Series shifts and mergers in the obstruent phonology of Tahltan (Northern Athabaskan)*
A survey was conducted to investigate the development of the Proto-Athabaskan obstruent series, *ts/tš/tšr/k, into present day Tahltan. Results from seven native speakers and quantitative analysis of a larger corpus establish tθ/ts/ts/tš as the standard obstruent system, alongside three alternate sy...
| Published in: | Linguistic Discovery |
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| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Dartmouth College Library
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.515 https://doaj.org/article/e93b4ca3e7844a9eb8356feabbf7db3d |
| Summary: | A survey was conducted to investigate the development of the Proto-Athabaskan obstruent series, *ts/tš/tšr/k, into present day Tahltan. Results from seven native speakers and quantitative analysis of a larger corpus establish tθ/ts/ts/tš as the standard obstruent system, alongside three alternate systems that relate to independently motivated historical changes. These findings support the long-held view that differences in the obstruent reflexes do not reflect deep phonological differences among Northern Athabaskan languages, but instead represent areal influences and patterns of individual variation in a highly dynamic language network. |
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