The Effects of Duration and Sonority on Contour Tone Distribution— Typological Survey and Formal Analysis Jie Zhang For my family Table of Contents Acknowledgments xi 1 Background 3 1.1 Two Examples of Contour Tone Distribution 3 1.1.1 Contour Tones on Long Vowels Only 3 1.1.2 Contour Tones on Stressed Syllables Only 8 1.2 Questions Raised by the Examples 9 1.3 How This Work Evaluates The Different Predictions 11 1.3.1 A Survey of Contour Tone Distribution 11 1.3.2 Instrumental Case Studies 11 1.4 Putting Contour Tone Distribution in a Bigger Picture 13 1.4.1 Phonetically-Driven Phonology 13 1.4.2 Positional Prominence 14 1.4.3 Competing Approaches to Positional Prominence 16 1.5 Outline 20 2 The Phonetics of Contour Tones 23 2.1 Overview 23 2.2 The Importance of Sonority for Contour Tone Bearing 23 2.3 The Importance of Duration for Contour Tone Bearing 24 2.4 The Irrelevance of Onsets to Contour Tone Bearing 26 2.5 Local Conclusion 27 3 Empirical Predictions of Different Approaches 29 3.1 Overview 29 3.2 Defining CCONTOUR and Tonal Complexity 29 3.3 Phonological Factors That Influence Duration and Sonority of the Rime 32 3.4 Predictions of Contour Tone Distribution by Different Approaches 34 3.4.1 The Direct Approach 34 3.4.2 Contrast-Specific Positional Markedness 38 3.4.3 General-Purpose Positional Markedness 41 vii viii Table of Contents 3.4.4 The Moraic Approach 42 3.5 Local Conclusion 43 4 The Role of Contrast-Specific Phonetics in Contour Tone Distribution: A Survey 45 4.1 Overview of the Survey 45 4.2 Segmental Composition 48 4.2.1 General Observations 48 4.2.2 Example Languages 52 4.2.3 Local Conclusion: Segmental Effects 61 4.3 Stress 62 4.3.1 General Observations 62 4.3.2 Example Languages 64 4.3.3 Local Conclusion: Stress Effects 69 4.4 Prosodic-Final Position 70 4.4.1 General Observations 70 4.4.2 Example Languages 71 4.4.3 Local Conclusion: Final Effects 75 4.5 Number of Syllables in the Word 78 4.5.1 General Observations 78 4.5.2 Example Languages 79 4.5.3 Local Conclusion: Syllable Count Effects 86 4.6 Other Distributional Properties and Exceptions 87 4.6.1 Other Distributional Properties 87 4.6.2 Durational Factors Not Reflected in the Contour Tone Survey 91 4.6.3 Languages with No Clearly Documented Contour Tone Restrictions 94 4.6.4 Exceptions 95 4.7 Interim Conclusion 96 4.8 Prospectus 98 5 The Role of Language-Specific Phonetics in Contour Tone Distribution: Instrumental Studies 101 5.1 Identifying Relevant Languages 101 5.2 Instrumental Studies 103 5.2.1 Xhosa 103 5.2.2 Beijing Chinese 107 5.2.3 Standard Thai 110 5.2.4 Cantonese 114 5.2.5 Navajo 116 5.2.6 Somali 120 5.3 Lama and KOnni 121 5.4 General Discussion 125 Table of Contents ix 6 Against Structure-Only Alternatives 6.1 The Moraic Approach 127 6.1.1 The Roles of the Mora in Phonology 127 6.1.2 Advantages of Prosodic-Final Syllables and Syllables in Shorter Words 129 6.1.3 Levels of Distinction 130 6.1.4 Differences among Tones with the Same Number of Pitch Targets 132 6.1.5 The Size of Tonal Inventory of Different Syllable Types 137 6.1.6 Moraic Inconsistency 140 6.1.7 Indirect Evidence: Diphthong Distribution 146 6.1.8 Local Conclusion 149 6.2 The Melody Mapping Approach 149 6.2.1 Two Types of Tone Languages 150 6.2.2 Non-Distinctive Tonal Association—An Analysis of Kukuya 154 6.2.3 Distinctive Tonal Association—An Analysis of Mende 163 6.2.4 Local Conclusion 169 6.3 Interim Conclusion 169 7 A Phonetically-Driven Optimality-Theoretic Approach 171 7.1 Setting the Stage 171 7.1.1 Positional Faithfulness vs. Positional Markedness 171 7.1.2 Overview of the Theoretical Apparatus 180 7.2 Constraints and Their Intrinsic Rankings Projected from Phonetics 181 7.2.1 *CONTOUR(x)-CCONTOUR(y) 181 7.2.2 *DURATION 184 7.2.3 PRESERVE(tone) 188 7.3 Assumptions Made in the Model 194 7.4 Factorial Typology 198 7.4.1 No Change Necessary 198 7.4.2 Partial Contour Reduction 199 7.4.3 Complete Contour Reduction 200 7.4.4 Interim Summary 201 7.4.5 Non-Neutralizing Lengthening 202 7.4.6 Neutralizing Lengthening 203 7.4.7 Interim Summary 204 7.4.8 Contour Reduction + Rime Lengthening 205 7.4.9 Summary 206 8 Case Studies 8.1 Pingyao Chinese 213 8.2 Xhosa 215 x Table of Contents 8.3 Mitla Zapotec 219 8.4 Gã 221 8.5 Hausa 227 8.6 Local Conclusion 232 9 Conclusion 233 Appendix: Data Sources for Languages in the Survey 235 References 247 Index 277 Acknowledgments For someone who had not the slightly idea what a fricative was a few years back, this has been quite a journey… There are many people who have helped me throughout this journey and made my years of going through the process the most fulfilling years of my life. But first and foremost, my thanks go to my teacher Donca Steriade. Donca is the kind of advisor that every student dreams to have. The ideas in this work were formed from many many hours of discussion in her office, with her clarifying or challenging every one of my arguments (or lack thereof). I thank her for her unparalleled intelligence, which has guided me through empirical and theoretical puzzles; her motherly concern for every one of my career moves, be it a conference presentation, a written-up paper, or a job interview; her contagious love of linguistics, which I have fortunately contracted. And I thank her for never losing faith in me, even after drafts after drafts of writing that are ‘simply abhorrent’. Donca Steriade is far beyond just a great linguist and a great teacher. She is a real mensch in every sense of the word. It is a great honor to be her student. My deepest gratitude also goes to Bruce Hayes, who enthralled me with the beauty of phonology as a scientific pursuit in my first ever phonology class. He has remained supportive throughout my graduate career. His influence on me, not only as a phonologist, but also as a scientist, is profound. I will forever remember the trepidation every time I go into his office for an appointment, anticipating all the hard questions he will ask. There are still many of his questions for which I have no answers. These questions will not be forgotten. They will guide me throughout my career. Special thanks also go to Sun-Ah Jun, Ian Maddieson, Donka Minkova, and Moira Yip: Sun-Ah for teaching me phonetics; Ian for being an encyclopedia of data and always demanding my best work; Donka for her extremely careful reading of this work and detailed feedback; and Moira for many helpful discussions on issues related to this work. I thank all the speakers that participated in my phonetic experiments: Alhaji Gimba, Virgie Kee, Haiyong Liu, Elton Naswood, Yiem Sunbhanich, and xi xii Acknowledgments Viphavee Vongpumivitch. I am also grateful to Russ Schuh and Aaron Shryock for answering my questions about Chadic languages. To all my teachers at UCLA, thank you for all you have taught me, linguistics and otherwise. In particular: Susie Curtis, Pat Keating, Ed Keenan, Hilda Koopman, Peter and Jenny Ladefoged, Pam Munro, and Colin Wilson. To my friends and colleagues, thank you for your support: Victoria Anderson, Heriberto Avelino, Marco Baroni, Roger Billerey-Mosier, Rebecca Brown, Leston Buell, Elena Suet-Ying Chiu, Melissa Epstein, Christina Foreman, John Foreman, Daniel Hole, Chai-Shune Hsu, Amanda Jones, Jongho Jun, Sahyang Kim, Natasha Levy, Ying Lin, Haiyong Liu, Patrick Manalastas, Amy Schafer, Wendy Swartz, Siri Tuttle, Motoko Ueyama, Yihua Wang, Richard Wright, Kie Zuraw… Special thanks to Matt Gordon, for many long discussions on tone and stress, and for setting a high standard for me to follow; and to Taehong Cho, for your inspirational diligence, for keeping me company during late-night lab sessions, and for feeding me delicious Korean food. Very special thanks to Adam Albright, Ivano Caponigro, and Harold Torrence, for the wonderful dinner parties, tea times, and movie outings. Without you, my years at UCLA would have been much less happy. To Umberto Ansaldo, a very special friend: Thank you for your emails and phone calls. It is amazing how much one can benefit from the emotional support of a friend so far away. To Dan Silverman: Thank you for your patience, your trust, your humor, and your encouragement. To Judson (aka Suan@ Suan):@ What you have done for me over the years is too much to be thanked for, so I won’t. Instead, now I am ready to tell you what this work is all about. Finally, I thank my family—Shen Shi-Guang, Shen Huan, Zhang Ze-Quan, Zhang Yang, Lü Hong, Zhang Chao-Min, and my departed grandmother Chen Jing-Ding—for respecting my choice of switching from EE, in which I could have had a lucrative career, to linguistics, in which I might starve to death. In particular, I thank my aunt Shen Shi-Guang, for being there for me every single minute of my life and never asking for pay-backs. This work is dedicated to all of you.