Silviu Serban #4167449 LING 498I/4 Charles Reiss 19 April 2005 Final exam

Contents Contexts in Phonology ........................................................................................................... 1 Annotated bibliography .......................................................................................................... 7

Contexts in Phonology Phonology is a complex component of language that can be more or less difficult to distinguish from other linguistic or extralinguistic constituents. More specifically, some linguists consider that there are instances when phonology can hardly be differentiated from phonetics. Yet they agree that processing input in syntax is quite different from phonology . For other linguists, distinguishing between phonological and rhetorical categories can be challenging. Moreover, there are linguists who consider that phonology is part of a mechanism that drives communication. Some linguists argue that there is a fuzzy line between phonology and phonetics. They claim that the Optimality Theory1 changed the nature of understanding the association between phonology and phonetics (Warner 4). Optimality Theory has been approached from a nonranking perspective to an absolute ranking perspective (Warner 12). For example, in the nonranking approach, some linguists contend that if two or more constraints are crucially unranked, then they are arbitrarily ranked in a given context (Warner 12). When this is the case, it is quite likely that if a candidate for underlying representation breaks only one unranked constraint, but not the others, then this candidate is the best to consider (Warner 12). For example, in written Finnish, there is a morphemic instability for nouns in genitive plural; that is, kieli tongue could have the genitive plural kieliten or kielen, and nainen woman could be naisten or naisien (Dimulescu and Luodes 127). Thus, the likelihood of an unranked variation depends directly on the number of constraints that a particular morpheme can violate, making possible to anticipate the outcome of one variation or another (Warner 12). Next, in the ranking approach, constraints must be ranked. Nevertheless, if two constraints are almost equally ranked, then the lower constraint may take precedence over the higher one in some contexts of noise, and this type of fluctuation appears to be more powerful than the

A theory of phonological constraints which posits that all universal constraints are equally satisfactory; yet, constraints become local when they are related to a specific language and are ordered from the least to the most readily broken (Matthew 258).

2 nonranking violation (Warner 14). From a nonranking perspective, both coarticulation (a phonetic process) and assimilation (a phonological process) interact through violations of all constraints to obtain a particular surface representation (Warner 21). However, other linguists do not accept removing the borderline between phonology and phonetics, arguing that the phonetic constraints relate an oral release to its timing while the phonological constraints can associate a tone with a syllable (Warner 21). Although some linguists reject the idea that phonetic features are language specific, others accept it. Others argue that morphophonology, unlike phonetics, doesnt accept variations, but the Finnish examples appear to contradict this point of view (Warner 22). Overall, linguists prefer to make a distinction between phonology and phonetics in the following way: symbols like phonemes characterize phonology while processes involved in articulations are part of phonetics (Warner 22). While for some linguists the distinction between phonetics and phonology seems to be blurred, the difference in input/output processing between syntax and phonology seems clear. The typical Optimality Theory states that a group of candidates must come from the same input; also, these candidates are subject to faithfulness constraints since the input must follow defined rules (Heck et al. 345). According to some linguists, the concept of input is not relevant in optimality theoretic syntax (Heck et al. 346). Thus, syntax has the characteristic of maintaining the information coming from input, so the question is whether syntax has input at all (Heck et al. 363). In phonology, the assumption is that the input is an underlying representation (Heck et al. 346). To illustrate, in the Old English there was a change from [sk] to [] in words like [skp] to [p]. However, the sk cluster could be found in onsets of Old Norse: skip; in Icelandic: skip; and Danish: skib (Heck et al. 353). It is clear that at a particular moment in the development of English language, [sk] became []. This change took place between 600 and 1100 because words with sk onset that entered English after 1100 did not go through a [] change. In other words, the input was optimized before any other borrowed words of sk type in English (Heck et al. 354). The same principle of optimization can be applied to syntax where faithfulness

3 constraints do not allow any variation between output and input forms (Heck et al. 363). That is, the syntax output contains all the objects and their structures coming from the input (Heck et al. 363); thus, it is not necessary to have any constraints (Heck et al. 372). In fact, this is the difference between phonology and syntax: while phonology does not keep the information coming from underlying representation, syntax does (Heck et al. 374). In other words, in comparison with phonology, syntax does not lose any information during its derivation (Heck et al. 372). Even the movement of the head in a syntactic transformation does not imply that the information is lost: the selectional properties of the head show that words are related within a syntactical construction (Heck et al. 372). In phonology, there is nothing in the surface representation (output level) that indicates whether a deleted vowel can be retrieved (Heck et al. 372). Another question in phonology is whether it is possible to distinguish a surface representation of an interrogation from an extralinguistic representation. Thus, according to some linguists, a key issue is to account for a diversity of speech sounds in phonetics and yet to theorize this diversity from a phonological perspective (Heuven 103). One example is the phoneme, which represents a category of sounds. Another example, speech melodies can also be considered as phonological components since the intonational contrasts play a role in changing a declarative sentence into an interrogative one (Heuven 104). Other linguists treat speech melodies as indicators of attitudes or emotions, which reflect a paralinguistic phenomenon (Heuven 104). Who is right? Perhaps, the question should concern the necessary evidence to support one view or another (Heuven 105). If a categorial perception is applied to intonational contrasts, then there must be a marked peak on a tone continuum of neighbouring segments which belong to different tonal categories (Heuven 105). However, this approach of establishing phonological categories did not succeed when normal and emphatic accent[s] were tested in English (Heuven 105). Parsing phonological segments is maintained through markedness and must include detecting boundaries for morphemes (Broselow 190-191). Does a similar principle apply to intonational categories? No class perception can be

4 applied to several intonation peaks if they exist in the same tone continuum (Heuven 105). The intonational contrast was tested in Dutch, and the listeners were asked to identify the boundary tones for command, continuation (of statements), and question (Heuven 105). When the Dutch listeners were not able to identify the boundaries, then the answers were considered to identify rhetorical categories. A continuation was identified by a moderate pitch, while a question was recognized by a higher pitch (Heuven 111). However, other linguists found different results which showed that continuation appeared to have a similar pitch as the question (Heuven 111). Overall, the results show that there is some phonological evidence for low and high tones : the boundaries correspond to command, continuation, and question (Heuven 111). The most unambiguous demarcation was detected between command and no command, and the least clear boundary was found between question and continuation (Heuven 111). The low tone is used for statements and commands, and the high tone appears to play more of an extralinguistic role, namely to show that speaker appeals to the hearer for [a]...continued attention or...[an] answer to a question (Heuven 111). Nevertheless, isnt calling for attention at the very core of communication? Should phonology be considered part of the drive for communication? To begin with, Chomsky, Hauser, and Fitch contend that recursion is a feature of language that is uniquely human (qtd. in Pinkera and Jackendoff 203) and can be applied to a syntactical construction (Pinkera and Jackendoff 203). For example, a noun phrase, which is a syntactical construction, can include a different type of syntactical construction a prepositional phrase that may include in turn a noun phrase and so on (Matthews 310). Apparently, it is only the recursion, a computational feature, that seems to be purely human (Pinkera and Jackendoff 203). Moreover, Chomsky asserts the idea that recursion is a byproduct that emerged from changing cognitive abilities that account for using numbers and for creating social relationships (Pinkera and Jackendoff 203). The author of this article goes on to say that while some human realms like ethics, morality, love, sense of possession, and fatherhood can be learnt without necessarily using the language, other

5 human concepts like time, science, faith, and social functions cannot (Pinkera and Jackendoff 205-6). Languages are based on limited ranges of phonemes or phonological constituents: the pitch, stress, and syllable (Pinkera and Jackendoff 210). An example of phonological constituent in English is the main stress rule which can depend in turn on some edgemarking rules (Halle 549). Another question is whether phonology is strictly specific to language or is it related to a range of other cognitive abilities (Pinkera and Jackendoff 211). Since every language is made up of arbitrary rules, its phonological structure plays a fundamental role in speech perception and speech production, and this role shows that phonology is only related to language (Pinkera and Jackendoff 211). Thus, phonology is specific only to humans although some of its properties can be found in the combinatorial properties [of]...some species of birdsong (Pinkera and Jackendoff 211). Also, rhythm and music are purely human. In other words, phonology is just as purely human as recursion. However, Chomsky maintains that language is not a system of communication (qtd. in Pinkera and Jackendoff 224) but rather an inner speech (qtd. in Pinkera and Jackendoff 224). Still, the authors of the article argue that language is precisely about communication because language is the only way to convey memories of experiences (Pinkera and Jackendoff 224). In other words, language is the only way to map between meaning and vocally produced sound[s], and, consequently, to pass the meaning from one person to another (Pinkera and Jackendoff 225). The outer speech comes from people surrounding the language learner, and the inner speech depends mostly on the language of the community (Pinkera and Jackendoff 225). To conclude, phonology is part of a system which is an adaptation for the communication of knowledge and intentions of humans (Pinkera and Jackendoff 231). To sum up, phonology is a complex component of language, and it may sometimes be difficult to distinguish from a range of linguistic or extralinguistic entities. That is, some linguists consider that there are instances when phonology can hardly be differentiated from phonetics. However, a comparison between computational linguistic

6 processes in phonology and syntax shows the computation processes of these two linguistic realms that are quite different.Yet, separating the phonological categories from rhetorical ones may be challenging at times. Since discourse is a component of communication, some linguists consider that phonology is an intrinsic part of a mechanism that drives this informational exchange.

Annotated Bibliography

Broselow, Ellen. Marginal phonology: Phonotactics on the edge. Linguistic Review. 20.2- 4 (2003): 159-194. Epnet. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Concordia University Libraries, Montreal, Quebec. 13 Feb. 2005 <http://search.epnet.com>. This article examines the difference between the theoretical perspective that Optimality Theory offers (OT) for possible irregularities inside of or right on the edge of morphemes and the existing asymmetries of morphemes in Balantak, an Indonesian language. Broselow argues that OT not only has to phonotactically account for these internal and boundary asymmetries but also has to explain how the segmental contrasts can be retrieved and also has to be able to help the analysis of dividing speech strings into morphemes.

Dimulescu, Florin and Lea Luodes. Notiuni generale de gramatic finlandez: Substantivul. Ghid de conversatie romn-finlandez. Iasi, Romania: Polirom, 2003. The authors explain the declination of nouns in Finnish. The genitive plural shows morphemic variations of the same noun.

Halle, Morris. The Stress of English Words 1968-1998. Linguistic Inquiry. 29.4 (1998): 539-569. Epnet. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Concordia University Libraries, Montreal, Quebec. 13 Feb. 2005 <http://search.epnet.com>. In this article, the author looks at the stress rule in English from a different perspective for the Rhythm rule. That is, the Rhythm rule is extended by two edge-marking rules. On the basis of an almost exhaustive set of examples, the author argues that the decisive step in finding a better theoretical framework for the these stress rules is the identification of a three-dimensional character of a phonological structure. In other words, phonological entities like phonemes, stress and syllables are

8 represented as planes which form a three-dimensional phonological structure. The author speculates that the stress rules in English are simple enough them children can learn them in a short time.

Heck, Fabian, et. al. On the nature of the input in optimality theory. Linguistic Review. 19.4 (2002): 345-377. Epnet. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Concordia University Libraries, Montreal, Quebec. 13 Feb. 2005 <http://search.epnet.com>. This article seeks to assert through the theoretical framework of Optimality Theory that syntax computation works without input while phonology does not. The authors argue that phonology does not store the information during the computation but syntax does. While the components of syntax have selectional and relational properties, phonology does not have relational elements. Thus, the phonemes cannot be retrieved at the output.

Heuven, Vincent J. van. Phonetic or phonological contrasts in Dutch boundary tones? Linguistics in the Netherlands. 21 (2004): 102-113. Epnet. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Concordia University Libraries, Montreal, Quebec. 13 Feb. 2005 <http://search.epnet.com>. In this article, the author attempts to provide answers to questions concerning categorial boundaries relative to the final tones of the Dutch phrases. On the basis of research results, van Heuven argues that some final tones clearly map to categorial boundaries like continuation and command, while other final tones may or may not map to question, which is the third categorial boundary discussed in the article. When the mapping is not clear, then the final tones are considered to be extralinguistic.

Matthews, Peter. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1997. 258, 310. The author defines the Optimality

9 Theory, which states that phonological constraints are cross-linguistically universal, but they follow a strict hierarchy when they are applied to a specific language. Next, the author defines recursion as an algorithm that applies a linguistic constructiona noun phrase, for exampleto itself.

Pinkera, Steven and Ray Jackendoff. The faculty of language: what's special about it? Cognition 95 (2005): 201-236. ScienceDirect. Elsevier. Concordia University Libraries, Montreal, Quebec. 13 Feb. 2005 <http://www.sciencedirect.com/ science>. This article seeks to invalidate Chomskys proposal that recursion is the unique linguistic feature of the human language, and all the so-called linguistic features are either particular to humans cognitive systems or, more generally, to all animals cognitive systems. However, the authors argue that phonology and morphology are not recurrent but are also part of the language. Next, the authors argue that language is an evolution towards communication. Moreover, they contend that language is intricately coordinated with other elements of the human psychology: cooperation with non-kin and dependence on the acquired practical knowledge.

Warner, Natasha. The phonology of epenthetic stops: implications for the phonetics-phonology interface in optimality theory. Linguistics. 40.1 (2002): 1-28. Epnet. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Concordia University Libraries, Montreal, Quebec. 13 Feb. 2005 <http://search.epnet.com>. This article seeks to investigate the link between phonology and phonetics using the framework of the Optimality Theory. The author argues that although there are many claims about the vague border between phonology and phonetics, this border becomes clear when the phonological phenomena is interpreted as a set of symbols, while the phonetic phenomena is construed as an array of vocal articulations or acoustic

10 retrievals.