Linguistics

Introduction to Phonetics and

Problems with Phonemic Analysis

Principal Investigator Prof. Pramod Pandey Centre for , SLL&CS, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi-110067

Paper Coordinator Prof. Pramod Pandey

Module ID & Name Lings_P2_M23; Problems with Phonemic Analysis

Content Writer Pramod Pandey

Email id & phone [email protected]; 011-26741258, -9810979446

Reviewer

Editor

Module 23: Problems with Phonemic Analysis

Objectives:

• To familiarize students with the problems in phonemic analysis • To provide a background to the motivation for the development of generative phonology

Contents:

23.1 Introduction 23.2 Insufficiency of the notions of phonetic substance and significant contrast 23.3 Monosystematicity 23.4 Problems in Phonemicization 23.5 Principle of Biuniqueness 23.6 Morphophonemics and separation of levels 23.7 Summary

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23.1 Introduction

In the present module, we take a close look at the various problems in the structural phonology view of phonemic analysis. We discuss the difficulties lying in the strict use of the principles of analysis and the classical concept of the , the basic assumptions about the separation of levels and the goals of phonological analysis. These issues are taken up in the successive sections 23.2- 23.6. Section 23.7 sums up the main points of the discussion.

Figure 23-1: A problem http://blog.regehr.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/bug.jpg

23.2 Insufficiency of the notions of phonetic substance and significant contrast

The two basic notions that inform the principles of phonemic analysis are phonetic similarity and significant contrast. Let us consider the notion of significant contrast first.

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According to the principle of contrastive distribution (see Module 19), two sounds, X and Y, are if they occur in identical environments and contrast in meaning when substituted, for example, the sounds [s] and [ʃ] as in the words so and show. The notion of significant contrast is not workable on the grounds of the distribution of the sounds in question. One of the aspects of distribution that is problematic is when environments are not identical. For example, in English, it is well-known that the [h] and [ŋ] never occur in identical environments- [h] always occurs in the onset position in a syllable, most commonly at the beginning of words and [ŋ] always occurs in the coda position in a syllable, that is, at the end of words or before a consonant. They are thus in mutually exclusive environments: 23/1 a. him [hɪm], hat [hæt], behave [bɪˈheɪv]

b. sing [sɪŋ], banker [bæŋ.kə], England [ɪŋ.glənd]

There is no way in which it can be shown that [h] and [ŋ] contrast in meaning. On the contrary, they always occur in mutually exclusive environments. What is the conclusion to be drawn in their case then? We can go by the criterion of phonetic similarity. [h] and [ŋ] are phonetically so different from each other that they cannot be expected to be or variants of one phoneme. Another example where distribution of sounds cannot be fully relied upon is that of the allophones of a set of sounds. Consider the sets of allophones [t s z] and [č š ž] in Congo, that we looked at in Module 20. We arrived at the conclusion that [t] and [č] are allophones of one phoneme, [s] and [š] are allophones of another phoneme, and [z] and [ž] are allophones of yet another phoneme. The distributions of the allophones are reproduced in 23/2. 23/2

a. [t] [s] [z]

# __ o (1) e __ o (3) # __ e (5, 11) e __ u (13) a __ u (7) e __ u (14)

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n __ e (9) n __ w (13)

b. [č] [ š] [ž]

# __ i (2, 8) o __ i (4) # __ i (6) n __ i (10) a __ i (12)

We shall use the IPA symbols [ʧ ʃ ʒ] for [č š ž] respectively. Notice that on the basis of the distribution of the two sets of allophones, we conclude that [t] and [ʧ], because they occur in complementary distribution, are allophones of the same phoneme /t/. However, [t] also occurs in complementary distribution with [ʃ] and with [ʒ]. And the same could be said about [s]/ [ʧ], [s]/ [ʒ] and about [z] /[ʧ], /[z]/[ʃ]. What prevents us from arriving at the conclusion that the latter are not allophones of one another is not the criterion of distribution, but of phonetic similarity, as was observed in Module 18 (section18.4.) However, the notion of phonetic similarity is not yet a well-defined criterion, but a working notion for phonologists. In the case of the phones in [t], [ʧ] and [s], [t] is just as much phonetically similar to [ʧ] as is [s]. The following data show that this indeed is so. a. /ʧ/ > /s/ In Assamese and many other Indo-Aryan dialects in the north-east India [ʧ] has changed to [s], e.g. Hindi [ʧa:r] ‘four’, Assamese [sar] ‘four’. The change has taken place in some Dravidian languages, too, e.g. Irula, Kota and Tamil. b. /s/ > /ʧ/ In the Tibeto-Burman languages, Lepcha and Limbu, /s/ changes to [s]. c. [ʧ] ~ [s] in the Dravidian language Ave, [ʧ] and [s] are in . The point that emerges is that there is no clear way in which the notion of phonetic similarity can be defined.

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To buttress the point further, there are also cases of allophones having remote phonetic similarity. For instance, • In the Tibeto-Burman language Chokri, spoken in Nagaland and Manipur, the post-alveolar approximant [ɹ] freely varies with the voiced velar fricative [ɣ]. As the labels for the sounds suggest, they are similar in a much more remote way than, say, [ʧ] and [s]. • The glottal stop [ʔ] is an of a whole array of consonants in different languages- / p t d k ɡ h/. From the Austro-Asiatic family, [ʔ] is an allophone of /t, k/ in Juang, /ɡ/ in Mundari and /h/ in Korku. It is thus difficult to say precisely when two sounds can be said to be phonetically similar and when not. 23.3 Monosystematicity

Figure 23-2: A monolithic structure https://encrypted- tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTfYsDISikqjNdehO1mkVFy9uZ0uiTa_cceZv96gYlafzNGilsA

The basic assumption in phonemic analysis is that a language being described is monosystematic, that is, a single system. All the phonemes of a language can be arrived at by examining their distribution and the criterion of significant contrast. However, languages are constantly evolving, among other reasons, by the process of

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language contact and regional variation. As a result, not all the speech sounds can be analysed decidedly as phonemes or allophones. For example, in Hindi, there are certain sounds which have been borrowed from other languages with which it has come into contact. The voiceless uvular plosive [q] is thus found in the pronunciation of words of Perso-Arabic origin, /qissa:/ ‘story’ and /qətl/ ‘murder’ in the speech of some but not all speakers of Standard Hindi. The words are part of the present-day Hindi. In the speech of these Hindi speakers, /q/ and /k/ contrast, as in [kəmər] ‘waist’ and /qəmər/ ‘(the) moon’. Since the sound is found to contrast in the speech of only some speakers, but not all, do we consider it a phoneme? Similar cases are found in borrowings from English. The vowel [ɔ:] is one such case in words such as [kɔle:ʤ], which freely varies with [a:], [ka:le:ʤ] ‘college’. It is common to find differences of the type described above in the phonemic status of sounds across all languages and communities. Phonemic analysis in the structural approach that we have been discussing in the modules (17-22) assumes that a language is a single system of sounds. In fact, it is more common for languages to have multiple systems. A phonemic analysis is thus best conceived of as restricted to a single homogeneous dialect. As has been suggested above, this is not the normal case. As languages evolve, some sounds remain on the periphery of the phonemic system. They can be described as ‘marginal’ phonemes in a system or left out as belonging to another dialect. As marginal phonemes, the practice is to enclose them in parentheses. For example, the vowels of Hindi are listed as /i, u, ə, i:, u:, a:, e:, o:, æ:, ᴔ: (ɔ:)/. The vowel /ɔ:/ is assumed to have restricted distribution in the language. Examples of fricative consonants from two languages- Santali and Punjabi are given below. As you can see, whereas Santali has a single system, Punjabi has a sub-system in it, shown in parentheses. Fricatives

Places →

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Language↓ Dental Alveolar Post- Retroflex Palatal Glottal Alveolar

Santali s ʂ h

Punjabi (v) s (z) ʃ (x) (ɣ) h

Figure 23-3: Monosystematic and polysystematic Fricatives in Santali and Punjabi.

23.4 Problems in Phonemicization The phonemic principle in Structural phonology (see Module 18, section 18.3) views the phoneme as a minimal contrastive unit of sound. The phoneme cannot be reduced further. This conception of the phoneme was held for a long time, with multiple consequences discussed below. Single segments or sequences of segments? The view of the phoneme as a minimal contrastive unit of sound sometimes led to problems of analysis, when it came to diphthongs among vowels and to complex segments among consonants. With regard to diphthongs, the issue that arises is whether to treat them as single vowels or as sequences of vowels. The principles of phonemic analysis are silent on this issue. There are some points of difference between diphthongs as single vowels and vowel sequences that may prove useful in analysis. One of them is the phonotactic constraint in the language regarding the occurrence of vowel sequences. In a language such as Garo, a diphthong occurs with a hiatus that is, absence of a break, but in a vowel sequence, a glottal stop is inserted, e.g. [mai] < /mai/ ‘what’, but [piʔa] < /pia/ ‘break’. Another point that can help distinguish diphthongs and single vowels is the prosodic phenomena such as stress or tone. For example, in a Tibeto-Burman language, Koiren, stress falls on the final syllable. If the final syllable is a diphthong, then the first vowel is stressed, if

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a sequence of two vowels, then the final vowel is stressed. For example, [ɞˈʧeɪ] ‘to dig’ and [ɞrɪˈek] ‘fat, greese’. A third factor that can help in distinguishing between a diphthong and a sequence of vowels is the presence of all the possible combinations of vowels in the language. Thus, if a language has five vowel /ɪ e ʊ o a/, and if it is found that there are sequences which are combinations of the vowels, such as /ɪe, eɪ, eʊ, ʊe, oʊ, ʊo, aɪ, ɪa/ etc, then, on the basis of the overall pattern of vowels in the language, it is reasonable to assume, as Hayes (2009:57) points out, that there are sequences rather than diphthongs in it. With regard to consonants, the issue relates to complex segments being treated as single phonemes or as clusters. A case in point is aspirated sonorants in Hindi(: [mʱ, nʱ]) and in Magar ([lʱ ŋʱ]). Are they single segments, aspirated sonorants, or sequences of sonorant + h?

A factor that helps the phonologist to decide is segments in question. In Hindi, for instance, there are unaspirated nasals as well as aspirated nasals on the surface- [m n ɳ ]as well as [mʱ nʱ ɳʱ]. The unaspirated nasals occur in all positions. The aspirated nasals, however, never occur word- initially and word-finally, but only word-medially, e.g. [ka:nʱa:] ‘(a name)’, [tumʱa:ra:] ‘your-M- SING’. One can safely assume here that the aspirated nasals /mʱ, nʱ/ are in fact sequences /m/ +/h/ and /n/ + /h/ rather than single phonemes.

Another factor that can help the analysis is the detection of a syllable break between the consonants. Thus in Magar, speakers tend to distinguish aspirated sonorants from Sonorant + /h/ sequences with a syllable break, e.g. /kalʱa/ ‘climbed’ and /laŋ-ha/ ‘village. The benefit of having complex segments treated as sequences rather than as single segments is the smaller number of the segments in the grammar. The question is thus of significance to the issue of simplicity of grammars.

Individual units or natural classes in phonological rules? One of the difficulties with the notion of the phoneme as a minimal contrast unit of sound was that phonological generalizations were made in terms of the individual

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phonemes and allophones. For example, the Tamil rule of voicing, discussed in Module 18. The rule is reproduced below: 23/3 (=18.4)

Tamil Stop Voicing:

/p t t̲ ʈ ʧ k/ à [b d d̲ ʤ ɡ] / [m n n̲ ɳ ɲ]___

The phonemes, the allophones as well as the phones in the contexts of the process were all treated alike in the rule. No relationship among them could be made explicit. The effect was somewhat like that of seeing the trees but missing the wood. The focus on individual phonemes led to the neglect of viewing them as natural classes. Consider, for example, rule 23/3 (=18.4) above. The list of the segments listed as targets (/p t t̲ ʈ ʧ k/), change ([b d d̲ ʤ ɡ] ) and context ([m n n̲ ɳ ɲ]___) are seen without any relation, as they are stated. On a quick consideration, however, it is not difficult to see that they share common phonetic features- voiceless plosives become voiced plosives, when they occur after homorganic nasals, which are voiced. Without the notion of shared phonetic features, rule 23/4 could as well be stated with each segment separately, without any consequence with regard to the claim being made about the processes, e.g. 23/5

/p/ → [b ] / [m] ___

/t/ → [d] / [n] ___

/ t̲ /→ [d̲] / [n̲] ___

/ʈ/ → [ɖ] / [ɳ] ___

/ʧ/ → [ʤ] / [ɲ] ___

/ k/ →/ [ɡ] / [ŋ] __

It is the assumption that segments that undergo a phonological process share phonetic features that led phonologists to give up segments and resorted to stating them as bundles

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of distinctive features. We will look at distinctive features in greater detail in Modules 29- 31.

23.5 Principle of Biuniqueness

One of guiding principles of structural phonemic analysis was the principle of

BIUNIQUENESS. A phonemic system is considered biunique there is a one-to-one relation between a phoneme and its allophones. A phoneme is known to be realized as an allophone in given contexts. There is no ambiguity in the mapping between an allophone and a phoneme. For instance, we looked at the allophones of the phoneme/l/ in English in Module 19; these are [ɫ], [l]̥ and [l]. The relation between /l/ and its allophones can be represented as in 23/6:

23/6

/l/

[l] [ɫ] [l]

The relations between the allophones [ɫ], [l],̥ [l] and the phoneme /l/ in English are biunique; looking at an allophone it is known which phoneme it comes from and given a phoneme it is known what its allophones are. Not all phoneme- allophone relations, however, are as simple. Sounds that are in contrastive relation in one context may not contrast in another context. For instance, in Malayalam, the voiceless and voiced stops /p b t d ʈ ɖ ʧ ʤ k ɡ/ maintain a contrast word-initially and word-finally, but not word-medially between vowels or after nasals. Thus the phonemes /p/ and /b/ contrast in 23/7(a), but not in 23/7(b) 23/7 (a) [pa:la] ‘(a kind of tree)’ [ba:la] ‘(a) child]

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(b) /ʧəmpa/ → [ʧəmba] /əmba/ → [əmba]

The distinction between the voiced and voiceless plosives is neutralized word-medially, giving rise to the following relation between the phonemes and their allophones: 23/8

/p/ /b/

[p] [b]

The biuniqueness principle is violated in 23/8 thus: /p/ and [p] relation is unambiguous, but /p/ and [b] relation is ambiguous, as [b] is related to both /p/ and /b/. Looking at [b] it cannot be predicted of which phoneme it is an allophone. Phonological descriptions with relations shown in 23/8 violate biuniqueness and were unacceptable, contrary to the reality of phoneme-allophone relation between sounds in languages such as Malayalam. Examples of neutralization are found in a large number of languages, and thus the principle of biuniqueness needed to be questioned. 23.6 Morphophonemics and separation of levels The principle of biuniqueness was supported by another central tenet of structural phonology- there is strict separation between the levels of linguistic analysis. The structuralist model of grammar is presented in 23-4.

Morphological component (morphological rules)

Morphophonemic component (morphophonemic rules)

Phonemic component (phonological rules)

Phonetic component

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Figure 23-4: Structuralist model of grammar

Structural linguists assumed that linguistic analysis should be carried out “bottom up”, that is starting with the phonetic component, and moving on to the phonemic component, then to the morphophonemic component and then to the morphological component. In the process of the analysis, information from a higher level should not be used at a linguistic analysis at the lower level. Phonemic analysis thus could not use information from the morphophonemic component. A majority of cases of neutralization were of interest to the morphophonemic component, as it is there that they were found to be in productive use. The neutralization rule of voicing in Malayalam is thus attested in the morphophonemic component involving word- formation, as in the examples in 23/9: 23/9

/pa:la/ [pa:la] ‘tree’ /e:ʐilampa:la/ [ˈe:ʐilamba:la] ‘A type of banyan tree’

It is in the morphophonemic component that rules involving morphological information could be described. However, sometimes there are allophonic processes that are related to morphophonemic processes. The relationship can be of two types. One type of relation between an allophonic process and a morphophonemic process is found where the allophonic rule may depend on a morphophonemic rule. For example, in English, there is an allophonic rule of aspiration, which aspirates voiceless stops if they occur initially in stressed syllables when not followed by [s], as in 23/10 23/10

/peɪpər/ [ˈpʰeɪpə] ‘paper’

/əpəʊz/ [əˈpʰəʊz] ‘oppose’

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The problem here is that stress in English is a morphophonemic phenomenon, as it partly depends on the parts of speech of the word, e.g. [prəˈdju:s] ‘produce (verb)’, [ˈpʰrɒdju:s] ‘produce (noun)’, [ˈreblˌ] ‘rebel (noun), [rɪˈbeɫ] ‘rebel (verb)’, etc. In order to describe the rule of aspiration, it is necessary to first describe the rule of stress. Whereas the rule of aspiration is an allophonic rule of the phonemic component, the rule of stress is a morphophonemic rule of the morphophonemic component. This is problem for the prohibition against mixing of levels. The other type of relation between an allophonic process and a morphophonemic process is that they involve identical contexts, and thus there is no difference between them. The case of the rule of voicing of stops in Malayalam is of that kind. The examples in 23/7 (b) and 23/9 show that the allophonic rule and the morphophonemic rule of voicing must be stated in an identical way. With the prohibition against mixing of levels, the rules must be described twice- as an allophonic process in the phonemic component and as a morphophonemic process in the morphophonemic component. In a famous paper entitled ‘Phonology in generative grammar’ (1962), Morris Halle showed that a similar (but not the same) rule of voicing in Russian was needed for allophones, as well as for morphophonemes. By writing the rules twice in the grammar, little is achieved, the grammar is longer and the separation of the levels fails to show the generalization that the two are in fact one rule. A discussion of the data on Russian stop voicing is presented in Module 32, which introduces the theory of generative phonology.

23.7 Summary In this module, we looked closely at the problems in phonemic analysis. These involve the following: insufficiency of the notions of phonetic substance and significant contrast, monosystematicity, phonemicization, principle of Biuniqueness and separation of levels. These are some of the issues that were problematic in arriving at significant phonological generalizations and thus needed to be either abandoned or revised. Interestingly, the notion of the phoneme as a contrastive unit of sound is still an important working notion, as are

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the principles of phonemic analysis. At a certain level of description, they are still needed. In this module, because of lack of space, we have not been able to discuss the notions of neutralization in greater detail, including the proposals to account for them by means of other notions such as the Archiphoneme. We take them up briefly in Module 32.

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