| ROA: | 355 |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Gradient OCP - Tonal Evidence from Swedish |
| Authors: | Heli Harrikari |
| Comment: | |
| Length: | 19 |
| Abstract: | Heli Harrikari University of Helsinki It is well known that languages have a tendency to avoid sequences of adjacent identical elements, a pattern called the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP, Leben 1973, 1978, 1980; McCarthy 1979, 1986). Numerous studies have demonstrated and analyzed the realizations of the OCP at various levels of the phonological representation, as well as provided tools for deriving the OCP effects in different theoretical frameworks. This paper participates in the discussion on the nature of the OCP by demonstrating how both parameters of the OCP, adjacency and similarity, must be seen as gradient phenomena. Evidence will be provided from tonal patterns encountered in the phonology-syntax interface in Swedish; more specifically, from patterns which arise when the sentence-level focus tone and a lexical tone are brought together into a context which contains not enough space for both of them to surface. This paper shows, through an Optimality Theoreric analysis (OT, Prince & Smolensky, McCarthy & Prince 1993a), how the general definition of the OCP is insufficient, and how the restriction against adjacent identical elements is, in fact, a combination of a set of sub-constraints, which concern both adjacency and similarity, and which together reflect the gradient nature of the OCP. Only by evaluating the OCP in the gradient manner, can an answer be offered for the question of why part of a lexical tone disappears or changes the register in certain focal contexts. |
| Type: | Paper/tech report |
| Area/Keywords: | |
| Article: | Version 1 |