Phonology Final

What is a stranded tone?

When a tone is left behind after the TBU is removed

What is tonal stability?

When a tone remains on the tonal tier after being stranded

What is the Twin Sister Convention?

When two identical tones become associated with the same TBU, they coalesce (e.g. if a stranded H tone became associated with a neighboring TBU that already had an H, they would combine into one H)

What is a floating tone?

A tone that belongs to a morpheme, but is not underlyingly associated with any TBU

What does C’ mean?

A stray C, or an unsyllabified C

What is Stray Erasure? Give an example from class.

When C’ is deleted as a “repair strategy” for a language-specific restriction (usually a coda restriction. E.g. [w] deletion in Cree, Cw# → C#)

What is persistent syllabification? Give an example from class.

Whenever phonological rules apply, the syllabification rules re-apply if applicable

In Yawelmani, there is [i] epenthesis to prevent coda clusters. The root /logw/ surfaces as [logiw], but as [logw-ol] when it can re-syllabify it’s suffix.

What rule is always followed cross-linguistically for onset and coda augmentation?

The Sonority Hierarchy (although each language might have it’s own slightly modified hierarchy (e.g. Lebanese Arabic), and they can implement their own constraints (e.g. English *[labial]w is an onset constraint)

Draw out the rules of onset and coda augmentation in respect to the Sonority Hierarchy

Look at Week 8 Day 1

What are the steps of syllabification? Pretend you’re being asked to show a derivation

Sigma assigment

Onset formation

Coda formation

What is an open syllable? A closed syllable?

CV (universally allowed), CVC (allowed in some languages)

What is a simpler way of saying {C,#} ?

___ C]syll

What is Closed Syllable Shortening?

A rule where long vowels shorten when they are followed by a coda (Vː → V / ___ C]syll). Yawelmani example [woːnen] versus [wonhin].

What does tautosyllabic mean? Heterosyllabic?

Belonging to the same syllable, belonging to a different syllable

What rule of syllabifiaction is universal?

Onsets are preferred

Onset formation: VCV → V.CV

What are some common rules to look for in terms of rule-ordering derivations?

Vowel shortening, vowel lowering, diphthongization, spirantization, rounding, total nasal assimilation, vowel harmony

What are some approaches to identifying phonological triggers?

Sort out the local environments

Look for vowel harmony

Look at stress and/or tone

Identify any patterns in syllable position

What is rule feeding?

When one rule creates the right conditions for the next rule

What is rule bleeding?

When one rule REMOVES the right conditions for another rule

What is rule counter-feeding?

One rule would have created the right conditions for another, but it’s ordered too late

How do you write a rule of deletion?

X → ∅

How do you write a rule of epenthesis?

∅ → X

What are the parts of a rule?

Focus (structural trigger/input + structural change/output), trigger, and context

What is the rule for morpheme boundaries in rule notation?

The presence of a morpheme boundary will never block a rule, regardless if the rule mentions a morpheme boundary or not.

If the rule DOES include a “+” in the context, indicating a morpheme boundary, that morpheme boundary is mandatory

What is rule iteration?

The order in which the rules apply during a derivation

What is rule directionality? (2 types)

1. The direction that the alternations go (e.g. stop to affricate vs affricate to stop)

2. The direction across the word that the rules apply (L to R versus R to L)

What is rule iteration?

When a rule can apply multiple times during a derivation

How do you calculate the required number of distinctive features?

If y is the number of contrasts, the minimum number of distinctive features needed is n, where 2n ≥ y

Explain tone vs pitch accent vs intonation

Tone is distinctive and lexically specified

Pitch accent can contrast words, but there’s only one pitch-bearing unit

Intonation is not distinctive

What is the Obligatory Contour Principle?

You can’t have adjacent identical tones within a single morpheme

(This is really important for derivations that involve associative tone lowering! If there’s funky patterns about which ones are lowering and which ones aren’t, try looking at the autosegmental representation)

What tone-morphology phenomenon do we see in languages that treat compounds like two distinct words?

H-Spread and Contour Tone Simplification, apparently

What are some good rules to look for while analyzing tone?

H-Spread, Contour Simplification, Association Conventions (if stated as part of the language)

Explain Declination vs Downstep vs Downdrift

Declination = the general downward pitch of a sentence (declaratives)

Downstep = in a series of LHs, the Hs get progressively lower

Downdrift = the same as downstep, but no overt L

What is the rule of Contour Formation?

Link a stranded tone to the immediately following tone (look at Etsako for an example)