implications of sociolinguistic findings for phonological theory william labov, university of...
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Implications of sociolinguistic findings for
phonological theory
William Labov, University of Pennsylvania
18th Manchester Phonology Meeting
• The implications of phonological conditioning for the identification of underlying forms and the feed-forward model
• The implications of the regularity of sound change for phonological models of perception and production
The first study of internal factors governing linguistic variationProportion of –t,d clusters deleted for 11 members of the Jets in single interviews
Labov, Cohen, Robins and Lewis 1968
Lexically regular variation: coronal stop deletion in English. Two basic constraints on the simplification of /t,d/ clusters in English: the effect of a following consonant vs. a following vowel (a vs. b) and the effect of grammatical boundary (c vs. d)
Monomorphemic Past tense
Proportion deleted of monomorphemic –t,d clusters before consonants and vowels for eleven members of the Jets.
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 450.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
0.90
1.00
_K_V
Number of tokens
Prop
ortio
n de
lete
d
Effect of following consonant on realization of past tense –ed in spontaneous speech of 112 African American struggling readers [N=722]
Lateral Nasal Fricative Stop Vowel0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
Varb
rul w
eigh
t for
abs
ence
Following segment
Where is variation located?
Variable morphological insertion of the past tense morpheme {d} vs.Invariant morphological insertion of the past tense morpheme {d}Regressive assimilation to /t,d/Variable deletion of /t,d/
Proposal: Postlexical phonetic conditioning implies morphological invariance. Conversely, variable morphological insertion implies the absence of postlexical conditioning
Question:If linguistic variation can look up a derivation, why not look down?
“do not insert segment X if by so doing we create an impermissible cluster at the post-lexical level?”
AAVE copula: Variable insertion vs. variable contraction and deletion
əz
z Contraction
Deletion z
0 əz
0
əz z
0
Insertion1 Insertion2
Phonetic conditioning of contraction and deletion for two adolescent groups in South Harlem [from Labov, Cohen Robins and Lewis 1968]
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
_K _V _K _V
Varbul weights
ContractionDeletion
Cobras Jets
K__ V__ K__ V__
Jo’s talkingJen talking
Jen talking
Jo’s talking
Phonotactic effects on contraction and deletion
Jo is talking Jen is talking
CVVC CVC
Jo’s talking Jen’s talking
CVC CVCC
Jo talking Jen talking
CVC CVC
Contraction
Deletion
CV subject CVC subject
Variable AAVE copula and auxiliary is the result of successive contraction and deletion of an underlying form /iz/
Lexical entry V => /iz/
Stress assignment [+str] => [-str]
Vowel reduction /iz/ => /əz/
Contraction: /əz/ => (z)
Deletion: /z/ => (0)
əz
Əz z
0
Contraction
Deletion z
Absence of phonological conditioning of word-final /s/ for AA groups in South Harlem [from Labov, Cohen, Robins & Lewis 1968]
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
_K _V _K _V _K _V _K _V
Percent absence
T-Birds (8)Aces (4)Cobras (9)Jets (17)Oscar Bros. (6)Lames (20)Adults (8)
Group Single Group Single
So. WC
nice dog (ni’ dog)
nice apple
he’s cold
he’s out
Type of Recording:Group Session vs Single Interviews
Monomorphemic Verbal {s}
Adults
Logistic regression analysis of verbal {s} in the spontaneous speech of 58 African-American struggling readers, Philadelphia, 2001
(Note that all blue represent non-significant differences; only red are significant)
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Consonant
Vowel
Consonant
VowelPauseverbdoes
he, she, itNoun phrase
Atlanta
PhiladelphiaCalifornia
Grade 2Grade 3Grade 4FemaleMale
Proportion/weight of absence
ProportionVR weight
Preceding segment
Following segment
Verb
Subject Pronoun/ Noun phrase
Region
Grade
Gender
Hypercorrection as evidence of morphological variation
He can goes out (13, T-birds)I don’t know how to gets no girls. (13, Jets)He’d knows that (15, NYC)
Third singular {s}
Past tense {d}
* He can tried to do it.* He will passed me.
Establishing the locus of variation
Systematic phonological conditioning of a variable implies invariance at the morphosyntactic level and absence of phonological conditioning implies variability at the morphosyntactic level
Effect of
following
Morphological
segment
variation
English -t,d deletion +
-
AAVE copula +
-
Spanish (s) +
-
English (REL) -
+
AAVE verbal {s} -
+
AAVE possessive -
+
Convergent evidence from the study of reading errors
A study of reading errors in an Individualized Reading Program, 2001-2
When to intervene in oral reading?
To decide when to correct an oral reading, the tutor should distinguish between deviations from standard pronunciation, and failure to identify the meaningful elements in the text.
How can this be done?
Absence of verbal /s/ in oral reading: Jason P., age 7
Hey Black doesn’t eat cats, not even one
He just likes to growl and watch them run.grow which
True error
True error
CorrectReading
Absence of verbal /s/ in oral reading: Jason P., age 7
Hey Black doesn’t eat cats, not even one
He just likes to growl and watch them run.lose
Clearerror
Absence of verbal /s/ in oral reading: Jason P., age 7
Hey Black doesn’t eat cats, not even one
He just likes to growl and watch them run.licked
Clearerror
Absence of verbal /s/ in oral reading: Jason P., age 7
Hey Black doesn’t eat cats, not even one
He just likes to growl and watch them run.like
Potential error
grow which
True error
True error
The Semantic Shadow Hypothesis: An error in the identification of a given morpheme increases the probability of errors in the decoding of the following text.
Frequency of following errors for clear errors and correct reading by dialect feature
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.35
_CC1
Verbal {s}
Possessive {s}{ed}clusterother {ed}
plural
copula {s}Irregular past
ch_ sh_ br_
Clear errors
Correct
Dialect feature
A potential error type (e.g., omission of verbal {s}) may be treated as a true reading error if the rate of following errors is significantly greater than the rate for correct readings.
Interpreting potential errors
Frequency of following errors for clear errors, potential errors and correct reading by dialect type [N=567]
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.35
_CC1
Verbal {s}Possessive
{s}
{ed}clusterother {ed}
plural
copula {s}Irregular
past
ch_ sh_ br_
Clear errors
Potential errors
Correct
Potential errors
Frequency of following errors for clear errors, potential errors and correct readings by dialect type for African American readers [N=238]
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.35
Homovoiced_CC (264)Heterovoiced
_CC (37)
{ed}cluster (69)other {ed} (72)Verbal {s} (62)Possessive {s}
(195)plural (73)copula {s}(180)
Irregular past
ch_ (5)br_ (64)
sneaked /snuck
(9)
Error rates
Clear errorsPotential errorsCorrect
W. Labov and B. Baker. What is a reading error? In press. Applied Psycholinguistics.
• The implications of phonological conditioning for the identification of underlying forms and the feed-forward model
• The implications of the regularity of sound change for phonological models of perception and production
• The implications of phonological conditioning for the identification of underlying forms and the feed-forward model
• The implications of the regularity of sound change for phonological models of perception and production
The Neogrammarian viewpoint
Every sound change, inasmuch as it occurs mechanically, takes place according to laws that admit no exception. --Ostoff and Brugmann 1878
Sound-change is merely a change in the speakers’ manner of producing phonemes and accordingly, affects a phoneme at every occurrence, regardless of the nature of any particular linguistic form in which the phoneme happens to occur. . . The whole assumption can be briefly put into the words: phonemes change.
--Bloomfield 1933:353-4
The lexical diffusion viewpoint
The phonetic law does not affect all items at the same time: some are designed to develop quickly, others remain behind, some offer strong resistance and succeed in turning back any effort at transformation. --Gauchat (cited in Dauzat 1922)
We hold that words change their pronunciations by discrete, perceptual increments (i.e., phonetically abrupt) but severally at a time (i.e., lexically gradual)
--Wang and Chen 1977:150.
A proposed resolution
Regular sound change is the result of a gradual transformation of a single phonetic feature of a phoneme in a continuous phonetic space.
Lexical diffusion is the result of the abrupt substitution of one phoneme for another in words that contain that phoneme.
The lexically gradual view of sound change is incompatible, in principle, with the structuralist way of looking at sound change.
--Chen and Wang 1957:257.
But--
The feed-forward model
In fluent, mature speakers, the phonetic implementation system is a modular, feed-forward system, reflecting its nature as an extremely practiced and automatic behavior. . . The model is feed-forward because no arrows go backwards, from articulatory to phonological encoding, or from the phonological encoding to the lexical level. It is modular because no lexeme information can influence the phonetic implementation directly, bypassing the level of phonological buffering.
--Pierrehumbert 2002, “Word-specific phonetics”
The intersection of the exemplar model and the lexical diffusion view of sound change
Obviously, this treatment is not confined to lenition; any systematic bias on the allophonic outcome would incrementally impact high frequency words at a greater rate than low frequency words. In short the model is applicable to any Neogrammarian sound change, by which I mean sound changes which get started in the phonetic implementation and eventually sweep through the vocabulary.
--Pierrehumbert 2002
The fronting of /ow/ in North America (from ANAE Ch. 12)
Distribution of /ow/ vowels for all of North America. [N=8313].Vowels before /l/ are shown in black [N=1577].
Absence of fronting of Vw in vowel system of Alex S., 42, Providence, RI TS 474.
Fronting of all Vw in the vowel system of Danica L., 37, Columbus, OH, TS 737.
34 most frequent /ow/ words in the Brown corpus with Telsur frequenciesBrown Telsur F2 MEAN F2 SD
no 2201 348 1497 214home 639 547 1066 176go 347 626 1386 237coat 313 43 1302 230sofa 227 6 1282 168both 218 730 1202 214know 179 683 1409 239most 153 1160 1215 220old 145 660 1016 175goal 137 60 1017 110coke 136 4 1368 191phone 101 54 1112 191goat 84 6 1427 243pole 79 18 932 110boat 72 165 1293 208coast 66 61 1321 201donut 66 1171 161over 63 1236 1195 200Polish 59 19 992 135road 57 197 1327 195Minnesota 57 13 1282 195gold 52 60 1009 120mostly 48 44 1196 207doe 37 1 1438 238ago 37 1387 220fold 31 7 971 182ocean 27 34 1403 278cold 26 171 989 143notice 25 59 1360 277bowl 23 79 1000 126low 21 174 1235 128toast 19 248 1376 219nose 17 60 1535 147soda 3 406 1336 182
Fronting of /ow/ for words before /l/ and others for all of North America and for the Southeast (South and Midland). Words selected by stepwise regression analysis at p <.001 level as ahead of phonological prediction, light blue; behind, yellow.
800
900
1000
1100
1200
1300
1400
1500
1600
1700
polePolish
coldgoldbowlgoalfold oldhome
low oversofaboatcokecoastoceannose
no
F2 in Hz
All __lSE__lAllSE
Is home a lexical exception to the fronting of /ow/?
N F1 F2
/ow/ 5950 616 1304
/owl/ 2576 575 1010
home 775 669 1068
Oklahoma 14 589 1045
homebody, etc. 28 641 1037
Omaha 10 655 1119
hoe 26 621 1233
Phonetic effects of onset /h/ and coda /m/ on fronting of /ow/
10001100120013001400520
540
560
580
600
620
640
660
680
F2
F1
/owl/ 2,976
Oklahoma (14)
Home cmpd (28)
home (775)
Omaha (10)
hoe(26)
/ow/(5,050)
Significant regression coefficients (p < .01) of F2 of /ow/ in the Southeastern region.
Significant regression coefficients (p < .01) of F2 of /ow/ in the Southeastern region.
Significant regression coefficients (p < .01) of F2 of /ow/ in the Southeastern region.
Significant regression coefficients (p < .01) of F2 of /ow/ in the Southeastern region.
Significant regression coefficients (p < .01) of F2 of /ow/ in the Southeastern region.
Conclusion
Regular sound change is governed by persistent, stable and predictable phonetic effects on all members of a phonemic category, but may be accompanied by minor, unstable and unpredictable lexical effects on individual lexical items
What kind of phonological theory is consistent with studies of linguistic change and variation?
A theory that describes speech production as the selection and linearization of abstract categories.
A theory that can incorporate probabilities into the rules and constraints governing production and perception.
A hierarchical system in which decisions made at a given level are independent of decisions made at a lower level.
A theory which predicts when the unit of sound change is the phoneme and when it is the word stem.
An architecture that accesses and uses lexical information at the final stages of speech production.
Absence of morphosyntactic segments in the spontaneous speech of 399 struggling readers, grades 2-4, by ethnicity/language, 2001
Possessive /s/ Verbal /s/ Copula /s/ syllabic -ed td clusters0
10
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30
40
50
60
70
African AmericanLatino (Eng)Latino (Span)Euro-American
Perc
ent s
egm
ent a
bsen
ce
www.ling.upenn.edu//~labov
Distribution of no [N=348, yellow] and know [N=630, blue] in F1/F2 space
Absence of morphosyntactic segments in the spontaneous speech of 399 struggling readers, grades 2-4, by ethnicity/language, 2001
Possessive /s/ Verbal /s/ Copula /s/ syllabic -ed td clusters0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
African AmericanLatino (Eng)Latino (Span)Euro-American
Perc
ent s
egm
ent a
bsen
ce