This thesis investigates laryngeal processes in Chipewyan and other Athapaskan languages.
Athapaskan languages provide an interesting testing ground since they exhibit a three-way
laryngeal distinction in stops (voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated and glottalised), as well
as a two-way distinction (voiced vs. voiceless) in fricatives.
Data from a previously undocumented dialect of Chipewyan is presented to bring new evidence
to bear on the cross-linguistic picture within Athapaskan. This dialect shows significant
diachronic changes. Acoustic analysis reveals that several of the stops traditionally classified
as voiceless unaspirated are phonetically voiced. Furthermore, the results show a front-back
asymmetry in voicing. Other findings include merger of the alveolar and palatal stop series,
and merger of interdental stops with interdental fricatives. The acoustic findings are used to
develop a featural specification of Chipewyan consonants adapted from Rice (1994). The
phonological behaviour of these stops has interesting implications for the phonetics-phonology
interface.
Several morphophonemic processes are examined from a cross-linguistic and comparative
historical perspective to test the tenets of feature specification, privative features, constraint
definition and interaction.
Firstly, Pro to-Athapaskan had a two-way laryngeal contrast stem-finally (maintained, e.g., in
Hupa), which has been neutralized in many daughter languages (e.g., Koyukon). Languages
such as Chipewyan have undergone a process of stem-final spirantisation. These related
processes of laryngeal neutralisation and spirantisation will be examined in an Optimality
Theory context using constraints developed by Steriade (1997).
Secondly, Athapaskan languages exhibit a phonological process of continuant voicing whereby
voiceless noun stem-initial continuants become voiced with the addition of the possessive
prefix. This process, displayed by previously documented dialects of Chipewyan, is analysed
in an Optimality Theory framework. The research dialect of Chipewyan does not exhibit the
process due to a restructuring of the morphosyntactic system of possession marking.
Finally, tone and tonal processes, found in most Athapaskan languages, are the synchronic
residue of Proto-Athapaskan laryngeal behaviour. Two examples of tone assimilation are
discussed: Navajo, where inherent high tone spreads rightwards in verbs, and Chipewyan,
where inherent high tone spreads leftwards in nouns.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/9674 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Gessner, Suzanne C. |
| 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/] |
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