DOCSLIB.ORG

Why /R/ Is Not a Special, Empty Consonant in Japanese Thomas Pellard

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Why /R/ Is Not a Special, Empty Consonant in Japanese Thomas Pellard Why /r/ is not a special, empty consonant in Japanese Thomas Pellard To cite this version: Thomas Pellard. Why /r/ is not a special, empty consonant in Japanese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics, Springer Verlag, 2016, 25 (4), pp.351-383. 10.1007/s10831-016-9147-4. hal-01356834v3 HAL Id: hal-01356834 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01356834v3 Submitted on 5 Oct 2016 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Why /r/ is not a special, empty consonant in Japanese 2016, Journal of East Asian linguistics 25(4), doi: 10.1007/s10831-016-9147-4 Thomas Pellard cnrs (crlao) Abstract In recent work on Japanese phonology, /r/ has been argued to be a unique consonant in the Japanese phonological system, characterized by its default, unmarked and featureless nature. These peculiar features have been claimed to derive from the original epenthetic status and the late historical phonologization of /r/ in Japanese. However, a review of all the relevant evidence shows that there is actually no solid basis for that hypothesis, which proves to be not only inadequate, but also directly falsified by the data. No r-epenthesis process can be reconstructed in earlier Japanese, and /r/ cannot be analyzed as a unique, default-empty consonant. Keywords: Japanese; Phonology; Liquids; /r/; Underspecification; Markedness; Epenthesis 1 Introduction oretical and empirical grounds. In the following, I shall reexamine all the arguments brought up by the Hr con- The recent article “The phonology of Japanese /r/: A cerning the phonetic properties, the distribution pat- panchronic account” published by Laurence Labrune in tern, the frequency, the phonological and morphopho- the Journal of East Asian Linguistics (2014, 23: 1–25) ar- nological behavior of /r/, and add additional evidence gues for the unique status of the consonant /r/ in Japa- from L1 acquisition data and the typology of consonant nese. Labrune’s hypothesis of a unique status for /r/ in epenthesis. The evidence purporting to support the Hr Japanese, henceforth Hr, synthesizes and develops pre- does not actually corroborate that hypothesis, and even vious research in both Japanese traditional linguistics sometimes directly refutes it. The evidence adduced by and generative phonology. It comprises several differ- the Hr can be shown to be overstated, not uniquely char- ent claims: /r/ is claimed (a) to be an unmarked conso- acterizing /r/, amenable to alternative explanations, or nant, (b) to lack any phonological feature specification simply inaccurate or wrong. Morever, both the method- at the underlying level, and (c) to be an originally epen- ology and the argumentation suffer from important lim- thetic consonant. itations and inadequacies, in particular the absence of a Together, these three characteristics are taken to systematic comparison with other consonants and the uniquely define /r/, a special default consonant in Jap- scantiness of quantitative and statistical evidence. The anese. The explanation for that unique status is sought hypothesis that /r/ is a special empty consonant in Jap- in diachrony,1 and the Hr proposes that /r/ was not a anese has thus to be rejected, and alternative accounts phoneme in proto-Japanese but the default realization should be preferred. of an empty onset in hiatus position, which was phonol- ogized only later. 2 Phonetic properties The Hr presents many empirical claims about /r/ in Japanese and raises several important issues that need 2.1 Variability to be addressed. Besides its relevance for synchronic and diachronic studies on Japanese phonology, the Hr The Hr first presents phonetic arguments for the unique has also wider typological and theoretical implications featureless status of /r/. Japanese /r/ is said to exhibit a as well. In particular, it should be considered within wide array of contextual, stylistic, sociolinguistic, and di- the broader context of debates in theoretical phonology alectal2 realizations, and that variability is tacitly inter- about underspecification, markedness, and epenthesis. 2 Labrune (2012: 92) states that [ɮ] is the “most common realiza- Nevertheless, the Hr is open to challenge on both the- tion of /r/ in some Ryûkyûan dialects.” To the best of my knowl- edge, there is not a single Ryukyuan variety where this is true, 1 Hence the subtitle “a panchronic account.” The use of and no dialect has ever been reported to possess such a lateral “panchronic” is however idiosyncratic here and does not fricative (Uemura 1997; Karimata 1999; personal fieldnotes). The refer to the program of Panchronic Phonology by Hagège & symbol [ɮ] was sometimes used in an ad hoc manner in older de- Haudricourt (1978), which aims at formulating universal laws of scriptions to transcribe the Southern Ryukyuan fricative vowel sound change. 1 preted as deriving from its lack of phonological specifi- usually considered to target marked segments rather cation. Notwithstanding its alleged variability, it is com- than unmarked ones (Trubetzkoy 1939: 236–237, Hock- monly agreed that /r/ in Japanese is consistently voiced, ett 1955: 166–167, Flack 2007), so that in this case the apical, alveolar or post-alveolar, with a short or weak clo- data would suggest, to the contrary, that /r/ is marked sure (Akamatsu 1997: 105–116, Saitō 2003: 11, Vance 2008: in Japanese. That contradiction needs to be clarified one 89). The existence of such invariant features for /r/ that, way or the other by the Hr. cover laryngeal setting, manner, stricture, and place, di- In any case, the two pieces of evidence presented rectly contradicts the emptiness argued for by the Hr. by the Hr, word-initial prohibition and co-occurrence Another Japanese consonant that should be consid- restrictions, do not affect only /r/, but voiced obstru- ered together with /r/ is /h/. It is important to note ents as well. For the Hr, the existence of phonotactic that the consonant /h/ (< *p) has actually more con- constraints targeting /r/ demonstrates its unique un- textual allophones than /r/,3 since it can be realized as marked status, while the fact that the same constraints [h], [ɸ], [ç], or even [x], [], or [ɦ], depending on the apply to other consonants (the voiced obstruents) is context (Saitō 2003, Labrune 2012: 69). Some abstract deemed irrelevant, because those consonants are con- analyses even include [p] as an allophone of the same sidered to be “heavily marked” (Labrune 2014: 15, fn. 11). phoneme, especially in geminates (McCawley 1968: 77– This reasoning is a logical fallacy, both circular and self- 78, Labrune 2012: 70). If we follow the logic of the Hr that contradicting. For the sake of discussion, I will neverthe- “a wide range of phonetic realizations is suggestive of less examine below the evidence adduced by the Hr in the unmarked status” (Labrune 2014: 3) of a consonant, more detail. then /h/ should be considered as even less marked than /r/, which runs counter to the Hr. 3.1 Word-initial prohibition 2.2 Other characteristics In Old Japanese4 (OJ) “Yamato” native words,5 /r/ is banned from word-initial position, while the “empty on- The description of /r/ as “the shortest of all Japanese con- set” or “zero consonant” /’/ (Labrune 2014: 5–6)6 is re- sonants” (Labrune 2014: 3) is a truism: The basic real- stricted to that position, with no word-internal vowel se- ization of /r/ is a tap, i.e., a “momentary” (Catford 2001: quence allowed (#’V.CV, †V.’V, V.rV, †#rV).7 Though the 67) sound defined by a “short closure” and a “brief con- Hr does not mention it, this is not an absolute rule since tact between the articulators” (Ladefoged & Maddieson there are several exceptions. Most Modern Standard Jap- 1996: 230–231). Whether /r/ is the shortest consonant of anese (MSJ) exceptions result from the historical loss Japanese also depends on one’s stance about the zero of an intervocalic consonant, but we already find in OJ consonant /’/ posited by the Hr (see below): If /’/ has no forms with word-internal vowel sequences such as kai substance and is empty, one wonders what its duration ‘oar,’ kui ‘regret,’ ko2i ‘lie down (infinitive),’ oi ‘age (infini- is, and whether /r/ can be said to be shorter than zero tive),’ uuru ‘to plant (adnominal)’ (Vovin 2009: 420–422, (/’/). Frellesvig 2010: 39).8 Though /r/ is said to fail to exhibit “any significant in- Even if we set aside such counter-examples, contrary fluence on the neighboring segments” (Labrune 2014: 3), to the statement by the Hr (Labrune 2014: 5–6), the ab- no actual data is presented and no comparison is made 4 I will follow common practice (Martin 1987; Vovin 2005a, 2009; with other consonants. That claim is thus unsubstanti- Frellesvig 2010) and use “Old Japanese” instead of Labrune’s ated. (2014) “Ancient Japanese,” and I will restrict its usage to refer to the language of the 8th century only. 3 Distribution pattern 5 Sino-Japanese loanwords from the 8th century (Frellesvig 2010: 284–286, not the 4th or 5th contra Labrune 2014: 2, 21) onwards and contemporary loanwords do show initial /r/. The distribution pattern of /r/ in Japanese is notewor- 6 The Hr refers to similar analyses by other scholars, but actually thy for its well-known restrictions. Though the Hr in- Hattori (1961) defines /’/ as a voiced laryngeal and not as a zero, terprets these constraints as evidence for the unique Wenck (1966: 15) as a smooth onglide, and McCawley (1968: 88– unmarked status of /r/, distributional restrictions are 93) uses /ʔ/, which he treats as a glide.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Chapter One Phonetic Change
    CHAPTERONE PHONETICCHANGE The investigation of the nature and the types of changes that affect the sounds of a language is the most highly developed area of the study of language change. The term sound change is used to refer, in the broadest sense, to alterations in the phonetic shape of segments and suprasegmental features that result from the operation of phonological process es. The pho- netic makeup of given morphemes or words or sets of morphemes or words also may undergo change as a by-product of alterations in the grammatical patterns of a language. Sound change is used generally to refer only to those phonetic changes that affect all occurrences of a given sound or class of sounds (like the class of voiceless stops) under specifiable phonetic conditions . It is important to distinguish between the use of the term sound change as it refers tophonetic process es in a historical context , on the one hand, and as it refers to phonetic corre- spondences on the other. By phonetic process es we refer to the replacement of a sound or a sequenceof sounds presenting some articulatory difficulty by another sound or sequence lacking that difficulty . A phonetic correspondence can be said to exist between a sound at one point in the history of a language and the sound that is its direct descendent at any subsequent point in the history of that language. A phonetic correspondence often reflects the results of several phonetic process es that have affected a segment serially . Although phonetic process es are synchronic phenomena, they often have diachronic consequences.
    [Show full text]
  • (1'9'6'8'""159-83 and in Later Publica- (1972 539
    FINAL WEAKENING AND RELATED PHENOMENA1 Hans Henrich Hock University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1: Final devoicing (FD) 1.1. In generative phonology, it is a generally accepted doctrine that, since word-final devoicing (WFD) is a very common and natural phenomenon, the ob- verse phenomenon, namely word-final voicin~ should not be found in natural language. Compare for instance Postal 1968 184 ('in the context----'~ the rules always devoice rather than voice'), Stampe 1969 443-5 (final devoicing comes about as the result of a failure t~ suppress the (innate) process of final devoicing), Vennemann 1972 240-1 (final voicing, defined as a process increasing the complexity of affected segment~ 'does not occur.')o 1.2 One of the standard examples for WFD is that of German, cf. Bund Bunde [bUnt] [bUndeJ. However Vennemann (1'9'6'8'""159-83 and in later publica- tions) and, following him, Hooper (1972 539) and Hyman (1975 142) have convincingly demonstrated that in Ger- man, this process applies not only word-finally, but also syllable-finally, as in radle [ra·t$le]3 'go by bike' (in some varieties of German). The standard view thus must be modified so as to recognize at least one other process, namely syllable-final devoicing (SFD). (For a different eA""Planation of this phenomenon compare section 2.3 below.) 2· Final voicing (or tenseness neutralization) 2 1 A more important argument against the stan- dard view, however, is that, as anyone with any train- ing in Indo-European linguistics can readily tell, there is at least one 5roup, namely Italic, where there is evidence for the allegedly impossible final voicing, cf PIE *siyet > OLat.
    [Show full text]
  • Himalayan Linguistics Segmental and Suprasegmental Features of Brokpa
    Himalayan Linguistics Segmental and suprasegmental features of Brokpa Pema Wangdi James Cook University ABSTRACT This paper analyzes segmental and suprasegmental features of Brokpa, a Trans-Himalayan (Tibeto- Burman) language belonging to the Central Bodish (Tibetic) subgroup. Segmental phonology includes segments of speech including consonants and vowels and how they make up syllables. Suprasegmental features include register tone system and stress. We examine how syllable weight or moraicity plays a determining role in the placement of stress, a major criterion for phonological word in Brokpa; we also look at some other evidence for phonological words in this language. We argue that synchronic segmental and suprasegmental features of Brokpa provide evidence in favour of a number of innovative processes in this archaic Bodish language. We conclude that Brokpa, a language historically rich in consonant clusters with a simple vowel system and a relatively simple prosodic system, is losing its consonant clusters and developing additional complexities including lexical tones. KEYWORDS Parallelism in drift, pitch harmony, register tone, stress, suprasegmental This is a contribution from Himalayan Linguistics, Vol. 19(1): 393-422 ISSN 1544-7502 © 2020. All rights reserved. This Portable Document Format (PDF) file may not be altered in any way. Tables of contents, abstracts, and submission guidelines are available at escholarship.org/uc/himalayanlinguistics Himalayan Linguistics, Vol. 19(1). © Himalayan Linguistics 2020 ISSN 1544-7502 Segmental and suprasegmental features of Brokpa Pema Wangdi James Cook University 1 Introduction Brokpa, a Central Bodish language, has a complicated phonological system. This paper aims at analysing its segmental and suprasegmental features. We begin with a brief background information and basic typological features of Brokpa in §1.
    [Show full text]
  • 2 Mora and Syllable
    2 Mora and Syllable HARUO KUBOZONO 0 Introduction In his classical typological study Trubetzkoy (1969) proposed that natural languages fall into two groups, “mora languages” and “syllable languages,” according to the smallest prosodic unit that is used productively in that lan- guage. Tokyo Japanese is classified as a “mora” language whereas Modern English is supposed to be a “syllable” language. The mora is generally defined as a unit of duration in Japanese (Bloch 1950), where it is used to measure the length of words and utterances. The three words in (1), for example, are felt by native speakers of Tokyo Japanese as having the same length despite the different number of syllables involved. In (1) and the rest of this chapter, mora boundaries are marked by hyphens /-/, whereas syllable boundaries are marked by dots /./. All syllable boundaries are mora boundaries, too, although not vice versa.1 (1) a. to-o-kyo-o “Tokyo” b. a-ma-zo-n “Amazon” too.kyoo a.ma.zon c. a-me-ri-ka “America” a.me.ri.ka The notion of “mora” as defined in (1) is equivalent to what Pike (1947) called a “phonemic syllable,” whereas “syllable” in (1) corresponds to what he referred to as a “phonetic syllable.” Pike’s choice of terminology as well as Trubetzkoy’s classification may be taken as implying that only the mora is relevant in Japanese phonology and morphology. Indeed, the majority of the literature emphasizes the importance of the mora while essentially downplaying the syllable (e.g. Sugito 1989, Poser 1990, Tsujimura 1996b). This symbolizes the importance of the mora in Japanese, but it remains an open question whether the syllable is in fact irrelevant in Japanese and, if not, what role this second unit actually plays in the language.
    [Show full text]
  • The Phonemic − Syllabic Comparisons of Standard Malay and Palembang Malay Using a Historical Linguistic Perspective
    Passage2013, 1(2), 35-44 The Phonemic − Syllabic Comparisons of Standard Malay and Palembang Malay Using a Historical Linguistic Perspective By: Novita Arsillah English Language and Literature Program (E-mail: [email protected] / mobile: +6281312203723) ABSTRACT This study is a historical linguistic investigation entitled The Phonemic − Syllabic Comparisons of Standard Malay and Palembang Malay Using a Historical Linguistic Perspective which aims to explore the types of sound changes found in Palembang Malay. The investigation uses a historical linguistic comparative method to compare the phonemic and syllabic changes between an ancestral language Standard Malay and its decent language Palembang Malay. Standard Malay refers to the Wilkinson dictionary in 1904. The participants of this study are seven native speakers of Palembang Malay whose ages range from 20 to 40 years old. The data were collected from the voices of the participants that were recorded along group conversations and interviews. This study applies the theoretical framework of sound changes which proposed by Terry Crowley in 1997 and Lily Campbell in 1999. The findings show that there are nine types of sound changes that were found as the results, namely assimilation (42.35%), lenition (20%), sound addition (3.53%), metathesis (1.18%), dissimilation (1.76%), abnormal sound changes (3.53%), split (13.53%), vowel rising (10.59%), and monophthongisation (3.53%). Keywords: Historical linguistics, standard Malay, Palembang Malay, comparative method, sound change, phoneme, syllable. 35 Novita Arsillah The Phonemic − Syllabic Comparisons of Standard Malay and Palembang Malay Using a Historical Linguistic Perspective INTRODUCTION spelling system in this study since it is considered to be the first Malay spelling This study classifies into the system that is used widely in Malaya, field of historical linguistics that Singapore, and Brunei (Omar, 1989).
    [Show full text]
  • A Student Model of Katakana Reading Proficiency for a Japanese Language Intelligent Tutoring System
    A Student Model of Katakana Reading Proficiency for a Japanese Language Intelligent Tutoring System Anthony A. Maciejewski Yun-Sun Kang School of Electrical Engineering Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana 47907 Abstract--Thls work describes the development of a kanji. Due to the limited number of kana, their relatively low student model that Is used In a Japanese language visual complexity, and their systematic arrangement they do Intelligent tutoring system to assess a pupil's not represent a significant barrier to the student of Japanese. proficiency at reading one of the distinct In fact, the relatively small effort required to learn katakana orthographies of Japanese, known as k a t a k a n a , yields significant returns to readers of technical Japanese due to While the effort required to memorize the relatively the high incidence of terms derived from English and few k a t a k a n a symbols and their associated transliterated into katakana. pronunciations Is not prohibitive, a major difficulty In reading katakana Is associated with the phonetic This work describes the development of a system that is modifications which occur when English words used to automatically acquire knowledge about how English which are transliterated Into katakana are made to words are transliterated into katakana and then to use that conform to the more restrictive rules of Japanese information in developing a model of a student's proficiency in phonology. The algorithm described here Is able to reading katakana. This model is used to guide the instruction automatically acquire a knowledge base of these of the student using an intelligent tutoring system developed phonological transformation rules, use them to previously [6,8].
    [Show full text]
  • LT3212 Phonetics Assignment 4 Mavis, Wong Chak Yin
    LT3212 Phonetics Assignment 4 Mavis, Wong Chak Yin Essay Title: The sound system of Japanese This essay aims to introduce the sound system of Japanese, including the inventories of consonants, vowels, and diphthongs. The phonological variations of the sound segments in different phonetic environments are also included. For the illustration, word examples are given and they are presented in the following format: [IPA] (Romaji: “meaning”). Consonants In Japanese, there are 14 core consonants, and some of them have a lot of allophonic variations. The various types of consonants classified with respect to their manner of articulation are presented as follows. Stop Japanese has six oral stops or plosives, /p b t d k g/, which are classified into three place categories, bilabial, alveolar, and velar, as listed below. In each place category, there is a pair of plosives with the contrast in voicing. /p/ = a voiceless bilabial plosive [p]: [ippai] (ippai: “A cup of”) /b/ = a voiced bilabial plosive [b]: [baɴ] (ban: “Night”) /t/ = a voiceless alveolar plosive [t]: [oto̞ ːto̞ ] (ototo: “Brother”) /d/ = a voiced alveolar plosive [d]: [to̞ mo̞ datɕi] (tomodachi: “Friend”) /k/ = a voiceless velar plosive [k]: [kaiɰa] (kaiwa: “Conversation”) /g/ = a voiced velar plosive [g]: [ɡakɯβsai] (gakusai: “Student”) Phonetically, Japanese also has a glottal stop [ʔ] which is commonly produced to separate the neighboring vowels occurring in different syllables. This phonological phenomenon is known as ‘glottal stop insertion’. The glottal stop may be realized as a pause, which is used to indicate the beginning or the end of an utterance. For instance, the word “Japanese money” is actually pronounced as [ʔe̞ ɴ], instead of [je̞ ɴ], and the pronunciation of “¥15” is [dʑɯβːɡo̞ ʔe̞ ɴ].
    [Show full text]
  • L Vocalisation As a Natural Phenomenon
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Essex Research Repository L Vocalisation as a Natural Phenomenon Wyn Johnson and David Britain Essex University [email protected] [email protected] 1. Introduction The sound /l/ is generally characterised in the literature as a coronal lateral approximant. This standard description holds that the sounds involves contact between the tip of the tongue and the alveolar ridge, but instead of the air being blocked at the sides of the tongue, it is also allowed to pass down the sides. In many (but not all) dialects of English /l/ has two allophones – clear /l/ ([l]), roughly as described, and dark, or velarised, /l/ ([…]) involving a secondary articulation – the retraction of the back of the tongue towards the velum. In dialects which exhibit this allophony, the clear /l/ occurs in syllable onsets and the dark /l/ in syllable rhymes (leaf [li˘f] vs. feel [fi˘…] and table [te˘b…]). The focus of this paper is the phenomenon of l-vocalisation, that is to say the vocalisation of dark /l/ in syllable rhymes 1. feel [fi˘w] table [te˘bu] but leaf [li˘f] 1 This process is widespread in the varieties of English spoken in the South-Eastern part of Britain (Bower 1973; Hardcastle & Barry 1989; Hudson and Holloway 1977; Meuter 2002, Przedlacka 2001; Spero 1996; Tollfree 1999, Trudgill 1986; Wells 1982) (indeed, it appears to be categorical in some varieties there) and which extends to many other dialects including American English (Ash 1982; Hubbell 1950; Pederson 2001); Australian English (Borowsky 2001, Borowsky and Horvath 1997, Horvath and Horvath 1997, 2001, 2002), New Zealand English (Bauer 1986, 1994; Horvath and Horvath 2001, 2002) and Falkland Island English (Sudbury 2001).
    [Show full text]
  • The American Intrusive L
    THE AMERICAN INTRUSIVE L BRYAN GICK University of British Columbia The well-known sandhi phenomenon known as intrusive r has been one of the longest-standing problems in English phonology. Recent work has brought to light a uniquely American contribution to this discussion: the intrusive l (as in draw[l]ing for drawing and bra[l] is for bra is in southern Pennsylvania, compared to draw[r]ing and bra[r] is, respectively, in British Received Pronunciation [RP]). In both instances of intrusion, a historically unattested liquid consonant (r or l) intervenes in the hiatus between a morpheme-final nonhigh vowel and a following vowel, either across or within words. Not surprisingly, this process interacts crucially with the well- known cases of /r/-vocalization (e.g., Kurath and McDavid 1961; Labov 1966; Labov, Yaeger, and Steiner 1972; Fowler 1986) and /l/-vocalization (e.g., Ash 1982a, 1982b), which have been identified as important markers of sociolinguistic stratification in New York City, Philadelphia, and else- where. However, previous discussion of the intrusive l (Gick 1999) has focused primarily on its phonological implications, with almost no attempt to describe its geographic, dialectal, and sociolinguistic context. This study marks such an attempt. In particular, it argues that the intrusive l is an instance of phonological change in progress. Descriptively, the intrusive l parallels the intrusive r in many respects. Intrusive r may be viewed simplistically as the extension by analogy of a historically attested final /r/ to words historically ending in a vowel (gener- ally this applies only to the set of non-glide-final vowels: /@, a, O/).
    [Show full text]
  • Morphophonology of Magahi
    International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR) ISSN: 2319-7064 SJIF (2019): 7.583 Morphophonology of Magahi Saloni Priya Jawaharlal Nehru University, SLL & CS, New Delhi, India Salonipriya17[at]gmail.com Abstract: Every languages has different types of word formation processes and each and every segment of morphology has a sound. The following paper is concerned with the sound changes or phonemic changes that occur during the word formation process in Magahi. Magahi is an Indo- Aryan Language spoken in eastern parts of Bihar and also in some parts of Jharkhand and West Bengal. The term Morphophonology refers to the interaction of word formation with the sound systems of a language. The paper finds out the phonetic rules interacting with the morphology of lexicons of Magahi. The observations shows that he most frequent morphophonological process are Sandhi, assimilation, Metathesis and Epenthesis. Whereas, the process of Dissimilation, Lenition and Fortition are very Uncommon in nature. Keywords: Morphology, Phonology, Sound Changes, Word formation process, Magahi, Words, Vowels, Consonants 1. Introduction 3.1 The Sources of Magahi Glossary Morphophonology refers to the interaction between Magahi has three kind of vocabulary sources; morphological and phonological or its phonetic processes. i) In the first category, it has those lexemes which has The aim of this paper is to give a detailed account on the been processed or influenced by Sanskrit, Prakrit, sound changes that take place in morphemes, when they Apbhransh, ect. Like, combine to form new words in the language. धमम> ध륍म> धरम, स셍म> सꥍ셍> सााँ셍 ii) In the second category, it has those words which are 2.
    [Show full text]
  • Rhythmic Syncope and Opacity in Mojeño Trinitario
    Phonological Data & Analysis Volume 1, Article 2: 1–25 (2019) pɗɑ https://doi.org/10.3765/pda.v1art2.2 Received 7 December 2017; revised 19 October 2018; accepted 29 January 2019. © 2019 Françoise Rose. Published by the Linguistic Society of America with permission of the author under a CC BY 3.0 license. Rhythmic syncope and opacity in Mojeño Trinitario Françoise Rose* Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique – [email protected] This paper presents rhythmic syncope in Mojeño Trinitario, an Arawak language spoken in lowland Bolivia. In this language, every vowel that is in a weak prosodic position can syncopate. The syncope pattern of Mojeño Trinitario is remarkable for several reasons. First, it involves a regular, categorical and complete deletion rather than a statistical reduction of vowels. Second, it applies similarly to words with either of two stress patterns: iambic words, which make up the great majority of words, and trochaic ones, much less numerous. Third, a great variety of consonant sequences are the result of syncope, and syllabification applies again after syncope. Fourth, rhythmic syncope actually underapplies: almost half of the vowels that are in a position to syncopate are maintained, and vowel quality plays a statistical role in immunity to syncope. Fifth, due to a rich morphology and a set of complex phonotactic rules applying sequentially, syncope leads to extreme opacity. The data presented in this paper in a theory-neutral way contribute to the typology of rhythmic syncope. It will also be of interest to phonologists considering constraint-based vs. derivational models of phonology. Keywords: phonology; stress; prosody; rhythmic syncope; Mojeño (Arawak) 1 Introduction Mojeño is an Arawak language spoken in lowland Bolivia.
    [Show full text]
  • A Typological Study of the Role of Syllable Contact in Romance Languages1
    AUTHOR’S COPY | AUTORENEXEMPLAR It is all downhill from here: A typological study of the role of Syllable Contact in Romance languages1 CLÀUDIA PONS-MOLL Abstract The main purpose of this paper is to show that Syllable Contact is responsible for the application of an extensive set of processes drawn from Romance lan- guages and to explore the nature and effects of this constraint within Optimality Theory (OT) on the basis of the analysis of these phenomena. All the processes under examination entail a change in manner of articulation and are the fol- lowing: a) regressive manner assimilation in some varieties of Catalan and in Languedocian Occitan, b) alveolar fricative rhotacism in Majorcan Catalan, dialects of Sardinian and dialects of Galician and c) alveolar fricative gliding in Languedocian Occitan. The analysis of these processes leads to two important theoretical implica- tions. First, it provides strong empirical evidence that SYLLABLE CONTACT cannot be regarded as a single constraint which categorically bans coda-onset 1. Different versions of this paper have been presented at the XIII Col·loqui Internacional de Llengua i Literatura Catalanes (Girona, 2003), the 13th Manchester Phonology Meeting (Manchester, 2005), the Conference on Manner Alternations in Phonology (Berlin, 2005), the 10LabPhon (Paris, 2005) and the Cuny Phonology Forum (New York, 2008). For valu- able discussion on this paper, I am grateful to Eulàlia Bonet, Elisenda Campmany, Pere Gri- malt, Maria-Rosa Lloret, John Kingston, Joan Mascaró, John J. McCarthy, Anna Pineda, Laia Querol, Daniel Recasens, Donca Steriade, Francesc Torres-Tamant and to the audience of the aforementioned conferences (especially to Stuart Davis, Chiara Frigeni and Robert Ladd).
    [Show full text]