Gemination, Lenition, and Vowel Lengthening

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt Goblirsch
Keyword(s):  
Vowel Lengthening

Nasality in Dagbani prosody

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 527-550
Author(s):  
Fusheini Hudu ◽  
Mohammed Osman Nindow
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Bearing Unit ◽  
Vowel Lengthening ◽  
Prosodic Structures

Abstract This paper presents a detailed analysis of nasality in Dagbani, a Gur language of Ghana, and the role it plays in Dagbani prosody. It demonstrates that the nasal is at the centre of defining the range of what is possible in Dagbani prosodic patterns. Nasals provide the basis for determining the full range of syllable types and the tone bearing unit of Dagbani; nasals are the only coda consonants that licence vowel lengthening; and nasals provide the only cases of phonological non-vocalic geminates. The overall effects of the influence of nasality is the emergence of complex prosodic structures. Contrary to the crosslinguistically acclaimed marked position of the coda, the CVN syllable is the default, unmarked syllable in Dagbani.

Perceptual salience and analogical change: evidence from vowel lengthening in modern Swiss German dialects

1995 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Relation ◽  
Short Vowel ◽  
Swiss German ◽  
Perceptual Salience ◽  
German Dialects ◽  
Morphological Theory ◽  
Vowel Lengthening

In the light of current morphological theory, this paper examines the analogical levelling of long/short vowel oppositions in certain inflectional and derivational alternations in a number of modern Swiss German dialects. The regular occurrence of levelling is shown to depend on the extent to which the alternation in question is ‘perceptually salient’ (Chapman 1994). That is, if the semantic relation between base and derivative is transparent and the derivative is uniformly marked, analogical levelling occurs regularly. On the basis of this evidence it is argued that all morphological alternations, both inflectional and derivational, are listed in the lexicon and that each one is assigned a different status according to its degree of perceptual salience.

scholarly journals Compensatory Lengthening in OT and DOT: Loss of Dorsal Fricatives in Middle
or Early Modern English

2019 ◽  
pp. 47-61
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Kleban
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Syllable Weight ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Working Solution ◽  
Vowel Lengthening ◽  
Compensatory Lengthening ◽  
Lexical Phonology

The loss of dorsal fricatives in English held significant consequences for the adjacent tautosyllabic vowels, which underwent Compensatory Lengthening in order to preserve a syllable weight. While the process appears to be regular in descriptive terms, its evaluation handled within standard Optimality Theory highlights the ineffectiveness of the framework to parse both the segment deletion and two weight-related processes: Weight- by-Position and vowel lengthening due to mora preservation. As Optimality Theory has failed to analyse the data in a compelling manner, the introduction of derivation, benefitting from the legacy of Lexical Phonology, seems inevitable. The working solution is provided by Derivational Optimality Theory, which assumes a restrictive use of intermediate stages throughout the evaluation.

Homorganic Cluster Lengthening, Pre-Cluster Shortening and Preference-based change in Early English

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-110
Author(s):  
William W. Kruger
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Consonant Clusters ◽  
Vowel Lengthening ◽  
High Vowels ◽  
Early English

Abstract This paper discusses the processes of Homorganic Cluster Lengthening (HCL) and Pre-Cluster Shortening (PCS) occurring in the late Old English and Early Middle English periods. These processes are responsible, respectively, for vowel-lengthening before voiced homorganic consonant clusters (OE bindan, feld, hund > LOE/EME bīnd, fēld, hūnd) and vowel shortening before other clusters (OE cēpte, fīfta, brōhte > ME kepte, fifte, brohte). This paper builds on reassessments of data by Minkova (2014) to contribute an account of HCL within the system of “preference laws” articulated by Vennemann (1988). This account attributes the motivation for HCL to preferences for syllable-internal transitions between nucleus and coda in order to explain the fine details of HCL; namely, the fact that HCL applies with higher frequency to high vowels followed nasals than to low/mid vowels and in a sporadic manner to front vowels followed by /l/ compared to back vowels. These differences are attributed to the application of the Coda and Nucleus Laws (Vennemann 1988: 25, 42), with additional proposals about the effect of velarization of /l/ in Old English, with comparison to PCS providing important context throughout.

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