This thesis is a comparison of the glottalized resonants in Sancaean and St'at'imcets, two
Salish languages. The Licensing by Cue hypothesis as proposed by Steriade (1997) accounts for the
distribution of glottalized resonants based on their phonetic cues. The goal of this thesis is to apply the
Licensing by Cue hypothesis to the glottalized resonants in Sancaean and St'at'imcets, and evaluate its
success in accounting for these two languages. Sancaean is a North Straits, Coast Salish language
which does not permit glottalized resonants word-initially. St'at'imcets is an Interior Salish language
which allows glottalized resonants word-initially but only in a particular morphological context.
Licensing by Cue suggests that glottalized resonants do not occur word initially because of a lack of a
supportive context for cues. The distribution of resonants glottalized as a part of a morphological
process, namely the actual in Sancaean and the inchoative in St'at'imcets, should also be governed by
the same phonetic factors.
This thesis first examines the glottal timing of glottalized resonants in both languages.
Preliminary phonetic evidence is given for glottalized resonants in Sancaean, which confirm that
glottalization is attracted to stress. In contrast, in St'at'imcets, it is perceived that glottalization is
repulsed by stress. Modifications are proposed, which enable the hypothesis to account for the timing
of glottal events. It is argued, however, that even after such modification, the Licensing by Cue
hypothesis is not sufficient to account for the distribution of non-derived glottalized resonants. The
same is shown to be true for derived glottalized resonants. The distribution of glottalized resonants is
governed by the interaction of three levels of constraints: phonetic constraints, which determine glottal
timing, and phonological and morphological constraints, which govern the distribution of glottalised
resonants.
Also briefly discussed in this thesis are issues related to the relationship between /ʡ/ and
glottalized resonant, whether [cg] or [creak] should be used to characterise glottalised resonants, and
the Proto-Salish morpheme for the imperfective.
Based on the research presented in this thesis, it is concluded that Sancaean and St'at'imcets
glottalised resonants do not show strong support for a hypothesis which argues for a strong phonetic
presence in phonology. While a cue-based approach can account for the phonetic timing of glottal
events for glottalized resonants, segment distribution is determined by phonological and morphological
constraints.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/9407 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Caldecott, Marion Gerda |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
Page generated in 0.0026 seconds