29.4906, Diss: Cherokee; Language Documentation; Morphology; Phonology: Author: Samantha Cornelius: ''Prosodic Phonology in Oklahoma Cherokee''

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-29-4906. Mon Dec 10 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.4906, Diss:  Cherokee; Language Documentation; Morphology; Phonology: Author: Samantha Cornelius: ''Prosodic Phonology in Oklahoma Cherokee''

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Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2018 13:11:20
From: Samantha Cornelius [samantha.cornelius at mavs.uta.edu]
Subject: Prosodic Phonology in Oklahoma Cherokee

 
Institution: University of Texas at Arlington 
Program: PhD in Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2018 

Author: Samantha Cornelius

Dissertation Title: Prosodic Phonology in Oklahoma Cherokee 

Dissertation URL:  https://rc.library.uta.edu/uta-ir/handle/10106/27552

Linguistic Field(s): Language Documentation
                     Morphology
                     Phonology

Subject Language(s): Cherokee (chr)


Dissertation Director(s):
Joseph Sabbagh

Dissertation Abstract:

In this dissertation, I provide an analysis for word level prosody in
Cherokee, a Southern Iroquoian language spoken in Northeastern Oklahoma and
Western North Carolina. Focusing on Cherokee as it is spoken in Oklahoma, I
analyze right edges of Cherokee words, showing that the boundary tone is
predictable, though its distribution is conditioned by lexical tonal phonology
and other word-final phenomena. 

In order to account for the distribution of the boundary tone, I must first
provide an analysis of lexical tone in Cherokee. There have been previous
comprehensive tone analyses (Lindsey 1985; Wright 1996; Uchihara 2013), which
argue for a tonal inventory with two underlying tones (high and lowfall), a
superhigh accent, and a default low which does not interact with the tonal
phonology. I summarize these previous analyses and discuss what
generalizations they can and cannot account for. I also argue that some low
pitches in Cherokee are the surface realization of an underlying low tone. By
including an underlying low tone in the tonal inventory of Cherokee,
problematic surface pitch sequences from previous research can be explained. 

Before analyzing the boundary tone, I show all possible syllable shapes and
discuss Word-Final Vowel Deletion, an optional fast speech process which often
results in non-canonical word-final codas. I argue that there is a prosodic
word which maps to a morphosyntactic word, as well as a larger prosodic word
which includes enclitics. I also describe clitic linearization and attachment,
and discuss how Cherokee clitics show a number of typologically unusual
properties. 

Finally, I describe all possible alignments of the boundary tone. While
mentions of the boundary tone in previous literature claim that the boundary
tone only appears on word- final vowels, I show a much wider range of possible
surface positions for the boundary tone: 1) the boundary tone appears on
word-final vowel, 2) the boundary tone appears on a non word-final vowel, and
3) the boundary tone does not appear at all. I use a Stratal OT framework to
account for the alignment of the boundary tone, as well as interactions
between the surface position of the boundary tone and lexical tonal phonology,
clitic attachment, and Word-Final Vowel Deletion.




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