LingLunch : Shelece Easterday

Jeudi 21 Février 2019, 12:00 to 13:00
Organisation: 
Pascal Amsili (LLF)
Lieu: 

LLF – Bât. ODG – 5e étage – Salle du conseil (533)

Shelece Easterday (DDL)
Phonotactic complexity and morphology in interaction: a proposed typology

In this talk I present results from a project investigating the relationship between the phonotactic patterns of word-initial biconsonantal sequences and morphological complexity. I test the common claim that the phonotactic patterns of heteromorphemic (morphologically complex) and tautomorphemic (morpheme-internal) consonant clusters are structurally different from one another in a sample of 32 unrelated languages. Specifically, the manner of articulation patterns of heteromorphemic and tautomorphemic word-initial biconsonantal sequences are analyzed and compared.

Contrary to expectations, the results show that heteromorphemic patterns are in fact more restricted than tautomorphemic patterns in a number of ways. They are less numerous and diverse in type frequency, both within and across languages. Additionally, typologically rare and purportedly dispreferred word-initial consonant sequences are more likely to occur in solely tautomorphemic contexts in the data. I identify four general language types according to interactions between the patterns of word-initial CC inventories and morphological complexity and propose some diachronic sources for these types based on other phonetic/phonological patterns occurring in the languages.