Gestural Timing and Derived Environment Effects in Norwegian Clusters

Abstract

This paper considers phonological behavior of /C/ clusters in Urban East Norwegian (henceforth UEN), as recently discussed by Kristoffersen (2000). I will argue that phonetic realization of such clusters depends on relative timing of articulatory gestures associated with // and following consonant. Specifically, patterning of /C/ clusters lends further support to Cho's (1998a,b) phonetically-based Optimalitytheoretic (OT) approach to intergestural timing specifications. Cho's central hypothesis is that the timing between two gestures created by morpheme concatenation is not lexically specified and is therefore potentially subject to any phonological change which can be produced by varying gestural (Cho 1998b:5). This hypothesis provides a basis for explaining derived environment effects whereby overlap in /C/ sequences is blocked within morphemes but not across morpheme or word boundaries. This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 documents derived environment effects in UEN clusters. Section 3 examines role of gestural timing in cluster realization. Section 4 develops a phonetically-based analysis of derived environment effects, which is then compared with two alternative OT accounts in Section 5. Finally, Section 6 concludes by considering some empirical implications of proposed analysis, with specific reference to liquid assimilation processes observed in Spanish of Havana, Cuba.