Chain Shifts in First Language Acquisition
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An Examination of Oral Articulation of Vowel Nasality in the Light of the Independent Effects of Nasalization on Vowel Quality
DOI: 10.17469/O2104AISV000002 CHRISTOPHER CARIGNAN An examination of oral articulation of vowel nasality in the light of the independent effects of nasalization on vowel quality In this paper, a summary is given of an experimental technique to address a known issue in research on the independent effects of nasalization on vowel acoustics: given that the separate transfer functions associated with the oral and nasal cavities are merged in the acoustic signal, the task of teasing apart the respective effects of the two cavities seems to be an intractable problem. The results obtained from the method reveal that the independent effects of nasal- ization on the acoustic vowel space are: F1-raising for high vowels, F1-lowering for non-high vowels, and F2-lowering for non-front vowels. The results from previous articulatory research performed by the author on the production of vowel nasality in French, Hindi, and English are discussed in the light of these independent effects of nasalization on vowel quality. Keywords: vowel nasality, vowel quality, articulation, acoustics, sound change. 1. Introduction A traditional characterization of vowel nasality adopts a seemingly binary classification of vowel sounds based on the relative height of the velum: nasal vowels are produced with a low velum position (and, thus, air radiation from both the oral and nasal cavities), where- as oral vowels are produced with a high velum position (and, thus, air radiation from the oral cavity alone). While it is unquestionably true that nasal vowels are produced with a lowered velum, this traditional characterization carries an implicit assumption about the state of the oral cavity for the production of a nasal vowel, i.e., that the nasal vowel maintains the same articulatory characteristics as its non-nasal counterpart in all aspects except for the height of the velum. -
On the Anatomy of a Chain Shift1 DANIEL A
J. Linguistics, Page 1 of 25. f Cambridge University Press 2010 doi:10.1017/S0022226710000368 On the anatomy of a chain shift1 DANIEL A. DINNSEN, CHRISTOPHER R. GREEN, JUDITH A. GIERUT & MICHELE L. MORRISETTE Indiana University (Received 4 September 2009; revised 28 April 2010) Phonological chain shifts have been the focus of many theoretical, developmental, and clinical concerns. This paper considers an overlooked property of the problem by focusing on the typological properties of the widely attested ‘s>h>f’ chain shift involving the processes of Labialization and Dentalization in early phonological development. Findings are reported from a cross-sectional study of 234 children (ages 3 years; 0 months–7;9) with functional (nonorganic) phonological delays. The results reveal some unexpected gaps in the predicted interactions of these processes and are brought to bear on the evaluation of recent optimality theoretic proposals for the characterization of phonological interactions. A developmental modification to the theory is proposed that has the desired effect of precluding certain early-stage grammars. The proposal is further evaluated against the facts of another widely cited developmental chain shift known as the ‘puzzle>puddle>pickle’ problem (Smith 1973). 1. I NTRODUCTION A common phenomenon in both first- and second-language acquisition and in fully-developed languages is for phonological processes to participate in a chain shift (e.g. Moreton & Smolensky 2002, Jesney 2005, Dinnsen 2008b). Chain shifts typically involve two phonological processes that interact in such a way that they result in an opaque generalization (i.e. one that is not surface-true). This phenomenon has generated much discussion and contro- versy in the theoretical, developmental, and clinical literature over the years and has raised questions about the very nature of chain shifts. -
Toward a Unified Theory of Chain Shifting
OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRST-PROOF, 04/29/12, NEWGEN !"#$%&' () TOWARD A UNIFIED THEORY OF CHAIN SHIFTING *#'+, -. ./,0/, !. I"#$%&'(#)%" Chain shifts play a major role in understanding the phonological history of English—from the prehistoric chain shift of Grimm’s Law that separates the Germanic languages from the rest of Indo-European, to the Great Vowel Shift that is often taken to define the boundary between Middle English and Early Modern English, to the ongoing chain shifts in Present-Day English that are used to estab- lish the geographical boundaries between dialect regions. A chain shift may be defined as a set of phonetic changes affecting a group of phonemes so that as one phoneme moves in phonetic space, another phoneme moves toward the phonetic position the first is abandoning; a third may move toward the original position of the second, and (perhaps) so on. Martinet (12(3) introduced the argument that chain shifts are caused by a need for phonemes to maintain margins of security between each other—so if a phoneme has more phonetic space on one side of it than on others, random phonetic variation will cause it to move toward the free space but not back toward the margins of security of phonemes on the other side. Labov (3414: chapter 5) gives a lucid exposition of the cognitive and phonetic argu- ments underlying this account of chain shifting. Despite their value as a descriptive device for the history of English, however, the ontological status of chain shifts themselves is a matter of some doubt. Is a 559_Nevalainen_Ch58.indd9_Nevalainen_Ch58.indd -
Introduction: Constraints in Phonological Acquisition
1 Introduction: constraints in phonological acquisition René Kager, Joe Paten and Wim Zonneveld This volume presents ten studies in phonological first languageacquisition, an area of research that has become one of fast-growing importance in recent years. The reason for this is not just the fruitfulness and linguistic interest of this type of study per se: it is also thecase that the more we come to know about phonological development, by the analysis of growingnumbers of data collections and increasingly sophisticated experiments, themore the field has complied with the notion that acquisition research liesat the heart of the modern study of language. One of the aims of this introductionis to illustrate and discuss these developments. In line with them, thepast decade in phonology in particular has witnessed an upswell of productiveinteraction between empirical acquisition research and theory development. With thearrival and rise of constraint-based models, in particular Prince and Smolensky's(1993) Optimality Theory, phonological theory now providesa framework that meets the desiderata expressed more than two decadesago by Lise Menn (1980: 35-36), who is also a contributor to this volume: () ... The child'slonguetiedness',that overwhelming reality which Stampe and Jakobson both tried to capture with their respective formal structures, could be handled more felicitously if one represented the heavy articulatory limitations of the child by the formal device of output constraints I...1The child's gradual mastery of articulation then is formalized as a relaxation of those constraints. The rapid emergence of acquisition studies within OptimalityTheory reflects the general suitability of constraints for the formalisation ofdevelopmental limitations, as well as the usefulness of constraint ranking for expressingthe relaxation of these limitations. -
Handouts for Advanced Phonology: a Course Packet Steve Parker GIAL
Handouts for Advanced Phonology: A Course Packet Steve Parker GIAL and SIL International Dallas, 2016 Copyright © 2016 by Steve Parker and other contributors Page 1 of 304 Preface This set of materials is designed to be used as handouts accompanying an advanced course in phonology, particularly at the graduate level. It is specifically intended to be used in conjunction with two textbooks: Phonology in generative grammar (Kenstowicz 1994), and Optimality theory (Kager 1999). However, this course packet could potentially also be adapted for use with other phonology textbooks. The materials included here have been developed by myself and others over many years, in conjunction with courses in phonology taught at SIL programs in North Dakota, Oregon, Dallas, and Norman, OK. Most recently I have used them at GIAL. Many of the special phonetic characters appearing in these materials use IPA fonts available as freeware from the SIL International website. Unless indicated to the contrary on specific individual handouts, all materials used in this packet are the copyright of Steve Parker. These documents are intended primarily for educational use. You may make copies of these works for research or instructional purposes (under fair use guidelines) free of charge and without further permission. However, republication or commercial use of these materials is expressly prohibited without my prior written consent. Steve Parker Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics Dallas, 2016 Page 2 of 304 1 Table of contents: list of handouts included in this packet Day 1: Distinctive features — their definitions and uses -Pike’s premises for phonological analysis ......................................................................... 7 -Phonemics analysis flow chart .......................................................................................... -
Complete Paper
The Scope of Stop Weakening in Argentine Spanish Laura Colantoni and Irina Marinescu University of Toronto 1. Approaches to weakening or lenition Recent experimental studies have documented the weakening of both voiceless (e.g. Lewis, 2000: 2001) and voiced Spanish stops in intervocalic position (e.g. Cole, Hualde & Iskarous, 1999; Ortega- Llebaria, 2004). In addition, synchronic and diachronic studies have repeatedly proposed the existence of a correlation between weakening of voiced and voiceless stops (e.g. Lloyd, 1993). However, very few studies have systematically analyzed both weakening processes in the same variety (Lavoie, 2001), and even fewer have presented experimental evidence demonstrating the existence of such a correlation. In this paper, we analyze the status of both processes in Argentine Spanish in order to motivate hypotheses that would account for diachronic changes in Spanish as well as in other Romance languages. In particular, we evaluate three competing approaches to lenition. The first approach, henceforth Hypothesis A, predicts a positive correlation between an increasing rate of approximantization and deletion of voiced stops and increasing voicing of voiceless stops across places of articulation (e.g. Martinet, 1952; Lloyd, 1993; Wireback, 1997). This approach, which is basically diachronic in nature, sees lenition as a stage towards deletion. The second approach, or the effort-based hypothesis – Hypothesis B -, (Kirchner, 2004; Blevins, 2004) analyzes lenition as effort reduction. As such lenition involves a decrease in the degree of constriction of a given gesture as well as a decrease in duration. Thus, this approach predicts that more effortful gestures should lenite more than less effortful ones, and that the degree of lenition should be affected by the vocalic context. -
Tonal Chain-Shifts As Anti-Neutralization-Induced Tone Sandhi
University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 11 Issue 1 Article 9 2005 Tonal chain-shifts as anti-neutralization-induced tone sandhi FENG-FAN HSIEH Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl Recommended Citation HSIEH, FENG-FAN (2005) "Tonal chain-shifts as anti-neutralization-induced tone sandhi," University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: Vol. 11 : Iss. 1 , Article 9. Available at: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol11/iss1/9 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol11/iss1/9 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Tonal chain-shifts as anti-neutralization-induced tone sandhi This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol11/iss1/9 Tonal Chain-Shifts as Anti-Neutralization-Induced Tone Sandhi Feng-fan Hsieh* 1 Introduction This paper proposes that certain attested instances of tone sandhi arc not driven by well-formedness conditions, e.g. tonal chain-shifts found in Southern Min (SM), a language group in the Min branch of Stnitic languages, in particular, Coastal Taiwanese (CT) and Mainstream Taiwanese (MT; the famous "tone circle"). As extensively discussed in the literature, SM tonal chain-shifts arc notorious in that (i) the alternations often have no phonotac- tic motivations, (ii) the alternations are not always predictable, and (iii) the chain-shifts may be circular, e.g. A —♦ B —• A. Circular chain shifts cannot be handled in Classical OT, as Morcton (1999) has convincingly argued. Therefore, there is a general consensus that SM tone sandhi rules are arbi trary and idiosyncratic. -
Trask's Historical Linguistics
Trask’s Historical Linguistics Trask’s Historical Linguistics, Third Edition, is an accessible introduction to historical linguistics – the study of language change over time. This engaging book is illustrated with language examples from all six continents, and covers the fundamental concepts of language change, methods for historical linguistics, linguistic reconstruction, sociolinguistic aspects of language change, language contact, the birth and death of languages, language and prehistory and the issue of very remote relations. This third edition of the renowned Trask’s Historical Linguistics is fully revised and updated and covers the most recent developments in historical linguistics, including: ᭹ more detail on morphological change including cutting-edge discussions of iconization ᭹ coverage of recent developments in sociolinguistic explanations of variation and change ᭹ new case studies focusing on Germanic languages and American and New Zealand English, and updated exercises covering each of the topics within the book ᭹ a brand new companion website featuring material for both professors and students, including discussion questions and exercises as well as discussions of the exercises within the book. Trask’s Historical Linguistics is essential reading for all students of language, linguistics and related disciplines. The accompanying website can be found at www.routledge.com/cw/trask Robert McColl Millar is Professor in Linguistics and Scottish Language at the University of Aberdeen. His most recent books include English Historical Sociolinguistics (2012) and (with William Barras and Lisa Marie Bonnici) Lexical Variation and Attrition in the Scottish Fishing Communities (2014). Larry Trask was Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sussex and an authority on Basque language and historical linguistics. -
Lecture 20 Historical Linguistics: Sound Change
16 April 2013 Aaron J. Dinkin Linguistics 1 [email protected] Lecture 20 Historical linguistics: sound change Sound change— i.e., change in phonetic and phonological systems— is the most useful tool for establishing how languages are related. Why? Sound change is almost completely regular and exceptionless. I.e., how a phoneme changes depends only on its phonetic environment, not on what word it appears in. E.g., Latin capra ‘goat’, with /k/, becomes French chèvre, with /∫/; but the sound change of /k/ becoming /∫/ is not specific to that word! The same change is exhibited in several more Latin > French words: carus > cher ‘dear’ caput > chef ‘head’ canis > chien ‘dog’ cantare > chanter ‘sing’ Carolus > Charles ‘Charles’ So there is a regular patten by which Latin /k/ becomes French /∫/; the same sound changes happen in all eligible words. Now compare some Latin words in which /k/ didn’t become /∫/ in French: corpus > corps ‘body’; crux > croix ‘cross’; cor > cœur ‘heart’. Why does the change from /k/ to /∫/ take place in capra but not corpus? Because it is conditioned by phonetic environment: k > ∫ / __a (We use a greater-than sign to indicate regular sound change.) This has the form of a phonological (i.e., allophonic) rule: we can consider this change to be adding an allophonic rule to the grammar. A sound change like this one originates as an allophonic rule (though due to later changes /k/ and /∫/ are separate phonemes nowadays). Sound changes typically fall into the same categories as phonological rules— assimilation, weakening, epenthesis, etc. The above is an example of conditioned sound change: the change only takes place in a certain environment. -
Sympathy and Phonological Opacity* John J
Sympathy and phonological opacity* John J. McCarthy University of Massachusetts, Amherst 1 Statement of the problem A central idea in rule-based phonology is the serial derivation (Chomsky and Halle 1968). In a serial derivation, an underlying form passes through a number of intermediate representations on its way to the surface: (1) Serial Derivation Underlying representation = UR UR transformed by rule 1 = output1 Output1 transformed by rule 2 = output2 ... Outputn-1 transformed by rule n = Surface representation Implementational details can differ: the order of rules might be stipulated or it might be derived from universal principles; the steps might be called "rules", "cycles", or "levels"; the steps might involve applying rules or enforcing constraints. But, details aside, the defining characteristic of a serial derivation, in the sense I will employ here, is the preeminence of the chronological metaphor: the underlying form is transformed into a succession of distinct, accessible intermediate representations on its way to the surface. I will call any theory with this property "serialism". *This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant SBR-9420424. Versions of it were presented at MIT (4/4/97), the Hopkins Optimality Workshop/Maryland Mayfest ‘97 (5/11/97), the LSA Linguistic Institute (7/22/97), the University of Amsterdam (9/25/97), Ohio State University (10/24/97), UT Austin (11/7/97), and the Rutgers Optimality Research Group (5/15/98). I acknowledge with particular gratitude the comments of Alan Prince; -
Handouts for Advanced Phonology: a Course Packet Steve Parker GIAL
Handouts for Advanced Phonology: A Course Packet Steve Parker GIAL and SIL International Dallas, 2018 Copyright © 2018 by Steve Parker and other contributors Page 1 of 281 Preface This set of materials is designed to be used as handouts accompanying an advanced course in phonology, particularly at the graduate level. It is specifically intended to be used in conjunction with two textbooks: Phonology in generative grammar (Kenstowicz 1994), and Optimality theory (Kager 1999). However, this course packet could potentially also be adapted for use with other phonology textbooks. The materials included here have been developed by myself and others over many years, in conjunction with courses in phonology taught at SIL programs in North Dakota, Oregon, Dallas, and Norman, OK. Most recently I have used them at GIAL. Many of the special phonetic characters appearing in these materials use IPA fonts available as freeware from the SIL International website. Unless indicated to the contrary on specific individual handouts, all materials used in this packet are the copyright of Steve Parker. These documents are intended primarily for educational use. You may make copies of these works for research or instructional purposes (under fair use guidelines) free of charge and without further permission. However, republication or commercial use of these materials is expressly prohibited without my prior written consent. Steve Parker Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics Dallas, 2018 Page 2 of 281 1 Table of contents: list of handouts included in this packet Day 1: Distinctive features — their definitions and uses -Pike’s premises for phonological analysis ......................................................................... 7 -Phonemics analysis flow chart .......................................................................................... -
Linguistics 407 Lecture
LINGUISTICS 407 Historical Linguistics LECTURE #13 UNANSWERED QUESTIONS Both the American structuralists and the Neogrammarians failed to pose one crucial question: Why do only certain sound changes occur to the exclusion of others, and why at one time rather than at any other? Prague School of structuralists: EVERYTHING CONCERNING LANGUAGE MUST BE CONSIDERED FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF FUNCTION. The question they asked: What is the function of linguistic change? For conditioned sound change, Paul’s “ease of articulation” had become the widely accepted answer to that question. However, no answer has been given as explanation of unconditioned sound change. The Prague School of structuralists -- above all, André Martinet, attempted to give an answer to this question. He coined the terms drag chain and push chain. CHAIN SHIFT: DRAG CHAINS OR PUSH CHAINS? Consider three well-known cases: 1. Grimm’s Law (First Consonant Shift: Lecture #4) 500 AD : High German or Second Consonant Shift [p] [t] [k] -- first changes around 500 AD [d] changed in the 7th century, filling the empty space left by [t]; then, [†] moved to the space left by [d]. 1 [†] > [d] [d] > [t] [p] > [píf] [t] > [tís] [k] > [kíx] (See the Handout) 2. Great Vowel Shift (English) It started around the 15th century; all the long vowels changed places – uncertain, however, which vowel started the shift. (See the Handout) 3. Yiddish dialect in Poland (See the Handout) [u…] > [i…], followed by [o…] > [u…] Drag chain: one sound moves from its original place, and leaves a gap which an existing sound will fill, whose place in turn filled by another, and so on.