The Status of Laryngeal Consonants in Mohawk" Jose Bonneau MIT/McGill University Abstract This paper will show that the "degenerate" nature of laryngeal consonants in Mohawk can be accounted for if we assume that both /7/ and /hl in post-vocalic position are in the Nucleus of the syllable. Some discrepancies between /7/ and /hl are explained away if post-vocalic /hl is syllabified as the right member of a branching nucleus whereas /7/ is part of a light diphthong (cf. Kaye & Lowenstamm 1984). Three basic pieces of evidence are used in favour of this hypothesis: (i) the non-application of epenthesis in laryngeal-consonant clusters, (ii) the exceptional behavior of consonant-? with respect to glide vocalization, and (iii) the behavior of /7/ in the process of "Vowel Doubling" discussed in Postal (1969). Finally, a general condition on the licensing of IaryngeaIs will be suggested, based on the "Prosodic Government Constraint" of Kaye & Lowenstamm (1985). The laryngeal consonants are defective in many ways; that is, they do not behave like "complete" segments, even when they occupy a timing slot of their own. Evidenc~ for this can be found in a number of well-documented processes. The laryngeals, along WIth a number of other consonants, fail to geminate in various Semitic languages when mapped onto a skeleton which demands a geminate. In Zoque (Kingston 1986), too, the presence of /71 before a stem-final consonant does not interfere, contrary to other consonants, with the process of compensatory lengthening (gemination). Zoque, and a number of Amerindian languages - e.g., Cayuga (Foster 1982); Mohawk (Postal 1969) - have a process in which the relative order of a sequence of laryngeals and a following vowel is changed. Finally, laryngeals also behave in a particular way with respect to the assignment of stress in some languages; that is, they do not close the syllable as other consonants do (see Jeanne 1978 for Hopi and Safir 1979 for Capanahua, among others). These authors suggest that /71 forms a "light" diphthong, in the sense of Kaye & Lowenstamm (1981), with the preceding vowel. In this paper I will discuss similar properties of laryngeal consonants in Mohawk, an Iroquoian language spoken on Montreal's Kahnawake reserve, in Ontario, and in New York State'! In section 1, I will show that the distributional properties of /71 and /hI with respect to epenthesis can be accounted for directly if we assume that /71 forms a light diphthong with the preceding vowel, whereas /hi is syllabified as the right member of a branching nucleus. The analysis will be strengthened in section 2 when I discuss the special behaviour of /71 in glide vocalization. Section 3 deals with the case of so-called metathesis in Mohawk. It will be shown that metathesis can be readily accounted for if we adopt the representation of the feature system first suggested in Clements (1985), to show * For discussions and comments, I would like to thank Alicja Gorecka, Donca Steriade, Morris Halle, David Lipscomb, Karin Michelson, Sam Rosenthall, Glyne Piggott, Jose Tourville and the reviewers of the McGill Working Papers IN Linguistics. I, of course, take responsibility for any errors and/or misinterpretations. 1All of my data are taken from Michelson (1983) and Postal (1968). 60 THE STATUS OF LARYNGEAL CONSONANTS IN MOHAWK 61 that the metathesis effect is only apparent. Finally, I will try to give a general characterization of the "deficient" nature of laryngeal consonants in terms of the "Prosodic Government Constraint" suggested in Kaye & Lowenstamm (1985). I will adopt a syllabification theory which argues for the existence of a skeletal tier (see Levin 1985; Kaye & Lowenstamm 1981; and Prince 1984, among others). While most current researchers accept the existence of a level of syllabic terminals mediating between the syllable and the melody, its exact representation is a matter of continuing debate. Levin (1985) argues that the Cs and Vs suggested in McCarthy (1979) are redundant and that the skeleton should in fact be considered timing units represented by Xs. Others, such as Hyman (1985)" propose that the skeleton consists of weight units or morae. I will adopt Levin's (1985) hypothesis, although nothing in this paper hinges upon this particular issue. The nature of the, skeleton and the form of the subsyllabic categories are not independent of each other. With subsyllabic categories such as the coda, the CN differentiation on the skeleton becomes unnecessary. In a model with no sub syllabic categories and the syllable node directly dominating the skeleton, more information on the skeleton is necessary. In this paper I will crucially refer to the structure of the rime and nucleus. No such constituent exists in a theory with no subconstituents, such as that of Clements & Keyser (1983). The status of the onset and coda constituents remains, however, a topic of debate (see Kaye & Lowenstamm 1981, Steriade 1982 for arguments for such constituents). I will adopt the basic syllable structure represented in (1). (1) A A (0) R A N (C) 1. Distributional Properties of Laryngeals and Epenthesis All consonants of Mohawk (i.e, k, t, s, n, r, w, y, ?) may appear word-initially and/or word-finally. Word-initial vowels are automatically preceded by /? /, which is not word-initial underlyingly.s An exception to this distribution is /hI, which occurs neither word-ini.tial~y (except in a few uninflected particles; K. Michelson, personal communication) nor word-finally. In terms of syllable structure I will assume that all consonants may appear in the onset, in the coda, or in both. 2 According to Michelson (1983), Mohawk has four oral vowels, /i/, /e! .la!, and /0/, and two nasal vowels, /A! and /0/. IA! represents a central nasal vowel. The front vowels may appear as lax in stressless environments and the nasal vowels become oral in closed syllables. The obstruents are aspirated in some environments: in word fmal position, as transition between obstruent in clusters and before /hI. /s/ shows aspiration before sonorants but voices between vowels. In addition, /k/ and It! voice in more environments: namely, between vowels and between a vowel and a resonant. I will use the abbreviations given in Michelson (1983): lA, 2A = 1st and 2nd person singular pronoun agent prefix; IMP = imperfective; HAB = habitual aspect; CIS = cislocative; NSF = noun suffix; MA = 3rd per~on masculine singular agent prefix; MP = 3rd person masculine singular patient prefix; PERF = perfective aspect; CAUS = causative marker; DU = dislocative; PUT = future tense marker; PUNC = punctual aspect; AOR = aorist; IdA = 1st person dual; NO = 3rd person neuter; SRF = semireflexive. 62 BONNEAU The distribution of consonants becomes more interesting when we consider the distribution of /? / and /h/ in clusters. Possible CC-c1usters in initial and final positions of words are somewhat restricted. In initial position, they are generally restricted to O(bstruent)-O (e.g. sk/ks, ts/st) and Oh clusters.3 CR(esonant)-clusters are broken up by a rule of epenthesis+ this is illustrated in (2). RC-c1usters do not occur in initial position. (2) a. k + rho + s kErhos (IA + coat + HAB) 'Icoat it' b. sni + ehyahra? + s sEnehya:ra?s5 (2dA + think + HAB) 'you think' In final position the restriction on possible CC-clusters is even stricter. CC-clusters generally do not occur except for non-resonant consonants followed by /s/ (e.g. ks, hs, ts). Neither CR nor RC-c1usters occur in this position. A note able exception, however, is ?R. C? may also precede almost any consonant in final position except /h/, /1/ and /r/.6 Examples of ?R 7 clusters in final position are given in (3). (3) a. hs + nuhwe? + n 'sEnu:we?n (2A + like + IMP) 'Like it!' 3 There are exceptions to this statement. There are cases of KK clusters and Cy clusters in initial position. KW is also a possible CC-cluster in this position. Perhaps Cy can be analysed as a palatalized obstruent (Michelson 1983). As for the KK cluster, 1 will assume that the first K is in the appendix rather than the onset of the first syllable. 4 Again there are exceptions to CR-Epenthesis. Cy clusters seem to escape this rule: (i) wa? + k + at + ya7k + 7 -> wa7katya7kE7 (AOR + Is + SRF + cut + PUNC) 'I cut myself 5 There are no vowel sequences in Mohawk. In (2b) Iii has been deleted as a result of a morphologically conditioned vowel deletion process (Michelson 1983). The deletion of /hI in (2b) is the result of a rule that deletes laryngeals in stressed syllable. See section 4 for an analysis of this phenomenon. 6 RK and HT are exceptions. 1 will have little to say about these. Perhaps both K and I should be allowed in the appendix of the syllable (cf. (8». 7 The reason why (b) is not integrated in the condition (a) in (7) is related to the absence of epenthetic vowel in Cy clusters. Condition (b) takes care of examples like (i). (i) t + k + atawya7t + s --7 tkatawEya7ts (CIS + Is + enter + HAB) 'I enter' Michelson (1983) postulates two other rules of e-epenthesis crucially ordered with respect to stress assignment. (7) is referred to as "Poststress E-Epenthesis" since it is ordered after stress. Since stress is generally penultimate in Mohawk, this rule accounts for the antepenultimate stress in (4b), for instance. The two other rules of epenthesis are referred to as "Prestress E-Epenthesis" I and II. Their effect need not concern us here. Essentially they insert E in the context _C', where ".••means unsyllabified consonant. THE STATUS OF LARYNGEAL CONSONANTS IN MOHAWK 63 b. Te + t + yo + akavw + 0 ~ tetyo:kara ?w (DU + CIS + ZO + be dark + IMP) 'Be dark' It seems then that ?R in final position does not behave as CR-clusters do: i.e.