VV Sequences Research Articles

Ẹnà: An iterative affixation game in Yorùbá

This paper presents novel data from a Yorùbá language game called Ẹnà, an iterative affixation game that typically involves copying of vowels and tones onto a dummy syllable. Yorùbá VV sequences are all analyzed as disyllabic in existing literature, yet we find that Ẹnà treats them differently depending on their provenance: underlying VV sequences, those created from pronouns, and those derived through floating tone are treated as a single locus of insertion, as variably are those that share tone, while VV sequences derived through consonant deletion or compounding are generally treated as two separate loci. We argue that the difference indicates that Yorùbá in fact has long vowels, contrary to previous assumptions. We analyze the pattern in Optimality Theory, following Krämer & Vogt’s (2018) analysis of reduplicative language games but adding a reduplicative template and back-copying, and we consider the implications of the pattern and analysis to the study of Yorùbá and the study of language games.

The role of the loop 1 region in MazFbs mRNA interferase from Bacillus subtilis in recognition of the 3′ end of the RNA substrate

MazFbs is an mRNA interferase from Bacillus subtilis specifically recognizing UACAU. The X-ray structure of its complex with an RNA substrate has been also solved. When its amino acid sequence is compared with that of MazFhw, an mRNA interferase from a highly halophilic archaeon, recognizing UUACUCA, the 9-residue loop-1 region is highly homologous except that the V16V17 sequence in MazFbs is replaced with TK in MazFhw. Thus, we examined the role of the VV sequence in RNA substrate recognition by replacing it with TK, GG, AA or LL. The substitution mutants thus constructed showed significant differences in cleavage specificity using MS2 phage RNA. The primer extension analysis of the cleavage sites revealed that the VV sequence plays an important role in the recognition of the 3′-end base of the RNA substrate.

Bilabial Palatalisation in Zulu: A morphologically conditioned phenomenon

This article looks at the question of whether the palatalisation processes which occur in the Zulu locative, diminutive and passive are best regarded as morphologically conditioned or as phonologically conditioned. For each of these processes, arguments are presented to show that they are morphologically conditioned, and that proposed analyses of them as phonologically conditioned are incorrect. It is further argued that the rules which prevent VV sequences from arising are also morphologically conditioned. Formal morphologically conditioned analyses of each process are given.

Interactions at the syntax–phonology interface: Evidence from Ojibwe

This paper provides evidence that word-internal syntax can play a crucial role in the determination of phonological well-formedness. The focus is on an apparent paradox in Ojibwe; the language both avoids and tolerates vowels in hiatus. Adopting the theory of Distributed Morphology, we argue that VV sequences are avoided within domains that are realizations of syntactic phases, based on the theory of cyclic derivation proposed by Chomsky (2001, 2008) and others. In contrast, when a VV sequence spans the boundary between phases, it is tolerated. The apparent paradox is a consequence of the fact that the elements outside the spell-out of a phase cannot be evaluated to determine the well-formedness of prosodic entities like syllables, feet and prosodic words. Derivation by phase and Distributed Morphology also provide insights into two strategies for avoiding vowels in hiatus within a phase-domain; vowel loss applies to combinations of vocabulary items inserted in the same phase, while consonant epenthesis applies to items inserted in different phases but merged phonologically after insertion. The conditions under which consonant epenthesis occurs provide support for post-syntactic movement at the PF interface, triggered entirely by phonological factors.

Perception of stressed vs unstressed vowels: Language-specific and general patterns

Unstressed vowels are somewhat centralized (even full vowels such as the second in “city, taco"), reducing their acoustic distinctiveness. The current work compares listeners' perception of stressed and unstressed vowels in English and Dutch. The data come from two large projects on native listeners' perception of all possible diphones (CV, VC, CC, and VV sequences, all vowels stressed and unstressed) in English and Dutch. These datasets provide information about listeners' uptake of perceptual cues over time that is comparable across the two languages. Both groups perceived unstressed vowels less accurately than stressed, but this effect was far larger for English. English listeners showed a very large stress effect for lax vowels and a moderate effect for other vowels, while the Dutch listeners showed effects that were small and largely restricted to /a/. Dutch listeners may be able to identify unstressed vowels better than English listeners because the stressed-unstressed distinction has more informational value in Dutch than in English. However, both languages showed a larger stress effect just before a following consonant. This suggests that consonantal coarticulation obscures the quality of unstressed vowels in both languages. Thus, perception of stressed vs unstressed vowels demonstrates both language specificity and cross-language commonality.

Phonetic grounding of position and height asymmetries in hiatus resolution: An acoustic analysis of Korean VV sequences

Phonetic grounding of position and height asymmetries in hiatus resolution: An acoustic analysis of Korean VV sequences

Hiatus resolution strategies in Karanga (Shona)

Several languages reported in the literature have at most three hiatus resolution strategies, for example: Igede (Bergman, 1971); Obolo (Faraclas, 1982); and Greek (Haas, 1988). Karanga, a dialect of Shona, has five strategies – coalescence, spreading (epenthesis), glide formation, secondary articulation and elision. The five form a conspiracy; they ensure that hiatus (VV sequences) never surfaces. The challenge is to determine which strategy is going to apply, including the formalisation of the analysis. I assume that in each domain, there is a preferred strategy: coalescence in the Cliticisation Domain; spreading in the Verbal Domain; glide formation, secondary articulation and elision in the Nominal Domain. Glide formation, secondary articulation and elision occur in phonologically conditioned complementary distribution. The approach employed in this article may be extended to other morphologically rich languages, where hiatus resolution strategies can be used as a diagnostic for determining different prosodic boundaries.

Position and Height Asymmetries in Hiatus Resolution: A case study of Korean VV sequences

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt:Typological patterns in synchronic data, for example, the question of why pattern A is more frequent than B across languages, have been one of the most important issues in linguistics, in particular in phonology. Ohala (1993) seeks the answer in human articulatory and/or auditory mechanisms. If a phonetic ‘perturbation’ is not corrected properly in perception, a hypo-correction could occur and it could result in a sound change. In this model, typological patterns are assumed to reflect the very variation in ordinary speech. Two crosslinguistic asymmetries in hiatus reso-lution are the main concerns in this paper. Casali (1996) and Rosenthall (1997) present positional and height asymmetries. They take another approach to the ty-pological patterns in that they suggest universal constraints and rankings to ac-count for the asymmetries in the framework of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993). Crosslinguistically, hiatus resolution such as vowel deletion or gliding is more likely to occur in V1 and high vowels than in V2 and non-high vowels. If these patterns result from human articulatory and auditory mechanisms as Ohala (1993) argues, it would be expected that the production of vowel se-quences will show a pattern of phonetic variation, which is similar to the phono-logical processes. As the first step, a set of acoustic data on Korean hiatus is pre-sented in this paper. The results will show that V1 in hiatus is consistently shorter than V2, which corresponds to the positional asymmetry in Casali (1996). As for the height asymmetry, it will be reported that high vowels are more reduced in fast speech, compared to their durations in slow speech.

Innovative /ye/ and /we/ sequences in recent loans in Japanese

The GV sequences /ye/ and /we/ do not occur in Japanese except perhaps in recent loans. Katakana spellings of the relevant loans in authoritative dictionaries are inconsistent, and it is not clear whether native speakers treat them as containing the GV sequences /ye/ and /we/ or as containing the VV sequences /ie/ and /ue/. Native speakers of Japanese with minimal exposure to spoken English were recorded producing some relevant loans in response to picture prompts. The same speakers were also recorded producing some native words containing uncontroversial /ie/ and /ue/ sequences. All the productions are being analyzed acoustically to determine whether they show the expected contrast between GV and VV sequences. A VV sequence is disyllabic (and bimoraic) and should therefore have greater duration and more gradual formant movements than a monosyllabic (and monomoraic) GV sequence. Utterance-initially, a VV sequence should have a LH pitch pattern and should be preceded by a nondistinctive glottal stop, whereas a GV sequence should have a H pitch pattern and should have smooth onset.

Sandhi in Brazilian Portuguese

This paper studies the role of main stress in Brazilian Portuguese sandhi rules. It is shown that, when the second vowel of a VV sequence carries the phrasal stress, Degemination and Elision cannot apply to resolve the hiatus, whereas under the same circumstances, Diphthongization may occur. Within Optimality Theory, this restriction is explained by a Local Conjunction that controls vowel deletion as well as the alignment between the main foot and the head of the lexical word, which is irrelevant for the evaluation of outputs containing a diphthong, and therefore allows, in the latter case, the unmarked structure to emerge.

On identifying syllable boundaries

The interposition of a constant between vowels has been shown to affect systematically the formant frequencies of those vowels. The nature of these effects appears to depend on the extent to which the vowels and consonants share the tongue and lips as articulators. Traditional articulatory descriptions suggest two alternatives concerning the status of [h] and of [?] as consonants. On the one hand, since they are classified as consonants, we would expect them to produce the same coarticulatory effects as other fricatives and stops. On the other hand, since they are described as nonlingual/labial in their articulation, we would expect them to produce minimal coarticulatory effects. Indeed, results of some recent studies of speech production suggest that neither [h] nor [?] interrupts V‐to‐V articulations in the way that other consonants do (Harris and Bell‐Berti, 1982). The present study employed spectrographic analysis of VV, VhV, V?V, and VCV sequences. Results revealed that there was minimal coarticulation between [h] or [?] and the surrounding vowels. Indeed, the formant structure of the vowels in VhV and V?V sequences were more similar to those of VV sequences than to those of other VCV sequences. Since consonants are often portrayed as the units that delimit syllables, these results raise the question of functional homogeneity within the class of consonants. [Research supported by NINCDS.]

On identifying syllable boundaries

The interposition of a constant between vowels has been shown to affect systematically the formant frequencies of those vowels. The nature of these effects appears to depend on the extent to which the vowels and consonants share the tongue and lips as articulators. Traditional articulatory descriptions suggest two alternatives concerning the status of [h] and of [?] as consonants. On the one hand, since they are classified as consonants, we would expect them to produce the same coarticulatory effects as other fricatives and stops. On the other hand, since they are described as nonlingual/labial in their articulation, we would expect them to produce minimal coarticulatory effects. Indeed, results of some recent studies of speech production suggest that neither [h] nor [?] interrupts V‐to‐V articulations in the way that other consonants do (Harris and Bell‐Berti, 1982). The present study employed spectrographic analysis of VV, VhV, V?V, and VCV sequences. Results revealed that there was minimal coarticulation between [h] or [?] and the surrounding vowels. Indeed, the formant structure of the vowels in VhV and V?V sequences were more similar to those of VV sequences than to those of other VCV sequences. Since consonants are often portrayed as the units that delimit syllables, these results raise the question of functional homogeneity within the class of consonants. [Research supported by NINCDS.]

Perception of temporal order of vowels and consonant-vowel syllables.

Recent findings indicate that the presence of formant transitions aids the perception of the order of stimuli in repeating sequences of vowels or consonant-vowel (CV) syllables. In this study, 12 listeners reported the perceived order of four vowels or CVs in repeating sequences. Stimuli ranged in duration from 75 to 300 msec in 25-msec steps. Four stimulus sequences were used (1) varying vowels (Vv), (2) CVs with varying consonants but a constant vowel (CvVc), (3) CVs with a constant consonant but varying vowels (CcVv), (4) CVs with consonants and vowels varying (CvVv). Percentage of correct identification of order was significantly higher and mean threshold duration significantly lower for the CvVv and CvVc conditions than for the Vv condition. Mean number of sequences per response was significantly smaller for the CvVv condition than for the other conditions. Threshold durations ranged from 100 msec for the CvVv sequences to 135 msec for the Vv sequences. Ordering performance was nearly perfect for stimulus durations of about 225 to 250 msec. The results support the hypothesis that as stimuli in repeating sequences more closely resemble connected speech, listeners can more easily correctly identify the order of the stimuli.