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영어

This study offers a unified explanation of the voicing and devoicing in Southern Tohoku dialect of Japan within the framework of Optimality Theory. Intervocalic stop voicing occurs in sequences of ‘voiceless obstruent + high vowel + voiceless stop + high vowel’ in Southern Tohoku dialect. It is because that the constraint *Vo , which bans voiceless vowel is more highly ranked than the constraint No-D, which bans voiced obstruent in the dialect. In spite of the constraint *Vo , vowel devoicing occurs in sequences of ‘voiced obstruent + high vowel + voiceless stop + non-high vowel’ within a morpheme. The reason that intervocalic stop voicing dose not occur in this environment, is because of the self-conjunction constraint No-D2 m, which bans two voiced obstruents within a morpheme. No-D is less ranked than *Vo , but No-D2 m is more highly ranked than *Vo in the dialect. Therefore intervocalic stop voicing dose not occur in the environment.