A Unified Approach to Nasality and Voicing (Studies in Generative Grammar) (Studies in Generative Grammar [Sgg])

This book makes an important contribution to the expanding body of work in generative phonology which aims to reduce the number of traditionally recognized melodic categories in order to achieve a greater degree of restrictiveness. By analyzing data from a large number of different languages, Nasukawa establishes a clear affinity between nasality and voicing, and demonstrates the advantages of treating these two properties as different phonetic manifestations of a single nasal-voice category. The choice of whether to interpret this category as voicing or nasality is determined by the active or inactive status of a complement tier; when active, this complement tier enhances the acoustic image of its head category and is interpreted as voicing. This study deepens our understanding of the typological relation between nasality and voicing, and sheds new light on a number of related agreement phenomena such as nasal harmony, postnasal voicing assimilation, voiced-obstruent voicing assimilation and spontaneous prenasalisation. Main description: This book makes an important contribution to the expanding body of work in generative phonology which aims to reduce the number of traditionally recognized melodic categories in order to achieve a greater degree of restrictiveness. By analyzing data from a large number of different languages, Nasukawa establishes a clear affinity between nasality and voicing, and demonstrates the advantages of treating these two properties as different phonetic manifestations of a single nasal-voice category. The choice of whether to interpret this category as voicing or nasality is determined by the active or inactive status of a complement tier. This study deepens our understanding of the typological relation between nasality and voicing, and sheds new light on a number of related agreement phenomena "This book makes an important contribution to the expanding body of work in generative phonology which aims to reduce the number of traditionally recognized melodic categories in order to achieve a greater degree of restrictiveness. By analyzing data from a large number of different languages, Kuniya Nasukawa establishes a clear affinity between nasality and voicing, and demonstrates the advantages of treating these two properties as different phonetic manifestations of a single nasal-voice category. The choice of whether to interpret this category as voicing or nasality is determined by the active or inactive status of a complement tier Abstract Acknowledgements Contents Abbreviations and symbols Chapter 1. Nasal-voice affinities Chapter 2. Typological aspects of nasality and voicing Chapter 3. The melodic architecture of nasality, voicing and prenasality Chapter 4. An integrated approach to nasality and long-lead voicing Chapter 5. Prenasalisation and nasalisation of voiced obstruents Chapter 6. Assimilatory processes involving nasality and voicing Chapter 7. Conclusion Notes References Language index Subject index Author index