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The Role and Representation of Contrast in Phonological Theory

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The Role and Representation of Contrast in Phonological Theory The Role and Representation of Contrast in Phonological Theory Daniel Currie Hall A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics University of Toronto c Copyright by Daniel Currie Hall, 2007 The Role and Representation of Contrast in Phonological Theory Daniel Currie Hall Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics University of Toronto 2007 Abstract This dissertation deals with the role of phonemic contrast in determining the featural content of phonological relations, and with the relation between phonemic and phonetic contrasts. Chapter one provides an introduction to the contrastivist hypothesis, which holds that phonological computation operates only on those features necessary to dis- tinguish the phonemes of a language from one another, and argues that the Continuous Dichotomy Hypothesis of Dresher, Piggott, and Rice (1994) provides the best means of identifying features as contrastive or redundant. The next two chapters analyze data on voicing assimilation in Czech, Slovak, Polish, and Russian (chapter 2), and on vowel harmony in Yowlumne and Pulaar (chapter 3) that present particular challenges to the contrastivist hypothesis; here it is argued that although redundant features are sometimes crucially present in phonological representations, they do not need to be phonologically active. The data are analyzed using contrastive specifications supplemented by the novel device of prophylactic features, which are redundant features carrying information that is necessary for the phonetic realization of segments, but not for the phonological com- putation itself. Along the way, comparisons are drawn with analyses that incorporate more detailed phonetic information into the phonological representations, and the advan- tages of the underspecification approach are revealed. Chapter 4 considers the interaction ii between phonemic contrast and phonetic distinctness in determining the shapes of phono- logical inventories. It offers a critical view of some phonetically-oriented approaches, and presents as an alternative a view in which abstract and minimal phonological represen- tations of phonemic contrasts lead to phonetically distinct surface realizations through the synchronic mechanism of phonetic enhancement and the diachronic influence of the acquisition procedure. Finally, chapter 5 explores the degree to which contrastive spec- ification is compatible with Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993). Some of the insights of the contrastivist hypothesis can be maintained in Optimality Theory through the translation of a contrastive feature hierarchy into a constraint ranking, but contrastive specification is ultimately at odds with the Optimality Theoretic principle of Richness of the Base and the assumptions that underlie it. The main points of the dissertation are summarized in chapter 6. iii Acknowledgements In a suitable temperature, an egg becomes a chicken, and there are no chickens born of stones. facetiously attributed to Mao Zedong by G. B. Trudeau Many people have helped to incubate such eggs as have successfully hatched in this dissertation, and I would like to acknowledge here their contributions to the necessary temperature. If any parts of this thesis have failed to come to poultrition, it is surely not for want of warmth, and the fault in such cases is mine for having supplied rocks in place of fertile ova. Still, one can always hope that any such warmed-over pebbles may yet become the foundation of a hearty batch of stone soup to be cooked up in future research. (And even typos may have their uses, as witness the fifteenth-century Polish legal scribe mentioned on page 79.) Foremost among the incubators, of course, is my supervisor, Elan Dresher, or, as he is known to his colleagues in the departmental band, the Maestro. His work on contrast has supplied the inspiration and the theoretical basis for the ideas that I have pursued in this thesis, and his counsel and encouragement have made it possible for me to write it. Furthermore, his intellectual delight in wrestling with tricky conceptual problems is infectious, and has made our discussions about this dissertation, and about phonology in general, not only fruitful but a great deal of fun. During my career as a graduate student, I have also had the good fortune to play music with Elan, and to serve with him on SGS Council, and I feel that I have learned a great deal from him not only as a linguist, but also as an academic more generally, and as a musician. In all his various roles, he is above all else a mensch. Of the members of my supervisory committee, Keren Rice has the distinction of having been involved with this dissertation the longest, for my work on Czech voicing assimilation, which forms the core of chapter 2, had its first beginnings as a paper written for her intermediate phonology course. Keren saw before I did how those early ideas might iv develop into something more mature and substantial, and I am grateful to her for all that she has done to help them get there. Anyone who is surprised to see the name of a syntactician on the supervisory committee for a dissertation in phonology does not know Elizabeth Cowper very well. She has a truly impressive ability to see almost immediately the consequences of any suf- ficiently clearly stated theoretical proposal, and as a non-phonologist, she has a licence to ask the sorts of ‘na¨ıve’ questions that force one to examine and justify one’s assumptions. In addition, our joint work on morphosyntactic feature geometry has given me a larger theoretical context for some of the questions addressed in this dissertation, and her moral support and high editorial standards played an important role in how, and how well, it got written. I am also very grateful to Peter Avery, of York University, and Sharon Inkelas, of the University of California, Berkeley, for agreeing to read this dissertation and to serve on the examination committee. Each of them has published work that has had an important influence on how I think about phonology, and it was a great pleasure and privilege to talk with them at the defence; their comments there will be an important source of inspiration in my future work. (I am also grateful to Sharon for providing me with the more recent version of her work on archiphonemic underspecification, and to Peter for rides to the CLA, Jewel notwithstanding.) Many other people who have taught me over the years have had an important influence, direct or indirect, on the eventual production of this document. I would like in particular to thank Ed Burstynsky, Philip Hamilton, and Mirco Ghini, who taught me in LIN 100 and got me hooked on linguistics in the first place; Veronika Ambros, who introduced me to the Prague School, raised my standards of scholarly rigour, and also provided some of the Czech data in chapter 2; Peter Reich, who aided my transformation into a graduate student and a Macintosh user; Diane Massam, who as graduate coordinator helped me get through the apparently inevitable crisis of v confidence that afflicts students in November of their M.A. year; Jack Chambers, whose encouragement resulted in my first refereed publication; Bill Idsardi, who, as a visiting professor, supervised my generals paper in phonology and gave me an excuse to revisit my first home in Toronto; and Alana Johns, who has been a continual source of interesting discussion, database-engineering gigs, and hospitality. One very important part of my life in the Department of Linguistics has been F-Zero, the departmental band.1 I’d like to thank everyone in our current lineup (the Maestro on guitar, harmonica, recorders, accordion, banjitar, spoons, and bonhomme gigueur; Elizabeth Cowper on keyboard, guitar, and recorder; Michael Szamosi on percussion; Christina Kramer on clarinet and saxophone; Manami Hirayama on flute; Bridget Jankowski on French horn; and Sarah Clarke on violin), and also everyone who has played with us in the past (too numerous to list here), for a lot of convivial music-making that has helped to keep me sane (or at least happy) over the years and given me something to say when people ask what I do besides linguistics. To be a graduate student in linguistics at the University of Toronto is to be a member of a wonderfully collegial cohort that is more than the sum of its parts, which is saying a lot. I am grateful to everyone who has been part of this magical group in my time here, and in particular to Susana B´ejar, my M.A.-year twin, who has always been a wonderful person with whom to talk about linguistics, play music, or go hat-shopping in the desert; to Chiara Frigeni, for inviting me to collaborate on her work on Shona, and for being the Beatrice (or Virgil, depending on your point of view) who guided my first steps into the realm of LATEX (a tool without which this dissertation would have been a nightmare to format); to David Bennett, who was my mentor in my first year as a graduate student; to Jean Balcaen, Naomi Cull, and Do-Hee (“Not Carl”) Jung for helpful discussion of Yowlumne; and to Sara Mackenzie for sharing her work 0 1. For the record, the ambiguity between F0 (fundamental frequency) and F (head of a Focus projection) is deliberate. vi on Luo and Nez Perce. I would also like to thank all the members of the phonology group and the syntax group for providing two especially good environments in which to share ideas. Finally, I would like to express my deep and abiding gratitude to my family. It would be facile, but not false, to say that I learned to care about language from my mother, Carolyn Park Currie, who is an editor and a translator, and that I learned argumentation from my father, John T.
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