Content uploaded by Larry M Hyman
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Larry M Hyman on Apr 07, 2015
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
Does Gokana really have no syllables? Or: What's so great about being universal?
Abstract
This paper is concerned with syllable universals, especially the claim that all languages have syllables. Expanding beyond my earlier work, I take a new look at Gokana, the major counterexample to the universal syllable, and present overlooked (but ambiguous) evidence for a weight-insensitive bisyllabic trochee. After demonstrating the theory-dependent nature of absolute universals, and distinguishing between analytic vs. descriptive claims, I focus on the latter as a means of ‘normalising’ the discussion of what constitutes evidence for the syllable, both in Gokana and in general. A typological approach is argued for in which languages differ in the nature and extent of the ‘activation’ of phonological properties, with Gokana representing a language which only marginally activates the syllable, if at all. The paper ends by situating the issue within the context of recent discussions of universals and diversity (Evans & Levinson 2009), which have not dealt primarily with phonology.
... Larry M. Hyman University of California, Berkeley [submitted to Phonology] In a recent article in Phonology (Hyman 2011), I provided evidence that Gokana, a Cross-River language of Nigeria, cares very little, if at all, about organizing its consonants and vowels into syllables. The only potential argument in favor of the syllable that was presented concerned the structure of the the prosodic stem, which consists of a root and at most one derivational and one inflectional suffix. ...
... 1 The question is how else one might "explain" why *CVVVCV and *CVCVVV are unattested as possible prosodic stem shapes. 2 Since Hyman (2011) has appeared, I have realized that there is another possible account for the absence of these forms. Recall 1 The argument apparently convinced Kiparsky (2013), who writes, "Words and stems are always syllabified… even in Gokana and Japanese (Hyman 2010(Hyman [2011)" (slide 37). Note that although some scholars hypothesize the (CV) syllable as part of universal grammar with implications for language acquisition, my goal here was to seek unambiguous evidence that Gokana refers to syllables, not "just" moras. 2 One reviewer suggests that the absence of a third C might consititute another argument, since CVCVCV would require three syllables. ...
... To give just two examples, recursion, the backbone of UG (Hauser et al., 2002) has been claimed not to exist in Pirahã (cf. discussions in Everett, 2005;Nevins et al., 2009) and the syllable has been argued to be absent as a relevant notion in Gokana (Hyman, 2011) or Japanese (Labrune, 2012). ...
The fact that human language is highly structured and that, moreover, the way it is structured shows striking similarities in the world’s languages has been addressed from two different perspectives. The first, and more traditional, generative hypothesis is that the similarities are due to an innate language faculty. There is an inborn ‘grammar’ with universal principles that manifest themselves in each language and cross-linguistic variation arises due to a different parameter setting of universal principles. A second perspective is that there is no inborn, innate language faculty, but that instead structure emerges from language usage. This paper purports to develop and illustrate a third perspective, according to which the structural similarities in human languages are the result of the way the cognitive system works in perception. The essential claim is that structural properties follow from the limitations of human cognition in focus.
This paper argues that tone-driven epenthesis is possible in tonal languages. In Wamey, an epenthetic [ə] is inserted to host a high tone in two contexts: first, to host a tone which would otherwise be left floating due to a restriction on rising tones (/cv̀cⒽ/ maps to [cv̀cə́] due to a ban *[cv̌c]); and second, to host a tone which is introduced by word-level morphology but is restricted from associating across a stem boundary. These patterns cannot be attributed to syllable phonotactics, which freely allow all consonants in the coda position. We assemble the evidence for tone-driven epenthesis, focusing on the distribution of final [ə] in lexical stem structure and [ə]-alternating suffixes. A simple OT analysis derives [ə]-epenthesis, utilising common constraints (e.g. * Rise , OCP(H), etc.) together with constraints against associating tone across prosodic boundaries. In total, Wamey epenthesis exemplifies the cultivation of segmental environments for the purpose of realising pitch targets.
This article argues that the prosodic category stress in West Germanic languages, which implicitly underlies practically all work on stress, is a complex cluster concept consisting of at least six dimensions which in turn involve a number of subdimensions. Because of its complexity, this concept is not useful for cross-linguistic comparison. A promising starting point for further typological inquiry is one of the six dimensions, i.e. acoustic and auditory prominence. However, identifying acoustic and auditory prominence distinctions cross-linguistically is also not straightforward and requires considerable empirical effort. Nevertheless, cross-linguistic comparison is still possible in the case of ‘difficult’ cluster concepts such as stress and does not require the use of arbitrary comparative concepts.
The segmental phonology of a wide range of West African languages shows clear contrastive asymmetries between different positions within the prosodic stem—a stem defined by a fixed number of syllables and various other restrictions. Stem-initial positions are strong in that they support maximal systems of consonant contrasts. Non-initial positions are weak not just because they support fewer contrasts but also because the consonants that typically occur there form a rather small set that can be intuitively described as weak. The notion of relative consonantal strength is hard to define using standard feature classifications. However, it can be captured by drawing on the model of speech as a modulated carrier signal: the stronger the consonant, the greater the extent to which it modulates the carrier. Consonants that are non-initial in the stem form a natural class in that they perturb the carrier to a relatively small extent. This definition of consonant strength provides us with a direct way of modelling how segmental effects, alongside prosodic effects, are fully integrated into the more general phenomenon of positional prominence.
Тональные языки могут значительно различаться по тому, какую функциональную нагрузку несёт тон. Карлос Гуссенховен предложил ввести понятие тональной плотности языка, однако до сих пор не предпринималось попыток сделать это понятие практически применимым.В статье предлагается методика определения индекса тональной плотности (ИТП) языков. ИТП понимается как отношение числа тонем или маркированных тонов к числу сегментных единиц в тексте некоторой протяжённости. Ключевыми понятиями при этом являются:— тонема — тональный контур, который задействован в выражении лексического или грамматического значения;— тональный домен — последовательность сегментов, на которой реализуется тонема;— маркированный тон — часто выделяется в языках с двухуровневыми тональными системами, в таких языках слоги или моры, не несущие маркированного тона, могут считаться бестоновыми;— базовая сегментная единица — слог или мора. Как слог, так и мора может быть принят(а) в качестве базовой единицы, при этом числовые значения ИТП для моросчитающих языков будут различаться (таким образом, можно говорить о «морном ИТП» и «слоговом ИТП»). При этом важен вопрос простоты или сложности практической сегментации базовых единиц: в некоторых языках выделяют до четырёх степеней тяжести слога; иногда даже в близкородственных языках слоги идентичной структуры получают различную трактовку в отношении слогового веса, и т. п., что затрудняет подсчёт числа мор. С другой стороны, в некоторых языках вызывает трудности выделение слогов; для таких языков подсчёт «морного ИТП» был бы предпочтителен.В качестве практической иллюстрации применения методики, «слоговой ИТП» был подсчитан для трёх разноструктурных языков. В навахо (атапасские языки, США) с маркированным высоким тоном ИТП составил 35,8. В бамана (западная ветвь манде, Зап. Африка), языке с 2-уровневой системой, оба тона которой являются релевантными, индекс составил 70. В восточном дан (южная группа манде, Зап. Африка), языке с 5 уровневыми тонами, индекс составил 105,8.
Tonal languages may differ considerably with respect to the functional load of the tone. Carlos Gussenhoven suggested the notion of tonal density of a language, however, to our knowledge, there have been no attempts to apply it in practice.In this paper, a method of calculation of the Tonal Density Index (TDI) is proposed. Under TDI we understand the ratio of the number of tonemes or marked tones to the number of segmental units in a text. The key notions related to the TDI are the following:— toneme i.e. a tonal contour which is relevant for the expression of a lexical or grammatical meaning;— tonal domain, i.e. a sequence of segments to which a toneme is associated;— marked tone, which is often postulated in languages with two-level tonal systems. In such languages, syllables or morae which do not carry the marked tone can be considered toneless;— a basic segmental unit may be a syllable or a mora. Consequently, two kinds of TDI can be calculated, the “moraic TDI” and the “syllabic TDI”. The key question is the applicability of segmentation into these units. Some languages distinguish up to four degrees of the syllable weight; sometimes syllables of identical structures are interpreted differently in what concerns their syllabic weight, even in closely related languages; such factors may considerably complicate the count of moras. On the other hand, in other languages, identification of syllables may be problematic; in such languages, the “moraic TDI” would be easier to calculate.Three languages of different types have been taken to exemplify the method of calculation of the “syllabic TDI”. In Navajo (Southern Athabascan group, USA), a language with a marked high tone, the TDI equals 35.8. In Bambara (Western Mande, Mali), a two-level language with tonal domains, the TDI equals 70. In Eastern Dan (South Mande group, Côte d’Ivoire), a language with 5 level tones, the TDI equals 105.8.
The indigenous languages of North America have played a critical role in discussions of the universality of part-of-speech distinctions. In this paper, we show that Oneida does not include a grammatical distinction between nouns and verbs. Rather, Oneida inflecting lexical items are subject to two cross-cutting semantic classifications, one that concerns the sort of entities they describe, the other the sort of semantic relation they include in their content. Labels such as ‘noun' and ‘verb' can still be used for cross-linguistic comparison, as the semantic partition of lexical items corresponds to canonical nouns and verbs according to morphologists and some typologists. But the meta-grammatical status of these labels is quite distinct from the status of corresponding labels in Indo-European languages like English.
Preliminaries Phological Rules and Representations Alternations Phonological Sketches Evidence and Motivation The Problem of Abstractness The Representation of Sounds Rule Interaction Notation The Role of Syntax and the Lexicon in Phonology References Language Index Subject Index
IntroductionThis chapter questions one of the most basic assumptions within syllable theory: namely that phonotactic constraints are largely syllable-based. In this chapter I argue that segmental and feature-based phonotactic constraints on consonant sequencing are most profitably viewed as syllable-independent statements. Evidence for the syllable-independent nature of phonotactics comes from three domains. First, it can be demonstrated that, language-internally, the syllable-based view of phonotactics is, in many cases, empirically inadequate. Second, cross-linguistic comparisons demonstrate that languages with arguably distinct syllabifications have identical phonotactic constraints. Third, emergent phonotactic universals on consonant sequencing are only evident when phonotactics are stated independent of syllable structure.Three important points need to be made at the outset. First, though I present evidence that phonotactics are to a large extent independent of syllable structure, I am not denying the existence of syllables. On the contrary, in many of the languages examined in this study, evidence for phonological syllables exists in the form of syllable-sensitive rules of stress assignment, syncope, vowel reduction, reduplication, and consistent judgments of syllabifications across speakers. Second, in languages where phonotactic statements and other arguably syllable-based statements do not converge on a single syllable structure, one might argue for “basic” and “derived” syllabifications for distinct phonological domains. However, if two distinct syllabifications are needed for many of the world's languages precisely where phonotactics are involved, then one alternative strategy is to consider the possibility that phonotactics are not syllable based.
When one looks at the world's languages, it is easy to get the impression that there is a wide range of syllable patterns. But an in-depth analysis of a selection of languages shows that the maximal syllable is CVX, where C, V, or X can be a complex sound. Extra consonants at word edges need not be part of the adjacent syllable but can be attributed to morphology: a potential V from an affix, anti-allomorphy, and the affix rule. The range of possible syllables is therefore far smaller than previously thought. The study shows that in some parts of language there may be no parameters or typology, despite apparent diversity at first sight.
IntroductionThe traditional typology proposed by Trubetzkoy (1969) classifies Tokyo Japanese as a typical “mora language” as opposed to a “syllable language.” The conception of the mora as an indispensable unit in Japanese can be supported by a wide range of linguistic evidence (see Kubozono 1999 for a summary). In comparison, it is not very clear yet what role the syllable plays in the same prosodic system, particularly in the nonderivational framework of Optimality Theory (OT – Prince and Smolensky 1993).The goal of this chapter is twofold. First, I will show that several independent phenomena in Japanese exhibit the dominance of heavy-light over light-heavy structures. These phenomena include motherese (mother–baby language), emphatic mimetics, and sporadic lengthenings and shortenings, which all have drawn little or no attention in the literature, as well as the now well-known phenomena of loanword truncation and zuzya- (jazz musicians' language). Moreover, it is argued that similar asymmetries occur in longer words involving three or more feet, such as compound nouns and the chanting phrases used in baseball cheering. By demonstrating the magnitude with which such a prosodic asymmetry occurs, I will argue for a syllable-based generalization of Japanese and, hence, for the universality of the syllable as an organizing element of phonological structure. Second, I will present an optimality-theoretic analysis of the phenomena exhibiting the asymmetries in syllabic organization.