Modeling Vowel Quantity Scales in Q Theory

A growing body of research suggests that vowels vary in degree of strength. These strength differences are borne out in the degree to which these segments undergo or trigger phonological processes such as stress assignment or harmony. Traditionally, this variability has been accounted for through binary differences in phonological representations, such as presence or absence of a segment in the underlying representation, presence or absence of a phonological feature, and moraicity or non-moraicity of the relevant segment. While distinctions in underlying status and moraic structure are an effective tool for capturing some of the observed differences in vowel strength, they do not capture all attested differences. In this paper, we offer evidence supporting a four-point strength scale to which faithfulness and markedness constraints can refer. This model allows for strength differences among underlying and inserted vowels, and within monomoraic and bimoraic vowels as well, subject to scalar implications. We argue that Q-Theoretic representations offer the necessary representational tool to capture the full range of vowel strength

Recent advances in Q Theory: Segment strength

Using Q Theory, in which canonical segments are represented as a sequence of three subsegments, this paper develops a scale of vowel quantity, ranging from 'superlight' single v subsegments to 'heavy' or geminate vowels consisting of four subsegments. An Optimality-Theoretic analysis of quantity-sensitive stress assignment is developed, in which stress is preferred on vowels with more subsegments. A case study of the Jê language Panãra demonstrates that a single language can draw a four-way vowel quantity contrast, to which the stress system is sensitive

An Acoustic Outlook on Initial Stops in Northern Shoshoni

Shoshoni is a member of the Uto-Aztecan language family and consists of three dialects: Western Shoshoni, Northern Shoshoni, and Eastern Shoshoni. While there has been descriptive research done on the phonetic and phonological properties of all three dialects of the language, little to no acoustic analysis has been done thus far. This paper seeks to begin the discussion of the acoustic properties of Northern Shoshoni. Specifically, the discussed data are from a speaker of Northern Shoshoni from the Shoshone1-Bannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation; in this paper I examine the voice onset time of initial stops in Shoshoni

Word-medial syllabification and gestural coordination

The focus of this study is to use Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA) data to investigate the difference between word-initial and word-medial coordination, how coordination is affected by segment quality and stress, and to model coordination as it relates to syllabification. There are four key results of this study. First, segments in word-medial position have looser constrictions than segments in word-initial position, demonstrating that articulatory pressure is a driving factor in word-medial lenition. Second, word-medial syllables differ in coordination from word-initial sequences; however, current methods of analysis do not provide adequate tools to analyze such variability. Third, jaw oscillation does provide a metric for analyzing variability, crucially, demonstrating that word-medial syllables are more variable than initial syllables and unstressed medial syllables are more variable than stressed medial syllables. In addition, clusters coordinated within the same jaw phase show an increased likelihood to show c-centering and rightward shift. Thus, there is a gradient likelihood for medial clusters to syllabify according the Onset Maximization Principle, where initial stressed syllables are most likely and medial unstressed syllables are least likely, with the cluster syllabifying instead as a coda and onset. Fourth, coordination stability is influenced by by both coupling to jaw phase and intrinsic coordination between segments; both homorganic clusters and heterorganic clusters show coordinative stability, showing that jaw rather than gestural overlap between articulators determines stability; however, cluster composition and vowel quality interact and influence patterns of coordination such that a cluster is more likely to be syllabified as an onset when the cluster and vowel match in backness. Together, these findings demonstrate that word-medial coordination is dynamic and influenced by both top-down pressures, like stress, and bottom-up pressures, like segment quality. Furthermore, these findings demonstrate that jaw oscillation can be used as a diagnostic for motor planning and syllabification, providing a tool to improve existing models of planning and syllabification

An Acoustic Outlook on Initial Stops in Northern Shoshoni

Shoshoni is a member of the Uto-Aztecan language family and consists of three dialects: Western Shoshoni, Northern Shoshoni, and Eastern Shoshoni. While there has been descriptive research done on the phonetic and phonological properties of all three dialects of the language, little to no acoustic analysis has been done thus far. This paper seeks to begin the discussion of the acoustic properties of Northern Shoshoni. Specifically, the discussed data are from a speaker of Northern Shoshoni from the Shoshone1-Bannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation; in this paper I examine the voice onset time of initial stops in Shoshoni

A Q-Theoretic approach to distinctive subsegmental timing

This paper presents two case studies of segment-internal timing distinctions which motivate Q Theory, in which each segment (Q) is represented as a string of featurally uniform subsegments (q), e.g. (q1 q2 q3), corresponding to the informal concepts of onset, target, and offset (Inkelas & Shih 2013, 2016, 2017, Shih & Inkelas 2014). We argue, based on Panará and Hungarian, that this representational richness is motivated by the need to represent phonologically tripartite segments, as well as segment-internal timing distinctions that are phonologically contrastive. In addition to supporting existing Q Theory architecture, we also argue for expanding the repertoire of Q Theory further to include phonologically long segments, such as geminates

The evolution of color naming reflects pressure for efficiency: Evidence from the recent past

Abstract: It has been proposed that semantic systems evolve under pressure for efficiency. This hypothesis has so far been supported largely indirectly, by synchronic cross-language comparison, rather than directly by diachronic data. Here, we directly test this hypothesis in the domain of color naming, by analyzing recent diachronic data from Nafaanra, a language of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, and comparing it with quantitative predictions derived from the mathematical theory of efficient data compression. We show that color naming in Nafaanra has changed over the past four decades while remaining near-optimally efficient, and that this outcome would be unlikely under a random drift process that maintains structured color categories without pressure for efficiency. To our knowledge, this finding provides the first direct evidence that color naming evolves under pressure for efficiency, supporting the hypothesis that efficiency shapes the evolution of the lexicon