Head-Dependent Asymmetries in Central Salish Prosody
Date
2024
Authors
Thompson, Cynan
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Victoria
Abstract
This research presents an Optimality Theory (OT) analysis of three prosodic systems found in a number of Central Salish languages. The mapping of moraic structure to foot structure shows a parallel pattern whereby the head syllable licenses more complex moraic structures than the dependent syllables. The difference between head and dependent syllables can be enforced by moraic coercion, where a post-schwa intervocalic resonant is incorporated into the head syllable in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (see Dyck, 2004). It also accounts for compensatory lengthening in ʔayʔaǰuθəm (see Blake, 2000) and foot-form in SENĆOŦEN (see Leonard, 2019). There is variation in how the head syllable expresses complexity, but interestingly, the dependent is banned from any (complex) moraic structure. These patterns are formalized in OT by a constraint which penalizes dependents that have a moraic content equal to, or greater than, their heads.
Description
Keywords
linguistics, phonology, Indigenous language