LINGUIST List 2.738

Fri 01 Nov 1991

Misc: R-linking, Invariance, Gemination

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Directory

1. Geoffrey Russom, Re: 2.720 R-Linking
2. , R-Linking and Natural Phonology
3. Jim Scobbie, Phonetic invariance
4. Jim Scobbie, phonetic invariance (extra comment)
5. , Languages with gemination phenomena

Message 1: Re: 2.720 R-Linking

Question for Nancy Dray: did the Senators who had r-linking after "issue"
speak the dialect that has schwa for the final syllable of the citation
form? If so, r-linking would be unremarkable.
 -- Rick

A recent defense of David Stampe by Richard Goerwitz misses the point
of my critique of Stampe's contribution. W/o dwelling on the emotional
points of Goerwitz's contribution (whose feelings I apologize for out-
raging), I would like to restate the substantive point in a way which
is perhaps clearer and also to point out that this criticism applies
to many other people's work in linguistics and has no special relation
to natural phonology (which, as perhaps one or two people know, I have
considerable sympathy for).
Stampe's argument that the linking /r/ must in fact be underlying because
(a) r-insertion is not phonetically natural and (b) it is automatic
(a process rarther than a rule in NP terms), yet (c) according to NP
only phonetically natural developments can be processes (i.e., automatic).
My point was that NP, as originally developed, claimed it as a matter of
FACT not of DEFINITION that automatic processes are precisely the
phonetically natural ones. By making what I still consider a cardinal
error in reasoning in his latest posting, Stampe runs the danger of
turning this into a matter of definition and hence to make his theory
no longer subject to factual challenge. That is the central point,
and one which applies to many other cases in the linguistic literature.
For example, to cite some once celebrated examples, take Relational
Grammar (in its early days) and spontaneous demotion or the way in
which one typically reasons about purported universals:
 A: I just found a language that violates the complex NP constraint.
 B: No, you have not, your examples are not complex NPs.
 A: How do you know they are not complex NPs.
 B: If they were, they would obey the complex NP constraint.
My point was simply that NP seems to make many almost true predictions,
and it would be better to revise the theory to deal with the counterexamples
rather than take the route of definining the counterexamples away. For,
in that case, you lose all predictive power.
Goerwitz also asks how we know that some process is natural. I would
point out that this not my problem as much as David's, but in fact
I think the answer is reasonably clear. If you could show me that
there are many languages in which children (or adults) spontaneously
insert rhotics after central vowels before a vowel EVEN though /r/ was
not previously lost in this environment in the history of the language,
then I would agree that this is natural. This is something that I
have pointed out since 1981 at least, arguing that it is precisely
those dialects which lost /r/ in this position that then insert it
(or, if you accept Stampe's analysis, generalize it to all underlying
post-central vowel environments). Likewise, it is precisely those
English dialects that lost final /l/ that then exhibit a linking-L
phenomenon. Likewise, as I have pointed out since 1981, Korean
lost initial /n/ before /i/ and /y/ (y means yod not a front rounded
vowel here). Subsequently, this /n/ gets reinserted even in cases
where it does not belong etymologically in sandhi environments. As
a result of which, one can hear Korean speakers rendering English
'not yet' as /nannyet/. The /nn/ arises, apparently, because
of the reinserted /n/ and then the assimilation (by a regular and
well-known rule) of the final /t/ of 'not' to that /n/.
It has also been pointed out that the form of the English indefinite
article ('a' vs. 'an') is determined after rather than before speech
errors (see Fromkin's work) and also that Spanish, Catalan, etc.,
speakers of English say things like an e-street (where, presumably.
the /e/ is not underlying).
And again, I would say that we know that the 'a'/'an' alternation
is not natural because it is not something that we find children
(or adults) doing spontaneously in languages of the world. If
this was natural, then we would expect Dutch or German children
to go through a stage in which they develop a similar alternation
before "suppressing" it. Yet they do not seem to. On the other
hand, the insertion of /e/ before /sC/ clusters IS natural in
this sense. And, of course, NP predicts that all the rules
(which are supposed to be unnatural) apply before all the processes
(which are supposed to be natural).
Now, as I said, it would be better to revise the theory to deal
with these examples (which Stampe has known about for at least
10 years, not least because I keep reminding him of them several
times a year) rather than attempt to immunize the theory--by
defining natural to mean automatic--from factual challenge.
Since all these examples involve external sandhi (ifEnglish
examples like draw-r-ing are external), perhaps that is the
relevant factor. And perhaps it is something quite different.
Indeed, maybe NP is fundamentally wrong (though I rather doubt
that). But we cannot find out if the factual issue is defined
out of existence.

Richard Ogden and Nick Cambell bring up the issues:
1) what constrains the relationship between a feature and a sound?
2) what does it mean to compare features across languages/speakers?
I don't know the answer to these questions, :-), and I'd like to see
more discussion of such difficult issues here. Does no-one have an
opinion? Is the lack of a satisfactory answer something to be
contemplated in embarrassed silence? We seem to spend quite a lot of
time in this group bandying relatively trivial stuff around. Yet we
are all supposed to be language professionals. Am I missing something?
I'd have thought this relatively casual forum would be a good one. We
can indulge in after-dinner chats happily. People don't often scream
for data, references... This net is the napkin of the future. Let's
have some half-baked ideas, please.
Let me punt... (2) and (1) seem to be the same question. The
constraints on the realisation of some feature are going to vary
depending on the system of features and the system of realisations.
There is also going to be arbitrary variance. There is also going to
be absolute constraints.
So, [+low] will on average be in a certain place universally, but this
will vary both with regard to the other features in the system, the
realisations of the other features and other factors (socially selected?)
Note also that the featural and prosodic context of [+low] is important.
I know nothing about this stuff, so can some people in the know please
argue with each other to further my education? ;-)
Now the question about comparing [+low] across languages/speakers.
Speakers I have no problems with. You and me have the same system but
sound differnt. Fine. Languages... I have no problems with a
universal phonological feature set, but am not convinced comparisons
of some feature across langauges is always immediately useful.
Richard seems to be pointing out the arbitrary component of
feature-exponent mapping then saying consequently all features are
uniquely defined in each language making cross linguistic comparison
impossible. Is that right? 'If [+low] for me and you is different,
what the hell is [+low]' ??? If this is the question (straw-man
alert) then I don't buy it. It is precisely *because* the
feature-exponent relation varies that we want to talk about there
being a [+low]. Otherwise we wouldn't need to.
--
James M. Scobbie: Dept of Linguistics, Stanford University, CA 94305-2150

Richard Ogden asked *two* questions here:
>	` What then does it mean to say that certain phonological
>	features are 'the same' when their interpretation in
>	different languages is different? or when the features they
>	stand in relation to in different languages is different?'
In a posting here I tried to debunk the 1st half of this. It is
the difference in phonetic interpretation that partly creates the
phonological level: to say two features are the same when their
interpretations differ in different langauges is the basic stuff
of phonology.
However the 2nd part, where Richard askes how can people say the
[+low] in a 1-vowel langauge is the same [+low] as appears in an
n-vowel language --- that is the basic stuff of bad phonology.
It isn't an impossible comparison, but we need to be careful.
We also need to be careful when we claim that such and such
a language has so many vowels. How many vowels has turkish got
in non-initial syllables? Are we talking contrastive vowels or
identifyable phonological configurations? I suspect the comparisons
between languages in which this parameter is manipulated is a greater
problem than the one Richard brings up.
For example Navajo has /ieao/ vowels. What does this mean? What is the
/o/? Is it really /u/? If it is a 4-vowel system what are the 4
vowels?
/o/ has [u] and [o] allophones, [o] being the primary one. So Navajo has
[ieaou]. What does this mean? Is it a 5 vowel system after all?
--
James M. Scobbie: Dept of Linguistics, Stanford University, CA 94305-2150
--
James M. Scobbie: Dept of Linguistics, Stanford University, CA 94305-2150

I saw the posting of Vieri Samek-Lodovici on
geminiation in the linguist. Although I am not a
professional linguist, I have written a thesis on
the theories of the ancient Hebrew D-stem (i.e.
the one with the doubled radical) and its
relationship to the geminated D-stems in the other
Semitic languages. Though the specific argument of
the thesis itself might not be of such great
interest, the bibliography and the general
discussion might be of some interest.
Among the literature on the subject that might be
of interest are the following:
Leemhuis, F. The D and H Stems in Koranic Arabic
Ryder, S. The D-stem in Western Semitic
Mettinger, T "The Hebrew Verbal System" in Svensk
Exegetisk Aarsbok
Jenni, E Das hebraeische Pi'el: syntakticsh-
semasiologische Untersuchung einer Verbalform im
Alten Testament
I suppose that I should also (humbly) mention that
I discuss the above contributions, along with a
number of articles and shorter contributions to
the subject in my thesis (available on microfilm
or, with some work, electronically via the
network).
Michael Cheney
Teologiska Institutionen
Lunds Universitet
Lund, Sverige
+ 46 46 10 47 52
Internet: cheneyteol.lu.se
EARN cheneyseldc52
Fax: +46 46 10 44 26