Laryngeal assimilation in Buchan Scots

Abstract

Buchan Scots exhibits a unique phonological process in which mid vowels undergo raising that is triggered by both voiced consonants and stressed high vowels. The fact that the triggers of assimilation do not fall neatly into a single natural class under most feature theories makes it an interesting challenge to straightforward analysis. Given the phonological patterns and a variety of phonetic facts about Buchan, I propose a [Lowered Larynx] feature to explain both vowel height and consonant voicing in this language. I present an autosegmental analysis of the segment inventory and phonological patterns in the framework of the Parallel Structures Model of feature geometry (Morén 2003, 2006, 2007). This analysis provides a unified and minimal account of the assimilation facts and supports the claim that phonological activity is dependent on the structure of the contrast system of a given language (Dresher, Piggot & Rice 1994). Furthermore, the representational analysis fits neatly into a constraint-based model and contributes to the growing body of literature claiming that representations are important even to optimality-theoretic analyses.