Clàudia Pons-Moll (2016). What is imported and what is not to the second-language phonology (original) (raw)
Related papers
Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 2012
Data for closure duration and the stop burst, as well as on the duration of the adjacent phonetic segments, reveal that speakers of Valencian Catalan produce differently the clusters /lts/ and /ls/, and /rts/ and /rs/, where /t/ is an underlying phoneme in /lts, rts/ and stop epenthesis may occur in /ls, rs/. Only a subset of speakers contrast the production of the nasal cluster pairs /mps/-/ms/ and /nts/-/ns/. Stop epenthesis applies regularly in the sequences /ms, ns, ls, ¥s,¯s/ but the inserted segment is only phonetically robust in the two latter clusters with an alveolopalatal consonant and to some extent in /ns/, and practically absent in the sequence /rs/. Differences in prominence for the stop consonant, whether underlying or epenthetic, occur as a function of the segmental composition of the cluster, as well as of utterance position and syllable and word affiliation. In conjunction with results from perception tests, it is claimed that these data contribute to our understanding of oral stop deletion after a (quasi-)homorganic consonant in word final clusters without /s/ in other dialects of Catalan and perhaps other languages.
“Morphology in phonology ” edited by Jesús Jiménez and Maria-Rosa Lloret)
2013
Consonant cluster reduction, illustrated with an English example in (1), is one of several types of process by which the number of output segments deviates from the number of input segments. A parallel process involving vowels is apocope, as in French l’état [leta] ‘the state’ /l� / ‘the ’ + /eta / ‘state ’ *[l�eta].
Two types of syllabic nasals have been identified in Standard Yorbbfi (SY). One is derived through the loss of a vowel in a CV syllable whose consonant is a nasal (la), and the second derives through the loss of an obstruent also in a CV syllable (lb). (I) a. abiriib619< abimibQla 'personal name' b. bgko < b k i k~ 'the one that makes heaps' One common thing to both cases is that the V of the syllable is always a high vowel. This paper examines different contexts where the syllabic nasal of the type in (la) emanates from those dialects in (2a) native words as well as borrowed words, and based on evidence from the other two dialects in (2b) claims that the syllabic nasal is derived through deletion of the high vowel and some other phonological processes. In this way, it corroborates the existing literature that syllabic nasal in SY is derived from CV, drawing facts from some dialects' of Yorhbi. Beyond this. I also show that, there is cases that derive syllabic nasal from a CV syllable whose vowel is a back high vowel. (2) Dialects for this study. a. Oyd, SY, Yhgbh & ibold b. i~e~h & Mobh Though the choice of these dialects is random 2 , there is no doubt, the five dialects chosen are going to reveal to a large extent the facts relating to the focus of this paper. One observation that Cannot be ignored is that there is variation among dialect groups, but such will not be discussed in this paper except if 2.1.1 Breakdown of words into syllables Following the syllable theory proposed in the various work of Clements and Keyser (1983) and Pulleyblank (1998). the example in (la) can be syllabified as in (4b) and (4c). As we can see, there are four possible syllable structures for the example cited. However, only one of the possibilities represented in (4c) is attested in this Language. (4) a. abifib615i' 'personal name' b. (i) *a[a] a b i m ] a[b~Ju[ld] (uV~CVCUCVUCV) (ii) *a[a] a[bi]a[mb4] a[]&] (UVUCVUCCVKV) (iii) *a[ab] q i m ] a[b~]a[lb] (uVCaVCaCVaCV) c. a[a]u[bflu[@]u[bd ]u[Id] (uVUCVUNUCVUCV) 2.1.2 Tree diagram of syllabic constituents Keyser (1983) notes that syllabicity is not an intrinsic characteristic of segments but rather involves the relationship between a segment and its neighbours on either side. The choice of (4c) by the Language enforces the tree diagram that in (5). (5) (10) Progressive marker11 sg ~~&-~~-1 b a l +~a~b h ~abh-ijesa a. Ad6 6 lo Ad6 ilmi 10 prog. go prog. go 'Ade is going' 'Ade is going' (14) Faithfulness constraints: MAX: Every segment of the input has an identical correspondent in the output DEP: Every segment of the input has an identical correspondent in the output (15) Syllable based constraints 6 : *NC: Bar sequence of nasal and obstruent in a word.
This dissertation deals with the constraints that phonology imposes on the exponence of gender. In particular, it explores the interaction between epenthesis and nominal inflection in Pallarese Catalan clitics. Since inflection is located word-finally in Pallarese, I argue that right-edge epenthesis is avoided in order to maintain a strict correspondence between morphological and phonological structure. Inflectional vowels may be used for syllabification purposes in word-final position instead. It is assumed in this thesis that every syntactic functional head projects a postsyntactic theme position (Oltra-Massuet, 1999) where gender is realized. A key aspect of the proposal is the idea that the exponents of gender are floating features, and thus inflection proceeds in two steps. First, the theme position is spelled out with an underspecified vowel (i.e., Th ↔ V) and, subsequently, the floating features associated with gender ([+fem] ↔ [+low], i.e., -[a]; [–fem] ↔ [+labial,–high], i.e., -[o]) are attached to the V-slot of the theme position. Couched within Optimality Theory, I argue that the constraint ranking determines whether the featural gender exponents surface or not. The feminine is always realized due to a constraint that favors parsing [+low] (which implies adding association lines that are absent in the input), whereas in the masculine the insertion of new association lines in the output is dispreferred and the features associated with [–fem] are not parsed, which accounts for default masculine -[Ø] exponence. If gender is part of the morphosyntatic composition of a clitic, as in the 3rd person singular masculine accusative clitic, these floating features can nevertheless be attached to the V-slot of the theme position to improve syllabic structure under certain phonotactic conditions. This ‘morphological solution’ is less costly than (regular) word-initial epenthesis because it does not need to create a new skeletal position or insert new features. Impoverishment (Bonet, 1991) deletes gender features in the 3rd person plural accusative clitic, and thus the corresponding phonological features associated with gender cannot be used for syllabification purposes. The theme position with the V-slot is maintained, though, and the default epenthetic features of Pallarese are inserted when required by phonotactics, which forces a thematic interpretation of this vowel. This solution is preferred over word-initial epenthesis because the theme position already provides a skeletal slot. The same procedure applies to other clitics that do not bear gender features either. Even though Pallarese shows a complex morphophonological intertwining regarding gender exponence, the OT analysis presented in this dissertation makes exclusive reference to phonological objects. The morphosyntactic structure of the nominal system constrains epenthesis, but strict modularity can be maintained. Furthermore, the use of floating features in the input can dispense with gender allomorphy (cf. Bonet et al. 2007). As for nouns and adjectives, the general process that spells out an underspecified vowel in the theme position, on the one hand, and floating place features for gender values, on the other, is only valid for default endings. That is, vowels other than -a (feminine) and -o (masculine) —when it surfaces— cannot be considered gender markers and need to be fully specified in the theme position of lexical entries instead. Therefore, nouns with non-regular endings are stored as complex representations and phonologically realized in one single step. This supports theories that assume that one exponent (or set of exponents) can spell out whole morphosyntactic structures (e.g., Siddiqi 2009, Caha 2009 or Bermúdez-Otero 2012).
Consonant lenition and phonological recategorization
Laboratory Phonology, 2011
We examine the weakening of intervocalic voiceless stops in Spanish in order to gain insight on historical processes of intervocalic lenition. In our corpus, about a third of all tokens of intervocalic /ptk/ are fully or partially voiced in spontaneous speech. However, even when fully voiced, /ptk/ tend to show greater constriction than /bdg/, with the velars being less different than labials and coronals. Wordinitial and word-internal intervocalic segments are equally affected. Based on our findings from acoustic measurements of correlates of lenition, we propose that common reductive sound changes, such as intervocalic consonant lenition, start as across-the-board conventionalized phonetic processes equally affecting all targets in the appropriate phonetic context. The common restriction of the sound change to word-internal contexts may be a consequence of phonological recategorization at a later stage in the sound change.
Structural complexity of consonant clusters: A phonologist’s view
Philip Hoole, Lasse Bombien, Marianne Pouplier, Christine Mooshammer and Barbara Kühnert (eds.), Consonant clusters and structural complexity (Interface Explorations, 26), Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2012, 11-31, 2012
Abstract: This paper attempts a definition of consonant clusters, consonant cluster complexity, and cluster complexity reduction in a phonological perspective. In particular, since at the present stage of our knowledge a metrical (and thus: general) definition of consonant cluster complexity is not possible, a relative and structure-dependent concept is proposed: Only clusters within the scope of one and the same preference law can be compared, namely evaluated as the more complex the less preferred they are in terms of that preference law. This concept, as well as ways in which cluster complexity is reduced, are illustrated with examples from various languages. They include word-initial muta-cum-liquida reductions in Spanish and Portuguese, certain cases of “metathesis at a distance” (e.g. Spanish periglo > peligro ‘danger’), and slope displacements as in Old Italian ca.'pes.tro > ca.'pres.to ‘rope’, Tuscan pa.'dro.ne > pra.'do.ne ‘lord, employer’. The opposite kind of development, namely the formation and complexification of clusters, is argued for the most part not to be motivated by syllable structure preferences but (a) by a variety of syntactic and morphological processes and (b) in phonology itself by rhythmically induced copations (e.g. syncope in Latin periculo > Spanish periglo), or to result from borrowing.
Languages exhibit a set of phonological processes which underapply due to morphological reasons, which have lexical exceptions and which show a different behavior in loanword phonology. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the correlation between these three phenomena, and to investigate its consequences on foreign language acquisition /speech. This paper departs from the observation that those processes that underapply in a given language due to morphological reasons tend to coincide with those processes that have more lexical exceptions and with those processes which exhibit a peculiar behavior within loanword phonology. Overall, a gradation can be made between the processes which meet all these three factors, the processes which meet just some of them and the processes which do not meet any one. On the other hand, there is a nice correlation between this gradation and the processes that show intralinguistic variation (dialectal variation) and the processes that don’t: those processes that never underapply apply consistently in the totality of the dialectal varieties of a given language, whereas those processes that do underapply don’t apply consistenly —i.e. show variation— across the dialectal varieties of a given language. It seems that these facts should bring about a specific division between phonetically and phonologically driven processes, and the subsequent division of markedness constraints, and our expectation is that this must have significant consequences in the acquisition of a second language. The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence in favor of this expectation. In order to illustrate our argument, we will focus on the phonology of Catalan, although it can be extended to the behavior of other languages.
2007
In his introduction, E. explains that he had considered adding the subtitle 'A View from Left Field' to the book (p. xiii) because this baseball metaphor suggests something that ''.. . belongs to heterodox, unconventional, nontraditional ideas located far from the mainstream. . .'' (p. xiii). To be sure, E.'s approach to Spanish phonology and morphology is unorthodox, at least in some circles. E.'s methodology is quantitative and experimental. What is distinctive about E.'s approach is his focus on how actual Spanish speakers process language in real time (p. xv) in a field long dominated by generative-based theory with its emphasis on an ideal speaker-hearer and mechanics and formalism (p. xiv). E. begins his first chapter ('The psychological status of linguistic analyses', pp. 1-21), an earlier version of which appeared as Eddington (1996b), with a brief review of the vast literature on the psychological status of linguistic analyses, a frequently debated topic in the 1970s. The author notes that since that original interest in this issue, only philosophers of language and the occasional experimental linguist have written about it. Rather than continue to try to resolve the matter, E. notes that linguists have more or less ignored it, instead, devoting their time and effort to the many new linguistic theories that have emerged in the past quarter century (p. 1). After a review of linguistics since Leonard Bloomfield's behaviorism and Noam Chomsky's rationalism, the author addresses important issues such as empiricality, falsifiability, methodology (autonomous versus non-autonomous), the evidence base, and the relationship between formal and empirical analyses. After his review of the literature on the psychological reality of phonological theories, E. notes that their psychological reality has been questioned on several grounds (pp. 20-21): (1) truth versus reality, i.e., there is no way to distinguish between theories that possess psychological validity and those that are mere notational constructs; (2) most contemporary linguistic analyses are non-empirical, hence, they are not falsifiable; (3) many theories are established with little or no recourse to the speakers of the language; and (4) most theories derive from a very
Spanish Phonetics and Phonology in Contact: Studies from Africa, the Americas, and Spain, 2020
This study investigates sociophonetic variation in the production of the alveolar lateral /l/ in Catalan and Spanish, the velarization of which is considered the hallmark feature of Catalonian Spanish (Arnal, 2011; Casanovas Català, 1995; Hickey, 2012). Using an innovative combination of both gradient and categorical analyses to evaluate lateral production in Spanish and Catalan elicited from Catalan-Spanish bilinguals and Madrid monolinguals (n = 36) stratified by gender and exposure/usage of Catalan, we assess the degree to which lateral velarization pervades this contact setting. In so doing, we demonstrate that lateral velarization and the inventory of lateral categories in these languages are best approached using gradient and relative hierarchies of lateral darkness rather than discrete applications of intrinsically light [l] or dark [ɫ].