Phonotactic Restrictions on Ejectives

A Typological Survey

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Carmen Janycjany@csusb.edu

This presentation

Introduction Language sample Restrictions

Based on syllable structure Based on position and co-occurrence

Ejectives & Phoneme Inventory Summary & Conclusions

Introduction

This paper: examines phonotactic restrictions of ejective stops and phoneme inventories

Sample: 27 mostly unrelated languages, but from 3 major geographical areas

Goal: to find general tendencies in phono-tactic restrictions and possible explanations

Introduction

Ejectives occur in 18% of the world’s languages (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996)

Strongly regional geographic distribution (Maddieson 2004)

Ejectives are non-pulmonic egressive consonants produced with closed glottis while occlusion in the oral cavity

Introduction

Generally no sharp division between ejectives and plosives + glottal stop

Ejectives are mostly voiceless stops (only voiceless ejective stops examined in this paper)

Tendency to occur only at same places of articulation as other stops in same language

Occurrence hierarchy: velar > dental/alveolar > bilabial > uvular (Maddieson 1984)

Language sample

Ejectives found in 3 areas: the Americas, Africa, the Caucasus

This study: 27 languages, 19 from the Americas and 4 each from other 2 areas

Still great genetic diversity (see handout) Materials used: grammars & secondary

sources (see handout)

Language sample

Source: WALS

Restrictions

Two main types: Ejectives do only or do not occur in certain positions

(not in coda, leftmost in morpheme) Ejectives can only or cannot co-occur with certain

segments (not with other ejectives, only with identical ejectives)

=> Position within syllable/word & co-occurrence with other segments within syllable/word

Restrictions

Both types depend on phonetic & phono-logical context (segments that precede/follow)

Both types can be attributed to articulatory & auditory features

Syllable-based restrictions

Often described in grammars which cover positional restrictions

Both: positional & co-occurrence Limitations to onset/coda position in

syllables/words & to onset/coda clusters However: complex onsets/codas not in all

languages & sometimes vaguely described

Syllable-based restrictions

Expected restrictions for phonetic reasons: stops not always released in coda position => ejectives limited to onset position (absence of audible release would eliminate contrast)

Blevins (2004): in general, fewer contrasts in coda position than in onset position

Syllable-based restrictions

Information on positional restrictions only for 21/27 languages

8/21 languages do not allow ejectives in coda position (no mention of word-edges)

Assumption: Languages with no restrictions always release coda stops (avoiding neutralization of contrast)

Syllable-based restrictions

Restrictions on consonant clusters for articulatory and auditory reasons

Clusters show similar restrictions in onset and coda position

Cluster information missing for 11 languages 9 lack complex onsets & 7 complex codas A few restrictions (see handout)

Syllable-based restrictions

Explanations for restrictions to following segments: Blevins (2004): Ejectives commonly contrast

with other stops before sonorants, but not before obstruents and word-finally

Steriade (1999): Ejectives depend on right-hand context because they are postglottalized

Syllable-based restrictions

Explanation for restrictions to preceding segments: Articulatory difficulty and perceptual complexity

(see Bella Coola ban on two-ejective clusters)

Ejectives only in roots: 3/27 languages (may be related to affixing pattern and positional restrictions)

Position/Co-occurrence restrictions

No restrictions reported for 6 languages Restrictions for 5 languages syllable-based Positional restrictions:

Ejectives occur at the left edge of a domain (stem-initial, leftmost in morpheme)

Explanations: Initial position perceptually more salient; stops tend to be released initially

Position/Co-occurrence restrictions

Co-occurrence restrictions based on similarity Some languages allow only very similar

segments (homorganic, same laryngeal features), others only dissimilar segments

Some languages allow only identical segments to co-occur

Some languages ban co-occurrence within morpheme or root

Position/Co-occurrence restrictions

Explanation (MacEachern 1997): Restrictions based on auditory similarity and identity 4 Patterns, each with subset of restrictions of next pattern

forming implicational hierarchy E.g. pattern 4 with most restrictions: co-occurrence of

extremely similar no, but identical yes Co-occuring elements on scale of similarity: identical –

very dissimilar Syllable-based co-occurrence restrictions also based

on similarity (ejective not next to glottal stop)

Ejectives & Phoneme Inventory

Maddieson’s (1984) claims tested a) Ejectives in the same places of articulation as

other stops in a given language b) Certain places of articulation are preferred over

others: velar > dental/alveolar > bilabial > uvular

a) and b) mostly confirmed Two contradictions: Tzutujil, Hupa

Summary & Conclusions

Restrictions either positional of co-occurrence Positional: ejectives at left edge (syllable or

other domain) Articulatory explanation: lack of stop release in

coda position Auditory explanation: marked segments in

perceptually more salient position

Summary & Conclusions

Articulatory and auditory reasons working together: Lack of an audible release in coda eliminates phonetic cue

for contrast perception resulting in laryngeal neutralization

Co-occurrence limitations based on auditory similarity Languages differ where they set the point at which similarity

becomes unacceptable (dissimilar-identical) Languages also vary with respect to the domain of the

restriction (root, morpheme, syllable, word)

Summary & Conclusions

All phonotactic restrictions of ejectives can be explained in terms of articulatory variation and ease and on perceptual complexity and similarity

Given that languages vary with respect to articulatory features and with regard to perceptual similarity, different restrictions found cross‑linguistically

Cross‑linguistic phonetic analysis is needed to have experimental confirmation of these tendencies

Questions?

Thank you!