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A Challenge for Tier-Based Strict Locality from Uyghur Backness Harmony

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Formal Grammar 2018 (FG 2018)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 10950))

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Abstract

In this paper we describe the process of backness harmony in Uyghur, where suffix forms are determined first from the backness of certain vowels in the stem, or, if no such vowels are present, from the backness of dorsals in the stem. We show that this pattern cannot be captured by a tier-based strictly local (TSL) language. This is problematic for the weak subregular hypothesis, which claims that all segmental phonological stringsets are TSL languages. Next, we consider an alternative phonological analysis that is compatible with a TSL representation, but empirically unsupported. Finally, we consider the possibility that Uyghur backness harmony might be a lexicalized pattern, and find some suggestive evidence in support of this. This alternative appears to be the most likely way in which Uyghur backness harmony might, in principle, turn out to be compatible with the hypothesis that TSL languages provide an upper bound on phonological learnability.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The strong subregular hypothesis claims that phonological stringsets are either strictly local (SL) or strictly piecewise (SP) languages [20]. Some autosegmental processes like stress have been claimed to be fully regular (e.g. [17]), though there is debate on whether alternative analyses are possible [20].

  2. 2.

    These can equivalently be formulated as licit substrings.

  3. 3.

    Note that these vowels are the only ones in the system that have no counterparts differing only in backness. Because /e/ only occurs in loanwords and as the result of certain phonological processes, we focus primarily on /i/ throughout the paper.

  4. 4.

    The velar sounds /x/ and // do not harmonize.

  5. 5.

    There is a statistical tendency for such stems to be treated as back.

  6. 6.

    This can be shown by induction: both words contain the same subsequences when \(k = 1\), and the subsequences added with each increase in k will be the k-subsequences generated by prepending \(V_f\) or \(V_b\) to all subsequences of length \(k-1\).

  7. 7.

    We also suggest that SS-TSL might be relabeled as input structure-sensitive tier-based strictly local (ISS-TSL).

  8. 8.

    Uyghur has a process of vowel lenition that can occur adjacent to voiceless consonants: e.g. speaker 1 produced /iʃ/ with a vowel while speaker 2 did not, and speaker 2 produced /it/ with a vowel while speaker 1 did not.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Tim Hunter, Kie Zuraw, Thomas Graf, two anonymous reviewers, and the attendees of the UCLA phonology seminar for their invaluable feedback. We would also like to thank our Uyghur consultants for sharing their language and culture. Without their generosity and time, none of this would have been possible.

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  1. UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA

    Connor Mayer & Travis Major

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  1. Connor Mayer
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Correspondence to Connor Mayer .

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  1. IRISA, Université de Rennes 1, Rennes, France

    Annie Foret

  2. Institut für Linguistik, Universität Leipzig, Leipzig, Sachsen, Germany

    Greg Kobele

  3. LORIA/Inria Nancy, Villers-lès-Nancy, France

    Sylvain Pogodalla

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Mayer, C., Major, T. (2018). A Challenge for Tier-Based Strict Locality from Uyghur Backness Harmony. In: Foret, A., Kobele, G., Pogodalla, S. (eds) Formal Grammar 2018. FG 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10950. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-57784-4_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-57784-4_4

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