Date of Award
Spring 5-1-2015
Document Type
Honors Project
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
English, Linguistics, and Communication
First Advisor
Fallon, Paul
Second Advisor
Rigsby, Mary
Major or Concentration
Linguistics
Abstract
Consonant Harmony (CH) is a process that commonly characterizes the phonology of a child's first language acquisition. CH is the means by which non-adjacent consonants partly assimilate to one another in the primary place of articulation of features, e.g. the word dog is pronounced as gog. This paper provides a modern interpretation of the treatment of CH under successive phonological frameworks: early generative, autosegmental, connectionist, and Optimality Theory (OT). The review highlights the inter-child, intra-child, and cross-linguistic differences between child and adult CH in order to emphasize the contrasts appearing in child language. More recent accounts propose a comprehensive analysis of CH that takes into account inter-child, intra-child and cross-linguistic variation. Optimality Theory is shown to provide the most detailed analytical framework to account for CH. The study concludes by suggesting directions for further research.
Recommended Citation
Dobson, Nicole Mariah, "A Modern Analysis of Consonant Harmony in Theoretical Frameworks" (2015). Student Research Submissions. 100.
https://scholar.umw.edu/student_research/100