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5068 results in Phonetics and phonology

Page 59 of 254

  • Chapter 6 - The Breton language

  • Pavel Iosad, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    A Substance-free Framework for Phonology
    Published by:
    Edinburgh University Press
    Published online:
    20 December 2017
    Print publication:
    28 February 2017, pp 67-73

  • Summary

    The Breton language belongs to the Brythonic subdivision of the Celtic group of the Indo-European language family. It is spoken in Brittany, a peninsula in the west of present-day France, where it was brought by settlers from Britain in the fifth century ad. Historically, it has been spoken in Lower Brittany (French Basse-Bretagne; Breton Breizh-Isel), i.e. in the western part of the historic Duchy of Brittany. Today, native speakers are mostly spread throughout rural Brittany, and the language is severely endangered.1

    Dialectal divisions

    Traditionally, Breton is divided into four major dialect groups, on the basis of the old diocesan borders. These are as follows:

  • • Cornouaillais (Kerneveg), the dialect of Cornouaille, the biggest of the dioceses covering the south-west corner of Lower Brittany and most of its inland region. The traditional centre of the diocese is the city of Quimper (Kemper); today it covers the southern part of the département of Finistere (Penn-ar-Bed), and also includes some regions in the south of the département of Côtes d'Armor (Aodoù-an-Arvor) and in the north-west of Morbihan (Mor-Bihan).

  • • Léonais (Leoneg) is the dialect of Léon, the diocese in the north-west of Brittany centred around Saint-Pol-de-Léon (Kastell-Paol); today the northern part of Finistere.

  • • Trégorrois (Tregereg), in the north-east of Brittany, and in today's département of Côtes-d'Armor. This also includes the dialects of Goëlo, a small area in the extreme north-east of the Breton-speaking region, which belongs to the otherwise entirely Romance-speaking traditional diocese of Saint Brieuc (Sant-Brieg).

  • • Vannetais (Gwenedeg), spoken in the south-eastern part of Brittany, in the traditional diocese of Vannes (Gwened).

    • It is often claimed in the literature that the first three dialects are relatively homogeneous, and they are sometimes referred to together as a single dialect grouping called KLT, which is opposed to the Vannetais dialect. The basis for this division is partly philological and partly sociolinguistic. Philologically, Vannetais presents striking differences with respect to the other dialects. Most prominently, it has final stress where other Brythonic varieties show penultimate stress (although it is not universally agreed whether this is a shared innovation or a retention); on the other hand, Vannetais dialects show the sound change of proto- Brythonic *θ to [h]. From a sociolinguistic perspective, Vannetais has had a literary tradition separate from the other Breton dialects (Guillevic and Le Goff 1902).

A Substance-free Framework for Phonology
  • An Analysis of the Breton Dialect of Bothoa
  • Pavel Iosad
  • Published by:
    Edinburgh University Press
    Published online:
    20 December 2017
    Print publication:
    28 February 2017
  • What is the relationship between phonetics and phonology? Are phonological features innate and universal, and do they have fixed phonetic correlates? These questions have received renewed prominence in theoretical debates, and this book explores them from a modular, substance-free perspective.

    This in-depth analysis of Breton serves not only to introduce important data from this endangered language into the theoretical landscape but also to demonstrate the viability of a modular phonological framework. The book introduces a minimalist system of phonological representations built up on a language-specific basis, and integrates it with a fully-fledged computational framework, showcasing the numerous empirical and conceptual advantages of a substance-free view of phonology.

    Presenting the first comprehensive analysis of the sound patterns of a Breton variety treated in a substance-free phonological framework, this book will enhance the understanding of Celtic phonology and offers a valuable reference for postgraduate students, academics and researchers working in phonological theory and Celtic studies.

  • Chapter 7 - Segments and representations

  • Pavel Iosad, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    A Substance-free Framework for Phonology
    Published by:
    Edinburgh University Press
    Published online:
    20 December 2017
    Print publication:
    28 February 2017, pp 74-94

  • Summary

    In this chapter I lay out the vowel and consonant inventories of Bothoa Breton and discuss the most important aspects of variation in their phonetic realisation. I also present the proposed featural specifications for these segments that will be used in the following analysis chapters.

    Vowel inventory

    The inventory of the Bothoa dialect includes long and short oral vowels, as well as several nasal vowels and oral diphthongs. The system of the oral monophthongs is fairly symmetric, with a two-way backness contrast, a symmetrical distinction in length, and two front rounded qualities; its main unusual feature is the apparent presence of three height classes in ‘mid’ vowels. In line with typological expectations, the nasal vowel system is smaller than the oral one, and there is only a very limited length contrast among the nasal vowels. The diphthongs also present a relatively unremarkable system: they are all falling diphthongs with high vowels as non-syllable elements. I consider the three subsystems in turn.

    Oral monophthongs

    The oral monophthongs are shown in Table 7.1; I refer to Humphreys (1995) for exhaustive (albeit impressionistic) descriptions of their phonetic realisation. Here I concentrate on two aspects of the system that deserve further comment: the mid vowel system and the status of the [ə]/ [o] distinction.

    Mid vowels

    In the mid vowel region, there is a three-way height contrast for both front unrounded and back rounded vowels. Humphreys (1995) uses the French-based convention of using accents to distinguish among the three heights; I silently retranscribe his symbols as shown in Table 7.2.

    Minimal or near-minimal pairs for height contrasts among front vowels are shown in (15). (See section 7.3.2 for explanation of the notation for final obstruents.)

    This three-way distinction is characteristic of many Breton varieties. Cf. also Falc'hun (1951), with a generative analysis in Anderson (1981), and Le Du (1978, 2012) and Le Gall (1903) for Tréguier.

  • Chapter 4 - Computational assumptions

  • Pavel Iosad, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    A Substance-free Framework for Phonology
    Published by:
    Edinburgh University Press
    Published online:
    20 December 2017
    Print publication:
    28 February 2017, pp 45-60

  • Summary

    Although the present book mostly focuses on highlighting the role of phonological representations in accounting for cross-linguistic variation, it is also important to recognise the power of phonological computation. Representations alone are not sufficient either to provide an explicit analysis or, more importantly, to establish the falsifiability of the proposal. In this chapter I describe some general properties of the computational system in substance-free phonology, provide some discussion of constraint schemata and in particular the augmentation schema, and conclude by sketching the stratal approach I use to account for morphology– phonology interactions.

    The power of computation

    As discussed in Chapter 2, computation is free to manipulate the representations fed into the phonological module in a manner unconstrained by non-phonological considerations. It can ensure that certain surface structures or input–output mappings are excluded from the phonological grammar.

    In Optimality Theory, the postulate of Richness of the Base (Prince and Smolensky 1993; McCarthy 2005) makes it possible to derive differences among inventories solely by computational means, i.e. by the reranking of the universal constraint set Con (e.g. Kirchner 1997; Flemming 2005). This has contributed to another swing of Anderson's (1985) representation/ computation pendulum towards a more or less explicit assumption that phonological representations are trivial. In other words, in many OT approaches representation does not play any explanatory role in accounting for cross-linguistic variation in sound patterns (as Scheer 2010: 385 puts it, it has no ‘sovereign arbitral award’).

    In a substance-free theory, the language-specificity and learned character of the interface between phonetics and phonology precludes such a total computational reorientation. However, the substance-free approach also recognises the importance of computation, in contrast to declarative formalisms (e.g. Bird and Klein 1994; Bird 1995; Scobbie et al. 1996; Scobbie 1997; Coleman 1998; Lodge 2009), where computation boils down to the very simple unification procedure, with no cross-linguistic variation. Phonology, in the substance-free view, has both a ‘semantics’ (Pierrehumbert 1990) and a ‘syntax’ (Blaho 2008), and both can vary non-trivially across languages.

    In this book I use a stratal version of a fairly orthodox variety of Optimality Theory (with a substance-free twist in Con). Specifically, I use a correspondence rather than containment approach to input–output faithfulness (i.e. Max and Dep rather than Parse and Fill).

  • Chapter 1 - Introduction

  • Pavel Iosad, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    A Substance-free Framework for Phonology
    Published by:
    Edinburgh University Press
    Published online:
    20 December 2017
    Print publication:
    28 February 2017, pp 1-4

  • Summary

    As the title indicates, this book has two principal aims. As is hopefully appropriate for a series called Edinburgh Studies in Theoretical Linguistics, it aims to present a coherent, relatively compact account of a particular theoretical approach to phonology – what I call the substancefree framework. A theoretical approach, however, is worthless unless can be applied to produce new insights into specific phonological data. To this end, I offer a fairly detailed account of the phonological system of a variety of Breton. This language is currently not only very fragile in a sociolinguistic perspective but also underdescribed, at least in the sense that available descriptions are frequently not informed by newer theoretical developments. This description thus serves both as a testing ground for the theoretical approach and as a way of introducing a range of new data into relevant theoretical debates.

    The substance-free approach, presented in detail in the following four chapters of the book, seeks to address a growing concern regarding the scope and place of phonological knowledge in the overall architecture of the language faculty. On the one hand, we have witnessed an increased appreciation of the gradient and variable nature of much of the data that have traditionally been interpreted as reflecting categorical symbolic operations, coupled with an increased interest in accounting for variation within the speech of individuals and across entire communities. These developments have led to increased scrutiny of the foundations of formal phonology, including fundamental concepts such as ‘category’, ‘contrast’, and ‘computation’. On the other hand, within formal phonology itself there appears to be a perception that the momentum behind theoretical innovation has stalled somewhat following the burst of activity in the late 1990s and early 2000s following the introduction of Optimality Theory (OT) to the scene.1 While significant amounts of work continue to be done both in OT (and cognate theories such as Harmonic Serialism and MaxEnt grammar modelling) and in other formal frameworks, such as Rule-Based Phonology or Government Phonology, it does not always seek to address major architectural questions or indeed to defend the necessity of formal, symbolic phonology in the face of the very real empirical challenges that it faces.

  • Chapter 12 - Conclusion

  • Pavel Iosad, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    A Substance-free Framework for Phonology
    Published by:
    Edinburgh University Press
    Published online:
    20 December 2017
    Print publication:
    28 February 2017, pp 234-238

  • Summary

    In this book I have offered both a programmatic account of a substancefree approach to the analysis of phonological patterning and an extended discussion of the sound patterns of a Breton variety. It has thus been my intention not only to provide a framework of assumptions that is capable of providing new theoretical insights but also to show the viability of my chosen approach in facing phonological data. By way of conclusion, in this brief chapter I point out three main themes that a theoretical phonologist (or a phonetician or morphologist interested in how ‘their’ module interacts with phonology) might find useful.

    First, I have insisted on a substance-free approach to phonological representation. Under this view, the mapping between phonological symbols and phonetic realisation is not at all fixed, certainly not by any innate mechanism, and is instead language-specific (hence learned), subject to a range of influences both from phonology and other cognitive components, and – in principle – arbitrary. This last point is perhaps the most contentious one. However, the mainstream generative position – that representations are trivially recoverable from pronunciation – appears to be untenable. It is incompatible with a number of empirical facts, such as:

  • • cross-linguistic differences in the realisation of ‘the same’ phonological representation

  • • fine-grained within-speaker variation

  • • gradual Neogrammarian sound change without changes to phonological patterning (‘sound change without phonological change’).

    • All this, coupled with significant evidence of non-categorical behaviour in many processes formerly assumed to be featural, leads us towards an abandonment of a maximalist approach based on universal features. Once we abandon this tight coupling between representation and substance, we are left with the question of how this mapping can be constrained. Crucially, in a modular framework it appears the correct answer is that, in principle, it cannot. This is because any such restrictions – which are normally connected to factors such as perceptibility (or perceptual reliability), learnability, biases, or even sheer frequency – cannot be phonological. Their role cannot be denied, of course, but there is, I suggest, no good reason to account for these effects in the phonological grammar itself, which concentrates on ‘core’ phonological phenomena such as contrast and morphophonological alternations.

  • Chapter 3 - Representational assumptions

  • Pavel Iosad, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    A Substance-free Framework for Phonology
    Published by:
    Edinburgh University Press
    Published online:
    20 December 2017
    Print publication:
    28 February 2017, pp 36-44

  • Summary

    This chapter lays out the representational system used in the book, which is a version of the Parallel Structures Model (PSM) of feature geometry (Morén 2003, 2006, 2007; Krämer 2009; Youssef 2010, 2015; Iosad 2012a; Uffmann 2013) that incorporates the insights of Modified Contrastive Specification (e.g. Dresher et al. 1994; Dyck 1995; Ghini 2001a, 2001b; Dresher 2003, 2009; Hall 2007; Mackenzie 2013). More specifically, I use the PSM, which is based on privative features, and adapt it to the Successive Division Algorithm (SDA). Dresher (2009) concentrates on a version of the SDA with binary features, but see Ghini (2001a, 2001b), Hall (2007), and Cowper and Hall (2014) for applications of the SDA to privative features. I show that this version of the PSM combines the advantages of classic feature geometry (correct grouping of features that behave as a unit, explicit tier structure), language-specific contrastive specification (adherence to the Contrastivist Hypothesis), privative features (economy, non-stipulative expression of markedness relationships), and binary features (surface ternarity in phonology).

    The Parallel Structures Model

    The Parallel Structures Model of feature geometry, proposed originally by Morén (2003), is based on unary features and an elaborate geometric structure that builds on the achievements of several previous theories. In its consistently privative approach to featural structure, the PSM is related to Particle Phonology (Schane 1984), Dependency Phonology (Anderson and Ewen 1987; Ewen 1995), and Element Theory (e.g. Harris 1994; Harris and Lindsey 1995; Backley 2011). The recursion of organising nodes and the overall outlines of the treatment of place are inherited from Unified Feature Theory (Clements 1991a, 1991b; Clements and Hume 1995), while the treatment of manner has important points of contact with work such as that by Lombardi (1990) and Steriade (1993).

    The organising principle of the PSM is economy. It is a minimalist theory, relying on a very small number of architectural assumptions to derive universals of subsegmental organisation, such as tier organisation, node recursion, and a small number of privative features. As discussed in section 2.5, this has the consequence that the number of such universals is rather small in a substance-free theory, since the phonetic realisation of PSM structures is not the job of the phonology. Nevertheless, the PSM does disallow some non-trivial classes of potential interactions between phonological objects.

  • Chapter 11 - Laryngeal phonology

  • Pavel Iosad, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    A Substance-free Framework for Phonology
    Published by:
    Edinburgh University Press
    Published online:
    20 December 2017
    Print publication:
    28 February 2017, pp 163-233

  • Summary

    In this chapter I consider a range of phenomena involving the laryngeal contrast between obstruents in Bothoa Breton. These phenomena provide the strongest support for a substance-free model of the relationship between phonological representations and their phonetic realisation. In section 7.2.1, we saw that the phonetic realisation of the contrast between [p t k] and [b d ɡ] in Bothoa Breton agrees with languages such as French or Russian, in that the ‘fortis’ series of stops is realised with short-lag VOT (as ‘voiceless unaspirated’ stops), while the ‘lenis’ series is realised with full voicing. It has been proposed in the literature (e.g. Honeybone 2005a; Petrova et al. 2006; Beckman et al. 2013) that in such languages the ‘lenis’ series always shows the hallmarks of greater markedness, since it is these segments that bear a laryngeal feature whilst the ‘fortis’ ones remain unspecified. In this chapter I argue that this precisely not the case in Bothoa Breton, and that instead it is the ‘fortis’, short-lag VOT stops (and fricatives) that are the more marked series, on the basis of their phonological behaviour. I examine three areas of Bothoa Breton phonology to provide this evidence:

  • • final laryngeal neutralisation (‘final devoicing’)

  • • ‘provection’, i.e. adjacency-driven devoicing

  • • initial consonant mutations and laryngeal sandhi.

    • Final laryngeal neutralisation

    As discussed in section 7.3.2, the laryngeal contrast in Bothoa Breton is suspended word-finally, with both fortis and lenis stops being realised in ways that largely depend on the context. Several types of realisations were identified:

  • • voiceless realisations (phrase-final and adjacent to voiceless consonants)

  • • voiced realisations (before voiced consonants)

  • • unreleased (after a nasal and before consonants, especially homorganic ones).

    • I analyse this neutralisation as complete suspension of laryngeal contrast in non-onset position. I formalise it as deletion of the C-laryngeal node with preservation of other features. In other words, there are three possible types of laryngeal specification available in surface representations. Bothoa Breton is therefore a counterexample to Lombardi's (1995a: 28) dictum: ‘There is no phonological contrast between a representation with a bare Laryngeal node and no Laryngeal node at all.’

  • Acoustics of Russian voiceless sibilant fricatives

  • Alexei Kochetov
  • Journal:
    Journal of the International Phonetic Association / Volume 47 / Issue 3 / December 2017
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    27 February 2017, pp. 321-348
    Print publication:
    December 2017

  • This study investigated acoustic properties of the four-way contrast in Russian voiceless sibilant fricatives (/ssj ʂ ʃj/). Words with these consonants, occurring in a variety of phonetic contexts, were elicited from 10 Russian native speakers. Measurements were made of duration, centre of gravity (COG) and intensity of fricative noise, as well as of formants F1–F3 during the following vowel. The results revealed that the anterior vs. posterior contrast was clearly distinguished by COG throughout the frication period, and to a lesser degree by noise intensity. The palatalized vs. non-palatalized contrast was distinguished by F1 and (especially) F2 at the onset, the midpoint, and, in some cases, at the offset of the following vowel. The four-way contrast was thus well categorized by a combination of COG and F2–F1 differences. Fricative duration only marginally distinguished /ʃj/, commonly described as geminate, from the other consonants. Clear durational differences, however, were observed for the same consonants in different positional and stress contexts. Overall, the results of the study provide a systematic documentation of the typologically uncommon fricative contrast, while also shedding light on some facts of synchronic patterning and historical development of the fricative system of Russian.

  • Preaspiration in Hebrides English

  • Ian Clayton
  • Journal:
    Journal of the International Phonetic Association / Volume 47 / Issue 2 / August 2017
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    27 February 2017, pp. 155-181
    Print publication:
    August 2017

  • Preaspirated voiceless stops, a well-documented feature of Scottish Gaelic (Ní Chasaide 1985, Clayton 2010, Nance & Stuart-Smith 2013), have also been reported in the English spoken in the Hebrides island chain (Borgstrøm 1940, Wells 1982, Shuken 1984). However, a detailed description of preaspiration in Hebrides English has previously been unavailable. This paper presents the results of a phonetic study of preaspirated voiceless stops in Hebrides English, based on the speech of 24 English–Scottish Gaelic bilinguals from nine regions within the Hebrides island chain. The paper describes the effect of linguistic features on the duration and frequency of preaspiration, including place of articulation, word position, and vowel context. The paper also considers the role of social factors, including speakers’ geographic origin, age, and gender, finding that preaspiration is more frequent among women and among older speakers, especially older female speakers from Lewis. The paper concludes that preaspiration is likely to be an obsolescent feature in Hebrides English, rather than an innovative feature as in other varieties of English such as Tyneside or Aberystwyth (Docherty & Foulkes 1999, Foulkes, Docherty & Watt 2001, Hejná 2015).

  • Stress and phrasal prominence in tone languages: The case of Southern Vietnamese

  • Marc Brunelle
  • Journal:
    Journal of the International Phonetic Association / Volume 47 / Issue 3 / December 2017
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    16 February 2017, pp. 283-320
    Print publication:
    December 2017
    • Article
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  • There is no consensus on the nature, or even the existence, of Vietnamese word stress. While some authors have proposed that it is morphosyntactically conditioned (Thompson 1963, Thompson 1965, Cao 2003 [1978], Ngô 1984), others have adopted the view that it is consistently word-final (Trần 1967; Nguyễn & Ingram 2006, 2007b; Phạm 2008; Nguyễn 2010) or that it lacks stress altogether (Emeneau 1951). This is due to the elusive nature of word prominence in Vietnamese, and to the small number of studies that tackle the issue experimentally. In this paper, acoustic experiments designed to test previous hypotheses and tease apart possible types of prominence are presented. Southern Vietnamese disyllabic words with various morphosyntactic structures were recorded in controlled environments to test for stress and phrasal effects. Their duration, mean intensity, mean f0, f0 range and formants were then measured to assess word prominence. Results suggest that there is little evidence for word stress in Southern Vietnamese and that reports of final stress can be reinterpreted as phrase-final lengthening. Focus-marking strategies bring no additional evidence for the existence of stress, but they seem to be partly speaker- and tone-specific, which supports results obtained in studies of Northern Vietnamese (Michaud 2005).

  • Mexico City Spanish

  • Heriberto Avelino
  • Journal:
    Journal of the International Phonetic Association / Volume 48 / Issue 2 / August 2018
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 February 2017, pp. 223-230
    Print publication:
    August 2018
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  • Spanish is a Romance language spoken by approximately 405,638,110 speakers in the world (Lewis, Simons & Fenning 2013). Two major varieties are distinguished, Peninsular Spanish (Spain) and the Spanish spoken in the Americas, although it is also spoken natively in some parts of Africa, and in the United States. Spanish in the Americas comprises several dialects well differentiated by variations in the lexicon, phonology and, more importantly, in intonational patterns. In Mexico 86,211,000 (88% of the population) use Spanish as their first language, and a significant number of indigenous people have Spanish as their second language. The variety illustrated here is representative of the speech of the educated middle-class population from the metropolitan zone (three female and three male speakers in their 30s), which has as its center Mexico City, the most densely populated urban area in the country with more than 20 million people according to the Mexican National Census (INEGI 2010).

  • Input Optimisation: phonology and morphology*

  • Michael Hammond
  • Journal:
    Phonology / Volume 33 / Issue 3 / December 2016
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    16 January 2017, pp. 459-491
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  • In this paper, I provide a unified account of three frequency effects in phonology. First, typologically marked elements are underrepresented. Second, phonological changes are underrepresented. Third, morphologically conditioned phonological changes are overrepresented. These effects are demonstrated with corpus data from English and Welsh. I show how all three effects follow from a simple conception of phonological complexity. Further, I demonstrate how this notion of complexity makes predictions about other phenomena in these languages, and that these predictions are borne out. I model this with traditional Optimality Theory, but the proposal is consistent with any constraint-based formalism that weights constraints in some way.

Page 59 of 254