Moraic Structure Research Articles

Underapplication Opacity Beyond the Non-Local Compensatory Lengthening in Modern Colloquial Persian

This research discusses the underapplication opacity, namely counterbleeding, of non-local compensatory lengthening in Modern Colloquial Persian, a style of informal speech in Iran (mostly in Tehran) motivated by moraic glottal consonants in the postconsonantal position in the coda. It concludes that building a moraic structure occurs before segmental changes, such as glottal deletion, Flop, and Spread (i.e., double flop), through weight-by-position. After building the moraic structure of coda consonants, a postconsonantal glottal is prone to deletion, resulting in a floating mora that precedes coda consonant flops while delinked from its mora. In this environment, stem vowels can spread to the neighboring mora and lengthen. Stratal OT is capable of accounting for counterbleeding through strata with different sets of OT constraints established on the basis of Persian morphology. The first stratum ensures the construction of the moraic structure before any segmental change, while the second stratum is where the counterbleeding order is covered.

On the Phonological Derivation of Compensatory Lengthening in Standard Malay: A Stratal Optimality Theoretical Approach

This study used Stratal Optimality Theory (OT) as the analytical framework to analyze the phonological derivation of Compensatory Lengthening (CL) in Standard Malay that targets the moraic rhotic /r/ in the coda position. It was concluded that to ensure the moraicity assignment to the rhotic /r/ in the postvocalic position before any consonant deletion or vowel lengthening, the moraic structures were built based on Weight-By-Position (WBP) prior to the segmental changes that resulted in the CL, which meant that the floating mora became affiliated to the preceding stem vowel. This phonological derivation was seen to be a form of counterbleeding in which the consonant deletion counterbleeds the WBP. The Stratal OT model successfully accounts for this counterbleeding as an opaque rule interaction, with the first stratum ensuring that the moraic structure is built before any segmental deletion or lengthening changes and the second stratum dealing with the CL.

The Behaviour of the Schwa in the Saoura Spoken Arabic: schwa epenthesis and deletion

In the present study, we argue in favour of adopting a moraic approach to the syllable to describe and explain phenomena in prosodic phonology. We indicate that the implementation of the mora (Hyman, 1985) in the Saoura Spoken Arabic (henceforth SSA) syllables helps in explaining morpho-phonological processes, namely 'the Disparity in Epenthesis ' between words on the pattern CəCC and those on the pattern CCəC, and 'the Schwa Vowel deletion' in a specific morphological context. We attempt to clarify that in order to account for the difference in epenthesis between CəCC and CCəC, we have to refer to both the moraic structure and the inflectional paradigm. We also try to demonstrate that the assumed schwa vowel, inserted via an epenthesis rule, disappears in fluent speech.

Modeling Vowel Quantity Scales in Q Theory

A growing body of research suggests that vowels vary in degree of strength. These strength differences are borne out in the degree to which these segments undergo or trigger phonological processes such as stress assignment or harmony. Traditionally, this variability has been accounted for through binary differences in phonological representations, such as presence or absence of a segment in the underlying representation, presence or absence of a phonological feature, and moraicity or non-moraicity of the relevant segment. While distinctions in underlying status and moraic structure are an effective tool for capturing some of the observed differences in vowel strength, they do not capture all attested differences. In this paper, we offer evidence supporting a four-point strength scale to which faithfulness and markedness constraints can refer. This model allows for strength differences among underlying and inserted vowels, and within monomoraic and bimoraic vowels as well, subject to scalar implications. We argue that Q-Theoretic representations offer the necessary representational tool to capture the full range of vowel strength.

Preboundary lengthening in Japanese: To what extent do lexical pitch accent and moraic structure matter?

In this acoustic study, preboundary lengthening (PBL) in Japanese is investigated in relation to the prosodic structure in disyllabic words with different moraic and pitch accent distributions. Results showed gradient progressive PBL effects largely independent of the mora count. The domain of PBL is better explained by the syllable structure than the moraic structure. PBL, however, is attracted toward a non-final moraic nasal, showing some role of the mora. The initial pitch accent does not attract PBL directly, but it suppresses PBL of the final rime as a way of maintaining the relative prominence, showing a language-specific PBL modulation.

The organisation and structure of rhotics in American English rhymes

Language-specific maximal size restrictions on syllables have been defined using frames such as moraic structure. In General American English, a trimoraic syllable template makes largely successful predictions about contexts where tense/lax vowel contrasts are neutralised, but neutralisation preceding a coda rhotic has not been adequately explained. We attribute the apparent special properties of coda /ɹ/ to two characteristics of its representation, informed by our articulatory investigation: sequential coordination of dorsal and coronal subsegmental units and a high blending strength specification, corresponding to high coarticulatory dominance. Characteristics of coda laterals are compared. Our approach employs phonological representations where sequencing is encoded directly among subsegments, and coordination is sensitive to strength. Mora assignment is computed over sequencing of subsegments, predicting that complex segments may be bimoraic. The account brings phonotactics for rhymes with postvocalic liquids into line with the trimoraic template, and supports representing coordination and strength at the subsegmental level.

Largonji des Loucherbems: An Optimality-Theoretic analysis of a 19th century French

AbstractThis paper provides a novel Optimality Theoretic analysis of the 19th century French secret language Largonji. While Largonji is a reversal game, we show that it is a type not previously described, in which the first onset that is not an /l/ reverses, even if it is not at an edge. Thus, traditional approaches to reversal games, such as cross-anchoring, do not work for Largonji. However, our account does not require direct reference to onsets. Instead, it is based on preservation of moraic structure, combined with alignment of a Largonji-specific prefix. Though suprasegmental faithfulness has been noted previously in language games, the present account implements it in Optimality Theory for the first time. Further, in analyzing the Largonji affix as a prefix that is sometimes realized as an infix, we suggest that Largonji provides additional evidence that language games can reflect cross-linguistic patterns not present in the base language.

Moraic onsets in Arrernte

The Australian language Arrernte has been argued by Breen & Pensalfini (1999) and Evans & Levinson (2009) to present a case of VC syllabification with coda maximisation, rather than CV syllabification with onset maximisation. In this paper we demonstrate that greater insights into a number of phenomena are achieved when they are analysed with CV syllabification and onset consonants that are moraic, a possibility independently proposed for a wide range of languages by Topintzi (2010). We review a range of evidence from phonetic studies, acquisition and musicology that points towards CV syllabification in Arrernte, and analyse allomorphy, stress assignment, reduplication and the transpositional language game ‘Rabbit Talk’ in terms of reference to moraic structure. The results lend themselves to new directions in the analysis of Arrernte, and provide further evidence for moraic onsets in prosodic morphology.

Extrametricality in Latin

AbstractIt is generally claimed that all coda consonants in Latin are moraic and therefore contribute to the weight of a syllable. Contrary to that characterisation, however, I argue that word‐final [s] was always extrametrical – as were all consonants after long vowels. That claim accounts for a number of phonological patterns that are poorly understood. Those patterns range from vowel length alternations in words like sūs ‘swine.nom.sg’ and suis ‘swine.gen.sg’ to underapplied rhotacism in words like opus ‘work’, which resists the analogical shift from [s] to [r] that is found in words like honour (< honōs) ‘honour.nom.sg’. In addition, extrametricality clarifies the idiosyncratic behaviour of word‐final [s] in Old Latin verse, in which the final syllable of a word like minus ‘less’ scans as light more often than it scans as heavy. Extrametrical consonants furthermore exhibit anomalous phonotactic patterns. For example, only word‐final [s] can create a coda with rising sonority. The resulting optimality theoretic analysis advances a detailed account of moraicity in Latin phonology and more generally informs our understanding of complex patterns in moraic structure that fall out from constraint interaction.

Prosodic Approaches to Ambisyllabic Consonants in English

This paper explores the characteristics of ambisyllabicity in order to investigate a motive for it. After reviewing previous explanatory methods, we suggested a new approach based on prosodic structure, and through the new representation, we can account for the sonorant devoicing and the difference of segment duration in gemination by ambisyllabicity. First, we critically reviewed some approaches depending on an ambisyllabic rule and the syllable weight principle, but those analyses did not provide a satisfactory explanation regarding the reason for the intervocalic consonant to be treated as an ambisyllabic consonant. However, when we adopt the moraic structure, we can show ambisyllabicity well in the correlation between syllable weight and stress. As regards flapping and ambisyllabicity, which are regarded as occurring in the same environment, to the contrary, in this paper, we can recognize that the environments of each of ambisyllabicity and flapping are not always the same. Also, with respect to sonorant devoicing, when the intervocalic consonants are treated as ambisyllabic, we can well account for the reason why the sonorant devoicing occurs. Finally, with respect to gemination, although gemination has the same environments as ambisyllabicity, we can demonstrate that, first, gemination phonologically derived across a word boundary results in ambisyllabicity, and second, geminates are not the same in segment duration depending on the ambisyllabic structures. Thus we can say that geminates do not exhibit the same characteristics as ambisyllabicity, and geminates are longer in segment duration than a singleton.

The Influence of Moraic Structure on L2 English Syllable-Final Consonants

[Abstract not available]

Acoustic cue weighting in the singleton vs geminate contrast in Lebanese Arabic: The case of fricative consonants

This paper is the first reported investigation of the role of non-temporal acoustic cues in the singleton-geminate contrast in Lebanese Arabic, alongside the more frequently reported temporal cues. The aim is to explore the extent to which singleton and geminate consonants show qualitative differences in a language where phonological length is prominent and where moraic structure governs segment timing and syllable weight. Twenty speakers (ten male, ten female) were recorded producing trochaic disyllables with medial singleton and geminate fricatives preceded by phonologically short and long vowels. The following acoustic measures were applied on the medial fricative and surrounding vowels: absolute duration; intensity; fundamental frequency; spectral peak and shape, dynamic amplitude, and voicing patterns of medial fricatives; and vowel quality and voice quality correlates of surrounding vowels. Discriminant analysis and receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves were used to assess each acoustic cue's contribution to the singleton-geminate contrast. Classification rates of 89% and ROC curves with an area under the curve rate of 96% confirmed the major role played by temporal cues, with non-temporal cues contributing to the contrast but to a much lesser extent. These results confirm that the underlying contrast for gemination in Arabic is temporal, but highlight [+tense] (fortis) as a secondary feature.

The articulatory tone-bearing unit: Gestural coordination of lexical tone in Thai

Recently, tones have been analyzed as articulatory gestures that can coordinate with segmental gestures. In this paper, we show that the tone gestures that make up a HL contour tone are differentially coordinated with articulatory gestures in Thai syllables, and that the coordinative patterns are influenced by the segments and moraic structure of the syllables. The autosegmental approach to lexical tone describes tone as a suprasegment that must be associated to some tone-bearing unit (TBU); in Thai, the language of study, the proposed TBU is the mora. Although the autosegmental account largely describes the phonological patterning of tones, it remains unclear how the abstract representation of tone is implemented. An electromagnetic articulograph (EMA) study of four speakers of Thai was conducted to examine the effects of segment type and moraic structure on the coordination of tone gestures. In a HL contour tone, tone gestures behave similarly to consonant gestures, and show patterns of coordination with gestures that correspond to moraic segments. However, there is also a level of coordination between the H and L tone gestures. Based on these results, a model of TBUs is proposed within the Articulatory Phonology framework that incorporates tone-segment coordination as well as tone-tone coordination.

Reviewing sonority for word‐final sonorant+obstruent consonant cluster development in Turkish

The purpose of this study is to investigate the acquisition patterns of sonorant+obstruent coda clusters in Turkish to determine whether Turkish data support the prediction the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP) makes as to which consonant (i.e. C1 or C2) is more likely to be preserved in sonorant+obstruent clusters, and the error patterns of sonorant+obstruent coda clusters. Data from 350 typically developing monolingual Turkish speaking children (aged 2.0–5.11 years) were used in this study. Six types of sonorant+obstruent clusters were targeted for analysis of deletion, vowel lengthening, and substitution processes in C1 and C2 singletons of clusters separately. The results showed that the acquisition of Turkish clusters does not adhere to the SSP as indicated by a higher percentage of C1 errors than C2 errors. In Turkish, vowel lengthening occurred when C1 was deleted. To account for these, it is proposed that the syllable structure of Turkish plays a role in the acquisition process of sonorant+obstruent clusters. It is argued that Turkish children acquire moraic structure at an early age, as evidenced by vowel lengthening.

Word-minimality, Epenthesis and Coda Licensing in the Early Acquisition of English

Many languages exhibit constraints on prosodic words, where lexical items must be composed of at least two moras of structure, or a binary foot. Demuth and Fee (1995) proposed that children demonstrate early sensitivity to word-minimality effects, exhibiting a period of vowel lengthening or vowel epenthesis if coda consonants cannot be produced. This paper evaluates this proposal by examining the development of word-final coda consonants in the spontaneous speech of four English-speaking children between the ages of one and two. Although there was no evidence of vowel lengthening, coda consonants were more accurately produced in monosyllabic target words with monomoriac vowels, suggesting earlier use of coda consonants in contexts where they can be prosodified as part of a bimoraic foot. One child also showed extensive use of vowel epenthesis and coda consonant aspiration concurrent with the production of codas. However, we show that this was due to the articulatory challenges of producing complex syllable structures rather than an attempt to produce well-formed minimal words. These results suggest that learners of English may exhibit an early awareness of moraic structure at the level of the syllable, but that language-specific constraints regarding word-minimality may be acquired later than originally thought.

On the Fact that the Accent in the Tanohama Dialect of Seiyo City in Ehime Prefecture is Determined by the Moraic Structure of the Word(<Feature Articles>Phonetics and Phonology of Shikoku Dialects)

On the Fact that the Accent in the Tanohama Dialect of Seiyo City in Ehime Prefecture is Determined by the Moraic Structure of the Word(<Feature Articles>Phonetics and Phonology of Shikoku Dialects)

Second Language Phonology as Redeployment of LI Phonological Knowledge

AbstractThis article presents research showing that second language (L2) learners do not have deficient representations and they are capable of acquiring structures that are absent from their first language (L1). The Redeployment Hypothesis—which claims that L2 phonologies include novel representations created via redeployment of L1 phonological components—is consistent with data from several domains, including acquisition of phonological features, syllable structure, moraic structure, and metrical structure. Moreover, it is shown that input prominence plays a role in L2 acquisition, and that language learners are sensitive to robust phonetic cues. Finally, studies done on interlingual homographs and homophones argue for non-selective access to the bilingual lexicon, suggesting that the language processing capacity is always engaged.

Interfaces in the prosodic hierarchy: New structures and the phonological parser

In this paper I investigate the assignation of syllabic structure to segments in second language learners invoking principles of parsing and learnability. Drawing on the model of Phillips (1996) in parsing, and the work of Fodor (1999) and Dresher (1999) in learnability, I discuss the implications for second language learning. I also look at the question of whether new phonological structure can be triggered if that structure is lacking in the first language. Drawing on evidence from the acquisition of (1) phonological features in Japanese, Chinese and French learners of English, as well as English learners of Czech, and (2) moraic structure by an English speaker learning Japanese consonant and vowel length contrasts, I argue that second language learners can trigger new prosodic structure. The process of acquisition is a combination of acquiring new structures, and mapping the interfaces of different levels of structure via a phonological parser.

Durational and tonal correlates of accent in Finnish

The paper reports the first study that explicitly distinguishes the phonetic correlates of sentence accents from those of word stress in Finnish (stress acted as the baseline whose correlates as against of stress were not investigated). Sentences were constructed that successfully elicited no accent, moderate accent, and strong accent on target words. The three degrees of prominence were clearly differentiated phonetically. Mere word stress was not signalled tonally, while accents were signalled mainly tonally. Strong accent involved longer segmental durations than the other degrees of prominence. Timing and extent of the accentual tonal movements were highly uniform across different word structures, and not invariably tied to the initial (stressed) syllables. The data were consistent with a view that the timing of f 0 movements was dependent on the moraic structure of target words. This finding seems to be connected with the typologically rare combination of stress (or rhythmic) and quantity systems in the language.

Syllable Cut Prosody in Early Middle English

Previous studies have been largely unsuccessful in investigating Middle English quantity changes in terms of moraic or foot structure. The present study approaches quantity changes as the consequence of the phonologization of a syllable cut prosody (Trubetzkoy's (1939) 'Silbenschnittkorrelation') and provides new evidence for the relevance of syllable cut to the diachronic phonology of English. The evidence is from the author's partial reconstruction of the phonological system of the early Middle English dialect represented in the Ormulum (Northeast Midlands, circa 1180), based solely on the orthographic and metrical evidence provided by its author, Orm. Although Orm's innovative orthographic system previously defied analysis, it is fully interpretable once the role of syllable cut is recognized. The analysis provides crucial support for the relevance of syllable cut to the diachronic phonology of English, and ultimately to the explanation of the pan-Germanic similarities in the 'breakdown' of phonological quantity.