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Moroccan Arabic Consonant

Harmony

Georgia WeissmanStony Brook University

CUNY Phonology ForumConference on Precedence Relations

January 25, 2007

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Outline

I. The Data Restrictions

II. Functional Explanations Consonant Harmony OCP and Language Processing

III. Root and Template OCP in Moroccan Arabic Root and Template in Moroccan Arabic

IV. Conclusions and Implications Further Issues

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The Data(1) Conservative Innovative a./zuž/ /žuž/ ‘two’ b. /sžen/ /šžen/ ‘prison’ c. /seržem/ /šeržem/ ‘window’ d. /mzuwwež/ /mžuwwež/

‘married’ e. /nsež/ /nšež/ ‘to weave’ f. /sfenž/ /šfenž/ ‘doughnut’ g. /zlžlan/ /žlžlan/ ‘sesame seeds’

h. /zelliž/ /želliž/ ‘tiles’i. /sferžel/ /šferžel/ ‘quince tree’j. /sentrež/ /šentrež/ ‘chess’

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The Data (cont)

1a. /zuž/ ~ /žuž/ ‘two’ 1b. /sžen/ ~ /šžen/ ‘prison’ 1c. /seržem/ ~ /šeržem/ ‘window’

Moroccan Arabic (MA) displays an innovative long-distance consonant harmony process.

Words occurring with harmonized consonants alternate with conservative, non-harmonizing forms.

However, the innovative alternations, with the harmonized consonants, are preferred and occur more frequently than the conservative forms.

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The Data (cont)1d. /mzuwwež/ ~ /mžuwwež/ ‘married’

1e. /nsež/ ~ /nšež/ ‘to weave’ 1f. /sfenž/ ~ /šfenž/ ‘doughnut’

The consonant harmony occurs regressively between coronal sibilants of a stem.

These consonants undergo agreement of the [+distributive] feature, converting the place of anterior alveolar fricatives to post-alveolar.

The trigger is always the voiced post-alveolar fricative [ž] and acts on a preceding voiced or voiceless anterior alveolar fricative [s z].

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The Data (cont)Precedence relation of target consonants with respect to

trigger:

Directionality -

(2) /žazira/ *žažira ‘island’

The consonant harmony does not occur when the trigger and target occur in the reverse order.

c.f. 1a. zuž ~ žuž

Voicing -

(3) /sba‛taš/ *šba‛taš ‘seventeen’ The voiceless alveolar fricative [š] does not trigger

the consonant harmony.

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The Data (cont)

(4) /l-sžen/ [s-sžen] ‘the prison’/l-šžen/ [š-šžen] *s-šžen ‘the prison’

The consonant harmony can be seen across assimilated word-internal morpheme boundaries.

However, this is in fact merely epiphenomenal of the consonant harmony process.

The assimilation of the harmonized consonant does not reflect the actual consonant harmony moving across morpheme boundaries, but that the assimilation process occurs after the consonant harmony process.

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The Data (cont)(5) Construct Phrases: No Consonant Harmony/ras r-ražel/ *raš r-ražel ‘the head of the man’/ras ž-žmel/ *raš ž-žmel ‘the head of the camel’/nas ždad/ *naš ždad ‘new people’

These data demonstrate that this process is restricted to word-internal contexts.

The construct phrases in (5) would be an ideal environment for the anterior alveolar consonants to harmonize, yet this is ungrammatical.

This specific consonant harmony is prohibited at the phrasal level.

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The Data (cont)The claim that the non-harmonized forms are more

conservative comes from Classical Arabic data.

(6) Moroccan Arabic Classical Arabic/želliž/~ /zelliž/ /zulayj/ ‘tiles’/žaž/~ /zaž/ /zaaj/ ‘glass’/žuž/ ~ /zuž/ /zawj/ ‘spouse’/šerž/ /sarj/ ‘saddle’

The data in (6) give evidence that the forms in (1) containing two post-alveolar consonants are innovative and a result of some process in the language that has triggered the assimilation.

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I. Interim Summary

MA Consonant Harmony:1c. /seržem/ ~ /šeržem/ ‘window’(2) /žazira/ *žažira ‘island’(3) /sba‛taš/ *šba‛taš ‘seventeen’

No effect on/by intervening consonants Strictly Regressive Triggered only by [ž] Does not spread across phrase boundaries Innovative and conservative forms are grammatical

synchronically Innovative forms are more frequent

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Functional Explanation Hansson (2001) typologizes consonant harmony in

terms of directionality.

Regressive assimilation of the type found in Moroccan Arabic is classified by him as “anticipatory” harmony.

He gives an explanation of consonant harmony as in the domain of speech planning with support from research on speech errors (Schwartz 1994, Dell 1997) and child language acquisition (Vihman 1978).

Hansson further concludes that anticipatory harmony of sibilant coronals show a strong palatal bias, with evidence from other studies (Berg 1988, Bolozky 1978, Stemberger 1991).

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OCP Effects in Language Processing Frisch (2004)

OCP: Repeated place of articulation features are not allowed within a root.

Evidence from psycholinguistics suggests that processing a sequence of similar items is more difficult than processing a sequence of dissimilar items.

(7) Caesar’s seizures

The two distinct segments /z/ and /ž/ are highly similar introducing potential confusion in the linear ordering.

Effect of a functional similarity avoidance constraint.

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OCP Effects in Language Processing (cont) In many languages (not Standard Arabic) that

have segmental OCP effects, identical segments are treated differently (i.e. allowed in a sequence) than highly similar segments.

Harmony processes should share common properties with segmental OCP constraints

MA OCP is showing tendencies that pattern in this way.

Different from SA OCP

Preference for identical consonants over highly similar ones – the CH reflects this.

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II. Interim Summary

MA Consonant Harmony:

Can be explained as anticipatory speech/ perception error.

Effect of a functional similarity avoidance constraint different from the SA OCP.

Identical consonants are treated differently than highly similar ones.

What is the problem? – Highly unusual for a Semitic language to display this process.

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The Root and Template Model McCarthy (1981), Standard Arabic Consonants are represented as adjacent on a

prosodic tier, separate from vowels.(8) a

X X X X X katab

‘write’

k t b Segments get linked to template positions through

association line spreading from left to right.

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The Root and Template Model (cont)

Root-final identical consonants are underlyingly a single segment associated to two template positions.

Co-occurrence restrictions (OCP-Place) constraint prohibits adjacent-identical consonants.

McCarthy (1986) further argued that the OCP also actively affects the phonological derivation within the language (p. 208).

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The Root and Template Model (cont)

(9) a

XXXXX samam ‘poison’

s m The distribution of consonants in Standard

Arabic roots supports this model. Standard Arabic (Greenberg 1950):XYZ *XXYXYY *XYX This is also supported by Psycholinguistics

studies (Coetzee)

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OCP-Place in MA

1d. mzuwwež ~ mžuwwež ‘married’

OCP-Place extended to make identical consonants allowed within a stem.

Reflects pressure towards making the segments identical in as many features as possible.

/z, s/ and /ž/ distinction within a single lexical item raises the likelihood of speech error.

Making the segments identical in [+ distributive] feature allows them to become, following Frisch, transparent to segmental OCP constraints.

In effect, the MA roots now have shapes previously not predicted by the Root and Template model: XYX, XXY.

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Root and Template in MA The tier-based analysis of S. Arabic holds that

spreading of association lines occurs progressively within the stem.

However, the consonant harmony process is strictly regressive (c.f. 2).

Further, it is restricted to root-internal boundaries.

These two processes must be distinct, or at least on two independent levels of cognitive processing.

In effect, the existence of stems with the form “XYX” is contradictory to the classic model of underlying Semitic roots.

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Implications – Emergence of the Unmarked Finally, the data support the malleability of coronal

consonants with respect to assimilation.

Further, Hansson argued that regressive coronal sibilant palatal harmony is the most common variety.

It can be argued that assimilation processes occurring only with coronal consonants represent an emergence of the unmarked phenomenon (Gnanadesikan 1995).

In MA, if we take this to be evidence some larger trend, it is first reflected on the most unmarked segments in the language.

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Implications - Variation The conservative and innovative forms alternate freely and

synchronically.

When asking native speakers about the distribution of these forms, they respond that there is no specific demographic, age group, or context that prefers either form.

One exception is that the more innovative form is becoming the more frequent form.

The conservative alternations most likely represent synchronic knowledge of or “re-borrowings” from Standard and/or Classical Arabic.

Interestingly, even French-MA bilinguals, with no exposure to SA, have this alternation.

Therefore, this is truly a learned alternation within MA.

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Further Issues Problem: voicing?

Why is /š/ not a trigger?

Why does /s/ become /š/ not /ž/?

Perceptual salience: changing an anterior coronal to a distributive coronal has less implications for perceptual salience than changing a voiceless consonant to a voiced consonant.

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Further Issues French loanwords into MA can alternate with

speakers who have little knowledge of French.

(10) French:/šãžay/ changer ‘to change’

(11) Moroccan:/šãžay/ ~ /sãžay/

On analogy with the MA alternation, new words can be formed.

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Conclusions Innovative consonant harmony process in

Moroccan Arabic

Precedence with respect to:

Directionality -- target must be before trigger

Root-internal contexts

Similarity – similar features trigger harmony; identical consonants can be immune under an extended OCP-Place constraint

Coronal consonants

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Conclusions (cont)

Functional explanation in the realm of speech errors and segmental OCP effects

Different OCP in MA than in SA

Prefers identical consonants over highly similar ones

That this process can occur has implications for the UR of MA stems

First seen in coronal and palatal place reflects TETU

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THANK YOU!

Questions, comments, suggestions:

geweissman@gmail.com

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Selected ReferencesCoetzee, Andries. 2004. What it Means to be a Loser: Non-Optimal

Candidates in Optimality Theory . Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Massachusetts , Amherst . (ROA # 687-0904)

Gnanadesikan. Amalia E. 1995. Markedness and Faithfulness Constraints in Child Phonology. Ms. ROA.

Frisch, Stefan. 2004. Language Processing and segmental OCP effects. In Hayes, Kirchner, andSteriade (eds.), Phonetically-based phonology, 346-371. Cambridge University Press.

Hansson, Gunnar, O. 2001. The Phonologization of Production Constraints: Evidence from Consonant Harmony. Papers from the 37th meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Vol 1, eds. Andronis, Mary, Ball, Christopher, Elston, Heidi and Neuvel, Sylvian, pp 187-200.

Heath, Jeffrey. 1987. Ablaut and Ambiguity: Phonology of a Moroccan Arabic Dialect. State University of New York Press: Albany.

McCarthy, John. 1981. A Prosodic Theory of Nonconcatenative Morphology. Linguistic Inquiry 12: 373-418

McCarthy, John. 1986. OCP Effects: Gemination and Antigemination. Linguistic Inquiry 17, 2: 207-263.

Rose, Sharon and Walker, Rachel. 2004. Typology of Consonant Agreement as Correspondence. Language 80, 475-531.

Walker, Rachel. 2006. Consonant Harmony and Feature Extension: Coronal Harmony in Kinyarwanda. Handout.