Prosodic and morphological conditionings in Valencian vowel harmony

Abstract

Valencian vowel harmony has been analyzed as a process that spreads the color features of the stressed open-mid vowels /ˈɛ, ˈɔ/ to a following final posttonic open vowel /a/ within the morphological word. Although this statement correctly depicts the prevailing pattern, recent experimental studies within the framework of laboratory phonology show that harmony may extend further. In light of these new data, we postulate that the scope of Valencian vowel harmony is conditioned by the prosodic structure, and that part of the variation found is due to the different ways in which clitics can prosodically integrate with their lexical hosts. We examine in detail the variation that arises from enclitics being parsed as either affixal or internal clitics and their interaction with the lexical host, providing additional evidence for the suitability of internally layered ternary feet. In our proposal, vowel harmony arises from licensing constraints demanding the features of the mid-open vowels to be attached to salient enough positions. We develop a prominence-based analysis in which features extend over increasingly larger prosodic domains in order to improve their perceptibility, giving rise to the whole typology of Valencian harmonic patterns without generating unattested forms.