Understanding the Ùrhòb ò Tonal Structure through Constraint-Based Framework.
Ùrhòb ò is a southwest Edoid language spoken in southern Nigeria. Its tonal patterns have been studied, but from a descriptive perspective, which, from a theoretical standpoint, potentially limits the understanding that tonal deviations from underlying forms are essentially due to resolutions of con...
| Published in: | Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities Vol. 15; no. 2; pp. 1 - 26 |
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| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Article |
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Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities
2023
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=170049450&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 170049450 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 09752935 BGFH jtl: Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities issn: 09752935 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: 2023 vid: 15 iid: 2 pid: 68366 pub: Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities artinfo: ui: 170049450 10.21659/rupkatha.v15n2.02 ppf: 1 ppct: 25 formats: tig: atl: Understanding the Ùrhòb ò Tonal Structure through Constraint-Based Framework. aug: au: Chukwuemeka Utulu, Don Ajiboye, Emuobonuvie Maria Eloho Edojaimoni, Irene affil: Senior Lecturer, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Delta State University, Abraka Lecturer, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Delta State University, Abraka Graduate Assistant, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Delta State University, Abraka su: Edoid languages Structural frames Southern Nigeria sug: subj: Southern Nigeria Edoid languages Structural frames keyword: Ùrhòb ò Downstep Fusion H-tone preservation OT constraints ab: Ùrhòb ò is a southwest Edoid language spoken in southern Nigeria. Its tonal patterns have been studied, but from a descriptive perspective, which, from a theoretical standpoint, potentially limits the understanding that tonal deviations from underlying forms are essentially due to resolutions of conflicts between some competing constraints. This study adopts the Optimality Theory (OT) to reveal the competing universal constraints: IDENT-T, MAX-T; NoFUSION; LINEARITY; DISASSOC; ALIGN-R CONTOUR; OCP; SPECIFY-T; *FLOAT; and NoCONTOUR. The study shows that these constraints crucially govern the Urhobo tonal patterns such as (i) downstep; (ii) single multiply-linked high (H) tone; (iii) single multiply-linked low (L) tone; (iv) boundary H.H and L.L tones fusion; (v); H-tone preservation; (vi) LH-tone preservation; (vii) floating H tone; and, (viii) final HL contour tone. Moreover, it highlights two Ùrhòb ò-specific tonal alternations listed in (v) and (vi), which exhibit preservation of H and LH tones at the expense of L tone, post-lexically. Consequently, it proposes four markedness constraints NoH.L-T, NoL.H-T, NoH.LH-T, and NoL. to explain the preservation effects. Our findings support phonologists' view that, crosslinguistically, universal (and language-specific) constraints are those that motivate tonal deviations from input forms in tone languages, and that minimally marked tonal outputs are the result of markedness dominance over faithfulness. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2023 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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