Syncope and Pseudo-Syncope*

603

Holly Semiloff-Zelasko Ohio State University

O. Introduction. In recent years, phonologists have been attempting to find universal phonetic explanations for phonological processes. One of the first problems confronted in this endeavor is that the conditions under which certain processes occur often seem contra- dictory in different languages and at different times. Apparent contradictions like this aren't really evidence against the possibi- lity of universal phonetic explanations. The language descriptions and histories on which we depend for.our data were constructed, for the most part, solely on the facts of the language. And if we put aside considerations like simplicity, it becomes clear that the facts admit of alternative descriptions. Vowel syncope, traditionally defined by linguists as indicating word internal loss of a syllabic vowel, is a process that seems at first to be exceedingly arbitrary: its conditions differ bewilderingly from language to language and from time to time. Sometimes it occurs only after heavy syllables; other times only after light syllables. Or it takes place only before resonants in some cases, but only before voiceless consonants in Others. Thus even a fairly superficial look at the numerous languages showing a word internal vowel loss should indicate that the term 'syncope' is no more than a descriptive term. Nevertheless, there are several characteristics common to all syncope processes, namely the susceptibility of so-called weak vowels--that is, unstressed, short, and neutral vowels, and the fact that all syncopes are dependent on prior rules of syllabication. What I will attempt to show here is that syncope actually consists of quite distinct processes operating under distinct conditions. Drawing on evidence from modern and older stages of languages, as well as from casual speech phenomena, I will also try to show that once the various processes are distinguished, they are identical in detail in all of their occurrences. Of course there are differences in degree of generality, such as the class of vowels affected, or limitations on the hierarchy of the class of segments in the environment, but these are conditions affecting the extent of a process, not its nature.

1. Pure syncope. By pure syncope I refer to a process whereby a weakly accented syllabic which has come to be alone in a syllable, deletes in a single step. It seems that the process does not depend on the nature of the adjacent consonants, except incidentally, insofar as syllabication depends in turn on consonant-types. Briefly, the nature of the syllabication process is that, within the limits of universal and language-particular constraints on the makeup of syllable onsets and offsets, consonants syllabify to the right, unless the syllable to the right is unstressed. In that case, consonants may go to the left, if the syllable to the left has more stress. 604

This is the case in English, e.g. in di.vin.i.ty. More examples will follow. The constraints on syllable onsets and offsets are basically that sonority may not increase from the vocalic nucleus to the margin of the syllable. Typically the order from margin to margin is Obs, Was, Liq, Gl, Syllabic, Gl, Liq, Was, Obs. There are some fairly complex conditions on, for example, the linear breakdown of the number and types of Obs, or the restriction in Modern English against the initial Obs, Was: #kn-, or the acceptable syllable onset in Czech of the Liq, Obs: rt-. But for the time being this principle of decreasing sonority does capture the limitations of syllables in the vast majority of languages. English is a particularly good example of how syllabication works. Whenever the order of elements from margin to peak is changed, the word must be resyllabified. For example, Stampe (1972) cites words like irons, which show a segment from every category from peak to margin. If any two non- syllabics are transposed, the syllable is impossible, and must be resyllabified:

(1) Calrnz1 but *[arAnz], *CaAnrz], *Calrzn1

Returning then to pure syncope, as a result of both the syllabication process, and language-particular stress rules, many languages show historical and/or synchronic application of pure syncope. For example, in the history of Irish there was an accent shift to the first syllable, which precipitated syncope of the second, and in polysyllabic words, the fourth syllables, since, according to Pedersen and Lewis (1961), a slight secondary accent fell on the third and fifth syllables.1

(2) *cossamil > c6smil 'similar' *ecossamali > esamli 'dissimilar' nom.. ngmit, ace. Engatea] 'enemies' nom. tOmus, gen. Ct6mseo1 'measure'

Old and Middle High German(Wright 1934, 1952) show a pure syncope when the weakly stressed vowel followed a 'heavy' syllable--'heavy' meaning containing a long vowel or ending in two consonants.

(3) OHG harisSn > MHG hgrson 'to rule' OHG silida > WHO snide 'blessedness' MHG nom. market, gen. marktes 'market' MHG gartenmre > WHO Ortner 'gardner'

The heavy syllable condition, as Stampe argues in his paper to this conference, is a rhythmic metacondition imposed on the syncope, and need not concern us further. It has been argued for French (Morin and Friedman 1971) that unstressed Ea] is lost after VC, and that the syncope works iteratively from left to right. But Stampe (unpublished paper) has shown that the 0-loss is dependent not on a preceding VC, but on the process of 605 syllabication, so that when Ca] is alone in a syllable, it may syncopate. Evidence comes from the fact, noted by Delattre (1951), that Ca] is not lost before a liquid-plus-jod cluster:

(4) [mnon] + Cm5tre] monterait but Ceterj37 *[m5trj5] monterions

This is because such clusters are syllabified CL.j], as the non- occurrence of the cluster word-initially shows, which suggests that Ca] is deletable only in a two-side open syllable. This explains why the phrase,

(5) /ilnetelererldarapa/ ne te le remandera pas

has two pronunciations, since each is derivable from an alternative surface syllabication:

(6) il.net.a.ler.e.da.mAd.e.ra.pa il.na.tel.e.rad.e.mAd.e.ra.pa

CilnotlerdemAdrapa] CilnetalradaldrapaJ

Another example comes from casual speech in Modern Hebrew. Here the syllabication process that provides the condition for pure syncope is met when faster, more careless tempos of speech apply. In casual speech, leftward syllabication applies across word boundaries as well as within them:

(7) Clexas6t7 + [laxs6t] 'to hide' across WB: C;m6na be;tey] am6nab;t4yJ 'eight in two' across WB: Chi malamfdet]• C(h)imlamfdEt3 'she teaches'

The identical conditions hold in Breton (Dressler 1972) where in casual speech syllabication also applies across word boundaries:

(8) Cg:wa bet] + aiwbe3 'John knows' Edgma dit3 + Cdgmdit] 'that you + inf.'

An example where pure syncope is limited to high short vowels comes from Yawelmani (Kuroda 1967). Here the short diffuse vowel I is deleted in the environment VC CV, which Kuroda refers to as a 'two-side-open syllable'. -These lone vowel syllables are of course precisely the condition for pure syncope.

(9) xatnal but xatinhin gopnol but gopinhin mutnal but mutunhun (after vowel harmony)

2. Pseudo-syncope. Pure syncope, although it is a common enough process in many languages, does not exhaust all cases of word-internal vowel loss. In fact there are a number of cases where syncope seems 606 to be conditional on the type of consonant adjacent to the vowel. It turns out that it is not syncope that is responsible for such deletions, but rather a series of phonological processes whose individual effects are quite distinct, although their collective effect is similar to pure syncope. The most common environment of these 'pseudo-syncope' developments is one occurring before a resonant. The actual processes are (1) Assimilation of the vowel to the properties of the resonant, (2) Monophthongization, and (3) Desyllabication.

(10) .V. RV (1) .R. RV Vowel Assimilation

(2) .R. V Monophthongization

(3) .RV Desyllabication

The interesting thing about Desyllabication, and perhaps a reason that linguists have looked on this development as identical to pure syncope, is that the conditions on basic syllabication and those on desyllabication are essentially identical. Recall that the syllabication process puts a consonant in the syllable to the right unless it has less stress than the syllable on the left, in which case the consonant is attracted to it, the process being subject to the sonority principle of syllable structure. Desyllabication, which both takes away the Ivowelness' of a segment and erases a syllable boundary, is actually a combination of both syncope and syllabication. that is, there are no stages (2 1/2) or (2 1/2'),

(11) (2 1/2) *RV

(2 1/2') since a nonsyllabic resonant cannot be alone in a syllable and a syllable can only have one syllabic. Instead the weak syllabic has just its syllabicity syncopated, while its 'colors' remain. The coloration of course needs a syllable to be in, and this is where syllabication comes in--it is syllabified just as though it were an underlying nonsyllabic resonant. In this, respect pure syncope and Desyllabication are functionally identical. Regarding the first process, Vowel Assimilation to Resonant, the best argument for claiming that VR changes to a syllabic resonant by means of Vowel Assimilation, instead of simply by vowel deletion followed by syllabication of the resonant, is that the process is not limited to unstressed vowels. Witness the historical changes in English of the vowels i, e, u in words like fir, her, cur. It would not be reasonable to say that these stressed vowels in monosyllabic words were ever actually deleted. Not only stressed vowels, but also long vowels are subject to the processes. In this case Slavic 607

(Shevelov 1964) furnishes an example. The fairly well known historical change CORC > CROC, which occurred with some variation in all but East Slavic, has traditionally been viewed as a vowel- resonant metathesis. It is at least as likely that the vowel took on the color of the resonant, and then Monophthongization reduced BR to R. which ultimately developed to RV. The latter,svaradlikti change-- ' meaning the development of a vowel between a resonant and a consonant-- is parallel to Middle Indic ri for Skt. r, e.g. Sanskrt > Sanskrit. Precisely the same change, although not dith loni-;;;;II, occurs in the dialects of some English speakers, whose pronunciations of words like perform, perpetual, and perverted are Cpro.f3rm3, Cpre.pfcual] and [pra.vrDld]. Since some of these speakers have the intermediate stage,las in Eprr.form], it appears that svarabhakti should be viewed as involving dipAthongization of R to RR (if not RR) and subsequent 'bleaching'- -meaning loss of color-Lof R to a. ThiA seems a natural extension of Patricia Faller's account'of bleaching (this conference). Whereas she discusses bleaching of labialization and palatalization, there may be bleaching of retroflexion and other minor colors. In these words the derivation is

(12) par.form

prr.form Vowel Assimilation

pr. form Monophthongization

prr.fOrM Diphthongization

pra.form Bleaching

Regarding Monophthongization, in English it seems to be obligatory only within syllables, both stressed, as in bird, pull, and unstressed, as in ever, awful:

(13) bard pvl fv.ar 6f.al

*brrd *pp. *ev.rr *df.il Vowel Assimilation I I , brd fv.i Sf.1 Monophthongization I 1 OBLIG

Across syllable boundaries Monophthongization is optionall as the pronunciations of words like electric, around illustrate.-1

(14) G.lek.trIk 0.raund

&.lek.trIk r.raund Vowel Assimilation I I - I.Ek.trIk r.nund Monophthongization OPT I I Iek.trIk rand Desyllabication

lek.trIk rwaund Palatalization/Labialization4 608

Casual speech pronunciations in Viennese German (Dressler et al 1972) show practically identical derivations in words like abends Chlbents] 'in the evening'.

(15) Ci.bants] Vowel Reduction Eg.bmnts) Vowel Assimilation (with retention of place of articulation of stop) Ci.mnts] Cluster simplification

(Lists] Monophthongization Cimts] Desyllabication

Consider also casual speech in Modern Hebrew of words like ;eli 'mine and dvarfm 'things'.

(16) ;0.1f dva.rfm ;1.1f dvi.rfm Vowel Assimilation

dvr.fm Monophthongization

;lf Desyllabication5

A number of dialects of English show the same pseudo-syncope developments in a wide variety of resonant contexts. Although in Sound Pattern of English (Chomsky and Halle 1968) it is argued that tense syllabics do not reduce in English, Greg Lee (unpublished paper) shows that most dialects of English do reduce unstressed tense syllabics. We can see Pseudo-syncope applying to a number of words, which contain VG, as well as VLiq sequences. For example, the pronunciations of words like borrowing, echoing, stickier, carrying undergo the following derivation--just like the pseudo-syncopes already discussed, such as pronunciations of hickory, thickening, pedaling.

(17) echoing. stickier hickory pedaling

ek.o.wio stik.t.yar hik.a.riy 1)&1.8.110 Syll. ek.e.wio stlk.e.yar hfk.a.riy pfd.e.lio Vow. Red. Ck.o.wio stIk.i.yTr hIk.r.riy gd.1.11.0 Vow. Assim. I ek.o.iirj stik.L.r hfk.r.i pfd.l.in Monoph. I I I ek.gio stik.ji hIk.ri p'd.lio Desyll.

Ek.will stfk.yi hfk.rwi pedalo Pal./Labial.

Just as the sequence VR can become RV, the reverse--so-called samprasarana--can occur as well. Zwicky (1972) has described a process, RUH-REDUCTION, in which Era] in certain contexts, in 609 words like separable, preferable. But given the processes I have already described for pseudo-syncope, RUH-REDUCTION needs no special statement. In fact some words, like separable, have alternative' pronunciations: Esep.T.bl] and Csep.re.bp which can be derived from each of two possible 011abications.

(18) I. a. sep.er.e.b1 b. sep.er.e.b1 I I sep.rr.e.b1 sep.er.r.b1 Vowel Assim. I I I I sep.r.e.b1 sep.e.r.b1 Monoph. I I I 1 sep.re.b1 sep.er.h1 Desyll. I I sep.i..b1 Monoph. OPT6

II. a. s6p.e.ra.bi b. sep.e.re.b1

stp.r.re.b1 sEp.a.rr.b1 Vowel Assim. I I I I sep.T.e.b1 sep.e.T.b1 Monoph.

sep.re.b1 stp.er.b1 Desyll. I I sep.r.b1 Monoph. OPT6

Ia and ha show the processes applying to VR within a syllable and across a syllable respectively. lb and lib show them applying to RV across a syllable and within a syllable respectively. Er) seems especially prone to RV 4. R in English, as many speakers have pronunciations like Cpr.dIkt] fdr predict, Cpr.tend3 for pretend, and CprD.i) for pretiy.7 Just as the environment VR extends to VG, for some speakers RV extends to GV, although the glide does not typically monophthongize as the liquids do. Words like occupation and aqueduct are sometimes pronounced Cak.yI.pey.751) and Egk.wv..dAkt3.

(19) ak.ya.pey.sn 4k.vo.dAkt

ak.yI.pey.s7 gk.wAndAkt Vowel Assimilation where the vowel following the glide assimilates to the color of the glide. In fairly sloppy speech I can get CmkAr.dAkt3 with monophthongization of Cw%0 to aa, but the unstressed Cv3, although alone in a syllable, neither undergoes pure syncope to it[mk.dat3 nor does it desyllabify, since it is subject to the sonority hierarchy, and there are obstruents on either side of Dul, blocking its resyllabication as Cy]. 610

Latin (Kent 1932) is a particularly good example where the processes apply to liquids, nasals, and glides. For example (ignoring nonrelevant changes)

(20) *medyo-t- *parwon *is *safnolos medyi-t- parvum akrr safnnlos Vow. Assim. I I medi-ti parum ikr safnlos Monoph. I I fikrr safnnlos Diphth. I I iker safanlos Bleaching

icer safinlos Palatal.

It is interesting to note that there is a very intimate relation- ship between the processes responsible for pseudo-syncope and the reverse developments to epenthetic vowels. Typically occurring before resonants, the underlying forms will have a non-syllabic alone in a syllable surrounded by elements that have less sonority than itself. As exemplified by Old Irish (Pedersen and Lewis 1961, Thurneysen 1966)

(21) *com.l.nad *ing.n.tach com.l.nad ing.n.tach Syllabication of Resonant

com.11.nad ing.nn.tach Diphthongization

com.al.nad ing.en.tach Bleaching com.al.nad ing.an.tach Lowering

the first stage is syllabification of the resonant. It then diph- thongizes by means of which both syllabicity and color are maintained-- these being the two elements that comprise all diphthongs. Then the syllabic element bleaches--it loses its color in the interest of increasing its syllabicity. In Irish the a-vowel lowered to Ca] whereas in Latin it palatalized; of course the actual phonetics of epenthetic vowels will vary from language to langRage, and are dependent on factors that do not concern us here.°

3. Voiceless environments. A second general environment for the pseudo-syncope processes is before and after voiceless consonants. The processes are exactly the same except that they proceed through vowel devoicing. Japanese offers a particularly good example, the essence of which is put very succinctly by Melt° Han (1962) in her dissertation. '...the native speaker of Japanese is unaware of the fact that some of the vowels are not heard 17 foreigners. We feel that we are pronouncing /u/ when we say 'kushi' (comb) or /i/ when we say 'kishil (shore). However when foreigners hear these words they often hear both of them as Cksi]...' (19). In other words, high 613.

vowels in Japanese become voiceless and extremely short, but they never completely disappear. In our terminology we would say that the final process, Desyllabication, does not occur. But even that process can take place. ' Han provides the following pronunciations for the words /huhuku/ 'discontent' and /susuki/ 'pampas grass':

(22) /huhuku/4 Ehuhliku3 Ch:h:ku3 Ch::ku3

/susuki/ Csusuki3Esusuki]• • • Cs:s:ki] Cs::ki] These alternants translate into our derivation:

(23) jhuhuku/ /susuki/ inlhyku susuki Devoicing

hhhhku ssaski Vowel Assimilation I I I 1 • h hku s ski Monophthongization I I I I hku ski Desyllabication

Furthermore the processes can also occur between voiceless stops, as there is a contrast between Ckk3 and UWE]. The former is a true geminate where the first Ck3 is unreleased, while the latter has a release of the first Ek3, signaling the presence of a vowel between the stops. In general though, deletion between stops is problematic, as it seems to occur between voiced stops as well, as in English sagged, robbed. Possible phonetic factors like tenseness and consonant release will provide some insights, although at this time little more can be said. See Guile (1972) on syncope between obstruents, and Bell (1970) on syllabic obstruents. Pseudo-syncope developments in voiceless environments occur in English also. A number of speakers have the pronunciation [spat] for suspect (verb). This is accounted for in the following derivation.

(24) sAs.pekt sAs.pekt • Devoicing sss.pekt Vowel Assimilation

si.pekt Monophthongization

s.pekt Cluster Simplification

spekt Desyllabication

Similarly, casual speech pronunciations like [sstEmak] systemic, and Cfsfnati] vicinity show the processes at wok, although without Desyllabication in the former. 612

(25) sIs.tfm.ak va.sfn.a.ti sis.tfm.ak Devoicing

sss.tfm.ak vs.sIn.a.ti Vowel Assimilation

ss.tfm.ak vs.In.a.ti Monophthongization

vsIn.a.ti Desyllabication fsIn.a.ti Voicing Assimilation

Also, in rather sloppy speech let's go can occur with syllabic s, Es.go3, and ultimately reduce to [sko]. ' Another example comes from Modern Hebrew where we find the identical situation, as in the pronunciations Edcrx] for derex 'way' and [alm] for sisim 'sixty'.

(26) dfr.ex der.ex sa.sim Vowel Reduction • - der.sx s2.sfm Devoicing

der.xx s▪ s.sIm Vowel Assimilation der.x s.fin Monophthongization

derx ;;im Desyllabication

4. Conclusion. As a cautionary statement, the processes I have described are certainly not the final word on vowel syncope. In fact it may be presumptuous to suggest that I have actually supplied a phonetic explanation for syncope. What I have tried to do is suggest processes that are at least amenable to phonetic explanations. The best evidence for any phonological process is its cross language comparability, and in that respect, both pure and pseudo-syncope gain credibility. Both recognizing identical processes and distinguishing between non-identical ones will require careful and often subtle analysis.

Footnotes

*I would like to thank David Stampe who is indeed master of 'subtle analysis'. 1. Old Irish accent did not always fall on the first syllable. When the stem was preceded by one or more 'preverbs', accent fell on the second syllable of whatever element(s) preceded the stem. 2. At a deeper level, French syllabication requires that consonants go to the right although moderately fast speech will alter this. Notice also that this analysis eliminates the left- right scansion requirement, which is not paralleled in syncope in other languages. 613

3. Old and Middle English (Campbell 1959, Wright and Wright 1923) evidence the processes in fairly wide application: -

OE yfele > yfle 'evil' OE betera > betra 'better' OE openian > opnian 'open'

OE fmderas > ME fadres OE wmteres > ME watres OE maidenes > ME maidnes

4. In syllable initial position, liquids and glides tend to become palatal: 41, 1 j, or labial: r rw, g 4 V. In the case of glides this gives a more non-syllabic onset, with liquids sonority is also decreased. 5. Notice that Cdv;..im1 does not desyllabify to *CdvrimJ. dvr- is not a possible cluster in Hebrew although it does not specifically violate the sonority hierarchy. This is another case where the hierarchy is still in its rougher stages. ' 6. The second optional application of Monophthongization shows that the processes can apply whenever their conditions are met, although they need not. As an example of the latter, Monophthongization does not apply again in Ia and ha because the outputs would be homonymous with lb and lib, and the possible alternative pronunciations would be lost. 7. Notice that shows the processes applying to a stressed syllable and even the spelling purdy has found its way into dialect writing. 8. It is probably the case that the vowel in Irish did not lower to CO, but was merely written a. This makes no difference, since the ultimate phonetics of the vowel is unrelated to the processes themselves.

Bibliography

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Kent, R. 1932. The Sounds of Latin. Language Monograph 12. Kuroda, S-Y. 1967. Yawelmani Phonology. Research Monograph 43, M.I.T. Lee, Gregory. 1970. The 'tense' unstressed vowels in English. Unpublished paper. Miller, Patricia. 1973. Bleaching and coloring. CLS 9. Morin, Y. and J. Friedman. 1971. A Phonological Grammar Tester: Underlying Theory. Natural Language Studies 10, University of Michigan Phonetics Laboratory. Pedersen, H. and H. Lewis. 1961. A Concise Comparative Celtic Grammar. GOttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Shevelov, G. 1964. A Prehistory of Slavic. Heidelberg. Stampe, D. 1972. Divinity fudge. Unpublished paper. Stampe, D. 1972. How I Spent my Summer Vacation. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago. Stampe, D. 1973. On quantity in stress-timed languages. CLS 9. Thurneysen, R. 1966. A Grammar of Old Irish. Dublin. Wright, J. 1934. A Middle High German Primer. Oxford. Wright, J. 1952. Historical German Grammar, Vol. 1. Phonology, Word Formation and Accordance. Oxford. Wright, J., and E. Wright. 1923. An Elementary Middle English Grammar. Oxford. Zwicky, A. 1972. Note on a phonological hierarchy in English. Linguistic Change and Generative Theory, ed. R. Stockwell and R. Macaulay. Indiana University Press.