Edinburgh Research Explorer Sandhi, mutation and contrast: laryngeal phonology in Plougrescant Breton Citation for published version: Iosad, P 2009, 'Sandhi, mutation and contrast: laryngeal phonology in Plougrescant Breton', Paper presented at Toronto-Tromsø Phonology Workshop, Toronto, Canada, 8/10/09 - 10/10/09. Link: Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research Explorer Document Version: Peer reviewed version General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorer content complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 05. Oct. 2021 Talk outline Laryngeal phonology in Plougrescant Breton: sandhi, mutation, and contrast >. Laryngeal phonology in a Breton dialect Pavel Iosad ?. Final devoicing is loss of contrast, not loss of feature Universitetet i Tromsø/CASTL @. Sandhi voicing is phonetic implementation (mostly) [email protected] A. Devoicing sandhi do not need [−voice] B. Privative laryngeal features will do C. Implications Torontø–Tromsø Phonoløgy Workshop October F–>> ?==F University of Toronto Background Previous work Krämer (?===) I Île de Groix Breton (Ternes, >FD=) Argued to exhibit a ternary contrast between [+voice], [ voice], I Breton: a Celtic language, closely related to Cornish and Welsh I − and [=voice] segments I Mostly described by Celtologists, dialectologists, and historical linguists I Evidence for binary features Final devoicing is loss of features I Breton phonology remains seriously understudied (as opposed to I syntax) I Few proper phonetic studies, mostly aural transcriptions Hall (?==E) I What can we do? I Same dialect, same source I Privative features with feature geometry I Feature disalignment I Final devoicing is loss of features and loss of contrast The present approach Breton dialects I Traditionally divided into four groups Cornouaillais, Trégorrois, Léonais (KLT): relatively homogeneous, I Work in progress, (almost) nothing is Vnal I basis for standard language I Features are privative with feature geometry I Vannetais (south-east): very divergent, sometime even served by I “Final devoicing” is loss of contrast own literary tradition (Guillevic & Le GoU, >F=?) Devoicing sandhi is I I Île de Groix is a Vannetais dialect I Either lexical phonology Source rather messy (“phonemic” approach, not very systematic) Or failed mutation due to geminate inalterability I I Here: attempt to look at a less messy data point Argument for substance-free phonology I I Plougrescant is a Trégorrois dialect; description by Jackson (>FC=) Tested on Plougrescant Breton (Jackson, >FC=) I I more systematic I Further outlook: extend approach to Île de Groix if possible Consonant inventory Vowel inventory Place i:• y: • u Manner Labial Alveolar Postalveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Laryngeal I• Y e:• Stop p b t d c é k g e• • o(:) Fricative f v s z S Z X h • œ(:) Nasal m n ñ Lateral l L E(:)• • O(:) Rhotic r Glide w j a• a:• ¯ I Length contrast for all consonants except voiced obstruents I Length is only licensed by (main) stress Restrictions on laryngeal features Restrictions on laryngeal features I Voiced and voiceless obstruents contrast word-initially; short I Following long stressed vowels, consonants can only be short; allophones voiceless obstruents do not occur: (>) a. ["pesk] ‘Vsh’ (@) a. ["o:ber] ‘to do; to make; to work’ b. ["bœ:rE] ‘morning’ b. ["li:z@r] ‘letter’ c. ["lo:gOt] ‘mice’ c. ["me:l@n] ‘yellow’ I Voiced and voiceless obstruents contrast immediately following I Following short stressed vowels, consonants are long; voiced unstressed vowels; short allophones: obstruents cannot be long, so they are excluded: (?) a. [bO"to:] ‘shoes’ (A) a. ["tap:ut] ‘to take’ b. [Sa"dEn:@t] ‘chained (participle)’ b. ["jaX:OX] ‘more healthy’ c. [kY"ry:no] ‘peals of thunder’ c. [skY"dEl:o] ‘basins’ Restrictions on laryngeal features Summary I Leaving Vnal devoicing aside for a moment, laryngeal features I Word-Vnally following a stressed vowel, voiced obstruents are are mostly predictable: not permitted. Consonants are short following long stressed Laryngeal contrasts are allowed in the onset of the Vrst syllable vowels and long following short stressed vowels. I and of the stressed syllable (B) a. ["to:k] ‘hat’ I Otherwise they are predictable: b. ["me:l] ‘honey’ I Voiced following unstressed (always short) vowels Voiced when single and following long stressed vowels (C) a. ["grwEk:] ‘woman, wife’ I I Voiceless (and long) when single and following short stressed b. [mEl:] ‘ball’ vowels I What is contrastive? What is marked? Final devoicing Final devoicing in monosyllables I The really interesting part is when a stressed vowel precedes I Stress is normally penultimate in KLT (but not in Vannetais!), so this is mostly monosyllables and a few words with Vnal stress I At Vrst blush Vnal devoicing looks normal I If it is vowel length that is distinctive, we expect V:C# (D) a. [bYga"lEéjo] ‘children’ b. [bY"ga:lIc] ‘child’ (E) a. ["to:go] ‘hats’ ¯ b. ["to:k] ‘hat’ I But what about vowel length? I And cf. minimal pairs like I This is a good question (F) a. ["kas:] ‘send!’ ([s] never voiced, French borrowing) b. ["ka:s] ‘cat’ (cf. orthographic kaz) ¯ Final devoicing in monosyllables Final devoicing in monosyllables I This isn’t really devoicing in view of what we know about Does real Vnal devoicing happen? Well, yes quantity and voicing I I There is variation described by Jackson (>FC=) as “free”, and I This is incomplete neutralization especially with coronals I Confer real devoicing: I Context probably unknowable; the ambition here is at best to Vnd (>=) a. [lO"go:d@n] ‘mouse’ which representations are involved b. ‘to hunt mice’ [lO"gOt:a] (>?) [ty:t]∼[tYt:] ‘people’ (orthographic tud) I Side note: it isn’t always about voicing per se: I More examples to come immediately below, as they involve (>>) a. ["rO:his] ‘people of ar Roc’h’ sandhi to which we now turn b. ["rO:X] ‘ar Roc’h (placename)’ I What about lexically voiceless Vnals? These are relatively few, French borrowings of various antiquity, and behave as expected, I Not really surprising if you know (some) [h] is historically *G, but cf. (F-a) must be accounted for Sandhi Sandhi I The traditional view (Stephens, >FF@; Favereau, ?==>) is essentially that all consonants are voiced in sandhi before I Plus there is the devoicing sandhi that is the focus of Krämer [+voice] segments (?===) and Hall (?==E) I For Île de Groix Ternes (>FD=) describes it as a lexical distribution: (>@) a. ["pwe:l@z "˜a.˜O] ‘if you saw me’ some words, and only these words, devoice initial obstruents b. [­mab "ne:we] ‘new son’ ¯ following an obstruent c. [­pOb "bi.@n] ‘little youth’ I For Plougrescant, Jackson (>FC=) is less concerned: “sometimes” And voiceless before voiceless consonants I (>B) a. ["la:tt˜ı] ‘said to me’, cf. [d˜ı] ‘to me’ ¯ (>A) a. [­map "hi:r] ‘tall son’ b. ["kankuS] ‘>== times’, cf. ["tErguS] ‘thrice’ ¯ b. [@n ­dyt "kap:ap] ‘the able people’ Sandhi Outline of analysis I In the narrative texts given by Jackson (>FC=), the sandhi rules are often violated I Especially with regard to sandhi voicing (>C) a. [­map "dy:] ‘black son’ Outline feature analysis ¯ I b. [­mErX "va:t] ‘good girl’ ¯ I Argue that Vnal devoicing without length permutations is a c. ["dwa:n tœs "di:w˜ı]‘the fear that you have of me’ phonetic process Argue that sandhi voicing is the Wip side of Vnal devoicing I Jackson (>FC=) explains the the texts were dictated at a slow pace I I However, some (in fact most) of the examples, such as (>C-a) and I Unify some devoicing sandhi with “failure of mutation” (>C-b), are transcribed with a secondary–main stress rhythm; I Tentatively propose that other devoicing sandhi are an artifact of these are possibly genuine connected phrases univerbation I Thus failure of sandhi is not necessarily an artefact of dictation I Note that vowels outside main-stressed syllables are shortened, so the preservation of length contrasts under devoicing does not work in the same way when stress is secondary Feature analysis Feature analysis I Before we even discuss Vnal devoicing, we should solve the I In substance-free phonology with emergent privative features, [voice]/[spread glottis] problem this point is rather moot I Phonetics rather poorly understood I We are interested in the patterning, whether the “voiceless” I Voiceless stops are described as aspirated (at least initially) at Le obstruents are labelled [spread glottis] or [voiceless] (cf. Blaho, Bourg Blanc (Falc’hun, >FB>) and Saint-Pol-de-Léon (Sommerfelt, ?==E) is irrelevant >FDE), but these are both Léonais I Or voiced stops are [voice] or [stiU], of course No mention of aspiration is made for Plougrescant by Jackson I I propose that in Plougrescant Breton “voiceless stops” are (>FC=, >FCD) I [voiceless] and “voiced stops” do not bear a laryngeal feature, but In all cases the voiced stops are described or assumed to be voiced I do have a laryngeal node One possible point: at Plougrescant fricatives underwent a I I return below to why nodes are better than features context-free voicing (“new lenition”), cf. Southern English I Fricative Voicing, which Honeybone (?==Ba) takes as evidence for I Main reason is restricted distribution: only initial and stressed [spread glottis]:; syllables, both reasonable contexts for positional faithfulness (Beckman, >FFF; Smith, ?==?) I But Honeybone (?==Ba) himself admits the analysis of fricatives should not be spread to stops uncritically I We need to make reference to this feature to derive the restrictions (but not to describe Vnal devoicing as I argue below) I In that sense it is “marked” (Trubetzkoyan markedness) Final devoicing Assumptions of analysis I I propose that Vnal devoicing is in fact loss of the laryngeal node, i.