‘Tense’ /æ/ is still lax: A phonotactics study Daniel Duncan, Department of Linguistics, New York University [email protected] 1. Introduction 2. Methodology • /æ/ historically patterns as lax Forced Choice Nonce Word Task • Tenseness is phonologically active Word Canadian California Northern Cities • Speakers known to distinguish between accidental and systematic gaps in well- in English morphophonological processes and English English Shift English formedness tasks phonotactic distribution bat [bæt] [bæt] [bɛət] • Presentation of minimal pair of nonce words in /Vsk#, Vsp#/ frames, both lax-only bad [bæd] [bæd] [bɛəd] • Observation: In Northern Cities Shift, environments (32 lexical items out of 3759 English monomorphemic monosyllables) pass [pæs] [pæs] [pɛəs] [ɛə] appears in all environments tan [tæn] [tɛən] [tɛən] • Asked to choose which sounded • Question: Does Northern Table 1. Three /æ/ systems in North American English dialects more like a possible word of Trial type Test Test Filler English /æ-i/ /bæsp/-/bisp/ /plæsk/-/plisk/ /spæp/-/spip/ Cities Shift /æ/ belong to Environment Tense Vowels Lax Vowels /æ-e/ /swæsk/-/swesk/ /fæsp/-/fesp/ /bræb/-/breb/ the class of tense or lax /V#/ she [ʃi], die [daɪ] *[dɪ] • Test conditions: /æ/ vs. /i, e, ɪ, ɛ/ /æ-ɛ/ /næsk/-/nɛsk/ /hæsk/-/hɛsk/ /væb/-/vɛb/ vowels? /Vð#/ bathe [beð], loathe [loð] *[bɪð] • Control conditions: /i, e/ vs. /ɛ, ɪ/ /æ-ɪ/ /pæsp/-/pɪsp/ /gæsk/-/gɪsk/ /θæg/-/θɪg/ /V.V/ riot [raɪ.ət], react [ri.ækt] *[rɛ.ot] • Support of tense: • Filler: codas /b, g, p, k/ /i-ɛ/ /brisp/-/brɛsp/ /tisp/-/tɛsp/ /mib/-/mɛb/ /Vŋ/ *[toŋ] hung [hʌŋ], sing [sɪŋ] vowel is phonetically • 40 test trials, 40 control, 32 filler /ɪ-e/ /ʧɪsp/-/ʧesp/ /slɪsk/-/slesk/ /gɪk/-/gek/ /VFS/ (monomorphemes) *[tesp] wisp [wɪsp], desk [dɛsk] tense (lengthened, (1600 total test/control trials) /i-e/ /prisp/-/presp/ /misp/-/mesp/ /klig/-/kleg/ /VSF/ (monomorphemes) *[niks] axe [æks], X [ɛks] diphthongal like other /ɪ-ɛ/ /ʤɪsk/-/ʤɛsk/ /kɪsp/-/kɛsp/ /jɪg/-/jɛg/ /VNO/ (monomorphemes) *[bomp] rump [rʌmp], amp [æmp] • Transitional probability calculated tense vowels) Table 3. Stimuli paradigm Table 2. Phonotactic distribution of tense and lax vowels in English as factor for analysis • Support of lax: Participants patterns as lax in lexicon—task, gasp, but /Cæ#/ unattested • 9 college students raised in Northern Cities • This study: Forced choice nonce word task centered on /Vsk#, Vsp#/ environments, comparing Shift-speaking area (Michigan, Chicago, etc.) responses of Northern Cities Shift and California English speakers • 11 college students raised in California • Key finding: Northern Cities Shift speakers and California English speakers alike treat /æ/ as • Each group heard local variant of /æ/, otherwise lax, preferring it to tense vowels where tense vowels restricted same stimuli (Both variants recorded by speaker of New York City English) Figure 1. Spread of Northern Cities Shift /æ/ (Labov et al. 2006: 193) 3. /æ/ is Licit in /Vsk#, Vsp#/ 4. /æ/ is Part of Lax Vowel Class • In test conditions both groups Logistic Mixed Effects Model • /æ/ preferred to tense vowels at approximately Proportion Attested Vowel Chosen Against Unattested Vowel selected /æ/ at similar rates • Three fixed factors: height and tenseness of other same rate as /ɛ/ 1.00 • /æ/ favored against tense and lax, vowel, difference in transitional probability between • /ɛ/ underattested among monosyllables in but more so against tense nonce pair environments tested 0.75 • Random factor of participant • No dialect difference for /ɛ/ Proportion /ae/ Vs. Tenseness of Other Vowel 1.00 • Test for interaction between participant group and • Height has unexpected effect for both dialects Version CA Proportion of Responses Attested Vowel 0.50 height/tenseness of other vowel • California English: weakened preference for NCS • /æ/ favored in comparison to [+high] (β=.63920, lax vowel 0.75 0.25 p=.00020), tense vowels (β=.66487, p=.00009) • Northern Cities Shift: no preference for lax • Larger differences in transitional probability favored vowel

VERSION 0.00 CA /æ/ (β=.28549, p=.00178) Proportion of Responses /ae/ 0.50 NCS /ae/ /E/ /I/ Vowel • No group interaction or inherent favoring of /æ/ Binomial Tests Ex: /fæsp, fesp/ Ex.: /tɛsp, tisp/ Ex.: /slɪsk, slesk/ (Intercept: p=.05711) • Test whether outcome of Figure 3 0.25 • Speakers phonologize restriction on tense vowels in trials differs from chance Pair California English Northern Cities Shift /Vsk#, Vsp#/, treat /æ/ as licit • Bonferroni-corrected: Predicted Restriction two-tailed, 16 trials, gives /æ-e/ (choose /æ/) 69.1% .00002 74.4% <<.00001 0.00 /æ-i/ (choose /æ/) 82.7% <<.00001 87.8% <<.00001 lax tense significant at p<.0015625 Tenseness /e-ɪ/ (choose /ɪ/) 63.6% 0.00147 47.8% 0.29921 • California English: only Ex.: /gæsk, gɪsk/ Ex.: /fæsp, fesp/ /ɛ-i/ (choose /ɛ/) 71.8% <<.00001 73.3% <<.00001 Figure 2 significant when lax vowel Predicted Non-Restriction chosen over tense vowel • /æ/ being favored over other lax vowels attributable to /æ-ɛ/ (choose /æ/) 60.9% 0.00837 60.0% 0.02230 • Northern Cities Shift: except wordlikeness /æ-ɪ/ (choose /æ/) 62.7% 0.00272 67.8% 0.00022 /ɪ/ cases, significant in /e-i/ (choose /e/) 52.7% 0.25234 63.3% 0.00402 • Difference in transitional probability: shows which lax-tense comparisons /ɛ-ɪ/ (choose /ɪ/) 60.9% 0.00837 54.4% 0.17142 nonce word in pair more likely, to what degree Table 4. Bonferroni-corrected binomial tests by trial type and dialect • Nonce word containing /æ/ generally more likely Logistic Mixed Effects Model Factor Effect Size (β) p-value • Tense vowel comparisons are systematic gap • Fixed factors: lax vowel, group, Intercept 1.17871 <<.00001 • /ɛ/ underattested transitional probability Vowel=[ɛ] .04782 .87295 Figure 3 • Random factor: participant Vowel=[ɪ] -.64618 .01395 5. Discussion • Height effect both alone and as Transitional Probability .21841 .03200 group interaction Group (NCS=1) .33187 .37612 • Implication for Northern Cities Shift: Natural class membership California Northern Cities • General restriction on tense V=[ɛ]:Group -.24589 .55302 English Shift of /æ/ derived from attested lexical items, not phonetic similarity vowels in /Vsk#, Vsp#/ for V=[ɪ]:Group -1.03726 .00903 (long and diphthongal) to tense vowels Phonetic both dialects Table 5. Logistic mixed effects model of choice of lax vowel vs. tense vowel value Lax Tense • English tense/lax distinction surprisingly robust given total Phono. lexical items Selected References value Lax Lax Bates, D., M. Maechler, B. Bolker, and S. Walker. 2014. lme4: Linear mixed-effects models using Eigen and S4. ArXiv e- Table 6. Feature Specification for /æ/ • Restriction generalized from just 32 tokens (11 /æ/, 10 /ɪ/, 1 /ɛ/) print; submitted to Journal of Statistical Software, http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.5823. Becker, M., and J. Levine. 2014. Experigen – an online experiment platform. Available at http://becker.phonologist.org/experigen. Frisch, S., and B. • Broader Implication: Evidence in favor of phonologically-driven approach to feature classes Zawaydeh. 2001. The psychological reality of OCP-place in Arabic. Language 77: 91-106. Green, A. 2001. The tense-lax • Speakers generalize from attested patterns rather than phonetic similarity distinction in English vowels and the role of parochial and analogical constraints. Linguistics in Potsdam 15. Kager, R., and J. Pater. 2012. Phonotactics as phonology: Knowledge of a complex restriction in Dutch. Phonology 29: 81-111. Labov, W., S. • Further research: Height appeared to have effects on results—novel restriction or task effect? Ash, & C. Boberg. 2006. The atlas of North American English. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Lee, J. 1996. Some aspects of English phonology: An optimality-theoretic approach. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois dissertation. Mielke, J. 2008. The • Include pre-test to acoustically determine participants use [ɛə] emergence of distinctive features. Oxford: Oxford University Press. R Core Team. 2015. R: A language and environment for Thank you to Gillian Gallagher, Frans Adriaans, Maria Gouskova, Joe Fruehwald, René Kager, Zack Jaggers, Sean Martin, and Daniel Szeredi for helpful discussions, statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. URL http://www.R-project.org/. Wickham, H. support and suggestions on this project. 2009. Ggplot2: Elegant graphics for data analysis. New York: Springer.