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Phonological Factors that Influence Duration and Sonority of the Rime
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- Predictions of Contour Tone Distribution by Different Approaches
- The Traditional Positional Faithfulness Approach
- The Moraic Approach
Phonological Factors that Influence Duration and Sonority of the RimeGiven that CCONTOUR is the crucial indicator of a syllable’s tone bearing ability, and that CCONTOUR is determined by the duration and sonority of the rime, it is important for us to discuss the factors that influence these properties of the rime. I identify four such factors here: the segmental composition of the rime, the stress level of the rime, the proximity of the rime to the end of a prosodic domain, and the number of syllables in the word to which the rime belongs. The segmental composition factor includes the long vs. short distinction on the vocalic nucleus and the sonorant vs. obstruent distinction on the coda. All else being equal, a VV rime has a longer sonorous duration than a V rime, and a VR (R=sonorant) rime has a longer sonorous duration than a VO (O=obstruent) rime. Moreover, a VV rime has a higher sonority than a VR rime. As shown in §2.1, when they have comparable duration, this difference alone may affect their tone bearing ability. Two other effects also fall under the rubric of segmental composition: the height of the vowel and the voicing specification of an obstruent coda. Lower vowels involve a greater jaw movement and thus require a longer duration to be implemented than higher vowels (Lindblom 1967, Jensen and Menon 1972). A voiced obstruent coda induces lengthening of the preceding vocalic nucleus, while a voiceless obstruent does not have such an effect (House and Fairbanks 1953, Peterson and Lehiste 1960, Chen 1970, Klatt 1973, 1976). Therefore, all else being equal, V[-high] has a longer sonorous rime duration than V[+high], and Vd (d=voiced obstruent) has a longer sonorous rime duration than Vt. Together with pitch and amplitude, duration is usually taken as one of the key phonetic correlates of stress. This has been shown in numerous phonetic studies in various languages (e.g., for English: Fry 1955, Lieberman 1960, Morton and Jassem 1965, Adams and Munro 1978; for Polish: Jassem 1959; for Spanish: Simoes 1996; for Arabic: de Jong and Zawaydeh 1999). Therefore it is reasonable to assume that all else being equal, a stressed syllable has a longer sonorous rime duration than an unstressed syllable. Final lengthening is the major basis for considering the proximity to prosodic boundaries as a parameter. A rich body of phonetic literature has shown that the final syllable of a prosodic unit is subject to lengthening (Oller 1973, Klatt 1975, Cooper and Paccia-Cooper 1980, Beckman and Edwards 1990, Edwards et al. 1991, Wightman et al. 1992). We thus expect that all else being equal, a final syllable in a prosodic unit has a longer sonorous rime duration than a non-final syllable in the same prosodic unit. Lastly, a syllable in a shorter word has a longer duration than an otherwise comparable syllable in a longer word. This is motivated by a series of phonetic studies (Lehiste 1972, Klatt 1973b, Lindblom and Rapp 1973, Lindblom et al. 1981, Lyberg 1977, Strangert 1985) that specifically documents this effect. From this we deduce that the sonorous rime duration for a syllable in a shorter word is longer that for the same syllable in a longer word. The studies also indicate that the greatest difference is induced by the monosyllabic vs. disyllabic distinction. The parameters that influence the duration and sonority of the rime are summarized in (0).
b. Stress: [+stress]>[-stress]. c. Proximity to prosodic boundaries: final>non-final. d. Number of syllables in word: in m-syll word > in n-syll word (m Again, since under different speaking rates and styles, the duration of the same syllable can vary, these comparisons are made under the assumption that the syllables involved are uttered in the same speech condition. I define Canonical Durational Category with Regard to Sonorous Rime Duration as in (0). Since the only type of duration I am concerned with here is the sonorous duration in the rime portion, I will omit ‘with Regard to Sonorous Rime Duration’ in the definition. (0) Canonical Durational Category: In the canonical speaking rate and style, the sonorous portion of two rimes may belong to two different Canonical Durational Categories only if there are systematic factors that influence their duration to a degree that can be safely perceivable by listeners. It must again be emphasized that I assume that speakers are able to normalize duration across speaking rates and styles. This assumption is supported by perceptual studies that show that speaking rate of the stimuli influences listeners’ perceptual boundary between two segments if this boundary is dependent on duration (e.g., Port 1979, Miller and Liberman 1979, Miller and Grosjean 1981, Pols 1986). As I have stated, the factors that systematically influence the sonorous rime duration include segmental composition, stress, proximity to prosodic boundaries, the number of syllables of the word, height of the vowel, and the voicing status of the coda obstruent. Apparently, it is the cross-classification of all these factors that determines which Canonical Durational Category (CDC) a syllable belongs to. For example, if the sonorous rime duration of an unstressed word-final CVO in a monosyllabic word is considerably different from that of a stressed nonfinal CVV in a disyllabic word, then these two types of syllables belong to two different Canonical Durational Categories: CDC(unstressed-final-monosyllabic-CVO) and CDC(stressed-nonfinal--disyllabic-CVV). But if these two types of syllables do not differ in sonorous rime duration, then they belong to the same Canonical Durational Category. Although some support on the categorical perception of vowel duration can be found in the literature (e.g., Reinholt Peterson 1974, 1976), the statement in (0) does not rely on such claims. It only requires the speaker to be able to identify duration as one of the phonetic cues associated with some linguistic environments, such as stress property and proximity to prosodic boundaries. As long as the speaker is aware of the durational differences between these environments and their complementary environments, the statement in (0) is valid. And we know that speakers must possess such knowledge, otherwise they would not be able to produce systematic durational characteristics associated with these linguistic factors. From the definition of CCONTOUR introduced in §3.1, we know that Canonical Durational Category is related to CCONTOUR in the following ways: (0) For two positions P1 and P2, a. if they belong to two different Canonical Durational Categories, and CDC(P1)>CDC(P2), then CCONTOUR(P1)>CCONTOUR(P2); b. if they belong to the same Canonical Durational Categories, and if position P1 has a longer vocalic component, then CCONTOUR(P1)>CCONTOUR(P2).
Predictions of Contour Tone Distribution by Different ApproachesThe Direct ApproachSo far, I have explicitly laid out two phonetic scales that share an intimate relation—the Tonal Complexity Scale and CCONTOUR (which can be partially expressed through Canonical Durational Category). Now we are in a position to make specific empirical predictions concerning contour tone distribution in the different approaches under consideration here. The predictions of the most phonetically-informed theory of contour tone licensing—the direct approach—are as follows:
a. Contour tones only preferentially occur in positions in which there are factors that induce a greater CCONTOUR value, i.e., longer sonorous duration or a higher vocalic component in the rime, and these positions are: long-vowelled, sonorant-closed, stressed, prosodic-final syllables, syllables that occur in shorter words, with a lower vowel, or closed by a voiced obstruent. b. Within a language, when there are multiple factors that induce greater CCONTOUR values, their contour tone licensing ability corresponds to the degree of enhancement of CCONTOUR: the greater the CCONTOUR value, the greater the contour tone licensing ability.
In language L, a. for any two Canonical Durational Categories CDC1 and CDC2—If the duration of CDC1 is greater than that of CDC2, and CDC2 can carry a contour tone T, then CDC1 can carry contour tones with complexity equal to or greater than T; b. for two syllable types 1and 2 that belong to the same Canonical Durational Category, if CCONTOUR(1)>CCONTOUR(2) due to a greater vocalic component in 1, and 1can carry a contour tone T, then 2 can carry contour tones with complexity equal to or greater than T. The first prediction in (0) emerges from the relevance of contrast-specific phonetics in the direct approach to contour tone distribution (§1.4.2). With its constraints defined on the phonetic properties that are important for the realization of contour tones, i.e., duration and sonority of the rime, the approach can single out positions that are rich in these phonetic properties by enforcing higher ranked faithfulness constraints when these phonetic properties are richly present. The second prediction in (0) emerges from the fact that the direct approach is sensitive to language-specific phonetics (§1.4.2). To see this more clearly, let us consider a language L in which two distinct properties of a syllable—P1 and P2—can both induce lengthening of the sonorous portion of the rime. Assume that there exist syllables with property P1 but not P2 and syllables with property P2 but not P1, and that L has contour tones with distributional restrictions related to P1 and P2. Now consider two types of syllables which are exactly the same except that one has the property P1, and the other has the property P2. If the sonorous rime duration of these two types of syllables is Dur(P1) and Dur(P2) respectively, and Dur(P1)>Dur(P2), then they belong to two different Canonical Durational Categories, which I term CDC(P1) and CDC(P2). The direct approach singles out two positional faithfulness constraints, as in (0). (0) a. Ident-CDC(P1)[Tone]: let be a syllable whose CDC is greater than or equal to CDC(P1), and be any syllable corresponding to in the input; if has tone T, then has tone T. b. Ident-CDC(P2)[Tone]: let be a syllable whose CDC is greater than or equal to CDC(P2), and be any syllable corresponding to in the input; if has tone T, then has tone T. Since CDC(P1)>CDC(P2), if we acknowledge that universal constraint rankings can be projected from phonetic scales (Prince and Smolensky 1993: 67), then a universal ranking is imposed upon the two constraints in (0), as shown in (0). This is precisely due to the fact that the constraints refer to categories of duration (or values of CCONTOUR) that can be directly compared. (0) Ident-CDC(P1)[Tone] » Ident-CDC(P2)[Tone] We also need two other constraints: *Contour and the general Ident(Tone), as defined in (0). (0) a. *Contour: no contour tone is allowed on a syllable. b. Ident[Tone]: let be a syllable in the input, and be any syllable corresponding to in the output; if is has tone T, then has tone T. In Beckman (1998)’s positional faithfulness schema, the positional faithfulness constraints outrank the general faithfulness constraints.7 Therefore, we derive the ranking in (0). (0) Ident-CDC(P1)[Tone] » Ident-CDC(P2)[Tone] » Ident[Tone] The factorial typology that involves this ranking hierarchy and the markedness constraint *Contour therefore makes the predictions: when *Contour is ranked on top, no contour tone is allowed on any syllable; when *Contour is ranked between the two positional faithfulness constraints, contour tones are only allowed on syllables with property P1; when *Contour is ranked between the positional faithfulness and general faithfulness constraints, contour tones are allowed on syllables with either P1 or P2; and when *Contour is ranked at the bottom of the hierarchy, contour tones can freely occur on all syllable types. This factorial typology is summarized as in (0). Note that the situation in which contour tones are allowed only on syllables with property P2, but not P1, is not predicted by this factorial typology. Thus an implicational hierarchy on tonal realization can be established: if a contour tone can surface on syllables with P2, then it can surface on syllables with P1. (0) Factorial typology (direct approach):
Crucially, in a different language L’, if the same syllable properties P1 and P2 influences the phonetics of the syllable differently from L, such that CDC(P1) We may then compare these predictions with predictions made by less phonetically-informed approaches.
The Traditional Positional Faithfulness ApproachFor the traditional positional faithfulness approach, given that the phonetics of contour tones per se plays no role in determining their distribution, there is no a priori reason for them to preferentially target positions with abundant sonorous rime duration; thus their distribution should not be significantly different from that of other phonological features, such as vowel quality or consonant place. This is determined by the general-purpose nature of this approach (cf. §1.4.3.1). Beckman (1998), in a comprehensive study of positional prominence effects, identifies the following inventory of privileged linguistic positions: root-initial syllables, stressed syllables, syllable onsets, roots, and long vowels. Among these positions, root-initial syllables, stressed syllables, and long vowels are syllable-based and can be considered as proper carriers for lexical tones. Therefore, this approach should predict these positions to be advantageous contour carriers. Compare this list with the list in (0), we do not expect to find effects of prosodic final position or the number of syllables in the word on contour tone licensing; but we expect to find the word-initial position to be a favored position for contours, even though it is not durationally privileged. Moreover, the traditional positional faithfulness approach does not make the prediction in (0b); i.e., when there are multiple factors that foster the crucial phonetic properties for contour tones, it does not predict which one is a better contour tone licenser. This is because it does not specifically refer to the relevant phonetic properties for contour tone realization in the constraints. At best, it refers to the positions in which these phonetic properties are rich. For our toy language L with factors P1 and P2, the theory will not encode duration and sonority information on the rime such as CDC(P1) and CDC(P2), or CCONTOUR(P1) and CCONTOUR(P2); it will only refer to positions P1 and P2. Therefore the positional faithfulness constraints in this approach are as in
b. Ident-P2[Tone]: let be a segment in position P2 in the output, and be any correspondent of in the input; if has tone T, then has tone T. Given that P1 and P2 are distinct properties, not on a unified phonetic scale, there are two possible scenarios for the ranking between the two positional faithfulness constraints: first, there is no universal ranking between the two constraints, because there is no phonetic dimension, such as duration or CCONTOUR, on which the effectiveness of these constraints can be directly compared; second, there is a universal ranking between the two constraints handed to the speaker by UG, but there is no a priori reason to believe that the ranking accords to the duration comparison between P1 and P2. In either case, we cannot rule out the ranking Ident-P2[Tone] » Ident-P1[Tone] in any principled way. Then the factorial typology of this approach will predict a pattern that is not allowed in the direct approach, namely, contour tones are only allowed on syllables with property P1. The ranking that gets us this pattern is Ident-P2[Tone] » *Contour » Ident-P1[Tone] » Ident[Tone], and this is despite the fact that position P1 is phonetically better for contour tone bearing than P2. The factorial typology of this approach is summarized in (0). (0) Factorial typology (traditional positional faithfulness approach):
Therefore, the predictions of the traditional positional faithfulness approach for contour tone distribution can be summarized as in (0). (0) Predictions of the traditional faithfulness approach for contour tone distribution: a. Root-initial syllables, stressed syllables, and long vowels are privileged contour tone carriers; final syllable in a prosodic domain and syllables in shorter words are not privileged contour tone carriers. b. Within a language, when there are multiple factors that benefit the crucial phonetic properties for contour tones, any one of the factors may turn out to be the best contour tone licensor, regardless of the degree of phonetic advantage the factor induces as compared to the other factors.
The Moraic ApproachThe representationally-based moraic approach crucially relies on the mora as both the unit of length and weight and the unit of tone bearing. Among the competing approaches, it has the least phonetic flavor. The extent to which phonetics is relevant in this approach is that a more sonorous segment is more likely to be moraic than a less sonorous segment. This can be seen from the following implicational hierarchies regarding moraicity: if a consonant is moraic, then a vowel is moraic; if an obstruent consonant is moraic, then a sonorant consonant is moraic (Hyman 1985, Zec 1988, Hayes 1989). But as I have mentioned, the role of duration and sonority in the moraic theory can only be said to be conditional. For example, it is possible that a phonemic short vowel in some environment is phonetically longer than a phonemic long vowel in some other environment.8 The theory will still consider the former to have fewer moras than the latter. Moreover, the usually non-structural lengthening such as final lengthening is predicted not to have an effect on the tone-bearing ability of the syllable, since its non-structural nature determines that it does not change the moraic structure of the syllable. For the same reason, the durational advantage of syllables in words with fewer syllables should not have an effect on contour tone distribution either. The moraic approach also restricts the role that duration and sonority can play to a binary, at most ternary one. This is because contrastive length is usually binary (short and long) and maximally ternary (short, long, and extra-long), and languages only distinguish up to three degrees of syllable weight (light, heavy, and superheavy). It therefore predicts that we can only in principle distinguish three kinds of tonal distribution—tones allowed only in trimoraic syllables, in at least bimoraic syllables, and everywhere. Moreover, under the assumption that contour tones are concatenations of level tone targets and each level tone needs a mora for its realization, the number of tonal targets in a contour tone must be identical to the number of moras in the syllable that carries it. Therefore, the prediction of the moraic approach for contour tone distribution can be summarized as in (0). (0) Predictions of the moraic approach for contour tone distribution: a. The contour tone bearing ability of a syllable depends on the moraic structure of the syllable. Syllables with higher mora counts, such as long-vowelled, sonorant-closed, stressed syllables, are privileged contour tone carriers. Syllables that do not have higher mora counts than ceretis paribus syllables, such as prosodic-final, root-initial syllables and syllables in shorter words, are not privileged contour tone carriers. b. The contour tone bearing ability of different syllables can be directly compared by their mora counts. But only up to three levels of distinctions can be made.
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