Too Many Solutions: Says Who

Darin Flynn ACOL ’07

1

Too Many Solutions: Says Who?

Darin Flynn UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

[email protected]

I. Introduction

A. Homogeneity of target/heterogeneity of process • “One of the most compelling features of OT, in my view, is the way that it unites description of

individual languages with explanation of language typology. ... OT ... is inherently typological: the grammar of one language inevitably incorporates claims about the grammars of all languages. This joining of the individual and the universal, which OT accomplishes through ranking permutation, is probably the most important insight of the theory.” (McCarthy 2002:x)

• “OT predicts that the output goal of avoiding [a negative constraint] is attainable in various ways. ... For example, *VOICED-CODA in Dutch is satisfied by obstruent devoicing, but potentially it might also have been satisfied by obstruent deletion or coda nasalization.” (Kager 1999:54)

B. The two-many-solutions problem • “The Too-Many-Solutions conundrum arises when the system of constraints and rankings predicts too

many resolutions of a given phonotactic problem. ... [I]f the rule of final devoicing aims to eliminate final voiced obstruents, why aren’t there rules of final voiced obstruent nasalization, deletion, metathesis or post-voiced obstruent epenthesis? ... [T]he fact [is] that devoicing is the only available cure to violations of *[+VOICE]/__]σ. ... My claim ... is not that nasalization or C-deletion etc are unattested processes: but that they are unattested as responses to the voicing problem posed by *[+VOICE]/__]σ. This means that one does not encounter sound systems in which all the final voiced stops, and only they, turn to nasals, delete, or trigger epenthesis or metathesis.” (Steriade 2001:4, 5)

• “[T]here is only one possible response to the prohibition on syllable-final voiced consonants.” (Lombardi 2001:24)

• “Many logically possible ‘repairs’ for markedness statements are unattested. Ex. Laryngeal markedness: feature changes, but not epenthesis or deletion.” (Bakovic & Wilson 2004:1)

• “*[+VOI]/CODA can trigger two general types of repairs, one affecting the [+voi] part of the constraint and the other affecting the CODA part. More specifically, a prohibition against voiced codas could trigger any of the repairs in (1) below.

(1) a. Devoicing: /adla/ → at.la d. Deletion: /adla/ → a.la

b. Epenthesis: /adla/ → a.dǝ.la e. Metathesis /adla/ → al.da c. Nasalization: /adla/ → an.la f. Resyllabification: /adla/ → a.dla


2

The range of segmental repairs predicted by the theory is far greater than the attested repairs: only devoicing is attested as a response to *[+VOI]/CODA.” (Blumenfeld 2006:21)

• “Sometimes a specific target is repaired in all languages by the same mechanism. Here the set of imaginable repairs is a proper superset of the set of actually attested repairs. These phenomena are problematic for OT. ... All repairs can be used in other circumstances (at least nasalisation, lenition, deletion and epenthesis are well attested processes in natural language phonology), but they are never employed to repair *[+voice]/__]word.” (Hermans & Oostendorp 2007:3)

Many solutions to the too-many-solutions problem‘P-maps’, positional faithfulness, replacing Ident with Max/Dep, ‘containment’-based faithfulness, ‘targeted’ constraints, fixed ranking, ‘periphefeatures, ‘implicational c

:

ral’ onstraint principle’,

‘candidate chains’, etc.

C. “Stay the course” • “If you believe P, and you believe that P entails Q, then even if Q seems more than a little odd, you have

some intellectual obligation to take seriously the possibility that Q may be true, nonetheless.” (Pylyshyn 1984:xxii)

II.Resyllabification • “The too-many-solutions problem in the case of prosody-segmental interactions arises because

misalignment of certain prosodic and segmental categories ... is repaired only by modifying the segments but never by modifying the prosody.” (Blumenfeld 2006:71)

• “[V]iolation of constraints which affect syllabification and higher level prosodic structure is not often compelled by strictly featural constraints such as *VDOBSTR. Prosodic reorganization (such as a deviation from the default syllabification scheme) is not typically motivated by the spectre of featural markedness or faithfulness violations, suggesting that constraints on prosodic structure such as NOCODA and ONSET (usually) dominate constraints on subsegmental organization.” (Beckman 1998:36, fn. 27)

A. Connacht Irish • “Syllable-lengthening is a cover-term for both vowel lengthening and diphthongization” (Ó Siadhail

1989:48) “a short syllable becomes long before a voiced plosive followed by a liquid” (Ó Siadhail 1989:53)i

(2) eaglais /aglǝsʲ/ ˈaglǝʃ ~ ˈaːglǝʃ ~ ˈɑːgLǝʃ ‘church’ eagla /aglǝ/ ˈaglǝ ~ ˈaːglǝ ~ ˈɑːgLǝ ‘fear’ freagra /fʲrʲagrǝ/ ˈfʲrʲagrǝ ~ ˈfʲrʲaːgrǝ ~ ˈfʲrʲɑːgrǝ ‘answer’ madraí /madriː/ ˈmadriː ~ ˈmaːdriː ~ ˈmɑːdriː ‘dogs’ paidrín /padʲrʲiːnʲ/ ˈpadʲrʲiːnʲ ~ ˈpaːdʲrʲiːnʲ ~ ˈpɑːdʲrʲiːnʲ ‘rosary’

/Ebʲrʲa/ ˈebʲrʲǝ ~ ˈaibʲrʲǝ ‘work’ (gen.) /gʲIvʲrʲa/ ˈgʲivʲrʲǝ ~ ˈgʲi:vʲrʲǝ ‘winter’


3

• “This lengthening is limited to clusters in which C1 is a voiced obstruent; there is never lengthening

when C1 is voiceless.” (Green 1997:169)

(3) /Ikras/ ˈukrəs ‘hunger’ /ahrʲIʃ/ ˈahrʲəʃ ‘relate’ /Lasraxi:/ ˈLasrəxi: ‘flames’ /afʲrʲaN/ ˈafʲrʲəN ‘Mass’ /axraN/ ˈaxrəN ‘entanglement’

• “the lengthening seen in (2) still awaits a complete theoretical analysis.” (Green 1997:170-171)

• But the pattern seems clear enough. Building on Green’s discussion ...

“Even though CVC syllables are metrically light in Irish, they are apparently more salient than CV syllables. ... Within a foot, a vowel is tautosyllabic with a following consonant. ... Also relevant is ONSET, which says that a syllable must have a consonant onset. The syllabification VC.V is prohibited by this constraint.” (Green 1997:137)

“eb’r’ǝ ‘work’ (gen.) and aglǝs’ ‘church’ have variants in Connacht with initial heavy syllables: áib’r’ǝ and aːglǝs’; in these cases, there is a syllable break before the first consonant of the cluster.” (Green 1997:144, fn. 9)

I suggest that

salient stressed syllables are favoured (“PROMINENT-STRESS”), e.g., ˈuk.rəs ™ ˈu.krǝs

but *VOICED-CODA variably causes e.g. ˈag.lǝʃ to resyllabify as ˈa.glǝʃ

which leads to compensatory lengthening, e.g., ˈaː.glǝʃ

• ONSET o PROMINENT-STRESS: /VCV/ → V.CV, so there is no resyllabification due to *VOICED-CODA.

Compare: /VCLV/ → VC.LV (PROMINENT-STRESS) → Vː.CLV (*VOICED-CODA)

B. German • Voiced/lenis/lax obstruents are traditionally analyzed as syllable-initial in German (e.g., Vennemann

1972, Hall 1992, Wiese 2000).

• Mangold (1962:38):

In simple words a syllable boundary lies before [b d g v z ʒ ʤ]. For example: Nabe [ˈnaː.bə] ‘hub’, lesbisch [ˈlɛs.bɪʃ] ‘lesbian’, regle [ˈʀeː.glə] ‘I regulate’, nörgle [ˈnœʀ.glə] ‘I moan’, Pilsner [ˈpɪl.znəʀ] ‘Pilsner’, unsre [ˈʊn.zʀə] ‘ours FEM’ ... Magma [ˈma.gma], not [ˈmag.ma] ‘magma’; powre [ˈpoː.vʀə], not [ˈpoːv.ʀə] ‘meager’; fasre [ˈfaː.zʀə], not [ˈfaːz.ʀə] ‘I fray’?; Redner [ˈʀeː.dnəʀ], not [ˈʀeːd.nəʀ] ‘speaker’ Hedschra [ˈhɛ.ʤʀa], not [ˈhɛʤ.ʀa] ‘hegira’.”

• This traditional view entails that German phonology allows marked complex onsets, such as [zn, zʀ, ʤʀ, gm, vʀ, dn] in Pilsner, unsre, Hedschra, Magma, powre, and Redner, respectively. ii


4

• Other examples include [dl] in Siedlung

‘settlement’ or Adler ‘eagle’, [zl] in Basler ‘one from Basel’, Aislingen, or gruslig ‘spooky’, and [bn] in ebnen ‘to level’ or Leibniz.

• 4 illustrates that a complex onset (a) is normally referred to a poor syllable contact (b): p

(4) Zentrum ‘centre’ SC

L

*CO

a. ʦɛn.tʀʊm * b. ʦɛnt.ʀʊm *!

SYLLABLE CONTACT LAW (SCL) *COMPLEX

ONSET (*CO) ; • 5, that a poor syllable contact (a) is preferred

to an ill-formed onset (b): ONSET

WELLFORMEDNESS (OWF)iii SCL ;

• 6, that an ill-formed onset (a) is

(5) Zentner ‘100 kg’ O

WF

SCL

*CO

a. ʦɛnt.nɐ * b. ʦɛn.tnɐ *! *

preferred to either a voiced obstruent in coda position (b) or the loss of lexically-specified voicing (c): *VOICED-CODA (*VC)

IDENT (voice) OWF ;

• 7, that the loss of lexically-specified voicing (a) is preferred

(6) Söldner ‘mercenary’ *V

C

IDEN

T

OW

F

SCL

*CO

a. zœl.dnɐ * * b. zœld.nɐ *! * c. zœlt.nɐ *! *

to either a voiced obstruent in coda position (b) or suffix-pword misalignment (c): “ALIGNSUFFIX (Sfx, left, pword, right)” NVC IDENT ;

(7) Bild-nis ‘portrait’ AL

IGN

*VC

IDEN

T

OW

F

SCL

*CO

a. ((bɪlt)ω-nɪs)ω * *

b. ((bɪld)ω-nɪs)ω *! *

c. (bɪl.d-nɪs)ω *! * * • and 8, that such

misalignment (a) is preferred to an onsetless syllable (b): ONSET

ALIGNSUFFIX .

(8) ordn-en ‘to order’ O

NSE

T

ALIG

N

*VC

IDEN

T

OW

F

SCL

*CO

a. (ɔʀ.dn-ǝn)ω * * * b. ((ɔʀ.dn.)ω-ǝn)ω *! c. ((ɔʀd.n)ω-ǝn)ω * *! * d. ((ɔʀt.n)ω-ǝn)ω * *! *

III.Nasalization

A. Stoney • Banff’s local language, Stoney (Siouan), as described by Shaw (1980:376-381):

“final fricatives exemplify DEVOICING ... CVC forms with final /b/ also devoice before a boundary ...”


5

(9) a. ʧʰóða ʧʰóθ+ʧʰóða ‘to be warm’ b. θába θap+θába ‘to be black’ juða juθ+júða ‘to catch, feel’ ɣóba ɣop+ɣoba ‘to snore’ buðá buθ+búða ‘to be dry’ ʧʰaɣa ʧʰax+ʧʰaɣa ‘to be icy’

“/d/ and /ʤ/ neutralize to h ...”

(10) pʰáda pʰah+pʰáda ‘to butcher’ xada xah+xáda ‘to be branched’ júda juh+júda ‘to eat’ kʰada kʰah ‘to be hot’ óda ʔoh+ʔóda ‘to be many’ wĩʤán wĩh+wĩʤan ‘to be once’

“Turning to a consideration of CVC forms with final /g/, we note the following alternations:

(11) jũga jũk+jũga jũh+juga

‘to lie down’ ðaga ðãk+ðaga ‘to whine’

hinĩga hinĩk+nĩga hinĩh+nĩga

‘to be bad’ sága sak+sága ‘to be hard, strong’

• “The Stoney alternation between non-continuant coronals and h applies only across a morpheme (+) boundary, however. Before a compound (%) or word (#) boundary, non-back non-continuants surface as homorganic nasals:

(12) a. ʧʰába o+wıʧʰa+né%ja+ʧ ‘he went hunting beaver’

ʧʰám%ò+né%já+ʧ ‘lie down (sing)’ b. wòʔĩ+ja+gihnagá=bi+ʧ ‘you are telling us a story’ wòʔĩ+gihnága=m ‘tell us a story’ c. júda ‘to eat’ juh+jún%ma+ʧ ‘I’m going along eating’

“... the behaviour of velars in compounds and subordinate verbal constructions should be investigated. A more precise formulation of the detailed behaviour of velars is therefore left open to further research.”

B. Southern Tepehuan • Southeastern Tepehuan (Uto-Aztecan, Mexico) has a “rule which forms preglottalized nasal allophones

of voiced stops.” (Willett 1982:175)

• “The voiced stops and the palatal affricate [ʤ] have preglottalized nasals at the same point of articulation as variants in syllable coda position, written orthographically ’m, ’n, ’n for /b d g/ and ’ñ for [ʤ].” (Willett 1982:169-170)iv


6

C. Alabama

• In Alabama (Muskogean: Montler & Hardy 1988) the contrast between /b/ (the only voiced obstruent) and /m/ is neutralized syllable-finally, in favour of [m].

• E.g. 1: Verb pluralization is a subtractive morphological process affecting the penultimate syllable (13a). When this subtraction puts /b/ in coda position, it becomes [m] (13b).

(13) a. batatli ‘hit something once’ vs. batli ‘hit something more than once’ balaːka ‘lie down (sing)’ balka ‘lie down (pl)’ misiːli ‘close eyes once’ misli ‘close eyes repeatedly’ b. ɬobafka ‘to have a hole’ vs. ɬomka ‘to have holes’ ɬobaffi ‘to make a hole’ ɬombi ‘to make holes’

• E.g. 2: ‘Totality’ aspect is an augmentative morphological process, involving gemination (14a). The coda portion of geminate /b/ is [m] (14b).

(14) a. litihka ‘dirty’ vs. líttihka ‘a little dirty’ misiːli ‘close eyes once’ míssiːli ‘close eyes’ hajoːki ‘deep’ hájjoːki ‘(getting) deeper’ balaːka ‘lie down’ bállaːka ‘lie down’ b. tabatka ‘grab’ támbatka ‘hold’ abaːli ‘high’ vs. ámbaːli ‘(getting) higher’ abaːni ‘cross’ ámbaːni ‘be crossing, across’ sobajli ‘know, learn’ sómbajli ‘know, learn’ ɬobafka ‘to have a hole’ ɬómbafka ‘have a hole’

D. Yamato-Japanese • Potential instances of geminate voiced obstruents are avoided by nasalizing the syllable-final portion of

the voiced obstruent in native Japanese (Kuroda 1965, McCawley 1968, Lombardi 1998).

• “[I]n the native phonology of Japanese, the [-ri] suffix contains a floating mora μ, and it causes gemination of the second consonant in a mimetic root as shown in [15]a. However, when the second consonant is a voiced obstruent, as in [15]b, coda nasalization takes place instead.” (Kawahara 2006:549)

(15) a. /tapu+μ+ri/ → [tap.pu.ri] *[tam.pu.ri] ‘a lot of’

/kapa+μ+ri/ → [kap.pa.ri] *[kam.pa.ri] ‘opening’ /basa+μ+ri/ → [bas.sa.ri] *[ban.sa.ri] ‘a lot’ b. /zabu+μ+ri/ → [zam.bu.ri] *[zab.bu.ri] ‘splashing’ /ʃobo+μ+ri/ → [ʃom.bo.ri] *[ʃob.bo.ri] ‘depressed’ /uza+μ+ri/ → [un.za.ri] *[uz.za.ri] ‘annoyed’

• Yamato-Japanese also avoids voiced obstruents in coda position with nasalization in derivation:

(16) a. job+te → [jonde] ‘call’ + GERUNDIVE ‘calling’ b. kag+te → [jonde] ‘smell’ + GERUNDIVE ‘smelling’


7

E. Canadian French

• Canadian French avoids syllable-final voiced stops by changing them into their nasal counterparts when they are adjacent to a nasal segment (Walker 1984:113-4, Kaye 1989:74-5).

• As a comparison between Standard French (SF) and Canadian French (CF) reveals, voiced obstruents in coda position assimilate the nasality of a preceding (17) or following nasal segment (18).

(17) SF CF (18) SF CF

a. gʀɑd gʀɑn ‘tall’ (f.) a. ad.mi.ʀe æn.mi.ʀe ‘admire’ b. blɔd blɔn ‘blond’ (f.) b. fʀwad.mɑ fʀwæn.mæ ‘coldly’ c. ʒɑb ʒɑm ‘leg’ c. ɑ.ʒɑb.mɑ ɑ.ʒɑm.mæ ‘enjambement’ d. ɔbʀ ɔm ‘shadow’ d. djag.nɔ.stik djæŋ.nɔ.stɪk ‘diagnostic’ e. ʒœgl ʒœŋ ‘jungle’ e. fʀag.mɑ fʀæŋ.mæ ‘fragment’ f. lɑg lɑŋ ‘language’ f. lɔg.mɑ lɔŋ.mæ ‘lengthily’

• The additional examples in (19) illustrate that nasalization affects only voiced obstruents in coda position.v

(19) a. pæ.dæ (*pædæ) ‘during’ f. kan.bɛrʒ (*kanmɛrʒ) ‘cranberry’ b. ʒæ.bɔ (*ʒæmɔ) ‘ham’ g. sam.dzi (*samni) ‘Saturday’ c. tɔ.be (*tɔme) ‘to fall’ h. ʒǝm.de.sɪd (*ʒǝmnesɪd) ‘I’m deciding’ d. sɛ.bɔl (*sɛmɔl) ‘symbol’ i. d.mi (*nmi) ‘demi’ e. ʏn.dø (*ʏnnø) ‘one-two’ j. pɑ.d.mjɛl (*pɑnmjɛl) ‘no honey’

F. L1 • “Some children compensate for their inability to voiced stops in final position by using a nasal

consonant after the stop, as in [dadn] for dad (Labov & Labov 1978), or by combining a nasal consonant with a voiceless stop, as in [pɪŋk] for pig or [bɛnt] for bed. Since voiced nasals like n or m are easier to produce in final position, they seem to offer a convenient way, early on, to maintain voicing at the appropriate place of articulation (Clark & Bowerman 1986).” (Clark 2003:114)

• At 19-20 months, Labov and Labov’s daughter dad was rendered as [dædæ] (epenthesis), [dæn] (“a one-syllable form ending with a nasal flap”, Labov & Labov 1978:837), [dædnm], [dædn], and [dæʔn] (“nasalized glottal stop” p. 838).

• Fey & Gandour (1982): Final voiced stops were produced with voicing, followed by a syllabic nasal. hoob [ubm], midge [mɪdn], goadge [gogŋ].

IV. Deletion

A. L1 • Clark and Bowerman (1986) report a two-month period of time (e.g., 1;6-1;8 for Damon) in which

children have acquired final nasals as well as final voiceless obstruents, but omit final voiced obstruents.


8

B. L2

• Hmong learners of English: “Voiced final obstruents were deleted twice as many times as voiceless final obstruents. The voiced labiodental fricative /v/ was deleted sixty-three percent of the time and was deleted more often than any other final segment. The voiceless labiodental fricative /f/ was deleted only twenty percent during the tasks. The voiced bilabial stop /b/ was deleted in thirty-four percent of all cases and the voiceless bilabial stop /p/ was only deleted five percent of the time. The voiced bilabial stop /b/ was deleted more than the voiced velar stop /g/. If the voiced velar stop /g/ was not deleted, it usually underwent devoicing.” (Caneday 2001:13)

C. Kluge’s Law • Proto-Indo-European *n was deleted after heterosyllabic voiced obstruents in Proto-Germanic (Lühr

1988).

V. Epenthesis

A. L2 • Pioneering studies by Eckman (Eckman 1981b, Eckman 1981a)

• Korean learners of English: “Vowel epenthesis is more likely to occur in a cluster of voiced obstruent + C than in a cluster of voiceless obstruent + C” (Kim 2000:138). The same pattern was observed in Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese speakers’ production of English consonant clusters (Chu 2005)

• Lee (1992): Korean learners of English avoid a final voiced stop with either devoicing or epenthesis, e.g., dog [tok ~ toːgɯ], and they also optionally avoid superheavy syllables (with either a long vowel or a diphthong) with epenthesis, e.g., cake [kʰejk ~ kʰejkʰɯ], type [tʰajp ~ tʰajpʰɯ].

• Crucially, however, she also found that epenthesis is obligatory with superheavy syllables ending in a voiced obstruent, e.g., league [liːgɯ], guide [kajdɯ].

B. Loanwords • Loans in Korean: “Vowel insertion applies after a postvocalic word-final stop if the stop is voiced in

English, but not when it is voiceless.” (Kang 2003:228)

• “[T]here are contexts where vowel insertion applies after a voiced stop (but not after a voiceless stop), even though vowel insertion is not motivated by any other factors, such as syllable structure constraints or release of the stop in the English input.” (Kang 2003:247-8)

C. Midi French • Schwa added after final voiced obstruents (Eychenne, p.c.).

(20) a. prepausal [ǝ]: merguez ‘sausage’, mauve ‘mauve’, Madrid b. no prepausal [ǝ]: sol ‘ground’, album ‘album’

• But schwa may not be a full vowel in these cases (Eychenne 2006).


9

VI. Metathesis

Old Spanish • Latin Old Spanish (Wanner 1989)

modulu(m) molde ‘mold’ dad-los daldos ‘give them’ dad-nos dandos ‘give us’

• More generally, some alleged repairs of poor syllable contact (Vennemann 1988) may in fact be responses to *VOICED-CODA.

VII. Conclusion • Don’t misunderestimate the richness of natural languages, including L1s (Pinker 1984) and

interlanguages (Adjemian 1976), which confirm OT’s key prediction, homogeneity of target/heterogeneity of process.

• The fact that a particular repair is more likely than others is due to extra-grammatical considerations: probability of diachronic selection (cf. Mielke 2003), L1- or L2-specific conditions (Eckman 2004:525ff.), etc.

References: Adjemian, Christian. 1976. On the nature of interlanguage systems. Language Learning 26. 297-320. Bakovic, Eric, and Wilson, Colin. 2004. Laryngeal markedness and the typology of repair. In 78th Annual Meeting of the

Linguistic Society of America. Boston, MA. Beckman, Jill N. 1998. Positional Faithfulness, Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst: Doctoral dissertation. Blumenfeld, Lev. 2006. Constraints on phonological interactions, Stanford University: Doctoral thesis. Caneday, Renae L. 2001. Interlanguage coda production of Hmong second language learners of English, University of

North Dakota: Masters thesis. Chu, G.Y.-F. 2005. Clusters in L2 phonology: Evidence from Mandarin and Cantonese. Paper presented at 1st ASA

Workshop on Second Language Speech Learning, Vancouver, BC. Clark, Eve V., and Bowerman, Melissa. 1986. On the acquisition of final voiced stops. In Joshua A. Fishman, Andree

Tabouret-Keller, Michael Clyne, Bh. Krishnamurti & Mohamed Abdulaziz (eds.), The Ferguson impact, vol. 1: From phonology to society, 51-68. Berlin/New York/Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter.

Clark, Eve V. 2003. First language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eckman, Fred R. 1981a. On the naturalness of interlanguage phonological rules. Language Learning 31. 195-216. Eckman, Fred R. 1981b. On predicting difficulty in second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 4.

18-30. Eckman, Fred R. 2004. From phonemic differences to constraint rankings: Research on second language phonology.

Studies in Second Language Acquisition 26. 513-549. Eychenne, Julien. 2006. Aspects de la phonologie du schwa dans le français contemporain: optimalité, visibilité prosodique,

gradience, Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail: Doctoral thesis. Féry, Caroline. 2004. Phonologie des Deutschen : eine optimalitätstheoretische Einführung: Linguistics in Potsdam. Potsdam:

Universitätsverlag Potsdam. Fey, Marc E., and Gandour, Jack. 1982. Rule discovery in phonological acquisition. Journal of Child Language 9. 71-81. Flynn (Howe), Darin. 2000. Oowekyala segmental phonology, University of British Columbia: Doctoral dissertation.


10

Green, Antony Dubach. 1997. The Prosodic Structure of Irish, Scots Gaelic, and Manx, Cornell University: Doctoral

dissertation. Hall, Tracy Alan. 1992. Syllable structure and syllable-related processes in German. Tuebingen: Niemeyer. Hall, Tracy Alan. 2002. The distribution of superheavy syllables in standard German. The Linguistic Review 19. 377-420. Hall, Tracy Alan. 2005. Paradigm uniformity effects in German phonology. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 17. 225-264. Hall, Tracy Alan. 2007. More on paradigm uniformity in German phonology. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 19. Hargus, Sharon. 1985. The Lexical Phonology of Sekani, UCLA: Doctoral dissertation. Hermans, Ben, and Oostendorp, Marc van. 2007. Solving the Too-many-solutions-problem. Talk presented at the Meertens

Institute, June 4, 2007. Iverson, Gregory K., and Salmons, Joseph C. 2007. Domains and directionality in the evolution of German final fortition.

Phonology 24. Jessen, Michael, and Ringen, Catherine. 2002. Laryngeal features in German. Phonology 19. 189-218. José, Brian, and Auger, Julie. 2004. (Final) nasalization as an alternative to (final) devoicing: The case of Vimeu Picard.

Indiana University Linguistics Club Working Papers Online 4. 1-44. Kager, René. 1999. Optimality Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kang, Yoonjung. 2003. Perceptual similarity in loanword adaptation: English postvocalic word-final stops in Korean.

Phonology 20. 219-273. Kawahara, Shigeto. 2006. A faithfulness ranking projected from a perceptibility scale: The case of [+voice] in Japanese.

Language 82. 536-574. Kaye, Jonathan. 1989. Phonology: A cognitive view. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Kim, Hyouk-Keun. 2000. The interlanguage phonology of Korean learners of English: A computational implementation of

optimality theoretic constraints, Georgetown University: Ph.D dissertation. Kuroda, Shige-Yuki. 1965. Generative grammatical studies in the Japanese language, MIT: Doctoral dissertation. Labov, William, and Labov, Teresa. 1978. The phonetics of cat and mama. Language 54. 816-852. Lee, Ki-Jeong. 1992. Topics in the internal structure of phonological representations: With reference to external evidence,

University of Minnesota: Doctoral dissertation. Lombardi, Linda. 1998. Evidence for Max Feature Constraints from Japanese. University of Maryland Working Papers in

Linguistics 7. 41-62. Lombardi, Linda. 2001. Why Place and Voice are different: Constraint-specific alternations in Optimality Theory. In Linda

Lombardi (ed.), Segmental Phonology in Optimality Theory: Constraints and Representations, 13-45. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lühr, Rosemarie. 1988. Expressivität und Lautgesetz im Germanischen: Monographien zur Sprachwissenschaft. 15. Heidelberg: C. Winter.

Mangold, Max (ed.). 1962. Aussprachewörterbuch. vol. 6. Der Große Duden. Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut. McCarthy, John J. 2002. A thematic guide to Optimality Theory: Research Surveys in Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. McCawley, James D. 1968. The phonological component of a grammar of Japanese: Monographs on linguistic analysis, no.

2. The Hague: Mouton. Mielke, Jeff. 2003. The Interplay of Speech Perception and Phonology: Experimental Evidence from Turkish. Phonetica 60.

208-229. Montler, Timothy, and Hardy, Heather. 1988. Imperfective gemination in Alabama. International Journal of American

Linguistics 54. 399-415. Ó Siadhail, Mícheál. 1989. Modern Irish: Grammatical structure and dialectal variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press. Pinker, Steven. 1984. Language learnability and language development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pylyshyn, Zenon. 1984. Computation and cognition: Towards a foundation for cognitive science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Rice, Keren. 1987. The function of structure preservation: Derived environments. In Bernadette Plunkett & Joyce

McDonough (eds.), Proceedings of the North East Linguistic Society 17, 501-519. Amherst, MA: GLSA Publications. Sapir, Edward. 1938. Glottalized continuants in Navaho, Nootka and Kwakiutl. Language 14. 248-274.


11

Shaw, Patricia A. 1980. Theoretical issues in Dakota phonology and morphology: Outstanding dissertations in linguistics. New York: Garland Pub.

Shaw, Patricia A. 1991. Consonant harmony systems: the special status of coronal harmony. In Carole Paradis & Jean-François Prunet (eds.), Phonetics and phonology: The special status of coronals: Internal and external evidence, 125-179. San Diego: Academic Press.

Speas, Margaret. 1984. Navajo prefixes and word structure typology. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 7. 86-109. Steriade, Donca. 2001. The phonology of perceptibility effects: The p-map and its consequences for constraint

organization. Ms. UCLA/MIT. Vennemann, Theo. 1972. On the theory of syllabic phonology. Linguistische Berichte 18. 1-18. Vennemann, Theo. 1988. Preference laws for syllable structure and the explanation of sound change. Berlin: Mouton de

Gruyter. Wagner, Michael. 2000a. Who's your next of kin? Family resemblance in West Germanic laryngeal contrasts. Paper

presented at the 8th Manchester Phonology Meeting, University of Manchester, 18-20 May 2000. Wagner, Michael. 2000b. Laryngeal features in West Germanic, Humboldt University, Berlin: Masters thesis. Wagner, Michael. 2002. The role of prosody in laryngeal neutralization. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 42. 357-376. Walker, Douglas C. 1984. The pronunciation of Canadian French. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. Wanner, Dieter. 1989. On Metathesis in Diachrony. Papers from the Regional Meetings, Chicago Linguistic Society 25. 434-

450. Wiese, Richard. 2000. The phonology of German. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Willett, Elizabeth. 1982. Reduplication and Accent in Southeastern Tepehuan. International Journal of American Linguistics

48. 168-184. Wright, Martha. 1984. The CV skeleton and mapping in Navajo verb phonology. Proceedings of the 14th annual meeting of

the North East Linguistic Society.

i Similarly, “it should also be noted that syllable lengthening is required before /ŋ’g’/ only when followed by a liquid as in brionglóidí /b’r’iŋgloːd’iː ~ b’r’iːŋgloːd’iː/ ‘dreaming’, ingne /iŋ’g’r’ǝ ~ iːŋ’g’r’ǝ/ ‘nails’ ... but not, for example, in ionga /uŋgǝ/ ‘(finger/toe) nail’, loinge /Liŋ’gǝ/ gen. of long ‘ship’” (Ó Siadhail 1989:53) ii Many researchers are uncomfortable with this entailment and assume a heterosyllabic parse of these obstruent-sonorant sequences, e.g., Re[d.n]er, Sie[d.l]ung, Ba[z.l]er, e[b.n]en, etc. (Wagner 2000b, 2000a, 2002, Jessen & Ringen 2002, Féry 2004:67, fn. 4, Iverson & Salmons 2007, Hall 2005, 2007). The usual claim is that “the only reason to assume these exceptional onsets word-internally is precisely the [Final Laryngeal Neutralization] data.” (Wagner 2002:384); “the only reason for assuming the exceptional onsets is to account for the lack of devoicing” (Jessen and Ringen 2002:206, fn. 15). But this is not true. First, in being syllable-initial, voiced obstruents pattern with the glottals h and ʔ, as a Laryngeal-specified natural class. Second, obstruents also devoice before other obstruents medially, because they cannot form sonority-abiding complex onsets. Thirds, there is good evidence against the syllabification Wag.ner, Ad.ler, Ord.nung, Söld.ner, Aug.ment, etc.: “a trimoraic word internal syllable ... is otherwise prohibited in monomorphemic German words” (Wagner 2002:383, also: Hall 2002). iii “Certain Obstruent + Sonorant sequences are ungrammatical in the onset” (Hall 2005:235). iv Sonorant glottalization here is a surface reflex of the [–continuant] feature of the underlying stops. Consider the Athabascan “d-effect”, which is standardly understood as a floating [–continuant] which changes continuants into stops, e.g. Navajo (Wright 1984, Speas 1984), Slave (Rice 1987), Sekani (Hargus 1985), Tahltan (Shaw 1991). Crucially, when this [–continuant] is added to sonorants in Navajo, they become glottalized (Sapir 1938:252). Compare also Oowekyala (Wakashan: Flynn (Howe) 2000), where regular syllable-final deocclusivization leads to vowel or sonorant glottalization, e.g., /t •ɬaqʷ-smi/ → t•ɬaχʷ-smi ‘sheet around box’. Oowekyala lacks /f/, so /p/ deocclusivizes as glottalized [m], e.g., /t•ɬp-sista/ → [t•ɬm-sista] ‘to burst open’. v Vimeu Picard shows a similar (though less transparent) pattern: rudemint [rynmɛ] ‘roughly’, dmi [nmi] ‘half’ (José & Auger 2004).

Too Many Solutions: Says Who

Documents

Transcript of Too Many Solutions: Says Who