Retroflexion in Norwegian Tor Håvard Solhaug Masteroppgave i allmenn språkvitenskap Fakultet for humaniora, samfunnsvitenskap og lærerutdanning Universitetet i Tromsø Høsten 2010 1 2 Preface Before I started studying, I could not imagine how it could be possible to write more than five pages on just one topic. Well, here I am and all of a sudden it occurred to me that what I used to think was impossible, is actually over. The idea of writing about retroflexion came to me as I was looking in Gjert Kristoffersen’s The Phonology of Norwegian and I realized that speakers of Eastern Norwegian had different retroflexion patterns than I had in my own dialect. So, I decided to take a closer look at that and here is the result. I would like to thank Martin Krämer, my supervisor, for his eternal patience and valuable feedback. He has taught me everything I know about phonetics and phonology. I would also like to thank Siri K. Gaski for proof-reading and general moral support. Stavanger, 15. november 2011 Tor Håvard Solhaug 3 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 9 1.1 The retroflexes............................................................................................................ 9 1.1 Retroflexion.............................................................................................................. 11 1.3 Phonetic and phonological properties of retroflexes................................................ 12 1.4 Optimality Theory.................................................................................................... 12 2 Retroflexes as speech sounds ......................................................................................... 15 2.1 The Norwegian sound inventory.............................................................................. 15 2.1.1 Vowels.............................................................................................................. 16 2.1.2 Consonants ....................................................................................................... 17 2.2 History...................................................................................................................... 19 2.2.1 Retroflexion started by / ɽ/ ................................................................................ 20 2.2.2 Retroflexion started with /r/ ............................................................................. 21 2.2.3 Retroflexion as a result of constraint interaction.............................................. 21 2.2.4 Summary .......................................................................................................... 22 2.3 Phonetic properties................................................................................................... 22 2.3.1 Articulatory properties ..................................................................................... 23 2.3.2 Acoustic properties........................................................................................... 25 2.4 Phonological properties............................................................................................ 26 2.4.1 Phonological representation............................................................................. 26 2.4.2 Theoretical issues............................................................................................. 28 2.5 Phonological contexts .............................................................................................. 30 2.5.1 Rhotic contexts................................................................................................. 30 2.5.1.1 General patterns................................................................................................ 30 2.5.1.2 Multiple retroflexions................................................................................... 32 2.5.1.3 The prosodic range of retroflexion............................................................... 33 2.5.2 Other contexts .................................................................................................. 39 2.6 The phonological status of retroflexes ..................................................................... 41 2.7 Summary .................................................................................................................. 45 4 3 Optimality Theory .......................................................................................................... 47 3.1 Generative grammar................................................................................................. 47 3.1.1 Basic assumptions ............................................................................................ 47 3.1.2 Generative phonology ...................................................................................... 49 3.2 The architecture of OT ............................................................................................. 50 3.2.1 Why OT?.......................................................................................................... 50 3.2.2 Constraints........................................................................................................ 51 3.2.3 OT architecture................................................................................................. 53 3.3 Conspiracy and opacity............................................................................................ 56 3.3.1 Conspiracy........................................................................................................ 56 3.3.2 Opacity............................................................................................................. 59 3.3.2.1 General opacity ............................................................................................ 59 3.3.2.2 Opaque retroflexion...................................................................................... 62 3.3.3 Does opacity exist?........................................................................................... 63 3.3.4 OT approaches to opacity................................................................................. 64 3.3.4.1 OT-CC.......................................................................................................... 65 3.3.4.2 Turbidity Theory .......................................................................................... 68 3.4 Summary .................................................................................................................. 71 4 Earlier approaches to retroflexion ................................................................................ 72 4.1 Kristoffersen’s analysis............................................................................................ 72 4.2 Bradley’s analysis .................................................................................................... 76 4.3 Hamann’s analysis.................................................................................................... 79 4.4 Molde’s analysis....................................................................................................... 82 4.5 Uffmann’s analysis................................................................................................... 85 4.6 Summary .................................................................................................................. 90 5 Transparent retroflexion ............................................................................................... 92 5.1 The data to be analyzed............................................................................................ 92 5.2 An OT analysis......................................................................................................... 93 5.3 General r-loss ........................................................................................................... 99 5.4 Summary ................................................................................................................ 102 5 6 Opaque retroflexion ..................................................................................................... 103 6.1 An analysis of opaque retroflexion ........................................................................ 103 6.1.1 An OT-CC analysis........................................................................................ 104 6.1.2 Turbidity Theory............................................................................................ 107 6.2 Extensions of TT.................................................................................................... 109 6.2.1 /sl/-clusters ..................................................................................................... 109 6.2.2 /ʃ/ as a trigger for retroflexion? ...................................................................... 113 6.3 Summary ................................................................................................................ 115 7 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 116 7.1 Is retroflexion universal?........................................................................................ 116 7.2 Opacity ................................................................................................................... 117 7.3 Final remarks.........................................................................................................