Distribution and Timing of Glottalized Nasals in Athabaskan

Distribution and Timing of Glottalized Nasals in Athabaskan Sharon Hargus University of Washington February 11, 2005

Outline • Background • Distribution and timing of glottalization in Athabaskan • Witsuwit’en and Deg Xinag • Distribution of glottalized nasals • Timing of glottalized nasals • Conclusions

Glottalized sonorants: timing possibilities • Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996: 109: Laryngeal constriction can be ‘centered at’ the oral closure or can occur ‘at the beginning or the end’ of a nasal consonant • Plauché 1998:140: ‘creaky voice and often full glottal closure preceding, simultaneous to, and following the sonorant are found as acoustic cues for glottalization of sonorants’ • Kingston 1990: implies that glottalized sonorants vary much more in timing than glottalized stops

Glottalized sonorants: timing preferences • Silverman 1997:98: with glottalized nasals, ‘leftward laryngealization is preferred to rightward laryngealization’ • ‘…non-modally phonated sonorant consonants are realized with laryngeal gestures phased to the early portion of the supralaryngeal configuration.’ (p. 106) • But Silverman was only discussing prevocalic glottalized nasals.

Glottalized sonorants: distributional preferences • V__ • Steriade 1999:102 ‘a preglottalized segment…will depend for optimal identification of its laryngeal category on…a preceding vowel or sonorant’ • Blevins 2004:95: ‘word-initial neutralization of sonorant pre-glottalization is common, while word-final neutralization of pre-glottalization is rare’

Interaction of timing, distribution • In Yowlumne (Newman 1944:15), glottalized sonorants can ‘never appear initially in a word or in a syllable that follows a closed syllable.’ • Steriade 1999: since glottalized sonorants are pre-glottalized, exclusively post-vocalic distribution < timing • Therefore, Licensing by Cue is more explanatory than Licensing by Prosody

Timing and distribution in Yowlumne • Howe and Pulleyblank 2001: Steriade’s analysis is wrong on two counts • Yowlumne glottalized sonorants not restricted to coda position • Yowlumne glottalized sonorants are not always pre-glottalized (Plauché 1998)

Timing and distribution in Yowlumne

Timing and distribution in Yowlumne • In fact, distribution determines timing • If postvocalic and • prevocalic (onset), then preglottalized • not prevocalic (coda), then postglottalized • What about post-vocalic restriction? • plausibly, ‘the implicational relation between the feature of glottalisation and the postvocalic position is…non-arbitrary, grounded in but semi-independent from phonetic properties governing the production and perception of glottalisation.’ (Howe and Pulleyblank 2001:63)

Timing and distribution in Yowlumne • Plauché’s explanation for Vn vs. nV • ‘optimize recoverability of the formant transitions into a following vowel’ (139) • Cf. Steriade/Blevins • Vn optimizes recoverability of the laryngeal contrast (so preferred over Vn)

Interaction of timing, distribution • Languages surveyed in Howe and Pulleyblank 2001 • Cross-linguistically, timing is semi- independent of distribution

Interaction of timing, distribution • ‘There is a correlation between syllabic position and the patterns of glottal timing’ (Howe and Pulleyblank 2001:76) • Some timing < distribution

Theoretical implications • If timing determines distribution • phonology is phonetically motivated • supports Integrated model (no phonology-phonetics interface, no phonetic component of grammar) • If timing independent of distribution • phonology separate from, mapped to phonetics • supports Modular model

Distribution of glottalization in Athabaskan (stem syllables) • Proto-Athabaskan, Ahtna, Hupa • ejectives: pre-vocalic, post-vocalic • glottalized sonorants: post-vocalic • Dena’ina • ejectives: pre-vocalic, post-vocalic • Deg Xinag, Gwich’in, Han, N. Tutchone, S. Tutchone, Tanacross, Kaska, Tagish, Tahltan, Witsuwit’en • ejectives: pre-vocalic • glottalized sonorants: post-vocalic • Sekani, Chilcotin, Dene Suine, Dogrib, Slave, Tsuut’ina, Navajo • ejectives: pre-vocalic

Four types of Athabaskan languages Maddieson 1984: ‘if a language has any laryngealized sonorants it also has glottalic or laryngealized stops. 19/20 95.0%’

Reflexes of *T’, *R’ PA reconstructions from Leer 1987; V = full vowel, v = reduced vowel

Timing of T’ in Athabaskan • T’V: consistently post-glottalized (many instrumental studies) • VT’: in Ahtna (Siri Tuttle, p.c.), glottalization optional; if present, pre-glottalized

Timing of R’ in Athabaskan • In Proto-Athabaskan: pre-? • Kingston to appear: ‘contrastive laryngeal articulations in post-vocalic sonorants are often pronounced at the beginning of or before their oral constriction…If the glottalic articulation were timed in this way relative to the oral constriction in glottalic sonorants in PA, i.e. if */VR’/ were pronounced [V’R], then the glottalic articulation would already overlap with the preceding vowel. Not only would the vowel coarticulate enough with the sonorant’s glottalic articulation for that articulation to shift readily to the syllable nucleus, but the pronunciation of /VVR’/ would be indistinguishable from that of /VR/ and /VR’/, and these sequences could not contrast.’

Timing of R’ in Athabaskan • In Tututni (Golla 1976): post-glottalized • In Hupa (Golla 1970, 1977; Gordon 1995): post- contrast with pre- • ‘an aspectual contrast between heavy and light stems…is signaled by differences in the timing of the creak relative to the sonorant...in light stems...root-final creaky voiced nasals realize their creak on the end of the nasal (i.e. as post-glottalized nasals) while, in heavy stems, the creak is realized at the beginning of the nasal (i.e. as pre-glottalized nasals)’ (Gordon 1995: 18 ff.) • ‘pre-glottalized sonorants underlyingly precede a vowel, while post-glottalized sonorants underlyingly precede a consonant or word boundary.’

Deg Xinag Witsuwit’en Map from Krauss (to appear)

Impressionistic auditory observation • Deg Xinag glottalized nasals are pre-glottalized • Witsuwit’en glottalized nasals are post-glottalized

Research question • Can the impression of post-glottalization in Witsuwit’en, pre-glottalization in Deg Xinag be acoustically verified, preferably in a quantitative way?

Why would this be important to know? • Basic research for the description of these languages • Theories of role of phonetics in phonology rely crucially on such phonetic information

Witsuwit’en nasals • [n], [m] • [tn] ‘sheet of ice’ • [m] ‘chunk of ice’ • [n’], [m’] • no nasal vowels

Witsuwit’en glottalized nasals from Hargus (to appear)

Wit. [n’]: pre- or post-glottalized? • [’n], [’m] in Kari 1975, Lake Babine Band 1977 • [n’], [m’] as /n/, /m/ • Other clusters allowed word-finally • sqy’ ‘blood’ • -tw’ ‘hop’ • Some instances < /n-/ or /m-/:

Wit. glottalized nasals < suffixation

Further phonological evidence for post-glottalization in Witsuwit’en • /n-n/ (*[nn]) • Degemination • -ni human plural/inanimate • nn ‘to the side’ • nni ‘people to the side’ • Epenthesis • Ny- ~ n- second person singular possessive prefix • uzi ‘name’, nyuzi? ‘your name’ • -le ‘hand’, nle ~ nyle ‘your hand’ • -nin ‘face’, nynin, *nnin, *nin ‘your face’ • Distribution of optional variants • N- neutral directional prefix (optional) • yen ~ nyen ‘across’ • nq, *nnq, *nnq ‘uphill’

Witsuwit’en [n’-n] • [n’-n] does not degeminate or epenthesize • [nit’n’] ‘he’s working’ • [niwest’En’ni bi hbdli] ‘disability pension’ (lit. ‘those who do not work are taken care of with it’) • Suggestive of [n’n] as /nn/, not /nn/

Deg Xinag nasals • No nasal vowels • Three-way place contrast: [m n N] • Three-way laryngeal contrast (final position):

Deg Xinag glottalized nasals

Evolution of final voicing distinction • [n] /n/, [n] /nV/ • possessed suffix *-e/(Leer to appear) > • -/ / V__ : te ‘water’, -te/ ‘water’ (psd.) • [+vd] / C__ • ek ‘dog’, -leg ‘dog’ (psd.) • dčn ‘coffin’, -dčn ‘coffin (psd.), stick, stem of woody plant’

DX [n’]: pre- or post-glottalized? • Some [n’] < /n-// • -/ durative perfective/optative • ntl/anh ‘I’m looking at it’ • natl/an’ ‘I looked at it’

Summary • Witsuwit’en, Deg Xinag • both have final [n], [n’] contrast • both have (morpho)phonological evidence for post-glottalization • both contrast final [n’] with medial [/n], [n/] • But Witsuwit’en [n’] post-glottalized, Deg Xinag [n’] preglottalized?

Acoustic properties of n’: Columbian Salish Columbian Salish /nmmal/ ‘lukewarm’ (postglottalized nasal) ‘strong, almost periodic, low frequency pulses’ ‘quite turbulent airflow’ ‘in both cases, the laryngealization…culminates in a glottal stop’

Acoustic properties of n’: Montana Salish Montana Salish /smú/ ‘mare’ ‘could be regarded as preglottalized’ < ‘strong glottal constriction at the beginning of the nasal’ ‘complete glottal stop followed by a nasal with what appears to be modal voice’ ‘nasal which is almost entirely creaky voiced’ ‘In both cases there is an epenthetic  separating the first two consonants in the initial cluster.’

Acoustic properties of n’: Hupa • Gordon 1995 18 ff.: • Pre-glottalized: • Vn: ‘glottalization is not realized as a complete glottal stop, but rather as creak on the end of the preceding vowel and on the beginning of the sonorant.’ or • V/n ‘the preglottalized nasal may also be voiced...[with] the vowel preceding final nasal is glottalized. Full glottal closure is only achieved for a very brief period of time immediately prior to the beginning of the nasal.’ or • V/n: the glottal closure is complete and the nasal following the glottal stop is voiceless or • Vt: ‘often lose their glottal stop and instead have an oral release’ • Post-glottalized: ‘nasals [are] typically quite short and abruptly truncated by the glottal stop. Glottalization also typically spills over onto the end of the nasal.’

Acoustic properties of n’: Yowlumne • Plauché 1998 • main cue: creaky voice (20-100 ms.) • V.R’V: apx. 50 ms., possibly overlapping with preceding vowel about 10 ms. • VR’.: 20-80 ms; 50-100 if word-final • secondary cues • bandwidth (narrower for R’ than R) • amplitude (lower for R’ than R)

Acoustic properties of n’ (other languages) • In other languages (Plauché 1998) • lower pitch on R’ than R (e.g. Zapotec) • shorter duration of R’ than R (Lai) • shorter duration of V/__R’ vs. /__R (Lai)

Acoustic properties of n’ (other languages) • ‘There is obviously room for further language-specific variation in the way that these oral and laryngeal gestures are related to each other, but the documentation is not yet very extensive.’ (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996:111)

Acoustic properties of [n’] in Witsuwit’en and Deg Xinag • Materials: word list recordings of [n’] made for study of effect of final glottalization on voice quality (some results for Witsuwit’en in Hargus 2005) • Speakers • 8 Witsuwit’en (2 male, 6 female) • 7 Deg Xinag (2 male, 5 female) • 4-6 sets/speaker • 4 repetitions/token

Sample sets • Witsuwit’en • ye ‘louse’ • ye/ ‘boy’ (vocative) • nyen ‘across’ • yen’ ‘bridge’ • Deg Xinag • va ‘his sister-, brother-in-law’ • va/ ‘its grease’ • von’ ‘half of it’ • don ‘it’s hairy, furry’ • vdoon ‘his chest’

Method • Observation of [n’] • Witsuwit’en: 157 tokens • Deg Xinag: 173 tokens • Developed criteria for different types of [n’] • Classification of each [n’] according to type • Number of types/speaker • Number of speaker-types/language

Criteria for timing classification • Pre-glottalized if • laryngealization starts before or simultaneous with nasality • or nasal C follows laryngealization • Post-glottalized if laryngealization starts after nasality • Difficulties • variable realization of laryngealization • determining onset of nasalization • nasality on V • widely spaced glottal pulses over [n]

Pre-glottalized [n’] in Deg Xinag gehon’ ‘he ate’ (AJ)

Cf. [/n] in Deg Xinag d/ne ‘he says’ (AJ)

Pre-glottalized [n’] in Deg Xinag gehon’ ‘he ate’ (LH)

Distribution and Timing of Glottalized Nasals in Athabaskan