Ejective harmony in Lezgian

Abstract

This paper contributes to the typology of laryngeal harmony by analysing an unusual case of long-distance laryngeal co-occurrence restrictions and alternations in Lezgian. This pattern, previously unmentioned in the phonological literature, is the first known case of alternations involving ejective harmony. In Lezgian, local processes mask the interaction of ejectives and plain voiceless stops. This is robustly supported by our dictionary analysis, which reveals a ban on the co-occurrence of ejectives and plain voiceless stops within the foot. Both harmony alternations and static co-occurrence restrictions are sensitive to foot structure, unlike previous cases of consonant harmony. Harmony also interacts opaquely with vowel syncope, and certain co-occurrences of plain and ejective stops are resolved with dissimilation rather than harmony, showing a conspiracy to avoid co-occurrences. We demonstrate an account within the Agreement by Correspondence framework and discuss implications for the typology and analysis of consonant harmony.

A conditional learnability argument for constraints on underlying representations

“…Stanley (1967) argued that these should be constraints rather than rules. In the generative tradition, these became known as morpheme-structure constraints, though in recent years the use of the term morpheme-structure constraints has been sometimes extended to refer to morphemestructure generalizations that hold on the surface (see, e.g., Rose &Walker 2004 andOzburn &Kochetov 2018). To make it clear that we refer to grammatical statements that restrict underlying forms, we will use CURs as a cover term for rules or constraints of this kind.…”