Previous studies on tone-vowel interaction have centered on two issues. The first is the correlation between tone and vowel quality (Pilszczikowa-Chodak 1972, 1975, Newman 1975 for Hausa; Cheung 1973 for Omei dialect of Mandarin; Wang 1968, Maddieson 1976, Yip 1980, Chan 1985 for Fuzhou), and the second is the directionality of the influence between tone and vowel, namely, whether tone affects vowel quality change, or whether vowel quality gives rise to tonal change (Wang 1968, Maddieson 1976, Yip 1980 for Fuzhou; Gandour 1977 for Thai dialects; Yue 1976 for Cantonese, Lianzhou, and Taishan). There have been a number of experimental studies on the first issue. The principal finding among these studies is the correlation between fundamental frequency (F₀) and vowel height. In particular, a high vowel has higher F₀ and a low vowel has lower F₀ (Lehiste and Peterson 1961 for English; Petersen 1976 for Danish; Di Cristo and Chafcouloff 1976 for French; Kim 1968 for Korean; Chuang and Wang 1976, Tsay and Sawusch 1994 for Mandarin; and Sawusch and Tsay 1994 for Fuzhou; etc.). Since tone, defined as linguistic use of pitch, is also primarily identified in terms of F₀ (Gandour 1978), it is natural to ask whether this phonetic correlation between F0 and vowel height manifests itself phonologically in natural languages. In other words, the question is whether there is any empirical evidence suggesting a phonological correlation between tone and vowel height. The evidence for Hausa (an African language principally spoken in Nigeria), for example, is inconclusive. Data is offered both for (Pilszczikowa-Chodak 1972, 1975) and against (Newman 1975) this position. A highly controversial case is Fuzhou, (a Northern Min dialect spoken on the southern coast of China). In Fuzhou, a whole series of finals participate in vowel alternations in accordance with their tonal environment. It has been claimed, on the one hand, that in a tone sandhi environment, a vowel undergoes raising when the tone it occurs with increases its F₀ (Wang 1968). This is characterized as a tone -induced vowel raising process (Yip 1980). I refer to this claim as the "height-correlation" hypothesis. On the other hand, it has been argued that the vowel alternations in Fuzhou involve not only differences in height, but also differences along other dimensions, such as a front/back axis, monophthongs versus diphthongs, etc. (Maddieson 1976, Chan 1985). The "height- correlation" hypothesis, therefore, is not sufficient to explain all instances of tone -related vowel alternation. The implicit assumption behind this debate is that tonal features and vocalic features may interact directly. This yields a more fundamental question as to the nature of this interaction. In other words, whether the interaction between tone and vowels is direct (i.e. feature -to- feature) or indirect (i.e. mediated by something else). Although studies of the second issue are relatively rare, it has been shown that the influence of tones and vowels on each other is bi- directional cross -linguistically. For example, whereas Mandarin and Fuzhou have been cited as cases in which vowel alternations are conditioned by tonal environment (Wang 1969, Wang 1968, Yip 1980), the Yue dialects of Chinese, such as Cantonese, Taishan, and Lianzhou, illustrate the opposite direction of influence (Yue 1976). In Cantonese, for instance, the Yin "entering" tone historically splits into two tones according to their vocalic environment. It is realized with a higher register when the vowel is lax and short, and with a lower register when the vowel is tense and long (Yue 1976:49). A general question that relates to the first issue, then, is whether tone and vowel quality directly influence each other or whether this influence between them is mediated by something else. This article provides a unified account for all vowel distribution and alternation patterns corresponding to tonal environments in Fuzhou, focusing on the prosodic anchor mediating between tones and vowels. Tones and vowels will be claimed not to interact directly (i.e., feature -tofeature), and it will be seen that there is no height correlation between them. Instead, tone -vowel interaction in Fuzhou must be mediated by a prosodic anchor; in this case, the mora; and distinct moraic structures (monomoraic/bimoraic) required by the prelinking of the lexically specified number of tonal roots are what trigger the vowel alternations. The analysis is formulated within the constraint -based grammar of Optimality Theory (OT) (McCarthy and Prince 1993a, b; Prince and Smolensky 1993; Pulleyblank 1994, among others). Contrary to the rule -based approach, OT assumes that Universal Grammar (UG) contains two types of phonological representation: the input and the output. The function Gen freely generates a set of output candidates for each input. UG also contains a set of violable constraints that are ranked on a language- particular basis. The function Eval determines the optimal output, which either satisfies the higher ranked constraints, or has the least violations of the relevant constraints.

It is well known that there are four classes of Japanese vocabulary with respect to its origin; Yamato vocabulary consists of native morphemes, Sino- Japanese consists of borrowed morphemes from Chinese, Foreign is a loanword from a language other than Chinese, and Mimetic describes sounds or manners. Each of these classes has different phonological properties.1 There are three phenomena with respect to the distribution of voice in Japanese. One of them is that post-nasal obstruents in Yamato vocabulary and Mimetic are mostly voiced while those in Sino-Japanese and Foreign are not. I will mainly focus on this property in this paper. However, I will also discuss the other phenomena, namely the compound voicing alternation (Rendaku) and the restriction of voiced sounds in a morpheme (Lyman's Law). These phenomena typically occur with Yamato vocabulary only. Although the domain of each phenomenon largely overlaps with a certain class of lexical origin, they do not match completely with each other. The purpose of this paper is to account for the distribution of voice in Japanese by establishing a constraint ranking that covers Japanese vocabulary of any origin. The organization of the paper is as follows. In section 2, I will present data and four problems to be solved. General tendency of Yamato vocabulary are summarized in 2.1, and many exceptions to the generalization are presented in 2.2. In section 3, I will give an analysis using a unified ranking rather than different rankings depending on origins of the vocabulary. In section 4, I will present two pieces of evidence --- historical and acquisional---to support my claim that Japanese has only one ranking.

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Optimality Theory (OT) developed by Prince and Smolensky (1993) assumes that cross - linguistic phonological variations solely derive from different rankings of universal constraints. A question naturally arises as to the adequate formulations of constraints for types of phonological entities which appear to be parametrized, and constraints which appear to apply in different domains. There are at least two possible ways of formulating them. One is to simply assume that UG contains a single constraint with a parameter for types or domains, and the other is to assume that UG contains distinct constraints for different types and different domains, and that all of them are present in every language. In this paper, based on stress assignment and its interaction with epenthetic vowels in Mohawk, a northern Iroquoian language studied by Michelson (1988, 1989) and Piggott (1 992), and Selayarese, an Oceanic language studied by Mithun and Basri (1 986), Goldsmith (1 990), and Piggott (1992), I will argue for the latter. In particular, I will claim that UG contains distinct FT-FORM constraints for different foot types, and distinct FILL constraints and distinct NONFINALITY constraints for different domains. This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 will introduce the basic facts in Mohawk. Section 3 will provide accounts for the relevant facts under OT, employing distinct FT -FORM constraints for different foot types, and distinct FILL constraints for different domains. Section 4 will refine the proposed accounts based on the facts in Selayarese. Section 5 will introduce two species of NONFINALITY for two different domains. Section 6 will discuss important implications of the accounts proposed in this paper for other aspects of the theory. Section 7 will conclude the paper.

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One of the fundamental claims of Optimality Theory is that by varying the rankings of universal constraints, different grammars result (Prince & Smolensky 1993). Just as the ranking A » B should define an occurring language, so should the ranking B ≫ A. In this paper, we examine this claim in the domain of tongue root harmony systems, specifically with respect to the behaviour of low vowels. We examine cases where the relative ranking of faithfulness conditions and alignment conditions is varied with respect to substantive conditions governing low vowels. Our primary conclusions are twofold. First, we find that the types of typological variation expected to occur do occur; six different types of harmony patterns are presented. Second, we note that a large degree of variation is attested in a very narrowly defined area of the phonology. This paper begins by a basic discussion of the formal constraints assumed to govern vowel harmony, followed by a discussion of a case where low vowels harmonise in a manner comparable to other vowels (Degema). We then turn to six cases (five languages) where we observe asymmetric behaviour. First, we discuss cases involving constraints against feature "insertion" and feature "spreading ", constraints of the faithfulness family (Yoruba, Konni, Ngbaka-Ma'bo). Second, we turn to cases involving constraints of the alignment family, cases where harmony exhibits directional asymmetries (Ngbaka-Ma'bo, Emalhe, Maasai).