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Modelling incomplete neutralisation with weighted phonetic constraints

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2019

Aaron Braver
Aaron Braver*
Affiliation:
Texas Tech University
*
E-mail: aaron.braver@ttu.edu.
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Abstract

Incomplete neutralisation presents a problem for classical modular feed-forward grammars: it results in surface phonetic distinctions between phonologically neutralised segments. This paper argues for a model of incomplete neutralisation using two independently motivated theoretical devices: paradigm uniformity and weighted phonetic constraints. A case study is presented, showing that Japanese monomoraic lengthening results in incomplete neutralisation: when monomoraic nouns with short vowels are lengthened to fill a bimoraic minimality requirement, they reach a duration intermediate between that of unlengthened short vowels and underlyingly long vowels. The Japanese case has properties distinct from other classically cited examples of incomplete neutralisation such as final devoicing, which are not predicted by previous theories of neutralisation. The Weighted Paradigm Uniformity theory of incomplete neutralisation is shown to make four unique predictions, and is argued to better capture the typology of incomplete neutralisation.

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Phonology , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 1 - 36
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

I thank Shigeto Kawahara and Will Bennett for their discussion of this project. I am also grateful to three anonymous reviewers and an associate editor for providing substantive comments and direction that greatly improved the paper. The Japanese data presented in §3 come from Braver & Kawahara (2014, 2016).

References

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