Re: THEORY: Dirk on ambisyllabicity
| From: | And Rosta <a.rosta@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, October 23, 2000, 18:43 |
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Dirk:
> On Sat, 14 Oct 2000, And Rosta wrote:
> > Dirk:
> > > On Sun, 8 Oct 2000, And Rosta wrote:
> > > > FWIW (= not very much), my conclusion is that timing units are separate
> > > > from syllable structural units. E.g. (using O = onset, R = rhyme, T =
> > > > timing units):
> > > >
> > > > O R O R O R O R
> > > > / \ / \ / | / \ / \ | |
> > > > T T T T T T T T T T T
> > > > | | | | | | | | \ / |
> > > > s t i l i s t i l i
> > > >
> > > > [stIli] [stIlli]
> > >
> > > I would agree. I would go further and say that onsets are not involved
> > > in timing relations, and that such relations are best expressed by
> > > morae.
> > >
> > > s s s s
> > > /| /| /|\ /|
> > > / m / m / m m / m
> > > / | / | / | |/ |
> > > st I l i st I l i
> >
> > Don't you mean this? :-
> >
> > s s s s
> > /| /| /|\ /|
> > / m / m / m m / m
> > / |\ / | / | |/ |
> > st I l i st I l i
>
> Well, no. To be consistent with my anti-ambisyllabcity story I suppose
> I *really* meant
>
> s s s s
> /|\ | /|\ /|
> / m m m / m m / m
> / | | | / | |/ |
> st I l i st I l i
>
> with the distinction between geminate and non-geminate apparent only
> in the association properties of [l]; in the first, [l] is associated
> only to the first syllable, while in the second it is associated to
> both. This would then not agree so much with your parse given above.
> However, if ambisyllabicity were seriously considered, then your
> revision of my [stIli] seems sensible.
Note the following RP pronunciations, where "5" is velarized "dark" L:
still [stI5]
stilly (adj) [stIli]
stilly (adv) [stI5li]
Your diagram for "stilly (adj)" would predict *[stI5i]. It seems clear
therefore that the /l/ is in the onset of the following syllable. There
are a few words where the inclusion of /l/ in the following onset is
optional:
RP SE demotic
"William" [wIlj@m] ?[wIlj@m] diyllabic; /l/ in onset
[wI5j@m] [wIwj@m] diyllabic; /l/ not in onset
[wIli@m] [wIli@m] trisyllabic; /l/ in onset
*[wI5i@m] *[wIwi@m] trisyllabic; /l/ not in onset
"failure" [feIlj@] ?[fEIlj@] diyllabic; /l/ in onset
[feI5j@] [fEwj@] diyllabic; /l/ not in onset
*[feIli@] *?[fEIli@] trisyllabic; /l/ in onset
*[feI5i@] *[fEwi@] trisyllabic; /l/ not in onset
"dahlia" [deIlj@] [dEIlj@] diyllabic; /l/ in onset
*[deI5j@] ?[dEwj@] diyllabic; /l/ not in onset
[deIli@] [dEIli@] trisyllabic; /l/ in onset
*[deI5i@] *[dEwi@] trisyllabic; /l/ not in onset
What this shows is that
(a) if /l/ can belong to the coda then it needn't belong to the following
syllable so long as the following syllable has a filled onset, but it is
permitted to optionally join the following onset if no other phonotactic
constraints are flouted.
(b) /l/ can or must belong to the preceding coda if and only if it is
followed by a morpheme boundary or it follows a short vowel.
> > Apart from this, I agree with everything you say. I considered using
> > diagrams like yours, but hesitated for several reasons.
> >
> > (1) I'm not aware of positive arguments for a s node (though in effect
> > O and s seem to be notational equivalents).
>
> Did you learn phonology from John Harris or Jonathan Kaye?
Yes and no. To my immense pleasure, I was taught phonology by John Harris,
but before he was a Government Phonologist and before JK arrived. But I
was part of the milieu after JK arrived and JH became a Government
Phonologist, so I had a fair degree of exposure to it.
> Your representations remind me of Government Phonology.
Note that that's all they are; merely reminiscent of GP.
> I regret to say
> that I don't understand the theory well enough to offer a critique,
> but one thing springs to mind. If there is no s (=syllable) node, then
> how does the theory rule out consecutive Os? Consecutive Rs are not a
> problem, since under a more traditional account of prosodic structure,
> syllables need not have onsets; but they must have at least a nucleus,
> and hence a rhyme. So the presence of a syllable node is useful at
> least to account for the absence of consecutive onsets without
> rhymes. However, under a theory which does away with the syllable,
> there doesn't seem to be anything to rule out consecutive Os other
> than bald stipulation.
The GP answer is (or used to be) that the Obligatory Contour Principle
[i.e. the obligatory alternation, in temporal sequence, of categories of
a given class] forces OROROROROROR. This predicts the lack of contrast
between an absent onset and an empty onset. I can't offhand think of evidence
for the necessity of such a contrast, but if there is then it would indeed
motivate the Syllable node.
> As for 'O' and 's' being notational equivalents, I'm afraid don't see
> it. Doubtless this has to do with particulars of Government Phonology
> that I'm not familiar with. However, since our discussion seems to be
> about the multiple linking of a consonant between a rhyme and a
> following onset, I don't know that it is crucial to insist on an s
> node.
All I meant was that in the putative absence of evidence to the contrary,
the notion of 'onset' can be captured either by linking segments direct to
a S node, or instead to a O node, but with there being no need for an S
node to tie together O and R. Government Phonology prefers the O node
option because it claims that nodes branch only binarily, and that
'onsets' contain a maximum of two segments.
> > (2) For most dialects of English there is a rule that the nucleus and
> > the coda can each branch (into two segments each) only if the coda is
> > coronal. (For A-lengthening dialects, the rule holds only for nasal
> > + plosive codas, because long A introduces exceptions elsewhere.) It's
> > not clear to me how this contraint would be formulated in a mora-based
> > analysis if it eschews nucleus and rhyme nodes. [Incidentally, if
> > /ink/ and /eip/ are both bimoraic, to which mora does the medial segment
> > in each word belong?]
>
> What seems to be at issue here is the fact that the rhyme may contain
> up to four timing positions. Take the word 'pint'; I'm guessing that
> GP would parse this as follows:
>
> O R
> | / \
> | N C
> | / \ / \
> x x x x x
> | | | | |
> p a I n t
That's how I'd conservatively do it. But GP does:
O R O
| / \ |
| N \ |
| / \ \ |
x x x x x
| | | | |
p e I n t
> The problem for moraic phonology is two-fold: 1) how many morae
> are present? 2) how are morae assigned? The first is a problem, since
> there seems to be a well-founded principle limiting syllables to two
> morae, but there are twice that many segments in the rhyme of 'pint'.
> The second is a problem since there does not seem to be a principled
> way to parcel out the segments to the morae. My guess is that the
> first principle must be relaxed to allow at least a trimoraic
> syllable. Under this proposal, final coronals are never moraic when
> they follow another coronal. This sounds stipulatory, but I believe
> it's the route taken by Hammond (1999). Accordingly, 'pint' would
> receive the following moraic parse:
>
> s s
> /| |\ / /|\ \
> / m m m or / m m m \
> | | | /\ | | | | |
> p a I n t p a I n t
>
> With the final [t] sharing the third mora, or alternatively, linked
> directly to the s-node (I'm not aware of arguments which would compell
> one structure over another).
>
> The examples you cite, [ink] and [eip], would also be trimoraic.
If we accepted your suggestion, I'd say that both structures occur. The
first one for "paint", so the rule is that the branching mora must contain
only coronal segments. The second structure would be appropriate for
inflected forms, such as "soaked":
s s
/| |\ / /|\ \
/ m m m / m m m \
| | | /\ | | | | |
p a I n t s @ u k t
and for the handful of monomorphemic forms that seem to be parasitic on the
phonological shape of the inflected forms: "hoax, coax, corpse, traipse,
farct...".
I'm a bit bothered, though, by (a) the way English seems sensitive only to
the monomoraic/polymoraic contrast, and (b) the way inherently weak syllables
(e.g. in "buttock") can have codas, and noncoronal ones to boot. That is, your
analysis implies the existence of a dimoraic/trimoraic contrast, and also
appears to lack a way of defining "inherent weakness" (unless you allow for
yet another structure, like the following, the key thing being the extramoraic
final /k/ in a monomoraic syllable).
s s
/|\ /|\
/ m m / m \
/ | |/ | \
b V t @ k
> > (3) I'm not sure whether the the moraic analysis allows for (A)
> > segmentally empty positions such as would account for liaison blocking
> > in French (H-aspire, and ouatte/watt [ex. borrowed from someone else
> > (J-R Vergnaud?)], and perhaps for AN-cliticization in English and (B)
> > for unattached segments, such as word-initial geminates in 'classical'
> > Calabrese (which are realized as geminates only when following a
> > vowel-final word).
>
> Moraic phonology allows for both types of unaffiliation.
[...]
> I also use empty slots (not moraic, though) to account for the
> Geminating series in Shoshoni phonology. Briefly, voiceless stops are
> geminated following certain morphs:
>
> kuna 'firewood'
> kunappai 'have firewood'
>
> cf
>
> kynu 'grandfather (FaFa)'
> kynuBai 'have a grandfather'
>
> In the first stem, there is an empty root node specified [+cons]. It
> receives its featural content from a following consonant. This creates
> a geminate, which is immune from lenition. When a consonant is not
> available, the empty root node remains unrealized, having no segmental
> material to draw from. In the second example, the stem is vowel-final;
> the initial consonant of the suffix is thus properly intervocalic and
> lenites.
This is clear. But why is the empty slot not moraic? Is there reason
to think the medial syllable of kunappai is monomoraic rather than
bimoraic?
[...]
--And.