Bashir Jam; Ahmad Zalaghi
Abstract
The changing of round and back vowel /u/ to unround and front vowel [i] occurs in Lori dialects as well as some other Persian dialects. This vowel change includes both unrounding and ...
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The changing of round and back vowel /u/ to unround and front vowel [i] occurs in Lori dialects as well as some other Persian dialects. This vowel change includes both unrounding and fronting. This paper aimed at coming up with an inclusive ranking of constraints to explain occurrence and nonoccurrence of this vowel change in various phonological environments in Silahkori dialect within Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky, 1993). At first, it is argued that the dominance of a certain markedness constraint on a faithfulness constraint is the reason why /u/ changes to [i]. Then, it is argued that the dominance of some faithfulness constraints on the markedness constraint is the cause of nonoccurrence of this vowel change in some other environments. These faithfulness constraints indicate that the environment following /u/ determines the occurrence or nonoccurrence of this process, i.e. the environment preceding this vowel plays no role in this regard.
![An Optimality –Theoretic Account of changing /u/ to [I] in Silakhori Dialect](data/jolr/coversheet/cover_en.jpg?lang=en)