Featural dissimilation

Reading 2: Handbook of Berber Linguistics- Chapter

Summary: Tashlhit Berber presents two distinct, within-category C-V interactions involving the labialized velar and uvular consonants (Cw). First, these consonants undergo a dissimilation process mainly in the vicinity of the round vowel u- and the round glide w sporadically. This by now established dissimilatory phenomenon is a mundane, within-category C-V interaction. Second, labialized consonants also participate in a very intricate derounding phenomenon to be kept separate from dissimilation on account of the notable differences between the two. Offering an Optimality-Theoretic analysis, the paper argues that while Cw-dissimilation, tautologically, involves a dissimilatory process, Cw-assimilation “derounds” labialized consonants as a side-effect of an assimilatory, vowel-copying operation. When entrapped in a vowel copying domain flanked by the agreeing unrounded vowels ([a…a] or [i…i]), labialized consonants deround in a rather assimilatory context. The latter process is an example of the impossible, or at best rare, within-category C-V interactions predicted by Padgett (2011: 1763).