Speaker: Gretchen Kern
Date/Time: 5/9 (Wednesday) 5 pm
Location: 32-D831
Title: Perceptual Similarity in Sonority Contours: Evidence from Early Irish
Rhyming Patterns
Abstract:
This is a practice talk for the 7th Celtic Linguistics Conference in June.
This paper aims to explain the basis of Early Irish rhyme and lend support to the concept of phonological similarity in sonority contours. Previous evidence for sonority contour-based similarity has come from patterns of epenthesis in consonant clusters (Flemming, 2008; Steriade, 2006) arguing that the perceptual distance between C1C2 and C1VC2 is smaller when there is a steep rise in sonority between C1 and C2 because that rise is more similar to the one between C1 and an epenthetic vowel. Adapting this, I argue that in Early (Old & Middle) Irish rhyme, the relevant dimension of similarity was the sonority profile: the difference in sonority between the most and least sonorous points. This can be used to explain some puzzling facts about Early Irish rhyme, namely the division of rhymeable consonants into classes, the behavior of consonant clusters, and the behavior of rhymes of two syllables.