VOICE ASSIMILATION IN MARATHI
Abstract
This article discusses voice assimilation phenomenon in Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. The goals of this study are three-fold: i) to provide empirical evidence for regressive assimilation in Marathi as claimed in previous studies by Junghare (1969), ii) to check whether obstruents and breathy voice can undergo and/or trigger voice assimilation, iii) to investigate what type of language Marathi belongs to based on Wetzels and Mascaró’s (2001) language typology. The results show that Marathi exhibits voice assimilation as stipulated by Junghare, and it belongs to type II languages that have voice assimilation and no word-medial and word-final devoicing.
References
Berkson, K.H. (2012). Caturing Breathy Voice: Durational Measures of Oral Stops in Marathi. Kansas Working Paper in Linguistics, Vol. 33 (2012), 27-46
Dhongde, R.V. &Wali, K. (2009).Marathi. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Jha, Aparna. (1977). An Outline of Marathi Phonetics. Pune: Deccan College
Junghare, I.A. (1969). A Generative Approach to Marathi Tadbhava Phonology. Master Thesis. The University of Texas
Pandharipande, R.V. (1997). Marathi. New York: Routledge
Vaux, B. (1998). The Laryngeal Specifications of Fricatives. Linguistic Inquiry, Volume 29, Number 3, Summer 1998, 497-511
Wetzels, L. & Mascaró, J. (2001). The Typology of Voicing and Devoicing. Language, 77 (2001), pp. 207–244