The formal expression of markedness
This dissertation presents a formal theory of markedness, set within Optimality Theory. Two of the leading ideas are (a) hierarchical markedness relations may be ignored, but never reversed and (b) the more marked an element is, the greater the pressure to preserve it. Examples of (a) are found in s...
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ftrutgersuniv:oai:example.org:rutgers-lib:38430 2023-05-15T17:23:39+02:00 The formal expression of markedness de Lacy, Paul V. University of Massachussetts Amherst 2002-09 285 p. application/pdf http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore00000002165.ETD.000064918 eng eng Rutgers Optimality Archive rucore00000002165 http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore00000002165.ETD.000064918 Linguistics Phonology Formal analysis sonority-driven stress epenthesis coalescence conflation stringency Neutralization (Linguistics) Assimilation (Phonetics) Text thesis 2002 ftrutgersuniv 2022-05-30T13:45:23Z This dissertation presents a formal theory of markedness, set within Optimality Theory. Two of the leading ideas are (a) hierarchical markedness relations may be ignored, but never reversed and (b) the more marked an element is, the greater the pressure to preserve it. Examples of (a) are found in sonority-driven stress systems. In Gujarati, low vowels attract stress away from mid vowels, while Nganasan's stress system makes no distinction between the two categories. So, while stressed mid vowels are more marked than stressed low vowels (as shown by Gujarati), that distinction can be conflated (as in Nganasan). However, in no language is the markedness relation reversed: stressed mid vowels are never preferred over stressed low vowels. An example of (b) is found in Yamphu. /t/ is eliminated through a process of debuccalization. In contrast, the more marked segments /k/ and /p/ remain intact; these segments avoid the debuccalization process because they are highly marked and thereby excite greater preservation. Ideas (a) and (b) are formally expressed as a set of constraint-formation conditions. For constraints on output structures ('markedness' constraints), if a constraint assigns a violation to an element p in scale S, then the constraint also assigns a violation to every element that is more marked than p in S. An analogous proposal applies to faithfulness (i.e. preservation) constraints: if a faithfulness constraint bans an unfaithful mapping from element p in scale S, then the constraint also bans unfaithful mappings from all elements that are more marked than p in S. The result is that - regardless of the constraints' ranking - more marked elements are both subject to more stringent output conditions and preserved more faithfully than lesser-marked ones. The constraints are also shown to allow distinctions between scale categories to be collapsed. A wide range of phonological phenomena provide evidence for the theoretical proposals, including analyses and typologies of sonority-driven stress (Nganasan, ... Thesis Nganasan* RUcore - Rutgers University Community Repository |
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RUcore - Rutgers University Community Repository |
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English |
topic |
Linguistics Phonology Formal analysis sonority-driven stress epenthesis coalescence conflation stringency Neutralization (Linguistics) Assimilation (Phonetics) |
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Linguistics Phonology Formal analysis sonority-driven stress epenthesis coalescence conflation stringency Neutralization (Linguistics) Assimilation (Phonetics) de Lacy, Paul V. The formal expression of markedness |
topic_facet |
Linguistics Phonology Formal analysis sonority-driven stress epenthesis coalescence conflation stringency Neutralization (Linguistics) Assimilation (Phonetics) |
description |
This dissertation presents a formal theory of markedness, set within Optimality Theory. Two of the leading ideas are (a) hierarchical markedness relations may be ignored, but never reversed and (b) the more marked an element is, the greater the pressure to preserve it. Examples of (a) are found in sonority-driven stress systems. In Gujarati, low vowels attract stress away from mid vowels, while Nganasan's stress system makes no distinction between the two categories. So, while stressed mid vowels are more marked than stressed low vowels (as shown by Gujarati), that distinction can be conflated (as in Nganasan). However, in no language is the markedness relation reversed: stressed mid vowels are never preferred over stressed low vowels. An example of (b) is found in Yamphu. /t/ is eliminated through a process of debuccalization. In contrast, the more marked segments /k/ and /p/ remain intact; these segments avoid the debuccalization process because they are highly marked and thereby excite greater preservation. Ideas (a) and (b) are formally expressed as a set of constraint-formation conditions. For constraints on output structures ('markedness' constraints), if a constraint assigns a violation to an element p in scale S, then the constraint also assigns a violation to every element that is more marked than p in S. An analogous proposal applies to faithfulness (i.e. preservation) constraints: if a faithfulness constraint bans an unfaithful mapping from element p in scale S, then the constraint also bans unfaithful mappings from all elements that are more marked than p in S. The result is that - regardless of the constraints' ranking - more marked elements are both subject to more stringent output conditions and preserved more faithfully than lesser-marked ones. The constraints are also shown to allow distinctions between scale categories to be collapsed. A wide range of phonological phenomena provide evidence for the theoretical proposals, including analyses and typologies of sonority-driven stress (Nganasan, ... |
author2 |
University of Massachussetts Amherst |
format |
Thesis |
author |
de Lacy, Paul V. |
author_facet |
de Lacy, Paul V. |
author_sort |
de Lacy, Paul V. |
title |
The formal expression of markedness |
title_short |
The formal expression of markedness |
title_full |
The formal expression of markedness |
title_fullStr |
The formal expression of markedness |
title_full_unstemmed |
The formal expression of markedness |
title_sort |
formal expression of markedness |
publishDate |
2002 |
url |
http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore00000002165.ETD.000064918 |
genre |
Nganasan* |
genre_facet |
Nganasan* |
op_relation |
Rutgers Optimality Archive rucore00000002165 http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore00000002165.ETD.000064918 |
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1766113898716463104 |