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Consonant Gradation in Finnish Dialects

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Consonant Gradation in Finnish Dialects Consonant Gradation in Finnish Dialects Consonant gradation is a lenition process common to most of the Finnic languages. In Finnish it is now only partly productive phonologically in that it rarely affects recent loans and neologisms. However, it is still pervasive in the lexicon and is very much a part of Finnish phonology. Gradation in Finnish affects geminate and singleton voiceless stops preceding a short vowel in a closed syllable. The geminates shorten (quantitative gradation) and the singletons undergo various lenition processes (qualitative gradation), depending on the environment, the dialect, and a range of sociolinguistic factors (see 1). However, within the Finnish dialects, there is much variation within qualitative gradation, especially for the coronal (see 2). The goal of this paper is to provide an account of qualitative gradation that takes into consideration the kind of variation that exists between dialects as shown in Kettunen’s (1940) dialect atlas. There are five main patterns in the data, as shown in table 1. In all cases /p/ lenites to [ʋ]. The /t/ may lenite, take on place features from an adjacent vowel, or delete while /k/ may either assimilate to place features of an adjacent vowel or delete. That deletion is disfavoured for either segment suggests that there is a strong requirement to retain the consonant. Finally, the lenition of /t/ simply needs to result in a non-nasal coronal if there is not assimilation to a vowel. In this paper I provide an account of the conditions for assimilation to vowels. Assimilation is most likely to occur when the sequence of vowels that would result from deletion would create hiatus. Thus, when the deletion of a consonant results in an underlying long vowel, it is more acceptable than when the deletion results in vowel hiatus. In assimilation, the coronal and velar can assimilate to either a front vowel, surfacing as [j], or a round vowel, surfacing as [v]. The data from the dialects suggest that there is a hierarchy for place features. The place feature [labial] is stronger than [coronal] in that, when either of the two features may surface according to the phonological rules, [labial] is normally selected. This place hierarchy provides a different type of evidence for strength hierarchies that have been posited to account for consonant place assimilation asymmetries (e.g., Jun 2008). The variation in the dialects has played little role in the phonological literature on consonant gradation in Finnish. However, a study of the patterns in the dialects provides greater insight into subtleties of the phonology of Finnish by providing evidence for constraints against deletion and vowel hiatus. As well this data provides further evidence for a strength hierarchy concerning [labial] and [coronal]. Data: 1) Qualitative Gradation (Karttunen 1970: 71-71): p J ʋ kyl.py / kyl.vyn ‘bath (nom./gen.)’ t J d ma.to / ma.don ‘worm (nom./gen.)’ k J ʋ pu.ku / pu.vun ‘suit (nom./gen.)’ k J Ø jo.ki / jo.en ‘river (nom./gen.)’ 2) Dialectal Variation of /t/ (Kettunen 1940) t J d, ð, ɾ, r, l, j, ʋ, Ø Table 1: Pattern Number of Dialects 1) /t/ Lenites to [coronal] and /k/ Assimilates 29 2) /t/ Lenites to a [coronal] and /k/ Deletes 4 3) /t/ and /k/ Assimilate 34 4) /t/ Assimilates and /k/ Deletes 1 5) Complete Deletion of /t/ and /k/ 1 References: Jun, J. (2008) Perception-based asymmetries in place assimilation and lenition. In Haruo Kubozono (ed.) Asymmetries in Phonology: An East-Asian Perspective. Kurosio Publishers. Karttunen, F. (1970) Problems in Finnish Phonology. Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University. Kettunen, L. (1940) Suomen Murteet III A. Murrekartasto. (Finnish Dialects III A. Dialect Map) Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. .
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