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Theoretical and Typological Issues in Consonant Harmony by Gunnar Ólafur Hansson

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Theoretical and Typological Issues in Consonant Harmony by Gunnar Ólafur Hansson Theoretical and Typological Issues in Consonant Harmony by Gunnar Ólafur Hansson B.A. (University of Iceland) 1993 M.A. (University of Iceland) 1997 M.A. (University of California, Berkeley) 1997 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics in the GRADUATE DIVISION of the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY Committee in charge: Professor Sharon Inkelas (Chair) Professor Andrew Garrett Professor Larry M. Hyman Professor Alan Timberlake Spring 2001 The dissertation of Gunnar Ólafur Hansson is approved: Chair Date Date Date Date University of California, Berkeley Spring 2001 Theoretical and Typological Issues in Consonant Harmony © 2001 by Gunnar Ólafur Hansson Abstract Theoretical and Typological Issues in Consonant Harmony by Gunnar Ólafur Hansson Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics University of California, Berkeley Professor Sharon Inkelas, Chair The study of harmony processes, their phonological characteristics and parameters of typo- logical variation, has played a major role in the development of current phonological theory. Consonant harmony is a much rarer phenomenon than other types of harmony, and its typological properties are far less well known. Since consonant harmony often appears to involve assimilation at considerable distances, a proper understanding of its nature is crucial for theories of locality in segmental interactions. This dissertation presents a comprehensive cross-linguistic survey of consonant harmony systems. I show that the typology of such systems is quite varied as regards the properties that assimilate. In spite of this variation, they share a remarkably uniform typo- logical profile. For example, the default directionality is anticipatory, with progressive har- mony arising from stem-control effects. Furthermore, consonant harmony never displays segmental opacity, unlike other harmony types, and it is never influenced by prosodic factors or bounded by prosodic domains. Finally, consonant harmony is frequently sensitive to the relative similarity of the interacting consonants. On the basis of these properties, I develop a generalized analysis of consonant harmony within Optimality Theory. A key ingredient is interpreting consonant harmony as agreement (rather than spreading), arising through syntagmatic correspondence motivated by such factors as relative similarity. I show that absolute directionality poses fundamental 1 problems which previous OT analyses have not dealt with, and propose solving them by appealing to the notion of targeted constraints. A wide range of cases is analyzed in detail, illustrating different directionality patterns as well as subtle interactions between harmony and phonotactics. A further claim is that these agreement effects are based in the domain of speech planning. I show how consonant harmony systems share a number of characteristics with phonological speech errors. These include the bias towards anticipatory directionality, irrelevance of intervening segments, and similarity effects. A particularly striking parallel involves so-called Palatal Bias effects, robustly documented in research on speech errors, which also characterize coronal harmony processes. Parallels of this kind provide strong evidence in favor of analyzing consonant harmony as agreement at-a-distance, rather than spreading of features or articulatory gestures. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................iv Chapter 1 Introduction................................................................................................................ 1 1.1. Consonant harmony: A pre-theoretical definition.................................................. 3 1.2. Previous research on consonant harmony............................................................. 9 1.2.1. Early sources ...............................................................................................9 1.2.2. Consonant harmony in generative phonology.............................................. 14 1.2.3. Consonant harmony and the notion of strict locality.................................... 23 1.3. Central claims .......................................................................................................28 1.4. Organization of the dissertation ............................................................................32 Chapter 2 A cross-linguistic typology of consonant harmony ...............................................34 2.1. Previous surveys of consonant harmony............................................................... 35 2.2. Description of consonant harmony database......................................................... 41 2.3. Root-internal harmony: The status of morpheme structure constraints .................47 2.4. Classification by harmonizing property ................................................................52 2.4.1. Coronal harmony......................................................................................... 54 2.4.1.1. Sibilant harmony................................................................................. 55 2.4.1.2. Non-sibilant coronal harmony ............................................................72 2.4.2. Dorsal and labial consonant harmony.......................................................... 87 2.4.3. Secondary-articulation harmony ..................................................................100 2.4.4. Nasal consonant harmony............................................................................ 111 2.4.5. Liquid harmony ...........................................................................................124 2.4.6. Stricture harmony ........................................................................................137 2.4.7. Laryngeal harmony...................................................................................... 149 2.4.8. Major place consonant harmony—an unattested harmony type? .................165 2.5. Summary ..............................................................................................................173 Chapter 3 Typological asymmetries: Consonant harmony vs. other harmonies .................176 3.1. Directionality, dominance and stem control........................................................... 178 i 3.1.1. Directionality patterns in other harmony systems ........................................178 3.1.2. Stem-control vs. absolute directionality in consonant harmony.................... 184 3.1.3. Directionality effects and morpheme-internal consonant harmony............... 199 3.2. Locality, transparency and blocking ......................................................................209 3.2.1. Opacity effects in other harmony systems ...................................................210 3.2.2. Opacity vs. transparency in consonant harmony.......................................... 214 3.2.3. An apparent counterexample: Sanskrit n-retroflexion ..................................223 3.2.3.1. Basic description................................................................................. 224 3.2.3.2. Earlier analyses of the opacity effect................................................... 231 3.2.3.3. Retroflexion spreading vs. consonant harmony ..................................237 3.3. Interaction with prosodic structure........................................................................ 243 3.3.1. Types of prosody-sensitivity in harmony systems....................................... 244 3.3.1.1. Phonological length ............................................................................245 3.3.1.2. Syllable weight.................................................................................... 251 3.3.1.3. Stress and metrical structure ...............................................................254 3.3.2. Yabem: An apparent case of foot-bounded consonant harmony................... 259 Chapter 4 An optimality-theoretic analysis of consonant harmony...................................... 266 4.1. Earlier proposals within Optimality Theory ..........................................................266 4.1.1. Analyses based on spreading and strict locality ...........................................267 4.1.2. The complete-identity effect and BEIDENTICAL ...........................................276 4.1.3. Correspondence-based analyses ..................................................................282 4.2. The basic architecture: String-internal correspondence and agreement.................. 294 4.2.1. The CORR-CC constraint family.................................................................. 295 4.2.1.1. Scaling of CORR-CC constraints by similarity and distance ...............296 4.2.1.2. Asymmetric CC correspondence and directionality effects .................300 4.2.2. IDENT[F]-CC constraints............................................................................. 311 4.2.3. Fundamental ranking requirements.............................................................. 317 4.3. Interaction with faithfulness: Deriving directionality and stem control ..................335 4.3.1. Directional harmony: IDENT[F]-CC as a targeted constraint........................ 336 4.3.2. Stem-controlled harmony: The emergence of left-to-right directionality ......352 4.3.3. Problematic directionality patterns ...............................................................365 ii Chapter 5 Analyzing consonant harmony:
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