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Neutral vowels in Lokaa harmony

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Akinbiyi Akinlabi
Akinbiyi Akinlabi*
Affiliation:
Rutgers University
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Abstract

This paper discusses the four neutral vowels in Lokaa harmony, [i, u, ə, a]. Crosslinguistically, neutral segments are either transparent or opaque. Lokaa harmony is important in three crucial respects. First, languages with both transparent and opaque vowels are not common; Lokaa has both. Secondly, though Lokaa has an eight-vowel inventory the vowels [a] and [ə] have not “re-paired”. Thirdly, the historic ATR contrast found in Benue-Congo high vowels shows up when high vowel stems take mid-vowel prefixes, though the high vowels can only be [+ATR] on the surface; the ATR merger of high vowels in Lokaa is not complete. I show that the analytic framework of “headed span” theory accounts for a system with both transparent and opaque vowels. More importantly, I propose that within the headed span approach to harmony, both co-occurrence constraints and ASSOCIATEHEAD are crucial. Co-occurrence constraints control the language inventory, and the different rankings of the ASSOCIATEHEAD constraints indicate whether or not a feature will form part of an harmonic span.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article analyse le statut et le comportement des quatre voyelles neutres du système d’harmonie vocalique du lokaa. Au niveau inter-linguistique, les voyelles neutres sont soit opaques, soit transparentes. L’intérêt de l’harmonie vocalique en lokaa réside dans trois aspects. Premièrement, la rareté des langues ayant à la fois des voyelles transparentes et opaques, comme le lokaa. Deuxièmement, les voyelles [a] et [ə] ne sont pas «jumelées». Troisièmement, le contraste des voyelles hautes observé dans les langues de la famille Bénue-Congo s’applique lorsque des racines contenant des voyelles hautes sont associées à des préfixes à voyelles moyennes, en dépit du fait que seules les voyelles hautes [+ATR] apparaissent en forme de surface; l’intégration de ces voyelles en lokaa n’est pas complète.

Au niveau théorique, il est montré que le modèle headed span rend compte d’un système comportant des voyelles opaques et transparentes. L’extension de cette théorie à l’analyse de l’harmonie vocalique montre d’ailleurs que les deux familles de contraintes, à savoir les contraintes de co-occurrence et celles de ASSOCIATEHEAD, sont importantes : les premières contrôlent l’inventaire segmental de la langue et les secondes déterminent, en fonction des différents classements possibles, si un trait appartient à un domaine harmonique ou non.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , July 2009 , pp. 197 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association/Association canadienne de linguistique 2009 

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