17.2572, Diss: Phonology: Poliquin: 'Canadian French Vowel Harmony'

[linguist at LINGUISTLIST.ORG]

LINGUIST List: Vol-17-2572. Tue Sep 12 2006. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 17.2572, Diss: Phonology: Poliquin: 'Canadian French Vowel Harmony'

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Eastern Michigan U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>
 
Reviews: Laura Welcher, Rosetta Project / Long Now Foundation  
         <reviews at linguistlist.org> 

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne
State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Hannah Morales <hannah at linguistlist.org>
================================================================  

To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at
http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.html.


===========================Directory==============================  

1)
Date: 11-Sep-2006
From: Gabriel Poliquin < poliquin at udel.edu >
Subject: Canadian French Vowel Harmony 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2006 10:47:04
From: Gabriel Poliquin < poliquin at udel.edu >
Subject: Canadian French Vowel Harmony 
 


Institution: Harvard University 
Program: Department of Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2006 

Author: Gabriel Poliquin

Dissertation Title: Canadian French Vowel Harmony 

Dissertation URL:  www.gabrielpoliquin.com

Linguistic Field(s): Phonology

Subject Language(s): French (fra)


Dissertation Director(s):
Andrew Nevins
Donca Steriade

Dissertation Abstract:

This thesis provides a phonological, psycholinguistic and phonetic
description of vowel harmony in Canadian French (CF), as well as a
theoretical account of the phenomenon showing that the CF facts may only be
accounted for in derivational frameworks that include the notion of
'cycle.'  CF [ATR] vowel harmony is regressive, optional, and parasitic on
the feature [+high]. CF [ATR] harmony involves spreading of a [-ATR]
feature from a final [+high] vowel in a closed syllable to other [+high]
vowels within the same word that are in non-final open syllables (e.g.
[fi.lIp] or [fI.lIp] are both acceptable variants for 'Phillip').  The
thesis describes and explains the four key attributes of harmony in this
language: 

1) There is inter-speaker (and possibly intra-speaker) variation with
respect to whether harmony is applied locally and/or iteratively. 
Variation with respect to these parameters leads to the existence of three
patterns of harmony, as evidenced by words of more than two syllables. 
There is the local non-iterative pattern, e.g. [i.lI.sIt] 'illicit', the
non-local pattern, e.g. [I.li.sIt] and the 'across-the-board' pattern
[I.lI.sIt].

2) As shown in 1), there exists a pattern of non-local harmony, in which
the target vowel is separated from the trigger by another [+high] vowel. 

3) Harmony is counterbled by a process of 'pre-fricative tensing,' which
leads to opaque allophony. 

4) Harmony applies cyclically, but is then counterbled by another
'open-syllable tensing' process, which results in another case of opacity.
 For example, harmony can apply in a word like [mY.zIk] ('music'), but if
we concatenate a resyllabifying suffix like [al], we obtain [mY.zi.kal]
('musical').  The initial [+high] vowel can be [-ATR], since harmony
applied in the stem, but the resyllabified trigger must be [+ATR], by an
open syllable tensing rule.

The thesis makes the following claim: CF vowel harmony shows very
compellingly that models of the phonological component must include
mechanisms accounting for non-local relations, derivational opacity and the
interaction between phonology and morphology. 




-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-17-2572