DOCSLIB.ORG

Canadian French Vowel Harmony a Dissertation Presented by Gabriel

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Canadian French Vowel Harmony a Dissertation Presented by Gabriel Canadian French Vowel Harmony A dissertation presented by Gabriel Christophe Poliquin to The Department of Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Linguistics. Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts August 2006 © 2006 Gabriel Christophe Poliquin All rights reserved. iii Advisors: Prof. Andrew Nevins and Prof. Donca Steriade Author: Gabriel Poliquin Canadian French Vowel Harmony This thesis provides a phonological, psycholinguistic and phonetic description of vowel harmony in Canadian French (CF), as well as a theoretical account of the phenomenon showing that the CF facts may only be accounted for in derivational frameworks that include the notion of ‘cycle.’ CF [ATR] vowel harmony is regressive, optional, and parasitic on the feature [+high]. CF [ATR] harmony involves spreading of a [-ATR] feature from a final [+high] vowel in a closed syllable to other [+high] vowels within the same word that are in non-final open syllables (e.g. [fi.lp] or [f.lp] are both acceptable variants for ‘Phillip’). The thesis describes and explains the four key attributes of harmony in this language: 1) There is inter-speaker (and possibly intra-speaker) variation with respect to whether harmony is applied locally and/or iteratively. Variation with respect to these parameters leads to the existence of three patterns of harmony, as evidenced by words of more than two syllables. There is the local non-iterative pattern, e.g. [i.l.st] (‘illicit’), the non-local pattern, e.g. [.li.st] and the ‘across-the-board’ pattern [.l.st]. 2) As shown in 1), there exists a pattern of non-local harmony, in which the target vowel is separated from the trigger by another [+high] vowel. 3) Harmony is counterbled by a process of ‘pre-fricative tensing,’ which leads to opaque allophony. 4) Harmony applies cyclically, but is then counterbled by another ‘open-syllable tensing’ process, which results in another case of opacity. For example, harmony can apply in a word like [m.zk] (‘music’), but if we concatenate a resyllabifying suffix like [al], we obtain [m.zi.kal] (‘musical’). The initial [+high] vowel can be [-ATR], since harmony applied in the stem, but the resyllabified trigger must be [+ATR], by an open syllable tensing rule. The thesis makes the following claim: CF vowel harmony shows very compellingly that models of the phonological component must include mechanisms accounting for non-local relations, derivational opacity and the interaction between phonology and morphology. iv Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Topics………………………………………………………………………………. 1 2 Overview…………………………………………………………………………… 14 Chapter 2: Variation in Locality and Iterativity 1 Chapter overview…………………………………………………………….…… 17 2 Closed syllable laxing……………………………………………………………. 24 2.1 Acoustic properties of word-final lax [+high] vowels……………………….. 25 2.1.1 The duration of tense and lax [+high] vowels………………………… 28 2.1.2 F1 and F2 frequencies of tense and lax [+high] vowels……………….. 32 3 The underdetermined analysis of potentially harmonic words…………………… 41 3.1 How underdetermined is the stimulus?………………………………………. 46 3.1.1 Child-directed speech…………………………………………………. 46 3.1.1.1 Using the CHILDES database…………………………………….. 46 3.1.1.2 Results from the CHILDES database …………………………….. 46 3.1.2 Adult speech ………………………………………………………….. 48 4 Judgment task results on locality parameters: seven grammars of CF…………………………………………………………………………………. 50 4.1 Judgment task methodology…………………………………………………. 51 4.2 Results………………………………………………………………………... 53 4.2.1 Harmony in disyllabic words…………………………………………. 53 4.2.2 Harmony in trisyllabics: variation in locality………………………… 58 4.2.2.1 Across-the-board speakers………………………………………... 59 4.2.2.2 Non-local speakers………………………………………………... 61 4.2.2.3 Adjacent non-iterative speakers…………………………………... 68 4.2.2.4 Other speakers: BGB, LL, MB…………………………………… 69 4.2.3 Harmony in tetrasyllabics…………………………………………….. 73 4.2.3.1 ATB speakers……………………………………………………... 75 4.2.3.2 Non-local speakers………………………………………………... 76 4.2.3.3 Adjacent non-iterative speakers…………………………………... 77 4.2.3.4 Other speakers: BGB, LL, MB…………………………………… 79 4.2.4 Neutral vowels: opacity and transparency of medial vowels as a function of locality…………………………………………………… 82 4.2.4.1Non-local speakers’ acceptance rates for non-final laxing in inédite-type words……………………………………………………………… 84 4.2.4.2 Adjacent non-iterative speakers’ acceptance rates for non-final laxing in inédite-type words………………………………………. 85 v 4.2.4.3 ATB speakers’ acceptance rates for non-final laxing in inédite- type words………………………………………………………… 86 4.2.4.4 Other speakers’ acceptance rates for non-final laxing in inédite- type words………………………………………………………… 87 4.3 Summary……………………………………………………………………... 89 5 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………… 90 Appendix: Stimuli………………………………………………………………….. 91 Chapter 3: Opaque Vowel Harmony 1 Chapter overview………………………………………………………….. 100 2 Opaque allophony: the interaction of vowel harmony and pre-fricative tensing…………………………………………………………………... 102 2.1 Pre-fricative tensing………………………………………………... 102 2.2 Vowel harmony data and generalisations……………………... 104 2.3 Phonetic data: diphthongising speakers and non-diphthongising speakers…………………………………………………………….. 111 2.3.1 Non-diphthongising speakers……………………………….. 112 2.3.2 Diphthongising speakers……………………………………. 118 2.4Reassessing transparent accounts of CF vowel harmony facts…………………………………………………………………… 125 2.4.1 Déchaîne (1991): opaque vowel harmony and the Weight-to- Stress principle………………………………………………… 127 2.4.2 Assimilation and dissimilation………………………………… 130 2.5 The productivity of opaque vowel harmony………………………….. 134 2.5.1 Evidence for the product of opaque vowel harmony: nonce words………………………………………………………….. 134 2.5.2 Evidence for the product of opaque vowel harmony: low frequency words…………………………………………………………. 136 2.6Opaque harmony in trisyllabic words of the utilise type…………………………………………………………………… 140 vi 3 The cyclical application of laxing and harmony……………………….….. 143 3.1 CF vowel harmony in Lexical Phonology…………………………….. 143 3.2 The productivity of the musical pattern……………………………….. 150 4 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………. 157 Appendix: stimuli……………………………………………………………… 158 Chapter 4: Canadian French vowel harmony: a rule-based analysis 1 Chapter overview………………………………………………………….. 165 2 Vowel harmony: a rule-based account……………………………………. 166 2.1 Section overview……………………………………………………... 166 2.2 Laxing and tensing…………………………………………………… 170 2.2.1 Closed syllable laxing………………………………………… 170 2.2.2 Tensing in open syllables……………………………………… 173 2.2.3 Pre-fricative tensing and lengthening………………………… 173 2.3 Vowel harmony: one rule, two parameters…………………………… 178 2.3.1 Data overview and formalisation of the vowel harmony rule…………………………………………………………….. 178 2.3.2 On locality in terms of directionality………………………….. 190 2.3.3 On Nevins (2004) and predictions for Hungarian and Finnish harmony……………………………………………………….. 203 2.3.4 Iterativity, optionality and the relative complexity of grammars……………………………………………………… 217 3 Opaque vowel harmony: on rule ordering and the ‘Cycle’……………….. 220 3.1 Harmony counterbled by pre-fricative tensing……………………… 220 3.2 Cyclicity: ‘Strict Cycle Condition effects in CF and Javanese….…… 223 4 A note on metaphony……………………………………………………... 241 5 Conclusion………………………………………………………………... 246 Appendix: On the different formulations of the Strict Cycle Condition……… 248 vii Chapter 5: The inadequacy of non- and semi-derivational models of phonology 1 Chapter overview………………………………………………………… 253 2 The ‘over-evaluation’ problem…………………………………………… 255 2.1 Classical OT…………………………………………………………. 256 2.2 Classical OT and the case of highly specific constraints (McCarthy 2003)…………………………………………………………………. 260 2.2.1 Non-specific constraints: ‘Agree’ and ‘Spread’ constraints….. 260 2.2.2 Highly specific constraints: ‘Match’ constraints……………... 264 2.2.3 Headed Spans…………………………………………………. 272 3 Opacity……………………………………………………….…………… 280 3.1 Classical OT………………………………………………………….. 281 3.2 Targeted Constraints (Bakovic & Wilson 2001; Wilson 2001, 2003)…………………………………………………………………. 282 3.3 Sympathy (McCarthy 1999, 2003)…………………………………... 290 3.4 OT with Candidate Chains (McCarthy 2006a, forthcoming 2006b). 295 3.5 Turbidity (Goldrick 2000)…………………………………………… 304 3.6 Stratal OT (Kiparsky 2000; Bermudez-Otero 1999)………………… 310 4 Conclusion……………………………………………………………….. 314 Bibliography………………………………………………………………. 318 viii Acknowledgments Many thanks to the members of my committee, Jay Jasanoff, Andrew Nevins, Jeremy Rau and Donca Steriade. They are the pillars on which this edifice rests. I am especially indebted to Andrew Nevins and Donca Steriade, my two co-chairs. Their unbounded curiosity for what may lie ahead keeps me slashing forward to this day. I have more to learn from them than they have already taught me. I also thank my wife, Emily Standen. They ask me, “how can you be so calm?” I am calm because I am happy; I am happy because of you. Je remercie également mes parents. De mon père, je sais que les langues servent à se réinventer: L’acteur change de masque; l’identité est accessoire. De ma mère, je sais que la réussite est inévitable- rien sauf le travail nous sépare d’elle, et le travail est un ami. Merci également à tous les locuteurs dont la parole fait l’intérêt de cette étude. Vous vous reconnaîtrez. Enfin, un merci lointain à Charles Gauthier et Mario Gagné. Grâce à eux, j’ai appris qu’il y avait des savants et des linguistes. ix À Jean-Marc Poliquin, mon grand-père, mon compagnon. x 今迄は罪もあたらぬ昼寝哉 -
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Systemic Contrast and Catalan Rhotics*
    Systemic Contrast and Catalan Rhotics* Jaye Padgett - University of California, Santa Cruz (January 2003) 1. Introduction Catalan, a Romance language spoken primarily in the northeast of Spain, has two contrasting rhotics: a tap [r] and a trill [r]. The two sounds contrast only between vowels with the distribution otherwise being predictable. The facts closely parallel the better known facts of Spanish, and the problems they raise are similar. In this paper I take a new look at Catalan rhotics, arguing that we can achieve a better account of them if we explicitly acknowledge the role of contrast in their behavior. Specifically, the explanation calls on constraints requiring that contrast be maintained, on the one hand, and on constraints requiring that contrasts be perceptually distinct, on the other. The account is cast within Dispersion Theory (Flemming 1995, to appear), which is designed to express such notions. In approaching the Catalan facts in this way I follow Bradley (2001), who applies Dispersion Theory to Spanish rhotics. Some of the main conclusions we reach differ, all the same. A good deal of recent work argues that both neutralization avoidance and perceptual distinctiveness play important roles in shaping phonologies. (Besides the above, see Ní Chiosáin and Padgett 2001, Sanders 2002, Padgett to appear-a,b, and Sanders in progress.) The theoretical framework of these works, Dispersion Theory, remains rather new, and this paper offers another case study. The appeal to contrast leads to a simpler and more explanatory account of Catalan (and Spanish) rhotics compared to previous ones. The analysis also illustrates how it is possible to incorporate more systematic phonetic detail into phonology, increasing our descriptive coverage, without predicting the overgeneration of contrast.
    [Show full text]
  • Spanish Through Time
    ROMANCE LANGUAGES Rhaeto-Cisalpine at a glance Spanish through Time Vol.1 Phonology, Orthography, FLORA KLEIN-ANDREU Morphology Stony Brook University CLAUDI MENEGHIN MIUR (Ministero dell'Istruzione Università Spanish through time is an introduction to the development of the Spanish language, e ricerca) designed for readers with little or no prior experience in linguistics. It therefore stresses explanation of the workings of language and its development over time: They are viewed as Rhaeto-Cisalpine (or Padanese) is a western attibutable to characteristics of human speakers, in particular social and historical Romance language, spoken in the Po valley (extended to include the Ligurian coast), which circumstances, as illustrated by the history of Spanish. has developed in an independent fashion from The development of Spanish from Latin is presented divided into three broad periods-- Italian and is strictly related to French, Occitan, "Vulgar Latin", Castilian, and Spanish--characterized by specific linguistic developments and Catalan. This subject has been relatively and the historical circumstances in which they occurred. In each case the mechanics of neglected in recent years, apart from a monumental work by Geoffrey Hull, dating back particular language changes are explained in detail, in everyday terms. Emphasis is on the to 1982. more general developments that differentiate, first, various Romance languages, and finally This book aims at both offering a solid different current varieties of Castilian-- Peninsular and Atlantic (American). Evidence is reference about, and at proposing a complete also presented for the chronology of some major changes, so as to familiarize the reader synthesis of this diasystem, including the Rhaeto-Romance languages and the so called with traditional linguistic reasoning.
    [Show full text]
  • Help Languages
    Edutasia – Help languages Talk Now help languages ▪ Abruzzese ▪ Hausa ▪ Punjabi (Indian) ▪ Afrikaans ▪ Hawaiian ▪ Quechua ▪ Albanian ▪ Hebrew ▪ Romanian ▪ Alsatian ▪ Hindi ▪ Romansh ▪ Amharic ▪ Hungarian ▪ Russian ▪ Arabic ▪ Icelandic ▪ Saami ▪ Arabic (Egyptian) ▪ Igbo ▪ Sardinian ▪ Arabic (Modern Standard) ▪ Indonesian ▪ Scottish Gaelic ▪ Armenian ▪ Irish ▪ Serbian ▪ Assamese ▪ Italian ▪ Sesotho (Southern) ▪ Aymara ▪ Japanese ▪ Shona ▪ Azeri ▪ Jèrriais ▪ Sinhala ▪ Basque ▪ Kannada ▪ Slovak ▪ Belarusian ▪ Kazakh ▪ Slovenian ▪ Bengali ▪ Khmer ▪ Somali ▪ Berber (Tamazight) ▪ Kinyarwanda (Rwanda) ▪ Spanish ▪ Breton ▪ Kirghiz ▪ Swahili ▪ Bulgarian ▪ Klingon ▪ Swedish ▪ Burmese ▪ Korean ▪ Swiss German ▪ Canadian English ▪ Lao ▪ Tagalog ▪ Canadian French ▪ Latin ▪ Tamil ▪ Cantonese ▪ Latin American Spanish ▪ Telugu ▪ Catalan ▪ Latvian ▪ Thai ▪ Chichewa ▪ Lingala ▪ Tibetan ▪ Chinese (Mandarin) ▪ Lithuanian ▪ Tswana ▪ Chuvash ▪ Luganda ▪ Turkish ▪ Cornish ▪ Luxembourgish ▪ Ukrainian ▪ Corsican ▪ Macedonian ▪ Urdu ▪ Croatian ▪ Malagasy ▪ Uzbek ▪ Czech ▪ Malay ▪ Vietnamese ▪ Danish ▪ Malayalam ▪ Welsh ▪ Dari ▪ Maltese ▪ Xhosa ▪ Dutch ▪ Manx ▪ Yiddish ▪ English ▪ Marathi ▪ Yoruba ▪ English (American) ▪ Mongolian ▪ Zulu ▪ Esperanto ▪ Māori ▪ ▪ Estonian ▪ Navajo ▪ Faroese ▪ Nepali ▪ Finnish ▪ Norwegian ▪ Flemish ▪ Occitan ▪ French ▪ Papiamento ▪ Frisian ▪ Pashto ▪ Galician ▪ Persian ▪ Georgian ▪ Pidgin (Papua New ▪ German Guinea) ▪ Greek ▪ Polish ▪ Greenlandic ▪ Portuguese (Brazilian) ▪ Gujarati ▪ Portuguese (European) ▪ Haitian Creole ▪ Provençal
    [Show full text]
  • Analyzing the Status of Catalan Schwa in Barcelona
    ICPhS XVII Regular Session Hong Kong, 17-21 August 2011 ANALYZING THE STATUS OF CATALAN SCHWA IN BARCELONA Susana Cortés , Conxita Lleó & Ariadna Benet Research Centre on Multilingualism, University of Hamburg, Germany [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] ABSTRACT underlying schwa phoneme (the latter author points out that this schwa has the following This paper analyzes the production of Catalan distinctive features: [medial central-labial]). schwa by children and adults in two areas of Another approach is that of van Oostendorp's Barcelona differing in degree of presence of Projection Theory [9], based on metrical Spanish (which does not have schwa in its sound phonology. According to him, schwa is a defective inventory). The schwa production in different vowel, with unspecified distinctive features, kinds of words or in different positions in the word suitably fitting in weak and in extrametrical provides evidence for the status of this vowel. positions. Keywords: schwa, production, bilingualism, These theories, together with certain Catalan, phonological status assumptions about sound change, make different predictions about the substitution or maintenance 1. INTRODUCTION of schwa: For the last forty years, it has been observed that a) If non-alternating schwas are maintained the usage of schwa in Catalan is decreasing (Lóp ez more often than alternating schwas, this would del Castillo [7], Veny [13], Payrató [10], Pla argue for the phonological character of non- Fulquet [11], Herrick [4]). This reduction of the alternating schwa. phonological system seems to be due to external b) Position in the word (Catalan stress system (e.g., Spanish influence) or internal factors (e.g., being basically trochaic): If schwa is kept in markedness and complexity).
    [Show full text]
  • A Reduction and Spreading Theory of Voicing and Other Sound Effects""
    CatWPL 412, 1995, 267-328 A Reduction and Spreading Theory of Voicing and Other Sound Effects"" Joan Mascaró Universitat Autbnoma de Barcelona. Departament de Filologia Catalana 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona). Catalonia (Spain) [email protected] Abstract A set of different surface effects commonly found in the phonology of natural lan- guages, voicing assimilation and final devoicing, are derived from two parameters, Reduction, the loss of phonological structure, and Spreading, the association of two unas- sociated nodes. Reduction is an operation on a node (e.g. voice), and it can take three values: no operation, Deassociation of the node, or Deletion of the node. Spreading has just the two minimal values, + and -. Spreading can combine with Reduction, or with Deassociation, resulting in two different assimilatory effects. When Spreading takes the negative value, or when contextually no spreading is possible, the surface effect that results is devoicing. The different parametric settings of Recluction and Spreading coupled with syllable control, and stages of application, predict the appropriate surfa- ce clusters of voicing effects. These results are extended to other effects like place centralization, unmarked assimilation, and to a set of residual or sporadic effects like progressive assimilation in regressive systems. Key words: phonological theory, voicing, assimilation, devoicing. Resum. Una teoria de reducció i d'escampament de la sonoritat i d'altres efectes sonors Tota una sbrie d'efectes superficials que es troben sovint en la fonologia de les llengües naturals, l'assimilació i l'ensordiment final, es deriven de dos parimetres: la Reducció, O NOTE OF THE EDITORS. Although CatWPL normally publishes the results of ongoing research, the editors have considered that this 1987 manuscript was worth publishing.
    [Show full text]
  • Vocale Incerta, Vocale Aperta*
    Vocale Incerta, Vocale Aperta* Michael Kenstowicz Massachusetts Institute of Technology Omaggio a P-M. Bertinetto Ogni toscano si comporta di fronte a una parola a lui nuova, come si nota p. es. nella lettura del latino, scegliendo costantamente, e inconsciamente, il timbro aperto, secondo il principio che il Migliorini ha condensato nella formula «vocale incerta, vocale aperta»…è il processo a cui vien sottoposto ogni vocabolo importato o adattato da altri linguaggi. (Franceschi 1965:1-3) 1. Introduction Standard Italian distinguishes seven vowels in stressed nonfinal syllables. The open ɛ,ɔ vs. closed e,o mid-vowel contrast (transcribed here as open è,ò vs. closed é,ó) is neutralized in unstressed position (1). (1) 3 sg. infinitive tócca toccàre ‘touch’ blòcca bloccàre ‘block’ péla pelàre ‘pluck’ * A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the MIT Phonology Circle and the 40th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages, University of Washington (March 2010). Thanks to two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments as well as to Maria Giavazzi, Giovanna Marotta, Joan Mascaró, Andrea Moro, and Mario Saltarelli. 1 gèla gelàre ‘freeze’ The literature uniformly identifies the unstressed vowels as closed. Consequently, the open è and ò have more restricted distribution and hence by traditional criteria would be identified as "marked" (Krämer 2009). In this paper we examine various lines of evidence indicating that the open vowels are optimal in stressed (open) syllables (the rafforzamento of Nespor 1993) and thus that the closed é and ó are "marked" in this position: {è,ò} > {é,ó} (where > means “better than” in the Optimality Theoretic sense).
    [Show full text]
  • Afrikaner and French Canadian Nationalisms As They Contend with a Hostile and Dominant English Element Beholden to the Empire
    AFRIKANER AND FRENCH CANADlAN NATIONALISM: A COMPARATIVE STUDY MAURICE NOR BENATAR B.A. (Honours) (McGill) University of Cape Town DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN POLITICAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN MAY 1993 L- ..- --,-_, .. The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University of Cape Town ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The contribution of the following people in facilitating the completion of this dissertation is gratefully acknowledged: Mrs Jacqueline Berman for her invaluable typing assistance, encouragement and support. Professor Heribert Adam for his much needed encouragement when the task seemed almost insurmountable. My parents, for always being there when I needed them and believing in me throughout this degree. My girlfriend, Dalene, for her love, support and her interpretive Afrikaans skills. Finally, I acknowledge the financial assistance of the Centre for Science Development towards this research. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at, are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the Centre for science Development. Abstract This dissertation seeks to expose comparatively the ideological, institutional and economic underpinnings which have contributed to evolving nationalisms within two dual societies, those being Canada and South Africa. It attempts to explain the parallel historical development of Afrikaner and French Canadian nationalisms as they contend with a hostile and dominant English element beholden to the Empire.
    [Show full text]
  • A Sociolinguistic Study of the Regional French of Normandy
    Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Hall, Damien J. (2008) A Sociolinguistic Study of the Regional French of Normandy. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Pennsylvania. DOI Link to record in KAR https://kar.kent.ac.uk/29541/ Document Version UNSPECIFIED Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html A SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF THE REGIONAL FRENCH OF NORMANDY Damien John Hall A DISSERTATION in Linguistics Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2008 _________________________ Gillian Sankoff, Dissertation Supervisor _________________________ Eugene Buckley, Chair of the Graduate Group in Linguistics I gratefully dedicate this dissertation to everyone who helped. ii Acknowledgements It takes a village to raise a child, they say, and it is certainly no different for any work on the scale of a dissertation or a book.
    [Show full text]
  • Language Attitudes Towards Canadian French and English, 1691-1902: the Emergence of the Canadian Voices
    Language Attitudes towards Canadian French and English, 1691-1902: The Emergence of the Canadian Voices by Beau Brock A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in French Linguistics Department of French Studies University of Toronto © Copyright by Beau Brock 2014 Language Attitudes towards Canadian French and English, 1691- 1902: The Emergence of the Canadian Voices Beau Brock Doctor of Philosophy in French Linguistics Department of French Studies University of Toronto 2014 Abstract This dissertation examines the origins and development of attitudes (in the guise of beliefs and stereotypes) towards Canadian French and Canadian English during the 18th and 19th centuries, as expressed primarily by foreign travellers to North America. By conducting a comparative study of these two languages, I aim to build a bridge between French Canadian studies on Canadian French, and Anglophone Canadian studies on Canadian English, two fields which have historically been distinct and separate. The time period studies (1691-1902) is marked by major political and social change, including the English Conquest, the creation of Upper and Lower Canada (and later the United Province of Canada), and the Dominion, all of which had major, lasting effects on the development and status of both languages. In order to study the evolution of language attitudes during this period, I employed content analysis on the metalinguistic and cultural commentary in a wide variety of texts, including travel journals, scholarly and newspaper articles, monographs, and prescriptive texts, written in French and English. My analysis has shown that British commentators were the most critical of both languages (and peoples), and relied almost entirely on beliefs and stereotypes rather than empirical evidence to ii support their claims.
    [Show full text]
  • The Syllabification of Catalan Clitics
    1 MORE ON ALIGNMENT AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO DOMAINS: THE SYLLABIFICATION OF CATALAN CLITICS Eulàlia Bonet Maria-Rosa Lloret (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) (Universitat de Barcelona) [email protected] [email protected] Abstract Catalan has fourteen pronominal clitic forms, each with different realizations depending on the context. Vowel epenthesis and consonant deletion, which are common in Catalan, seem to have a different conditioning in simple words, in Verb-clitic or clitic-Verb sequences, and in clitic-clitic sequences (where an emergence of the unmarked effect with respect to syllable structure is found). In this paper, devoted mainly to the phonological behavior of pronominal clitics in Catalan (specifically, the variety spoken in the Barcelona area) and framed within Optimality Theory, it is argued that, in spite of the apparent need for an analysis that resorts to levels, all the facts concerning epenthesis and deletion can be accounted for without them and with a single constraint hierarchy. The differences in behavior are the consequence of the different ranking of morphological Alignment constraints and an Alignment constraint that makes reference to subsyllabic constituents. 1. Introduction Catalan has fourteen pronominal clitic forms, and each of these forms can surface with several different realizations depending mostly on the phonological context. In addition, most clitics can combine with each other, and sequences can have more than four clitics at the same time. In (1) the variation in clitic shape is illustrated for the variety of Catalan spoken in the Barcelona area (Barceloní, from now on), which is the dialect that is examined in this paper.
    [Show full text]
  • Voicing and Continuancy in Catalan a Nonvacuous Duke-Of-York Gambit and a Richness-Of-The-Base Paradox
    Voicing and continuancy in Catalan A nonvacuous Duke-of-York gambit and a Richness-of-the-Base paradox Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero University of Manchester 23 November 2001 Please cite as: Bermúdez-Otero, Ricardo (2001). “Voicing and continuancy in Catalan: a nonvacuous Duke- of-York gambit and a Richness-of-the-Base paradox.” Ms., University of Manchester. Available online at www.bermudez-otero.com/Catalan.pdf Linguistics and English Language University of Manchester Manchester M13 9PL United Kingdom [email protected] Contents 1. Optimality-theoretic phonology in crisis: the problem of opacity xx 2. The solution: interleaving xx 3. Voicing and continuancy in Catalan obstruents: an interleaved analysis xx 3.1. Postlexical spirantization xx 3.2. A puzzle: the failure of spirantization in the coda xx 3.2.1. Mascaró's solution xx 3.2.2. Harris's solution xx 3.3. Word-level devoicing and syllabification xx 3.3.1. Prefixes xx 3.3.2. Enclitics xx 3.4. The segment-rich lexicon, the stem level, and devoicing xx 3.5. Voice neutralization xx 3.5.1. The constraints xx 3.5.2. The rankings xx 3.5.3. Prevocalic prefix-final and word-final fricatives xx 3.6. Voice neutralization and spirantization: ordering relations in interleaved OT xx 4. A nonvacuous Duke-of-York gambit xx Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero Voicing and continuancy in Catalan — 2 3 Voicing and continuancy in Catalan obstruents: an interleaved analysis 3.1. Postlexical spirantization Standard Catalan possesses the following set of distinctive consonantal segments; see Wheeler (1979: xxii, 222, 234, chs V and VI), Recasens (1991: 173), and Hualde (1992: §3.1.1).
    [Show full text]
  • Language Attitudes of Qubcois Students Towards
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository Language attitudes of Québécois students towards le français québécois standard and le franco-québécois Amie Kraus A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Linguistics. Chapel Hill 2006 Approved by Advisor: Dr. David Mora-Marín Reader: Dr. Laura Janda Reader: Dr. Paul Roberge ABSTRACT Amie Kraus: Language attitudes of Québécois students towards le français québécois standard and le franco-québécois (Under the direction of Dr. David Mora-Marín) The many language attitude studies which have been conducted in the province of Québec over the past fifty years have revealed that the linguistic attitudes and beliefs of the Québécois towards both English and specific varieties of French have changed considerably. The purpose of the present study was to determine the current language attitudes of Québécois students towards standard Québec French and towards a colloquial variety of Québec French, le franco-québécois. In spite of the significant shift in language attitudes in Québec’s recent history, the results of this study were comparable to those of a similar study conducted three decades ago by Méar-Crine and Leclerc. In both studies, the majority of Québécois participants indicated a preference for the standard variety of Québec French. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are several people whom I wish to thank who have greatly contributed to this study in a variety of ways.
    [Show full text]