The Prosodic Structure of Finnish and the Theory Of
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THE PROSODIC STRUCTURE OF FINNISH AND THE THEORY OF PHONOLOGICAL GOVERNMENT by DAVID MILLARD BMus, The University of Victoria, 1982 Diploma in Applied Linguistics, The University of British Columbia, 1985 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Department of Linguistics) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA December 1991 © David Millard, 1991 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of Linguistics The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada Date December 30, 1991 DE-6 (2/88) The Prosodic Structure of Finnish and the Theory of Phonological Government by David Millard Submitted September 1991 to the Department of Linguistics, UBC, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. ABSTRACT The goal of this thesis is to examine same of the claims of the Theory of Phonological Government in the light of data taken from the Finnish language. The Theory of Phonological Government describes the oraganization of segments into constituent groupings on the basis of government relations established at the level of Underlying Represen- tation. These prosodic constituents are related to each other, again in terms of government. While these prosodic constituents are functionally similar to traditional notions of the syllable, division of a surface string into syllables does not necessarily yield the relations predicted by the theory. Government Theory, then, makes predictions which are different from those of other syllable theories and these predictions can be tested. The Finnish language exhibits a number of phonological proces- ses that are sensitive to prosodic structure and thus offers an excellent test case for the theory. Chapter One presents an overview of the theory and the predictions it makes. Chapter Two examines same general phonological characteristics of Finnish. In Chapter Three I examine two prosodically-influenced segmental ii deletion processes that interact with each other and shows how Government Theory accounts for than in a principled fashion with minimal appeal to specific 'rules' of deletion. In Chapter Four I examine the process of Consonant Gradation, a mutation process that is driven by syllable structure. In Chapter Five I demonstrate that certain surface strings of segments that appear to be CVVC and CVCC syllables are best treated as being other than syllables and show how the theory not only accounts for the data but also predicts the existence of such non-syllabic strings. Finally, in Chapter Six I resume the discussion of Consonant Gradation and examine the nature of some exceptional gradation forms, showing how the theory accounts for these more unusual forms. Thesis supervisor: Professor P. A. Shaw iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii INTRODUCTION 1 Notes to the Introduction 3 CHAPTER ONE - The Theory of Phonological Government 4 1.1 The Structure of Segments 4 1.2 Representations of Phonological Structure 6 1.3 Prosodic Constituents 7 1.4 The Governing Properties of Segments 10 1.5 Government between Neutral Segments 11 1.6 The Relation of Segments to Prosodic Categories . 12 1.7 The Generation of Prosodic Structure 14 Notes to Chapter One 16 CHAPTER TWO - The Sound Pattern of Finnish 18 2.1 Consonant Sequences 18 2.2 Stress 22 Notes to Chapter Two 24 iv CHAPTER THREE - The Deletion of Segments 26 3.1 Two Segmental Deletion Processes 26 3.2 e-Deletion 27 3.3 Empty Categories and Phonological Government 28 3.4 t-Deletion 35 Notes to Chapter Three 40 CHAPTER FOUR - Consonant Gradation 41 4.1 General Features of Consonant Gradation 41 4.2 The Nature of Consonant Gradation 42 Notes to Chapter Four 48 CHAPTER FIVE - WC and VCC Groupings 50 5.1 CVVC and CVCC Non-syllables 50 5.2 CVCC Sequences 51 5.3 Monanoraic Sequences 53 5.4 Monomoraic Vowel-Sonorant Sequences 56 5.5 CVVC Sequences 59 5.6 The Derivation of Doubling Forms 63 Notes to Chapter Five 72 CHAPTER SIX - Further Aspects of Consonant Gradation 76 6.1 Same Exceptions to Consonant Gradation 76 6.2 Some Remarks on Glide Formation 79 Notes to Chapter Six 82 CONCLUSION 83 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS While I have endeavoured to avoid the use of abbreviations it has been necessary for the sake of space to use some abbreviations in the examples and derivations. Standard linguistic abbreviations have been included here for the sake of completeness. ant anterior ATR Advanced Tongue Root C consonant cont continuant cor coronal ECP Empty Category Principle ess. essive case F metrical foot gen. genitive case ICG Interconstituent Government illative case lab labial M metrical word m mora N Nucleus node nam. nominative case O Onset node part. partitive case pl. plural R Rime node s strong (branch of a metrical structure) d syllable SCG Subconstituent Government sg. singular son sonorant transl. translative case ✓ vowel V: long vowel voi voiced w weak (branch of a metrical structure) vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is difficult to assess, after four years, which of the many people who have influenced the writing of this thesis made which particular con- tribution. I shall have to offer most of my friends and fellow students a 'global' statement of thanks--otherwise, the list of names would be pro- hibitively long. Among the instructors and faculty members outside my thesis commit- tee, I must single out Drs. Glyne Piggott, Zita MbRobbie, Ewa Czaykowska- Higgins, and Charles Ulrich. To them I owe much of my grounding in phonology and not a few warnings about the pitfalls of working in a non- standard framework. If I chose to ignore those warnings, it is no reflec- tion on their powers of persuasion. I would also like to thank Dr. Guy Carden who more than once banished an administrative difficulty for me and who, incidentally, first introduced me to the intricacies of Finnish phonology. To the non-supervisory members of my committee, Drs. M. D. Kinkade and Juta Kitching, I offer my heartfelt thanks not only for their comments and suggestions, but also for their patience in putting up with my somewhat unorthodox work habits. Needless to say, they do not agree with everything I have to say, but this thesis would nonetheless be poorer were it not for their influence. To my supervisor, Dr. Patricia Shaw, I cannot offer enough thanks for her instruction, her encouragement, her patience and her energy on my behalf. I owe any right to call myself a phonologist to her. Again, while she does not agree with everything I say, this thesis simply could not have been written without her. Finally, I must acknowledge my family, whose lives have all been touched in one way or another by the writing of this thesis, and all of wham offered 'gentle reminders' to me to finish writing it. This thesis is dedicated to the menory of my mother, Peggy Millard, who never even knew I had taken up linguistics but who always supported me in my past endeavours. vii INTRODUCTION In a paper entitled "Generative Phonology vs. Finnish Phonology" Lyle Campbell states that "[t]heory and data are in a trading relation (the so- called hermeneutic circle or spiral). That is, the theory explains the data, but a particular set of data (a language) described in terms of the theory may reveal inadequacies in the theory which lead to revisions." (Campbell 1981; 147). He then goes on to argue that Finnish is a language rich in theoretical test cases and has a history of exposing inadequacies in generative phonological theory. Generative Phonology has seen many changes since the publication of that paper, but the somewhat jocular title still carries same weight. Finnish remains a good language for testing phonological theories and while advances in Generative Phonology, particularly in the areas of autosegmental representation and syllable structure, have made Finnish more amenable to phonological explanation, the problems set by Finnish have by no means all been solved. This thesis will focus on some of the problems associated with the prosodic structure of Finnish. Finnish has a number of processes that are sensitive to prosodic structure, ranging from a series of deletions and their various effects to the weakening process of Consonant Gradation which is sensitive to the structure of the Rime. I cannot claim to have resolved all the issues of all these processes, but I am able to sketch the form that such a solution must take. As these processes are sensitive to what may be termed informally 'syllable structure', any account of them must, therefore, be undertaken in the context of a well-articulated theory of syllable structure. I will investigate the contribution that one syllable theory, the theory of Phonological Government presented by Kaye, Lowenstamr and Vergnaud (1989) has to make toward the understanding of 1 a number of phonological problems in Finnishl. I shall also argue that the theory of Phonological Government makes a number of non-standard predictions and assumptions that account for the Finnish data in an ele- gant fashion. In the first chapter of this thesis I shall outline the theoretical assumptions I shall be using. The second chapter will present some of the phonological characteristics of Finnish and demonstrate how the theory can be applied to describe them.