A unified approach to nasality and voicing
This thesis proposes a merger of voicing and nasality under a single phonological feature. One main focus of this approach is a paradoxical phenomenon involving a nasal-voice affinity in Yamato Japanese. In postnasal voicing assimilation, nasals appear to be specified for voice (e.g. sin + ta = sinda 'died'). On the other hand, in Lyman's Law, which allows only a single voiced obstruent in a particular domain, nasals behave as if they have no voice feature (e.g. sindo-i 'tired', [asterisk]zindo-i). In order to resolve this paradox, I propose that nasal and voice are phonetic manifestations of the same phonological category. The different phonetic interpretations can be accommodated within a geometry-based element theory which incorporates the notion of a complement tier (Backley 1998, Backley and Takahashi 1998). When the complement of the nasal-voice element is licensed, the realisation is one of voicing. An unlicensed complement tier results in nasality. By adopting this analysis, postnasal voicing assimilation can be treated as the extension of the nasal-voice element across both positions of an NC cluster, where only the element in the second position licenses its complement tier. In addition, the transparency
Nasukawa, Kuniya
Yamato Japanese; Postnasal; Harmony; Assimilation
A unified approach to nasality and voicing. This thesis proposes a merger of voicing and nasality under a single phonological feature. One main focus of this approach is a paradoxical phenomenon involving a nasal-voice affinity in Yamato Japanese. In postnasal voicing assimilation, nasals appear to be specified for voice (e.g. sin + ta = sinda 'died'). On the other hand, in Lyman's Law, which allows only a single voiced obstruent in a particular domain, nasals behave as if they have no voice feature (e.g. sindo-i 'tired', [asterisk]zindo-i). In order to resolve this paradox, I propose that nasal and voice are phonetic manifestations of the same phonological category. The different phonetic interpretations can be accommodated within a geometry-based element theory which incorporates the notion of a complement tier (Backley 1998, Backley and Takahashi 1998). When the complement of the nasal-voice element is licensed, the realisation is one of voicing. An unlicensed complement tier results in nasality. By adopting this analysis, postnasal voicing assimilation can be treated as the extension of the nasal-voice element across both positions of an NC cluster, where only the element in the second position licenses its complement tier. In addition, the transparency
unified voicing proposes merger voice single phonological_feature one_main focus paradoxical phenomenon involve nasal voice affinity japanese voice assimilation nasal appear specify voice sin hand law allow single voiced particular domain nasal behave voice feature order resolve paradox propose nasal voice phonetic manifestation phonological category different phonetic interpretation accommodate within geometry based element theory incorporate notion complement tier complement nasal voice element license realisation voicing complement tier adopt analysis voice assimilation treat extension nasal voice element across position cluster element second position license complement tier addition transparency