urbanczyk, Suzanne, 249384.Google Scholar
Pater, Joe. 2000. Non-uniformity in English secondary stress: The role of ranked and lexically specific constraints. Phonology 17:237274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powell, Jay, ed. 1991. Our world, our ways: T’aat’aaqsapa cultural dictionary. Port Alberai, BC: Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council.Google Scholar
Prince, Alan S., and Smolensky, Paul. 1993. Optimality Theory: Constraint interaction in Generative Grammar. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science.Google Scholar
Rose, Suzanne M. 1981. Kyuquot grammar. Doctoral dissertation, University of Victoria.Google Scholar
Sapir, Edward, and Swadesh, Morris. 1939. Nootka texts: Tales and ethnological narratives with grammatical notes and lexical materials. Philadelphia: Linguistic Society of America.Google Scholar
Shaw, Patricia. 2002. On the edge: Obstruent clusters in Salish. In University of British Columbia working papers in linguistics 10: Proceedings of the 7th workshop on structure and constituency in languages of the Americas, ed. Bar-el, Leora, Watt, Linda Tamburo, and Wilson, Ian, 119136.Google Scholar
Steriade, Donca. 1999a. Phonetics in phonology: The case of laryngeal neutralization. In Papers in phonology 3 (UCLA working papers in linguistics 2) , ed. Gordon, Matthew, 25145. Los Angeles: Department of Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Steriade, Donca. 1999b. Alternatives to syllable-based accounts of consonantal phonotac-tics. In Proceedings of the 1998 Linguistics and Phonetics Conference, ed. Fujimura, Osamu, Joseph, Brian, and Palek, B., 205242. Prague: Karolinum Press.Google Scholar
Stonham, John. 1990. Current issues in morphological theory. Doctoral dissertation, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Stonham, John. 1994. Combinatorial morphology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Stonham, John. 1999. Aspects of Tsishaath Nootka phonetics and phonology. Munich: LINCOM Europa.Google Scholar
Swadesh, Mary Haas, and Swadesh, Morris. 1933. A visit to the other world, a Nitinat text (with translation and grammatical analysis). International Journal of American Linguistics 7:195208.Google Scholar
Thomas, John Tl’iishal, and Hess, Thorn. 1981. An introduction to Nitinaht language and culture. Victoria, BC: University of Victoria.Google Scholar
Werle, Adam. 2002. The Southern Wakashan one-foot word. In University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics 9: ICSNL XXXVII, the 37th International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages, ed. Gillon, Carrie, Sawai, Naomi, and Wojdak, Rachel, 382397.Google Scholar
Wilson, Stephen A. 1986. Metrical structure in Wakashan phonology. In Proceedings of the 12th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, ed. Nikiforidou, Vassiliki, 283291. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.Google Scholar