Aspects of Persian Phonology and Morpho-Phonology Which Are
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Aspects of Persian Phonology and Morpho-phonology by Elham Rohany Rahbar A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics University of Toronto © Copyright by Elham Rohany Rahbar 2012 Aspects of Persian Phonology and Morpho-phonology Elham Rohany Rahbar Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics University of Toronto 2012 Abstract This thesis deals with aspects of Persian phonology and morpho-phonology which are less studied or controversial, and has two specific goals: (i) to examine the structure of the Persian vowel system with the goal of understanding the asymmetries in patterning of different vowels in the system; (ii) to examine some suffixation processes in Persian with the goal of understanding the seeming irregularities in morphophonemics. The more generals goals of this work are to contribute to the discussions of: (i) determining dimensions of contrast in a vowel system; (ii) interactions of vowels and consonants at a morpheme boundary. Although the main focus of this work is on the synchronic status of these issues in Persian from a theoretical viewpoint, many discussions in the thesis benefit from an historical and/or an experimental investigation. As such, the thesis contributes both to the field of theoretical and experimental phonology, and offers both synchronic and historical perspectives on many issues at hand. ii Acknowledgements First, I give thanks to God for giving me such a beautiful life full of blessings, including the honour of being a part of the U of T Linguistics community. I feel privileged to have had this opportunity and I will cherish it for the rest of my life. I would like to thank my committee members: Keren Rice (my supervisor), Elan Dresher, Yoonjung Kang, Peter Avery, and Marc van Oostendorp. I couldn’t have asked for a better or nicer committee! Keren is an extraordinary supervisor. She has been, without question, the most influential figure in all years of my education. I have learned so much from her both as her student and as her assistant for IJAL. Thank you, Keren, for always being there for me, for your invaluable guidance and high standards of academic work, for your less-than-a-minute e-mail responses even over the weekends and holidays, for your unbelievable speed in sending meticulous comments on drafts of my thesis, for caring beyond the call of duty, for all the rewarding meetings, and above all for making me believe in myself and my work. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! I am also very grateful to Elan, who has been involved with my work since my first year at U of T. I greatly appreciate all his sound advice and invaluable input throughout these years. Elan has been also my mentor in my teaching appointments, which has been a pleasure. Many thanks, Elan, for teaching me so much and for making each and every appointment and discussion so fruitful and fun-filled. Yoonjung has been instrumental in helping me look at data from a different angle. She raises the type of questions that I usually do not think of, and I am very thankful to her for this and for her thoughtful feedback on my work. During the years that I was working on my thesis, I always hoped that Peter Avery and Marc van Oosdtendorp would be on my committee. Peter was on my first generals paper committee and I still remember how much I enjoyed discussing my work with him, and I am deeply grateful to him for accepting to be on my thesis committee and for letting me have the same enjoyable experience once again. I have never met Marc, but his influence on my research has been tremendous. Thank you, Marc, for all your inspiring work, and for your encouraging comments on my thesis! I feel fortunate that you were my external iii examiner. My thanks also go to the faculty and administrative staff of the department, and to my fellow grad students for creating such a supportive and friendly environment. I would like to especially thank Ron Smyth, Alexei Kochetov, and Christopher Neufeld for their help with the experiments of my thesis, Elaine Gold, our undergraduate coordinator, for her guidance on teaching and running courses, and Mary Hsu and Bill Forrest for their help with everything administrative and technical. Special thanks also to the participants of my experiments. I also wish to extend my gratitude to the Linguistics departments at the Ferdowsi University (Iran), where I first discovered my interest in linguistics, and the University of Calgary, where I first discovered how exciting phonology is. I am happy to acknowledge the financial support of University of Toronto Doctoral Thesis Completion grants, Ontario Graduate Scholarships, University of Calgary and University of Toronto open fellowships, and SSHRC grant #410-2008-2645 to Elan Dresher and Keren Rice. I feel lucky to have the support of great friends outside linguistics. Farideh and Banafsheh Tajik and their families deserve special mention in this regard. Finally, my deepest thanks go to my loving family: my parents, my husband, our son, my brother, and my sister-in-law. I can’t thank my very wonderful husband and friend, Afshin, enough for his unwavering love, support, and understanding. I could write volumes on what he has done for me during the very long journey of my education. There is no doubt in my mind that without his incredible patience, constant encouragement, tireless help, and exemplary positive attitude, I couldn’t have done this. Big thanks to my dearly beloved son, Damoun, the joy of my life, for bearing with his always-student mom – I believe he doesn’t remember me not being a student – my sincere apologies! Damoun, I am glad I finished university before you start! What a blessing to have a brilliant and kind brother like Ali, and a lovely sister(-in-law) like Sahar! I am so grateful for their friendship and moral support. Ali, thank you for making me laugh so hard every time we iv talk! I will never forget our conversation the night before my defence (you are right - academia has indeed been the hot topic in most of our conversations in the last decade!). And, of course, I owe the greatest thanks to my parents, the best parents in the world, for a lifetime of unconditional love, immeasurable support, and great sacrifices, for instilling in me the appreciation for knowledge and the pleasure of learning, for their strong belief in me and my path, for not holding me back when I followed my dream to move to the other side of the world, for being here the last two years of my program and for their crucial help during this time period, for everything they have done and are doing for me, which cannot be put in words. I got where I am because of their prayers. I dedicate this dissertation to my family. v Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1. Goals…………………………………………………….................................1 1.2. Theoretical foundation……………………………………………………….3 1.3. Morpho-phonological issues………………………………………………....9 1.4. Organization of thesis……………………………………………………….10 Chapter 2 The active features of the Persian vowel system: the problem 2.1.The Persian vowel inventory: background…………………………………..11 2.1.1. Persian historical background……………………………………...14 2.2. Literature review…………………………………………………………….17 2.2.1. Arguments in favor of quality……………………………………..21 2.2.1.1. Phonetics of vowels……………………………………..21 2.2.1.2. Stress…………………………………………………….28 2.2.2. Arguments in favor of quantity……………………………………32 2.2.2.1. Versification………………………………………………32 2.2.2.1.1. Middle Persian versification…………………..34 2.2.2.1.2. Folk poetry…………………………………….36 2.2.2.1.3. Adopting Arabic meter………………………..39 2.2.2.1.4. Conclusion…………………………………….41 2.2.2.2. Categorization of vowels based on phonotactics………..42 vi 2.2.2.3. Summary………………………………………………...47 2.2.3. The synthetic analysis……………………………………………….49 2.2.4. Summary and discussion……………………………………………53 2.3. Vowel harmony and a featural analysis for the system………………………55 2.3.1. Harmony across a morpheme boundary…………………………..55 2.3.2. Harmony within stem……………………………………………...58 2.3.3. Harmony in loan words……………………………………………60 2.3.4. Preliminary analysis……………………………………………….63 2.3.5. Harmony in low vowels…………………………………………...64 2.3.6. Harmony in low and non-low vowels: a question………………...67 2.4. Summary and conclusion…………………………………………………....69 Chapter 3 The active features of the Persian vowel system: the solution 3.1. Harmony patterns: an account based on height……………………………..71 3.1.1. Harmony patterns in non-low vowels: an account based on height.72 3.1.2. Harmony patterns in low vowels: an account based on height……77 3.1.3. Harmony patterns in a height-based account: discussion…………78 3.2. Tense/lax distinction………………………………………………………...79 3.3. On the nature of tense/lax …………………………………………………..81 3.4. Phonetic experiment…………………………………………………………85 3.4.1. Results…………………………………………………………......88 vii 3.4.2. Discussion…………………………………………………………91 3.5. Contrasts in the Persian vowel system………………………………………95 3.6. Markedness and vowel features in Persian……………………………….....99 3.6.1. Assimilation…………………………………………………….....99 3.6.2. Epenthesis………………………………………………………..100 3.6.3. Deletion…………………………………………………………..101 3.6.4. Neutralization…………………………………………………….102 3.7. Harmony in low vowels across laryngeals………………………………..105 3.8. Pre-nasal raising…………………………………………………………..110 3.9. Summary…………………………………………………………………..118 3.10. Diphthongs……………………………………………………………….119 3.10.1. ɑj, uj, oj, and aj…………………………………………………120 3.10.2. ej and ow……………………………………………………......123 3.11. Summary………………………………………………………………..128 Chapter 4 The epenthetic –e in suffixation: evidence for quantity? 4.1. Epenthesis in suffixation: synchronically………………………………….131 4.2. Incorporating quantity……………………………………………………...136 4.3. A question about epenthesis………………………………………………..140 4.4. An overview of Persian suffixes…………………………………………...141 4.5.