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

O/, but its scope is limited to the [ labial] vowels. Therefore, only /U/ can
trigger metaphony, not /I/. These results are strikingly in line with the
Contrastivist Hypothesis: only vowels possessing a contrastive feature [high] can
trigger metaphony.
(7.42) Contrastive features in desinential vowels
a. Three desinential vowels b. Four desinential vowels
[ labial] [ labial]
I~E U~O I U [high]
7.5.1.3. Phonetics of desinential vowels
A [low] A
Dyck’s Generalization by itself does not necessarily demonstrate the correctness
of the Contrastivist Hypothesis if the data can be explained in other ways. One
possible alternative comes to mind immediately. We might reason that in dialects
where a high desinential vowel is in contrast with a mid vowel, the high vowel
must be phonetically higher than in dialects where only one vowel covers the
high and mid space. It is possible, therefore, that metaphony is triggered by
contrastively high desinential vowels not because the phonology is concerned
with contrastive specifications, but simply because such vowels are the only ones
that are phonetically high enough to trigger metaphony. On this account, Dyck’s
Generalization is explained by phonetics.
Fortunately, the phonetics of Iberian dialects have been richly
documented, and it is simply not the case that noncontrastive high desinential
O
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