Assamese Nasals Blocking Vowel Harmony (original) (raw)
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University of New Mexico Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 1
1993
environments in which they occur, much as syntax was only studied in the rarefied environment of made-up sentences. Very little study has been devoted to the distribution of phonological elements in texts. I will argue below that the text frequency of segments affects their phonetic shape and evolution. Consider subphonemic detail and variation conditioned lexically, morphologically and socially. Generative phonology, like its predecessor, phonemic theory, chose to ignore low-level phonetic detail'. Like the detail of actual language use that has enriched functionalist syntactic theory, the study of detail in phonology will reveal important facts that bear on our understanding of how language is really processed and what structures have empirical validity. Attend to exceptions and marginal cases, for they can be valuable sources of information about the nature of processing and representation. As I will argue below, marginal 'phonemes' are particularly interesting in their consequences for phonological theory. Reconsider what Langacker 1987 calls the 'rule-list fallacy' (see also Bybee 1988). Our thinking and analyses need not be restricted to only two options-either an elements occurs in a list or it is generated by rule. I propose below that lexical elements (words or phrases) consist of actual phonetic content that is modified as these elements are used. While phonetic 'rules' may exist as articulatory patterns for the realization of words, generalizations at other levels may be better thought of as emergent generalizations over lexical representations. 5 Altaic dialects, in Eskimo-Aleut [1330iuca and Mowrey 1987b]). Or consider the changes undergone by Proto-Bantu voiceless stops (Tucker and Bryan 1957, Pagliuca and Mowrey 1987h):
Phonotactics refers to the principles according to which lan- guages allow sound combinations and segment sequencing to form larger units such as syllables and words. In the study of phono- tactics, we are faced with a series of apparent contradictions and empirical problems that require critical comparisons of alternative explanatory models and, most often, an investigation of the ‘inter- faces’ between phonotactics and other levels of linguistic organiza- tion, particularly phonetics and morphology. One problematic aspect is due to the fact that phonotactics is part of the phonological gram- mar of a language, and at the same time it is regulated by a number of non-categorical, probabilistic constraints and preferences. It is thus not surprising that the awareness among linguists regarding the role of probability, so crucial in accounting for changes and vari- ations across languages and historical stages (Bod et al. 2003), has developed early in connection with observations on the variability in the ‘phonotactic grammar’ of speakers (e.g. Scholes 1966) and on the changing degrees of ‘acceptability’ of word-sized strings (later called ‘wordlikeness’ – a term that explicitly presupposes a probabilistic view of the phonology). A second challenging issue related to phono- tactics has to do with the universal versus language-specific nature of phonotactic rules and preferences. Asking what is common to all linguistic systems and what, by contrast, is implemented in individ- ual phonologies under specific conditions has promoted the adoption of a variety of empirical methodologies ranging from the survey of big samples of languages to the psycholinguistic study of how pho- notactic structures are processed and acquired, and from probability computations to the investigation of how consonantal and vocalic sequences are produced and perceived.
Western Conference On Linguistics Volume Nine WECOL96
1996
The ltelmen language shows many inslances of regular schwa/zero alternations. Even though the language permits quite extensive consonant clusters, I argue in this paper that the alternating schwas (and perhaps all inslances of schwa) are cpcnthetic; schwa is inserted to break up a disfavoured consonant cluster. The rule which insetts schwa must apply cyclically in the verbal system, but non-cyclically in the nominal system. Apparent elamples of cyclic rule application are problematic for non-derivational, conscraint-based approaches to phonology, such as many versions of Optimality Theory (01). Thus. much recent work has been devoted to reanlayzing purported examples of cyclicity from an O.T. perspective. While it may be possible to devise an account of the Itelmen data in terms of parallel conscraint evaluation, current O.T. approaches are insufficient; in particular, the best candidare for an explanation of the NounIVerb differences (Base Identity) makes exactly the wrong predictions for Itelmen.
This volume brings together the plenary lectures of the International Congress of Linguists (Prague, July 2003). The accompanying CD Rom contains the rest of the proceedings of the conference. The fields covered by the plenary talks are those that are currently particularly dynamic in the opinion of the members of the Permanent International Comittee of Linguists (CIPL). The 15 papers deal both with fields that are empirically as well as methodologically relatively contained, i.e. typology, morphology, phonology, pragmatics, lexicography, computational linguistics, historical linguistics, and creolistics, as well as broader ones such as the sociology of language and approaches to fieldwork and endangered languages. I shall begin by
Interfaces and representations in English phonology
HDR (habilitation à diriger des recherches), 2024
This dissertation presents a critical synthesis of the work I have carried out on the lexical phonology of English over the last twelve years. This work is characterised by an emphasis on the empirical bases on which phonological theories are built on, and an openness to the diversity of theoretical frameworks that have been used to analyse the phonology of English. Thus, after an introductory chapter, this volume deals with the rhythmic organisation of English and the opposition between strong and weak syllables. In this second chapter, I examine the nature of this opposition, and propose a distinction between stress and accent on the basis of data and proposals taken from the literature. This chapter then contains a summary of the work that I have done on vowel reduction and secondary stress placement in words without morphological structure. The third chapter deals with the interaction between morphosyntax and phonology. Definitions of the basic concepts in morphology as well as an overview of how four phonological theories deal with morphosyntactic information in phonology are proposed. In the remainder of the chapter, I present my work on the phonological manifestations of semantically opaque morphological structures, such as historically prefixed words (e.g. contain, deplete, submit) and proper names (e.g. Cambridge, Washington), followed by my work on the link between stress and syntactic categories. Suffix classes are then discussed, with a review of the literature on the subject and suggested analyses of the various segmental and suprasegmental phenomena mentioned in the literature. The next section looks at pretonic secondary stress, this time in suffixal derivatives. Finally, the the last two sections focus on paradigmatic dependency between words, with a presentation of several studies testing the segmentability hypothesis, followed by a discussion of the possibilities of extending the study of phonological bases beyond the morphological base by investigating, the role of a distant base such as connect in the phonological form of the derivative connectivity. The fourth chapter deals with the links between orthography and phonology, which are often little explored in phonological analyses. In this chapter, I defend the idea that orthography must be taken into account in the phonological competence of language users of English, and that a certain number of phenomena are difficult to analyse without recourse to orthography. This chapter also summarises the main results of the studies that I have carried out on the realisation of accented vowels, particularly those with a pretonic secondary stress. Finally, the fifth chapter defends the idea that the English lexicon is divided into several sublexica, each with its own phonological (but also semantic and morphological) properties. The model developed with Pierre Fournier is presented, along with the first studies studies that have put it to the test. This summary ends with a conclusion highlighting my interest in the nature of representations (of accent, of the phonological behaviour of suffixes, semantically opaque constituents) and for the interfaces between interfaces between phonology and other components such as orthography and morphosyntax. I present prospects for further work, in particular the more systematic use of oral data, the use of computational models such as AML or NDL and the pursuit of an approach that explores the insights of different theoretical models.
Phonology--draft of paper to appear in Mouton Handbook of Cognitive Grammar
This paper will discuss the ways in which Cognitive Grammar (CG) has integrated the fundamental concepts of phonology. Phonology has traditionally been the neglected stepchild of CG, in part because the initial excitement of CG revolved around the insightful semantic analyses of what had previously been thought to be purely syntactic or arbitrary lexical puzzles, and phonology is, by definition, about meaningless units. Additionally, phonology deals with the coordination of motor activity and auditory perception, areas that initially didn’t seem to lend themselves to the conceptual tools of CG. Unlike much work on syntax and semantics, research within several of the generative and functional traditions turns out to be adaptable to CG’s view of the nature of phonological processing. The primary source of useful insights is the work of the Natural Phonologists (Donegan and Stampe) who argued for non-modular cognitive realism and against Chomskyan innatism independently from CG theorists. Furthermore, some work by recent offshoots of Generative Phonology turn out to have useful things to say about how CG might understand the structure of sounds in language. The earliest writing on the subject (Nathan) examined ways in which the core categorization concepts in early CG (radial prototype categories, image schema transformations, basic level categorization) could be utilized to explain traditional phonological concepts such as the phoneme, allophones and (natural) phonological processes. In more recent research, the conceptual tools of usage-based models have also been used to account for some aspects of phonological behavior, leading some researchers to question the relevance even of such traditional phonological constructs as the phoneme/allophone contrast (Bybee) or the distinction between abstract phonemic representation and representations of individual instances of particular utterances (Pierrehumbert). Additionally, the question of the boundary between phonology and morphology has been raised, with some researchers (such as the present author) arguing for a sharp, functional boundary based on the varying cognitive and physiological resources involved, while others (Nesset, Kemmer) arguing for a more generalized schematization model covering all aspects of phonological as well as morphological and syntactic generalizations. After reviewing relevant issues this paper argues that evidence from early aspects of child language acquisition, such as the onset and development of babbling (MacNeilage), the embodied nature of perception (Johnson), and other research on the acquisition and processing of complex motor skills, shows that phonology requires a more active conception of the storage and production of stored heard instances. Phonology is based upon speakers’ knowledge of the nature and capabilities of their vocal tracts and deals with how speakers actively construct utterances based on their knowledge of their individual language(s)’ conventionalized responses to those physiological and acoustic constraints.