scholarly journals Emphasis Harmony in Arabic: A Critical Assessment of Feature-Geometric and Optimality-Theoretic Approaches

Languages ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Hussein Al-Bataineh
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Natural Class ◽  
Semitic Languages ◽  
Consonant Harmony ◽  
Comprehensive View ◽  
Feature Geometry ◽  
Arabic Dialects

This overview article examines vowel-consonant harmony, specifically emphatic harmony (also referred to as pharyngealization, velarization, or uvularization), which is found in Semitic languages. It provides a comprehensive overview of emphasis harmony in Arabic dialects from feature-geometric and optimality-theoretic perspectives. From the feature geometric account, emphatic consonants are considered as a natural class within the guttural group that has the [pharyngeal] or [RTR] ‘retracted tongue root’ feature. This view has been questioned and challenged recently by some researchers who argue for the exclusion of emphatics from the guttural group. The different arguments discussed in this paper show that researchers cannot reach a consensus regarding which consonants belong to the guttural group and which features are shared between these consonants. This paper shows that studies adopting an optimality-theoretic perspective provide a more comprehensive view of emphasis harmony and its fundamental aspects, namely, directional spreading and blocking, spread from secondary emphatic /r/ and labialization. However, this paper reaches two main conclusions. Firstly, unlike feature geometry, optimality theory can provide a clearer picture of emphasis harmony in an accurate and detailed way, which does not only clarify the process in one Arabic dialect but also describe the differences between dialects due to the merit of (re)ranking of constraints. Secondly, emphasis harmony is different from one Arabic dialect to another regarding its direction, involvement of emphatic /r/, and labialization. These differences between dialects indicate that emphasis harmony is not an absolute phenomenon.

Variable laryngeals and vowel lowering

Phonology ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Rose
Keyword(s):  
Vocal Tract ◽  
The Other ◽  
Natural Class ◽  
Semitic Languages ◽  
Feature Geometry ◽  
The Status ◽  
Interior Salish

The group of guttural consonants consists of those consonants articulated at the back of the vocal tract or with some constriction of the pharynx: uvulars, pharyngeals, laryngeals and emphatics, or pharyngealised/uvularised consonants. These consonants pattern together in terms of several phonological properties, as extensively documented by McCarthy (1989, 1991, 1994). He argues that this natural class can be captured in a model of feature geometry by a node dependent on the Place node: the Pharyngeal node. However, the status of the laryngeal consonants within this class of segments is unresolved. While it is clear that the laryngeals [? h] pattern with the other guttural consonants in Semitic languages, these sounds have also been argued to lack Place specification altogether (Steriade 1987; Bessell 1992). McCarthy (1991, 1994) suggests that languages may in fact stipulate whether laryngeal consonants are specified with a Pharyngeal node, or are Placeless. Bessell & Czaykowska-Higgins (1992) and Bessell (1992), based on data from Interior Salish languages, argue that this selection is independent of the inventory of guttural segments within a language.

scholarly journals Exceptional Arabic Diminutive Forms of Nouns with [aa]: An Optimality-Theoretic Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 68
Author(s):  
Albatool Mohammed Abalkheel
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Theoretic Analysis ◽  
Syllable Weight ◽  
Morphological Processes ◽  
Arabic Dialects

Most diminutive forms in Arabic adhere in their derivation to certain simple phonological and morphological processes without any complications. However, there are exceptions to be found, including diminutive forms of nouns with [aa] in which the segment [w] surfaces. Using Optimality Theory (OT) as a framework and using syllable weight as a base of analysis, this study aims to provide an accurate explanation of such phenomena. This work will show that the root of words with [w] is not simply biconsonantal with an emphatic segment (i.e., [w]) inserted to fill the empty onset. Instead, the root is triconsonantal in which [w] is an essential segment. It also reveals that syllable-weight constraint is inviolable in Arabic dialects.

Opaque distributional generalisations in Tundra Nenets

Phonology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-328
Author(s):  
Peter Staroverov
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Natural Class

Based on primary data from Tundra Nenets, this paper explores phonological patterns which seem to require restrictions on the input, and thus present a particular challenge to Optimality Theory. In these patterns, a contrastive segment appears only in the environments where it is also derived by active alternations in the language. I illustrate this with the behaviour of Tundra Nenets /k/, and argue that these patterns can be analysed as distributional generalisations that hold only at early derivational levels. A Stratal OT analysis is proposed. Tundra Nenets also presents a pattern which appears to involve unnatural classes, but is reanalysed with only natural class alternations in my account.

scholarly journals An Emergent Approach to the Guttural Natural Class

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Christopher Sylak-Glassman
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Preliminary Analysis ◽  
Natural Class ◽  
Show Evidence

The post-velar consonants (uvulars, pharyngeals/epiglottals, glottals) have been argued to form an innate and universal phonological natural class (e.g. by McCarthy 1994). Under this hypothesis, languages should have an equal likelihood of showing evidence for the guttural natural class regardless of which post-velar consonants are present in each language. However, typological evidence from P-base (Mielke, 2008) shows that languages with pharyngeal consonants are significantly more likely to show such evidence than languages with just uvulars and glottals. This paper argues that the reason that languages with pharyngeals are more likely to show evidence of the guttural natural class is that pharyngeals are able to pull other consonants into phonologically patterning with them for both articulatory and acoustic reasons. The epilaryngeal constriction used in pharyngeal consonants facilitates articulatory links with uvulars and glottals. The acoustic effects of pharyngeals and uvulars on adjacent vowels are also similar, providing another means for these segments to pattern together phonologically. A preliminary analysis in Optimality Theory of the effects of post-velars on vowels is proposed in which markedness constraints refer to similarity scales that relate post-velar consonants to vowels. The guttural natural class, rather than being innate, emerges from phonological patterns with phonetic underpinnings.

FOCUS ON PHONOLOGICAL ACQUISITION.S. J. Hannahs and Martha Young-Scholten (Eds.). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1997. Pp. 198. $82.00 cloth.

2000 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-131
Author(s):  
Jenifer Larson-Hall
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Optimality Theory ◽  
First Language ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Feature Geometry ◽  
Lexical Phonology

This volume is a collection of articles that explore language acquisition through the lens of current phonological theories, such as Optimality Theory, Lexical Phonology, and Feature Geometry. It is divided into one section on first language acquisition (L1) and another on second language acquisition (L2). There is an introduction by the editors.

Laryngeal assimilation in Buchan Scots

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
ISLAM YOUSSEF
Keyword(s):  
Natural Class ◽  
Phonological Process ◽  
Parallel Structures ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Feature Geometry ◽  
High Vowels ◽  
Consonant Voicing ◽  
Vowel Height

Buchan Scots exhibits a unique phonological process in which mid vowels undergo raising that is triggered by both voiced consonants and stressed high vowels. The fact that the triggers of assimilation do not fall neatly into a single natural class under most feature theories makes it an interesting challenge to straightforward analysis. Given the phonological patterns and a variety of phonetic facts about Buchan, I propose a [Lowered Larynx] feature to explain both vowel height and consonant voicing in this language. I present an autosegmental analysis of the segment inventory and phonological patterns in the framework of the Parallel Structures Model of feature geometry (Morén 2003, 2006, 2007). This analysis provides a unified and minimal account of the assimilation facts and supports the claim that phonological activity is dependent on the structure of the contrast system of a given language (Dresher, Piggot & Rice 1994). Furthermore, the representational analysis fits neatly into a constraint-based model and contributes to the growing body of literature claiming that representations are important even to optimality-theoretic analyses.

Phonology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmood Bijankhan
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Phonological Processes ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Loan Words ◽  
Persian Language ◽  
Feature Geometry ◽  
Natural Classes ◽  
Phonological Rules

This chapter reviews the organization of sounds in the contemporary Persian language and discusses the issues in phoneme inventory, syllable structure, distinctive features, phonological rules, rule interaction, and prosodic structure according to the framework of the derivational phonology. Laryngeal states responsible for contrast in pairs of homorganic stops and fricatives are different in Persian. Phonological status of continuancy is controversial for the uvular obstruent. Glottal stop is distinctive at the beginning of loan-words while not at the beginning of the original Persian words. Phonotactic constraints within the codas of the syllables violate the sonority sequencing principle. Glottals are moraic in the coda position. Feature geometry is posited on the sound distinctions and patterns within phonological processes. Eleven phonological rules are explained to suggest natural classes. Interaction of some rules is derived. Laryngeal conspiracy, syllable structure, and intersegmental processes are analysed according to interaction of ranked violable constraints of optimality theory.

The Behavior of Noon Sakinah and Nunation in Quranic Recitation: An Optimality Account

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Albatool Mohammed Abalkheel
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Natural Class ◽  
Phonological Processes ◽  
Principal Source ◽  
Sound Patterns ◽  
Natural Classes

<p>“Natural classes” refer to the set of sound patterns that go together in phonological processes. This paper provides an analysis of the phonological behavior of noon sakinah and nunation /n/ in Quranic recitation based on natural class generalization within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT). In some instances, the OT account may be accurate than traditional analysis. It provides evidence that natural classes derive from the nature of the set of markedness constraints, and that gutturals must constitute a natural class. The principal source of evidence for these proposals is that gutturals, unlike other places of articulation, do not induce nasal assimilation. </p>

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