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Studies in Systemic Phonology

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This Collection, composed of 19 reissued titles from The Athlone Press, Cassell and Frances Pinter, offers a distinguished selection of titles that showcase the breadth of linguistic study. The collection is available both in e-book and print versions. Titles in Linguistics are available in the following subsets: Linguistics: Communication in Artificial Intelligence Linguistics: Open Linguistics Linguistics: Language Studies

Other titles available in Linguistics: Open Linguistics include: Into the Mother Tongue: A Case Study in Early Language Development, Clare Painter The Intonation Systems of English, Paul Tench Ways of Saying: Ways of Meaning: Selected Papers of Ruqaiya Hasan, Ed. by Carmel Cloran, David Butt and Geoffrey Williams The Case for Lexicase: An Outline of Lexicase Grammatical Theory, Stanley Starosta Semiotics of Culture and Language Volume 1: Language as Social Semiotic, Ed. by Robin P. Fawcett, M. A. K. Halliday, Sydney M. Lamb and Adam Makkai Semiotics of Culture and Language Volume 2: Language and Other Semiotic Systems of Culture, Ed. by Robin P. Fawcett, M. A. K. Halliday, Sydney Lamb and Adam Makkai

Studies in Systemic Phonology Edited by Paul Tench

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www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in 1992 by Pinter Publishers Limited This edition published by Bloomsbury Academic 2015 © Paul Tench and Contributors 2015 Paul Tench has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editor of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4742-4670-5 ePDF: 978-1-4742-4666-8 Set: 978-1-4742-4731-3 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Series: Bloomsbury Academic Collections, ISSN 2051-0012

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Studies in Systemic Phonology

STUDIES IN SYSTEMIC PHONOLOGY Edited by PAUL TENCH

Pinter Publishers London and New York Distributed in the United States and Canada by St. Martin's Press

© Paul Tench and contributors, 1992 First published in Great Britain in 1992 by Pinter Publishers Limited 25 Floral Street, London WC2E 9DS, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distrubuted exclusively in the USA and Canada by St Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any other means without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Please direct all enquiries to the publishers. British library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0-86187-784-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Studies in systemic phonology/edited by Paul Tench, p. cm. - (Open linguistics series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-86187-784-5 1. Grammar, Comparative and general-Phonology. 2. Systemic grammar. 3. Prosodic analysis (Linguistics) I. Tench, Paul. II. Series. P217.3.S78 1992 414-dc20

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Contents

List of contributors Acknowledgements From Prosodic Analysis to Systemic Phonology Paul Tench

vii viii 1

Part I. Segments and syllables 1. Towards a systemic account of Gooniyandi segmental phonology William B. McGregor 2. English consonant clusters: a systemic approach David Young 3 Length in Telugu V. Prakasam 4 The pharyngealization system in Algerian Spoken Arabic Djafar Eddaikra and Paul Tench 5. Systems for open syllabics in North Welsh John Kelly 6. A systemic interpretation of Peking syllable finals M. A. K Halliday 7. Non-segmental phonology and variable rules: investigating variation in Singapore Mandarin nasal finals Graham Lock

19 44 70 77 87 98

122

Part II. Tones and tonality 8. An instrumental analysis of English nuclear tones David L. E. Watt 9. Tone and the status of information Paul Tench 10. Tone groups and reported speech in Swahili Joan Maw

135 161 175

Part III. Discourse and new directions 11. Monostratal phonology and speech synthesis John Coleman and John Local 12. Language as tranquilizer: a phonostylistic study of some Yoruba lullabies Niyi Oladeji

183

194

CONTENTS 13. Prosodic cohesion in a systemic perspective: Philip Larkin reading T o a d s Revisited' Martin Davies 14. Rhythm and social context: accent and juncture in the speech of professional radio announcers Theo van Leeuwen Index

206

231 263

List of contributors Dr. Paul Tench, Centre for Applied English Language Studies, University of Wales College of Cardiff, P. O. Box 94, Cardiff CF1 3XE, Wales Dr William McGregor, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Bond University, Gold Coast, Queensland 4229, Australia David Young, Centre for Applied English Language Studies, University of Wales College of Cardiff, P.O. Box 94, Cardiff CF1 3XE, Wales Dr. V. Prakasam, Central Institute of English & Foreign Languages, Hyderabad 500007, India Dr. Djafar Eddaikra, Departement d'Anglais, Institut des Langues Etrangeres, University of Blida, Blida, Algeria John Kelly, Department of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York, Heslington, York YOl 5DD, England Emeritus Professor M. A. K. Halliday, 5 Laing Avenue, Killara, New South Wales 2071, Australia Dr. Graham Lock, Department of English, City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong Dr. David Watt, Faculty of Education, The University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Canada Dr. Joan Maw, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, England John Coleman and Dr. John Local, Experimental Phonetics Laboratory, Department of Language and Linguistic Sciences, University of York, Heslington, York YOl 5DD, England Dr. Niyi Oladeji, Department of English Language, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Oyo State, Nigeria; Department of English and Modern Languages, Albany State College, Albany, Georgia 31705, USA Dr. Martin Davies, Department of English Studies, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, Scotland Dr. Theo van Leeuwen, School of English and Linguistics, Maquerie University, New South Wales 2106, Australia

Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge the initiatives taken by Dr Carol Mock and Dr Martin Davies in compiling a collection of studies in systemic phonology; I hope they will be pleased with the eventual outcome, even though it will no doubt have taken a different shape from that which they had envisaged. I gratefully acknowledge, too, the encouragement given me by Dr Robin Fawcett, the general editor of Pinter's Open Linguistics Series. I also gratefully acknowledge the tangible support provided by the Centre for Applied English Language Studies in the School of English Studies, Journalism and Philosophy at the University of Wales College of Cardiff.

From Prosodic Analysis to Systemic Phonology Paul Tench

01 Introduction: 'Sounds and Prosodies' (Firth, 1948) Systemic phonologists are the natural heirs of PROSODIC ANALYSIS. J. R. Firth had formulated an alternative descriptive apparatus to classical phoneme theory in Sounds and Prosodies to account for features of the phonic material that traditional phonemic analysis was neglecting. A brief review of the main characteristics of Firthian prosodic analysis will provide the necessary background to the understanding of a theory of phonology which displays the main tenets of systemic linguistics. In Sounds and Prosodies, Firth wished to promote the concept of syntagmatic features of pronunciation to the same prominence that phonemic linguists had accorded paradigmatic features. The prevailing priorities in the study of the phonemic analysis were to produce good transcriptional notation that reflected as accurately as possible the perceived inventory of phonemes for a given language. The motivation derived either from the demands of language teaching or from the desire to provide an alphabet for an unwritten language. SEGMENTATION, the cutting up of the continuous flow of speech into discrete segments, was a principal concern: the transcription was to be a linear display of independent symbols. CLASSIFICATION was another principal concern; it involved the assembly of a composite of phonetic features that distinguished one phoneme from another. This was the basis of phonemic contrasts and oppositions: if you replace / b / with / p / in bin in English you get a different word as well as a different pronunciation; / b / and / p / stand in opposition to each other in English and thus exhibit A PARADIGMATIC RELATIONSHIP. Firth drew attention to the view that there were other features of the phonic material that segmentation and paradigmatic relationships ignore. The choice between / b / and / p / in English affects the onset of voice in the following resonant in a stressed syllable; in other words, the / b / or / p / impinges on the production of a neighbour. Neither a broad transcription ( / p i n / ) nor a narrow transcription ([p h ln]) adequately demonstrates this, since the / symbol is identical; thus the syntagmatic relationship between the initial consonant and / i / is not displayed. Firth noted:

2

FROM PROSODIC ANALYSIS TO SYSTEMIC PHONOLOGY The interpenetration of consonants and vowels, the overlap of so-called segments, and of such layers as voice, nasalization and aspiration, in utterances, are commonplaces of phonetics. On the perception side, it is improbable that we listen to auditory fractions corresponding to uni-directional phonematic units in any linear sense. (Firth, 1948: 152)

To capture the features that spread themselves over more than one 'segment' or over a whole syllable etc, Firth employed the term PROSODY. He reported on such prosodies in the monosyllables of the Hunanese dialect of Chinese as 'tone, voice quality, and other properties of the sonants, and also yotization and labiovelarization, symbolized by y and w' which could not be considered as 'successive fractions or segments in any linear sense, or as distributed in separate measures of time' (op.cit: 136). However, prosodies could also be delimitative; Firth gave the example of the use of the glottal stop in German as a 'junction prosody'. 'Linking and separating are both phenomena of junction to be considered as prosodies' (op.cit: 143). Linking was illustrated by the so-called 'intrusive' and 'linking' / s of English. Another characteristic of Firth's strategy for phonological analysis was to acknowledge units, features and categories from grammar. This had been strictly taboo for the American structuralists of the time with the exception of Pike who likewise complained of an unnecessary 'compartmentalization' of linguistic methodologies. Firth felt no compunction in referring to words as a domain for prosodies. Junction prosodies were almost inevitably associated with words. Indeed, statements that linked phonological and grammatical units and categories were considered to possess greater explanatory power. Firth nevertheless clearly kept phonology and grammar distinct but recognized that language was a holistic activity and that congruence of 'levels' would meet with a certain degree of probability. A third characteristic of Firth's Prosodic Analysis was POLYSYSTEMICITY. He complained there is a 'tendency to use one magic phoneme principle within a monosystemic hypothesis. I am suggesting alternatives to such a "monophysite" doctrine' (op.cit.: 130). He went on eventually to claim: The time has come to try fresh hypotheses of a polysystemic character. The suggested approach will not make phonological problems appear easier or oversimplify them. It may make the highly complex patterns of language clearer both in descriptive and historical linguistics. The phonological structure of the sentence and the words which comprise it are to be expressed as a plurality of systems of interrelated phonematic and prosodic categories. Such systems and categories are not necessarily linear and certainly cannot bear direct relations to successive fractions or segments of the time-track of instances of speech. By their very nature they are abstractions from such timetrack items. Their order and interrelations are not chronological. (Firth, 1948: 151) As an example, Firth had noted in an earlier paper (Firth 1935; see Palmer, 1970: x-xi), the case of nasals in Marathi: there is a two-term opposition initially,

FROM PROSODIC ANALYSIS T O SYSTEMIC PHONOLOGY

3

a three-term opposition finally and a 'unique' homorganic nasal before medial consonants with eight realizations. Palmer quotes Firth's comment, T should not identify all these n sounds as linguistically and functionally the same unit' (Firth 35:51). Different vowel and consonant systems need to be established for different places in the syllable and word, ie a word-initial system for consonants etc, and for grammatically different structures. This, again, was taboo for the classical American structuralism of the time; their policy was to establish a general inventory of phonemes. But, again, Pike was an exception; he had postulated the need for 'co-existent' systems to account for differences in phonemic patterning for native words and loan words in a language. Firth acknowledges this in the first footnote in Sounds and Prosodies.

02 Prosodic analysis Firth's programme of phonological study laid the foundations for the construction of Prosodic Analysis, which was further elaborated and illustrated by an innovative set of studies centred upon the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Prosodic analysis has been most compacdy described by two of its foremost proponents, Robins (1957/70, 1989) and Palmer (1970). They both emphasize the significance of the SYNTAGMATIC DIMENSION in phonology, since it was ignored by the structuralists and later by the transformationalists. (Later transformationalists acknowledge its significance in intonation but not in lower units.) Robins roundly criticized Bloomfield in this connection: That phonemic analysis may let slip many phonologically relevant features is illustrated from the following observation by Leonard Bloomfield, Language, London, 1935 (p. 84): 'Practical phoneticians sometimes acquire great virtuosity in discriminating and reproducing all manner of strange sounds. In this, to be sure, there lies some danger for linguistic work. Having learned to discriminate many kinds of sounds, the phonetician may turn to some languages, new or familiar, and insist upon recording all the distinctions he has learned to discriminate, even when in this language they are non-distinctive and have no bearing whatever'. Distinctive in the context of phonemic analysis often means capable of differentiating one word from another (cf. Bloomfield, op. cit., pp. 77-8; Jones in TPS, 1944, pp. 127-32), the implication being that phonetic differences not serving such a purpose are functionally and phonologically irrelevant. This implication is unjustified. (Robins, 1970: 197) Robins went on to illustrate the use of the glottal stop in Sundanese as a syntagmatic marker of the junction of syllables, morphemes, words and clauses as well as a segment in certain loan words from Arabic. It could not be considered on a par with the set of phonemes established by phonemic theory, but its significance in pronunciation was such that a failure to use it properly could lead to misunderstanding and would certainly indicate a foreign accent. Firth's insistence on doing justice to syntagmatic features also led to the study of PARAMETRIC phonetics. Abercrombie (1965) wished to draw attention to the

4

FROM PROSODIC ANALYSIS TO SYSTEMIC PHONOLOGY

activity (and occasional non-activity) of the physiological parameters of speech production; a parameter was a Variable', an 'ingredient' which is continually present but changing in value. The parameters to which Abercrombie drew attention were: In the respiratory system In the phonatory system

In the articulatory system

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (h) (i) (j)

The syllable-pulse process the pulse-reinforcing, or stress process phonation-type control on/off switching of voicing voice-pitch variation velic valve-action tongue-body movements tongue-tip movements lip movements jaw movements Abercrombie (1965: 123-4)

All parameters are engaged to some degree at any point in the production of speech, and it is possible to trace, and display, the types and degrees of engagement in 'sequence diagrams' (Pike 1947: 10). Such diagrams and descriptions appeared in Brosnahan and Malmberg (1970: 69-73), Laver (1970), O'Connor (1973: 63-5) and more fully in Tench (1978). Parametric phonetics was an expression of the desire to capture the syntagmatics of the speechproducing organs parallel to Firth's prosodic analysis; however, it was orientated towards phonetic description of 'co-articulation' and lacked the commitment to functional significance. It proved to be the phonetic dimension to 'prosodic phonology'; it certainly highlighted the syntagmatic nature of the very material that phonology is based upon. Parametric phonetics sought to provide a total description, whereas prosodic phonology abstracted the significant features. Although syntagmatic relationships were given prominence in Prosodic Analysis, it must not be thought that PARADIGMATIC RELATIONSHIPS were ignored; the latter were axiomatic for classical phoneme theory and did not need to be defined or promoted. Paradigmatic relationships underpinned the notions of choice and distinctive opposition at places in a structure. Thus, a number of sounds, phonemes or phonematic units, could appear contrastively as the opening consonant in a syllable, or as the vowel at the nucleus of a syllable or as the first consonant in a word-final consonant cluster etc.; degrees of stress and types of tone could be selected for syllables; different intonation tunes could be selected for longer pieces of the utterance. The paradigmatic relationship between items highlights what could have been chosen at a particular place. Choices were not limited to phonemes (or phonematic units) but extended to PROSODIES, too. Thus, an extensive feature like palatalization which is spread over part or the whole of a syllable or word, the y-prosody, may stand in opposition to labio-velarization (the w-prosody), or to neutral, that is neither palatalization nor labio-velarization. Or the glottal stop in a language may stand in opposition to its absence as a juncture prosody. Halliday (1967) demonstrated the paradigmatic principle in terms of intonational tones: one tone was selected

FROM PROSODIC ANALYSIS TO SYSTEMIC PHONOLOGY

5

for the unit of intonation; other choices operated in the pre-tonic segment and so on (see below, p. 10). Prosodic Analysis by no means ignored paradigmatic relationships, but emphasized that they must be complemented with references to the syntagmatic relationships. It was felt that undue emphasis on the former, particularly the necessity of segmentation, was artificial and actually misrepresented the phonology of the language. The balance that Prosodic Analysis sought has best been stated by Robins: The aim of prosodic analysis in phonology is not that of transcription or unilinear representation of languages, but rather a phonological analysis in terms which take account not only of paradigmatic relations and contrasts, but also of the equally important syntagmatic relations and functions which are operative in speech. These syntagmatic factors should be systematized and made explicit in phonology, no less than paradigmatic contrasts. (Robins, 1970: 191) Two more concepts in Prosodic Analysis can now be introduced. Syntagmatic relationships relate to STRUCTURES; paradigmatic to SYSTEMS. The structures acknowledged in Prosodic Analysis were the following: phonematic consonant and vowel units syllable part syllable word part word sentence part sentence Not each structure was relevant for each language, but each language uses a selection of them as the relevant domains for PHONOLOGICAL FEATURES. Thus palatalization might in one language be relevant to a syllable-part, in another to a syllable and in a third to a word. It is widely acknowledged that the vowel harmony systems in Turkish and Hungarian operate in the word structure (see, for example Robins, 1989: 156). The structures provide the places or the domains in which the phonological features operate. The choice of phonological features in a given structure represents the system in operation. For instance in the vowel harmony systems just referred to, the choices are between frontness and backness and between roundedness and unroundedness; these choices constitute the system. Robins (1989: 157) illustrates this with the Turkish word yollarimiz ('our ways'), phonemically /jollaruimuiz/: o— w CaCCaCiCiC o represents the rounded prosody and w the back prosody; C represents the

6

FROM PROSODIC ANALYSIS TO SYSTEMIC PHONOLOGY

consonant phonematic units, which would be further differentiated by other relevant prosodies (such as plosivity, dentality, voice etc), and a and i represent the phonematic vowel units constituting openness and closeness, respectively. The first a is not only relatively open, but rounded and back (= / o / ) ; the second a is not only relatively open but unrounded and back (= / a / ) . The o-prosody operates in the structure of the first syllable only, whereas the i^-prosody operates in the structure of the whole word. (The above example illustrates the difference between 'phonemes' and 'phonematic units': phonematic units are places of structure; phonemes are composites of all distinguishing features, for example / a / = open, back, unrounded vowels.) What the phonemic transcription does not display adequately is the back articulation throughout the word, nor the rounded of the whole of the first syllable including its initial and final consonants. A fifth concept associated with Prosodic Analysis is the POLYSYSTEMIC PRINCIPLE already discussed and illustrated by Firth's example of the Marathi nasals. An obvious similar example would be to acknowledge one system of oppositions as the initial single consonant of an English (RP) syllable, which would exclude / r j / and / 3 / , and another system of oppositions as the final single consonant (in English RP), which would exclude / h , r, j , w / - hence two consonantal systems. Similarly, two systems of consonant cluster could be established in initial position for English (RP) either before /ju:, JU9/ or before vowels (Tench, 1981; Young, this volume). Moreover, two separate vowel systems could be acknowledged in English as operating in either stressed or unstressed syllables. A different dimension to polysystemicity would be to describe the phonology of one grammatical class of words separately from another class. For example, in Terena, an Indian language of Brazil, Bendor-Samuel (1960) postulated a nasal prosody that operated in verbs and nouns that indicated first-person singular and a y prosody that indicated second-person singular but differently in verbs and nouns. He also showed how a pair of homophones, / ' y e n o / ('you [singular] walked', or 'his wife') were best treated as resulting from two separate systems that operated in the nouns and verbs. Other examples of grammatical polysystemicity are found in Palmer (1957) and (1970). A third dimension to polysystemicity would be to recognize separate phonological systems for loan words not fully assimilated into a language from the systems that operate in the native lexicon. Fries and Pike (1949) argued for such a treatment of Spanish loan words into the local Indian languages of Central America. Henderson (1951) distinguished between the 'primary' patterns that were felt by native speakers to be 'fully naturalized' and 'special' prosodic patterns for exclamations, onomatopoeia and loan words. One might account in this way for nasalized vowels of French loan words by certain speakers of English. The word-stress pattern of loan words into German - with a stress on the final syllable, for example Religion, Euro, Biologie, Musik - would be another case in point, since the pattern in the native lexicon is a stress on the initial syllable of the root. The INTERDEPENDENCE OF GRAMMAR AND PHONOLOGY is no longer the controversial issue that it was in 1948. The distinctiveness of the two levels of analysis and their interdependence have always featured in prosodic analysis;

FROM PROSODIC ANALYSIS TO SYSTEMIC PHONOLOGY

7

witness the titles of many of their studies: T h e phonology of the Nasalized Verbal Forms of Sundanese' (Robins 1953); T h e Tonal System of Tibetan and the Nominal Phrase' (Sprigg 1955); 'Some Aspects of the Phonology of the Nominal Forms of the Turkish Word' (Waterman 1956); Tonal Exponents of Pronominal Concord in Southern Vietnamese' (Henderson 1961); T h e Phonology of the Personal Forms of the Verb in Russian' (Albrow 1962) and 'Grammatical Categories and their Phonetic Exponents' (Palmer 1964). As Robins (1989: 159-62) has pointed out, Prosodic Analysis was, in fact, more in tune with assumptions in transformational-generative theory in this respect: that phonological analysis actually pre-supposes grammatical analysis (rather than any supposed opposite movement) and serves to link the product of phrase structure and transformation rules to speech. A seventh characteristic of Prosodic Analysis, however, did mark a significant difference of goals from generative phonology. Whereas the generativists sought to identify universal features, Prosodic Analysis deliberately became NONUNIVERSALIST. Again we turn to Robins for the clearest statement of this policy. He pointed out that similar phonetic features may be treated in different languages in different ways: 'phonetic features which in one language are treated as prosodic may not be so treated, or may be so with reference to different structures, in other languages' (Robins 1957/70: 194). It is the linguist's task to state the syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations relevant to a given language as 'completely, economically, and elegantly' as possible, but it is the language that 'decides'. For instance, vowel harmony is relevant to Turkish and Hungarian and indeed to many other languages (Carnochan, 1960) but not to present-day English. It is argued by Eddaikra and Tench (this volume) that whereas pharyngealization is a system that operates at one structure in Modern Standard Arabic, it operates at a somewhat different structure in Algerian Spoken Arabic. Syllable structures are different in English and Chinese; whereas English requires a structure of initial and final consonants with vowels as nucleus, Chinese requires a structure of initial and final elements only (Halliday, this volume). Examples could be multiplied of both structures and systems varying in form from one language to another. The only things that will be universal are the notions of structures and systems themselves; every language will have them, for it is in the nature of language that phonic material will be manifested in these two parameters. It might be argued that phonematic units are universal. However, Halliday, et al (1964) are prepared to dispute even that. (In their presentation of linguistic units, they preferred to identify such units as 'phonemes'.) The terms 'phoneme' and 'syllable' are likely to recur in the description of the phonology of every language. This does not, however, mean that these categories are 'universals'. 'Phoneme' means simply 'the smallest segmental unit in the phonology of any language'; but the status and role of this unit varies considerably from language to language. There is little in common between the 'phoneme' of Chinese, that of Japanese, that of Arabic, and that of English, except the property of being the smallest phonological unit. (Halliday et al 1964:68-9)

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FROM PROSODIC ANALYSIS T O SYSTEMIC PHONOLOGY

Firth had warned that the 'universalist fallacy' is constantly with us (1957/68: 191). What Firth had been interested in was a general linguistic theory applicable to particular linguistic descriptions, not a theory of universals for general linguistic description. In phonology, therefore, a linguist will need the notions of structure and system and may well need the notions of phonematic unit, syllable, etc, but the latter would have to be defined for each language. A final characteristic that can be identified as typical of the Prosodic Analysis approach to description is the need for a FULL AND APPROPRIATE ACCOUNTING of all phonic material. The emphasis was not on the production of transcription systems, nor of discovery procedures, nor on the kind of obsession with economy or simplicity that proposed the 'unity' of / h / and / r j / . As Palmer reminds as (1970: xv), Firth's emphasis was on theory and producing description that was full, coherent, integrated and elegant. 'A theory', he wrote, 'derives its usefulness and validity from the aggregate of experience to which it must continually refer in renewal of connection' (Firth 1951; see Bazell 1966: 168). A linguist should prefer the theory which covers the largest field of phenomena and which from several points of view appears clearest. He felt that phoneme theory in its classical form was inadequate: its goals and preoccupations were too narrow. Moreover, Robins noted that the theory must acknowledge to some degree native speaker intuition - not to be dominated by it but neither to be in 'violent disagreement' with it (Robins 1951/70: 193). He illustrated this point by reference to the system of palatalization in Russian; native speakers do not rely on the palatalization of the consonant alone but listen also for the quality of the adjacent vowel. The marking of palatalization in the consonant alone, as in phoneme theory, does not do justice, in this case, to the Russian speaker's intuition. In sum, Prosodic Analysis is a non-universalist approach to the description of the phonology of a language that highlights the syntagmatic as well as the paradigmatic dimensions of the phonic material, in terms of structures and systems and is prepared to recognize different systems appropriate to different components of the language and to reflect grammatical categories wherever necessary, in such a way as to conform as fully, appropriately and elegantly as possible to a general linguistic theory. Such as the heritage bequeathed to Systemic Phonology.

03 Systemic Phonology All that is true of Prosodic Analysis as the summary given above is true of Systemic Phonology, and more. The 'more' include two major characteristics of Systemic Linguistics. Robins noted that where any general theory of linguistic analysis has been established, the phonological component of the theory will embody the major characteristics of the theory as a whole (Robins 1989: 15960). The two major characteristics drawn from general Systemic Linguistic Theory are the concept of hierarchy and the development of system networks. We begin with Halliday's (1961: 248) definition of HIERARCHY: 'A hierarchy is taken to mean a system of terms related along a single dimension which must be

FROM PROSODIC ANALYSIS TO SYSTEMIC PHONOLOGY

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involving some form of logical precedence (such as inclusion)/ Hierarchy is the framework for relating different units of different sizes to each other. Thus the grammatical hierarchy for English involves units like morphemes, words, groups, clauses, and sentences relating to each other by inclusion. Each sentence is said to consist of one or more than one complete clause; each clause consists of one or more than one complete group; each group of one or more than one complete word and each word of one or more than one complete morpheme. The term RANK is used to refer to the hierarchical relation between the units. There are different classes of word, for instance, but they all belong to the same rank (see Halliday 1961, and Halliday, et al 1964: 25-7). Halliday's concept of hierarchy introduced a more formal framework for relating the different-sized structures or domains listed above (p. 5). Those structures were acknowledged in Prosodic Analysis as the domains relevant for different prosodies, but no attempt was made to organize them into constituent ranks of a hierarchy. Halliday did that. English is said to have four phonological units related to each other on a rank scale in the same way as the grammatical units are: TONE GROUPS consist of one or more than one foot, FEET of one or more than one syllable and SYLLABLES of one or more than one PHONEME (Halliday,** al 1964:45). Pike had postulated a similar phonological hierarchy (Pike 1955) which involved not only the 'logical precedence' of inclusion but also that of function. Thus, in addition to the 'consists-of relationship between units at one rank and those of the rank immediately below, there is also a 'functions-in' relationship upwards: each phoneme has a particular function in the syllable; each syllable has a particular function in the foot and each foot in the tone group. (Halliday acknowledged this dimension to the hierarchy in Halliday 1967: 12-15.) A second difference was that Pike's hierarchy extended upwards beyond intonation to include so-called 'emic breath groups' which comprise a sequence of intonation units. Fox (1973) and Tench (1976) also recognized such higherlevel units as did, later, Coulthard 8c Brazil (1979) and Brown (1977). This particular line of enquiry has not been fully exploited in Systemic Phonology, although Monaghan (1985: 375) touches on it; Tench (1990: 246-98) provides a fairly comprehensive discussion. Each language has its own set of phonological units; the four proposed by Halliday for English: tone group foot syllable phoneme are generally accepted - for example Berry (1975), Catford (1985) - although Tench (1976) and Hudson (1981) have both proposed three by amalgamating SYL1ABLE and FOOT. McGregor (this volume) proposes four for Gooniyandi: tone unit, word, syllable, and phoneme; Prakasam (this volume), proposes the following six for Telugu in addition to utterances: tone group, piece, foot, formative, syllable and segment. Although Prakasam has used the term

10

FROM PROSODIC ANALYSIS TO SYSTEMIC PHONOLOGY

SEGMENT, most systemicists are prepared to adopt the term PHONEME as the smallest, that is indivisible, unit of phonology. (In classical phoneme theory, the phoneme was often defined in realist terms; in Systemic Phonology, it is described in abstract terms in conformity to the status of units in the rest of the theory. As quoted from Halliday, et al (1964: 69) above, the status and role of the phoneme varies considerably from language to language.) The advantage of the systemic principle of hierarchy over the concept of domains in Prosodic Analysis is the more systematic nature of the relationships between phonological ranks. The structures in Prosodic Analysis were merely domains in which prosodies operated, but the structures themselves were neither integrated nor formally linked with each other. In Systemic Phonology, there are purposeful links and relationships established through the concepts of inclusion and function: for example tone groups 'consist of feet, and feet 'function' in tone groups etc. Furthermore, the ranks in the phonological hierarchy act as domains for the operation of prosodies, although it has to be admitted, as Halliday, et al. (1964: 47), that prosodies may also be associated with less easily definable segments, for example consonant clusters, which, of course, are only part of a syllable. Nevertheless, prosodies associated with only a part of a unit at a given rank are details of the description of that unit, and those details get displayed in SYSTEM NETWORKS, the second of the two notions that distinguish Systemic Phonology as a development from Prosodic Analysis. System networks are powerful ways of displaying choices in meaning. Systems reveal paradigms - what is available to the language user at a given point of structure, for example should he or she use a declarative clause or alternatively an interrogative or imperative or a moodless clause? If an interrogative clause is chosen, should he or she use a polar interrogative or non-polar, etc etc? In phonology the choices are not so much about meaning as about the actual nature of a given language. It is possible to present phonological choices that are meaningful, at the level of intonation, and this is what Halliday has produced (1967: Appendix 2); but most phonological choices are not meaningful, they simply reflect the form that the language takes at the level of spoken physical substance. Indeed, it may be inappropriate to refer to 'choices', particularly at the segmental level. The 'choice' between / p / and / b / is in itself not meaningful; it is a 'choice' involving the relevance of voicing a n d / o r muscular tension. (We are not considering here the possibility of onomatopoeia, in which there is a matching of sound and referent; onomatopoeia is marginal to a theory of phonology.) Such systems are well illustrated in Part 1 of this volume. As an introduction to the clarity and comprehensiveness of system networks in phonology, we could take the system network that appears as in Appendix 1 in Halliday (1967). The appendix presents a summary of the description of the tone system of British English that forms Part I of that volume. Halliday explains that every tone group must have a tonic segment in which the tonic foot and a tone is located. A tonic segment may or may not be preceded by a pretonic segment; whereas there is no 'choice' about the tonic segment, there is a 'choice' about the pretonic. The 'choice' or system is represented by a simple network:

FROM PROSODIC ANALYSIS TO SYSTEMIC PHONOLOGY

11

pretonic E without with pretonic However, there is a system in the tonic segment between either a simple tone or a compound tone; this system is also represented by a simple network: simple tone

C compound

tone

The pretonic system and the tonic system are simultaneous 'choices'; simultaneity is represented by curly brackets to the left of the systems, thus: r- without pretonic * L with pretonic simple tone compound tone

C

In Halliday's description there are five simple tones and two compound tones. These seven choices constitute the primary tone system. The five simple tones are: (1) fall; (2) high rise (with a high fall-rise variation); (3) low rise; (4) fall-rise and (5) rise-fall. The two compound tones are close sequences of 1 and 3, and of 5 and 3. The simple tone system and the compound tone system can thus be displayed as more 'delicate' systems of the tonic system: i— t o n e 1

simple tone

U tone 2 ->• I— tone 3 \— tone 4 *— tone 5

compound tone •

[

tone 13 tone 53

Furthermore, there are secondary tone distinctions in four of the five simple tones. Tone 1 may have wide fall (from high to low) or a low fall (from mid-low to low besides a neutral (or medium) fall. Thus, tone 1 has its own more delicate system, which can be displayed in the following network:

tone 1 - •

[— 1+wide \— 1 medium L- 1- low

Tone 2 also has a secondary distinction between a straight rise and a high fallrise; and tones 4 and 5 have low-pitched varieties. Tone 3 has no such secondary variation. The various tone systems can be displayed in the following network:

12

FROM PROSODIC ANALYSIS TO SYSTEMIC PHONOLOGY i- tone 1 -

U tone 2 L- tone 3 U tone 4 -

•- tone 5 -

1+ wide medium low

E!i

[ [ [

2 straight 2 high-fall-rise 4 fall-rise 4 low fall-rise 5 rise-fall 5 low fall-rise

The variations in tones 1 and 5 are available also to the compound tones; these variations could be displayed separately in identical networks as more delicate systems of the compound tone system:

i-tone 13-

L

1+3 r 1+:

Ul3 3 L 53 i-:

tone 53 1-53

As well as being uneconomical, this fails to make explicit that the variations for tones 13 and 53 are, in fact, the very same as for tones 1 and 5. This identity can be incorporated into the network by a tie joining up the tone 13 system with that of tone 1, and the 53 system with 5. i- tone 1

r- simple tone

L- compound tone

FROM PROSODIC ANALYSIS TO SYSTEMIC PHONOLOGY

13

There are also variations in the pretonic system that need displaying. In relation to tone 1, Halliday describes two alternatives to the normal 'even' or neutral form: a 'bouncing' pretonic, with feet beginning low and then rising, and a 'listing' pretonic, with feet beginning mid then rising. The 'bouncing' (-1) and the 'listing' (...1) form a system with the neutral, 'even', pretonic, but this system is only relevant to tone 1. In the network, this system needs to be shown as dependent on the prior selections of [with pretonic] and [tone 1]. This is shown by curly brackets to the right of the prior systems: with pretonic tone 1 —

EL

Pl-E j

Tone 2 has a pretonic system involving a 'choice' between neutral and low-level (-2); tone 3 has a similar 'choice'. The whole network can thus be assembled as follows: / without pretonic •c with pretonic

bo I voiceless «- sigmatized

P l a i n ") J stopN

rlateralized • labio-velarized L •lain pla

r voiced velar v- voiceless voicelej

-[

non-sig sigmatized

r plain

\r

L palatalized

L rhotacized Figure 2.11 C1 network for stops relevant to consider whether we are dealing with clusters of consonant segments or with consonantal items that are phonetically modified by 'features' or 'prosodies'. If it were acceptable to claim that the [r] in sprint was the same item as the [r] in run, the concept 'cluster' would clearly be more justified than if, as has been suggested above, no such identification can be made. In the latter case each of these syllables would consist of three elements, though in sprint both the first element, C1, and the last, C2, are units modified by features - the [p] is a [p] that is sigmatized and rhotacized (see Hill's terminology above) and the [t] is a [t] that is nasalized.

ENGLISH CONSONANT CLUSTERS Table 2.5 Realization rules Structure for C1: xCy feature (s)

action

stop

insert [t] at C

alveolar voiceless stop

insert [d] at C

alveolar voiced stop

insert [p] at C

bilabial voiceless stop

insert [b] at C

bilabial voiced stop

insert [k] at C

velar voiceless stop

insert [g] at C

velar voiced afFricated

insert m at y

voiceless afFricated

insert[zl at y

voiced labiovelarized

insert[w] at y

lateralized

insert m at y

palatalized

insert W a t y

rhotacized

insert [r] at y

sigmatized

insert tsl at x

67

68

DAVID YOUNG

The question is whether it matters which way we look at it. I would think that as far as the shape of the system networks goes, it makes no difference. The networks would be isomorphic, since whether we are choosing segments or features we have the same systems with the same numbers of terms in them. Where it does matter is in the question of how we decide to specify the output of the network. If we want to state the results in the form of a phonemic transcription a cluster model is appropriate, but if we want to provide an articulatory/acoustic substance the transcription stage hardly seems relevant; there would be no point in making concessions to readability or the alphabetic principle. In this chapter I have found it unavoidable to use a phonological transcription to discuss the phenomena and hence I have talked much of clusters even though the terms CENTRE and ACCRETION might be taken to imply a prosodic model. Any specification of realizations that might now be given in a context like the present would take the form of a phonological transcription. It is obvious from the way the networks have been written and explained above what the realization of most of the readings would be. For instance, if we build the selection expression t, Ffrom the C2 network, we are going to end up with a cluster [ft]. Of course there will be a certain amount of detail to make explicit; for instance N has to be realized variously according to the point of articulation of the following stop; and clusters such as [mpf] have to have an alternant [mf]. There is however a great deal of one-to-one equivalence between the symbols that represent the features in the systems and the symbols that represent their realizations. What has to be understood is the positions in the basic O-V-C 2 structure which are to be filled at each stage. A more feature-orientated approach to the subject would substitute phonetic feature terms for the symbols in the networks above. It would also be possible to reshape the network in a more radical way, though the amount of reshaping possible would be fairly limited. Figure 2.11 and Table 2.5 offer a different version of the C1 stop system, which is the area where this revision would seem to yield the greatest changes. In Figures 2.9, 2.10 and 2.11 the way the networks are drawn up is intended to show informally the fact that certain tendencies of patterning can be observed. On the whole, however, these do not lead to very powerful or interesting generalizations. For instance in initial clusters the right-accretion always includes at least one of the set of four liquids and glides [1], [r], (J], [w]; but apart from the very small sets of [p]: [b]: [f] and [d]: [9], each consonant has its own selection from the total set of right accretions, and the whole set is available only to [k] and [g]. Moreover [s] has other right-accretions as well as the liquids and glides. It does not seem legitimate to make generalizations which then have to be partly retracted. References Bazell, C. E., Catford, J. C., Halliday, M. A. K. and Robins, R. H. (eds) (1966), In Memory of J. FL Firth London, Longman.

Benson, J. and Greaves W. (1988), Systemic Functional Approaches to Discourse: Selected Papers from the 12th International Systemic Workshop, Norwood, NJ, Ablex.

ENGLISH CONSONANT CLUSTERS

69

Fawcett, R. P. (1988), 'What makes a "good" system network good?' in Benson and Greaves, 1-28. Fudge, E. (1969), 'Syllables', Journal of Linguistics, 5, 253-86. Gimson, A. C. (1988), English PronouncingDictionary, 14th edn. (revised S. M. Ramsaran), London, Dent. — (1989), An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English, 4th edn., London, Edward Arnold. Hawkins, P. (1984), Introducing Phonology, London, Hutchinson. Hill, T. (1966), 'The Technique of Prosodic Analysis' in Bazell et al, 198-226. Hockett, C. F. (1958) A Course in Modern Linguistics, New York, Macmillan. Tench, P. (1976), 'Double Ranks in a Phonological Hierarchy', Journal of Linguistics, 12, 1-20. Wells, J. C. (1990), Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, London, Longman.

3 Length in Telugu* V Prakasam

3.1 Introduction This study presents the research partially reported in Prakasam (1972, 1976a, 1976b, 1976c and 1987). Work of similar nonlinear nature has been done on several other languages (see Stemberger 1984, Leben 1980 and Selkirk 1984). The language we are going to discuss here is Telugu and the framework is Systemic Phonology (SP) which has drawn a lot on the work of Firth (1957), Halliday (1967) and Henderson (1966). Recent work in Autosegmental Phonology and Metrical Phonology share some theoretical assumptions with Systemic Phonology. Systemic Phonology assumes that there is a clear need for a phonological hierarchy (see Prakasam 1979, Selkirk 1984: 9-31; also Griffen 1978). The second assumption of Systemic Phonology is that each phonological unit is describable in terms of the phonic material which is paradigmatically significant and the material which is syntagmatically significant. If we were to generalize what Clements says about 'anchors' and 'autosegments' (Clements 1981), the paradigmatic material gives us anchors and the syntagmatic material autosegments. I will in this study prefer to use the terms SEGMENTS and PROSODIES. Each phonological unit has segmental status when it enters the structure of the higher unit and then attracts the 'association' of prosodies. Figure 3.1 explains the point. Depending upon one's perspective and the data under consideration, the number of units may vary but the basic assumption remains the same. The third assumption is that the prosodic status is given to a feature for three reasons (for details, see Prakasam 1987): (i) the feature marks the boundaries of a given unit - DEMARCATIVE PROSODY; (ii) the feature is associated with more than one segment - DISTRIBUTIVE PROSODY; (iii) the feature has the dynamic property of influencing adjacent sounds in sandhi context - DYNAMIC PROSODY.

T h i s is a revised version of the paper presented at VIII South Asian Languages Analysis Round Table held at University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana (29-31 May 1986).

LENGTH IN TELUGU

71 Utterance

%, U = Utterance n = Prosodies Pc = Piece Ft = Foot Syl = Syllable

s

&

Tgp = Tone group Fm = Formative

Sg = Segment

Figure 3.1 3.2 Historical perspective Two papers deserve to be mentioned in this context where vowel length is very efficiendy handled and certain far reaching generalizations have been made. These are Krishnamurti (1955) and Kelley (1963). Krishnamurti's paper, though primarily of historical interest, has very interesting descriptive results and theoretical portents. Some of his statements deserve to be quoted here. While talking about suffixes he says: One of the important conditions in the structure of these suffixes is that all of them have vowels as initials and most of them are short vowels. The rationale of this gradation phenomenon seems to be in the admissible number and grouping of syllables in a root morpheme ... In short, metre and rhythm of definable nature seem to control the vowel length in derived bases, [p. 238] Regarding length in the medial syllables, Krishnamurti says: In trisyllabic forms in Telugu length in the medial and final syllables was not tolerated in a root-morpheme at some period in the formation of early Telugu ... the loss of the preconsonantal nasal in trisyllabic bases is also to be attributed to this (e.g. karagu - karangu). [p. 239]

72

V.PRAKASAM Before geminates Telugu always has a short vowel, [p. 244] The forms with short vowels before doubling are rather innovations in later Telugu and very common in modern Telugu. [p. 244, footnote]

The diachronicity and synchronicity of his statements, I had noted, 'provide us with insights into the formation of phonological statements in a functionalist and abstract sense. His treatment of vowel-length, for example, elicits criteria for abstracting a cluster prosody of length' (Prakasam 1972: 44). The second paper I wish to refer to is Kelley (1963, see also 1959). Kelley recognized quite early that certain aspects of Telugu phonology 'can be most efficiently met if some components are treated as having domains which are not coterminous with single phonetically recorded units' (1963: 68). He postulates two 'co-vowels': one to take care of the lowering of vowel quality and the other to take care of vowel length. He clearly notes the similarity of his co-vowel to Firthian 'prosody' and Harris's 'simultaneous component'. He draws the theoretical conclusion that 'a stricdy segmental approach to the analysis of the vowel phonemes of Telugu is not the most efficient' (p. 69). Both the papers discussed here anticipate or suggest a nonlinear approach to the problem. 3.3 Length as a prosody The following points are to be noted regarding length in Telugu words of native origin: (i) There are five types of length to be handled together. They are

VOCALIC LENGTH (:), CONSONANTAL LENGTH (C), NASAL LENGTH (N) (or preconsonantal nasal length), PALATAL LENGTH (-y), and LABIAL LENGTH (-W).

(ii) Only the vowel of the first syllable is long, if there is a long vowel in the formative. (iii) It is only the consonant of the second syllable which can be geminated or given nasal initiation. (iv) Wherever the consonant is long or is nasally initiated the preceding vowel is short. Just a few examples suffice here: kaypu ka:pu kampu kappu kawlu ma:{;a ma a tt marjja

'intoxification' 'yield' 'small' 'roof 'lease' 'word' 'palm leaf 'flame'

payru pa:ta pai\{;a P a tt a

'crop' 'song' 'crop' 'cover'

(v) The location of the lengthening feature is always between the first and the second syllable.

73

LENGTH IN TELUGU

(vi) The five length features are mutually exclusive and contrastive. (vii) However, in some cases some of them may be in complementation across different dialects. kurjkucju ~ ku:kuc(u 'soap nut' per\c|a ~ pe:(ja 'dung' These points lead us to a theoretical point: the predictability of an element need not be shown at the phonological level. Besides, mutually exclusive items constitute a system of paradigmatically related items. The latter point gives us 'the system of length* in Telugu. The former tells us that the length features are prosodic, not segmental. Since their location in their formative is predictable they are to be treated as the formative prosodies. Figure 3.2 shows how these prosodies are to be represented. The association of the length features are clearly with the related element 1.

Phonetic

Phonological Formative SyC 11 ka

ka:pu

Syl2 " n 11 11 pu : kaNpu = kampu

Fm

2. SyC 1

1

ka 3.

SyC 1 1 ka

Syl, " ft 1 1

1 1

pu Fm

Syl, 1I pu

N kaCpu = kappu ft

11

C kaypu

Fm

4. SyC 1

1

ka 5.

SyC 11 ka

Syl, 1

ft 1

pu Fm

y

1 1

Syl2 11 lu

Figure 3.2

kawlu n

1w1

74

V.PRAKASAM

once it is placed between the first syllable and the second syllable. These length features were not paradigmatically related items in the beginning. They could co-occur in the same formative and they were segmental in character: i:rjga [DED entry 533]

va:r\cju [DED entry 1 ]

melagu [DED entry 4 871 ]

Later on because of the systemicization process, one of the length features disappeared. This kind of systemicization and prosodization should be very important processes that can be seen in the evolution of any language. One interesting example can be mentioned here to show how different dialects of Telugu chose different length features: Telangana dialect: Kku:kucju UiKU^U

—j

'soap nut' kudu —I Circar dialect: kurjkucju [DED entry 1631]

In these two examples we have the choice, by one dialect, for vocalic length and the other for nasal length. I have surmised in another paper that /ku:rjkucju/ must have been a form from which the two developed (1976c). Subsequently this form was attested by a Telugu-speaking family from the Chengalpat district of Tamil Nadu. Non-central dialects preserving old forms is not an unusual phenomenon. 3.4 Perceptual plausibility I have earlier called this length phenomenon a cluster-prosody (1972). To avoid any ambiguity that might arise due to my use of the term 'cluster' I have now chosen the term FORMATIVE in the place of 'cluster' (syllable cluster). I shall now present evidence from a language game Telugu children play and see whether the analysis given here can be characterized by 'perceptual plausibility' (see also Prakasam 1976b). The game is called the '-ng game'. In disyllabic and trisyllabic words ng is inserted between the first and second syllables and it acquires the vowel of the first syllable and the formative prosody follows '-ngV. For example: Phonological structure

Surface form

The form in the game

ka

lu

:

ka:lu 'leg'

kanga:lu

mu

lu

C

mullu 'thorn'

mungullu

pa

c|u

N

pal\c|u 'fruit'

pangandu

75

LENGTH IN TELUGU

/

^

pa

ru

-y

payru 'crop'

pangayru

ka

lu

-w

kawlu 'lease'

kangawlu

A

Had we treated long vowels and diphthongs as 'unit phonemes' we would not have been able to explain the separation of the length feature from the vowel satisfactorily. An interesting piece of evidence in support of the treatment presented here also comes from a speech error committed by my son when he was five years old. When he wanted an extra helping of cooked rice he asked for 'ammanu' which is a metathesized form of 'annamu'. This error can be explained appropriately if we take the formative prosody view (see Figure 3.3). Actual form Fm

Figure 3.3

_

mu

Error form Fm C

a

ma

_

The reciprocal shift is only for the two consonants. If we take the consonantal length as two consonants, the analysis of the speech error will be so complicated that one would begin to wonder whether children can ever make such a costly mistake. Both the language game and the speech error somehow seem to reflect the generalized phonological structure and give support to our treatment. I would like to mention in passing here that Gurumukhi script, used for writing modern Punjabi, uses diacritic symbols for both nasal length and consonantal length. In most Indian scripts a diacritic mark is used for nasal length but consonantal length is shown as double occurrence of the consonant. This doubling may prove useful for the surface phonetic statements but not for the underlying phonological statements of Telugu. We might also add here that Griffen's assumption that the difference between phonological and phonetic layers of description can be obliterated cannot be accepted. The distinction may be unimportant at the 'segmental' level, but at higher levels it becomes quite significant as this study of the formative prosody of length has shown.

References Bazell, C. E., Catford, J. C, Halliday, M. A. K. and Robins, R. H. (eds), (1966), In Memory of J. R. Firth, London, Longman. Clements, G. N. (1981), 'Akan Vowel Harmony: a nonlinear analysis' in G. N. Clements (ed.), Harvard Studies in Phonology, 2, Bloomington, Indiana University Linguistics Club. DED (1984), A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary, 2nd edn., Oxford, Clarendon Press.

76

V. PRAKASAM

Firth, J. R. (1957), Papers in Linguistics 1934-51, London, Oxford University Press. Griffen, T. D. (1978), T h e case against allophony' in M. Paradis (ed.) 1978. Halliday, M. A. K. (1967), Intonation and Grammar in British English, The Hague, Mouton. - and Fawcett, R. (eds) (1987), New Developments in Systemic Linguistics, London, Frances Pinter. Henderson, E.J. (1966), Towards a prosodic statement of Vietnamese Syllable Structure' in Bazell etal (1966), 163-97. Kelley, G. (1959), Telugu Vowel Phonemes', Indian Linguistics, II, 146-58. - (1963) 'Vowel Phonemes and External Vocalic Sandhi in Telugu', Journal of American Oriental Society, 83, 67-73. Krishnamurti, B. H. (1955) T h e History of Vowel Length in Telugu Verbal Bases', Journal ofAmerican Oriental Society, 75: 237-52. Leben, W. (1980), 'A Metrical Analysis of Length', Linguistic Inquiry, 11, 497-509. Paradis, M. (ed.) (1978), The Fourth LACUS Forum 1977, Columbia, South Carolina, USA, Hornbeam Press. Prakasam, V. (1972), A Systemic Treatment of Certain Aspects ofTelugu Phonology, unpublished D. Phil, thesis, University of York. - (1976a), 'A Functional View of Phonological Features', Acta Linguistica Academia Scientiarum Hungarica, 26, 1-2, 77-88. - (1976b), 'Perceptual Plausibility and a Language Game', Anthropobgical Linguistics, 18, No. 7, 323-7. - (1976c), T h e System of Length in Telugu' in Vaidyanathan (ed.) (1982). - (1979) 'Aspects of Sentence Phonology', Archivum Linguisticum. x, 57-82. - (1987), 'Aspects of Word Phonology' in Halliday and Fawcett (1987). Selkirk, E. (1984), Phonology and Syntax: The Relation Between Sound and Structure, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press. Stemberger, J. P. (1984), 'Length as supra-segmental: evidence from speech errors', Language, 60, 4: 895-913. Vaidyanathan, S. (ed.) (1982), Studies in Dravidian Linguistics II, Patiala, Punjabi University Publication Bureau.

4 The pharyngealization system in Algerian Spoken Arabic Djafar Eddaikra and Paul Tench

4.1 Introduction While a complete and standard description ofAlgerian Spoken Arabic (ASA) is not available, there are a number of papers, articles and projects that can be regarded as reliable sources of information: Marcais (1902), Bencheneb (1922), Cohen (1937), Cantineau (1940), Grand-Henry (1971), Belkaid (1976). Our objective here is to examine closely pharyngealization as a system of phonological choice in ASA, but in order to do that, ASA segmental phonology will need to be presented, and the best way of doing that is by comparison with a statement on Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) phonology which will no doubt be more familiar to the reader. 4.2 Modern standard Arabic phonology: an overview Unlike ASA, ample literature on MSA phonology is available: Cantineau (1960), AlAni (1970), Bakala (1980). 4.2.1 MSA consonants MSA ponology contains twenty-eight consonant phonemes as listed in Table 4.1. MSA consonants occur in all positions: word-initial, word-medial and wordfinal.

4.2.2 MSA vowels In MSA, the basic vowel system consists of three short vowels: / i / , / u / and / a / which contrast phonetically and phonologically with long counterparts / i : / , / u : / and / a : / . For example: [fil] [fill] [?ktub]

'in the' 'elephant' 'write'

DJAFAR EDDAIKRA AND PAUL TENCH

78

Table 4.1 MSA consonantal system

s 1 i G

JO

non-emphatic plosives emphatic plosives affricates nasals m roll lateral non-emphatic fricatives emphatic fricatives approximants

[kutuib] [Tarn] [Ta:m]

.2

(3 bo

o

1

£

5

~

*73

*r*

£

j i 2I £i

I

s

OH

bO

td

U

f

n r 1

d3

XK

ea sz j*

h5

fi

w

'books' 'uncle' 'general'

The difference between short and long vowels is approximately double or more; the long vowels are so different in length that confusion is not possible. According to Al-Ani (1970), it would seem that in MSA, allophonic variations are more likely to occur with vowel phonemes: /i/

/i:/

/u/ /u:/

[i] [i] [i]

in a pharyngealized context next to / H / and / S / elsewhere

[i:] [K] [i:]

in a pharyngealized context next to / K / and / ? / elsewhere

[u] [u]

in a pharyngealized context elsewhere

[v:] [u:]

in a pharyngealized context elsewhere

PHARYNGEALIZATION SYSTEM IN ALGERIAN SPOKEN ARABIC

/a/ [3]

[A] [a]

in final position in a pharyngealized environment or with / q / , / ? / , A / and / K / next to pharyngealized consonants and / q / and A / , in non-final position next to / S / and / K / elsewhere

[i:] [A:] [a:]

next to pharyngealized consonants and / q / and / r / next to / ? / and / K / elsewhere

[i]

/a:/

4.2.3 Syllable patterns and word accent In MSA, there are five patterns: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

CV CVC CV: CV:C CVCC

eg/bi/'in' eg / s i n / 'tooth' eg / m a a / 'negative particle: not' e g / b a a b / ' a door' eg / n a f i r / 'a river'

The first four patterns occur initially, medially and finally in a word. The most common of these is CV and the least common CV:C. The fifth pattern, CVCC, occurs only finally or in isolation. Syllables may also be classified (i) as short or long: CV is short and the remaining four long, and (ii) as closed or open. A closed syllable ends with a consonant and includes syllable patterns CVC, CV:C, CVCC. An open syllable ends with a vowel and includes patterns CV and CV:. In MSA, consonant clusters never occur initially, but they do occur finally. Moreover, consonant phonemes can come into contact with all vowel phonemes, that is with not a single restriction. In most analyses of MSA, three levels of prominence are distinguished which are usually referred to as primary word accent, secondary word accent and unaccented. They are usually marked as follows: primary ( ' ), secondary( ( ) and unaccented (unmarked).

4.3 Algerian Spoken Arabic In the present work, the variety which has been chosen is the co-author's (Eddaikra's) native variety, Tenes. This choice has been made for two main reasons. The first and, perhaps, the most important one can be inferred from the following: 'Measuring language is more difficult. The solution developed by Labov and since used by others is to take linguistic features which are known either from previous study or intuitively by the linguist as a native speaker. [Trudgill 1974: 43] Indeed if we are to obtain a picture of any language variety, Trudgill (1979)

DJAFAR EDDAIKRA AND PAUL TENCH

80

shares Labov's (1970) opinion that a familiar variety is the most suitable when measuring a language. By 'familiar', it does not only mean that the variety is well known to the writer but more importantly it is a variety which has been already dealt with. In fact, a complete doctoral thesis has been devoted to the linguistic study of the Spoken Arabic of Tenes (Belkaid, 1976). This work seems to be one of the most recent as far as ASA is concerned. Moreover it is a complete and comprehensive study in which the phonology has been fully treated. Second, coherence and homogeneity are two sociolinguistic criteria that the spoken Arabic of Tenes fulfils. Actually, it would have been unrealistic to choose any variety which belongs to a large city such as Algiers: since independence, the tremendous rural exodus which has threatened the major cities of Algeria has led to 'linguistic disorder'. If the choice had to be made among smaller cities, the geographical position of Tenes is not unimportant. In fact, whereas ASA varieties merge into each other to form a continuum, the city in question is the point of contact between East and West along the Algerian coast.

4.4 ASA phonological analysis ASA consonant phonemes can be presented in exactly the same schema of description as the consonants of MSA. Some additional phonemes originating from loan words are included and are indicated with * in Table 4.2.

4.4.1 ASA vocalic system Even though there have been numerous speculations among researchers concerning the treatment of ASA vowels (cf. Cantineau 1960, Cohen 1937, Belkaid 1976), according to the writer's personal observation as a native speaker of the variety under consideration, it would seem that eleven vowel sounds are phonetically perceivable in ASA; namely, [i, I, e, £, a, a, D, U, u, 3, i] as exemplified in figure 4.1. These vowel sounds find their place on the conventional IPA chart as shown in the figure. In a tentative phonological analysis, the classification of these vowel sounds may be treated as falling into four main categories: (1) (2) (3) (4)

Front close vowel sounds: [i, I, e] Open vowel sounds: [£, a, a ] Back close vowel sounds: [D, U, U] Central vowel sounds: [a, i]

It would seem that the ASA vocalic system can best be considered as being composed of four phonemic vowels, namely / i , a, u, i / which are all subject to allophonic variations, simply by their distribution in syllables and emphatic context: (a) [i, a, u] in open syllables (b) [i, 8, u, i] in closed syllables (c) [9, e, a, D] in emphatic environments.

PHARYNGEALIZATION SYSTEM IN ALGERIAN SPOKEN ARABIC

81

non-emphatic plosives emphatic plosives affricates nasals non-emphatic flap emphatic flap lateral non-emphatic fricatives emphatic fricatives approximants

ental

veolar

alato-a Iveo

alatal

.0

ibio-de ntal

ilabial

Table 4.2 ASA consonantal system

re

T3

*

cu

a

*pb

td t

m

n r

>

kg

P2

3

CL

q

bO

*?

*tfd3

r

i

f*v 0 5

sz

0

S

US

/

fi

J

This has been found to be a regular pattern in ASA. ASA vowel quality is not characterized by contrastive length.

4.5 Emphasis The phenomenon of emphasis which has been found to occur in numerous dialects of Arabic, including ASA, is well known among Arab phoneticians; emphatic articulations have been often referred to as instances of either velarization or pharyngealization; from personal observations, the second term is more appropriate. Pharyngealization is characterized by three main features: (i) a reduced pharyngeal cavity caused by the approximation of the root of the tongue to the back wall of the pharynx; (ii) the concavity of the back and root of the tongue producing a large resonance chamber in the oral cavity; (iii) and by high muscular tension. This articulatory phenomenon seems always to extend beyond the boundary of single segment in the speech chain. This is seen as being the chief obstacle in defining the status of emphasis in any language. In fact, the question of whether emphasis must be treated as a segmental or as a plurisegmental feature has been approached in several ways in studies dealing with Arabic phonology: cf. Cantineau (1940, 1960), Cohen (1937), Belkaid (1976). When describing'emphasis', Harrell (1957:69) wrote: 'Emphasis occurs widely throughout the language and affects both consonants and vowels. Its precise nature, auditory and articulatory, differs somewhat from consonant to consonant

DJAFAR EDDAJKRA AND PAUL TENCH

82

front

central

back

close \

l

\

\ \

2

8

11

9

half-close \

3

\ half-open

bni kbira

ftera der bna dar cbr 5uq smu

J*

bint

10

\ \

4

\

\5

open

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

7

\

6

'my son' 'large' 'girdle-cake' 'he did' 'he built' 'a house' 'turn round!' 'taste!' 'his name' 'shore' 'a girl'

Figure 4.1 ASA Vowel Sounds and from vowel to vowel, but the phenomenon gives a strikingly unitary impression.' Harrell goes further by adding that in general terms, the acoustic and articulatory correlates of emphasis may be characterized as follows: 'Acoustic: a lowering in pitch of the noise spectrum of obstruents, a lowering of the second format for vowels, and a general lowering of the spectrum of the resonants. Articulatory: lip protrusions a n d / o r pharyngeal striction' (ibid). However, in the variety of Arabic under consideration, it has been found that the treatment of emphasis as a feature of certain consonants may not be adequate to account for the phonetic facts. A thorough, phonemic investigation into ASA phonology (cf. Belkaid 1976) has shown that there are four emphatic consonants: / d , t, $, r / . These emphatic consonants are four distinct phonemes which retain their emphatic quality without depending on the environment in which they occur; pharyngealization is an inherent feature concerning them. / 5 / is a dental fricative and / t / is an alveolar stop, both with lip protrusions and pharyngeal resonance; the muscles of the tongue seem tenser than for their counterparts / 3 / and / t / . The auditory effect is much lower in pitch than for / 5 / and / t / , leading to the well-known synaesthetic descriptions of 'dark', 'heavy', etc. / s / is the counterpart of the plain alveolar

PHARYNGEALIZATION SYSTEM IN ALGERIAN SPOKEN ARABIC

83

fricative / s / ; and / r / is the correlative of the plain alveolar flap / r / , subjected to the classic features of pharyngealization. As a result of this, / 5 , t, $, r/ can be minimally contrasted with / 5 , t, s, r/. For example

/aai/ /Sal/

/tab/ /tab/ /sif/ /sif/ /bra/ /bra/

[5il] [Oal]

[tib]

[tab] [sif]

[sef] [bra] [bra]

'shame' 'shade' 'he repented' 'it has been cooked' 'summer' 'sword' 'needle' 'he recovered'

What is to be underlined in the domain of emphasis, in ASA, is that there is a phenomenon of 'contamination', that is the occurrence of a single emphatic consonant affects all the segments of the whole syllable; Robins explains, in terms of Prosodic Analysis: ... a feature may be spread or realized phonetically over a structure, such as a syllable, as a whole; examples of this type of syllable prosody are stress, pitch and length, nasalization, in languages in which a nasal consonant is always followed by a nasalized vowel and a nasalized vowel is only found after a nasal consonant, and palatization and velarization when front palatally articulated consonants are associated in the syllable with front type vowels and back type consonants with back articulated vowels. (Robins, 1970: 193). More explicidy, both vowels and consonants following or preceding the emphatic consonant are subject to pharyngealization (in the case of ASA) and there is no exception to that. For example: /Oil/ /KOub/ /faO/ 3.JD £>

/sam/

[faO]

'he spent' 'he was displeased' 'it overflows'

[tab] [bta] [bat]

'it was cooked' 'he is late' 'arm pit'

[sam]

'he fasted' 'a loafer' 'half

Wall

[BODb]

/miKSub/ [miB$Db]

/nas/

[nas]

III

/o/

'it fermented' (masc. sing.) 'he recovered' 'useless'

84

DJAFAR EDDAIKRA AND PAUL TENCH

However, there are a few exceptions in ASA where emphasis occurs without the presence of one of the four emphatic consonants. This is either the case of (i) LOAN WORDS where the quality of the vowel (relatively open back vowels) in the original language has attracted pharyngealization to the adjacent consonant, for example / b a b u r / from the Italian / v a p u r / , which obviously does not have a pharyngealized / r / , is realized as [bcrtpr]; similarly in these three French loans: /mitru/ [metp] 'metro' / t u m u b i l / [tDrriDbel] 'car' / m u r s u / [rnorp] 'a piece' However the back open vowel quality can affect ('contaminate') consonants other than the four emphatic ones of ASA. For example: /bala/ /malu/

[bald]; [mab]'

'a scoop' 'destiny'

(ii) AFFECTIVE USE for example:

/baba/ /ma/ /wafi/

[baba] [ma] [waft]

'daddy' 'mummy' 'yes' (intentionally)

(iii) PARALANGUAGE, expressing exaggeration in movement for example: /zdim/ /libiz/

[zctem] [l3l?9z]

'he rushed' 'massaging'

or expressing onomatopoeia for example: /zanzan/

[?anzan]

(buzzing sounds made by insects like bees, flies etc.) / v a n v a n / [yanyan] (the noise made by a violin) or expressing the seriousness of something /zibla/

[zabla]

'a serious fault'

In order to specify the system for pharyngealization in ASA, it is thus necessary to distinguish the 'core' phonological structure from loan word phonology, affective phonology and paralinguistic features. In the core phonology, ASA is different from MSA in one significant way: pharyngealization in MSA is a system that operates in part of the syllable structure, whereas in ASA, it is a system that operates in the whole of the syllable structure. In the terminology of Prosodic Analysis, pharyngealization in MSA is a syllable-part prosody, but in ASA it is a syllable prosody. Thus the phonological system of ASA is much simpler to specify in this respect: at syllable rank, there is a twofold system: pharyngealized versus plain. The evidence for the ASA system is that the plain (that is non-emphatic/nonpharyngealized) consonants are 'contaminated' by the allophonic vowel sound

PHARYNGEALIZATION SYSTEM IN ALGERIAN SPOKEN ARABIC

85

conditioned by the pharyngealized consonants. If the phenomenon can be seen in terms of a process, it may be described as follows: the choice of a (phonemically) pharyngealized consonant conditions the allophonic variation of an adjacent vowel which in turn affects the articulation of any other consonant that is adjacent to it, making it pharyngealized, and also in turn any other consonant adjacent to the affected consonant. Thus, the whole syllable, including any (phonemically) plain consonant clusters, becomes pharyngealized. The system can be illustrated profusely, / b / and / p / are both subjected to pharyngealization in a syllable containing a pharyngealized consonant:

/ObaS/ /tab/ /Sbaf/ /bra/ /pa$ma/

[Obcrf] [tab] [$baS] [bral [pa$ma]

'a fox' 'it's been cooked' 'a finger' 'he recovered' 'plaster'

ject to pharyngealization in a similar cont
'•w and their combinations) distributive, in others (WEAK, STRONG, FULL, REDUCED) demarcative. In certain syllables (Aifft, the penultimate of Eidal) the phonetic quality occurring is the result of the coincidence of two prosodic categories; it is not apparent from Prakasam's writings on the theory of systemic phonology to what extent he views such a coincidence as possible. A second point to be noted is that the 'rewriting' aiv used above, though still more abstract than AU, cannot be a final and only phonological representation since, if it were, we should expect syllables containing it to act like any other syllable with ai, say, saig ('dish') or Aifft, regarding frontness extending from them over satellite syllables. But this is not what happens. Words like haul or gwaun ('meadow') do not have this characteristic; and the fact that they do not is captured only in an analysis that assigns them different phonological markers in their prosodic aspect. The rewriting aiv (at one time it would have been called a 'rephonemicization') is phonologically valid at one level in that it has implications for the phonotactics, as pointed out above. But a deeper analysis in terms of constituent features of varying status is required to accord with the fine structure of the utterances. The material discussed above has dealt with the operation of prosodic elements associated with other elements of structure, to use Firth's term, which have purely punctual reference. We move to a different batch of material to demonstrate how elements of structure may be prosodically unassociated. My colleague K. J. Woolacott 1 has phonetic records taken down from the Porthaethwy informant which show that the particle written o ( = 'from, o f ' ) , like yn routinely a weak syllable, takes on in rapid colloquial utterance a wide variety of phonetic forms that share aspects of the quality of the vowels in strong syllables that follow it. Examples of these are in List 7. List 7 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

dau kvys o datws chwech torth ofara ddmy 'n dod o Gymru tri pwys oforon o ddrws i ddrws padell o ddxvr pxvyth

'two kilos of potatoes' 'six loaves of bread' 'I come from Wales' 'three kilos of carrots' 'from door to door' 'a pan of hot water'

where the six vowels of the weak syllables corresponding to the orthographic o are for the six examples 1 [t>] 2 [B] 3 [£] 4 [3] 5 [5] 6 [D] (Group I) accompanying these six vowels of the following strong syllables 1 [ae] 2 [ae] 3 [A] 4 [D] 5 [u] 6 [u]

(Group II).

The vowels of Group I are always open and in each case share the lip posture of the strong syllable. In other articulatory ways their relationship to the vowels of Group II is complex. In some cases (1 to 4) the relationship is one of centrali-

SYSTEMS FOR OPEN SYLLABICS IN NORTH WELSH

95

zation, if we interpret the relative frontness of [e] to be taken as centralizion of an already central vowel. In 5 and 6 the weak syllable has a vowel that is fully back, but here the strong syllables are close. When the strong syllable has the fully back [D] , the vowel of the preceding weak syllable is centralized. One thing is immediately clear: the system seems to work in such a way that the vowels of the two adjacent syllables, weak followed by strong, are never the same. Two things are being manifested here, harmony and weakening; the first is shown by lip specification, the second by the articulatory posture. In the [3] of Group I we interpret full backness as weakening, vis-a-vis [u], in a vowel that is phonologically open by definition. It cannot be close, so such a thing as, say, *[u] is not possible here. As so often, although the vowels of Group I are held together phonologically, it is difficult to find a common denominator for them in orthodox phonetics. This is another case, then, of a harmonic piece where one syllable feature in the piece, located at the strong position in a chain of syllables, dominates, by extending over them, the weak syllables that fall into the configuration weak+strong. At the weak place here the dominated syllable is an 'open syllabic'; there appear to be no prosodic implications in the openness feature of this item, and it is to be construed as a case of the second of Prakasam's (and Firth's) two phonological constituents, called by both the PHONEMATIC UNIT. Using A as symbol for this, the relevant parts of the examples above are of the structure C ( C ) V ( C ) C A C ( C ) V - , where V is an element which carries systemic prosodic marking, that is will be marked by one or more of the features that make up the closed class of functional oppositions for the item V such as frontness (y), rounding (w) etc. a above is a sub-category of V. A, on the other hand, cannot be specified for any such marking. Though both are 'open syllables' the structures into which they enter and the systems that are associated with them are different; and, of course, their status and generality of reference is different too. a will appear in the structure of many hundreds of lexical items in the language, as above; but a here relates to only one particular particle. There is some evidence, in both my own notes and those of my colleague, to suggest that other particles, such as those represented in the orthography by y or yr (as in the examples above yr Eidal, yr Aifft) or by ar ('on'), which are also typically weak, have ranges of manifestations that cluster around various portions of the vowel-producing area of the vocal tract, as in the case of o; and that their qualities are, again, the result of the prosodic marking of a neighbouring strong or full vowel. Should such an analysis be sustained, the particle y/yr would be appropriately represented with I, where A and I are two subclasses of what we can represent as a, a symbol for syllabics that are always weak and reduced and are prosodically unassociated. A systemic network for the material discussed might look as shown in Figure 5.1 (dashes, such as those following a show that a series is incomplete; 'associated' means prosodically associated).

96

JOHN KELLY • Unassociated

r

[

Syllabic-

Strong Weak

r— R e d u c e d •—Associated-

LFUII

/ \

y w

system \ system/J

Figure 5.1 Partial phonological systems network for o p e n syllables in N o r t h Welsh

Note 1 I am grateful to Kelvin Woolacott for giving me access to the phonetic field records in Woolacott (unpublished).

References Ball, M.J. and G. E.Jones (1984), Welsh phonology, University of Wales Press, Cardiff. Griffen, T. D. (1979), ' O n phonological stress in Welsh', Bulletin ofthe Board of Celtic Studies, 28, 206-12. Jakobson, R., Fant, G. and Halle (1952), Preliminaries to Speech Analysis, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Jones G. E. (1984),The distinctive vowels and consonants of Welsh', in Ball and Jones (1984), 40-64. Jones, S. (1926), A Welsh Phonetic Reader, London, University of London Press. Kelly, J. & Local, J. (1989), Doing Phonology, Manchester, Manchester University Press. Oftedal, M. (1969), 'A new approach to North Welsh vowels', Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap, Supplementary volume, 9, 243-269. Pilch, H. (1975) 'Advanced Welsh phonemics', ZeitschriftfurCeltischePhilologie, 34, 60-102. Prakasam, V. (1972), 'A systemic treatment of certain aspects of Telugu phonology', University of York unpublished D. Phil, thesis. — (1976)), 'A functional view of phonological features', Acta Linguistica Academiae Scientiarium Hungaricae, 26, 77-88. — (1979), 'Aspects of sentence phonology', Archivum Linguisticum, 10 (New series), 57-82. Sweet, H. (1886), Spoken North Welsh, T h e Philological Society of London. — (1899), A Primer of Phonetics, Oxford, Clarendon Press. Thomas, A. (1966),'Systems in Welsh phonology', Studia Celtica, 1, 93-127. — (1984), 'A lowering rule for vowels and its ramifications in a dialect of North Welsh' in Ball and Jones (1984), 105-124.

SYSTEMS FOR OPEN SYLLABICS IN NORTH WELSH

97

Watkins, T. A. (1954), The accent in Old Welsh - its quality and development', Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, 25, 1-11. Williams, B. (1982), The problem of stress in Welsh', Cambridge Papers in Phonetics and Experimental Linguistics 1. — (1983), The interaction of Fo and duration in the perception of stress in Welsh', Cambridge Papers in Phonetics and Experimental Linguistics 2. Woolacott, K. J. (unpublished), 'Some observations on the system of initial consonant mutation in North Wales'.

6 A systemic interpretation of Peking syllable finals M. A. K Halliday

This study presents one part of a systemic interpretation of the syllable in modern standard Chinese, as represented by the Peking variety of Mandarin. It is based on my own observations, made very many years ago, (i) of Peking speech in general and (ii) of one particular speaker in detail. I shall always be deeply indebted to Mr Lien Shihmin for his thoughtful collaboration in this research. Recently I have had the opportunity of partially checking these observations; I think they were largely valid, though I would now interpret them differendy, in certain respects, from the way I did in a summary presentation at the time (1959). The study covers the syllable as a whole; but it is too long to be presented here in full. Here I propose to treat only the finals; and to shorten the treatment still further by leaving out what would otherwise be a long account of investigating vowel variation and showing why such variation provides the key to Mandarin phonology. Instead I shall simply present the observed phonetic variation in tabular form, using a moderately narrow transcription. My aim is to suggest what I understand by a systemic approach to phonology. It is perhaps appropriate to add, in view of the rather one-sided picture of twentieth-century linguistics that is generally prevalent today, that the theoretical foundations for this study derive from two sources: traditional Chinese phonology, as interpreted by Luo Changpei and Wang Li, and prosodic phonology as developed by J. R. Firth and his colleagues in London. These two approaches are entirely compatible and share a highly abstract view of phonology based on paradigms of (nonsegmental) features (Wang 1936, 1981; Firth 1948; Hill 1966). Chart 6.1 shows the total syllabary of modern Pekingese: almost exactly 400 syllables, with less than half a dozen fringe syllables which are admitted by some speakers and not others (like den in denqi 'knock straight', rua in ruale 'gone soft'). They are written in Pinyin, the authorized roman transcription; but since I am not here dealing with tone, tonal diacritics are omitted. The format is designed to make it easy to refer to in the discussion; again, of course, it is the result of lengthy phonological analysis, not something that is 'given' in advance. For a prosodic analysis of a complete syllabary of a language, compare Henderson's (1966) investigation of Vietnamese. Let us begin by noting all those syllables which contain the vowel symbol a in their spelling:

SYSTEMIC INTERPRETATION OF PEKING SYLLABLE FINALS

99

(1) those where it is the only vowel symbol and ends the syllable (row 2); (2) those where it is the only vowel symbol but is followed by -n or -ng (rows 8 and 10); (3) those where it is followed by another vowel symbol (rows 4 and 6); (4) those where it is preceded by another vowel symbol (rows 13 and 22); (5) those where it is both preceded and followed by another vowel symbol (rows 15 and 24); (6) those where it is preceded by another vowel symbol and followed by -n or -ng (rows 17,19, 26, 28 and 32). The phonetic quality of the vowel represented as a in the spelling varies in two respects. First, it varies from one syllable type to another; if we consider just the environments in (1) and (3) above, it is most open when final, fronted before -i and backed before -o. [The spellings -ai, -ao are anomalous; for consistency they should be either -ai> -au or else -ae, -ao.] Second, for any given syllable the quality of the a vowel varies both among different speakers and within the speech of the individual speaker. There is nothing surprising in this; variation of both these kinds is familiar in all languages and will be found in Mandarin occurring throughout the syllabary. But whereas the former, allophonic variation is assumed to be fundamental to the phonological analysis, and the only question is how best to take account of it (the phonemic interpretation embodied in the Pinyin transcription may or may not turn out to be effective in theory), we usually treat the latter, lectal type of variation as something to be attended to after the phonological system has been established. I would argue, however, not only that the lectal variation is an inherent feature of the system but also that, in the case of the Pekingese syllable, it is a major source of insight into the way the system works (cf. Lock, 1989). I shall not attempt here to describe all the phonetic variation that is heard to occur in Peking speech. What I have done is to take the syllables listed in two columns in Chart 6.1, columns 12 and 15, and present in a systematized form the variants that are typically associated with each one. There are 34 syllables in all, and these are set out as Chart 6.II. In Chart 6.II, however, I have used a different order to make them easier to refer to in the subsequent discussion; from now on, row numbers cited will be those of Chart 6.II unless otherwise announced. These 34 syllables can be taken to stand for the full range of 'finals' (roughly, the rhyming part of the syllable) in the Mandarin phonological system. The pattern of realization, including the variability, is more or less constant across the whole of each of the rows in Chart 6.1 (with some exceptions in column 22, Block VII, which will be brought in at the end). It will be clear from Chart 6.II that, if we postulate an / a / phoneme where there is a in the spelling, there are regular patterns of allophonic variation that could be constructed from what comes before and after it: the / a / nucleus is rather strongly affected by the periphery. If we consider just the vowel environments, leaving out final -w, -ng for the moment, the phonetic value of a depends on whether it is preceded, and whether it is followed, by (i) no other vowel symbol, (ii) i, or (iii) o/u. Moreover the effect of the following environment seems rather stronger than that of the preceding: contrast zhai,

M. A. K. HALLIDAY

100

X

\

i

6

7 8 9 10 11

2

1

1 "bu 1

2 3 4 5

3

ban ben

pa po pai pei pao pou pan pen

mu ma mo mai mei mao mou man men

bang

pang

beng

ba bo bai bei bao

12~| bi 13 14 bie 15 biao

—

pu

5

6

da de dai del dao dou dan

ta te tai

na

III 10

11

8

9

la 1e lai lei lao lou Ian

ga ge gai gei gao gou gan gen

ka ke kai kao kou kan ken

ha he hai hei hao hou han hen

~~fu"

fa fo fei

tao tou tan

(ne)

nai nei nao nou nan nen

(den)

mang

fang

dang

tang

nang

tang

gang

kang

hang

peng

meng

feng

deng

teng

neng

leng

geng

keng

heng

Pi

mi

ti

ni

pie

mie

die

tie

nie

li lia lie

tiao

niao

liao

piao

"di

miao

diao

miu

diu dian

bian

pi an

mi an

bin

pin

min

bing

4

7

fou fan fen

ii 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

II

I

ming

tian

niu

liu

nian

lian

nin

lin

niang

liang

ding

ting

ning

ling

du

tu

nu

lu

duo

tuo

nuo

luo

iii 25

1 dui

tui

26 27 28 29 30 31

duan

tuan

nuan

luan

dun

tun

nun

lun

Ping

[dong

tong

nong ~"nu"

nUe

iv 32

33 34

Chart 6.1 Mandarin Chinese Syllabary [in Pinyin Spelling]

long

"Tii lUe (lUan)

|gu gua guo

ku "~hu kua hua kuo huo

guai

kual

gui

kui

hul

guan

kuan

huan

hun

hual

gun

kun

guang

kuang

huang

gong

kong

hong

SYSTEMIC INTERPRETATION OF PEKING SYLLABLE FINALS

12

jl jia jie jiao jiu jian Jin 1 Jiang 1Jing

ju jue juan jun 1 Jlong

IV 13

V 14

15

16

zhi zha zhe zhai zhei zhao zhou zhan zhen zhang zheng

chi cha che chai

zhu zhua zhuo zhuai zhui zhuan zhun zhuang I zhong

chu chua chuo chuai chui chuan chun chuang chong

17

shi sha she shal shei chao shao chou shou chan shan chen shen chang shang cheng sheng

18 ri re

rao rou ran ren rang reng

qi xi qia xia qie xie qiao xiao qiu xiu qian xian qin xin qiang xiang qing xing

qu xu que xue quan xuan qun xun qiong xiong

shu ru shua (rua) shuo ruo shuai rui shui shuan ruan run shun shuang rong

19

VI 20

VII 22

si ler 1 1 sa a 2 se e 1 3 sai ai 4 5 zei lei) zao cao sao ao 6 1 zou cou sou |ou 7 zan can san 1 an 8 sen 1 en zen cen 9 zang cang sang 1 ang 10 | zeng ceng seng jeng) | 11 12 yi ya 13 ye 14 yao 15 you 16 ii yan 17 yin 18 yang 19 ying 20 21 wu zu cu su 22 wa wo 23 zuo cuo suo wai 24 wei 25 ill zui cui sui I zuan cuan suan wan 26 wen 27 zun cun sun wang 28 1 zong cong song 1 weng 29 lyu 30 yue 31 yuan 32 iv yun 33 |yong 34 zi za ze zai

ci ca ce cai

21

101

102

M. A. K. HALLIDAY

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

jian cU'en cU'en jia d£la cj>^!a jiang dz'aq d#aq jiao cUto d^pD dzjn d4n jin r jie dz e d^e jing d£i3q dzftj jiu dzi3u dzbu ji dzi zhan cfcaen cfcien zhai cfcaee cfcaee zha