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Weak Triggers in Vowel Harmony

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Abstract

This paper examines vowel harmony initiated by a weak trigger. Height harmony in Veneto Italian dialects, wherein a post-tonic high vowel triggers raising of preceding mid vowels, forms a case study. Veneto presents two variable patterns: stress-targeted harmony, in which harmony propagates to the stressed syllable, and maximal extension harmony, in which raising persists to pretonic vowels. The conditions under which weak vowels trigger and control harmony are examined. It is argued that weak trigger harmony is motivated by perceptual disadvantage: harmony improves exposure of the spreading feature, accomplished either by extending to a stressed position or maximizing duration in the word. The apparent primacy of the vowel quality in weak position in Veneto is accounted for by markedness factors that independently prevent the stressed vowel from overriding it. In regard to positional privilege, it is argued that positional licensing (markedness) drives stress-targeted spreading – positional faithfulness cannot be responsible for strong targets. A weak trigger pattern emerges when licensing constraints operating over perceptually marked structure dominate positional faithfulness. Crosslinguistic applications are also explored.

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  1. Department of Linguistics, University of Southern California, Grace Ford Salvatori 301, Los Angeles, CA, 90089-1693, USA

    Rachel Walker

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Correspondence to Rachel Walker.

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I would like to thank three anonymous reviewers and Michael Kenstowicz for useful comments. Earlier versions of this work were presented at the tenth Manchester Phonology Meeting and the 2002 annual meeting of the Canadian Linguistics Association, and also at the University of British Columbia, University of California, Irvine, University of Chicago, and University of Iowa, and I am grateful to those audiences for helpful discussion. Aspects of this research have also benefited from comments and suggestions by Dani Byrd, Katherine Crosswhite, Laura Downing, Carrie Dyck, Edward Flemming, Jongho Jun, Abigail Kaun, Kristie McCrary, Nicole Nelson, Marc van Oostendorp, Jaye Padgett, Glyne Piggott, Doug Pulleyblank, Keren Rice, Jerzy Rubach, Pat Shaw, Joe Stemberger, Bernard Tranel, Christian Uffmann, Michael Wagner, Kie Zuraw, and students in the spring 2002 phonology seminar at the University of Southern California. Thanks are due to Luc Baronian and Luca Storto for their assistance with aspects of the data. I am indebted to Michele Brunelli and Mario Saltarelli for extensive discussion of the data and this research, and I owe special thanks to Jill Beckman and Cathie Ringen for detailed feedback on this project.

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Walker, R. Weak Triggers in Vowel Harmony. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 23, 917–989 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-004-4562-z

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