The Typology of Voicing and Devoicing

Wetzels, W. Léo; Mascaró, Joan

doi:10.1353/lan.2001.0123

Cited by 118 publications

(93 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…I propose that the use of arboreal structures to capture ternary contrasts is not just a notational variant of binary features (Wetzels and Mascaró, 2001;Uffmann, 2009), and in fact it has important advantages:…”

Section: Markedness Contrastive Specification and Feature Geometrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Final devoicing and vowel lengthening in Friulian: A representational approach

Iosad

2012

Lingua

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This paper proposes an account of final devoicing in Friulian which relies on contrastive feature specification and feature geometry to explicate the connection between final devoicing and vowel lengthening. It is proposed that obstruents which are the outcome of final devoicing are phonologically distinct from true voiceless obstruents, being completely unspecified for laryngeal features. It is argued that the representational deficiency of such delaryngealized obstruents is directly connected to their inability to license a mora, which opens the way to vowel lengthening. More generally, the paper shows how feature geometry may be adapted to capture the effects of contrastive specification and express markedness relations, and proposes a novel approach to hierarchies involving the sonority of coda segments.Keywords: final devoicing, moraic theory, sonority hierarchy, feature geometry, Romance languagesThe present paper has two purposes. Empirically, it focuses on final devoicing in Friulian and on the connection between final devoicing and vowel lengthening. Its aim is to account both for the phonetic phenomena involved in final devoicing and for the fact that stressed vowels are lengthened before devoiced obstruents (but only in a word-final syllable). From a theoretical perspective, the paper takes up several strands of recent research into markedness relations. I argue that feature specifications should be assigned solely on the basis of phenomena attested within Email address: pavel.iosad@uit.no (Pavel Iosad)

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Section: Markedness Contrastive Specification and Feature Geometrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Final devoicing and vowel lengthening in Friulian: A representational approach

Iosad

2012

Lingua

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“…The set of handshape features permitted in the coda of a syllable is closely aligned with the set of handshapes found on the non-dominant hand in two-handed signs. This generalisation is strongly reminiscent of coda neutralisation processes well documented in the world's spoken languages, such as devoicing and debuccalisation (see Wetzels and Mascaró 2001;de Lacy 2006 for further details). Languages with coda devoicing have laryngeal feature contrasts, but use only a subset of the possible features in coda position -the subset that is least marked (i.e.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 75%

A Perfect End: A Study of Syllable Codas in South African Sign Language

2017

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South African Sign Language (SASL) is an understudied language with a rich and interesting phonology. For instance, while the language allows onsetless syllables, it does not allow codaless syllables, except in a small class of signs which do not include path movement. This article identifies and defines possible constraints on syllable codas in SASL. Using a video dictionary as data, we have coded handshapes at locations occurring at the onset and coda of the more common signs in the lexicon. In handshape, it has been found that the selected fingers may move to create different handshapes in the coda position, but that these coda handshapes are often . Furthermore, the joint specification for the selected fingers can also vary in the coda position, but there appear to be strict limitations on which joint combinations are permitted in the onset-coda relationship. There are also constraints on coda location. The major body region can change within a single syllable, and the preferred body regions in the coda position are [body] and [H2]. It is evident not only that handshape and location constraints occur at the coda position, but that these constraints show patterns similar to coda neutralisation in many spoken languages.

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“…lenition). IndoEuropean languages such as German, Catalan and Polish are well-known for the occurrence of final obstruent devoicing, although this process is of course also found in many non-Indo-European languages, such as Georgian, Wolof, and Turkish (see Mascaró 1987;Lombardi 1994;Wetzels & Mascaró 2001 for a typological overview). 23 The recording shown is part of a larger corpus of controlled Welsh speech currently being collected and analysed.…”

Section: Nasals Are Strongermentioning

confidence: 99%

Melodic heads, saliency, and strength in voicing and nasality

Breit

2017

Volume 2

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Melodic Heads in Element Theory (Kaye et al. 1985; Harris & Lindsey 1995; Backley 2011) have long been associated with higher acoustic saliency of the headed prime’s properties (Lindsey & Harris 1990; Backley 1995; Harris & Lindsey 1995; et alia) and with the relative strength (e.g. alignment of melodic heads with strong positions and robustness of headed expressions against lenition) of a melodic head compared to a dependent (e.g. Backley & Nasukawa 2009). Following substantial work on the interaction of voicing and nasality (Nasukawa 1997, 2005; Ploch 1999; Botma 2004) it is commonly assumed that voicing and nasality are both represented by the same prime |L|, with dependent |L| encoding nasality and headed |L| encoding voicing. In this paper I counter some of the arguments for the universality of this implementation, and develop an alternative view of a unified voicing–nasality prime, in which voicing is encoded by dependent |L| and nasality by headed |L|. I show how this analysis is more consistent with both the saliency and strength arguments by considering arguments based on the represented acoustic patterns, positional strength, nasal sharing (nasal harmony within onset–nucleus pairs), and cross-linguistic biases against loss of nasality. Finally, I show how this account is compatible with a more restrictive, recursive view of the phonological interpretation component following the set theoretic model of Element Theory in Breit (2013). Based on these arguments I conclude that we have good reason to doubt the universality of Nasukawa (1997, 2005) and Ploch’s (1999) implementation; instead we must give serious consideration to the reverse option with headed |L| for nasality and dependent |L| for voicing. I suggest that there are two possible responses to this situation: we can either make the attempt to radically adopt the alternative, or we can adopt a more relativistic position (in the sense of Cyran 2011, 2014) which allows a choice between both options. This article is part of the Special Collection: Headedness in Phonology

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The Typology of Voicing and Devoicing

Cited by 118 publications

References 23 publications

Final devoicing and vowel lengthening in Friulian: A representational approach

Final devoicing and vowel lengthening in Friulian: A representational approach

A Perfect End: A Study of Syllable Codas in South African Sign Language

Melodic heads, saliency, and strength in voicing and nasality

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