A government phonology analysis of Turkish consonants

Abstract

The main topic of this dissertation is a detailed analysis of Turkish consonants in theframework of Government Phonology. In order to explain a number of phonologicalphenomena involving consonants, the elemental composition of consonants in Turkish is proposed for the first time. Stem-final and suffix-initial voicingalternations are discussed to find out the best way to represent voice. Fortition by theelement H and spreading of H are proposed respectively to explain these voicingalternations in phonological expressions containing the ? element. In the light of the representation of voice, the representation of all consonants is based on the proposedanalysis of voice contrasts. The governing relations in word-final consonant clustersare accounted for by inter-onset government. The elemental composition ofconsonants explains consonant clusters, the word-initial phenomenon and the wordfinal phenomenon. The role and the representation of palatalized consonants with theI element help us to account for the different ways of interpreting the first vowel of aword and to explain unexpected vowel harmony in the suffixes after word-finalpalatalized consonants. The data concerning word-final consonant clusters is drawn from TELL, and the data about the effect of palatalized consonants on neighboringnuclei is tested with 40 native speakers of Modern Turkish orally. This studyprovides elemental representations of Turkish consonants generated by a set ofsuggested Licensing Constraints on the combinations of elements and accounts for various phonological phenomena by referring to universal principles and parameters.