Leiden University Student Repository

Boer, Tom de (2017)

Becoming Sonorant

Master thesis | Linguistics (MA)

The triggering of a phonological rule by a sonority related feature might provide insight into the phonological process behind the input and output of a phonological rule. Is a sonority-based feature possibly a key factor in the change towards sonorant sounds in a language? One of the ways of finding a possible influence of sonority would be to look at sounds that change from being phonologically [-sonorant] to [+sonorant], and analyzing whether this change can be attributed to the presence of a sonorous sound as described above for the SV theory. Or if this change might be better explained by other phonological theories like Element Theory, or by looking at different phonological processes like lenition? This paper wil argue that analyzing changes to sonorant segments can be explained intuitively by using Element Theory and a lenition based viewpoint.

Phonology

Sonorant

Feature Geometry

Element Theory

Author

Boer, Tom de

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Theoretical & Experimental Linguistics

Supervisors

Voeten, Cesko

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en