HARMONIC PHONOLOGY WITHIN ONE LANGUAGE: AN ANALYSIS OF YIDINY
HARMONIC PHONOLOGY WITHIN ONE LANGUAGE: AN ANALYSIS OF YIDINY
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Date
1992
Authors
Kirchner, Robert
Advisor
Inkelas, Sharon
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Abstract
This thesis attempts to implement and flesh out Prince and
Smolensky's (1991) proposal for a declarative, multi-stratal model of
phonology based on the quasi-connectionist notion of maximization of
phonological "harmony" or well-formedness (henceforth "Harmonic Phonology"),
applying this approach to a detailed analysis of the phonology of
Yidiny, a language of North-Eastern Australia. In Harmonic Phonology,
the phonological component of the grammar consists of a set of universal
markedness principles (e.g. "prefer non-low back vowel to be rounded,"
or "prefer syllable to have onset"). Cross-linguistic variation is
accounted for solely in terms of the ranking of such markedness statements:
there are no language-specific rules or constraints. The thesis
uses this framework to account for the structure of Yidiny's phoneme
inventory, syllable template, and stress system, as well as a variety of
alternations, including odd-syllable apocope and penultimate vowel
lengthening, and demonstrates the superiority of such an analysis as
compared to a rule-based account of the same phenomena.