UNIVERSITY of CALGARY the Mora in Blackfoot by Emily Jane Elfner A
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UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY The Mora in Blackfoot by Emily Jane Elfner A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS CALGARY, ALBERTA AUGUST, 2006 © Emily Jane Elfner 2006 Abstract Blackfoot is an Algonquian language spoken in southern Alberta and northwestern Montana. While the language has seen a fair amount of descriptive work (e.g. Frantz 1991), very little has been devoted to studying its phonological system. This thesis represents a preliminary systematic analysis of several topics relating to the phonotactics of the language. Particular attention is paid to the role of contrastive weight in shaping both the consonant system and the vowel system. It is shown that the assumption of underlyingly specified moraic associations is key to understanding the phonotactics of the language, as in the distribution of certain segments, the syllabification of the language’s typologically unusual preconsonantal geminates, and in predicting the correct resolution strategy for vowel hiatus. Of particular interest to phonological theory is the role of contrastive weight in producing contrastive syllabification patterns, and an Optimality Theoretic analysis of Blackfoot’s complicated vowel hiatus resolution system. ii Acknowledgements There are many people who have contributed to this thesis in many different ways. First of all, I’d like to offer my thanks to Rachel Ermineskin, a native speaker of Siksika Blackfoot, for taking the time to teach me about her language, and for allowing me to record her speech. My greatest debt is to my supervisor, Darin Howe, for his patience, encouragement, and enthusiasm throughout all the years I’ve known him, and especially during the writing of this thesis. He deserves a lot of credit not only for introducing me to Blackfoot but also for all that he’s taught me about phonological theory—starting with my very first phonology class as an undergrad. I’d also like to thank my thesis committee, John Archibald and Douglas Walker, for taking the time to read my thesis and for all of their helpful comments. Thanks also to Amanda Pounder for serving as the neutral chair during my defense, and to Suzanne Curtin, for being willing to help out during the confusion that came with trying to schedule a defense during the summer months. Great thanks to all of the other professors in the Linguistics Department at the University of Calgary who introduced me to linguistics and whose friendly and supportive atmosphere have made the department a great place to study—these include Betsy Ritter, Robert Murray, Michael Dobrovolsky, Martha McGinnis, Hotze Rullmann, Kimiko Nakanishi, and Susanne Carroll. Thanks to all of the students in the department for making my time here enjoyable, and for contributing to this thesis both directly and indirectly. I’d especially iii like to thank my classmates—Kyumin Kim, Rachel Klippenstein, Masako Shimada, and Wing Yee So—as well as other students I’ve had the honour of knowing—Karen Jesney, Corey Telfer, Heather Bliss, Elham Rohany Rahbar, Ilana Mezhevich, Fumiko Summerell, Ashley Burnett, Antonio Gonzalez-Poot, Christine Shea, Aili You, and Mahdi Ahmadi. I’m also grateful for the support of many people outside of the department— especially those who have only the vaguest notion of what I am actually studying but have taken the time to ask questions and listen to my attempts to explain it. Great thanks to my parents for supporting my decision to study linguistics; to my sister, Alison, for being the first non-linguist among my friends and family to take a linguistics class and for being a welcome distraction; and to my grandparents, Uncle Allen, my extended family, and all of my non-linguist friends for their interest and support. Finally, I’d like to acknowledge that this thesis has been generously supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, including a CGS Masters scholarship. iv Table of Contents Abstract............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements............................................................................................................ iii Table of Contents.................................................................................................................v List of Figures and Illustrations ........................................................................................ vii List of Abbreviations ....................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION..................................................................................1 CHAPTER TWO: LANGUAGE OVERVIEW...................................................................5 2.1 Genetic Affiliation .....................................................................................................5 2.2 Sociolinguistic Status.................................................................................................8 2.2.1 Location.............................................................................................................8 2.2.2 Status ...............................................................................................................10 2.2.3 Dialectal Variation...........................................................................................10 2.3 Linguistic Structure and Representation..................................................................11 2.3.1 Phoneme Inventory..........................................................................................11 2.3.2 Vowels.............................................................................................................13 2.3.3 Prominence......................................................................................................14 2.3.4 Morphosyntax..................................................................................................15 2.3.5 Orthography.....................................................................................................15 CHAPTER THREE: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND.................................................17 3.1 Syllable Weight........................................................................................................17 3.2 The Phonetics-Phonology Interface.........................................................................19 3.2.1 The Phonetic Correlates of Syllable Weight ...................................................19 3.2.2 Phonetic Duration and Syllable Weight ..........................................................21 3.3 Sonority and Syllable Weight..................................................................................23 3.3.1 Sonority ...........................................................................................................24 3.3.2 The Syllable.....................................................................................................26 3.4 Formal Theories of Weight......................................................................................27 3.4.1 Skeletal Slot Models........................................................................................27 3.4.2 The Moraic Model...........................................................................................32 3.5 Optimality Theory....................................................................................................34 CHAPTER FOUR: MORAIC CONTRASTS IN BLACKFOOT: THEIR DEVELOPMENT AND REPRESENTATION .......................................................38 4.1 Geminates in Blackfoot ...........................................................................................38 4.1.1 The Formal Representation of Geminates.......................................................38 4.1.2 OT Account of Intervocalic Geminates...........................................................40 4.1.3 The Development of Contrastive Weight in Blackfoot...................................43 4.2 /x/ .............................................................................................................................47 4.3 Glottal Stop..............................................................................................................50 4.4 Conclusion ...............................................................................................................54 CHAPTER FIVE: CONTRASTIVE SYLLABIFICATION.............................................55 v 5.1 Preconsonantal Geminates.......................................................................................56 5.2 Contrastive Syllabification in Blackfoot as Mora Preservation...............................57 5.2.1 Representations................................................................................................57 5.2.2 OT Analysis.....................................................................................................59 5.3 Evidence...................................................................................................................60 5.4 Gemination in Stop-/s/ Sequences ...........................................................................65 5.5 Non-moraic Preconsonantal Stops...........................................................................69 5.6 Preconsonantal Nasals: Neutralisation of Underlying Moraic Contrasts ................71 5.7 Theoretical