Long-distance vowel-consonant agreement in Harari1

Title

Long-distance vowel-consonant agreement in Harari1 See all items with this value

Description

This article addresses the problem of coronal palatalization in Harari (Ethiopian Semitic) triggered by the 2nd person singular feminine non-perfective subject suffix /-i/. The palatalization process is unusual in two respects: (a) palatalization operates at a distance over other vowels and consonants and (b) palatalization may optionally affect more than one coronal consonant in the same stem, including prefixes. Although long-distance palatalization has been documented for other languages, it has been analyzed either as a floating affix or as consonant harmony. While Harari palatalization shares properties with both of these phenomena, it should be analyzed as neither. Harari palatalization targets a specific group of consonants and is modeled using a correspondence agreement constraint rather than aligning or spreading the palatalizing feature. This accounts for its ability to skip over intervening consonants and vowels, including front vowels and palato-alveolar consonants.

Identifier

53

70

Uploaded Date (Original EH)

2017-02-08

Uploaded By (Original EH)

adminss

Date

2004 See all items with this value

Author

SHARON ROSE See all items with this value

Type

Articles