Iosad, Pavel

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     Edinburgh Research Explorer                                      Length and tenseness across Welsh dialectsCitation for published version:Iosad, P 2014, 'Length and tenseness across Welsh dialects' Paper presented at 1st Conference onLanguage Diversity in Wales, Aberystwyth, United Kingdom, 25/07/14 - 26/07/14, .Link:Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research ExplorerDocument Version:Publisher final version (usually the publisher pdf)General rightsCopyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s)and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise andabide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.Take down policyThe University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorercontent complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright pleasecontact openaccess@ed.ac.uk providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately andinvestigate your claim.Download date: 20. Feb. 2015Length and tenseness across Welsh dialectsPavel IosadPrifysgol Caeredinpavel.iosad@ed.ac.ukAmrywiaeth Ieithyddol yng Nghymru Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru,Aberystwyth 19eg Gorﬀennaf 2014Outline• Length and tenseness: the phonemic status debate• Phonologization of tenseness: South-West Welsh• Vowels and provection: another instance?1 Finding phonemic contrasts1.1 The standard pictureVowel quality and length• In all varieties of Welsh words such as ton ‘wave’ and tôn ‘tune’ are a minimal pair• The only diﬀerence is the pronunciation of the vowel• In most cases, the diﬀerence is realized as one of length and quality simultaneously (e. g.G. E. Jones 1984)– Long vowels are ‘tense’: [iː uː eː oː]– Short vowels are ‘lax’: [ɪ ʊ ɛ ɔ]– The vowel [ə] can only be short– Some of the literature (e. g. C. H. Thomas 1993) also describes a qualitative diﬀerencebetween [a] and [ɑː]• A recent study by Mayr & Davies (2011) conﬁrms this picture+ We ignore some complications1Length and tenseness across Welsh dialects– The (short) vowel [ɒ] found in English borrowings– The ‘a fain’, i. e. [æ]• For many dialects, especially in the north, there is not much more to say, e. g. DyﬀrynAlyn, Flints. (A. R. Thomas 1966)(1) a. [ˈheːn] hen ‘old’b. [ˈtʰoːn] tôn ‘tune’(2) a. [ˈpʰɛn] pen ‘head’b. [ˈtʰɔn] ton ‘wave’• (The pattern might be leakier than that in some varieties, see e. g. Rees 2013)Phonemic contrast?• This sort of mutually predictable distribution is problematic in the classical phonemicframework• If one of the features is distinctive, the other becomes predictable and therefore redundant• But how do we choose?– G. E. Jones (1984), C. H. Thomas (1993): quality /pɛn/, /hen/– Awbery (1986): length /pen/, /heːn/• A question lurking in the background: what is the speciﬁcation for unstressed vowels?• Always short, but quality varies, apparently depending on position with regard to stress andpresence of following consonant in the same syllable1.2 A theoretical perspectivePhonemic status or phonologization• In many strands of current phonological theory, the thing that matters is not so muchphonemic status (i. e. whether something is predictable from looking at the surface distri-bution) but rather involvement in phonological processes• The process of becoming phonologically relevant is usually known as phonologization (Hy-man 1976, Kiparsky 1995, Barnes 2006, Bermúdez-Otero 2007)• If a particular property of segments is required for the description of phonological processes,it has become phonologized2Pavel IosadClues for phonologization in Welsh• This perspective could be helpful with Welsh• The relevant phonological process concerns the largely predictable distribution of the length/tensenessfeature in stressed syllables (e. g. Awbery 1984)– Long before [b d ɡ v ð]– Short before [p t k m ŋ]– Some dialect and positional variation with [f θ χ s ʃ ɬ]– Can be either before [n l r]– Predictable before consonant clusters• This is diﬃcult (although not quite impossible) to formalize if the interacting feature isvowel quality• An analysis in terms of vowel quantity is available• The strongest evidence comes from [n l r], where vowel length is contrastive and lexicallydistributed: easy to derive if [n l r] come in two varieties (‘short’ and ‘long’), and the ‘long’blocks vowel lengthening+ See the precise details in Iosad (2012)• Also ﬁts nicely with the absence of long vowels before clusters non-ﬁnally (= in closedsyllables)+ Interim conclusion: if we insist on picking only one contrast as ‘phonological’, quantity isthe better candidate2 Phonologization of tenseness2.1 South-West WelshImperfect distributions• In south-western dialects, the perfect isomorphism between length and tenseness breaksdownAwbery (1986, p. 9)‘The long mid vowels in penultimate syllables each have two clearly distinguishable allo-phones, one half open and the other half close. [They] are in complementary distribution,the choice between them being determined by the vowel of the ﬁnal syllable. If this con-tains a high vowel then we ﬁnd the half open allophone in the penultimate […] If howeverthe ﬁnal syllable contains a mid or low vowel then we ﬁnd the half close allophone in thepenultimate.’3Length and tenseness across Welsh dialects(3) a. [ˈtɛːbiɡ] tebyg ‘similar’b. [ˈɡɔːvin] gofyn ‘to ask’(4) a. [ˈeːde] edau ‘thread’b. [ˈoːɡov] ogof ‘cave’• Also C. Jones & Thorne (1992, p. 20): ‘Nodwedd fwy cyﬀredinol ar batrymu llafarogtafodieithoedd gorllewin Dyfed yw’r defnydd o lafariad hanner agored yn y goben acennog[…] Clywir y nodwedd mewn geiriau megis mochyn, cochi, gofyn, tlodi, priodi, meddwl, enw,wedi, heddi.’The source of the pattern• The pattern looks a bit like dissimilation: /e o/ become lower [ɛ ɔ] before a high vowel, andvice versa• Similar cases– Patterns of vowel reduction in some East Slavic dialects (e. g. Crosswhite 2000)– Vowel distributions in Irish: Munster (Ó Sé 2000), historically Connacht (Ó Sé 1984)• Reasonable explanation: trade-oﬀ in inherent length• Lower vowels are generally longer than higher ones, so a lower (longer) post-tonic vowelgives a shorter (higher) tonic vowel (and vice versa)Questions• What are the actual data? Is the pattern limited to mid vowels?• Is there a length tradeoﬀ?• Is the process (still) a gradient length trade-oﬀ, or has it morphed into a categorical symbolicoperation (cf. Myers 2000, Bermúdez-Otero & Trousdale 2012)?The study– Word list controlled for stressed vowel quality and length, post-tonic vowel height,post-tonic consonant place– Words in carrier sentence, 3 repetitions per word– 8 speakers, 6 from Carmarthenshire or Pembrokeshire– Here: 2 analysed4Pavel IosadThe outlines of the data• Measures: F1 and F2, duration for both stressed and post-tonic vowels• F1 and F2 are Lobanov-normalized (converted to z-scores) to deal with speaker-speciﬁceﬀects• We build a conditional inference tree (Hothorn, Hornik & Zeileis 2006; for linguistic ap-plications cf. Strycharczuk et al. 2014) for long vowels (N = 280) with v1.f1.normalizedas dependent variable and predictors v1, v2, v2.duration, v1.duration, v2.f1.normalizedInterpretation• Even this initial look conﬁrms the descriptions:– Stressed mid vowels are not like stressed high vowels– For stressed mid vowels, there is an eﬀect of the following vowel: [i] (high) is diﬀerentfrom [a e o] (non-high)– Once these are accounted for, there is no eﬀect of post-tonic vowel length on thequality of the stressed vowel• We know that there is an eﬀect, but what kind of eﬀect?Vowel quality: mid vowels• It looks like the height of the post-tonic vowel does give a relatively neat division• Statistics conﬁrms this: Wilcoxon rank sum test (to allow for non-normal distributions)– For /e/: W = 1502; p = 1:1834 10 11– For /o/: W = 1591; p = 5:1388 10 18• A closer look at the outliers reveals that out of 7 tokens of [ɛː] before a non-high vowel, 6belong to the word ﬀenestr ‘window’• All tokens of ﬀenestr belong to that region: [ˈfɛːnest]+ It appears to be a lexical exception: the distribution may not be perfect• Note that Awbery (1986) does cite it, but as [ˈfeːnest]5Length and tenseness across Welsh dialectsv1p < 0.0011{e, o} {i, u}v2p < 0.0012i {a, e, o}v1p = 0.0353e oNode 4 (n = 41)−2−101Node 5 (n = 41)ll−2−101v1.durp < 0.0016≤ 0.082> 0.082Node 7 (n = 14)−2−101Node 8 (n = 67)−2−101v1p < 0.0019u iv1.durp = 0.01810≤ 0.067> 0.067Node 11 (n = 11)−2−101Node 12 (n = 23)l−2−101Node 13 (n = 76)lll−2−101Figure 1: Conditional inference tree for stressed vowel height6Pavel Iosadllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllhigh non−high−101−2−101 −2−101F2, normalizedF1, normalizedV1 qualitylleoFigure 2: Normalized F1 height by V2 category: mid vowels7Length and tenseness across Welsh dialectsllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllhigh non−high−1.5−1.0−0.5−2−1012 −2−1012F2, normalizedF1, normalizedV1 qualitylliuFigure 3: Normalized F1 height by V2 category: high vowels8Pavel IosadVowel quality: high vowels• The categories seem much more similar• One-tailed t-tests:– For /i/: t(72:9925) = 0:34; p = 0:3689– For /u/: t(8:6772) = 0:38; p = 0:3563• The behaviour of high vowels is very diﬀerent from the behaviour of low onesVowel quantity• Gradient properties of the post-tonic vowel (duration and height) do not appear to inﬂuencethe height of the stressed vowel+ Evidence that phonologization has occurred• What about quantity?• At ﬁrst blush, there does not seem to be a trade-oﬀ in pure duration either• This might be due to collinearity with some overall durational measure, howeverEstimate Std. Error t value Pr(>jtj)(Intercept) 0.0741 0.0081 9.14 0.0000v2.dur 0.2408 0.0587 4.10 0.0001Table 1: Linear model for duration• However, the relationship between the durations of the two vowels is not straightforward:the duration of the post-tonic vowel grows faster than that of the stressed one• In other words, increased duration of the post-tonic vowel makes the stressed one shorterin comparison• The quantitative pattern that must have given rise to the featural process appears to be stillpresent in the grammar as a gradient phenomenon• This is an example of rule scattering (Bermúdez-Otero 2010, 2014, Ramsammy forthcom-ing, Strycharczuk et al. 2014): the pattern ascends a step in the life cycle of phonologicalprocesses, but the original pattern also remains9Length and tenseness across Welsh dialectslllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll llllllllllllllllllll llllllll llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll−2−1010.05 0.10 0.15 0.20Post−tonic vowel durationV1 to V2 duration ratio, log2 scaleFigure 4: Post-tonic vowel duration and V1/V2 ratio10Pavel Iosad2.2 South-East WelshProvection and vowel features?• Another potential candidate for the phonologization of vowel quality is seen in south-eastern dialects• The process of ‘provection’ (calediad) involves a devoicing of stops following stressed vowels• Examples from Nantgarw (C. H. Thomas 1993)(5) a. [keˈɡina] ceginau ‘kitchens’b. [ˈkekɪn] cegin ‘kitchen’(6) a. [ˈɡovɪd] goﬁd ‘regret’b. [ɡoˈvɪtjo] goﬁdio ‘to regret’Why vowel features?• The interaction between stressed vowels and devoicing is unusual• One possible route is suggested by Hannahs (2013), who notes that consonants after (short)stressed vowels are long, and gemination promotes devoicing• However, the ‘voiceless’ stops produced by provection are not identical to lexical voicelessstops (S. E. Thomas 1983)• Awbery (1984), C. H. Thomas (1993) are quite explicit that provection does not lead togemination: ‘Nid yw Caledu felly yn newid dim ar y berthynas hir/byr rhwng y ﬀrwydrolionhyn a’r llafariaid o’u blaen yn y sillaf.’ (C. H. Thomas 1993, p. 90)• Another option (Andrew Nevins p. c.): high tone on the stressed vowel prevents voicing(a parallel in Verner’s Law)• Still problematic– We don’t know for sure that high tone is associated with stress in Welsh– Provection does not aﬀect fricatives– Provection is not caused by [i] *ei ([ˈnido] neidio)– Provection is less regular in clusters• The ‘core’ context for provection is a singleton voiced stop: this is the context where vowelsare long and therefore tense• What if the tenseness has phonologized and become active in the phonology?11Length and tenseness across Welsh dialects2.3 DiscussionPhonologization from below• I have proposed that vowel quality becomes phonologized inWelsh because of its categoricalassociation with vowel length• This is consistent with the model of the life cycle of phonological processes where learnersassume that a property categorically present in the output must be present in the input(Bermúdez-Otero & Hogg 2003, Bermúdez-Otero 2007, Bermúdez-Otero & Trousdale2012, Bermúdez-Otero 2014, Roberts 2012, Ramsammy forthcoming)• Crucially, the presence of this feature does not tell the learner much about its nature– In SW Welsh, it interacts with vowel height– In SE Welsh, if the proposal is on the right track, it interacts with the laryngealfeature distinguishing stops• Support for a substance-free featural modelDialectal diversity in Welsh• Although these diﬀerences across the Welsh dialectal landscape look like relatively minorthings, they are actually quite valuable– Hopefully for communities– Certainly for linguists• Looking at cross-dialectal microvariation allows us to pinpoint interesting diﬀerences whilekeeping so many other factors constant• It is important to both engage with existing work and conduct targeted empirical researchReferencesAwbery, Gwenllian M. 1984. 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A cross-dialectal acoustic study of the monophthongs and diphthongs of Welsh.

Amphichronic explanation and the life cycle of phonological processes.

Astudiaeth o amrywiadau ﬀonolegol mewn dwy ardal yng nghanolbarth Cymru. Aberystwyth: Aberystwyth University PhD thesis.

Astudiaeth o galediad yn Ystalyfera. Swansea: University College of Swansea MA thesis.

Boundary disputes: the distinction between phonetic and phonological sound patterns.

Coimriú siollaí tosaigh sa Ghaeilge.

Cycles and continua: on unidirectionality and gradualness in language change.

Diachronic phonology.

Dyfed: blas ar ei thafodieithoedd. Llandysul: Gwasg Gomer.

Gaeilge Chorca Dhuibhne. Baile Átha Cliath: Institiúid Teangeolaíochta Éireann. Ramsammy, Michael. Forthcoming. The life cycle of phonological processes: Accounting for dialect microtypologies. Language and Linguistics Compass.

Kurt Hornik & Achim Zeileis.

Pembrokeshire Welsh: a phonological study.

Phonetic evidence on phonology–morphosyntax interactions: Sibilant voicing in Quito Spanish.

Phonotactic constraints in Welsh. In

Representation and variation in substance-free phonology: A case study in Celtic. Tromsø:

Strength and weakness at the interface: positional neutralization in phonetics and phonology.

Systems in Welsh phonology.

t/d-deletion fail to refute the classical feedforward modular architecture of phonologyCurrently available data on English. Presentation at the 18th Manchester Phonology Meeting.

Tafodiaith Nantgarw: Astudiaeth o Gymraeg llafar Nantgarw yng Nghwm Taf, Morgannwg. Caerdydd: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru.

The distinctive vowels and consonants of Welsh. In

The phonological basis of sound change. In

The phonology of Welsh. Oxford:

Vowel reduction in Russian: a uniﬁed account of standard, dialectal, and ‘dissimilative’ patterns.

Length and tenseness across Welsh dialects

Length and tenseness across Welsh dialects

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