Speaker: Christopher Bader (MIT)
Title: Front Vowels are Palatal: Phonetic and Phonological Evidence
Time: , 5pm – 6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract: Clements (1991) and Hume (1992) proposed that front vowels are coronal, rather than
dorsal (Sagey 1986). But this is the wrong generalization, since it fails to explain the following
contrast in Mandarin Chinese: *si, *ʂi, ɕi ‘west’ (西) (Lee-Kim 2014). As this example shows,
the Mandarin high front vowel /i/ may only be preceded by a palatal ([-anterior][+distributed])
sibilant. Anterior and retroflex sibilants, which of course are also coronal, may not precede this
vowel. Instead of si and ʂi, Mandarin has these consonants followed by the syllabic, non-vocalic
coronal sonorants [ɹ ̩ ] and [ɻ ̍ ], sometimes incorrectly referred to as ‘apical vowels’. As I will
show, neither anterior nor retroflex consonants pattern with front vowels. But fortition of front
vowels can result in palatal consonants and front vowels do pattern with palatal consonants. I
will argue that this is because front vowels are palatal. The Mandarin data cited is then the result
of AGREE(PAL), AGREE(ANT), and AGREE(RET) being higher ranked than IDENT(Amax), a
constraint which preserves vocalic apertures… (continued in attached file)