Final obstruent voicing in Lakota: Phonetic evidence and phonological implications

Blevins, Juliette; Egurtzegi, Ander; Ullrich, Jan

doi:10.1353/lan.2020.0022

Cited by 10 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…For example, some languages have word-final devoicing of voiced obstruents (e.g., German, Dutch), while others allow both voiced and voiceless obstruents in word-final position (e.g., English). No language, as far as we know, employs a word-final voicing rule ( Reiss, 2017 ; although see Blevins et al, 2020 for a potential recent counterexample).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extracting Phonetic Features From Natural Classes: A Mismatch Negativity Study of Mandarin Chinese Retroflex Consonants

Monahan

2021

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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How speech sounds are represented in the brain is not fully understood. The mismatch negativity (MMN) has proven to be a powerful tool in this regard. The MMN event-related potential is elicited by a deviant stimulus embedded within a series of repeating standard stimuli. Listeners construct auditory memory representations of these standards despite acoustic variability. In most designs that test speech sounds, however, this variation is typically intra-category: All standards belong to the same phonetic category. In the current paper, inter-category variation is presented in the standards. These standards vary in manner of articulation but share a common phonetic feature. In the standard retroflex experimental block, Mandarin Chinese speaking participants are presented with a series of “standard” consonants that share the feature [retroflex], interrupted by infrequent non-retroflex deviants. In the non-retroflex standard experimental block, non-retroflex standards are interrupted by infrequent retroflex deviants. The within-block MMN was calculated, as was the identity MMN (iMMN) to account for intrinsic differences in responses to the stimuli. We only observed a within-block MMN to the non-retroflex deviant embedded in the standard retroflex block. This suggests that listeners extract [retroflex] despite significant inter-category variation. In the non-retroflex standard block, because there is little on which to base a coherent auditory memory representation, no within-block MMN was observed. The iMMN to the retroflex was observed in a late time-window at centro-parieto-occipital electrode sites instead of fronto-central electrodes, where the MMN is typically observed, potentially reflecting the increased difficulty posed by the added variation in the standards. In short, participants can construct auditory memory representations despite significant acoustic and inter-category phonological variation so long as a shared phonetic feature binds them together.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extracting Phonetic Features From Natural Classes: A Mismatch Negativity Study of Mandarin Chinese Retroflex Consonants

Monahan

2021

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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“…On the other hand, one of the most convincing cases against unnatural alternations in synchronic grammars is that of final (de)voicing. While final devoicing is a highly common and phonetically motivated process Steriade 1997; Iverson & Salmons 2011 its unnatural counterpart -final voicing -is not attested in any language as a synchronic process (Kiparsky 2006(Kiparsky , 2008; for a possible exception, see Yu 2004;de Lacy 2002;Blevins et al 2020). This has led some scholars to conclude that final voicing is an impossible synchronic alternation (Kiparsky, 2006(Kiparsky, , 2008.…”

Section: On Naturalnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lexicon against Naturalness: Unnatural Gradient Phonotactic Restrictions in Tarma Quechua

Beguš¹,

Nazarov²,

Björklund³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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It has been shown in separate studies that phonological grammar can operate probabilistically and in phonetically unnatural directions. This paper examines whether phonological grammar can be both probabilistic and unnatural at the same time. We create a new corpus of Tarma Quechua vocabulary (based both on published and unpublished data), and argue that the unnatural probabilistic phonotactic trends in the Tarma Quechua lexicon are statistically significant and show clear signs of productivity, with evidence from loanword phonology and from morphophonological alternations. We also perform an acoustic analysis of existing recordings to confirm the phonetic status of the the unnatural gradient restriction. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a fully unnatural gradient phonotactic restriction on segmental structure. The existence of unnatural probabilistic phonology has broad theoretical consequences because it requires probabilistic approaches to phonology to derive unnatural patterns. While weighted constraint approaches are more powerful than non-probabilistic approaches, we argue that models without unnatural constraints are not sufficient for deriving Tarma Quechua data. We propose a new framework for evaluating phonological analyses using the goodness of fit measurement. This quantitative evaluation approach supports analyses with some, but not all unnatural constraints. We argue that the proposed approach can serve for evaluating other models and approaches.

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“…An extreme example of this is examined in Blevins (2017aBlevins ( , 2020, with a targeted typology of languages that have a regular sound change of cluster-splitting epenthesis of #TRV >> #TVRV, T an oral stop, and R a sonorant consonant. While this phonological process is well known from studies of loan word phonology (Fleischhacker 2001(Fleischhacker , 2005 where it is typically attributed to the effects of Universal Grammar in the absence of complex onsets in the target language, cluster-splitting epenthesis as regular sound change 9 See Beguš (2020: 530, fn.12), where Blevins et al (2020) is said to have "limited data on alternations and no data on productivity". This is disconcerting since we emphasize that the synchronic alternations formalized in (5) and exemplified in of that work, "are regular and, as far as we can tell, productive" occurring both in new compounds, as well as in words that have undergone (optional, post-lexical, fast-speech) loss of final unstressed vowels (p. 308).…”

Section: The Role Of Contact In Rare Sound Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Refining explanation in Evolutionary Phonology: macro-typologies and targeted typologies in action

Blevins

Egurtzegi²

2022

Linguistic Typology

Self Cite

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In this paper, we highlight the role of typology in providing an empirical basis for explanation within Evolutionary Phonology with a focus on rare sound patterns and extra-phonetic explanation. Broad typological surveys of sound patterns or macro-typologies that include phonetic detail may, at once, support universal tendencies and document rare sound patterns, offering arguments for theories in which universal tendencies based on phonetic explanation are emergent properties of markedness-free grammars. However, in order to explain rarity and explore extra-phonetic factors, targeted typologies, narrowed by specific structural properties or contact histories, may be necessary. In this study, the complementary roles of broad and targeted typologies are illustrated through recent case studies of three basic components of phonological systems—sound inventories, alternations, and phonotactics—, with a focus on non-phonetic explanations that have enhanced the predictive power of the Evolutionary framework.

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Final obstruent voicing in Lakota: Phonetic evidence and phonological implications

Cited by 10 publications

References 20 publications

Extracting Phonetic Features From Natural Classes: A Mismatch Negativity Study of Mandarin Chinese Retroflex Consonants

Extracting Phonetic Features From Natural Classes: A Mismatch Negativity Study of Mandarin Chinese Retroflex Consonants

Lexicon against Naturalness: Unnatural Gradient Phonotactic Restrictions in Tarma Quechua

Refining explanation in Evolutionary Phonology: macro-typologies and targeted typologies in action

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