Phonological Opacity Research Articles

Opacity in classic and derivational optimality theory: Tiberian Hebrew Spirantization and Polisho-Raising

Classic Optimality Theory treats phonological computation as a one-step parallel evaluation of output candidates. Such an approach does not handle well phonological opacity, in which the context of phonological processes is obscured on the surface. This article shows two examples of phonological opacity: Tiberian Hebrew Spirantization and Polish o-Raising. While these mappings are impossible to account for in classic OT, they are readily analyzed using the framework of Derivational OT.

Pinyin Spelling Promotes Reading Abilities of Adolescents Learning Chinese as a Foreign Language: Evidence From Mediation Models.

Pinyin is a phonological encoding system used to spell modern Chinese Mandarin due to the phonological opacity of Chinese characters. The present study examined the role of Pinyin spelling in the reading abilities of adolescents learning Chinese as a foreign language (CFL). A total of 158 Indonesian senior primary students were tested on Pinyin spelling, character production, listening comprehension, depth of vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension. Pinyin spelling skills were assessed by two measures, Pinyin Dictation (sentence dictation in Pinyin) and Pinyin Tagging (Pinyin writing for characters). Path analysis revealed that even after controlling for the effect of character production, Pinyin dictation performance influenced reading comprehension through the mediating effect of listening comprehension and the depth of vocabulary knowledge, and Pinyin tagging performance also influenced reading comprehension through the mediating effect of the depth of vocabulary knowledge. The results highlight the importance of Pinyin skills for Chinese reading abilities of CFL learners. As a reliable and explicit indicator of specifying Chinese phonological representations and processing, Pinyin spelling has a long-term and multifaceted influence on higher-level CFL abilities.

Level ordering and opacity in Tetsǫ́t’ıné: a Stratal OT account

Dene (Athabaskan) verbs are widely known for their complex morphophonology. The most complex patterns are associated with two conjugation markers, /s/ and /n/, which are associated with a floating H tone to their immediate left. In this paper, we provide an analysis of /θe/ and /ɲe/, the reflexes of the /s/ and /n/ conjugations in Tetsǫ́t’ıné. Whereas previous accounts of these conjugations have relied heavily on morphological conditioning, we show that, once level ordering, autosegmental phonology and metrical phonology are brought to bear on the problem, morphological conditioning is not required. Within the framework of Stratal OT, we propose the Domain Reference Hypothesis, by which phonological constraints may only refer to morphological domains and their edges. In addition, we show that in Tetsǫ́t’ıné there is a correlation between phonological opacity and morphological structure, as predicted by the Stratal OT model.

A reanalysis of abstract contrasts and opacity in Bondu-so tongue root harmony

This paper explores a number of controversial consequences of previous abstract analyses of Bondu-so (Dogon) vowels and vowel harmony, particularly for the explanation of phonological opacity. Bondu-so has been characterised as displaying asymmetrically-patterning bidirectional harmony, a four-way [ATR] contrast on mid-vowel suffixes, and abstract [±ATR] contrasts on high and low vowels which display distinct phonological behaviours but which never surface, being absolutely neutralised (Hantgan & Davis 2012). I show that each of these unusual generalisations stems from the crucial mischaracterisation of underlying vowel contrasts and the direction of harmony in surface-ambiguous data. With a re-classification of the data, Bondu-so harmony patterns are characterisable as regular, derivationally transparent leftwards [RTR]-harmony with harmonically neutral non-contrastive high and low vowels – requiring no abstract contrasts, directional harmony asymmetries, or opacity of any kind. Following this non-abstract reanalysis, Bondu-so is revealed to be typologically and theoretically fully consistent with other harmony languages. This review of Bondu-so vowel patterns represents therefore an important contribution to the “abstractness controversy” – revealing important analytical and methodological issues in abstract approaches to phonological opacity.

Analyzing opacity with contextual faithfulness constraints

Phonological opacity is well-studied and there are numerous proposals in the literature which analyze opacity in Optimality-Theoretic grammars. However, many analyses include significant elaborations to the basic architecture of Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993/2004) or its serial alternative, Harmonic Serialism (McCarthy 2000). In this paper, we propose a method of analyzing opacity which avoids additional significant enhancements to the basic theory by using faithfulness constraints with input-defined contexts. These constraints bear many similarities to standard positional faithfulness constraints (Beckman 1997; 1998; Lombardi 1999), but the context is input-defined (as in Jesney 2011). Adding context to faithfulness constraints has previously been discussed as a potential solution to counterfeeding opacity, but dismissed on account of potentially creating an overly rich faithfulness theory (McCarthy 2007a). We argue that the analytical potential of these constraints outweighs the potential problems associated with overgeneration. We show that contextual faithfulness constraints can be employed to analyze multiple types of underapplication opacity in parallel OT and multiple types of under- and overapplication opacity in Harmonic Serialism. We discuss the impact of including these constraints in a universal Con and suggest the potential of language-specific constraint induction for mitigating over-generation effects.

Final /n/ Deletion in Ghayeni Persian: Opacity in Harmonic Serialism and Parallel Optimality Theory

This paper explores the application and non-application of final /n/ deletion in Ghayeni Persian. In this dialect, final /n/ deletion is a productive phonological process whose application in different domains and environments is affected by several opaque counterbleeding and counterfeeding interactions as well as bleeding. This research presents new empirical data about these aspects which could be of general theoretical interest. It is also an attempt to make a contribution to current debate in phonological opacity. In so doing, it adopts Harmonic Serialism (HS) to accommodate counterbleeding opacity. It offers an analysis to survive a pitfall challenging HS in handling counterbleeding opacity in derived words. With regard to counterfeeding opacity, it adopts Parallel Optimality Theory (POT) using Local Constraint Conjunction (LCC). It discusses how POT and HS in particular could treat opaque interactions in Ghayeni dialect. In addition, this paper argues that a candidate which undergoes the same process twice in the same step could also be included in HS’s gradualness condition.

영어 음운불투명성과 탈락 모음 복원: ‘s(V)C’연속에서 기식의 발화와 인지를 중심으로

An unstressed vowel in English commonly tends to be weakened and deleted. When an unstressed vowel between [s] and a voiceless stop as in ‘s(V)CV’ is deleted, phonological opacity might arise since a voiceless stop would be aspirated before a stressed vowel, and English prohibits such a sequence of [s] and an aspirated stop. The goals of this study are to investigate whether such phonological opacity virtually arises in English and to see how English native speakers deal with the opacity and perceive the words correctly. Results showed that schwa deletion resulted in phonological opacity with respect to aspiration. English speakers, however, had little problem restoring the deleted vowel and could resolve the opacity by means of VOT that played a very crucial role as an acoustic cue in the processes.

Harmonic Serialism and Phonological Opacity

Harmonic Serialism and Phonological Opacity

Priming the representation of left-dominant sandhi words: A Shanghai dialect case study

This study examines how the acoustic input (the surface form) and the abstract linguistic representation (the underlying representation) interact during spoken word recognition by investigating left-dominant tone sandhi, a tonal alternation in which the underlying tone of the first syllable spreads to the sandhi domain. We conducted an auditory-auditory priming lexical decision experiment on Shanghai left-dominant sandhi words, in which each disyllabic target ([tɕi55 dɛ31] “egg”) was preceded by monosyllabic primes either sharing the same underlying tone ([tɕi55]), surface tone ([tɕi53] “machine”), or being unrelated to the tone of the first syllable of the sandhi targets ([tɕi24] “to remember”). Results showed a surface priming effect, but not an underlying priming effect. Moreover, the surface priming did not interact with speakers’ familiarity ratings to the sandhi targets. The results are discussed in the context of how phonological opacity, productivity, and the directionality of tone sandhi patterns influence the representation of tone sandhi words as well as how the lexicality of the primes and the participants’ usage pattern of Shanghai may have influenced the results.

Priming effects of Tone 51 Sandhi in Taiwan Southern Min

Tone sandhi refers to the alternation between base and sandhi tones. In Taiwan Southern Min (TSM), a word generally changes from its base tone to the corresponding sandhi tone when it occurs in non-final positions of a syntactically determined constituent. Tone sandhi of the five unchecked tones in TSM realizes itself in a quasi-circular chain shift, the phonological opacity of which poses a theoretical challenge for both the rule-based generative framework and the output-based grammar like OT. To probe into the representation of such allotonic variation, sandhi T51 → T55 was used in an auditory-auditory priming lexical decision experiment to examine priming effects between monosyllabic real-morpheme primes and their corresponding disyllabic targets including I) T55TX, underlyingly T51TX, and II) T51e33 as adjectives, a special case where T51 remains its base tone. Each target was preceded by either a T55 prime (surface-tone match for type I target and allotone match for type II), a T51 prime (underlying-tone match for both types), or a TX unrelated control prime, where X is a tone other than 55 and 51. Results showed an overall stronger facilitation effect for T51 primes than for T55 primes, indicating the significance of underlying-tone match in auditory processing.

Pattern substitution in Wuxi tone sandhi and its implication for phonological learning

Tone sandhi in Wuxi Chinese involves “pattern substitution,” whereby the base tone on the first syllable is first substituted by another tone, then spread to the sandhi domain. We conducted a wug test to investigate native Wuxi speakers’ tacit knowledge of tone sandhi and found that the substituion aspect of the sandhi is not fully productive, but the extension aspect is, and sandhi productivity is influenced by the phonetic similarity between base and sandhi tones. These results are discussed in the context of how phonological opacity, phonetic naturalness, and lexical frequency influence phonological learning, and a grammatical learning model that can predict Wuxi speakers’ experimental behavior is proposed.

Noun-related morphosyntactic difficulties in specific language impairment across languages

Noun-related morphosyntax has not been emphasized in the literature on children with specific language impairment (SLI), yet, across languages, problems in this area are quite apparent. This review is designed to highlight noun-related difficulties that seem to be especially troublesome for these children. A review of the research literature on children with SLI was conducted, including work on a wide range of languages. Children with SLI were found to have weaknesses greater than those of younger typically developing compatriots in such noun-related areas as articles, possessive inflections, full subject pronouns, agglutinating noun suffixes, and pronominal clitics. Factors seemingly responsible for these difficulties include prosody, case assignment, agreement, and both grammatical and phonological opacity. Each language reviewed provides evidence of serious problems with select noun-related morphemes in the speech of children with SLI. The emphasis in language assessment will necessarily have to vary across languages, not because children vary in their ability to overcome the obstacles that these factors present, but rather because the typology of a language will dictate the extent to which these factors are operative in the language.

A typological study of vowel interactions in Basque

The aim of this paper is to check the factorial typology for a set of phonological constraints on vowel interactions in Basque against corpus data (Hualde and Gaminde 1998, Euskararen Herri Hizkeren Atlasa, ‘The Basque Dialectological Atlas’) with the help of OT-Help 2.0 (Staubs et al. 2010), a specialized software that calculates factorial typologies. The formal analysis developed to account for different patterns of vowel interactions in Basque, including those patterns displaying phonological opacity, implements Element Theory (Backley 2011) in Turbidity Theory (Goldrick 2001, Van Oostendorp 2008). The proposed analysis has the virtue of predicting all attested patterns of a specific type of vowel interactions in Basque and excluding the unattested patterns.

Phonology without universal grammar.

The question of identifying the properties of language that are specific human linguistic abilities, i.e., Universal Grammar, lies at the center of linguistic research. This paper argues for a largely Emergent Grammar in phonology, taking as the starting point that memory, categorization, attention to frequency, and the creation of symbolic systems are all nonlinguistic characteristics of the human mind. The articulation patterns of American English rhotics illustrate categorization and systems; the distribution of vowels in Bantu vowel harmony uses frequencies of particular sequences to argue against Universal Grammar and in favor of Emergent Grammar; prefix allomorphy in Esimbi illustrates the Emergent symbolic system integrating phonological and morphological generalizations. The Esimbi case has been treated as an example of phonological opacity in a Universal Grammar account; the Emergent analysis resolves the pattern without opacity concerns.

Phonological Opacity in Pendau: A Local Constraint Conjunction Analysis

Phonological Opacity in Pendau: A Local Constraint Conjunction Analysis

Hiatus resolution and opacity in Seoul Korean verbal paradigm

The present study explores hiatus resolution patterns in Seoul Korean verbal paradigm. I provide an analysis of the data of hiatus resolution, focusing on phonological opacity and variation. In so doing, I compare rule-based phonology and OT-CC which are expected to explain phonological opacity equally well. It will be shown that rulebased phonology equipped with rule ordering and optionality fails to provide an adequate analysis of the data with variation. In contrast, the same data can be properly analyzed within the framework of OT-CC.

Investigating morphological awareness and the processing of transparent and opaque words in adults with low literacy skills and in skilled readers.

For adults with low literacy skills, the role of phonology in reading has been fairly well researched, but less is known about the role of morphology in reading. We investigated the contribution of morphological awareness to word reading and reading comprehension and found that for adults with low literacy skills and skilled readers, morphological awareness explained unique variance in word reading and reading comprehension. In addition, we investigated the effects of orthographic and phonological opacity in morphological processing. Results indicated that adults with low literacy skills were more impaired than skilled readers on items containing phonological changes but were spared on items involving orthographic changes. These results are consistent with previous findings of adults with low literacy skills reliance on orthographic codes. Educational implications are discussed.

Constraint combinations and phonological opacity

This paper presents an extensive explanation to opacity, which represents one of the most recalcitrant problems in Optimality theory. The research history of opacity in Optimality theory is that of gradual departure from its original proposal. The recent proposal of OT-CC by McCarthy virtually gives up the idea of parallelism and argues for the importance of derivational history. This paper, however, reviews the opacity problems and offers an alternative explanation without abandoning parallelism. This paper makes use of constraint combinations to explain both underapplication opacity and overapplication opacity. It cites various papers to show that the underapplication opacity is the work of disjunctively combined complex constraint. Based on such constraint combinations, it further argues that the overapplication opacity is also the work of a combined constraint. The complex constraint with implicational combination and its interaction with relevant constraints can explain the overapplication opacity. As such, this paper shows that we can deal with opacity issues in Optimality without introducing derivational history or constraints that do not fall into either markedness or faithfulness constraint family.

Serial Markedness Reduction

<p class="Phon-Paragraph">A growing body of research provides evidence supporting Harmonic Serialism (HS; McCarthy 2000, 2008a, 2010; Elfner to appear; Pruitt 2010), a serial version of Optimality Theory in which a single ranking of constraints is used iteratively to construct a derivation. This work has led to new insights into several outstanding problems in phonology and has highlighted problematic over-predictions of parallel OT, showing that HS predicts a more restricted range of interactions that better reflects typology. Although HS makes it possible to capture certain generalizations stated at intermediate levels of representation, it does not provide a general solution to phonological opacity. For this reason McCarthy developed a significant elaboration of HS, OT with Candidate Chains (OT-CC; McCarthy 2007), which evaluates complete HS-like derivations in parallel. This paper proposes a novel extension of HS, Serial Markedness Reduction (SMR), which combines advantages of HS and OT-CC. Like OT-CC, SMR includes a family of constraints that enables the modeling of both counterfeeding and counterbleeding opacity. However, SMR significantly streamlines the machinery necessary to model opacity as compared to OT-CC, relying on the gradual optimization inherent to HS to construct a single optimal derivation. The formal and empirical differences between OT-CC and SMR are discussed.</p><p> </p>

Korean Learners’ English Stress Placement and Vowel Reduction in Morphologically Related Words

This study considered how Korean learners place stress in morphologically related words in English according to suffix type and phonological opacity....