Tets´ǫt’ıné prefix vowel length: Evidence for systematic underspecification

Abstract

Tetsó ˛t'ıné is a dialect of Dëne Su ˛łıné (ISO: CHP) spoken in Canada's Northwest Territories. The verb system of Tetsó ˛t'ıné has only recently been described (Jaker and Cardinal 2020); this paper is the first to propose an analysis of the distribution of long and short vowels in Tetsó ˛t'ıné prefixes. In Tetsó ˛t'ıné, all long vowels in prefixes are derived from intervocalic consonant deletion, although not all cases of intervocalic consonant deletion result in a long vowel. Whether or not deletion of an intervocalic consonant results in a long or short vowel depends on a combination of two factors: the consonant that was deleted, and the morphological level to which the preceding prefix belongs. In this paper, I propose that the basic generalization about prefix vowel length can be stated in terms of SYSTEMATIC UNDERSPECIFICATION (Kiparsky 1993). I claim that prefix vowels, unlike stem vowels, have zero moras underlyingly, and only acquire a mora after passing through at least one level of the phonology. This analysis predicts that prefix vowel length ought to be subject to a Derived Environment Effect (DEE), for which there is indeed evidence. The pattern of mora insertion in Tetsó ˛t'ıné prefix vowels is thus an example of the interleaving of phonology and morphology, and illustrates how phonological behaviour can be to some extent predicted based on morphological structure.

Mora Insertion in Tetsǫ́t’ıné: apparent cases of under- and overapplication

“…Applying level ordering to the Dene verb was first proposed by Hargus (1988), for the northern Dene language Sekani. Previous Lexical Phonology work on Tetsǫt'ıné has argued for a total of 6 levels (5 lexical levels + the postlexical level) (Jaker & Kiparsky 2020, Jaker & Cardinal 2020, Jaker 2022, as shown in (2). The numbers at the bottom of (2) are template positions.…”

An acoustic study of Tetsǫ́t’ıné stress: Iambic stress in a quantity-sensitive tone language

“…/ʌ/ vs. /aː/, as shown in (4)). In prefixes, long vowels are of more recent historical origin, resulting from the deletion of intervocalic consonants (Cook 2004: 41), which may still be a synchronically active process (Jaker to appear). That is, long vowels in prefixes originate historically as sequences of two adjacent vowels which were previously separated by a consonant.…”

“…In this paper, we will assume that long vowels in stems (i.e. full vowels) are underlying, whereas long vowels in prefixes are synchronically derived (Jaker to appear). However, nothing in our acoustic study (§4–6) or the interpretation of its results depends upon this assumption.…”

“…Briefly, all long vowels in prefixes are the result of intervocalic consonant deletion, although it is not always the case that intervocalic consonant deletion results in a long vowel. (See Jaker (to appear) for a detailed study of consonant deletion and prefix vowel length in Tetsǫ́t’ıné). Since all surface long vowels are derived via morphophonemic processes, it could be said that prefix vowel length is contrastive on the surface in Tetsǫ́t’ıné, in that it realises morphosyntactic distinctions on the surface, even though it is not contrastive underlyingly.…”