Asymmetries in the Phonology of Miogliola [Reprint 2011 ed.] 9783110873023, 9783110170900

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Asymmetries in the Phonology of Miogliola

W G DE

Studies in Generative Grammar 60

Editors

Harry van der Hulst Jan Köster Henk van Riemsdijk

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Asymmetries in the Phonology of Miogliola

by

Mirco Ghini

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

2001

Mouton de Gruytcr (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter dc Gruyter G m b H & Co. KG, Berlin.

The scries Studies in Generative Grammar was formerly published by Foris Publications Holland.

Gedruckt mit Unterstützung der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft D 352.

© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

Ghini, Mirco, 1962— Asymmetries in the phonology of Miogliola / by Mirco Ghini. p. cm. - (Studies in generative grammar ; 60) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 3-11-017090-6 (alk. paper) 1. Italian language - Dialects - Italy - Miogliola - Phonology. I. Title. II. Series. PC1874.M56 G48 2001 457' 184-dc21 2001044588

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

Ghini, Mirco: Asymmetries in the phonology of Miogliola / by Mirco Ghini. - Berlin; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 2001 (Studies in generative grammar ; 60) ISBN 3-11-017090-6

© Copyright 2001 by Walter de Gruyter G m b H & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printing: Werner Hildebrand, Berlin. Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer G m b H , Berlin. Printed in Germany.

Foreword

Mirco Ghini passed away on January 11, 2001. The manuscript was complete and the contract signed, but Mirco was unable to see the book through the final stages of production. On his behalf, I would like to thank the following colleagues for assistance at these stages: Vincent Evers, Chiara Frigeni (especially for the Italian), Achim Kleinmann, Frans Plank, and Irene Wolke. Particular thanks go to Michael Wagner for compiling the index and to Wolfgang Schellinger for his keen eye for copy-editorial details. Many thanks also to Peter Kahrel and Ursula Kleinhenz from Mouton de Gruyter. Support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Sonderforschungsbereich 471 for Mirco's research and for the publication of this book is gratefully acknowledged. We would also like to thank Niemeyer and Cambridge University Press for allowing us to adapt two of their maps. At Mirco's memorial service, Paul Kiparsky said that "in his work on his beloved Miogliola dialect, Mirco set standards which are hard to live up to." He also reminded us that Mirco ends by anticipating "a long way yet to go" for the genuine questions that remain. I hope that this book will stimulate phonologists of coming generations to continue on that way. Aditi Lahiri Konstanz, October 2001

Contents

Preface Maps

xi xiv

Introduction

1

Chapter 1. Theoretical assumptions

5

1. The Prosodic Hierarchy

5

1.1. Foot structure 1.2. Syllable structure 1.3. Segment structure 1.3.1. Feature Geometry 1.3.2. Binary versus privative features 1.3.3. Underspecification 1.3.4. Continuous dichotomy and feature assignment ordering 1.3.5. [Coronal]-underspecification 1.3.6. [Coronal]-specification 2. Status of underspecification in phonology 2.1. McCarthy and Taub (1992) 2.2. Steriade (1995) 2.3. Underspecification and psycholinguistics 3. Summary of the chapter

5 7 16 16 19 22

Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola consonants

59

1. 2. 3. 4.

60 61 62 66

Surface consonants Underlying consonants The glides The ghost consonants

24 29 31 31 34 44 52 57

viii

Contents

5. The 5.1. 5.2. 5.3.

nasal [η] [η] as the fourth nasal phoneme [g] as the fifth placeless consonant The Default Variability Hypothesis (DVH): underlyingly placeless /N/, surface placeless [η] 5.4. The other placeless segments and the DVH 5.5. Representing non-alternating [n] as placeless, alternating [n/η] as dorsal 5.6. [Dorsal] as the default feature? 5.7. A full specification approach to Miogliola nasals 6. Miogliola consonant inventory 6.1. Rhotics as the unspecified sonorants: Pignasco 7. Summary of the chapter

79 79 82

89 90 93 98 100 104

Chapter 3. Consonantal prosody and metrical structure . .

107

1. Lengthening and non-lengthening consonants 2. On building metrical structure around stress 2.1. Obligatorily heavy stressed penults (1): vowel lengthening 2.2. Obligatorily heavy stressed penults (2): ambisyllabicity 2.3. The well-formedness of light stressed antepenults 2.4. The building of a moraic trochee 2.5. Stressed penults as heads of a moraic trochee 2.6. Final stress and the rhyme as a constituent 2.7. Stressed antepenults as heads of a moraic trochee 3. On deriving stress 3.1. Stress assignment 3.2. Lexical stress 3.3. Mora keeping versus mora losing consonants 3.4. Overview of the metrical system 4. The status of penultimate stress 4.1. Romance Stress 4.2. Italian 4.3. Spanish 4.4. The evolution of penultimate stress from Latin

107 Ill

84 86

Ill

...

...

113 114 116 117 120 123 126 128 130 131 136 139 140 146 147 148

Contents

ix

5. Summary of the chapter

149

Chapter 4. Vowel patterns before /N/

153

1. The vowel inventory before INI

153

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

158 162 164 167 170 178

The lengthening before intervocalic /N/ Ambisyllabicity, not VC.V-syllabification Vowel patterns before /N/ in stressed antepenults Unstressed vowels before/N/ Genovese/N/ Summary of the chapter

Chapter 5. An overview of the vowel system in Miogliola

181

1. Vowel inventories 1.1. Vowels in stressed position 1.1.1. Short vowels 1.1.2. Long vowels 1.2. Reduced vowel inventories 1.2.1. Subsystem 1: the vowel inventory in stressed position before moraic INI 1.2.2. Subsystem 2: the vowel inventory in unstressed position 2. Vowel feature specification 2.1. The short vowels 2.2. The long vowels 2.3. Accounting for the reduced inventories 2.3.1. Accounting for stressed vowels before moraic INI 2.3.2. Accounting for vowels in unstressed position . . 3. Summary of the chapter

181 181 181 184 185

195 199 207

Chapter 6. The dorsal vowel /α/

211

1. Allophonic distribution of the vowel Id 2. The vowel Id before the lengthening consonants

211 213

186 186 188 189 194 195

χ

Contents

3. The vowel I d before the non-lengthening consonants 4. The whole picture 5. Summary of the chapter

....

218 222 225

Conclusions

227

Notes References Word index Subject index Language index Author index

231 233 241 262 265 266

Preface εκτοσθεν δ' αυλής μέγας όρχατος άγχι ϋυράων τετράγυος· περί δ' έρκος έλήλαται άμφοτέρωθεν. ένθα δέ δένδρεα μακρά πεφύκασι τηλεθόωντα, ογχναι και ροιαι και μηλέαι άγλαόκαρποι συκέαι τε γλυκεραί και έλαΐαι τηλεθόωσαι. τάων οΰ ποτε καρπός άπόλλυται ούδ' απολείπει χείματος ουδέ θέρευς, έπετήσιος· άλλά μάλ' αίεί Ζεφυρίη πνείουσα τά μέν φύει, άλλα δέ πέσσει. ογχνη έπ' δγχνη γηράσκει, μήλον δ' έπί μήλω, αύτάρ έπί σταφυλή σταφυλή, σΰκον δ' έπί σύκψ. ένϋα δέ οί πολύκαρπος άλωή έρρίζωνται, τής έτερον μέν Φειλόπεδον λευρω ένί χώρφ τέρσεται ήελίω, ετέρας δ' άρα τε τρυγόωσιν, άλλας δέ τραπέουσι· πάροιθε δέ τ ομφακές είσιν άνθος άφιεΐσαι, ετεραι δ' ύποπερκάζουσιν. ένθα δέ κοσμηταί πρασιαί παρά νείατον δρχον παντοΐαι πεφύασιν, έπηετανόν γανόωσαι έν δέ δύω κρήναι ή μέν τ' άνά κήπον άπαντα σκίδναται, ή δ' έτέρω-θεν ύπ' αυλής ούδόν ϊησι προς δόμον ύψηλόν, δ·θεν ύδρεύοντο πολιται. τοΐ' άρ' έν Αλκινόοιο -θεών έσαν άγλαά δώρα. (Odyssey VII, 112-132) But without the courtyard, hard by the door is a great orchard of four acres, and a hedge runs about it on the other side. Therein grow trees, tall and luxuriant, pears and pomegranates and apple-trees with their bright fruit, and sweet figs, and luxuriant olives. Of these the fruit perishes not nor fails in winter or in summer, but lasts throughout the year; and ever does the west wind, as it blows, quicken to life some fruits, and ripen others; pear upon pear waxes ripe, apple upon apple, cluster upon cluster, and fig upon fig. There, too, is his fruitful vineyard planted, one part of which, a warm spot on level ground, is being dried in the sun, while other grapes men are gathering, and others, too, they are treading; but in front are unripe grapes that are shedding the bios-

xii

Preface som, and others that are turning purple. There again, by the last row of the vines, grow trim garden beds of every sort, blooming the year through, and therein are two springs, one of which sends its water throughout all the garden, while the other, over against it, flows beneath the threshold of the court toward the high house; from this the townsfolk drew their water. Such were the glorious gifts of the gods in the palace of Alcinous. (Translation: A.T. Murray, 1919)

Ulysses and his fellows' arrival in Phaeacia, on the shores of which they were shipwrecked, is only one of the stops of an extraordinary journey. After the storm follow rest, reminiscence and anticipation. I feel a little bit like the Greek survivors: in need of rest, full of vivid memories, turned to the future tasks and to the events to come. I wish to express my gratitude to all of those involved in my journey. To the fore, I would like to remember the promoters: Raffaella Cresci and Enrica Salvaneschi of the University of Genova. They taught me the beauty of Homeric poetry, introduced me to the formal aspects of language, and, most importantly, let self-confidence grow in me. Without them I would never have weighed anchor. Next, I would like to remember the navigators: Elizabeth Cowper, Elan Dresher, and Keren Rice of the University of Toronto. They were excellent steersmen, sharing a lot of their time, knowledge, and experience with me: indeed, we were all on the same boat. Finally, I would like to remember Aditi Lahiri, at whose court, as hospitable and generous as Alcinous', I have now berthed. Unlike Ulysses, I am in no rush to leave. All these people have been sincere friends and invaluable teachers, and have always made the everlasting fruits of their enchanting garden available to me. I would like to thank my informants, without whom this work would not have been possible: a very dear family friend Anna Garbarino, and my friend Gianni Caviglia, Ines Garbarino, and Bruna Garbarino were the main but not only informants for the dialect of Miogliola; many other inhabitants of the small village have their share of responsibility in this work. My cousin Alba Rizzo was the main informant for the dialect spoken in Mioglia, the municipality next to Miogliola. Her mockery of the Miogliola drawling, unknown in Mioglia, made me

Preface

xiii

aware of interesting differences between the two dialects. Mariuccia Racca was the main informant for Savonese. The hours I spent with her were most pleasant, with data displaying a high concentration in the semantic field of food and nourishment. Special thanks go to Renzo Olivieri as well, of the University of Genova. In his role as the linguistic expert in Ligurian issues and native speaker of Genovese he provided me with most useful information. To conclude, I would like to express my love to all my friends. They never forgot me, always looking for me, no matter how far away I was. They wanted to know how I was feeling, how my work was going, how my health was. Knowing there were people I could count on, I have managed to come this far.

xiv

Maps

ΤΛίΝΤΙΗΟ Hoizanoc. Trent

VAi.Lt O'AOSTA • Milan , Turin

Tri OL

rmuu-zyiHtziA OIUL IA

LOMIAiDY

Aosta

j«ir«

Truste VtNtTB

\

, PliDMtNT

Α

tMILIA- »0MAHN* Bologna,

Florence TliiCANY Λ) JftryiA^

rl

Miojliola

• Ancoria

:.

>

\ MAtCHiS

ej c, (C,

f

:

\ y CL'^udf LAZIO 'Rome

cMOLlit

•Canoobaiso * i CAMAAHiA

puan Α

^ßbttnza BAilLICAT»

Catanzaro Ueoßic Caiabna

ITALY shewing regional borders and capitals © Spotts, Frederic & Theodor Wieser (1986). Italy: A Difficult Democracy. Cambridge University Press. M a p 1.

Maps

xv

Introduction

In this work I deal with the phonological aspects of the Ligurian Romance dialect spoken by about a hundred individuals in the small village of Miogliola, where I made several fieldwork trips from the fall of 1993 up until the summer of 1997. All the data presented here stem from this fieldwork, which is so far the only available source about this dialect. The village of Miogliola lies in Northwest Italy, more precisely on the left bank of a small stream flowing along the border between the two provinces of Savona and Alessandria, the former belonging to the region Liguria, the latter to the region Piedmont, north of Liguria (see Map 2). Although Miogliola lies on the Piedmontese side of the stream, its dialect belongs to Ligurian, at least following traditional classification criteria. Following Forner (1988: 453), the main isogloss defining Ligurian Romance is the palatalization of Vulgar Latin labials before [1], unknown to Piedmontese. This isogloss does not always follow the borders of the present day Ligurian administrative region (see Map 2), deviating sometimes to include Southern Piedmontese areas (as Gavi and Ovada), or excluding parts of the Ligurian territory, as its southeastern end (Beverino and Lerici). Miogliola is included within the territory defined by this isogloss. With respect to palatalization, in Miogliola the output for Vulgar Latin BLANKU 'white' is still d$aijk, whereas in Cartosio, the next village a few kilometers north of Miogliola, one can hear bjayk. Looking at the Ligurian linguistic map (Map 2), Miogliola is part of the Mischzone 'mixed area', a linguistically unexplored transitional area in Northern Liguria strongly influenced by the neighbouring Piedmontese area (Forner 1988: 453, 461). Within this area, a vertical isogloss defines a western and an eastern area where the vocalic desinence in the masculine singular has either been dropped or preserved (Forner 1988: 461). Miogliola borders this isogloss on the western side, dropping the final vowel. By contrast, Sassello, the closest town on the map, only seven kilometers away from Miogliola, belongs to the eastern area, preserving the masculine singular vocalic endings.

2

Introduction

The fieldwork on Miogliola Ligurian, in short Miogliola, revealed a number of phonological asymmetries at the segmental and metrical level which awoke my curiosity, and became the core of this work. In what follows, and in an observational and pretheoretical way, I briefly outline the puzzling aspects of the Miogliola segmental and metrical phonology which, as I felt quite at the beginning of my research, call for a theoretical account: • A subset of Miogliola consonants has a lengthening effect on preceding stressed vowels, whereas the remaining consonants do not. At the same time, the lengthening effect comes into play in penultimate syllables only, whereas antepenultimate syllables do not participate in this phenomenon. • Miogliola has asymmetric vowel inventories, with long vowels outnumbering short vowels. • Before [η], stressed vowels display qualities other than in the elsewhere environment: [ε, oe, a, o] before [η], [α, ο, u, i, y, e, 0, ae] elsewhere. Oddly enough, both sets of vowels can be found before intervocalic [n], but only in penultimate position. • The vowel I d displays alternations in both quality and length. However, this only happens in stressed position and, once more, in penultimate syllables. In antepenultimate syllables no length and no quality alternations are attested. • A very small subset of consonants surfaces in stem-final position if the stem itself undergoes derivational morphology, not if it only undergoes inflectional morphology. • A surface contrast between the high vowels [i, u] and the corresponding glides [j, w] is attested, but only in word-final position. This work is organized as follows. In Chapter 11 lay out the theoretical assumptions which underlie my analysis. In Chapter 2 I establish the consonantal inventory and feature matrix of Miogliola Ligurian. In Chapter 3 I deal with the prosodic split between lengthening and nonlengthening consonants in penultimate position, and with the neutralization of this split in antepenultimate position. Chapter 4 looks at the reduced set of vowels before [η], and at the occurrence of the same vowels, along with those appearing in the elsewhere environment, before intervocalic [n] in penultimate position. In Chapter 5 I establish

Introduction

3

the vowel inventories and their feature specifications. In Chapter 6 the quality and quantity alternations displayed by the vowel /a/ in penultimate, but not in antepenultimate, position are examined.

Chapter 1 Theoretical assumptions

In this chapter I outline the theoretical assumptions which underlie my analysis of Miogliola Ligurian. I also include a somewhat elaborate discussion on underspecification. Given the recent strong criticism against underspecification, which is nonetheless assumed in this work, I feel that the facts assumed to create insurmountable problems for such an approach need to be reviewed, discussed, and reanalysed in some detail.

1. The Prosodic Hierarchy The present work deals with segments, syllables, and feet in Miogliola Ligurian, and their organization in prosodic words. I assume the Prosodic Hierarchy as in Nespor and Vogel (1986), Nespor (1993), and references therein. According to the Prosodic Hierarchy, segments are organized into syllables, syllables into feet, and feet into prosodic words. The whole Prosodic Hierarchy is shown in (1). The prosodic levels above the word are of no concern here. I turn now to the theoretical assumptions which I assume for each of the levels dealt with in this work. I begin with foot structure, I then turn to syllable structure, and finally to segment structure.

1.1. Foot structure

Following Hayes (1995: 71), I assume the existence of three basic bounded foot types: a syllabic trochee, a moraic trochee, and an iamb. This foot inventory is shown in (2).

6

Chapter 1: Theoretical assumptions

(1)

The Prosodic Hierarchy (Nespor and Vogel 1986) (Rt=root; a=syllable; X=foot; co=phonological word; C=clitic group; [High]>[Dorsal] in (16a), and [High]>[Dorsal]>[Low] in (16b). Monovalent features are used.

1. The Prosodic Hierarchy

(16)

a. [Low]>[High]>[Dorsal] i e a ο u [Low] [High] · [Dorsal]

25

Contrasts /a/ vs. Ii, e, o, u/ li, u/ vs. /e, o/ /i/ vs. /u/; lei vs. /o/

b. [High]>[Dorsal]>[Low] [High] [Dorsal] [Low]

i ·

e

a

ο

u

Contrasts Ii, u/ vs. /e, a, ο/ /i/ vs. /u/; Id vs. /a, o/ /a/ vs. /o/

Let us first look at (16a). Here, the feature [Low] is ranked higher than all other features. Thus, an initial dichotomy (15b) distinguishes the vowel /a/ from the vowels Ii, e, o, u/. The vowel /a/ is isolated at this point, and no more features are required to distinguish this vowel from the others. The feature [High] follows on the feature ranking scale. The insertion of this feature creates another dichotomy, distinguishing /i, u/ from /e, ο/. Another dichotomy is necessary at this point. The insertion of [Dorsal] distinguishes lul from HI, as well as lol from Id. Let us now turn to (16b). Here, the feature [High] is ranked higher than any other feature. The assignment of [High] creates the first split (dichotomy) in the five-vowel system and separates the vowels Ii, u/ from the vowels /a, o, e/. The feature [Dorsal], then, is assigned, yielding the distinction between HI and lul on the one hand, and between Id and /a, ο/ on the other hand. Finally, [Low] distinguishes /a/ and lol. It is crucial to observe at this point that the feature [Dorsal] is redundant, hence unspecified, for the vowel /a/ in (16a), but it is not redundant, and hence it is specified, for the same vowel, and within the same inventory, in (16b). This is because [Low] has priority over [Dorsal] in the former case, but the reverse is true in the latter case. The order with which features are assigned, then, creates different redundancies and, given underspecification of redundant information, different markings. The obvious question at this point is as follows: which of the two rankings in (16), and of other possible ones, is the correct one? One way of looking at this issue is to say that MINIMAL SPECIFICATION is to be

26

Chapter 1: Theoretical

assumptions

preferred, and therefore (16a) is to be preferred over (16b). This would be much in the spirit of radical underspecification, where minimality has clearly priority over any other aspect of feature marking. This, however, is not the position taken here. This is because the feature marking required by Miogliola Ligurian is not consistent with this assumption. In Miogliola, it is crucial that features are assigned in an order that does not lead to minimal specification, in the sense just pointed out. This approach is more in the spirit of some work done within contrastive underspecification. Steriade (1987), for example, suggests that stricture (continuancy for consonants and height for vowels) should be examined before place of articulation, with place contrasts defined within stricture contrasts but not vice versa. Here, the order of feature assignment has priority over minimality of specification. A parallel path is taken in Modified Contrastive Specification where features are organized in a hierarchical fashion within the organizing nodes, and these are in turn organized in dependency relations. Rice and Avery (1991), for example, have the structure in (17), supposedly universal, where AIR FLOW is the organizing node dominating the continuancy features. (17) Hierarchical organization of organizing nodes (Rice and Avery 1991) Root I AIR FLOW SONORITY PLACE

Given dependency relations, it is inherent in this structure that place contrasts are made within manner classes and not vice versa, much in the spirit of Steriade's proposal. The interesting aspect of Rice and Avery's proposal is that the ranking required by the Continuous Dichotomy Hypothesis does not have to be stipulated: it largely follows from the (supposedly universal) representations.

I. The Prosodic

Hierarchy

27

Unfortunately, the place-within-manner procedure suggested by Steriade (1987) and structurally encoded by Rice and Avery (1991) is not the correct one for Miogliola, which requires that place of articulation precede stricture features in Steriade's sense, that is, height in vowels and continuancy in consonants. I assume therefore a feature assignment process whereby the horizontal dimension of articulation, namely place of articulation, has precedence over the vertical dimension of articulation, namely height and continuancy. I label this principle PLACE OF ARTICULATION FIRST, and I leave open whether it should be viewed as a universal principle or just as one of the possible rankings consistent with the Continuous Dichotomy Hypothesis (15). Needless to say, assuming PLACE OF ARTICULATION FIRST to be a universal principle calls for a reanalysis of the place-within-stricture/manner analyses in the literature, including Steriade (1987) and Rice and Avery (1991). This is beyond the scope of this work, which deals with the phonology of a specific dialect. The PLACE OF ARTICULATION FIRST principle is stated in (18). (18)

PLACE OF ARTICULATION FIRST

In feature assignment processes, the horizontal dimension of articulation, namely place of articulation, has precedence over the vertical dimension of articulation, namely height and continuancy. The principle in (18), which goes against the assumption that stricture, that is continuancy features for consonants and height features for vowels, has scope over place of articulation features, is also supported by first language acquisition evidence. Fikkert (1994) analyses the acquisition of metrical structure in Dutch. The study focuses on syllable constituency and on the acquisition of manner features within the different constituents. Place of articulation is here disregarded. However, it is quite clear from the data available that place of articulation is acquired before continuancy. The first syllable shape is CV. At this stage the place of articulation oppositions in the adult's forms are kept (although the vowels may spread place onto the consonants ι Fikkert, personal communication), whereas only stops can occur as consonants: there are no nasals, no liquids, and no fricatives. This stage is shown in (19) and refers to Jarmo's speech production.

28

(19)

Chapter 1: Theoretical assumptions

Jarmo's first CV syllables Adult forms

daar poes tok klaar auto

/da:r/ /puis/ /toik/ /klair/ /oito:/

apie

/a: pi:/

Child forms

[da] [pui] [ko] [ka:] [taitoi], [to:to], [tetoi], [teto] [taipii]

— >

-> —>

— >

— >

'there' 'puss' 'cluck' 'ready' car 'monkey'

Interestingly enough, when codas are developed, it is only fricatives that can occur in this position. There is a stage, then, at which both stops and fricatives exist, but only in complementary distribution: stops in the onset of the syllable, fricatives in the coda. At this stage, place of articulation has already been acquired contrastively; continuancy, however, is still used non-contrastively. The relevant data are shown in (20). (20)

Jarmo's first CVC-syllables Adult forms

deze deze poes paard bal boot

/deize/ /de:ze/ /puis/ /pairt/ /bal/ /boit/

Child forms — >

->

— »

[teij] [deis] [puis] [pais] [baqp] [pauf]

'these' 'puss' 'horse' 'ball' 'boat'

To conclude, the Dutch acquisitional data lend support to the place of articulation features (if not all of them at least some of them) having precedence over the manner features in the feature assignment process. Needless to say, further investigation is needed to gain a better understanding of how the Continuous Dichotomy process in (15) can be implemented. What needs to be addressed is to what extent the ranking of features is predictable, and whether the segment inventories themselves can hint at particular rankings. I leave this for further research, highlighting for now the fact that Miogliola Ligurian calls for both

J. The Prosodic Hierarchy

29

continuancy and height features being ranked lower than place of articulation features in the series of binary fissions called for by the Continuous Dichotomy Hypothesis (15).

1.3.5. [Coronal]-underspecification I assume that [Coronal] is the universally unmarked place feature, thus it is underlyingly unspecified. If a segment is not specified for place of articulation, then, by default, it is coronal. In the underspecification literature, the view that [Coronal] is the universally unspecified feature has been challenged by the opposite view that [Dorsal] should instead be the universally unspecified feature (Harris 1990; Kaye, Lowenstamm, and Vergnaud 1989; Williamson 1977; Trigo 1988). Interestingly enough, it has never been claimed that [Labial] should be considered unmarked. At the same time, the feature [Dorsal], beyond displaying unmarked behaviour in a number of cases, has also been claimed to be the most marked feature in others (see the analysis of Korean in Avery and Rice (1989)). A proposal to solve the apparent paradox comes from Rice (1996), in a cross-linguistic study on coronal-velar alternations. Rice (1996) proposes a model reconciling the two opposite views found in the literature: (a) coronals are unmarked and should be represented with no PLACE-dependent; or (b) dorsals are unmarked and should be represented with no PLACE-dependent. In both cases the underlyingly placeless consonants are filled in by a rule of default feature insertion inserting [Coronal] or [Dorsal], respectively. Rice (1996) rejects a parametric approach as to what feature languages choose as unmarked. If languages choose their unmarked place feature, there is no reason why only [Coronal] and [Dorsal] should be chosen, never [Labial]. Instead, she suggests that, under the Default Variability Hypothesis, only [Coronal] is the universal default feature. This feature is generally absent underlyingly, unless reasons of contrast enforce its presence, namely when [Coronal]-dependents are called for to minimally distinguish segments of a given inventory. However, underlyingly placeless segments can be realized as either coronals or velars. They are realized as coronals if the universal default feature [Coronal] is filled in by the phonological component of the language.

30

Chapter 1: Theoretical

assumptions

They are realized as velars if the fill-in rule fails. In this case the underlyingly placeless segment surfaces as such, namely as placeless, at the end of the phonological component, and it is interpreted by the phonetic component of the language as velar. The failure of the [Coronal] fill-in rule in the phonological component is conditioned by prosodic, OCP, and complexity factors. In (21), I show the prototypical consonantal place representations under the Default Variability Hypothesis as in Rice (1996). Notice that [Dorsal] is here a dependent of PERIPHERAL, which groups dorsals and labials to the exclusion of coronals. (21)

Default Variability Hypothesis (Rice 1996) Underlying

Surface

As one can see, there are two different [rj]*s in (21). Rice (1996) uses the terms "velar" and "dorsal" to refer to them. Velar is the surface [rj] which is underlyingly placeless, whereas dorsal is the surface [rj] which has [Dorsal] in its underlying representation. Dorsals are PLACEspecified and they do not display any place variability. Velars, on the other side, are one of the possible realizations of underlyingly placeless segments which can display surface place variability. For segments surfacing as placeless at the end of the phonological (and phonetic)

2. Status of underspecification in phonology

31

component and for their phonetic realization the reader is referred to Keating (1988) and Cohn (1990).

1.3.6. [Coronal]-specification The feature [Coronal] is not always absent underlyingly. Its universal status of unmarked feature makes it possible, not obligatory, for [Coronal] to be unspecified. If a dependent of [Coronal] is active in the language, then, given the logic of dependency, [Coronal] must be specified. With respect to [Coronal]-specification, I follow Avery and Rice (1989) in assuming the Node Activation Condition. Avery and Rice (1989) argue that in a /p t k/ system, the unmarked feature [Coronal] does not appear in the inventory, since /t/ is unspecified for place. In an inventory such as /p 11 k/, on the other hand, contrasts exist within the coronal place of articulation, in that /t/ contrasts with l\J. In such an inventory, the unmarked feature [Coronal] is activated and appears for both /t/ and A [Coronal]-dependent feature, then, derives the contrast between /t/ and l\l (Avery and Rice 1989: 183-184). In the framework assumed here, l \ j has both [Coronal] and [Posterior] underlyingly, whereas III only [Coronal]. Note that under the Node Activation Condition, and under the assumption that [Strident] is ranked higher than place of articulation features in the ranking required by the Continuous Dichotomy Hypothesis (15), if stridents have anterior and posterior realizations, it falls out that all of them are marked for [Coronal] even if [Strident] is not a dependent of [Coronal] (see (11)).

2. Status of underspecification in phonology In the assumptions outlined earlier, a central role is played by underspecification. Not all the features which are present on the surface are represented underlyingly. Features which are absent underlyingly are acquired derivationally to be present on the surface. The features assumed to be absent underlyingly are the unmarked and the predictable ones. For the sake of clarity, let us consider a /p t k s/ system, that is, a system where obstruents have a three-way place contrast among stops

32

Chapter 1: Theoretical assumptions

and a single continuant. In such a system, there is nothing predictable about the /t/ being coronal. Thus, [Coronal]-underspecification can only follow from the assumption that [Coronal] is the universal unmarked feature and that as such it is by default not represented underlyingly. The same can apply to /s/ as well. However, other reasons may lead to posit the lack of [Coronal] in the underlying representation of /s/. The coronality of the only fricative present in this system, unlike the coronality of Iii, is predictable. Therefore, the feature [Coronal] is not represented underlyingly. The same can be said of the feature [Voice] for sonorants. This feature is predictable for sonorants, but not for obstruents. Sonorants, then, are not marked for [Voice], but (voiced) obstruents are. Notice, however, that the above predictability statements assume a given feature ranking in the sense of the Continuous Dichotomy Hypothesis (15). That is, [Coronal] is predictable for Isl iff a distinction between stops and fricatives is already available, namely if the assignment of [Continuant] precedes the assignment of [Coronal] and the other place of articulation features. The same holds true for [Voice]. This feature is only predictable for sonorants iff the distinction between sonorants and obstruents is already available by the time [Voice] is assigned. The idea that PREDICTABILITY and UNMARKEDNESS lead to temporary underspecification, namely that a segment is unspecified for a given feature [F] in its underlying representation and acquires such a feature in the course of the derivation, has been strongly argued against in some recent literature. Steriade (1995), for example, argues that no underspecified segments (unless trivially unspecified for a feature which is therefore NEVER acquired) exist. In her opinion, all voiced segments have [Voice]. When voicing "spreads" from all voiced segments, it is indeed [Voice] that is responsible for the well-formedness conditions requiring the presence of [Voice] on the neighbouring segment(s). When only voiced obstruents "spread" voicing, then it is in fact another feature, namely [Pharyngeal Expansion], which should be viewed as responsible for the well-formedness conditions determining the distributional properties of voicing. This feature is trivially underspecified for sonorants, and entails voicing as a phonetic correlate. In Steriade's view, there are two advantages in adopting a fully specified, non-derivational approach: (a) there not being any need to distinguish

2. Status of underspecification

in phonology

33

what sonorants look like underlyingly and on the surface, there is no relative need to invent ordering principles that predict when they are allowed to acquire their surface [+voice] value; the Russian assimilation facts, for example, with sonorants NOT spreading voice, can be accounted for in a single step, without proliferating derivational stages; (b) one does not need to wonder why certain patterns of predictability NEVER lead to underspecification: why for example does the predictable coronality of Japanese or Quechua [s] not lead to temporary placelessness? This question, argues Steriade, does not arise if one admits that nothing (and hence no underspecification) follows from a feature's predictable status. As for (a), namely proliferating derivational stages and inventing ordering principles, I limit myself to stating some perplexities. Giving up the proliferation of derivational stages forces the proliferation of features, possible representations, and constraints. It is far from being obvious to me that proliferating in one dimension, say the syntagmatic one, is in principle better (or simpler: Steriade 1995: 166) than proliferating in the other, say the paradigmatic one. As for inventing ordering principles, I see this as a noble attempt to derive from universal principles the order in which rules apply, instead of ordering them extrinsically. This attempt has been partially successful in multi-level approaches to phonology (Mohanan 1986;Kiparsky 1981,1982,1985). However, even in the case in which such principles should be given up and rules ought to always be extrinsically ordered, I still fail to see why this would be any worse than extrinsically ordering constraints, as is constantly done in the most popular non-derivational, contraintbased approach to phonology, namely Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993). As for (b), that is, Steriade's observation that certain patterns of predictability NEVER lead to underspecification, this will be discussed at greater length in the following paragraphs, together with the issue of unmarkedness leading to underspecification. To somewhat limit the discussion, I will exclusively make use of the feature [Coronal], whose underspecification can be seen as determined by both unmarkedness and predictability. I proceed as follows. I first examine the criticism to [Coronal]-underspecification in McCarthy and Taub (1992), who first pointed out the problems tied up with the assump-

34

Chapter 1: Theoretical assumptions

tion that the feature [Coronal] is unmarked. I turn then to the analyses of Japanese and Quechua defended by Steriade (1995), showing that nothing forces one to come to the conclusion, as she does, that in languages like Japanese and Quechua the unmarked status of [t] on the one hand, and the predictable coronality of [s] on the other hand, do not lead to temporary [Coronal]-underspecification. I conclude highlighting the contribution that psycholinguistics can bring to the underspecification issue. In particular, I examine some speech perception data from Bengali, where the [Coronal]-underspecification of /S/ is not just compatible with underspecification, like in Japanese and Quechua, but rather a MUST, if one is to make sense of the experimental facts.

2.1. McCarthy and Taub (1992) [Coronal]-underspecification is the common topic of a series of articles contained in Paradis and Prunet (eds.) (1991). The contributors to the volume agree that [Coronal] is the universally unspecified place feature and that as such it is generally absent underlyingly. This structurally accounts for a number of phenomena that treat coronals asymetrically with respect to other places of articulation. Coronals are transparent, they do not trigger assimilation, and they undergo assimilation. The view that coronals are underlyingly unspecified for place, however, raises a number of problems. In a review of the volume, McCarthy and Taub (1992) point out that [Coronal] must be specified underlyingly in a number of cases where defenders of [Coronal]-underspecification would predict its absence. I briefly overview some of these arguments, limiting myself to offer possible answers and paths of research. McCarthy and Taub's points are reported in italics. The diphthong aw can be followed only by coronals, marked or unmarked (mouth, mouse, lout, grouch, Bausch). If a geometry is accepted where non-coronals form a class under the acoustic feature [Grave] (Jakobson, Fant, and Halle 1952) or the articulatory feature [Peripheral] (Avery and Rice 1989; Rice 1994; Hall 1997), then this fact can simply be seen as a constraint on [Peripheral]adjacency.

2. Status of underspecification

in phonology

35

The syllable appendix is restricted to coronals, both marked and unmarked (Fudge 1969; Halle and Vergnaud 1980; etc.)." rind, range, *r[aj]mp, *r[aj]qk. Again, this can be expressed as a constraint on the occurrence of [Grave] or [Peripheral] in the appendix.4 Under the influence of loanwords, the set of initial sC clusters is being extended to fC clusters as well: schmalz, shpiel, schlock, shtick. But this extension is incompatible with [Coronal]-underspecification as an explanation for the special status of s. Palatalization does not imply the presence of [Coronal] underlyingly. Under the label of palatalization different phonological processes are subsumed. In languages where it is high vowels which trigger palatalization, the feature [High] must be seen as responsible for the phonological process at issue (see Lahiri and Evers 1991). This implies the possibility that non-anterior coronals are represented as unspecified for their main articulator (the corona), and bearing [High]-specification under TONGUE HEIGHT. Borowsky (1987) argues that vowel/zero alternations in the plural, genitive, and preterite suffixes follow from the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP), affecting consonants that agree in manner and place. This account relies on specification of [Coronal] in both alveolars and palato-alveolars: busses, fuses, churches, judges. Borowsky assumes an analysis where the underlying forms of plural, genitive, and preterite contain the vowel which is then deleted, unless an OCP violation arises in the crucial examples. Analyses where the vowel is inserted are also available, and Borowsky offers neither reason nor discussion as to why vowel deletion is superior to vowel insertion, the latter possible due to simply phonetic reasons. Moreover, it is not clear in her analysis how the OCP violation is avoided by the failure of vowel deletion. Given that the vowel at issue is schwa, assumed to be (trivially) unspecified even by the defenders of full specification, it is not clear to me what difference it makes for the purposes of OCP-violations, established in a given autosegmental tier, to have or not to have the vowel there: the OCP would be violated anyway. Of course, it all depends on our notion of locality. If the OCP, in this very specific case, holds for the rhyme, then the presence of a vowel does make a difference. However, what about the word sixth? Why is there no OCP-violation there? Both

36

Chapter 1: Theoretical

assumptions

final consonants are continuant and coronal. Reference must be made to derivational and inflectional morphology. Having said this, things still do not work, as shown in the following paragraph. Borowsky states that the relevant tiers for the purposes of the OCP, at least in English, are continuancy and primary place. Why is it, then, that the plural of path is paths? No account is given for this. The vowel should not drop in this case, because an OCP violation would occur, but in fact it does drop. Let us try to save Borowsky's analysis. Adjacent identical manner and primary place (within a rhyme, under such and such morphological conditions) constitute an OCP violation, unless they have opposite values for stridency, or, in other words, provided they have the same value for stridency. So the OCP holds for the feature [Strident] as well. Note that [±strident] is necessary: churches, lasted. In the former case two adjacent occurrences of strident consonants would occur if the vowel dropped, in the latter case two adjacent occurrences of non-strident coronal consonants. If reference to [±strident] is necessary, and in Borowsky's analysis it is, then one wonders why one should state the OCP on both the manner and primary place tiers. One just needs [±strident]. Then, if [±strident] is not a dependent of [Coronal], these facts do not speak in favour of [Coronal]-specification. If [±strident] is a dependent of [Coronal], they do not either, given that in this case [Coronal]-specification follows from dependency relations. Borowsky (1986: 199-200) argues that morpheme-internal superheavy syllables are permitted only when the coda shares place, including [Coronal]: chamber, danger, flounder; Hampton, plankton, antler. Sharing place does not necessarily mean sharing [Coronal]. The examples reported can be handled by saying that identical PLACE structure is needed, that is to say a bare PLACE node for coronals and a specified PLACE node for non-coronals. Syllable-initial clusters of coronal+l are prohibited, as both Yip (1991) and Mohanan (1991: 315) note. Both unmarked alveolars like t and marked dentals like θ are affected. In American English, initial coronal+ju is prohibited (Borowsky 1986: 285-286). This regularity encompasses marked and unmarked coronals: *6ju, *tju. The facts about American English appear to call for [Coronal]specification. At the same time, the facts about morpheme internal codas appear to require [Coronal]-underspecification. The facts identi-

2. Status of underspecification

in phonology

37

fied by Yip (1991) and labelled "cluster conditions" strongly argue for [Coronal]-underspecification in English at a stage where no syllable constituency is available. Yip (1991) points out that (a) in a stop-stop sequence, C2 is always represented by t, d\ (b) in a stop-fricative sequence, C2 is always represented by s, z; (c) in a fricative-stop sequence, either CI is represented by 5, or C2 by t, d\ (d) in a stop-nasal sequence, C2 is n. Yip (1991: 64) emphasizes that "there is no obvious way to analyze these facts by means of a single statement that refers to syllabic constituents, such as onset or coda". In Yip's analysis English plain coronals display the kind of freedom which is shared cross-linguistically by glottal stops and the first halves of geminates, generally assumed to have no place features, and no independent place features, respectively. [Coronal], then, must be underlyingly absent, to allow coronals to have the same freedom as glottal stops and the first halves of geminates. In the light of the cluster conditions identified above, it appears that in English [Coronal]-underspecification is needed before [Coronal]specification. While [Coronal]-specification must refer to syllabic constituency, namely to onsets, [Coronal]-underspecification is unable to do so and must refer to unsyllabified clusters. The general assumption made by underspecification theory that a feature F is unspecified in underlying representation and becomes available in the course of the derivation does not force all instances of [F] to be inserted at the same time. Specification of unspecified features does not necessarily come about in one single stage, whether an early or a late one. The line of inquiry I am suggesting is one where specification of unspecified features may proceed in stages and be contextually determined. In English, onsets need PLACE-specification. This requirement on minimal structure can be seen as the counterpart of the well-known requirements on maximal structure displayed cross-linguistically by codas. Needless to say, the onset requirement becomes effective once syllable constituency has become available. Plain coronals, then, start as unspecified. When syllable constituency is available, [Coronal] is filled in in onsets, so as to allow for the OCP to rule out coronal+/ and coronal+/m sequences. The line of inquiry proposed here is one where specification and lack thereof in segments is contextually determined at different levels of

38

Chapter 1: Theoretical assumptions

representation: underlying and derived. This approach also constitutes the basic idea in Dyck (1995)'s analysis of some Italian and Spanish dialects. Feature specification in the desinential vowels results from the number of vowel contrasts available in the endings, not within the vowel inventory as a whole. In this sense, desinential vowels can be seen as a vowel subinventory, contextually determined. The leading proposal of contextual underspecification is Kiparsky (1993), who provides a principled account of the non-derived environment blocking in which underspecification is pivotal. I overview Kiparky's idea of contextual underspecification in the following paragraphs. Kiparsky (1993) deals with the phenomenon known as non-derived environment blocking (NDEB) and convincingly argues that cyclicity does not play any role restricting the application of obligatory neutralization rules to derived environments. Kiparsky (1993) observes, following Anderson (1981), that the blocking effect in non-derived environments should not be attributed to any constraint in the grammar, but rather to the acquisition process. That is to say, the NDEB arises from the learner's lack of evidence for a rule's applicability in a nonderived environment. This amounts to saying that NDEB arises in situations where only derived environments provide positive evidence for the application of a rule, i.e. in the case of obligatory neutralization rules. Kiparsky's extremely interesting goal is to construct a grammar which can express this generalization in a principled way. He does so by assuming binary features, underspecification of the unmarked value, and underlying representations free of redundancy. Most importantly and crucially, however, he assumes a context-sensitive version of underspecification which I illustrate by resorting to the Finnish assibilation rule. Finnish has a rule which assibilates [t]s before [i]s. This happens in a derived environment. For example, in a word like tilat+i 'ordered' the rule only applies to the second [t], whereas the first [t] remains unchanged. This is shown in (22). (22)

Finnish assibilation (1) tilat+i

tilasi 'ordered'

A possible formalization of the rule is (23):

2. Status of underspecification

(23)

Finnish assibilation rule (preliminary) [+coronal, +obstruent ] —» [+continuant] /

in phonology

39

+i

Reference to the morpheme boundary, though, makes the wrong prediction for a different type of derived environment. For example, the assibilation rule is also fed by another rule which raises final /e/ to [i], as shown in (24). (24)

Vowel raising in Finnish vete —> veti —> vesi vete+na —» vetena

'water-NOM.SG' 'water-Ess.sg'

In the case above the final [il is not preceded by a morpheme boundary. Nevertheless, the environment is derived in that [i] is not underlying. It is derived from another vowel which displays a surface [e-i] alternation: in Kiparsky's analysis /E/. The assibilation rule, then, cannot make reference to morpheme boundaries and must be rewritten as in (25). (25)

Finnish assibilation rule [+coronal, +obstruent ] —> [+continuant] /

i

At this point a new problem arises, namely how to account for the failure of assibilation before /i/ in both final position and morpheme internal position. How is it that in (26) no assibilation takes place? (26)

Finnish assibilation (2) ko[ti], ko[ti]+na 'home' [ti]lasi 'ordered'

Recall that making reference to the blocking of the rule in a nonderived environment is just an observation, not a principled way to account for it. The question is: why is it that the rule of assibilation is blocked in a non-derived environment? The answer has already been anticipated. The learner develops contextually different representations. On one side he/she is confronted with the positive evidence

40

Chapter 1: Theoretical assumptions

for a rule that turns [t] into [s] before [i]. On the other side, the rule fails when the coronal obstruent immediately (with no intervening morpheme boundaries) precedes a non-alternating [i], that is, an underlying HI. In the elsewhere environment, then, where on the surface an alternating coronal [t/s] contrasts with a non-alternating sibilant [s], it is the latter which is underlyingly marked for continuancy, whereas the alternating consonant is not. In this environment the two contrasting phonemes are ΓΤΙ and /s/. Before /i/, though, the marking works differently, with a surface alternating [t/s] being underlyingly unspecified and contrasting with a non-alternating [t] being underlyingly marked for continuancy. In this particular environment the two contrasting phonemes are Iii and ΙΎΙ. The chart below summarizes. (27)

Contextual [±continuant]-specification in Finnish Before Iii:

III ΓΤΙ [-cont] [Ocont]

Elsewhere:

/T/ [Ocont]

/s/ [+cont]

Assuming that the assibilation rule is feature filling, the learner's default assumption unless evidence to the contrary is provided, the representation, and the derivations of the words examined so far are the following. (28)

Underlyingly specified and unspecified [±continuant] in Finnish coronals /tilaT/ /saTa/ /koti/ /koti/ /laTi/ /laTi/ /kuusE/ /kuusE/ /vETE/ /vETE/

tilat + i

koti + na laTi + na kuusi kuusE+na vETi vETE + na

[tilasi] [sata] [koti] [kotina] [lasi] [lasina] [kuusi] [kuusena] [vesi] [vetenä]

'ordered' 'hundred' 'home-NOM.SG' ' home-Ess. SG' 'glass-NOM.SG' 'glass-ESS.SG' 'fir-NOM.SG' 'fir-ESS.SG' 'water-NOM.SG' 'water-ESS.SG'

2. Status of underspecification

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41

To conclude, Kiparsky's account of non-derived environment blocking, crucially based on contextual underspecification, suggests an interesting line of inquiry for the dissimilation facts in American English (AE) tautosyllabic clusters. Plain coronals are underlyingly unspecified, but acquire the feature [Coronal] once onsets have been constructed. Still concerning the American English onset facts, the question that I would like to bring up at this point is the following: do we really want to explain these facts as [CoronalJ-dissimilation? I would like to express some perplexities of mine with respect to this issue. Once it is clear and accepted that indeed it is [Coronal]-specification that one needs in American English onsets to account for the dissimilatory facts, everybody may indulge themselves in arguing about whether [Coronal]-specification is better seen as underlying or acquired in the course of the derivation. However, I dare say that [Coronal]-specification (underlying or at the syllable level) brings nothing to the understanding of AE onset restrictions. Consider the following. If tl and tj sequences are avoided because of OCP violations referring to [Coronal], why is it that tr sequences are allowed? Rice (1992) proposes, following Borowsky (1986), that /r/ has no PLACE node, a hypothesis that can be accepted by defenders of full specification as well, provided /r/ is trivially unspecified. This accommodates the //, tj vs. tr asymmetry. However, if /r/ has no PLACE, how can the OCP rule out rj ? It cannot. One might think now that an independent constraint rules out rj. If Irl is more sonorous that /l/, and as sonorous as j and w, then sonority requirements will rule out the sequence. This may be checked by resorting to a variety of English where coronal + ju sequences are not disallowed. In RP-English this is the case (tjum, djuik,. . .), nonetheless rj is not encountered. But invoking RP-English brings up new problems. The solution Rice has proposed for /r/, namely that it has no PLACE node, cannot be applied to j, whose PLACE-specification has to be the same as /i/. The vowel is certainly [High], and, as such, must have a PLACE node. The tl, tj vs. tr asymmetry in American English is reversed in RP-English where tl is not allowed, but both tj and tr are. The only way to formalize these facts is to have an RP rule barring two occurrences of [Coronal] when the second is lateral, and an AE rule (or actually two rules) barring two occurrences of [Coronal] when

42

Chapter 1: Theoretical assumptions

the second is either a lateral or a glide. These rules, however, are a mere restatement of the facts and do not capture any generalization. [Coronal]-specification, whether underlying or acquired, brings nothing more than the following very inelegant and extremely unsatisfactory way of dealing with the facts: restate them. To conclude, availability of [Coronal], whichever way it is achieved, offers a very unsatisfactory solution. Two alternatives remain. A possible solution might be offered by a better understanding of liquids, in particular laterals, and glides. Sequences of coronal+lateral have a strong tendency to be avoided by the majority of languages, whether they have constraints on double occurrences of coronals or not. Coronality, for example, has certainly nothing to do in those languages where tl is allowed, but dl is ruled out (Attic Greek). Again, it appears to be the case that laterality, not coronality, can impose certain requirements on representations. Another possible solution is doing away with [Coronal]-specification and trying to capture structural generalizations on well-formedness. In the case at issue here, the structural well-formedness conditions must hold for onsets. In what follows I try to offer a solution in this direction. Consider the following representations, relevant to the discussion to follow. (29)

PLACE

representation of tautosyllabic coronal+coronal clusters

(ART=ARTICULATOR; T H = T O N G U E HEIGHT)

a. /tl/

t

1

PLACE

PLACE

ART ΤΗ

/ ΤΗ

ART

b. /tr/

t

r

c. /tj/

PLACE

/ ΤΗ

ART

t

PLACE

/ ΤΗ

ART

PLACE

/

ART

TH

Suppose now the following: identical PLACE structure is prohibited at some level. In American English one is not allowed to have identical place structure at the ARTicuLATOR-node level. This correctly rules out both tl and tj. The AE onset constraint is formalized in (30).

2. Status of underspecification

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43

(30) American English onset constraint: Identical sequences of ARTICULATOR features in an onset are prohibited *0 PLACE

PLACE

[aArt]

[aArt]

In RP-English the same prohibition holds at the PLACE node itself. This correctly rules out only tl. The RP onset constraint is formalized in (31). (31) British English onset constraint: Identical sequences of PLACE features in an onset are prohibited *0 [otPl]

[otPl]

This solution does not account for si sequences, which are not accounted for in any of the solutions considered above. It does not account for the absence in both AE and RP of ΘΙ sequences either. This absence, which is not predicted, can be regarded as an accidental gap, or as the necessity of dealing with feature specification in English in a way different from the commonly accepted ones. If use of the acoustic feature [Strident] as a non-dependent of [Coronal] is made, instead of the articulatory feature [Distributed], and provided that [Strident] is assigned prior to the place of articulation features, then, Θ, as the only non-strident continuant coronal, need not be specified. The absence of I sequences is therefore accounted for. One might argue that θ must be marked given Yip's cluster conditions in English. But those conditions can be restated making reference to both placelessness and stridency. And that [Strident], and not [Distributed], is the relevant feature in English may be proved by the si sequences. The special status that s has in English, and in most languages, is certainly not due to its being non-distributed, rather to its stridency, a well perceivable feature that

44

Chapter 1: Theoretical assumptions

is generally disregarded by overwhelmingly articulatory phonological approaches. Needless to say, this issue will be and will have to be the object of feature research. I conclude here my overview of some of the points raised by McCarthy and Taub (1992) in their review of Paradis and Prunet (eds.) (1991). I turn now to Steriade (1995).

2.2. Steriade (1995) Steriade (1995) is a strong attack on underspecification theory. She argues that there are no clear cases of temporary underspecification, namely segments which are unspecified for a given feature and undergo specification at a later stage in the derivation. Segments can be unspecified, but only trivially. That is, if segments are unspecified for a given feature, then those segments never acquire that feature. A trivial case of underspecification is non-nasality, namely orality in oral vowels and consonants. They are not specified as such given that neither [-nasal] nor [oral] exist. Steriade (1995) argues that neither unmarkedness nor predictability lead to underspecification. In a hypothetical language with a p-t-k type inventory coronality is not predictable. However, markedness considerations and rule patterns have led scholars to posit [Coronal] to be absent underlyingly, [Labial] and [Dorsal] to be present. The idea underlying this position, defended here, is that a consonant is by default coronal, unless otherwise specified. If the same hypothetical language has a single fricative, due to implicational universale, this fricative will be a strident coronal. In this case coronality is predictable, therefore it can be regarded as redundant. Predictability is then the reason which in this case leads to posit the underlying absence of the feature [Coronal] in the only continuant obstruent. Again, this is the view defended here. Steriade's crucial arguments for full specification in coronal obstruents circle around the observation that in a number of languages (coronal) liquids behave in an asymmetric way with respect to (coronal) obstruents (Steriade 1995: 145-147). In these languages, with p-t-k-s type inventories, the behaviour of the (coronal) liquids has been convincingly attributed to their lack of place structure in the literature.

2. Status of underspecification in phonology

45

Therefore, it must be the case in Steriade's view that the coronal obstruents be fully specified, so as to account for their different behaviour with respect to the liquids. [Coronal]-specification of III argues in this case against placelessness as a function of markedness; [Coronal]-specification of /s/ argues against placelessness as a consequence of predictability. The placelessness of the liquids, then, whose coronality is also predictable in most cases, must be related to some special properties, still unclear, that have nothing to do with either the predictability of their place of articulation, or the unmarked status of their place of articulation (Steriade 1995:146). These properties, which make the liquids (trivially) placeless, should also account for the asymmetric behaviour of liquids and obstruents with respect to V-to-V assimilation processes. Coronality of liquids typically allows for them, coronality of obstruents typically does not, whether unpredictable as in /t/ or predictable as in /s/ (Steriade 1995: 147). One of the languages reported in Steriade (1995) is Japanese in the analysis of Mester and Ito (1989). The facts which call for liquid placelessness and coronal obstruent full specification concern the so called Japanese Palatal Prosody (JPP). Japanese mimetic vocabulary undergoes a process of palatal harmony as indicated in (32). (32)

Japanese mimetics: Palatal Prosody (1) metJa-metJa kasJa-kasJa hun j a-hun j a tJoko-tJoko zjabu-zjabu njoki-njoki dosja-dosja nosjo-nosjo netja-netja

'destroyed' 'rustling' 'limp' 'childish small steps' 'dabble in liquid' 'sticking out, one after another' 'in large amounts' 'slowly' 'sticky'

The data show that a floating palatal feature always hits a coronal. If more than one coronal is present, then the rightmost one is hit, indicating that JPP proceeds from right to left. More data are given in (33) showing what happens when no coronal consonant is available.

46

(33)

Chapter 1: Theoretical assumptions

Japanese mimetics: Palatal Prosody (2) p'oko-p'oko h j oko-h j oko g j obo-g j obo

'jumping up and down' 'lightly, nimbly' 'gurgling'

In (33), the right-to-left scanning process does not find any coronal and hits the last (leftmost) consonant, irrespective of its place of articulation. The interesting data bearing on the issue of [Coronal]-specification are reported in (34), where /r/ displays an asymmetric behaviour with respect to all of the other coronals. (34)

Japanese mimetics: Palatal Prosody (3) n j oro-n j oro g j oro-g j oro zjara-zjara t j oro-t j oro h j oro-h j oro

'slow, lazy' 'goggle-eyed' 'coarse texture' 'slow, dumb' 'weak'

In (34) the root medial /r/ is skipped by JPP, and the palatalizing feature docks onto the root-initial consonant instead, coronal or non-coronal. The facts outlined above have been analysed and interpreted in Mester and Ito (1989) as an argument in favour of contrastive or restricted underspecification, against radical underspecification and lexical minimality. For Mester and Ito, only /r/ is placeless given that its place of articulation is not contrastive. In all other consonants coronality is contrastive and, irrespective of the unmarked status of coronals, [Coronal] must be present underlyingly, consistently with the assumptions of contrastive underspecification, and contra the assumptions of radical underspecification, that unmarked features and values should always be absent from underlying representations. Palatal Prosody seeks out [Coronal]-specified consonants. The rhotic Irl is skipped for the simple reason that it lacks [Coronal]-specification; in other words, when JPP applies, Ivf is not a coronal. Steriade (1995) argues against Mester and Ito's view that the placelessness of the only liquid present in the inventory is due to [Coronal]-predictability. She points out that /s/ and /z/ are also predictably coronal in their manner

2. Status of underspecification in phonology

47

of articulation row. If predictability led to underspecification, then /s, z/ would be unspecified and should behave as /r/ and be skipped by JPP. This, however, is not the case, pointing to PLACE-specification for the sibilants. At this point, it is interesting to highlight the fact that Steriade's arguments against Mester and Ito are not flawless. The difference between Steriade on one side, and Mester and Ito on the other is a different feature assignment ordering, which is assumed but not spelled out in any of the authors. Mester and Ito assume that coronality is predictable for /r/ because they assume that at the point when the predictability statement is made certain features have been assigned, namely certain distinctions are already available, while other features have not. Making use of the monovalent features assumed here, Mester and Ito make the predictability statements about the coronality of Μ (predictable) and /s, z/ (unpredictable) at a time when [Sonorant] and [Nasal] are available, but, crucially, [Continuant] is NOT. By contrast, Steriade assumes that [Continuant] is assigned before the place of articulation features. If this is so, then it is indeed the case that, as she highlights, /s, z/ are alone in their manner row and therefore predictably coronal. However, why should one decide that one ranking (Steriade's) is the correct one if the other one (Mester and Ito) gives the correct outputs? If place of articulation precedes continuancy in Japanese, the desired asymmetry between /r/ on the one side and all the other coronals on the other side is captured. I assume therefore that in Japanese (and in Miogliola as well, as will be seen) place of articulation precedes continuancy and follows [Sonorant] and [Nasal], as implicitly assumed by Mester and Ito as well. However, can the asymmetry between /r/ and the other coronals only be captured by specifying [Coronal] in the underlying representation of the unpredictably coronal coronals? The feature [Coronal] is assumed here to be the universal unmarked feature, and as such should not be marked in the underlying representation of the Japanese coronal obstruents, which do not have posterior counterparts. Steriade's and Mester and Itö's analyses contradict this position, and require that [Coronal] be specified for those obstruents. I inquire this in the following paragraphs. Steriade shares Mester and Itö's view that only the rhotic is placeless in Japanese, although NOT because its coronality is predictable (which

48

Chapter 1: Theoretical assumptions

would pair Irl with Is, ζ/ in her opinion), but because of some special properties of liquids which are still unclear. By contrast, Japanese obstruent coronals are ALL [Coronal]-specified. This asymmetry in PLACE structure, specified for obstruents and unspecified for /r/, accounts for the asymmetry in the JPP. However, the facts about Japanese Palatal Prosody are far from providing an indisputable argument in favour of obstruent [Coronal]-specification. There is an alternative analysis to the one just outlined, where it is possible to derive the asymmetry between Irl and the other coronals with respect to JPP maintaining [Coronal]underspecification for all of the coronal consonants. One of the arguments which Mester and Itö develop for rhotic placelessness is its resistence to an otherwise generalized process of gemination. The data relevant to the discussion are given in (35), where parallel forms of the reduplicated mimetics are illustrated. (35)

Japanese mimetics: /-ri/-forms (1) a. pata niko sina simi b. sjobo uza boja fuwa

patta+ri nikko+ri sinna+ri simmi+ri

— >

— >

—> — >

sJoNbo+ri uNza+ri —» boNja+ri —» fuNwa+ri

— >

— »

—> sjombo+ri —» unza+ri —> bojja+ri —> fuwwa+ri

'palpitating' 'smiling' 'supple' 'quiet, abject' 'lonely' 'bored' 'vague' 'light'

The process in (35) consists of adding the adverbial suffix -ri to the root whose medial consonant undergoes gemination. In (a) the medial consonant undergoes total gemination, in (b) the medial consonant undergoes partial gemination, creating a doubly linked PLACE-structure. The patterns in (b) are due to what Mester and Itö label the Nasal Coda Restriction (NCR), namely to a requirement that all voiced codas be nasal. With this picture in mind, I turn now to the data concerning Irl. (36)

Japanese mimetics: /-ri/-forms (2) hura —> hurari horo horori

*hurrari *horrori

'swaying' 'weeping'

2. Status of underspecification

in phonology

49

The process of partial gemination, expected for the rhotic, does not apply. This can be accounted for, as suggested by Mester and Ito, if Irl has no place structure. If this is so, no doubly linked place structure can arise, and partial gemination fails. I totally agree on this. Note, however, that this is just an argument for the placelessness of /r/, not for [Coronal]-specification on other coronals. The argument just developed, relying on the failure of /r/ to undergo partial gemination, shows that /r/ lacks more than just [Coronal] in its underlying representation; the rhotic lacks a PLACE node altogether. The lack of a PLACE node in the underlying representation of the rhotic /r/ is predicted in my assumptions and does not entail the lack of [Coronal] in the other coronal consonants, which, according to the Organizing Node Principle (14), must have a PLACE node which does not have to be specified for coronality. I completely fail to see why the lack of a PLACE node in the liquid /r/ entails, as claimed in Steriade (1995), the presence of [Coronal] in all of the non-rhotics. I now turn to my alternative analysis. Under the label of "palatalization" different phonological processes are understood (see, for a very exhaustive overview on palatalization, Bhat 1978). This picture results in palatals being represented in two major ways in the current literature: one in which the "palatal" feature is a dependent of [Coronal], which, in turn, must be present underlyingly; another one in which palatality is seen as secondary articulation and the "palatal" feature is not a dependent of [Coronal] (see Lahiri and Evers 1991, Rice 1996). In this latter case, then, the presence of [Coronal] is structurally not required, that is to say the presence of the "palatal" feature does not entail [Coronal]-specification. Consider now the feature hierarchy assumed in the present work. The PLACE node divides into two branches: the ARTICULATOR node for the involved articulators and the TONGUE HEIGHT node for the relative height of the articulators involved. Under this geometry, the PLACE representations of /T/ (= any coronal obstruent) and /r/ in Japanese are as follows. In (37), the non-rhotic coronals are represented with a bare PLACE node. The presence and the absence of this node in (37) follows from the Organizing Node Principle (14). The presence of this node follows from the fact that among obstruents and nasals place of articulation is not predictable, hence distinctive. On the contrary, place of articulation

50

Chapter 1: Theoretical

(37) The

PLACE

assumptions

node in coronal obstruents and /r/ ΙΊΙ

h!

PLACE ARTICULATOR

TONGUE HEIGHT

is totally redundant for Japanese /r/, which is the only liquid in the inventory. Hence, the presence of a PLACE node is also redundant. At this point, I have developed an asymmetric representation for the rhotic Irl and the non-rhotic coronals which does not rely on the presence versus absence of [Coronal], but rather on the presence versus absence of the PLACE node. [Coronal]-specification versus [Coronal]-underspecification, then, is not the only way in which Feature Geometry can capture the asymmetric behaviour of Irl and the non-rhotic coronals with respect to JPP. With the representations in (37), Palatal Prosody can now be seen as the result of the floating feature [High], which is not a dependent of [Coronal], seeking out for a docking site. Making certain assumptions about structural complexity, one can reasonably argue that [High] looks for structurally less complex segments, namely those with unspecified PLACE structure. At the same time, the rhotic III cannot provide a docking site to the floating feature [High], since it has no PLACE node. JPP, then, successfully anchors [High] to the PLACE node of all of the nonrhotic coronals, but fails to do so with Irl. (38) [High]-docking in Japanese Palatal Prosody ΙΊΙ

Irl

PLACE ARTICULATOR

TONGUE HEIGHT

[High]

2. Status of underspecification

in phonology

51

Viewing JPP as creating palatals with secondary articulation is not just an ad hoc stipulation to allow for [Coronal]-underspecification. JPP affects coronals as well as non-coronals. In the latter case, the palatal articulation must be clearly seen as secondary articulation. As for the coronals, palatalization is reported by Mester and Ito to change their primary place of articulation to palatal/alveopalatal. In my view, though, the surface realization of the palatalized coronals is best seen as the result of a phonetic implementation process. Secondary articulation cannot be done away with for non-coronals and, unless an undesired non-unitary approach to Palatal Prosody is assumed, with just coronals being docked onto by a floating [Coronal]-dependent, it must be posited for palatalized coronals as well. The analysis of Japanese mimetics proposed here accounts for the different behaviour of /r/ and the non-rhotic coronals with respect to JPP and gemination, maintaining, at the same time, [Coronal]-underspecification for all of the coronal consonants. To conclude, the view that "forms like kasja-kasja establish clearly that the sibilants are fullyspecified coronals" (Steriade 1995: 146) and that the predictable coronality of Japanese [s] does not lead to temporary placelessness is at best disputable. The analysis put forward for Japanese can also be exploited for Cochabamba Quechua, the other language which, in Steriade's view, displays a fully specified sibilant. The relevant data are shown in (39). (39)

Cochabamba Quechua vowel lowering i. pisi-qa ii. riku-rqa chilquy iii. riku-nqa iv. riku-sqa

— >

- >

-> — >

piseqa rikorqa chelqoy rikoNqa rikusqa

'little (topic)' 'he/she saw it' 'to strip bark' 'he/she will see it' 'he/she had seen it'

In Cochabamba Quechua, a rule lowers a high vowel to mid before a uvular consonant. This is shown in (i). Steriade (1995: 146-147) proposes to formalize this rule as [RTR] regressive spreading between adjacent PLACE nodes. If this is so, then the transparency displayed by the liquids in (ii) can easily be accounted for by positing the lack of a

52

Chapter I: Theoretical

assumptions

node for liquids. This allows for the PLACE nodes of the uvular and the two-slot-away vowel to be in fact adjacent. For the nasal in (iii) no lack of a PLACE node needs to be assumed. The nasal is realized as uvular as well and is PLACE-linked to the following uvular stop. The PLACE node of the preceding vowel, again, is adjacent to the PLACE node of the following uvular cluster. [RTR] spreads backwards and the vowel gets lowered. The crucial case for Steriade is (iv). Here, the sibilant clearly blocks [RTR] spreading. For her, this implies a fully specified sibilant. However, what is relevant for the purposes of blocking the [RTR]-spreading is the presence of a PLACE node, NOT the presence of its dependent [Coronal]. Again, as in Japanese, both the sibilant and the liquid can be placeless: the liquid lacks the PLACE node altogether, the sibilant has a bare PLACE node. The presence of the bare PLACE node in the representation of the sibilant follows from the assumption that in Quechua as well continuancy distinctions are made after place of articulation distinctions: this triggers the presence of the bare PLACE node due to the Organizing Node Principle (14). PLACE

The lack of a PLACE node in liquids can be seen as responsible for the V-to-V assimilation processes as well, generally allowed by liquids, but not by obstruents. In this case, like for Japanese and Cochabamba Quechua, the asymmetry between liquids and sonorants can be seen at the level of the PLACE node, not at the level of [Coronal]-specification.

2.3. Underspecification and psycholinguistics I have shown that the facts analysed by Steriade (1995) as supporting full specification of coronal obstruents can in fact be reanalysed so as to allow for [Coronal]-underspecification. Nothing in Japanese and Quechua suggests that underspecification is a must. By the same token, however, nothing suggests that full-specification is a must, as argued by Steriade (1995). I turn now to Bengali (Lahiri 1991), where, contra Steriade (1995)' s generalization that sibilants and obstruents are always fully specified, /S/, the only sibilant in the inventory, and /t/, which contrasts with the more marked /t/, must be posited to have underlying underspecified and surface fully specified PLACE structure in order to account for native speakers' responses to stimuli in a gating experiment.

2. Status of underspecification

in phonology

53

In Bengali there is a single sibilant phoneme /S/ which is realized as [J], unless a dental stop follows. In this specific case the sibilant is realized as [§]. The choice of having [J] rather than [s] in the elsewhere environment is marked across languages. As will be seen, though, it is still crucial to Lahiri's account of the facts that /t/ be underspecified whereas /{/bt specified. This shows that in spite of the default realization [J] of /S/, the only sibilant in the inventory, where a contrast is available, it is still posteriority (for Lahiri [-Anterior]), not anteriority (for Lahiri [+Anterior]), which represents the specified, i.e. marked, case. Bengali, then, does not treat [J] as less marked than [s], rather it chooses by default the more marked realization [J] for the unique sibilant in its inventory. The Bengali facts are therefore not in support of the view that markedness is parametric, and do not lead me to the proliferation of features. That is, in the unary approach to features taken here, I do not need to posit the existence of a feature pair [Anterior]/[Posterior] only one member of which is chosen on a language particular basis. In my view, only [Posterior] exists; therefore, anterior coronals can never be marked, whereas non-anterior ones will always be. The Bengali facts are compatible with this assumption. Let us take a look at them as presented by Lahiri (1991). In (40), Bengali SC-clusters are shown. Within these clusters, the sibilant undergoes a process of assimilation. A hyphen is a morpheme boundary, and " = " is a clitic boundary, showing that the assimilation process is postlexical. (40)

Bengali SC-clusters a. kusti mosto bos-to kas-tam

'wrestling' 'big' 'sit-3p. PAST HABITUAL' 'cough-1 P. PAST HABITUAL'

b. h ä | kufti mojla boJ-bo kaj-i has=to

'laugh-2p. IMPERATIVE' 'horoscope' 'sit-lp. PRESENT' 'sit-lp. FUTURE' 'cough-1 P. PRESENT' 'laugh-2p. IMPERATIVE won't you'

η

η

54

Chapter 1: Theoretical assumptions

Since only one sibilant exists in the language, Lahiri (1991) assumes that it is underlyingly placeless. By contrast, the coronal l \ j must be specified, to distinguish it from the coronal /t/, which is unspecified. The phonological representations which are relevant to the discussion here are given in (41), and stem from Lahiri (1991). (41)

Bengali SC-clusters: underlying representations St

St

Sk

[Coronal]

Sp

[Dorsal]

[Labial]

[-Anterior] The [+Anterior] feature of the unmarked [t] is added as a default in the postlexical phonology and spreads onto the sibilant. After default specification and assimilation the following fully specified structures result. (42) Bengali SC-clusters: surface representations t [Cor] [Cor] [+Ant]

ii.

J

t

iü·

J

k

[Cor] [Cor]

[Cor] [Dor]

[-Ant] [-Ant]

[-Ant]

Ρ

IV.

[Cor] [Lab] [-Ant] What matters now is to establish the adequacy of underspecification, namely of the underspecified structures in (41). One possible way of investigating this is to look at perception-recognition tasks. What are the structures involved in such tasks; namely, what structures does the listener resort to in processing a fully specified incoming signal—the underspecified structures in (41) or the fully specified ones in (42)?

2. Status of underspecification

in phonology

55

Lahiri (1991) explores this in a gating experiment in Bengali. The experiment was conducted as follows. Listeners were presented with eight pairs of words containing [st] and [fC] clusters. Of the [JC]-clusters, half of the words presented contained [Jt] clusters, whereas the rest had a different second consonant, although two of these words had possible retroflex competitors. The words were presented in four increments, or gates, the second increment containing fricative information at least 50 msec short of the sibilant consonant offset, that is, without transitional information of the following consonant. Listeners were asked to say at each gate what word they thought they had heard. At the second gate where the fricative contained sufficient information to determine its anteriority, responses to any [J] segments were 92 per cent [ft]. Responses to any [s] segment were 77 per cent with [t], 9 per cent with [t], and 14 per cent with other consonants. These results have to be interpreted taking into account the distribution of the Bengali sibilant+C clusters. In a random sampling of one third of the possible medial sibilant+consonant clusters, 83 per cent have [st]-clusters, 5 per cent [Jt]-clusters, and 12 per cent others. One astonishing result that needs accounting for is the following: in spite of the fact that (a) [fC] clusters can have either a retroflex coronal, or a labial, or a dorsal as a second consonant, and (b) the J+non-coronal clusters are more than twice as many as the [ft] clusters in the language, almost all responses, namely 92 per cent, had [t] following the sibilant. This result is not surprising only if underspecified representations as in (41) are assumed, as well as a featural mapping from the incoming signal to the mental representation as assumed in recent psycholinguistic literature (Lahiri and Jongman 1990; Lahiri 1991) and briefly described in what follows. Following Lahiri, Jongman, and Sereno (1990) and Lahiri and Marslen-Wilson (1991), Lahiri (1991) assumes that as soon as phonetic features are extracted from the signal they are directly mapped onto the lexicon. The hypothesis is that once a place feature is extracted from the fully specified signal (which we can regard as the surface form), if the relevant consonant is not marked for place in the mental representation of the listener (underlying form), it can look for a match and be linked to a following segment, if this is so marked. Let us now assume

56

Chapter 1: Theoretical

assumptions

that the underspecified structures in (41) are used in this mapping process. At the second gate of a word containing a [JC] cluster, [-Anterior] is extracted from [J]. Given that the sibilant is unspecified in the listener's mental representation, [-Anterior] looks for a docking site in the immediately following consonant. It is the impossibility of matching the incoming [-Anterior] with the unspecified sibilant which biases the listeners and leads them to select in 92 per cent of the cases the fully specified [-Anterior] /{/ after [J], so as to match the incoming [-Anterior] to the consonant following the unspecified sibilant. If we assume a fully specified mental representation of the sibilant, no explanation is available as to why listeners should overwhelmingly prefer [Jt]- to [Jp]- and [Jk]-clusters. After the incoming [-Anterior] has been succesfully matched with the [-Anterior] present in the fully specified mental representation of the sibilant, what determines the fact that [Jt]-clusters significantly outnumber the [Jp]- and [Jk]-clusters? At the same time, /{/ must be specified as [-Anterior]. It is only this specification in the mental lexicon of the listeners that can lead them to choose this obstruent, rather than the non-coronal obstuents, after [J] has been heard. Under the same assumptions, namely featural mapping and underspecified representations in the mental lexicon, let us now consider the [st]-clusters. Here the predictions are different. At the second gate, the listener is informed that the sibilant is [-(-Anterior]. As for the incoming [-Anterior] of the [JC] clusters, the [+Anterior] does not find a match in the unspecified representation of the sibilant. However, unlike [-Anterior], the incoming [+Anterior] is not represented in the mental lexicon. There are no segments with this feature underlyingly. As a consequence, the listener is not biased and does not try to find a match for the incoming [+Anterior] in the obstruent following the sibilant. That is to say, the listeners are not biased and do not specifically look for [t] after hearing [J]. Therefore, one would expect responses which match the distribution facts of the language. The results confirm this expectation. At the second gate, namely after hearing the fricative portion of the [st]-clusters, listeners responded with 77 per cent [st]'s, 9 per cent LftJ's, and 14 per cent [JC]'s (where C is either labial or dorsal), mirroring the distribution of sibilant+consonant clusters in Bengali (see above). Lahiri and Marslen-Wilson (1991), Gaskell and Marslen-Wilson (1996), and Lahiri (1997) provide more crucial evidence for under-

3. Summary of the chapter

57

specification in recognition and perception tasks. In this literature, mental phonological representations are underspecified and highly abstract. In the mental lexicon phonological information is minimal, so as to distinguish the discrete phonological units and, at the same time, accommodate the extremely rich variation of the incoming acoustic signal. Within this perspective, the issue of [Coronal]-underspecification returns in Lahiri (1997), who takes a close look at postlexical nasal assimilation in English. Lahiri (1997) examines postlexical phonological processes like assimilation which frequently cause the phonetic shape of a word to change in a given phonological context. Consider the case of a sentence like I would like some lean bacon. In such a sentence the word lean can be realized as either li:m or lim, depending on whether assimilation has applied or failed to apply. Note that the assimilation process generates a non-word in this case, hence not represented in the lexicon. In a priming experiment, confronted with the stretch I would like some lea[n]/lea[m] with no further context available, both lea[n] and lea[m] equally primed a visually presented target LEAN. After hearing [m], [labial] is extracted. If the representation of the word lean has an unspecified nasal, the lack of a mismatch between the incoming [labial] and the empty place slot does not throw lean out of the cohort. Note that lack of mismatch, crucial in all of the psycholinguistic literature cited above, is a direct consequence of underspecified structures. If structures were always fully specified, only perfect matches and mismatches would be possible. If the nasal in lean were underlyingly specified as coronal, a mismatch would arise between incoming [Labial] and underlying [Coronal]. As a result, incoming [li:m] would not be recognized as a variant of the word lean and would not prime the visually presented target LEAN. Thus, to account for these experimental data, we must take recourse to underspecification.

3. Summary of the chapter In this chapter I have laid out the theoretical assumptions that underly my analysis of the phonological asymmetries of Miogliola Ligurian. Before proceeding with the analysis I discussed the status of under-

58

Chapter 1: Theoretical

assumptions

specification in phonological theory. In this section, some facts and analyses presented in the current literature as incompatible with underspecification, and as insurmountable problems for frameworks assuming it, are reanalysed and shown not to posit a problem for underspecification. I have argued first that a number of facts which are assumed to undermine underspecification can in fact be reanalysed equally well assuming underspecification. I have then discussed the contribution that recent psycholinguistic literature has brought to the underspecification issue. Experimental facts need underspecification to be made sense of.

Chapter 2 An overview of the Miogliola consonants

In this chapter, I establish the consonantal inventory of Miogliola Ligurian. The phonemic status of most consonants is quite transparent, with the exception of the glides [j] and [w] and of the velar nasal [rj]. I first examine the glides and come to the conclusion that they are not phonemes of the language, but rather positional variants of the corresponding high vowels. On the contrary, [g] is acknowledged phonemic status independent from the other nasals in the inventory. The velar nasal [η] is the rhymal surface realization of the underlyingly placeless nasal /N/, realized as [n] in onset position. The placeless nasal /N/ is one of the five placeless consonants in the Miogliola consonantal inven-

(43)

Miogliola surface consonants

I "3

^ eg < Ου Λ 5Η3 •ä Β i

13

!§ obstruents

stops affricates fricatives

sonorants

nasals liquids rhotics glides

Ρ t b d ts tf dz f s J V ζ 3

« Ή Λ

13 α > k g

m η 1 r/r

η

mi

J

voiceless voiced voiceless voiced voiceless voiced

0

A

3. The glides The distributional facts in (44) suggest the phonemic independence of the glides from the other consonants. However, the semivowel character of the glides makes it necessary to verify their phonemic status as independent from the corresponding high vowels. In order to do this, I take a look at distributional facts other than those considered in (44). A first, interesting distributional fact is the occurrence of both the glides and the high vowels [i] and [υ] in word final position after a consonant. The vowel-glide contrast in word final position is illustrated in (46).

3. The glides

(46)

63

Glide-high-vowels contrast i. ii. iii. iv.

a. final vowels

b. final glides

trein+u kuku pae:rs+i cfcyditsi vitsi pre:3i

iijcfcenw S0I3W paeirsj vijkj rijkj varrj

'train' 'cuckoo' 'lost-MASC.PL' 'discernment4 'bad habit' 'price'

'naive' 'father-in-law' 'peach' 'mistletoe' 'risk' 'various'

In (46), morphology does not predict the occurrence of the glides versus the corresponding vowels. In (46i), the difference between (a) and (b) could be accounted for by making reference to the morpheme boundary present in (a), but not in (b). This approach, however, fails in (46ii), where absence of morpheme boundaries does not give a one-way output. Moreover, both tremu and s0:yw are masculine singular nouns, but they manifest [u] and [w], respectively, in their word-final postconsonantal position. A parallel situation arises for the front vowel and glide. In (46iii) a word-final vowel is present, either belonging to the stem or being preceded by a morpheme boundary. In the same position a glide can be found. Moreover, the examples show that the contrast applies within the same morphological class, namely masculine singular, in the examples given. Since lack of predictability implies phonemic status, it appears that [ j ] and [w] should be acknowledged separate phonemic status from the corresponding vowels [i] and [υ]. However, this is not the position that will be taken here. The contrast which the two glides and the two high vowels display in word-final position but not elsewhere is quite suspect. If four phonemes were indeed available in the language, we would expect them to contrast in other positions as well. In particular, we should find contrasts as shown in (47), which are totally unknown in the language. (47)

Unattested glide-vowel contrasts CiVCV/CjVCV [-stress]

CuVCV/CwVCV [-stress]

64

Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola consonants

This gap makes the status of [j] and [w] as phonemes doubtful. A possible alternative is outlined in what follows. Consider first that in the light of the whole morphological picture a morphological approach to the vowel-glide contrasts in (46) could be made possible, provided that morphological classes are resorted to. A way of predicting the occurrence of the glide or of the vowel could be as follows. A word-final glide always belongs to the stem, and is maintained in the plural, where /+i/ is attached: A final vowel in (46) can be part of the stem, as in kuku, or, in the case of /u/, be a (marked) singular masculine morpheme /+u/, as in tremu. In the latter case the presence of a morphological boundary can help in predicting whether a vowel or a glide will surface: as a morpheme it will always surface as a high vowel. However, in the former case a different mechanism must be resorted to. In cases where the final high vowel is not a morpheme, namely if it belongs to the stem, the noun does not inflect in the plural: iq kuku 'a cuckoo', duj kuku 'two cuckoos'. By contrast, if plural inflection is available, then the singular displays a stem-final glide. In the light of the whole morphological picture one can build morphological classes and make reference to them in order to "predict" the vowel-glide alternation. However, this solution is far from optimal. First of all, no explanation would be available as to why a stem-final high vowel should be realized as a glide in postconsonantal position: a quite marked option. Secondly, and most importantly, the morphological approach is not independently motivated, whereas the phonological approach which I illustrate in what follows has independent motivation in the language. The phonological approach is then preferred over the morphological one not because of any superiority of phonology over morphology, but because it makes the morphological approach just outlined unnecessary. By contrast, the morphological approach would not make the phonological one unnecessary. I turn now to the solution adopted in this work. The glide-vowel contrast in (46) is clearly an edge phenomenon. Phonological theory, based on the theory of metrical verse, provides us with two well-known phenomena subject to the peripherality condition: extrametricality and catalexis ((3)). As will be seen, Miogliola displays both edge phenomena. Here, catalexis is at stake. Catalexis has

3. The glides

65

been proposed by Kiparsky (1991) as the counterpart of extrametricality. Its formalization is as in (48). (48)

Catalexis (Kiparsky 1991): The addition of a segmentally empty prosodic constituent (mora or syllable) at the edge of a domain. Catalectic constituents are adjoined to the superordinate metrical structure if permitted by the language's well-formedness constraints.

Kager (1995) illustrates (48) as in (49). (49) Catalexis (Kager 1995) a. Syllable catalexis

b. Mora catalexis

σ σ I μ /I t a

σ Κ μ μ /I t a

In (49), syllable catalexis and mora catalexis are shown. A syllabic and a moraic node with no segmented content are added to the right of the last segmentally realized syllable and mora in (49a) and (49b), respectively. Suppose now that Miogliola consonant-final words have a catalectic mora. Glide-final words would then look as in (50). (50)

Catalectic glide-final words i. ii.

iijcfeenw M S0:3W

m

iii. a kontinw iv. v.

satsj

M

pae:rsj

M

'naive'

igcfcenwa

'naive-FEM'

'father in law'

s#:3wa

'mother-in-law'

Ί continue'

υ k o n t i n w a 'he c o n t i n u e s '

'satiated'

satsja

'satiated-FEM'

M

'peach'

paeirsji

'peach-PL'

H

Ί risk'

υ

'he risks'

vi. a rifkj

rijkja

The asymmetrical occurrence of the glide-vowel contrast in (46), limited to final position, finds a straightforward explanation if we interpret word-final glides as the onsets of a word-final catalectic mora;

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Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola consonants

to put it in other words, as the onsets of an abstract word-final nucleus. As will be shown, the existence of catalexis finds independent evidence in the language. Therefore, it cannot be done away by assigning phonemic status to the glides, or by trying to predict their occurrence on a morphological basis. Once catalexis is acknowledged as part of the phonology of Miogliola, assuming the existence of the glides as phonemes becomes completely redundant. I conclude that [j] and [w] are not phonemes of the language. They are positional variants of the high vowels l\l and /u/ which arise at syllable level, that is, before stress is assigned.5 Miogliola glides are an important clue to catalexis in Miogliola. Independent evidence for right edge catalexis is provided by a subset of consonants, which I label "ghost" consonants. I examine the behaviour of these consonants in the next section.

4. The ghost consonants I term "ghost" consonants a subset of consonants which have the property of surfacing in root-final position under the particular circumstance that the root itself has undergone derivational morphology. These consonants are ft, d, 1, r/. Their behaviour is illustrated in (51). (51)

The "ghost" consonants: /t, d, 1, r/ a. katsy kape pe merko

'ladle' 'hat' 'foot' 'market'

c. katsY[r]+ei) kap[l]+a:ts

'ladle-DiM' 'hat-AUG'

pe[d]+5

'kick'

merka[t]+erj

'market-DiM'

b. katsy π kape 11 pen merkon

'ladles' 'hats' 'feet' 'markets'

d. katsy/r/ kape/1/ pe/d/ merka/t/

In (51a), masculine singular nouns are shown with zero inflectional morphology. In (51b), the same nouns undergo inflectional morphology in the plural, which attaches the morphological marker /+i/ to the right

4. The ghost consonants

67

of the stem. In (51c), the same roots undergo derivational morphology, unveiling the presence of one of the "ghost" consonants in root-final position. The consonant-final roots are given in (5Id). In (52), I show the derivation of kape, kape:j, kapldits 'hat, hats, large hat'. (52)

The derivation of the ghost consonants 1 Root

a. 'hat'

b. 'hats'

c. 'hat-AUG'

kapel

kapel

kapel

— kape:

kapel+atsM —

kape:+i

kapel+atsM

kape: ι

kapl0:tsM

Derivation 2 Augmentative — 3 Final consonant deletion kape: + compensatory lengthening Inflection 4

MASC.SG/MASC.PL

5 Final shortening 6 Other rules -> SF

kape: kape kape

In (52), the root kapel undergoes derivational morphology only in (c). In (c), the vowel-initial derivational suffix "protects" the root-final consonant. This, however, does not happen in front of the vowel-initial inflectional suffix in (b). This clearly suggests that the consonant is deleted at the end of derivational morphology. The deletion of the rootfinal consonant causes compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel. The lengthened vowel, however, only surfaces as long in (b), where an inflectional suffix is attached to its right. In (a), the masculine singular displays zero morphology, and the vowel lengthened by compensatory lengthening is shortened, due to a general surface constraint in Miogliola prohibiting long vowels in word final position. I will come back later to the rule deleting the ghost consonant in final position. I formalize the vowel shortening rule in (53). Consistently with the catalexis hypothesis developed here, I assume that the rule affects the skeleton, but not the moraic structure. This avoids creating degenerate feet, and explains why the final syllables which lose a ghost consonant at the end of derivational morphology always bear main word stress, pointing to bimoraicity.

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Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola

consonants

(53) Word- final Vowel Shortening μ μ

κ

μ μ v#

v#

At this point it is interesting to observe that the ghost consonants can surface in word-final position as well. The data showing this are given in (54). (54)

The ghost consonants in surface word-final position dyir bail da:d rut

'hard' 'dance' 'cube' 'broken'

The catalexis hypothesis can account for the contrast between (51) and (54). In (51), the root-final ghost consonant is protected against elision if derivational morphology removes it from the right edge, that is, makes it non-final. If the words in (54) are catalectic, they share nonfinality with the forms in (51) and therefore are protected from elision. The forms in (54) are rewritten as catalectic in (55). (55)

Catalectic words dy:rM ba:F da:dM ruf

The contrast between roots losing their final consonant and roots preserving it is a very important clue pointing to the existence of catalexis. This contrast is only available with the ghost consonants. The question now is whether all of the other consonant-final words should be considered catalectic or not. Considering the nature of the ghost consonants may help find an answer to this question.

4. The ghost consonants

69

What the ghost consonants all have in common is, I claim, the absence of PLACE structure, namely, they are all underlyingly placeless. I assume that the feature [Coronal] is the universal default feature and can be, but does not have to be, underlyingly specified (Chapter 1, Section 1.3.5). Notice that the ghost consonants are all coronals, even if not the only coronals in the inventory. I claim that the asymmetry between the ghost consonants and the other coronals must be traced back to an asymmetry in their PLACE structure. Only the ghost consonants lack PLACE structure, whereas the other coronals do not. The asymmetry between specified and unspecified coronals is contrastdriven, namely inventory-driven. The presence of the feature [Coronal] in a subset of coronals is amenable to the Node Activation Condition (NAC, Avery and Rice 1989). According to the NAC, the presence of contrasts between places of articulation within the coronal space of articulation triggers [Coronal]-specification on both the marked and the unmarked member of each pair. In Miogliola, contrasts within the coronal space of articulation exist among strident obstruents, but not among non-strident obstruents. Following the NAC, and assuming that the feature [Strident] is assigned before place features, the representation of PLACE of the strident obstruents is therefore as in (56). (56) The representation of

PLACE

of the strident obstruents

/s, z, ts, dz/ PLACE ART

TH

[Coronal]

PLACE ART

TH

[Coronal] [Posterior]

Notice that the presence of [Coronal] in the underlying representation of the plain coronals can be seen as redundant. The two coronals in (56) would be distinct even if the anterior series were not specified for [Coronal]. Empirical reasons, though, have led Avery and Rice (1989)

70

Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola

consonants

to think that members of pairs distinguished exclusively by a dependent of [Coronal] are both [Coronal]-specified. A very common crosslinguistic pattern is that plain coronals assimilate to other coronal places of articulation, but not to non-coronals. If plain coronals lacked [Coronal]-specification, their assimilation to just coronals would be merely stipulative: it would not follow from anything structural. If coronals have [Coronal] underlyingly and only feature filling rules are allowed, their assimilatory patterns receive a natural and principled account: they can only be assimilatory targets of [Coronal]-dependents. The NAC makes the right predictions for Miogliola as well. In Miogliola, /s/ patterns with ///, not with Iii, in not behaving as a ghost consonant. In contrast to (56), the representation of PLACE of the non-strident coronal obstruents is as given in (57). (57)

PLACE

structure of the ghost consonants (1)

III

Idl

PLACE

PLACE

ART

TH

ART

TH

The two non-strident obstruents in (57) do not have posterior counterparts. In this case, the NAC does not trigger the presence of [Coronal]. At the same time, I assume that a bare PLACE node is present, due to the Organizing Node Principle (14), that is, to the presence of place contrasts among obstruents. I turn now to the coronal sonorants present in the inventory. In the same way as obstruents do, coronal sonorants display an asymmetrical pattern, /I, r/ behaving as ghost consonants, In, ji, A, r/ not displaying such a behaviour. Again, I claim that the asymmetry is due to PLACEspecified versus PLACE-unspecified coronals. The first question I would like to address is why Irl is a ghost consonant, whereas /r/ is not. To be consistent with the picture developed so far, Irl must have a specified PLACE node, whereas Iii must

4. The ghost consonants

71

lack PLACE structure. The NAC as in Avery and Rice (1989) does not provide an answer. The underlying presence of [Coronal] in (56) is triggered by the involvement of [Posterior], which distinguishes anterior and posterior coronals. However, there are no posterior rhotics in the Miogliola inventory. One would therefore expect both rhotics to be underspecified for PLACE structure, and to be able to behave as ghost consonants. The facts, however, are contrary to this expectation. A possible answer is outlined in the following paragraph. The basic idea expressed by the NAC is that [Coronal] is present underlyingly if reasons of contrast trigger its presence. If so, the spirit of the NAC can be maintained in the extended form in (58). (58)

Extended Node Activation Condition Plain coronals are underlyingly specified for [Coronal] (a) when they contrast with consonants in other coronal places of articulation (NAC; Avery and Rice 1989), and (b) when they contrast with PLACE-unspecified consonants.

Consider now the two rhotics Irl and Irl in the light of (58). They are articulated in exactly the same place. Since no [Coronal]-dependent can differentiate them, I assume that the two rhotics are differentiated, as suggested by (58), exploiting the possibility of [Coronal] of being, but not having to be, underlyingly specified. It is crucial, however, that [Continuant] is not available when place of articulation features are assigned. If this were not so, Irl would be specified as [Continuant], making PLACE-specification redundant for both rhotics. In the feature ranking called for by the Continuous Dichotomy Hypothesis (15), Miogliola requires that place of articulation precede stricture. As will be seen, this is consistent with the vowel feature specification. The PLACE representations of the two rhotic sounds are therefore as shown in (59), where the presence of the bare PLACE node under /r/ is triggered by the existence of place contrasts among Miogliola rhotics. Needless to say, the different PLACE structure makes any specification for continuancy redundant: both rhotics are therefore assumed to be underlyingly unspecified for the feature [Continuant].

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Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola

consonants

(59) PLACE-structure of the rhotics Irl

/r/

PLACE

PLACE / \

ART

TH

ART

TH

[Coronal] There are still two pairs of coronal consonants in the inventory of Miogliola: /n, ji/ and /l, A/. Both /ji/ and /A/ are true palatals, as opposed to the non-anterior obstruents which are alveopalatals. At least phonetically, then, there appears to be an asymmetry between the palatal sonorants /ji, A/ and the alveopalatal obstruents. Should this asymmetry be mirrored in the phonological representation of the palatal sonorants or not? If yes, the PLACE representation of /ji, A/ is as in (60a), if not, it is as in (60b). (60) Alternative PLACE-structures of /ji, A/ a.

/ji, A/ PLACE

/ \ TH

ART

[Coronal]

b.

/ji, A/ PLACE

/ TH \

ART

[High]

[Posterior] The two structures in (60) make different predictions as to the representations of /l, η/. If (60a) is adopted, then the NAC triggers the presence of [Coronal] on /l, η/ as well. If (60b) is adopted, then the NAC has nothing to say, and /l, n/ remain unspecified for PLACE. The presence of PLACE is triggered in this case by the Organizing Node Principle (14). One reason to favour the latter option is that all of the other ghost

4. The ghost consonants

73

consonants, namely /t, d, r/, have been shown to have a bare PLACE node. Adopting (60b) would therefore enforce a bare PLACE node on I I I , too, allowing us to capture the fact that the ghost consonants behave as a class, all of them having the same structure. At the same time, adopting (60b) would trigger the presence of a bare PLACE node on /n/ as well. This is not a desired result, given that /n/ is not a ghost consonant. However, this is only an apparent problem, because the presence of [Coronal] in the representation of /n/ can be motivated independently. In the consonantal inventory of Miogliola, there is a phoneme that displays a surface [η/η] alternation. This phoneme is taken care of in the next section, where it is analysed as underlyingly placeless /N/, and an account is given as to why it does not behave as a ghost consonant. Given the presence of /N/, the presence of [Coronal] in the representation of /n/ follows from the Extended Node Activation Condition (58). To conclude, the representions in (60b) are accepted, and the representations of /l, n/ are as follows. (61)

structure of /l, η/

PLACE

/η/

/!/

PLACE

PLACE

ART

TH

ART

TH

[Coronal] To conclude, the in (62). (62)

PLACE

PLACE

structure of all of the ghost consonants is as

structure of the ghost consonants

/t/

/d/

/!/

/r/

PLACE

PLACE

PLACE

PLACE

ART

TH

ART

TH

ART

TH

ART

TH

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Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola

consonants

What they all have in common is the absence of PLACE structure. This is what makes them into a class: their underspecified PLACE structure. Let us now consider word-final consonants in general. It is only /t, d, 1, r/ that allow an unpredictable right edge catalectic mora. When they are followed by a catalectic mora, the placeless coronals do not behave as ghost consonants; when they are not followed by a catalectic mora they do, surfacing if the word itself has undergone derivational morphology, and failing to appear if no derivational morphology has applied. All other consonants in word-final position behave like the placeless coronals do in catalectic forms. Therefore, I assume that all of the words surfacing with a final consonant other than /t, d, 1, r/ (and [rj], as will be seen in the next section) are catalectic. That is, of the two theoretical possibilities in (63), I claim that (b) is the correct one, whereas (a) is not. More discussion about this point follows below. (63)

Consonant-final words: two alternatives ρ t k b d g ts tf dz f s J ν ζ 3 m

a. Non-catalectic

b. Catalectic

kup (placeless) back tyb (placeless) fi'g puts afitf pedz ducfe Jtuf fis lij lu:v ri:z vui3 araim

kupM

'roofing tile'

baskM tybM

'beak' 'pipe, tube'

fi:gM putsM afif pedzM

'fig tree' 'well' 'rent' 'worse' 'double' 'bored' 'fixed' 'smooth' 'wolf' 'rice' 'voice' 'copper'

Jtuf fisM lif lu:vM π:ζμ vu:3m ara:mM

4. The ghost consonants

η ji Q 1 Ä r r

ρα:η ardiji (to be discussed) (placeless) 3badiÄ faeir (placeless)

ρα:ημ ar6:jiM

'cloth' 'spider'

3badiAM

'yawn' 'iron'

75

Under the assumption that (63a) is correct, underlyingly Miogliola roots can end in any consonant. Moreover, they can also be catalectic if the last melodic element is placeless, that is, the catalectic mora must be preceded by a placeless segment. On the surface, final (namely not followed by a catalectic mora) placeless consonants drop. Option (a) is problematic. It is not clear why underlying catalectic moras should be preceded by a placeless segment. Even more awkward is the fact that final (i.e. not followed by a catalectic mora) placeless segments must drop on the surface, whereas final PLACE-specified consonants do not. This goes against the well-documented cross-linguistic tendency to prefer unmarked segments over marked ones in restricting positions. Under the assumption that (63b) is correct, underlyingly Miogliola roots can only end in a placeless consonant, all other forms being catalectic. On the surface, not even placeless consonants are allowed in word-final position, so they drop. Option (b) seems to be more promising. In the restricting final position, the only consonants that Miogliola allows underlyingly are the placeless ones. The same constraint prohibiting PLACE-specification in word-final position holds throughout the phonological component. My claim is that the placeless consonants drop on the surface because they acquire the default feature [Coronal] in the course of the derivation, losing their placeless status which makes them special underlyingly. An alternative account relying on prohibition of final codas is not viable, as will become clear soon. I conclude that all surface consonant-final words in Miogliola are catalectic, due to a constraint prohibiting PLACE-specified consonants in word-final position. Underlyingly, only placeless consonants can be

76

Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola

consonants

at a right edge, but these consonants drop on the surface, leaving the word with a final vowel. Final consonant deletion is due to the acquisition of PLACE structure, more precisely to the acquisition of the feature [Coronal], in the course of the derivation. As soon as the placeless consonants at the right edge become PLACE-specified in the derivation, they become ill-formed, due to the constraint on PLACE-specified consonants at right edges. Therefore they drop. The constraint prohibiting PLACE-specified consonants in final position is formalized in (64), where "#" symbolizes a right edge. (64)

No PLACE-specified consonants at a right edge *[Cons]# PLACE

[F] The rule dropping the right edge consonants once they become PLACEspecified is formalized in (65). The stranded moraic X-slot is then relinked to the left, causing compensatory lengthening. (65) Final Consonant Deletion and related compensatory lengthening μ

I

μ

I

[Son][Cons]#

μ

μ

u^

[Son][Cons]#

PLACE

PLACE

[F]

[F]

The lengthened final vowel undergoes then the shortening rule in (53), unless inflectional morphology, i.e. word formation, removes it from the right edge (compare 52a and 52b). For (65) to have the desired effect, the default insertion of the universally unmarked feature [Coronal] must apply at the end of deriv-

4. The ghost consonants

77

ational morphology and before inflectional morphology. This is because, as already pointed out, the final consonant is preserved if a derivational suffix is added, but it is deleted if no derivational morphology applies. In Miogliola, stems are derived from roots in derivational morphology, and inflectional categories are added to the stem at a later point in derivation. This follows the principles of Lexical Phonology as in Kiparsky (1985) and Fitzpatrick-Cole (1996). Stem boundaries are therefore generated at the end of derivational morphology and [Coronal]-Insertion can be formalized as applying within stems. The rule inserting the default feature [Coronal] is shown in (66). (66)

Default [Coronal]-Insertion PLACE

—>

PLACE

[Coronal] Domain: [ ]stem Note that the default rule in (66) would neutralize the contrast between the two rhotics, /r/ being coronal and /r/ unspecified (see 59), unless another default rule is assumed. This rule is in (67). (67)

[Cons Son —»

[Continuant]

[Coronal] Domain: [ ]stem Both (66) and (67) are default rules which apply in a single go, without being ordered with respect to each other, at the end of derivational morphology, when stems have been formed. Together, they turn the underlying place contrast between the two rhotics into a manner contrast. The latter one is the one mirrored on the surface, where the underlyingly placeless /r/ is realized as a flap and the underlyingly coronal /r/ as a trill.

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Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola

consonants

In (68), I illustrate how Default [Coronal]-Insertion (66) and Final Consonant Deletion (65) work in Miogliola. To do so, I consider again two of the derivations in (52). (68)

[Coronal]-Insertion and Final Consonant Deletion 1.

Root

Derivation M 11. + /ats / (augmentative) iii. Default [Coronal]-Insertion

iv. Final Consonant Deletion and compensatory lengthening

a. ' h a t s '

b. ' h a t - A U G '

kapel

kapel

kapel

kapel+atsM kapel+atsM

[Coronal] kape:

[Coronal]

Inflection v.

+ hi (MASC.PL)

vi. other rules —> SF

kaperi kape :i

kapla:tsM

In (68), the same root undergoes derivational morphology in (b), but not in (a). The root in (i) ends in a placeless consonant. The constraint on final PLACE in (64) holds already: no PLACE-specified consonants are allowed in word-final position. When [Coronal]-Insertion applies in (iii), namely at the end of derivational morphology, the root-final coronal, which is now specified, is still in final position in (a), but not in (b), where the root has undergone derivational morphology. The constraint still holds, and the ill-formed structure in (a.iii) is repaired by (65), namely by deletion and compensatory lengthening. To sum up, Miogliola consonant-final words are catalectic: they all have a catalectic mora to their right. The placeless consonants are the only consonants which, underlyingly, can appear in absolute final position. This is the result of a constraint prohibiting consonantal PLACE structure in final position. The final placeless consonants become PLACE-specified at the end of derivational morphology: at this point the default rule inserting [Coronal] applies. If in the course of derivational morphology the final placeless consonants have lost their final status because a derivational suffix has been attached, then they escape (64),

5. The nasal [η]

79

the constraint on consonantal PLACE structure in final position. If this is not the case, (64) triggers (65), making them drop. After all of this, inflectional morphology applies. The picture just presented allows one to predict that, if a consonant did not undergo [Coronal]-Insertion and therefore were able to surface as placeless at the end of the phonological component, it should also be able to surface in word-final position in non-catalectic forms. The consonant which as of now has been left unexplored, the surface velar nasal [rj], provides evidence in this direction and consequently also in favour of (65), rather than in favour of a rule dropping any final consonant or prohibiting final codas. I turn to this in the next section.

5. The nasal [η] The velar nasal does not quite fit into the distributional parameters set in (44). This nasal sound is never attested in word-initial position. In word-medial position, [η] only appears in preconsonantal position. In this position, [g] freely alternates with a nasal homorganic to the following stop. If the consonant that follows is a fricative, no assimilation, and hence no alternation, is attested. Finally, [η] occurs in wordfinal position. To sum up, [η] only occurs in coda position, and might be seen as the result of a contrast neutralization among nasals applying in codas, where all of the other nasals are excluded. In what follows, I show that in fact [rj] must be acknowledged independent phonemic status.

5.1. [fj] as the fourth nasal phoneme

The phonemic status of the nasal [η] is not as transparent as it might seem at first glance. In (44), [rj] appears in word-final position, where it contrasts with [m], [n], and [p], belonging to /m/, /n/, and /ji/, respectively. This seems to be a clear case where four nasals contrast in the same phonological environment, namely in word-final position. Therefore, one should accordingly assign phonemic status to final [η]. Unfor-

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Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola consonants

tunately, it is only apparently the case that these nasals all occur in an identical phonological environment. Consider the catalexis hypothesis developed here. According to this hypothesis, consonant-final words have a catalectic mora to their right. Accordingly, the four nasals contrasting in word-final position are actually not word-final. The four word-final nasals are in fact onsets, given the presence of a catalectic mora to their right. This is shown in (69). (69)

a. gra:mM c. ba:jiM

'nasty' 'bath'

b. da:nM d. par)M

'damage' 'bread'

The reinterpretation of word-final nasals as onsets does not change the fact that, still, four nasals contrast in the same phonological environment. The distributional pattern of [η], though, makes the structure in (69d) highly suspect, not to say impossible. Nowhere else does the nasal [η] appear to be an onset. Now, why would [q] be an onset just in the very specific case in which the following mora is catalectic, i.e. does not have a phonetically realized melodic content? This assumption is obviously not tenable, and consequently (69) must be rewritten as in (70). (70)

a. graimM

b. dam11

c. ba:jiM

d. pag

(70) says that words ending in [η] are not catalectic. Independent evidence that this is indeed so will be given in Chapter 2, Section 5.3. This fact rules out the possibility of substituting a constraint banning final codas for the PLACE constraint in (64): final codas ARE allowed. At the same time, final [η] in (70d) raises the question why the constraint in (64) does not trigger deletion and compensatory lengthening as in (65). The answer is given in Chapter 2, Section 5.3. So far, we can conclude that there is no phonological environment in which [η] contrasts with the three nasal phonemes /m/, /n/, and /p/, and therefore it looks like [q] should be viewed as a positional variant of the other three nasals, which are excluded from the coda. What I am going to show in the next paragraph is that this is not so, and that in spite of all the appearances a fourth nasal phoneme must be posited in the consonantal inventory of Miogliola. Consider first the paradigms in (71).

5. The nasal [η]

(71)

81

Alternating nasal patterns MASC.SG

feto] 0tol sa[rj] boto]

b.

MASC.PL

C. FEM.SG

d.

fe:[n]a ce:[n]a sa:[n]a bo:[n]a

fiLnli y[p]i sa[p]i bu[ji]i

FEM.PL

ίέ:[η]ε oe:[n]c sa:[n]e bo:[n]e

'fine' 'one' 'healthy' 'good'

In (71), we are clearly dealing with one single nasal phoneme. This phoneme shows up as [η] in the masculine singular, as [p] before the masculine plural suffix /+i/, and as [n] in both feminine forms. From the phonological perspective, the surface form of this phoneme, when no segmental rules like the palatalization in the masculine plural intervene, is prosodically determined: [n] in onset position, [q] in coda position. The paradigms in (71) contrast with the paradigms in (72). Here palatalization in the masculine plural does not occur. (72) Non-alternating nasal patterns MASC.SG

i. tunM ii. b0:rjiM iii. gra:mM

Μ A SC. PL

FEM.SG

FEM. PL

tum boirjii gra:mi

tüna boiqia graima

tüne boirjie gra:me

'dumb' 'stupid' 'nasty'

In (72), unlike in (71), the nasals do not display any alternation across the morphological classes. This makes it easy to assign their phonemic membership to the phonemes /n/, /ji/, and /m/, respectively. This also makes it clear that in (71) a fourth nasal phoneme must be posited, one that displays prosodically determined surface place alternation and palatalization in the masculine plural. Notice that in the paradigms in (71), the coronal-velar alternation cannot be viewed as a clue to positing a fourth nasal phoneme in the language. This is because final [η], unlike final [n] in (72i), is not followed by a catalectic mora. Therefore, the presence of [rj] in (71) and of [n] in (72i) could be predicted in principle throught the presence versus absence of catalexis. Rather, it is the masculine plural palatalization that crucially points to the existence of two intervocalic [n] 's in Miogliola: one does not palatalize and, due to phonetic consistency, is to be traced back to /n/; the other does

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Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola

consonants

palatalize and a fourth nasal phoneme must be posited to underly it. This fourth phoneme is realized as [n] in an onset, as [rj] in a coda.

5.2. [q] as the fifth placeless

consonant

Due to its alternating character in place of articulation, I assume the fourth nasal in Miogliola to be placeless and I label it /N/. Given the presence of place distinctions among nasals and in accordance with the Organizing Node Principle (14), this phoneme has an underlying bare PLACE node. Thus, it has the same structure as the ghost consonants. (73)

PLACE

structure of the coronal-velar alternating nasal [n/i)]=/N/

/N/ PLACE ART

TH

The PLACE structure in (73), common to /N/ and to the ghost consonants, represents the maximum amount of PLACE structure allowed in codas. No contrasts based on the presence of content PLACE features can be seen in this position. I formalize this as a constraint on content PLACE features in codas. (74)

Coda

PLACE

Constraint

No content feature (=[F]) in coda position *C PLACE

[F] At the same time, as in many other languages, Miogliola codas also have a sonority constraint, which bans segments with sonority lower

5. The nasal [η}

83

than a certain degree. In Miogliola, stops are not allowed to occur in codas, regardless of their PLACE structure. I state this in (75). (75)

Coda Sonority Constraint No stops in codas

The combination of the two constraints in (74) and (75) allows /Ν, 1, r/ to be syllabified into the coda, to the exclusion of /t, d/. This prediction is correct. At the same time, both [J] and [3] appear in preconsonantal position, with predictable voicing and to the exclusion of [s] and [z]. A rule neutralizing the place contrasts among the sibilants in codas is excluded: as PLACE-specified segments, the sibilants should not be syllabified into a coda in the first place. This points to the existence of an underlying placeless segment/S/ which must be positionally defined. Following Kiparsky (1993)'s idea of contextual underspecification (see Chapter 1, Section 2.1), I assume that the speaker of Miogliola, due to the absence of contrasts between anterior and posterior sibilants in preconsonantal position, develops a PLACE-unspecified representation of a preconsonantal sibilant /S/. This segment is not available in final position. If it were, it would either display the alternating behaviour of the ghost consonants, appearing and failing to appear, or it would fail to drop after [Coronal]-Insertion, displaying no alternation at all. This would depend on whether a bare PLACE node is available or no PLACE node altogether. Neither is the case. The consonant /S/ never appears in root-final position, pointing to its preconsonantal status. All possible codas are illustrated in (76). (76)

Miogliola codas /N/ pa[g]tsa /r/ bo:[f]ka, bo:[r]ba k5:[r]ta6 l\l sa[l]vja /S/ pd[/]ta ma[3]no

To conclude, the representation of the alternating [η/η] as underlyingly placeless /N/ captures the fact that /N/ and the other placeless conso-

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consonants

nants behave as a class. At the same time, INI displays a different behaviour from the other placeless consonants. The most interesting characteristic displayed by INI is that this consonant, uniquely among the Miogliola consonants, can appear in word-final position in noncatalectic forms, namely it can escape the constraint in (64). This is the issue that I am going to explore next.

5.3. The Default Variability Hypothesis (DVH): underlyingly INI, surface placeless [#].

placeless

The lack of underlying PLACE structure, in my assumptions, accounts straightforwardly for the PLACE alternations displayed by this phoneme on the surface. It is exactly this lack of structure that makes INI the target of feature-spreading rules when it is preconsonantal, assimilating it to the place of the following consonant. In the same way, when no assimilation occurs, the prosodically determined coronal-velar alternation can be seen as a direct consequence of the underlying placelessness of INI. The surface alternation of the placeless INI can be accounted for by resorting to the Default Variability Hypothesis (21). In onset position, the default fill-in rule inserting [Coronal] applies. In coda position, the default fill-in rule fails to apply, and the nasal enters the phonetic component of the language as placeless, subject to phonetic interpretation as velar. The DVH, then, accounts for why INI patterns with the ghost consonants in being able to appear in stem-final position in underlying representations, but does not behave as a ghost consonant which drops in word-final position. Underlyingly, INI is placeless and patterns with It, d, 1, r/. On the surface, the ghost consonants drop because they are not subject to the DVH and invariably undergo the [Coronal] fill-in rule. By contrast, INI undergoes [Coronal]-Insertion only in onset position, whereas in rhymal position the phonology fails [Coronal]-specification. By virtue of its placelessness at the end of the phonological component, INI, unlike the ghost consonants, escapes the ban on the presence of PLACE structure in word-final position (64) and is not deleted according to (65). Finally, INI enters the phonetics where it is interpreted as velar.

5. The nasal [η]

85

The choice of representing the coronal-velar alternating nasal as underlyingly placeless, namely as /N/, triggers the presence of the default feature [Coronal] in the underlying representation of the nonalternating coronal nasal /n/. Like for the two rhotics, the Extended Node Activation Condition (58) comes into play among nasals, too. Presence versus absence of [Coronal] in the underlying representation creates two phonologically distinct nasals: the placeless nasal displays surface variability, the coronal nasal does not. Both surface as [n] in intervocalic position. The underlying contrast between the placeless nasal /N/ and the coronal nasal /n/ is shown in (77). (77) a. Non-alternating nasal [n]

b. Coronal-velar nasal [η/η]

/n/

/N/

PLACE

PLACE

ART

TH

ART

TH

[Coronal] Notice that the fact that /N/ can appear in underlying word-final position, as do the placeless ghost consonants, does not mean that it cannot precede a final catalectic mora. There is no reason to think that /N/ should not parallel the other placeless consonants in being able to appear in absolute word-final position or followed by a catalectic mora. In the latter case, though, IN/ is expected to surface as [n], given its onset status. The predictions are borne out by the data. These are shown in (78). (78)

a. da:nM / a da:nM b. sag / a sa:np

'damage'/ Ί am in trouble' 'healthy'/ Ί cure'

In (78a), the non-alternating final nasal is an underlying /n/. In (78b), the coronal-velar alternating nasal is an underlying /N/. Independent phonological evidence that in (78a) we are dealing with /n/ and in (78b) with /N/ will be given in Chapter 4. To anticipate the argument, it will be shown that a special feature interaction exists between a stressed vowel

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of the Miogliola

consonants

and a following /N/. To limit ourselves to the examples in (78), for instance, the stressed vowel /a/ surfaces with an [a]-quality only before /N/; in the elsewhere environment, on the contrary, it surfaces with an [a]quality. Beyond morphological alternations, then, which have so far been the clue indicating the existence of two different surface [n]'s, there are phonological clues, namely the quality of the vowel preceding the nasals, that can (as we will see in most but not all cases) tell which nasal is which.

5.4. The other placeless

segments and the DVH

At this point the question arises why the DVH is exploited by just the placeless nasal and not by the ghost consonants, namely by the other placeless segments available in the inventory. Of the placeless segments present in the inventory, namely, /t, d, r, 1/, the stops might be argued not to participate in the coronal-velar alternation simply because they do not participate in the corresponding onset-coda prosodic alternation either. On sonority grounds, stops are banned from codas, as the sonority constraint in (75) expresses. If this were so, then the drop of root-final /t, d/ would not tell us anything about whether these consonants do or do not undergo the [Coronal] fillin rule or the phonetic interpretation mechanism of the DVH. Namely, it could be claimed that they drop EITHER because they become PLACEspecified, OR because they are syllabified in a coda. But the sonority constraint cannot be seen as responsible for the drop of stem final /t, d/. First of all, one still has to account for why /l, r/ drop as well. Secondly, as will be shown later, there are independent reasons to say that /t, d/ undergo the [Coronal] fill-in rule. As will be seen in Chapter 4, one must posit that footing creates an ambisyllabic /N/ which must then undergo deambisyllabification, which in turn lengthens the preceding vowel. The process of deambisyllabification is triggered by the fact that ambisyllabic IN/ should be realized as both [η] (in the coda) and [n] (in the onset), an option which is not exploited by Miogliola. Ambisyllabic /t, d/ do not undergo this process of deambisyllabification, suggesting that no mismatch in feature specification is available between onsets and codas, i.e. that they undergo the [Coronal] fill-in rule in both positions. All of the ghost consonants, then, unlike /N/, undergo

5. The nasal [η]

87

the [Coronal] fill-in rule (66), and this is the reason why they drop, in accord with (64) and (65). Rice (1996) observes that "not all manners of articulation pattern identically with respect to the coronal-velar relationship". However, regular patterns do exist. It is almost exclusively underlying stops (both oral and nasal) that display a surface coronal-velar alternation, and it is never the case that non-stops alternate to the exclusion of stops. Moreover, the only case of a lateral displaying surface coronal-velar alternation (Dakota) entails a shift (or is possibly due to the shift) in manner of articulation whereby the actual surface alternation is [1/g]. Finally, the only case of place alternation in a fricative is a [s/h] alternation, where the placelessness of the obstruent is not interpreted as velar by the phonetic component. It appears, then, that the velar interpretation of placeless segments in the phonetic component entails in most cases an underlying stop, but in all cases a surface stop, whether oral or nasal. At the same time, the velar interpretation of placeless segments in the phonetics of the language appears to be the only possibility for nasals, but not for orals, which can be realized as glottal stops, too, or, in the case of fricatives, as [h]. I interpret these facts as pointing to a phonetic component that can interpret placeless segments coming from the phonology in different ways, depending on manner features. What is meant here, is that a nasal coming from the phonology without any articulatory instruction may be interpreted by the phonetic component as velar, given that a nasal is always realized by lowering the velum. At the same time, a lateral with no articulatory instruction may be interpreted as coronal, not necessarily as velar, by the phonetics. Consider at this point the question just raised with respect to Miogliola. In Rice (1996)'s survey, liquids do not display surface alternations (unless a switch in manner also occurs). The fact that they surface consistently as coronals even when stops and nasals display alternations can be seen in two different ways. Given that it appears to be the case that the phonetic component does not necessarily interpret a placeless segment coming from the phonology as velar, as has been seen, and that interpretation works differently for different manners of articulation, it might be the case that surfacing placeless liquids are interpreted as coronals by the phonetic component of the language. Let us take the example of Miogliola. One could say that placeless /l, r, N/

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Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola consonants

do not undergo the [Coronal] fill-in rule in rhymes, but they do in onsets. The phonetic component of the language interprets then /N/ as velar [rj], but /l, r/ as coronals [1, f]. Another possibility is that manner features (or, more generally, the combinations of features already present in the representation) trigger the [Coronal] fill-in rule in the phonology. Then /l, r/undergo the default rule, whereas /N/ does not. This means that in such a case the phonetic interpretation is only called for in the case of the nasal, but not in the case of the liquids which surface from the phonology as PLACE-specified. Miogliola clearly points to the latter solution: /t, d, 1, r/ do not display any surface coronal-velar alternation NOT because they surface as placeless and are interpreted differently from IN/ in the phonetic component, BUT because they undergo PLACE-specification in the phonology. Since they become PLACE-specified at the end of derivational morphology (66), they drop in stem final position (65), and unlike /N/ they do not undergo the rule of Segmental Conflict Resolution (151). However, Miogliola does not exclude the possibility that liquids may surface with no PLACE-specification and still be interpreted as coronals by the phonetic component of the language. Further research on this point needs to be done. Overall, the Miogliola facts are consistent with the facts identified by Rice (1996). The coronal-velar alternation is, as in many other cases, prosodically determined. Like in all other cases of prosodic alternation, it is the rhyme which is left unspecified and interpreted as velar, whereas the onset undergoes the [Coronal] fill-in rule. In all prosodically determined cases examined, oral and nasal stops display coronalvelar alternation, liquids do not. The Miogliola data are consistent with this generalization. In Miogliola, placeless /S/ is only available preconsonantally; therefore one cannot speak of alternation proper. However, its realization as [J] is definitely not velar. This is consistent with Rice's general observation that fricatives do not undergo the coronalvelar alternation. The only mismatch with Rice's findings is the following. Her survey appears to point to a parallelism between oral and nasal stops in prosodically determined coronal-velar alternations. In Rice (1996: 70) one can see that where both stops and nasals are licensed in a rhyme, either both are realized as coronals, or both as velars. By contrast, in Miogliola only /N/ surfaces as placeless at the end of the phonological component of the language; It, d/, as well as /l, f/, undergo

5. The nasal [η]

89

the fill-in rule that specifies them as coronal. Once more, I would like to underline the fact that in spite of the Coda Sonority Constraint in (75), according to which the failure of the coronal-velar alternation of the oral stops can be simply seen as the lack of the necessary environment for the alternation itself to come about, there are independent reasons to say that the oral stops become specified in the phonological component of the language: they do not pattern with /N/ in their failure of undergoing deambisyllabification in intervocalic position after a stressed penult (151).

5.5. Representing as dorsal

non-alternating

[n] as placeless,

alternating

[n/rj]

The contrastive representations in (77), in particular the placelessness of the alternating nasal, have been motivated on the ground that assimilatory processes and, in general, surface place alternations are a clue to underlying lack of PLACE structure. This suggests the underlying placelessness of the coronal-velar alternating nasal, and, in turn, the presence of the default feature [Coronal] in the underlying representation of the non-alternating coronal nasal. Rejecting the assumption that only lack of PLACE structure triggers assimilation and place alternations, and still assuming underspecification, gives the possibility of representing the two nasals at issue as in (79). (79)

a. Non-alternating nasal [n]

b. Coronal-velar nasal

/Ν/ I

/η/ I

PLACE

PLACE

[Dorsal] The first observation to make is that the nasal in (79b) is the nasal that appears in absolute (non-catalectic) word-final position in underlying forms. By adopting the representations in (79), two problems would arise: (a) the generalization would be lost that all and only placeless segments are allowed in word-final position in non-catalectic forms,

90

Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola

consonants

given that beyond /t, d, 1, r/, all placeless, also the underlyingly dorsal /rj/ is allowed in this position; (b) given that all of the other placeless consonants are allowed in underlying word-final position, it is arbitrary that the placeless /n/ in (79a) cannot partake of the same liberty. By adopting (77), the coronal-velar alternating nasal is underlyingly placeless and forms a class with the ghost consonants in being able to appear in underlying word-final position. Thus the generalization can be maintained that all and only placeless segments can be stem-final in non-catalectic forms. Although in my opinion this argument suffices to adopt (77) and reject (79), more arguments in favour of (77) are given below. It has been often pointed out in the literature (Ito 1989; Goldsmith 1990; Prince 1984; Rice 1992, 1996; Yip 1991) that a number of languages display restrictions on the range of places of articulation that may occur in rhymal position. Frequently only (surface) coronals are licensed in that position, and it is generally argued that this phenomenon is due to the underlying placelessness, i.e. lack of place features, in segments that surface as coronals (Paradis and Prunet (eds.) 1991), and to the general tendency for rhymal positions to favour unmarked segments. If one assumes (77) and rejects (79), Miogliola fits the cross-linguistic picture just outlined. Miogliola belongs to those languages where a very restricted number of segments are allowed in rhymal position. This has been expressed in the Coda PLACE Constraint in (74). This constraint can be maintained by adopting (77). By contrast, adopting (79), we should say that all PLACE-specified consonants are ill-formed codas, with the exception of [η]. To conclude, at least under the assumption that [Coronal] is the universal default feature, (79) must be rejected. Let us see now whether (79) can be maintained under the assumption that [Dorsal] is instead the universal default feature, or whether (77) fits better under the same assumption.

5.6. [Dorsal] as the default feature?

As universally unmarked feature, [Dorsal] can be, but does not have to be, underlyingly unspecified. The exclusion of the other dorsals /k, g/ from coda position can easily be accounted for by resorting to sonority.

5. The nasal [η]

91

This must be done even under the assumption that [Coronal] is the default feature, given that /t/ and /d/ are ill-formed as codas (see (75)). Given that dorsals other than the nasal are only represented by stops, sonority straightforwardly accounts for their absence in codas. Under the assumption that [Dorsal] is the unmarked feature, and that (79) is the correct structure, other problems arise, though. [Dorsal] can be both specified and underspecified, underlyingly, this by virtue of being the unmarked feature. The need of contrasting the two nasals forces specification of [Dorsal] on one of the two nasals. Since I am considering (79), the alternating coronal-velar nasal is the one specified for [Dorsal]. We have now to account for the surface facts. Following the basic assumption of Rice (1996)'s Default Variability Hypothesis (21), the unmarked feature can, but need not be, redundantly filled in by a phonological rule. When the default feature is not filled in, then the phonetic component interprets in some way the surfacing placeless structure. This gives the possibility that an underlyingly placeless segment displays surface alternation between two places of articulation, one filled in by the phonology as a default, one coming from the phonetic component when the phonology fails to insert the default feature. The underlying-tosurface route in (79) can now be seen as follows. The universal feature [Dorsal] is never inserted in (79a). The phonetic component of the language interprets a placeless segment as coronal. In (79b), the universal feature is present underlyingly. However, to account for the surface coronal-velar alternation we have to say that the feature is delinked in onset position, where the derived placeless nasal is interpreted as coronal by the phonetic component of the language. Problematic is the fact that this analysis gets the cross-linguistic facts completely reversed: the phonological component of the language specifies codas, whereas it leaves onsets unspecified, or even unspecifies them by delinking existent structure. To sum up, the representations in (79), where the non-alternating [n] is underlyingly placeless and the alternating [η/η] is underlyingly specified as [Dorsal], have been shown to be highly problematic in accounting for the facts, under both the assumptions that [Coronal] and [Dorsal] are the default place of articulation feature. Therefore, (77) is adopted and (79) rejected. The coronal-velar alternating nasal is underlyingly placeless, the non-alternating coronal nasal is underlyingly coronal.

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Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola consonants

Let us now consider the possibility, under (77), that [Dorsal], and not [Coronal], is the universally unmarked feature. Under this assumption, the presence of [Coronal] in (77a) is straightforward, given that [Coronal] is not the unmarked feature. By the same token, the absence of [Dorsal] in (77b) is expected, given that [Dorsal] is the universally unmarked feature. The surface patterns of the non-alternating coronal are not a problem, under this assumption. By contrast, the coronalvelar alternation must be derived, still following the basic principle of Rice (1996)'s DVH (21), by a mechanism of phonetic interpretation that comes into play when the default feature is not inserted. Again, in order to derive the correct facts, we have to assume that either the default feature [Dorsal] is inserted, or insertion fails and the placeless segment is then interpreted as coronal. But again, the results would be quite odd, aiming at PLACE-specifying codas, and at leaving onsets PLACE unspecified. This problem does not arise if [Coronal] is assumed to be the unmarked feature. The Extended Node Activation Condition (58) triggers the underlying presence of [Coronal] in the underlying representation of one of the two surface [n]s, while the other is left unspecified. The unspecified nasal undergoes [Coronal]-Insertion in onset position, whereas in coda position the default-feature insertion fails, and the placeless segment is interpreted as velar by the phonetic component. To sum up, the DVH accounts for why the placeless /N/ can surface in word-final position in non-catalectic forms, a property which is not shared by the other placeless consonants. Unlike the ghost consonants, the placeless nasal undergoes [Coronal]-Insertion only as an onset. As a coda, it surfaces as placeless and it is interpreted as a velar by the phonetic component of the language. The placeless /N/ is the only placeless segment that can surface as placeless. As a result, the constraint prohibiting PLACE-specification in final codas, which forces the ghost consonants to drop, has no effect at all on [η], the placeless surface variant of /N/. The prosodic determination of the coronal-velar alternation in Miogliola is reminiscent of the coronal-velar alternation of the MidiFrench placeless nasal (Rice 1996). Unlike Midi-French, however, the Miogliola phonological inventory is characterized by the presence of an underlyingly specified coronal as well. This nasal does not display surface variability. One more contrast is available in Miogliola, due to the exploi-

5. The nasal [η]

93

tation of the Extended Node Activation Condition. Moreover, as the Miogliola facts clearly suggest, and consistent with Rice's assumption, [Coronal], not [Dorsal], must be viewed as the universally unmarked feature. Assuming a DVH with [Dorsal] as the universal default feature creates insurmountable problems in Miogliola.

5.7. A full specification approach to Miogliola nasals One more question needs to be addressed at this point. I have considered the possibility that both the non-alternating coronal nasal and the alternating coronal-velar nasal are underlyingly placeless. Each of the possibilities has then been examined assuming either [Coronal] or [Dorsal] as the universal unmarked feature. Based on this, I have concluded that the most natural account of the facts requires that the alternating nasal be underlyingly unspecified, and that the universal default feature be [Coronal]. However, I have not considered an account that does NOT resort to underspecification. I do this next. The possibility that all segments are underlyingly specified has been suggested recently in much work in Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993). Under this assumption, all surface coronals have [Coronal] in their underlying representation and no structural differences exist between the different places of articulation. The representations of the Miogliola nasals under this assumption are illustrated in (80). For the sake of simplicity, I ignore the palatal nasal. (80)

a.

[m]

b.

[n]

c.

[n/rj]

/ml

/η/

/η/

[Labial]

[Coronal]

[Dorsal]

[Coronal] remains the least marked feature (Kiparsky 1994; Prince and Smolensky 1993). Markedness, however, does not follow from structure, given that all places of articulation are structurally identical. Rather, markedness is a property of nodes themselves. The markedness scales in (81) all state that [Coronal] is the least marked of the articulator nodes.

94

(81)

Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola

consonants

Markedness scale a. [Coronal] < [Labial] & [Dorsal] b. [Coronal] < [Labial] < [Dorsal] c. [Coronal] < [Dorsal] < [Labial]

or or

Consider now the Miogliola facts. Given (81), we would expect coronals to occur first in codas, a restricting position in Miogliola. But Miogliola only allows [η] in codas. This is not predicted by (81). Three alternatives are given. ALTERNATIVE 1: One possible way of overcoming the problem is to change the markedness scale. At the bottom of the scale in (82) is now [Dorsal], followed by [Coronal], followed by [Labial]. (82)

[Dorsal] < [Coronal] < [Labial]

The markedness scale in (82) predicts that in restricting positions [Dorsal] should be found first. This is exactly how Miogliola behaves. Consider now the fact that [rj] is never found in onset position. This can be achieved resorting to a constraint that filters out [η] from onsets. The constraint is formalized in (83). (83)

Miogliola onset constraint

*o I [Dorsal] Once /η/ is in underlying prevocalic position and is syllabified as an onset, the surface constraint in (83) comes into play delinking /rj/. At this point, the next nasal on the markedness scale is inserted, namely /n/. This alternative has [Dorsal] as the least marked feature. Given that [Coronal] has been proposed to be the least marked feature as well, then the assumption must be made that markedness scales are languageparticular. The alternatives that follow attempt to preserve [Coronal] as the least marked feature. ALTERNATIVE 2: Another possible way of accounting for the facts is to maintain one of the versions in (81), namely (81c), repeated here as (84).

5. The nasal [η]

(84)

95

[Coronal] < [Dorsal] < [Labial]

Together with (84) we also need a constraint that blocks the occurrence of the least marked place of articulation, i.e. coronal, in coda position. The coda constraint is given in (85). (85)

Miogliola coda constraint *C [Coronal]

The constraint in (85) filters out the least marked place of articulation from the coda, where the next nasal on the markedness scale gets inserted, namely /r)/. Notice moreover that under this assumption we still need the constraint in (83) for onsets. Once /η/ is filtered out by the surface constraint, the least marked nasal is inserted, namely [n]. ALTERNATIVE 3: Finally, a third possibility is suggested by Hamilton (1993,1995) in a vast study of Australian Aboriginal languages. Hamilton proposes a markedness scale which works in a reversed way for codas and onsets. Essentially, the best candidates for coda positions are predictable on the basis of the markedness scale: [Apical] < [Laminal] < [Dorsal] < [Labial]. Onsets, however, work the other way around. One can say that the markedness scale is reversed for onsets, or, alternatively, that onsets require marked segments. In Miogliola, the scale [Coronal] < [Labial] < [Dorsal] could nicely account for the onset facts. Admitting that onsets have markedness thresholds, the exclusion of [Dorsal] would follow from markedness facts. The inverse reading of the same scale makes right predictions. What we expect first is what we actually get: [Dorsal]. A comment on the three alternatives is now in order. All of the alternatives seem to be quite stipulative and difficult to justify. They may account for the facts, but very little appears to follow from some sort of general principle. Consider alternative 1. Given that there are languages where [Coronal] behaves as unmarked, this alternative implies loss of universality. Moreover, the onset constraint filtering out [η] is subject to the following criticisms (as pointed out for alternative 2 as well): (a) it is codas,

96

Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola

consonants

not onsets, that are reported to have restrictions on places of articulation; (b) restrictions are reported on the most marked, not on the least marked segments. Consider now alternative 2. The facts are accounted for by resorting to the [Coronal] < [Dorsal] < [Labial] markedness scale, to a constraint that filters out [Coronal] from codas, and to one that rules out [Dorsal] from onsets. Notice that both constraints are quite problematic within this alternative. There is general consensus that codas are a restricting position, and that restrictions are always on the more, not on the less marked segments. The exclusion of [Coronal] from codas is therefore quite surprising, as is the fact that [Dorsal] is excluded from onsets. Notice that this latter filter can have no markedness basis. Under this alternative, [Dorsal] is neither the most nor the least marked place of articulation. Hence, its exclusion is even more stipulative than the exclusion of [Coronal] from codas. Finally let us look at alternative 3. We still need the constraint ruling out [η] from onsets. This constraint would rule out the most marked place of articulation under this alternative. This makes the status of this constraint better under alternative 3 than under alternative 2, where [Dorsal] was neither the most nor the least marked place. However, this constraint is still problematic in a number of ways. Onsets, as I have already said, are not reported to have restrictions on place of articulation. It is quite often the case that the specific segment [η] is ruled out from this prosodic position, but this cannot be considered a constraint on place of articulation, given that other dorsals are allowed in the same prosodic position. And Miogliola behaves exactly like this, allowing [k] and [g], but disallowing [η]. Evidently, we are not dealing with a restriction on place of articulation in onsets. The alternative proposed here is one that allows for underspecified, in this particular case PLACE-unspecified, segments. All the rest falls out with no stipulation. [Coronal] is the only universally unmarked feature. As such it is only specified when reasons of contrast force it to be present underlyingly. According to my analysis, the nasal which must be posited to be underlyingly dorsal in any full specification approach is simply placeless. This explains straightforwardly a number of phenomena. As a placeless segment, it is the least marked, and, given the occurrence restrictions in Miogliola codas, it is the first nasal to be predicted to appear in this position. Indeed, this is so. Moreover, the

5. The nasal [η]

97

lack of PLACE structure in the default coda-nasal straightforwardly accounts for its capability of undergoing regressive place assimilation. Assimilation is acquisition of place features by a segment that lacks such features. In a full-specification approach, the assimilatory process must be stipulated and expressed by a feature changing rule, it does not follow from the underlying structure. Beyond PLACE assimilation, the placeless nasal /N/ undergoes a prosodically determined place alternation as well. According to the DVH, defended here, placeless segments can surface as coronal, after undergoing [Coronal]-Insertion, or as velar, failing to insert the default feature and being interpreted in the phonetic component of the language. In Miogliola, /N/ surfaces as a PLACE-unspecified velar in coda position and as a PLACE-specified coronal in onsets. All of the languages with prosodically determined coronal-velar alternation reported in the work of Rice (1996) behave in the same way. The same is observed in Ghini (1995) about Genovese, where onsets are said to need PLACE-specification. Why is PLACE-specification needed in onsets? Onsets release into the following vowel, where consonantal place is recognizable through the vowel formant structure. By contrast, codas usually do not have a release and can allow segments to surface as placeless. The cross-linguistic preference for less place distinctions in codas does not come as a surprise, given the articulatorily and perceptually greater degree of difficulty for consonants in preconsonantal position. To summarize, underspecification appears to allow for a more straightforward analysis of the Miogliola facts, both considered in themselves and within the cross-linguistic picture. Full specification requires markedness scales and constraints which are highly stipulative, not universal, and at best vaguely interrelated to each other. Even relaxing the universality issue and admitting that markedness relations are language-particular does not make the full specification approach any better. There is nothing theoretically wrong admitting a parametric approach as to what the markedness relations are. However, the question raised by Rice (1996) remains: why should it be that languages only choose either [Coronal] or [Dorsal], never [Labial], as the unmarked feature? The obvious answer to me is: because languages do not choose, at least in this particular issue. Overall, underspecification allows us to maintain universal markedness relations and gives a more coherent

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consonants

picture of the various assimilation and alternation phenomena observed in Miogliola and cross-linguistically. Finally, underspecification allows us to capture a generalization about Miogliola that full specification is unable to capture: in Miogliola, it is placeless consonants that can appear in coda and stem-final position. This natural class is only expressable in a theory of underspecification. Full specification has no way to characterize the ghost consonants. What do /t, d, 1, c/ have in common with /rj/ under full specification? Nothing. Moreover, why is it that /t, d, 1, r/ behave as ghost consonants, but other coronals do not? Again, no answer is evident. Full specification is rejected as theoretically weak, incapable of capturing generalizations, and empirically inadequate.

6. Miogliola consonant inventory At this point the phonemic consonant inventory has been established. In (86), the phonemic chart organizes the consonants according to place, manner, and voice. Phonemic consonant inventory

Ρ t ts tf b d dz 45 [Continuant] [Sonorant] [Nasal] [Lateral]

f (S) s V ζ m Ν η 1 f r

[Dorsal]

[High]

[Posterior]

[Coronal] [Labial]

(86)

k g [Voice]

J [Voice]

3 η A

6. Miogliola consonant inventory

99

In (87), I show the feature matrix of the Miogliola consonants as resulting from the discussion in this chapter, briefly overviewed below. (87)

Consonant feature matrix ρ t k b d g ts tf dzcfe f s J ν ζ 3 m n j i N 1 A r r

Consonantal Sonorant Nasal Lateral Voice Strident Coronal Posterior Labial Dorsal High Continuant The overall picture in (87) is the result of the implementation of the Continuous Dichotomy Hypothesis (15) as in (88). (88)

Miogliola feature ranking [Son] > [Nas] & [Lat] > Place of articulation > [Cor], [Post], [Lab], [Dor]

[Cons] >

Stricture [High], [Cont]

[Voice] & [Str] > Consonants are marked by the feature [Consonantal], which distinguishes them from the vowels. Among the consonants, the subset of sonorants is marked by the feature [Sonorant]. Among the sonorants, nasals are

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Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola consonants

marked [Nasal], laterals by [Lateral], rhotics are left unmarked, not carrying any feature specifying them as such. At this point the ARTICULATOR node gets specified and the two nasals /m, n/ are distinguished from /N, ji/: [Labial] specifies /m/, [Coronal] /η/, /N, ji/ remain unspecified. The two nasals which have remained unspecified for the ARTICULATOR node are then distinguished by the TONGUE HEIGHT node: /JI/ is marked [High], INI remains unspecified. The two rhotics are distinguished by the ARTICULATOR node as well: Irl is marked [Coronal], /r/ is unspecified. By contrast, the two laterals are distinguished by TONGUE HEIGHT-specification on I Al, which is marked [High]. Among the obstruents, [Voice] is marked in the representation of voiced obstruents, [Strident] in the representation of strident consonants. Further distinctions are now achieved by the ARTICULATOR features. Labials are marked [Labial], and dorsals [Dorsal]. [Coronal], as the unmarked feature, can be underlyingly absent and is so, unless reasons of contrast require its presence. Among stridents, there is a distinction between anterior and posterior coronals. Due to the Node Activation Condition, the presence of [Coronal] is therefore required on all stridents, triggered by the activation of the feature [Posterior], a [Coronal]-dependent. Among non-strident coronals, there is no distinction between anterior and posterior, therefore no feature [Coronal] is present underlyingly. Notice that without the feature [Strident] there would be no way to decide whether the anterior stridents or the anterior non-stridents enter into a contrast with the posteriors. Therefore the feature [Coronal] could be activated for either the stridents or the non-stridents, or both classes. Any procedure would be arbitrary. By contrast, the presence of [Strident] forces the activation of the feature [Coronal] among the stridents, correctly distinguishing them from the consonants It, d, 1, r, ΝI which, as placeless consonants, can be found in underlying word-final position. Finally, continuancy distinctions are achieved by activating the feature [Continuant] on continuant consonants which are not uniquely distinguished yet.

6.1. Rhotics as the unspecified sonorants: Pignasco In the feature matrix in (87), rhotics are the unmarked sonorants. To my knowledge, it is generally accepted that laterals have the

6. Miogliola consonant inventory

101

feature [Lateral] in their underlying representation and are treated as marked segments among the sonorants. For rhotics, though, views and approaches are quite heterogeneous. Rice and Avery (1991), for example, defend a model where nasals are the unmarked sonorants. In their view, the feature [Nasal] is absent underlyingly, a sonorant being by default nasal, unless otherwise specified. Miogliola does not provide any evidence that either nasals or rhotics should be treated as unmarked among the sonorants. Other Ligurian dialects, though, provide evidence that rhotics, not nasals, should be considered as unmarked. Pignasco, for example, the dialect spoken in the West Ligurian village of Pigna (Merlo 1938), displays an interesting historical pattern of neutralization, which I am going to illustrate next. Like Miogliola, Pignasco has two rhotics which contrast intervocalically. The phonetics of one of the two rhotics, transcribed as [r] by Merlo (1938), is identical to Miogliola /r/, whereas the phonetics of the other rhotic, transcribed as [r], is slightly different from Miogliola /f/, being articulated further back in the oral cavity and being described as a weak palatal sound by Merlo. Historically, Miogliola and Pignasco /r/ come from Vulgar Latin (VL) /rr/, Miogliola /r/ and Pignasco /?/ from VL intervocalic /r/ and /l/, the latter due to a pan-Ligurian rhoticization of III. Some examples are given in (89). For the sake of comparison, the Italian corresponding forms are given, which display the original Latin liquids.

Pignasco (Merlo 1938)

Miogliola

Italian

skatu[r]a tfega[r]a Ju[r]ie u[r]a

Jkatu[r]a tsj6:[r]a Ju[r]i u:[r]a

scato[l]a cica[l]a fio[r]ire o[r]a

'box' 'cicada' 'to flower' 'bloom'

ka[r]u ku[r]e bu[r]aj3e ge[r]a

ko:[r]M ku:[r]M bu[r]6:3M gwae:[r]a

ca[rr]o co [rr] ere bo[rr]ana gue[rr]a

'cart, wagon' 'to run' 'borage' 'war'

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of the Miogliola

consonants

The examples in (89) show that what was a quantity opposition has developed into a quality opposition in both Miogliola and Pignasco. In Miogliola, the same has happened for VL /nn/ and /n/, too. The geminate coronal nasal has degeminated resulting in the non-alternating coronal nasal, whereas the simple coronal nasal has developed into the alternating, underlyingly placeless nasal. In Miogliola, the generalization seems to be that once a general process of degemination applied, contrasts in the coronal space of articulation which were realized through length were able to be maintained as quality contrasts thanks to the "flexibility" of the unmarked feature [Coronal] to be either present or absent underlyingly. The tables in (90) show the development of the VL /n/-/nn/ and /r/—/rr/ contrasts in Miogliola. (90)

a. Vulgar Latin quantity contrasts η

nn

PLACE

PLACE

rr PLACE

PLACE

b. Miogliola quality contrasts Ν

η

r

PLACE

PLACE

PLACE

[Coronal]

PLACE

[Coronal]

Unlike Miogliola, Pignasco did not maintain the original contrasts. The historical four-way opposition was reduced to a three-way opposition in Pignasco, which now contrasts two rhotics, but does not contrast a coronal and a placeless nasal. It is interesting to observe how the neutralization process came about: it is not the VL contrast /nn/-/n/ that was lost, but rather the VL contrast /r,l/-/n/. This is illustrated in (91), where [r]1 from VL /r/, [r]2 from VL /l/, and [r]3 from VL /n/ are shown.

6. Miogliola consonant inventory

(91)

103

Pignasco /n/-/r/(/l/) historical neutralization Miogliola

Pignasco 3

me[r] estra ma[r]3aa ta[r]3a la[r]3a se[r]3a bo[r]3a fa[r]'ijia sku[r]2ar kafna[f]2edza bar)ka[f]'ar me[r]2a pa[r]2a

m[n]2ejtra ma[n]6 ta:[n]a la:[n]a tse:[n]a bo:[n]a ί3[ρ]έ:η3 Jku[r]e kana[r]edza bai)ka[r]e m£j / m®j[r]E p5:[r]a

'soup' 'hit with a hand' 'den' 'wool' 'dinner' 'good-FEM' 'flour' 'to drain' 'esophagus' 'carpenter' 'apple'/'apples' 'shovel'

In Pignasco the loss of the original /n/-/r/ contrast favours the rhotic over the nasal. Under the assumption that activation of features generates new contrasts, and that deactivation of features results in loss of contrasts, the Pignasco data are expected if rhotics, and not nasals, are the unmarked sonorants. The loss of the feature [Nasal] results in a (92) Deactivation of [Nasal] and loss of a contrast in Pignasco ν

r PLACE

ν

r PLACE

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Chapter 2. An overview of the Miogliola consonants

representation that corresponds to the representation of /r/ in the consonantal feature matrix in (87). If nasals were unmarked, we would expect the neutralization process in Pignasco to result in a nasal sound. The process of neutralization in Pignasco is illustrated in (92). Needless to say, the rhoticization process that led to the merger of /r/ and III in Ligurian can be seen in a parallel way: the deactivation of the feature [Lateral], which resulted in a rhotic, NOT in a nasal, sound. I show this in (93), where R stands for Miogliola /f/, Pignasco Irl, and, more generally, any of the phonetic implementations of the rhotic sound in Ligurian resulting from VL intervocalic III and Irl. (93) Ligurian rhoticization: the deactivation of [Lateral]

7. Summary of the chapter In this chapter, I have established the consonantal inventory of Miogliola Ligurian. The phonemic status of most surface consonants has been shown to be quite transparent, with no need for any particularly close examination. The only exceptions in this regard were the glides [j] and [w], and the velar nasal [rj]. The glides have been shown not to be phonemes of the language, but rather positional variants of the corresponding high vowels. The apparent vowel-glide contrast attested in word-final

7. Summary of the chapter

105

position has been analysed as resulting from the presence of catalexis. Word-final glides are not actually word-final. They are followed by a catalectic mora, that is, an underlying mora with no melodic content. After examining the glides, I have turned to the placeless consonants /t, d, 1, r/, which provide further evidence for catalexis. These consonants display an interesting "contrastive" behaviour in stem-final position: if they maintain their final status through the derivational stages, they can either surface or get elided with no apparent conditioning factors. Because of this singular behaviour, I have labelled them ghost consonants, and I have argued that catalexis can account for their behaviour. The unpredictable disappearance of the ghost consonants in final position has been argued to be due to the unpredictable presence of an underlying catalectic mora to the right of the apparently final consonants. When the placeless consonants are protected by the presence of a final catalectic mora, they do not drop. By contrast, if the placeless consonants do not have a catalectic mora to their right, they drop. The elision of the final placeless consonants is due, I have claimed, to a general constraint on PLACEspecification in word-final position. Underlyingly, a placeless consonant can be word-final. However, when the universal default feature [Coronal] is inserted, the placeless consonants are no longer placeless and, unless they have lost their final position, they become ill-formed and drop. The rule inserting the feature [Coronal] applies at the end of derivational morphology. This results in word-final placeless consonants being rescued by the presence of a derivational morpheme, but not being rescued by the presence of (just) an inflectional one. The account provided for the ghost consonants as well as implicational universale have led me to assume the presence of a final catalectic mora in all other words ending in a (PLACE-specified) consonant, and to the conclusion that in Miogliola all surface consonant-final words have a catalectic mora, whereas underlying consonant-final words surface as vowel-final. After examining the ghost consonants, I turned to the nasal [g], and showed, on morphological grounds, that this nasal has to be traced back to an underlyingly placeless nasal /N/ which displays a prosodically determined place alternation: [rj] in coda position, [n] in onset position. Further place variability is determined by an optional rule that assimilates the nasal /N/ to the place of articulation of a following stop. The nasal /N/ must be distinguished from the nasal /n/, underlyingly speci-

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consonants

fied as [Coronal]. This nasal does not display any surface alternation, consistently being realized as [n] in onsets and in codas, and does not undergo any kind of place assimilation. As a placeless segment, /N/ patterns with the ghost consonants in being able to appear in stem-final position in non-catalectic forms. However, unlike the ghost consonants, this placeless phoneme does not drop in word-final position. This is due, I have claimed, to the fact that the placeless nasal can surface from the phonological component of the language as both specified and unspecified for PLACE. In onset position, it undergoes the default fill-in rule inserting [Coronal] on unspecified segments. In coda position, the fill-in rule fails and the segment surfaces as placeless, being interpreted as velar by the phonetic component of the language. Finally, the surface coronal-velar alternation of /N/has been shown to provide another clue to catalexis. A number of word-final [rj/n] contrasts must be analysed as [rj/nM], namely as a contrast between presence versus absence of catalexis. Morphological evidence has been provided that indeed final [ημ] can be traced back to both /nM/and /Νμ/. Phonological evidence will be provided in Chapter 4. In conclusion, I have provided a phonemic chart and a feature matrix of Miogliola consonants. The process of feature specification developed in the whole chapter has been guided by the general principles illustrated in Chapter 1 and developed in this chapter as well: (a) the view that activation and deactivation of features creates and neutralizes contrasts, respectively; (b) underspecification, i.e. the view that all redundant and predictable information is absent in the underlying representations and is acquired in the course of the derivation; (c) the Node Activation Condition and the Extended Node Activation Condition, determining the presence in underlying representations of the otherwise absent feature [Coronal]; (d) the Organizing Node Principle, determining the presence of an organizing node, whether specified or unspecified, as opposed to its absence; and, finally (e) a particular implementation of the Continuous Dichotomy Hypothesis, where, crucially, place of articulation features have been assigned before stricture features, i.e. height and continuancy features.

Chapter 3 Consonantal prosody and metrical structure

In this chapter I deal with two prosodic asymmetries exhibited by Miogliola consonants. The first asymmetry concerns the lengthening effect that only a subset of consonants have on the preceding stressed vowel. The second asymmetry has to do with the failure of any such lengthening in antepenultimate position. These asymmetries motivate the exploration of the Miogliola metrical system, which constitutes the core of this chapter. After examining the entire metrical picture, I compare the results of my inquiry with general assumptions and views on Romance metrics and stress systems which are contradicted by my analysis.

1. Lengthening and non-lengthening consonants In Miogliola, a subset of consonants have a lengthening effect on the preceding stressed vowel. Miogliola stress falls on one of the last three syllables, a common phenomenon in the metrical systems of natural languages. The lengthening effect of such consonants occurs independently of whether the syllable is open or closed, but it systematically fails in antepenultimate position. I refer to these consonants as "lengthening consonants". By contrast, the consonants that do not trigger vowel lengthening are referred to as "non-lengthening consonants". The prosodic split between lengthening and non-lengthening consonants is outlined in (94). In what follows I illustrate the lengthening effect of lengthening consonants on preceding stressed vowels (95). The prosodic split is illustrated here by resorting exclusively to penultimate stress.

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Chapter 2. Consonantal prosody and metrical

structure

Miogliola lengthening and non-lengthening consonants lengthening consonants, otherwise non-lengthening)

Ρ b [Continuant] [Sonorant] [Nasal]

t

m Ν

η

1 f

[Dorsal] k

tf

d dz Φ

f (S) s V ζ

[Lateral]

(95)

ts

[High]

[Labial]

[Posterior]

[Coronal]

g [Voice]

J [Voice]

3 Ji Λ

r

Lengthening consonants after stressed penults Irl M

ko:r dy:rM dy:ra t&jra tihrba foira ty:rkM

'dear' 'hard' 'hard-FEM' 'web' 'wine sediment' 'tale' 'Turkish'

Irl —> [r] (see note 6) t£:rna 'triplet' kumaeirtji 'trades' mo:rtsM 'rotten' M su:rd 'deaf' M irjvse:rn 'winter' M y:rl 'yell'

b. Irl koir" 3bo:ra bitiir41 tse:ra f«:n tsae:rM gwaeira

'cart, wagon' 'bar' 'butter' 'earth, soil' 'tools' 'maple' 'war'

1. Lengthening and non-lengthening consonants

/g/ latyrga diiga mo:gM a tfeigM toiga ryiga fi:gM fatiiga sy:gM

d. /3/ 'lettuce' 'dyke' 'magician' Ί bend' 'type of clothing' 'wrinkle' 'fig tree' 'trouble' 'pasta sauce'

/v/ η0:ν

μ

e:va u briiva ko:vM luivM ρΓε:νμ dzu:vM vi:vM Jtiiva

109

'new' 'water' 'he threatens' 'cable' 'wolf' 'priest' 'yoke' 'alive' 'stove'

ad0:3i

bro:3M pre: 31

'slowly' 'friend' 'water spring 'voice' 'grey' 'light' 'moustache' 'charcoal' 'price'

f. /z/ nervu:zM r^iza giiza avi:zM Jpuiza diviiza kr^iza fyiza feiza byizja muruiza

'nervous' 'rose' 'cast iron' 'notice' 'bride' 'uniform' 'alley' 'melted-FEM' 'meat cut' 'shit' 'girlfriend'

M

ami:3 dy:3M

vu:3m M

griJ3 iyi3M

barbi:3i

In (96), I show the failure of vowel lengthening in penultimate position before non-lengthening consonants. (96)

Failure of lengthening of stressed penults before non-lengthening consonants sypa rutM υ laeka tybM vedx41 Jpytsa kiltfa

'soup' 'broken' 'he licks' 'pipe, tube' 'glass' 'stink' 'dog's house'

küfa 'a whole lot' rusM 'red' pajta 'pasta' omM 'man' tun" 'tuna' tijia 'cheap person' arjsja 'anxiety'

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Chapter 2. Consonantal prosody and metrical structure

rydza kucfca

'rust' 'pair'

pila

'pile'

In final position, the prosodic split between lengthening and non-lengthening consonants is obscured. As we know, Miogliola words can only end in one of the five placeless consonants /t, d, Ν, 1, r/. Of these consonants, only /N/ surfaces as [rj], whereas the others drop (Final Consonant Deletion (65)). The elision of the non-lengthening consonants triggers compensatory lengthening, thus obscuring the prosodic split between lengthening Id and non-lengthening It, d, 1/. Moreover, things in final position are further complicated by the rule of Final Vowel Shortening (53). Hence, for the time being, I ignore final stress, and lengthening versus non-lengthening consonants in final position. I will return to this issue once the prosodic structure of Miogliola has become clear. Recall that the vowel lengthening process fails in antepenultimate position. I show this in (97), where stressed antepenults are short before the lengthening consonants. (97)

Failure of lengthening in stressed antepenults before lengthening consonants nivura agavi my3ika fi3ika kanga moganu υ merita fi3ikM

'cloud' 'agave' 'music' 'physics' 'load' 'mahogany' 'he deserves' 'physicist'

ljevif meritM ty3ikM yrtimM kdngM a mentM a navigM

'yeast' 'merit' 'consumptive' 'last' 'load' Ί deserve' Ί am at sea'

The mismatches illustrated above, that is, the prosodic split between lengthening and non-lengthening consonants and the failure of lengthening in antepenultimate position, are crucial clues to determine the metrical structure of Miogliola. For ease of exposition, I first assume that stress, which falls on one of the last three syllables, is lexical and that prosodic structure is built around it. After doing this, I show how

2. On building metrical structure around stress

111

stress can be derived by rule. In this account, prosodic structure precedes stress, which is then built onto prosodic structure.

2. On building metrical structure around stress My basic claim is that the vowel lengthening process in stressed penults, whether open or closed, before lengthening consonants has the purpose of making the stressed penult heavy. A related claim is that stressed penults are ALWAYS heavy. When no vowel lengthening applies, namely before a non-lengthening consonant, Weight by Position achieves the required weight on stressed penults, which therefore always end up being closed, either by an exclusively rhymal or by an ambisyllabic consonant. The prosodic split, then, is actually between consonants that can be moraic following Weight by Position, and consonants that are not. The requirement that a stressed penult is always heavy is not a syllable weight requirement. If this were so, stressed antepenults would also lengthen before lengthening consonants. The failure of vowel lengthening in antepenultimate position suggests that only penults must be heavy, antepenults need not. Consequently, I claim that no ambisyllabicity occurs after stressed antepenults. It is the bimoraic requirement imposed by a moraic trochee and the extrametricality of final nonbranching rhymes that are responsible for the penultimate-antepenultimate mismatch. The weak mora of the moraic trochee having the penult as a head can only be provided by the penult itself. Therefore, penults must always be bimoraic. The weak mora of the trochee, when the antepenult is the head, can be provided by the penult. Therefore, stressed antepenults need not be bimoraic. I proceed now stepwise in illustrating the metrical structure of Miogliola.

2.1. Obligatorily

heavy stressed penults (1): vowel

lengthening

I start examining the prosodic mismatches in Miogliola by considering vowel lengthening in penultimate position. I claim that the vowel lengthening process in stressed penults is the consequence of a weight requirement which forces penults to be heavy.

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Chapter 2. Consonantal prosody and metrical structure

Phonological weight is a function of the number of moras projected by syllable constituency. Light syllables are monomoraic, heavy syllables are bimoraic. The vowel lengthening process makes a stressed penult bimoraic. I show this in (98) for the word Ιύινι 'wolves', where a stressed penult is followed by a lengthening consonant ([+1]). (98) Vowel lengthening in stressed open penults a. Syllabification σ

/

/I

/ι

σ

b. Vowel lengthening σ

A

A /μμ

h

I1 Vύ

!\

1 ύ ν ι [+1]

[+1]

The weight-adding process illustrated in (98), namely vowel lengthening, also applies when a lengthening consonant closes the syllable, as shown in (99) for the word vseirdza 'savoy cabbage'. (99) Vowel lengthening in stressed closed penults a. Syllabification σ A /μ /Ι dz a

[+1]

b. Vowel lengthening σ

σ

A /I /m /μ / v \ /I ν χ r dz a

[+1]

Vowel lengthening in (99) cannot be understood as a consequence of all closed syllables being light. The lengthening in closed syllables only occurs if the coda consonant is a lengthening one.7 Given the requirement that all stressed penults be heavy, the coda consonant must be moraic when no vowel lengthening takes place. The moraicity of coda

2. On building metrical structure around stress

113

consonants is known as Weight by Position (Hayes 1989). This is shown in (100) for the w o r d p i f t a 'track'. (100)

Weight by Position σ

σ

Ρ ι

As is the case in other languages, in Miogliola, too, only a subset of consonants become moraic when syllabified in a coda. In Miogliola, lengthening consonants do not contribute any weight to the rhyme they belong to, as shown in (99). Weight by Position must therefore make explicit reference to non-lengthening consonants. Its formulation is in (101). (101)

Weight by Position (preliminary) Rhymal non-lengthening consonants are moraic

2.2. Obligatorily

heavy stressed penults (2):

ambisyllabicity

If indeed the vowel lengthening process in (98) is due to a weight requirement imposed on penultimate syllables, it is reasonable to think that all stressed penults are somehow made heavy, due to the same principle. The question arises how the weight requirement is met when no vowel lengthening applies in stressed open penults, that is, before non-lengthening onset consonants. Given Weight by Position, my claim is that stressed open penults, when no vowel lengthening is available, are made heavy via ambisyllabicity. That is to say, the first of the onset consonants in the final syllable is syllabified as the coda of the preceding stressed syllable as well. In this position, due to Weight by Position, the consonant becomes moraic, and the stressed penult becomes heavy.

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Chapter 2. Consonantal prosody and metrical structure

Ambisyllabicity is shown in (102) for the word feeta 'slice'. (102)

Weight by Position via ambisyllabicity a. Syllabification

f ώ t a [-1]

b. Ambisyllabicity

f ae t a Η]

In sum, stressed penults in Miogliola are always heavy. This is achieved by either vowel lengthening or by Weight by Position. Weight by Position is achieved in two ways. In closed syllables, Miogliola allows only a subset of consonants, the non-lengthening ones, to undergo Weight by Position in the coda. In open syllables, a non-lengthening consonant following a stressed penult becomes ambisyllabic and as the coda of the penultimate syllable, due to Weight by Position, it becomes moraic. By contrast, a lengthening consonant following a stressed penult, closed or open, never becomes moraic. In this case vowel lengthening applies.

2.3. The well-formedness of light stressed antepenults

As mentioned before, if the bimoraic requirement on stressed penults were a syllable weight requirement, all stressed syllables would be heavy, not just penults. Stressed light antepenults, unlike stressed light penults, are perfectly well-formed. This can be seen when lengthening consonants follow stressed antepenults, but there is no vowel lengthening, as shown in (103). Recall that when no vowel lenghtening applies in penultimate position, the bimoraic requirement is imposed on stressed penults through Weight by Position. Consonantal moras resulting from Weight by Position are provided by both exclusively rhymal consonants and

2. On building metrical structure around stress

(103)

115

Stressed light antepenults (no vowel lengthening) a. Syllabification

b. *Vowel lengthening

μμ/μ 1/

/μ

m y 3 ι k a

[+1] ambisyllabic consonants. Coda consonants cannot be syllabified otherwise and, due to Weight by Position, project a mora in whichever syllable they belong to, not just in penults. This is shown in (104) for the words pifta 'track', and nsefpura 'medlar'. (104)

Weight by Position in penults and antepenults

p i j t a

n a e j p u r a [-1]

Ambisyllabic segments, however, are syllabified as such with the specific purpose of getting the required weight in stressed penults. Given the lack of a coda consonant, the following onset becomes ambisyllabic and the stressed penult becomes heavy. The bimoraic requirement, however, only holds for stressed penults, not for stressed antepenults, as vowel lengthening shows. Therefore, I claim that no ambisyllabicity is available after stressed antepenults. The syllable structure for a word like bifura 'piggy bank', where the stressed antepenult is followed by an intervocalic non-lengthening consonant, is as in (105a), NOT as in (105b). (Compare (102).)

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Stressed light antepenults (no ambisyllabicity) a.

σ

σ

b ί

σ

b.

υ r a [-1]

*

σ

b ί

σ

σ

υ r a R]

In (105), since the consonant following the stressed vowel is already syllabified as an onset, and since the preceding stressed vowel is in antepenultimate position, there is no need for the consonant to close this syllable and become moraic. As will be seen in Chapter 4, it is indeed the case that ambisyllabicity is never allowed after a stressed antepenult. I claim that neither vowel lengthening nor ambisyllabicity are available in antepenultimate position NOT because of syllable constraints, but due to other metrical considerations. More on this below.

2.4. The building of a moraic trochee

The fact that vowel lengthening and ambisyllabicity are available in stressed penults, but not in stressed antepenults, and the fact that only a stressed penult needs to be heavy, are due to the bimoraic requirement being necessary for penults, but not for antepenults. I claim that the bimoraic requirement holds not at the syllable level, but at the prosodic level above the syllable, namely the foot. In particular, I claim that Miogliola stressed syllables are the heads of moraic trochees (i.e. weight sensitive even trochees), whose template is shown in (106). Assuming that stressed syllables are heads of a moraic trochee and that final non-branching rhymes are extrametrical accounts for the obligatory heaviness of all and just the stressed penults. The prosodic mismatch between stressed penults and antepenults is now re-examined in the light of the claim just made.

2. On building metrical structure around stress

(106)

117

The moraic foot (s=strong branch; w=weak branch)

Σ r \

μ

μ

s

w

2.5. Stressed penults as heads of a moraic trochee Consider first the case of a stressed penult followed by a lengthening consonant in the onset of the following syllable. This is shown in (107). The final non-branching rhyme is in angled parentheses to indicate that it is extrametrical.

(107)

Moraic trochee: vowel lengthening in penultimate position a. Syllabification

b. Footing Σ

1

ύ

[+1] In (107a), penultimate [u] is the head of the foot and is followed by a lengthening consonant ([+1]) in the onset of the final syllable. Note that

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structure

as a syllable the light stressed penult in (107a) is well-formed. Therefore, at the syllable level, no weight-adding phonological process is necessary, nor does it take place. To build a well-formed moraic trochee, though, a second mora is necessary. Due to extrametricality of the final rhyme, the word-final mora is not available for this purpose. Given that neither the final vowel nor the following lengthening consonant can provide the additional mora for the construction of the moraic trochee, vowel lengthening applies. Notice that the structure in (107) provides no evidence that the extrametrical constituent should be the rhyme. Either mora extrametricality or syllable extrametricality would do as well. Consider now the case of a stressed penult followed by an intervocalic non-lengthening consonant ([-1]) in (108). (108)

Moraic trochee: ambisyllabicity in penultimate position a. Syllabification

b. Footing Σ

σ / R / ι

/f Ϊs In (108), the stressed syllable is light and, as such, well-formed. No weight-adding processes occur until footing applies. When foot structure is assigned, a second mora is needed to construct the moraic trochee. Due to extrametricality of the final rhyme, the last mora is not available for this purpose. Unlike (107), though, the stressed penult is now followed by a non-lengthening consonant. To obtain a bimoraic foot, this consonant projects a mora by becoming the coda of the preceding stressed penult by ambisyllabicity. Thus, Weight by Position

2. On building metrical structure around stress

119

provides the second mora necessary for the construction of the moraic trochee. Notice that it is footing, not syllabification, that assigns the intervocalic non-lengthening consonant to the coda of the penultimate syllable. This is because the bimoraic requirement is imposed by the foot, not by the syllable. Ambisyllabicity, then, is related to footing, not to syllabification, in Miogliola. Consider now the case of a stressed penult closed by either a lengthening (109i) or a non-lengthening (109ii) consonant, respectively. (109)

Moraic trochee: footing of closed penults i. vaeirdza a. Syllabification

ii. pifta a. Syllabification

Ρ ι

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Chapter 2. Consonantal prosody and metrical structure

In (a) syllabification applies, creating a bimoraic stressed syllable in (ii), but not in (i). When footing applies, the stressed syllable in (ii) satisfies the bimoraic minimum imposed by the moraic trochee, but the stressed syllable in (i) does not. Hence, the weak mora in (ii) is provided by syllabification, whereas the weak mora in (i) is created by footing itself.

2.6. Final stress and the rhyme as a constituent Note also that in (108) the extrametrical constituent cannot be the final syllable. If the syllable were the extrametrical constituent, the onset of the final (extrametrical) syllable should be extrametrical as well. That is, the onset of the last syllable could not be available for footing. This is not the case. Footing makes the onset of the last syllable ambisyllabic, thus meeting the bimoraic requirement via Weight by Position. Therefore, the extrametrical constituent at the right edge of the Miogliola words cannot be the syllable. The structures in (110) show that the right edge extrametrical constituent cannot be the mora either (kapotj 'capon'). (110)

Moraic trochee: final branching rhymes Σ σ R

R

μ

κ μ μ

k a ρ ό η

σ

σ R R

I μ

Κ μ μ

k a ρ ό ο

In (110), a word with final stress is syllabified and footed. Words ending in [η], as in (110), are the only words where final stress falls on a closed syllable. Syllabification makes the final syllable in (110) bimoraic via Weight by Position. If the last mora were extrametrical,

2. On building metrical structure around stress

121

footing would lengthen the stressed vowel, in order to meet the bimoraic requirement. However, no vowel lengthening applies in (110), clearly suggesting that the whole rhyme is footed. Therefore, the final mora cannot be the extrametrical constituent. We have seen that neither the syllable nor the mora can be the right edge extrametrical constituent in Miogliola. Syllable extrametricality would make the whole syllable extrametrical, including the onset which footing needs. Mora extrametricality would make the last mora extrametrical. However, the last mora is always footed in stressed closed final syllables. To capture the extrametricality facts in (107) and (108) on one side, and in (110) on the other side, reference to the branchingness of the final rhyme is necessary. Only non-branching rhymes, as in (107) and (108), are extrametrical and never footed. By contrast, branching rhymes, as in (110), are not extrametrical and are available for footing. Consider now, with respect to extrametricality, the structures in (111), where final stress suggests that no extrametricality is at play, but the surface forms katsy (i) and kape (ii) look exceptional, due to their final light stressed syllables. In (111a), syllabification applies. Because of the prosodic split, the final syllable is monomoraic in (i) (compare (109i.a)), bimoraic in (ii) (compare (109ii.a)), in spite of the fact that both final syllables are closed. (Ill)

Moraic trochee: footing of final closed syllables i. katsyr

ii. kapel

a. Syllabification

a. Syllabification

σ

σ

σ

σ

R

R

R

R

μ

κ μ μ

μ k a ts y r

[+1]

k a p e l Η]

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Chapter 2. Consonantal prosody and metrical structure

b. Final Consonant Deletion (65)

R μ

b. Final Consonant Deletion (65) and Final Vowel Shortening (53)

R

R

R

μ

I μ

Κ μ μ

k a ts y c. Footing

k a ρ e c. Footing

Σ

Σ

R

R

R

I μ

Ν μ μ

μ

k a ts y

R κ μ μ

k a ρ e

Therefore, in (ii) the stressed syllable becomes bimoraic at the syllable level, in (i) it does not. In (11 lb), at the end of derivational morphology, Final Consonant Deletion (65) applies, and, in conjunction with Final Vowel Shortening (53), it leaves a catalectic mora in (ii), but not in (i), whose final syllable is now open and still monomoraic. When footing applies to construct a moraic trochee around the stressed final syllable, (ii) provides a well-formed structure for the purposes of footing, but (i) does not. In the latter case, then, the catalectic weak mora is created by footing, as in (109i.b), whereas in the former case footing does nothing, because the weak mora is already available via syllabification, as in (109ii.a). Notice that I have assumed that Final Vowel Shortening applies before footing, but this is not crucial. Both rules apply at the word level: (a) an inflectional morpheme prevents the shortening of the vowel lengthened by the deletion of a moraic consonant (see 52); (b) by

2. On building metrical structure around stress

123

default, the whole word is footed. Whichever order is adopted, in (ii) footing finds a stressed bimoraic final syllable: in one case the weak mora is catalectic before footing, in the other it becomes catalectic after footing. By contrast, footing finds a monomoraic stressed syllable in (i), where the weak mora is provided by footing itself. To conclude, words like katsy and kape are only apparent exceptions to extrametricality: Final Vowel Shortening (53) is responsible for this impression. The generalization can be maintained that in Miogliola final light rhymes are extrametrical, final heavy rhymes are not.

2.7. Stressed antepenults as heads of a moraic trochee Extrametricality has no bearing on antepenultimate stressed syllables. If the stressed antepenult is heavy, it can form a foot by itself; if it is light, then the weak branch of the foot is provided by the penultimate non-extrametrical syllable, where the vocalic mora is always available. In this configuration, a well-formed bisyllabic bimoraic trochee can be constructed without resorting to any weight-adding process. Therefore, footing does not induce any vowel lengthening in stressed antepenultimate position before lengthening consonants. Syllabification and footing for the word my^ika 'music' and mdrtiri 'martyrs' are shown in (112) and (113), respectively. (112)

Moraic trochee (no vowel lengthening in open antepenults) a. Syllabification

b. Footing

Σ σ

σ

σ

m y 3

1

k a

[+1]

σ

σ

σ

m y 3 ι k a [+1]

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Chapter 2. Consonantal prosody and metrical structure

Moraic trochee (no vowel lengthening in closed light antepenults) a. Syllabification

In a parallel way, footing does not induce ambisyllabicity of a nonlengthening onset consonant following a stressed antepenultimate syllable. Syllabification and footing for the word ssetima 'seventh-FEM' are shown in (114). (114)

Moraic trochee (no ambisyllabicity in stressed antepenults) a. Syllabification

s a e t i m a [-1]

s a e t i m a [-1]

2. On building metrical structure around stress

125

Notice that for now the lack of ambisyllabicity in (114) is a working hypothesis: given the absence of vowel lengthening in antepenultimate position, one can assume that ambisyllabicity is not at play either. This is because vowel lengthening and ambisyllabicity have the same goal in penultimate position; therefore, if one of them is lacking in antepenultimate position, the other should not be present either. In Chapter 4 I will provide evidence that, indeed, ambisyllabicity is not available in antepenultimate position. To sum up, I have presented an analysis for why stressed vowels in Miogliola are lengthened in the very specific case when they are followed by a subset of consonants in penultimate position, and not in antepenultimate position. I have claimed that stressed vowels are the head of a moraic trochee, and that final light rhymes are extrametrical. The second mora necessary for the construction of the moraic trochee is always available when the stressed vowel is in the antepenult. However, when the stressed vowel is in the penult, then the penultimate syllable itself must provide the second mora, due to extrametricality of the final light rhyme. The second mora is either vocalic or consonantal, depending on whether the stressed vowel is followed by a lengthening or by a non-lengthening consonant. Non-lengthening consonants are susceptible to Weight by Position and project a mora once syllabified in the coda. With no exception they are assigned to a coda: (a) either by syllabification or (b) by footing. In this latter case an ambisyllabic segment arises. By contrast, lengthening consonants are not susceptible to Weight by Position. In this case the bimoraicity requirement imposed by the moraic trochee is met via vowel lengthening, depending on whether the syllable is open or closed. The consonantal prosodic split is obscured in final position, due to the rule of Final Consonant Deletion (65), but the generalization can be maintained that in final syllables the weak mora of the moraic foot arises at the syllable level when a non-lengthening (ghost) consonant is at play, whereas it is generated by footing itself when a lengthening (ghost) consonant is at play. Needless to say, ambisyllabicity, by definition, plays no role in final position: final consonants can only be syllabified as codas. The metrical elements identified for Miogliola under the assumption of lexical stress are summarized in the table in (115).

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Miogliola metrical features (preliminary) moraic trochee 1. FOOT: consonant-final words and words ii. CATALEXIS: with a final stressed vowel have a final catalectic mora final light rhymes are extrametrical 111. EXTRAMETRICALITY: IV.

W E I G H T BY POSITION:

v.

FOOT REPAIRING:

rhymal non-lengthening consonants are moraic an ill-formed, i.e. monomoraic, foot is repaired by either (a) AMBISYLLABICITY of consonants which become moraic by Weight by Position, or (b) VOWEL L E N G T H E N I N G before consonants which do not become moraic by Weight by Position

Before concluding this section, I would like to highlight a couple of points. The metrical analysis of Miogliola has been led so far by the assumption that Miogliola stress is part of the lexical underlying representations, and that metrical structure is built around it. This view entails that for every single word a learner must learn by heart where stress is placed. This view, however, should be abandoned in light of the fact that stress in Miogliola is mostly predictable on phonological grounds. This observation justifies the following section, where I derive the placement of stress, that is, stress assignment by rule. In what follows, then, the relationship between stress and prosodic structure is reversed: metrical structure is no longer built around stress, rather it determines its placement. As will be shown, this will lead to some adjustments to (115).

3. On deriving stress In this section I deal with stress assignment. Miogliola stress is in most cases predictable, hence not to be represented in the underlying representation. I assume that feet are organized in an unbounded word tree

3. On deriving stress

127

which is either left- or right-headed. Once feet are organized in a word tree, one edge foot is made more prominent with respect to the other feet in the word by the right-left dominance of the word tree. Main stress, then, is the result of prominence relations within the word tree, and falls on the head syllable of the head foot, whereas secondary stresses fall on head syllables of non-head feet. In what follows, I assume that in Miogliola moraic trochees are assigned from right to left, and that at the word level prominence is assigned by the End Rule Right. Miogliola main stress, then, falls on the head syllable of the rightmost foot in the word. The assignment of stress by rules raises some interesting issues about extrametricality and Weight by Position. Under the assumption that stress is lexical, the difference between light and heavy closed syllables in penultimate position is somehow irrelevant: when footing applies, heavy closed penults satisfy the bimoraic minimum, light closed penults do not and footing derives the additional mora required. If stress is assigned by rule, i.e. if it follows the assignment of a moraic trochee, the picture is completely different, in that the resulting foot structure is expected to be different, depending on whether we are dealing with mono- or bimoraic syllables. What we expect, is that heavy syllables attract stress, light ones do not. Unfortunately, this is not the case. In Miogliola, ALL closed syllables, whether heavy (i.e. closed by a rhymal non-lengthening consonant) or light (closed by a rhymal lengthening consonant) attract stress. This suggests that the split between lengthening and non-lengthening consonants should be reinterpreted. Lengthening consonants should no longer be regarded as consonants that CANNOT become moraic, but rather as consonants that LOSE their moraicity. Weight by Position, then, makes every coda consonant moraic, that is, every closed syllable is heavy after syllabification. When footing applies, the assignment of a moraic trochee cannot skip any of the final or penultimate closed syllables, since they are ALL bimoraic. At the foot level, however, the lengthening consonants lose the moraicity they have acquired via syllabification. Mora loss is made up for by vowel lengthening. At the same time, given the ban on moraic lengthening consonants at the foot level, footing limits ambisyllabicity to non-lengthening consonants, whereas before lengthening consonants vowel lengthening

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Chapter 2. Consonantal prosody and metrical

structure

applies directly. I proceed now with a step-by-step presentation of stress assignment in Miogliola.

3.1. Stress

assignment

Under the assumption that lengthening consonants are segments that never become moraic, that is at no point in the derivation are they moraic, the rule assigning stress in Miogliola can be formulated as follows. (116)

Miogliola stress (first pass) Stress falls on the last syllable if it is closed,8 otherwise it falls on the penult if it is closed or has a long vowel, otherwise it falls UNPREDICTABLY on either the penult or the antepenult.

Two comments are in order. First of all, the expression "if it is closed or has a long vowel" cannot be substituted for by the expression "if it is heavy", at least at this point of the analysis of stress assignment. By virtue of the consonantal prosodic split outlined in the preceding section, Miogliola closed syllables can be heavy or light, depending on whether they are closed by a moraic or by a non-moraic coda consonant. The fact that all of the closed syllables attract stress, with the ordering stated in (116), points to a footing procedure which looks at rhymal structure, NOT at moraic structure. This is consistent with the extrametricality facts. The extrametrical constituent, under the hypothesis that stress is not available when metrical structure is assigned, should now be stated in terms of branchingness, not in terms of weight. Final branching rhymes attract stress, whether light or heavy. Therefore, NONBRANCHING rhymes, NOT LIGHT rhymes, are extrametrical (compare (111)). This observation, however, is in contradiction with the moraic trochee hypothesis. By definition, the moraic trochee looks at moraic content, being minimally and maximally bimoraic. Light closed syllables are therefore not expected to attract stress, contrary to facts. This contradiction can in principle be solved in two different ways: either footing is revised or the interpretation of the consonantal prosodic split is revised.

3. On deriving stress

129

The second comment concerns the unpredictability of stress in CV(C)CVCV words: in this case stress can fall on either the penult or the antepenult. This clearly points to lexical stress which, however, needs to be posited for only one of the two possible stress patterns, namely the one that does not follow from the metrical structure assignment which accounts for all of the other cases of predictable stress. I examine the two points which I have just made in what follows. From now on, for reasons of convenience, I flatten the arboreal representations to linear ones, showing metrical constituency by resorting to ( ) , [ ], and {} parentheses for syllable, foot, and word structure, respectively. For Miogliola, I assume right-to-left assignment of moraic trochees, and a right-headed word tree. Given the assignment of a moraic trochee, moraic structure, not rhymal structure, is relevant to the computation of metrical structure in general, including extrametricality. These assumptions straightforwardly account for stress assignment in (117i-vi). In (117i) the stem ends in a syllable closed by the placeless consonant /N/. The final syllable is heavy, therefore not extrametrical. The assignment of moraic trochees from right to left groups the final bimoraic syllable into a foot, whereas the next two monomoraic syllables form a second moraic trochee. The word tree is right-headed, thus the head of the final foot gets main stress. The example in (117ii) is parallel to the previous one. The only difference concerns the presence of a placeless ghost consonant in word-final position which gets deleted at the end of derivational morphology (65), i.e. before footing comes into play. The long vowel created by (65) is then shortened but the moraic structure of the final syllable is left unaffected (53). In (117iii-vi), all final syllables are light, therefore extrametrical. In (117iii-iv), the first syllable available for footing starting from the right is heavy, therefore it forms the rightmost moraic trochee within the word, thus bearing main stress. In (117v-vi), by contrast, the first syllable available for footing is light and cannot form a moraic trochee. Therefore it forms the weak branch of the moraic trochee whose head is the light antepenult in (117v); it remains unfooted in (117vi) where the antepenult forms a foot of its own because it is bimoraic.

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Chapter 2. Consonantal prosody and metrical structure

Stress assignment (1) i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi.

i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi.

i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi.

/makadaN/ —> mäkadäg /kapel/ —> kape /batiSta/ -> batijta /maroita/ —> maroita /maNiga/ —> mamga /NseSpura/ —> nsejpura Syllabification

Extrametricality

(ma)M(ka)M(daN)MM (ka) M (peir (ba) M (tiSr(ta) M (ma)M(ro:)M|J(ta)M (ma)M(Ni)tJ(ga)M (NasS)MM(pu)M(ra)M

(ba) M (tiSr(t) (ma)M(ro:)MM(t) (ma)M(Ni)M(g) (NaeSr(pu) M (r) 1

Footing

Word stress

[(ma)M(ka)M] [(daNMM)] (ka)[(pe^)] (ba)[(tiSMM)](t) (ma)[(roi)MM](t) [(ma)M(Ni)M](g) [(N£eS)MM](pu)M(r)

{[maka][darj]} (ka[pe]} {ba[tiS]ta} {ma[r0:]ta} {[mani]ga} {[NaeS]pura}

The assignment of a moraic trochee does not always make the right predictions concerning stress placement. I am going to examine now the two different ways in which the moraic trochee hypothesis makes the wrong prediction. 3.2. Lexical stress Consider first the stress pattern in (118). (118)

CV(C)CVCV karota 'carrot' arsyira 'drought'

(/karota/ or /karota/?) (/arsyra/ or /arsyra/?)

3. On deriving stress

131

In (118), moraic trochee assignment as in (117) would yield antepenultimate stress, as shown in (119). i. karota

(119) Syllabification Extrametricality Footing Word stress

(ka)M(ro)M(ta)M (ka)M(ro)M(t)M [(ka)M(ro)M](t),J *{[karo]ta}

ii. arsyira (af)M(sy)M(fa)M (ar)M(sy)M(r)fl [(ar)M(sy)M](r)M *{[arsy]ra}

Despite appearances, the stress pattern in (118) is really not a problem. As formulated in (116), CV(C)CVCV words can be stressed on either the penult or the antepenult, unpredictably. Given stress unpredictability in words of the CV(C)CVCV shape, one of the two attested stress patterns, either penultimate or antepenultimate, MUST be lexically marked. No stress algorithm can derive both. The examples in (118) must therefore be underlyingly specified for penultimate stress, whereas words of the same CV(C)CVCV shape which have antepenultimate stress need not be lexically marked for stress, because their stress pattern follows from footing, as shown in (117v-vi). 9

3.3. Mora keeping versus mora losing consonants Unfortunately, the same solution cannot be proposed for the other stress pattern that the assignment of a moraic trochee fails to predict, the one in (120). (120) CV(C)CVCiCV and

CV(C)CVCVCt

(C;=lengthening consonant)

i. /katsyr/ —> katsy ii. /kuvaerta/ —» kuv£:rta Assignment of a moraic trochee in (120) leads to the wrong results shown in (121).

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Chapter 2. Consonantal prosody and metrical

(121)

i. katsy Syllabification Extrametricality Footing Word stress

(ka/(tsyr) M (ka)M(ts)M [(ka)M](tsy)M *{[kd]tsy}

structure

ii. kuvseirta (ku^vjer^taf (ku)M(vaer)M(t)M [(^)μ(ν3ΒΓ)μ](1)μ * {[kuvaer ]ta}

The status of the stress pattern attested in (120) is different from the status of the stress pattern in (118). In (120), lexical stress should not come into play, given that the stress pattern is completely predictable: if the final syllable is closed (by either [rj] or a ghost consonant that drops) it is always stressed; if the final is open and the penult is closed, then the penult is always stressed. Unfortunately, as (121) shows, stress in (120) cannot be predicted in spite of its predictability. As anticipated, there are two possible ways of looking at the problem. Either a different type of foot is at play in the metrical structure of Miogliola, or the consonantal prosodic split works in a different way from the one assumed in the preceding section. Assuming a different foot leads us nowhere. That Miogliola has a trochaic foot is quite obvious, given the obligatory heaviness of stressed penults but not of stressed antepenults. An iambic foot would never explain this kind of asymmetry. That the strong branch of an iamb lengthens is not a surprise, but why should it lengthen only in penultimate position, but not in antepenultimate position? Extrametricality serves no purpose here, given that the weak branch of a putative iamb is on the left, not on the right. As for the other, more marked, trochaic feet available, none can account for stress in (120): neither the uneven trochee (Jacobs (1989)), with the weak branch obligatorily light, nor the Germanic foot (Dresher and Lahiri 1991), with the strong branch obligatorily heavy. Even a putative "rhymal" trochee would not do. Assuming a trochee constructed on rhymal structure, one could easily derive stress placement in (120), as well as in (117). But if this were the case, we would not expect any lengthening when a closed syllable is light, contrary to facts. The lengthening points to a bimoraic minimum, namely to a trochee which is sensitive to moraic structure. The only option which is left, then, is to keep the

3. On deriving stress

133

moraic trochee and revise the analysis of the consonantal prosodic split as discussed below. Suppose, as suggested by the fact that all closed syllables attract stress when final or in antepenultimate position, that indeed all of them are bimoraic. What I am suggesting is that at the syllable level all coda consonants undergo Weight by Position, thereby becoming moraic. Weight by Position (101) is therefore restated as in (122). (122)

Weight by Position Rhymal consonants are moraic

Given (122), footing proceeds now in a different way with respect to (121). The syllable closed by a lengthening consonant is now heavy, therefore it is not extrametrical in (123i), and it forms a moraic trochee by itself in both (123i) and (123ii). (123)

Syllabification M

Extrametricality

i. (ka) (tsyrr ii. (ku)M(vaef)MM(ta)M (ku)M(vaer)M,J(t)M

Footing (ka) M [(tsyr] (^)μ[(ν)μ

I must now address the issue of vowel lengthening before the lengthening consonants. I claim that the consonantal prosodic split between lengthening and non-lengthening consonants in Miogliola is NOT, as put forward in the preceding section, a split between consonants that CAN and consonants that CANNOT project moras, rather a split between consonants that KEEP and consonants that LOSE the mora acquired by Weight by Position at the syllable level. More specifically, I claim that the constraint in (124) holds in Miogliola. (124) No footed lengthening consonant can be moraic *Σ μ

[+i]

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Chapter 2. Consonantal prosody and metrical structure

Given the constraint in (124), the lengthening consonant in (123ii), as soon as it is footed, loses the mora it has acquired at the syllable level (via Weight by Position (122)), and Vowel Lengthening immediately repairs the otherwise ill-formed monomoraic foot. By contrast, the lengthening consonant in (123i) has already disappeared by the time footing applies (111). In this case, mora loss does not come into play. I show this in (125). (125)

Mora loss and foot repairing Footing

Constraint (124)

i. (kay[(tsyr] ii. (ku)M[(v«r)H(t)M

M

M

Word stress M

(ku) [(vab:r) ](t)

{ka[tsy]} {ku[v martin Syllabification (mar)MM(ti)M(ri)M

Extrametricality (mar)w(ti)p(r)M

Footing [(mar)MM](ti)M(f)M

What is interesting here is the fact that the stressed vowel in antepenultimate position does not lengthen. The question is why, given that at the foot level the lengthening consonant loses its mora, in accord with (124). Two solutions can be offered to this question. If the moraic trochee is maintained, it is necessary to say that refooting applies once footing has demorified the lengthening coda consonants. If this is so, then (126) proceeds as in (127).

3. On deriving stress

(127)

135

Mora loss and refooting Footing Constraint (124) [(mar )μμ] (ti)M(r )M

[(mar)M](ti)M(f)M

Refooting [(mar )M(ti)M] (r)M

Word stress {[mdfti]ri}

If one assumes, reasonably, that refooting only applies on the weak side of the foot, namely that once heads have been created they can no longer become non-heads, then refooting only applies when the head of the moraic trochee is the antepenult. When the head of the moraic trochee is either the penultimate or the final syllable, as in (125), refooting cannot apply because no mora is available to the right. Therefore, Vowel Lengthening is enforced. To avoid the refooting option leads us to assume an uneven trochee. This kind of trochee can have both light and heavy syllables as its head, whereas the weak branch is obligatorily light. The uneven trochee can account for the Miogliola stress facts in exactly the same way as the moraic trochee does. The derivation in (126), however, would proceed in a slightly different way, in that footing would give the desired foot structure straightaway, rendering refooting superfluous as a repair strategy. This is shown in (128). (128)

Footing and word stress under the uneven trochee Footing Constraint (24) Word stress (uneven trochee) [(mar)w(ti)M](f)M

[(mar)M(ti)M](r)M

{[marti]ri}

Given the general markedness assumptions, I keep the moraic trochee analysis and reject the uneven trochee analysis. One thing which must be highlighted is the following. The constraint in (124) leads to mora loss, NOT to mora delinking, in all cases of lengthening consonants which by syllabification have acquired a mora under Weight by Position. If delinking were at play, then vowel lengthening, due to compensatory lengthening, would always apply, no matter in what position. By contrast, the erasure of the mora clashing against

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Chapter 2. Consonantal prosody and metrical structure

(124) makes different predictions for stressed penults and for stressed antepenults, whether under the moraic trochee or under the uneven trochee hypothesis: only stressed penults have no other way of making up the required weight but Vowel Lengthening. This is exactly what happens. Mora Loss is formalized in (129). (129)

Mora Loss Σ -r [+i]

I proceed now with an overview of the metrical system in Miogliola.

3.4. Overview of the metrical system The stress rule in Miogliola can now be formulated as in (130): (130)

Miogliola Stress Stress falls on the last syllable if it is heavy, otherwise it falls on the penult if it is heavy, otherwise it falls UNPREDICTABLY on either the penult or the antepenult.

The tables in (131) and (132) outline the Miogliola metrics. (131)

Miogliola prosodic structure i. CATALEXIS: consonant-final words and words with a final stressed vowel have a final catalectic mora ii. EXTRAMETRICALITY: final light rhymes are extrametrical iii. WEIGHT BY POSITION: rhymal consonants are moraic iv. FOOT: leftward moraic trochee

3. On deriving stress

V.

CONSONANTAL PROSODIC SPLIT:

v i . FOOT REPAIRING:

v i i END RULE:

(132)

137

lengthening consonants (voiced fricatives and rhotics) cannot be moraic once footed REFOOTING, when Mora Loss (129) applies (because of (v)) in antepenultimate position, i.e. when no reheading is required right

Miogliola lexical stress i.

LEXICAL STRESS:

ii.

FOOT REPAIRING:

a subset of CV(C)CVCV words is lexically marked for penultimate stress an ill-formed, i.e. monomoraic, foot is repaired by either (a) AMBISYLLABICITY ΟΓ (b) VOWEL

when ambisyllabicity is purposeless (see (131v))

LENGTHENING,

In (133) I show the application of (131) and (132) in all of the relevant examples discussed in this chapter. (133a—i) are all examples of regular stress, which is assigned according to the metrical principles in (131). In (133a-b) the last rhyme is heavy, thus not extrametrical. Footing applies from right to left and forms a moraic trochee around the final heavy syllable. This foot gets main stress at the word level by the End Rule Right. In (133c-i) the final rhyme is light, therefore extrametrical. Note that in (133f-g) the extrametrical rhyme is constituted by a catalectic mora. In (133c-e) the penult, i.e. the first syllable available for footing, is always heavy, either because it is closed (133c-d), or because it contains an underlyingly long vowel (133e). In all of these cases footing creates a monosyllabic bimoraic foot around the heavy penult. This foot gets main stress at the word level by the End Rule Right. In (133f-i), the penult is always light, therefore it cannot form a foot by itself, unlike in (133c-e). In (133f-g), the antepenult is light as well. A bisyllabic moraic trochee is therefore constructed, which gets

138

Chapter 2. Consonantal prosody and metrical structure X!

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