Phonological Phrase Research Articles

Boundary-driven downstep induced by syntax-prosody mapping.

This study investigates whether downstep in Japanese is directly triggered by accents. When the pitch height of a word X is lower after an accented word (A) than after an unaccented word (U), X is diagnosed as downstepped. However, this diagnosis involves two confounding factors: the already lowered F0 before X and phonological phrasing. To control these factors, this study contrasts genitive and nominative case markers and adjusts measurement points. Eight native speakers of Tokyo Japanese participated in a production experiment. The results show six key findings. First, a structure-dependent F0 downtrend was observed in UX. Second, higher F0 peaks with larger initial lowering were observed after accents with a nominative case marker compared to those with a genitive case marker, suggesting a boosting effect by boundaries. Third, larger initial lowering was observed in AX compared to UX, contradicting the notion that X is more compressed in AX due to downstep. Fourth, the paradigmatic difference in F0 height between AX and UX decreases when F0 of X is increased, supporting that boundaries trigger downstep. Fifth, downstep is not physiologically constrained but is phonologically controlled. Finally, the blocking of initial lowering in heavy syllables is not phonological but rather an articulatory phenomenon.

Suppletion in Global Perspective

Abstract This paper documents and analyzes a system of suppletive alternations that are conditioned by top-down prosodic context. In Mandar (Austronesian), seven heads supplete at the right edge of the phonological phrase to satisfy an output constraint on foot structure. When phrase-external phonological context makes it possible to resolve this output constraint in a more optimal way, this suppletion is suspended. These effects suggest that the mechanism which regulates suppletion, vocabulary insertion, must be situated within a phonological calculus that can access global context and respond to output constraints.

Prosodically determined coordinator placement in Yorùbá

In this paper, we look at the properties of the clausal coordinator sì in Yorùbá. We will show that despite its unusual surface position in the middle field of the second conjunct, the element should still be treated as a proper coordinator and not, as sometimes claimed, as an adverb. We then go on to fully describe the distribution of sì in simple clauses as well as in complex constructions involving focus movement, adverbial or relative clauses. Based on these configurations, we argue that a search for a uniform syntactic position of sì is bound to be unsuccessful. Rather, we claim that the uniform underlying factor in all of these constructions is that sì always right-attaches to the first phonological phrase of the second conjunct clause irrespective of syntactic constituents or islands. We provide evidence for this claim from various phonological processes such as (i) phonological fusion, (ii) the association of floating tones, (iii) assimilation, (iv) tonal OCP-effects, and (v) allomorphy. The present study thus not only solves a curious language-specific puzzle in Yorùbá but also provides a convincing case of prosodically driven clitic displacement to a position after the first phonological/prosodic phrase. In doing so, it falls nicely into emerging typologies of clitic placement patterns in the world’s languages.

Devising Yorùbá Terminology for Phonology Terms (from letter P to letter R)

This essay, which is part three (3) of the report on the formulation of Yorùbá phonology terms from their English counterparts, discusses English phonology terms for letters P, Q, and R and the Yorùbá counterparts, totaling ninety-one (91) terms numbered from 187 to 278.[1] Preceding letters A to O have been discussed in part one and part two of this report, numbers 1 to 104, letters A to G, and numbers 105 to 186, letters H to O, respectively. In this report, we compiled these terms in English, alphabetically arranged, from letter P to letter R, and developed their Yorùbá equivalents. In doing this, we extracted these phonology terms from three phonology textbooks and two specialized/technical dictionaries on linguistics and phonology. We employed the Information Processing Model (IPM) framework. Some of the terms developed are palatalization, ìso̩dàfàjàpè, paragoge ìfìró-bò̩parí, parasitic harmony àǹkóò àfòmó̩, parse ìpínsífó̩rán-ìhun, partial overlapping ìwo̩nú-ara e̩lé̩be̩, phonaestheme fóníìmù-àyo̩túnyo̩, phonemic overlapping ìpòórá fóníìmù, phonological phrase boundary ààlà àpólà fonó̩ló̩jì, phonological prime fó̩nrán-akérépin fonó̩ló̩jì, quantity-sensitive feet è̩wo̩n-atéńté aníwò̩n-agbe̩gé̩, recessive vowel fáwè̩lì àdínkù, redundancy rule òfin aléélè̩
 [1] See Yoruba – The Journal of Yoruba Studies Association of Nigeria, Volume 12:1, January 2023 and Volume 12:2, June 2023 for the first 2 of the four-part essays.

Prominence as an anchor for a clitic: prosody-sensitive placement of the conditional subordinator <em>ki</em> 'if' in Kazym Khanty

Research on clitics usually distinguishes between syntactic and phonological clitics (e.g. Embick & Noyer 2001; Anderson 2005). The latter ones are treated as highly locally restricted (Embick & Noyer 2001): they can be dislocated to the nearest possible host, i.e. attach to a nearest overtly realized head in the clausal spine or flip order with the nearest full word, irrespective of its category. Such analyses makes a prediction that phonological clitics cannot skip full words or overtly realized heads, when they are seeking for a host. In more recent research some counterarguments to this prediction have been introduced, e.g. Irish pronominal clitics (Bennett et al. 2016) and Tiwa focus clitic (Dawson 2017), which are displaced in the prosodic structure and are sensitive to bigger constituents, i.e. phonological phrases. A goal of this paper is to provide one further counterexample to this generalization and to argue that not only phonological phrases, but also prosodic prominence can play a role in clitic displacement. Namely, I describe the behavior of the conditional clitic in Kazym Khanty (Ob-Ugric, Uralic) and argue that its placement can be only analyzed as a prominence-sensitive displacement in the hierarchically organized prosodic structure. I argue that the conditional clitic in Kazym Khanty attaches to the most prosodically prominent prosodic phrase, which is defined independently. The distribution of Kazym Khanty ki ‘if’ also allows to falsify a descriptive generalization that all C-clitics stay close to the edges of a clause. This is indeed not the case with ki, since the correct analysis of the data must allow it to leave its base-position and occur clause- and phrase-internally (contra Embick & Noyer 1999). The study is based on my own fieldwork with native speakers of Kazym dialect of Nothern Khanty language (Ob-Ugric, Uralic).

Recursivity and Focus in the Prosody of Xitsonga DPs

This paper explores the prosodic patterns of complex DP structures in Xitsonga by looking at penultimate lengthening in DPs with marked and unmarked word orders of different types. We discuss the underlying syntactic structures and prosodic realizations of Xitsonga DPs. We are particularly interested in the way in which recursion applies in the Xitsonga DP, where it surfaces in DPs with multiple modifiers of the same or different categories that appear in fronted (i.e., pre-nominal) positions. We propose that in Xitsonga nominal constituents move to a left-periphery-like position within the DP domain and that this position matches to a focus-marked phonological phrase. This type of phonological phrase is forced to remain in the phonology even if the one-word phrase violates the Binarity constraint. We argue that the penultimate lengthening effects found in Xitsonga with the reordering of DP internal elements are best analyzed as showing sensitivity to this focus-marked phonological phrase.

On the Distribution of Neutral Tone in Southern Min: LCC and Beyond

The aim of this paper is to address an often-overlooked topic in Southern Min tonology: neutral tone. We show that the tone sandhi domain in Southern Min is not always isomorphic with an XP in syntax or a phonological phrase. In fact, this domain may be smaller than what has been predicted, as evidenced in the phrase-final functional morphemes as well as in the rhythmic effect. We propose that the tone sandhi domain in Southern Min is defined by a constituent Tone Sandhi Domain (TSD, τ) between the p-phrase and the p-word. A TSD is required to bear a final prominence, and only a p-word, mapped from a contentive or focused element in syntax, can be a “prominence-bearing unit.”

Penultimate lengthening in isiNdebele: A system and its variations

Lengthening of the penultimate syllable in a word, phrase, or utterance is common across Bantu languages, especially in Eastern and Southern Bantu languages. Despite the prevalence of the general phenomenon, there is significant cross-linguistic diversity in how PUL is instantiated. The aim of this paper is to describe the PUL patterns and variation in isiNdebele, a Nguni language spoken in South Africa. IsiNdebele is closely related to Zulu and frequently spoken in situations of intense contact with Zulu, but its realisation of penultimate lengthening nevertheless shows important differences from what has been reported for Zulu and other Nguni languages. In addition, penultimate lengthening in isiNdebele shows significant internal variation, both across speakers and across utterances produced by the same speaker. This variation has implications for both phonological and syntactic analyses of this language: Many studies of phonological phrasing in other Nguni languages use penultimate length as the main phonetic cue for phrase boundaries, but a strict correlation between PUL and phrasing cannot be confirmed for isiNdebele. Lengthening also depends on factors such as speech rate, emphasis, and careful vs. casual speech.

Increased Pre-Boundary Lengthening Does Not Enhance Implicit Intonational Phrase Perception in European Portuguese: An EEG Study.

Prosodic phrasing is the segmentation of utterances into prosodic words, phonological phrases (smaller units) and intonational phrases (larger units) based on acoustic cues-pauses, pitch changes and pre-boundary lengthening. The perception of prosodic boundaries is characterized by a positive event-related potential (ERP) component, temporally aligned with phrase boundaries-the Closure Positive Shift (CPS). The role of pre-boundary lengthening in boundary perception is still a matter of debate: while studies on phonological phrase boundaries indicate that all three cues contribute equally, approaches to intonational phrase boundaries highlight the pause as the most powerful cue. Moreover, all studies used explicit boundary recognition tasks, and it is unknown how pre-boundary lengthening works in implicit prosodic processing tasks, characteristic of real-life contexts. In this study, we examined the effects of pre-boundary lengthening (original, short, and long) on the EEG responses to intonational phrase boundaries (CPS effect) in European Portuguese, using an implicit task. Both original and short versions showed equivalent CPS effects, while the long set did not elicit the effect. This suggests that pre-boundary lengthening does not contribute to improved perception of boundaries in intonational phrases (longer units), possibly due to memory and attention-related constraints.

Sândi Vocálico Externo no Português Vernacular Santomense / External Vocalic Sandhi in Santomean Popular Portuguese

This paper describes three processes of external vowel sandhi — degemination (DG), elision (EL), and diphthongization (DT) — in São Tomé Vernacular Portuguese (PST). All three processes are found in PST: 32% DG; 36% EL; 52.5% DT. Working with six Santomean informants, we analyzed a corpus of 113 sentences with vowel encounters in word boundaries (V#V). Then, we measured the duration of vowel encounters or the single resulting vowel when the encounter was undone. Factors such as the nature of the prosodic boundaries (phonological word, phonological phrase, and intonational phrase), prosodic stress (lexical and phonological word), and vowel quality are crucial to implementing sandhi processes. However, they occur in different prosodic settings: diphthongization occurs between intonation phrases (IP+IP) as long as their boundary is not limited by a pause. In contrast, elision and degemination occur in phonological word boundaries (ω + ω) and phonological phrase boundaries (ϕ + ϕ). The prominence of the phonological phrase was the preponderant factor in preventing all processes, blocking degemination whenever phonological phrase stress matches with a stressed second vowel. For elision and diphthongization, sandhi was blocked when two stressed vowels co-occurred with the stress of a phonological phrase.

Phrase-Level ATR Vowel Harmony in Anum—A Case of Recursive Prosodic Phrasing

(1) Like many other Kwa languages, Anum employs a pattern of [ATR] vowel harmony that is regressive and [+ATR] dominant (RVH). This paper analyses RVH as a phrasal process which takes into account recursive phonological phrases. The proposal argues for an application of the process within and across non-maximal phonological phrases (φ) and a blocking of application across maximal phonological phrases (φmax). (2) Investigating RVH in Anum in more detail, the size of constituents and the complexity of sentence structures are varied. Target sentences were recorded and transcribed for [ATR] vowel harmony. (3) The empirical data show that RVH applies frequently between words that belong to either the same or to different syntactic constituents, but is blocked between two verb phrases of a serial verb construction and between any word and a following sentence-final time adverbial. Interestingly, RVH occurs between a sentence-initial subject constituent and a following verb or verb phrase, independent of the size of the subject constituent and the remaining number of words in the sentence. (4) The proposed OT analysis accounts for RVH within syntax-phonology Match Theory and addresses both word-level and phrase-level harmony. The special behaviour of subject constituents that prosodically phrase together with verbs and with constituents of the verb phrase (VP) is discussed. Either a phonological well-formedness constraint or a syntactically distinct input may account for phrasing effects with subject constituents in Anum.

The role of vowel length and pitch in Xhosa sentence type intonation

This paper is a first study of intonation across different sentence types in Xhosa. A recent increase in intonation research of African languages, including Bantu, has shown that intonation involves the manipulation of several distinct prosodic features such as vowel length and voice, next to pitch (Downing and Rialland 2017a). Xhosa is a tonal language as many other African languages, meaning that the use of pitch for intonational purposes interacts with the use of lexical and grammatical tone. Moreover, other means are employed than pitch rise to distinguish different intonational phrases. For example, previous research shows that polar questions in Xhosa are indicated by reducing the lengthening of the penultimate vowel of a phrase, which is long in declaratives (Jones 2001). This paper expands on such previous studies and includes the intonation of different kinds of questions and focus constructions in order to sketch a more complete picture of Xhosa intonation. It shows that the manipulation of penultimate lengthening plays an important role in distinguishing different phrases, in combination with declination and final lowering of pitch. Also, devoicing the last vowel to a whisper indicates end of the intonation phrase. Understanding the interaction of tone, intonation and phonological phrasing is important for understanding the grammatical structure and discourse pragmatics of Bantu languages.

Tone and prosodic recursion in Degema nouns and noun phrases

Abstract This paper presents the first systematic study of tone in nouns and noun phrases in Degema. From a database of approximately 1,000 nouns, we find that nouns fall into three main tone patterns: /L-L/ (48% of nouns), /H-H/ (18%), and /L-HH/ (13%). This last case is theoretically important in that it includes cases where two separate H tones associate to the same tone-bearing unit, in violation of the Obligatory Contour Principle. In isolation, nouns are subject to two basic tone rules which alter their underlying forms: downstep is inserted between two final H’s (e.g. /H-H/ → [H↓H]), and H is inserted at the end of an all-low sequence (e.g. /L-L/ → [LH]). The combined effect of these rules is that virtually all nouns and noun phrases have a pitch change. Further, we catalog tonal effects found on nouns in 33 distinct modificational contexts within the noun phrase. We attribute these tonal effects to whether modifiers plus the noun form phonological phrases (φ) or phonological words (ɷ), and whether they form recursive prosodic structures, e.g. of the type ( ( A )φ B )φ. By positing recursive structure, we can localize tonal effects to an outermost prosodic layer (e.g. φ[+max]), innermost layer (e.g. φ[+min]), non-inner or outermost layers (e.g. φ[-max]), or to the prosodic category as a whole (i.e. all layers of a φ).

The interaction of focus and phrasing with downstep and post-low-bouncing in Mandarin Chinese.

L(ow) tone in Mandarin Chinese causes both downstep and post-low-bouncing. Downstep refers to the lowering of a H(igh) tone after a L tone, which is usually measured by comparing the H tones in a “H…HLH…H” sentence with a “H…HHH…H” sentence (cross-comparison), investigating whether downstep sets a new pitch register for the scaling of subsequent tones. Post-low-bouncing refers to the raising of a H tone after a focused L tone. The current study investigates how downstep and post-low-bouncing interact with focus and phrasing in Mandarin Chinese. In the experiment, we systematically manipulated (a) the tonal environment by embedding two syllables with either LH or HH tone (syllable X and Y) sentence-medially in the same carrier sentences containing only H tones; (b) boundary strength between X and Y by introducing either a syllable boundary or a phonological phrase boundary; and (c) information structure by either placing a contrastive focus in the HL/HH word (XF), syllable Y (YF), or the sentence-final word (ZF). A wide-focus condition served as the baseline. With systematic control of focus and boundary strength around the L tone, the current study shows that the downstep effect in Mandarin is quite robust, lasting for 3–5 H tones after the L tone, but eventually levelling back again to the register reference line of a H tone. The way how focus and phrasing interact with the downstep effect is unexpected. Firstly, sentence-final focus has no anticipatory effect on shortening the downstep effect; instead, it makes the downstep effect lasts longer as compared to the wide focus condition. Secondly, the downstep effect still shows when the H tone after the L tone is on-focus (YF), in a weaker manner than the wide focus condition, and is overridden by the post-focus-compression. Thirdly, the downstep effect gets greater when the boundary after the L tone is stronger, because the L tone is longer and more likely to be creaky. We further analyzed downstep by measuring the F0 drop between the two H tones surrounding the L tone (sequential-comparison). Comparing it with F0 drop in all-H sentences (i.e., declination), it showed that the downstep effect was much greater and more robust than declination. However, creaky voice in the L tone was not the direct cause of downstep. At last, when the L tone was under focus (XF), it caused a post-low-bouncing effect, which is weakened by a phonological phrase boundary. Altogether, the results showed that although intonation is largely controlled by informative functions, the physical-articulatory controls are relatively persistent, varying within the pitch range of 2.5 semitones. Downstep and post-low-bouncing in Mandarin Chinese thus seem to be mainly due to physical-articulatory movement on varying pitch, with the gradual tonal F0 change meeting the requirement of smooth transition across syllables, and avoiding confusion in informative F0 control.

한국어 음운구 억양 유형의 변별적 특성과 변이 조건에 대한 연구: 음절 수와 분절음 종류의 영향을 중심으로*

This study identifies distinguishing features and variability of intonation patterns in Korean phonological phrases. Syllable count and segmental content, which are phonological conditions, of the intonation of phonological phrases were examined. Based on the four syllables, the intonation of a phonological phrase can be set to LHLH as the basic form, and syllable count acts as a condition for making a variation. The “3 syllables or less condition” changes the intonation from a curved line to a straight line. Variation occurs in pitch bandwidth and fluctuation according to segmental content. The first segment affects the phonological phrase formation bandwidth, and the following segment affects the pitch fluctuation. If the first segment has [+aspirate], [+tense], [+continuant], the intonation is formed in the high band, otherwise, it is formed in the low band. If the second or after segment in the intonation realized in the high band has [–aspirate], [–tense], [–continuant], the pitch is lowered to the lowest level of the low bandwidth. In the intonation realized in the low band, [+aspirate], [+tense], [+continuant] is blocked by the second descent of LHLH.

Prosodic Word Recursion in a Polysynthetic Language (Blackfoot; Algonquian)

This paper focuses on prosodic adjunction at the Prosodic Word level in a polysynthetic language. I argue that recursion at a depth of more than two levels can only be generated by a theory which requires exact correspondence between certain syntactic phrases and Prosodic Words. Such a theory is similar to Phonological Phrase correspondence in Match Theory, suggesting there is an underlying shared property between correspondence at the Prosodic Word and Phonological Phrase levels. In addition, this theory must include a constraint which prohibits recursive prosodic constituents in order to generate the attested typology of clitics across languages. The empirical focus is the prosodic structure of the verbal complex in Blackfoot (Algonquian; ISO 639-3: bla). Using phonotactic evidence I argue that the vP phase corresponds to a Prosodic Word, and that each prefix to the stem is a Prosodic Word adjunct. I then compare several theories of the syntax-prosody interface, including versions of Alignment Theory, Wrap Theory, and Match Theory. A subset of schematic candidates with one or two prefixes to a stem are used to determine which theories generate the attested typology of clitics as well as a multiply recursive Prosodic Word structure.

An Account to n-realization in Standard and Jordanian Arabic

This paper focuses on n-liaison which is a phonological process in Arabic. There are two types of liaison in Arabic: the case of the feminine -t and the -n of the sound masculine plural and the dual. Several proposals have been suggested to account for the (non-)application of t-liaison. It has been proposed that its application is determined by its distribution in its spell-out domain in Jordanian Arabic (Jaradat, to appear), its maximal syntactic projection in Standard Arabic (Abdelghani 2010) and its containing phonological phrase in both varieties (Yasin 2012). As for n-liaison, no previous studies accounted for this process. In this study, following Jaradat (to appear), I will show that n-liaison in Standard Arabic is relatively similar to t-liaison. Its realization and omission is adequately predicted by Phase Theory (Chomsky 2001). Its realization is determined based on its distribution in its spell-out domain: it must be omitted in a spell-out domain-internal position. Otherwise, it must be realized. As for n-liaison in Jordanian Arabic, it cannot be fully explained and predicted by the multiple spell-out algorithm since the -n with the dual form must be realized in all possible distributions. With regard to the sound plural, -n is optionally omitted in a spell-out domain-internal position and obligatorily preserved in final position

Degenerate feet in phrasal phonology: evidence from Latin and Ancient Greek

AbstractDegenerate feet, even when forbidden in isolated words, can arise within phrases due to resyllabification. In particular, when a stressed monosyllable of the shape C0VC (where V is short) undergoes resyllabification in Latin and Ancient Greek, it yields a degenerate foot. While degenerate feet were tolerated in prose, they were avoided in hexameter verse. Even though a degenerate foot is a kind of light syllable, a light metrical position could not contain a foot. Verse evidence is used as a window onto the general prosodic structure of each language, revealing that speakers productively recognised degenerate feet and distinguished them from other prosodic categories.

Lexical Category and Downstep in Japanese

In pursuing the mapping between syntax and phonology/prosody, little attention has been paid to the kinds of syntactic information that can affect prosody. In this paper, we explore Japanese downstep, a process in phrasal phonology. What syntactic information affects downstep and what does not? Specifically, do lexical categories affect downstep? We investigate the effects of nouns, adjectives, and verbs in different syntactic settings (e.g., [X1 [X2 N]], [[X1 X2] N], predicative X) through production experiments. We found that adjectives in [X1 [X2 N]] may block downstep, whereas adjectives in other structures as well as nouns and verbs generally do not block it. We analyze this phonological patterning as being derivative of an interaction between syntactic structures and lexical categories.

Hesitations and relative proeminence in prosodic constituents in children's speech.

to verify if hesitations would occur, preferably, in strong or weak positions of four of the prosodic constituents: phonological utterance, intonational phrase, phonological phrase and clitic group. the data were extracted from a bank composed of 147 interview situations recorded with children aged 5-6 years. Was used the principle of relative prominence for the analysis of prosodic constituents. From this principle, the hesitant occurrences identified in prominent elements in the organization of each of the prosodic constituents was considered as for strong position and, as in a weak position, the hesitant occurrences identified in parts of constituents that surround the prominent positions. The judges detected 2.399 hesitant occurrences. the following total hesitations were identified in strong and weak positions, respectively: (1) in the phonological utterance = 305 (28.37%) and 770 (71.63%); (2) in the intonational phrase = 285 (20.67%) and 1094 (79.33%); (3) in the phonological phrase = 129 (16.49%) and 653 (83.51%); and (4) in the clitic group = 154 (15.21%) and 859 (84.79%). although hesitant occurrences have been identified in strong positions in all prosodic constituents analyzed, there was prevalence due to the weak position. This result corroborates studies that claim that hesitations would occur in non-nuclear prosodic portions. Furthermore to this confirmation, the results reinforce the effectiveness of the prosodic phonology model in relation to the principle of relative prominence.