No description available.

No description available.

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).

In a standard SPE-style rewrite rule scheme, the positioning of the environmental dash ("__") directly expresses both adjacency and linear precedence relations between the focus and the determinant. For example, all of the three rules in (1) involve A-to-B alternation, but differ with each other in the focus (A) - determinant (X, Y) relation: in (1a), A becomes B when preceded by X; in (1b), A becomes B when followed by Y; and in (1c), A becomes B when double -sided (preceded by X and followed by Y). (1) a. A → B / X __ b. A → B / __ Y c. A → B / X __ Y Thus, in this model, both adjacency and linear precedence relations are treated as properties of a rule. This view has been carried over to subsequent work in some guise or other (see, e.g. Howard 1972, Cho 1991, Archangeli and Pulleyblank (A&P) 1994). The question to be addressed here is how these various focus -determinant relations are expressed if there are no rules (see McCarthy 1995b for a recent treatment of this issue). In this paper, I would like to consider this question from the perspective of Optimality Theory (henceforth OT) (Prince and Smolensky 1993, McCarthy and Prince (M&P) 1993). Specifically, I consider the three types of focus-determinant relations seen in (1) with respect to the phenomenon of vowel raising. We find that the variation of vowel raising among Basque, Old High German, and Woleaian parallels the variation illustrated in (1): in many dialects of Basque, a low vowel raises to a mid vowel when preceded by a high vowel (de Rijk 1970, Hualde 1991) ( =1a); in Old High German, a low vowel raises to a mid vowel when followed by a high vowel (Voyles 1992) ( =1b); and in Woleaian (spoken in Woleai Island of Micronesia), a low vowel raises to a mid vowel when double-sided by high vowels (Howard 1972, Sohn 1975, Poser 1982) ( =1c). I argue that all of these cases are accounted for by allowing constraints to make reference to the adjacency and linear precedence information. Formally, I propose the following two notions: Sequential Grounding (Smolensky 1993), a syntagmatic extension of Grounded Conditions (A &P 1994), and Local Conjunction (Smolensky 1993, 1995), a UG-operation which conjoins two constraints (details of these notions are explained in section 2.2.2.). This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides data and an analysis of the double -sided raising in Woleaian, introducing Sequential Grounding (Smolensky 1993) and Local Conjunction (Smolensky 1993, 1995). I show that Local Conjunction of two Sequential Grounding constraints accounts for the fact that one adjacent high vowel on either side is not sufficient to trigger the raising, but there must be a high vowel on each side. Section 3 gives brief analyses of Basque and Old High German. I demonstrate that reranking of the constraints proposed for the double -sided raising in Woleaian accounts for the other cases of raising (Basque and Old High German). Finally in section 4, the summary of the analyses and conclusion are provided.

It is argued that echo -words result from the tension between a requirement that penalizes a sequence of two identical stems, *REPEAT(Stem), and one that requires two identical stems, REPEAT(Stem). Based primarily on data from Javanese, I make three main points. First, at least some inputs to the Optimality Grammar must be abstract morphological specifications like PLURAL. They are phonologically incomplete outputs of the morpho-syntax. Second, morpheme realization results from an attempt to meet output targets in the form of constraints: REPEAT, σ₂ =a; PL=s, and so on. Such morphemes do not have underlying forms in the familiar sense (cf Hammond 1995, Russell 1995). Third, the target constraints may be out -ranked by phonological constraints of various kinds, particularly constraints against the repetition of elements, here called *REPEAT. The elements may be phonological (feature, segment) or morphological (affix, stem). These findings support the view of Pierrehumbert (1993a) that identity has broad cognitive roots. The primary data comes from Javanese, but the paper also touches on English and Turkish. Section 1 gives some background on the handling of morphological data in OT. Section 2 discusses identity avoidance in morphology, sets out the basic proposal, and gives sketches of English and Turkish. Section 3 is an extended discussion of Javanese. Section 4 looks at secret languages, and section 5 sums up.

No description available.

No description available.

Stress-dependent harmony (SDH) systems are systems in which an unstressed vowel must agree with the stressed vowel of the word in terms of one or more harmonic feature(s). In this paper, I provide cross -linguistic support for the notion of SDH. I then provide an Optimality Theoretic analysis of the SDH of Old Norwegian. In addition to providing a core analysis that accounts for the SDH in several typologically distinct languages, I provide external support for my analysis with experimental studies that phonetically ground the constraint driving the harmony. In exploring the phonetic basis of SDH, I am drawing on a rich history of inquiry into the relationship between phonetics and phonology. Two methodological approaches can be distinguished: constraining phonological analyses via phonetic grounding through formal modeling of phonological phenomena (e.g. Archangeli and Pulleyblank 1994, Beckman 1998, Hayes 1996, Kaun 1996, Myers 1996, Padgett 1998, Steriade 1997), and experimental approaches that seek to explain phonology systems by providing grounding via empirical studies (Busa and Ohala 1997, Cohn 1990, De Jong et al. 1993, Doran 1998, Fowler 1981, Guion 1996, Hura et al. 1992, Keating 1985, Kohler 1990, Myers 1998, Pierrehumbert 1980). These approaches have the same goal: to place constraints on phonological analyses such that they have external explanations lying outside of the formal theory being used to capture the phonological pattern under scrutiny. Using both formal and experimental methods of phonetic grounding provides a more complete analysis of the relationship between phonetics and phonology.

No description available.

In this paper, I provide an analysis of Tohono O'odham vowel devoicing with respect to physiological explanation. There are three points in this paper. First, this paper provides data of devoicing (consonants and vowels) in Tohono O'odham. Second, analysis of devoicing in terms of subglottal pressure drop is provided. Third, the devoicing is accounted for within the framework of OT (McCarthy and Prince 1993, Prince and Smolensky 1993). The organization of the paper is as follows. In section 2, the background of the language including both voiced and voiceless vowels is described. In section 3, the data of Tohono O'odham words with voiceless vowels are provided. Then the distribution of devoiced segments is discussed. In section 4, an analysis of devoicing with respect to subglottal pressure drop is presented with schematic diagrams. Then an OT account utilizing phonetic constraints is presented.