Reinterpreting transparency in nasal harmony

Walker, Rachel

doi:10.1075/cilt.233.05wal

Cited by 12 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…In the analysis of nasal harmony, once the domain of nasalization is delimited and the segments are classified as underspecified for nasality, transparent, and/or opaque, the major challenge is to define the trigger and the direction of spreading, as Walker recognizes for Tuyuca: "because nasality spreads to all nasalizable segments in a nasal morpheme, it is impossible to unambiguously pinpoint the segment from which spreading originates" (Walker 2003).…”

Section: Nasal Harmonymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, the Emerillon data also challenge the question of transparency. Walker's (2003) scale, ranking segments according to their compatibility with nasalization, predicts that (i) if a segment blocks nasalization, all segments less compatible with nasality will also block it, and (ii) if a segment is permeable (nasalized or transparent), all segments more compatible by the nasalization hierarchy will also be permeable. 6Vowels > Glides > Liquids > Fricatives > Obstruent stops Yet the hierarchy does not predict, within the permeable segments, which will be targets and which will be transparents.…”

Section: Nasal Harmonymentioning

confidence: 99%

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A typological overview of Emerillon, a Tupí-Guaraní language from French Guiana

Rose

2008

Linguistic Typology

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This article offers a typological overview of the Emerillon language, a Tupí-Guaraní language spoken by a small community in French Guiana. General information is provided on various aspects of the grammar, within the domains of phonology, morphology, and syntax. Special attention is given to a few features of the language that are rather rare and/or poorly discussed in the typological literature, namely morphemic nasal harmony, a hierarchical person indexation system, a rare type of nominal predication, and the existence of a specific marker for sociative causation. These features are all typical of the Tupí-Guaraní family.

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Section: Nasal Harmonymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Nasal Harmonymentioning

confidence: 99%

A typological overview of Emerillon, a Tupí-Guaraní language from French Guiana

Rose

2008

Linguistic Typology

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“…It is debated whether the third type of relationship a segment can have with nasal harmony, namely transparency, should be explained by the nasalized segment hierarchy, given that the class of transparent segments varies from language to language, sometimes including obstruents and other times including sonorants. It is also debated whether transparent segments are truly transparent phonologically or whether their lack of nasalization in a nasal harmony environment is a phonetic implementation detail (see further discussion in [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]). As a result of these open questions, only targets and blockers will be included for the remainder of this paper.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are Human Learners Capable of Learning Arbitrary Language Structures

Lin

2023

Brain Sciences

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The artificial grammar learning paradigm is a classic method of investigating the influence of universal constraints on shaping learning biases on language acquisition. While this method has been used extensively by linguists to test theoretical claims in generative grammar, one of the most prevalent frameworks in language acquisition, several studies have questioned whether artificial grammar learning reflects language acquisition enough to allow us to use it to draw inferences about the validity of universal constraints, particularly those arising from phonetic naturalness. The current study tests whether artificial grammar learning shows the effect of one robust phonetic naturalness constraint: the restriction on nasal harmony patterns arising from the sonority hierarchy. Nasal harmony is of particular interest because it is one of the few types of harmony that occurs between consonants and vowels, which is an under-researched topic. The results, contrary to the skeptical concerns, showed that participants (n = 120) could learn an artificial grammar involving a natural pattern, but could not learn one corresponding to an arbitrary/phonetically unmotivated pattern in the same way or to the same degree. This study contributes epistemic support to the large body of work using artificial grammar experiments to test phonological operations.

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“…In Rodrigues' proposal, voiceless consonants block nasality spreading, so a word such as [kuˈkũə̯], *[kũˈkũə̯], 'to clear one's throat' will come from an underlying form /kokod/, in which the voiced consonant nasalizes and subsequently spreads its nasality leftwards up until the voiceless consonant that stops further leftward spreading. 3 Finally, approaches such as Walker (2003) take nasal harmony to be bidirectional for languages such as Tuyuca, and under this style of analysis, nasalization would spread from the stressed vowel to every other segment in both directions, except when halted by voiceless consonants.…”

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confidence: 99%

Domains and Prominence in Nasal Harmonization of Maxakalí Loanwords

Silva

Nevins

White

2020

International Journal of American Linguistics

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In the literature on loanword phonology, there is a longstanding debate as to whether the adaptation from the source language is based on phonetic similarity from language-to-language or mediated by underlying representations (e.g. Silverman 1992, Kenstowicz 2003, Peperkamp and Dupoux 2003, LaCharité and Paradis 2005. As originally pointed out in Wetzels ( 2009), nasality in Maxakalí, a Macro-Jê language spoken in Minas Gerais, Brazil, turns out to be an important test case in this debate, as there is a strong effect of constraints banning a mismatch in nasality between consonant and vowel, e.g. *[dã] and *[ma], potentially affecting the adaptation of numerous loanwords. For instance, in order to incorporate a Brazilian Portuguese (BP) loanword like martelo [mahˈtɛlʊ]'hammer' into the language, the first syllable must be turned

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Reinterpreting transparency in nasal harmony

Cited by 12 publications

References 37 publications

A typological overview of Emerillon, a Tupí-Guaraní language from French Guiana

A typological overview of Emerillon, a Tupí-Guaraní language from French Guiana

Are Human Learners Capable of Learning Arbitrary Language Structures

Domains and Prominence in Nasal Harmonization of Maxakalí Loanwords

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