On the loss of Ergative Displacement in Basque and the role of analogy in the development of morphological paradigms

Finite verbs in Basque agree with subject, direct object and indirect object. Argument agreement is complicated by the phenomenon of Ergative Displacement. In Bermeo ED has been lost. Both dialectological and diachronic evidence show that this has been the final resul of a process whereby forms are replaced one by one, starting with the least commonly used forms. Speakers employ analogies to derive less common forms, without complete morphological analysis

Remarks on the diachronic reconstruction of intonational patterns in Romance with special attention to Occitan as a bridge language

This paper approaches Romance intonation from a diachronic point of view. The position that is adopted is that this is an area open to investigation. Comparative techniques can be fruitfully employed for investigating the evolution and diversification of the intonational patterns of the Romance languages. The focus of the paper is on Occitan. This is an important bridge language whose study may elucidate how French diverged prosodically from the systems found in Ibero and Italo-Romance. It is argued that, since Occitan was retained contrasts in the position of wordaccent (lexical stress), any prosodic features that French shares with Occitan are logically independent from the lack of contrastive accent in French

Sobre el concepte de derivació fonològica : alguns fenòmens vocàlics en basc i en català

In the standard generative model, phonological rules are strictly ordered, potentially giving rise to complicated derivations with a large number of intermediate representations. In such a model, the order in which the rules apply is as important as the correct formulation of the rules. There are obvious conceptual problems with this theoretical framework, and in recent years several proposals which do away with rule ordering have been put forward. In this paper, we examine a number of vocalic alternations in Basque and Valencian (Southern Catalan), which in a standard generative analysis require a complex rule ordering. Adapting Lakoff' s model we show that, in every case, we can have a simple mapping between two levels with all operations applying simultaneously. In these cases at least, rule order can be shown to be an unnecessary complication

On the comparative method, internal reconstruction, and other analytical tools for the reconstruction of the evolution of the Basque language: an assessment

This paper is an attempt to present the state of the art in Basque historical phonology. The accomplishments and limitations of different methodologies are evaluated. These methodologies include the application of the comparative method to Basque dialects, the analysis of old borrowings in Michelena’s work, internal reconstruction, and Lakarra’s canonical root hypothesis. I also discuss the possibilities afforded by internal reconstruction and root theory for discovering genetic relationships between Basque and other languages, focusing on recent proposals

/tl/ en español mexicano. ¿Un segmento o dos?

En español mexicano, la frecuencia de /tl/ es mucho más alta que en español peninsular, dado que aparece en un número relativamente alto de préstamos y topónimos del náhuatl. La distribución de /tl/ en español mexicano nos lleva a plantearnos si acaso, en esta variedad, /tl/ debe considerarse como un único segmento (una oclusiva lateralizada) en vez de como secuencia. En este artículo examinamos la hipótesis de que /tl/ pudiera ser único segmento en español de México. Asumimos que una duración más reducida de /tl/ con respecto a grupos como /pl/ y /kl/ podría servir como evidencia de monosegmentalismo. Sin embargo, nuestros resultados experimentales no ofrecen evidencia para esta hipótesis. Por el contrario, sirven para establecer que /tl/ es de hecho un grupo de ataque consonántico en español mexicano. Un hecho interesante, pero no inesperado, es que, en posición media, /tl/ es más breve en mexicano que en español de Castilla. Esto resulta de una conocida diferencia en silabificación entre los dos dialectos. En conclusión, /tl/ es un grupo de ataque en mexicano, tanto en posición inicial como media. En español de Castilla, por otra parte, sólo puede ser un grupo heterosilábico.In Mexican Spanish the lexical frequency of /tl/ is much higher than in Peninsular Spanish, since it appears in a sizeable number of borrowings and toponyms from Nahuatl. The distribution of /tl/ in Mexican Spanish raises the question of whether /tl/ is actually better viewed a single segment in this Spanish variety (a stop with lateral release, like in Nahuatl), rather than as a sequence of segments, as in Peninsular Spanish. In this paper we test the hypothesis that /tl/ is monosegmental in Mexican Spanish. Our assumption is that reduced duration of /tl/ with respect to similar groups such as /pl/ and /kl/ would provide evidence for monosegmentalism. The experimental results do not offer support for the monosegmental hypothesis. Instead, they serve to establish that /tl/ is, in fact, an onset cluster in Mexican Spanish, not significantly different in its duration from other clusters. Interestingly, but not unexpectedly, word-medial /tl/ is shorter in Castilian than in Mexican Spanish. This follows from a well-known difference in syllabification between the two dialects. In conclusion, /tl/ is an onset cluster in Mexican Spanish, both wordinitially and word-medially. In Castilian Spanish, on the other hand, it can only be a heterosyllabic group.En español mexicano, la frecuencia de /tl/ es mucho más alta que en español peninsular, dado que aparece en un número relativamente alto de préstamos y topónimos del náhuatl. La distribución de /tl/ en español mexicano nos lleva a plantearnos si acaso, en esta variedad, /tl/ debe considerarse como un único segmento (una oclusiva lateralizada) en vez de como secuencia. En este artículo examinamos la hipótesis de que /tl/ pudiera ser único segmento en español de México. Asumimos que una duración más reducida de /tl/ con respecto a grupos como /pl/ y /kl/ podría servir como evidencia de monosegmentalismo. Sin embargo, nuestros resultados experimentales no ofrecen evidencia para esta hipótesis. Por el contrario, sirven para establecer que /tl/ es de hecho un grupo de ataque consonántico en español mexicano. Un hecho interesante, pero no inesperado, es que, en posición media, /tl/ es más breve en mexicano que en español de Castilla. Esto resulta de una conocida diferencia en silabificación entre los dos dialectos. En conclusión, /tl/ es un grupo de ataque en mexicano, tanto en posición inicial como media. En español de Castilla, por otra parte, sólo puede ser un grupo heterosilábico

Intervocalic lenition, contrastiveness and neutralization in Catalan

Copyright (c) 2022 Jose Ignacio Hualde, Jennifer ZhangIn this study we examine the effects of word boundaries on the lenition of intervocalic voiceless plosives in Catalan in order to test the role of phonological contrastiveness in phonetic processes. Here we test the hypothesis that word-final intervocalic voiceless plosives (VC#V) will show greater lenition than word-internal and word-initial intervocalic tokens (VCV, V#CV), since in word-final position the contrast between /ptk/ and /bdg/ is neutralized. Lenition should be manifested acoustically as greater intensity, shorter duration and greater voicing. We find weaker support for the hypothesis than in a parallel study on Basque, suggesting the existence of phonological differences between the two languages. On the other hand, we find a strong effect of style on intervocalic lenition, with conversational speech promoting more lenited consonants. Intervocalic stop lenition in Catalan does not appear to be driven by temporal reduction