A diachronic account of phonological unnaturalness

Johnsen, Sverre Stausland

doi:10.1017/s0952675712000243

Cited by 11 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…The situation described by Stausland Johnsen (2012) fits Yer Deletion and Yer Vocalization. The pattern that, historically, might have been motivated by rhythm, with even yers in a string vocalizing and odd yers deleting, is no longer true today.…”

Section: Basic Patternmentioning

confidence: 89%

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Polish yers: Representation and analysis

Rubach

2016

J. Ling.

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This article proposes a new analysis of yers in Polish and addresses the issue of how yers should be represented. Reviving the debate started by Kiparsky (1973), the article argues that diacritic use of phonological features is superior to phonological use of diacritic features. Since diacritic representation of yers misses generalizations, yers are better represented as floating melodic segments (Rubach 1986, Kenstowicz & Rubach 1987). The patterns of Yer Vocalization and Yer Deletion are derived without recourse to syllable structure constraints such as *COMPLEX-Coda. Yer Deletion applies at an earlier level than Yer Vocalization and is enforced by a distribution-based constraint. Yer Vocalization, on the other hand, is a context-free process that is driven by the need to parse segments in output representations.

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Section: Basic Patternmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…For example, English admits [h] only in onsets and [ŋ] only in codas. Stausland Johnsen (2012) shows that phonotactically-based constraints, with not phonetically grounded motivation, exist in synchronic grammars and are productive. They are the effects of diachronic processes that may no longer be active.…”

Section: Basic Patternmentioning

confidence: 99%

Polish yers: Representation and analysis

Rubach

2016

J. Ling.

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“…The P-map is generally successful because it accounts for those alternations which result from a single sound change. But series of sound changes do sometimes result in unnatural alternations which have no synchronic phonetic motivation (Stausland Johnsen 2012). The test for the P-map is then as follows: if such an unnatural alternation effectively repairs a marked structure, will a language tolerate it despite the availability of a more 'natural' repair?…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nasalization as a Repair for Voiced Obstruent Codas in Noon

Merrill

2015

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The Senegalese language Noon exhibits a pattern by which the voiced stop phonemes /b, d, ɟ, g/ surface as nasals [m, n ɲ, ŋ] in coda position, undergoing complete neutralization with /m, n, ɲ, ŋ/. This allophonic alternation can be seen as a repair to the cross-linguistic constraint against voiced obstruents in coda position. However, the only otherwise attested repair to this marked structure is devoicing. Why should devoicing be so overwhelmingly preferred to other logical alternatives such as nasalization or gliding? Steriade (2008) answers this question with reference to her P-Map hypothesis, arguing that a [b~p] alternation is preferred because the perceptual distance between these sounds is less in this environment than between [b] and [m]; in essence, the synchronic system prefers a repair that changes a sound as little as possible, as determined by perceptual distinctness. The Noon facts are a clear counter-example to this prediction, and challenge any answer to the above question which requires synchronic systems to prefer the most "phonetically natural" repair.

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“…That combinations of sound changes produce unmotivated results is a long-standing and well-known claim. ‘Telescoping’, for example, describes a phenomenon in which a sound change A B in the environment X is followed by B C, resulting in a sound change A C that may not be phonetically motivated in environment X (Wang 1968; Kenstowicz & Kisseberth 1977: 64; Anderson 1981; Stausland Johnsen 2012). This paper, however, takes the concept of telescoping one step further, by focusing on alternations that are not only unmotivated, but that operate in exactly the opposite direction of UPTs.…”

Section: Naturalness and Sound Changementioning

confidence: 99%

“…As already mentioned, rule telescoping (Wang 1968; Kenstowicz & Kisseberth 1977: 64; Anderson 1981; Stausland Johnsen 2012) has long been known to produce unmotivated results. However, to derive unnatural alternations (as defined in (2)), we need a special combination of sound changes defined here: the Blurring Process.…”

Section: The Blurring Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

Post-nasal devoicing and the blurring process

Beguš

2018

J. Ling.

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This paper addresses one of the most contested issues in phonology: unnatural alternations. First, non-natural phonological processes are subdivided into unmotivated and unnatural. The central topic of the paper is an unnatural process: post-nasal devoicing (PND). I collect thirteen cases of PND and argue that in all reported cases, PND does not derive from a single unnatural sound change (as claimed in some individual accounts of the data), but rather from a combination of three sound changes, each of which is phonetically motivated. I present new evidence showing that the three stages are directly historically attested in the pre-history of Yaghnobi. Based on several discussed cases, I propose a new diachronic model for explaining unnatural phenomena called the Blurring Process and point to its advantages over competing approaches (hypercorrection, perceptual enhancement, and phonetic motivation). The Blurring Process establishes general diachronic conditions for unnatural synchronic processes and can be employed to explain unnatural processes beyond PND. Additionally, I provide a proof establishing the minimal sound changes required for an unmotivated/unnatural alternation to arise. The Blurring Process and Minimal Sound Change Requirement have implications for models of typology within the Channel Bias approach. This paper thus presents a first step toward the ultimate goal of quantifying the influences of Channel Bias on phonological typology.

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A diachronic account of phonological unnaturalness

Cited by 11 publications

References 43 publications

Polish yers: Representation and analysis

Polish yers: Representation and analysis

Nasalization as a Repair for Voiced Obstruent Codas in Noon

Post-nasal devoicing and the blurring process

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