Cayuga
- Language Family
- Iroquoian
- Subgroup
- —
- Area
- —
Summary
Cayuga /Vʔ/ and /Vh/ sequences in odd-numbered nonfinal syllables undergo metathesis.
Type(s) of metathesis
| Type | Status | Optionality | Position | Location | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a. CV | Synchronic | Obligatory | Adjacent | Root-internal |
Case types and qualities
-
- CV
-
- C:
- Glottal
- C:
- Glottal
- V:
- Any
Examples
/kahwistaʔeks/ → [kʰḁwísdʔaes] 'it strikes, chimes (a clock)'
/akekahaʔ/ → [agékhaaʔ] 'my eye'
/koʔnikõhaʔ/ → [gʔoníkhwaʔ] 'her mind'
Conditions
Buckley (2011:1388) points out that "the necessary prosodic context can be analyzed as the weak branch of an iambic foot".
Motivations
Blevins & Garrett (1998:511) proposes that the motivation for Cayuga CV metathesis is both metrical and phonation-related. Nuclei of metrically weak syllables undergo phonetic shortening. Combined with the laryngeals /ʔ/ and /h/, this causes either creaky voice (V̰) or vowel devoicing (V̥). Consequently, the reinterpretation of [CV̰] and [CV̥] as underlyingly /ChV/ and /CʔV/ gives rise to the synchronic metathesis.
Symbols
Comments
See also Foster (1982) for more data on Cayuga.
Bibliography
Blevins, Juliette, and Andrew Garrett. 1998. The origins of consonant-vowel metathesis. Language 74.3 (September): 508–556. doi:10.2307/417792
Buckley, Eugene. 2011. Metathesis. In The Blackwell companion to phonology. Vol. 3, Phonological processes. Edited by Marc van Oostendorp, Colin J. Ewen, Elizabeth Hume, and Keren Rice. Blackwell Companions to Linguistics Series. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN: 9781405184236