Assimilation and reduction in Kagoshima Japanese : An constraints on coda consonant caused by high vowel deletion

Abstract

This paper examines the typology of syllable constraints from the perspectives on neutralization of laryngeal contrasts and assimilation in Kagoshima Japanese within the framework of Harmonic Serialism. Kagoshima Japanese exhibits deletion of non-initial high vowels. Word final stops and nasal caused by apocope are neutralized to placeless segments (i.e., glottal stop and uvular nasal respectively). And word internal consonant clusters (C1C2) created by syncope are assimilated or reduced depending on the combinations of consonants. If C1 is stop, there occurs assimilation or coda reduction depending on the type of C2: (i) stops entirely assimilate to following obstruents, however (ii) stops reduce to glottal stops before sonorants.BR The author analyzed these patterns of reduction and assimilation by gradual step with fixed hierarchy of anti feature spreading faithfulness elicited from P-map.