| ROA: | 1243 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Vowel-length neutralization at word-final edges: A prominence-based account |
| Authors: | Daiki Hashimoto |
| Comment: | This paper appeared in a journal "Language and Information Sciences 13, 51-66, 2015." You can download this paper from the following link as well: http://repository.dl.itc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/dspace/handle/2261/56705 |
| Length: | 16 pages |
| Abstract: | In Japanese, vowels are distinctive in length. For example, hora 'lie' and horaa 'horror' are distinguished in the length of the final vowels. Also, sabu 'sub' and saabu 'serve' differ only in the length of the initial vowels. However, previous studies (Xue 2012, Labrune 2002, 2007) have pointed out that length of word-final vowels is neutralized in certain lexical or morphological classes. In particular, long vowels at word-final edges are neutralized to their short correspondents in certain classes. There are three kinds of lexical or morphological classes where vowel-length neutralization takes place at word-final edges: minor loan words, truncated compound loan words, and truncated simple loan words. The aim of this study is to demonstrate (i) that the three vowel-length neutralization phenomena at word-final edges are motivated by one and the same markedness hierarchy and (ii) that the markedness hierarchy is derived from two well-attested independent phonological concepts, 'prominence' and 'Harmonic Alignment (HA),' instead of ad hoc stipulated constraints, such as *H#, *H# [+high], and *H# [-high]. |
| Type: | Paper/tech report |
| Area/Keywords: | vowel length, neutralization, prominence, Harmonic Alignment, markedness scale |
| Article: | Version 1 |