Abstract
Melodic Heads in Element Theory (Kaye et al. 1985; Harris & Lindsey 1995; Backley 2011) have long been associated with higher acoustic saliency of the headed prime’s properties (Lindsey & Harris 1990; Backley 1995; Harris & Lindsey 1995; et alia) and with the relative strength (e.g. alignment of melodic heads with strong positions and robustness of headed expressions against lenition) of a melodic head compared to a dependent (e.g. Backley & Nasukawa 2009). Following substantial work on the interaction of voicing and nasality (Nasukawa 1997, 2005; Ploch 1999; Botma 2004) it is commonly assumed that voicing and nasality are both represented by the same prime |L|, with dependent |L| encoding nasality and headed |L| encoding voicing. In this paper I counter some of the arguments for the universality of this implementation, and develop an alternative view of a unified voicing–nasality prime, in which voicing is encoded by dependent |L| and nasality by headed |L|. I show how this analysis is more consistent with both the saliency and strength arguments by considering arguments based on the represented acoustic patterns, positional strength, nasal sharing (nasal harmony within onset–nucleus pairs), and cross-linguistic biases against loss of nasality. Finally, I show how this account is compatible with a more restrictive, recursive view of the phonological interpretation component following the set theoretic model of Element Theory in Breit (2013). Based on these arguments I conclude that we have good reason to doubt the universality of Nasukawa (1997, 2005) and Ploch’s (1999) implementation; instead we must give serious consideration to the reverse option with headed |L| for nasality and dependent |L| for voicing. I suggest that there are two possible responses to this situation: we can either make the attempt to radically adopt the alternative, or we can adopt a more relativistic position (in the sense of Cyran 2011, 2014) which allows a choice between both options. This article is part of the Special Collection: Headedness in Phonology
Highlights
A large proportion of current work on laryngeal contrast takes the view that voicing distinctions are represented by a set of at least two privative primes rather than a single equipollent [±voice] prime (Halle & Stevens 1971; Itô & Mester 1986; Harris 1994; Iverson & Salmons 1995; Honeybone 2005; to name but a few)
B. /baχɡen/ [də vaχɡen] ‘your boy’ /djaul/ [də ðjaul] ‘your devil’ /ɡwaɬt/ [də waɬt] ‘your hair’ /mɔrʊr/ [də vɔrʊr] ‘your sailor’. While this may look like a case of nasal spirantisation if we look only at the nasal /m/ (as in the last example in (23b)), it is clear from the overall pattern that the process is neither purely one of phonological lenition nor one purely of fortition (SM here is of a general lenition characteristic, while Nasal Mutation (NM) is of a forition characteristic; see Green (2007) for more detailed arguments why Celtic mutations are not true cases of lenition)
7 Conclusion In this paper I have summarised the main arguments for the Unified Voicing and Nasality Hypothesis leading to the proposal of a unified prime, with the Conventional Implementation (CI) of a headed |L| encoding voicing and dependent |L| encoding nasality
Summary
A large proportion of current work on laryngeal contrast takes the view that voicing distinctions are represented by a set of at least two privative primes (say for instance [spread glottis] and [voice]) rather than a single equipollent [±voice] prime (Halle & Stevens 1971; Itô & Mester 1986; Harris 1994; Iverson & Salmons 1995; Honeybone 2005; to name but a few). It will argue that two of the notions traditionally associated with melodic headship in ET, saliency and phonological strength, both speak for an opposing view where nasality is encoded as headed |L| and voicing as dependent |L| It will show how, based on assumptions about phonology’s interface with phonetic interpretation, the inherency of voicing in nasal segments can logically follow only from this view and not from that advanced by Ploch (1999) and Nasukawa (2005). 3.3 Implementation of a unified prime that we have reviewed part of the substantial evidence for the UVNH, let us turn our attention to the implementation of the unified prime, commonly assigned the label |L| in line with the prime’s previous identity as low tone and voicing element.9 Both Nasukawa (1997, 1999, 2000, 2005) and Ploch (1997, 1999) argue that the headed unified prime encodes voicing and the dependent unified prime encodes nasality in consonants, while in vowels the headed prime encodes nasality and the dependent prime low tone. Ploch (1999) and Nasukawa (2005) take as the main evidence for the CI the very fact that stipulation of the CI allows them to successfully analyse the various types of phenomena discussed above (cf. Ploch 1999: 228), but they present two types of additional arguments for the CI, relating to the claim that the CI is universal: one from constituency and one from the typological distribution of true voicing and nasality
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