Monthly Archives: January 2018

Van Oostendorp & D’Alessandro (2017) – Metaphony as Magnetism

Metaphony as Magnetism
Marc Van Oostendorp, Roberta D’Alessandro
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003752
November 2017
Metaphony in Romance poses a well-known problem for Element Theory, as it seems to involve lowering. D’Alessandro and van Oostendorp (2016) propose to solve this by assuming some suffixes are ‘|A| Eaters’, absorbing the |A| element from the stem vowel without getting phonetically realized themselves. This paper points to some problems with this analysis, and shows that Magnetic Grammar, a framework in all linguistic variation is encoded in features, might help to solve them. This is the first draft of a paper we submitted for a volume. Comments/feedback very welcome!

Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/003752
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: submitted
keywords: element theory, phonology, primitives, magnetic grammar, morphology, phonology

Dai (2017) – Explaining Disyllabic Tone Sandhi in Linchuan

Explaining Disyllabic Tone Sandhi in Linchuan
Huteng Dai
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003751
November 2017
This article provides a fine-grained description of the phonology of the Linchuan (Gan Chinese) language/dialect, especially regarding tone and tone sandhi, and seeks a typological analysis of tone inventory and tone sandhi in the framework of constraint-based phonology (Prince and Smolensky 2002). By means of this tone sandhi analysis, this article discusses three topics: (1) The interaction between the diachrony and synchrony of tonal systems, (2) The constraint of slope correspondence MATCH-SLOPE, and (3) The interaction between tone inventory and tone sandhi. The presentation of these topics sets up the stage for future research on the phonological typology and the modeling of tone and tone sandhi.

Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/003751
(please use that when you cite this article)
keywords: tone inventory, tone sandhi, gan chinese, phonology
previous versions: v3 [November 2017]
v2 [November 2017]
v1 [November 2017]

Rolle (2017) – In support of an OT-DM model: Evidence from a morphological conspiracy in Degema

In support of an OT-DM model: Evidence from a morphological conspiracy in Degema
Nicholas Rolle
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003746
November 2017
This paper provides support for a modified DM model which I call Optimality Theoretic Distributed Morphology (OT-DM). The strongest form of this model is that all morphological operations take place in parallel, which I call the Morphology-in-Parallel Hypothesis (MPH). Although combining OT and DM is unorthodox in practice, I show that a growing body of data warrants his modification (Trommer 2001a, 2001b, 2002; Dawson in press; Foley to appear; a.o.), and provide evidence for OT-DM from a morphological conspiracy involving verbal clitics in Degema (Nigeria). To account for this conspiracy, I argue that agreement clitics are inserted post-syntactically via the DM operation Dissociated Node Insertion (DNI), and further that verb complexes are formed post-syntactically via the operation Local Dislocation (LD). I argue that both these operations are triggered by a well-formedness markedness constraint which requires verbs to appear in properly inflected words on the surface. These DM operations are decomposed into a series of constraints which are crucially ranked. Candidates are freely generated from GEN and are subject to all DM operations, and are evaluated via EVAL against the ranked constraint set. I illustrate that under standard views of DM in which DNI proceeds VI, a serial model results in an ordering paradox, and that even after parameterizing DM operation ordering in response, this model does not adequately account for the morphological conspiracy. [Appendices are found on my website, under ‘output’.]

Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/003746
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: submitted
keywords: distributed morphology, optimality theory, morphological conspiracy, clitics, serial verb constructions, african linguistics, morphology, syntax, phonology

Kawahara (2017) – Sound symbolic patterns in Pokémon move names

Sound symbolic patterns in Pokémon move names
Shigeto Kawahara
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003742
November 2017
Recent studies have shown that there are sound symbolic patterns in Pokémon names in such a way that those Pokémon characters with longer names tend to be stronger. They also found that voiced obstruents in the Pokémon characters’ names correlate with the characters’ strength parameters. Building on these observations, this short paper tests whether the same sound symbolic patterns hold in the moves (“waza or ?” in Japanese) that Pokémon characters use during their battles. The results of the current investigation show that similar patterns found the previous studies also hold in the names of Pokémon moves, further supporting the role of sound symbolic relationships in Pokémon naming patterns. More generally, the current study provides another case in which there is a non-arbitrary relationship between sounds and meanings. [This paper is in collaboration with Michinori Suzuki (ICU)].

Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/003742
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: submitted
keywords: sound symbolism, pokemon, voiced obstruents, mora count, move!, phonology

Kumagai (2017) – A sound-symbolic alternation to express cuteness and the orthographic Lyman’s Law in Japanese

A sound-symbolic alternation to express cuteness and the orthographic Lyman’s Law in Japanese
Gakuji Kumagai
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003738
November 2017
This paper discusses a new process in Japanese that involves a semantically driven process in which /h/ alternates with [p] in nicknaming (e.g., haruka ‘Haruka’ ? paru-ru; hikaru ‘Hikaru’ + -ko ‘child’ ? pika-ko). As this nicknaming process is mainly applied to female names, it is speculated that /h/ alternates with [p] to express cuteness, regardless of the surrounding contexts. This study ran an experiment that examines whether the singleton [p] is more likely to offer an image of cuteness than other consonants that can be used in Japanese. The results show that the singleton [p] is most likely to be associated with cuteness. Additionally, this study focuses on the orthographic Lyman’s Law, or OCP (diacritic), which can be defined as a constraint that prohibits two auxiliary signs from occurring in a word (Kawahara in press). In Japanese orthography, voiced obstruents (da = “?”; ga = “?”; za = “?”; ba = “?”) are expressed with a diacritical sign called a dakuten (“), and [p] (pa = “?”) with a diacritical sign called a han-dakuten (°). When this fact is taken into consideration, OCP (diacritic) will prevent the singleton [p] to occur with voiced obstruents in a word. OCP (diacritic) has more explanatory power than the traditional Lyman’s Law, in the sense that it can predict the singleton [p] as well as voiced obstruents to induce the devoicing of voiced geminates (Fukazawa et al. 2015; Kawahara & Sano 2016b). The current study focuses on testing the constraint that forbids the singleton [p] to precede a voiced obstruent (i.e. [p…D], in which D denotes a voice obstruent), making use of the new nicknaming phenomenon showing /h/?[p] alternation. The experiment also examines whether the nicknaming formation can be affected by OCP-related conditions across morpheme boundaries or within a word, such as Identity Avoidance (e.g., Kawahara & Sano 2014a, 2016a; Kumagai & Kawahara 2017a) and OCP-labial effect (Kumagai 2017). The conclusion drawn by the second experiment is that *[p…D] is psychologically real in the minds of Japanese speakers, and that the /h/?[p] alternation in the new nicknames created is more likely to cease in OCP-related conditions.

Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/003738
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: Submitted
keywords: sound symbolism; cuteness; lyman’s law; identity avoidance; ocp-labial effect; japanese nicknaming, phonology

Garcia (2017) – Weight effects on stress: lexicon and grammar (PhD Thesis)

Weight effects on stress: lexicon and grammar (PhD Thesis)
Guilherme Duarte Garcia
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003615
November 2017
This thesis examines weight effects on stress and proposes a probabilistic approach based on the notion that weight is gradient, not categorical. Arguments for this proposal are divided into three main chapters, which examine and statistically model weight in the lexicon (Chapter 1), weight in the grammar (Chapter 2), and the interaction of weight and footing (Chapter 3). The statistical analyses in Chapters 2 and 3 also discuss how our linguistic expectations regarding weight effects can be incorporated in statistical models through the use of mildly informative priors, and to what extent the fit of such models compare with that of models based on non-informative priors. In Chapter 1, I examine weight effects in the Portuguese lexicon, and show that they are considerably more intricate than what is assumed in the literature. Previous weight-based studies consider that weight only affects stress in word-final syllables, and that weight is categorical (e.g., Bisol 1992, Lee 2007). In other words, syllables in Portuguese are traditionally classified as heavy or light. I show that weight should not be seen as categorical. By exploring a comprehensive lexicon (Houaiss et al. 2001), I demonstrate that heavy syllables have a gradient effect on stress. This effect is modulated by the position of a given heavy syllable in the stress domain as well as its segmental count. This entails that weight effects are not restricted to word-final syllables. Rather, all syllables in the stress domain present some weight effect on stress. One such effect is in fact puzzling: antepenultimate light syllables are more stress-attracting than antepenultimate heavy syllables. This contradicts the typology of weight and stress, since heavy syllables are not expected to repel stress in weight-sensitive languages (Gordon 2006). Given the non-categorical patterns observed in the lexicon, I propose a probabilistic approach to stress in the language. To demonstrate the empirical advantage of such an approach, I show that the accuracy of probabilistic predictions is substantially higher than that of categorical predictions. In Chapter 2, I examine to what extent these lexical patterns in Portuguese are captured by speakers’ grammars. First, I show that speakers do generalise the weight gradience in the lexicon to novel words. The effects monotonically weaken as we move away from the right edge of the word, which mirrors what is found in the lexicon (Chapter 1). Second, I show that speakers do not generalise the typologically contradictory pattern found in antepenultimate syllables in the lexicon. Instead, speakers assign positive weight effects to all syllables in the stress domain; i.e., they repair the negative weight effect in question. Previous findings in the literature on phonological (under)learning have shown that unnatural (or contradictory) patterns are harder to learn, and are often ignored by speakers (e.g., Hayes and Londe 2006, Hayes et al. 2009, Becker et al. 2011, Becker et al. 2012). Chapter 2 shows that speakers can go beyond ignoring such patterns: they can in fact repair them. The probabilistic approach presented in Chapters 1 and 2 raises the question of how footing impacts stress in a language such as Portuguese, where weight effects are gradient. Indeed, a non-categorical weight-based approach poses important challenges to footing. In Chapter 3, I argue that Portuguese does not offer compelling evidence for the foot. First, the gradient weight effects found in the lexicon and in speakers’ behaviour cannot be captured with any foot type, given that even antepenultimate stress is directly affected by weight. Second, no phonological process (e.g., truncation, reduplication, hypocorisation) makes reference to the foot. Third, different foot types have been proposed across the literature because of contradictory patterns of stress location—patterns which are mirrored in truncation, reduplication, and hypocorisation in the language. Fourth, subminimal words are not only common in the Portuguese lexicon, but are also productive in the language. As discussed in Chapter 3, the evidence against footing in Portuguese is compelling, and I therefore conclude that the language does not have feet. To further strengthen this argument, I turn to English, where the evidence for footing is robust. Even though English and Portuguese present similar stress patterns on the surface, I show that these two languages are fundamentally different. Unlike in Portuguese, stress patterns in the English lexicon and in speakers’ grammars exhibit weight effects that are predicted if one assumes moraic trochees and extrametricality in the language (e.g., Hayes 1982). The probabilistic weight-based approach to stress adopted in this thesis thus concludes that feet are parametric (following, e.g., Özçelik (2013, 2014)), and are therefore present in English, but absent in Portuguese.

Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/003615
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: McGill University
keywords: phonology, stress, weight, probabilistic grammar, portuguese, english, phonology
previous versions: v2 [November 2017]
v1 [June 2017]

Kim (2017) – An Experimental Study of Phonological Variation and Variation in Scope Judgments in Korean

An Experimental Study of Phonological Variation and Variation in Scope Judgments in Korean
Taehoon Hendrik Kim
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003706
October 2017
Korean speakers split into two groups regarding how they interpret a negative sentence with a quantified object, such as “The boy didn’t eat every cookie” (Han et al. 2007). For a scenario in which a boy eats some but not all cookies, some speakers regard the sentence as a truthful description of the scenario, while other speakers do not. In other words, only the former accepts the wide scope reading of negation (the not>every reading). One hypothesis of this fact is that each group of speakers has a different grammar, where the distinction rests on whether the verb moves to T or not; this is Han et al.’s (2007) two-grammar hypothesis. Certain theories of the syntax-phonology interface (e.g. Samuels 2011) predict that the grammatical split should be accompanied by a phonological split. Specifically, the prediction is that the Post-Obstruent Tensing process in Korean for speakers who reject the not>every reading should be blocked from applying between the transitive verb and the object of a simple declarative sentence. A two-part experiment composed of a truth-value judgment task and a production task was conducted to test the prediction. The result reproduced the findings of Han et al. (2007) and showed that speakers’ scope judgments have no notable correlation with the occurrence of Post-Obstruent Tensing. In the discussion, alternative theories of the syntax-phonology interface and problematic aspects of the two-grammar hypothesis are considered.

Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/003706
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: UCLA Thesis
keywords: korean, negation, post-obstruent tensing, quantifier scope, scope ambiguity, syntax-phonology interface, syntax, phonology

Cuerrier & Reiss (2017) – Geminates and vowel laxing in Quebec French

Geminates and vowel laxing in Quebec French
Anaele Cuerrier, Charles Reiss
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003705
October 2017
Laxing and harmony in Quebec French (QF) high vowels shows dialectal, register and perhaps even lexical variation. A recent proposal to handle some of the data (Poliquin, 2006) contains a radical innovation to phonological theory concerning long-distance segment interactions. We question the necessity of such an account by pointing out that recognition of geminate sonorants in QF can explain some puzzling forms without recourse to new devices. Our account is supported by phonetic considerations, as well as by recognizing that the alternative both under and overgenerates lax vowels in surface forms.

Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/003705
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: Submitted to Proceedings of LSRL 47
keywords: geminates, vowel harmony, vowel laxing, quebec french, phonology

Leivada, Kambanaros & Grohmann (2017) – The Locus Preservation Hypothesis: Shared Linguistic Profiles across Developmental Disorders and the Resilient Part of the Human Language Faculty

The Locus Preservation Hypothesis: Shared Linguistic Profiles across Developmental Disorders and the Resilient Part of the Human Language Faculty
Evelina Leivada, Maria Kambanaros, Kleanthes K. Grohmann
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003703
October 2017
Grammatical markers are not uniformly impaired across speakers of different languages, even when speakers share a diagnosis and the marker in question is grammaticalized in a similar way in these languages. The aim of this work is to demarcate, from a cross-linguistic perspective, the linguistic phenotype of three genetically heterogeneous developmental disorders: specific language impairment, Down syndrome, and autism spectrum disorder. After a systematic review of linguistic profiles targeting mainly English-, Greek-, Catalan-, and Spanish-speaking populations with developmental disorders (n = 880), shared loci of impairment are identified and certain domains of grammar are shown to be more vulnerable than others. The distribution of impaired loci is captured by the Locus Preservation Hypothesis which suggests that specific parts of the language faculty are immune to impairment across developmental disorders. Through the Locus Preservation Hypothesis, a classical chicken and egg question can be addressed: Do poor conceptual resources and memory limitations result in an atypical grammar or does a grammatical breakdown lead to conceptual and memory limitations? Overall, certain morphological markers reveal themselves as highly susceptible to impairment, while syntactic operations are preserved, granting support to the first scenario. The origin of resilient syntax is explained from a phylogenetic perspective in connection to the “syntax-before-phonology” hypothesis.

Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/003703
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: Frontiers in Psychology
keywords: sli, down syndrome, autism, syntax, phonology, impairment

Storme (2017) – Contrast enhancement motivates closed-syllable laxing and open-syllable tensing

Contrast enhancement motivates closed-syllable laxing and open-syllable tensing
Benjamin Storme
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003700
October 2017
Many languages avoid tense vowels before word-final and preobstruent consonants through vowel laxing and avoid lax vowels word-finally and before prevocalic consonants through vowel tensing. This paper argues that these processes are motivated by contrast enhancement. Vowel laxing is a strategy to enhance the distinctiveness of postvocalic consonant contrasts: it applies before word-final and preobstruent consonants as a way to compensate for the absence of good perceptual cues to consonant place of articulation in these contexts. Vowel tensing is a strategy to enhance the distinctiveness of vowel contrasts. The two strategies conflict to determine vowel quality in vowel-consonant sequences and language variation results from different ways of solving this conflict in grammars with constraints on contrasts. This analysis corroborates the general claim that perceptual contrast, and in particular contrast enhancement, plays a role in shaping phonotactic restrictions (e.g. Flemming 2002).

Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/003700
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: submitted
keywords: phonology, phonetics, perceptual enhancement, typology, dispersion theory, southern french