Phonotactic Restrictions on Ejectives

1. Phonotactic Restrictions on Ejectives A Typological Survey ___________________________ Carmen Jany cjany@csusb.edu

2. This presentation • Introduction • Language sample • Restrictions • Based on syllable structure • Based on position and co-occurrence • Ejectives & Phoneme Inventory • Summary & Conclusions

3. Introduction • This paper: examines phonotactic restrictions of ejective stops and phoneme inventories • Sample: 27 mostly unrelated languages, but from 3 major geographical areas • Goal: to find general tendencies in phono-tactic restrictions and possible explanations

4. Introduction • Ejectives occur in 18% of the world’s languages (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996) • Strongly regional geographic distribution (Maddieson 2004) • Ejectives are non-pulmonic egressive consonants produced with closed glottis while occlusion in the oral cavity

5. Introduction • Generally no sharp division between ejectives and plosives + glottal stop • Ejectives are mostly voiceless stops (only voiceless ejective stops examined in this paper) • Tendency to occur only at same places of articulation as other stops in same language • Occurrence hierarchy: velar > dental/alveolar > bilabial > uvular (Maddieson 1984)

6. Language sample • Ejectives found in 3 areas: the Americas, Africa, the Caucasus • This study: 27 languages, 19 from the Americas and 4 each from other 2 areas • Still great genetic diversity (see handout) • Materials used: grammars & secondary sources (see handout)

7. Language sample Source: WALS

8. Restrictions • Two main types: • Ejectives do only or do not occur in certain positions (not in coda, leftmost in morpheme) • Ejectives can only or cannot co-occur with certain segments (not with other ejectives, only with identical ejectives) => Position within syllable/word & co-occurrence with other segments within syllable/word

9. Restrictions • Both types depend on phonetic & phono-logical context (segments that precede/follow) • Both types can be attributed to articulatory & auditory features

10. Syllable-based restrictions • Often described in grammars which cover positional restrictions • Both: positional & co-occurrence • Limitations to onset/coda position in syllables/words & to onset/coda clusters • However: complex onsets/codas not in all languages & sometimes vaguely described

11. Syllable-based restrictions • Expected restrictions for phonetic reasons: stops not always released in coda position => ejectives limited to onset position (absence of audible release would eliminate contrast) • Blevins (2004): in general, fewer contrasts in coda position than in onset position

12. Syllable-based restrictions • Information on positional restrictions only for 21/27 languages • 8/21 languages do not allow ejectives in coda position (no mention of word-edges) • Assumption: Languages with no restrictions always release coda stops (avoiding neutralization of contrast)

13. Syllable-based restrictions • Restrictions on consonant clusters for articulatory and auditory reasons • Clusters show similar restrictions in onset and coda position • Cluster information missing for 11 languages • 9 lack complex onsets & 7 complex codas • A few restrictions (see handout)

14. Syllable-based restrictions • Explanations for restrictions to following segments: • Blevins (2004): Ejectives commonly contrast with other stops before sonorants, but not before obstruents and word-finally • Steriade (1999): Ejectives depend on right-hand context because they are postglottalized

15. Syllable-based restrictions • Explanation for restrictions to preceding segments: • Articulatory difficulty and perceptual complexity (see Bella Coola ban on two-ejective clusters) • Ejectives only in roots: 3/27 languages (may be related to affixing pattern and positional restrictions)

16. Position/Co-occurrence restrictions • No restrictions reported for 6 languages • Restrictions for 5 languages syllable-based • Positional restrictions: • Ejectives occur at the left edge of a domain (stem-initial, leftmost in morpheme) • Explanations: Initial position perceptually more salient; stops tend to be released initially

17. Position/Co-occurrence restrictions • Co-occurrence restrictions based on similarity • Some languages allow only very similar segments (homorganic, same laryngeal features), others only dissimilar segments • Some languages allow only identical segments to co-occur • Some languages ban co-occurrence within morpheme or root

18. Position/Co-occurrence restrictions • Explanation (MacEachern 1997): Restrictions based on auditory similarity and identity • 4 Patterns, each with subset of restrictions of next pattern forming implicational hierarchy • E.g. pattern 4 with most restrictions: co-occurrence of extremely similar no, but identical yes • Co-occuring elements on scale of similarity: identical – very dissimilar • Syllable-based co-occurrence restrictions also based on similarity (ejective not next to glottal stop)

19. Ejectives & Phoneme Inventory • Maddieson’s (1984) claims tested • a) Ejectives in the same places of articulation as other stops in a given language • b) Certain places of articulation are preferred over others: velar > dental/alveolar > bilabial > uvular • a) and b) mostly confirmed • Two contradictions: Tzutujil, Hupa

20. Summary & Conclusions • Restrictions either positional of co-occurrence • Positional: ejectives at left edge (syllable or other domain) • Articulatory explanation: lack of stop release in coda position • Auditory explanation: marked segments in perceptually more salient position

21. Summary & Conclusions • Articulatory and auditory reasons working together: • Lack of an audible release in coda eliminates phonetic cue for contrast perception resulting in laryngeal neutralization • Co-occurrence limitations based on auditory similarity • Languages differ where they set the point at which similarity becomes unacceptable (dissimilar-identical) • Languages also vary with respect to the domain of the restriction (root, morpheme, syllable, word)

22. Summary & Conclusions • All phonotactic restrictions of ejectives can be explained in terms of articulatory variation and ease and on perceptual complexity and similarity • Given that languages vary with respect to articulatory features and with regard to perceptual similarity, different restrictions found cross‑linguistically • Cross‑linguistic phonetic analysis is needed to have experimental confirmation of these tendencies

23. Questions? Thank you!