Uspanteko is an endangered Mayan language spoken in Guatemala. Unstressed vowels in Uspanteko oft... more Uspanteko is an endangered Mayan language spoken in Guatemala. Unstressed vowels in Uspanteko often delete, though deletion is variable within and across speakers. Deletion appears to be phonological: it is sensitive to foot structure, morphology, and certain phonotactics; and occurs in slow, careful speech. But deletion also has characteristics more typical of a phonetic process: it is intertwined with a pattern of gradient vowel reduction, and is insensitive to most phonotactics. Electroglottography data shows that even 'deleted' vowels may contribute voicing to [C(V)C] intervals when flanked by voiceless consonants. This suggests that 'deleted' vowels are represented in the input to speech production, even when they are acoustically masked by articulatory overlap with adjacent segments. We conclude that vowel deletion is grammatically controlled gestural overlap, consistent with the claim that phonological representations encode information about the relative timing and coordination of articulatory gestures (e.g. Browman & Goldstein 1986, Gafos 2002). At a minimum, language-specific phonetic processes must have access to more fine-grained, abstract grammatical information than is usually assumed.
Glottalized b' q' often vary between ejective and implosive realizations in Mayan languages. Some... more Glottalized b' q' often vary between ejective and implosive realizations in Mayan languages. Some of this variation has been attributed to phonetic differences between languages or dialects, but most descriptions are compatible with the alternative view that individual speakers of the same language/dialect differ in their inclinations to produce these sounds as ejective or implosive. We investigate the phonetic realization of b' q' in Uspanteko, a Guatemalan Mayan language. We find that labial b' is produced as an implosive more often than uvular q'; that wordfinal position favors ejective realizations; and that speakers of the same dialect differ in their tendencies to produce b' q' as implosive vs. ejective.
All consonants in Irish are contrastively velarized /Cˠ/ or palatalized /Cʲ/. This study investig... more All consonants in Irish are contrastively velarized /Cˠ/ or palatalized /Cʲ/. This study investigates the timing of /Cˠ Cʲ/ gestures across syllable positions in Irish. In Russian, which has a similar contrast, the dorsal gesture for /Cʲ/ seems to peak at the CV transition in prevocalic onset consonants. In postvocalic codas, /Cʲ/ gestures peak near the VC transition, may be held until C release, and may have more variable timing. We report comparable gestural timing in Irish, and propose that these patterns are grounded in perception. Both CV/VC transitions and C release carry important cues to /Cˠ Cʲ/ contrasts. In onsets, aligning /Cˠ Cʲ/ gestures at CV transition maximizes the salience of those cues. In codas, /Cˠ Cʲ/ gestures must be aligned to both VC transitions and C release to achieve the same effect. Cross-linguistically, /Cˠ Cʲ/ contrasts are often limited in coda position, plausibly reflecting these articulatory asymmetries.
We investigate the effect of intonation and discourse structure on the realization of lexical ton... more We investigate the effect of intonation and discourse structure on the realization of lexical tone in Us-panteko (Mayan). An H% boundary tone occurs in utterance-final position, and focus produces an upward shift in pitch register. The interaction of these phenomena with lexical tone suggests a privative [H] vs. [∅] tonal contrast for this language.
Lip rounding and dorsum backing both lower F2, and tend to co-occur in speech sounds (e.g. back v... more Lip rounding and dorsum backing both lower F2, and tend to co-occur in speech sounds (e.g. back vowels). This likely reflects contrast enhancement: the co-occurrence of rounding and backing exaggerates F2 differences associated with phonemic contrasts. We investigate this correlation with an articulatory study of Irish, a language with contrastively palatal-ized and velarized consonants. We confirm that ve-larized consonants are realized with additional lip rounding. However, we find no token-wise correlation between the amount of rounding and dorsum backing. This suggests that rounding is primarily associated with dorsum backing at an abstract phone-mic level, not surface phonetics. Coronals show weaker velarization in Irish, and likely recruit cues beyond F2 (e.g. spectral) to signal /C j C G / contrasts. Speakers in our study show no correlation between the degree of velariza-tion on coronal /C G / and separation for coronal /C j C G /, suggesting that speakers may not compensate for weak velarization with other phonetic cues.
Forced alignment, a technique for aligning segment-level annotations with audio recordings, is a ... more Forced alignment, a technique for aligning segment-level annotations with audio recordings, is a valuable tool for phonetic analysis. While forced alignment has great promise for phonetic fieldwork and language documentation, training a functional, custom forced alignment model requires at least several hours of accurately transcribed audio in the target language-something which is not always available in language documentation contexts. We explore a technique for model training which sidesteps this limitation by pooling smaller quantities of data from genetically-related languages to train a forced aligner. Using data from two Mayan languages, we show that this technique produces an effective forced alignment system even with relatively small amounts of data. We also discuss factors which affect the accuracy of training on mixed data sets of this type, and provide some recommendations about how to balance data from pooled languages.
This paper investigates the relationship between speech perception and linguistic experience in K... more This paper investigates the relationship between speech perception and linguistic experience in Kaqchikel, a Guatemalan Mayan language. Our empirical focus is the perception of plain, ejective, and implosive stops. Drawing on an AX discrimination task, a corpus of spoken Kaqchikel, and a text corpus, we make two claims. First, we argue that speech perception is mediated by phonemic representations which include acoustic detail drawn from prior phonetic experience, as in Exemplar Theory. Second, segmental distributions also condition speech perception: The perceptual distinctiveness of a pair of phonemes is affected by their functional load and relative contextual predictability. These top-down factors influence phoneme discrimination even at relatively fast response times. We take this result as evidence that distributional factors like functional load may affect speech perception by shaping perceptual tuning during linguistic development. This study replicates and extends some key findings in speech perception in the context of a language (Kaqchikel) which is structurally and sociolinguistically different from the majority languages (like English) which have served as the basis of most work in the speech perception literature. At the practical level, our research illustrates methods for conducting corpus-based laboratory phonology with lesser-studied and under-resourced languages.
The aspect prefix /n-/ in Comalapa Kaqchikel (Mayan) surfaces with a following [t] or [d] when at... more The aspect prefix /n-/ in Comalapa Kaqchikel (Mayan) surfaces with a following [t] or [d] when attaching to monosyllabic, vowel-initial verbs. We refer to this process as NASAL HARDENING, and argue that it emerges from constraints barring affixal material from positions of phonological prominence; these constraints team-up with phonetically-grounded constraints on onset sonority and place licensing to produce [t]∼[d] epenthesis. The analysis is supported by allophonic evidence which identifies stressed syllables and word-initial syllables as 'strong' positions in Kaqchikel and other K'ichean-branch Mayan languages. Curiously, the oral stop [d] which results from nasal hardening is otherwise quite rare in Mayan languages. We deal with with the oddity of finding [d] in this context by means of THE EMERGENCE OF THE UNMARKED: certain constraints on [NC] clusters become crucially active only in contexts of epenthesis, when IO-FAITHFULNESS is rendered inert. The paper closes with some discussion of the historical development of these patterns across dialects of Kaqchikel.
Following the development of Prosodic Hierarchy Theory (Selkirk 1984; Nespor & Vogel 1986), evide... more Following the development of Prosodic Hierarchy Theory (Selkirk 1984; Nespor & Vogel 1986), evidence has accumulated that prosodic categories may be recursively self-embedded (e.g. Selkirk 1995; Truckenbrodt 1999; Wagner 2010; Itô & Mester 2013, etc.). However, this conclusion is not universally accepted (e.g. Vogel 2009a), and even the need for prosodic categories has been recently disputed (e.g. Scheer 2012b). In this article I argue that the prefixal phonology of Kaqchikel provides clear and convincing evidence for unbounded (iterable) recursion of the prosodic word ω. Patterns of [ʔ]-insertion and degemination receive a simple, elegant treatment if recursion of the prosodic word is permitted. Theories of prosodic phonology which do without recursion are forced to resort to ad hoc stipulations to account for the same facts. Both derivational (e.g. Kiparsky 1982) and transderivational (e.g. Benua 2000) analyses of these patterns fail on morphological grounds. The overall conclusion is that both abstract prosodic structure and recursion of the prosodic word are indispensable parts of any theory of word-level phonology.
To appear in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Probability is one of the many factors which influence phonetic variation. Contextual probability... more Probability is one of the many factors which influence phonetic variation. Contextual probability, which describes how predictable a linguistic unit is in some local environment, has been consistently shown to modulate the phonetic salience of words and other linguistic units in speech production (the {\sc probabilistic reduction effect}). In this paper we ask whether the probabilistic reduction effect, as previously observed for majority languages like English, is also found in a language (Kaqchikel Mayan) which has relatively rich morphology. Specifically, we examine whether the contextual predictability of words and morphemes influences their phonetic duration in Kaqchikel. We find that the contextual predictability of a word has a significant effect on its duration. The effect is manifested differently for lexical words and function words. We also find that the contextual predictability of certain prefixes in Kaqchikel affects their duration, showing that contextual predictability may drive reduction effects at multiple levels of structure. While our findings are broadly consistent with many previous studies (primarily on English), some of the details of our results are different. These differences highlight the importance of examining the probabilistic reduction effect in languages beyond the majority, Indo-European languages most commonly investigated in experimental and corpus linguistics.
This article provides an overview of current and historically important issues in the study of th... more This article provides an overview of current and historically important issues in the study of the syntax-prosody interface, the point of interaction between syntactic structure and phrase-level phonology. We take a broad view of the syntax-prosody interface, surveying both direct and indirect reference theories, with a focus on evaluating the continuing prominent role of prosodic hierarchy theory in shaping our understanding of this area of linguistics. Specific topics discussed in more detail include the identification of prosodic domains, the universality of prosodic categories, the recent resurgence of interest in the role of recursion in prosodic structure, cross-linguistic variation in syntax-prosody mapping, prosodic influences on syntax and word order, and the influence of sentence processing in the planning and shaping of prosodic domains. We consider criticisms of prosodic hierarchy theory in particular, and provide an assessment of the future of prosodic hierarchy theory in work on the syntax-prosody interface.
This paper analyzes a certain class of misalignments found in contemporary Irish in the relation ... more This paper analyzes a certain class of misalignments found in contemporary Irish in the relation between syntactic and phonological representations. The mismatches analyzed turn on the phonological requirements of focus (Verum Focus in particular) and of ellipsis and on how the two sets of requirements interact. It argues that the phonological mechanisms of ellipsis can be overridden when the phonological requirements of F-marking need to be satisfied. The analysis requires a theoretical framework in which the postsyntactic computation is characterized by parallel and simultaneous optimization. In particular, it is argued that certain facets of ellip-sis, morphophonology, and prosody are computed in parallel, as in classic Optimality Theory. The analysis also relies crucially on a kind of head movement (from specifier to a commanding head position) whose existence is predicted by current conceptions of phrase structure but which seems to be little documented.
In this paper I argue that a subpattern of Irish plural allomorphy should be analyzed as output o... more In this paper I argue that a subpattern of Irish plural allomorphy should be analyzed as output optimizing in character. Specifically, I claim that stress-sensitive alternations between the plural suffixes-(e)anna and-(e)acha are conditioned by constraints on metrical well-formedness. This analysis connects with independent facts about the the prosodic prominence of [ax] sequences in Irish phonology. I further argue that an explanatory analysis of these patterns must make use of the notion of surface optimization. Alternative frameworks that eschew surface-oriented optimization mechanisms fail to account for synchronic and diachronic properties of the Irish plural system.
The Mesoamerican linguistic area is rich with prosodic phenomena, including a wide variety of com... more The Mesoamerican linguistic area is rich with prosodic phenomena, including a wide variety of complex tone, phonation, stress, and intonational systems. The diversity of prosodic patterns in Mesoamerica reflects the extreme time-depth and complex history of the languages spoken there. This chapter surveys the prosody of Mesoamerican languages and some past analyses of their structures. Topics include the areal distribution of tonal complexity; interactions between stress, tone, and segmental contrasts; the phonetics of tone and phonation; metrical structure; and higher-level prosodic phenomena. Case studies from different languages also highlight interactions between morphological and word-prosodic structure. These topics underscore the importance of research on Mesoamerican languages to both phonological theory and linguistic typology.
This paper presents an overview of the phonetics and phonology of Mayan languages. The focus is p... more This paper presents an overview of the phonetics and phonology of Mayan languages. The focus is primarily descriptive, but the article also attempts to frame the sound patterns of Mayan languages within a larger typological and theoretical context. Special attention is given to areas which are ripe for further descriptive or theoretical investigation.
This paper deals with a so-far unnoticed phenomenon in prosodic phonology, which we dub prosodic ... more This paper deals with a so-far unnoticed phenomenon in prosodic phonology, which we dub prosodic smothering. Prosodic smothering arises when the prosodic status of a clitic or affix varies with the presence or absence of some outer morpheme. We first illustrate prosodic smothering with novel data from two genetically unrelated languages, Macedonian (Slavic) and Kaqchikel (Mayan). We then provide a unified account of prosodic smothering based on a principled extension of the theory of prosodic, among others). Prosodic subcategorization typically involves requirements placed on items to the left or the right of the selecting morpheme. We show that prosodic smothering naturally emerges in a theory which also allows for subcatego-rization in the vertical dimension, such that morphemes may select for the prosodic category which immediately dominates them in surface prosodic structure. This extension successfully reduces two apparent cases of non-local prosodic conditioning to the effects of strictly local prosodic selection.
We present the first ultrasound analysis of the secondary palatalization contrast in Irish, analy... more We present the first ultrasound analysis of the secondary palatalization contrast in Irish, analyzing data from five speakers from the Connemara dialect group. Word-initial /pʲ(bʲ) pˠ(bˠ) tʲ tˠ kʲ kˠ fʲ fˠ sʲ sˠ xʲ xˠ/ are analyzed in the context of /iː uː/. We find, first, that tongue body position robustly distinguishes palatalized from velarized consonants, across place of articulation, manner, and vowel place contexts, with palatalized consonants having fronter and/or higher tongue body realizations than their velarized counterparts. This conclusion holds equally for labial consonants, contrary to some previous descriptive claims. Second, the nature and degree of palatalization and velarization depend in systematic ways on consonant place and manner. In coronal consonants, for example, velarization is weaker or absent. Third, the Irish consonants examined resist coarticulation in backness with a following vowel. In all of these respects Irish palatalization is remarkably similar to that of Russian. Our results also support an independent role for pharyngeal cavity expansion/retraction in the production of the palatalization contrast. Finally, we discuss preliminary findings on the dynamics of the secondary articulation gestures. Our use of principal component analysis (PCA) in reaching these findings is also of interest, since PCA has not been employed a great deal in analyses of tongue body movement.
Uspanteko is an endangered Mayan language spoken in Guatemala. Unstressed vowels in Uspanteko oft... more Uspanteko is an endangered Mayan language spoken in Guatemala. Unstressed vowels in Uspanteko often delete, though deletion is variable within and across speakers. Deletion appears to be phonological: it is sensitive to foot structure, morphology, and certain phonotactics; and occurs in slow, careful speech. But deletion also has characteristics more typical of a phonetic process: it is intertwined with a pattern of gradient vowel reduction, and is insensitive to most phonotactics. Electroglottography data shows that even 'deleted' vowels may contribute voicing to [C(V)C] intervals when flanked by voiceless consonants. This suggests that 'deleted' vowels are represented in the input to speech production, even when they are acoustically masked by articulatory overlap with adjacent segments. We conclude that vowel deletion is grammatically controlled gestural overlap, consistent with the claim that phonological representations encode information about the relative timing and coordination of articulatory gestures (e.g. Browman & Goldstein 1986, Gafos 2002). At a minimum, language-specific phonetic processes must have access to more fine-grained, abstract grammatical information than is usually assumed.
Glottalized b' q' often vary between ejective and implosive realizations in Mayan languages. Some... more Glottalized b' q' often vary between ejective and implosive realizations in Mayan languages. Some of this variation has been attributed to phonetic differences between languages or dialects, but most descriptions are compatible with the alternative view that individual speakers of the same language/dialect differ in their inclinations to produce these sounds as ejective or implosive. We investigate the phonetic realization of b' q' in Uspanteko, a Guatemalan Mayan language. We find that labial b' is produced as an implosive more often than uvular q'; that wordfinal position favors ejective realizations; and that speakers of the same dialect differ in their tendencies to produce b' q' as implosive vs. ejective.
All consonants in Irish are contrastively velarized /Cˠ/ or palatalized /Cʲ/. This study investig... more All consonants in Irish are contrastively velarized /Cˠ/ or palatalized /Cʲ/. This study investigates the timing of /Cˠ Cʲ/ gestures across syllable positions in Irish. In Russian, which has a similar contrast, the dorsal gesture for /Cʲ/ seems to peak at the CV transition in prevocalic onset consonants. In postvocalic codas, /Cʲ/ gestures peak near the VC transition, may be held until C release, and may have more variable timing. We report comparable gestural timing in Irish, and propose that these patterns are grounded in perception. Both CV/VC transitions and C release carry important cues to /Cˠ Cʲ/ contrasts. In onsets, aligning /Cˠ Cʲ/ gestures at CV transition maximizes the salience of those cues. In codas, /Cˠ Cʲ/ gestures must be aligned to both VC transitions and C release to achieve the same effect. Cross-linguistically, /Cˠ Cʲ/ contrasts are often limited in coda position, plausibly reflecting these articulatory asymmetries.
We investigate the effect of intonation and discourse structure on the realization of lexical ton... more We investigate the effect of intonation and discourse structure on the realization of lexical tone in Us-panteko (Mayan). An H% boundary tone occurs in utterance-final position, and focus produces an upward shift in pitch register. The interaction of these phenomena with lexical tone suggests a privative [H] vs. [∅] tonal contrast for this language.
Lip rounding and dorsum backing both lower F2, and tend to co-occur in speech sounds (e.g. back v... more Lip rounding and dorsum backing both lower F2, and tend to co-occur in speech sounds (e.g. back vowels). This likely reflects contrast enhancement: the co-occurrence of rounding and backing exaggerates F2 differences associated with phonemic contrasts. We investigate this correlation with an articulatory study of Irish, a language with contrastively palatal-ized and velarized consonants. We confirm that ve-larized consonants are realized with additional lip rounding. However, we find no token-wise correlation between the amount of rounding and dorsum backing. This suggests that rounding is primarily associated with dorsum backing at an abstract phone-mic level, not surface phonetics. Coronals show weaker velarization in Irish, and likely recruit cues beyond F2 (e.g. spectral) to signal /C j C G / contrasts. Speakers in our study show no correlation between the degree of velariza-tion on coronal /C G / and separation for coronal /C j C G /, suggesting that speakers may not compensate for weak velarization with other phonetic cues.
Forced alignment, a technique for aligning segment-level annotations with audio recordings, is a ... more Forced alignment, a technique for aligning segment-level annotations with audio recordings, is a valuable tool for phonetic analysis. While forced alignment has great promise for phonetic fieldwork and language documentation, training a functional, custom forced alignment model requires at least several hours of accurately transcribed audio in the target language-something which is not always available in language documentation contexts. We explore a technique for model training which sidesteps this limitation by pooling smaller quantities of data from genetically-related languages to train a forced aligner. Using data from two Mayan languages, we show that this technique produces an effective forced alignment system even with relatively small amounts of data. We also discuss factors which affect the accuracy of training on mixed data sets of this type, and provide some recommendations about how to balance data from pooled languages.
This paper investigates the relationship between speech perception and linguistic experience in K... more This paper investigates the relationship between speech perception and linguistic experience in Kaqchikel, a Guatemalan Mayan language. Our empirical focus is the perception of plain, ejective, and implosive stops. Drawing on an AX discrimination task, a corpus of spoken Kaqchikel, and a text corpus, we make two claims. First, we argue that speech perception is mediated by phonemic representations which include acoustic detail drawn from prior phonetic experience, as in Exemplar Theory. Second, segmental distributions also condition speech perception: The perceptual distinctiveness of a pair of phonemes is affected by their functional load and relative contextual predictability. These top-down factors influence phoneme discrimination even at relatively fast response times. We take this result as evidence that distributional factors like functional load may affect speech perception by shaping perceptual tuning during linguistic development. This study replicates and extends some key findings in speech perception in the context of a language (Kaqchikel) which is structurally and sociolinguistically different from the majority languages (like English) which have served as the basis of most work in the speech perception literature. At the practical level, our research illustrates methods for conducting corpus-based laboratory phonology with lesser-studied and under-resourced languages.
The aspect prefix /n-/ in Comalapa Kaqchikel (Mayan) surfaces with a following [t] or [d] when at... more The aspect prefix /n-/ in Comalapa Kaqchikel (Mayan) surfaces with a following [t] or [d] when attaching to monosyllabic, vowel-initial verbs. We refer to this process as NASAL HARDENING, and argue that it emerges from constraints barring affixal material from positions of phonological prominence; these constraints team-up with phonetically-grounded constraints on onset sonority and place licensing to produce [t]∼[d] epenthesis. The analysis is supported by allophonic evidence which identifies stressed syllables and word-initial syllables as 'strong' positions in Kaqchikel and other K'ichean-branch Mayan languages. Curiously, the oral stop [d] which results from nasal hardening is otherwise quite rare in Mayan languages. We deal with with the oddity of finding [d] in this context by means of THE EMERGENCE OF THE UNMARKED: certain constraints on [NC] clusters become crucially active only in contexts of epenthesis, when IO-FAITHFULNESS is rendered inert. The paper closes with some discussion of the historical development of these patterns across dialects of Kaqchikel.
Following the development of Prosodic Hierarchy Theory (Selkirk 1984; Nespor & Vogel 1986), evide... more Following the development of Prosodic Hierarchy Theory (Selkirk 1984; Nespor & Vogel 1986), evidence has accumulated that prosodic categories may be recursively self-embedded (e.g. Selkirk 1995; Truckenbrodt 1999; Wagner 2010; Itô & Mester 2013, etc.). However, this conclusion is not universally accepted (e.g. Vogel 2009a), and even the need for prosodic categories has been recently disputed (e.g. Scheer 2012b). In this article I argue that the prefixal phonology of Kaqchikel provides clear and convincing evidence for unbounded (iterable) recursion of the prosodic word ω. Patterns of [ʔ]-insertion and degemination receive a simple, elegant treatment if recursion of the prosodic word is permitted. Theories of prosodic phonology which do without recursion are forced to resort to ad hoc stipulations to account for the same facts. Both derivational (e.g. Kiparsky 1982) and transderivational (e.g. Benua 2000) analyses of these patterns fail on morphological grounds. The overall conclusion is that both abstract prosodic structure and recursion of the prosodic word are indispensable parts of any theory of word-level phonology.
To appear in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Probability is one of the many factors which influence phonetic variation. Contextual probability... more Probability is one of the many factors which influence phonetic variation. Contextual probability, which describes how predictable a linguistic unit is in some local environment, has been consistently shown to modulate the phonetic salience of words and other linguistic units in speech production (the {\sc probabilistic reduction effect}). In this paper we ask whether the probabilistic reduction effect, as previously observed for majority languages like English, is also found in a language (Kaqchikel Mayan) which has relatively rich morphology. Specifically, we examine whether the contextual predictability of words and morphemes influences their phonetic duration in Kaqchikel. We find that the contextual predictability of a word has a significant effect on its duration. The effect is manifested differently for lexical words and function words. We also find that the contextual predictability of certain prefixes in Kaqchikel affects their duration, showing that contextual predictability may drive reduction effects at multiple levels of structure. While our findings are broadly consistent with many previous studies (primarily on English), some of the details of our results are different. These differences highlight the importance of examining the probabilistic reduction effect in languages beyond the majority, Indo-European languages most commonly investigated in experimental and corpus linguistics.
This article provides an overview of current and historically important issues in the study of th... more This article provides an overview of current and historically important issues in the study of the syntax-prosody interface, the point of interaction between syntactic structure and phrase-level phonology. We take a broad view of the syntax-prosody interface, surveying both direct and indirect reference theories, with a focus on evaluating the continuing prominent role of prosodic hierarchy theory in shaping our understanding of this area of linguistics. Specific topics discussed in more detail include the identification of prosodic domains, the universality of prosodic categories, the recent resurgence of interest in the role of recursion in prosodic structure, cross-linguistic variation in syntax-prosody mapping, prosodic influences on syntax and word order, and the influence of sentence processing in the planning and shaping of prosodic domains. We consider criticisms of prosodic hierarchy theory in particular, and provide an assessment of the future of prosodic hierarchy theory in work on the syntax-prosody interface.
This paper analyzes a certain class of misalignments found in contemporary Irish in the relation ... more This paper analyzes a certain class of misalignments found in contemporary Irish in the relation between syntactic and phonological representations. The mismatches analyzed turn on the phonological requirements of focus (Verum Focus in particular) and of ellipsis and on how the two sets of requirements interact. It argues that the phonological mechanisms of ellipsis can be overridden when the phonological requirements of F-marking need to be satisfied. The analysis requires a theoretical framework in which the postsyntactic computation is characterized by parallel and simultaneous optimization. In particular, it is argued that certain facets of ellip-sis, morphophonology, and prosody are computed in parallel, as in classic Optimality Theory. The analysis also relies crucially on a kind of head movement (from specifier to a commanding head position) whose existence is predicted by current conceptions of phrase structure but which seems to be little documented.
In this paper I argue that a subpattern of Irish plural allomorphy should be analyzed as output o... more In this paper I argue that a subpattern of Irish plural allomorphy should be analyzed as output optimizing in character. Specifically, I claim that stress-sensitive alternations between the plural suffixes-(e)anna and-(e)acha are conditioned by constraints on metrical well-formedness. This analysis connects with independent facts about the the prosodic prominence of [ax] sequences in Irish phonology. I further argue that an explanatory analysis of these patterns must make use of the notion of surface optimization. Alternative frameworks that eschew surface-oriented optimization mechanisms fail to account for synchronic and diachronic properties of the Irish plural system.
The Mesoamerican linguistic area is rich with prosodic phenomena, including a wide variety of com... more The Mesoamerican linguistic area is rich with prosodic phenomena, including a wide variety of complex tone, phonation, stress, and intonational systems. The diversity of prosodic patterns in Mesoamerica reflects the extreme time-depth and complex history of the languages spoken there. This chapter surveys the prosody of Mesoamerican languages and some past analyses of their structures. Topics include the areal distribution of tonal complexity; interactions between stress, tone, and segmental contrasts; the phonetics of tone and phonation; metrical structure; and higher-level prosodic phenomena. Case studies from different languages also highlight interactions between morphological and word-prosodic structure. These topics underscore the importance of research on Mesoamerican languages to both phonological theory and linguistic typology.
This paper presents an overview of the phonetics and phonology of Mayan languages. The focus is p... more This paper presents an overview of the phonetics and phonology of Mayan languages. The focus is primarily descriptive, but the article also attempts to frame the sound patterns of Mayan languages within a larger typological and theoretical context. Special attention is given to areas which are ripe for further descriptive or theoretical investigation.
This paper deals with a so-far unnoticed phenomenon in prosodic phonology, which we dub prosodic ... more This paper deals with a so-far unnoticed phenomenon in prosodic phonology, which we dub prosodic smothering. Prosodic smothering arises when the prosodic status of a clitic or affix varies with the presence or absence of some outer morpheme. We first illustrate prosodic smothering with novel data from two genetically unrelated languages, Macedonian (Slavic) and Kaqchikel (Mayan). We then provide a unified account of prosodic smothering based on a principled extension of the theory of prosodic, among others). Prosodic subcategorization typically involves requirements placed on items to the left or the right of the selecting morpheme. We show that prosodic smothering naturally emerges in a theory which also allows for subcatego-rization in the vertical dimension, such that morphemes may select for the prosodic category which immediately dominates them in surface prosodic structure. This extension successfully reduces two apparent cases of non-local prosodic conditioning to the effects of strictly local prosodic selection.
We present the first ultrasound analysis of the secondary palatalization contrast in Irish, analy... more We present the first ultrasound analysis of the secondary palatalization contrast in Irish, analyzing data from five speakers from the Connemara dialect group. Word-initial /pʲ(bʲ) pˠ(bˠ) tʲ tˠ kʲ kˠ fʲ fˠ sʲ sˠ xʲ xˠ/ are analyzed in the context of /iː uː/. We find, first, that tongue body position robustly distinguishes palatalized from velarized consonants, across place of articulation, manner, and vowel place contexts, with palatalized consonants having fronter and/or higher tongue body realizations than their velarized counterparts. This conclusion holds equally for labial consonants, contrary to some previous descriptive claims. Second, the nature and degree of palatalization and velarization depend in systematic ways on consonant place and manner. In coronal consonants, for example, velarization is weaker or absent. Third, the Irish consonants examined resist coarticulation in backness with a following vowel. In all of these respects Irish palatalization is remarkably similar to that of Russian. Our results also support an independent role for pharyngeal cavity expansion/retraction in the production of the palatalization contrast. Finally, we discuss preliminary findings on the dynamics of the secondary articulation gestures. Our use of principal component analysis (PCA) in reaching these findings is also of interest, since PCA has not been employed a great deal in analyses of tongue body movement.
Uspanteko (Mayan) is unique among the languages of Guatemala in having a full-fledged system of l... more Uspanteko (Mayan) is unique among the languages of Guatemala in having a full-fledged system of lexical tone. Tone is thoroughly integrated into the morphology of the language, and triggers several predictable phonological alternations. The Uspanteko tone system is also relatively simple, involving at most two contrastive categories. However, tone in Uspanteko shows a high degree of phonetic variability, and there is no consensus as to what tones are phonetically or phonologically active in the language. This paper argues that at least some of this unclarity owes to the effect of intonation, which can obscure lexical tone on vowels. A phonetic study attempting to control for intonation suggests that lexical tone in Uspanteko involves a privative [H]∼∅ contrast on short vowels, and either a [H]∼∅ or [H]∼[L] contrast on long vowels. The relationship between the phonetics of tone and its low functional load in Uspanteko is also discussed.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2018
The probability is one of the many factors which influence phonetic variation. Contextual probabi... more The probability is one of the many factors which influence phonetic variation. Contextual probability , which describes how predictable a linguistic unit is in some local environment, has been consistently shown to modulate the phonetic salience of words and other linguistic units in speech production (the probabilistic reduction effect). In this paper the question of whether the probabil-istic reduction effect, as previously observed for majority languages like English, is also found in a language (Kaqchikel Mayan) which has relatively rich morphology is explored. Specifically, whether the contextual predictability of words and morphemes influences their phonetic duration in Kaqchikel is examined. It is found that the contextual predictability of a word has a significant effect on its duration. The effect is manifested differently for lexical words and function words. It is also found that the contextual predictability of certain prefixes in Kaqchikel affects their duration , showing that contextual predictability may drive reduction effects at multiple levels of structure. While the findings are broadly consistent with many previous studies (primarily on English), some of the details of the results are different. These differences highlight the importance of examining the probabilistic reduction effect in languages beyond the majority, Indo-European languages most commonly investigated in experimental and corpus linguistics.
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Papers by Ryan Bennett
In this article I argue that the prefixal phonology of Kaqchikel provides clear and convincing evidence for unbounded (iterable) recursion of the prosodic word ω. Patterns of [ʔ]-insertion and degemination receive a simple, elegant treatment if recursion of the prosodic word is permitted. Theories of prosodic phonology which do without recursion are forced to resort to ad hoc stipulations to account for the same facts. Both derivational (e.g. Kiparsky 1982) and transderivational (e.g. Benua 2000) analyses of these patterns fail on morphological grounds. The overall conclusion is that both abstract prosodic structure and recursion of the prosodic word are indispensable parts of any theory of word-level phonology.
patterns in Mesoamerica reflects the extreme time-depth and complex history of the languages
spoken there. This chapter surveys the prosody of Mesoamerican languages and some past
analyses of their structures. Topics include the areal distribution of tonal complexity; interactions between stress, tone, and segmental contrasts; the phonetics of tone and phonation; metrical structure; and higher-level prosodic phenomena. Case studies from different languages also highlight interactions between morphological and word-prosodic structure. These topics underscore the importance of research on Mesoamerican languages to both phonological theory and linguistic typology.
In this article I argue that the prefixal phonology of Kaqchikel provides clear and convincing evidence for unbounded (iterable) recursion of the prosodic word ω. Patterns of [ʔ]-insertion and degemination receive a simple, elegant treatment if recursion of the prosodic word is permitted. Theories of prosodic phonology which do without recursion are forced to resort to ad hoc stipulations to account for the same facts. Both derivational (e.g. Kiparsky 1982) and transderivational (e.g. Benua 2000) analyses of these patterns fail on morphological grounds. The overall conclusion is that both abstract prosodic structure and recursion of the prosodic word are indispensable parts of any theory of word-level phonology.
patterns in Mesoamerica reflects the extreme time-depth and complex history of the languages
spoken there. This chapter surveys the prosody of Mesoamerican languages and some past
analyses of their structures. Topics include the areal distribution of tonal complexity; interactions between stress, tone, and segmental contrasts; the phonetics of tone and phonation; metrical structure; and higher-level prosodic phenomena. Case studies from different languages also highlight interactions between morphological and word-prosodic structure. These topics underscore the importance of research on Mesoamerican languages to both phonological theory and linguistic typology.