Speaker: Juan Cancel (MIT)
Title: A Reanalysis of Syllabic and Rhythmic Gradation in Nganasan As A Single Consonant Gradation Process
Time: Monday, September 22nd, 5pm – 6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract: The literature on Avam Nganasan (Helimski 1998; Wagner-Nagy 2018) has argued that the language exhibits two kinds of Consonant Gradation: Syllabic Gradation (SG), in which an onset consonant alternates in voicing depending on whether a syllable is open or closed as in ɟi.kə ”mountain” vs. ɟi.gə-ʔ ”mountains”, and Rhythmic Gradation (RG), in which an onset consonant alternates in voicing depending on whether it aligns with the left-edge of a foot or not as in (nɨ-rə)(gɨ) ”woman-like” vs. (ɲotə)-(rəku)”grass-like”.
In contrast to the description above, this analysis will argue in terms of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 2004) that we should instead reanalyze SG and RG as a single Consonant Gradation process. In particular, it will argue that Consonant Gradation in Nganasan involves a special fortition process that occurs on the onset of a foot-medial open syllable in combination to other cross-linguistically attested lenition processes such as intervocalic and postnasal voicing This reanalysis not only clearly explains why the single consonant alternations in both in SG and RG happen to be the same – they would just be the same instantiation of intervocalic voicing – but it also serves as the ground for reanalyzing in more concrete terms some of the problems involving the homorganic nasal alternations that Vaysman (2009) looked at such as the apparent NT → T → D chain-shift that we see in RG or the cases of counterbleeding that we see in words such as (ɟi.gə)-(tə.nu) ”mountain-LOC.SG”, where we have a voiced onset in an unexpected environment.