Prosodic Licensing of /o/ in Katki and Sambalpuri

A nonce-based study

Abstract

Katki and Sambalpuri, two closely related varieties of Odia, exhibit microvariation in the phonological environments in which they allow the vowel /o/ to surface. This paper explores the Licensing Conditions on this vowel in the phonological grammar of Odia by asking three questions. First, what is special about the phonological composition of the vowel /o/ within the repertoire of Odia; second, what is special about the leftmost and rightmost syllables in Katki and Sambalpuri; and finally, is this phonological phenomenon a consequence of diachronic sound change, or is it reflected in the synchronic grammar of these languages. By comparing the cognates across the two varieties, we first establish what happens to the underlying /o/ in contexts where they do not meet the licensing conditions. Then, analyzing the lexical data from these languages we propose that contrastive characteristics of phonemes, such as headedness associated with Elements, is preserved in marked positions but neutralized elsewhere. Further a nonce-word based language game reveals that the synchronic grammar of Katki Odia does not replicate the phonological output observed in the lexical words.