PROSODIC PHONOTACTICS A Dissertation Presented by TIM D. SHERER Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May, 1994 Department of Linguistics Approved as to style and content by: John J. McCarthy, Chair Shmuel Bolozky, Member F. Roger Higgins, Member Elisabeth O. Selkirk, Member © Copyright by Timothy David Sherer 1994 All Rights Reserved (The right to distribute this dissertation in microfilm format has been granted exclusively to University Microfilm International, in accordance with the requirements of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.) PREFACE TO THE COMPUTER-FILE VERSION This version of my dissertation is divided into seven chapters, numbered 0 to 6. Chapters 1 through 6 contain the corresponding chapters of my dissertation. Chapter 0 contains the front matter (acknowledgements, abstract, and so forth), as well as the appendix and the sources cited. This version of my dissertation was taken from the Graduate Linguistics Student Association (GLSA) version, which had several typos corrected over the deposit version. This version differs from the GLSA version with respect to some diagrams. Mainly in tableaux, I have substituted bracketing and subscripted morae for tree diagrams in representing syllables, as below: {C V} {C V} = 2 cv syllables {C V} = a syllable with a long vowel {C V C} = a bi-moraic closed syllable {C V C} = a mono-moraic closed syllable {C V { C } V } = 2 syllables with a geminate consonant There are still some diagrams in their original forms. I hope that these are recoverable from context. The pagination is different from the original version. I have chosen to paginate the chapters separately. There is a table of contents for each chapter at the beginning of that chapter. The first chapter summarizes the goals of the dissertation and introduces most of the constraints used later in the work. The main goal of this work is to characterize sequences of consonants by characterizing codas in the most general way possible. Since this one of the earlier works employing Prince and Smolensky’s 1993 Optimality manuscript, I include an introduction to the theory in this chapter. The second chapter includes a factorial typology involving several of the constraints introduced in chapter 1. This typology builds on Prince and Smolensky’s factorial typology by employing a more detailed syllable structure. Also, there are analyses of facts from the languages Wiyot and Italian. The constraint *LONG-VOWEL is introduced in this chapter (and plays a role in chapter 4) Another question dealt with here is the content of underlying form--in particular, the result of specifying a “weight by position” mora in the lexicon. I also discuss the role of lexical levels in OT. The third chapter deals with intervocalic consonant sequences of Finnish. A search of a machine readable dictionary revealed a coronal asymmetry in Finnish. Essentially, in Finnish a hypercharacterized syllable may be closed by a geminate or by a coronal consonant, but not by a non-coronal, non-geminate. An Optimality Theoretic analysis of this fact is offered. One aspect of this analysis is that no root not meeting the coronal only requirement would be posited by a Finnish language learner (Stampean Occultation). The fourth chapter includes analyses of two languages, Fula and Koya, both of which permit long vowels before sequences of consonants, but not before geminates. This is analyzed by means of a syllable appendix--a consonant directly adjoined to the syllable node without an intervening mora. This version of an appendix consonant differs from the word-final version. Both Fula and Koya have cases where we might expect long vowels to precede geminates. In Fula, these cases surface with a simple consonant (corresponding to the geminate), while in Koya, these forms surface with a short vowel. Optimality Theoretic analyses for these mappings are given. The fifth chapter focuses on the topic of syllable appendixes and appendixal consonants. The main part of the chapter is a discussion of several (closely related) Australian languages and why they should be analyzed employing appendix consonants. I provide a sketchy Optimality Theoretic analysis. The balance of the chapter is devoted to questions about the appendix position. The idea of analyzing appendixes by means of Alignment is discussed, including how this could derive different sites for adjunction (word, syllable, and so forth.) The nature of the coronal asymmetry is discussed and a phonetic scale is offered as a possible explanation. The sixth chapter deals with topics not dealt with earlier in the dissertation, including a comparison between the Optimality Theoretic approach and an approach where constraints are set to on or off. Also discussed is the Linked Gemination approach to the representation of geminates, which is at odds with the moraic theory of geminates. Another matter covered was the role of linking, both in connection with Linked Gemination and the Coda Condition Approach, including discussion of an approach to hypercharacterization that employs coda conditions. Tim D. Sherer December, 1994 [email protected] ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are a number of people to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for any number of things over the last nine years, since I started taking Linguistics courses at the University of Washington. This list may well fall short. In fact, it does fall short. I can only apologize to those omitted. John McCarthy has been an excellent advisor and thesis supervisor. I am proud to have been his student. Lisa Selkirk was also an excellent advisor and this thesis has been much improved thanks to her feedback. Roger Higgins' contribution to this work was depth. Beyond the obvious comments and suggestions that he offered, this work has benefitted in subtle, almost mystical, fashion from his input. Thanks to Shmuel Bolozky for his careful reading and helpful suggestions. In addition to these committee members, a number of faculty members at the University of Massachusetts have helped or challenged me along the way, including (but not limited to) Ellen Woolford (who saw me through my second generals paper), Francois Dell, and Emmon Bach. A full enumeration of the ways in which other faculty members have seen me through along the way is beyond the scope of these acknowledgements. Special thanks to Kathy and Lynne for putting up with me for all this time. And for a great deal of help getting through the whole experience. At the University of Washington, Ellen Kaisse is an excellent teacher and I well appreciate her efforts in my case. Also at the University of Washington, I had the pleasure of taking classes from Joe Emonds and Frederick Newmeyer, among others. I would also like to thank Ellen Broselow, Mark Aronoff, Marie Huffman, and the whole gang at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, for making my first "real job" a pleasure. Among my fellow students, special note should go to my class, Juli Carter, Rose-Marie Dechaine, Jingqi Fu, Lisa Green, Noriko Kawasaki, Paul Portner, and Sylvie Robideaux. Let's get together for dinner sometime, like the old days. Greg Lamontagne has been a steady friend for many years. He is a fine phonologist and has a fine mind in general. I never tire of arguing phonology with him and don't think I ever will. In addition, I have learned a great deal about teaching from him. And, finally, Greg Lamontagne is Greg Lamontagne. Thanks also to Joanna Gonsalves for extensive discussion on Psychology, which she understands and I do not. I would also like to thank Tami Kaplan. From my University of Washington days, I want to thank my friends Kathleen Pool, Peter Goodfellow, Jennifer Hodgdon, and Melanie Orgill, and from the days before that, Frank Mendel and Barb Ericsen. And many others. I also owe a debt of gratitude to my family, starting with my mother, Naomi Sherer, who, in addition to being a constant source of support, did a bang-up technical editing job on my first generals paper. My brother Mike tells one hell of a story and I am always glad to hear them. My sister Nancy has ever been a buoy to my spirits. Thanks to my brother Tom for helping me get established in the northeast and much help thereafter. Thanks to Dan for being a heck of a good brother and putting up with me as a houseguest (a lot), not to mention a extensive help in getting this dissertation printed up. And thanks to June, Jerry, Suzie, and Debbie, just for being them. My father was expansively proud of me for going to college, although he had some initial doubts about this Linguistics stuff. He was enormously proud of me for getting into graduate school. He was also dismayed that the completion of my degree would take so long, that is, no less than five years. He was afraid, I am sure, that his health would not see him through to the end of it and, sadly, it did not. It is to his memory that this thesis is dedicated. ABSTRACT PROSODIC PHONOTACTICS May, 1994 TIM D. SHERER B.A. UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON Ph.D. UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by John J. McCarthy This dissertation deals with the possibility of having syllable final consonants, including geminate consonants, and the interaction of such consonants with syllable weight and vowel length, by means of the moraic tier. The goal of this work is to have the range of patterns of consonant occurrence and vowel length follow from simple patterns in simple interactions. A chapter is devoted to making predictions about the phonological patterns possible in the system. These are made through the interaction of simple phonological constraints, with the adoption of Optimality Theory.