Vowel Length Change In LuGanda

Abstract

This paper reviews the analysis of compensatory lengthening in LuGanda by Clements (1986) and reanalyses it in the framework of OT. First, the defects of Clements' analysis in CV-phonology are pointed out: inconsistent use of C and V slots in representing nasals and consonants, syllabification problems with word-initial nasal clusters and geminate consonants, and an extrinsic ordering of many rules in resolving vowel hiatus. These problems are shown to be eliminated by the interaction of faithfulness and markendness constraints. The first problem does not occur in our OT-based analysis at all. The second one is solved by the constraint ranking Mᴀx-C》 Mᴀx-μ, Coᴍᴩ. Vowel hiatus contexts are also resolved by the constraint ranking. Especially, the directionality of vowel deletion is decided by constraints such as a contiguity constraint I-Coᴎᴛ[X, Rooᴛ] and a positional faithfulness constraint Mᴀx-Wi and by their position in the ranking. The former constraint is responsible for preserving the contiguity of a root and its immediately preceding segment, while the latter is for keeping word-initial segments, which are salient compared with their word-medial or word-final counterparts. Violability and strict domination of OT constraints are shown to be important in explaining the change in vowel length in LuGanda.