The Status of Coronals in Standard American English An Optimality-Theoretic Account Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität zu Köln vorgelegt von Sybil Scholz geb. in Düsseldorf Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Jon Erickson Zweitgutachterin: Prof. Dr. Susan Olsen Köln 2003 For Aleksandra Davidovi ć CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i PREFACE: LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, LIST OF CONSTRAINTS, TYPOGRAPHICAL CONVENTIONS, AND PHONETIC SYMBOLS ii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION—PROCEDURE AND ORGANIZATION 1 1.1 Data: their status within generative theory 1 1.2 Method 5 1.3 Theory: what version of OT? 6 1.4 Organization of the dissertation 10 CHAPTER 2: AMERICAN ENGLISH 12 2.1 The English of the SBCSAE (Part I) 12 2.2 Standard American English 18 2.2.1 Western as the default variety 18 2.2.2 Standards: formal, informal, vernacular 22 CHAPTER 3: CLASSIFICATION OF CORONALS 28 3.1 History of the feature [coronal] 28 3.1.1 Pre-SPE feature systems 28 3.1.2 The feature [coronal] within the SPE model 31 3.2 The coronal articulators 37 3.2.1 Movable articulators 38 3.2.2 Articulatory targets 40 3.3 Phonetic evidence for coronals 42 3.3.1 Evidence from typology 43 3.3.2 Evidence from acoustics and perception 45 3.3.3 Evidence from articulation 48 CHAPTER 4: THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF OT 52 4.1 The components of an OT grammar 52 4.1.1 Basic assumptions 52 4.1.2 OT architecture 56 4.2 Universality and markedness 61 4.2.1 Markedness in SPE 63 4.2.2 Naturalness and OT 67 4.3 Representations and levels of analysis 76 4.3.1 Underspecification theories 78 4.3.2 Nonlinear representations 83 4.3.3 The Grounding Hypothesis 90 4.3.4 Representations in OT 95 4.3.5 Phonological domains in OT 101 4.4 Summary 103 CHAPTER 5: THEORETICAL PREMISES FOR AN ANALYSIS OF THE BEHAVIOR OF CORONALS UNDER OT 104 5.1 Introduction 104 5.2 The problematic notion of process under OT 104 5.3 The significance of the perceptual domain for phonology 107 5.4 Functionalism vs. formalism 112 5.5 Treatments of phonological contrast 118 5.5.1 Standard GP representation of contrast 119 5.5.2 Correspondence Theory and contrast 120 5.5.3 Dispersion Theory and contrast 123 5.6 Formalization of functional principles 127 5.6.1 Types of scales under OT 127 5.6.2 Types of constraint families 129 CHAPTER 6: DISTRIBUTIONAL PROPERTIES OF CORONALS IN SAE 132 6.1 Introduction 132 6.2 Paradigmatic constraints on the SAE consonant inventory 133 6.2.1 The emergence of sound inventories under OT 134 6.2.2 Segmental contrast in SAE 136 6.3 Syntagmatic constraints on SAE syllable structure 140 6.3.1 Syllable onsets 143 6.3.2 Syllable codas 149 CHAPTER 7: AN OT MODEL OF CORRESPONDENCES BETWEEN PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY 154 7.1 Introduction 154 7.2 Previous generative analyses of phonological alternations 155 7.3 Perceptual and articulatory constraints in an OT grammar 167 7.3.1 Communication model 167 7.3.2 Perceptual and articulatory representations 169 7.3.3 Formalization of perceptual and articulatory representations as OT constraints 172 CHAPTER 8: ALTERNATIONAL PROPERTIES OF CORONALS IN SAE 178 8.1 Introduction 178 8.2 Minimization of segmental contrast 179 8.2.1 Assimilation 180 8.2.1.1 Place assimilation 181 8.2.1.2 Laryngeal assimilation 187 8.2.2 Deletion 199 8.3 Maximization of segmental contrast 206 8.3.1 Epenthesis 206 8.3.2 Dissimilation 212 8.4 Summary 216 CHAPTER 9: AN OT CRITIQUE—SOME UNRESOLVED ISSUES 219 9.1 Introduction—the nature of OT 219 9.2 The input—an OT lexicon 220 9.3 GEN —the candidate set 224 9.4 The concept of the constraint 226 9.4.1 Absolute vs. nonabsolute universals 227 9.4.2 Universality and innateness of CON 230 9.5 Eval—the *-specific ranking 231 9.6 Explanatory notions under OT 232 9.6.1 Perceptual distinction and articulatory effort 232 9.6.2 Markedness 235 CHAPTER 10: CONCLUSIONS 238 10.1 Coronals 238 10.2 OT 239 REFERENCES 240 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Samantha Hume, Wolf-Dietrich Bald, Ruth Baumert, Ute Breidenbach, Jon Erickson, Melinda Möller, Susan Olsen, Martha Wassen, and Bella Palmera for their various contributions, their help and emotional support. ABBREVIATIONS AND CONSTRAINTS iii PREFACE List of abbreviations, list of constraints, typographical conventions, and phonetic symbols ABBREVIATIONS AAVE African American Vernacular English AP Articulatory Phonology AT articulator theory ATR advanced tongue root CON universal set of CONSTRAINTS DP Declarative Phonology EPG electropalatography EVAL EVALUATOR GA General American GEN GENERATOR GP Generative Phonology GT Generative Theory IPA International Phonetic Alphabet MP-rule morphophonemic rule MSC morpheme structure condition MT Markedness Theory NGP Natural Generative Phonology NP Natural Phonology OCP Obligatory Contour Principle PREFACE iv OT Optimality Theory P-rule phonological rule PPT Principles & Parameters Theory PT place of articulation theory PW phonological word ROA Rutgers Optimality Archive RP Received Pronunciation RTR retracted tongue root RU Radical Underspecification SAE Standard American English SBCSAE Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English SBE Standard British English SLH Strict Layer Hypothesis SPC surface phonetic constraint SPE Sound Pattern of English (Chomsky & Halle 1968) SR surface representation SSE Standard Scottish English SSP Sonority Sequencing Principle TCRS Theory of Constraints and Repair Strategies UG Universal Grammar UR underlying representation UT underspecification theory CONSTRAINTS (25) AND THEIR DESCRIPTION ASSIM /L AR assimilate laryngeal features ASSIM /P LACE assimilate place features DELETE /C OR delete coronal segment DEP –IO output is dependent on input DEP -IO/O NSET dependency with respect to segments in onsets DEP –IO/POA dependency with respect to place of articulation ABBREVIATIONS AND CONSTRAINTS v EPENTHESIZE epenthesize segment FAITHFULNESS faithfulness to input *GESTURE /C OR no coronal gesture *GESTURE /D OR no dorsal gesture *GESTURE /L AB no labial gesture IDENT -IO identity between input and output correspondents IDENT IO/FO NSET identity with respect to features (F) of segments in onsets IDENT IO/FS ÝL identity with respect to Fs of segments in stressed syllables IDENT IO/L AR identity with respect to laryngeal features IDENT IO/MOA identity with respect to manner of articulation IDENT IO/POA identity with respect to place of articulation MARKEDNESS no marked structures MAX –IO input is maximally present in output MAX –IO/O NSET maximality with respect to segments in onsets MAX –IO/POA maximality with respect to place of articulation OBS /V OI an obstruent must be voiceless OCP(F) no adjacent identical elements on a given tier SONORITY onsets must increase and codas must decrease in sonority SON /V OI a sonorant must be voiced CONVENTIONS AND SYMBOLS The phonetic symbols I will use for the transcription of consonants are the common ones taken from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) with affricates written as digraphs (International Phonetic Association 1999). For the vowels I chose the symbols following Wells (1982: xviii). C constraint (C 1, C 2 = constraint one, constraint two) C consonant (C 1, C 2 = consonant one, consonant two) V vowel G glide PREFACE vi L liquid N nasal F fricative A affricate P plosive Б glottal stop # word boundary + morpheme boundary | | perceptual specification [ ] articulatory specifications or phonetic material / / perceptual input or phonemic material < > orthographical material [±coronal] SPE -type distinctive feature (part of feature bundle) CORONAL non-linear class node (part of feature geometry) [±anterior] non-linear terminal feature (part of feature geometry) ' minute (25' 30" = 25 minutes and 30 seconds) " second (25' 30" = 25 minutes and 30 seconds) CHAPTER 1 Introduction: procedure and organization 1.1 DATA: THEIR STATUS WITHIN GENERATIVE THEORY As I am not a native speaker of English, the data which appear in the examples of this dissertation stem from a computer corpus of spoken Standard American English (SAE)—the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English ( SBCSAE ). The corpus consists of a large body of machine-readable natural speech data, which are used as a basis for an analysis of a class of sounds—the coronal consonants. In contrast to other classes of sounds, coronals display truly astonishing properties. The theoretical framework for my investigation is Optimality Theory (OT), which is the most recent theoretical development within generative theory. Depending on the theoretical framework within which a linguistic study is situated, naturalistic corpus data have quite a variable status. Such data are collected, for example in the case of the SBCSAE (cf. chapter 2.1 below), by making audio- recordings of informants' spontaneous speech in natural settings, e.g. at home, often without their prior knowledge of being recorded. This means the danger of falling into the trap of the Observer's Paradox is avoided by researchers. The Observer's Paradox states that, in order to study human communication, data must be collected from informants and the very act of collection, i.e. some form of observation, may affect the phenomena under study (Labov 1972b: 209). In the case of recordings of broadcast news, for example, the effects of observation approach zero. It must be assumed, however, that the Observer's Paradox arises in any kind of conversation when the participants know that they are being recorded, especially where microphones are within plain sight. Here one might expect informants to believe that they should monitor their speech but sometimes they also forget to do so. Naturalistic CHAPTER 1 2 corpus data differ from data collected from experimental studies in that they do not yield introspective well-formedness judgements. An obvious advantage of experimental studies is that the set-up of the experiment enables linguists to elicit very specific data from the subjects tested.