The contrastive hierarchy in phonology 2009 Dresher.pdf - CUNY ...

ordered before one based on place (but see Ghini 2001b for a different view), let
us order [low] as the first feature. For the second feature, either [round] or [back]
are possible; for concreteness, we will pick [round]. This contrast is relevant only
among the non-low vowels. 23 Because of the symmetry of the system, it does not
matter very much where [ATR] is ordered. For concreteness, we will assume it is
ordered third. We thus arrive at the contrastive hierarchy illustrated in (7.30).
(7.30) Nez Perce: [low] > [round] > [ATR] (Mackenzie 2002)
qp
[+low] [–low]
ty ei
[+ATR] [–ATR] [–rnd] [+rnd]
g g ty ty
Q A [+ATR] [–ATR] [+ATR] [–ATR]
g g g g
i E u ç
7.4.4.2. The analysis of Bakovic@ 2000
An OT analysis of the Nez Perce vowel system is given by Bakovic@ (2000). His
analysis has some properties in common with Mackenzie’s, namely, a hierarchy
of featural faithfulness constraints, and constraints to exclude certain
combinations of features. However, he arrives at quite different results. Bakovic@
arrives at the ranking shown in (7.31). He proposes that these faithfulness
23 If one knew nothing about the phonological patterning of Nez Perce and looked only at the
underlying vowel system as pictured in (7.29), one might think it could be analyzed the way
Jakobson (1962 [1931]) analyzed Standard Slovak (see §1.1), as three pairs of vowels arrayed into
three height classes where each pair is distinguished on the front/back dimension. Such an
analysis for Nez Perce totally fails as a basis for capturing the facts of vowel harmony.
302