![Variation in the Nativization of Foreign [A] in English](http://data.docslib.org/img/8e2730d81ab93f53a35ec800ba2a2eae-1.webp)
University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics
Volume 4 Issue 1 A selection of papers from NWAVE 25 Article 15
1997
Variation in the nativization of foreign [a] in English
Charles Boberg
Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl
Recommended Citation Boberg, Charles (1997) "Variation in the nativization of foreign [a] in English," University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1 , Article 15. Available at: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol4/iss1/15
This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol4/iss1/15 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Variation in the nativization of foreign [a] in English
This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol4/iss1/15 Volume4.1,1997 U.PennWorkingPapersinLinguistics
theforeignvowel[a]doesoccurinsomeEnglishdialects,how VariationintheNativizationofForeign[a] ever.InSouthernBritishEnglish4(henceforthBrE),orintradi inEnglish tionalBostonspeech,itismostcommonlyfoundeitherinthe
"broad-a"class(wordslikepastanddanceforbeforeafollow
CharlesBoberg ingvocalizedIvhinwordslikecarandcart;thesewillberep
resentedhereasthephoneme/ah/,thesameasisfoundinBrE
father.InmanyAmericanEnglish(henceforthAmE)dialects, 1. Introduction [a]orsomethingclosetoitcanbeheardasthephoneticreali
zationofthe"short-o"(/o/)ofgotorstop. Differentlanguagesinvolvedifferentsetsofsoundsselected Itshouldbenotedatthispointthatwhenawordlike fromtheuniverseofpossiblehumanspeechsounds.When llamaisnativizedinAmEwiththesound[a],somephonolo- speakersofonelanguageborrowwordsanother, fromtheyhave gistsmightchoosetoassignthisvoweltothephonemefoundin toadaptthesoundscontainedintheforeignwordstosounds fatherandahandfulofothernativewords,8ratherthantothe usedintheirownlanguage,aprocessIrefertoasnativization.1
WhilethewaysinwhichEnglishspeakersnativizeforeign wordsarefullofcomplexitiesandirregulardevelopments,one
ofthemostpuzzlingisthetreatmentofwordscontainingthe IPAsymbols- [a],whilethephonemes(and,byextension,theword
foreignvowel[a],writtenwiththeletterinthesourcelan classes)ofparticular a languageordialectareidentifiedbyslashes-
guages(e.g.,Frenchfacade,Germanangst,Spanishplaza)orin /ae/,/ey/,etc.Thelatterrepresentationsaretobethoughtofassym
romanizationsofthesourcelanguages(e.g.,RussianPravda, bolsforhistoricallycontinuousEnglishphonemesorwordclasses,
Japaneseorigami). basedonthenotationalsystemdevelopedinTragerandSmith(1951)
Owingtoa seriesofsoundchangesthatoccurredat andadoptedthroughoutthesubsequentworkofLabov;theyarenotto
earlierperiodsinthehistoryofEnglish,2theEnglishletter betakenasphoneticallypreciseIPAtranscriptions.
typicallyrepresentsnotthelow-centralvowel[a],asintheor 4And,byextension,inAustralianandNewZealandEnglish.
thographyofmostofthelanguagesfrom whichEnglishborrows, 5The"broad-a"classcamemostlyfromME/a/,whichlengthenedand
buteitherthelow-front"short-a"ofcat(/se/)orthetense,mid- backedinSouthernBrEinthe18thcentury.Thishappenedmostgen
front"long-a"ofgate(/ey/).3A low-centralvowelsimilarto erallytoME stressed/a/beforevoicelessfricativesorfricative-stop
clusters(path,past)or,occasionally,toanoriginallylongvowel be
forenasal-obstruentclustersinFrench borrowings(France,dance,
1Bloomfield(1933:445)callsthisprocess"phoneticsubstitution".
grant,command);seePrins1972:145. Weinreich(1968:14)callsit"phonicinterference".VanCoetsem
6Prins(1972:229)saysnon-prevocalichiwasvocalizedinSouthern (1988)callsit"adaptation"andcontrastsitwith"imitation".In
BrEinthe18thcentury.Thevocalizationresultsin[a:],asoundiden "adaptation",speakersassignaforeignphonetoa nativephoneme;in
ticaltothatofthebroad-aclass.Themodemphoneme/ah/ofSouthern "imitation"theyusetheforeignphone,steppingoutsidethephonetic
BrEisderivedfrombothsources. boundsoftheirnativephonemicsystem.Allofthenativizationstrate
7Generallyinthosedialectswhere/o/(cor)hasremaineddistinctfrom giesshowninTable1areclearlyexamplesofadaptationratherthan
/oh/(caught),andespeciallyinthemajorcitiesoftheMiddleAtlantic imitation. andGreatLakesregions(NewYork,PhiladelphiaandBaltimore;and 1ME/a:/("long-a")regularlybecameModE/ey/bythe"GreatVowel
Rochester,Buffalo,Cleveland,Detroit,ChicagoandMilwaukee). Shift",achangewhichPrins(1972)sayswasmoreorlesscompleteby
8InAmE,theseare:4wordsin<-lm>,alms,balm,calmandpalm;the theendofthe17thcentury.ME/a/("short-a")regularlybecameModE
pairmaandpa;andafewinterjections,likeaha!andla-di-da!.InBrE, /ae/byfronting,whichPrinssayshappenedbythe16thcentury.See
ratherislikefatherandlathercanhave/ah/or/ae/.Amountingtono Prins1972,pp.122-23. morethanadozenwordsandshowingstrongphonologicalcondition 1Throughoutthispaper,Ifollowtheconventionthatphonologically
ing,the/artier-classclearlyhas marginalstatuswithinthemodernAmE unanalyzedsounds,orphones,arerepresentedinsquarebracketswith
230 U.PennWorkingPapersinLinguistics,Volume4.1,1997 U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 4.1,1997 Nativization of Foreign [a] Boberg short-o of got, making it, as in BrE, a long, instead of a short /aepa'rahtes/, with a broad-a or short-o. The operation of these vowel. However, for a large majority of AmE speakers,9 the different nativization strategies in different dialects over the small father-class and the short-o class of bother are either centuries has produced a large amount of variation - dia- identical in pronunciation or kept apart by length alone, which chronic, geographic, social and lexical - in the way foreign [a] is not sufficient to maintain a wholly functional distinction be is realized in English. Table 1 illustrates some of this variation, tween English vowels.10 Indeed, Merriam-Webster's Webster's as instantiated in two major national dialects: "standard" AmE, Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition (1993; henceforth as represented in Webster's Dictionary, and "standard" South Webster's Dictionary) transcribes all words like llama with ern BrE, as represented in the Oxford Concise English Diction short-o, so that pasta, spelled with , and possible, spelled ary, the 9th edition of 1995 (henceforth the OED). with
231 232 U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 4J, 1997 Nativization of Foreign [a] Boberg
Table 1: British and American examples of different nativization able foreign names that do not appear in dictionaries. Foreign outcomes (ace. to Webster's and the OED). [a] represents one of the most significant sources of variation in the English lexicon and an unsettled and hitherto unexplored domain of English phonology. This paper will present the re BrE /a?/ BrE/ah/ BrE /ev/ sults of a multivariate (Varbrul) analysis designed to determine AmE nabob basalt tomato the relative weight of a set of phonological and non- /ey/ nadir phalanx vase phonological factors in predicting the assignment of foreign [al potato to one English vowel or another in AmE and BrE. ratio tornado Method volcano 2. AmE (rare) caftan banana /as/ canasta morale The first step in the analysis was to tabulate an average date of cravat sultana entry into English for each dependent variable in each dialect. tobacco The results are shown in Table 2. An examination of this table verandah suggests that the evidence for diachronic variation apparent in Table 1 was part of a larger pattern. Foreign [a] words na AmE (rare) dachshund aficionado tivized as /ey/ are on average the oldest, while those nativized /o/ focaccia bra macho enchilada with /o/ are the most recent, with /ae/ in the middle. Between the /ae/ and /o/ periods in AmE there is variation between the mantra falafel two vowels, which suggests a transition from one to the other. paparazzo karate The BrE dates do not display quite the same linearity but the pasta lager Ramadan nirvana general picture is the same.1* shiatsu origami
romano salami Table 2: Average date of entry into English for American and souvlaki British nativizations offoreign [a], (Dates given by Webster's Sumatra Dictionary.) Yugoslavian AmE BrE the date of entry of each word into English.14 The database con Fal NATIVIZED AS: DATE n DATE n tains over 200 words which have been nativized in AmE as /o/, /ev/ {potato) 1662 37 1662 35 going against the default identification of the English letter l&l (tobacco} 1700 172 1727 258 with /ae/ or /ey/; another 250 show variation in AmE; and almost var. f/se/. /o.ah/} (Iraq) 1784 74 1813 28 200 show BrE-AmE differences. The question of foreign [a] BrE /ah/, AmE /o/ (lager) 1810 131 1794 139 nativization, thent concerns not a few words but hundreds or thousands, many of them in daily usage,15 including innumer-
14 Source and date of entry were taken from Webster's; the Oxford Con personal names like Yasser Arafat and Giuliani; and place names like Amman, Hamburg, Milan, Osaka and Yugoslavia (or indeed Chicago!). cise does not give date of entry. 15 In this connection consider especially: food items like nachos, pasta 16 The difference in linearity between AmE and BrE will be shown to be and taco; commercial names like Armani, Mazda, Saab and Yamaha; important in the discussion that follows.
233 234 Volume4.1,1997 U.PennWorkingPapersinLinguistics NativizationofForeign[a] Boberg
ieswascarriedout,usingtheGoldVarbprogram.19A separate Twoaspectsofthesedatashouldbekeptinmind.
analysisforeachdialectwasconducted,sothattheresults First,theinclusionofwordsinthedatabasewasnotrandom,so
couldbecomparedand anydifferencesinnativizationpatterns thattheresultsinthistablemayhavebeenaffectedbyabias
inthesample.Second,thepatternthatisevidentmaynotrep betweenAmEandBrEidentified.
ThedependentvariableintheVarbrulanalysiswasthe resentachangeinnativizationstrategyovertimesomuchas
choicebetweentwonativizationoutcomes:/a;/,codedas'a?', theeffectover timeofgradualnativization,wherebya word
andeitherBrE/ah/orAmE/o/,codedas'a1.A thirdpossibility firstentersthelanguagewithitsforeign[a]phoneticallyintact,
wasV,orvariationbetween'as'and'a',butthiswasalways butislaterassignedtoshort-orlong-awhenithasbeeninuse
combinedwithoneortheotheroftheinvariantchoices,sothat foracenturyormore.
whentheapplicationvaluewas'ae\bothV and'a'werenon- Nevertheless,thesedatasupporttheobservationthat
applications,andwhentheapplicationvaluewas'a',bothV foreign[a]nativizationtodayismainlya choicebetween/«/
and'as'werenon-applicatibhs.Thishastheeffectoflookingat and/ah,o/.Thisobservationcanbeverifiedbytestingitouton
asanoutcomeagainstthepossibilityof'a',orat'a'against a fewrecentloans.Forinstance,VaclavHavel,theCzech 'a?'
thepossibilityof'ae'.Wordsinthedatabasethatwerecharac leader,couldbeeither/h&val/or/hahval/inModE,but not
terizedbyanydependentvariablevalueotherthan'a','ae'or /heyval/;enchiladascouldbe/entja'kedsz/or/entja'lahdaz/
V (a,ae)wereexcludedfromtheanalysis.Theanalysiswas butnot/entfa'leydaz/.IfwehadborrowedtacosintheMiddle
alsolimitedtowordsforwhichbothWebster'sandOEDdata Ages,then,theywouldprobablybe/teykowz/today;ifwebor
wereavailable,sothattheAmEandBrEanalyseswouldbe rowedpotatoestoday,theywouldprobablybe/pa'tahtowz/.In
basedonanidenticalcorpusandthereforedirectlycomparable. lightofthisobservation,theanalysiswassimplifiedbyexamin
Thesecriteriaallowedfortheinclusionof436tokens. ingonlythechoicebetweenIxland/o,ah/,ignoringforpur Elevenexplanatoryvariableswereexamined,shownin posesofthispaperthechoiceof/ey/.17Thissimplificationre
Table3 withthefactorsthatmakeupeachgroup.Thefactor sultedinadependentvariablethatcouldbecharacterizedin
groupswere:placeofthefollowingconsonant(labial,coronal, essentiallybinarytermsandtherebysatisfythecriteriaforVar-
velarornotapplicable);mannerofthefollowingconsonant brulanalysis."
(stoporaffricate,fricative,nasal,/I/,/r/,20glideorpause); Whileourquickexaminationoftheeffectofdateof
manneroftheprecedingconsonant(/w/,/I/,pauseorother); entryonnativizationwassuggestive,itcouldnotbeconclu
codatype(nocoda(vowelinfinalposition),codapresent sive,notonlyforthereasonsalreadystated,butalsobecause (followingconsonantmustbe a coda)orambisyllabic thetabularresultsmaybeskewedbydependenceorinteraction
(followingconsonantcouldbeeithercodaoronset));stress inthedata.Inordertotesttheeffectofdateofentrymorere (primaryorsecondary);potentialharmony(presenceofother liably,aswellastoinvestigatevariationnotexplainedbydate
tokensofforeign[a]inthewordorphrase);of spellingthefor ofentry,a Varbrulanalysisofthedatacollectedfromdictionar-
eign[a](
ness(presenceofforeigndiacriticsornon-Englishletterse-
19GoldVarbVersion1.6,"AVariableRuleApplicationfortheMacin
tosh",waswrittenbyDavidRandandDavidSankoffoftheCentrede " Wordsspelledwithinthe/ey/classgenerallygottherebymeans
recherchesmatheinatiquesattheUniversitedeMontreal(1988). oftheGreatVowelShift,ratherthanbynativization;inotherwords,
20ThedatabaseexcludeswordsinwhichafollowingItlnot isintervo theyaremedievalorRenaissanceborrowingsthatwouldhavehadME
calic,sinceafinalorpre-consonantal/r/willcategoricallyproduce orEModE/a:/.Bycontrast,nativizationwith/s/isstillaproductive
/ah/inallEnglishdialects:Englishphonotacticsprohibit[s]before processtoday.
codahi.Beforeintervocalic/r/,bycontrast,allvariantsarepossible: 18TheversionofVarbrulused,GoldVarb1.6,cannotdealwithtrino
scenariocan haveanyoneof/ey/,Islor/ah/inleast atonedialect. mialdependentvariables.
235 236 U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 4.1. 1997 Nativization of Foreign [a] Boberg
primary (e.g. RachMANinov) quences); source language or language group from which the 5. Stress 1 sec. (e.g. RACHmaninov) word was borrowed; date of entry into English (quantized into 2 another [a] in the word (e.g. ex five periods, corresponding to medieval, renaissance or early 6. Potential 2 modern, 19th century, early 20th century and post-World War II harmony travaganza) another [a] in the phrase (e.g. loans); and semantic field (a set of semantic or connotational 1 tabula rasa) areas that had been frequently observed in the data, such as no other [a] (e.g. modus oper- food items, terms from the arts or place names).21 0 andi) 7. Spelling h
11. Semantic a arts (e.g. Caravaggio, drama, 31 Assignment to semantic fields was done at my discretion and may Field sonata) have been somewhat arbitrary in some cases. Several tokens, for in c non-food cultural term (e.g. ori- stance, fit more than one category: Rachmaninov could be an arts term gamU plaza, sari) or a personal name; sari could be a concrete object or a non-food cul f food item (e.g. cilantro. brat- tural term. In the absence of any external standard to refer to, I tried to be as consistent as possible.
237 238 Volume 4J, 1997 Nativization of Foreign [a] Boberg V. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics
wurst, souvlaki) To some extent, moreover, nativization and syllable type may be involved in a cyclical relationship, because it is unclear i idea, concept (e.g. iclat, glas- nost. Schadenfreude) whether the syllable structure conditions the vowel or vice versa. (The choice of latl will cause a syllable to be closed n personal name (e.g. Mugabe, Nasser, Stalin) (BrE /*paes.sts/), because an English short vowel cannot stand in a stressed open syllable, while the choice of /ah/ will allow p place or national name (e.g. Baghdad, Kazakh, Navajo) an open syllable (BrE /'fah.sto/ or/'mah.sta/).) I hope to find an effective way of dealing with these problems in the future. r religious term (e.g. Hanukkah, In the meantime, any effect of coda type will presumably be imam, mantra) muted by the presence of ambisyllabic codas amongst the truly X concrete object (e.g. lava, llama, tsunami) open syllables. In its construction of cells from these factor groups, other o GoldVarb found several "knockouts", or categorical results,24 some of which were instructive, while others reflected a small AH of the groups should be self-explanatory, with the number of tokens. Three of them ('not applicable* in 'following possible exception of # 4t 'coda type'. In this group, I was not place', 'pause* in 'following manner' and 'final' in 'coda type') willing to tackle the problem of distinguishing true open sylla related to one fact: /ae/ cannot occur in final position (n=18). bles, in which the following consonant syllabifies as the onset Words in this class, such as bray coup d'£tat, iclat and spa, of the following syllable, from syllables with ambisyllabic co categorically have *a\ because /brae/ and /spa?/ violate English das, in which the following consonant both closes the syllable phonotacdcs. Goldvarb also found that, in American English, containing the foreign [a] and acts as the onset of the following *a* always appeared after a preceding /w/ (n=9) and in words syllable.22 While the foreign [a] in a word like bra is obviously borrowed from Yiddish or Hebrew (n^).25 Finally, three factors in an open syllable by virtue of being in final position, and that were represented by so few tokens that they were thrown out. In in a word like mantra is equally obviously in a closed syllable the case of the 'spelling' group, this meant eliminating the because /ntr/ is not a possible English onset, a word like pasta, whole factor group, because there were no tokens of 'aa* in the which regularly has /ae/ in BrE, is much more problematic: corpus and only three of 4an\ leaving only one factor, V.M /'pae.sta/and/'pzes.ts/ are both possible syllabifications, the first an open and the second a closed syllable. Phonological theory seems divided on how to treat these cases: a constraint against However, Jensen (1993:70-72) makes no mention of ambisyllabicity short vowels in stressed open syllables would rule out the first in his discussion of word-internal codas, appealing only to the princi syllabification; but a maximal onset requirement would rule out ple of maximal onsets. Moreover, he reverses the causal relationship the second, since /st/ is a possible Engish onset. An appeal to between closed syllable and short vowel implied in Giegerich's defini ambisyllabicity appears to reconcile these conflicting require tion of ambisyllabicity: "if a nonfinal syllable is closed, it tends to ments, by giving both a closed syllable and a maximal onset; have a short vowel." (p. 70). we could represent this as /'paes.sO/. However, to my knowl 14 Varbrul cannot operate when one or more factors produce categorical edge, there is no set of clear principles that determines when results; such factors must either be combined with others where appro- ambisyllabicity should be appealed to and when it should not23 priate or excluded from the analysis. " In BrE, preceding /w/ was almost categorical in its favoring of 'a' 21 For a discussion of ambisyllabicity in English, see Giegerich (8/9); Yiddish or Hebrew origin, however, had no effect on nativization (1992:171-72). (4/9). " Giegerich (1992:172) says "a consonant is ambisyllabic if it is (part 16 A factor group containing only one factor is called a singleton and of) a permissible onset (cluster) and if it immediately follows a stressed has to be excluded before a Varbrul analysis is possible. (Of the 3 to lax vowel.", which would certainly include the /s/ of pasta in BrE. kens of
239 240 Volume 4,1,1997 Nativization of Foreign [a] Boberg U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics
With all of the knockouts and the 'spelling* group excluded, Table 4a: Results of 1-Level Binomial Varbrul Analysis of AmE both a 1-level and a step up/step down Varbrul analysis were data (initial scheme, "knock-outs" and "singletons" excluded; performed. The 1-level results are shown in Table 4. appl. val. *a* against 'as' and V as non-appls). On the basis of this analysis, two factor groups, 'preceding manner* and 'potential harmony', were dropped from (415 cells; No Convergence at Iteration 20; subsequent analyses; all others were retained. These decisions Input 0.653; Chi-sq./cell 0.9253; L.L. -199.760) were constrained by a desire to maintain an identical set of factor groups for both the AmE and BrE runs, thereby ensuring Applic./ Input& direct comparabililty. 'Preceding manner1 had already shown Group Factor Weight Total Weight that preceding /w/ heavily or categorically favors 'a'; preceding Foil, labial 0.532 0.59 0.68 /!/ also favors *a' in both dialects (see Table 4), though not as place coronal 0.520 0.60 0.67 heavily as /w/. Beyond these findings, the group seemed to velar 0.342 0.51 0.49 hold no further interest; moreover, it was not selected as sig Foil, stop 0.652 0.67 0.78 nificant in either the BrE or the AmE step-up run. 'Potential manner fricative 0.462 0.58 0.62 harmony1 showed no discernable pattern: in both dialects, an nasal 0.395 0.52 0.55 other foreign [a] in the phrase (T) favored 'a' but another [a] in /I/ 0.496 0.58 0.65 the word ('2') had no effect. Like 'preceding manner', M 0.452 0.57 0.61 'potential harmony* was not selected by the step-up run for ci l\l 0.699 0.71 0.81 ther dialect.27 In addition to these changes, the 'orthographic Prec. initial 0.495 0.51 0.65 foreign ness' and 'source language' groups were simplified; the manner other C 0.478 0.59 0.63 former because the distinction that had been made between open/am 0.513 0.63 0.66 foreign diacritics and foreign sequences of letters appeared to Coda closed 0.481 0.51 0.64 be unimportant, so that these factors could be combined as type 0.64 0.71 'foreign' and thus opposed to 'non-foreign'; the latter because Stress Primary 0.560 0.45 0.45 'source language* had not been selected by the step up analysis Sec. 0.302 0.64 in spite of showing a wide range of factor weights, leading to Potential word 0.481 0.53 the conclusion that it had been overanalyzed, with significant harmony phrase 0.798 0.73 0.88 0.64 distinctions intermingled with non-significant ones. It was clear none 0.489 0.61 from the results shown in Table 4 that non-European languages Orth. diacritics 0.615 0.74 0.75 were associated with generally high weights, while Latin and foreign- sequence 0.762 0.81 0.86 0.59 Greek had a very low weight, and modem European languages ness none 0.432 0.55 were intermediate. In order to simplify 'source language1 so Source Arabic 0.558 0.88 0.70 langauge French 0.442 0.52 0.60 German 0.583 0.81 0.73 other factors excluded because of infrequent occurrence were: in the Hindi 0.746 0.78 0.85 'semantic field* group, 'personal names' (n=2), these not being fre Italian 0.515 0.67 0.67 quent in dictionaries; and in the 'following manner' group, 'following Japanese 0.787 0.87 0.87 glide' (n^l). Latin/Gk 0.238 0.23 0.37 27 'Following place1 and 'source language' were also not selected in Russian 0.660 0.75 0.78 either dialect, but because they showed strong effects in the 1-level Spanish 0.455 0.51 0.61 analysis (see Table 4) they were retained in order to see how they would Turkish 0.856 0.83 0.92 behave in future runs. 'Following manner* was selected in BrE but not Other 0.456 0.61 0.61 in AmE; all remaining groups were selected in both dialects.
241 242 Volume 4.1,1997 Nativization of Foreign [a} Boberg U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics
0.63 0.42 Date of Medieval 0.145 0.24 0.24 Orth. diacritics 0.599 0.645 0.58 0.47 entry Renaiss. 0.420 0.58 0.58 foreign- sequence 0.35 0.29 into 19th c. 0.559 0.67 0.71 0.463 0.57 English
manner fricative 0.440 0.35 0.27 nasal 0.360 0.28 0.21 that it might be selected as significant in future runs, therefore, /I/ 0.710 0.44 0.54 the languages were grouped as European and non-European, M 0.826 0.71 0.70 while retaining Latin and Classical Greek as a distinct factor.28 Prec. n/ 0.834 0.66 0.71
manner initial 0.164 0.16 0.09 other C 0.482 0.39 0.31 " Under the simplification, the Yiddish/Hebrew tokens, which had Coda open/am 0.569 0.46 0.39 been excluded because they had produced a knockout in AmE, were re type closed 0.395 0.24 0.24 stored as part of the non-European group. While Yiddish must be con Stress Primary 0.575 0.46 0.39 sidered a European language in many senses, its categorical effect fa Sec. 0.231 0.18 0.13 voring 'a' and its combination with Hebrew, a non-European language, Potential word 0.443 0.28 0.28 made inclusion in the non-European group of languages the obvious harmony phrase 0.802 0.53 0.66 way to proceed (non-European languages favor 'a' more than European
none 0.498 0.42 0.32 languages). 'Russian', with a relatively high weight, might have gone
243 244 Volume 4.1,1997 Nativization of Foreign [a] Boberg U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics
t The smaller set of eight factor groups with Table 5a: Results of 1-Level Binomial Varbrul Analysis of AmE 'orthographic foreignness' and 'source language* simplified was Data (revised scheme, with 11 factor groups reduced to 8 and submitted to a second analysis, the results of which can be seen 'orthographic foreignness' and 'source language* simplified; in Table 5. On the basis of these results, in an effort to simplify application value 'a' against *«' and V as non-applications). the model further, certain factors were combined when the dis tinction between them had no significant effect on the log like (372. cells; No Convergence at Iteration \!0; lihood,29 again maintaining direct comparability between the Input 0.209; Chi-sc|VcelI 0.9393; L.L.-190.690) AmE and BrE analyses. The factors thus combined were: in the Applic,/ Input& 'following place' group, coronal and labial, leaving a binary Weight Total Weight opposition of [+back] and [-back]; in 'following manner', /!/ and Foil. labial 0.504 /r/, as liquids, against all others;30 in 'date of entry*, periods *3* 0.24 place coronal 0.540 0.30 and '4\ as there was no significant difference between the 19th velar 0.301 0.25 0.10 century and early 20th century loans; and in 'semantic field', 0.38 Foil. stop 0.696 0.43 concrete objects and non-food cultural terms were combined as 0.19 manner fricative 0.465 025 nasal 0.413 0.21 0.16 (\l 0.357 0.20 0.13 in either group but was put in with the European languages. 'Arabic* M 0.270 0.21 0.09 had a tow weight, behaving in this sense like a European language, but Coda open/am. 0.577 0.35 0.27 this appeared to be due to the large number of medieval Arabic loans 0.14 type closed 0.382 0.18 (medieval loans are very unlikely to have 'a'). 0.24 Stress primary 0.549 0.34 " Change in log likelihood (L.L.) is the metric by which Varbrul evalu sec. 0.335 0.19 0.12 ates modifications of the structure of factor groups. If two factors arc Orth. foreign 0.653 0.47 0.33 combined and the analysis is run again without a significant change in 0.458 0.26 0.18 the L.L., it is concluded that the distinction between the two factors European 0.501 0.31 0.21 was not significant and the combination is adopted (providing it is Source langauge non-Eur. 0.748 0.42 0.44 warranted by other criteria as well). L.L. can be understood as a measure Latin/Gk 0.058 0.02 0.02 of the predictive power of the model, or the amount of variation it ac 0.282 0.10 0.09 counts for. The significance of the change in L.L. is calculated using a Date of Medieval Renaiss. 0.410 0.23 0.16 X2 statistic; values that have a p >0.05 are considered non-significant. entry into 19th c. 0.568 0.36 0.26 X1 is calculated by subtracting the L.L. of the second analysis from the English
245 246 U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 4.1,1997 Nativization of Foreign [a] Boberg
objects, and food items, ideas/concepts, religious terms31 and Table 5b: Results of I-Level Binomial Varbrul Analysis of BrE the 'other' category were combined as *other\ leaving only arts Data (revised scheme, with 11 factor groups reduced to 8 and terms and place or national names as originally conceived. 'orthographic foreignness' and *source language' simplified; application value V against '«' and V as non-applications). 3. Results (373 cells; No Convergence sit Iteration 20; Input 0.246; Chi-sq ./cell 1.1190; L.L.-202.969) All of the changes described above are reflected in the results Applic./ Input& presented in Table 6, which will be the basis of the discussion Group Factor Weight Total Weight that follows. Results arc shown first with 'a* as the application value, then with **' as the application value, for each of AmE Foil. labial 0.554 0.33 0.29 and BrE. They reflect the "best-runs" selected by Varbrul s place coronal 0.532 0.34 0.27 step up/step down procedure; the statistics for each run appear velar 0.258 0.17 0.10 below the results. Since 'a' and '«' are opposite outcomes in 0.525 0.36 0.27 Foil. stop the choice process, the effects on one should be the inverse of fricative 0.427 0.27 0.20 manner the effects on the other; this is consistently true of the data in nasal 0.447 0.24 0.21 Tables 6. Table 7 shows the order in which the factor groups 0.687 0.42 0.42 /I/ were selected by the step up routine in each run, with the p M 0.672 0.57 0.40 value or significance level associated with each factor group in Coda open/am. 0.650 0.43 0.38 0.13 0.11 its Level 1 run. .... type closed 0.277 A summary of the significant effects in each dialect is Stress primary 0.582 0.39 0.31 shown in Table 8. The general conclusion to be drawn from this sec. 0.212 0.14 0.08 table is that AmE and BrE generally agree on the nature of the Orth. foreign 0.704 0.52 0.44 effects in other words on how the factors in each group behave, foreign. non-for. 0.442 0.28 0.21 but there are important differences between the dialects in the Source European 0.493 0.34 0.24 size or strength of the effects. With respect to variation in for langauge non-Eur. 0.609 0.41 0.34 eign [a] nativization, then, British-American differences are of Latin/Gk 0.278 0.11 0.11 a quantitative, rather than a qualitative nature. Date of Medieval 0.151 0.10 0.06 entry Rcnaiss. 0.466 0.28 0.22 into 19th c. 0.581 0.40 0.31 English
247 248 Volume 4.1, 1997 Nativizjation of Foreign (a] Boberg U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics
Table 6: Results ("best runs") of Step Up/Step Down Varbrul Table 7: Order of Factor Group Selection in best step up/step Analysis (final scheme, with additional factor combinations, down runs, with/? values from Level 1 (each group tested indi showing results of 2 runs, first with 'a' as appl. val., then with vidually, cut-off for significance p <0.05). *je*). Varbrul stats for each run appear below. AmE BrE AmE BrE AmE BrE AmE BrE a.v 'a' a.v 'a' a.v. V a.v. 'ffi* GROUP FACTOR 'a' •a' •a?' 6 (0.000) 3 (0.000) 8 (0.000) 4 (0.000) 1) Foil, [-back] n.s. 0.534 0.489 n.s. 3 (0.000) 4 (0.000) 6 (0.000) 3 (0.000) place r+back] n,s. 0.278 0.577 n.s. 8 (0.000) 5 (0.000) 7 (0.000) 6 (0.000) 2) Foil, liquid (/l,r/) 0.525 0.671 n.s. 0.327 7 (0.000) 2 (0.009) 5 (0.000) 8 (0.000) manner other C 0.353 0.471 n.s. 0.529 2 (0.069) 8 (0.008) 4 (0.001) 5 (0.000) 3) Coda open/ambi 0.593 0.652 0.466 0.411 4 (0.007) 7 (0.008) 3 (0.017) 2 (0.023) type closed 0.359 0.274 0.636 5 (0000) 1 (0.009) 1 (0.193) 7 (0.000) 4) Stress primary 0.552 0.586 0.440 0.421 secondary 0.327 0.201 0.697 0.779 The most important quantitative differences between 5) Orth. foreign 0.666 0.724 0.279 0.324 AmE and BrE nativization of foreign [a] are illustrated in the foreign. non-for. 0.454 0.436 0.563 0.549 following graphs. These present a combined analysis of the 6) Source European 0.513 n.s. 0.547 0.492 runs that looked at 'a* and 'aj* as application values by subtract lang. n.s. 0.307 0.400 non-Eur. 0.720 ing the weights associated with selecting *«* from the weights Latin/Gk 0.064 TLS. 0.732 0.772 associated with selecting V (i.e., AmE /o/ or BrE /ah/). This 7) Date <1500 0.218 0.136 0.841 0.862 procedure treats one of the choices, '«\ as a negative value, of entry 1500-1799 0.413 0.456 0.587 0.528 the opposite outcome in the choice process from 'a', a positive into 1800-1945 0.580 0.588 0.443 0.434 value, so that when the difference between the weights is a English 1946-pres. 0.753 0.574 0.139 0.406 positive number, 'a* is favored; when it is negative, '«* is fa 8) Sem. arts 0.859 0.780 0.172 0.241 vored. In the graphs, a bar or line below the x-axis means that field place/nat. 0.122 0.587 0.485 0.454 'a;' is favored; a bar or line above the x-axis means that Vis object 0.384 0.417 0.753 0.639 favored. other 0.575 0.491 0.390 0.462 Graph 1, the effect of coda type, shows that the dia lects agree that 'a' is favored in open syllables and 'a' in STAT. AmE'a' BrE 'a' AmE'ae' BrE '*' closed. However, the effect is about twice as big in BrE as in Cells 181 173 153 182 AmE. An illustration of this difference would be the word man Conv.? No No No No tra, a closed syllable, which has /o/ in AmE but /ae/ in BrE. As stated above, this effect might have been much bigger if true Input 0.212 0.374 0.253 0.658 open syllables and syllables with ambisyllabic codas had been p 0.006 0.042 0.009 0.019 distinguished. However, even with these two categories lumped LogLkhd -201.045 -216.380 -208.079 -228.813 together, the strength of the constraint against 'aV in open syl lables gives a good idea of the character of this variable. In Graph 2, showing the effect of stress, the biggest ef fect is that of secondary stress, which strongly favors *»'. As in the last graph, the effect is again much bigger in BrE than in AmE. An example of this difference would be the word kami-
249 250 Volume 4.1, 1997 U. Pern Working Papers in Linguistics Nativization of Foreign [a] Boberg
Graph 1: Effect of Coda Type (open vs. closed Table 8: Summary of Factors that affect the choice ofAmE/o/ or syll.) on Nativization of Foreign [a] BrE /ah/vs. /a/in the nativization offoreign [a], in order of Var- brul step up/step down selection.
FACTORS CORRELATED WITH /o/ or /ah/ AMF.RTCAN (tah BRITISH (/ah/) Non-European origin Open syllable Open syllable Primary stress Arts connotation Foreign orthography Recent borrowing Following liquid (/l,r/) Primary stress Arts connotation Foreign orthography Post-medieval loan Following f-back] C
FACTORS CORRELATED WITH /«/ AMERICAN BRITISH closed Concrete object Secondary stress open Latin origin Closed syllable Coda Type Older borrowing Latin origin Concrete object Another way in which this graph differs from the previous two is English orthography that in this factor group the effects are much stronger in AmE Secondary stress English orthography than in BrE, the reverse of what we saw before. Closed syllable Foil. C not a liquid Finally. Graph 4 shows the effect of date of entry, the Medieval loan year when, according to Webster's, the word containing the (In addition to the factors listed, Varbnil found that hf or /ah/ is fa foreign [a] was first used in English. This is perhaps the most vored in both dialects after /w/ or IM and is categorically required in striking of all of the effects, because of the monotonic relation word-final position (e.g., bra, spa, coup d'etat), while/aV is favored in between date of entry and naUvization evident in AmE. ^e BrE when word-initial. These factors were not included in the final step more recent the loan, the more likely it is to be nativizedI with 'a' rather than *«\ and the trend toward 'a' continues into the up/step down analysis.) present in perfectly linear fashion. In BrE, by contrast we see a similar increase in the amount of *a' «^ *"*"** kaze, which is /kaima 'kahziy/ in BrE, with /ae/ in the secondary Renaissance loans but at this point the ratio of a to * levels stress syllable, but /koma "koziy/ in AmE, with /o/ in both sylla off with no significant difference between the remaining peri bles. ods' The similar trajectories of the lines up to the third period Turning now to the effect of semantic field, in Graph 3 should be no surprise, of course, as the two dialects would be the qualitative agreement between the dialects breaks down expected to share nativizadons that were established before somewhat. In this factor group, terms from the arts very they broke apart: it is after the split of AmE and BrE in the 19th strongly favor 'a' while objects favor *©*: on this much AmE century that a difference between them emerges. AmE is obvi and BrE agree. However, place names and national names do ously following an independent course with respect to the na not behave too differently from the category 'other' in BrE, tivization of foreign [a]. whereas in AmE they strongly favor #«\ as much as objects do.
251 252 Volume4.1.1997 PermWorkingPapersinLinguistics Boberg U. NativizationofForeign [a)
Graph4:EffectofDateofEntryon Graph2:EffectofStressonNativizationof
NativizationofForeign[a] Foreign[a]
0.8
1 0.6
I0.4 I 0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6 1
-0.8
before1500-1800-1946-
l'ary 2'ary 1500 1799 1945 pres.
Stressofsyll.containing[a] DateofEntryintoEnglish
Graph3:EffectofSemanticFieldon 4. Discussion
NativizationofForeign[a]
Animportantgeneralizationcanbemadeaboutthequantitative
differenceswehaveobservedbetweenAmEandBrE.Thefac
torgroupsinwhichBrEshowedthestrongesteffects-coda
typeandstress-arephonologicalinnature.Thoseinwhich
AmEshowedthestrongesteffects-dateofentryandsemantic
field-arenon-phonological.Thisdiscrepancyintheimpor
tanceofphonologicalandnon-phonologicalfactorsisevidentin
Table7,whichliststhesignificantfactorgroupsforeachrunin
eachdialectinorderoftheirselection(factorgroupnumbers
correspondtothoseinTable6).Notethatgroups3and4,the
phonologicaleffectsofcodatypeandstress,areselectedfirst
and secondinbothBrEruns,whereastheyareamongthelast
factorsselectedintheAmErunsinthreeoffourcases(theex
ceptionbeinggroup3inthe'a'run).Bycontrast,groups6,7
and8,thenon-phonologicaleffectsofsourcelanguage,dateof Arts Place/ObjectOther entryandsemanticfield,wereamongthefirstgroupsselected
Nat. inbothAmErunsbutamongthelastthe inBrEruns;inone
BrErun,group6wasnotevenselected. SemanticField
254 253 Volume4.1,1997 Boberg if.PernWorkingPapersinLinguistics NativizationofForeign[a]
Therefore,thechoicebetweenthesoundsinllamaandmantra Howdoweaccountforthisgeneraldifferenceinthe
isa simplelexicalorphonologicalissue,withnosocialimport. wayAmEandBrEapproachthenativizationofforeign[a]? InAmE,withtheexceptionofsomespeakersinEasternNew Theanswerliesinthenatureofthephonemesinvolved,inthe England,thebroad-aclasshasdisappeared,survivingonlyasa phonologicalstructureofthevowelsystemsofthetwodialects. stereotypeoftraditionalBostonspeechorBrE.Assuch,the InBrE,thechoiceweareconcernedwithisessentiallybe
usebroad-a, of orlong[a:],inawordwrittenwiththeletter tweenashortvowel,/as/,andalongvowel,/ah/,andisgov hassociallyelevatedconnotationswhichareeitheradmirable, ernedprincipallybythenatureofthesyllablecontainingthe ifoneispositivelydisposedtosuchthings,orlaughable,ifone foreignvowel: primarystressopensyllablesheavilyfavor/ah/, isnot.Thechoicebetweensaying/loma/or/lsma/,or whileclosedsyllablesfavor/ae/.Thismeansthatawordlike /montra/or/nuentra/,inAmericanEnglishisloadedwithsocial llama,withitsopensyllable,willhave/ah/,whileawordlike
import.Itseemslikelythatinmostcaseswheretwovariants mantra,withitsnecessarilyclosedsyllable,willhave/ae/.This
areconceivable,lolsoundsrefinedand/as/soundsuneducated. effectwasshowntobetwiceasbiginBrEasinAmE,and mighthave beenevenbiggerhadambisyllabiccodasandtrue
opensyllablesbeendistinguished.AmE,indeed,treatsthese 5. FurtherQuestions
wordsindiscriminatelywithrespecttocodatype:bothofthem,
llamaandmantra,typicallyhave/o/inAmE.Theprincipally Anumberofquestionsremainoutstanding.Thefirstistheone
phonologicalnatureofthechoiceprocessinBrEimpliesthat alludedtoabove:thesocialorattitudinalcharacterofthevan-
non-phonologicalfactorssuchasdateofentry,meaning,orlan able,whichIplantoinvestigateproperlyusingaquestionnaire
guageoforiginwillberelativelylessimportant. thatasksinformantstoratecontrastingproductionswithloland
ThenatureofthechoicemadeinAmEisverydiffer /ae/alonganumberofattitudinaldimensions.
entMostspeakersofAmEdonothavealong/ah/thatcon Anotheriswhathappensinotherdialects?Inowhave
trastswithashort/a?/.Thisisbecause,asstatedintheIntro datafromfieldworkinCanadaandNewZealand,aswellas
duction,'short-o',thevowelingotorstop,hasmergedwiththe dictionarydatafromAustralia,whichwillhelptoanswerthis
long/ah/ofthefatherclass:fatherandbotherhavethesame question.Inaddition,dataIhavecollectedfromwordlistsread
vowel,atleastaccordingtoWebster's.Inchoosingbetween byAmericanandBritishspeakerswillshedlightonhowaccu
/a?/andlol,then,AmEisnotmakinga choicebetweenshort ratelyWebster'sandtheOEDrepresentthecurrentstateofthe
andlong,sincebothalternativesareshortvowels,butachoice variableandexpandmyinvestigationintothevastrealmof
betweentwosounds,front[ae]andcentralorback[a,A], personalandcommercialnames,whichdonotappearindic
WhereBrEmakesachoicegovernedbyquantity,AmEisfree
tionaries. .
tomakea choicegovernedbyquality.Soundquantityisa A thirdissueiswhathappenstootherforeignvowels?
phonologicalissue,whichinteractswith phonologicalfactors, PreliminaryevidenceshowsthatBritish-Americandifferences
asseeninBrE.Soundqualityisanaestheticissue,incorporat similartothosethatobtainwithforeign[a]mayaffectthena
ingdimensionsofconnotationandprestige.Itisnotsurprising, tivizationofothervowels:considerthecontrastsbetweenBrE
then,thatnon-phonologicalfactors,suchastheexternalcharac /kobra/,/moka//yogst/, andwiththeshort-oofhop,andAmE
teristicsandassociationsofaword,playalargerroleinAmE /kowbra/,/mowka/and/yowgart/,withthelong-oofhope;or
nativization. BrE/nisBjn/,/pito/and/u'fitsiy/,withtheshort-iofhip,and
Thisviewreceivessupportfromthedifferentsocial AmE/niyson/,/piyta/and/uw'fiytsiy/,withthelong-iofheap.
connotationssurroundingtheassociationoftheletterwith A furtherquestionthatneedstobeansweredistheex
thesound[a]inBritishandAmericanEnglish.InBrE,'broad-a' actnatureoftherelationbetweenthefatherandbotherclasses
isaregional,notasocialvariable.ItsuseinSouthernBrEis inAmE,andtheeffectofthephoneticsofshort-oindifferent
ascharacteristicofCockneysasofRPspeakers;itwasnotone AmEdialectsontheresultsofnativization:doesthephonetic
ofthethingsElizaDoolittlehadtolearnfromProfessorHiggins. realizationoftheshort-oingotorstopasrelativelyfrontor
255 256 Nativization of Foreign [a] Boberg U. Perm Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 4.1,1997 back, or merged with long-open-o (/oh/, the vowel of caught), Labov, William 1973. "The Significance of Marginal Phonemes." have any effect on how foreign [a] is nativized? The corre Paper presented to NWAVE 2, Washington, D.C. sponding structural issue in BrE is the relation between the tra Prins, A.A. 1972. A History of English Phonemes. Leiden: Leiden ditional broad-a class, which arose in the 18th century, and the University Press. larger body of foreign [a] words that have an identical vowel but Trager, George L. and Henry Lee Smith, Jr. 1951. "An Outline of Eng do not contain the environments that conditioned broad-a.32 lish Structure." Norman, Okla.: Battenburg Press. Will the addition of hundreds or thousands of new loans to this van Coetsem, Frans 1988. Loan Phonology and the Two Transfer previously closed and marginal class help to de-marginalize it? Types in Language Contact. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Foris Finally, at least some foreign [a] words show regional Publications. variation within American English. For instance, the state Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed 1993. Springfield, Mass.: names Colorado and Nevada generally have lol in the East, Merriam-Wcbster, Incorporated. while one or both of them (most often Nevada) can have /a?/ in Weinreich, Uriel 1968. Languages in Contact; Findings and Problems. the West. This is something I shall investigate with a tele The Hague: Mouton. (Orig. publ. as No. 1 in the series phone survey. "Publications of the Linguistics Circle of New York" (New While much work remains to be done, I hope that this York, 1953). paper has demonstrated how quantitative analysis and structural phonological reasoning can be used to establish at least some order in the superficial chaos that attends the nativization of 619 Williams Hall foreign [a] in English. University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 [email protected]. edu References
Bloomfield, Leonard 1933. Language. Chicago: University of Chi cago Press. Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, 9th ed. 1995. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Clements, G.N. 1990. "The role of the sonority cycle in core syllabi fication." In John Kingston and Mary E. Beckman, Eds., Pa pers in Laboratory Phonology 1: Between the Grammar and Physics of Speech. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Giegerich, Heinz J. 1992. English Phonology; An Introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Jensen, John T. 1993. English Phonology. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
32 As stated above, broad-a was a change operating on ME short-a, usu ally in closed syllables, e.g. past, path. Prototypical BrE foreign [a] words with /ah/, like llama or plaza, let alone bra, do not fit this de scription.
257 258