| Abstract: | The occurrence of and the restrictions on the temporal spreading of phonological feature values (assimilation, harmony) are the results of interactions between the functional principles of minimizing articulatory effort and minimizing perceptual confusion. This proposal is tested on the typology of opacity to nasal spreading. While the sonority approach of Gnanadesikan (1995) meets with insuperable problems with regard to the position of /h/ in the hierarchy, and the feature-geometric representational approach of Piggott (1992) needs to take recourse to ad-hoc conditions in UG in order to get the hierarchy right, the functional approach accurately predicts the attested typology. |
