Consonant-Tone

This dissertation establishes that phonological consonant-tone interaction occurs in a non-local configuration in Thai, in contrast to current theories where this interaction is only thought to occur locally. A phonological account posits that in bimoraic unchecked syllables, tones associated with the second mora, and not the first mora, interact with onset consonants in Thai. This is implemented via an Optimality-theoretic markedness constraint, *[+CG]-[H]µ2. Evidence for this position comes from a quantitative lexical gap study and a pair of judgment experiments, which show that both rising tone and high tone are ungrammatical in unchecked syllables with laryngealized obstruent onsets. In Thai, these tones share a common high-tone target at the end of the syllable. These facts suggest the presence of a phonological constraint violated by onset-tone sequences, where the tone on the second mora is referenced, despite the fact that it is the more iii distant of the two. This constraint is grounded since it is phonologically less marked for tones to be realized late in syllables – the second mora is treated as the “head ” mora of the syllable in Thai