In this paper, I discuss two rules in Chilcotin (Athapaskan), both of which involve spreading of the feature [retracted tongue root] ([rtr]). The first rule is a coronal consonant harmony rule, Sibilant Assimilation, which requires that all coronal sibilants in a word agree in their specification for [rtr). The second rule, a tongue root harmony rule called Flattening, spreads [+rtr] fresh velar segments and coronal sibilants onto neighbouring vowels. Only a subset of the [+rtr] segments which trigger Flattening undergo Sibilant Assimilation. Given the structure of the feature hierarchy, the spreading of this subset in Sibilant Assimilation is impossible without violating locality. I suggest that the theory of tree geometry be modified to accomodate this problem.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/227255 |
| Date | January 1989 |
| Creators | Goad, Heather |
| Contributors | Fulmer, S. Lee, Ishihara, Masahide, Wiswall, Wendy, University of Southern California |
| Publisher | Department of Linguistics, University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ) |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article |
| Relation | Arizona Phonology Conference Vol. 2, Coyote Papers |
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