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SUMMARY:Phonetics vs. phonology in Huave consonant-vowel interactions - Yu
 ni Kim (University of Manchester)
DTSTART:20111124T170000Z
DTEND:20111124T183000Z
UID:TALK33073@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:George Walkden
DESCRIPTION:This talk explores phonetic and phonological aspects of diphth
 ongization in Huave (a language isolate of southern Mexico)\, based on fie
 ldwork with the moribund San Francisco del Mar variety. Huave consonants a
 re contrastively either plain or palatalized\, and in coda position this d
 istinction is cued principally on the preceding vowel\; the focus here wil
 l be on the realization of back vowels /a o u/ as [aj oj uj] before palata
 lized consonants. Acoustic evidence converges on the idea that this diphth
 ongization is phonological before non-coronals\, inserting a segmental off
 glide and creating long vowel nuclei\, but coarticulatory before coronals\
 , where nuclei remain phonologically unaltered and short. In the non-coron
 al environment\, F2 trajectories generally show a transition between two s
 teady states\, and vowel duration is comparable to that of aspirated long-
 vowel nuclei [ah oh uh]. However\, when these codas are resyllabified as o
 nsets to suffixes\, the F2 rises disappear completely\, and durations clus
 ter with short (rather than with long) open-syllable vowels\; there thus a
 ppears to be a categorical alternation conditioned by syllable structure. 
 In contrast\, back vowels before palatalized coronals do not show such alt
 ernations in either quality or length. F2 trajectories have a single stead
 y state and a smaller degree of rise at the end\, before onsets as well as
  codas. Similarly\, duration patterns with short vowels in both closed and
  open syllables. Finally\, back-vowel nuclei before voiceless coronals and
  non-coronals behave differently with respect to truncation of intonationa
 l pitch accents\, although the categoricity of this effect can be question
 ed. On the basis of the representations inferred from the phonetic results
 \, a phonological analysis is developed in terms of feature-realization st
 rategies for the consonantal palatalization contrast. Time permitting\, so
 me methodological and ethical issues that arise in phonetic work on endang
 ered unwritten languages will also be discussed.
LOCATION:GR04\, English Faculty\, 9 West Road (Sidgwick Site)
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