Variable directional applications in Tianjin tone sandhi

摘要

This paper investigates tone sandhi phenomena in the Chinesendialect of Tianjin, which are noteworthy for the rule application direc-ntionalities observed in tri-tonal strings. The rule application directionalitiesnappear to be ungoverned, as none of the principles proposed to date thatnmay contribute to determining directionalities can account for them. Basednon the constraint-based theory of OT, this paper shows that the rulenoperation directionalities in Tianjin are by no means ungoverned. Nor-nmally tone sandhi applies from left to right for identity reasons. This isncaptured by the OO-faithfulness constraint IDENT-BOT, which requiresnidentity between prosodically related outputs. The left-to-right directionality isnsacrificed only when it would result in output forms that involve markednsequences or toneme deletion at the prominent edge of a tone, which are for-nbidden by the markedness constraint OCP-T and the positional IO-faithfulnessnconstraint MAX-IO-t-R, respectively. Thus the rule application directionalitiesnin Tianjin are naturally predicted by the interaction of IDENT-BOT, OCP-T, andnMAX-IO-t-R, where IDENT-BOT must be dominated by the latter two con-nstraints.