Proceedings Published by the LSA (Linguistic Society of America)
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The Effect of Cue-specific Lexical Competitors on Hyperarticulation of VOT and F0 Contrasts in Korean Stops
Get PDFAs is known, the fundamental frequencies (F0) of the vowels following aspirated or lenis stops have become associated with the aspirated~lenis stop contrast while Voice Onset Time (VOT) values of them became merged in Seoul Korean. Previous studies found the effects of age, gender, lexical frequency, and vowel height. However, although lexical competition has been demonstrated to affect the trajectory of sound change regarding contrastivity, it has not been considered in this context. The present study examines the effects of lexical competition on this sound change. Through a production experiment, analyses demonstrate that the aspirated~lenis contrast is hyperarticulated in minimal pairs for both VOT and F0, but only in aspirated stops with following high vowels. Moreover, speakers advanced in the sound change produce lower F0 values for lenis stops with following non-high vowels if an aspirated competitor exists. We find that the F0 distinction in lenis stops is more hyperarticulated in speakers advanced in the sound change, but that speakers appear to hyperarticulate VOT regardless of how much of a VOT contrast they normally produce themselves. This may be related to the fact that VOT is still a robust cue to the aspirated~lenis distinction in much of the speech community
Gradient Symbolic Computation (Smolensky & Goldrick, 2016) does derive A’ingae stress patterns
Get PDFThis paper refutes the claim made by Dabkowski (2021) that stress patterns in the A’ingae languagethat he documents and analyses are only explainable by co-phonologies and not by what he refers toas ‘representational’ frameworks such as Gradient Symbolic Computation (Smolensky & Goldrick, 2016)(henceforth GSC). This issue is important because it bears upon the question of what kinds of frameworkscan or cannot account for observed patterns in phonology
Variable Pitch Realization of Unparsed Moras in Suzhou Chinese: Evaluation Through F0 Trajectory Simulation and Classification
Get PDFThis study aims to tease apart two proposals regarding the phonetic realization of toneless TBUs: that they are realized with default (often L) tones (Yip 2002; Zhang 2016), or that they stay without phonological tones and surface as interpolated pitch between tonal targets (Pierrehumbert & Beckman 1988; Zhang et al. 2019). The original fieldwork data of toneless moras in Suzhou Chinese (Northern Wu) demonstrated considerable variation in toneless realization, both across- and within-speaker. Assessed by the simulation & classification framework of Shaw and Kawahara (2018), some speakers more frequently used interpolation between tones (e.g., high level between Hs, low rising between L and H), while others realized the toneless mora with a relatively low pitch regardless of the tonal context. In addition, tonal contexts also affected how toneless moras were realized, with more interpolation when the toneless moras were surrounded by two Hs, and more default L insertion when the mora was preceded by L and followed by H. There was no unified way of toneless realization in Suzhou, much like a model of probablistic/variable phonological process would predict (Coetzee & Pater 2011; Coetzee & Kawahara 2013)
Haplology and local dislocation in Turkish: Evidence from associative plural constructions
Get PDFIn Turkish, a possessed kinship term (e.g. anne-m ”mother-pos.1sg”) can serve as a base to the associative plural suffix. However, forms where (i) an associative plural suffix follows a plural agreement suffix or (ii) the associative plural suffix -lAr follows the possessive marker -(s)I are ungrammatical. This study investigates the source of these gaps and argues that, in the first group, the ungrammaticality of the forms arises from the structural adjacency of two [+plural] features; and, in the second group, the ungrammaticality of forms is due to a ban on the suffix order *-(s)I+lAr, which is repaired as -lAr+(s)I. It is argued that while the first grammatical constraint applies at the level of abstract features, i.e., morphosyntax, the second constraint applies at the form level, i.e., morphophonology
Turkish correlatives in monolingual Turkish and bilingual Turkish-German grammar
Get PDFOur paper presents an experimental study on multiple correlatives in Turkish. The research questions that guided our study are twofold: (a) What are the presuppositions of multiple correlatives in Turkish? (b) Is there a difference between monolingual Turkish speakers and bilingual Turkish-German speakers with respect to multiple correlatives? Question (a) targets the presuppositions of interrogative-based correlatives. Since the presuppositions of multiple questions are crosslinguistically variable, are the presuppositions of correlatives based on them variable in a parallel way? Question (b) targets crosslinguistic variability in the acceptability of multiple correlatives. While Turkish permits them, German does not. Does this variability affect bilingual speakers’ grammars? Our results indicate that (a) multiple correlatives share the presuppositions of the questions they contain and (b) bilingual speakers’ grammar of correlatives is different from that of monolingual speakers. The paper sheds a new light on crosslinguistic variation in the domain of questions and correlatives and on bilingual grammar
Right dislocation in Turkish
Get PDFThis paper investigates a scrambling operation called Right Dislocation (RD) in Turkish. Despite the limited understanding of RD in Turkish, previous studies have converged on the conclusion that (i) RD in Turkish involves rightward movement (Kural 1997, Kornfilt 2005), and (ii) post-verbal constituents (PVCs) consistently undergo reconstruction (with the exception of scope, as suggested by Kural (1997)), indicating that PVCs occupy an A’-position. This paper presents instances where PVCs are interpreted in their surface position, casting doubt on the presumed A’-properties. Additionally, it demonstrates that RD of higher arguments (e.g., subjects or indirect objects) seems to create new binding and scope relations with respect to lower arguments (e.g., direct and indirect objects). To address these issues, this paper proposes a structure that is governed by the interaction between discourse, pragmatics, and syntax. It argues that RD is a by-product of focus movement which is found in cleft-like constructions, and RD is preceded by the scrambling of lower arguments to discourse-functional projections such as FocusP and TopicP. Similarly, the RD of lower arguments is preceded by their short scrambling to the specifier of vP, driven by the Phase Impenetrability Condition (PIC). By aligning syntax with dis- course through a one-to-one mapping, in conjunction with independently motivated principles like the Scope principle, LF-approach to Condition C, and the Anywhere Condition of Condition A and pronominal binding, the proposed framework provides a consistent explanation for RD in Turkish, attributing all A-properties to the short scrambling of arguments
Neutral vowels and exceptional harmony in Western Yugur
Get PDFThis study examines the highly lexicalized vowel harmony system of Western Yugur (Siberian Turkic, Gansu province, China). Specifically, it explores the representation of ‘exceptional roots’ which trigger harmony of the opposite value than indicated by surface phonetic clues (/kʰun+lAr/ → [kʰunlir]), as well as the representations of neutral (i.e. opaque and transparent) suffixal vowels. This study adopts Bellik’s (2015) Feature Domain Theory (FDT), which provides a unified account of facts regarding both neutral vowels and exceptional harmony in Western Yugur. Attention is further drawn to the phonetic value of the transparent vowel [ɯ], which falls outside typological expectations. A tentative explanation is offered within the framework of FDT.
Postlabial raising and paradigmatic leveling in A’ingae: A diachronic study from the field
Get PDFThis paper discusses and analyzes the variation between ai and ɨi in A’ingae(or Cofán, an Amazonian isolate, ISO 639-3: con) by comparing the data reported in Borman’s (1976) dictionary with contemporary productions. In Borman (1976), ai does not generally appear after labial consonants; the distribution of ɨi is not restricted. In some modern productions, postlabial ai is allowed when the diphthong crosses a morpheme boundary (a + i). I propose that Borman’s (1976) distribution of ai and ɨi is a consequence of a diachronic change of ai to ɨi after labial consonants (* ai > ɨi /B _). The contemporary distribution reflects paradigm leveling and contact-induced replacement: Borman’s (1976) ɨi corresponds to contemporary ai if a is present in another related form. In novel productively-formed words, the availability of postlabial raising is speaker-specific. The proposed sound change of postlabial raising (*ai > ɨi /B _) is unusual and lacks obvious phonetic motivation. I speculate that postlabial raising reflects postlabial rounding (*ai > * ui /B _) opacified by subsequent unconditioned unrounding and centralizing of the back round vowel (* u > ɨ)
Ͻkere is doing something different in adnominal possession
Get PDFCross-linguistically, some languages make a morphosyntactic distinction between alienable and inalienable adnominal possession, where alienable possession is more morphologically marked, and inalienable possession shows a tighter structural bond between the possessor and possessee. In this paper, I show that Ɔkere violates these cross-linguistic generalizations differently. I also show that two types of mó occur in the language, one is a possessive marker, and the other is an independent pronoun. Again, I show that the nature of the possessive marker and the independent pronoun leads to a pro-drop in inalienable possession. The data and analysis in this paper favor proposing an overt possessive marker and a covert possessive marker. This paper adds to the literature on the exceptions to the cross-linguistic generalizations on adnominal possession by showing that the exceptions to the cross-linguistic generalizations may manifest differently in some languages.
Generic interpretations of possessive recursion in English-speaking children
Get PDFTwo-part s-possessives such as the dad’s kid’s bike admit at least two distinct interpretations: the dad has a kid who has a bike, or the dad has a bike that is made for kids. We propose that the former interpretation derives from recursively embedding DP-possessives, and the latter from representing kid’s bike as a generic NP-possessive. Accordingly, in the right context, two-part s-possessives are fully ambiguous for adults between ‘recursive’ and ‘generic’ readings. These readings can be disambiguated syntactically. Consider the difference in meaning when we insert a relative clause and extract the constituent kid’s bike — the kid’s bike that is the dad’s — versus when we extract the head noun bike — the bike that is the dad’s kid’s. Our story-based experiment demonstrates that 4-7-year-olds (N=79) and adults (N=68) strongly favor (~80%) the generic interpretation of phrases like the kid’s bike that is the dad’s, as the A-over-A constraint blocks the extraction of a DP-possessive out of a recursive DP. Similarly, adults show a strong preference (~80%) for recursive interpretations of phrases like the bike that is the dad’s kid’s, as the A-over-A constraint blocks the extraction of the head noun bike out of the generic NP-possessive kid’s bike. However, 4-5-year-olds admit generic readings of these recursive phrases 54% of the time; it is not until 6 or 7 years that children show an adult-like preference for the recursive interpretation (~80%). These data support two complementary claims. First, that recursive possessives are acquired late on account of their syntax, and second that children, like adults, represent generic possessives under a different syntactic node than regular possessives