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

Building on Hansson’s (2001) observation that contrast seems to play an
important role in accounting for these facts, Mackenzie (2005, forthcoming)
presents an analysis in terms of the contrastive hierarchy.
Assuming that the relevant laryngeal feature is [glottalic], Mackenzie
(2005) proposes that the contrastive hierarchy for Bumo Izon is: place features >
[voiced] > [glottalic]. That is, the consonants are first distinguished by place, in
terms of the place categories shown in (7.49). Within each place, they are then
distinguished by [voiced]. 26 Now [glottalic] is needed only to distinguish the
labials and alveolars. The contrastive features assigned to the voiced stops are
shown in (7.50). The phonemes that participate in implosive harmony are exactly
the ones that are contrastively specified for the harmonizing feature, [glottalic].
(7.50) Bumo Izon voiced stops: contrastive features (Mackenzie 2005)
b ∫ d ∂Î g ©∫
place lab lab alv alv vel lab-vel
voiced + + + + + +
glottalic – + – +
7.7. Loanword adaptation as evidence of phonological organization
Loan phonology has been viewed as a source of evidence bearing on the nature
of the grammar of the borrowing language at least since Jakobson (1962 [1931]),
26 Note that this hierarchy differs from what is suggested by the table in (7.49), where [voiced]
appears to take narrower scope than [glottalic]. Such an ordering would assign contrastive
[glottalic] features to the labio-velar stops, wrongly predicting that they participate in harmony.
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