Obstruent epenthesis and the unity of phonological features

Abstract

Burling (1966) proposed an unusual change in which stops /t/ and /k/ were added after ∗-i and ∗-u in the history of the Tibeto-Burman language, Maru. Miller (1970) took Burling to task for what he called his ‘theory of the spontaneous generation of final stops’. However, a similar change involving the spirants /s/ and /x/ is found in certain Austronesian languages of the Land Dayak group. In both cases the epenthetic obstruent is word-final, and hence increases the markedness of the syllable type. In addition, the added segment agrees in backness with the preceding vowel, suggesting a non-arbitrary correlation between vowel and consonant features which goes beyond the correlation commonly noted in such assimilatory changes as palatalization. Although the affinity of high back vowels for velar consonants is theoretically expected in the now traditional feature framework of Chomsky and Halle (1968), the affinity of high front vowels for dental consonants is not. This problem disappears if we adopt a suggestion made repeatedly in recent years that the feature [coronal], which was originally restricted to consonants, be extended to vowels.