Gradience and locality in phonology: Case studies from Turkic vowel harmony

In very general terms, phonology is the study of both the representational and computational properties of human sound patterns. These issues have been the focus of descriptive, formal, typological, and experimental work. This dissertation draws on experimental and fieldwork data from vowel harmony in four Central Asian Turkic languages, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Uyghur, and Uzbek, to examine the computational and representational nature of vowel harmony patterns. One perennial computational question relates to the nature of phonological dependencies – how local must they be? In the dissertation I examine reported transparency in Uyghur backness harmony to evaluate previous analyses of transparent /i/ in the language. Results indicate that putatively transparent vowels actually undergo harmony, which in turn suggests that the analysis of Uyghur is computationally far simpler than previously thought. The dissertation also investigates the strictness with which locality is evaluated, comparing various proposals concerning the participation of consonants in vowel harmony, developing a more nuanced understanding of the interplay between phonetics and phonology that accounts for segment-intrinsic resistance to coarticulation in harmony.In addition to locality, the dissertation examines the nature of phonological representations. Structuralist and Generative research has generally assumed that phonology manipulates abstract categorical variables, in contrast to the gradient variables that pervade phonetics. As an example, Zsiga (1997) argues that vowel harmony, in contrast to gradient phonetic assimilation, produces categorical alternations between target vowels whose output forms are indistinguishable from their triggering counterparts. Results from an acoustic study suggest that backness harmony in Kazakh and Uyghur produces output sounds that systematically differ from trigger vowel qualities, with the assimilatory effect of harmony gradiently petering out across the word. After comparing findings to plausible phonetic and phonological accounts, I argue that the best account of the data involves gradient phonology. Throughout the rest of the dissertation I develop the claim that phonology may be gradient, examining gradience in harmony from perceptual, formal, and typological perspectives

Linguistic probes into human history

Dit proefschrift omvat vijf reeds gepubliceerde artikelen en een studie die binnenkort verschijnt. Daarin heb ik taalkundige methoden onderzocht, getoetst en gebruikt om linguïstische variëteiten te classificeren op basis van steekproeven die bestaan uit lexicale items.De gerapporteerde studies hebben betrekking op de classificatie van Nederlandse variëteiten uit Nederland, talen en dialecten uit Spanje, Bantu-variëteiten uit Gabon, Tanzania en tenslotte Turkse en Indo-Iraanse talen die gesproken worden in Kirgizstan, Tadzjikistan en Oezbekistan.Binnen een multidisciplinair perspectief dat gericht is op het verschaffen van een hoger niveau van antropologische synthese wordt de taalkundige diversiteit gebruikt als proxy voor de culturele verschillen van de overeenkomstige populaties en wordt vervolgens vergeleken met de variabiliteit van familienamen (hun aantal, frequentie en geografische verdeling) of met genetische verschillen die gebaseerd zijn op moleculaire kenmerken in het DNA.Met betrekking tot dat laatste kan de analyse van familienamen migraties zichtbaar maken die mogelijk in historische tijden hebben plaatsgevonden, en kunnen we regio's onderscheiden die veel immigranten hebben ontvangen die wegtrokken uit demografisch stabieler gebleven regio's. Wij vermoeden dat dergelijke migratiepatronen dialect- en taalcontact hebben beïnvloed. Dit is een nieuw perspectief van waaruit we de effecten van migratie op taalverandering kunnen onderzoeken.This thesis in linguistics includes five published articles and one study to appear, in which I review, test and use computational linguistic methods to classify languages and dialects consisting of lexical items – the sort of material that is generally readily available from linguistic atlases and databases. To compare linguistic varieties and classify them, methods that lead to the computation of a linguistic distance matrix are used.The studies reported respectively concern the classification of Dutch dialects from the Netherlands; languages and dialects from Spain; Bantu languages from Gabon, Tanzania and, finally, Turkic and Indo-Iranian languages spoken in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.In a multidisciplinary perspective aimed at providing a higher level of anthropological synthesis, linguistic diversity is used as a proxy for the cultural differences of corresponding populations and is then compared to the variability of family names (their number, frequency and geographic distribution) or to genetic differences based on molecular markers on the DNA. The analysis of family names enables the depiction of migrations which have taken place in historical times, and, allows us to distinguish regions that have received many immigrants from those that have remained demographically more stable. We conjecture that such migration patterns have influenced dialect and language contact. This is a novel perspective from which we may examine the effects of migration on language change, for example it appears that Spanish languages have remained lively because the regions where they are spoken have often be quite isolated demographically

The Gamut: A Journal of Ideas and Information, No. 14, Winter 1985

CONTENTS OF ISSUE NO. 14, WINTER 1985 Dick Goddard: Weather Forecasting and Folklore, 2 Ancient weather maxims rival modern science A. H. Benade: The Evolution of Woodwinds, 10 Changes of design have radically altered performance qualities Dennis Dooley: Time\u27s Shadow: The Thin Man and Dashiell Hammett, 34 Famous detective writer was his own most popular character Laura Martin: Gringa in the Field, 45 Woman anthropologist\u27s experience among Mayan Indians Glending Olson: What\u27s So Fine About the Arts?, 64 In earlier times, the fine arts were so much a part of daily life that nobody noticed they were there Bernard Comrie: The Soviet Union\u27s 130 Languages, 74 Official policy lets Tadzhik and Chuvash co-exist with Russian David Guralnik: Word Watch: Productive Suffixes III, 81 Jesse Bier: Paradise Renounced, 83 Switzerland is no longer delicious chocolates and friendly people BACK MATTER Bruce A. Beatie: Running the Gamut, 89 Vonna Adrian: Dogs in Church, 90 Carsten Ahrens: Cultural News from Danbury, Ohio, 1879, 93https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/gamut_archives/1011/thumbnail.jp

Past and present

Tungusic is a small family of languages, many of which are endangered. It encompasses approximately twenty languages located in Siberia and northern China. These languages are distributed over an enormous area that ranges from the Yenisey River and Xinjiang in the west to the Kamchatka Peninsula and Sakhalin in the east. They extend as far north as the Taimyr Peninsula and, for a brief period, could even be found in parts of Central and Southern China. This book is an attempt to bring researchers from different backgrounds together to provide an open-access publication in English that is freely available to all scholars in the field. The contributions cover all branches of Tungusic and a wide range of linguistic features. Topics include synchronic descriptions, typological comparisons, dialectology, language contact, and diachronic reconstruction. Some of the contributions are based on first-hand data collected during fieldwork, in some cases from the last speakers of a given language

Tungusic languages

Tungusic is a small family of languages, many of which are endangered. It encompasses approximately twenty languages located in Siberia and northern China. These languages are distributed over an enormous area that ranges from the Yenisey River and Xinjiang in the west to the Kamchatka Peninsula and Sakhalin in the east. They extend as far north as the Taimyr Peninsula and, for a brief period, could even be found in parts of Central and Southern China. This book is an attempt to bring researchers from different backgrounds together to provide an open-access publication in English that is freely available to all scholars in the field. The contributions cover all branches of Tungusic and a wide range of linguistic features. Topics include synchronic descriptions, typological comparisons, dialectology, language contact, and diachronic reconstruction. Some of the contributions are based on first-hand data collected during fieldwork, in some cases from the last speakers of a given language