Vowels of Romanian: Historical, Phonological and Phonetic Studies
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VOWELS OF ROMANIAN: HISTORICAL, PHONOLOGICAL AND PHONETIC STUDIES A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Margaret Elspeth Lambert Renwick May 2012 © 2012 Margaret Elspeth Lambert Renwick VOWELS OF ROMANIAN: HISTORICAL, PHONOLOGICAL AND PHONETIC STUDIES Margaret Elspeth Lambert Renwick, Ph. D. Cornell University 2012 This dissertation investigates the Romanian vowel system from historical, phonological and phonetic perspectives, centering on marginal contrasts, in which a sharp distinction between allophones and phonemes is insufficient to capture the relationships among sounds. Study of both morpho-phonological alternations and synchronic phonetics is necessary to understand the forces driving the phonemic system of Romanian, which is under-studied with respect to other Romance languages. The dissertation first investigates a historically-based phonological question. In the history of Romanian /ɨ/, it is shown that a combination of native phonological processes and borrowings shaped the vowel’s distribution, and although /ɨ/ is synchronically phonemic it remains restricted to a small set of phonologically- determined contexts. A quantitative synchronic counterpart to this study describes relative type frequency among Romanian phonemes, and argues that /ɨ/, as well as diphthongs /e̯ a/ and /o̯ a/, are marginally contrastive in the language. They have very low type frequency, and their distribution can almost be predicted, although minimal pairs demonstrate their status as phonemes. While /ɨ/ lies in a pairwise relationship of marginal contrast with its former allophone /ʌ/, the diphthongs’ contrastiveness is reduced by their large role in the morphology. Turning to the acoustics of the Romanian vowel system, a phonetic study shows the positioning of monophthongs and diphthongs in the Romanian vowel space, as well as their durational characteristics. The central vowels /ɨ/ and /ʌ/ are shown to be acoustically distinct; additionally, two pilot perceptual experiments investigate the relationship between these vowels’ marginal contrastiveness and their perception. A second study, which compares coarticulation in Romanian and Italian, examines vowels’ characteristics as a function of phonetic context. Disparities in magnitudes of coarticulation across contexts and languages are argued to parallel phonological differences between the two languages. These differences additionally have implications for models of the relationship between inventory size and acoustic vowel space. The dissertation emphasizes the interrelations between phonetics and phonology, and demonstrates the influence of morphology on phonological contrasts and phonetic processes in Romanian. In conclusion, a model is proposed for comparing the relative influences of lexical contrast, relative frequency, and morphology on the members of a phonological system. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Margaret Elspeth Lambert Renwick was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey where she lived until age 4, when her family moved to Oxford, Ohio. In the second grade, she chose the nickname Peggy. She graduated from Talawanda High School and attended Wellesley College, where she double-majored in Cognitive & Linguistic Sciences and Italian Studies and graduated magna cum laude in 2004. During that time she also began her investigations of phonetics and phonology while working in the Speech Communication Group at MIT. Nourishing a passion for cave exploration, she lived and worked in (and underneath) the Black Hills of South Dakota and in Kentucky before entering the Linguistics Ph.D. program at Cornell University in 2006. v Dedicated to the Lambert and Renwick families, who share with me an intellectual tradition and a passion for exploration. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Earning a Ph.D. is a process, and while in the end only the candidate can complete it, I cannot imagine undertaking it alone. I offer my gratitude to those who have helped me arrive at this point. My Special Committee has provided not only guidance and support, but also an academic framework into which to grow, and I thank each member for her or his contributions during my time at Cornell. I thank Abby Cohn for her willingness to work closely with me and to provide the kind of feedback I needed throughout my career at Cornell. I am profoundly grateful for all the roles she has filled for me, among them advisor, employer, and friend. With Abby’s advice and example, I am learning the value of proper framing in all aspects of my life. Draga Zec has been an integral part of my linguistics career since I arrived at Cornell, and she has offered invaluable methodological advice and helpful feedback on my dissertation, whose sometimes disparate topics are more richly linked thanks to Draga’s deep fonts of knowledge. To Carol Rosen goes credit for the initial questions that inspired this dissertation; additionally she facilitated my fieldwork in Romania through her friendships there, and taught me the basics of Romanian phonology and grammar. I am immensely honored to have worked with Carol, who simply put is the best teacher I’ve ever had. Ioana Chiţoran has provided expert methodological and conceptual support for the experimental portions of this dissertation, working tirelessly and often across great distances to help me develop stimuli for the production and perception studies. I am vii grateful for her enthusiasm towards my work, encouraging new perspectives on questions she raised in her own dissertation at Cornell. Sam Tilsen has greatly improved the empirical value of my dissertation with his deep knowledge of statistical analysis. I thank him for setting the experimental work on firmer ground, and for looking at the results from different angles in order to determine the full extent of their implications for linguistic modeling. Each member of my Special Committee has made vital contributions to this dissertation, and has helped guide me through the Ph.D. process and towards the next steps in my career. Besides these five official advisors, I thank Stefanie Shattuck- Hufnagel, who has patiently mentored, encouraged and inspired me since I worked with her at MIT’s Speech Communication Group. I also thank Michael Wagner for advising me during my first years at Cornell. Outside of my committee, I have been grateful for the departmental support offered by Angie Tinti, Sheila Haddad, and Phani Love; and within the Phonetics Lab, my experimental work was made much smoother by the helpful presence of Eric Evans. My fieldwork in Romania would not have been possible without support from the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and the Graduate School at Cornell University, which provided funding for research travel and summer language instruction at Indiana University’s SWSEEL program. I could not have had a successful trip to Romania without assistance from the Faculty of Letters at Babeş- Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca. I am profoundly grateful for the warm and generous welcome of Ştefan, Liana and Andy Oltean, the Cîmpean family, and the tireless efforts of Adriana Todea. I also thank the faculty and staff of the Alpha Center for Modern Languages for hosting me, and the staff of the Erasmus program in Cluj for inviting me on their cultural excursions. Of course, the experiments in this dissertation could not have taken place without the sixty-odd cheerful and patient viii native speakers of Romanian and Italian who participated. Among these I recognize especially Catalina Iricinschi, who enthusiastically returned to the Phonetics Lab each time a new study was hatched, and also collected some of the initial data during a trip home. My years at Cornell have been enriched by time spent with colleagues and friends in Ithaca, the Linguistics and Romance Studies Departments, and the Cornell Outing Club. Ben Currens has been there to support and encourage me at each step of the way, and I thank him for believing in me. I am very glad to have befriended Becky Butler, who has always been ready to listen, to bounce ideas back and forth, to offer a reality check, or to do none of these things and take an evening off together. I also have Becky to thank for the nickname Hank, which quite intentionally sounds like neither of our names. I am grateful for the friendship of fellow linguists Tova Katzir, Serena Crivellaro, Jo Johnson, Johanna Brugman, Cliff Crawford, Julie Balazs, Kyle Grove, Neil Ashton, Seongyeon Ko, Anca Cherecheş, and the Cornell Linguistic Circle. My last summer in Ithaca, as well as my time as an Italian TA, was made immeasurably more pleasant by the company of Elisabeth Fay and Lorenzo Fabbri; and many evenings were brightened by the culinary genius and hospitality of Michela Baraldi. I also thank my best far-flung friends, Molly Dorfman and Tara Perkins, the delightful travel buddies and companions whom I miss. Although my family was often far away while I’ve been in graduate school, they are intimately connected to my experience there. My path towards a Ph.D. goes back two generations, to my geographer parents Hilary Lambert and Bill Renwick; and to my professor grandfathers Ralph Renwick and Bill Lambert, who offered this wisdom: “Just get the Ph.D., and then you can do whatever you want.” Throughout my time in graduate school, my mother has been unconditionally supportive and generous, keeping me well-fed through the final stages of dissertation writing and always up-to- ix date on life in Ithaca. My father has been my first source for solid advice on academia or life as a whole, and I have greatly enjoyed our travels together over the last few years. I can’t mention my family without thanking my brother Oliver Renwick, who shares my love of language and has buoyed me enormously with his understanding and intellectual creativity. Finally, although she won’t be reading my dissertation, I would like to thank Aurelia, whose canine companionship has warmed many a winter night and kept me moving when I most needed it.