Labial Harmony in Kazakh: Descriptive and Theoretical Issues
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LABIAL HARMONY IN KAZAKH: DESCRIPTIVE AND THEORETICAL ISSUES By ADAM G. MCCOLLUM A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2015 © 2015 Adam G. McCollum To Mara-Diana, who has been patient and exceedingly merciful during this process ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to thank my beautiful wife and rambunctious son, who make writing all of this worthwhile. Without their love and care, I would surely be wandering lost amidst some herd of yaks somewhere. In addition to their support, I’ve been so fortunate to have a group of inspiring, encouraging, and kind professors a balding young linguist could hope for. Caroline Wiltshire was instrumental in the formation of this idea from the very beginning, and throughout the process of research and writing she has been a diligent reader, wise mentor, and a wellspring of constructive suggestions and ideas. Brent Henderson was patient enough with me to introduce me to formal linguistics, and more than that, to offer counsel whenever the struggles of balancing family life with school were most challenging. Many thanks also go out to Ratree Wayland for helping me to understand something of phonetics, and for suggesting relevant reading along the way. Additionally, I’ve really appreciated and benefited from conversations with Todd Hughes, Bryan Gelles, Liz Bossley, Majid Al-Homidan, Marc Matthews, and Mohammed Al-Meqdad over the last couple of years. Many thanks also go out to the admissions committee and the entire Linguistics Department at UF for being willing to take a mighty risk on an old fogey like me. In a completely different category, I could not have done any of this without the unfailing hospitality and kindness of the Kazakhs with whom I lived in Kazakhstan. Their willingness to suffer through my terrible attempts to adequately produce and comprehend their language is a testimony to the fortitude of the human spirit. I am continually grateful for the opportunity to break bread with you and share life with you for the unbearably cold years spent in southeastern Kazakhstan. 4 Last but certainly not least, thanks to the reader, for if you’ve gotten this far in the thesis you have done a monumental thing that only a precious few have managed before you, actually read some of this. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................... 4 LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. 8 LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... 9 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................ 10 ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................... 12 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND ......................................................................... 14 Socio-Political Background ...................................................................................... 14 Linguistic Background .............................................................................................. 21 Kazakh Dialects ................................................................................................. 22 Kazakh Phonology ............................................................................................. 23 Consonants ................................................................................................. 23 Vowels ........................................................................................................ 25 Vowel harmony ........................................................................................... 30 Previous work on Kazakh vowel harmony .................................................. 32 METHODS AND RESULTS ........................................................................................... 37 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 37 Recruitment ....................................................................................................... 37 Recording .......................................................................................................... 38 Elicitation Motivations and Methods .................................................................. 39 Informed Consent .............................................................................................. 41 Protocol .................................................................................................................... 42 Task 1: vowels in isolation ................................................................................. 42 Task 2: minimal pairs ......................................................................................... 42 Task 3: nominal paradigms ............................................................................... 43 Task 4: verbal paradigms .................................................................................. 45 Task 5: giving directions .................................................................................... 48 Elicitation wrap-up ............................................................................................. 49 Hypothesis ............................................................................................................... 50 Measurements ......................................................................................................... 50 Annotation ......................................................................................................... 50 Normalization ..................................................................................................... 52 Results and Analysis ................................................................................................ 53 Root Vowels ............................................................................................................. 53 Post-Initial Vowels: General Results ................................................................. 56 Discriminant Analysis .................................................................................. 58 Mixed Effects Modeling ............................................................................... 59 6 Post-initial vowels: non-high back context ......................................................... 63 Post-initial vowels: non-high front context ......................................................... 65 Post-initial vowels: high front context ................................................................ 68 Post-initial vowels: high back context ................................................................ 71 Post-initial vowels: the GER suffix ..................................................................... 78 VOWEL HARMONY AND PERCEPTION ...................................................................... 82 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 82 Preliminaries ............................................................................................................ 82 Markedness and Surface Assymetries .............................................................. 82 Specification and Harmony ................................................................................ 92 Features: Privative or Equipollent? .................................................................... 96 Kaun’s Analysis ........................................................................................................ 98 Extending Kaun’s Analysis ..................................................................................... 104 Perceptual Distance ........................................................................................ 104 Triggers ........................................................................................................... 106 Targets ............................................................................................................ 111 Encoding these Findings in the Formalism ...................................................... 112 The Gerundial Suffix ........................................................................................ 118 Phonetics and Phonology ................................................................................ 121 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 126 LIST OF REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 131 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ........................................................................................... 144 7 LIST OF TABLES Table page 1-1 Kazakh consonantal inventory ............................................................................. 23 1-2 Vowel inventory ................................................................................................... 26 1-3 Harmonic vowels ................................................................................................. 28 2-1 Sociolinguistic data .............................................................................................. 38 2-2 Task 1 prompts 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