2nd Phonetics and Phonology in Iberia Conference, 20-22 June, 2005 Sonorants as Triggers of Voicing Assimilation. Phonetics or phonology? Ellen Simon – Ghent University, Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders (1) INTRODUCTION AND AIM In contrast to obstruents, sonorants are spontaneously voiced sounds, which means that no extra articulatory gestures are needed in order to maintain voicing in sonorants (cf. e.g. Chomsky & Halle, 1968). Because voicing is not contrastive on sonorants, it has been proposed that sonorants are not specified for [voice] in the phonology (cf. Kiparsky, 1985), which implies that they should not be able to trigger voicing assimilation. However, regressive voicing assimilation (henceforth: RVA) before sonorant consonants is reported to occur in, among other varieties, Catalan (Wheeler, 1986; Cuartero Torres, 2001), Kraków Polish (cf. Bethin, 1984; Lew, 2002) and West-Flemish (De Schutter & Taeldeman, 1986; Weijnen, 1991). This study examines the RVA patterns in West-Flemish, in which RVA before sonorants is common, and in the neighbouring regiolect, East-Flemish, in which RVA before sonorants is reported to be absent. By also investigating the assimilation patterns in the English speech of East- and West-Flemish speakers, the study aims to shed light on the (phonetic or phonological) process of voicing assimilation in which sonorant consonants act as triggers. (2) METHODOLOGY DATA: ♦16 Dutch and English spontaneous conversations between dyads of second-year university students of English NOTE: Eight informants come from West-Flanders; the other eight from East-Flanders. ♦Read sentences and isolated words (both in English and in Dutch)
TRANSCRIPTIONS: ♦All conversations have been orthographically transcribed in Praat and coded for presence or absence of voice assimilations. ♦ All data are gathered in a database, which now contains ca. 9,700 tokens. (3) RESULTS (A) RVA IN FRICATIVE + SONORANT CON. (B) COMPARE: OBSTRUENT + VOICED STOP CLUSTERS
CLUSTERS EXAMPLES: 100 90 Dutch: - ik ben [gb] (‘I am’)
100 80 -of drie [vd] (‘or three’) 70 English: - quite big [db] 90 60 Dutch - yes but [zb] 80 50 English 40 RVA in obstruent + stop clusters is transferred into English (in 70 30 which this type of assimilation does not normally occur) to a 60 20 much greater extent than RVA in fricative + sonorant consonant 10 50 0 clusters. 40 East-Flemish West-Flemish ⇒ RVA before voiced stops is STRONGER? 30
20 (C) COMPARE: FRICATIVE + VOWEL CLUSTERS 10 EXAMPLES: 0 Dutch: - dus echt [z] (‘so really’) East-Flemish West-Flemish - vanaf een [v] (‘from a’) 100 English: -ifeverything[v] 90 - case of [z] EXAMPLES: 80 70 RVA in fricative + vowel clusters is transferred to a lesser extent 60 than RVA in obstruent + voiced stop clusters (~ RVA before 50 Dutch: - ‘t is niet [zn] (‘it’s not’) 40 sonorant consonants). - mens was [zw] (‘person was’) 30 ~ cross-linguistic tendency: 20 “[I]t appears that languages present the obstruent-sonorant asymmetry in one - zes maanden [zm] (‘six months’) 10 0 direction: there is assimilation of obstruent to obstruent (Russian, (Warsaw) English: - if you [vj] East-Flemish West-Flemish Polish, Dutch) and assimilation from obstruent to obstruent and to sonorant - place right [zr] (Catalan, Spanish, (Cracow-Posnán) Polish), but not just obstruent to sonorant alone, or obstruent to vowel alone” (Mascaró, 1995:297). - this work [zw] (4) POSSIBLE ANALYSES PHONETICS PHONOLOGY: ONE FEATURE PHONOLOGY: TWO FEATURES • Phonetic spill-over of voice • [voice] (Cho, 1992; Mascaró, 1995): • [voice] and [Sonorant Voice] (SV) (Jansen, 2004) A Reduction and Spreading account (Rice, 1993) The voicing of sonorants before obstruents is STAGE 1: Only voiced obstruents are specified for Obstruents are marked for [voice] (and can be marked for SV the result of phonetic spill-over of voice. [voice]. Sonorants are unspecified. in some languages); sonorants are underlyingly unspecified for →Word-final obstruents are NEUTRAL COMPLEMENT applies: [-voice] is filled in on voiceless [voice] (but become specified later as the result of a obstruents obstruents. redundancy rule), but specified for SV. ⇒They have no voicing targets: their STAGE 2: All obstruents are specified for [+voice] or →It is the SV specification of sonorants that spreads to the realization as voiced or voiceless depends [- voice] preceding fricative in West-Flemish (as opposed to e.g. East- entirely on the context in which they occur Flemish and Standard Dutch) DEFAULT applies: [voice] is filled in on sonorants ⇒Experiment: Obstruents are more voiced BUT: If SV represents the spontaneous voicing of sonorants, before sonorant consonants than before STAGE 3: All obstruents are specified for [+voice] or how is it able to voice a preceding obstruent? voiceless obstruents. [-voice]. All sonorants are specified for [+voice]. • [voice] and [Pharyngeal Expansion] If Re duction and Spreading occur after Complement but (Steriade, 1995) BUT: How does this explain the difference before Default, there is RVA before obstruents but not Obstruents are marked for [Pharyngeal Expansion] (because between different languages or language before sonorants, as in East-Flemish and Standard extra articulatory gestures are needed in order to maintain varieties/ the difference between East- and Dutch. If, on the other hand, Reduction and Spreading voicing in obstruents) and for [voice]; sonorants are only West-Flemish? occur after Complement and Default, there is RVA before marked for [voice]. They are spontaneously voiced and are obstruents and before sonorants, as in West-Flemish. thus not marked for [Pharyngeal Expansion].