Proceedings of the annual meetings on phonology, May 13, 2023
* We'd like to thank Lee Bickmore, Martin Krämer, Zach Metzler, and audiences at UCLA and Tromsø ... more * We'd like to thank Lee Bickmore, Martin Krämer, Zach Metzler, and audiences at UCLA and Tromsø University for helpful discussion. Mistakes and stupids are of course our own.
We show that Classical Greek HYPERBATON involves pervasive phonological movement. Hyperbaton move... more We show that Classical Greek HYPERBATON involves pervasive phonological movement. Hyperbaton moves prosodic constituents to prosodic positions, subject to prosodic boundaries and to prosodic conditions on well-formedness. Syntactic analyses of hyperbaton fail insofar as they require the movement of heads, phrases, and nonconstituents to positions that are difficult to define syntactically. Furthermore, hyperbaton disobeys anti-locality constraints and a host of well-studied syntactic island conditions. We propose that phonological movement arises as the result of constraint interaction in the phonological component, subsequent to the interface between syntax and phonology.*
We propose an analysis of Greek meter based purely on phonology and the idea that well-formedness... more We propose an analysis of Greek meter based purely on phonology and the idea that well-formedness in meter is largely gradient, rather than absolute. Our analysis is surface-true, constraint-based and nonderivational, in line with proposals like optimality theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993). The discussion centers on two properties of meter, rhythm (dactylic, anapestic, iambic ...) and line length (hexameter, pentameter, tetrameter ...). Unmarked meters are expected to be binary (dimeter) and rhythmic (no clash or lapse). We analyze individual meters in terms of how they deviate from this unmarked state, where deviations (big and small) are encoded directly as constraint violations following Golston (1996). Greek anapests are shown to be unmarked in terms of rhythm, while dactyls distinctively violate the constraint NOCLASH and iambs distinctively violate NOLAPSE. Similarly, dimeter is unmarked in terms of binarity, while trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, and hexameter violate constraints on binarity.
Current models of laryngeal licensing allow as many laryngeal contrasts within a syllable as ther... more Current models of laryngeal licensing allow as many laryngeal contrasts within a syllable as there are segments, at least in principle. We show here that natural languages are much more economical in their use of laryngeal contrasts than segmental models would lead us to expect. Specifically, we show that voicing, aspiration and glottalisation occur at most once per onset, nucleus or coda in a given language, and that the order in which they are produced within onset, nucleus and coda is never contrastive. To account for these restrictions, we propose that laryngeal features are properties not of segments, but of the onsets, nuclei and codas that dominate them.
We propose a phonologically well motivated theory oj metrics that avoids several problems (e.g. t... more We propose a phonologically well motivated theory oj metrics that avoids several problems (e.g. ternarity and center-headedness) with the traditional
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, May 1, 2008
The White dialect of Hmong uses breathy voice as a tonal feature, and also a distinctive whispery... more The White dialect of Hmong uses breathy voice as a tonal feature, and also a distinctive whispery voice as a stop consonant feature. In this paper, acoustic measurements are shown to validate the apparent differences between these two similar phonation types. In particular, relative harmonic intensity and harmonicity were found to be, in general, three ways distinct among Hmong modal, breathy, and whispery phonation. The discovery of distinctly pronounced breathy and whispery phonation in a single language has implications for the representational theory which is used to specify the phonetic grammar.
Rule-based analyses of loanword phonology exhibit a peculiar trait.1 In many instances the rules ... more Rule-based analyses of loanword phonology exhibit a peculiar trait.1 In many instances the rules that must be posited for loans are neither rules of the donor language nor of the host language (Silverman 1992, Yip 1993). Take the Hawaiian loan mele kalikimaka ‘Merry Christmas’. (1) mele kalikimaka ‘Merry Christmas’ m i k s m s English
While one might wish for greater exploration of sonority's role in phenomena other than phonotact... more While one might wish for greater exploration of sonority's role in phenomena other than phonotactic restrictions, The sonority controversy is overall a very nice collection. It suffers from problems that seem common to collections-not enough space devoted to analyses that would benefit from greater development and exemplification, too much space devoted to points that could be made much more quickly, relative lack of direct contact between the views expressed in the different articles-but the variety of viewpoints expressed and the diversity of particular interests explored ensures that The sonority controversy will appeal to a wide range of researchers. Its papers will be of value to researchers interested in, for example, optimality theory, acoustic phonetics, articulatory phonetics, speech perception, language acquisition, computational modeling, sign language, markedness, and syllable structure. On the whole, the collection paints the picture of a lively and fruitful debate in a key area of investigation. It is well worth reading. REFERENCES Baertsch, Karen. 2002. An optimality theoretic approach to syllable structure: The split margin hierarchy.
A basic assumption in generative grammar is that all movement is syntactic. This paper proposes t... more A basic assumption in generative grammar is that all movement is syntactic. This paper proposes that hyperbaton in Classical Greek, Latin and Colloquial Russian involves post-syntactic movement of prosodic constituents to prosodic edges (for a full treatment of Classical Greek, see Agbayani and
In this paper, we argue that segments could be real in any of three ways, but are not. First, the... more In this paper, we argue that segments could be real in any of three ways, but are not. First, they could be physically real, i.e. identifiable chunks of motor production or segments of the acoustic speech signal. Although this was taken as a serious possibility long ago, it has also been a long time since it was set aside as incorrect (e.g. Scripture 1902 p. 446). There is no verifiable acoustic or articulatory content to a claim that, for instance, the English affricate [!] is one " phonetic segment " rather than two. A second sense in which segments could be real is as functioning elements in a successful phonological theory; segments would be real in whatever sense theoretical " objects " are real. But we argue that the theoretical work segments try to do can be done better by independently needed primitives of the theory, namely features and syllables, the latter comprised of onset, nucleus and coda. Golston & Kerhein (2004) show, for instance, that languages...
This paper argues for a model of morphology and phonology in which phonological form is represent... more This paper argues for a model of morphology and phonology in which phonological form is represented purely in terms of markedness rather than by strings of segments. The argument runs as follows: (i) underlying representations are prosodified; (ii) this makes them relatively ill-formed; (iii) so representations can be represented purely in terms of ill- formedness. Step (i) brings to its logical conclusion the incorporation of prosody into generative phonology begun in the 1970s and 1980s, making prosody relevant at all phonological levels of description. Step (ii) allows representation to be tied directly to markedness. Step (iii) makes it impossible to represent unmarked structure. I formalize representation as pure markedness in terms of intentional violation of phonological well-formedness constraints: the distintive features of representation are given in terms of constraint violations. The result is a theory in which representation and evaluation are completely conflated.s Rep...
Although there have been a large number of studies on English intonation and intonation teaching ... more Although there have been a large number of studies on English intonation and intonation teaching there has been little research on intonation assessment other than [1], [3] and [4]. This paper evaluates the intonation of native speakers (NSs) and non-native speakers (NNSs) of English with and without knowledge of intonation theory in spontaneous and scripted speech tasks, and asks whether they can be assessed effectively on both types of task. The conclusions drawn from this study are that intonation in spontaneous speech is more accurate than in scripted speech, that this is true of both NSs and NNSs, and that teaching of intonation theory can have a positive effect on performance in a scripted speech task. We also conclude that it is unreasonable to assess learners' intonation in a scripted speech task unless they have received training in intonation theory.
A basic assumption in generative grammar is that all movement is syntactic. This paper proposes t... more A basic assumption in generative grammar is that all movement is syntactic. This paper proposes that hyperbaton in Classical Greek, Latin and Colloquial Russian involves post-syntactic movement of prosodic constituents to prosodic edges (for a full treatment of Classical Greek, see ...
Proceedings of the annual meetings on phonology, May 13, 2023
* We'd like to thank Lee Bickmore, Martin Krämer, Zach Metzler, and audiences at UCLA and Tromsø ... more * We'd like to thank Lee Bickmore, Martin Krämer, Zach Metzler, and audiences at UCLA and Tromsø University for helpful discussion. Mistakes and stupids are of course our own.
We show that Classical Greek HYPERBATON involves pervasive phonological movement. Hyperbaton move... more We show that Classical Greek HYPERBATON involves pervasive phonological movement. Hyperbaton moves prosodic constituents to prosodic positions, subject to prosodic boundaries and to prosodic conditions on well-formedness. Syntactic analyses of hyperbaton fail insofar as they require the movement of heads, phrases, and nonconstituents to positions that are difficult to define syntactically. Furthermore, hyperbaton disobeys anti-locality constraints and a host of well-studied syntactic island conditions. We propose that phonological movement arises as the result of constraint interaction in the phonological component, subsequent to the interface between syntax and phonology.*
We propose an analysis of Greek meter based purely on phonology and the idea that well-formedness... more We propose an analysis of Greek meter based purely on phonology and the idea that well-formedness in meter is largely gradient, rather than absolute. Our analysis is surface-true, constraint-based and nonderivational, in line with proposals like optimality theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993). The discussion centers on two properties of meter, rhythm (dactylic, anapestic, iambic ...) and line length (hexameter, pentameter, tetrameter ...). Unmarked meters are expected to be binary (dimeter) and rhythmic (no clash or lapse). We analyze individual meters in terms of how they deviate from this unmarked state, where deviations (big and small) are encoded directly as constraint violations following Golston (1996). Greek anapests are shown to be unmarked in terms of rhythm, while dactyls distinctively violate the constraint NOCLASH and iambs distinctively violate NOLAPSE. Similarly, dimeter is unmarked in terms of binarity, while trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, and hexameter violate constraints on binarity.
Current models of laryngeal licensing allow as many laryngeal contrasts within a syllable as ther... more Current models of laryngeal licensing allow as many laryngeal contrasts within a syllable as there are segments, at least in principle. We show here that natural languages are much more economical in their use of laryngeal contrasts than segmental models would lead us to expect. Specifically, we show that voicing, aspiration and glottalisation occur at most once per onset, nucleus or coda in a given language, and that the order in which they are produced within onset, nucleus and coda is never contrastive. To account for these restrictions, we propose that laryngeal features are properties not of segments, but of the onsets, nuclei and codas that dominate them.
We propose a phonologically well motivated theory oj metrics that avoids several problems (e.g. t... more We propose a phonologically well motivated theory oj metrics that avoids several problems (e.g. ternarity and center-headedness) with the traditional
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, May 1, 2008
The White dialect of Hmong uses breathy voice as a tonal feature, and also a distinctive whispery... more The White dialect of Hmong uses breathy voice as a tonal feature, and also a distinctive whispery voice as a stop consonant feature. In this paper, acoustic measurements are shown to validate the apparent differences between these two similar phonation types. In particular, relative harmonic intensity and harmonicity were found to be, in general, three ways distinct among Hmong modal, breathy, and whispery phonation. The discovery of distinctly pronounced breathy and whispery phonation in a single language has implications for the representational theory which is used to specify the phonetic grammar.
Rule-based analyses of loanword phonology exhibit a peculiar trait.1 In many instances the rules ... more Rule-based analyses of loanword phonology exhibit a peculiar trait.1 In many instances the rules that must be posited for loans are neither rules of the donor language nor of the host language (Silverman 1992, Yip 1993). Take the Hawaiian loan mele kalikimaka ‘Merry Christmas’. (1) mele kalikimaka ‘Merry Christmas’ m i k s m s English
While one might wish for greater exploration of sonority's role in phenomena other than phonotact... more While one might wish for greater exploration of sonority's role in phenomena other than phonotactic restrictions, The sonority controversy is overall a very nice collection. It suffers from problems that seem common to collections-not enough space devoted to analyses that would benefit from greater development and exemplification, too much space devoted to points that could be made much more quickly, relative lack of direct contact between the views expressed in the different articles-but the variety of viewpoints expressed and the diversity of particular interests explored ensures that The sonority controversy will appeal to a wide range of researchers. Its papers will be of value to researchers interested in, for example, optimality theory, acoustic phonetics, articulatory phonetics, speech perception, language acquisition, computational modeling, sign language, markedness, and syllable structure. On the whole, the collection paints the picture of a lively and fruitful debate in a key area of investigation. It is well worth reading. REFERENCES Baertsch, Karen. 2002. An optimality theoretic approach to syllable structure: The split margin hierarchy.
A basic assumption in generative grammar is that all movement is syntactic. This paper proposes t... more A basic assumption in generative grammar is that all movement is syntactic. This paper proposes that hyperbaton in Classical Greek, Latin and Colloquial Russian involves post-syntactic movement of prosodic constituents to prosodic edges (for a full treatment of Classical Greek, see Agbayani and
In this paper, we argue that segments could be real in any of three ways, but are not. First, the... more In this paper, we argue that segments could be real in any of three ways, but are not. First, they could be physically real, i.e. identifiable chunks of motor production or segments of the acoustic speech signal. Although this was taken as a serious possibility long ago, it has also been a long time since it was set aside as incorrect (e.g. Scripture 1902 p. 446). There is no verifiable acoustic or articulatory content to a claim that, for instance, the English affricate [!] is one " phonetic segment " rather than two. A second sense in which segments could be real is as functioning elements in a successful phonological theory; segments would be real in whatever sense theoretical " objects " are real. But we argue that the theoretical work segments try to do can be done better by independently needed primitives of the theory, namely features and syllables, the latter comprised of onset, nucleus and coda. Golston & Kerhein (2004) show, for instance, that languages...
This paper argues for a model of morphology and phonology in which phonological form is represent... more This paper argues for a model of morphology and phonology in which phonological form is represented purely in terms of markedness rather than by strings of segments. The argument runs as follows: (i) underlying representations are prosodified; (ii) this makes them relatively ill-formed; (iii) so representations can be represented purely in terms of ill- formedness. Step (i) brings to its logical conclusion the incorporation of prosody into generative phonology begun in the 1970s and 1980s, making prosody relevant at all phonological levels of description. Step (ii) allows representation to be tied directly to markedness. Step (iii) makes it impossible to represent unmarked structure. I formalize representation as pure markedness in terms of intentional violation of phonological well-formedness constraints: the distintive features of representation are given in terms of constraint violations. The result is a theory in which representation and evaluation are completely conflated.s Rep...
Although there have been a large number of studies on English intonation and intonation teaching ... more Although there have been a large number of studies on English intonation and intonation teaching there has been little research on intonation assessment other than [1], [3] and [4]. This paper evaluates the intonation of native speakers (NSs) and non-native speakers (NNSs) of English with and without knowledge of intonation theory in spontaneous and scripted speech tasks, and asks whether they can be assessed effectively on both types of task. The conclusions drawn from this study are that intonation in spontaneous speech is more accurate than in scripted speech, that this is true of both NSs and NNSs, and that teaching of intonation theory can have a positive effect on performance in a scripted speech task. We also conclude that it is unreasonable to assess learners' intonation in a scripted speech task unless they have received training in intonation theory.
A basic assumption in generative grammar is that all movement is syntactic. This paper proposes t... more A basic assumption in generative grammar is that all movement is syntactic. This paper proposes that hyperbaton in Classical Greek, Latin and Colloquial Russian involves post-syntactic movement of prosodic constituents to prosodic edges (for a full treatment of Classical Greek, see ...
Uploads
Papers by Chris Golston