Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION

Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation

The phonologies of the world’s languages vary not only in their static properties, such as segment inventories and phonotactics, but also in their dynamic, morphophonological alternations. In the study of Australian phonologies, static properties have long held the spotlight, with book-length works appearing already several decades ago on segments (Busby 1980) and phonotactics (Hamilton 1996). Dynamic phonology in comparison has never really taken centre stage.1 Short discussions of at most a few pages per phenomenon appear on morphophonological topics in overview works by Evans (1995a), Dixon (1980; 2002) and Baker (2014). These have proven invaluable, but the short format lends itself to the citation of particularly striking or well-known data, and since it lacks space to explore diversity in detail, can contribute to an exaggerated discourse of uniformity in Australian languages, where phenomena are rare, pervasive or absent, but seldom ‘diverse’. To address this, the current chapter presents just two studies, and a third appears in Ch NCDISSIMILATION. Each is on a topic chosen for its particular interest with respect to Australian languages, and owing to the state of the literature described above, each is (at time of writing) the most in-depth survey of that phenomenon in Australian languages to date, and fills a gap in our knowledge that has persisted for too long. Section 1 covers materials and methods. Section 2 examines lenition, a morphophonological process that is particularly common in Australian languages. Section 3 investigates assimilation, and relates it back to key phonotactic generalisations adduced in Ch PHONOTACTICS. Section 4 offer concluding remarks and section 5 lists languages in the studies and their sources.

1. Materials and methods

As in Chapters SEGMENTS and PHONOTACTICS, the approach here is to mobilise large comparative datasets to provide quantitatively-backed insights into the diversity of Australian phonologies. The studies in sections 2 and 3 draw on data in the AusPhon- Alternations database. In brief, AusPhon-Alternations (AA) tracks instances in descriptive grammars where a morphophonological alternation is reported, irrespective of whether the report is in the form of (morpho)phonological formalisms, lists of allomorphs or in prose. In an initial step, these reports are recorded and marked up to indicate potential interpretations of the data, for example as being amenable to an analysis as lenition, deletion, assimilation, and so forth. As the coverage of the dataset grows and salient dimensions of empirical variation emerge, a second round of more nuanced annotations is added, and refined. The studies here are based on analyses of these late-iteration typological characterisations informed by a substantial coverage of Australian languages. The AA methodology is an approximate one, and we view the database as a significant, but nevertheless initial attempt at surveying and typologising ’s morphophonological variation. Notwithstanding that, the multi-stage

1 Though two major works are immanent, Baker and Harvey (to appear) and Round (in prep).

1 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION procedure has the advantage of moderating the potentially outsized influence of observations that happen to be surveyed (or to have entered the literature) first, and promotes the discovery of new insights based on evidence distributed across many languages, as sections 2 and 3 will attest. The sample drawn on for this chapter is 118 doculects (i.e., descriptions of languages, Good and Cysouw 2013).2 These contain close to two thousand alternations in total, of which a subset relevant to lenition and assimilation is studied here. Sampled languages and their source documents — without which, none of this research would be possible — are listed in section 6.

2. Lenition

Lenition is a common process in the world’s languages (Gurevich 2004). It appears as a synchronic morphophonological process in more than one third of Australian languages in the AA dataset. Definitions of lenition vary, but essential to all of them is a notion of segmental weakening (Honeybone 2008). For reasons of space, I confine myself here to the most common and widespread kinds of lenition processes in Australian languages, namely alternations in syllable onset position between stops and more sonorous oral segments or zero, in which the alternations are phonologically conditioned by the sonority of the segment on the left.3 An example from Wardaman (Merlan 1994) is the dative suffix in (1), which appears as /-ku/ after stops and nasals, and /-wu/ elsewhere.

(1) Wardaman (Merlan 1994:24,28,29,38) a. waɭp-ku b. lin-ku c. ȶer-wu d. wure-wu toilet-DAT snake-DAT ground oven-DAT child-DAT

Only contrastive (non-allophonic) alternations are examined here. For expository convenience, I will refer to the alternations of interest as ‘lenition’, and I return the question of their synchronic analysis as lenition or as fortition in §2.7. Subsections below cover the frequencies of stops’ participation in lenition alternations according to their place of articulation in §2.1; attested pairings between stops and lenis alternants in §2.2; one-to-many and many-to-one pairings in §2.3; ranges of places of articulation at which lenition occurs in a language in §2.4; phonological conditioning in §2.5; morphological conditioning in §2.6; and the synchronic analysis of alternations as lenition or fortition in §2.7.

2 Only one doculect is used per language here. In several cases, AA contains multiple doculects for a single language. This is for future study, that may inform us about how variable the same language can appear through the lens of different sources, and therefore indicate how uncertain we should be, when we have only one description of a language. At time of writing, the AA method has been attempted with over two hundred and fifty doculects. One hundred and thirty of these were found to report any morphophonological alternations according to our procedure. 3 Related phenomena beyond the scope of this study include alternations in coda positions, lenition of sonorants, alternations between fortis and lenis stops, and sonority-conditioned alternations between stops and nasals.

2 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION

2.1 Participation of stops in lenition alternations, by place of articulation.

The lenition alternations under study here appear in 46 of the languages in the AA dataset. From a series of angles, sections 2.1–2.5 examine the frequencies with which various stops and lenis alternants participate in these alternations.4 Counts will be in terms of the number of languages in which certain patterns appear. The picture to emerge will be one of considerable variation around a core of common themes.

Figure 1 Participation of stops in lenition alternations, in 46 languages

Figure 1 shows the number of languages (out of 46) in which lenition alternations involve stops at each of six superlaryngeal places of articulation (see Ch SEGMENTS regarding places of articulation in Australian languages). The results reveal an essentially bimodal distribution between velar, labial and palatal stops which are frequent participants in lenition alternations, versus alveolar, retroflex and dental stops which are infrequent participants. This is broadly consistent with previous observations (Dixon 2002:627; Round 2011). However, to appreciate the import of the observation, it is necessary to clarify what Figure 1 conveys. The counts in Figure 1 are absolute tallies. They do not reveal the proportions of /k/, /p/, /t/ which undergo lenition, but merely the absolute counts. Consequently, although Figure 1 may at first glance appear to support hypothesis (2a), it could be that all stops have a broadly comparable propensity to undergo lenition, but that velars, labials and palatals are simply more common than the others, as in (2b). Indeed, Figure 1 is also consistent with hypothesis (2c).

(2) Hypotheses on the propensities for stop lenition, by places of articulation a. Velar, labial and palatal stops have a higher propensity than other places. b. Stops at all places have broadly comparable propensities. c. Any other combination of relative propensities.

4 Only three of the 46 languages (, Limilngan, Djambarrpuyngu) also make a fortis/lenis contrast in their stops. In Ritharrngu and Limilngan only the lenis stop series alternates with sonorants; in Djambarrpuyngu both series do. Here I abstract away from the stop series contrast, and examine stops only in terms of their place of articulation.

3 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION

In order to clarify the matter, two additional contextualising counts were conducted. The overwhelming majority of lenition alternations in the AA dataset involve the initial segments of suffixes. Some do involve root- and prefix-initial segments, but it is suffixes that are driving the numbers in Figure 1. Accordingly, Figure 2 shows the frequencies by place of articulation of suffix initial stops in the complete AA dataset, not only for lenition, but for any alternation.5 It should be borne in mind that AA is limited to suffixes that alternate, so the figures may still be biased: for example, if suffix initial /t/ is numerous overall but rare in suffixes that alternate in any way, it would be underrepresented in Figure 2. To provide some insurance against that possibility, Figure 3 shows the frequencies of suffix-initial stops in the lexical dataset described in Ch PHONOTACTICS, §5. Not all languages in that dataset include suffixes among their listed lexical items, so the coverage is patchy and needs to be interpreted with caution. However, with these caveats in mind, Figures 2 and 3 provide information that will help us understand lenition in Australian languages more thoroughly.

Figure 2 Suffix-initial superlaryngeal stops in the AA dataset: proportion by place of articulation

Figure 3 Suffix-initial superlaryngeal stops in AusPhon Lexicon: proportion by place of articulation

5 In counting alternations, I excluded the Pama-Nyungan ergative/locative allomorphy, since its alternations are very widespread and can skew the results if not controlled for.

4 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION

Figures 2 and 3 do not match exactly. Figure 2 shows a little over double the proportion of alveolars, dentals and retroflexes that Figure 3 does, though the proportion is low in both datasets. The gap between alveolars, dentals and retroflexes on the one hand, and palatals and labials on the other, is about the same in Figure 3 (the lexical suffix data) as in Figure 1 (the lenition data). Thus, contrary to hypothesis (2a), we find no evidence that alveolars, dentals and retroflexes have an especially low propensity for participating in lenition alternations; they just have a lower frequency overall. By the same token, hypothesis (2b), which states that stops at all places of articulation have a broadly comparable propensity for lenition, is also challenged by the data, namely by the velars. Dorsal velars have a strikingly high representation in Figure 2 (AA suffixes) and Figure 3 (lexical suffix data), clearly outstripping palatals and labials, yet this is not so in Figure 1 (the lenition data). Thus there is good prima facie evidence that velars have a propensity for participating in lenition alternations that is lower than palatals and labials. To my knowledge these results are new, and multiple explanations for them will now be worth exploring. It could be the case, for instance, that velars undergo historical lenition more rarely than do palatals and labials. But it could also be true that velars, labials and palatals all succumb to lenition at about the same rate diachronically, after which the resulting synchronic lenition alternations are lost more rapidly for velars than for labials and palatals. Both scenarios could produce the results above.

2.2 Pairings between stops and lenis alternants

Figure 4 Pairings of stops with their lenis alternants, within lenition alternations

5 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION

Figure 5 Pairings of stop with zero, within lenition alternations

Figure 4 shows frequencies of pairings of stops with their more sonorous, lenis alternants. Three salient points are: that /p,ȶ,k/ overwhelming alternate respectively with /w,j,w/; that alternations with fricatives are rare, consistent with the rarity of contrastive fricatives in Australian languages (Ch SEGMENTS); and that a broad spread of minor variants is attested. Figure 5 reports frequencies of alternations between stops and zero. To aid comparison, the scale of the numerical axes is the same in Figure 4 and Figure 5, showing that alternations with zero are rarer than with non-zero segments. Of the stops that do alternate with zero, velars notably outnumber other places of articulation, though it is important to clarify the methodology here. Most analyses of Australian languages propose that phonemic vowels cannot appear in hiatus, and not surprising under this kind of analysis, many languages require rules of glide insertion to break up underlying and derived vowel+vowel clusters. Where either or both of the vowels is non-low, the inserted glide is very often homorganic: /j/ next to front vowels, /w/ next to back. This creates a non-trivial confound when asking what the result is when an intervocalic stop lenites, since if it is replaced by a glide on the surface, it is not obvious whether the glide is the direct result of lenition, or if lenition results first in a complete loss of the stop, followed thereafter by the insertion of a glide. The procedure here is as follows. If a stop lenites intervocalically to the same glide, e.g. always to /w/, irrespective of the quality of the flanking vowels, I assume that the glide is the outcome of lenition, and the alternation is counted in Figure 4. If the stop lenites intervocalically and is replaced on the surface only ever by glides that are homorganic with one of the flanking vowels and which vary according to those vowels’ qualities, I assume lenition to zero. These cases appear in Figure 5. If the stop lenites intervocalically and is replaced on the surface by glides that vary according to the adjacent vowels, but which in only some cases are homorganic with flanking vowels, then I assume lenition to zero for homorganic-glide cases and lenition to a glide in the other cases. These cases will contribute to counts in both Figures 4 and 5.

6 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION

2.3 One-to-many and many-to-one pairings

Figure 6 Many-to-one stop-to-lenis mappings

Figure 7 One-to-many stop-to-lenis mappings

When phonologists come to analyse lenition alternations, the empirical facts around neutralisation can be pivotal (Baker 2014:171–3): if both /p/ and /k/ alternate with /w/, it may be more parsimonious to say that underlying /p/ and /k/ both lenite to a derived segment /w/ than to say underlying /w/ undergoes fortition to /p/ in some cases and /k/ in others. It can be useful therefore, to examine the many-to-one and one-to-many mappings entered into by stops and their lenis alternants. Figure 6 tallies sets of stops that within one language alternate with a lenis alternant in common. Unsurprising, /k,p/ both alternate with /w/ often, in 20 of the 46 languages. The next most common set comprises the two laminal stops both alternating with /j/ in 6 languages, followed by a diverse tail of rarer many-to-one mappings. Figure 7 tallies sets of lenis segments that alternate with a common stop; for comparability, the numerical scale is the same as in Figure 6. Most involve sets of size two, comprising a lenis segment and zero. It is not obvious what to conclude from any comparison of Figures 6 versus 7. Aside from the most

7 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION common mappings, {k,p}~w and k~{Ø,w}, the counts in Figure 6 and 7 are low. Moreover, the simple counts in Figure 7 may mask more interesting underlying variation, by conflating qualitatively different circumstances under which the multiple lenis variants appear, that is, they could be associated with different morphemes, or with different triggering environments. Exploring those issues in detail will be valuable, but is beyond the scope of this study.

2.4 Ranges of places of articulation for lenition

Figure 8 Number of places of articulation of stops that participate in lenition alternations

Figure 9 Sets of places of articulation of stops that participate in lenition alternations

8 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION

Australian languages vary in the range of places of articulation at which their stops ever undergo lenition. Figure 8 tallies the raw number of different places of articulation at which there are stops that participate in lenition alternations. Figure 9 counts the frequencies of specific sets of places of articulation (note the numerical scales are not the same). Unsurprisingly, Figure 9 is dominated by permutations of velar, labial and palatal. What is perhaps interesting is the evident lack of any stringent universal scale, such that place of articulation a only participates in lenition if b does, and so forth, rather for the three most common stops {k,p,ȶ} it is possible to find both a pair and a triple that lacks one of them while containing the other two. (Since alveolars, dentals and retroflexes are rare overall, the absence of any specific combinations involving them is only to be expected.6)

2.5 Phonological triggers

The alternations under consideration here are alternations between stops in syllable onsets and a more sonorous oral segment or zero, whose phonological conditioning is by the segment to the left, and is determined by its sonority. Overwhelmingly, the stops occur after less sonorous segments to the left, and the lenis alternants occur after more sonorous segments to the left, but there is variation in where the sonority scale is split, and there are a few instances where the sonority ranks of the triggering segments do not fall neatly into a single less-sonorous set and a single more-sonorous set. When the triggering segments do fall into a neat division of the sonority scale, the variation attested is tightly constrained. Almost all splits are between consonants versus vowels (which condition the appearance of a following stop versus lenis alternant respectively) or between occlusives (stops and nasals) versus continuants (cf Baker 2014; Round 2011).7 Some systems are empirically consistent with both of these interpretations, owing to the fact that neither of the alternating segments is observed after a continuant consonant.

6 To put numbers on it, we can compare the number of attested sets containing at least one of the alveolar, dental or retroflex places versus the number of possible sets containing them. For sets of one place of articulation, we find 0 of 3 the three possible sets {t}, {t̪} or {ʈ}. For sets of two places, we find 0 of the 15 possible. For sets of three, we find 3 of 60. For sets of four, 2 of 180. For sets of five, 3 of 360. Note that not all possible sets are equally probable, so these figures should not be used to draw conclusions like ‘there is a 1 in 20 chance of this happening’; what is meaningful though, is to compare for example, that there are only 3 possible sets of four places of articulation that contain all of {k,p,ȶ}, and 2 of them are attested. 7 Dixon (2002:627) inexplicably omits the occlusive–continuant pattern, instead citing a very rare pattern in which vowels and the trill condition the lenis alternant.

9 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION

Figure 10 Sonority of adjacent segments to the left, conditioning stop versus lenis alternant (by stop type)

Figure 11 Sonority of adjacent segments to the left, conditioning stop versus lenis alternant (by lenis type)

Figure 10 tallies, according to place of articulation of the stop, the counts of languages which condition that stop’s lenition alternation according to a consonant– vowel split, an occlusive–continuant split (and cases ambiguous between these), as well as by other simple partitions into low-versus-high sonority and finally, according to patterns which do not split the sonority pattern in a simple manner, but rather have one or both of the alternating segments conditioned by a non-contiguous region of the sonority scale. Figure 11 does the same but arranged according to the lenis segment, for lenis segments attested in at least three alternations in the AA dataset. For the purpose of the analysis, all vowels are regarded as having equal sonority. Likewise, all liquids are taken to have equal sonority, whether laterals, trills, taps or flaps. Because a language can exhibit multiple patterns of sonority-based conditioning of lenition for one and the same stop, for instance when different conditions apply to different suffixes, the tallies in these Figures are higher than the simpler tallies back in Figure 1, which only counted whether or not a certain stop participated in lenition alternations, and lumped all conditions together. The results show that neat bipartitions of the sonority scale are implicated in the overwhelming majority of lenition alternations’ triggering conditions. In truth, for alternations with zero, this is in part pre-determined by the way the data was gathered: alternations were identified as lenition according the criteria outlined above, but ‘anti- lenition’ alternations, such as /k/ after vowels and zero after consonants, were not included even though they certainly exist (they would typically be regarded as deletion).

10 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION

Apart from this though, the methodology is not the source for the other striking results that emerge. Non-zero ‘anti-lenition’, such as /k/ after vowels and /w/ after consonants, is not found and its absence is not an artefact of the method. Among the neat sonority splits, the vast majority fall into just two types: consonant–vowel or occlusive– continuant. These would appear to be natural fault lines in the sonority scale with respect to the conditioning of lenition in Australian languages. Even the ‘other contiguous split’ and ‘non-contiguous split’ categories are often organised around a basic tri-partition of the sonority scale into occlusives, continuant consonants, and vowels. For example, in (Meakins and Nordlinger 2013:68) the continuative suffix on verbs is /-kara/ after occlusives and vowels, but /-ara/ after liquids. This splits the sonority scale non- contiguously but still uses the familiar, basic tri-partition of it. In other cases, non- contiguous splits are due to a single segment acting unusually in its triggering behaviour, while the rest of the sonority scale is split regularly. For example, in (Rumsey 2000:97) the iterative aspect marker is /-pa/ after occlusives and /-wa/ after continuants, with the single exception that /-pa/ will also appear after the glide /j/. All in all, the conditioning of stops versus lenis alternants according to the sonority of the segment to their left is remarkably orderly.

2.6 Morphological conditioning

Morphology plays a significant role of in the conditioning of lenition in Australian languages (Baker 2014:170,173). Since an extensive survey is beyond the scope of this study, here I list key aspects of it which deserve more research (see Round in prep). Synchronic lenition (or fortition) never applies exceptionlessly across the lexicon, rather it applies primarily in derived environments. Most often these are morphologically derived environments,8 within which lenition can exhibit classic derived-environment effects. In /Ganggalida for example, the portmanteau locative-dative suffix /-kurka/ undergoes lenition to /-urka/ when it follows a continuant consonant, including a stem-final /r/ as in /wirwir+kurka/ → /wirwirurka/ ‘riverbank-LOC.DAT’ (Round 2014:183). However, only the first /r+k/ cluster, which is morphologically derived, is subject to lenition of /k/, while the second, underived /rk/ sequence is unaffected. Lenition is often subject to morphological idiosyncrasy, which appears in various guises. Idiosyncrasy can operate in terms of which formatives are, or are not, potential undergoers of lenition. In , suffix-initial velar, labial and palatal stops undergo lenition, but only in some suffixes and clitics and not others (Senge 2015:92–3). Idiosyncrasy can operate in terms of which lenis segment pairs with a given stop. In , /k/ alternates with the glide /w/ at the start of class-marked kin nouns and most human status adjectives, with /j/ in four phratry adjectives, and otherwise with zero in stems longer than two syllables (Harvey 2002:34). It can operate in terms of the sonority conditions under which lenition is triggered. In Mara (Heath 1981:34,36) the

8 See Ch NCDISSIMILATION, §6 on the feeding of lenition by nasal cluster dissimilation, for examples of lenition in phonologically derived environments.

11 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION lenition of /p/ to /w/ occurs following a continuant when at the beginning of inflectable auxiliaries, but occurs only after vowels at the beginning of certain nominal and cardinal- directional stems, and in certain verbal reduplications. The examples cited so far are idiosyncrasies which hinge on the morphological identity of the (non-)target of lenition, but idiosyncrasy can also be associated with the trigger. In Djapu, lenition in case suffixes is triggered differently by nominal versus pronominal stems (Morphy 1983:53,59). It can associate with differences in morphological constructional types, such as reduplication and compounding (e.g. Djambarrpuyngu, Wilkinson 1991:71), or with specific combinations of trigger and target (e.g. in Djaru, Tsunoda 1981). Though this list is only brief, it serves to establish that the intrusion of morphology into the conditioning of lenition is an interesting and complex issue, deserving of further investigation.

2.7 Discussion: synchronic analysis as lenition or fortition

I have referred to the alternations under study here as ‘lenition’, but phonologists have accorded them synchronic analyses as both lenition and fortition (Baker 2014:170–75). Rather than review these choices themselves, it may be more useful to clarify some of the inherent logical issues that a phonologist faces when choosing whether to analyse these alternations as lenition or fortition. The central argument is that in most instances, the alternation data itself will not decide which choice is best, rather it leaves both options open (and this is reflected in the analyses that exist in the Australian phonological literature). To see how this comes about, five illustrative schematic datasets will be helpful, referred to below as languages A to E. The relevant data for language A is in (3). In language A, suffixes of ‘type I’ have an initial segment that surfaces as a stop /k/ after a preceding consonant and a glide /w/ after a preceding vowel. Language A also has ‘type II’ suffixes, which always begin with a stop /k/, and it has no suffixes of type III, that always begin with the glide /w/.

(3) Language A Suffix type I: Suffix type II: * Suffix type III: initial k~w initial k only initial w only ŋaral-kiri ŋara-wiri ŋaral-kara ŋara-kara ŋaral-wara ŋara-wara

When classic phonological reasoning is applied to this dataset, the obvious choice of synchronic analysis for language A is in terms of fortition. The initial stop of the type II suffix does not vary on the surface, so we can assume it is also underlyingly a stop, /k/. Since there are no suffixes with invariant initial /w/ on the surface, we are free to posit /w/ as the underlying form of the initial segment of type I suffixes, and derive the stop variant by a rule of fortition that applies after consonants. Not only is fortition a simple analysis, but a lenition analysis would be gratuitously complicated. We would need to posit some abstract difference between stops that lenite (type I), and stops that do not (type II), and a rule of lenition whose application makes reference to that abstract difference. Thus, in language A the choice in favour of a fortition analysis is clear. It

12 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION follows from the empirical facts plus the methodological principle of parsimony, that gratuitous abstractness is to be avoided. Similar argumentation would apply to language B in (4), which has suffixes of type I and III but not II: for language B, the obvious choice of analysis would be lenition.

(4) Language B Suffix type I: * Suffix type II: Suffix type III: initial k~w initial k only initial w only ŋaral-kiri ŋara-wiri ŋaral-kara ŋara-kara ŋaral-wara ŋara-wara

Few Australian languages are like languages A or B though. The relevant data for language C is shown in (5). In language C, not only /k/ but also /p/ alternates with /w/. In general, the issues that are about arise for language C are relevant for any system with many-to- one or one-to-many mappings between stops and their lenis alternants.

(5) Language C Suffix type I: Suffix type II: * Suffix type III: initial {k,p}~w initial k,p only initial w only ŋaral-kiri ŋara-wiri ŋaral-kara ŋara-kara ŋaral-wara ŋara-wara ŋaral-pa ŋara-wa ŋaral-pul ŋara-pul

As in language A, language C has no ‘type III’ suffixes, but the critical new issue is that if a suffix starts with /w/ after a vowel, it does not necessarily start with /k/ after a consonant, rather it might also start with /p/. This makes the use of some kind of abstractness unavoidable, since there is now a need to distinguish leniting stops from non-leniting stops (if a lenition analysis is chosen) or to distinguish /w/ which strengths to a velar stop from /w/ that strengthens to a labial stop (if a fortition analysis is chosen). Phonological theory provides many technical options for implementing the necessary abstractness: abstract morphophonemic contrasts such as /w1/ versus /w2/ or /k/ versus /K/; phonological underspecification; morphological diacritics (such as class I versus class II suffixes); differences among kinds of phonological junctures or phonological strata; or differences among kinds of morphological or prosodic constituent structures. Irrespective of the formal implementation, the key logical issue is that under the circumstances in language C, lenition and fortition are both viable analyses. Abstractness is required for both, and is gratuitous for neither. Whatever analysis the phonologist does choose, the decision will not be one that follows simply from the empirical facts of the alternation plus parsimony, as it did for languages A and B. Language D, in (6), leads the phonologist to the same conundrum, though by a different route. Since suffixes of types I, II and III all exist, there are stops that alternate with glides and stops that don’t, and glides that alternate with stops and glides that don’t. Whether an fortition analysis or a lenition analysis is chosen, abstractness will be necessary, and the actual choice of analysis will not follow simply from the empirical facts of the alternation plus parsimony.

13 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION

(6) Language D Suffix type I: Suffix type II: Suffix type III: initial k~w initial k only initial w only ŋaral-kiri ŋara-wiri ŋaral-kara ŋara-kara ŋaral-wara ŋara-wara

The relevant data for language E is shown in (7). In language E, the alternation is between /k/ after occlusives (stops and nasals) and zero after continuants. The language also contains non-alternating vowel-initial suffixes of type IV.

(7) Language E Suffix type I: Suffix type II: Suffix type IV: initial k~Ø initial k only initial vowel only ŋaran-kiri ŋaral-iri ŋaran-kul ŋaral-kul ŋaran-ara ŋaral-ara

In language E, suffix initial /k/ after an occlusive might alternate with zero (type I) or not (type II), and a suffix initial vowel /V/ might alternate with /kV/ (type I) or not (type IV), leading once again to abstractness, and a choice of analysis that does not follow simply from the empirical facts of the alternation plus parsimony. All of this has implications for the degree of caution that needs to be exercised when comparing lenition versus fortition in Australian languages. We saw in sections 2.2–2.3 that many Australian languages share critical traits with languages D and E, namely many-to-one or one-to-many mappings, and alternation with zero. Yet others follow language C. For these languages, the choice of synchronic analysis simply will not follow from the basic facts of the lenition/fortition alternation. Instead, it will necessarily depend on something additional, perhaps information from opaque orderings with respect to other processes; or theory-internal considerations such as naturalness or markedness; perhaps reference to the form of segments in ‘neutral’ environments like word-initial position; or the productivity of the alternation; or a preference for one’s analysis to be compatible with analyses of related languages. Within this list of considerations, any two may well point the analysis in opposite directions, in which case the final decision may also hinge on the phonologist’s relative ranking or weighting of these considerations. This all makes for a highly complex link between the observable outcome (analysis as lenition versus analysis as fortition) and the many underlying factors that ultimately lead to it. It also means that ‘lenition languages’ and ‘fortition languages’ are quite unlikely to be coherent or natural or insightful categories. And for that reason, I do not present any tally of such categories here. Instead, it remains a task for future research to examine the factors that shape lenition/fortition choices, and to establish what they reveal about Australian phonological systems.

14 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION

2.8 Summary

Over a third of the AA languages have alternations of the kind I have term ‘lenition’, an alternation between stops and more lenis alternants or zero. Velar, labial and palatal stops alternate in this way more often than stops at other places of articulation, though this appears mainly to reflect their relative prevalence in suffix-initial position rather than a difference in a propensity to participate in lenition alternations per se. Most commonly, /k,ȶ,p/ alternate respectively with /w,j,w/, though a variety of other mappings are attested, including alternation with zero, and many-to-one and one-to- many mappings are well represented. No stringent scale is apparent, such that place of articulation a only participates in lenition if b does. The conditioning of lenition alternations by phonological context is highly regimented, and overwhelmingly patterns according to whether the adjacent segment to the left is a consonant versus vowel, or occlusive versus continuant. Morphological conditioning including idiosyncratic conditioning is also attested, and takes various forms. Finally, the phonologist’s choice between a synchronic analysis in terms of lenition or fortition, in several common sets of circumstances, will not follow simply from the empirical facts of the alternation plus parsimony.

3. Assimilation

Assimilation is possibly the most common (morpho)phonological process in human language (Brohan and Mielke 2018:210–11), though its prevalence in Australia has been characterised in strikingly divergent terms. Dixon (2002:619,623) has claimed that both consonantal and vocalic assimilation are ‘pervasive’ in Australian languages, whereas Baker (2014:170,175) finds consonantal assimilation to be ‘rare’ and vocalic assimilation to amount to but ‘a few scattered instances’. Evans (1995a) discusses dissimilation but does not mention assimilation. Perhaps the best response is to contextualise these claims with empirical evidence. In this section I survey assimilation as found in the 118 Australian languages in the AA dataset. For reasons of space, the study is confined to local assimilation between adjacent consonants, and between vowels in adjacent syllables. As in section 2, the study here is of morphophonological alternations, not allophony, and it reports obligatory processes, not optional ones. Such alternations appear in 73 of the AA languages. Assimilation between consonants is examined in section 3.1 and between vowels in section 3.2. For reasons of space, assimilation between consonants and vowels is not addressed here.

3.1 Assimilation between consonants

For the purposes of the investigation, I define consonant assimilation as an interaction between two segments in which one becomes more similar to the other, and neither deletes, thus it covers cases like /n+p/ → /nm/ but not /n+p/ → /m/. ‘More similar’ is defined simply: the assimilating target consonant comes to have either the self same place

15 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION of articulation, or the self same manner of articulation, or both, as the trigger. This excludes more abstract assimilations such as assimilation of continuancy (which could describe lenition, for example) or assimilation of non-retroflexion without full place assimilation (this is an interesting phenomenon in Australian languages, but beyond the scope of this study). Section 3.1.2 covers place of articulation assimilation, section 3.1.3 manner assimilation, and section 3.1.4 the assimilation of both simultaneously. Section 3.1.1 sets out some initial hypotheses to test against the data.

3.1.1 Hypotheses based on static phonotactics

Ch PHONOTACTICS discusses some strong constraints whose effects are found across the Australian continent, on permissible sequences of consonants in clusters. A sensible hypothesis is that consonant assimilation will often function to convert underlying clusters that violate those constraints into surface clusters that obey them. The essence of these constraints in summarised in (8) and (9): both manners and places of articulation tend strongly to be arranged from left to right in the sequences shown.

(8) Left-to-right order of superlaryngeal places: Apicals > Laminals > Dorsals > Labials (9) Left-to-right order of manners: Glides > Liquids > Nasals > Obstruents > Glides

A corresponding set of hypotheses then, is that when two consonants C1+C2 combine, the relative likelihoods of places and manners to undergo assimilatory change, in order to satisfy the constraints in (8) and (9) are those shown in (10)–(13).

(10) C1 most-to-least likely to change place: Labials > Dorsals > Laminals > Apicals

(11) C2 most-to-least likely to change place: Apicals > Laminals > Dorsals > Labials

(12) C1 most-to-least likely to change manner: Obstruents > Nasals > Liquid > Glide

(13) C2 most-to-least likely to change manner: Liquid > Nasals > Obstruents > Glide

Of course, (10)–(13) are hypotheses about relative likelihoods that would be appropriate under the assumption that all possible underlying clusters C1+C2 are equally likely. That is not true though, and accordingly our expectations about how frequently we will actually see each kind of change needs to be tempered by information about the frequency with which various underlying C1+C2 clusters actually exist. That information is not straightforward to gauge. However, we can make an attempt at approximating it in a similar fashion to that employed in §2.1 earlier, namely, for C1 I searched the lexical database for stem-final segments of major class lexical items (verbs and nouns/ nominals) and for C2 I searched for suffix initials. This is a crude measure on multiple fronts, but it provides some information with which to adjust and improve our expectations.

16 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION

Figure 12 Superlaryngeal places of articulation of stem-final consonants

Figure 13 Superlaryngeal places of articulation of suffix-initial consonants

Figure 14 Manners of articulation of stem-final consonants

Figure 15 Manners of articulation of suffix-initial consonants

Figures 12–15 show the results of lexical searches, and their implications for hypotheses

(10)–(13) can be summarised as follows. Figure 12 tempers the expectations about C1 place of articulation in (10): though labials should be the most likely C1 to change according to (10), they are also the least likely to appear underlyingly according to Figure 12, and though apicals should rarely if ever change, they are vastly over-represented underlyingly, so we may in fact see them assimilate. Figure 13 would temper the expectations about C2 place of articulation in (11) were it not so evenly balanced, but since it is so even, the hypotheses in (11) should essentially stand. Figure 14 complicates the hypotheses about C1 manner of articulation in (12). According to (12) glides are unlikely to change and by Figure 14 they are unlikely to occur, so we expect to see virtually no C1 assimilation of glides. For liquids and obstruents, (12) and Figure 14 push

17 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION our expectations in opposite directions, so it is not clear what to expect in the data. For nasals, however, (12) and Figure 14 both suggest we may see relatively frequent assimilation, but this should be taken with a grain of salt: general phonological typology suggests that nasals rarely undergo manner assimilation. All in all then, we are relatively empty handed regarding expectations about manner assimilation of C1. Finally, Figure 15 complicates (13) in a similar fashion to Figure 14 and (12), and so it is unclear what to expect regarding manner assimilation at all. In sum, though the exercise leaves us with little in the way of hypotheses, it has proven itself worthwhile insofar as it shows that the aprioristic hypotheses in (10)–(13) are likely too naïve, with the exception perhaps of those regarding place of articulation assimilation of C2, in (11).

3.1.2 Place assimilation

When surveying place of articulation assimilation in Australian languages, the data is liable to be swamped by Pama-Nyungan ergative and locative allomorphy. These case markers are reconstructed back to proto-Pama-Nyungan as having post-consonantal allomorphs /-Cu/ and /-Ca/ respectively, where /C/ is a stop which assimilates in place of articulation to the stem-final consonant to its left (Hale 1976; Sands 1996). Since both have been inherited into very many modern Pama-Nyungan languages with their assimilatory allomorphy intact, we are best to control for it by removing them from the dataset, which is what I have done. The AA database contains many instances of place assimilation, so it will be possible here to examine reasonably large samples. The unit of measurement will be the number of languages in which a certain pattern occurs. Our interest will be in C1 as a target of regressive assimilation (for which C2 is the trigger), and in C2 as a target of progressive assimilation (with C1 the trigger). Even though we are currently examining assimilation in place, not manner, of articulation, it is possible of course that the manner of C1 and C2 is important in conditioning assimilation in terms of place. For example, given what is known outside of Australia, we might expect to find that place of articulation assimilation is particularly common in nasal+stop clusters. In the following I consider the manners of C1 and C2 first, and then their places. For each, I first consider regressive assimilation (with C1 the target) and then progressive (with C2 the target). For regressive assimilation of place of articulation, all 17 instances in the AA database comprise nasal C1 targets assimilating to stop C2 triggers.

In progressive assimilation, C2 is the target and C1 the trigger. Table 1 tabulates the combinations of C1 and C2 of manners, and counts the number of languages with progressive assimilations instantiated within such clusters. Shading reflects the counts in the cells. Rows and columns are ordered (top to bottom and left to right) according to their totals. As with regressive assimilation, it is nasal+stop clusters that most commonly host progressive assimilation, though in contrast to regressive assimilation there is an additional, relatively wide range of other manner combinations attested in which progressive assimilation takes place. The overall numbers are also higher: 64 instances of progressive as opposed to 17 instances of regressive assimilation. The results for

18 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION regressive and progressive assimilation are remarkable in a global typological context. In Australia, a nasal+stop cluster is just as likely to host progressive place assimilation as regressive, whereas elsewhere, regressive assimilation is far more common (Brohan and Mielke 2018:216–7).9 This deserves further study. It may have implications for theories that assume that in all human languages, codas will be more likely to undergo place assimilation than onsets (Itô 1988).

C2 = Target Glide Trill Lateral Nasal Stop Glide 1 3 Trill 1 6 2

C1 = Trigger Stop 1 3 6 Lateral 1 5 7 Nasal 2 6 20 Table 1 Number of languages with progressive place of articulation assimilation, tabulated according to trigger and target manner

Next we examine clusters according to their place of articulation. Since it is place of articulation which is being assimilated, a question arises as to how we can be sure what the underlying place of articulation was of the target, given that on the surface, its place will have changed to match that of the trigger. Here I have inferred the underlying place of articulation in the standard way, by asking what it surfaces as in phonological contexts where no trigger is present, e.g. intervocalically or word-finally. In some cases though, the target segment never appears in such trigger-free contexts, so its surface place of articulation is always the same as an adjacent trigger. In these cases, I label the underlying place of articulation ‘Ø’, since it is underdetermined by the empirical evidence.

Table 2 shows regressive assimilation, in which C1 is the target. Generally, this table presents few surprises. Retroflexes in C1 do not assimilate, since the acoustic cues to retroflexion are heavily skewed to the vowel-consonant transition, which is left unperturbed in C1 position (Hamilton 1996; Hamann 2003). Labials in C1 are not seen to assimilate, probably largely because few stem-final consonants are labials (Figure 12).

Coronals in general rarely assimilate to non-coronals in C2, since coronal + non-corononal clusters are freely permitted in Australian languages; they are more often seen assimilating to other coronals in C2. Phonotactically in Australian languages, dorsals in C1 are usually permitted only before other dorsal or labials. In that context, it is interesting to find them assimilating relatively often, even when C2 is labial. Unsurprisingly, the ‘Ø’- place C1 segments are seen assimilating to all C2 places of articulation. A closing caveat is that individual counts are uniformly low, so that any one or two of them may reflect happenstance as much as a principled pattern.

9 Recall too that the Pama-Nyungan ergative/locative allomorphy, which is excluded from these figures, also involves progressive place assimilation.

19 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION

C2 = Trigger Dental Retroflex Alveolar Dorsal Labial Palatal Labial — Retroflex — Dental — 1

C1= Target Palatal 1 1 2 — Alveolar 1 1 — 1 1 4 Dorsal 1 3 — 4 4 Ø 1 1 1 4 4 4 Table 2 Number of languages with regressive place of articulation assimilation, tabulated according to trigger and target place

Table 3 shows progressive assimilation, where C2 is the target. This is the dataset to which the hypothesis in (11) applies: we expect more assimilatory changes in C2 for apicals > laminals > dorsals > labials. This is largely borne out. After targets with the ‘Ø’ place, the next most frequent targets are the apical places (alveolar and retroflex), followed by the laminals (palatal and dental) whose frequencies are close to dorsals, and trailed by the labials. Arguably, this is overlaid with one unexpected pattern. Palatals are both frequent triggers and infrequent targets of progressive place assimilation, and this was true also for regressive assimilation, in Table 2. Phonologists familiar with research into acoustic cues to place of articulation and their apparent impact on the phonology of assimilation (Steriade 2001) may be unsurprised, since palatals have strong, distinctive on- and off-glides with high second formants and depressed first formants both in their vowel-consonant and consonant-vowel transitions, and this should make them robustly perceptible in both C1 and C2 positions. That may be so, but it should be recalled that the only attempt at an explanatory account of Australian consonant cluster phonotactics, by Hamilton (1996), also invokes spectral cues as an explanatory factor, in order to place palatals squarely in the mid-range of ease of perceptibility in clusters — this is why, according to Hamilton, laminals appear in the middle of the ordering sequence in (8). Absent further refinement, it is not possible for both accounts to be correct, and further examination of the issue is called for.

C2 = Target Labial Palatal Dental Dorsal Retroflex Alveolar Ø Labial — 1 1 Dental 1 — 1

C1= Trigger Dorsal 1 1 — 1 2 2 Retroflex 1 1 — 3 3 Alveolar 1 1 3 2 6 — 4 Palatal — 3 5 1 5 4 Table 3 Number of languages with progressive place of articulation assimilation, tabulated according to trigger and target place

20 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION

3.1.2 Manner assimilation

There are few instances of obligatory, morphophonological processes of manner of articulation assimilation in the AA dataset. In (Stokes 1982), initial /n/ in certain verbal roots assimilates to a lateral /l/ on the left (14a) while certain prefix-final trills /r/ assimilate to root-initial /l/ on the right (14b). In Marrithiyel (Green 1981), final /r/ in one set of prefixes assimilates to a root-initial /l/ on the right, as in (15). In Kayardild (Evans 1995b; Round 2009), the glide /w/ assimilates to /m/ when preceded by nasals, as in (16).

(14) Nyigina (Stokes 1982:225–7) a. /wa-la-niga-na/ ‘3-IRR-follow-PST’ → /wa-l-niga-na/ → /walligana/ b. /ja-r-luga/ ‘1-NONMIN-cry’ → /jalluga/ (15) Marrithiyel (Green 1981:137,142) /pir-li/ ‘3AUG.FUT-AUX’ → /pilli/ (16) Kayardild (Round 2009:703,710) a. /ʈaman-wari/ ‘tooth-PRIV’ → /ʈamanmari/ b. /ŋaɳ-wula-i-ȶ-/ ‘beach-SUBJ.ABL’ → /ŋaɳmulaːȶ-/

3.1.3 Assimilation of both place and manner

Likewise, there are very few instances of the simultaneous assimilation of place and manner in the AA dataset. In Nyigina (Stokes 1982) initial /ɻ/ in certain verbal roots assimilates in both place and manner to a nasal /n/ or lateral /l/ on the left, as in (17).

(17) Nyigina (Stokes 1982:208–9) a. /ŋan-ɻa/ ‘1sg- spear’ → /ŋanna/ b. /wal-a-ɻa/ ‘2sg-FUT-spear’ → /wal-ɻa/ → /walla/

In (Baker 2008), the future and irrealis suffixes begin with retroflex /ɻ/ (or with /j/ or a homorganic glide) when they follow vowels, but otherwise surface as a lengthening of the preceding stem-final superlaryngeal consonant, a pattern which might be analysed as total assimilation of /ɻ/ as in (18b–e), though see Baker (2008:56) for additional analysis and discussion. The assimilation process ignores the presence of glottal stops (18d,e).

(18) Ngalakgan (based on Baker 2008:53) a. /munku-ɻa/ ‘follow-FUT’ → /munkuɻa/ ~ /munku-ja/ ‘follow-FUT’ → /munkuja/ b. /puɭ-ɻa/ ‘drown-FUT’ → /puɭɭa/ c. /wulup-ɻa/ ‘bathe-FUT’ → /wuluppa/ d. /ʈulʔ-ɻa/ ‘set alight-FUT’ → /ʈulʔla/

21 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION

e. /pawunʔ-ɻa/ ‘leave-FUT’ → /pawunʔna/

3.3 Assimilation between vowels in adjacent syllables

Assimilation between neighbouring vowels is widespread in the world’s languages (Brohan and Mielke 2018:215) and unsurprisingly is also found in Australia. Because Australian languages mostly have small vowel systems, assimilation typically results in the target becoming identical to the triggering vowel. The study here is of local, non- iterative assimilation between two adjacent syllables.10 It does not cover iterative harmony systems (see Evans 1995a:741–2; Baker 2014:175–7). I also exclude patterns that are attested only in a single morphological combination, such as just one root in combination with just one suffix. There are 27 languages in the AA dataset with processes that meet the criteria for inclusion. In some patterns, assimilation is triggered only by certain vowel qualities and not others: section 3.3.1 examines front–back assimilation between high vowels to the exclusion of non-high vowels, and section 3.3.2 examines assimilations of /a/ to certain non-low neighbours and not others. In other patterns, the target assimilates to all vowel qualities, copying the trigger irrespective of its quality; section 3.3.3 examines these. As in the studies above, this study is confined to obligatory, morphophonological assimilation.

3.3.1 Front–back assimilation between i and u

In Ch PHONOTACTICS, it was seen that the lexicons of Australian languages show a tendency towards front–back harmony in sequences of adjacent high vowels, so that sequences /i-i/ and /u-u/ are considerably more common than /i-u/ or /u-i/. Moreover, /i-u/ sequences generally are somewhat rarer than /u-i/. It would be unsurprising then to also find dynamic assimilation between /i/ and /u/, and a somewhat higher incidence of alternations that remove underlying /i-u/ sequences than underlying /u-i/. Obligatory, local (non-iterative) morphophonological assimilation between /i/ and /u/ is found in twelve of the AA languages. Cases below include both progressive and regressive assimilation, and assimilation that proceeds both from stems onto affixes and from affixes onto stems. Assimilation serves to avoid surface /i-u/ sequences in eight of the languages, and surface /u-i/ sequences in five. Beginning with cases that avoid surface /i-u/ sequences, certain prefixes in Marrithiyel (Green 1981) and (McGregor 1990:107) undergo assimilation of /i/ to a following /u/, as in example (19).

(19) Marrithiyel (Green 1981:137,139) a. ŋi-tin- b. ŋi-ȵar- 1MIN.EXCL.NONFUT-see 1MIN.EXCL.NONFUT-paint

10 Accordingly, I also exclude cases where an iterative harmony system circumstantially causes just one target vowel to change, where in the general case more than one can be affected.

22 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION

c. ŋu-mun- 1MIN.EXCL.NONFUT-go along

Jiwarli dative /-ku/ (Austin 2006:125) assimilates to a preceding /i/, though not across multiple consonants, as in (20). In Arabana-Wangkangurru, suffixal /u/ vowels assimilate to preceding /i/ except across velar consonants.

(20) Jiwarli (Austin 2006:125) a. wiʈa-wu b. t̪ut̪u-wu c. kiɭki-ji d. ŋaɭir-ku boy-DAT dog-DAT girl-DAT barb-DAT

In Gooniyandi, and Wanyjirra, root-final /i/ vowels sometimes assimilate to a following /u/: this is true for one suffix in Gooniyandi, the dative /-wu/ (McGregor 1990:99), for just one root in Wanyjirra, /kari/ ‘be, stay’ (Senge 2015:96–97), and for certain nominal suffixes and verb roots in Warlmanpa (Nash 1979, §14). Bularnu (Breen 1978:15) exhibits assimilation of both /i-u/ and /u-i/ sequences. The operative /-ku/ and allative /-lu/ assimilate to preceding /i/, while dative /-ji/ assimilates to preceding /u/. In four more languages high-vowel assimilation acts to avoid surface /u-i/ sequences: assimilation to a preceding /u/ vowel occurs in the Warluwarra purposive /-ȶi/ (Breen 1970:58), the Pitta-Pitta proximal /=ji/ (Blake 1979a:193), the noun-stem-forming /-ri/ of Yandruwandha and the operative /-li/ of the Strzelecki dialect of Yandruwandha and closely-related Yawarrawarrka (Breen 2004:29,55).

3.3.2 Assimilatory raising of a

In five languages, /a/ assimilates to a neighbouring mid or high vowel. In Australian languages that have mid vowels, Ch PHONOTACTICS showed that lexicons have a statistical preference for a mid vowel to be adjacent another mid vowel in the next syllable. In Wardaman (Merlan 1994:41–42), the vowel of allative /-ɭan/ assimilates across a single consonant to a preceding mid vowel, producing a sequence of two mid vowels on the surface, whereas it does not assimilate to high vowels, as in (21a–e). By the same token, the /a/ vowel of the future suffix follows a different pattern. It raises to /e/ after either of the front vowels /e,i/, and assimilates across multiple consonants, but does not assimilate to the back vowels /o,u/, as illustrated in (21f–k).

(21) Wardaman (Merlan 1994:41,42,53,157,180,192) a. kaŋka-ɭan b. peje-ɭen c. ȶoŋo-ɭon upriver-ALL downrive-ALL east-ALL d. ʈami-ɭan e. koroŋ-lan here-ALL south-ALL f. ŋa-ga-wa g. ŋa-we-we h. ŋa-ȶiŋi-we 1sg-take-FUT 1sg-fall-FUT 1sg-sit-FUT

23 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION

i. ŋa-pu-jiŋ-pe j. ŋan-wo-wa k. ŋa-pu-wa 1sg-hit-REFL-FUT 3sg>1sg-give-FUT 1sg-AUX-FUT

In four languages, /a/ assimilates completely to adjacent /u/ under certain morphological conditions: in certain classes of verb roots before a following future suffix in Ritharrngu (Heath 1980:29), in the roots /muɭa/ ‘this’ and /jala/ ‘that’ before following ergative and dative suffixes in Bilinarra (Meakins and Nordlinger 2013:70–71), in one root /kara/ ‘keep’ before suffixes whose first vowel is /u/ in Wanyjirra (Senge 2015:96– 97), and in the second person augmented future prefix before auxiliary roots whose first vowel is /u/ in Marrithiyel (Green 1981:136–7).

3.3.3 Copying of the trigger vowel, irrespective of its quality

In seven of the AA languages, target vowels assimilate and copy the quality of a neighbouring trigger irrespective of its quality.11 In most instances, these target vowels are only ever found in the context of triggers, and so have no ‘elsewhere’ form to speak of, though in Gooniyandi three classifier roots have vowels which, though they typically copy the final vowel of a preceding prefix, will surface by default as /a/ if no prefix is present or when followed by /w/ (McGregor 1990:196–8). In six languages, suffixes are found whose first vowel only ever copies its quality from the final vowel of the stem: the dative–genitive /-ʔkVn/ and relativiser /-kVn/ in Ngalakgan (Baker 2008:145), the ergative–locative–instrumental /-(ŋ)kV/ and topicaliser /-n̪ V/ in Ngawun (Breen 1981a:40-41,49), the future continuous subjunctive /-C(C)Vr/ in Alawa (Sharpe 1972:42,52), the ergative–locative /-kV(l)/ and purposive–allative /-Vnp(ik)/ in (Black and Gilbert 1996:14–15) and the genitive /-nVkan/ in Wambaya (Nordlinger 1998:81).

3.4 Summary and discussion

It makes sense to compare the patterns of assimilation in Australian languages to constraints on the phonotactics of surface forms. However, §3.1.1 showed that an attempt to formulate reasonable hypotheses in this respect is complicated by the uneven distributions of underlying forms. Even so, Australian languages deliver some stark results. Manner assimilation of consonants is rare. Place assimilation is most common in nasal+stop clusters, but in a notable departure from broader cross-linguistic norms, progressive assimilation is about as common as regressive. Outside of nasal+stop clusters, place assimilation is always progressive in the languages examined. Instances of local, non-iterative vowel assimilation were encountered in one fifth of the AA languages, though no one type was particularly common. Assimilation among high vowels,

11 I do not include suffixes whose effect is to lengthen the final short vowel of a preceding, vowel-final stem, though these cases are sometime analysed as affixation of a single short vowel which copies its quality from the stem (e.g. Blake 1979b:18 for ; Breen 1973:97–98 for Bidyara and Gungabula).

24 Round, Erich R. (in press) Morphophonology: lenition and assimilation, in C.Bowern (ed) Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, OUP — PRE-PRINT VERSION assimilatory raising of /a/, and total assimilation of targets to triggers were each attested in ten percent or fewer of the 118 languages examined. Before closing, it is worth restating that the alternations examined here were morphophonological, not allophonic, and importantly, were obligatory and not optional. The AA dataset contained 73 languages with such alternations, but it also contains no fewer than 36 languages with optional morphophonological assimilation, in the sense that the alternation substitutes one contrastive sound for another, but does not do so obligatorily. Explaining why this is so is a task for future research.

4. Conclusion

Previous reviews of Australian morphophonology have always had only a short format, and with it, a limited capacity to explore and reveal the empirical diversity in Australian phonologies. Here I have conducted two quantitatively-backed studies that reveal a new degree of detail, and at times surprising, key generalisations about Australian morphophonology. A third study can be found in Ch NCDISSIMILATION. Taken together, the studies demonstrate that with modern approaches to phonological diversity, there is still much that can be learnt about Australian languages, and yet more that remains to be explained.

5. Language Sample

The following languages have one or more alternations referred to in the studies above, indicated as [L]enition and [A]ssimilation.

Pama-Nyungan CENTRAL NSW: Gamilaraay [LA] (Giacon 2014), Muruwari [L] (Oates 1988). DYIRBALIC: Wargamay [A] (Dixon 1981). KALKATUNGIC: [L] (Breen and Blake 2007). KARNIC: Yandruwandha [A] (Breen 2004), Yawarrawarrka [A] (Breen 2004), Arabana-Wangkangurru [A] (Hercus 1994), Pitta-Pitta [A] (Blake 1979a). KARTU: [A] (Dench 1998). KULIN: Wathawurrung [A] (Blake, Clark, and Krishna- Pillay 1998). MARIC: Margany [A] (Breen 1981b), Warungu [LA] (Tsunoda 2011). MARRNGU: Nyangamarta [A] (Sharp 2004). MAYI: Ngawun [A] (Breen 1981a). NGUMPIN: Bilinarra [LA] (Meakins and Nordlinger 2013), Gurindji [L] (McConvell 1988), Wanyjirra [LA] (Senge 2015), Jaru [LA] (Tsunoda 1981), Walmajarri [L] (Hudson 1978; Hudson and Richards 1969). PAMAN (MIDDLE): [A] (Smith and Johnson 2000). PAMAN (NORTHERN): Angkamuthi [L] (Crowley 1983), Atampaya [A] (Crowley 1983), [A] (Crowley 1983). PAMAN (SOUTH-WEST): Yir-Yoront [A] (Alpher 1991). MANTHARTA: Jiwarli [LA] (Austin 2006). NGAYARTA: Yindjibarndi [LA] (Wordick 1982). -NSW COAST: Yugambeh [A] (Sharpe 2005), Gidabal [A] (Geytenbeek and Geytenbeek 1971), Batyala [A] (Bell 2003), Duungidjawu [L] (Kite and Wurm 2004). THURA-YURA: Wirangu [L] (Hercus 1999), Kukata [A] (Platt 1972). WARLUWARIC: Bularnu [A] (Breen 1978), Warluwara [A] (Breen 1970). WARUMUNGIC: WATI Wangkajunga [A] (Jones 2011), [A] (Hansen and Hansen 1978), [A] (Glass and Hackett 1970). YAPA Warlmanpa [A] (Nash 1979), Warlpiri [A] (Nash 1986). Gälpu [L] (Wood 1978), Djambarrpuyngu [LA] (Wilkinson 1991), Ritharngu [LA] (Heath 1980). YUIN-KURI Dhanggati [A] (Lissarrague 2007). Other families BUNUBAN: Bunuba [LA] (Rumsey 2000), Gooniyandi [LA] (McGregor 1990). DALY-WESTERN: Marrithiyel [A] (Green 1981). DARWIN GROUP: Larrakia [LA] (Capell 1984), Limilngan [LA] (Harvey 2001). GARRWAN: Garrwa [L] (Mushin 2012). GIIMBIYU: Erre [L] (Campbell 2006), Mengerrdji [L] (Campbell 2006), Urningangg [L] (Campbell 2006). GUNWINYGUAN: Gaagudju [LA] (Harvey 2002), Ngalakgan [A] (Baker 2008). TIWI (isolate)

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[A] (Osborne 1974). IWAIDJAN: [L] (Handelsmann 1991), Maung [LA] (Teo 2007), Iwaidja [LA] (Teo 2007). JARRAKAN: Miriwung [LA] (Kofod 1978). MARAN: Mara [L] (Heath 1981), Alawa [LA] (Sharpe 1972), Mangarrayi [LA] (Merlan 1989). MINDI: Jaminjung [LA] (Schultze-Berndt 2000), Ngaliwuru [LA] (Bolt, Hoddinott, and Kofod 1971), Jingulu [A] (Pensalfini 2003), Wambaya [LA] (Nordlinger 1998). NYULNYULAN: Nyigina [LA] (Stokes 1982), [L] (McGregor 1994), Bardi [LA] (Bowern 2012). TANGKIC: Kayardild [LA] (Round 2009). WORRORRAN: Ungarinyin [LA] (Rumsey 1982), [LA] (Carr 2000), [LA] (Clendon 2000). YANGMANIC: Wardaman [LA] (Merlan 1994).

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