| ROA: | 474 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Markedness, Faithfulness, Vowel Quality and Syllable Structure in French |
| Authors: | Caroline Fery |
| Comment: | Phonetic fonts (SIL Manuscript 93) |
| Length: | 32 |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the distributional properties of tense and lax vowels in a relatively standard dialect of Northern French which still contrasts vowel length, and examines the interaction between markedness and faithfulness constraints in OT. The intricate interplay between vowel quality, syllable structure and cooccurrence restrictions between vowels and consonants that one observes in French makes it an ideal language for exploring the interactions between the two kinds of constraints. As a general tendency, it can safely be assumed that tense vowels appear in open syllables and lax vowels in closed syllables. However, the situation is complicated by the fact that only mid vowels contrast a tense and a lax variant ? at least in the dialect discussed here ? and that the distinction is made (nearly) exclusively in the phrase-final syllable, also preconsonantally. Further complications arise because of the effect of idiosyncratic cooccurrence restrictions. Some of these difficulties are eliminated by a phonologically abstract model of the syllable structure. In the analysis developed below, it is assumed that French has semisyllables, confined to the word-final position, which function as onsets of nucleusless syllables. This explains why tense vowels can be in apparently (i.e. phonetically) closed syllables. |
| Type: | Paper/tech report |
| Area/Keywords: | Phonology |
| Article: | Version 1 |