Hiatus Resolution Research Articles

Vowel hiatus resolution in ciNsenga: An Optimality Theory analysis

This article examines patterns of vowel hiatus resolution in ciNsenga, using Optimality Theory (OT). We present a formal analysis of the morphosyntatic and phonological contexts in which potential vowel hiatus occurs and the strategies that are utilised to resolve it. In this language, hiatus resolution is a function of whether V2 is an affix vowel, a nominal root initial vowel or a verbal stem initial vowel. The language has a complete ban on vowel hiatus in nominals. In verbs, it is prohibited when V2 is an affix vowel but is allowed when V2 is a verb stem-initial vowel. Thus, when V2 is a prefix or nominal stem-initial glide formation, secondary articulation and vowel elision are triggered to resolve hiatus. The main challenge is to account for the fact that in this language vowel hiatus is tolerated in one domain and is banned in another. Drawing on insights from OT we argue that, in ciNsenga, hiatus resolution is blocked when V2 is verb stem-initial because the morphoprosodic alignment constraint ALIGN (ROOTVERB, L,σ,L) outranks ONSET in the verbal domain.

Phonetic grounding of position and height asymmetries in hiatus resolution: An acoustic analysis of Korean VV sequences

Phonetic grounding of position and height asymmetries in hiatus resolution: An acoustic analysis of Korean VV sequences

Hiatus Resolution in Spanish: Motivating Forces, Constraining Factors, and Research Methods

AbstractIn this paper, I review previous research on the tendency to resolve hiatus vowel sequences in Spanish, a phenomenon of language variation, especially reported in Latin American varieties. I report on the main factors that motivate and constrain the observed variability, including the force of internal linguistic principles as well as the external factors (social variables) that mediate on language variation and change. I conclude this paper by discussing some unexplored topics and methodological issues to be considered in future research.

Hiatus resolution in Nambya: An Optimality Theory analysis

Vowel hiatus is prohibited in many languages. When the nominal morphology of Nambya causes vowel sequences to arise, hiatus may be resolved in one of the three ways: (i) one of the vowels may be deleted; (ii) one of the vowels may be changed into a glide; and (iii) one of the vowels may be parsed nonmoraically as a secondary articulation on the preceding consonant. This article examines these vowel hiatus resolution strategies, using Optimality Theory. Glide formation is the default strategy and when blocked by a syllable structure constraint, secondary articulation operates. In turn, when secondary articulation is blocked by phonotactic and OCP-driven constraints, elision occurs. In Nambya, the quality of the first vowel, and whether it is preceded by a consonant or not, as well as the type of the consonant preceding it determine which strategy between glide formation, secondary articulation and vowel elision repairs the vowel hiatus.

Feature conditioned resolution of hiatus in Chichewa

This article examines the morphophonological environments in which vowel sequences occur in Chichewa and explains the synchronic hiatus resolution strategies that are employed in this language to remove these dispreferred vowel cluster configurations. This investigation demonstrates that the major motivation for resolving hiatal configurations in Chichewa, like in many other Bantu languages, is to maintain the preferred canonical consonant-vowel (CV) syllable structure. The analysis of data used in this study is mainly couched within the theoretical explications of Optimality Theory (OT) as enunciated by Prince and Smolensky (1991, 1993), McCarthy and Prince (1999), Archaengeli and Langendoen (1997), and Kager (1999); Distinctive Feature Theory as discussed by Chomsky and Halle (1968) as well as the generative CV-phonology model of syllable structure as discussed by Clements and Keyser (1983). This article argues for vowel-feature sensitive repair of hiatal configuration in Chichewa. Observing such a vowel-feature sensitive based repair of hiatal configuration analysis, which this article argues to be largely ONSET motivated/triggered and the featural properties of the phonological structures of the language under study, the language's reactions to such dispreferred vowel clusters and its phonotactics are here examined. Repair strategies for such hiatus configurations are discussed, including glide formation, consonantal and/or glide insertions, vowel deletion and coalescence. The analysis adopted here implies that the resolution hiatus arises from incompatibilities in the features of the vowels straddling a word boundary. It argues that these repair strategies are largely motivated by language internal constraint ranking systems which in many Bantu languages seem to largely prefer the preservation of [−] features over [+] features, i.e. the ranking [−F’]≫[+F’].

Hiatus resolution strategies in Karanga (Shona)

Several languages reported in the literature have at most three hiatus resolution strategies, for example: Igede (Bergman, 1971); Obolo (Faraclas, 1982); and Greek (Haas, 1988). Karanga, a dialect of Shona, has five strategies – coalescence, spreading (epenthesis), glide formation, secondary articulation and elision. The five form a conspiracy; they ensure that hiatus (VV sequences) never surfaces. The challenge is to determine which strategy is going to apply, including the formalisation of the analysis. I assume that in each domain, there is a preferred strategy: coalescence in the Cliticisation Domain; spreading in the Verbal Domain; glide formation, secondary articulation and elision in the Nominal Domain. Glide formation, secondary articulation and elision occur in phonologically conditioned complementary distribution. The approach employed in this article may be extended to other morphologically rich languages, where hiatus resolution strategies can be used as a diagnostic for determining different prosodic boundaries.

Notas sobre la «ley de alargamiento de Wackernagel»

Against the traditional explanation of the initial vowel’s lengthening in second member of compound, the so called «Wackernagel’s Law of lengthening», it is possible a different proposal, already suggested in some places to try to explain the law. According to this analysis, a process of elision or glide formation and compensatory lengthening, instead of, or alongside, the primitive vowel contraction and subsequent analogical extension of its result proposed by Wackernagel should be recognized. This process of vowel hiatus resolution has parallels in other languages, and allows a more suitable study of the available examples.

Phonetic vowel hiatus in Spanish

Phonologically, Spanish tolerates sequences of adjacent vowels at a word boundary, but coalescence and deletion have been impressionistically identified at this juncture as phonetic resolution strategies (Alba, 2006). In other languages, phonetic measurements of vowels in hiatus show gradient distinctions between different prosodic environments, supporting a gestural overlap analysis that produces the perception of deletion or coalescence (for example, Igbo, Catalan, and Greek). The current experimental study investigates phonetic manifestations of vowel hiatus in four prosodic environments (IP, PP, Pwd, and clitic) in Spanish to determine whether hiatus resolution is accomplished by vowel deletion or gestural overlap. The study was conducted with nine native speakers of Peninsular Spanish. The duration and formant frequencies of vowel sequences was measured in read sentences that manipulated boundary strength separating the two vowels. Higher-level prosodic boundaries IP and PP produced no significant hi...

Position and Height Asymmetries in Hiatus Resolution: A case study of Korean VV sequences

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt:Typological patterns in synchronic data, for example, the question of why pattern A is more frequent than B across languages, have been one of the most important issues in linguistics, in particular in phonology. Ohala (1993) seeks the answer in human articulatory and/or auditory mechanisms. If a phonetic ‘perturbation’ is not corrected properly in perception, a hypo-correction could occur and it could result in a sound change. In this model, typological patterns are assumed to reflect the very variation in ordinary speech. Two crosslinguistic asymmetries in hiatus reso-lution are the main concerns in this paper. Casali (1996) and Rosenthall (1997) present positional and height asymmetries. They take another approach to the ty-pological patterns in that they suggest universal constraints and rankings to ac-count for the asymmetries in the framework of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993). Crosslinguistically, hiatus resolution such as vowel deletion or gliding is more likely to occur in V1 and high vowels than in V2 and non-high vowels. If these patterns result from human articulatory and auditory mechanisms as Ohala (1993) argues, it would be expected that the production of vowel se-quences will show a pattern of phonetic variation, which is similar to the phono-logical processes. As the first step, a set of acoustic data on Korean hiatus is pre-sented in this paper. The results will show that V1 in hiatus is consistently shorter than V2, which corresponds to the positional asymmetry in Casali (1996). As for the height asymmetry, it will be reported that high vowels are more reduced in fast speech, compared to their durations in slow speech.

Hiatus contexts and hiatus resolution strategies in Zezuru

This article examines the morphosyntactic environments in which vowel sequences occur in Zezuru and explains the synchronic hiatus resolution strategies that are employed in this language. The findings of this study show that Zezuru relies on glide formation, glide epenthesis, vowel elision and vowel coalescence to resolve hiatus. This investigation demonstrates that the major motivation for resolving hiatus in Zezuru is to maintain its preferred consonant–vowel (CV) syllable structure. The data used in this study are both intuitive and naturalistic and their analysis is mainly couched within the generative CV-phonology model of syllable structure. This study is expected to broaden and deepen our understanding of hiatus resolution strategies in Zezuru and Southern Bantu languages in general.

Position and height asymmetries in hiatus resolution: Are they phonetically driven phenomena?

Hiatus is not preferred in many languages and is resolved in various ways. Two typological patterns have been found in hiatus resolution. When hiatus is resolved by a weakening (deletion or gliding) of one vowel, (1) V1 is more likely to be the target than V2 [Casali (1996)] and (2) high vowels are more likely to be the target than non-high vowels [Rosenthall (1997)]. If these patterns are due to human articulatory and/or auditory mechanisms [Ohala (1993)], the patterns would be expected to reflect variations in ordinary speech. In this study Korean CV1V2 nonce words produced by six Korean speakers are analyzed to test whether V1 and high vowels in a realized hiatus are actually weakened in terms of duration. The results showed that V1 is shorter than V2 irrespective of speech rate [F(1,5)=12.90, P<0.02], which was not found in CVCV or CVGV words. It was also found that high vowels are shortened in fast speech to a more degree than non-high vowels [F(1,5)=7.16, P<0.05]. The formant analysis showed that vowel-to-vowel coarticulation effects are greater in CV1V2 than in CVCV, which means that vowels in hiatus are more vulnerable to misperception and consequently, sound change.

Ratio Frequency: Insights into Usage Effects on Phonological Structure from Hiatus Resolution in New Mexican Spanish

Abstract Mounting evidence shows that frequency of use plays a fundamental role in shaping linguistic structure, including phonological structure (cf. Bybee 2001). Because the study of frequency effects is relatively new, our understanding of how they impact structure continues to be refined. This study explores the effects of several frequency measures on the resolution of hiatus between words in Spanish, and reveals that in addition to the traditional phonological factors, frequency is also involved. Multivariate analyses show that ratio frequency - or the frequency of a two-word string relative to that of one of the words it contains - is a better indicator than straightforward token frequency of the likelihood that the string will be processed as an autonomous unit and undergo concurrent phonological reduction. These findings build on a usage-based model of language, providing important insights into the nature of lexical storage and how this relates to linguistic variation and change.

Hiatus resolution in Turkish: An underspecification account

This article examines how heterosyllabic vowel sequences are formed within words in Turkish and provides a unified account for vowel hiatus resolution mechanisms in spoken informal registers. Vowel assimilation (VA) optionally applies to avoid heterosyllabic sequences by forming long vowels. It is shown that the Articulator features of vowel sequences must be shared, and only high vowels can assimilate to low ones, the sequence [e.i] constituting an exception. Assuming minimum lexical specification, the effects of VA are analyzed based on autosegmental phonology and underspecification with crucial reference to other phonological processes of Turkish such as vowel harmony. The restrictions on VA and the exceptionality of [e.i] are straightforwardly explained through the underspecification of vowels for [Coronal] and [High]. Since high vowels have no specification for tongue height (TH), low vowels cannot assimilate to high vowels. Likewise, since [e.i], which contains all coronal sounds, has no shared specified Articulator feature, [i] cannot assimilate to [e]. When VA is not applicable, glide epenthesis applies to avoid hiatus. It is argued that epenthetic sounds, glides and vowels alike, are the syllabically conditioned realizations of a sonorant underspecified for TH. The consequences of the underspecification account for palatalization and disharmony are discussed.

Base-Output Correspondence in Korean Nominal Inflection

This paper discusses various puzzles concerning the phonology of Korean nominal inflection. In particular, I investigate a range of vowel hiatus resolution phenomena that differ between nouns and verbs, the overapplication of consonant cluster simplification and laryngeal feature neutralization in nominal stems, and certain asymmetries between derived nouns and nonderived nouns. After presenting some problems with previous approaches, I offer an analysis of the phonology of Korean nominal inflection in terms of base-output correspondence (BOC) theory, along the lines of Kager (1999). I argue that a variety of unexpected properties of noun phonology in Korean can receive a unified account under the BOC approach. I also show that noun-specific alignment and noun-specific faithfulness constraints are inadequate to capture noun phonology in Korean. My arguments support the view that the fact that nouns have a Base (isolation form) is the key factor in explaining the unique properties of noun phonology (see Kenstowicz’s (1996) base identity, in particular). It is shown, however, that the BOC approach overcomes shortcomings with the Base Identity approach by making a necessary distinction between minor and fatal divergence from the Base.

Hungarian yod

This paper argues that the segment /j/ in Hungarian is neither a fricative (as traditionally claimed) nor a glide (as it is usually classified in the international literature). The arguments adduced involve syllabification patterns, processes of j-obstruentisation, phonetic details of hiatus resolution, as well as phonotactic phenomena. Additional problems that are touched upon include the question whether Hungarian has diphthongs, the behaviour of /j/ with respect to vowel zero alternation, voicing assimilation and final devoicing, the analysis of imperative forms of t-final verbs, as well as the relationship between the Duke of York gambit and the principle of Proper Inclusion Precedence.

An acoustic study of hiatus resolution in two Romance languages

Spanish and Romanian contrast vowel sequences [CiV] in hiatus and corresponding diphthongs [CjV], with some interspeaker variation. Both languages contain surface diphthongs derived historically by gliding, /CiV/ > [CjV]. They both show a strong tendency for blocking gliding word-initially, supported by native speaker judgments: Sp. [miope], Rom. [miopu] short-sighted; Sp. [italjana], Rom. [italjana] Italianf. Data from six speakers of each language confirmed this variation. The duration and F2 transition rate of the vocalic sequence were compared, in words containing [i.a] and [ja]. [ia] was significantly longer in hiatus, and had a significantly slower transition rate than in [ja]. However, the ranges of the hiatus and [ja] sets showed some overlap, suggesting that hiatus resolution is not a categorical phonological process. Instead, lexical items fall on a hiatus-to-[ja] continuum. Further comparison of ranges and standard deviations confirmed the correlation between this variation and word position. In both languages more word-initial sequences resist gliding. Significantly less variation was found in the range for hiatus word-initially than for [ja] word-medially. This suggests that the combination of lingual gestures between high and nonhigh vowels is more tightly controlled word-initially than word-medially, a result previously reported for stop sequences [Byrd (1996); Chitoran, Goldstein, and Byrd (unpublished)].