Lakota Intonation and Prosody
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Lakota Intonation and Prosody by Armik Mirzayan B.S., University of California, Los Angeles, 1995 M.S., University of Colorado, Boulder, 1998 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics 2010 This thesis entitled: Lakota Intonation and Prosody written by Armik Mirzayan has been approved for the Department of Linguistics David S. Rood Rebecca Scarborough Date The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. IRB protocol #0409.5 iii Mirzayan, Armik (Ph.D., Linguistics) Lakota Intonation and Prosody Thesis directed by Professor David S. Rood and Professor Rebecca Scarborough This thesis provides a comprehensive account of the intonational phonology of Lakota, an indigenous North American language of the Siouan family. Lakota is predominantly a verb final language, characterized by complex verbal morphology. The phonological description of Lakota intonation and prosody presented here is based on acoustic analysis of speech data collected from native speakers. The framework of analysis adopts the fundamental tenets of the autosegmental-metrical approach to intonation as originally formulated by Pierrehumbert (1980) and later reformulated and extended by Pierrehumbert & Beckman (1988), Ladd (2009), and others. The dissertation is organized into two major interrelated parts, the first dealing with the tonal and the second with the prosodic properties of Lakota. The tonal part provides an analysis of the major pitch events in Lakota utterances. I describe the types of pitch accents, their distribution inside phrases with different lengths and structures, and the alignment of these pitch events with respect to the segmental tier. I also provide an analysis of the types of pitch events that occur at the edges of phrases. The description of the intonational events is based on a corpus of declarative and interrogative utterances drawn from narratives and semi-spontaneous speech that sample different speakers, from two different time periods. The results show that the core tone in a pitch accent event in Lakota consists of a high (H) tonal target which can be followed and/or preceded by a low (L) pitch. The majority of accentual high peaks in Lakota are realized within the boundaries of lexically stressed syllables. The trailing L tone, if present, usually occurs in the space of one or two syllables after the stressed syllable. The analysis of the edge tones reveals that Lakota utterances contain boundary tones and intermediate phrase accents. I explore the types of boundary tones and show that the phrase accent is frequent and robust, although there is variation across speakers and genre in terms of the types of phrase accents that are used. I conclude the tonal analysis by considering two prominent aspects of pitch scaling in Lakota phrases. iv The first is the phenomenon of downstep and the second is the observation of sudden, and extreme, pitch span compressions. I show that these scaling events apply locally at specific points in an utterance. The prosodic part of the dissertation is primarily an acoustic and impressionistic phonetic analysis that yields evidence in favor of levels of prosodic structure in Lakota. I provide a detailed description of the segmental and suprasegmental cues associated with the perception of boundary strengths between adjacent words in phrases. This phonetic analysis shows that Lakota utterances can be organized into three levels of supra-lexical prosodic structure: the Intonational Phrase, the Intermediate Phrase, and the Prosodic (phonological) Word. I consider the phenomenon of downstep from the tonal analysis in light of the proposed prosodic structure and show that the application of pitch scaling events is constrained by the prosodic organization. In the final part of the analysis I discuss a few ways in which speech rate and morpho-phonological length influence prosodic phrasing. In particular, I examine the phrasing of several post-verbal enclitics based on the outcomes of a small experimental study. The results show that utterances in Lakota can contain complex prosodic domains. Although the thesis arrives at some interesting theoretical conclusions, it leaves open a number of issues for future research. For Jaime and Roger. vi Acknowledgements It would be nearly impossible to list the names of all the people who have accompanied me throughout this adventure. The study has taken place over the course of several years, during which I have received support from numerous sources. Here, I have tried my best to acknowledge the names of all the people who have played a central role in helping me complete this work. Some who deserve a mention may have been unintentionally left out. I apologize in advance for any such accidental omissions. First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. David S. Rood, who has been so helpful, patient, resourceful, and encouraging throughout my entire time at the University of Colorado. Without his efforts and his teaching this work would not have started or reached completion. I would like to thank Dr. Rebecca Scarborough for her assistance and keen insights on the analysis, and for her engaging conversations. Many thanks to Dr. Laura Michaelis-Cummings for always asking the questions that made me think carefully about the larger goals of my study. I thank Dr. J. Andrew Cowell and Dr. Brenda Romero for all their encouragement and feedback. A special thanks also to professor emeritus Dr. Alan Bell for inspiring me to pursue my doctoral studies in the phonetics and phonology of intonation. This thesis is about Lakota, a language and culture that inspired me during the very early years of my residence in the United States. As an undergraduate student at UCLA, my interest in learning Lakota grew while I was working on a class project in American Indian Theatre, taught by Dr. Hanay Geiogamah. When I moved to Boulder I was at a good place to continue my quest to learn the Lakota language. I would therefore like to thank all the Lakota people that directly or indirectly shared their knowledge with me and vii helped me start the life-long process of learning a new language. I would like to thank Jerry Fills Pipe and Bill Center for providing me the first foundations for learning Lakota between 1999 and 2002. I would like to thank all the people at Oglala Lakota College who gave me advice and guidance in 2007; special mentions are Bryant High Horse, Brian Hollow Horn Bear, Albert White Hat, and Biagio Arobba. I would like to especially thank Della Bad Wound, the main Lakota consultant for this thesis, for working with me so patiently last summer when I was struggling, and for providing so much Lakota for me to study and analyze. Without Della’s hard work as well this dissertation would not have been completed. Several other Lakota speakers have also contributed immensely to the database used in this study. Among these great individuals are Paul Red Star, Sophie One Feather, Olney Runs After, Richard Fool Bull, and Sidney Keith. Much praise and thanks also to Jan Ullrich and the entire Lakota Language Consortium for publishing the New Lakota Dictionary in 2008. It was the most valuable resource for working on Lakota at times of isolation. Closer to home, I want thank my family, Adrienne and Sevan, who have been so supportive and have waited so patiently and lovingly while I spent many long hours working. I hope to be able to make up the lost time with you in the years to come. And I should apologize to Sevan that my fieldwork took so much time away from his storm-chasing plans! I send thanks to my friends Shawn, Suze, and Belinda who briefly shared their space with me when I desperately needed a quiet place to write. Also close to home and heart, for all their encouragement and help, are my brother Patrick and my friend Garen. Finally, there are two people who deserve a very special mention here. One is my former undergraduate advisor, the late Dr. Roger Andersen. If Roger had not taken me on as an assistant in applied linguistics in my last year at UCLA, I would not have thought of doing graduate work in linguistics. Roger, I know you will never see this work, although you were the first one who asked for it. I am sorry it is so late. And finally, many thanks to my teacher and friend, Dr. Jaime Luis Daza, who originally introduced me to the marvels of linguistic field work and analysis. Thank you, Jaime, for teaching me, for traveling with me, for consoling me, and for always reminding me to not give up. viii Contents Chapter 1 Preliminaries 1 1.1 Introduction . 1 1.2 Definitions, Assumptions, and Expectations . 2 1.2.1 Definitions and Terminology . 2 1.2.2 Basic Assumptions . 4 1.2.3 The Descriptive Component . 5 1.2.4 Expectations and Analytical Goals . 5 1.3 Framework of Analysis: Overview of the Autosegmental-Metrical Approach to Intonation . 7 1.3.1 Tones and Segments in AM Theory . 8 1.3.2 The Metrical Component of AM Theory . 10 1.3.3 Quantization of Intonation in AM Theory . 12 ix 1.4 Relevant Issues and Puzzles in Intonational Phonology . 14 1.4.1 Identifying Core Tones . 14 1.4.2 Issues Concerning Organization of Tones . 15 1.4.3 The Phrase Accent Problem . 16 1.4.4 Concerning Prosodic Phrasing . 18 1.5 Previous Studies with Similar Concerns . 19 1.5.1 AM Studies of Intonation and Prosody .