| Examples: |
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Metathesis occurs in the plural formation of nouns. One type of plural
is formed by the addition of the suffix /-o/, e.g. karris, karris-o ‘cheek,
sing./plur.’. When the medial or final consonant of a bisyllabic noun is
a (nongeminate) liquid, the vowel of the last syllable elides, e.g.
ilik, ilk-o 'tooth, sing./plur.’. Metathesis occurs in nouns of this group
when an obstruent stop would otherwise occur before the liquid.
Singular Plural
tikir
tirk-o 'catfish’
deker
derk-o 'horn’
mukul
mulk-o 'iron’
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| Conditions: |
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No information currently available. |
| Motivation: |
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Sonority (Syllable contact)
Within a syllable-based approach, the reordering of the obstruent and
liquid could be analyzed as being due to a constraint on syllable contact,
along the lines proposed by Vennemann (1988) for Sidamo.
Under the assumption that the stop and liquid belong to different syllables,
the preferred ordering would place the stop after the liquid since the
liquid is more sonorous than the stop.
Perceptual Enhancement (Hume 1997, 1998)
Metathesis may serve to position a stop consonant with vulnerable cues
to place of articulation, in particular, in a position where its perceptibility
is enhanced. Liquids have stronger internal cues to both place and manner.
Stops, on the other hand, depend to a greater extent on contextual cues
for information conerning place. Since Elmolo stops are not released in
preconsonantal position, the occurrence of the stop consonant in prevocalic
position facilitates identification of velar place, given the presence
of both the transition and release burst. |
| Related
processes: |
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No information currently available. |
| Comments: |
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Last updated: 9/26/2000 |
| References: |
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Hume, Elizabeth. 1997. Towards an Explanation of Consonant/Consonant Metathesis.
ms. OSU. Draft, v. 1.
Hume, Elizabeth. 1998. The Role of Perceptibility in Consonant/Consonant
Metathesis. In Blake, Susan, Eun-Sook Kim, and Kimary Shahin (eds.), WCCFL
XVII Proceedings. Stanford: CSLI. 293-307.
Zaborsky, Andrzej, 1986. The Morphology of Nominal Plural in the Cushitic
Languages. Institute für Afrikanistik und Agyptologie der Universität
Wien. Wien.
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