Elision of /h, ?/ in the Shirazi Dialect of Persian (SHDP): An Optimality Theory Based Analysis

• Main Authors: Mitra Shokrollahi, Nasser Rashidi
• Format: Article
• Language: Croatian
• Published: Institut za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje 2010-01-01
• Series: Rasprave: Časopis Instituta za Hrvatski Jezik i Jezikoslovlje
• Subjects: lenition or weakening; laryngeal elision; phonological processes; Optimality Theory
• Online Access: http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/99830
• ISSN: 1331-6745; 1849-0379

Until recently, many researchers have shown interest in studying lenitions, which are examples of the most common universal types of phonological processes. Elision of laryngeals (glottal fricative /h/ and glottal stop /?/) is one of the most common phonological alternations exhibited in the Shirazi dialect of Persian (SHDP) which to the knowledge of the researchers, has not been studied to date. This paper seeks to provide a description of the facts about this common phonological alternation in the addressed regional dialect of Persian and points out some main differences between the behavior of these processes in SHDP and Standard Persian (SP). The analysis is cast in an Optimal Theoretic (OT) framework (McCarthy and Prince 1995, 2001), which holds that linguistic forms are the outcome of interaction among violable universal constraints. The present study shows that the addressed processes of consonant deletion in SHDP are restricted by syllabic position and are conditioned by coda position, intervocalic position or consonant clusters. They are usually blocked in the onset, but there are cases where reduction is allowed in the onset of the stressed syllable. Thus, the study adds SHDP to the list of languages which permit lenition in the onset of the stressed syllable. The addressed processes of elision are always blocked in word-initial position and laryngeal elision is always followed by Compensatory lengthening (CL), even after deletion from the onset of the stressed syllable.