Nasal place assimilation and nasal substitution

This file defines the assimilation of a nasal to the place of a following consonant, and nasal substitution, in which the consonant is in addition not realized.

Many Austronesian languages have prefixes that end in a nasal. The nasal takes the place of a stem-initial obstruent, and in nasal substitution the two surface as one nasal at that place, as in Tagalog mamigáj from maŋ- and bigáj. Following Donohue, substitution is assimilation together with the loss of the obstruent. A language fixes which consonants trigger assimilation and which substitute.

Main definitions

• placeAssimilation: a nasal takes the place class of a following segment of a trigger class.
• nonstrident, nonlateral, defaultPlace: the rules that keep the assimilated nasal a possible nasal.
• assimilate: the four rules in sequence, over a whole word.
• substitute: the nasal that a nasal and a following consonant surface as under substitution.

Main results

• length_assimilate, length_substitute: assimilation preserves the length of a word, and substitution yields one segment.

Implementation notes

The place class contains [strident] and [lateral], which the PHOIBLE chart specifies on coronals alone. A nasal assimilated to a sibilant or a lateral copies + for them, so nonstrident and nonlateral reset it, and a nasal assimilated to a consonant with no oral articulator, such as a glottal stop, loses its place, which defaultPlace restores.

References

• B. P. Hayes, Introductory Phonology (2009)
• M. Donohue, Phonotactics and morphophonology (2024)
• J. Pater, Austronesian nasal substitution revisited: what's wrong with *NC (and what's not) (2001)
• K. Zuraw, A model of lexical variation and the grammar with application to Tagalog nasal substitution (2010)

def Phonology.NasalSubstitution.placeAssimilation (trigger : Segment) : Subregular.LocalRewrite.Rule

A nasal takes the place of a following segment of the class trigger.

Equations

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def Phonology.NasalSubstitution.nonstrident : Subregular.LocalRewrite.Rule

A nasal is not strident.

Equations

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def Phonology.NasalSubstitution.nonlateral : Subregular.LocalRewrite.Rule

A nasal is not lateral.

Equations

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def Phonology.NasalSubstitution.defaultPlace (N : Segment) : Subregular.LocalRewrite.Rule

A nasal with no oral articulator is the nasal N.

Equations

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def Phonology.NasalSubstitution.rules (trigger N : Segment) : List Subregular.LocalRewrite.Rule

The rules of nasal place assimilation, for the triggers trigger and the default nasal N.

Equations

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def Phonology.NasalSubstitution.assimilate (trigger N : Segment) : List Segment → List Segment

assimilate trigger N w is the word w with each nasal assimilated to a following segment of the class trigger.

Equations

• Phonology.NasalSubstitution.assimilate trigger N = Subregular.LocalRewrite.derive (Phonology.NasalSubstitution.rules trigger N)

def Phonology.NasalSubstitution.substitute (trigger N x : Segment) : List Segment

substitute trigger N x is what the nasal N and a following x surface as under nasal substitution, which is the assimilated nasal alone.

Equations

• Phonology.NasalSubstitution.substitute trigger N x = List.take 1 (Phonology.NasalSubstitution.assimilate trigger N [N, x])

theorem Phonology.NasalSubstitution.length_assimilate (trigger N : Segment) (w : List Segment) : (assimilate trigger N w).length = w.length

Assimilation neither deletes nor inserts a segment.

theorem Phonology.NasalSubstitution.length_substitute (trigger N x : Segment) : (substitute trigger N x).length = 1

Substitution yields one segment.