The phonology of Armenian 9780198236610, 0198236611

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THE PHONOLOGY OF THE WORLD'S LANGUAGES

Series Editor: Jacques Durand, Universite de Toulouse-le-Mirail

The Phonology of Armenian

THE PHONOLOGY OF THE WORLD'S LANGUAGES

The phonology of most languages has until now been available only in a fragmented way, through unpublished theses, or articles scattered in more or less accessible journals. Each volume in this series will offer an extensive treatment of the phonology of one language within a modem theoretical perspective, and will provide comprehensive references to recent and more classical studies of the language. The following will normally be included: an introduction situating the language geographically and typographically, an overview of the theoretical assumptions made by the author, a description of the segmental system and of the rules or parameters characterizing the language, an outline of syllable structure and domains above the syllable, a discussion of lexical and postlexical phonology, an account of stress and prominence, and, if space allows, some overview of the intonational structure of the language. While it is assumed that every volume will be cast in a modem nonlinear framework, there will be scope for a diversity of approach which reflects variations between languages and in the methodologies and theoretical preoccupations of the individual authors. Published in the series: The Lexical Phonology of Slovak Jerzy Rubach The Phonology of Dutch Geert Booij The Phonology of German Richard Wiese The Phonology and Morphology of Kimatuumbi David Odden

THE

PHONOI.JOGY OF

ARMENIAN Bert Vaux

CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD 1998

This book has been printed digitally

and produced in a standard specification in order to ensure its continuing availability

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 GDP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Sao Paulo Shanghai Singapo.re Taipei Tokyo Toronto with an associated company in Berlin Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other cotmtries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York ©Bert Vaux 1998 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) Reprinted 2002 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or m1der terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer ISBN 0-19-823661-1

This book is dedicated to Andrea and Morris

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The intellectual fathers of this book are Andrea Calabrese and Morris Halle, who were my thesis advisors and have continued to help me refine my ideas in subsequent years. My love of linguistics and my mental health are largely due to their exceptional mentoring, inspirational scholarship, and generous friendship. I also owe a great debt to those who created and expanded my fascination with the Armenian people and their language. My Armenian professors Kevork Bardakjian and James Russell won my eternal respect and gratitude with the blood and sweat they spilled for me on the intellectual and political battlefields of Erevan and Cambridge. To this list I must also add Jos Weitenberg; though I was never his student, he has been my Armenological role model and inspiration since we met in 1991. The boundless support that these three distinguished senior scholars have given this junior colleague is truly remarkable. My Armenological contemporaries Michele Sigler and Hagop Hachikian have been continuous sources of inspiration and encouragement over the years through the example of their own work and their support for my own. Michele's work on Armenian syntax sets a standard of intellectual and linguistic excellence that I will always strive to equal. Hagop's general erudition in Armenological matters, his levelheadedness, and his eagerness to help with my research have been indispensable to me over the past few years. Vast thanks are also due to the many native speakers of Armenian who endured my dreary linguistic interrogations while preparing this book: Vladimir Arutyunyan (Stepanakert, Karabagh), Mary Balamian (Erzurum), Lusin Chorbajian (Marash), Takuhi Der Manuelian (Marash), Siranush Dilbarian/ Yeghishian (Van), Lusadzin Donikian (Everek), David Elizian (SEA), Kegham imd Zaghir Gazarian (Kesab, Syria), Mary Goudsouzian (Zeytun), Betty Gregory (Van), Carmen Habosian (Tiflis), Hagop Hachikian (SWA), Garo Kadian (Bitias, Musaler, Syria), Anna Maranci (Bayburt), Harutyun Maranci (Istanbul), Ervand Melik-Moussian (Agulis), Hayk Merian (Covinar), Dikran Panosian (Xdrbek, Musaler, Syria), Artashes Petrosyan (Yank, Karabagh), Lena Petrosian (Agulis), Paren Sanentz (Marash), Seda, Verena, and their mother (Sasun), Avik Topchian (Hamshen), Vahakn (Vakif, Musaler, Syria), and Temel Yilmaz (Homshetsma). Many thanks also to Harry Parsekian for introducing me to many of these informants. I would also like to thank Jacques Durar1d for making suggestions on drafts of this book and for editing the series in which it appears. Finally, I would like to thank my family and Christina for their support and understanding, and I would like to thank Christina and Manya for making it possible for me to concentrate.

CONTENTS Transcription key Map of the principal Armenian dialects

xiii xiv

INTRODUCTION

1

1 SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY

7

1.1. The dialects 1.1.1. Historical dialectology 1.2. Phonetics and phonemics 1.2.1. SEA 1.2.2. SWA 1.3. Basic alternations 1.3.1. R-aspiration 1.3.2. Final devoicing 1.3.3. Fricative voice assimilation 1.3.4. S-aspiration 1.3.5. Place assimilation 1.3.6. R-assimilation 1.3.7. Vocalic alternations 1.4. Syllable structure 1.4.1. Underlying word-initial clusters 1.4.2. Final consonant clusters 1.4.3. Vowel sequences 1.4.4. Clitics and intransitives 1.4.5. Plural formation 1.4.6. Tests for syllable affiliation in Classical Armenian

2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1. Representations 2.1.1. Feature organization 2.1.1.1. The Labial node 2.1.1.2. The Coronal node 2.1.1.3. The Laryngeal node 2.1.1.4. The Upper Vocal Tract node 2.1.2. Prosodic structure 2.1.2.1. Syllable structure 2.1.3. Full specification 2.2. Rules 2.2.1. Sensitivity 2.2.1.1. Features 2.2.1.2. Cyclicity

7 8 12 12 16 16 16 17 17 18 18 19 19 21 22 26 27 29 30 33

35 35 36 38 38 39

40 40 42 45 46 47 48 50

x

CONTENTS

2.2.2. Constraints and repairs 2.3. The Architecture of the grammar 2.3.1. Distributed morphology 2.3.2. The Structure of lexical entries 2.3.3. Interlevel access 2.3.3.1. Morphological access of syntactic structure 2.3.3.2. Phonological access of syntactic structure 2.3.3.3. Phonological access of morphological structure

3 SYLLABIFICATION 3 .1. Introduction 3.2. Basic elements of syllabification 3.2.1. Epenthesis versus deletion 3 .2.2. Lexical syllabification 3.2.3. The sonority hierarchy 3.2.3.1. Vowels 3.2.3.2. Consonants 3.2.4. Nuclei 3.2.5. Onsets 3.2.6. Codas and appendices 3.2.6.1. Codas 3.2.6.2. Appendices 3.2.6.3. Coda assignment 3.2.6.3.1. The Sonority Blocking Constraint 3.2.7. Epenthesis 3.2.8. The cycle 3.2.9. Directionality 3.3. Peculiarities of Armenian syllabification 3.3.1. Nuclei 3.3.1.1. Vowel sequences 3.3.1.1.1. Sequences ofnonhigh vowels 3.3.1.1.2. Sequences containing one high vowel 3.3.1.1.3. Sequences containing high vowels 3.3.2. Onsets 3.3.2.1. Sibilants 3.3.2.2. Prothesis 3.3.3. Codas 3.3.4. Postcyclic syllabification 3.3.4.1. Intransitives 3.3.4.2. Postcyclic assignment 3.3.4.2.1. Ordering 3.3.4.2.2. Constraints on attachment 3.3.4.3. Phrasal syllabification 3.3.4.3.1. Onset appropriation 3.3.4.3.2. Appendix licensing and resyllabification 3.3.5. Related rules 3.3.5.1. Plural selection

53 55 55 55 57 57

59 60

61 61

66 66 70

74 75 75 77 80

82 82 83 85

86 87 89 94

95 95 95 95 96 98 101 101 102 103 104 105 109 109 109 112 112

113 118 119

CONTENTS

3.3.5.2. Syllable counting in Classical Armenian 3.3.6. Geminates 3.3.7. Variation 3.4. Conclusions 3.5. Data

4 STRESS ASSIGNMENT AND METRICAL STRUCTURE 4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4. 4.5.

The facts Theoretical assumptions Projection Edge marking and heading Stress clash 4.5.1. Penultimate stress systems 4.5.2. The stress hierarchy 4.6. Unstressed vowel deletion

n

123 125 126 129 129

132 132 136 137 138 141 141 145 148

5 VOWEL HARMONY

151

5.1. Theoretical assumptions 5.2. Root harmony 5.3. Word harmony 5.3.1. Agulis 5.3.2. Karchevan 5.4. Epenthetic harmony 5.4.1. Karchevan 5.4.2. Marash

152 155 160 160 165 169 169 171

6 CONSONANT-VOWEL INTERACTIONS 6.1. ATR-voice interactions 6.1.1. Adjarian's Law 6.1.2. Interactions between consonant voicing and vocalic [ATR] values 6.1.3. Analysis 6.1.4. Implications of [ATR] interactions for Unified Feature theories 6.1.5. Aresh fronting 6.2. Uvular effects 6.2.1. Agn 6.2.2. Agulis, Kesab, and Zeytun 6.2.3. Uvular-back interactions in Kesab and Homshetsma 6.2.4. Conclusions 6.3. Nasal raising 6.4. Coronal-front interactions 6.4.1. Evidence for coronal fronting 6.4.2. Place features for consonants and vowels 6.5. Conclusions

174 17 4 174 177 178 180 181 182 183 187 190 194 194 200 201 206 209

xii

CONTENTS

7 LARYNGEAL FEATURES AND CONSONANT SHIFTS 7.1. Basics 7.2. Phonetic aspects of voiced aspirates 7 .2.1. Phonetics of crosslinguistic laryngeal contrasts 7 .2.2. Phonetics of Armenian voiced aspirates 7.3. Phonological behavior of voiced aspirates 7.3.1. K-assimilation 7.3.2. Nasal voicing 7.3.3. R-aspiration 7.3.4. Fricative assimilation 7.3.5. Aspiration delinking 7.4. A contour-based analysis 7.4.1. Contour segments 7.4.2. Edge effects 7.4.3. New Julfa edge effects 7.4.4. Word-final laryngeal features 7.5. Consonant shifts 7.6. Conclusions

8 PROSODIC PHENOMENA 8.1. Reduplication 8.1.1. Armenian reduplication with fixed coda material 8.1.2. M-reduplication 8.2. Hypocoristics 8.3. Long-distance compensatory lengthening 8.3.1. Basic aspects of Svedia phonology 8.3.2. Alterntions triggered by the definite article 8.3.3. Analysis and parallels 8.3.4. Problems

References Index

211 211 212 212 214 215 215 217 221 222 224 226 226 230 233 237 238 241

242 242 242 246 247 249 249 252 255 262

264 273

TRANSCRIPTION KEY Armenian script

Transliteration

UJ

a a b bh ts

[!

p p' it

9 zS 1If If ' h

ti

tJ

ti d dh

Armenian script

Transliteration

4

k

.p

e

L J h

m

n

0

l n

0

Q'

Uf

p

"'

J

/1 n

f

u

s

2

J

I;

e e:

$

f

'l: ' 'l:

g

U1

r

t th

t

p

'l

K

nL

.t;

h

I

ft

L

"

i dz ?_z

/u

x

J q

j

cJJ

rf

3

a a' E E'

jan, 1923). Another informant objected that many of the plural forms cited in another important grammar, A!Jarjan (1971), are incorrect; for example, he preferred the plural [storer] 'curtains' over A!Jarjan's [storner]. However, it is highly unlikely that A!Jarjan, the greatest Armenian linguist, would produce the incorrect plural form for an entire class of simple nouns in his native language. It actually appears to be the case that the rules governing plural selection have changed slightly since A!Jarjan learned the language in the nineteenth century. This does not mean that we cannot use A!Jarjan's forms; the rules of plural selection that he internalized are no less valid a subject of linguistic inquiry than the rules in the head of a young Armenian living in Erevan today. The two problems just mentioned are symptoms of an important characteristic of the Armenian language. Armenian is not a simple homogeneous language, but rather a vast continuum of related dialects and idiolects. The idea that Armenian consists solely of the literary languages-Classical, Middle, Standard Eastern, and Standard Western Armenian-is an illusion perpetuated by prescriptive grammarians and individuals who have not worked closely with speakers of the language. Since significant Armenian communities have existed in all of the world's major trade cities for centuries, it is to be expected rather than doubted that the individual communities would have developed local variations in their language due to the influence of local languages, isolation from other Armenian communities, and so on. In addition, any linguist who has studied a language closely knows that no two speakers of the language have exactly the same grammar: careful inspection inevitably reveals differences, whether subtle or striking. In light of this great variety to be found within the Armenian linguistic community, I ask for the reader's indulgence in perusing the chapters that follow. Rather than railing against the folly of 'incorrect' forms, the reader should revel in the diversity of this remarkable language.

1

SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY In this chapter I present the basic elements of Armenian phonetics and phonology, focusing on the phonemes and their allophones, and syllable typology. This being the first systematic theoretical study of Armenian phonology (useful nontheoretical studies include AbeKjan, 1923; 1932; Fairbanks, 1948; Allen, 1950; Johnson, 1954; A!fatjan, 1971; Xaijatrjan, 1988; Sukiasjan, 1989), I have drawn my material directly from primary sources, which are cited in the appropriate locations. Throughout this study I concentrate on standard eastern Armenian (SEA), spoken in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Iran, primarily because it distinguishes in pronunciation the three consonant series (voiced, voiceless, and voiceless aspirated) employed in both western and eastern orthography. I also make use of standard western Armenian (SWA) and various non-literary dialects where they help to shed light on the phenomena under consideration or themselves manifest interesting phenomena not found in SEA.

1.1. THE DIALECTS Various scholars have put the number of Armenian dialects between two and 120. The average Armenian distinguishes two dialects, eastern and western, which basically correspond to what I term SEA and SWA. There are in fact many more than two distinct dialects-many of which are mutually unintelligible, such as the Agulis dialect spoken in eastern Nakhichevan, which is called Zokere:n 'the Zok language' by Armenians, or the Svedia dialect spoken in Syria, called khisthin;Jk lizu 'Christian [language]' by its speakers. I follow D3ahukjan (1972) in assuming the existence of thirty-six basic dialects. These can be divided into two main groups, roughly corresponding to the eastern and western portions of the Armenian linguistic area (basically defined by position relative to the Armenian-Turkish border), based on a number of isoglosses including the presence of a locative case (eastern dialects) and present formations employing forms of the particle ku (western dialects). The dialects and their basic divisions are listed in (1) (see also the map on p. xiv). (1)

Western dialects

Eastern dialects

Agn Amasia Arabkir Cilicia

Agulis Are sh Artvin Astraxan

8

SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY

Western dialects

Eastern dialects

Crimea Erzurum Eudokia Hamshen Istanbul Malatia Mush Nicomedia Ordu Transylvania Rodosto Sebastia Shabin-Karahisar Smyrna Syria Tigranakert Trebizonde Van Xarberd/Erznka Xotorjur

Erevan Julfa Karabagh' Maragha Meghri Shamaxi Tiftis Xoy

1.1.1. Historical dialectology The two subgroups in (1) are further subdivided by a number of isoglosses, of which I present a few of the most significant here. I concentrate on linguistic innovations (relative to Classical Armenian), since common preservations are not valid criteria for historical subgrouping. Perhaps the most striking innovations in the post-Classical dialects occur in the verbal morphology, where excepting the aorist none of the classical formations remains in place. One may consult Vaux (1995a) for a synopsis of the changes that have occurred; here I consider only the simple present formation. The Classical Armenian present tense was formed by adding one of four thematic vowels directly to the verb root, followed by a set of personal endings, as schematized in (2). (2)

Classical Armenian present tense formation Root Thematic vowel lsg. Surface form her kam

e

gn

a

thol

u

m m m m

[berem] [kamim] [g;mam] [tholum]

Gloss I carry I wish Igo I allow

1 Karabagh in many respects is not a single dialect: its dozens of subdialects often disagree with respect to important isoglosses, such as the present formation and Adjarian's Law (see discussion in 1.1.1).

SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY

9

This formation is now the standard subjunctive formation in all of the modem dialects, and the present function has been filled by a number of new formations. SWA simply augments the classical present with a particle ku, which surfaces in various forms in all of the western dialects (ku is used to form the future tense in many eastern dialects). SEA and most of the eastern dialects employ a locative participle in -um followed by present forms of the copula to form the present tense. In addition to these formations, which cover the majority of Armenian dialects, we find a number of other developments. The dialects of Artvin, Meghri, and (much of) Karabagh employ a participle in -tis combined with the copula; many other eastern dialects including SEA use this formation with monosyllabic verbs. An interesting innovation among the western dialects is a present form that adds various manifestations of the particle ha to the classical present, found in Rodosto, Nicomedia, Agn, Malatia, Kesab, Aramo, and Edesia. These developments are summarized in (3). (3)

Modem present formations Source Underlying form SWA gu pher-e-m SEA her-um e-m Meghri mn-a-lis i-m Kesab ha pcen-e-m

Surface form ga pherem berum em mana(li)s im ha pcenem

Gloss I carry I carry I stay I work

The geographical distribution of peculiar innovations such as the ha present suggests historical movements. For examplle, one might speculate that the dialects of Nicomedia and Rodosto in north-west Turkey and Aramo and Kesab in Syria migrated from somewhere near Agn, Malatia, and Edesia in central Turkey some time after their common ancestor developed the ha construction. Similarly, the isolation of Artvin from the rest of the -tis dialects suggests either that this speech community moved from the Karabagh area some time after the -tis formation developed or that the area in between Karabagh and Artvin, which employs -lis with monosyllabic verbs, has innovated. Perhaps the most famous and least understood aspect of Armenian phonology is the extensive series of consonant shifts that occurred between ProtoIndo-European and the modem dialects. The basic developments are schematized in (4), with coronal stops representing the outcomes of stops at all places of articulation; representative examples are given in (5).

(4) Correspondences in initial position 1 2 3

4 5 6 7

d d t d d d

dh dh dh d th d

t th th th th th th th

Indo-European Sebastia Erevan Istanbul Sasun, Middle Armenian Malatia, SWA Classical Armenian, Agulis, SEA Van

SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY

IO

(5)

Indo-European Sebastia Erevan Istanbul Sasun SWA Classical Van

*D dekjm '10' dasa tassa dasa das dasa (ldasnl) tasn tas

*Ii' bheremi 'I carry' bherem bherem berem peram p"erem berem pirem

*T o/(to: '8' utha uth uthu uth utha(!uthnl) uth uth

It is interesting to note that the voiceless aspirates remain unchanged in all of the dialects; the distinctions between these dialect groups therefore lie in the first two series alone. Many scholars, most recently Garrett (1991), have suggested that group 1, which most closely resembles the Indo-European system structurally, is in fact a direct descendant of Indo-European, and the other systems are later innovations. There is reason to believe, however, that all the modem systems developed from the Classical Armenian system (group 6); Agulis, Artvin, Meghri, Tiflis, and Amasia preserve this system intact. The group 6 dialects 2 exist in isolated patches throughout the Armenian-speaking area, a typical feature of archaisms, whereas the other consonant systems occupy continuous areas, typical of later innovations. Further evidence for this position is presented in Chapter 7, where I also examine the mechanics and relative chronology of the various consonant shifts. Another interesting innovation in the consonant system is Adjarian's Law, which describes the fronting of back vowels after voiced obstruents (Vaux, 1992). 3 This development occurs in the dialects of Agulis, Karabagh, Maragha, Meghri, Salmast, Shamaxi, Shatax, Syria, Van, and Xoy; representative examples are provided in (6). (6)

a.

b.

Classical bah balk buk" gafn gal gund danak dalal durs pafaw port

Van pcex poxk pyk"j kjcer !(¢ff kjynd tcencek t¢1>al tys pafav puol't

Gloss spade radish snowstorm sheep thief heap knife tremble outside old woman navel

2 I use the tenn 'group 6 dialects' in a descriptive sense; I do not believe that the archaism shared by group 6 dialects is a valid criterion for historical subgrouping. 3 In Malatia, vowels are more closed (actually [+ATR] in my interpretation) after original voiced obstruents than after voiceless aspirates (Danieljan, 1967: 22).

SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY

Classical putuk kanatJ kov kuft tak" tokank" tun

Van putuk kanatJ kov kuft tak'" tuokank" tun

II

Gloss vessel green cow side hot punishment house

In many of these dialects the original plain voiced series has become voiceless, merging with the original voiceless series, suggesting that the loss of the voicing distinction is somehow correlated with the vowel fronting process. Agulis, Meghri, and the Kirzan subdialect of Karabagh are particularly interesting in this regard, since they preserve the plain voiced series yet undergo Adjarian's Law. (7)

Classical bah gatn darman

Agulis bah giatn to diphthongize in initial position, since at the time the rule applies, words such as [oth] 'air' have an initial au-, and a does not undergo the rule (cf. akif 'shovel' ~ [akif]). We do need to account for the behavior of initial /ei/, however, which we might expect to surface as *Uej-], based on the syllabification procedures to be discussed in Chapter 3. I assume that the diphthongization rule does not apply to segments that are already diphthongs. We must also explain why unstressed /ei/ becomes [i] rather than [e] and why unstressed /au/ does not become [a], which we might expect since unstressed i and u are generally deleted (cf. 1.3). I am forced to assume that the reduction rule treats [+high] elements of diphthongs differently from simple high vowels. Some interesting structural features of the SEA consonantal inventory are the 7 This o: seems to have been different from o in classical Armenian (perhaps [o] vs. [::>]),judging by their distinction in the orthography and in many modern dialects such as Van and Mush.

15

SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY

opposition of three series such as we find in Thai: the existence of uvular but not velar fricatives; two contrastive rhotics, one trilled (f) and one flapped (r); and the presence of aspirated affricates but not fricatives. Tripartite consonant systems often show interesting laryngeal neutralization effects, as in the well-known case of Thai; SEA presents a more complicated variant of the behavior of Thai in this respect, as I describe in 1.3. Even more complicated laryngeal behavior is found in the New Julfa dialect, which like Hindi has four stop series. I consider New Julfa laryngeal neutralization and the problem of aspirated affricates and fricatives in Chapter 7. Some dialects, including SWA, merge the two varieties of rhotics; SEA neutralizes the opposition to f before coronal consonants (cf. sections 1.2 and 6.2). The feature specifications of Armenian r and f are considered in more detail in Chapter 6. The uvular fricative ff is somewhat problematic, in that it behaves as a coronal with respect to a number of phonological rules discussed in Chapters 3 and 6. Historically this is not altogether surprising, since it developed from a dark l (cf. aff 'salt': Latin sal, gaff 'thief': Latin vol- 'rob'), but in synchronic terms it is not immediately clear whether to treat ff as a uvular with certain special properties or as a [+back] coronal lateral which becomes uvular at the phonetic level in all environments. I know of no contrasts between aspirated consonants and stop + h sequences. It is possible to construct a handful of stop + h sequences using the prefix followed by h-initial roots, e.g. 'general', but the fact that the surface form [anthanur] shows a voiceless aspirate is independent of the following h: cf. jan, 1923: 273). In monosyllables, the -k" crucially must be syllabified as an appendix in order to trigger selection of the a. Initial appendix (see 47)) PrPhr" PrWdb I (J

0

s

1~

I

N

I 0

C

I

r

b. Final appendix (see 50)) PrWd (J

1~ N

c

I

I

~

0

p

a

r

k"

Fig. 1.5. (' PrPhr =Prosodic Phrase. b PrWd =Prosodic Word.)

SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY

33

polysyllabic plural; when it is syllabified as a coda, the monosyllabic plural is selected. For further discussion of this issue, see Chapter 3. One final difference between SEA and SWA with respect to plural formation involves the treatment of compounds. In SWA, all compounds select the polysyllabic plural (51i). On the other hand, as mentioned in section 1.3, compounds whose second member is monosyllabic show two different behaviors with respect to plural formation in SEA: endocentric compounds select the monosyllabic plural -er (5 laii), whereas exocentric compounds select the polysyllabic plural -ner (51bii). (51) Underlying form (SEA) i. SWA plural a. Endocentric an{jrevaflurner an [gellim] 'I am' vs. [guell-e-m]--> [k'ellim] 'I go up/out'.

52

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

I suggest that the answer lies in the fact that e-raising is cyclic, whereas a-raising is noncyclic. Let us assume that the imperfective morpheme gu is noncyclic (or more precisely, constituents of which gu is the head are noncyclic). In the terms of traditional lexical phonology, we would say that e-raising is a level 1 rule, a-raising is a level 2 rule, and gu is a level 2 affix. At the point in the derivation where e-raising applies, the gu has not yet been added to the root; consequently, the nasal is adjacent to the theme vowel, and e-raising can apply. The derivation then passes to level 2, at which point the gu is inserted between the theme vowel and the person-number suffixes. The derivation then considers the rule of a-raising, which cannot apply since its conditions are no longer satisfied. The relevant derivations are schematized in (13). (13) Level 1 affixation e-raising Level 2 affixation a-raising Surface form

khal-e-m garth-a-m khal-i-m khal-i-gu-m garth-a-gu-m khaligum

garthagum

khal-e-m garth-a-m khal-i-m khal-i-m-gu garth-a-m-gu garth-o-m-gu khalimgu garthomgu

Within the framework of RRT, these facts are dealt with somewhat differently, though the central insight (that the distinction in (12c-d) results from the fact that e-raising is cyclic and a-raising is not) remains the same. Given the architecture of the grammar sketched in 2.3, we assume in the case of 'I walk', for example, that the syntax provides the string (V-tense-personnumber}. The readjustment rules of the morphological component then modify this into the sequence of terminal nodes [V]-[theme]-[imperfective]-[person/ number]; the placement of the [imperfective] node varies according to the conditions described earlier. Vocabulary insertion then applies, producing the sequence k"al-e-gu-m. The form next passes on to the phonological component, where the two raising rules now have the opportunity to apply. The rule of e-raising is sensitive only to cyclic morphemes, and therefore ignores the noncyclic morpheme gu (as with regular phonological rules, transparency vs. opacity is produced by strict locality requirements; cf. the discussion of sensitivity in 2.2.1 and Chapter 4). Thus, the conditions for its application are met in the form k"al-e-gu-m, and the rule applies, yielding k"aligum. The rule of a-raising, on the other hand, is sensitive to all morphemes; hence, the gu in garth-a-gu-m, for example, is visible, and application of the rule is blocked, yielding the correct surface form garthagum. The interpretation of sensitivity and cyclicity within RRT has an important result. Within existing theories of phonology and morphology, transparency effects that we observe in phonological systems, for example the behavior of transparent vowels in Finnish vowel harmony, are completely unrelated to transparency effects in morphological systems, such as the gu-phenomenon in (12). Vocalic transparency in vowel harmony systems is commonly explained in terms of underspecification: transparent vowels are unspecified for the harmonic feature at the point that harmony applies, and therefore do not interfere with the propaga-

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

53

ti on of harmony through a word. Clearly the underspecification analysis cannot be extended to morphological transparency; we cannot say, for example, that the morpheme gu in (12) is completely underspecified phonologically. RRT, on the other hand, provides a unified account for both phonological and morphological transparency. According to the principle of sensitivity assumed in RRT, the (in)visibility of a phoneme or morpheme follows directly from the nature of the rule in question. For example, if a rule is sensitive to marked features and the feature specification of the target segment is not marked, the segment will be invisible to the rule. Similarly, in the domain of morphology, if a rule is sensitive only to cyclic morphemes and the targeted morpheme is noncyclic, the morpheme will be invisible to the rule. The fact that RRT provides a simple unified account for phonological and morphological transparency should be taken as a significant advantage over competing theories of phonology and morphology.

2.2.2. Constraints and repairs Calabrese (1988; 1995) demonstrates that negative constraints on feature combinations (marking statements) and rules that repair violations of these constraints play an important role in phonological systems. As stated above, RRT takes this assertion seriously and adopts the results of Calabrese's work on the subject. We have already discussed the effects of marking statements; in this subsection we consider the repair strategies Calabrese proposes: delinking, fission, and negation.11 Delinking is perhaps the simplest repair procedure to illustrate. In Markedness Theory, violations of marking statements may be repaired by delinking one of the incompatible features (not necessarily the marked one), which results in insertion of the opposite value for that feature. A typical example is the treatment of English [-A TR] high vowels such as [1] and [uJ by speakers of languages lacking these vowels, such as French. In languages lacking [-ATR] high vowels, the marking statement *[+high, -ATR] is active (cf. Fig. 2.7); consequently borrowings possessing [+high, -ATR] vowels cannot be pronounced as such. Speakers of French regularly pronounce words such as English ship and book as rJip] and [buk], rather than the correct rJ1p] and [buk], indicating that [+high, -ATR] vowels are changed to [+high, +ATR]. Within MT, this change results from delinking of the feature [-ATR] and its subsequent replacement by [+ATR], as depicted in Fig. 2.10. Another strategy used to repair violations of the filter * [+high, -ATR] is found in Okpe, which employs negation. In Okpe, the [-ATR] high vowels {1, u) occur in underlying forms but surface as the [+ATR] mid vowels {e, o) respectively. MT treats this change as an instance of negation, which inverts the values for both features in a disallowed configuration. In the case of Okpe, negation changes the 11 Calabrese suggests that there is free choice between these three strategies at each point where a violation of a marking statement occurs.

54

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

a.

delinking

J

p

------------- r

Dorsal I [+high] b.

Radical [-ATR]

fill-in of opposite feature value

J

p

-------------

Dorsal

Radical

I

[+high]

[-ATR] Fig. 2.10

configuration [+high, -ATR] into [-high, +ATR], yielding [+ATR] mid vowels, as depicted in Fig. 2.11. a.

negation

Dorsal

I

[+high] b.

Radical

I

[-ATR]

fill-in of opposite feature value

Dorsal [-high]

Radical [+ATR] Fig. 2.11

In Chapter 7 I examine an interesting case of negation involving laryngeal features that plays an important role in the Armenian consonant shifts. The final repair strategy is fission, which splits a disallowed feature pair into two units, each containing one of the offending features and the opposite value of the other. A typical example is the treatment of front rounded vowels in Classical and modem Standard Armenian. Borrowings from languages with front rounded vowels such as French, Greek, and Turkish regularly replace y and ¢ with iu and ea respectively, as in Classical Greek p"ylake: ~ Classical Armenian p1'iulake: 'prison'. Front rounded vowels violate the marking statement *[-back, +round], which is deactivated in French and Turkish, but active in Classical Armenian.

55

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

a. initial form: y

x I

Root --~··-/L~biai"\ /Dorsai"\

.....[ I j( I L.. "{~-~~~~~~/ \.~:.~~~~~/ ............. b. fission

x

~ Root Root

...-···I···.... ..····l····...

/Labial\ /Dorsal\

.....(

I

'/

I

\..

.•

". [+round}!\ [-back]/ ...... ..... ...... ..... ········ Fig. 2.12

Armenian repairs violations of this marking statement by means of fission, which splits the disallowed configuration *[-back, +round] into two parts, one containing [-back] and [-round], and the other containing [+back] and [+round], giving iu or eo depending on the [high] value of the original vowel. This process is depicted in Fig. 2.12. A language can employ all three of the repair strategies discussed above in different situations. For example, a language may employ fission to deal with a violation of a marking statement produced by one rule, and it may then employ delinking to deal with a violation of a different marking statement produced by another rule. In Chapter 6 I consider some cases where Armenian employs more than one repair strategy.

2.3. THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE GRAMMAR 2.3.1. Distributed Morphology Distributed Morphology (DM) assumes that grammars are structured as in Fig. 2.13. 2.3.2. The structure of lexical entries RRT assumes, following DM, that morphemes are stored in the Vocabulary as bundles of semantic, syntactic, morphological, phonological, and grammatical

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Syntactic Structure (SS)

D-Structure

t

S-Structure Morphosyntactic operations Morphological Structure (MS) Vocabulary insertion Morphophonemic operations Phonological Structure (PS)

Phonetic Form (PF)

Fig. 2.13

features. By 'grammatical features' I refer to nonpredictable linguistic information that does not strictly belong to the semantics, syntax, morphology, or phonology. A typical example would be linguistic stipulations of exceptionality, such as the fact that the plural morpheme in Homshetsma does not trigger a-raising (see 2.2.1.2). In RRT, this exceptional fact is stored as a grammatical feature in the lexical entry of the Homshetsma plural morpheme. I also include under the rubric of 'grammatical features' other phonological information such as lexical stress and whether or not a morpheme is cyclic. Armenian also raises the possibility that some syllabic structure may be stored in lexical entries. Given the structure of the model in Fig. 2.13, all morphological processes, including Vocabulary Insertion, apply before the level of Phonological Structure. Since, as we saw in 1.4.5, plural selection refers to syllable count, we must infer that lexical entries contain a certain amount of syllable structure when they enter the level of Morphological Structure. One could infer that this syllable structure is actually stored in the lexical entries of Vocabulary items, but this hypothesis would miss the fact that the syllable structures in question are predictable. Consequently, I prefer to assume that morphemes are stored in memory without syllable structure, and then are run through the basic syllabification procedure in the Phonological component. The syllable structure assigned in this way is then registered as part of the lexical entry of each vocabulary item when it is inserted in a given utterance. Sloan ( 1991) comes to similar conclusions based on Sierra Miwok data, and essentially the same proposal has been made to account for the behavior of the Polish comparative formation, a morphological rule that applies early in the derivation yet requires some amount of preexisting syllabification (Kenstowicz, 1994: 263). I will not go into this issue further here, but refer the reader to the discussion in Kenstowicz (1994) and references cited there.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

57

2.3.3. Interlevel access A key element of DM for the purposes of this book is the claim that each level has access to structures provided by earlier levels in the derivation. A phonological rule, for example, can refer to syntactic information such as whether a target word is a syntactic head or not. In the remainder of this chapter I provide Armenian examples of each type of interlevel access. 2.3.3.1. Morphological access of syntactic structure Recall from 1.3.7 and 1.4.5 that exocentric and endocentric compounds behave differently with regard to plural selection: when the final member of the compound is monosyllabic, endocentric compounds select the monosyllabic plural, whereas exocentric compounds select the polysyllabic plural. I suggest that this difference in behavior results from the fact that the morphological process of plural selection refers to the syntactic structure in which the item to be pluralized is situated. More specifically, the plural selection process targets the constituents that are c-commanded by the Plural node in the syntactic tree. In order to clarify how this analysis works, let us begin with a simplified version of the underlying structures of the plural forms of endocentric and exocentric compounds. Both types of compound begin with the structure in Fig. 2.14. N N

/~ {Cpd Member 1}

{Cpd Member 2}

[+Plural]

Fig. 2.14

However, in endocentric compounds the second member of the compound, {Cpd Member 2}, is the head of the compound noun, whereas in endocentric compounds neither member of the compound is the head. The fact that the endocentric compound has a head makes it possible for a special process of morphological rebracketing to apply. According to Marantz (1988), morphological rebracketing is a special case of head-to-head movement; in other words, given a structure of the type [X[YZ]], it is possible to rebracket as [XY[Z]], provided that X and Y are syntactic heads. This process, which I assume to be a Morphosyntactic operation at the level of Morphological Structure (see Fig. 2.13), is depicted in Fig. 2.15.

x/A ~

',.., ~-

-_.. ~

y

z

x Fig. 2.15

y

z

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

When X and Y are not both heads, head-to-head movement is not possible; in other words, morphological rebracketing does not occur. Given the machinery proposed by Marantz, we can now account for the different behavior of endocentric and exocentric compounds in Armenian. Since endocentric compounds contain a head, it is possible for the [+Plural] feature, which is the head of a Number Phrase, to undergo head-to-head movement and adjoin to the head of an endocentric compound. If we start with an endocentric compound such as 'rainwaters', we then have the derivation in Fig. 2.16. a. initial form

A~ water Pl

rain

b. head-to-head movement"

A~ water Pl

ram

~-

c. resulting form

/~

rain

water

Pl

Fig. 2.16. (a I assume that the Plural head adjoins to the Noun head rather than vice versa because of the parallel case of English forms such as ladies-in-waiting. If the Noun head were adjoining to the Plural head, we would expect *in-waiting-ladies.)

In exocentric compounds, on the other hand, head-to-head movement is not possible, since the compound does not contain a head. As a result, the representations that feed Vocabulary Insertion are as shown in Fig. 2.17. a. endocentric compound ('rainwaters')

~ water Pl

rain

b. exocentric compound ('manuscripts')

A~ write Pl

rain

Fig. 2.17

Given the representations in Fig. 2.17, how does Vocabulary Insertion select the

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

59

correct plural suffix for each case? I propose that the plural selection procedure is sensitive to the constituent c-commanded by the [+Plural] feature. This entails that 'water' will be targeted in figure 2.17a, and the compound 'hand-write' will be targeted in figure 2. l 7b. Since 'water' is monosyllabic in Armenian, the monosyllabic plural is selected; the compound 'hand-write', being polysyllabic, selects the polysyllabic plural. The point to bear in mind in this analysis for our present purposes is that a morphological process is making reference to syntactic information. The process of plural selection in fact refers to syntactic structure on two separate occasions: morphological rebracketing (Fig. 2. l 6b) considers whether the element to be moved and the element to which it is to adjoin are syntactic heads; and Vocabulary Insertion looks at the syntactic nodes that are c-commanded by the Plural head. 2.3.3.2. Phonological access of syntactic structure A simple example of phonological access to syntactic structure involves stress assignment. According to Abeisjan (1932: 19), Armenian distinguishes three levels of stress: word-level, phrasal, and sentential. 12 Word-level stress is assigned to each Clitic Group; phrasal stress is assigned to the head of a syntactic phrase; sentential stress is assigned to the topic or focus of a sentence. A typical example of these three stress levels is given for the sentence 'the dying sun gilds the mountain peak with its last rays' in Fig. 2.18 (Abeisjan, 1932: 25; orthography is AbeKjan's). sentential stress

-------::::~

__x

phrasal stress word stress

X

------ I

__x

~ I

X

X

X

X

I

I

I

I

X

X

I

/I

X

~

X X

11 e lefan

X

I

mefnoK areva verjfn SoKerOV oskezocum katara dying sun last rays gild is mountain peak Fig. 2.18

Both phrasal stress and sentential stress are assigned by phonological rules that are sensitive to syntactic structure. We know that these two types of stress are assigned by phonological rules because they are treated in the same manner as word-level accents by the phonological rule of stress clash deletion (see Chapter 4). We also know that the rules responsible for assigning phrasal stress and sentential stress require access to syntactic information, because the former targets heads of syntactic phrases and the latter targets syntactically focused or topicalized elements. 12 The actual terms employed by Aberu:jan are bati feft 'word stress', k''erakanakan Jejt 'grammatical stress', and xosk'i feft 'utterance stress' respectively; I have altered these labels slightly in order to render their function more obvious to readers familiar with modern linguistic terminology.

60

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.3.3.3. Phonological access of morphological structure Many rules of Armenian phonology are sensitive to morphological structure; I discuss two examples briefly here. The first case involves future deaffrication, a process in which in the Classical Armenian future/aorist subjunctive, the -!'§- of the aorist stem becomes -s- when immediately followed by a [§-initial subjunctive ending. Future deaffrication produces forms such as [sires[§es] 'you will love' from /seir-e-!'§-!'§-e-s/ (love-themeV-aorist-subjunctive-V-2sg.). Though future deaffrication is a phonological rule, it is crucially sensitive to morphological structure, as it only applies in the future tense, even though its phonological conditions are met elsewhere. The second case of a morphologically conditioned phonological rule involves syllabification. As I demonstrate in Chapter 3, syllabification in Armenian consists of three modules: lexical, cyclic, and postcyclic. The module that is relevant for our present purposes is the cyclic level of syllabification, which is sensitive to morphological structure. This level, which is only sensitive to morphemes that are specified as [+cyclic], parses one morpheme at a time, beginning with the root and proceeding outward. This process is crucially sensitive to morphological structure, because it makes reference to the boundaries of individual morphemes: if cyclic syllabification did not have access to morpheme boundaries, it would continue parsing segments until the entire word was syllabified. Both of the phenomena discussed in this section are examined in greater detail in the chapter dealing with syllabification, to which we now tum.

3

SYLLABIFICATION 3 .1. INTRODUCTION One of the first problems confronted by students of Armenian is the discrepancy between the orthography, which contains consonant clusters of as many as ten members, and the pronunciation, which displays relatively manageable clusters and any number of schwas, almost none of which are reflected in the orthography. A typical example is the word for 'brilliant', which is spelled but pronounced [pa.fas.thar.pa.las.thar]. One immediately wonders whether the orthography directly represents underlying lexical representations which are subsequently altered by rules of epenthesis, or alternately that the schwas present in surface pronunciations are already present in underlying representations, and the orthography is underdetermined. If schwas are present in underlying representations we expect them to show the same distribution as other vowels in the Armenian inventory, and to defy attempts to predict their occurrence from principles of epenthesis. Conversely, if schwas are not present in underlying representations we expect their occurrences to be predictable from underlying representations by simple and universal principles. I argue in this chapter that the latter hypothesis is correct, and demonstrate that a modified version of the syllabification algorithm postulated as a component of Universal Grammar by Dell and Elmedlaoui (1985) accounts for the occurrence of Armenian schwas in a principled and elegant manner. The model of syllabification I propose for Armenian, which I assume to be an integral component of Universal Grammar, basically consists of the model proposed by Dell and Elmedlaoui (1985) (see Chapter 2), with the following modifications: LEXICAL SYLLABIFICATION MODULARITY

FINAL CONSONANT EXTRAPROSODICITY (FCE)

Morphemes are specified for a certain amount of syllable structure in the lexicon (cf. Sloan, 1991) (section 3.2.2). Syllabification consists of three modules: lexical, cyclic, and post-cyclic (cf. Steriade, 1982; Rubach, 1990) (sections 3.2.2, 3.2.8, 3.3.4); other phonological rules may occur between these modules (e.g. vowel reduction; sections 1.3, 3.2.1). Morpheme-final consonants are not syllabified within their cycle (cf. Borowsky, 1986; Ito, 1986; Kenstowicz, 1994) (section 3.2.4).

62

SYLLABIFICATION

SONORITY BLOCKING CONSTRAINT (SBC) CODA ASSIGNMENT EPENTHESIS

Syllabification is blocked when the target segment is followed by a more sonorous unsyllabified segment (section 3.2.6.3.1). Codas are assigned during each sonority pass, rather than at the end of the derivation (section 3.2.6). Consonants are expelled from syllable nuclei by vocalic root nodes at the end of each cycle (section 3.2.7).

The general structure I propose for Armenian syllabification is summarized in (1). (1)

a.

(R ~ L) (i) assign X to a syllable nucleus (X = unsyllabified segment of a given sonority) (ii) attach an immediately preceding segmental sequence as an onset (or appendix-onset sequence) (iii) attach an immediately following segmental sequence as a coda (or coda-appendix sequence)

b.

EPENTHESIS

ATTACHMENT

(iv) place a vocalic root node 1 adjacent to a nuclear consonant, according to the following principles: a. to the right in a syllable without an onset or with a rhyme sequence that cannot form a complex coda b. elsewhere to the left c.

DESYLLABIFICATION

(v) desyllabify syllables containing a [+cons] nucleus Each of the steps in (1) is subject to universal as well as language-specific constraints; I consider the former in 3.2 and the latter in 3.3. In 3.4 I then summarize the results of this chapter, and in 3.5 I provide a list of the forms employed in constructing the analysis presented here. Although the model I develop in this chapter is quite complex, I maintain that this is a necessary consequence of attempting to account for all the relevant data, rather than a limited subset of manageable facts. Before beginning, I illustrate the basic workings of the algorithm in (1) as they apply to the word bldnmn 'heracleum villosum' [bdl.d

g

(J

~

0

I

b.

v

c.

N

I

a

PrPhr PrWd

I (J

~

0 d.

s

I

p

N

c

I

I

a

(J

~

0

I

e.

K

N

I

c

I

a

Fig. 3.4 (J

I

N

I

(J

~

0

I

K

N

I

a

Fig. 3.5

c

I

i

74

SYLLABIFICATION

Thus, mard, vagr, and spai are assigned one syllable each, timi is assigned two syllables, and t'j is not assigned any syllable structure. These syllable structures are then registered as part of the lexical entries of the respective morphemes. Note that it is not the case that every element of every morpheme is syllabified in the lexicon; in fact, morphemes consisting solely of a single consonant, such as -[§-, are not assigned any syllable structure in the lexicon, due to FCE. Now that we have seen that most morphemes possess a certain amount of syllabic structure in their lexical entries, the next question is what happens when these morphemes are concatenated during the course of the derivation. This is the domain of the cyclic and postcyclic levels of syllabification. Lexical syllabification leaves these two levels with three primary tasks: L

ii. iii.

Syllabify unparsed segments. Expel syllabic consonants (cf. 1b ). Repair unacceptable morpheme junctions (e.g. vowel hiatus (3.3.1.1), C-SCV sequences (3.3.8) ).

In 3.2.3-3.3.2.2 I present the structure of the cyclic syllabification component and

develop the various subroutines employed by all levels of syllabification. I then discuss the postcyclic syllabification component in 3.3.2.3-3.3.8. 3.2.3. The sonority hierarchy In our consideration of cyclic syllabification we first tum to the issue of sonority, which lies at the heart of all syllabification procedures. The attachment procedure in (1) assigns segments to syllables in a series of passes based on sonority: the most sonorous segments are scanned first, and the least sonorous are scanned last. Each pass of syllable assignment is able to assign to nuclei segments of a given level of sonority. The sonority scale in Fig. 3.6 on which this analysis is based is taken from Dell and Elmedlaoui (1985), on the assumption that the model of syllabification they propose is a component of UG, undergoing only minimal modifications on a language-particular basis. non-high vowels high vowels liquids nasals fricatives stops

more sonorous

l

less sonorous

Fig. 3.6. The sonority hierarchy

In this section I consider the evidence that Armenian provides for the various subdivisions of the sonority hierarchy in Fig. 3.6.

SYLLABIFICATION

75

3.2.3.1. Vowels The nonhigh vowels {a e o} never undergo syllabic alternations in Armenian, suggesting that they are the most sonorous Armenian phonemes. The status of e is less clear than that of the other two nonhigh vowels, however. SWA orthography contains many es that are pronounced asj, for example in the genitive singular of the abstract noun suffix -uthiun, which is written but pronounced [uthjan]. If the orthography indeed reflects phonemic es in these cases, then we have evidence that low vowels are more sonorous than mid vowels. However, I know of no cases where e actually alternates with j in paradigms and since there is no evidence for o ever occupying a syllable margin, I have taken the conservative position that alternations such as we find in the abstract suffix involve an underlying i phoneme (for example, I assume that the genitive discussed above is underlyingly /uthian/). The situation with the high vowels is more complicated. The fact that high vowels always become glides adjacent to tautomorphemic nonhigh vowels (e.g. ail 'other' [ajl], eu 'and' [jev], gain 'color' [gujn]) indicates that high vowels are less sonorous than nonhigh vowels, but some of the particulars of this relationship are difficult to establish. For example, we know that eu involves an underlying u rather than a v because of the unstressed alternant u that occurs between conjoined nouns, but we cannot be sure that gojn involves an underlying o, as the orthography suggests, or rather an underlying u. Conjunction of o and i at a morpheme boundary results in glide insertion (Maro-[j]i 'Mara's', matani[j]ov 'ring-instr.'), so we cannot produce any alternations that might settle the question.

3.2.3.2. Consonants Evidence for sonority distinctions among consonants comes from two sources: inventories of allowed onsets and codas, and the behavior of nucleus assignment. The onset and coda evidence is significantly simpler to gather and evaluate, so I concentrate on it here. Phonologists commonly assume that licit onsets and codas cross-linguistically are subject to the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP), which states that onsets must be of rising sonority and codas must be of falling sonority. Assuming that Armenian obeys the SSP, which I believe to be true, 11 we can use the inventory of onsets and codas allowed in the language as a diagnostic for sonority distinctions, since individual syllable components are not allowed to have consecutive elements of equal sonority. By this measure, we can establish the sonority distinctions in (9). (9)

a. b.

Liquids are more sonorous than nasals (l!;Jerm 'warm', burn 'fist'). Liquids are more sonorous than fricatives (hars 'bride').

11 The one possible exception is the sibilant + nonsibilant fricative coda type discussed in 3.2.6. One could say either that the second element of these clusters belongs to an appendix, or that sibilants are more sonorous than other fricatives.

76

SYLLABIFICATION

(9) contd.

c. d. e. f.

Liquids are more sonorous than stops (lirb 'insolent'). Nasals are more sonorous than stops (gund 'sphere'). Fricatives are more sonorous than stops (mift 'always'). Nasals are more sonorous than fricatives (toms 'ticket').

There is also evidence that nasals are more sonorous than fricatives in the behavior of sibilant + consonant sequences. Underlying sibilant + stop + vowel sequences surface with an epenthetic vowel before the sibilant in SWA and without an epenthetic vowel in SEA, as in st-a-na-l 'receive' [(a)stanal], whereas sibilant + liquid or nasal sequences epenthesize between the two segments in both dialects, as in slakh 'arrow' [salak1, fnorh 'grace' [Jano,r]. I believe that this difference in syllabification results from the sonority relationships involved: sibilants are more sonorous than stops but less sonorous than liquids and nasals. If this analysis is correct, we can deduce that nasals are in fact more sonorous than fricatives. Since we have already established that Armenian distinguishes the full complement of sonority levels proposed in Fig. 3.6 and there is evidence for this hierarchy outside Armenian, there is no need to search for further confirmation in the behavior of nucleus assignment. Nevertheless, for the sake of completeness I present a few examples here. Consider the word spltr-ik 'feeble' [sa.palt.rik]. If stops were more sonorous than liquids, we would expect the syllabification *sP.lT.rik, 12 which would yield the surface form [saplatrik]. Thus, we can assume that liquids are in fact more sonorous than stops. Now consider the word slnbun 'slippery' [salambun]. If fricatives were more sonorous than liquids, we would expect the syllabification *Sl.N.bUn, which would give *[salnabun]. So far, then, we have the hierarchy liquid >> {fricative, stop}. Now consider the word plsthr-plsthr 'brilliant' [pa.las.thar.pa.las.thar]. If stops were more sonorous than fricatives, we would expect the syllabification *pL.srr.pL.sT"r, which would give *[pal.sa.thar pal.sa.thar]. We can thus assume that fricatives are more sonorous than stops, which gives us the hierarchy liquid>> fricative>> stop. One could probably find words that would confirm the rest of the sonority hierarchy, but I will not do so here since my original proposal is clearly on the right track. It should be noted that I have not distinguished voicing within obstruents. Thus, whereas in the Dell and Elmedlaoui model voiced fricatives are more sonorous than voiceless fricatives and voiced stops are more sonorous than voiceless stops, in my model all fricatives are considered to be of equal sonority, and the same is true for stops. To the best of my knowledge there are no forms in Armenian that would allow us to distinguish the two possibilities, so I have opted for the more conservative position.

12

Throughout this chapter capital letters in representations denote syllabic peaks.

SYLLABIFICATION

77

3.2.4. Nuclei The heart of the syllabification procedure proposed in this chapter is the assignment of syllable nuclei in a series of passes according to the sonority hierarchy just discussed. By building the model of syllabification around this process, I intend to capture the crosslinguistic generalization that syllables center on peaks of sonority, and the fact that Armenian epenthetic schwas always appear adjacent to these sonority peaks. In the model of syllabification and epenthesis I propose here, the placement of schwas is controlled by procedure (iv) in (1), which inserts [-cons] root nodes adjacent to [+cons] nuclei. This procedure accounts for the placement of epenthetic schwas in an elegant way: epenthetic vowels are predicted to occur only adjacent to original syllable nuclei, whereas competing models that do not syllabify consonants as nuclei have difficulty explaining why a form such as phtngt-a-l 'sneeze (v.)' is pronounced [la.tavg.tal] rather than *[phat.nag.tal]. In my model this outcome makes sense because both of the epenthetic schwas are adjacent to the underlying nucleus t. Nevertheless, given that (for many Armenian speakers) all surface syllables must have vocalic nuclei, one might ask why I am supposing that consonants can be assigned to syllable nuclei at an earlier stage of the derivation. Consider a word such as glnthor 'fat', which surfaces as [ga.lan.thor]. In my model, this word is initially parsed as gLn.thO, where capital letters denote syllable peaks and brackets enclose unparsed material. The epenthesis procedure in (l.iv-v) subsequently produces glont•o, where o represents an empty [-cons] root node; the cyclic pass that scans for stops produces G.lon.t•o, which becomes go.lon.tho after epenthesis. Postcyclic syllabification followed by melodic specification of empty vowel positions then gives the correct surface form, ga.lan.t•or. Notice that both epenthetic schwas occur directly adjacent to the original nucleus L, and we do not get the perfectly possible surface form *gal.na.thor. Let us consider briefly how such a word might be parsed in other models of syllabification. I discuss here two prevalent models, a traditional rule-driven approach (Kenstowicz, 1994: 270, based on Kahn, 1976) and a templatic approach (lt6, 1986; Dell and Tangi, 1993). The rule-driven approach mentioned by Kenstowicz first assigns vowels as syllable nuclei, then attaches eligible preceding consonants as onsets, and finally attaches eligible following consonants as codas. Such a model would produce an initial parse t•or for the form under discussion. The unparsed consonants would then be syllabified with the assistance of an epenthesis rule of the form 0 ~ a /_, in other words 'insert a schwa before an unsyllabified consonant'. If this rule applied iteratively from right to left, we would first obtain t•or, which would then syllabify as lan.t•or. A second iteration of the epenthesis rule would then produce *ag.lan.r•or, unless we subjected the procedure to additional constraints (e.g. one prohibiting epenthesis at word boundaries) and added a right-epenthesis rule. This procedure fails to account for forms such as /k"rt•muna"],

[himi1n]).

SYLLABIFICATION

Armenian (cf. 2.2.1.2). Thus, when appendix assignment applies during the cyclic level of syllabification, the plural suffix -ner will not be visible. 18 As a result, the procedure responsible for dealing with appendices (la.iii) will assign the in /bfuni'}kh-ner/ as an appendix to the preceding syllable. At the postcyclic level of syllabification, where all morphemes are visible, word-internal appendices cannot be assigned, as my model predicts.

e

3.2.6.3. Coda assignment Let us now consider how the coda assignment procedure (iii) in (1) accounts for the inventory of possible codas just presented. According to Clements's (1988) dispersion principle, codas have the complexity ranking in Fig. 3.8. LO NO,GO LN,GN GL 0 N L G

more complex

less complex Fig. 3.8

As we can see in (13), Armenian allows all of the coda types in Fig. 3.8, though a subset of the two most complex codas, NS and LS, do not appear to be allowed. Based on these facts I assume that Armenian sets a pointer above the level LO; all sequences below this level of complexity are allowed as codas, and those above are not. The coda assignment procedure in (liii) is then only allowed to syllabify sequences whose marking statement is deactivated. Now let us return to the question of where in the derivation coda assignment occurs. If coda assignment applied at the end of the derivation as proposed for Berber, we would be unable to explain how complex codas such as we find in /an -

-

CYCLIC SYLLABIFICATION

a. First cycle (var«j_z>)

nothing available for syllabification

b. Second cycle (var!'B:-)

syllabification of !'!3: blocked by the SBC

I06

SYLLABIFICATION

(38) contd. c. Third cycle (vart!:J,-v-e) O"

0 Nucleus

O"

~

I

v

N

I

a

c

I

r

~- v -

O"

N

Onset

I

Nucleus

Epenthesis

~

c

I

0

I

I

e

O"

O"

O"

~

I

I

a

N

I

r

~

c

N

0

I

I

I

N

I

~- v-

e

O"

O"

O"

~

I

v

a

r

~

0

N

c

N

0

I

I

I

I

I

v

a

r

~ D-v-

O"

N

I

v

I

a

I

I

e

~

c r

N

O"

~

0 De syllabification

N

~- v-

v

0

I

e

O"

~

0

I I

N

0

I

and tUn- respectively. If morpheme and word boundaries were erased or ignored at this point, we would expect the two forms to undergo the same treatment of the final unsyllabified d. If, on the other hand, boundaries are still visible in the postcyclic component, we can invoke the constraint in Fig. 3.13 to derive the different outcomes of the two words. One slightly tricky case of stray attachment remains to be discussed, namely forms with a final appendix that is more sonorous than the preceding segment, such as /makhs/ 'tax' [maes]. This form receives the lexical syllabification mA. Neither the kh nor the scan be syllabified during the cycle; the s because of FCE, the kh because of the SBC. The postcyclic component first attempts to attach the stray s as a syllable margin (36i-iii) and fails. The procedure then proceeds to the kh, and attaches it to the preceding syllable as a coda. When the steps in (36i-iii) have passed through the entire sonority hierarchy, the word is

112

SYLLABIFICATION

scanned again for stray segments. Since the s is still unsyllabified, (36) applies again, and this time is able to attach the s as an appendix to the preceding syllable. Crucial to my analysis is the fact that (36), before it considers assigning nuclei, cycles through the sonority hierarchy repeatedly until all possible segments have been parsed. If nucleus assignment had the opportunity to apply before all possible margins were assigned, we would expect /mak"s/ for example to be syllabified as *[ma.k"

r

th

x> x>

r

0

line 0 ( x (x line 1 line 2 x Line 1 and 2 asterisks attach to next available line 0 asterisk within their foot r g r 0 r th j e 0 0 line 0 x ( x line 1 ( x line 2 x Surface form Uergr6rt1

STRESS ASSIGNMENT AND METRICAL STRUCTURE

I4I

Once deletion occurs, the closest available line 0 mark in the foot automatically becomes the head of the foot and receives a line 2 mark, resulting in the correct surface form Uergr6rt1. This analysis of SWA ordinals crucially requires that words containing only reduced vowels receive initial stress, since line 0 feet must be left-headed. Conversely, in dialects where vowelless words receive final stress, our model predicts that the ordinals will shift stress to the left. The dialect of Erznka appears to be such a case, but unfortunately the grammar (Kostandjan, 1979) gives no information on the stress patterns of ordinals. By assuming LLL edge marking in Armenian, we are also able to account for the optional initial stress observed in adverbs, vocatives, and hypocoristics. In each of these cases I assume that the morphemes involved do not project brackets, and therefore receive initial stress from the LLL edge marking parameter (similar proposals have been made to deal with the Sanskrit vocative; see Halle and Vergnaud, 1987). I consider it to be a significant advantage of the model proposed here that four independent facts-the behavior of vowel deletion (4.2), the assignment of initial stress to words containing only schwas, the movem~Qr of stress following deletion of a stressed vowel, and exceptional initial stress-are immediately explained by a single parameter in our stress assignment procedure. The fact that our postulation of LLL edge marking provides a unified account for all four of these striking and disparate facts suggests that our theory of stress assignment is on the right track.

4.5. STRESS CLASH In this section I consider a number of phenomena involving stress clash that

reveal various subtle properties of Armenian metrical structure. I first examine penultimate stress systems, and demonstrate that they employ the same stress assignment procedure as final stress systems, except that they have added a rule of stress clash deletion. I then survey a cluster of phenomena indicating that Standard Armenian employs stress clash deletion as well. 4.5.1. Penultimate stress systems Penultimate stress dialects present an interesting variant of the final-stress system discussed in the previous section. Recall that Karabagh stress assignment differs from SA only with respect to words ending in a sequence of two or more full vowels followed by any number of schwas, in which case Karabagh normally stresses the penultimate full vowel. Let us assume, then, that Karabagh employs the same metrification procedure as SA, with a special rule accounting for the behavior of final sequences of adjacent full vowels. A word such as 3ar6vnigj would then receive the initial metrification in (20):

I42

STRESS ASSIGNMENT AND METRICAL STRUCTURE

(20) a. X projection b.

a

3

r

Bracket projection

v

0

x (x

n

x (x

x (x

At this point we have two cases of stress clash, i.e. identical brackets in adjacent syllables. Let us suppose that penultimate stress dialects repair stress clashes by deleting the rightmost bracket in a disallowed *(x(x configuration [i.e. ( -t 0 I (x_x]. Such a repair rule can produce a number of different outcomes: if it applies from left to right it can produce x(x(x or xx(x, depending on whether it applies once or iteratively respectively; conversely, if it applies from right to left it can produce (x(xx or (xxx. In order to derive the attested penultimate stress, this procedure must apply once from right to left. In our model, this follows from the fact that clash deletion is not iterative. We therefore state the Karabagh clash deletion rule as follows. (21) Karabagh clash deletion: ( -t 0 I (x_x## Rule (21) states that a bracket deletes in a final syllable preceded by a bracketed syllable. This formulation produces the derivation in (22). (22) a. X projection

a x (x

3

b.

Bracket projection

c. d. e.

Clash deletion Edge marking (0) NIA Heading (L) line 0 line 1 Edge marking ( 1) line 0 line 1 Heading (R) line 0 line 1 line 2

f. g.

r

g1

v n

0

x (x

x (x

(x

(x

x

(x x (x (x (x (x

(x x (x x (x x x

x x x

Now consider a word in which a schwa intervenes between two full vowels at the end of a word, such as an-ps-ak 'uncrowned' [anphasdk]. The final stress in such cases must be treated as exceptional in the analysis of Armenologists who have worked on these dialects, because their algorithm assigns stress to the penultimate full vowel (see Muradjan, 1960: 167), giving *dnphasak. In our analysis, however, we predict that such cases receive final stress, since there is no stress clash, as shown in the derivation in (23). (23) a. X projection

a x

n p" a x

s

a x

k

143

STRESS ASSIGNMENT AND METRICAL STRUCTURE

(23) contd. b. Bracket projection c. Clash deletion d. Edge marking (0) e. Heading (L) f.

Edge marking ( 1)

g.

Heading (R)

(x

x

(x

x

(x x (x x (x x x

NIA NIA line 0 line 1 line 0 line 1 line 0 line 1 line 2

(x x (x (x (x (x

x x

Final-stress words in penultimate-stress dialects can be specified as not undergoing the clash deletion rule. Conversely, exceptional penultimate stress words in final stress dialects can be said to undergo the clash deletion rule, whereas regular words do not. Thus, the two types of dialects differ only with respect to the effects of stress clash deletion. Note that the metrification system I have outlined can never produce primary stress to the left of the penult in either type of dialect, except in words containing no full vowels. Consider the derivation of a hypothetical word with lexical stress on the antepenult in standard Armenian: (24) a. X projection b. c. d.

Bracket projection Edge marking (0) Heading (L)

e.

Edge marking ( 1)

f.

Heading (R)

c

v

c

v

c

v

(x (x

x (x

x (x

(x x (x (x (x (x

(x x (x x (x x

(x x (x x (x x x

NIA line 0 line 1 line 0 line 1 line 0 line 1 line 2

In other words, forms with lexical stress on the antepenultimate syllable (and in fact any syllable other than the ultima) would receive final stress, and thus be indistinguishable from words with no lexical stresses. An interesting case of lexical stress is found in Shatax (a final stress dialect), where negative verbs show the stress behavior in (25) (Muradjan, 1962). (25) a. Stress the initial syllable of the verb root mi zcen-i 'do not hit' ~ m, and in the dialects of the area that I am familiar with it indeed sounds at first like the sequence [ae]. However, closer inspection reveals that this sound sequence is in fact [e] preceded by a consonant with a [+ back] secondary articulation. I therefore represent this phoneme as /e/, which is underlyingly [-high, -low, -ATR] (the phonetic motivation for this backing and additional reasons for assuming this vowel is [-ATR] are presented in Chapter 6). According to Muradjan (1960: 73), the ten surface vowels fall into the harmonic classes in Fig. 5.10.

[+back] [-back]

a

0

u

ce

0

y

e e Fig. 5.10

166

VOWEL HARMONY

I argue below that the system in Fig. 5.10, based on generalizations concerning the surface distribution of vowels, is better viewed as a product of the phonemic system in Fig. 5 .11. [+back] [-back]

a cea

o ¢

u y

{c:

e

i}

Fig. 5.11. ("Actually, I assume for the reasons presented in section 5.1 that {re¢ y) are not part of the underlying inventory, but rather are allophones produced by the attachment of a [-back] morpheme to underlying {a o u) respectively. The traditional notation in (22) is simply for convenience.)

The system in Fig. 5 .11 differs from the one in Fig. 5.10 in stating that Karchevan has only three pairs of vowels that contrast in terms of backness: a : ce, o : ¢, and u : y. Of the four remaining vowels, ;:; has been eliminated from the harmonic system in Fig. 5.11 because it does not participate in harmonic alternations (with the exception of epenthetic harmony, which I treat separately in section 4). This follows from the fact that ;:; is not part of the underlying phonemic inventory in Karchevan, but appears solely as the product of a rule of epenthesis which applies after word harmony in the derivation. The remaining three vowels {£ e i} are placed in brackets to represent the fact that they are not contrastive for the harmonic feature [back] in Karchevan. Muradjan was perhaps misled into assuming that c: and e formed a harmonic pair because of the alternations found in the past participle /-at_§/ and the monosyllabic plural /-ar-/, which become [-c:t_§-] and [-er-] respectively when stressed (11). (11) Underlying form

b.

as-at_§ hcerb-ay xm-at_§ t_§af-ar cet_§-ar t_§cet_§-ar

Surface form dsat_§ hd:rbcet_§ vmty t§afar cet_§cer t_§ u}; a schwa (;;i) appears in surface forms as a result of epenthesis, and the [+back] vowels {a ::> u} surface as [-back] allophones {a: ¢ y} when immediately preceded by a voiced obstruent in an initial syllable (2a). When preceded by voiceless obstruents, {a ::> u} surface as [+back] (2b). (2) a.

Classical Armenian bah bolk2 burd gafn gol gund

Kirzan ba:h b¢xk byrd g1cer gj¢Jf iynd 2

Gloss spade radish snowstorm sheep thief heap

l represents a [+back] /.

176

b.

CONSONANT-VOWEL INTERACTIONS

Classical Armenian danak dolal durs ), as a barely audible uvular glide. The t is pronounced in the same manner as underlying r-as well as American r-namely as a retroflex uvular glide [1]. Homshetsma rand t show distinct phonological behaviors, however: whereas underlying t always surfaces as [1] (18a), underlying r deletes after vowels (18b), and when both vowels are£, the first raises to i (18c). 15 (18) a. b. c.

Underlying form let-n urif ger lEf-nEr-n

Surface form /iue uuf gE /e.m{jE

Gloss mountain-def. other eat-2sg.impv. mountain-pl.-def.

Interestingly, Homshetsma has no surface sequences of£+ x or K (forms such as (18a), however, show that£ can surface before t). All£+ {XI>} and iJ +{XI>} sequences inherited from Proto-Armenian-which are preserved as such in other Hamshen subdialects-surface as a+ {XI>) in Homshetsma (19). (19) a. b.

Classical tel: sxtor

Homshetsma daK saxdor

Gloss place garlic

Now, given this fact alone, one might say that Homshetsma simply underwent a historical rule changing£ to a before Ix I>). Given the feature specification of uvulars presented in this section, we are forced to assume that this rule involves spreading of [+back] from the consonant to the vowel, as represented informally in Fig. 6.12. 15 The epenthetic vowel in Homshetsma isl' rather than the usual Armenian form"· Like Armenian ;;, it does not bear stress in words containing one or more full vowels. It is not clear to me at the present moment whether the alternations in (18) are purely historical or remain part of Homshetsma phonology.

CONSONANT-VOWEL INTERACTIONS

192

x

x

I I [+cons] I I dorsal dorsal I""'················· . .~ [-high] [+back] [-high] [-cons]

Fig. 6.12 The rule in Fig. 6.12 differs from (11) in two minor respects: the feature spreading is [+back] rather than [-ATR], and the target segment must be specified [-high], in order to prevent i from undergoing the rule. In addition, we must explain why f, which functions as a uvular in other Armenian dialects, does not pattern withx and K with respect to the rule in Fig. 6.12. I tentatively suggest that the Homshetsma f is [-back]; I do not consider it excessively problematic to attribute to Homshetsma fa [back] specification different from that found in other forms of Armenian, given that the articulatory properties of Homshetsma f are in fact significantly different. I have shown elsewhere (Vaux, 1993a) that uvulars can be [-back], and need not be [+back]; postulating that Armenian f is [-back] therefore does not exclude it from the class of uvulars. One final question remains regarding the rule in Fig. 6.12: whether it is a purely historical rule, or remains part of the synchronic phonological system in Homshetsma. I suggest that the behavior of the epenthetic vowel, represented in (20), indicates that the rule in Fig. 6.12 is still part of Homshetsma phonology. (20)

Underlying form

Surface form

dKa

daKa

sxdor

saxd6r

Gloss boy garlic

We already know that the epenthetic vowel generally surfaces as [e] in Homshetsma. If Fig. 6.12 were no longer active, we should therefore expect the epenthetic es to surface as [e] in the forms in (20). If Fig. 6.12 remains active, on the other hand, we expect the epenthetic vowel to undergo this rule and surface as [a]. The fact that the epenthetic vowel does indeed surface as a before {x K} suggests that the rule in Fig. 6.12 is still a part of the Homshetsma phonological system. One could object that the forms in (20) actually have underlying as in Homshetsma, and therefore say nothing about the status of our rule. However, this analysis misses two important generalizations of Homshetsma phonology. First, we know that e never appears before Ix K}. If we assume that the rule in Fig. 6.12 is no longer active, we are unable to capture this generalization, short of making the unmotivated stipulation that epenthesis never occurs before Ix K}. Second, we want to account for the fact that Turkish loans also undergo the rule in Fig. 6.12, as shown in (21).

CONSONANT-VOWEL INTERACTIONS

(21) a. b.

Turkish t:ft:k sik sik

Homshetsma t:fax sax sax

193

Gloss donkey often

My informant, like all Homshetsma speakers, is also a native speaker of Turkish, and is fully aware that the Homshetsma forms in (21) are Turkish loans. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the underlying representations that feed into the Homshetsma phonological system are the same as their Turkish counterparts; for example, the underlying form of the second vowel in (2la) must be E rather than a. What we would like to find, in order to be absolutely sure that epenthetic schwa undergoes the rule in Fig. 6.12 in the synchronic phonology of Homshetsma, is a case where a surfaces in a final syllable before x or ff but does not bear stress, which can only arise if the a results from epenthesis (an underlying a in a final syllable would always receive stress). I have thus far been unable to find any words of this type. Our result thus far is that Homshetsma possesses a rule that spreads [+back] from a uvular to a preceding [-high] vowel (Fig. 6.12). The formulation of this rule suggests a way of accounting for the problematic Kesab it: ~ a alternations discussed in the previous section. We have already stated that the vowel phoneme underlying this alternation must be E, which in stressed syllables becomes it:. The problem, as we left it at the end of the preceding section, was why this underlying E becomes a in unstressed syllables before uvular consonants. Building on our discussion of Homshetsma uvulars, it is a simple matter to propose that Kesab has a version of the same rule, which differs only in being limited to unstressed syllables. 16 The same restricted form of the rule in Fig. 6.12 also accounts for the behavior of underlying a in unstressed syllables, where it becomes E except before {X ff f}, in which case it remains a (or becomes ce, if the following vowel is [-back]). The change of underlying a to E in unstressed syllables can be seen as the result of Vowel Shift (VS), which changes the [high] specification ofKesab vowels (unlike in Agulis, VS is not restricted to closed monosyllables in Kesab). The resulting *[+high, +low] configuration is repaired by negation, yielding the configuration *[-high, -low, -round, +back]. This conglomeration in tum violates an active marking statement, *[+back, -round]/_[-low], which is repaired in stressed syllables by delinking [-round], yielding.?, and in unstressed syllables by delinking [+back], yielding E. However, when an underlying a precedes a uvular and consequently undergoes the rule in Fig. 6.12, the repair rule that would otherwise delink its [+back] specification is blocked, since delinking in this case would violate Inalterability. Once this repair rule is blocked, the derivation crashes and is reinterpreted as not having applied; as a result, underlying a surfaces unchanged in this circumstance. 16 It is not immediately clear how to reconcile this analysis with the fact that these as become ce when followed by a front vowel. I leave this question for further research.

194

CON SON ANT-VOWEL INTERACTIONS

6.2.4. Conclusions In this section we have examined a large body of evidence from a number of Armenian dialects suggesting that the consonants {z K f} form the class of uvulars in Armenian. Based on crosslinguistic evidence presented in Vaux (1993a), we know that uvulars are generally characterized by the feature set [-ATR, -high, +back] (though they are not always [+back]). In this section I hope to have demonstrated that each of these feature specifications of uvulars-[-ATR], [-high], and [+back]-plays a role in Armenian phonology, as revealed in interactions between vowels and uvular consonants.

6.3. NASAL RAISING We now move on to a type of consonant-vowel interaction that does not involve a single feature shared by vowels and consonants, at least not in the same sense as the cases discussed in the previous two sections. The set of interactions considered in this section involves nasal consonants. Nasal consonants generally manipulate two components of neighboring vowels in Armenian and crosslinguistically: height and nasality. The latter process, wherein vowels become [+nasal] next to nasal consonants, clearly involves spreading of the feature [+nasal], and will not concern us here. We therefore focus on the effects of nasal consonants on vowel height. The predominant effect of nasal consonants on vowels in Armenian is a raising of height: as we shall see below, when adjacent to nasal consonants, mid vowels commonly become high, and low vowels become high or mid. In effect, the feature [+nasal] behaves as if it were [+high] in vocalic contexts. This fact does not immediately make sense in any traditional model of phonology, for the features [nasal] and [high] stand in no overt phonological relationship to one another. However, when we consider the articulatory gestures involved in the production of [+nasal] and [+high], we see that they share a common crimponent, activation of the palatoglossus muscle. 17 As one can infer from its name, this muscle connects the tongue dorsum and the soft palate (velum). Contraction of the palatoglossus, combined with contraction of the palatopharyngeal muscle, lowers the soft palate, thereby allowing air to pass through the nasal cavity, implementing the feature [+nasal] (Kenstowicz, 1994:143, citing electromyographic recordings by Alfonso et al., 1982)). Contraction of the palatoglossus also raises the tongue dorsum (in collaboration with the styloglossus), implementing the feature [+high] (Kenstowicz, 1994: 144, again citing Alfonso et al., 1982). There is thus a direct connection between the features [+nasal] and [+high]: both are produced by activation of the palatoglossus. 18 17 Beddor's (1983) analysis of nasal lowering, which is based on acoustic considerations, is not relevant to the phenomena considered here. 18 For further discussion of the muscular bases of [high], [nasal], and other phonological features, see Halle (1983).

195

CONSONANT-VOWEL INTERACTIONS

We therefore have a sound phonetic basis for postulating a connection between the phonological features [+nasal] and [+high]. At this point, we must determine how this relationship is encoded in the phonology. The model of phonology developed in this book provides two basic mechanisms for capturing relationships between phonological features: marking statements (see Chapter 1) and equivalency statements. I assume (building on Calabrese, 1988 and pers. comm.) that UG contains two sets of formal phonological statements that directly capture two fundamental aspects of the articulatory properties of the vocal tract. Marking statements describe combinations of features that are articulatorily complex, such as *[ +ATR, +back] (see 6.1). Equivalency statements, on the other hand, describe how phonological signals are interpreted in different phonological contexts; for example, the equivalency statement in Fig. 6.13 represents the fact that activation of the LABIAL node in consonantal contexts is implemented as the feature [+round] in vocalic contexts (see Chapter 1; see also 6.4 for discussion of equivalency relations between CORONAL and [-back]). Crucially, as stated above, both marking and equivalency statements are firmly grounded in articulatory properties of the vocal tract; they are not ad hoc statements that merely describe interactions between phonological features. [+round] I

LABIAL/

I

I

[+cons]

[-cons] Fig. 6.13

In theory, either a marking statement or an equivalency statement can be used to account for the interactions between nasality and vowel height that we will be investigating in this section. On the one hand, we could postulate a marking statement*[ +nasal, -high] to capture the fact that lowering of the velum without raising of the tongue dorsum is articulatorily complex. We could then say that nasal consonants spread their [+nasal] component to neighboring vowels, creating a violation of this hypothetical marking statement in all [-high] vowels to which the [+nasal] feature had spread. One could then assume that negation applied, yielding the configuration [-nasal, +high]. This would directly account formid and low vowels becoming high; in the case of low vowels becoming mid, we could say that the illicit configuration *[+high, +low] was again repaired by negation, yielding [-high, -low] vowels. Though the marking statement analysis accounts for the facts to be presented in this section, I prefer the equivalency statement analysis for several reasons. First of all, consistent with the definition of equivalency statements, the relationship between height and nasality seems to involve a contextual variation in the instantiation of a single articulatory gesture, contraction of the palatoglossus. Secondly, it is not necessarily true that the configuration [+nasal, -high] is articulatorily complex simply because the two features require opposite activation levels of the palatoglossus (i.e. 'on' vs. 'off'). Whereas [+nasal] requires contraction of the

196

CONSONANT-VOWEL INTERACTIONS

palatoglossus, [-high] requires no particular gesture of this muscle, according to the definition of [-high] set out by Chomsky and Halle (1968). In addition, though it seems to be the case that the palatoglossus is the primary agent in raising the tongue dorsum (Kenstowicz, 1994: 144), it appears to play only a secondary role to the levator palatini in lowering the velum, and sometimes is not employed at all for this function (Lieberman and Blumstein, 1988: 123). Combining these last two facts, the marking statement '[-high] is marked in the context [+nasal]' is not strictly true, for [-high] requires no muscular gesture that is incompatible with lowering of the velum. Thirdly, the marking statement analysis requires that the relevant output segments be [-nasal], which I am reluctant to assume without phonetic evidence; it is quite possible that these vowels are phonetically nasalized, as in English. For these reasons, I prefer to adopt the equivalency statement analysis, according to which UG contains an equivalency statement of the type shown in Fig. 6.14. [+nasal, _ _ __

[+high, _ __ [-cons]

[+cons] Fig. 6.14

This equivalency statement captures the fact that the feature [+nasal] can be implemented as [+high] in vocalic contexts, and is based on the phonetic fact that contraction of the palatoglossus in order to lower the velum can concomitantly raise the tongue body. The upshot of this equivalency statement is that when [+nasal] spreads from a consonant to a vowel, it can be implemented as [+high] in the vowel. Just as the equivalency statements relating labial consonants and round vowels and coronal consonants and front vowels (Chapter 1and6.4) do not entail that vowels always become round next to labial consonants and so on, so the equivalency statement proposed here does not entail that all nasalized vowels be [+high] or anything of that nature. With the appropriate theoretical devices now in place, let us now move on to consider the Armenian data demonstrating the relationship between nasality and height. In Homshetsma, 19 a regularly becomes :J before the nasal consonants m and n, which can be seen in the historical developments in (22a). The forms in (22b) show that original a otherwise remains unchanged. (22) a. b.

Classical

Homshetsma

ham a man f!jaf fat

h::im ::im::in u >a. Secondly, other us in Agulis do not become a in this environment, as demonstrated in (31). (31)

20

Classical Jun ddum

Zok Jon dandum

Gloss dog gourd

A similar rule applies to long a: in several modem Persian dialects, notably that of Teheran.

200

CONSONANT-VOWEL INTERACTIONS

Thus, it is preferable to assume that the underlying form of the Agulis locative suffix is -am. Additional evidence for this assumption comes from the closely related Karabagh dialect, which also employs -am for the locative, suggesting that the immediate ancestor of Agulis and Karabagh developed (or preserved) a dialectal biform of the locative -um. Our challenge now is to account for the change of a to u before nasals; we shall ignore the restriction of the rule to stressed final syllables, as I have no explanation for this. I suggest that the raising of a to u results from the same procedure that was responsible for the cases of nasal raising discussed in the previous paragraphs, namely spreading of the [+nasal] specification of nasal consonants, which is then interpreted as [+high] in vocalic contexts. I suggest that Agulis has a rule of the form given in Fig. 6.15; in other words, a rule of [+nasal] spreading that targets the [+low] vowel a. Application of Fig. 6.15 to an underlying a would, after [+nasal] is interpreted as [+high], produce the illicit feature combination *[+high, +low]. Whereas in Hamshen this violation would be repaired by negation, yielding the [-high, -low] vowel :J, Agulis chooses a different repair strategy, delinking. By delinking [+low], Agulis produces a vowel that is [+high, -low, +back, -round], which in tum violates the marking statement *[+back, -round]. This violation is repaired by delinking [-round], yielding the [+high, -low, +back, +round] vowel u. To summarize the results of our discussion, all of the cases of nasal raising considered in this section can be analyzed as products of [+nasal] spreading from nasal consonants to vowels. We want to say that [+nasal] is the feature spreading in these cases, because this is the only feature that uniquely characterizes the set of trigger segments, and there is no other feature of nasal consonants that could possibly lead to these raising effects. Since there is no component of nasals that could directly lead to the raising effects we have seen, we must assume that some more indirect relationship is involved. Based purely on the phonological effects that nasals have on vowels in Armenian, it seems reasonable to suggest that this indirect relationship involves [nasal] and [high]. By assuming that [+nasal] can be interpreted as [+high] in vocalic contexts, we are able to provide relatively straightforward analyses of a number of phenomena occurring in Armenian dialects. One would like the equivalency relationship I have postulated between [+nasal] and [+high] to be supported by acoustic evidence as well, but at the moment I know of no such evidence.

6.4. CORONAL-FRONT INTERACTIONS 21 For the last section of this chapter, I tum to another type of consonant-vowel interaction that does not appear to involve the direct interaction of a single feature shared by consonants and vowels. It is well known that coronal consonants often interact with front vowels: phenomena of this type occur in languages such as 21

The discussion in this section is based on Vaux (1994a).

201

CONSONANT-VOWEL INTERACTIONS

Cantonese, Lhasa Tibetan, and Maltese Arabic (Hume, 1992), and Crimean Tatar (Jankowski, 1992). Recent work by Clements (1993) has suggested that interactions of this type involve spreading of the coronal node from coronal consonants to vowels. This theory crucially depends on the proposal of Clements 1993 that back vowels are dorsal and front vowels are coronal. If Clements is correct, coronal-front interactions would belong to the same typology as the phenomena discussed in the previous sections of this chapter. However, the objections raised to Clements' s model in Chapter 1 make it difficult to adopt this appealing generalization. In this section I use a case study of coronal-front interactions in Armenian as a starting point for evaluating the merits of Clements's proposal compared to the type of analysis possible within RRT. In 6.4.1 I examine Armenian, Chinese, Tibetan, and Arabic data involving coronal fronting; in 6.4.2 I consider how Clements's theory accounts for these phenomena and investigate some broader theoretical implications of his proposal; and in 6.4.3 I consider how RRT might account for coronal fronting. 6.4.1. Evidence for coronal fronting Pulleyblank (1988) and Hume (1992) describe several cases of coronal consonants fronting adjacent vowels. In this section I consider three such cases found in Cantonese, Tibetan, and Maltese Arabic, and present new evidence from the Ago dialect of Armenian. 6.4.1.1. Cantonese In the historical development of Cantonese from Late Middle Chinese, [-low, +round] vowels are fronted after coronal consonants. Consider the cases in (32): (32)

Late Middle Chinese tu an kuan puan

Cantonese ty:n ku:n pu:n

Mandarin duan guan ban

Gloss end official half

The important feature to notice here is that the coronal consonant t fronts a following u, but k and p do not. Along similar lines, Cheng ( 1989) observes that in modem Cantonese, [-low] vowels are obligatorily front in syllables with coronal onsets and codas. In traditional phonological terms, the difference between u and y is [±back]: u is [+high, +round, +back], and y is [+high, +round, ·--back]. We might expect, then, that the Cantonese data result from a spreading of [--back] from coronal consonants. Coronal consonants are not distinguished from !labials and velars by a [-back] feature, however. In RRT, only dorsal segments can be [-back]; dental and palatal consonants are distinguished from labials and velars by having a coronal articulator, labials by having a labial articulator, and velars by having a dorsal articulator. This system in its simplest form predicts that if any consonants fronted vowels, it would be [-back] velars (Turkish front velars

CONSONANT-VOWEL INTERACTIONS

202

are the standard example of this type). Consequently, we must assume either that a different feature is spreading in (32), or that the RRT model is incorrect or should be amended. 6.4.1.2. Tibetan In Lhasa Tibetan, the vowels {u o a} are fronted before the coronal consonants { d n s l}, but not before labials or velars (Michailovsky, 1975). 22 Consider the data in (33) [tones not represented]: (33) a.

b.

Written Tibetan bdud bod sman nub gov g-jag

Pronunciation [ty:] [ph¢:]

[ma:] [nu:] [qho:]

Ua:]

Gloss demon Tibet medicine west price yak

In the cases in (33a), u and o become their front counterparts y and ¢, as in Cantonese, before the coronals d and n; a, however, is also raised, and surfaces as £(the expected ce does not exist in Tibetan). Before labials and velars (33b), vowels are not fronted. Note that final consonants are dropped in spoken Tibetan, so that the triggers for coronal fronting are not present on the surface. In this sense, Tibetan is reminiscent of the Mon Khmer languages, which merge their voiced consonants with the voiceless series, but preserved the original voicing distinction in the tonal register of following vowels. 6.4.1.3. Maltese Arabic Clements (1991: 8) mentions the case of Maltese Arabic, in which the imperfective prefix vowel, which normally surfaces as a copy of the following stem vowel (34a), surfaces as [i] when the first consonant of the stem is a coronal obstruent (34b): (34) Perfective forok a. kotor rifed ?asam b. dahal siket talab 3abar dalam tjahad

Imperfective jo-frok jo-ktor ji-1:fed ja-?sam ji-dhol ji-skot ji-tlob ji-3bor ji-dlam ji-tjahad

22

Gloss limp abound support break enter be silent pray collect grow dark deny

Interestingly, r does not appear to trigger fronting.

CONSONANT-VOWEL INTERACTIONS

203

Though the data in (34) are not as clear-cut as the Cantonese and Tibetan cases, they nevertheless appear to support Clements' s proposal that front vowels are coronal. In Clements' s analysis, the unspecified imperfective vowel in the (a) forms receives its melodic features from the following stem vowel; in the forms in (b ), however, the imperfective vowel instead receives its melodic feature [coronal] from the following coronal obstruent. It is not clear why other place features do not spread as well; for example, we might expect that dorsal obstruents would produce back vowels, and labials would produce round vowels. 6.4.1.4. Agn Maxudianz (1911) describes a process in the Armenian dialect of Agn whereby the vowels o and u become ¢ and y respectively after dental stops, affricates, 3, f, l, r, andf Karst (1901: 60) interprets this process as a type of palatalization, but this is little more than a description of the facts. In this section we develop a theoretical analysis of the Agn facts. Agn' s phonemic inventory is shown in Fig. 6.17. Maxudianz ( 1911: 16-17) adds the following generalizations: plain voiced stops and affricates are aspirated in initial position, and the coronals {d t" r l n} are palatalized after the high round vowels u and y. Finally, e has a [-ATR] allophone E that occurs under conditions discussed in section 6.2.

p"

b

t"

d

k"

m n

f s

v z

t)

f

3

tJ 43

x

ff

g

fos > *fves >fes. 23 The umlauted forms in Lower Agn in (37) are more problematic. Observe that the ¢sin (37) are all followed by coronals (I assume that K, which comes from a historical l, still behaves as a coronal); when o is not followed by a coronal consonant, no umlaut occurs: (40)

Standard Armenian hog *honk"t'Jim

Lower Agn

Gloss

fokh fokt'Jim

worry I rest

Given that initial o and u are fronted by following coronals, I propose that underlying o and u are always targets for spreading of place specifications from adjacent consonants, from left to right, so that consonants on their right will only determine their place features when there is no consonant to the left. Thus, for example, if an o is preceded by a labial, it will be [+round], and surface as [o]; if it is preceded by a dorsal, it will be [+back], and surface as [o ]; and if it is preceded by a coronal, it will be [-back], and surface as [¢] (the equivalencies employed here are discussed below). Assuming thatf is underlyingly /hf, or alternatively that the rule of coronal fronting developed before h became f, we can then say that the Lower Agn forms in (37) receive the place feature [coronal] from the consonant on their right, because according to current theory (e.g. Halle, 1989) h has no place features, and thus would not be able to spread place features to the following vowel. The Agn data, then, appear to provide an interesting complement to the cases of coronal fronting in Chinese, Tibetan, and Arabic. Though this process intuitively seems to be a plausible phonetic development, whereby vowels assimilate the position of the tongue involved in the production of adjacent consonants, the current representation of phonological features provides no formal mechanism to express it. In the next subsection I consider how Clements's VPT accounts for the phenomenon of coronal fronting, and contrast this with the modified form ofRRT required to deal with the same data. 6.4.2. Place features for consonants and vowels In RRT, consonants may be labial, coronal, dorsal, pharyngeal, or laryngeal, whereas vowels are primarily characterized in terms of the dorsal features [back], [high], and [low] (though in addition the labial articulator is involved in round vowels, the coronal articulator in retroflex vowels, the radical articulator in pharyngealized vowels, and the laryngeal articulator in laryngealized vowels). In 23 This was first proposed by BaKramjan (1965) and contested by Muradjan (1972a), on the grounds that medial os are never diphthongized in Armenian dialects. However, dialects such as Karabagh and New Julfa show that Muradjan's generalization was incorrect; I therefore support BaKramjan's original proposal.

CONSONANT-VOWEL INTERACTIONS

207

this system, a standard nine-vowel system would be represented as shown in Fig. 6.17. high

low

back

round

ATR

+

+ + e

+

E

a

+

J 0

u u

+ +

+ + + + +

+ + + +

+ +

Fig. 6.17

This model has difficulty accounting for the cases of coronal fronting described in 6.1. In RRT, the coronal node dominates the features [anterior] and [distributed], which serve to distinguish dentals, palatals, and retroflex consonants but play no role in distinguishing vowels. Consequently, we cannot say that coronal fronting is spreading of [anterior] or [distributed] features, because neither of these serves to distinguish {o u} from {¢ y}. In terms of standard phonology, these two vowel sets are distinguished by the feature [back], but since this belongs to the dorsal node, we cannot say that it spreads from coronal consonants. Clements (1993) was led by these shortcomings of the Halle-Sagey model to propose a new system of phonological representation, wherein consonants and vowels are defined by a single set of features. In this new system, labial consonants and round vowels are defined by the feature [labial], coronal consonants and front vowels are defined by the feature [coronal], velar consonants and back vowels are defined by [dorsal], and so on. The Agn vowel system would be represented as in Fig. 6.18 (NB: Clements replaces the dorsal feature [high] with an aperture feature [open], for reasons I will not discuss here). y

lab cor dor rad open

+

+ +

E

¢

+

+ +

+

+

a

+ + +

J

u

+

+

+

+

+

+

Fig. 6.18

This system resolves the problems encountered by the Halle-Sagey model discussed above, and has the advantage of using a single set of features to describe both consonants and vowels, whereas the Halle--Sagey model is forced to employ

208

CONSONANT-VOWEL INTERACTIONS

different elements such as [round] and Labial for labial vowels and consonants respectively. The relevant advantage of the Clements model here, though, is that it provides a simple account for the processes of coronal fronting described in 6.4.1. Within the general framework of current nonlinear phonology, these processes can be analyzed as spreading of the feature [coronal] from coronal consonants to following vowels, as in Fig. 6.19. In this analysis, a case such as nor 'new'> n¢r would be represented as in Fig. 6.20. [+cons]

[-- phiJstik, gifer 'evening'> khiJfer), 6 provided of course that voiceless fricatives are [+spread]. Voiced fricatives, on the other hand, must be [-spread] for my analysis to make sense. This assumption is supported by the k-assimilation cases discussed above. 7.3.5. Aspiration delinking The rule that spreads [+spread glottis] interacts with another important rule of New Julfa phonology that deletes the feature [+spread] in an obstruent directly following another obstruent (AtJatjan, 1940: §216). 7 Most instances of this phenomenon involve final -k" (15~), which can occur after all licit coda clusters in Armenian (see Chapter 3); it is difficult to find cases involving the other voiceless aspirates, though some exist (15b). (15) a.

Classical d3ox-k" kop-k" thew-kh mit-k"

New Julfa diJ3uoxk kuopk thiefk mitk

Gloss hell eyelid wings mind

6 I assume that a similar process is responsible for Classical Armenian k''san '20' azkad, but xelkh 'mind'> zieW (in addition, of course, K is an obstruent whereas l is not). The rule of aspiration delinking can be represented as in Fig. 7.6 (irrelevant nodes omitted). x

x

I

I

[-son]

[-son]

I

LVT

I

laryngeal

t

[+spread] Fig. 7.6 The rule in Fig. 7.6 interacts with the spreading rule in Fig. 7.5 in interesting ways. First of all, consider a case of s-aspiration such as fiietkus 'behind' __., genitive fiieteasin, which I argued above to be a manifestation of the rule in Fig. 7.5. Given the representation of aspiration delinking, we might expect it to apply to the output of the rule in Fig. 7.5, giving *fiietkasin. I see two possible explanations for why this is not the correct surface form: either Fig. 7.6 applies before Fig. 7.5, or Fig. 7 .5 applies before Fig. 7 .6 but the application of Fig. 7 .6 is blocked by some constraint. If Fig. 7.6 were ordered before Fig. 7.5, we might expect the voiced aspirates in (12) to be deaspirated by the preceding fricatives and then be unable to trigger fricative assimilation. Since this is not the case, we must assume the opposite ordering. If Fig. 7 .5 applies before Fig. 7 .6, though, we still must explain why the voiced aspirates in (12) do not lose their [+spread] feature, and similarly why we do not get *fiietkasin. I attribute these facts to a principle of inalterability (cf. Schein and Steriade's 1986 Uniform Applicability Condition) which can

226

LARYNGEAL FEATURES AND CONSONANT SHIFTS

block rules that do not apply exhaustively to their target. In the case of fricative + voiced aspirate sequences, for example, the rule in Fig. 7.5 creates a linked [+spread] structure between the two segments. The rule in Fig. 7.6 then fails to delink the [+spread] feature of the voiced aspirate, because if it were to do so it would affect the preceding fricative as well, which does not meet the structural description of the procedure. The same can be said for fiietk"asin: delinking does not apply because it would affect the s as well, which does not match the environment for the rule. In the following section I consider another possible account for the facts presented in this section that builds on the theory of contour segments developed by Steriade (1992).

7.4. A CONTOUR-BASED ANALYSIS The data presented in 7.3 present interesting challenges for the traditional representation of voiced aspirates as single segments characterized by the features [+spread, --stiff]. I have already suggested a possible analysis for the phenomena considered there; in this section I compare a competing analysis that builds on Steriade's (1992) theory of contour segments. I demonstrate that this analysis, though at first blush appearing to offer a nice account for the New Julfa facts, creates too many additional problems to be upheld here. 7.4.1. Contour segments The model of contour segments proposed by Steriade (1992) crucially differs from previous theories in supposing that released stops have internal contours. Let us assume that released consonants link a single timing unit to two root nodes, the first of which contains the features involved in the closure, and the second of which contains the features involved in the release of the segment. This being the case, we predict that released consonants which contain opposite feature specifications in their two root nodes should show edge effects, behaving differently with respect to segments on the left as opposed to the right. Clearly the assumption of such contours in released stops adds great power to the theory, leading one to wonder whether the theory is sufficiently constrained. Our revised version of Steriade' s model allows us to represent contour segments (represented here for the feature [nasal]) in Fig. 7. 7. Since in addition to contours involving nasality and continuancy we can have contour segments for the laryngeal features aspiration and glottalization (see Steriade, 1992), it is not implausible to expect that voicing contours should also be possible. It is certainly the case that in phonetic terms voicing can be associated with either the closure phase of a segment (advanced VOT) or the release phase (short- and long-lag VOT). Though Steriade maintains that voicing features must be associated with the closure phase in phonological representations, Blevins (1993a) has suggested

LARYNGEAL FEATURES AND CONSONANT SHIFTS

227

a. nasal stop (n)

x

-------------

+cons +son -cont

+cons +son -cont

----------[+nasal]

b. prenasalized stop (nd) x

---------------

+cons +son -cont

+cons -son -cont

I

I

[+nasal]

[-nasal]

c. postnasalized stop (dn) x

---------------

+cons -son -cont

+cons +son -cont

I

I

[-nasal]

[+nasal] Fig. 7.7

that the common phenomenon of laryngeal neutralization receives a straightforward account if we assume instead that all laryngeal features are normally associated with the release phase. In positions where consonants are unreleased (see Kenstowicz, 1994: 503), we should expect any features associated with the release phase of a segment to be lost. Consequently, by assuming that laryngeal features attach to the release node, we predict that voicing, aspiration, and glottalization should be neutralized in positions of unrelease. This is exactly what we find in syllable codas, the most common position in which consonants are unreleased. Combining the phonetic aspects of voicing and aspiration discussed in 5 .2 with the phonological arguments just presented, one could propose the representations in Fig 7.8 for the basic stop varieties. Note that the left edge of voiced segments (Fig. 7.8a-b) is [+stiff]. As I understand Blevins's proposal, the closure position of released consonants never possesses laryngeal specifications; in RRT, on the other hand, the closure position would be a root node and therefore required by full specification to have laryngeal features. The laryngeal features that attach

228

LARYNGEAL FEATURES AND CONSONANT SHIFTS

root

root

I

I

[+stiff, -spr] b.

[-stiff, -spr] bh

I---------------I

root

root

[+stiff, -spr] c.

[-stiff, +spr]

p

-------------------------------------------------------

root

root

[+stiff, -spread]

d.

Ph

root

root

[+stiff, +spread] Fig. 7.8

to the closure node are always unmarked [+stiff, -spread], except in the case of voiceless aspirates, which must have [+spread] attached to the closure node for a number of reasons discussed below. The model presented in Fig. 7 .8 crucially differs from Blevins's and other models in predicting that voiced stops should behave as voiceless with respect to rules sensitive to their left edge, which we want to capture the facts in (12). Let us first consider how this model would deal with a typical case involving neutralization of laryngeal features, such as we find in Sanskrit. In this language, which like New Julfa contrasts four consonant series, {TD r D"}, all four series are neutralized in word-final position, surfacing as plain voiceless. (16)

a. b. c. d.

Stem marutsu-hrdagni-mat"su-jud"go-d"ug"kakub"-

Nominative ma rut suhrt agnimat sujut god"uk kakup

Accusative marutam suhrdam agnimatham sujud''am goduham kakub"am

Gloss wind (god) friend near the fire good warrior cow milker region

LARYNGEAL FEATURES AND CONSONANT SHIFTS

229

In a traditional model of phonology that views these four consonant series as simple segments, the process in (16) would be interpreted as a restriction disallowing marked laryngeal features in syllable codas. Any violations of this constraint would be delinked, as shown in Fig. 7.9.

bh ~ UVT laryngeal

I~

labial

[-stiff]

[+spread]

Fig. 7.9

This delinking process produces a segment with no laryngeal specifications; at a later stage of the derivation, the default laryngeal features [+stiff, -spread] would be supplied. Now consider how this phenomenon would be accounted for in our model. Let us assume that, as in English, word-final [-cont] obstruents are unreleased in Sanskrit. Consequently, all released consonants would lose their release node and any features attached thereto. By assuming that contrastive laryngeal features are associated with the release phase, we predict that these features will be lost in word-final position, and segments should surface with only the set of laryngeal features associated with their closure node. This process would affect voiced aspirates as in Fig. 7.10.

root

root

I

[+stiff, -spr]

I

[-stiff, +spr]

Fig. 7.10

The behavior of voiceless aspirates with respect to laryngeal neutralization is a problem for this analysis. Given the structures in Fig. 7 .8, delinking of the release node should have the effect shown in Fig. 7.11 on voiceless aspirates. We might expect the configuration in Fig. 7.llc to be realized as a voiceless aspirate, but it in fact surfaces as plain voiceless (16c). This state of affairs could be attributed to the phonetic fact that aspiration is only realized during the release phase of consonants. In phonological terms, we might stipulate that the feature [+spread] cannot be realized unless it is attached to a release node. Alternately, we could say that [+spread] cannot associate to single [+cons] root nodes.

230

LARYNGEAL FEATURES AND CONSONANT SHIFTS

a. initial state Ph

~ root

root

--------------[+stiff, +spread]

b. delinking Ph

~ root

root

~

[+stiff, +spread] c. final form Ph

I

root

I

[+stiff, +spread] Fig. 7.11

7.4.2. Edge effects Now let us extend this theory beyond the realm of neutralization. By treating released consonants as contour segments, we predict the existence of rules sensitive to the left or the right edge of these consonants. This is a well-known property of contour segments, in particular affricates, which are generally thought to consist of a [-cont] element followed by a [+cont] element. The English plural rule in (17), for example, is sensitive to the right edge of stem-final affricates. (17) a. b. c. d. e.

cads knees cats cuffs buses brushes churches judges

[kred-z] [ni-z] [kret-s] [kttf-s] [btts-az] [brttf-az] [!Jar!f-az] [!'b'tt©-az]

The underlying form of the plural morpheme is /z/, which surfaces after vowels and voiced stops (l 7a), and undergoes voicing assimilation after voiceless stops and noncoronal fricatives (17b-c). Because English does not allow sequences of

LARYNGEAL FEATURES AND CONSONANT SHIFTS

231

coronals with identical continuancy values, 8 addition of the plural to stems ending ins and f triggers epenthesis (17d). The fact that epenthesis also occurs after coronal affricates (17e), which contain both [+cont] and [-cont] components, indicates that the epenthesis rule is sensitive to the edge of the affricate adjacent to the triggering plural /z/. According to Hualde (1987), rules can also be sensitive to the opposite edge of affricates; such rules are traditionally called 'anti-edge effects'. Consider the case of Basque (Hualde, 1987), which deletes the first of two successive [-cont] segments. This rule deletes a stop before another stop (18a), but crucially also deletes the [-cont] portion of affricates (18b). (18)

a.

b.

bat paratu bat+ naka guk + piztu hariy-ki hoy bat hit.§ + tegi

baparatu banaka gu-piztu haris-ki hos bat histegi

put one one by one we light oak wood a cold dictionary

The rule seems to be able to 'look through' the intervening [+cont] portion of affricates. This is somewhat surprising, but has parallels in New Julfa discussed in the next section. I would like to claim that there are in fact no anti-edge effects, in the sense that rules cannot arbitrarily ignore salient adjacent feature specifications. Apparent cases of anti-edge behavior therefore must receive alternate explanations. The Basque data in (18) appear to result from constraints on syllable structure rather than from a linear rule of consonant deletion. Consider the parallel case in the Armenian dialect of Aslanbeg (Vaux, 1993b; AtJarjan, 1898): (19) a.

b.

Underlying form ed-k"-n fad dsa-k"-ncer-t gocJ;ig-e-l artJ dzedz - h vcet.§

Surface form je?k;J fa? d, and elsewhere ; based on the behavior of similar forms, I have corrected these to mce:a.

PROSODIC PH EN OMEN A

0.

p.

q.

Root beedank" lagank" 3ang irgank" su1rang deun kheun t"eulfth kaleux mec!:J.:eun sundar t"unc!:J.ar dakar miFar

Definite bee de: ankh lage:ank" 3e:ang irge:ank" swte:ang dceu:n k"ceu:n t"ceu:Ft" kalceu.x mcec!:J.:ceu:n seundra theu:nc!:J.ra da:kra me:}Fr a

Classical patank" lkam 3ang erkankh solun tun k"un thult" glux ma gun santr t"anc!:J.r ta(j)gr melr

255

Gloss shroud bridle rust millstone reptile house sleep sheet (of paper) head yogurt comb thick husband's brother honey

Clearly, the alternations in (18) are quite complicated and brook no simple analysis. In the next subsection I attempt to develop the rudiments of an account for these facts. 8.3.3. Analysis and parallels The first point to realize about the alternations in (18) is that their complexity lies in two basic areas: quantity and quality. The quantitative aspect of these alternations, which is responsible for a - a:, ce - ce, and so on, is slightly easier to deal with, as it involves fewer phonological variables and has well-known parallels in other languages. For this reason we first tum our attention to quantity. We then consider the qualitative aspect of the alternations, for which I can only develop the bare bones of an analysis at the moment. 8.3.3.1. Quantitative alternations The basic components for our analysis of the alternations in (18) can be drawn from recent treatments of similar data in other languages. A number of languages display alternations in vowel quantity, where vowels appear to be lengthened as the result of the loss of a vowel in a following syllable. A typical case occurs in Ponapean (Richards, 1994). (19)

base form kU f}i:l di:p

'having X' kiliniki vileniki dipaniki

gloss skin voice sin

The suffix in these forms must be -niki, rather than some vowel plus -niki, since the vowel in question would be unpredictable. Since the vowel is unpredictable, we must assume that it forms part of the root. The underlying forms in ( 19) there-

PROSODIC PHENOMENA

fore must be /kili/, /yile/, and /dipa/, and we must suppose a rule of final vowel deletion in the base forms. It is this rule of vowel deletion that appears to be responsible for the lengthening of the remaining root vowel, due to some sort of compensatory lengthening process. The process involved is not of the familiar type where a segment is lengthened as a result of the loss of an immediately adjacent segment, but it is paralleled in other languages. In the Romance language Friulian, for example, we find a similar set of alternations. Prieto ( 1992) discusses a number of cases where the loss of a Late Latin final vowel leads to the lengthening of a preceding stressed vowel (20a); lengthening does not occur, however, when the preceding syllable is closed (20b). (20) a.

Late Latin DECE

ovu b.

PASSU VULPE

Friulian dif u.f pas volp

Gloss ten egg step fox

Prieto analyzes the facts in (20) as the result of a process of compensatory lengthening involving moras. Assuming a standard version of the Moraic Theory, nuclei and codas each receive one mora; onset consonants attach to the nuclear mora. A Late Latin form such as FINinu 'finished, masc. sg.' would then have the moraic structure in Fig. 8.4a. The rule of final vowel deletion deprives the final mora of its host, triggering parasitic delinking and deletion of the attached syllable (Fig. 8.4b). The stranded mora then attaches to the leftmost available stressed position (Fig. 8.4c), yielding the long vowel in Fig. 8.4d. The key to this analysis is the use of moras rather than skeletal positions as units of prosodic weight. If we wanted to say that the rule of compensatory lengthening involved the preservation of timing units rather than moras, we would have to suppose a sequence of realignments that attached the timing unit of the deleted u to the preceding d and moved the timing unit of the d to the preceding vowel. Since this analysis is relatively cumbersome, we shall employ the moraic analysis here. A moraic analysis of the type proposed by Prieto not only allows us to account for simple alternations of the Ponapean and Friulian type but also, I suggest, underlies the more complicated alternations in (18). For the moment, it seems reasonable to assume that the lengthening of the root vowel in (18) is directly linked to the loss of the final -n of the definite article, since no lengthening occurs when this is not deleted. If this analysis is correct, we must then explain (l 8e, n, q), where lengthening occurs even though a schwa that might be the definite article follows the root, and we must also explain why lengthening occurs with other clitics that do not delete, such as the indefinite article. The problematic forms in (18) are relatively easy to account for: the schwa in (18e) and (18n) is the remnant of the deleted final g, rather than the result of epenthesis triggered by the definite article; the schwa in (l 8q) is epenthetic, but is triggered after n-deletion by the final -Cr sequence. The problem of the nondeleting clitics is more difficult, and will be dealt with later in this section.

257

PROSODIC PHENOMENA

a.

b.

c.

d.

cr

cr

cr

f

n

d

cr

cr

~I ~I ~I ~I ~I

µ

f

n

cr

cr

~µl. ,•. · ,•',.·',•'.

f

~I

n

cr

cr

u

d

µ ~

d

~I ~

f

n

d

Fig. 8.4. Friulian compensatory lengthening Thus far we have proposed that the alternations in (18) are triggered by the loss of the definite article. We must now figure out the mechanics of this procedure. In default of evidence to the contrary, I assume that Svedia employs the same syllabification algorithm as the other Armenian dialects (see Chapter 3). Furthermore, I assume that Svedia employs the same rule of n-deletion as other forms of Armenian (see (16) ). The rule of n-deletion is formalized in Fig. 8.5, and should be read in the following manner: 'Delete word-final n in an unstressed syllable'. I have used the label R for Rime because then seems to be in the coda in most forms of Armenian, but in the nucleus in Svedia. The form in (l 6b) shows that n-deletion must occur after epenthesis, since we would otherwise expect *hat

PROSODIC PHENOMENA

)* ()

I

R

t n

#

Fig. 8.5

as the definite form of 'piece'. For this reason, the -n must be in the coda by the time n-deletion applies. In Svedia, on the other hand, n-deletion must occur before epenthesis, since the definite article does not appear to trigger epenthesis. We could of course assume that epenthesis preceded n-deletion in Svedia as well, and then propose a rule of final schwa deletion that would delete the product of epenthesis. Such a rule would crucially have to be ordered before the rules producing final schwas in (l 8e, n, q). For the purposes of this discussion, however, I assume that n-deletion occurs before epenthesis in Svedia. In order for our analysis to work, we must also assume that moraification applies before n-deletion. I postulate the following rules for mora assignment in Svedia: (21)

i. Assign one mora to each vowel underlyingly linked to two timing units. ii. Assign one mora to each stress-bearing unit.

This analysis of moraification differs from traditional moraic models such as Hayes ( 1989) in two respects: the class of segments assigned moras, and the interaction with syllable structure. The rules in (21) assign one mora to each short vowel and two moras to each long vowel. Note that non-nuclear consonants do not play any role in the moraic structure; I assume that this is the case because, unlike in Friulian, compensatory lengthening is not blocked by intervening consonant clusters. Moras in the model presented here are therefore essentially equivalent to projections of stress-bearing elements on line 0 (for terminology see Chapter 4). This definition differs somewhat from Hayes's (1989) model of moraification, wherein moras can be assigned to coda consonants, but is consistent with Halle' s ( 1990) definition of moras. In addition, the model presented here assumes that moraic structure augments rather than replaces syllable components such as onset and rhyme. This assumption is motivated by Sloan's (1991) analysis of Sierra Miwok, which demonstrates that moraic models that do not include the traditional syllable components rhyme, onset, nucleus, and coda cannot account for a large range of data in that language. By incorporating these syllabic components within our moraic model, we allow ourselves to account for Sloan's data while preserving the advantages of traditional moraic models.

PROSODIC PHENOMENA

259

Given our analysis thus far, an underlying form such as t_§an-n 'voice-def.' will be syllabified as in Fig. 8.6a, and subsequently assigned the moraic structure in Fig. 8.6b. Stress assignment then produces the structure in Fig. 8.6c, which feeds n-deletion (Fig. 8.6d). The final syllable at this point lacks a nucleus, and is therefore deleted (Fig. 8.6e). At this point in the derivation, the mora originally attached to the definite article -n is left floating at the right edge of the word. We can then assume that the same principle of mora attachment proposed by Prieto (1992) for Friulian (Fig. 8.4c) applies, linking the floating mora to the preceding a (the root-final n is not considered, since, as I stated above, consonants play no role in Svedia moraic structure). Thus, the sequence of rules in Fig. 8.6 produces long vowels. We can thereby account for alternations of the type in (18a-e), which strictly involve the lengthening of low vowels. The alternations in (18f-q) also involve length alternations, however, and in order to account for these we must bring in some additional data. 8.3.3.2. Qualitative alternations Assuming that the compensatory lengthening analysis developed in the preceding subsection is correct, we must explain why Svedia shows the alternations in (22a == 21f-p) rather than the expected alternations in (22b), assuming for the moment that the nominative forms of these words surface with the underlying forms of the relevant vowels. (22)

Root vowel

u y E ;}

EU

a. Attested alternant a:u, e:u a.j, a:u, e:y a.j, Ej, e:i cej e: