Search Results
the stressed syllable continued to resist these mergers. 8 Concerning the emergence of Vulgar Latin vowel system, Gaul overtook Italy itself (including Rome), where only Italy's Regio X (Aquileia and its close vicinity) could keep pace with it. 9
This paper reconstructs the Khitan vowel system by analysing materials concerning the Khitan Small Script. First, the approximate phonetic values of the graphemes were determined by systematically comparing Khitan transcriptions of Chinese words with their original Chinese sounds and by analysing Khitan rhymes. Next, an exhaustive survey of two adjacent graphemes in a corpus elucidated the script’s spelling rule and thus were the accurate phonetic values determined. Finally, a comparative study based on the reconstructed values established regular vowel correspondences between Khitan and Mongolian. In conclusion, the author presents twelve Khitan vowel phonemes that are distinguished by four vocalic features.
In this paper, we reanalyse the alternation in the Brazilian Portuguese verbal system called verbal vowel harmony (VH), which applies to verb stems in the second and third conjugations (e.g., bebér ‘to drink’ > bébo ‘I drink’; segír ‘to follow’ > sígo ‘I follow’). We pose the following questions concerning VH: (i) Is it a synchronic process? (ii) Does it exhibit paradigmatic effects? and (iii) How can it be described in Optimality Theory? To answer question (i), we present a corpus of BP dictionarized verbs in the third person and results from empirical tests that evaluate acceptability/productivity in the conjugation of pseudo-verbs. Concerning question (ii), we show that a paradigmatic correspondence between verbal forms in BP accounts for misapplication patterns. Answering question (iii), we offer a description of the process in line with Transderivational Correspondence Theory (Benua 1997).
This study attempts to determine the common features and differences between the Latin language of the inscriptions of Aquincum, Salona, Aquileia and the provincial countries of Pannonia Inferior, Dalmatia and Venetia et Histria, compared with each other and the rest of the Latin speaking provinces of the Roman empire, and we intend to demonstrate whether a regional dialect area over the Alps–Danube–Adria region of the Roman empire existed, a hypothesis suggested by József Herman. For our research, we use all relevant linguistic data from the Computerized Historical Linguistic Database of Latin Inscriptions of the Imperial Age. We will examine the relative distribution of diverse types of non-standard data found in the inscriptions, contrasting the linguistic phenomena of an earlier period with a later stage of Vulgar Latin. The focus of our analysis will be on the changes in the vowel system and the grammatical cases between the two chronological periods within each of the three examined cities. If we succeed in identifying similar tendencies in the Vulgar Latin of these three cities, the shared linguistic phenomena may suggest the existence of a regional variant of Latin in the Alps–Danube–Adria region.
Tense? (Re)lax!
A new formalisation for a controversial contrast
1 Introduction The representation of vowel height, as Pulleyblank (2011) points out, is not trivial: in a five-vowel system (say, Greek), i would typically be categorised as high, e as mid, a as low. A seven-vowel system (Brazilian
1 THE SARDINIAN VOWEL SYSTEM As is well known, the most remarkable property of the vowel systems of the Romance languages is that none of them preserves Latin distinctive vowel quantity. 1 In particular, as far as stressed vowels are concerned
Als Ausgangspunkt der Wandlung der kurzen Vokale des Ungarischen in der altungarischen Zeit bezeichnet István Kenesei die Entwicklung des i in zwei Richtungen (i ? u, i ? i), wo die Entwicklung das ganze Kurzvokalsystem veränderte. Nach der Kritik des Modells von Kenesei versucht der Autor auf Grund der Traditionen der Literatur zur ungarischen Lautgeschichte ein anderes Modell aufzustellen. Die Grundlage für diese Betrachtungsweise liefern die Betonungsverhältnisse des Ungarischen, und ihre Grundthese besagt, dass a und ö zu Beginn der altungarischen Zeit bereits existierten. In der urungarischen Zeit kam eine Verstärkung in Wörtern finnougrischen Ursprungs mit den Stammlauten u und ü infolge der Betonung zustande, die mit einer Öffnung einherging. In unbetonten Silben dagegen erfolgte in der urungarischen Zeit eine Schwächung, die mit einer Reduktion am Wortende einherging (Schließung) und von einer Labialisierung begleitet wurde. Aufgrund dieses Modells kann man von einer Art Überkreuzwirkung sprechen, da in den betonten und in den unbetonten Silben jeweils entgegengesetzte Entwicklungen vonstatten gingen, deren Ergebnisse dann auf die Silben in der jeweils anderen Position gewirkt haben.
In this paper, I will argue that the asyllabic /i/—a recurrent inflectional element in final position in Romanian words—is not a phoneme of the Romanian vowel system. I will present arguments which sustain that the morphological marker- i leads to the palatalization of the preceding consonant, resulting in a positional allophone of the consonant phoneme in complementary distribution with it.
This article presents a Government Phonology (GP) analysis of disharmonic words in Turkish. According to GP, phonology is exceptionless. Following this claim, I will argue that the generalisations intended to capture vowel harmony in Turkish had been stated in the wrong way, leading to disharmonic words as an artefact of a faulty analysis. Once this is remedied, the exceptions vanish, allowing for a unified treatment of harmonic and disharmonic words. This also takes into account further details of the Turkish vowel system which had not been incorporated in previous analyses, as well as distributional asymmetries between stems and suffixes.
