Potsdam, University, Diss., 2002.

acase@tulane.edu / Honorifics have been the focus of several theories and studies. Brown and Levinson (1987) view the use of honorifics as a strategy of negative politeness, while honorifics for some other scholars (e.g. Hill et al., 1986; Ide, 1989; Ide & Yoshida, 1999) are related to social etiquette. For other scholars (e.g. Agha, 1993; Duranti, 1992; Cook, 2011) honorifics are indexes. Although this debate about honorifics is not new, there is a lack of research that applies these theories together and examines which meaning of an honorific is more appropriate in a certain situation. Assuming a possibility of a mix of these theories, the present study implements Optimality Theory (OT) that is developed by Prince and Smolensky (2004) to identify the ranking of constraints that accounts for the optimal honorific in a certain situation. Since Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) presents a modus operandi for most Arabs (Hamid & Mydin, 2009), data of this study is obtained from Ṣaḥīḥ Al-Bukhārī, the most valid and beneficial collection of the Prophet’s reports. Although a huge number of studies have been conducted to analyze Ṣaḥīḥ Al-Bukhārī, covering a wide range of topics in different disciplines, there is a lack of research investigating how the Prophet (PBUH) used honorifics in general, and in Ṣaḥīḥ Al-Bukhārī in particular. This analysis shows that the use of honorifics can be captured more accurately within the framework of OT than using each of Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Theory, social etiquette and Ide’s notion of wakimae, and Cook’s indexes alone. In doing so, the study expands the use of OT to discourse analysis. / 1 / Albatool Abalkheel

Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993) makes the claim that well-formedness constraints are ranked and minimally violable. This dissertation examines the consequences of constraint ranking in three areas of phonology: segmental phonotactics (nasal-voiceless consonant sequences), metrical theory (English stress), and in phonological development (child English). These studies demonstrate that the introduction of constraint ranking allows for more principled descriptions of the facts in each of these domains, and often yields the correct predictions about the range of cross-linguistic variation.

Proefschrift Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. / Met lit.opg. - Met samenvatting in het Nederlands en Hongaars.

No description available.

This paper, a review of the literature on word order typology, examines in detail a body of work (Comrie 1989; Comrie, Dryer, Gil, Haspelmath 2005; Dryer 1988, 1991, 1992, 2007; Greenberg 1966; Hawkins 1983; Lehmann 1973; Vennemann 1974) that made a major contribution to linguistics by introducing the subfield of typology and the study of word order across the world’s languages from a typological perspective. Greenberg’s (1966) seminal paper advanced an understanding of cross-linguistic tendencies that had been unknown at the time and which are still being investigated today, especially his three-way typology based on the relative position of V with respect to S and O. Lehmann (1973) and Vennemann (1974) pushed the VO/OV distinction which led to a reanalysis and diminishing of the role of S as an organizing parameter. Two theories, Vennemann’s Head-Dependent Theory and Hawkins’ Cross-Category Harmony, account for many attested correlation pairs, but neither is as strong as Dryer’s Branching Direction Theory in terms of explanatory adequacy, elegance, and adherence to observed cross-linguistic tendencies. As far as theoretical approaches, we note that generative grammar with its focus on single-language study cannot provide an account of the variations in the world’s languages, while the typological approach comes closer to describing universals of language based on empirical data. Finally, I present the idea that investigations of word order from a typological perspective can be successfully undertaken using a functionalist approach within the framework of Optimality Theory. / text

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 1996. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [163]-171).

Assimilation and coarticulation both involve extending the duration of some property or feature. The similarities between these phenomena can be seen by comparing Basque vowel raising with vowel -to -vowel coarticulation in a language like English. In Basque the low vowel /a/ is raised to [el following a high vowel. This gives rise to alternations in the form of the definite suffix, /-a/ (de Rijk 1970): (1) sagar –a; 'apple (def.)'; mutil-e 'boy (def.)'. In an English sequence containing a low vowel preceded by a high vowel, like [-ilæ-] in 'relapse', the high vowel also conditions raising of the low vowel. But in spite of the parallels between these cases, standard analyses regard Basque vowel raising as phonological whereas the English vowel raising is regarded as non-phonological, being attributed to a phonetic process of coarticulation. In this paper, we will argue that this distinction is untenable. We will see that coarticulation can affect the distribution of contrasts, and therefore must be specified in the phonology. This opens up the possibility of giving a unified analysis of assimilation and coarticulation. Analyzing coarticulation as phonological implies that phonological representations contain far more phonetic detail than is usually assumed to be the case. Vowel-to-vowel coarticulation involves fine degrees of partial assimilation in that vowels assimilate only partially in quality, and the effects may extend through only part of the duration of a segment (e.g. Ohman 1966). This conclusion thus flies in the face of the standard assumption that the richness of phonological representations should be severely restricted in order to avoid over-predicting the range of possible phonological contrasts. So before we turn to evidence that coarticulation is phonological, we will lay the groundwork by examining the arguments for limiting the detail in phonological representations and show that they are based on very questionable assumptions.

This paper presents an analysis of vowel harmony in Yawelmani and its interaction with vowel epenthesis and lowering, within the non -derivational, constraint -based model of Optimal Domains Theory (ODT). Kisseberth's (1969) analysis of the Yawelmani system, formulated within classical generative phonology, demonstrates an opaque rule interaction among the rules governing vocalic phonology, and was taken as an important piece of evidence for the notion of rule ordering in generative theory. The challenge in providing a non -derivational analysis of Yawelmani lies in accounting for conditions on vowel harmony which factor in phonological structure that is "inserted" in surface form, as well as structure that is "deleted" from underlying form. This paper presents a restricted means of bringing together information from underlying and surface representations in a theoretical framework that eschews intermediate representations, through the use of abstract (ie., unrealized) feature-domain structure. We discuss problems that arise under an alternative approach in which individual constraints are able to freely inspect structure at both underlying and surface levels of representation.

The neutralization of the laryngeal features of a consonant that is not directly followed by a vowel is a common process cross -linguistically. Laryngeal neutralization in this position has a clear phonetic cause: laryngeal features are not salient unless they are immediately followed by a vowel. Since laryngeal neutralization has a phonetic cause, it seems reasonable to characterize it directly in phonetic terms, without positing any additional layer of phonological abstraction. However, a phonetic explanation is not sufficient to account for all cases of laryngeal neutralization. For example, in Korean, laryngeal neutralization occurs in a nonneutralizing phonetic environment; in Nisgha, laryngeal neutralization occurs only in the reduplicant, although the phonetic environment for neutralization is found in both the reduplicant and the base. Although phonetics is the major factor leading to the development of these types of restrictions on laryngeal features, I argue that a phonetic account is not adequate for all such restrictions. Abstract phonological constraints and representations are necessary. Hence, two types of neutralization are possible: (i) phonetic neutralization, which results directly from the lack of saliency of cues and occurs in every instance of the neutralizing environment; and (ii) abstract phonological neutralization, which may occur where the neutralizing environment is absent (as will be demonstrated for Korean), and may fail to occur in every instance of the neutralizing environment (as will be demonstrated for Nisgha).