Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:41:53.253Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Underspecification and vowel height transfer in Esimbi*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 October 2008

Larry M. Hyman
Larry M. Hyman
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Since the advent of distinctive feature theory, few issues have received as many interpretations as the phonological representation of vowel height. Vowel height features have been denned acoustically and articulatorily, have allowed three, four or five distinct heights, have been unary, binary and n-ary, and have been on a single tier, multiple tiers or in various head-dependency relationships. It is fair to say that there is no consensus on how vowel height should be represented. While many generative phonologists have been quite content working for nearly three decades with a pair of binary vowel height features, the literature of this period includes a steady flow of criticisms of this approach as well as suggestions for improvement or radical change. This literature generally addresses itself to two problems inherent in the SPE features [high] and [low] and the three vowel heights they define: First, how does one account for systems with four (five?) vowel heights? Second, how can rules that raise (lower) vowel heights by one step each be accounted for? In the first question we ask what the theory has to say about distinctive oppositions such as /i e ∊ æ/ in the second question we ask what the theory has to say about a rule such as one that would lower /i/ to [e] and /e/ to [∊].

Type
Articles
Information
Phonology , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , August 1988 , pp. 255 - 273
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Archangeli, Diana (1984). Underspecification in Yawelmani phonology and morphology. PhD dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Archangeli, Diana & Pulleyblank, Douglas (forthcoming a). The content and structure of phonological representations. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Archangeli, Diana & Pulleyblank, Douglas (forthcoming b). Yoruba vowel harmony. LI.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam & Halle, Morris (1968). The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Clements, George N. (1985). The geometry of phonological features. PhY 2. 225–252.Google Scholar
Guthrie, Malcolm (1971). Comparative Bantu. Vol. 2. Farnborough, Hants: Gregg International Publishers.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Carl (1973). The vowel harmony system of the Okpe monosyllabic verb. Department of Linguistics and Nigerian Languages, University of Ibadan Research Notes 6. 79–111.Google Scholar
Hyman, Larry M. (1986). The representation of multiple tone heights. In Koen, Bogers, Harry, van der Hulst & Maarten, Mous (eds.) The phonological representation of suprasegmentals. Dordrecht: Foris. 109–152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hyman, Larry M. & Tadadjeu, Maurice (1976). Floating tones in Mbam-Nkam. In Hyman, Larry M. (ed.) Studies in Bantu Tonology. Southern California Occasional Papers in Linguistics 3. 57–111.Google Scholar
Khumalo, James S. M. (1987). An autosegmental account of Zulu phonology. PhD dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul (1968). How abstract is phonology? Indiana University Linguistics Club. Also in Osamu, Fujimura (ed.) (1973) Three dimensions of linguistic theory. Tokyo: TEC. 5–56.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul (1982). Lexical morphology and phonology. In Yang, I.-S. (ed.) Linguistics in the morning calm. Seoul: Hanshin. 3–91.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul (1985). Some consequences of Lexical Phonology. Ph Y 2. 85–138.Google Scholar
Lass, Roger (1976). English phonology and phonological theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lindau, Mona (1978). Vowel features. Lg 54. 541–563.Google Scholar
Lindau, Mona (1979). The feature expanded. JPh 7. 163–176.Google Scholar
Ohala, John J. (1974). Experimental historical phonology. In Anderson, J. M. & Jones, C. (eds.) Historical linguistics. Vol. 2. Amsterdam: North-Holland. 353–389.Google Scholar
Ohala, John J. (1975). Phonetic explanations for nasal sound patterns. In Ferguson, Charles A., Hyman, Larry M. and Ohala, John J. (eds.) Nasdlfest: papers from a symposium on nasals and nasalization. Stanford University Universals Project. 289–316.Google Scholar
Omamor, Augusta Phil (1973). Uvwie – a case of vowels merging. Department of Linguistics and Nigerian Languages, University of Ibadan Research Notes 6. 113–143.Google Scholar
Paradis, Carole (1986). Phonologie et morphologic lexicales: les classes nominates en pulaar (fula). PhD dissertation, University of Montreal.Google Scholar
Pulleyblank, Douglas (1986a). Tone in Lexical Phonology. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pulleyblank, Douglas (1986b). Underspecification and low vowel harmony in Okpe. Studies in African Linguistics 17. 119–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sagey, Elizabeth (1986). The representation of features and relations in non-linear phonology. PhD dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Stallcup, Kenneth L. (1977). Nominal prefixes in Esimbi: the rise and fall of vowel harmony. Ms.Google Scholar
Stallcup, Kenneth L. (1980a). A brief account of nominal prefixes and vowel harmony in Esimbi. In Luc, Bouquiaux (ed.) L'expansion bantoue. Vol. 2. Paris: Société d'Etudes Linguistiques et Anthropologiques de France. 435–441.Google Scholar
Stallcup, Kenneth L. (1980b). Noun classes in Esimbi. In Hyman, Larry M. (ed.) Noun classes in the Grassfields Bantu borderland. Southern California Occasional Papers in Linguistics 8. 139–153.Google Scholar
Stewart, John M. (1971). Niger-Congo, Kwa. In Sebeok, T. (ed.) Current trends in linguistics. Vol. 7. The Hague: Mouton. 179–212.Google Scholar
Stewart, John M. & van Leynseele, Hélène (1979). Underlying cross-height vowel harmony in Nen (Bantu A.44). Journal of African Languages and Linguistics I. 31–54.Google Scholar
Wang, William S.-Y. (1968). Vowel festures, paired variables, and the English vowel shift. Lg 44. 695–708.Google Scholar
Yip, Moira (1980a). Why Scanian is not a case for multivalued features. LI 11. 432–436.Google Scholar
Yip, Moira (1980b). The tonal phonology of Chinese. PhD dissertation, MIT. Distributed by Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar