Guttural syneresis in Tigrinya and Tigre
Résumé
The Elements |I,U| of Element Theory (Kaye et al. 1985) surface as glides [j,w] when associated to positions other than the syllabic nucleus. Glide-like behavior is predicted to occur for the third element |A|, too; yet low glides are not common cross-linguistically. In this paper, we show that in Tigre and Tigrinya, the low guttural consonants involve |A| and function like low glides. They exhibit the process of syneresis – merger with a preceding homorganic vowel in open syllables – which is otherwise typical of high glides. Furthermore, the facts argue for an economy-based view of syneresis, whereby two homorganic elements are realized in one if possible.