Putting Contour Tone Distribution in a Bigger Picture

Putting Contour Tone Distribution in a Bigger Picture

1. Phonetically-Driven Phonology

Regardless of which approach for contour tone distribution turns out to be the best, one must acknowledge that all three approaches being entertained here have are phonetically based to some extent. Even the representational approach partially bases the moraic assignment on phonetic dimensions. The fact that many phonological patterns are phonetically natural has long been noticed by phonologists (Stampe 1972, Ohala 1974, 1975, 1979, 1983, Lindblom 1975, 1986, Hooper 1976, Donegan and Stampe 1979, among others). For example, Stampe (1972) gives four arguments for the phonetic motivation for phonological processes: the need for feature classes organized according to articulatory and acoustic properties to describe phonological substitutions; the assimilative nature of context-dependent substitutions; the optionality of substitutions corresponding to how much ‘attention’ is given to the utterances; and the correspondence between the degree of generality in substitution and the degree of physical difficulty involved in the articulation.

But as a theory of phonology, which needs to make precise and falsifiable predictions, this approach encountered insurmountable difficulties in the rule-based theoretical framework. Given that the phonetic properties of linguistic units are only observable through the output of an utterance, the phonetic natural processes mentioned above are necessarily output-oriented. But in a rule-based framework for phonology, since the phonetic naturalness of the output cannot be directly referred to in the analysis, it can only be achieved through indirect ‘fixes’ provided by the system. Therefore, when different fixes are carried out in one language to arrive at a single phonetically natural output, the theory must refer to these fixes individually. The mysterious functional unity of individual rules has been termed ‘conspiracy’ by Kisseberth (1970). As a consequence, it is difficult in a rule-based framework to make statements on the phonetic naturalness of phonological systems that are general and rigorous enough to serve as the guideline for a serious scientific theory.

With the advent of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993) in phonology, the issue of phonetic naturalness has been revisited in many recent works (Flemming 1995, Jun 1995, Kaun 1995, Steriade 1994, 1999, 2000, Beckman 1998, Boersma 1998, Kirchner 1998, Gordon 1999a, Hayes 1999, Zhang, 2000). Optimality Theory is a particularly suitable tool to address this issue since now phonological generalizations can be expressed through output-oriented markedness constraints. On the one hand, it provides an explicit way of addressing the conspiracy problem in rule-based phonology mentioned above. On the other hand, it invites encoding phonetic rationales directly in the analysis of phonological patterning, since with the notion of faithfulness to underlying representation, general statements on the phonetic markedness of phonological forms can finally be made within the theory proper without reducing phonology to [tatatatata]. More generally, constraint conflict yields a more sophisticated functionalism in that it can capture not only exceptionless markedness laws, but also markedness tendencies, since different markedness constraints can be ranked with respected to each other. These premises provide an environment for the question ‘to what extent is phonology phonetically-driven’ to be answered in a scientifically rigorous way.

Precisely because of these reasons, Optimality Theory also provides an environment in which phonological research can be conducted deductively (Hayes and Steriade, to appear). Based on articulatory and perceptual considerations, the deductive strategy provides us with a clear expectation on what patterns we are expected to find when we look at the phonological behavior cross-linguistically. As we will see throughout the dissertation, it is preferable to the traditional inductive strategy in discovering linguistic universals in two respects. Where it succeeds, it provides a unified account for phenomena that are conceived as unrelated in traditional phonology. Where it fails, we know we must on the one hand further our knowledge in the articulation, perception, and processing of linguistic materials, on the other hand provide more comprehensive and factually precise descriptions of linguistic patterns, and these will potentially lead to a better understanding of the issues at hand. If we had proceeded inductively, we would not have noticed that something worth attending to has escaped our attention. In sum, Optimality Theory is explicit and falsifiable functionalism.

2. Positional Prominence

The contour tone licensing behavior under discussion in the previous sections belongs to a class of phonological patterning which I will term positional prominence. Positional prominence has received a great deal of attention as the testing ground for phonetically-driven phonology. It refers to patterns in which a greater number of phonological contrasts is attested in certain positions, such as stressed syllable, long vowel, root-initial position, syllable onset, etc. E.g., in Western Catalan, there are seven contrasting vowel qualities in stressed syllables, but only five in unstressed syllables (Hualde 1992, Prieto 1992), as shown in (0a). In Shona, there are five contrasting vowel qualities in root-initial syllables; but in non-initial syllables, the mid vowels /e/ and /o/ do not occur contrastively—they can only surface as a result of harmony with root-initial mid vowels (Fortune 1955), as shown in (0b). In Fuzhou Chinese, syllable onset accommodates a wide array of contrasts, while syllable coda can only be /// or /N/ (Liang and Feng 1996), as shown in (0c). The contour tone restrictions fit snugly in this characterization. E.g., as we have seen, in Xhosa, there are three contrasting tones in stressed syllables—High, Low, and Fall, but the contour tone Fall cannot occur in unstressed syllables (Lanham 1958, 1963, Jordan 1966), as shown in (0d).

stressed: i u unstressed: i u

e o e o

E O a

initial: i u non-initial: i u only in harmony

e o e o —> with initial

a a mid vowels

onset: p, pÓ t, tÓ k, kÓ coda: /, N

ts, tsÓ

s x

stressed: H, L, H°L unstressed: H, L

3. Questions of Contour Tone Distribution in a Broader Context

In §1.2, I laid out three different approaches to the positional prominence effects regarding contour tones and asked the question ‘which approach is the best one’. Let me put these approaches in the context of positional prominence in general and see what the theoretical implications are for these approaches.

Even though this dissertation focuses on the patterns of contour tone distribution, the overarching question that I am exploring is how close the correlation is between phonological patterning regarding positional prominence and phonetic differences in perception, production, and processing induced by different positions. In particular, I aim to use the contour tone data to explore two distinct aspects of this question.

1. Contrast-Specific vs. General-Purpose Positional Prominence

The first aspect of the question is whether the correlation is contrast-specific or general-purpose. We know that different phonological features require the support of different phonetic properties. For example, to distinguish coronal consonants from consonants of other places of articulation, the presence of C-V formant transitions is crucial. This is because the shape of the C-V formant transitions clearly distinguishes coronals from non-coronals (Ohala 1990). But for the anteriority contrast within coronal consonants, i.e., whether the coronal is retroflexed or not, the crucial formant transitions are from the vowel to the consonant (Hamilton 1996, Steriade 1999). For obstruent VOT contrasts, they are better perceived in a position that has processing advantages (Shields et al. 1974, Cole and Jakimik 1978, Marslen-Wilson and Welsh 1978). For contour tones, as I will show in Chapter 2, the most crucial factors for their realization is duration and sonority (production: Arnold 1961, Hirano et al. 1969, Lindqvist 1972, Ohala 1978; perception: Black 1970, Greenberg and Zee 1979).

Apparently, different positions provide different phonetic properties. Consequently, some positions provide phonetic properties that are crucial for some features, but not others. We should therefore expect the phonological effect of positional prominence to be contrast-specific. For example, a prevocalic consonant provides C-V, but not V-C formant transitions for the consonant, thus it should be a preferable position for [±coronal] contrast, but not [±anterior] contrast; but for a postvocalic consonant, the situation is the reverse. Word-initial position provides processing advantage, but not extra duration, thus it should be a good licenser for VOT contrasts, but not contour tones. The prosodic-final position, on the other hand, has extra duration due to final lengthening (Oller 1973, Klatt 1975, Cooper and Paccia-Cooper 1980, Wightman et al. 1992), but does not have any independent processing advantage, thus it should be a preferable position for contour tones, but not for VOT contrasts.

The behavior of some phonological patterning has corroborated this hypothesis. For example, Steriade (1999) shows that although most consonant place contrasts are more likely licensed in prevocalic position, retroflexion is usually only contrastive in postvocalic position. But for most phonological patterning regarding positional prominence, the contrast-specificity of the effect remains a hypothesis. In (0), I lay out the two competing hypotheses regarding positional prominence, the first of which being the one I will lend support to in this dissertation.

b. General-purpose hypothesis: there exist positions within the word which are better licensers for any type of contrast; phonology is insensitive to phonetic properties, and positional prominence is due to some notion of generic prominence.

The direct approach, on the other hand, does link, or at least has the potential of linking the contrast in question with the phonetic properties that are important for the realization of this contrast, since the positional faithfulness constraints in fact refer to these phonetic properties directly.

2. The Relevance of Language-Specific Phonetics

The second aspect of the question on the correlation between positional prominence and phonetics is on the relevance of language-specific phonetics to positional prominence. It originates from the observation that for different positions that induce one type of phonetic advantage, there might be magnitude differences. Of course, this is only a meaningful question if positional prominence is contrast-specific, since it is not clear how the magnitude of ‘generic’ prominence can be compared without referring to specific phonetic properties. Let us take the sonorous duration of the rime as an example. Both stress and being in the prosodic-final position can induce lengthening of duration; which one has a greater effect? Or compare a CVR (R=sonorant) syllable and a CV…O (O=obstruent) syllable, the former benefiting from having a sonorant coda, the latter benefiting from having a long vowel; which one has a longer sonorous rime duration? These magnitude differences may be language-specific. It is possible that in language A, a stressed non-final syllable has a longer sonorous rime duration than an unstressed final syllable when all else is equal, while in language B the durational pattern is the opposite. It is also possible that in language X, CVR has a longer sonorous rime duration than CV…O when all else is equal, while in language Y the durational pattern is the opposite. Therefore the question is: ‘is phonology tuned to such language-specific phonetic differences?’ Given that the sonorous duration of the rime is the primary tone carrier, as I will show in Chapter 2, we can turn this into more concrete research questions such as ‘do language-specific durational differences between stressed and ultima, or CVR and CV…O, translate into corresponding phonological difference on contour tone licensing?’ Again, I lay out two competing hypotheses for this question, as in (0), the first of which being the one I will lend support to in this dissertation.

• language-specific phonetic differences affect phonological contrast distribution;

• as a consequence, speakers not only have to identify privileged positions, but also have to keep track of the relative magnitude of the phonetic advantage induced by different positions in their language;

• the influence of phonetics must be directly encoded in phonology.

b. Structure-only hypothesis:

• language-specific phonetic differences do not affect phonological contrast distribution;

• as a consequence, speakers only have to identify certain positions in which certain contrasts are more saliently perceived or easily produced;

• beyond that phonology is autonomous.

To summarize, three possible phonetic interpretations of positional prominence have emerged. They are schematically shown in (0). The first hypothesis is that positional prominence is general-purpose. Then within the notion that positional prominence is contrast-specific, there are two specific hypotheses: whether it is tuned to language-specific phonetic magnitude differences, or not.

Another goal of the dissertation is to provide an Optimality-theoretic model to capture the interaction between phonetic factors such as duration and sonority and phonological patterns of contour tone realization. As I have mentioned, statements on the phonetic naturalness of phonology can only be considered a scientific theory if they are made formal, rigorous, and falsifiable, and Optimality Theory provides us with a tool to do exactly this. We have also seen that if positional prominence is contrast-specific and tuned to language-specific phonetics, current accounts in the Optimality-theoretic framework are inadequate. Therefore the main task of this dissertation in this regard is to propose an approach that overcome these inadequacies. The most significant move is to formally encode phonetic categories in phonology. As for the distribution of contour tones, the relevant phonetic categories are the Canonical Durational Categories.

In the following section, I outline the organization of this dissertation.

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