BALTO-FENNIC-SÁMI CONSONANT GRADATION AS FORTITION *
A metrical account of consonant gradation in Balto-Fennic-Sámi which relies primarily on fortition as the driving mechanism is proposed as an alternative to the majority of accounts which treat gradation as primarily a lenition process. Gradation is argued to be a phonetically natural footbalancing...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.232.9839 http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty/gordon/gradation.pdf |
| Summary: | A metrical account of consonant gradation in Balto-Fennic-Sámi which relies primarily on fortition as the driving mechanism is proposed as an alternative to the majority of accounts which treat gradation as primarily a lenition process. Gradation is argued to be a phonetically natural footbalancing process triggered by lengthened foot-final vowels. In support of this analysis, foot-final vowel lengthening and foot-balancing are shown to be recurring diachronic and synchronic processes throughout the Balto-Fennic-Sámi family. Under the proposed account, Sámi, rather than Finnish, becomes the most conservative language with respect to synchronic manifestations of the original gradation process. 1. |
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