Phonetically grounded phonology and sound change: The case of Tswana labial plosives

Coetzee, Andries W.; Pretorius, Rigardt

doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2010.03.004

Cited by 24 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Recent research in artificial grammar learning has also shown that linguistic patterns that counter such universal trends are either unlearnable or at least not easily learnable (Carpenter 2006(Carpenter , 2010Coetzee 2009b;Moreton 2008;Pater and Tessier 2006). On the other hand, there are also unambiguous examples of languages with grammars that counter universal trends (Coetzee and Pretorius 2010;Hyman 2001), showing that it should be possible for language learners to acquire grammars that do not fit neatly into the limits of Universal Grammar. Along similar lines, Bybee (2002:275) shows that in one dialect of English some words, under some circumstances, show more word-final t/d-deletion in pre-vocalic than preconsonantal context.…”

Section: 1mentioning

confidence: 99%

Frequency biases in phonological variation

Coetzee

Kawahara

2012

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

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Abstract. In the past two decades, variation has received a lot of attention in mainstream generative phonology, and several different models have been developed to account for variable phonological phenomena. However, all existing generative models of phonological variation account for the overall rate at which some process applies in a corpus, and therefore implicitly assume that all words are affected equally by a variable process. In this paper, we show that this is not the case. Many variable phenomena are more likely to apply to frequent than infrequent words. A model that accounts perfectly for the overall rate of application of some variable process therefore does not necessarily account very well for the actual application of the process to individual words. We illustrate this with two examples, English t/d-deletion and Japanese geminate devoicing. We then augment one existing generative model (noisy Harmonic Grammar) to incorporate the contribution of usage frequency to the application of variable processes. In this model, the influence of frequency is incorporated by scaling the weights of faithfulness constraints up or down for words of different frequencies. This augmented model accounts significantly better for variation than existing generative models.

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Section: 1mentioning

confidence: 99%

Frequency biases in phonological variation

Coetzee

Kawahara

2012

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

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“…Nasals preceding stop consonants are said to have appeared in Bantu languages in order to facilitate production of voicing during the stop segment and were lost later during language evolutionary changes in languages like Swahili, Sotho or Duala (Meinhof, 1932). Current studies on Tswana and Shekgalagari (Coetzee & Pretorius, 2010;Hyman, 2001;Solé et al, 2010), however, demonstrate that nasal segments remained in those languages -surprisingly not only before voiced stops but also before voiceless ones.We present an attempt at using computational simulations on voicing behavior of Tswana post-nasal stops. Previous approaches to phonological simulations (e.g.…”

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confidence: 88%

“…In their acoustic study involving Tswana native speakers, Coetzee & Pretorius (2010) present experimental data which provide evidence of active post-nasal devoicing. The authors describe measurements of Tswana post-nasal stops and report devoicing of these, arguing that one group of speakers applied aerodynamic and mechanical forces during the closure voicing, without employing any phonological rule.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…

AbstractAccording to studies conducted by Coetzee & Pretorius (2010) and Rothenberg (1968), languages from the Sotho-Tswana group of Bantu languages demonstrate unintuitive voicing behavior in devoicing of postnasal voiced plosives (/mb/ → [mp]) -unintuitive in that greater articulatory effort is required to terminate voicing than to maintain it (Westbury & Keating, 1986). Nasals preceding stop consonants are said to have appeared in Bantu languages in order to facilitate production of voicing during the stop segment and were lost later during language evolutionary changes in languages like Swahili, Sotho or Duala (Meinhof, 1932).

…”

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confidence: 97%

“…Boersma & Hamann, 2008) put a strong emphasis on the functional bias and its role in language change. We base our investigations on the assumption that the role of social biases might play even a higher role in the formation and change of phonologically and phonetically driven sociolinguistic processes (Nettle, 1999;Coetzee & Pretorius, 2010). …”

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Usage-based phonology and simulations as means to investigate unintuitive voicing behavior

Bruni¹,

Duran²,

Dogil³

2016

AMP

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According to studies conducted by Coetzee & Pretorius (2010) and Rothenberg (1968), languages from the Sotho-Tswana group of Bantu languages demonstrate unintuitive voicing behavior in devoicing of postnasal voiced plosives (/mb/ → [mp]) -unintuitive in that greater articulatory effort is required to terminate voicing than to maintain it (Westbury & Keating, 1986). Nasals preceding stop consonants are said to have appeared in Bantu languages in order to facilitate production of voicing during the stop segment and were lost later during language evolutionary changes in languages like Swahili, Sotho or Duala (Meinhof, 1932). Current studies on Tswana and Shekgalagari (Coetzee & Pretorius, 2010;Hyman, 2001;Solé et al., 2010), however, demonstrate that nasal segments remained in those languages -surprisingly not only before voiced stops but also before voiceless ones.We present an attempt at using computational simulations on voicing behavior of Tswana post-nasal stops. Previous approaches to phonological simulations (e.g. Boersma & Hamann, 2008) put a strong emphasis on the functional bias and its role in language change. We base our investigations on the assumption that the role of social biases might play even a higher role in the formation and change of phonologically and phonetically driven sociolinguistic processes (Nettle, 1999;Coetzee & Pretorius, 2010).

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Predicting distributional restrictions on prenasalized stops

Stanton

2015

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

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Previous studies on prenasalized stops (NCs) focus mainly on issues of derivation and classification, but little is known about their distributional properties. The current study fills this gap. I present results of a survey documenting positional restrictions on NCs, and show that there are predictable and systematic constraints on their distribution. The major finding is that NCs are optimally licensed in contexts where they are perceptually distinct from plain oral and nasal stops. I provide an analysis referencing auditory factors, and show that a perceptual account explains all attested patterns.

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Phonetically grounded phonology and sound change: The case of Tswana labial plosives

Cited by 24 publications

References 36 publications

Frequency biases in phonological variation

Frequency biases in phonological variation

Usage-based phonology and simulations as means to investigate unintuitive voicing behavior

Predicting distributional restrictions on prenasalized stops

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