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The Scope of Generalization in Phonology

The Scope of Generalization in Phonology. Gregory R. Guy New York University VGFP Workshop, Stanford, July 07. Generalization in Phonology. Identify (and explain?) phonological patterns that are prevalent across some domain. Maximum generality: phonological universals.

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The Scope of Generalization in Phonology

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  1. The Scope of Generalization in Phonology Gregory R. Guy New York University VGFP Workshop, Stanford, July 07

  2. Generalization in Phonology • Identify (and explain?) phonological patterns that are prevalent across some domain

  3. Maximum generality: phonological universals For all human speakers (of all languages), in all linguistic contexts, in all lexical items, x is always true.

  4. Non-universal generalizations Involve limits on either • the SCOPE of one of domains (the ‘all’ quantifiers) OR • the PREVALENCE of the pattern (the ‘always’ quantifier) or both

  5. Scope: Social domain, contextual domain, lexical domainPrevalence: frequency or probability For all human speakers (of all languages), in all linguistic contexts, in all lexical items, x is always true.

  6. Quantifying social scope(e.g. language-specific generalizations) For speakers in some social domain i e.g., a speech community, dialect, language, OR a social group defined by age, class, gender, ethnicity, etc.

  7. Quantifying contextual scope:e.g., context-sensitive generalizations, gradience ….. in some linguistic context j……

  8. Quantifying lexical scope: e.g., lexical frequency, lexical exceptions ….. in some lexical domain k…..

  9. Quantifying prevalence:e.g., variable, stochastic, or probabilistic generalizations ….. x is true with a probability p.

  10. Quantified Generality For speakers in some social domain i, in some linguistic context j, in some lexical domain k, x is true with a probability p ….. where, typically, p is a function of i, j, k

  11. Social scope For speakers in some social domain i…

  12. Social proximity implies linguistic similarity • Speech community members share grammatical properties • Contrasting Constraints Hypothesis: Different speech communities may have contrasting values for the probabilistic constraints on variable processes. • Shared Constraints Hypothesis: The members of a speech community share common values for the probabilistic constraints on variable processes.

  13. Contrasting constraints

  14. Communities differ: Following context effect on coronal stop deletion in two cities Speech % speakers with Community Community constraint ranking: preference: C>V C>0 V>0 Philadelphia 89 100 95 C>V>0 (N=19) New York 100 50 0 C=0>V (N=4) C=consonant, V=vowel, 0=pause

  15. Communities differ: Final -s deletion in four Brazilian cities

  16. Shared constraints

  17. Within communities: speakers share constraint rankings and values In a study of coronal stop deletion in 16 Philadelphian speakers, looking at 8 constraints (3 morphological and 5 phonological), individual results are distributed as follows:

  18. Shared constraint rankings: Coronal stop deletion in 16 Philadelphians number of speakers (%) deviations from --number of tokens per speaker-- random community order: >170 100-170 <100 distribution 0 5 (100%) (0.1%) 1 3 (60%) 1 (17%) (2.8%) 2 2 (40%) 4 (67%) (17.4%) 3 (39.8%) 4 (25.0%) 5 1 (17%) (8.5%) 6 (5.7%) all 8 (0.1%)

  19. Shared values: with sufficient data, speakers converge

  20. Contextual scope … in some linguistic context j…

  21. Contextual scope: gradient effects on variable processes • OCP (Obligatory contour principle) is a general phonological constraint against sequences of adjacent identical elements. • In many languages it categorically prohibits certains sequences. • e.g., English affix allomorphy: cats vs. glasses, backed vs. batted

  22. OCP effects are gradient in variable processes Place effect on deletion of final coronal [+cor, -ant] consonants in three languages Percent deleted Factor Weight Place Port Span Eng Port Span Eng Coronal [+cor], [+ant] 21 31 44 .66 .57 .65 Labial [-cor], [+ant] 14 32 } .53 .56 } Velar [-cor], [-ant] 6 16 } 34 .31 .38 } .35

  23. English coronal stop deletion by preceding context (Guy & Boberg 1995) Preceding Context N % Factor weight Identity with deletion target /t,d/ [+cor, -son, -cont] (categorical absence, i.e., 1.00) Two shared features /s,z,∫,z/ [+cor, -son] 276 49 .69 /p,b,k,g/ [-son, -cont] 136 37 .69 /n/ [+cor, -cont] 337 46 .73 One shared feature /f,v/ [-son] 45 29 .55 /l/ [+cor] 182 32 .45 /m,/ [-cont] 9 11 .33 No shared features /r/ 86 7 .13 vowels (nearly categorical retention, i.e., 0.00)

  24. Conclusion: OCP is gradient The disharmony of an OCP violation increases in proportion to the phonological similarity between adjacent elements.

  25. Lexical scope ….. in some lexical domain k…..

  26. Lexical issues for phonology • Lexical exceptions • Lexical frequency • Historical borrowings with distinct phonology (e.g., Latinate vocabulary of English, Chinese-origin vocabulary of Japanese) • Recent borrowings • Proper names

  27. Defining lexical scope: generalizations over part of the lexicon Two strategies for handling lexically-restricted properties: • Tweak the phonology • Tweak the underlying representations

  28. Tweaking the phonology • Exception features: co-index phonological rules with lexical items they apply to (cf. Chomsky & Halle) • Co-phonologies, lexical classes: different constraints or constraint rankings for different subsets of the lexicon (cf. Inkelas, Ito & Mester…)

  29. Tweaking underlying representations • The (lexically partial) generalization is already encoded in the UR, not generated by the phonology • Items that fail to show some generalization get URs that block that outcome • Variable lexical class membership (cf. Coetzee, this afternoon)

  30. Example: English plurals with f-v alternations Regular pattern: final C is invariant in plural: cat-cats, chief-chiefs, puff-puffs, etc. Exceptional pattern: final f>v in plural leaf-leaves, wife-wives, loaf-loaves, etc.

  31. Tweak the phonology: • Special rule for f>v in plurals • Exception feature specifies all the words that undergo this rule • Tweak the lexicon: • URs of leaves, wives, loaves have /v/ • URs of leaf, wife, loaf, etc. are under-specified for voice, with appropriate conventions to fill in specification.

  32. Lexical exceptions in variation Many variable processes are known to exhibit unusual frequencies of occurrence in particular lexical items. e.g., coronal stop deletion in English is exceptionally frequent in ‘and’ (Exceptional because deletion occurs significantly more often in and than in phonologically comparable words like sand, band, hand, etc.)

  33. The two strategies applied to lexical exceptions to variable processes • Phonological tweak: exceptional lexical items have a feature that raises or lowers the probability of a given phonological process occurring in that word. • e.g., ‘and’ is associated with an exception feature that raises the probability of coronal stop deletion.

  34. Lexical tweak: exceptional lexical items have alternate entries that pre-encode the output of the process. • e.g., ‘and’ has an alternate entry an’. When this form is selected, it always surfaces without a final /d/, thereby boosting the apparent rate of coronal stop deletion. • (cf. rock ‘n’ roll, an orthographic representation of this underlying form?)

  35. Testing the strategies:“Variation as a window into phonological organization” • The two strategies for handling lexical exceptions may not be decidable on obligatory/categorical data because of absence of constraint interaction • But variation data, showing constraint interaction, allows a test of the models.

  36. The two strategies make different quantitative predictions • Exception feature approach simply boosts the overall probability of deletion in ‘and’, leaving other constraint effects unchanged. • Hence, effect of following C vs. V should be the same in exceptional and unexceptional words: Cheese ‘n’ crackers is always deleted more than ham ‘n’ eggs

  37. The lexical entry approach achieves elevated surface rates of -d absence in ‘and’ by selection of UR an’, which does not undergo coronal stop deletion, and is therefore insensitive to constraints on that process. • Hence, lexical exceptions show reduced effect of following C vs V: • Cheese ‘n’ crackers is as likely as ham ‘n’ eggs

  38. The specific quantitative effect: A surface corpus of exceptional words is a mixture of two sets of foms: -some are derived from underlying full forms (e.g. ‘and’) and show the effects of constraints on the process, -others are derived from underlying reduced forms (an’) and are not affected by constraints on the process

  39. The mixture of the two sets has the quantitative effect of attenuating the effect of constraints on the process. -in a multivariate analysis, this attenuation should be manifested as a smaller range of values for a factor group measuring a constraint on the process (e.g., the following segment effect on coronal stop deletion).

  40. Predictions • Exception feature approach: constraint effects should be equivalent in exceptional and nonexceptional corpora • Multiple underlying entries: constraint effects should appear to be weaker in exceptional than nonexceptional corpora.

  41. Data: English coronal stop deletion and exceptional ‘and’ Non-exceptional Exception (and) words N % del N % del __C 572 39.3 441 95.7 __V 495 15.8 312 82.1 Range: 23.5% > 13.6% (Source: Neu 1980)

  42. Lexical exceptions in Brazilian Portuguese -s deletion Features of following C Non-exceptions Lexical exceptions (-mos forms) Voice/Manner: sonorant .69 .49 voiced obstruent .44 .58 voiceless obstruent .36 .44 Range .33 > .14 Place: labial .32 .58 coronal .61 .53 velar .44 .39 Range .29 > .19 N: 5880 1225 Log likelihood -704.8 -791.5

  43. -s deletion in Salvadoran Spanish (Hoffman 2004) Non-exceptional words Lexical exceptions Following context: (entonces, digamos, pues) sonorant .60 .63 voiced obstruent .75 .55 voiceless obstruent .33 .38 vowel .36 .38 pause .44 .56 Range .42 > .25 Syllable Stress: stressed .38 .42 unstressed .62 .58 Range .24 > .16

  44. Summary: In 5 constraints (factor groups) on 3 processes in 3 languages: • Magnitude of constraint effect is always weaker for exceptional lexical items • This is consistent with predictions of the lexical entry (lexicon tweaking) strategy; contradicts exception feature (phonology tweaking) strategy.

  45. Conclusion: Speakers tweak the lexicon • Lexical exceptions to variable processes are accomplished by alterations to the underlying representation and the existence of multiple representations (cf. Kiparsky’s treatment of -t,d deletion in stratal OT).

  46. Another prediction • Exception feature approach permits both positive and negative exceptions (lexical items that undergo a process at a higher or lower probability than other words) • Underlying form approach allows only positive exceptions, with higher probabilities (can’t block -t,d deletion)

  47. Impressionistic confirmation • All lexical exception cases in variation studies I am familiar with involve elevated rates of occurrence of a variable process, never reduced rates. • This confirms the prediction of the lexical entry approach.

  48. The Paninian nature of partial generalizations • Variation involves the quantification of prevalence • Non-universal generalization involves quantification of scope, in social, contextual, and lexical domains.

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