KANG, Hijo. 2013. Segmental OCP in Manchu syllables. Altai hakpo 23. 1-22. The Altaic Society of Korea.

This paper investigates the OCP effect in Manchu syllables: two consonants with identical place of articulation tend not to appear in the onset and coda positions of a syllable. By presenting O/E values and their statistic analysis that are based on the data in Yurn (1994), I show that the OCP-place actually exists as a phonotactic constraint in Manchu and that [son] and [cont] features are parasitic on the place features. I argue that the (near) absence of CiVCi syllables is perceptually oriented (Ohala 1993), which is evidenced by the fact that CiVCi syllables tend to be perceived as CiVCj syllables but not vice versa (Frisch et al. 2004, Coetzee 2005). I also argue that the OCP effect is rarely phonologized as a morphophonological constraint (or rule) because it does not have articulatory grounding. In contrast, vowel harmony is articulatory driven and perceptually motivated so plays a role in the derivation, as well as in the lexicon.

Keywords: OCP, Manchu, place of articulation, syllable, O/E, perception