swanimam, vol. 2, march 2016 -...

swanimam, vol. 2, March 2016

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swanimam, vol.2, March 2016

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SWANIMAMNEWS JOURNAL

MARCH, 2016

PHONETICS LABORATORYDEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS, UNIVERSITY OF KERALA


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EditorShijith S

Technical Officer, Department of LinguisticsUniversity of Kerala

Published by Dr. S. Kunjamma

Head of the Department of LinguisticsUniversity of Kerala

Editorial AssistantsShagi G.U./Sakthi vel S/Kiran D./Juhi Jan James/ Lipin K.L.

External Editorial supportVishnudas L

Cover Design and Layout Shijith S

Cover photo creditwww.bookstellyouwhy.com

Printed at Akshara Offset, Thiruvananthapuram

SWANIMAMVolume 2, March 2016

ISSN 2395 - 0447© 2016 University of Kerala


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Contents

1. The Echoing Legacy of Absoluteness (Editorial) (5- 7)

2. Nominalizing at Different Levels: How Malayalam can help us better understand Universal Grammar Amanda Swenson Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA (8- 23)

3. Inflectional Paradigm in Meiteilon Reena Ashem and Paroma Sanyal Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology- New Delhi (24- 41) 4. A Moraic Approach to Syllables in Paite Nianglianmoi Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (42- 55)

5. Second Language Phonology: Investigating Tamil English Radhika Gopalakrishnan Raghavan Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (56- 67)

6. Speaking in Tones Interview with Prof. Larry M. Hyman by Mahesh M. (68- 72)


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EDITORIAL

UMBERTO ECO (1932-2016)

the echoing legacy of absoluteness

Time, as we realize is explained only by time and to some extent by our agreeable and tepid responses. We see things around; acceptance and objecting is a routine, negligence to facts and reminders a worthy indicator of our omnipresent deeds. It isn’t that a smidgen of conscious indulgence is all that has eluded the majority. It has more to do with the pranks of time, the whirlwind changes it had to swallow up with every momentous blink. But there were intelligent spots in between that put a match to a million ideas and satiated, curtailed the imminent blame. Umberto eco wasn’t the man for this flawed globe. But he existed for the incisive minds, rampant at anything beyond them. He possessed a remarkable acumen filled with enduring, transcendent views.


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The writer he was, how well he has been read and revered. It is apparent to date, that there wasn’t any worthy challenger from Europe and the rest, when things came down to such incisive prose, leisurely packed with sharp insights. “The Name of the Rose” marked that significant entry. “Foucault’s pendulum” and “The Island of the day before” found every connoisseur bookshelf. He wrote from the gargantuan space he had endeavoured, and the weight his prose carried was plentiful. His thoughts, itinerant and prudent at the same, perhaps were coated with cultural pragmatism and that transcultural ethos which is ubiquitous throughout his writings.

Let aside the fictional charms, Eco’s essays were particularly impressive. “Inventing the enemy” touches anything and everything we would know and wouldn’t. His unique skills to relate things to something very irrelevant have always been lauded. The creations, rather an obvious attribution to meaning is all present and breathes in his subliminal text. Mythical spaces and conspiracy theories defined Eco’s fictitious inclinations. “Five moral pieces” is a tolerant take at the intolerant world around. Eco contends that ethical principles can indeed be articulated apart from any grounding in religious faith, though a natural ethic and a religious ethic may share common ground. The forever debated ideas are no scare in his text, of which fascism is as a cult of tradition he has sensed in his younger days.

At Bologna, he was a professor of semiotics and it is no hidden fact that most of his writing has identified its rationale. From interpretative linguistics to semiosis, every text had that resounding backing treading new path ways.

The semiotic stance of Umberto EcoPerhaps the name, Umberto Eco, may have many meaning in Italian language. In a diachronic perspective its root may culturally mix with other languages. It’s a kind of relentless discourse. The name itself creates a problem and raises a question--a philosophical one. As Shakespeare famously opined “What’s in a name?-- That which we call a rose. By


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any other name would smell as sweet”. In a semiotic point of view, a name signifies many things, that it may have etched its own mark in space and time. It might be hard to predict and identify, but the meanings stay consistent and true. The name Umberto Eco is part of history. The name marks a glorious period filled with ideas which are developed from the inner self of a genius-Umberto Eco. What he said was new- a new way of understanding world, a new dimension of conceiving absolute reality. The name-Umberto Eco signifies an intellect who dedicated his whole life in many fields and marked his signature in untold spheres of knowledge.

His concept on signs is the continuation of that proposed by C S Pierce. His major objection on Saussure’s point of view was that Saussure considered largely strictly conventionalized systems of artificial signs, say-- military signals and visual alphabets. He accepts Pierce’s more comprehensive definition of signs that are in a non-anthropomorphic way.

Standing on the theoretical plot laid by C. S. Pierce, Ferdinand de Saussure, Hjelmslev and Morris, he gives new dimension to the study of semiotics and redefine, in one way, the entire traditional norms put forth by them. Identifying the mutual correlation with the expression and content functives, Eco said that “there are no signs, but only sign-functions” and henceforth extended the boundaries of the process of semiosis by declaring the possibility of other correlations which may be different from the previous one. It thus becomes a different functive giving rise to a new sign-function. The continual circularity is the normal condition of signification- the unlimited semiosis.

The major contribution of UmbertoEco in the theory of semiotics is that he pointed out the (un)predictable dynamics of meaning in different code practices. On that ground, he considers culture as a semiotic phenomenon. He made all his ideas on semiotics on the theory of codes which establishes the semiotic system and the entire cycle of communication is developed under the function of codes which is built on the idea of expression and content plane. He developed a semiotic theory that is non-referential: Expressions may be used to refer to the things or states of the world, but they are derived from culture and the content established by a culture. He took it to the individual, where he claimed, subjective factors could pave for the creation of meaning. Eco believed in it.

It is quite significant and amusing at the same as to know and identify Eco, the vibrant existence he was. The sheer magnificence of his works; he roared, revelled and pacified with logic, if not sanity. For someone who has said: “Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry”, it is easily enough an invitation for a flowing discourse. Now that the unequalled genius has left us and with his brilliant etches here to stay, the last thing we might consider would be –Eco was Italian.


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Nominalizing at Different Levels: How Malayalam can help us better understand

Universal Grammar Amanda Swenson

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Introduction If a child is born in Kerala to Malayalam speaking parents, and then the family moves with their baby to Germany and this baby hears only German, this child will speak only German, despite the fact that (s)he is genetically a Malayali. Conversely, if the reverse happens and a child is born to German parents who emigrate to Kerala and the baby hears only Malayalam, this child will not speak German, only Malayalam. This case raises an interesting puzzle: how are young children able to learn any language that they hear?

Generative linguistics answer this question by saying that all normally developing children, when they are born, possess a ‘language toolbox’ that is equipped with the basic knowledge of the way human language works. This ‘toolbox’ is part of the genetic make up of humans and does not vary based on where a person is from. Just like all humans have a heart or stomach, no matter if they are Indian, Chinese, German or American, all humans have this ‘language toolbox.’ When a baby hears the language spoken around them, they use the universal principles in their ‘toolbox’ to help them quickly learn to speak the specific language being spoken in their environment. Generative linguistics call this ‘language toolbox’ Universal Grammar (UG).

Since UG is part of the genetic make up of humans, the universal principles of human language it contains are things humans know without being taught. In this way, UG also helps us explain why speakers of a given language know things that no one has ever taught them about their language and agree with each other about whether a given sentence is a good sentence of their language or not. For example, Malayalam speakers are not taught that a sentence like (1a) is a good sentence while a sentence like (1b) is not, yet all Malayalam speakers agree that the first sentence is a Malayalam sentence while the second sentence is not.

(1) a. avan var-unn-athu nann-aayi he come-PRES-NOMLZ good-is ‘His coming is good.’ (ie ‘It is good that he is coming.’) (Amritavalli & Jayaseelan 2005, p196: 30a) b. *avan-te var-unn-athu nann-aayi he-GENcome-PRES-NOMLZ good-is

‘His coming is good.’


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Generative linguistics use data from different languages to develop, test, and revise hypotheses about what types of things are hardwired in UG. This process starts with finding a good question. For example, a good research question can be found in many places: a piece of data that does not fit in with the current theory, a set of conflicting claims about a construction in a language, a difference or similarity between languages that is not explained by the current theory, a currently held assumption that seems dubious, a stipulation in the theory that begs a deeper explanation, the discovery of a new link between two pieces of data that seemed previously unrelated, etc.

Here, we will use the data in (1) as a starting point for our investigation. First, we can ask why (1a) is a good sentence while (1b) is not. This is an especially interesting question in that (1b) is the direct translation of the English sentence ‘His coming is good’ into Malayalam. We also know that the direct translation of (1a) into English ‘He coming is good’ is not grammatical. Why do Malayalam and English require a different case on the subject in the bolded construction in (1)?

In order to begin to answer this question, we need to ask a more basic question: what type of syntactic construction are the sentences in (1)? This is the question that I will explore in this paper. In section 1 I will discuss the answer that is often given to this question, namely that the construction in question is a gerund. However, I will argue that there are more types of gerunds than previously thought (cf. Borsley & Kornfilt 2000, Baker 2011). I will argue that constructions like those in (1) are different than the prototypical English gerunds (Abney 1987) but, nonetheless, are a predicted type of gerund given current assumptions in the generative syntactic literature. In section 2 I provide evidence from relative clauses and adjectives in support of this hypothesis. In section 3 I will summarize the main arguments and highlight the open questions.

Section 1 How to define a gerund? Section 1.1 Properties of verbs and nouns

Let me begin this section by giving some background on verbs and nouns that will help us see the puzzle posed by gerunds. Linguistics have observed there are certain properties that go along with being a verb and other properties that go along with being a noun. For example, nouns are marked for case while verbs assign case.1 Specifically, verbs assign accusative case to their objects, (2a). Nouns, on the other hand, cannot assign accusative case to their object: the object of the noun in (2b) is marked with genitive case and not accusative case, (2c).

(2) a. anu nithin-e null-i Anu nithin-ACC pinch-PAST ‘Anu pinched Nithin.’ 1For a general overview of the case theory I am assuming, see Bobaljik & Wurmbrand (2008).


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b. nakarat-inte naasam city-GEN destruction ‘destruction of the city’

c. *nakarat-ine naasam city-ACC destruction ‘destruction of the city’

Verbs can also be modified by adverbs, (3a), while nouns cannot be, (3b). Instead they are modified by adjectives, (3c).

(3) a. melle njaan kulikk-unnu. slowly I bath-PRES ‘I bath slowly.’

b. *melle kuli slowly bath ‘slow bath’

c. melle ull-a kuli slowly be-REL bath ‘slow bath’

Nouns are allowed in the subject position of an embedded clause, (4a), whereas verbs are degraded in this position, (4b).

(4) a. [divaseena unni niinth-unnu ennu] njaan vicharicch-u daily Unni swim-PRES COMP I think-PAST ‘I thought that Unni swims daily.’

b. [divaseena niinth-uka aaroogyatth-innu naallathu aanu ennu] njaan vicharicch-u daily swim-INF health-DAT good be.PRES COMP I think-PAST

‘I thought that to swim daily is good for health.’

In sum, verbs assign case instead of receiving it; specifically, they assign accusative case to their objects, are modified by adverbs and are degraded as the subject of embedded clauses. Nouns, on the other hand, receive case and do not assign it. As a result, they cannot mark their objects with accusative case. They are modified by adjectives, not adverbs, and can occur as the subject of embedded clauses.


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Section 1.2 Gerunds: the puzzle Now let us consider the puzzle raised by the pro-typical gerund, what Abney (1987) calls the ‘poss-ing gerund’ in English, the bolded part of (5).

(5) His coming is good.

Like a verb, a gerund assigns accusative case to its object, (6a), and is modified by an adverb

(6b). (6) a. Mary’s meeting him….

b. Mary’s eating slowly….

However, like a noun, it can occur in subject position, (7).2

(7) I thought [that Mary’s meeting him would bother you].

This is puzzling because it seems to suggest that a gerund is both a verb and a noun. But how can that be? The answer that has been given in works like Abney (1987) is that gerund start as a verb in the syntax but that, at a certain point further along in the syntax, they become nouns. In this way, gerunds can be a verb on the ‘inside’ but a noun on the ‘outside.’ Where exactly does this nominalization process occur? For the ‘poss-ing’ gerund, the nominalization occurs above the Verb Phrase (VP) but before the Inflection Phrase(IP). One of the reasons that Abney argues that the nominalization occurs above VP is that there must be a VP with a V0 to assign accusative case to the object of the gerund and for there to be adverbial modification. One of the arguments that nominalization occurs before IP involves the case of the subject. In a simple sentence like the one in (8a), the subject receives nominative case from I0 for reasons outlined in Chomsky (1981). In the gerund in (8b), however, the subject gets genitive case and it cannot have nominative cause, (8c). One plausible explanation for this set of facts is that there is no I0 to license the nominative case to the subject in gerunds.

(8) a. He met her. b. His meeting her…c. *He meeting her…

Another reason that this analysis seems plausible is that gerunds are not inflected for tense, which is assumed to be located in I0. We can see evidence for this in (9) where gerunds are compatible with past, present and future oriented adverbs. Note that the gerund form stays the same here, i.e. there is no morphological change to match the changing temporal interpretation.

2Due to the difference between English and Malayalam morphology we cannot see that the whole gerund is case marked in English. However, in Malayalam we will be able to see that gerunds can be case marked.


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(9) a. his meeting her yesterday… b. his meeting her today… c. his meeting her tomorrow…

We can summarize the puzzle as follows: gerunds, like verbs, assign accusative case to their object and can be modified by adverbs, but, like nouns, can appear as the subject of embedded clauses, have genitive subjects, and lack tense morphology. The solution to this problem proposed by Abney (1987) is that gerunds begin in the syntax as verbs but are nominalized above the VP but before the IP.

Section 1.3 Malayalam gerunds: the plot thickens Now let us return to the construction in (1a) that has been called a gerund in Malayalam. These forms look verbal in that they case mark their object with accusative case, (10a), and are modified by adverbs, (10b).

(10) a. vinu asha-ye kaandumutt-unn-athu…. Vinu Asha-ACC meet-PRES-NOMLZ ‘Vinu’s meeting Asha…’

b. melle avan kazhikk-unn-athu… slowly he eating-PRES-NOMLZ ‘His eating slowly…’

They also look nominal in that they can be case marked themselves, (11a), and can appear in the subject position of an embedded clause, (11b).

(11) a. [njaan parannj-ath]-ine avan ethirtth-u I say-PAST-NOMLZ-ACC he oppose-PAST ‘He opposed what I said.’

(Asher & Kumari 1997 p43: 185) b. [divaseena niinth-unn-athu aaroogyatth-innu nallathu aanu ennu]

daily swim-PRES-NOMLZ health-DAT good be.PRES COMP njaan vicharicch-u I think-PAST

‘I thought that swimming daily is good for the health.’ (cf. Asher & Kumari 1997 p42: 178)

Just looking at these similarities, we might say that they are like English ‘poss-ing’ gerunds. However, simply by examining the data above more closely, we see two challenges for such


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an analysis. First, we see in (10) and (11a) that these gerunds, unlike those in English, license a nominative subject not a genitive one. Secondly, in all of the Malayalam gerunds, tense morphology is appearing. At this point we have at least two options for how to interpret this difference between Malayalam and English.

One option is to keep the English-based analysis of what it means to be a gerund and question if what we are calling tense morphology in Malayalam is really tense morphology and if case assignment happens the same way in Malayalam as it does in English. This option is the one taken up in work by Amritavalli and Jayaseelan (2005) and Amritavalli (2014). These authors note that there are languages like Mandarin (Lin 2006, 2010) that lack tense morphology and a Tense Phrase (TP) and instead get their temporal interpretations via aspectual information. In the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1993, 1995), T0, like the Government and Binding-era I0, is generally assumed to license nominative case and be the locus of tense morphology. They then argue that what have traditionally been called tense morphemes in Malayalam are actually aspect morphemes.3 In a minimalist framework, these aspect morphemes would be located in an AspectP (AspP) located above VP and below TP. With this reanalysis in place, they can still say that gerunds are nominalized above VP and before IP (or TP in minimalist terms).

Regarding the remaining problem of the presence of nominative case on the subject of gerunds, we could argue that T0 does not always need to be present for nominative case to be licensed in Malayalam. An argument for this might come from the fact that nominative case can be used in ‘out-of-the-blue’ cases in Malayalam when there is no T0present to license it. An example of this is shown in (12). The case that appears on nouns in such a situation is generally called the ‘default case’ and can vary from language to language. Note from the gloss that in English accusative case is the ‘default case’. One question that would remain, however, for such an account is why English ‘poss-ing’ gerunds do not have an accusative subject, if it is simply a matter of assigning the subject default case when there is no T0 present.4

(12) njaan viroopay-oo? I ugly-Q ‘Me ugly!?’

3 See their papers for the details of their argument for this reanalysis. Also see Swenson (2015) for some arguments against their analysis. 4 It is possible to have an English gerund with an accusative case (‘Him taking the day off…’); however, this is a different type of construction than the ‘poss-ing’ gerund we have been discussing. See Abney (1987) for details. The crucial fact for us is that both gerund types in English are nominalized below TP. In what follows, I argue that Malayalam gerunds are nominalized above TP, so they have a different structure from either type of English gerund.


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A second option we have is to keep the traditional analysis for tense morphology in Malayalam and assume that case is assigned in the same way in Malayalam and English and question our English-based account of gerunds. I will explore this option in the rest of the paper. Let us begin by recalling that we argued gerunds in English are nominalized before the IP/TP. Our argument for this was that English gerunds lack tense morphology, which would be located at T0, and that they cannot be marked with nominative case, which would be assigned by T0. By the same logic, we might now argue that Malayalam gerunds do, in fact, have a TP present in the syntax since they have both tense morphology and nominative subjects. If this is so, then we might simply say that nominalization takes place somewhere after, not before, the TP.There is precedent for such a move in work by Borsley and Kornfilt (2000) and Baker (2011). The basic idea present here is that, given the expansion of functional categories assumed in the minimalist literature, nominalization should, in principle, be able to occur at the level of any of these functional projections. Some of the common projections above the VP that are assumed are vP, VoiceP, AspP, PerfectP, TP and ComplementizerP (CP). A summary of the projections generally assumed in current syntactic theory is given in (13). The point here is not so much what the specific labels are but that there are now many more sites in the functional structure where a nominal head could be substituted for its verbal counterpart, i.e. for nominalization to occur.

(13) [VP [vP [VoiceP [AspP [PerfectP [TP [CP]]]]]]]

Baker (2011) investigates the Turkish language Sakha and finds that it has something that looks like an English ‘poss-ing’gerund, as well as another type of construction that is ‘more verbal’ than an English gerund construction, yet still has more nominal properties than an embedded finite clause. He argues that this construction involves nominalization at the CP-level. In the next section, I will argue that nominalizations like those in (1), (10) and (11) in Malayalam also occur at the CP-level, i.e. the C0 is replaced with its nominal counterpart in these cases. In section 2 I will provide evidence for this hypothesis from relative clauses and adjectives.

Section 2 Evidence for nominalization at CPSection 2.1 Relative Clauses My main observation in this section will be that the type of nominalization in (1), (10), and (11) shares many properties with relative clauses in Malayalam. I will begin this section by summarizing some basic facts about Malayalam relative clauses. There are two types of relative clauses in Malayalam. The first type is formed by suffixing the relative morpheme –a to the end of the verbal complex. This can simply be a tense suffix as in (14a-b) or a modal suffix like the debitive, (14c). In these cases, the noun that the relative clause modifies comes to its right. I will refer to this construction as a ‘type I’ relative clause.


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(14) [Joon kan-unn-a] kutti John see-PRES-REL child ‘The child whom John sees’

(Mathew 2007, p227: 1)

b. [joon kand-a] kutti John see.PAST-REL child ‘The child whom John saw’ c. [kaan-eend-a] kaazhcha-kal see-DEB-REL sight-PL ‘sights that (one) should see’

(Asher & Kumari 1997, p327: 1619)

In the second type of relative clause, there is no noun to the right that the relative clause modifies. Instead, an agreement suffix for number and gender is added directly to the relativizer, (15). These relative clauses, instead of providing additional information about a particular noun, provide more general information about ‘whoever’ is doing the action. I will refer to these constructions as ‘type II’ relative clauses.

(15) a. var-unn-a-van5 [cf. avan ‘him’]6

come-PRES-REL-SG.MASC ‘the person (MASC) who is coming’

b. var-unn-a-val [cf. aval ‘her’] come-PRES-REL-SG.FEM ‘the person (FEM) who is coming’

c. var-unn-a-var [cf. avar ‘they’] come-PRES-REL-PL ‘the people who is coming’

d. var-unn-a-thu [cf. athu ‘it’] come-PRES-REL-SG.NEUT ‘the person who is coming’ (Asher & Kumari 1997, p328) For the purpose of this paper, the critical point to note is that the form in (15d) looks identical

5 Past tense forms can also have this done to them: ie vann-a-van ‘the person (MASC) who came.’ etc 6 Third person pronouns in Malayalam are created from distal/proximal markers plus the number and gender agreement morphemes (Mathew 2007, p232: fn4).


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to the form we were calling a gerund in (1a). The same parallel can be drawn for (15a) and (1b). Based on this similarity, we can hypothesize that the –athu and –avan morphology that I previously glossed as a nominalizer is in fact the relativizer plus number and person agreement.

Now, let us consider some additional evidence for this reanalysis. Examples (16)-(21) show that both types of relative clauses and gerund clauses with the so-called ‘nominalizer’ morpheme pattern the same way with respect to tense and negation. Example (16) shows that the relativizer in both type I and type II relative clauses, as well as the ‘nominalizer’ morpheme attach to the present tense morpheme.

(16) a. Joon kan-unn-a kutti type I John see-PRES-REL child ‘The child whom John sees’

(Mathew 2007, p227, 1)

b. var-unn-a-van type II come-PRES-REL-SG.MASC

‘the person (MASC) who is coming’

c. [nii koozha vaang-unn-a-thu] ellaavarum ariy-um ‘NOMLZ’ you bribe take-PRES-REL-NEUT.SG all know-FUT ‘Everyone knows that you take bribes.’

The data in (17) shows us that the relativizer in both types of relative clauses and the ‘nominalizer’ morpheme attach to the past tense morpheme.

(17) a. joon kand-a kutti type I John see.PAST-REL child ‘The child whom John saw’

b. vann-a-van type II come-PAST-REL-SG.MASC

‘the person (MASC) who came’

c. [nii koozha vaang-iy-a-thu] ellaavarum ariy-um ‘NOMLZ’ you bribe take-PAST-REL-NEUT.SG all know-FUT ‘Everyone knows that you took bribes.’

(Asher & Kumari 1997, p51: 239)


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However, we see in (18) that the relativizer in neither type of relative clause can attach to the future morpheme. The same facts hold for the ‘nominalizer’ morpheme.

(18) a. *[njaan kaan-um-a] kutti type I I see-FUT-REL child ‘(the) child that I will see’

(Jayaseelan 2014: 9, p195) b. *var-um-a-van type II come-FUT-REL-MASC.SG ‘the one who is coming’

c. *[nii koozha vaang-um-a-thu] ellaavarum ariy-um ‘NOMLZ’ you bribe take-FUT-REL-NEUT.SG all know-FUT ‘Everyone knows that you will take bribes.’

Instead, the periphrastic future composed from the purposive infinitive plus the present tense of the verb pookuka ‘go’ must be used in both types of relative clauses and in the ‘nominalized’ form, (19).

(19) a. Joon kan-aan pook-unn-a kutti type I John see-INF go-PRES-REL child ‘(the) child John is going to see’

b. var-aan pook-unnu-a-van type 2 come-INF go-PRES –REL-MASC.SG ‘The one who is going to come.’

c. [nii koozha vaangaan pook-unn-a-thu] ellaavarum ariy-um. ‘NOMLZ’ you bribe take-INF go-PRES-REL-NEUT.SG all know-FUT ‘Everyone knows that you are going to take bribes.’

Turning now to negation, in (20) we see that neither type I nor II relative clauses nor the ‘nominalizer’ can be used with the illa form of negation.

(20) a. *njaan kand-a illa kutti. type I I see.PAST-REL NEG child

‘the child that I didn’t see’ (Jayaseelan 2014: 23, p200)


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b. *van-a-van illa type II come-REL-MASC.SG NEG ‘the one who did not come’

c. *[nii koozha vaang-unn-athu illa] ellaavarum ariy-um ‘NOMLZ’ you bribe take-PRES-REL-NEUT.SG NEG all know-FUT ‘Everyone knows that you do not take bribes.’

Instead, the negative form –aa(tth)- must be used in both type I and II relative clauses and ‘nominalized’ forms, (21).

(21) a. njaan kan-aatth-a- kutti. type I I see-NEG-REL child

‘the child that I don’t/didn’t/will not see’

b. var-aatth-a-van type II come-NEG-REL-MASC.SG ‘the one who is/was/will not (be) coming.’

c. [nii koozha vaang-aath-athu] ellaavarum ariy-um ‘NOMLZ’ you bribe take-NEG-REL-NEUT.SG all know-FUT ‘Everyone knows that you do/did/will not take bribes.’

This identical pattern with respect to tense and negation suggests that what have been called ‘nominalized’ clauses are in fact type II relative clauses. If this is so, and we follow the general assumption that relativization happens at the CP-level, then the idea that nominalization occurs at the CP-level here is not surprising. The use of type II relative clauses as nominalizations in Malayalam is quite different from English ‘poss-ing’ gerunds. However, it is not unexpected given that we should be able to nominalize at any of the increased number of functional projections now assumed in generative syntax. In the next subsection, I will provide language internal evidence from adjectives that Malayalam uses relative clauses for more purposes than English does.

Section 2.2 Adjectives Hany Babu (1997), Mathew (2007), Menon & Pancheva (2014), a.o. have pointed out that many adjectives in Malayalam are types of relative clauses. In this way, the use of relative clause structure for purposes beyond English-style relative clauses seems to be a general property of Malayalam. In this section I will highlight some similarities between adjectives, relative clauses and nominalized clauses. For instance, relative clauses in Malayalam must


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have a noun to their right, (22a), or an agreement morpheme attached to the relativizer, (22b). It is not possible to simply have a type I relative clause without a noun, (22c). Mathew (2007) takes this to mean that there is, in fact, only one type of relative clause and, in type II relative clauses, the agreement morpheme is playing the same role as the noun to the right of type I relative clauses.

(22) a. kan-unn-a kutti see-PRES-REL child ‘the child who sees’

b. kan-unn-a-van see-PRES-REL-MASC.SG ‘one (MASC) who sees’

c. kan-unn-a *(kutti) see-PRES-REL child

(Mathew 2007, p230:9)

We see in (23) that adjectives follow the same pattern. If the noun being modified by the adjective is to the right of the adjective, no agreement suffix is required, (23a). However, if the noun being modified is to the left of the adjective, (23b-d), or absent, (24), an agreement suffix is required or the phrase is ungrammatical.

(23) a. idu valiy-a miin aanu this big-REL fish be.PRES ‘this is a big fish’

b. miin valiy-a-thu aanu fish big-REL-NEUT.SG be.PRES ‘fish is big’

c. vinu valiy-a-van aanu Vinu big-REL-MASC.SG be.PRES

d. *miin valiy-a aanu fish big-REL be.PRES ‘fish is big’ (Mathew 2007, p231: 13)


20

Observe that the nominalized clauses we have seen in Malayalam do not have any noun to their left that they are modifying. This explains why they must have an agreement suffix, (24b). Notice that in the English gloss the word ‘what’ is used. However, no such word is present in the Malayalam sentence in (24a). Instead, it is the agreement that is playing this roll in Malayalam.

(24) a. [njaan parannj-a-th]-ine avan ethirtth-u I say.PAST-REL.NEUT.SG-ACC he oppose-PAST

‘He opposed what I said.’

b. *[njaan parannj-a]-(y)ine avan ethirtth-u I say.PAST-REL-ACC he oppose-PAST

‘He opposed what I said.’ In this section we have seen that nominalized clauses, relative clauses and adjectives all require agreement morphology to be attached to the relativizer when there is no noun to their right. This suggests that Malayalam, in general uses a relativization strategy for more purposes than English does.

Section 3:What we have learned and what we still need to know In this paper we have seen that nouns have certain properties while verbs have a different set. Gerunds, however, are puzzling because they have properties of both verbs and nouns. We first looked at the properties of English ‘poss-ing’ gerunds and we looked at what have been called gerunds in Malayalam. We noticed that while they share certain properties, they also differ in certain properties. In order to account for the Malayalam data we hypothesized that the nominalization in Malayalam is occurring above TP while nominalization in English ‘poss-ing’ gerunds occurs below TP. This explains the initial puzzle in (1) that the paper began with: Malayalam gerunds require a nominative subject because they contain a TP, while English gerunds lack a TP and thus cannot have nominative case.We then developed an account based on the intuitions in Borsley & Kornfilt (2000) and Baker (2011) that nominalization should be able to occur at any of the functional projections in the syntactic tree. We specifically noted that Baker (2011) argues that the Turkish language Sakha has a gerund which is nominalized at the CP-level. We then went on to argue that nominalizations in Malayalam morphologically look like Malayalam relative clauses and the two behave identically with respect to the distribution of tense and negation. We then noted that adjectives in Malayalam are created from relative clauses and that adjectives, relative clause and nominalizations all require an agreement suffix to attach to the relativizer when the noun they are modifying is not located to their right. We took this unified behavior as a signal that Malayalam uses relative clause structures for more purposes than English does.


21

From this investigation we can learn several important lessons. The first of these is that Malayalam is like English and also not like English, but where it is not like English it is more like other languages like Sakha. This teaches us that in trying to understand Malayalam, we should neither force it into a Western box nor say that it is so different that it cannot be accounted for on generative terms. Rather, careful understanding and scrutiny of the tools of generative linguistics is needed alongside increased study of non-Western languages. As we have seen in this paper, the generative tradition actually predicts that Malayalam style gerunds should exist, despite their differences from English gerunds. Baker (2011) also shows that we find gerunds that are similar to those in Malayalam in other non-Indo-European languages. As such, Malayalam has a critical role to play in helping generative linguists better understand the nature of Universal Grammar and shape generative linguistic theory so that it is truly universal.

A second lesson we learn is that it is important to question our definitions of even the most basic terms. Upon closer inspection, we have found that the term ‘gerund’ covers more structures than previously assumed. However, even with the progress we have made towards understanding the specific type of gerund that Malayalam has, further revision is still needed. In this paper we have argued that nominalizations are identical in structure and distribution to relative clauses in Malayalam. As such, the fact that (25b) is not good is particularly surprising. We see in (26a) that if the gerund were replaced with a pronoun, the sentence becomes good and means ‘He became good.’ Given this and the relative clause like property of nominalization in Malayalam, we would expect that (25b) could mean ‘The guy who is coming has become good.’ Yet, the sentence cannot have this meaning and is simply ungrammatical. We see in (26b) that there is no restriction on gerunds with masculine agreement occurring in subject position, so (25b) cannot be ungrammatical because it is in subject position. This suggests that an additional agreement mechanism is at play in these nominalized constructions.

(25) a. avan var-unn-a-thu nann-aayi he come-PRES-REL-NEUT.SG good-is ‘His coming is good.’ (ie ‘It is good that he is coming.’) (Amritavalli & Jayaseelan 2005, p196: 30a)

b. *avan var-unn-a-van nann-aayi he come-PRES-REL.MASC.SG good-is

‘His coming is good/the guywho is coming has become good.’

(26) a. avan nann-aayi. He good-is ‘He became good.’


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b. [newspaper konduvar-unn-a-van] udane var-um newspaper bring-PRES-REL-MASC.SG soon come-FUT ‘The guy bring newspaper will come soon.’

These facts are particularly interesting in light of Baker (2003). Here Baker has questioned what the primitives of being a noun, verb and adjective are and sought an answer beyond the [+V], [+N], [-N, -V] commonly assumed in Chomskian theory. Part of his specific definitions for what it means to be a noun, verb and adjective predicts that all nouns bear a referential index while verbs and adjectives do not. Given our analysis of the nominalizer as the relativizer plus agreement morphology, we can say that this agreement morphology is what licenses the referential index that makes the nominalization truly nominal. This seems especially plausible given the obligatory nature of the agreement when there is no noun to the left which the adjective or relative clause is modifying. In these cases, the agreement here would be supplying the noun property, i.e. the referential index, itself. However, there are no specifications about what type of agreement licenses referential indexes and thus (25b) should be just as good as (25a) using Baker’s definition of what it means to be a noun. However, it is not. Further study of this contrast can help us gain understanding into the way agreement drives syntactic processes, even in a language that lacks robust verbal agreement morphology. Here again is another opportunity for the differences in Malayalam to help inform and shape basic tenants of Universal Grammar, in this case how we define primitive lexical categories. An insightful question to ask as we go forward with this inquiry is how different terms are used in the generative tradition as compared with the way they are used in the non-generative Indian linguistic tradition and how can this non-generative tradition inform generative linguistics? A close study of Malayalam and its grammatical tradition have a large part to play in further understanding Universal Grammar.

Finally, I have left many open questions in this paper. For example, I have not explained the reason for the contrast in (25). Additionally, there are several points in this paper where I outlined multiple possibilities and then chose one of the options. What would happen if the other option were chosen? How could the alternate account be worked out? How would we evaluate which account is better?Every place where I have used the word ‘assume’ is a location where a challenge could be lodged and questions can and should be asked regarding how valid my assumption is, why we would assume such a thing, and what the alternatives to that assumption would be. By constantly asking such questions and evaluating the theory internally and in terms of new cross-linguistic data, progress can be made towards understanding the nature of a truly universal Universal Grammar.


23

Acknowledgements For their help with Malayalam judgments, I would like to thank Aiswarya G. Shajan, Ajimol Soman, Athulya Aravind, Gokul G., Hema K.S., Laksmi R.M., Lekshmi Mohan, Linny Simon, Meethu Mohan, Shamna Sulfikar,Simi K.D., Sreelekshmi N., Sreesha M., and Tishi Thomas.Thanks to Adam Albright, R. Amritavalli, Keerthana Gopinathan, Sabine Iatridou, K.A. Jayaseelan, P. Madhavan, Shijith S., Roger Schwarzschild, the participants of the 43rd All Indian conference of Dravidian Linguistics, and the EFLU seminar series for relevant discussions of these facts. This work has been supported by a MISTI/MIT-India internship grant and a Ken Hale grant for linguistic fieldwork. All errors are my own.

References

Abney, S. 1987. The English Noun Phrase in its Sentential Aspect. MIT PhD thesis.Amritavalli, R. 2014. Separating tense and finiteness: anchoring in Dravidian. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 32:1, 283-306. Amritavalli, R. and K.A. Jayaseelan. 2005.Finiteness and Negation in Dravidian, in The Oxford handbook of comparative syntax, In G. Cinque and R.S. Kayne eds., 178-220. Oxford University Press. Asher, R.E.&T.C. Kumari. 1997.Malayalam. London: Routledge. Baker, M. 2003. Lexical Categories: Verbs, Nouns, and Adjectives. Cambridge University Press.Baker, M. 2011. Degrees of Nominalization: Clause-like Constituents in Sakha. Lingua 121:1164-1193. Bobaljik, J.D. and S. Wurmbrand. 2008. Case in GB/Minimalism. Handbook of Case. Eds. A.Malchukov and A. Spencer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 44-58. Borsley, R.D. & Kornfilt, J. 2000. Mixed extended projections. In Syntax and Semantics 32: The nature and function of syntactic categories, ed. Robert Borsley, 101-131. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Chomsky, N. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris. Chomsky, N. 1993. A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory. In The View from Building 20, Ed. K. Hale and S.J. Keyser, 1-52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Chomsky, N. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hany Babu, M.T. 1997. The syntax of Functional Categories. Unpublished PhD dissertation.Hyderabad: CIEFL. Jayaseelan, K.A. 2014. Coordination, relativization and finiteness in Dravidian. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 32:1, 191-211. Lin, J. 2006. Time in a Language Without Tense: The Case of Chinese. Journal of Semantics 23:1-53. Lin, J. 2010. A Tenseless Analysis of Mandarin Chinese Revisited: A Response to Sybesma 2007. Remarks and Replies LI.Mathew, R. 2007. SIMPLy Malayalam participials. CONSOLE XIV.Menon, M. and R. Pancheva. 2014. The grammatical life of property concept roots in Malayalam. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 2013.Swenson, A. 2015. Tense, Finiteness and Negation. Manuscript, MIT.


24

Inflectional Paradigm in MeiteilonReena Ashem and Paroma Sanyal

Department of Humanities and Social SciencesIndian Institute of Technology-New Delhi

1. IntroductionThis paper explores the morpho-phonology of affixal allomorphy in the context of the prosodic shape of morphemes being restricted to maintain regularity and non-variance in the inflectional paradigm. We observe that this allomorphy is restricted to morpho-phonological contexts where the morphological and phonological well-formedness requirements of the language are interacting with one another. Thus, the context for allomorphy in Meiteilon, a language with paradigm uniformity is found to be restricted to the particular phonological situation where the lateral phoneme is being avoided in the surface representation.

In the theory of Optimal Paradigms proposed by McCarthy (2005), it is suggested that the phonological shape of inflectional affixes is non-alternating in Classical Arabic. This has the consequence of constraining the phonological shape of verb roots. In effect this blocks allomorphy in the entire inflectional domain of verbs. Similar to Classical Arabic, within the inflectional paradigm of Meiteilon verbs, there is a strong tendency to block allomorphy. This is evident in the constraining of the phonological shape of suffixes to consonant-initial. However, this requirement of consonant-initial suffixes is partially offset by the lateral phoneme, which in turn is a frequent suffix-initial consonant, becoming phonologically marked in the language. This further development has destabilized all the /l/ initial suffixes, resulting in a variety of resolution strategies emerging in the language.

2. Non-variance in Inflectional ParadigmMeiteilon has only monosyllabic roots but the syllables can begin with both vowels and consonants. Similarly, both vowels and consonants occur in syllable-final position.

Table 1: Syllable Structure in Meiteilon Nominal Paradigm Verbal Paradigm a. V syllable a. CV syllable i ‘blood’ i- ‘write’ u ‘tree’ o- ‘puke’ b. VC syllable b. VC syllable ut ashes on- ‘turn’ in ‘fishing net’ ot- ‘torture’


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c. CV syllable c. CV syllable lɑ ‘banana leaf’ pɑ- ‘read’ nɑ ‘ear’ čɑ- ‘eat’ d. CVC syllable d. CVC syllable čɑk ‘rice’ čen- ‘run’ sən ‘cow’ tek- ‘break’

Similarly by null hypothesis, suffixes too should be both vowel-intial and consonant-intial. However, in that scenario there is a likelihood of vowel-hiatus. While verb roots can end in both vowels as well as consonants, we find that all verbal suffixes are consonant-initial.i

Table 2: Possible Syllable Structure after addition of Inflectional Suffix

While each one of the contexts with C-initial suffix can be syllabified easily, two of the contexts with V-initial suffixes result in vowel hiatus (highlighted). Resolution of this, either though vowel deletion or consonant/glide epenthesis would result in either root or suffixal allomorphy. Following optimal paradigms, this kind of allomorphy is marked in the inflectional domain of verbs. Thus Meiteilon resolves this context by avoiding V-initial suf-fixes altogether.Note that another consequence of having only C-initial suffixes is that there is no syllabifi-cation between the root and the suffix. On the other hand, since C-initial suffixation creates either -CC- consonantal sequences or -VCV- intervocalic sequences, there is an increased possibility of assimilation and dissimilation between the phonological segments that come together in this domain.

3. Phonological context of Lateral delinkingThe lateral phoneme in Meiteilon is independently marked and gets neutralized in all positions other than word-initial. As a result, the lateral phoneme /l/, is phonemically contrastive only word-initial positions. Elsewhere, the more stable phoneme /n/ that is also a coronal sonorant like /l/ replaces /l/. Apart from /l/ and /n/, Meiteilon has yet another coronal sonorant, the rhotic /r/, that according to Takhellambam (2015) surfaces only in intervocalic contexts. He analyzes these as cases of complementary distribution of /l/ and /r/, since the latter does not occur as an independent phoneme. /l/ → [r ] / V ____V

Root-final σ + V-initialSuffix

Result Root-final σ + C-initialSuffix

Result

V- + -V → VV V- + -CV → VCVVC- + -V → VCV VC- + -CV → VCCVCV- + -V → CVV CV- + -CV → CVCV

CVC- + -V → CVCV CVC- + -CV → CVCCV


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1. ŋaii + li → ŋari ‘fish’ ‘preserve’ ‘fermented fish’ 2. wa + li → wari ‘word’ ‘narrate’ ‘story’ 3. i + lon-bǝ → ironbǝ ‘water’ ‘boil’-Nominalizer ‘a dish’ (Takhellambam, 2015: 47-48)

In the rule-based format of phonological analysis, this appears to be a case of assimilation. However, since both /l/ and /r/ have very similar characteristics with respect to which they might assimilate to a vowel, it is unlikely that this is a process of intervocalic rhoticization. On the other hand, given our hypothesis of lateral avoidance in Meiteilon, the only other remaining continuant for an underspecified coronal sonorant is a rhotic. The rhoticization thus results from delinking of the lateral node with the consequent requirement to vocalize the remaining underspecified structure.

Similarly in non-continuant contexts of lateral delinking, such as in word-final position, it results in the surfacing of the coronal nasal stop /n/. 4. cəwbə ləniii yɑmnə pɑy-bə nupɑ -ni Chaoba property very hold-Nzr man Cop ‘Chaoba is a very rich man’

Fig.1. Lateral de-linking resulting in rhoticization


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5. cəwbə pʰon bin tʰi-bə čət-kʰi Chaoba phone bill pay-Nzr go-Past ‘Chaoba went to pay the phone bill’

Further, this data also suggests that whether the underspecification of the lateral results in, a liquid /r/ or the nasal /n/ is determined by the following environment rather than the preceding one, since in both the cases the lateral approximant is preceded by a vowel. Additional evidence for this directional bias can be seen in onset clusters. Unlike many other Tibeto-Burman languages of the region Meiteilon allows onset clusters. While /l/ seems to be completely absent from these clusters, /r/ can appear in non-initial onset clusters.

6. Onset Cluster a. cəm.pra ‘lemon’ b. kəp.treŋ ‘spinning wheel’ c. laŋ.thrəj ‘a plant’ d. məŋ.ɡra ‘sweet potato’ e. kaŋ.drum ‘ball’ f. khoŋ.drum ‘pumpkin’ g. pik.tru ‘small’ (Takhellambam, 2015: 65)

Fig.2. Lateral De-linking resulting in surfacing of nasal


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While Takhellambam (2015) does suggest that these /r/ are underlyingly /l/ as well, the environment for such rhoticization is definitely not intervocalic. By our analysis, an under-specified coronal sonorant, resulting from the delinking of the lateral feature of /l/, will be interpreted as a liquid /r/ when followed by a [+continuant]. The preceding stop is completely ignored by the underspecified delinked lateral, as it assimilates in continuancy with the following vowel.

Given this directionality, we would expect all /l/initial suffixes in Meiteilon to surface as /r/ since they are all followed by vowels. However, this is not the case. Unlike in the case of onset clusters where the CC sequence is tautosyllabic, in heterosyllabic CC sequences the underspecified delinked lateral does assimilate freely with the preceding consonant. Thus the delinking of the lateral node produces an underspecified phoneme, that surfaces as

l the coronal liquid /r/ inter-vocalically l the coronal nasal /n/ elsewhere

When the nasal is blocked in tautosyllabic consonant clusters, the rhotic /r/ surfaces even though there is no inter-vocalic environment. This overapplication of the rhoticization rule is explained away by the under-specification analysis.

Summary of the Delinking and underspecification analysis Step 1: Lateral delinking Step 2: Underspecified segmental position Step 3: Surface as rhotic if preceded and followed by of oral continuants Step 4: Surface as nasal stop if the underspecified position is either preceded or followed by an oral stop. Step 5: Syllabic well-formedness prevents a sequence of two stops in the onset position of the same syllable. The markedness of tautosyllabic stop sequence blocks the nasal stop from surfacing in the underspecified position of the delinked lateral. Step 6: A rhotic appears in this position as a last resort.The resultant ordering between the context for /l/ [/r/ and /l/[/n/ in synchronic grammar emerges as l /l/ [/n/ / Context of [non-continuency] l /l/ [/r/ / Elsewhere

4. Morphological environment for Lateral delinkingOne of the common consonants in C-initial suffixes in Meiteilon is the coronal lateral /l/. Oinam (2011) lists only two /l/ initial suffixes [-lǝm] ‘evidentiality’ and [-loy] ‘hypothetical markers’. Apart from these two morphemes, there are other /l/ initial inflectional suffixes in


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Meiteilon such as [-lə] ‘proximal deictic marker’, [-lu] ‘distal deictic marker’, [-lək] ‘deictic morpheme’, [-ləm] ‘deictic morpheme’, [-li] ‘Prog’, [-le] ‘Perf’. Depending on the phonological environment, these morphemes show multiple strategies of lateral avoidance. Some of the possible lateral avoidance strategies and their autosegmental representation include:

a. Deletion of the segmental position containing /l/. This would be delinking the skeletal tier containing the phoneme /l/ altogether. However, this strategy is absent in the language. b. Deletion of all the features of the phoneme /l/ and replacing them with the features of an adjacent segment. This would entail delinking the autosegment /l/ between the skeletal and root tiers. The result would be that the /l/ loses its defining root characteristics of continuancy and sonorancy. (strategy b) c. Deletion of the lateralness of the /l/, while keeping intact other features of place and manner. This would mean delinking only the lateral node, so that the crucial place (coronal) and manner (+cons, +son) features are retained.

We predict that the adoption of these strategies mentioned above will depend upon the phonological environment of the suffixal /l/. In the following sections, we therefore analyze the behavior of the suffixal /l/ in different phonological environments.

4.1 Suffixal /l/ with vowel final rootsAll suffix-initial /l/ will become intervocalic with vowel-final verb roots. Based on our analysis of intervocalic contexts from section (3) we would predict that the /l/ delinking in these cases would result in surface rhotic. This is attested by relevant data. It has been noted by Thoudam

Fig.3. Representation of strategy b and c


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(1980), Nonigopal Singh (1987), Bhat and Ningomba (1997), Chelliah (1997), Singh (2000), Rajkumar (2013) and Takhellambam (2015) that if the stem ends in a vowel or a glide, then the /l/ changes to /r/ as in:

7. pɑ + -lo gpɑ-ro read Imp ‘read!’ 8. čɑ + -le gčɑ-re eat Perf ‘have eaten’ 9. ləy + -li gləy-ri buy Prog ‘buying’ 10. ləw + -le gləw-re take Perf ‘taken’

4.2 Assimilation of /l/ to non-coronalsIn Meiteilon the lateral is always a coronal since there are no non-coronal laterals in the language. Consequently, any non-coronal consonant followed by a lateral will always differ from one another with respect to place of articulation. In such a situation, the /l/ initial suffix assimilates and alters to the form of the preceding non-coronal coda. The assimilation of suffixal /l/ to following non-coronal consonant in Meiteilon has been independently observed by Bhat & Ningomba (1997) and Rajkumar (2013). For instance, the /l/ phoneme of progressive [-li] becomes [-pi] if the coda of the preceeding morpheme is the obstruent /p/. 11. əy če nəp-pe I paper stick-Prog ‘I am sticking paper’ Likewise, the progressive [-li] becomes [-mi] and [-ŋi] as the /l/ phoneme assimilates and alters to non-coronal nasals /m/ and /ŋ/ respectively. 12. tombə si-də pəw če nəm-mi Tomba here-Loc news paper print-Prog Tomba is printing newspaper here 13. imuŋ mənuŋ-de kɑŋ čəŋ-ŋi room inside-Loc mosquito enter-Prog Mosquito is still entering inside the room

This assimilation is resulting from an independent phonological requirement in the language to avoid lateral phonemes from non-initial positions. As per our analysis (discusses in section 3), using autosegmental theory, the phenomena can be described in two steps.


31

Step1: Delinking of the lateral node from the suffix-initial /l/ segment. Step2: Linking/ Spreading of the root tier of root-final C segment to the suffix-initial segment.

However, there are certain contexts in which this assimilation fails. The first such context is with respect to the non-coronal plosive /k/. 14. tombə mə-səm kək-li [ kək- i *kək-ki *kək-li Tomba 3P-hair cut-Prog ‘Tomba is cutting his hair’ When the verb root ends in the non-coronal /k/, and is followed by a /l/ initial suffix like [-li] ‘progressive’, then the resulting surface form neither assimilates, nor surfaces with the underlying consonants. This, is resulting from the blocking of linking the root tier of the root-final /k/ with the skeletal tier of the /l/ segment. In other words, while the underlying /l/ is getting delinked from the segmental tier, the root final /k/ fails to spread to this unlinked segmental position.

Fig. 4. /m/ to /l/ Spread

Fig.5. Blocking of /k/ to /l/ Spread


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While the spreading of adjacent consonant feature to underspecified /l/ segment is restricted to morphological contexts, it is also the presence of the morphological boundary between the two segmental positions that blocks the spreading of /k/.

This morphological boundary between a verb root and its inflection is sensitive to all the other segments within the inflectional domain which have the phoneme /k/ linked to the edge of the suffixal morpheme. For instance, the independent /k/-initial suffixes like voli-tion [-ke] block the spreading of the /k/ features from the root node of the root final /k/ of [lak-] ‘come’ to the skeletal tier of the suffix initial /l/ of [-le] ‘perf’: 15. lɑk- + -le → lɑk-e *lɑk-ke *lɑk-le come Pref 16. lɑk- + -ke → lɑk-ke come Vol

Evidence for this analysis can be clearly seen from the phonetic analysis of the relevant morphemes. The phonetic evidence discussed here clearly endorses the physical presence of the skeletal tier, in the form of duration of the plosive. However, this acoustic correlate is blocked from mapping onto the phonological notion of a geminate.

4.2.1 Acoustic evidence for Gemination

The only instance where two /k/s in Meiteilon can surface adjacently is poly-morphemically at the morpheme boundaries.

17. lɑk- + -kəni [ lɑk-kəni ‘will come’ come Vol

Hence, we examine if a link could be established between the progressive morpheme and the other /k/ initial inflectional morphemes through phonetic cues using PRAAT. For such comparison, we recorded and compared the duration of /k/ in a singleton environment, underlying two /k/ environment and the /k/ in interaction with the progressive morpheme. The duration of the singleton /k/ was found to be quite short with 6.7 milliseconds on average in the environment of a derived word ə-kəŋ-bə ‘dry’.


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If we assume the progressive environment with non-geminating /k/ to be akin to a singleton /k/, it would imply that their difference in duration if at all would be minimal. However, the recordings present us with contradictory evidence. The duration of /k/ in [lɑk-i] ‘come progressive’ is found to be significantly longer than in the case of a singleton /k/. This duration of 17 milliseconds (avg) (Fig.7) was actually even longer than the duration of two underlying /k/s occurring adjacently. The latter was found to be about 11.2 [5.5 +5.7] milliseconds (Fig.8).

Fig.7. Spectrograph of /k/ in interaction with progressive

morpheme and its duration

Fig.6. Spectrograph of singleton /k/ and its duration


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In addition to durational differences, the potentially geminate (progressive) /k/ also shows qualitative distinction from the double /k/ context. If we compare the spectrographic images in fig 7 and 8, we find a partial stoppage of voicing in the latter context and a complete absence of voicing in the former. Such qualitative distinction was systematically present in all the recordings.IV

Interestingly, the phonetic behavior of /k/ in the progressive morpheme interaction was similar to the phonetic behaviour of the geminate /p/ in interaction with progressive [-li].

Fig.8. Spectrograph of underlying two /k/ and its duration

Fig.9. Spectrograph /p/in interaction with progressive and its duration


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Apart from the similarity in the duration of the potentially geminate /k/ the geminate /p/ they are also qualitatively similar with respect to voicing. In both cases voicing is absent. Hence, based on such comparisons, we conclude that phonetically the behaviour of /k/ interacting with progressive morpheme is akin to the behaviour of /p/ interacting with progressive [-li]. While morphological homophony avoidance is the motivation for the non-geminate interpretation of the potentially geminate /k/, there are two possible theoretical modes of explaining the phonological interpretation.

● If a skeletal tier remains unlinked to the root then it receives no phonological interpretation, although it is phonetically apparent.

● Phonetic cues like duration, VOT and burst do not directly correlate to phono logical structure. In order to perceive a geminate it is imperative that the two segments are associated with a single root node underlyingly. If this association line is blocked then the geminate interpretation is also consequently blocked.These two hypotheses are not incompatible with one another.

4.3 Non-Assimilation of /l/ to coronalAs mentioned earlier, the lateral in Meiteilon is always a coronal. Thus, when other coronal sounds preceed the /l/ initial suffix, then there is a similarity in place of articulation between the two sounds. Given our analysis so far there is no reason to believe that the spreading of the consonantal features from the root-final consonant to the /l/ initial suffixal segment would behave differently in case of coronal identity from what we have discussed so far. However, the relevant Meiteilon data shows otherwise.

Under coronal identity the lateral suffix fails to delink. Further, if another coronal consonant occurs adjacent to the /l/ in the suffix initial position, and both match with respect to the root tier properties like sonorancy, then reverse assimilation takes place.

When the root final coronal is a [-sonorant] the lateral sound retains its form and does not alter at all. For instance, the progressive mood marker [-li] surfaces as [-li] when it interacts with the verbs [čət-] ‘go’ and [hɑt-] ‘kill’.

18. tombə iskul čət-li *(čət-ti) Tomba school go- Prog ‘Tomba is going to school’


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19. tombə kɑŋ hɑt-li *(hɑt-ti) Tomba mosquito kill- Prog ‘Tomba is killing mosquito’

Unlike this, when the coronal root consonant is a [+sonorant], assimilation takes place. How-ever, the direction of this assimilation is from the suffix to the root. 20. [pun-] + [-li] pul-li *(pun-ni) ‘tying’ tie Prog

Two crucial points about Meiteilon phonology emerge from this data. The first is that assimilation or spreading of consonantal features across adjacent consonants is an independent phonological well-formedness property of the language. The delinking of the lateral in certain morpho-phonological positions, just feeds into this grammatical phenomenon. Therefore, it follows from here that the spreading need not be directionally motivated from the verb root to suffix. This also belies the assumption of root faith being more important than suffix faith in the language.

The second implication of this divergence between coronal and non-coronal environment on the one hand and between [+sonorant] coronal and [-sonorant] coronal on the other, is that the delinking of the lateral itself, our step 1 in assimilation, is blocked by the high degree of identity between the root final consonant and the suffix initial consonant. The more they share features with the lateral, the less likely it is that the lateral will get delinked. Thus the entire lateral phoneme with all its further autosegments is getting delinked at the highest node if and only if the preceding consonant is sufficiently distinct from it.

By our analysis, the delinking of the lateral should result in underspecification. This under-specified segment could in turn assimilate the relevant feature, in this continuancy, from the adjacent segments and surface as either /n/ or /r/.

Fig.10. Underspecification


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This underspecification of an underlying /l/ and its surface interpretation as /n/ in the context of a [-continuant] is blocked by potential homophony with independent /n/ initial suffixes in the language. This notion is similar to the case of blocking /k/ assimilation discussed earlier.

21. nɑwri-nə uček kɑp-nu catapult-Inst bird shoot-Proh ‘Do not shoot birds with catapults’.

22. kɑ mənuŋ-də kʰoŋŋup toŋŋɑɡɑ čəŋ-nu room inside-Loc shoes wear enter-Proh ‘Do not enter inside the room with shoes’

23. ŋəsi nəŋ lɑk-nu today you come-Proh ‘Do not come today’

Unlike /n/, there are no independent /r/-initial suffixes in Meiteilon. In fact it has been widely observed that /r/ does not occur as a phoneme independent of /l/ in the language. However, if rhotic interpretation can be a last resort strategy for non-initial onset clusters in Meiteilon compounds, then why does it not rescue the potentially similar context of /n/ blocking in the inflectional paradigm of verbs.

Table 3. Summarization of the Problem

The spreading of continuancy in the derived environment is blocked by the phonological well-formedness condition that did not allow two consecutive tautosyllabic stops. In other words, within the prosodic domain of the syllable two consecutive stop consonants should not occur. The same phonological well-formedness context does not apply in the inflectional paradigm, since the two potential stops /t/ and /n/ are heterosyllabic. Unlike in the derived environment, in this case the spreading of continuancy is being blocked by the potential homophonic context and is therefore morphological in nature. The avoided homophony condition is a morpheme well-formedness, rather than a phonological

Underlying Derivational Paradigm Inflectional Paradigm of VerbsRepresentation -tl- kəp.treŋ ‘spinning wheel’ -tl- čət-li ‘go prog’a. Lateral delinking -t~ -t~ b. Underspecification -tC[coronal, +son, +con] -tC[coronal, +son, +con]c. Spread [continuancy] - -tC[coronal, +son, +con, -cont]d. rhoticization -tr- -e. No homonymy - -tl-


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well-formedness requirement. Thus rhoticization as a rescue strategy is restricted to the domain of phonological well-formedness and does not extend to morphological well-formedness.

This observation is in consonance with the notion of structure preservation proposed by Kiparsky (1985). According to this proposal lexical rules are structure preserving and do not result in non-phonemes, while post-lexical or purely phonological rules need not be structure preserving and could produce allophones.

The context of lateral delinking in Meiteilon clearly shows that if the phonological rule of continuancy assimilation is blocked by phonological factors, it could result in the non-phoneme /r/. However, if the same phonological rule of continuancy assimilation is blocked by morphological factors, then the repair strategy has to be structure preserving. Since both /n/ and /r/ are ruled out due to homophony avoidance and structure preservation respectively, the result is that the lateral fails to delink.

24. Conclusion Following Optimal Paradigms we see that verb inflections in Meiteilon are all C-initial and thus make the inflectional paradigm prosodically regular. Independent of this morphologically significant property of the language, one particular phoneme, the lateral /l/ has become phonologically unstable and therefore marked. This particular phoneme also happens to be one of the consonants, that make up the C-initial affixes of the inflectional paradigm of Meiteilon verbs. This is resulting in a direct conflict between morphological and phonological well-formedness in the language.

In non-inflectional contexts of lateral avoidance, we find the sounds /n/ and /r/ replacing the lateral. Of these /n/ is an independent phoneme in the language and /r/ is a non-phoneme that emerges only in these contexts. The rules for [l=>n] and [l=>r] are disjunctively ordered.

Continuancy assimilation: l => n / ___. C[-continuant] or C[-continuant .___Rhoticization: l=> r/ Elsewhere

In inflectional contexts of lateral avoidance, both these rules are blocked. The continuancy assimilation rule is blocked by the morphological requirement of maintaning the distinction in phonetic form between different inflectional morphemes. Since Meiteilon already has other inflectional morphemes beginning with /n/ that attach to verbs, the continuancy assimilation rule is blocked in the inflectional paradigm. The rhoticization rule on the other hand is blocked by the morpho-phonological requirement for rule to be structure preserving. Since, /l/ and /r/ is not a phonemic distinction in Meiteilon, rhoticization cannot apply in these contexts.


39

Therefore within the inflectional paradigm, lateral avoidance strategy shows three patterns. It varies from

a) complete assimilation of the /l/ to the preceding consonant, b) to surfacing of the underlying suffixal /l/, and/or c) complete assimilation of the preceding consonant to the suffixal /l/.

To map these divergent observations about the behaviour of the /l/ phoneme in the inflectional paradigm of verbs in Meiteilon, we have proposed two delinking positions in an autosegmental representation. The first position is at the lateral node and the second is between the root and the skeletal node. In order to lose the ‘lateral-ness’ of a coronal lateral, it is sufficient to de-link the lateral node. This would retain most of the articulatory properties of place and manner without the sound being a lateral. This is the underspecification of the coronal analysis.

This strategy being phonological in nature is in turn disjunctively ordered after the morphological scenario where the delinking is higher up the structure at the root node. The context that triggers the latter delinking is the combination of the two requirements; a) Inflectional morphemes need to be non-identical to one another, and b) Lateral deletion should result in feature assimilation between consonants.


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iCertain verbal suffixes like the indicative ‘i’ have been described as vowel-initial. However, these too we argue in the paper Phonemic Instability Ashem and Sanyal (in preparation) to be instances of underlying [-li] with a level tone, as opposed to the progressive [-li] with a high-low contour tone.

ii Bhat & Ningomba (1997) and Takhellambam (2015) uses the diacritic /a/ for back low vowel and /ə/ for mid vowel. We also use the same diacritic for mid vowel, but for back low vowel we use /ɑ/. We use /a/ in all the instances where the data had been refered from either Bhat & Ningomba (1997) and Takhellambam (2015). However, we use the diacritic /ɑ/ in the data we have list.

iiiPrevious works on Meiteilon have observed that /n/ and /l/ are in free- variation at the coda position (Bhat & Ningomba (1997), Chelliah (1997), Kidwai (2010), Oinam (2011)). However, a detailed discussion on this notion will be address in Ashem and Sanyal (in preparation).

ivThe vibration of the vocal cord or formants during a stop should not make a lot of difference in Meiteilon qualitatively since voicing is not a contrastive feature in the language according to phonemic descriptions of the language. While voiced obstruents are found only between two other voiced sounds, elsewhere obstruents are voiceless. However, it is quite likely that this phonemic distinction too is not as straightforward and there is complex interaction between voicing and other phonemic contrasts at the tonal level.


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References

Bhat, D., & Ningomba, M. (1997). Manipuri Grammar. Muchen, Newcastle: Lincom Europa.Chelliah, S. L. (1997). A Grammar of Meithei. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Kidwai, A. (2010). The cartography of Phases. In A. D. Hill, Edges, Heads and Projections: Interface properties (pp. 233-262). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Kiparsky, P. (1985). Some consequences of Lexical Phonology. Phonology Yearbook 2, 85-138.McCarthy, J. (2005). Optimal Paradigms. In L. Downing, T. A. Hall, & R. Raffeleisen, Paradigms in Phonological Theory (pp. 170-210). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Nonigopal Singh, N. (1987). A Meitei Grammar of Roots and Affixes. Manipur: Manipur University, Doctoral Dissertation.Oinam, N. (2011). Classification and Ordering of Verbal Suffixes in Meiteilon. New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University, M.Phil Dissertation. Rajkumar, L. (2013). A Morpho-Phonological Analysis of the /l/-initial suffixes of Meeiteilon. New Delhi: Paper presented at the JNU Phonetics-Phonology Colloquium.Singh, C. Y. (2000). Manipuri Grammar. New Delhi: Rajesh Publications. Takhellambam, M. (2015). Prosodic Phonology in Meiteilol. New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University, Ph.D Dissertation.Thoudam, P. (1980). A Grammatical Sketch of Meiteiron. PhD Dissertation: Jawaharlal Nehru University.


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A MORAIC APPROACH TO SYLLABLES IN PAITE

AbstractThis article presents an analysis of syllables in Paite within Moraic Phonology. Conforming to bimoraicity constraint, all syllables are minimally bimoraic and that monomoraicity is defined by the presence of glottalised lateral coda /lˀ/, trimoraicity on otherhand is characteristic of the presence of moraic sonorant codas /m,n,ŋ,l/ in syllables with long vowels and diphthongs. Syllable weight is distinctive in terms of light and heavy where all moraic segments are tone – bearing units.

INTRODUCTION Considering vowel length contrasts and minimal pairs of unglottalised and glottalised lateralcodas in (1) and (2) found in the segment inventory of Paite, this paper examines andanalyzes syllables of such characteristics within the framework of Moraic Phonology(Hayes 1989; Zec 1995).

(1) Vowel Length ContrastsVowel length contrasts in Paite distinguishes syllables into short and long vowels.A. VC and V:C syllable Short vowel Long vowel a) [ēŋ] ‘yellow’ [ě:ŋ] ‘light/glaring’ b) [ǒm] ‘present/existing’ [ō:m] ‘chest/face’ c) [ēk] ‘(to) chop/hack’ [ě:k] ‘dung/excreta’ d) [īp] ‘sack’ [ī:p] ‘(to) hold back (from coming out)’

B. CVC and CV:C syllable Short vowel Long vowel a) [běl] ‘(to) be punctual’ [bē:l] ‘pot/container’ b) [t sîm] ‘(to) crumble/fall apart’ [t sî:m] ‘porridge like’ c) [xūp] ‘(to) shut/close’ [xǔ:p] ‘(to) overcome/surmount’ d) [pʰōk] ‘rugged/uneven’ [pʰǒ:k] ‘(to) remember/bring to mind’ e) [pāt] ‘cotton’ [pǎ:t] ‘ragged/tattered

NianglianmoiJawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

* Among the diphthongs of Paite as listed above, diphthong /ia/, /ou/ and /ua/ undergoes monopthongization and diphthongization by means of coalescing to a single vowel /e and o/.


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C. CVV and CV:V syllable Short vowel Long vowel a) [saī] ‘(to) pay attention to’ [sā:i] ‘elephant’ b) [suy] ‘(to) carve’ [sū:y] ‘(to) investigate/do research’ c) [keū] ‘(to) be dry’ [kě:u] ‘spoon’ d) [keǐ] ‘I/me’ [kê:i] ‘(to) bite/nibble’

(2) Minimal Pairs of unglottalised and glottalised segments a) [kǔl] ‘inn/sty’ [kulˀ] ‘cave’ b) [bǔl] ‘beginning’ [bulˀ] ‘(to) fix’ c) [běl] ‘(to) be punctual’ [belˀ] ‘(to) stick/glue’ d) [tǒl] ‘(to) become untie’ [tolˀ] ‘(to) slip/slither’

The paper is organized as follows: Section I gives some aspects of linguistic informations of Paite. Section II provides a brief introduction to Moraic Phonology. Section III presents the analysis and discussions.

1. LINGUISTIC INFORMATIONPaite (ISO 639 – 3:pck) belongs to a Northern Chin sub – group of Kuki – Chin (Grierson,1967:59), a part of the Northeastern India branch of Tibeto – Burman Family stock of thegreat Sino – Tibetan family of Languages (Bradley, 1997). The variety of Paite examined in this paper (cf. Ainura, 2001) known as ‘Lamka dialect’ is spoken in the main town ofChurachandpur district of Manipur. It differs from the ‘Lamzang dialect’ (cf. Singh, 2006)spoken in Tuithapi (a hill village) situated 5km (approx.) east of Churachandpur town.Essentially, I have relied on Ainura‘s (2001) and Singh‘s (2006) descriptions but I have also extracted from my own data which was collected with the aim of verifying andsupplementing the data in Ainura and Singh.

1.1. Segments of PaiteIn Paite, there are six oral vowels /i, e, a, ə, o, u/ with the following diphthongs /ai, ei, ia,oi, ou, eu, au, iu, uy, eu/ and tripthongs /iai, uai, iau, uau/. Coda consonants is restricted toobstruents /p, t ,k, ʔ, lˀ/ and sonorants /m, n ,ŋ, l/ as represented in (3) as below:

(3) Coda Constraints in Paite


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Similar to most Tibeto – Burman languages, roots are typically monosyllabic with few di –and trisyllables. The preferred syllable template of Paite is: (C) V (C). Word initial andword final consonant clusters are absent in Paite except in English loan words like[pɹɪn sɪpʰəl] ‘principle,’ however word medial clusters such as /ŋp/, /n t /, /mp/ are found in afew non – compound disyllable and trisyllables, respectively. On average, all syllables beartones and its tone bearing units (TBUs) are vowels and sonorant codas respectively. Lengthis phonetically represented as [:] and phonemically, there are three tones namely: rising(L-H), falling (H–L) and mid or level (M), as shown below:

Phonemes Tone types Phonetic notation a) /xa:/ ‘bitter’ Rising [ ] b) /xa:/ ‘spirit’ Mid [ ] c) /xa:/ ‘wings’ Falling [ ]

2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK2.1. Moraic PhonologyMora is a phonological weight units of a syllable and Moraic theory of Hayes (1989)explains the internal structure of a syllable establishing on ‘mora’ by assuming that morasare underlying representations expressing length and syllabicity. As a result, morasoriginated from an underlying representation and/or moras are assigned by rule. Vowels andgeminate consonants are considered to bear moras underlyingly while non – syllabicsegments do not bear moras. On this account, the role of mora is to distinguish betweenlight and heavy syllables: a light syllable has one mora and heavy syllable has two moras.In a language which considers both CVV and CVC as heavy, the syllable structure will beschematically represented as in (4), where μ = mora (Hayes 1989:254):

The syllable structure of a language where CVC is not considered to be heavy is schematically represented as in (5):

(5)


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A non – syllabic vowels (glides), short vowels and long vowels are put across by a contrast in domination by zero, one and two moras in forms (6 a,b,c) respectively (Hayes 1989:256):

Geminate consonants have underlyingly one mora, and a single consonant have zero moraas schematically represented in (7):

Weight – by – position is a language specific rule which renders closed syllables heavy, acoda consonants receive mora when they are adjoined to the syllable, schematicallyrepresented in (8) as below (Hayes 1989:258):

(8) Weight by Position

Prosodically, mora is an elementary prosodic unit that organizes the phonemes; mora is a constituent of the syllable intervening between the [σ] and the phonemic string (Kenstowicz 1994:293). A prosodic licensing theory of Itô (1986) requires that all phonological units belong to higher prosodic structure and any segment must achieve licensing by either of the two: a) association to the syllable template or b) gets eliminated by stray erasure, considered an extra-syllabic or extra- prosodic segment. Under moraic theory, segments are grouped into syllables by a syllabification algorithm proposed by Hayes (1989: 257) as below:

a) Selection of certain sonorous moraic segments on a language – specific basis, for domination by a syllable root. b) Adjunction of onset to a syllable node and of coda consonants to the preceding mora.


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2.2. Sonority Constraints on SyllableSonority constraints within the syllables are completely made explicit at more than one level: constraints on syllable weight imposed by the mora and on syllabicity by the next higher prosodic level, the syllable. Accordingly, sets of syllabic and moraic segments selected by languages corresponds to one of the universally posited sonority classes and simultaneously the assignment of moraic (or syllabic status) must also satisfy the conditions on relative sonority defined purely in a paradigmatic terms (Zec 1995). Universal sonority classes have an implicational hierarchy in which a less constrained sonority classes include a more con-strained one, each class is distinguished by a major class feature and represented in (9) as below (Zec 1995:87):

(9) Sonority classes a. [- cons] vowels b. [+ sons] vowels + sonorants c. all segments

Zec argues that moraic and syllabic segments may not belong to similar sonority class cross– linguistically on the condition that sonority constraints on syllabic set either exceeds, or isequal to the constraints on the moraic set. Similarly, the sonority constraints on moraic struc-ture have to satisfy certain conditions: its sonority needs to be at least equal to if not greater than that of the following segments, as schematically represented in (10) as below (Zec 1995:87):

(10) Constraints on Moraic Structure

Here ri and rj stand for adjacent root nodes; ri forms a sonority peak and therefore is capableof aligning with a mora if and only if: a) its sonority is not less than that of the followingsegments and b) rj is null, in which case the sonority requirement is satisfied vacuously. By(b) a word – final consonant (belonging to the moraic set) will necessarily be associated with a mora. As a result, both syllabicity and moraicity are thus expressed in terms of minimal sonority.


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2.3. Tone

Tone is phonetically executed by the vocal cords, and the geometry of tone is a sub –structure of the geometry of the laryngeal features (Bao 1999, Halle and Stevens 1971). Formally, tone consists of register ‘r’ and contour ‘c’ where ‘r’ and ‘c’ are sister root nodes dominated by the tonal root node as represented in (11):

(11) t

r c

The ‘r’ node is specified by the laryngeal feature [stiff vocal cords] or [stiff]. The contournode c is specified by the laryngeal feature [slack vocal cord] or [slack]. The features [stiff]and [slack] are equivalent to [upper] and [raised] in its functional terms corresponding to aformal apparatus as a postulated structure in (a) and (b) respectively (Bao 1999:5):

To represent the contour tones of Paite, I will follow Bao’s tone systems of even, rising and falling tones represented as the same in (b) above. The mid tones however will be leftunmarked. Below I will present an analysis and discussions of vowel lengths within moraicframework.


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III. ANALYSIS and DISCUSSIONS3.1. Derivation of MorasAll vowels have underlying ‘moras’ by Moraic hypothesis (Hayes, 1989) and accordinglyone mora is assigned to a single vowel, two moras to long vowels and diphthongs, inaddition, three moras to a diphthong with long vowels. The derivation of underlying moraswill be schematically represented in (12) as follows:

3.2. Weight – by – PositionTypologically languages with ‘mora’ as the tone bearing unit (TBU) often requires the TBU to be vowels and sonorant codas [m,n,l,r,w], while obstruent codas [k,b,f,z] do not beartones, Gussenhoven (2004:29). In Paite, while vowels and sonorant codas [m,n,ŋ,l] are both TBU and weight units of the syllable, obstruent codas [p,t,k] are non – tone bear-ing unit and they do not contribute to weight units. Weight – by – position rule will assign moras to sonorant codas [m,n,ŋ,l] but not to obstruent codas [p,t,k] accordingly as shown below in (13):

(12)


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3.3 Prosodic licensing of MorasMoras are prosodically license by associating them into syllables in conformity with thesyllabification algorithm proposed in Hayes (1989) and is schematically represented in (14)as below:

As can be seen from (12), (13) and (14) a moraic theory of Hayes (1989) captures the vowellength contrasts of Paite by assigning one mora to a single vowel, two moras to long vowelsand diphthongs, and three moras to diphthongs with long vowels. Sonorant codas receivemoras by virtue weight – by – position and therefore sonorant codas are moraic segments. Itfollows that a closed syllable in Paite with sonorant codas are minimally bimoraic.

3.4. Sonority constraints on syllable structureWhile there are no syllabic consonants in Paite and only vowels are regarded as syllabic, the derivation of moras from the discussions above in section 3.2 assumes that both vowels and sonorant codas are moraic in Paite. The following classes of segments correspond tosyllabicity, TBU and moraicity as shown in (15) as below:

(15) Sonority classes of Paite is composed of –

a) [ - cons] vowels relates to Syllabicity b) [+ son] vowels + sonorants relates to TBU and moraicity c) ---------- all segments do not relate to moraicity

(13) a.

14


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In (15a) it is shown that only vowels are syllabic and this corresponds to the followingsyllabicity constraint in (16):

(16)

The sonority classes of Paite described in (15b) lends support to moraicity constraints inPaite that only vowels and sonorant classes are moraic elements. A stronger evidence formoraicity constraints comes from the segment inventory which makes distinctions betweenunglottalised and glottalised lateral codas as represented in (17) as below:

In (17b) it can be shown that a glottalised lateral coda /lˀ/ does not have mora as it isconsidered to be an obstruent, while the lateral coda in (17a) is a sonorant and therefore isassigned mora by weight – by - position. A moraicity constraint of Paite can therefore beposited as in (18):

(18) μ

[+ sonorant/ - obstruents]

(17)


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From the perspectives of sonority constraints on moraic structure, Paite diphthongs /eu, ai,uy/ and their long counterparts /e:u, a:i, u:y/ conforms with the sonority scale as indicated:a>e>u, i, y; and represented in (19) as follows:

(19)

Moreover, the sonority constraint in moraicity follows that the sonority of the segmentprojecting a mora needs to be equal to if not greater than that of the following segments.The moraic consonants such as /m,n,ŋ,l/ are assigned mora vacuously as well as relatively,schematically represented in (20) as follows:

(20)


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In (20 a, c) moras are assigned to the final consonant vacuously as there is no segmenthigher in sonority that follows it but in the case of (20 b, d) the final consonant in thesyllables are unmoraified as it is followed by a more sonorous segment and weight – by –position rule does not apply.

Conclusion:A light and heavy syllable distinction in Paite within the framework of moraic theory asrevealed in the discussions above assumes that a closed syllable such as VC and CVC is considered to be light if it has single vowel and obstruent codas /p, t , k/. Similarly, a closedsyllable VC and CVC with obstruent codas /p, t, k/ is heavy provided it has a long vowel or a dipthong. By corresponding to universal sonority class, the sonority constraints on thesyllables shows that all syllabic segments are moraic in Paite but all moraic segments arenot syllabic, but both syllabic and moraic segments are tone bearing units (TBU) andtherefore moraicity constraints of Paite relates to [+sonorant/-obstruents] and likewise itconforms to and satisfies the conditions on relative sonority as well as universal sonorityscales.

Contrastive vowel lengths and minimal pairs of unglottalised and glottalised lateral codapresent in the segment inventory of Paite shows that all syllables with sonorant codas/m,n,ŋ,l/ are typically heavy and bimoraic while obstruent codas /p,t,k,lˀ/ corresponds tomonomoraicity as well as bimoraicity with the distribution of long and short vowelsrespectively, therefore syllables are minimally bimoraic in Paite. However, the constraint inmonomoraicity typically corresponds to the presence of glottalised lateral coda /lˀ/, andsimilarly the constraint on trimoraicity corresponds to the presence of a diphthong with along vowel in open syllable CVVV and those in closed syllable CVVC regards long vowelor diphthongs with sonorant codas /m,n,ŋ,l/ respectively. Correspondingly, syllables in Paitecan be distinguished as monomoraic, bimoraic and trimoraic where a monomoraic syllableis considered to be light, bimoraic and trimoraic as heavy syllables.


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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Paite speakers and students from JNU and DU campus forgiving me the opportunity to cross – examine and built more inputs to the datas onwhich the paper is based. The following names of students cannot be witheld:Chiinngaihmuan Ngaihte, Prescilla Kim Guite, Muanching Guite, BiakchingTonsing, Zenngaihlun Tonsing, Doupiaksiam Vualnam, Vungsuanlal Kullai,Ginlalsiam Tonsing, Muanthang Ngaihte, Piangrouthang Tangpua, Sangte Tangpua,for sharing their valuable time with the recordings, in filling out data questionnairesas well as providing me with informations to the tonal variations found in Paite,respectively.

Thanks to Karthick Narayanan, Mahesh M., Meiraba Takhellambam, Ginmuanthang Kullaiand M.Pauminsang Guite for proof – reading the paper and providing valuablecomments and criticisms.


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Notes

1. According to Bao (1999: 3 – 4), an ‘r’ is a non – terminal node that dominates asingle feature in (1) and the contour node may dominate a single [slack]specification, or a sequence of [slack] specifications in (2):

Here, (2a) is a configuration for an even (or level) tone, and (2b) is a configurationfor a contour tone.

The values of the feature [slack] in any given sequence are different, assumption isthat configurations in (3) are conceptually equivalent to (2).

Features provide articulatory instructions to the relevant articulators and anarticulatorily meaningful branching structure involving a single feature will havedistinctive specifications of that feature with the following meaning, as in (4):

(4) H = [+stiff] ([+upper]) L = [- stiff] ([ - upper]) l = [- slack] ([+ raised) h = [+slack] ([- raised])

2 A TBU or ‘tone bearing unit’ is an element in the segmental structure to which thetone associates. A TBU may be a vowel or a ‘mora’ (Yip 2002; Gussenhoven 2004).

3. It should be noted that V and CV syllables in Paite are heavy only in isolation andsyllable final position in a word. The proclitics /ka/ ‘1Sg.Poss’ which monopthongizes due to vowel coalescence from /kei/ ‘1Sg’ are considered to be light CV, and particle /a/ is a light V when it is not preceded by the 1SG proclitic /kei/ to form a possesive/genitives.


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References

Asamidinova, Ainura (2001). Aspects of phonology and morphophonemic changes in Paite. MA Dissertation. Unpublished. University of Delhi.Bao, Zhimming (1999). The Structure of Tone. Oxford University Press.Bradley, David (1997). “Tibeto – Burman Languages and classification. “In Tibeto – Burman languages of the Himalayas, David Bradley, Eds. Pacific Linguistic Series A, vol.86: 72. Canberra: Australian National University.Burling, R. (2003). “The Tibeto - Burman languages of Northeastern India.” In G.Thurgood and R.J. La Polla, Eds. The Sino - Tibetan Languages: 167 - 192. Routledge, London.Gordon, Raymond.G. (2005). Ethnologue:Languages of the world, 15th ed. Dallas, Tx: SIL International. Online version: www.ethnologue.com.Grierson.G.A. (1967). Linguistic survey of India. (Vol – 3, Part – 3). Delhi: Low Price Publication.Gussenhoven, Carlos (2004). The Phonology of Tone and Intonation. Cambridge University Press.Hayes, Bruce (1989). Compensatory Lengthening in Moraic Phonology. Linguistic Inquiry:253 – 306, Vol.20, No.2. The MIT Press. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/4178626.Hyman, Larry (2012). Coda Constraints on Tone. UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report.Junko, Ito (1986). A Prosodic Theory of Epenthesis. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory:217 – 259, Vol.7, No.2. Springer. http://www.jstor. org/stable/4047731.Kenstowicz, Michael (1994). Phonology in Generative Grammar. Blackwell.Nianglianmoi (2011). Word Phonology of Paite. Unpublished. Jawaharlal Nehru University. New Delhi.Pandey, Pramod (2013). Sounds and their Patterns in Indic Languages, Vol.1-2. Cambridge University Press. India.Singh.N.S. (2006). A Grammar of Paite. Mittal Publications. New Delhi.Wannemacher, Mark (1995). Zaiwa syllable structure. Unpublished manuscript.Yip, Moira (2002). Tone. Cambridge University Press.Zec, Draga (1995). Sonority constraints on syllable structure. Phonology: 85 – 129, Vol. 12, No.1. Cambridge University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4420068.


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SECOND LANGUAGE PHONOLOGY: INVESTIGATING TAMIL ENGLISH

Radhika Gopalakrishnan RaghavanJawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

1. IntroductionEnglish today has become a language, which is commonly used around the world. The colonial British Empire created various contact situations that have led to the emergence of innumerable varieties of English today. However, these varieties of English exhibit unique features that have encouraged a lot of research into the nature of this contact process. Studies have tried to look at these varieties of English as a process of second language acquisition. The once colonies are now no longer under the influence of Native British English, but the language acquired is still transferred on to the second generation learners. However, the problems of structure formation in these varieties belong to the domain of language evolution/ change and not that of Second Language acquisition. These languages are no longer ‘varieties’ so to say but languages that have their own unique characteristics. They are languages that have changed over from being mere second languages to natural languages that are influenced by the changing attitudes of its speakers and the sociolinguistic setting and not by the changes in native British English.

2. HypothesisThe main assumption on which the present study is based is that a second language variety like Tamil English has three distinct features: i. Features that are similar to the target language, ii. Features similar to the L1, iii.Novel features that can be attributed neither to L1 nor the target language.

On the basis of the above assumption, I claim to argue that novel features in second language varieties arise as natural phenomena.I base my claim on the following arguments: i. Novel features in second language varieties arise because their speakers assume them to be natural systems not identical with the target language. ii. Second language varieties are used as elaborate codes, and thus naturally emerge with unique properties that characterize any natural system.


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To examine the above-mentioned assumption in detail, it is necessary to look at the features of Second language varieties of English in India and around the world to get a brief idea as to what the current situation is. A brief introduction into a relatively recent paradigm in science, self- organization, could help to give an insight into how varieties like Indian English behave. We can then see how Self- Organization is related to the development of the features of Tamil English today.

3. Second Language VarietiesSecond language varieties of English in India or anywhere else in the world for that matter, develop in an environment that is very Non-English. Growing up in such an environment, the language tends to adapt to the specific geographic and sociolinguistic traits, which are common to native languages of that area. At the same time, the language has to struggle to maintain its basic structure. What we can call these varieties is best described by what Kachru calls as a ‘Transplanted system’ (1990). A transplanted system is a self-replicating system (Mohanan and Mohanan 1987) that shares properties with other varieties or lects such as sociolects and dialects like Black English. We can say that an inter-language system becomes a transplanted system when it starts feeding itself. As the transplanted system feeds itself, it acquires characteristics that are unique; it is a process where self-replication is a tool for stabilization.

4. Self-OrganizationThis can be further explained in the background of a relatively recent paradigm of research in the areas of physics, cosmology, ecology etc., it would be interesting to consider language as a natural system having the property of ‘self organization’ (Prigogine &Stengers 1984, Camazine et. al 2001). Complex systems exhibit properties that are collective, which cannot be explained by just understanding the parts. Self-Organization is a process/ mechanism that helps to explain the emergence of various spontaneous patterns. Self-Organization in biological systems is very complex as the interactive components are living organisms. Biological systems are not only subject to physical rules/laws but also to those that are determined by the properties of components that are subject to natural selection.

The rules specifying interaction among the specific components of the system are executed using only the local system information, without reference to the global pattern. A system moves towards stability. The closer it reaches stability, the more complex it becomes. There can be several stable states but the system’s possible stable state depends on the initial conditions. Properties emerge as a result of interaction among the various parts. One needs to study not only the individual properties but also the nature of interaction to understand the nature of the product. The total outcome is always greater than the sum of it parts.


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While studying Second language varieties, it is but obvious that the L2 should have features of the target language as acquiring the target language is the final aim. The many sounds that are new to the learner’s would be learnt through the regular process of language learning and easily be identified as being identical to the TL. Also L2 learners have a tendency to imitate the TL features as closely as possible.

Features that resemble the native language are again accountable. Studies have revealed that a second language learner learns L2 in relation to L1. When it comes to sounds that are similar to L1, the learner perceives the sounds as being the same as that in L1 and therefore the second language learnt has native like qualities. We can then say that Tamil English (for example) is similar in structure and forms to Tamil not because it is an inter-language but because it is spoken by Tamil speakers and in areas where Tamil is the lingua franca. It is the novel structures that need to be accounted for. Where do these novel features come from? We are looking at people who use both their L1 and L2 productively. They do not consider L2 to be a part of L1 or L2 only as a facilitator in any sphere of life, say education. Both the languages are considered to be separate from each other and are used interchangeably in all the domains of language use. When this happens, the language develops as naturally as any of the native languages giving birth to new features which neither L1 nor L2 can account for. As Kachru (1996) has said, the impact of the spread of English is two faced: one in which it is expanding its use and influence over the native languages and the other wherein the nativization and acculturation of English itself is taking place, as it comes into contact with genetically unrelated languages. The language is becoming localized and adapting to different sociolinguistic settings and acquiring new cultural identities resulting in a shift from the ear-lier socio-cultural profile of the language coming.

5. Tamil EnglishThe present study is an exploratory one on Tamil English, based on a limited dataset looked into greater detail to explore the hypothesis. The data was taken from Tamilians residing in Delhi for at least the past two years. The aim was to choose speakers who used both English and Tamil productively in their daily lives. The informants were divided into three groups Group A – Informants had completed their high school education in Tamil from Tamil Nadu. Group B- Informants had completed their high school education in English from Tamil Nadu. Group C - Informants had completed their high school education in English from outside Tamil Nadu. A comparative account of the three groups was intended. However, during the study no significant differences were noted. This was surprising as it was expected that the native language influence in the case of Group A and B would be much more than that in Group C. As stated above, this is a sample study based on which a larger study can be planned, which would include a wider selection of data and a field study in Tamil Nadu.


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5.1 Segments5.1.1. Consonants*

The following are the points concerning the consonant phoneme inventory of TE that distinguish it from General Indian English and lend it a colour of its own. (Features marked * are features that are new to the language, Features marked + are those belonging to Tamil and features with no marking are the target language features)

(1) a. *Tamil does not have the Alveolar voiced fricative /z/, it only has the voiceless alveolar fricative // and the voiceless alveolar fricative //. But what happens in TE is that the consonant has become gradient when it occurs word finally. In breeze /briz/ the /z/ is voiced initially and then becomes devoiced. So /z/ moves from voiced to de-voiced. In word medial positions the consonant remains as /s/. This feature is very interesting as in this case; the language has acquired structures that cater both to the first language and the second language. One can clearly see the devoicing of /z/in the spectrogram of //.

b. *Gemination in Tamil does not occur unless preceded by the rhotics // or /j/. Gemination in the speakers utterance occurs in the word winner //. This is probably because in Indian languages, the pronunciation is closely linked to the spelling and therefore gemination occurs because of the double consonants in the spelling. However, no other words in the sample passage with double letters seem to have been geminated except winner. It is usually that when a velar lateral approximant precedes, that gemination occurs in Tamil, it seems here that the speakers have extended this rule to a Labio-dental lateral approximant as well.

*The phonological chart for TE was unavailable. The chart presented here is based on the chart for GIE. However, in this chart features that were found to be new in TE have been added and those absent have been deleted.


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c. +Tamil has unaspirated plosives and unlike other Indian languages does not have aspirated phonemes such as // . As a result most words with initial plosive sounds are produced without aspiration, e.g. continued // instead of // /op/ for //; /pin/ for //

d.*Tamil does not have dental fricatives //. Accounts of Asher (1985) and Christdas(1988), suggest that Tamil has the dental voiceless fricative // only in word medial positions. The speakers replace word initial // and // with // and //, Eg: Think /t/, Thick /t/ and This //, The //. But it was also seen that many, especially the type a speakers usually tend to aspirate the initial /t/trying to make it sound closer to the target sound, e.g. Think /t/, Thick /t/.

5.1.1.1 Distribution(2) a.*The speakers seem to alternate between /w/ and //. They tend to use /w/ before // and // before // eg Vayu / / //. It is also noted that // occurs word medially and /w/ word initially.

b.*/ / have different phonetic qualities than the ones belonging to NE as they are often used in place of / / // thick; // strength // strongest, // coat, // down; / / disheartened

c. Out of //, // and //, // occurs word initially, // occurs freely in all positions and // occurs word finally. // that, // strongest, //Thick; // to; //That; // dishartenedd. * // does not occur before consonantsand wordfallye.g./bz/ for beeze.


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5.2. Vowels

5.2.1 Distribution(3)a.*TE has the diphthongs present in Tamil and also those present in English with the exception of // and //. But it has an additional // and /oe/. The latter /boed/ bowed is unique in the sense that it goes against the rule in Tamil, which says that vowels of different qualities cannot come together.

b.*Long Vowels in non-initial syllables in words are always shortened, for e.g.: between //; strongest /()/; power //, /par/; moment /(t)/; Even though Tamil has long vowels and there is no restriction per se as to the occurrence of these vowels, in TE many of the long vowels have been shortened.

c. // occurs word medially and word finally, but it appears to be more central rather than completely back as in the case of RP, e.g. //; //. d. // is optionally deleted in the non-initial syllables when flanked by single consonants.


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Eg: Finally //; Shivering //. The diphthong // is optionally realized as /e/ in TE, with the second vowel position // dropped Eg wearing /() /.

e. Owing to spelling pronunciation, the diphthong // can appear in place of //, as in really /()/. The second vowel here too, can be dropped, so that the diphthong is optionally realized as the Monophthong /e/.

When one acquires a second language it is a process wherein a stable monolingual system is adapted into a stable bilingual system. What is generally expected is that since the system is already stable the second language system would retain some of the properties of the initials system and result in lack of conformity with the target language. However, Tamil speakers use English with ease and have no problems in communication. The fact that the informants were able to club words together and merge them such as.

(4) a. /()()) / for ‘I am the strongest’; b./()/ ‘At that very moment’; c./:/ for ‘Proclaim you to be the’;

This is proof of the fact that they are efficient users of the language. Speakers who are not comfortable with the language often tend to produce halting speech. It is seen that speakers of GIE generally produce a word based speech. It seems here that the speakers of TE, have adopted a different strategy to deal with this TL altogether. Instead of a word based utterance string words together with emphasis. So the utterance ideally appears to be a string giving the whole utterance a rhythmic appearance. Instead of stressing on just the first word of their utterance, the speakers of TE seem to club words together with emphasis on the whole.

5.3. Suprasegmental featuresIn Tamil prosodic features are musical characteristics of speech sounds that are rhythmical by being repeated at equal intervals of time. Every pitch is overlaid with rhythm. Tamil intonation is an integral part of the system formed by pitch patterns, rhythm and other features (Ravisankar 1994) also in Tamil. Keane(2004), identifies a few points on Tamil intonational phonol-ogy. Stress does not distinguish minimal pairs More often than not stress rest on the initial syllable. Balasubramanian (1980) noticed that there was a significant pitch rise on the first syllable and a fall over subsequent syllables in the most important, item in a Statement. The tone often drags the last syllable of a statement whether it is stressed or not.

(5) Eg. Thick coat has become //, with the stress on // and not on //. Taking a note on this, further research into this phenomenon was undertaken. Speakers of TE were given a list of 15 sentences that contained words such as thick coat. In all of the 15


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sentences, the speaker laid special emphasis on the adjective and uttered the words together as a compound.

(6) E.g. a. green boots :b. living room c. pink elephant d. red ribbons e. green paper f. hot favorites g. parking lot h. brown cow i. house boat j. red wine k. question paper

2.4. Syllabic StructureThe canonical syllable structure that emerges in TE is (C) (C) V(C) (C), where V is a long or a short vowel. However, there are certain syllable based phenomenon that occur based on the stress placement. In Tamil, the vowel in the unstressed syllables is shorter than those in stressed syllables. In this example, the vowel in the unstressed syllable was long but since the stress was on the first syllable the vowel was reduced. (7)E.g. NE TE Between . ‘.

2.4.1. Consonant ClustersWord initially: s+C, C+ r/w/l/j are permitted with exceptions as in NE.

E.g. strongest / /; sweating / /, slowly / /, propose // prospect / /.

Word medially clusters occur freely, but they are divided between syllables; proclaim / /; strongest / / continued / /; impatient / / disgust //.

Consonant clusters in the word final positions are not permitted in Tamil, but they do appear in loanwords which suggests that the speakers have no problem in producing these clusters but the language does not provide for them (Asher1985;). Christdas (1988), however,


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outlines three types of syllable structures:

a. CV V b. CVC VC c. CVCC VCC

She notes that final consonants are restricted to geminate in nasal/ stops. In word medial positions it is found that the linked sequences are restricted to the class of oral stops and the preceding consonant is either /j/ or a rhotic

In TE, it is seen that word initial clusters occur freely. However, with word final consonant clusters an interesting feature was noted. Where ever a word final (t), occurred, the conso-nant was an alveolar rather than a retroflex as would be expected.

(8) E.g. prospect () moment () first () most () strongest ()

These appear to be the TL features. However, we must note that the alveolar /t/ is pronounced only in the word final cluster and not in isolation. In all other positions it is pronounced as //. Therefore, this cannot be treated as a TL phenomenon but a novel feature.

In many cases the speakers dropped the final consonant (this can be seen in no 8 also)

(9) humbled () proclaimed () fatigued ()

However, it was seen that the speakers were not consistent in dropping the last consonant. In one reading, there were words where they dropped the consonant and in others they maintained the cluster. This phenomenon was seen only for word final /t/ and //. In compound words, a similar process takes place. In cases where the ending consonant of one word and the initial consonant of the other word were the same, The final consonant of the first word gets deleted .


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(9) E.g. a. ghost stories/ /, here the // inal cluster of ghost gets deleted. b.pink kite//: here the word final /k/ gets deleted and /n/ is velarised;

Another feature that has been observed is that in word final /p/ clusters /p/ becomes voiced in the presence of a voiced retroflex. (10) E.g.

a. car shaped // b. tight lipped // c. clapped // d. stereotyped //

3. Discussion The above discussion on the features of TE gives us further insights as to what the varieties like TE actually are. Deviations in varieties of English are not because it cannot be controlled, but a natural consequence of the environment in which it is used (Agnihotri 1991). It is probably in this struggle to maintain the basic characteristics and adapt to the environment that new structures emerge helping the language to attain stability. As a natural system, a language strives towards stability at every step and this road towards stability brings about changes.

The language in reference to which these varieties have developed no longer exists. That is, we have to keep in mind the fact that English that the Indians began to learn was the eighteenth century Queen’s English, that is no longer in use. Study by Mohanan and Mohanan (1987) on Malayalam English reveal that Malayalee speakers of English replace the Diphthongs /ei/ and /ou/ with /ee/ and /oo/ respectively. The Malayalam inventory does not have the Diphthong /ou/ which explains the easier option chosen /oo/. However, it does contain the diphthong /ei/ and malayalees have no problem in pronouncing [deiwam] but pronounce /deivid/ as //. Mohanan and Mohanan explain that, this is not because of the difficulty in producing [ei] but the persistent structure of the inventory of Malayalam. But it must be noted that the native English then never had the diphthongs /ei/ and /ou/in its inventory (Pandey1987; Dobson 1968). Thus a comparison to what we call today’s native English would certainly be different from the structures that were acquired. These languages are still used in reference to the language that once fed them, so we can say that somewhere along the line these languages have strayed away from the Target Language and developed a structure that is unique.


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In this process of language learning, there occurs both negative and positive transfer where the former is the systems reluctance to change and the latter is the first language system structures persistence (Mohanan and Mohanan 1984). But what is most important here is that in cases of positive transfer which leads to structures that are new not because the structures of English are difficult for the Tamil learner but because the transfer has to appeal to the inertia of equilibrium. This calls for an innovation that not only keeps in mind the equilibrium, but also the underlying structure of Tamil and the target structures.

A language continues to innovate in order to attain stability. When a new language is learnt, it is entering a system that already has a stable system in place. In order to make room for itself in the system the language needs to adopt strategies that will stabilize it the earliest. We have to remember that in these cases the aim is not to adopt the second language fully but to use is side by side with the native tongue. That is to say that the aim is to use the second language system as productively as the first language. Competing with stable systems in place, we have evidence to show that the language behaves like a natural system moulds itself to its surrounding environments to attain stability. Though there is evidence of a heavy mother tongue influence, we also see certain processes, that take place as a result of the strategies adopted by the speaker to adjust the language to his/her existing system. If, for such a small data set, evidence for self-organization can be found then with a wider range of data we can expect much richer results.

References

Agnihotri, RK; Khanna, AL (1994) Second Language Acquisition- Socio-cultural And Linguistic Aspects Of English In India.Agnihotri, RK (1991). Sound patterns of Indian English: A Sociolinguistic Perspective. in Gupta RS; Kapoor, K eds. English in India: Issues and Problems.Asher, RE (1985). Tamil: Croom Helm Desriptive Grammars. Routeledge.Bansal, R.K (1989) The Pronunciation of English in India. S. Ramasaran (Ed.). CIEFL.Bansal, R.K (1969). The Intelligibility of Indian English. Monograph 4. Hyderabad: Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages.Brighton, Henry; Smith, Kenny, Kirby Simon (2005). Language As An Evolutionary System. Physics of life reviews 2 (2005) 177-226.Camzine, S, Deneubourg, Jean-Louise. Nigel R Franks, Guy Theraulaz. Eric Bonabeau (2003); Self Organization in Biological Systems. Princeton Press.Christdas, P (1988). The Phonology and Morphology of Tamil. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cornell.Das,Shyamal (2001). Some Aspects Of The Prosodic Phonology Of Tripura Bangla And Tripura Bangla English. School of Language Sciences, CIEFL, Hyderabad.de Boer, Bart (2000). Self-organization in vowel systems. Journal of Phonetics (2000)..


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Foulkes, Paul, Docherty, Gerard (2005) The Social life of Phonetics and Phonology Journal Of Phonetics. 34(2006)409-438.Kachru, B.B (1983). The Indianization of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kachru, B.B -(1992) The Other Tongue: English across Cultures.Ke, Jinyun (2004). Self Organization, Language Evolution And Language Change, Unpublished PhD Thesis, City University Hong Kong.Keane, Elinor (2004). Illustrations of the IPA: Tamil; Journal of the International Phonetic Association.Keane, Elinor (2006). Prominence in tamil. Journal of the International Phonetic Association.Keane, Elinor (2006)Word- level Prominence in Tamil; Journal of the International Phonetic Association.Mohanan, K P (1987). Order and Self Organization in Linguistic and Non-linguistic systems. Unpublished, Stanford University.Oudeyer, Pierre-Yves (2005). The self-organization of speech sounds. Journal of Theoretical Biology 233 (3), 435–449.Pandey, P.K (Forthcoming). Second Language Varieties have a life of their own.Pandey, P.K (1981). On a description of the phonology of Indian English. CIEFL Bulletin XVII: 11-19.Pandey, P.K (Forthcoming). Sounds and Their Patterns in Indian LanguagesPrigogine, I, I Stengers (1984) Order out of Chaos. Bantam Books.Ravisankar, G (1994), Intonational Patterns of Tamil English, Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and CultureSteels, L (1996). The Spontaneous Self Orgaization of an adaptive language In: Muggleton,S. (ed.) Machine Intelligence 15, Oxford University PressThomason, S. G. (2001). Language Contact; Edinburgh University Press.Weinreich, U., Labov, W., and Herzog, M. I (1968). Empirical Foundations for a Theory of Language Change. In Lehmann, W. P. and Malkiel, Y., editors, Directions for Historical Linguistics, pages 95–195. University of Texas Press, Austin.


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For someone who has worked on many African languages and has contributed so much towards studying the same, Larry M. Hyman is a zealous researcher and an individual of remarkable conviction in the field of Phonology. No stranger to the linguistics scenario, he is a respectable name to reckon with, in any part of the world. Presently serving as Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, he has got unparalleled knowledge on tone and tone-based studies. Recently elected as the Vice President and President-Elect of the prestigious LSA (Linguistic Society of America), he shares his ideas, views and experiences on tone and phonology and at the same answering the queries put forth by Mahesh M.

Guest Speak with Larry M. Hyman Professor of Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley

speaking in TONES


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You’ve worked on tone for over 40 years. What are some of the general misconceptions that you find people have about tone?

Yes, I have been on a long journey in my study of tone systems, not just in Africa but elsewhere. I’ve found at least three common misconceptions that people have:

(i) The first one is that tone cannot be studied the same way as other phonological phenomena; even seasoned fieldworkers have approached me to ask how: “I think I am working on my first tone language. How do I figure out how many tones it has?” My usual response is: “Well, how would you figure out how many vowels it has?” We do the same thing with tones: get a list of words, compare the ones we think have the same tones, put them in contexts to see if they change and so forth.

(ii) The second misconception is that tone cannot mark certain things. At the Annual Linguistic Society of America meeting about 10 years ago, I was rather shocked when the President during his Presidential address announced that “tone cannot mark case”. We know it can: Maasai marks nominative vs. accusative case with tone, and many languages mark genitive case with tone.

My motto is, “If tone can be a morpheme [which we know it can], it can do anything that a morpheme can do.” So it can mark case, plurality, negation, and so forth.

(iii) The third misconception is that tone is expendable: One hears or reads of lots of

different excuses for not writing tones, often because they haven’t been analyzed!

The more one studies tone the more one realizes that we should treat them the same way we treat other aspects of phonology.

It is always interesting to think about the origin of tone. We can say, in the beginning, languages had limited vocabulary and therefore, instead of forming new words, people use same words with different tone or pitch pattern to express difference in meaning. Is this a reason leading origin of tone in languages?

That’s an interesting question. There are those who think that original language was much more emotive and intonation-like. One idea is that tone was needed to distinguish more words.

I don’t see any real evidence for this: There are lots of languages (Bantu, Athabaskan etc.) which have quite long words, so it would be possible to express what one needs without tone (as one does in fact have in some Bantu languages that have lost their tone and some Athabaskan languages which have not acquired them).

In Southeast Asia where words are often short, eventually monosyllabic, the pitch contrasts “pile up” so that you get the same monosyllable contrasting, 4, 5, or more different tones.

This is what gives some people the impression that tone is needed to express


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differences in meaning. About the most one can say from this perspective is that one origin of tone is to compensate for lost syllables, (laryngeal) consonants etc.

When this occurs in a language that is tending towards monosyllabicity, the result is lots of minimal pairs, triplets, quadruplets of tone. Where it takes place in languages that have longer words, e.g. Athabaskan, Mohawk, it’s not obvious that there was such a need.

Sometimes, we wonder whether tonal languages have any relation with the geography of a region. Also, it would be interesting to know whether biological features of particular speakers have any relation with tone and to see how tone relates to anthropological aspects of a community. How do you observe these three aspects such as Geography, Biology and Anthropology in relation with tone and its uses?

Although I remain skeptical, I don’t have a position on Ladd and Dediu’s claims that there is a genetic correlation to speakers in the areas that have develop tone. I don’t see any relation between the alleged determinants and the presence of tone, other than to point out the obvious, that tone spreads aerially (as does almost everything else).

Can we suggest that most of the languages (or all languages) had tone in the initial stage, and some languages had lost it at later stage in their gradual evolution? And if so, what are the historical changes that tone underwent during the process of

evolution of language, based on sociolin-guistic and sociological perspectives?

I don’t think we have reliable evidence on whether the earliest languages were tonal in the sense of using pitch to distinguish words (vs. intonation).

I see a basic conflict: On the one hand infants seem to acquire the pitch properties of their language with relative ease, compared, say, to consonants where there can be articulatory complexities. This might predict that tone would be a good thing to have. Given how easy tone is to acquire, I have elsewhere raised the question, “Why isn’t tone universal?”

I think the answer is that there is a basic conflict in the human ability to distinguish pitch: Much stronger than distinguishing whether a given monosyllabic word has high tone, rising tone, or whatever, is our ability to distinguish (and remember) melodies.

Thus, the prototypical use of pitch can reasonably be argued to be syntagmatic, i.e. pitch should be used for intonational purposes.

The counteracting force, however, is that since pitch is so accessible, we are even sensitive to the effects that laryngeal consonants have on the pitch of their neighboring vowels. So we get tonogenesis, tonal splits by voicing, and so forth.

About 50% of world languages are tonal languages. In this context, how do you define tone in terms of language topology?


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The use of pitch (tone) to distinguish morphemes seems to miss out at two ends: It’s not universal, and it’s not rare. So, I think that the conflict I mentioned in response to the last question has produced a situation where we have lots of tone, but are not required to have tone as a property of Language.

You have discussed in detail about the wide possibility of research on tonal features of l a n g u a g e i n y o u r r e s e a r c h w o r k s . Researches in tone have impacted the h is tor ica l development of modern phonological theories.

We would like to hear from you about the current research happening on tone “as a dynamic prosodic category”, in both theoretical as well as experimental perspectives. How does tone as a dynamic prosodic category help in the research of other phonological processes?

As I like to say, “tone can do anything you can do better!” There are some things that only tone can do: A high tone can for example wander two or more words to the right to be realized on the penultimate syllable of a phrase. No other phonological feature or property can do this.

In fact, most other phenomena tend to be word-bound (e.g. vowel harmony and other harmonies).

I think it would be in the interest of those who want to delimit the outer reaches of

phonology to study tone.

There are large number of tonal languages in Indian North-East Region, belonging to Tibeto-Burman language family. Can you comment on the scope of research in this particular geographical area. Also, your work(s) pertaining to Tibeto-Burman languages?

There is increasing interest and research on tone in these languages. They’re wonderful! The ones I have been most personally involved with are from the Kuki-Chin subgroup: Here we have level tones, High and Low, and lots of morphophonemics.

There are others such as Tangkhul Naga which have high, mid and low, but where little happens in the phonology: The three tones just si t there!

What’s interesting to me is how different these tone systems are from the so-called contour tone languages found in what Jim Matisoff refers to as the “Sinosphere”, something on which I have written, based on Kuki-Thaadow, but also Jonathan Evans working on minority languages of China.

It is no hidden that field work is the most important task to identify tone in a language.There are umpteen factors in consideration, before we start with field work.

Now taking this aspect into account, what do think should be the necessary quality of an investigator:


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besides considering the Quality of the recorder, recording techniques, naturalness of the data, approach with a native speakers, training in phonetics and purpose of investigation etc.

What is your advice to the investi-gators of tone in their field work?What are the steps to be taken care before approaching native speakers for data collection?

As I mentioned above, I think researchers should approach tone as they would anything else. As far as training, I would urge them to find ways to listen to the tonal contrasts that have been reported: I like to emphasize ear training (“what pitch do you hear?”) rather than overly relying on Praat and other technology.

You have contributed so much to African tonal systems. Also you must have garnered interesting and valuable experiences in the field. It will be a valuable asset for us, if you could share some of your interesting experiences while you were in the field for data collection.

I have reported a lot of these in my 2001 article “Fieldwork as a state of mind”. Tone figures in it, particularly in the quote from Jan Voorhoeve, who wrote, referring to Grassfields Bantu: “Be sure to meet the biggest crisis of your career if you are not prepared to fail constantly in the tonal analysis.”

This was an exaggeration, of course,

but sometimes complex tonal morphophonemics do push us to our limits. Luckily I haven’t found this to be the case outside Bantu.

Can a tonal study of a language be a separate and an intensive discipline the field of linguistics? If so, how can the teaching and research of tonal study be strengthened?

Steven Bird, Mark Donohue and I organized two workshops on “How to study a tone language”, one in Berkeley, one in Canberra, and my own paper bears that title. While I think best to refer you to the papers that appeared in Language Documentation and Conservation vol. 8 (journal). I would emphasize that the following three steps be taken:

(i) determine the surface contrasts (by the normal means);

(ii) see if tones change in context; and only then

(iii) consider how the tone system should be analyzed.

I would urge people not to get overly engaged in esoteric tonal geometry schemes unless they really provide greater insight. The object in tone, as elsewhere, is not to formalize, but to gain insight—and to find the most direct way to express our insights to others.

The interviewer is an Assistant Professor in Amity School of Languages, Amity University, UP


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Find you’ in our beehive

Swanimam now has breezed past two memorable volumes. Research works and interviews have made each volume an authentic manifestation. The responses received thus far inspire us to take this till we know. So here we are, again at it, inviting works from across the globe for publication in Swanimam volume III. Every finding or work deserves its space that it deserves. One way or another you, the researcher is announcing his/her creditable contributions. So it’s your turn to find the Linguistic beehive.

The academicians/researchers are requested to stick steadfast to the below given guidelines:

The finished, unpublished manuscripts should be send in Word Document (doc/docx) and Portable Document Formats (Pdf) and should reach us on or before 31 August 2016. Margins should be custom and the preferred font is Times New Roman (font size 12pt). Any ambiguous data (factual errors) should be kindly avoided. Thank you.

Contact: The Editor, Swanimam, Phonetics Laboratory, Department of Linguistics, University of Kerala, Kariavattom campus, Thiruvananthapuram-695581, Kerala, India.Email: [email protected]: www.phoneticslab.org

swanimam, vol. 2, march 2016 -...

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