| ROA: | 182 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Constraint Interaction and Brazilian Portuguese Glide Distribution |
| Authors: | James P. Giangola |
| Comment: | |
| Length: | 16 |
| Abstract: | Constraint Interaction and Brazilian Portuguese Glide Distribution James P. Giangola Sensory, Inc. Glide distribution is a traditional problem for syllable, prosodic, metrical, and feature geometry theory. Brazilian Portuguese [BP] presents a particularly complex set of facts in these areas. The apparent unpredictability of glides may suggest that [y] and [w] must be phonemes (e.g. Barbosa 1965, Leite 1974, Mateus 1975). A phonemic analysis is based on the surface co-occurrence of [iw], [yu], and [i.u], as well as [uy], [wi], and [u.i]. However, BP glides are indeed predictable once one considers certain prosodic, metrical, and morphological tendencies to be found across languages. Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993) maintains that the grammar is constructed of a set of ranked and violable constraints, rather than derivational or generative 'rules'. Since BP glide distribution can be explained solely in terms of general, cross-linguistically motivated constraints, an OT approach is relatively cost-free. In contrast, a traditional rule-based analysis must stipulate desyllabification rules which explicitly target high and mid vowels at various derivational levels. In this paper, I show that the sequence VG (vowel plus off- glide) is distributionally less restricted than GV (onglide plus vowel) or V.V (vowels in hiatus). The more restricted forms, GV and V.V, obtain in prosodic, metrical, and morpho- logical environments in which VG is disallowed. In an OT framework, the analysis takes on the following form: When input /VV/ corresponds to output VG, there are no constraint violations, while outputs GV and V.V violate more highly ranked Parse-mora and Onset, respectively. However, GV and V.V are optimal in those environments in which VG violates certain constraints ranked more highly than Parse-mora and Onset. |
| Type: | Paper/tech report |
| Area/Keywords: | |
| Article: | Version 1 |