Abstract
An aspirated stop in a Kashaya prefix becomes a plain voiceless stop by dissimilation when the root begins with an aspirate; but it also assimilates to an unaspirated stop in the same position. The OCP cannot help with assimilation, so I propose a unified analysis of the two phenomena within Agreement by Correspondence (Rose & Walker 2004, Bennett 2013). Unlike somewhat similar cases in the literature with both assimilation and dissimilation, here there is no structural difference. I posit a conjoined constraint that penalizes an initial aspirate in a correspondence relation; the rest follows from standard ABC assumptions.
Highlights
Kashaya is a Pomoan language of the northern California coast
Shared place is irrelevant in the Kashaya pattern, so we look to broader constraints that operate between stops with a potentially different place of articulation: if they have the same aspiration, CORR-Kh↔Th, or different aspiration, CORR-Kh↔T
IO-IDENT-RT-[asp] >> CC·IDENT-[asp] >> *PREF/[ASP] & CC·EDGE >> CORR-Kh↔Th >> CORR-Kh↔T >> CC·EDGE >> IO-IDENT-[asp] >> CORR-Kh↔D. This unified analysis using surface correspondence permits treating assimilation and dissimilation in one framework, rather than two entirely different methods, such as the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP) plus some kind of agreement or spreading that would yield the same result for the prefix by coincidence
Summary
Kashaya is a Pomoan language of the northern California coast. It has dissimilation of the aspiration feature [asp], i.e. Ch → C, before another aspirated consonant Ch (with an intervening vowel). This sort of alternation is familiar from Grassmann’s Law and similar processes. Kashaya is noteworthy because it has assimilation of [asp] before a plain unaspirated C (again with an intervening vowel). This change is a form of nonlocal harmony. I propose a solution using the formalism of Agreement by Correspondence, which unifies the two phenomena when combined with a conjoined constraint that penalizes a particular configuration of an initial aspirated consonant
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