TY - UNPB

T1 - Voice–Nasality Interaction and Headedness in Voiceless Nasals

AU - Breit, Florian

PY - 2013

Y1 - 2013

N2 - Most recent work in Element Theory assumes that nasality and true voicing are represented by the same element, where the headed element encodes voicing and the dependent element nasality (Backley, 2011; Nasukawa, 1999, 2000, 2005, et alii). This assumption is questioned here and it is proposed that the voicing–nasality contrast may be encoded the other way around. It is argued that this hypothesis is in better agreement with the means by which headedness may encode additional information at phonetic interpretation. Under the assumption of an L/H-Parameter, it is shown how, in line with Lombardi (1991) and Botma (2005), only H-systems can possibly encode voiceless (or more properly aspirated) nasals and how the hypothesis that headed |L| encodes nasality provides a better fit for these systems.

AB - Most recent work in Element Theory assumes that nasality and true voicing are represented by the same element, where the headed element encodes voicing and the dependent element nasality (Backley, 2011; Nasukawa, 1999, 2000, 2005, et alii). This assumption is questioned here and it is proposed that the voicing–nasality contrast may be encoded the other way around. It is argued that this hypothesis is in better agreement with the means by which headedness may encode additional information at phonetic interpretation. Under the assumption of an L/H-Parameter, it is shown how, in line with Lombardi (1991) and Botma (2005), only H-systems can possibly encode voiceless (or more properly aspirated) nasals and how the hypothesis that headed |L| encodes nasality provides a better fit for these systems.

KW - voicing

KW - nasality

KW - voiceless nasals

KW - laryngeal contrast

KW - Element Theory

M3 - Working paper

T3 - UCL Working Papers in Linguistics

SP - 1

BT - Voice–Nasality Interaction and Headedness in Voiceless Nasals

PB - University College London

ER -