Date Approved
11-1-2015
Date Posted
6-23-2016
Degree Type
Open Access Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department or School
English Language and Literature
Committee Member
Beverley Goodman, Ph.D., Chair
Committee Member
T. Daniel Seely, Ph.D.
Abstract
This thesis presents an investigation into progressive place agreement in clusters through the lens of Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky, 1993/2004; McCarthy & Prince, 1995, 1999). A large typology of such languages is presented and examined to detail a broad swath of phenomena. The main line of inquiry over this typology is how direction of assimilation is formally represented. This work argues that simple phonological mechanisms explain the cross-linguistic effects including an agreement constraint and conflicting faithfulness constraints.
Recommended Citation
Lamont, Andrew, "Progressive place assimilation in optimality theory" (2015). Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations. 650.
https://commons.emich.edu/theses/650