Vowel Reduction /a/ to /e/ after Affixation in Mazinani Persian Dialect and its Analysis from Different Approaches

Vowel reduction has been significantly investigated and classified in previous studies, especially by Crosswhite (2000), Harris (2005) and Anderson (1996). The present study was conducted aiming to describe the vowel reduction of /a/ to /e/ after affixation, which is observed in Mazinani Persian Dialect (Sabzvar-Khorasan Razavi) in the framework of Optimality Theory. Then, its compatibility to the aforementioned classifications was tested to explain the reduction. According to generalization obtained from the Optimality analysis, the vowel change /a/ to /e/ occurs in syllables the stress of which is lost after affixation and coumpounding. However, If there is a glottal consonant such as /h/ or /Ɂ/ adjucent to /a/, the reduction will not take place. In addition, the compatibility analysis showed that Crosswhite's classification can be used to justify the happening reduction. In other words, the described reduction was classified as a sonority-driven change. On the other hand, the analysis based on the [AIU] model showed that the /a/ to /e/ reduction implies the process of headedness-reversal. According to Crosswhite, the category [A] can not be the head of the vowel which is located in the nucleus of an unstressed syllable; of course, an opposite example was observed in the reduction of /α/ to /o/ in Mazinani Dialect. The comparison between the dialect's data and their equivalent in Standard Persian showed that these two varriant of Persian behave opposite to each other.