Phonology II
Simple Rules and Metrical Phonology
Plan
• In the last class, we saw how the phonology
of a language operates in terms of features
that collectively make up speech sounds
• It is essential to remember that phonological
operations make reference to features; in the
first part of today’s class, we’ll look at how to
treat such operations in terms of rules.
• In the second part of the class, we’ll look at
another level of phonological organization,
which concerns how sounds are organized
into syllables and larger units.
Review: Alternations
• In our last lecture, we saw alternations: cases
in which an object that is “one thing” at some
level of analysis surfaces with distinct variants
• That’s a more precise way of saying that e.g.
the English plural morpheme has some
underlying form (I.e., /z/), but surfaces in
different forms: /z/, /s/, /@z/
• This alternation is phonological in nature
• Other alternations are not; consider that the
plural of box is boxes, but the plural of ox is
oxen. This alternation is morphological
nature.
Introducing phonological rules
• We need a way of formalizing these changes
• As a basic assumption, we’ll assume that every word
and morpheme has an Underlying Representation, or
UR.
• The UR is the basic sound form of that object; that is,
how it is stored in the memory of speakers
• These UR’s are subject to operations-- rules-- that
derive the surface forms of the words
Rules, abstractly
• In the basic form that we’ll be using here, rules have
some sort of input that specifies what the rule applies
to, and an output that shows the change that is
effected
• Abstractly, these can be written as follows:
X  Y/ __ Z
• Informally, a rule of this type says that X (the input) is
converted into Y (the output) when X is to the left of
Z.
An example
• Remember from above we saw some examples from Old
English in which there’s a single phoneme underlying [f] and [v]
on the surface
• Let’s assume that this is underlyingly /f/
• Recall the distribution: [v] occurs between vowels.
• We can express this semi-formally as follows:
f  v/ V__ V
• This rule says that f becomes v between vowels
• If we needed to be more precise about this, we could specify
this in terms of features. Then, what would change is a
specification of the [voc] feature (I.e., the rule would change it
from [-voc] to [+voc]
• This more precise rule would have to be written to voice /f/
intervocalically! Notice that if we are not careful, we might have
a rule that voices too many consonants
Another example
• Let’s take an assimilation process
• Consider (a subset of…) words prefixed with in- in
English; these express contradiction/negation:
– inappropriate
– intolerant
– insincere
• In these forms, the idea is that we are adding a
morpheme to express the negative part
• Based on the examples we see above, we would
think that the nasal consonant in this morpheme is /n/
In-prefixation, continued
• Notice now that not all words with this prefix
have the same pronunciation of that
component:
– impossible
– imbalanced
– impure
• In fact, the change in pronunciation is even
reflected in the spelling (not all changes are!)
• What’s the pattern? We get the m-realization
in front of labial consonants (labial stops)
Accounting for the pattern
• There are some more details about the inprefix that we could look at; for the moment,
think just about the facts we have seen
• We want to say that a nasal consonant
becomes labial when a labial stop follows.
One way of doing this:
C[+nas]  C[+nas,+lab]/__ C[+obst,+lab]
Think about it…
The rule on the last slide shows how rules work.
There’s actually more to be said about the
facts of assimilation:
• Not all morphemes behave the same;
compare unpopular with impossible…
• What about glides? I.e. unwelcome… are
there any in- words like this?
• What about other consonants? How do
people say e.g. incapable? What about
unclear?
Types of rules: Summary
• Phonological rules effect many different types of changes:
– Some make adjacent sounds more similar; these are often
called Assimilation rules (remember e.g. English plurals)
– There are also Dissimilation rules, that make nearby sounds
more distinct
– Some rules add a consonant or a vowel or a consonant that
isn’t there in an Underlying Representation. These are called
rules of Epenthesis.
• The most important thing in most cases is to find the
environment in which the rule is triggered, so that you are
stating the generalization about the environment correctly
Rule Interactions
• When linguists analyze the phonology of a language,
they often find that many different rules apply to
derive the surface forms
• That is, any given word that you see might be the
result of more than one rule
• One difficult issue is that in many cases, rules have
to apply to a form in a specific order
• This is kind of an advanced topic, but worth
considering
Illustration
• Here’s a simplified example; some nouns in
Polish, in singular and plural:
sg
pl
ruk
lut
rog’i
lodi
trans
‘horn’
‘ice’
• There are two things going on in these nouns:
– One rule devoices voiced consonants at the end of words
– Another rule raises /o/ to /u/ when a voiced consonant follows
• In order to get the correct results, the vowel raising
rule has to apply before the consonant devoicing rule!
• Take home lessons: (1) there are some cases in
which more than one rule has to be posited; (2)
sometimes rule ordering is crucial
Syllables and Metrical Structure
• Transition: To this point, we have been
looking at the smaller units in phonological
analysis: features, and their arrangement into
segments (along with the question of what
the phoneme is)
• One large part of the phonology of a
language concerns the orgranization of
segments into larger objects: syllables.
• Syllable structure is relevant both for
generalizations about segment distributions
and for generalizations about stress (and
related phenomena) in a language
The Syllable
• A familiar notion is that of the syllable: as in,
‘Philadelphia’ has five syllables
• A refined set of hypothesis about the syllable is
important for many linguistic generalizations
• Definitions (initial):
– Onset: the beginning of the syllable
– Nucleus: vowel in the middle of the syllable
– Coda: consonant(s) at the end of a syllable
• As we will see in the next slide, these three do not
count the same
Syllable Structure
A single syllable’s (s) structure:
Monosyllabic cat:
s
Onset
k
Rhyme
Nucleus
æ
Coda
t
Comments
• Each of the different components of the syllable may
be relevant for different generalizations (what goes
into an onset versus what can appear in the coda)
• The nucleus and the coda form a unit together that
excludes the onset
• The motivation for this arrangement has to do with
the fact that onsets appear to be irrelevant for some
aspects of syllable structure (e.g. nuclei and codas
count together for syllable weight)
• Just focus on the different parts for the moment, not
the motivation for this internal arrangement
Onsets and Speech Errors
Spoonerisms (Rev. Dr. W. A. Spooner, 1844-1930)
Target:
Output:
dear old queen
queer old dean
Target:
Output:
You have wasted the whole term
You have tasted the whole worm.
Target:
Output:
You missed my history lectures.
You hissed my mystery lectures.
Pig Latin
A language game showing
sensitivity to structure:
Hat
Thin
Strong
Linguistics
Apple
>
>
>
>
>
Athey
Inthey
Ongstrey
Inguisticsley
Appleey
Pattern: Add a syllable to the end of the word;
copy the onset of the word-initial syllable to the
onset of the word-final; add ‘ey’ to the rhyme.
Further aspects of the syllable
• Onsets:
– English normally allows two consonants.
– [s] can be added initially in many cases as well, resulting in onsets
with three consonants (e.g. splash)
– All sounds can occur in this position with the exception of [ng]. Thus
the subdivision of the syllable is crucial for stating this
generalization.
• The Nucleus:
– Sometimes a consonant can function as a nucleus, like in kitten.
• The coda:
– English normally allows two consonants, although again there are
cases where more stack up (e.g. belts)
– Sometimes the morphology produces something that is hard to
pronounce: consider cases like the pronunciation of 3/8
Syllables and well-formedness
• Conditions on syllable structure define a set of
(phonologically) possible words in a language; for
instance:
– Actual words, obstruent + liquid: brick, true, free,
crab, etc.
– Non-words that are possible words of English:
blick, clee, flork
– Impossible words, e.g. obstruent + nasal: *bnick,
*fnee, *dmay
– Compare: words in which historical change has
made an initial consonant silent: knee, knight, gnat
Differences
• Languages differ in terms of the constraints they impose on
syllable structure:
– E.g. Hawaiian:
• No coda consonants
• Maximum of one consonant per onset
• Examples: ink > 'înika
Norman > Nolemana
– E.g. Polish: many consonant clusters at the beginning of
words that are impossible in English:
bzdura "nonsense"
babsk "witch"
grzbiet [gzhbyet] "back"
marnotrawstw [mar-no-trafstf] "of wastes"
Metrical Structure
Illustrating our tacit knowledge of abstract
properties of language.
English Stress:
indePENdent
twenty-SEven
LEgislator
MissisSIppi
Metrical structure, cont.
• An active topic in phonological research concerns the
stress patterns of words.
• It appears that the world’s languages group syllables
into feet, like the iamb and the trochee:
– Iamb: (ss’)
– Trochee (s’s)
• You will have seen something similar before in the
study of metrical verse (poetry); one member of the
foot is prominent (stressed).
• Languages differ in terms of what types of feet they
use, whether they involve iterative feet throughout a
word, and so on.
• English stress turns out to be sort of complicated for
stress for a variety of reasons, but we can see some
aspects of foot structure nevertheless.
The Rhythm Rule
Remember those words we saw above?
TWEnty-seven MISsissippi LEgislators
• I.e., without having been taught this rule,
speakers automatically calculate a shift in stress
•Not a rule like that coming from English teachers
(e.g. “No split-infinitives”); part of what speakers
know unconsciously
•Consider e.g. thirteen Japanese bamboo tables
Expletive Infixation
We’ll do morphology next week; for fun now:
Suffix: Attached to the end of a word (work-ed)
Prefix: Beginning (un-important)
Infix: Inside a word
What is an example of an infix in English? There
is at least one phenomenon with the relevant
properties.
Patterns
Expletive Infixation is not something that our
English teachers instruct us in; yet we know
a great deal about it:
1)
*fanta-f*cking-stic
fan-f*cking-tastic
2) unrea-f*cking-listic
*unreali-f*cking-stic
*unre-f*cking-alistic
3) *indepen-f*cking-dent
inde-f*cking-pendent
Abstract Metrical Structure
Stress placement involves computation over abstract
representations, and these define expletive infixation.
Recall: grouping into feet; one syllable in the
foot receives prominence (stress):
E.g.
Àppalàchicóla
Has three binary feet (s s):
(Àppa)(làchi)(cóla)
In which the first member of each foot is prominent.
The Rule
The placement of the expletive is governed by
the following condition:
Expletive Insertion: The expletive is inserted
immediately before a non-initial stress foot of the
word:
(Appa)(lachi)(cola)
1
2
Has two such junctures; so either
Appa-f*cking-lachicola, or Appalachi-f*cking-cola
(Disclaimer: the rule is actually more