Two problems in Armenian phonology

Abstract

AbstractThe author surveys 2 major phenomena in Armenian phonology. The first is schwa epenthesis in Western Armenian, which is known to break up the impressive consonant clusters of the language. Before looking at the synchronically epenthetic schwas in Western Armenian, it is important to first distinguish schwas that are unambiguously part of lexical representations then to recognize schwas that have led, over time, to different allomorphs. A fourth category is left to explain: schwas that break up attested clusters, but only in derived morphological environments. After listing known facts about the syllabic nature of Armenian, the author shows that motivated prosodic specifications can account for the derived environment schwas (simplifying somewhat the previous account by Vaux, ). The second phonological phenomenon surveyed is the voicing and aspiration patterns found in Armenian dialects. While the patterns neatly divide the linguistic domain into seven groups, the standard classifications rely on present‐tense formation as a primary divider between larger groups of dialects. The author, however, highlights that the phonological division between voicing and aspiration patterns should be considered a more fundamental one, once textbook notions of geolinguistics are applied to reduce the 7‐way division to a more ancient 3‐way division of dialects. Indeed, sound change is a more common type of innovation used for grouping related languages and dialects, and the territorial divisions thus obtained correspond to more ancient political divisions than the morphological ones.