Penultimate devoicing in Chaha: phonetic enhancement rather than devoicing

Abstract

Two of the most well-cited phonological processes in Chaha, ‘devoicing’ (i.e., voiceless consonants alternating with voiced counterparts in the penultimate) and degemination, are reinvestigated to provide a uniform account for laryngeal representations in obstruents within the framework of Dimensional Theory (Avery and Idsardi 2001). In this approach, different from Banksira (2000) and O’Bryan and Rose (2004), devoicing is viewed as articulatory enhancement which assigns [stiff] to Glottal Tension, not a process which deletes the underlying specified feature [voice]. This is drawn from Ohala and Ridordan’ (1979) finding that vocal fold vibration resulting from a prolonged constriction (i.e. geminate consonants) is articulatorily effortable; the phonetic change to [tt] from /dd/ is motivated. Furthermore, Vaux’s Law and the special status of /t/ in Chaha are introduced to account for devoicing in Chaha since devoicing applies when the final consonant is either a sonorant or /t/, which is assumed to be not specified for the Laryngeal articulator (Banksira 2000).