Locality in Phonology - Peter JurgecIntroduction What? Why? How? Conclusions References Highlights This course will look at long-distance interactions in phonology. We ﬁrst look

Introduction What? Why? How? Conclusions References

Locality in PhonologyLong-distance interactions in phonology ⋆ Lecture 1

Peter Jurgec

University of Toronto

LOT Summer School ⋆ Leuven ⋆ June 22, 2015

Peter Jurgec University of Toronto

Locality in Phonology


Highlights

This course will look at long-distance interactions in phonology.We first look at locality in phonology:

1 What is it? ⋆ local, adjacent, absolute and relativized locality,long-distance

2 Where does it come from? ⋆ phonetic and phonologicalgrounding

3 How to capture it? ⋆ rules, features, constraints, derivations




Preview: Main claims

Most sound patterns are local. ≡ If two distant soundsinteract, the more closer ones will as well, all other thingsbeing equal.

Local interactions make phonetic sense (articulation,perception). Some locality effects are less clearly phoneticallygrounded.

Phonological representations and/or operations must be ableto capture the locality bias.




Roadmap

1 Introduction

2 What?

3 Why?

4 How?

5 Conclusions




Adjacency

What is local?

Most sound patterns are local.

In the strictest of senses, local means adjacent:

Def A sequence of segments ab is local if the segments a and b

are adjacent.

Let’s look at some frequent patterns.




Adjacency

Metathesis

Lithuanian velar metathesizes with an adjacent coronalfricative when followed by another stop.

3rd.past imper.sg infinitive

breSko brekSk brekSti ‘break (of dawn)’brizgo briksk briksti ‘fray’

Most, if not all, cases of metathesis involve adjacent segments(Metathesis in Language Database,http://metathesisinlanguage.osu.edu).

Non-adjacent metathesis is diachronic or can be analyzed asallomorphy (e.g. Turkana, Akkadian).




Adjacency

CV interactions

Tawala assibilation applies whenever /t/ immediately precedes/i/.

The coronal stop [t] can be followed by most vowels, butwhen the final vowel is variantly raised, the fricative [s]surfaces instead.

Tawala assibilation (Ezard 1997:30)variant a variant b

emote emosi *emoti ‘one’hota hosi *hoti ‘only’

Local CV interactions are extremely common.




Adjacency

Nasal harmony

Nasality spreads rightwards (and leftwards within the syllable)from a stressed nasal vowel. Stops block spreading.

Nasal harmony in Applecross Gaelic (Ternes 1973)

"ahuc ‘neck’

"sOhı ‘tame’

frıa;v ‘root.pl.’khO"vıa;t ‘how much/many?’tav

˚‘ox, stag.pl’

straı;G˚

‘to be luxurious’

"kh Oıspaxk ‘wasp’

"thahusk ‘fool’

Nasal harmony is very common.




Adjacency

Dissimilation

Given an underlying cluster /rr/ in Ainu, the first /r/dissimilates to [n].

Ainu r-dissimilation (Shibatani 1990)kukor kur ‘my husband’ kukon rusuj ‘I want to have (sth)’kor mat ‘his wife’ kon rametok ‘his bravery’

Local dissimilation is very common (but other kinds are alsopossible).




Adjacency

Deletion

Pali simplifies certain clusters which are licit in the relatedSanskrit.

Cluster simplification via deletion in Pali (Zec 1995)

Sanskrit Paliprati paúi ‘against’traana taana ‘protection’kramati kamati ‘walks’

Deletion is often conditioned by adjacent consonants. Otherkinds of deletion (e.g. at the edge, vowel deletion next toanother vowel) are also frequent.




Adjacency

Epenthesis

Lebanese Arabic epenthesizes vowels into many CC codas tobreak up undesirable coda clusters.

Epenthesis is obligatory in coda clusters of an obstruentfollowed by a sonorant and optional in other clusters.

Epenthesis in Lebanese Arabic (Abdul-Karim 1980: 32–33)a. /Pism/ Pisim ‘name’

/Pibn Pibin ‘son’/SiGl/ SiGil ‘work’

b. /kibS/ kibS ∼ kibiS ‘ram’/sabt/ sabt ∼ sabit ‘Saturday’/nafs/ nafs ∼ nafis ‘self’

Epenthesis often breaks a consonant cluster, but other causesare also frequent.




Adjacency

Stress

Stress often alternates, creating rhythmic patterns.

In Pintupi, stress falls on every odd-numbered syllable (exceptfor the final one):"tji.íi.ri.Nu.lam.pa.tju ‘the fire for our benefit flared up’"ju.ma.õIN.ka.ma.ra.tja.õa.ka ‘because of mother-in-law’

In Warao, stress fall on every even-numbered syllable countingfrom the end of the word:ja.pu.ru.ki.ta.ne."ha.se ‘verily to climb’e.na.ho.ro.a.ha.ku."ta.i ‘the one who caused him to eat’

Stressing every third syllable is rare, and no language hasstress on every fourth.




Adjacency

Stress





Disc How is stress different from segmental features?




Adjacency

Stress





Disc How is stress different from segmental features?

We won’t be talking much about stress patterns in this course.




Adjacency

Interim summary

Disc What other local/adjacent patterns do you know?




Adjacency

Interim summary

Disc What other local/adjacent patterns do you know?

Many common sound patterns apply to adjacent segments.

Locality a key concept in phonological theory.

Next: Are all sound patterns local?




Non-adjacent locality

Relativized locality

While most sound patterns are local, not all of them are.

We have already seen one example: stress patterns.

Yet even the non-local patterns still exhibit locality biases:closer is better than further apart.





Relativized locality

While most sound patterns are local, not all of them are.

We have already seen one example: stress patterns.

Yet even the non-local patterns still exhibit locality biases:closer is better than further apart.

Locality can be relativized:

Def If two distant segments interact, all intervening identicalsegments must also interact, all other things being equal.

Let’s look what this means on a few examples.





Vowel harmony

In Finnish, front root vowels come with front suffix vowels,while back root vowels come with back suffix vowels.

Front/back harmony in Finnish (Ringen 1975/1988; Ringen &Heinamaki 1999)næh-kø:n ‘see-direct.sg’ tul-ko:n ‘come-direct.sg’næk-ø ‘sight’ tul-o ‘coming’pøytæ-næ ‘table-essive’ poutA-nA ‘fine weather-essive’

Consonants are unaffected (and also some vowels, we will talkabout that next time).

Vowel harmony is a common pattern. Only vowels areinvolved, consonants do not count*.





Consonant harmony

Consonant harmony involves alternation of consonants acrossvowels, often several syllables away.

In Aari, posterior fricatives {S, Z} follow posterior coronalfricatives or affricates in the root, while anterior fricatives {s,z} surface in all other cases.

Aari sibilant harmony (Hayward 1990)giP-sis- ‘hit’ na

¨S-SiS- ‘like, love’

duuk-sis- ‘bury’ tS’a¨a¨q-SiS- ‘curse, swear’

sug-zis- ‘push’ Sen-SiS- ‘buy’mer-sis- ‘forbid’ Za

¨:q-SiS- ‘throw’

giP-s-it ‘hit’ qa¨Z-Z-it ‘get cold’

duuk-s-it ‘bury’ tS’a¨a¨q-S-it ‘curse, swear’

giP-er-s-it ‘be hit’ Za¨q-er-S-it ‘be thrown’





Dissimilation

Tashlhiyt Berber (henceforth, Tashlhiyt) has a dissimilatorypattern in which no more than one labial consonant is possibleper word.A prefix containing a labial nasal surfaces as coronal whenfollowed by labial consonant within the root.Labial dissimilation in Tashlhiyt Berber (El Medlaoui1995:46–47)m-xazar ‘scowl.refl’ n-fara ‘disintengle.refl’m-saggal ‘look for.relf’ n-èaSSam ‘be shy.relf’mm-Zla ‘lose.refl’ n-kaddab ‘consider a liar.refl’am-las ‘shear.agent’ an-bur ‘remain celibate.agent’am-krz ‘plow.agent’ an-AZUM ‘fast.agent’Dissimilation acts at a distance: any root labial affects theprefix.





Tone shift

Tone can shift several syllables away, typically targeting aprominent position (edge, stressed syllable).

In Chizigula, tone shifts to the penultimate syllable.

Chizigula tone shift (Kenstowicz & Kisseberth 1990)/ku-lombez-a/ → [ku-lombez-a] ‘to request’/ku-lombez-ez-a/ → [ku-lombez-ez-a] ‘to request for’/ku-lombez-ez-an-a/ → [ku-lombez-ez-an-a] ‘to request for each other’

Tone shifting is a common pattern and can often skips severalsyllables.

Segmental shift is also observed and typically targets thestressed vowel (Esimbi, Halkomelem).





Oprah effect

Some speakers of Dutch can pronounce [ô] in recent loanwordsfrom English, as long as they lack a suffix. In suffixed words,the rhotic is replaced by the native [ö].

Dutch affixation: ô → öbare root ô derived öOp[ô]ah ‘Oprah’ Op[ö]ah-tje *Op[ô]ah-tje ‘dimin’Ba[ô]ack ‘Barack’ Ba[ö]ack-se *Ba[ô]ack-se ‘adj’[ô]eading ‘Reading’ [ö]eading-je *[ô]eading-je ‘dimin’Flo[ô]ida ‘Florida’ Flo[ö]ida-tje *Flo[ô]ida-tje ‘dimin’

All r’s in the root are affected, regardless of their distancefrom the suffix.

This pattern has been in native words (e.g. Russian) andwell-integrated loanwords (Tagalog) as well.





Variable affixes

In Chaha, the 3rd person masculine object affix is realized aslabialization on the rightmost non-coronal consonant.

Chaha labialization (Johnson 1975)a. Final C is non-coronal

no object 3m.sg.object

dænæg dænægw ‘hit’nækæb nækæbw ‘find’

b. Final C is coronal, medial is non-coronalnækæs nækwæs ‘bite’bækær bækwær ‘lack’

c. Only initial C is non-coronalmæsær mwæsær ‘seem’qætær qwætær ‘kill’





Interim summary

Many sound patterns involve strictly adjacent sounds, butothers do not.

Even non-adjacent patterns are local in some sense:

closer targets are preferred to distant targets (e.g. Chahalabialization)more distant targets imply closer targets (e.g. Finnish vowelharmony)interacting sounds are restricted to a domain (e.g. Berberdissimilation)





Discussion questions

1 What kind of (segmental) patterns are unattested? Provideexamples.

2 What kind of (segmental) patterns would you expect to berare but not attested, given the generalizations about locality?Provide examples.





Unattested patterns





Unattested patterns

Distant targets are preferred to closer identical targets.

A process that applies regardless of domain boundaries.

A process that applies to non-adjacent, but not to adjacentsegments.

<add yours>




Why?




Phonetics

Why do sound patterns local?

The majority of sound patterns are adjacent and theremaining ones are still local in some sense.

Why is locality favored?

Two answers:

1 phonetics2 phonology

Case study ⋆ assimilation




Phonetics

Articulatory locality (Gafos 1996/1999)

Adjacent segments are likely to interact because articulatorygestures often aren’t perfectly aligned with segmentalboundaries.

Articulatory gestures can extend beyond a single segment.

Nasality corresponds to lowered velum, which can extend fromnasal segments to adjacent segments.Lip rounding can extend from one vowel/syllable to apreceding/following syllable.

Phonologization of these articulatory tendencies can lead tostable sound patterns/alternations.




Phonetics

Perceptual locality

Perception of one segment is affected by a nearby segment,but this relationship is sometimes indirect.

Example 1 ⋆ Voicing assimilation /ap-da/ → [abda]

Perception of obstruent voicing is most strong before vowels,less before sonorants, followed by other obstruents, andprepausal position (Steriade 2008).Voicing of obstruents before other obstruents is hard toperceive.




Phonetics

Perceptual locality

Perception of one segment is affected by a nearby segment,but this relationship is sometimes indirect.

Example 1 ⋆ Voicing assimilation /ap-da/ → [abda]

Perception of obstruent voicing is most strong before vowels,less before sonorants, followed by other obstruents, andprepausal position (Steriade 2008).Voicing of obstruents before other obstruents is hard toperceive.

Example 2 ⋆ Consonant harmony

Contrast between two words is easier to perceive if allconsonants are identical/harmonized in each of the two words,and this effect is stronger the more similar the consonants are(Gallagher 2010).




Phonetics

Mismatch between production and perception

Vowel harmony typically does not affect interveningconsonants.

Vowel place cues are difficult to perceive on consonants.

Even in consonants had the relevant vocalic feature, it wouldlikely to be imperceptible.

Perceptual effects may blur the articulatory facts.




Phonology

Phonological locality

A large body of work points out that phonological locality isquite different than phonetic adjacency. Often, segments thatare several syllables away interact, and this cannot be due toarticulatory reasons.

Nevins (2010): Phonological locality is formally different fromphonetic locality. Phonology, like syntax, works differentlythan phonetics. His idea is that some segments need to get afeature from a nearby segment.

Hansson (2001); Rose & Walker (2004): Consonant harmonyis due to agreement/matching between consonants, which is aformal phonological relationship, not necessarily grounded inphonetics.




Phonology

Interim summary

Phonological locality has clear grounds in phonetics(articulation, perception).

This is particularly the case for some kinds of local/adjacentpatterns.

Some kinds of locality are harder to explain, and may need anon-phonetic explanation.

This course is not geared at examining the phonetic groundsof locality, but rather focus on various phonological factors(descriptive generalizations, typologies, and theoreticalaccounts).




How?




Rules and representations

How to capture locality in phonology?

Throughout this course, we will look at a variety of theoreticalframeworks.

To illustrate, I will discuss locality within the following fourapproaches:

1 rules ⋆ SPE rules2 representations ⋆ Autosegmental Phonology3 constraints ⋆ Optimality Theory4 serialism ⋆ Harmonic Serialism





Rules

Locality is built into the standard rule template (Chomsky &Halle 1968).

RuleA → B / C — D C → ∅ / V — #

Structural Description: CAD VC#Structural Change: A → B C → ∅





Rules

Locality is built into the standard rule template (Chomsky &Halle 1968).

RuleA → B / C — D C → ∅ / V — #

Structural Description: CAD VC#Structural Change: A → B C → ∅

Optional intervening material:V → [−low] / [−high −low] C0 —V → [−low] / [−high −low] (C) —V → [−low] / [−high −low] σ0 —

Disc What are the implications of these notations? (What can bethe intervening material?)





Autosegmental Phonology

Autosegmental Phonology (Goldsmith 1976) is well-equippedto capture locality:

features and root nodes are represented on separate tiersassociation lines link features and nodesa segment has a feature if it is associated with that feature





Autosegmental Phonology

Autosegmental Phonology (Goldsmith 1976) is well-equippedto capture locality:

features and root nodes are represented on separate tiersassociation lines link features and nodesa segment has a feature if it is associated with that feature

Let’s look at a classic autosegmental representation ofspreading (harmony):[+f]

× × × ×Some observations:

association lines establish linearity relationshipsadjacency preferreddistant targets imply closer targets





Locality in Autosegmental Phonology

Skipping is generally not allowed (no gapped configurations):[+f]

× × × ×





Locality in Autosegmental Phonology

Skipping is generally not allowed (no gapped configurations):[+f]

× × × ×Association lines can never cross:[+f] [+f]

× × × ×These are powerful devices that significantly restrict locality inspreading (and other processes). Locality is a core element ofAutosegmental Phonology.





Feature Geometry

Autosegmental Phonology has been originally built for tone.Feature Geometry presents an theory that extendsautosegments to segmental features (Clements 1985; Steriade1987; McCarthy 1988; Odden 1991)Key idea: features do not link to the root node, but instead tofeature nodes, which group similar features together (e.g.place, manner, laryngeal):

×A

Bc

fd

ge

Hi

jPeter Jurgec University of Toronto




Example: Parallel Structure Model (Moren 2006)

One feature geometric approach is the Parallel StructuresModel (PSM) which has different levels of feature nodes.

Manner and Place features in PSM

[Root]

C-manner C-place[open] [cor]

[closed] [lab] [dor]V-manner V-place

[open] [cor][closed] [dor]

[lab]




Constraints and operations

Feature geometry predicts an asymmetry between V and C

Spreading across Vs impossible

p i k

C-place C-place C-place

V-place

[labial] [coronal] [dorsal]

X Prediction confirmed X

No C place harmony





Feature geometry predicts an asymmetry between V and C

Spreading across Vs impossible

p i k


V-place

[labial] [coronal] [dorsal]


No C place harmony

Spreading across Cs possibleu t a


V-place [coronal] V-place

[labial] [dorsal]


Vowel harmony





Optimality Theory

Optimality Theory is theory of constraint interaction (Prince& Smolensky 1993/2004).

Locality is part of both faithfulness and markednessconstraints:

Faithfulness ∼ Linearity (≡ No metathesis)/axb/ → [bxa] has violations . . . but /axb/ → [xab] hasonly one.





Optimality Theory

Optimality Theory is theory of constraint interaction (Prince& Smolensky 1993/2004).

Locality is part of both faithfulness and markednessconstraints:

Faithfulness ∼ Linearity (≡ No metathesis)/axb/ → [bxa] has violations . . . but /axb/ → [xab] hasonly one.Markedness constraints ∼ *ab (≡ No sequences ab)[axb] does not violate this constraint, but [abx] does.





Some effects of local constraints in OT

p+a okay if non-adjacent

/pa/ *pa Linearity

a. pa *

b. pal *

c. pla

d. ap *





Some effects of local constraints in OT

p+a okay if non-adjacent

/pa/ *pa Linearity

a. pa *

b. pal *

c. pla

d. ap *

Limited metathesis

/pal/ *pa Linearity

a. pal *

b. pla *

c. lap ***





Harmonic Serialism

The final step is once we consider constraints and serialderivations. We will consider Harmonic Serialism (HS).

HS is a variant of OT that combines constraint ranking withserial derivations:

Gen in HS generates only those candidates that differ from theinput by one single operation.The winning candidate is then fed back to Gen as a new inputfor another round of evaluation.This loop is then repeated until the fully faithful parse of thelatest input wins.





Metathesis in HS

Gen in HS generates only those candidates that differ fromthe input by one single operation.

For sequence of segments, Gen creates only those candidatesin which two segments switch places, but not candidates inwhich three or more segments switch places.





Metathesis in HS

Gen in HS generates only those candidates that differ fromthe input by one single operation.

For sequence of segments, Gen creates only those candidatesin which two segments switch places, but not candidates inwhich three or more segments switch places.

Consider this example:

Input: /axb/Candidates: [xab], [abx]Not generated: **[bxa], **[bax], **[bxa]

Crucial insight: Locality in HS works differently than in OT.





Metathesis ruled out in HSMetathesis in parallel OT can be pathological

/pla/ *pa *Complex Linearity

a. pla *!

b. pal *!

c. / ☞ lap ***





Metathesis ruled out in HSMetathesis in parallel OT can be pathological


a. pla *!

b. pal *!

c. / ☞ lap ***

Metathesis in HS


a. ☞ pla *!

b. ☞ pal *!

c. lap , Not Generated




Conclusions




This lecture

Summary

We have looked at different concepts of locality inphonological theory.

We attributed the bias to local patterns to phonetics (but notin all cases).

We discussed 4 theories and their predictions about locality.Locality is central to any phonological theory.




This course

Aims of this course

Locality is a central phonological concept.

We will look at descriptive generalizations about locality inphonology, with the focus on long-distance patterns.

We will discuss the theories of locality.

We will try to understand the predictions (advantages,challenges) of these theories.




This course

Topics

Lecture 2 ⋆ Vowel patterns

Lecture 3 ⋆ Consonant harmony

Lecture 4 ⋆ Floating features and affixes

Lecture 5 ⋆ Derived environment effects




This course

Your output

No homework assignments.

It would be great if you could do the readings.

I would like this course to have a lot of discussion.

Participate. Ask questions ,

Want to write a paper for credit?

→ [email protected] ←




This course

Locality in PhonologyLong-distance interactions in phonology ⋆ Lecture 1

Peter Jurgec

University of Toronto

LOT Summer School ⋆ Leuven ⋆ June 22, 2015




Chomsky, Noam & Morris Halle (1968). The Sound Pattern of

English. New York, Evanston, London: Harper & Row.

Clements, George N. (1985). The geometry of phonologicalfeatures. Phonology 2. 225–252.

El Medlaoui, Mohamed (1995). Aspects des representationsphonologiques dans certaines langues Chamito-Semitiques.Rabat: Universite Mohammed V.

Ezard, Bryan (1997). A grammar of Tawala: an Austronesian

language of the Milne Bay area, Papua New Guinea. Canberra:Pacific linguistics.

Gafos, Adamantios I. (1996/1999). The articulatory basis of

locality in phonology . New York: Garland.

Gallagher, Gillian (2010). Perceptual distinctness and long-distancelaryngeal restrictions. Phonology 27. 435–480.

Goldsmith, John A. (1976). Autosegmental Phonology . Ph.D.dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.




Hansson, Gunnar Olafur (2001). Theoretical and typological issues

in consonant harmony . Ph.D. dissertation, University ofCalifornia, Berkeley.

Hayward, Richard J. (1990). Notes on the Aari language. InRichard Hayward (ed.) Omotic language studies, London: Schoolof Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 425–493.

Kenstowicz, Michael & Charles Kisseberth (1990). Chizigulatonology: The word and beyond. In Sharon Inkelas & Draga Zec(eds.) The Phonology-Syntax Connection, Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press. 163–194.

McCarthy, John J. (1988). Feature geometry and dependency.Phonetica 43. 84–108.

Moren, Bruce (2006). Consonant-vowel interactions in Serbian:features, representations and constraint interactions. Lingua116. 1198–1244.




Nevins, Andrew (2010). Locality in Vowel Harmony . Cambridge,MA: MIT Press.

Odden, David (1991). Vowel geometry. Phonology 8. 261–289.

Prince, Alan & Paul Smolensky (1993/2004). Optimality Theory:

constraint interaction in Generative Grammar . Malden, MA:Blackwell. Available on Rutgers Optimality Archive, ROA 537,http://roa.rutgers.edu.

Ringen, Catherine (1975/1988). Vowel harmony: Theoretical

Implications. New York: Garland.

Ringen, Catherine & Orvokki Heinamaki (1999). Variation inFinnish vowel harmony: An OT account. Natural Language and

Linguistic Theory 17. 303–337.

Rose, Sharon & Rachel Walker (2004). A typology of consonantagreement as correspondence. Language 80. 475–531.




This course

Steriade, Donca (1987). Locality conditions and feature geometry.In Proceedings of NELS 17 , Amherst: GLSA, University ofMassachusetts. 595–618.

Steriade, Donca (2008). The phonology of perceptibility effects:the P-map and its consequences for constraint organization. InKristin Hanson & Sharon Inkelas (eds.) The nature of the word:

essays in honor of Paul Kiparsky , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.151–180.

Ternes, Elmar (1973). The phonemic analysis of Scottish Gaelic:

based on the dialect of Applecross, Ross-shire. Hamburg:Helmut Buske Verlag.



Documents

Locality in Phonology - Peter JurgecIntroduction What? Why? How? Conclusions References Highlights This course will look at long-distance interactions in phonology. We ﬁrst look