78-89 SMITH, Ian Russell, 1949- SRI LANKA CREOLE PORTUGUESE PHONOLOGY. Cornell University, Ph.D., 1977 Language, linguistics University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor. Michigan 48106 � IAN RUSSELL SMITH 1977 PLEASE NOTE: The negative microfilm. copy of this dissertation was prepared and inspected by the school granting the degree. We are using this film without further inspection or change. If there are any questions about the film content, please write directly to the school. UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS SRI LJ.1n�j\' CREOLE PORTUGlJESE PEO�OLOGY A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfil lment for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Ian Russell Smith I'lay 1977 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH The author was born on June 23, 1949 in Derby , England . After emigrating to Canada in 1956 his family lived in To:· onto, where he graduated from Kipling Collegiate Insti­ tute in 1967. He then attended Mc Gill University in Montreal and recejved a B.Sc. (Honours in Mathematics) in June 1970 . In September 1970 he entered Cornell as a graduate student with a major in general linguistics and minors in South Asian linguistics and romance linguistics. He received an M.A. in linguistics in August 1973 and in September of that year went to Sri Lanka to collect data for the present volume . Financial assistance for the author's stUdies at Cornell came from a bourse de doctorat from the Ministere de l'Edu­ cation of Quebec (1970-71) , a tuition and fees fellowship from the Graduate School of Cornell (1971), and Canada Council doctoral fellovlShips (1971-76) . The author also worked as a teaching assistant in French (1970-71) and linguistics (1972, 1975-76) . During 1976-77 he has been an instructor in the Department of Modern La nguages and Linguistics at Cornell. The author is a member of the Linguistic Society of America, the Canadian Linguistics Association, the Indian Linguistics Association , and the Dravidian Linguistics Association. He is married to Katharine Elizabeth Ladd. ii For the people of Batticaloa iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am greatly indebted to Professor James W. Gair , chair­ man of my special committee , whose guidance , encouragement , and friendship over the past six and a half years have been invaluable to the successful outcome of my stay at Cornell. It is unfortunate that, being away this year , he has not been able to witness the final fruition of this period. Thanks are due also to all my teachers at Cornell and in particular to those who have serv ed on my special committee: Professor Gerald B. Kelley , Professor Frederick B. Agard, Professor John S. Bowers , and especially Professor Larry D. King , with whom I have worked closely during the preparation of this thesis. I would also like to thank Professor Herbert L. Kufner , who guided my first efforts at teaching linguistics. The consultants who took part in the collection of the data for this work deserve to share the credit for it, though I accept responsibility for any errors myself� I am extremely grateful to the Canada Council , the Ministere de l'Education of �uebec , and the Graduate School of Cornell for the financial assistanc e which made possible my graduate training. My many friends in Ithac a have been a constant source of pleasure and support . They are too numerous to mention here , but I do want to express my warm appreciation for their companionship . iv During the ten months my wife and I were in Batticaloa we were dependent on the good will and generosity of people who had never seen or heard of us before . To them this volume is respectfully dedicated. We shall not forget their hosp itality , nor the close friends we made from among them. It is hoped that this work will at least partially repay their kindness and their trust. The final thank you must go to my wife , Kathy , whose support , understanding and patience have at last been ' recompensed. Being a graduate stud ent s spouse is a trying , at times exasperating , experience. Typ ing the final copy of my thesis was probably the least of her contributions . v TABLE OF CONTENTS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv LIST OF TABLES ix LIST OF RULES xi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS xiii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I: THE SETTING 8 1 Sri Lanka 8 2 External History of Sri Lanka Portuguese 12 3 Batticaloa 26 CHAPTER II: SYNCHRONIC PHONOLOGY OF BATTICALOA PORTUGUESE 35 1 Phonological Inventory 36 2 Distribution 40 2.1 Consonants 40 2.2 Vowels 52 3 Stress Placement and Vowel Length 62 4 Vowels 96 4.1 Ep enthesis 96 4.2 Elision 101 5 Consonants 115 5.1 Strengthening and weakening phenomena 115 5.2 Other rules 125 CHAPTER III: INDIGENOUS I��LUENCE IN BATTICALOA PORTUGUESE 142 vi 1 Introduction lLL2 2 Non-Phonological Aspects 145 2.1 Syntax 151 2.1.1 Maj or constituent order 151 2.1.2 PP order 153 2.1.3 Adj ectives 154 2.1.4 Auxiliary 155 2.1.5 Relativization 157 2.1.6 Linking past participle 159 2.1.7 Quotative 161 2.1.8 Conditional 163 2.2 f1orpho logy 163 2.2.1 Nouns 164 2.2.� Verbs 172 2.3 Conclusion 177 3 Phonology 179 3.1 Phonological invent ory 179 3.2 Vowel length 180 3.3 Vowel nasalization 19L1- 3.4 Unrounding of lui 195 3.5 Retraction of non-low front vowels 196 3.6 The stops 197 .3.7 The pal atals 205 3.8 Retroflex Consonants 213 4 Phonological Change in Generative Grammar 213 4.1 Vowel nasalization 215 4.2 Unrounding lui 216 vii 4.3 Retroflex Cons onants 216 4.4 Gemination 217 4·5 Impl ications 218 CONCLUSIONS 221 BIBLIOGRAPh"Y 224 viii LIST 0]' TABLES CHAPTER I Table 1. Population of Sri Lanka , Batticaloa District and Batticaloa Town by Ethnic Group and Religion 31 CHAPTER II Table 1. Consonants 37 Table 2. Vowels 37 Table 3 . Distinctive Feature Composition of Batticaloa Portuguese Phonemes 39 Table 4a. Surface Distribution of Consonants and Consonant Clusters 42 Table 4b . Surface Distribution of Consonants and Consonant Clusters (cont .) 43 Table 5a. Distribution of Long (and Stressed) Vowels 53 Table 5b. Distribution. of Short Vowels 54 CHAPTER III Table 1. BP and BT Case Inflection 166 Table 2a. Some BP and BT Verb Correspondences : Independent Forms 174 Table 2b . Some BP and BT Verb Correspondence s: Dependent Forms 175 Table 3 . Some Grammatical Phenomena Showing Indigenous Influence in BP 178 Table 4. Consonants of 16th C. Portuguese 181 Table 5. Vowels of 16th C. Portuguese 181 ix Table 6. Consonants of BT 182 Table 7. Vowels of BT 183 Table 8. Distinctive Feature Composit ion of Batticaloa Tamil Phonemes 183 Table 9. Positional Variants of BT Stops 201 Table 10 . Factors Affecting BT Degemination and BP Geminat ion 201 Table 11. Int ervocalic stops and Geminates and their Sources 206 Table 12 . Development of SP Palatals in BP 206 x LIST OF "RULES CHAPTZR II ( 318) Vowel Lengthening in Standard Portuguese 63 (342) Length Adjustment (LA) : first approximation 67 (343) Main Stress Rule (MSR) : first approximation 67 (431) Length Loss (LL) 75 (445) Tertiary Stress Assignment (TSA) 78 (455) Length Adjustment (LA) : final version 82 (460 ) Nuclear Stress Rule (NSR) 85 (473) Stress Shift (SS) 89 (474) A Reduction (ARed) 89 (483) Main Stress Rule (MSR): final version 92 (496) Ep enthesis in Clusters (ClEp ) 96 (510) Transboundary Ep enthesis (TbEp) 99 (534) Vowel Elision (VE) 102 (535) Glide Epenthesis (GEp ) 102 (542) Retraction (Ret) 103 (555) Offgliding (Offg ) 104 (560) Unrounding (UR) 105 (591) Raising (Rais ): first approximation 108 (603) rtaising (Rais) : final version 110 (612) Vowel Harmony (VB) 113 (623) Laxing (Lax) 116 (624) Geminat ion (Gem) 117 (642) Nasal Tensing (NT) 119 (651) Spirantizat ion (Spir) 120 xi (678) Palatal Weakening (PalWk) 123 (688) /z/ Devoicing I (ZsI) 125 (705; Glide Constriction (GIC ) 129 (725) Nasal Elision I (NEll) 132 (730) Nasal Assimilation I (NAssI) 134 (731) Nasal Assimilation II (NAssII) 134 (742) D Ep enthesis (DEp ) 135 (746) Hypothetical Comb ined Nasal Assimilation Rule 136 (747) Final Cluster Simplification (FCS) 136 (761) Nasal Elision II (NEllI) 140 (765) Retroflection (Rflx) 140 CHAPTER III (109) BT Lenition 198 (110) BT Voicing 198 (Ill) BT Sp irantization 199 (132) Loss of Contrastive Vowel Nasality 215 xii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS A adj ective INST instrumental ACC accusative IP Indo-Portuguese ASS associative IT Indian Tamil BP Batticaloa JDBUC Journal of the Dutch Portuguese Burgher Union of Ceylon BT Batticaloa Tamil L a cover term for the lexical categories C clitic (N, V, etc.) CNC concord Lg. Language, journal of the Linguistic Society of COND conditional America CRQ contrastive LOC loc ative rhetorical qu estion intonation MID middle CVC Cape Verde Creole N noun , nominalizer Portuguese NEG negat ive D Dutch NEGDESC negative descriptive DAT dative NEGIMP negat ive imperative DED Dravidian Etymolo­ gical Dictionary NEGPOT negat ive potent ial (Burrow arid Emeneau 1961) North, North JP Northern Indo-Portu­ DESC descriptive guese E English OPT optative EMPH emphatic P postposit ion ex.. examp le PAS past GEN genitive pej. pej orat ive HON honorific PER permissive IMP imp erative PFC perfective INF infinitive PL plural xiii POT potential PPL participle PRES present QUOT quotat ive REFL reflexive S Sinhala SLOP Sri Lanka Creole Portuguese SP Standard Portuguese SPE The So��d Pattern of English (Chomsky and Halle. 1968 ) TAG tag question marker tns tense UMC universal marking convention V verb V intransitive verb .�n t VOLNEG volitive negat ive pause morpheme boundary (used in the informal transcriptions of Chapter III) # word boundary + formative boundary (used in the BP under­ lying representat ions in Chapter II) 1/ contrastive stress xiv INTRODUCTION Sri Lanka Portuguese is a creole language spoken in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) .