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*NT revisited again: An approach to postnasal laryngeal alternations with perceptual Cue constraints1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2015

SILKE HAMANN  and
LAURA J. DOWNING
SILKE HAMANN*
Affiliation:
University of Amsterdam
LAURA J. DOWNING*
Affiliation:
University of Gothenburg
*
Author’s address: Amsterdam Centre of Language and Communication, University of Amsterdam,Spuistraat 210, 1012 VT Amsterdam, The Netherlands [email protected]
Author’s address: Språk och litteraturer, Göteborgs Universitet, Box 200,40530 Göteborg, Sweden [email protected]
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Abstract

Phonological alternations in homorganic nasal–stop sequences provide a continuing topic of investigation for phonologists and phoneticians alike. Surveys like Herbert (1986), Rosenthal (1989), Steriade (1993) and Hyman (2001) demonstrate that cross-linguistically the most common process is for the postnasal stop to become voiced, as captured by Pater’s (1999) markedness constraint *NT. However, as observed since Hyman (2001), *NT alone does not account for all postnasal patterns of laryngeal alternation. In this paper, we focus on three problematic patterns. First, in some languages with a two-way laryngeal contrast, voiceless stops are aspirated postnasally, i.e. the contrast between NT and ND is enhanced, not neutralized. Second, in some languages with a three-way laryngeal contrast, the voicing contrast is maintained postnasally, while the aspiration contrast neutralizes in favour of aspiration. Third, in other languages with a three-way laryngeal contrast we find the opposite postnasal aspiration neutralization: aspiration is lost. We argue that an analysis based on perceptual cues provides the best account for this range of alternations. It demonstrates the crucial role of perceptual cues and laryngeal contrasts in a particular language while fitting the range of patterns into an Optimality Theoretic factorial typology that covers a wider range of postnasal laryngeal alternations than previous analyses.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , 01 February 2017 , pp. 85 - 112
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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