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Chapter 5 Phonological Issues CHAPTER 5 PHONOLOGICAL ISSUES 5.1 Chapter introduction This final chapter deals with three selected phonological issues. The first issue concerns a historical sound shift ongoing in G|ui and G||ana, i.e. palatalization, which seems to lack phonetic motivation. It is important because it relates to typologically uncommon features that characterize the non-click stop sytem of G|ui, as I mentioned in Section 3.2.1.2. In Section 5.2, I describe this sound shift by providing new comparative data of G|ui and G||ana dialects, and further explore a phonetic explanation of this palatalization based on the palatographic and linguographic observations of the relevant stops provided in Chapter 3. In relation to this palatalization, I also extend discussion concerning the place-of-articulation feature of /c c c’/, re-considering the constraint on the cluster onset that I presented in Section 3.4.2. The second impotant issue dealt with in Section 5.3 is how the clicks and their accompaniments should be phonologically interpreted. This is a question of whether they are all interpreted as phonological units (i.e. the unit analysis) or if some of them should be regarded as consonant clusters (i.e. the cluster analysis). This issue is important in justification of the descriptive framework that the present study has adopted. As I mentioned in Section 3.1.1, the systematic interpretation of G|ui consonants proposed in this thesis is based on the cluster analysis. I compare my cluster analysis with two alternative analyses, namely, (i) a unit analysis, which regards all the syllable onsets as single consonant phonemes and (ii) a radical cluster analysis, which requires only one non-cluster series of clicks by considering the clicks of all the other series as clusters. I then argue that my cluster analysis is more advantageous and less problematic than the unit analysis and the radical cluster analysis for interpreting G|ui consonants. This section further discusses the theoretical implications of my cluster analysis for Güldemann’s (2001) proposal of cross-Khoisan consonant regularities, which is based on his cluster analysis. In addition, I explore the applicability of my cluster analysis to Ju|’hoansi, another Khoisan language, which is interpreted by Miller-Ockhuizen (2003) using a unit analysis. I then evaluate both my cluster analysis and her unit analysis. 234 Finally, I deal with the issue of how to integrate the clicks and the non-clicks in Section 5.4. As I mentioned in Sections 3.4.1 and 3.5, there are two dimentions of the click vs. non-click cross-classification, namely, the dimension corresponding to the vertical axis of Table 3.15 in Chapter 3 and the dimention corresponding to the horizontal axis of the same table. The former (i.e. the series cross-classification) has been fully discussed in Section 3.4, but the latter (i.e. the integration of the clicks and the non-clicks) has not been discussed yet. In Section 5.4, I explore what features are required for the integration of the two classes. 5.2 Palatalization This section concerns a historical sound shift involving palatalization which has taken place and is ongoing in the G|ui-G||ana subgroup of Non-Khoekhoe languages of the Khoe family. Table 5.1 outlines this palatalization. This diachronic process leads to a change in the place of articulation from alveolar to palatal for the four series of non- click stops. I refer to the entire process including any intermediate stages as “palatalization”. Table 5.1 Palatalization occurring in G|ui and G||ana t c d t c t’ c’ Traill (1980) already discussed this sound change with relatively limited data from G|ui and G||ana, in exploring the phonetic and phonological diversity of various Khoisan languages. Nakagawa (1998) described this process in more detail based on extensive data from G|ui and G||ana spoken in the Xade Village (see Figure 1.1 in Chapter 1 for its location). This section elaborates on the description of Nakagawa (1998), using extended comparative data, and highlights typological peculiarities of this palatalization. I argue that transcriptions used in previous studies on G|ui and/or G||ana were observationally inadequate, and show that the palatographic and linguographic 235 observations made in Chapter 3 reveal important phonetic details essential for understanding the natural basis of this palatalization. As illustrated in Table 5.1, the palatalization affects the non-click so-called alveolar stops in G|ui and G||ana. Previous studies on these languages used a broad phonetic transcription for this class of stops using symbols such as [t], [d] etc. (Köhler 1962, Maingard 1957, 1961, Nakagawa 1996b, Silberbauer 1981, Tanaka 1978, Traill 1980, Vossen 1988, Voßen 1997); they may contain additional information about dental place of articulation, but completely omit any specification concerning the laminality that was described in Section 3.2.2.1 in Chapter 3. In the argument to be developed, I will show that this transcriptional practice is observationally inadequate because the phonetic detail concerning the laminality is essential for understanding the phonetic basis of the sound shift; however, in order to develop my argument, I will proceed with the broad phonetic transcription together with its implied label of “alveolar” in my illustration. 5.2.1 A conventional view on palatalization Before discussing this sound shift, we should look at the general conventional view on palatalization, in order to prepare for a later discussion on a peculiarity of the palatalization in G|ui and G||ana. Palatalization is a diachronic or synchronic process involving tongue-fronting and tongue-raising, and is considered to be induced by the phonetic environment, such as a following front vowel or a glide [j], or a preceding front vowel and a neighboring palatal consonant (Bhat 1978). Here our discussion mainly concerns the raising of the tongue-front, which implies an expected phonetic environment involving a [+high, –back] segment. Table 5.2 exemplifies conventional palatalization, where a non-palatal/non-palatalized consonant changes into a palatal/palatalized consonant caused by a following/preceding high front vowel. The point to be emphasized here is that an obvious phonetic motivation for the assimilatory process in the environment is expected from a conventional viewpoint. 236 Table 5.2 Examples of conventional palatalization t c /_i t t /_i t c /i_ t t /i_ 5.2.2 The alveolar and palatal stops of G|ui and G||ana Let us first examine the non-click unaffricated stop system of G|ui and G||ana, which is presented in Table 5.3. All the segments shown in this table are phonologically contrastive in both G|ui and G||ana. In these languages there is a full set of distinctions involving the four places of articulation, alveolar, palatal, velar and uvular, with the four- way distinctions of the series, i.e. plain, voiced, aspirated and ejective. It should be pointed out here that this is a unique set of consonants among the Khoe languages. Table 5.3 Non-click unaffricated stops of G|ui and G||ana labial alveolar palatal velar uvular glottal plain p t c k q voiced b d aspirated p t c k q ejective — t’ c’ k’ q’ The present topic concerns the alveolar stop class /t d t t’/ and the palatal stop class /c c c’/ in this system. The distinction between these classes has arisen from an ongoing diachronic sound shift, palatalization, which changes the non-click alveolar stops into the non-click palatal stops. In other words, as illustrated in Table 5.4, both G|ui and G||ana are in the process of the sound shift from System 1 to System 2. As presented in the next section, a detailed comparative investigation of G|ui and G||ana dialects concerning cognate words with these two classes of stops will reveal important facts for understanding this sound shift. 237 Table 5.4 Places of articulation of the non-click stops in G|ui and G||ana. The symbols, p, t, c, k, and q, represent the five places of articulation from labial to uvular. The * emphasize that the systems are hypothetical. There is no dialect with System 1, and the Khute and Thomelo dialects have almost completed the evolution of System 2 System 1 *p *t – *k *q G|ui & G||ana p t c k q System 2 *p – *c *k *q 238 5.2.3 Comparative data Below I describe important aspects of the sound shift based on the comparison among the three G|ui dialects, i.e. the Xade, the Thomelo and the Khute dialects (see Chapter 1), and the three G||ana dialects, i.e. the Xade, the Molapo (i.e. the village called /um / in G||ana) and the Kaotoane dialects (see Figure 1.1 for their locations). The comparative data of G|ui and G||ana dealt with here were collected through intensive research conducted from 1992 to 1996 in Xade, a short research trip in Molapo in 1994, and an extensive survey performed in November 1996 in the remaining areas. According to the extent to which the palatalization has spread through the lexicon in each dialect, the three G|ui varieties can be classified into two groups, which I call G|ui- A (i.e. the Xade dialect) and G|ui-B (i.e. the Thomelo and the Khute dialects). The three G||ana dialects are uniform with respect to the extension of the palatalization in the lexicon. 5.2.4 “Unnatural” palatalization The sound shift extending in the lexicon in G|ui and G||ana is illustrated with selected data shown in Table 5.5.
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