Codas and Syllable Weight in Dravidian

Identical segment sequences may be assigned different weights in different languages, and consequently, may have different syllable structures. That is, differences in surface representations may arise because codas are assigned weight differently. For instance, cvc syllables could be functionally equivalent to cvv ( heavy ) or cv (light) syllables and, a cvvc syllable could be trimoraic (superheavy) as in Hindi, or bimoraic (heavy) as in Malayalam.

In this paper, I describe three patterns observed in the four languages: Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam. In the first pattern, exemplified by Telugu and Kannada, no codas are permitted after long vowels; in the second type, Tamil, some codas (the first member of an obstruent geminate or nasal-obstruent cluster) are permitted after long vowels; in the third type, Malayalam, all codas are permitted after long vowels. In all these languages, all codas are permitted after short vowels. Given these observations I hypothesize that all codas carry weight in Kannada and Telugu, that only (some) sonorant codas carry weight in Tamil, and that no codas contribute to syllable weight in Malayalam. I argue that weight-bearing codas are only found after short vowels in Kannada, Telugu and Tamil, and are nonexistent in Malayalam, and that identical sequences are syllabified differently because the languages differ in the weight assigned to coda consonants.

I will account for these different patterns within an Optimality Theoretic framework. The initial analysis excludes loanwords. The same set of constraints is used for all the four languages. The differences among these languages are derived from the different rankings of these constraints. Only the constraints that pertain to syllable weight are given here.

(1) Mora Integrity : input and output must have same number of moras

(2) *shared m : a m should not be linked to two segments

(3) bimoraic maximality : syllables can maximally contain two moras

For Kannada and Telugu, the ranking is: bimoraic maximality, *shared m >> mora integrity

For Tamil, the ranking is : bimoraic maximality >> mora integrity >> *shared m

For Malayalam, the ranking is: bimoraic maximality >> mora integrity >> *shared m

Weight-bearing codas are further restricted to the initial syllable in Kannada, Telugu and Tamil. This is because stems may have only one accented syllable, and the initial syllable always bears this invariant accent. It is therefore logical to expect that no syllable may be stronger than the accented initial syllable.

Data

Kannada

[ h « t . t U ] ‘ten’

[ j I l . l E ] ‘district’

Telugu

[ g o p . p « ] ‘big’

[ b « l . l I ] ‘lizard’

Tamil

[ k A n . n ö ] ‘eye’

[ p A : ÿ . ÿ ö ] ‘song’

Malayalam

[ v A : t . t « ] ‘goose’

[ m A : N . N A ] ‘mango’