A phonological analysis of the onset velar nasal merger in Hong Kong Cantonese

Authors

  • Suet-Ying Lam University of Massachusetts Amherst

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v9i1.5727

Keywords:

phonology, cantonese, MaxEnt, nasal, merger

Abstract

This paper provides a phonological analysis of the onset /ŋ/ ↔ /∅/ merger in Hong Kong Cantonese (HKC). What is particularly challenging for a formal analysis here is that the insertion and deletion of [ŋ] can occur in the same environment, since a sound normally does not allow two contrasting operations in the same environment (McCarthy 2003). The current study employs an analysis using a probabilistic constraint-based grammar (Goldwater et al. 2003), by proposing that [ŋ] is a placeless consonant at the onset position. Thus, [ŋ] is inserted placelessly and gets its place from the following vowel. Insertion of other sounds can thus be excluded by penalizing place insertion.

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Published

2024-05-15

How to Cite

Lam, Suet-Ying. 2024. “A Phonological Analysis of the Onset Velar Nasal Merger in Hong Kong Cantonese”. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 9 (1): 5727. https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v9i1.5727.