Open AccessVowel hiatus and Dispersion Theory
Author(s) -
Erika Varis
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
lsa annual meeting extended abstracts
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2377-3367
DOI - 10.3765/exabs.v0i0.570
Subject(s) - vowel , hiatus , markedness , syllable , linguistics , catalan , mathematics , optimality theory , mid vowel , vowel length , sensitivity (control systems) , phonology , philosophy , formant , electronic engineering , engineering
This paper presents a Dispersion Theoretic (Flemming 2004) perspective on cross-syllable vowel hiatus in Spanish and Western Catalan. Evidence from these languages’ determiner-noun sequences points to a scale of sensitivity to perceptual contrast among vowels, along with augmentation in stressed syllables. These sequences show four patterns of sensitivity to vowel quality: complete tolerance (Spanish unstressed), all but the least contrastive pair tolerated (Spanish stressed), all but the most contrastive pairs not tolerated (Catalan unstressed), and complete intolerance (Catalan stressed). Using MINIMUM DISTANCE and markedness augmentation (Smith 2002), these patterns are explored within the larger typology of possible vowel hiatus sensitivity.