mgr Karolina Bro

MID-TERM REQUIREMENTS

THEORY
PRELIMINARY INFORMATION: LANGUAGE IS A SYSTEM. THIS SYSTEM IS GOVERNED BY PHONOLOGICAL RULES. PHONOLOGICAL RULES EXPRESS THE DISTRIBUTION OF SOUNDS IN A LANGUAGE. THEY ALLOW US TO MAKE PREDICTIONS ABOUT THE WHOLE LANGUAGE. PHONOLOGY STUDIES WHAT SOUNDS DO I.E. HOW THEY FUNCTION IN A SYSTEM. IT ORGANIZES PHONETIC DATA. THE DISTRIBUTION OF SOUNDS IS EXPRESSED BY FORMULATING RULES. THE PROCESS OF RULE APPLICATION IS CALLED PHONOLOGICAL DERIVATION. GENERATIVE PHONOLOGY FRAMEWORK UNDER WHICH PHONETIC SEGMENTS ARE GENERATED BY MEANS OF RULES. RULES INTERACT IN A DEFINITE ORDER SPECIFIED FOR A GIVEN LANGUAGE. AN UNDERLYING SEGMENT IS A MENTAL IMAGE OF A SOUND THE UNIT THAT SPEAKERS AND HEARERS REGARD AS ONE AND THE SAME SOUND. UNDERLYING SEGMENTS ARE ABSTRACT AND (MAY) STAND FOR MORE THAN ONE PHONETICALLY OBSERVABLE SOUND. THE RELATEDNESS OF SOUNDS IS CAPTURED IN PHONOLOGY BY POSTULATING A COMMON UNDERLYING SEGMENT. PREDICTABLE INFORMATION IS SUPPLIED BY PHONOLOGICAL RULES. UNPREDICTABLE INFORMATION IS CODED BY POSTULATING AN UNDERLYING SEGMENT. PREDICTABLE INFORMATION IS NOT CONTAINED IN THE UNDERLYING REPRESENTATION. UNDERLYING REPRESENTATIONS BECOME PHONETIC REPRESENTATIONS BY THE APPLICATION OF PHONOLOGICAL RULES. (THE PHONETIC (SURFACE) REPRESENTATION IS DERIVED FROM THE UNDERLYING REPRESENTATION BY RULES). THE UNDERLYING REPRESENTATION OF MORPHEMES HYPOTHESIS ABOUT THE WAY IN WHICH MORPHEMES ARE STORED IN THE SPEAKERS MIND.

SOME DEFINITIONS: Phonology:

Phonology (Greek phone = voice/sound and logos = word/speech) is a subfield of grammar (see also linguistics). Whereas phonetics is about the nature of sounds (or phones) per se, phonology describes the way sounds function within a given language. For example, /p/ and /b/ in English are distinctive units of sound, (i.e., phonemes.) We can tell this from minimal pairs such as "pin" and "bin", which mean different things, but differ only in one sound.

mgr Karolina Bro

Generative phonology:
Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle presented in The Sound Pattern of English a view of phonology where a phonological representation (surface syntactic form) is a structure whose phonetic part is a sequence of units which have characteristic features. Although there are no phonemes in generative phonology, these units are often loosely referred to as phonemes, nonetheless. The features describe aspects of articulation and perception, are from a universally fixed set and have the binary values + or -. Phonological rules govern how this phonological representation (also called underlying representation) is transformed into the actual pronunciation (also called surface form.)

CRITERION OF ALTERNATIONS
It consists in looking at morphological alternations. Based on the allomorphs of a given morpheme we can determine phonological changes taking place in a given context. This allows us to postulate possible URs for the morpheme in question. What we see on the surface is a possible underlying representation and one of our hypotheses. E.g. in the case of the word kod, the morpheme is pronounced with a /t/ at the end in isolation and with a /d/ when non-final (followed by a case or plural ending), as in kody, kodu, kodem. This gives us two surface representations of the root morpheme: [kt] and [kd]. The alternation is t ~ d (t alternates with d) and the possible URs of the root morpheme are: //kt// and //kd//. It is now the goal of the phonological analysis to decide which of the above forms is correct. If more alternations are seen on the surface, the number of possible URs (and hence hypotheses to test) increases proportionately. E.g. in the case of the negative prefix, the surface forms are: [n] (independent, inadequate), [m] (impossible), [] (incompetent), [n] (ingenious), [] (illegal, immoral, innumerable, irrelevant). Thus we have as many as 5 possible URs and from those 5 we need to choose the right one. Remember that if you choose any of them, you have to account for all the other surface forms with the use of phonological rules! (abstract //l// and //r// can also be postulated, but remember that there is no reason to choose such forms: they NEVER appear on the surface so we suggest inserting something at the abstract level only to delete it, besides you will never be able to account for independent, inaccurate and incomplete with any of these as your point of departure, plus if you choose //l//, you also have to account for irrelevant changing l to r, if you choose //r//, youll have to account for illegal; the only reason why youd ever think of these two as possible URs is the spelling but you should NOT LOOK AT THE SPELLING during phonological analysis in phonology we look at sounds and not the orthographic convention)

CRITERION OF PREDICTABILITY
According to this criterion, if something is predictable (= can be derived by a phonological rule), it should not be put in the underlying representation. Thus even if no alternations can be found on the surface, we have to look at this criterion. The most natural response to the lack of alternations is to decide that the surface representation coincides with the UR. This is the first thought in the case of such words as bank *bk], //bk//. However, if we look at some other examples, we can see that in English the nasal always coincides with the place of articulation of the following obstruent: camp *kmp+, tent *tent+, pinch *pnt]. There are no exceptions to this rule so we can formulate it as nasal assimilation an determine that, by this rule, the place of articulation of the nasal is totally predictable. Whatever is underlying, it will always assimilate to the following obstruent. By this criterion, however, we are unable to determine which of the surface nasals is underlying and which nasals are derived from this underlying nasal (does angma derive from n or n from angma? Does m derive from n or the other way round?). Therefore we can postulate an underspecified (i.e. not fully specified) segment in the UR. We know it must be a nasal so we postulate N as a consonantal segment with a [+nasal] feature but no place features (it is unspecified for place features: anterior and coronal).

mgr Karolina Bro

CRITERION OF PHONOSTYLISTIC EVIDENCE

Phonostylistic evidence helps us establish certain facts about the phonological behaviour of sounds as it points to rapid speech rules. Some processes do not apply in slow speech. In rapid, connected speech we are usually less careful and tend to simplify our pronunciation (which manifests itself by phonological contrast neutralisation, sound assimilation and deletion etc.). If you take a look back at what you learned during the phonetics course, there are lots of examples of rapid speech rules. Take weak forms and vowel reduction: the faster we speak, the more we reduce the syllables. E.g. the possible weak forms of and are: *nd], [n], [n]. The faster we speak, the more sounds we leave behind, while in slower speech we are more likely to pronounce the schwa. and I said can be pronounced *nd a sed] in slow speech, and [n a sed] in fast speech where [n] is syllabic, schwa is not pronounced and [d] disappears. This is just one of many examples. In class, we used phonostylistic evidence to decide which of the English nasals has the capacity to assimilate in order to decide on the underlying representation of all the surface nasals (having decided that the nasal is predictable because it assumes the place of articulation of the following obstruent). Rapid speech across a word boundary tells us that /n/ is prone to assimilation. In connected speech it is the only nasal that changes its place of articulation when followed by an obstruent with a different (non-alveolar) place of articulation. (cf. ten people, ten cooks vs. team teaching, team cooking, long time, long pause neither angma nor the bilabial m give up their place of articulation when followed by an alveolar/bilabial or alveolar/velar place of articulation, respectively).

CRITERION OF ECONOMY
The economy of description tells us that we should try to find a common abstract representation for all the items (forms). In other words, a given morpheme is assigned a specific meaning and it should be represented in a uniform way at the underlying level. E.g. if we postulated two or three different underlying forms for the negative prefix, then we miss an important generalisation: if underlyingly these are 3 different morphemes then what is the connection between them? Supposedly none. But we can definitely say that all the surface forms are related: they assign a negative meaning to the adjective they are attached to, so they must be derived from the same UR their common denominator.

POSSIBLE PROCESSES:
assimilation (e.g. place assimilation, voice assimilation, complete assimilation), deletion (a sound disappears, degemination as cluster simplification is also a type of deletion), insertion (a sound is inserted in a given environment), neutralisation (e.g. final devoicing voice neutralisation at the end of a word)

RULE RESTRICTIONS:
morpheme boundary (the rule is sensitive to a morpheme boundary (+), i.e. the rule applies across a morpheme boundary and NOT within a given morpheme), across the board (the rule is not restricted, it applies everywhere), specific morpheme or group of morphemes (e.g. the rule of complete assimilation is restricted to the negative prefix), word: a given rule may apply only inside words or also across a word boundary (#)

mgr Karolina Bro

RULES
1. Final Devoicing [+obstr] [-voiced] / __ #

Obstruents are devoiced before a word boundary. Relevant words: kod, chleb, mzg, Bg 2. Voice assimilation [+obstr] [ voiced] / __ +obstr voiced

Obstruents agree in voicing with the following obstruent. Relevant words: mzg, chlebka, brat Dagmary, kot Doroty 3. Degemination

+cons F

+cons F

In a cluster of two identical consonants, one of them is deleted. Rule restriction: only inside words. Relevant words: modesty, fully, attentive, illegal, irrelevant, immoral 4. Nasal assimilation +obstr -contin anterior coronal

+nasal +coronal

anterior coronal

/ __

The coronal nasal [n] assumes the place of articulation of the following stop or affricate. Relevant words: tent, bank, camp, impartial, independent
Note: based on phonostylistic evidence (coronal nasal as the one that is most prone to assimilation), the fact that the coronal nasal can be encountered in a neutral position (before a vowel), and on the fact that it is better not to have unspecified segments in the UR, we assume that it is the coronal nasal that undergoes assimilation. Thus n is the rule input.

mgr Karolina Bro

5. Complete assimilation [+nasal] [ F] / __ +cons -obstr F

Nasals assume all the features of the following sonorant. Rule restriction: only in the negative prefix.

or: Nasal deletion +cons -obstr

[+nasal]

/ __

Nasals are deleted before a resonant. Rule restriction: only in the negative prefix.

You are also supposed to be able to provide a full phonological analysis for any of the above rules, from transcription and division into morphemes, via stating alternations and the context, testing hypotheses by postulating rules and finding counterexamples (if any) to making generalisations and, finally, doing the derivation. Please read the two articles by Rubach provided on his website: The Concept of an Underlying Representation and The Sound System: Phonology, as well as chapters 2 and 3 of professors book: Analysis of Phonological Structures