Volume 58, Issue 1 -

Spirantization is one of the most frequently studied phonological phenomena of Spanish (Barlow, Jessica A. 2003. The stop-spirant alternation in Spanish: Converging evidence for a fortition account. Southwest Journal of Linguistics 22. 51–86; Zampini, Mary. 1994. The role of native language transfer and task formality in the acquisition of Spanish spirantization. Hispania 77. 470–481; among others). For a majority of dialects, Spanish voiced plosives have been traditionally described as having a continuant and a non-continuant realization in complementary distribution (Navarro Tomás, Tomás. 1977. Manual de pronunciación española . 19th edn. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; Hualde, José Ignacio. 2005. The sounds of Spanish . Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press; among others). Yet, phonetic studies reveal a more complex picture consisting of a great deal of phonetic variability and gradience among continuant realizations (Carrasco, Patricio, José Ignacio Hualde and Miquel Simonet. 2012. Dialectal differences in Spanish voiced obstruent allophony: Costa Rican versus Iberian Spanish. Phonetica 69. 149–179; among others; Simonet, Miquel, José Ignacio Hualde and Mariana Nadeu. 2012. Lenition of/d/in spontaneous Spanish and Catalan. Paper presented at INTERSPEECH) which is not captured by existing generative accounts (Bakovic, Eric. 1997. Strong onsets and Spanish fortition. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 23. 21–39; Harris, James W. 1984. La espirantización en castellano y la representación fonológica autosegmental. Estudis Gramaticals 1.149–67; Hualde, José Ignacio. 1989. Procesos consonánticos y estructuras geométricas en español. Lingüística 1.7–44; Kirchner, Robert. 2001. Phonological contrast and articulatory effort. In Linda Lombardi (ed.), Segmental phonology in Optimality Theory , 79–117. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; among others). Furthermore, most analyses focus almost exclusively on the general distribution of spirantization, excluding other dialectal patterns (Amastae, Jon. 1995. Variable spirantization: Constraint weighting in three dialects. Hispanic Linguistics 6(7). 265–285; among others). The current proposal accounts for the phonetic variability and gradience evinced by phonetic studies, as well as dialectal variation in one optimality theoretic-analysis. Spirantization is explained as the result of effort reduction, rather than the result of assimilation (contra Harris, James W. 1984. La espirantización en castellano y la representación fonológica autosegmental. Estudis Gramaticals 1.149–67; Hualde, José Ignacio. 1989. Procesos consonánticos y estructuras geométricas en español. Lingüística 1.7–44, among others). Phonetic variability in the general dialects is argued to be related to the underlying representation: voiced obstruents are underspecified for continuancy both in the input and the output of the phonology, which explains gradience in implementation and responds to the need to avoid the marked configuration represented by a combination of voicing and maximal stricture found in voiced stops (Colina, Sonia. 2016. On onset clusters in Spanish: Voiced obstruent underspecification and /f/. In Rafael A. Núñez Cedeño (ed.), The syllable and stress: Studies in honor of James W. Harris . Boston, MA: Mouton de Gruyter). Dialectal variation stems from differences in the underlying representation and in the ranking of the constraints. The proposal is also able to explain variations on the two major dialectal patterns.

In a usage-based framework, variation is part and parcel of our linguistic experiences, and therefore also of our mental representations of language. In this article, we bring attention to variation as a source of information. Instead of discarding variation as mere noise, we examine what it can reveal about the representation and use of linguistic knowledge. By means of metalinguistic judgment data, we demonstrate how to quantify and interpret four types of variation: variation across items, participants, time, and methods. The data concern familiarity ratings assigned by 91 native speakers of Dutch to 79 Dutch prepositional phrases such as in de tuin ‘in the garden’ and rond de ingang ‘around the entrance’. Participants performed the judgment task twice within a period of one to two weeks, using either a 7-point Likert scale or a Magnitude Estimation scale. We explicate the principles according to which the different types of variation can be considered information about mental representation, and we show how they can be used to test hypotheses regarding linguistic representations.

Loanwords may or may not affect the phonological system of a language. Much of the loanword literature has focused on the adaptation of “foreign” contrasts to native systems; however, there are certain cases where languages appear to have borrowed new phonemes. We argue that loanwords alone cannot introduce a new phoneme into a language unless there are special circumstances. We examine three case studies of apparently borrowed “unusual” phonemic contrasts: Swiss German initial geminates, Bengali retroflex stops, and English voiced fricatives. In each case, we find that rather than the loanwords introducing brand-new phonemes, an existing allophonic alternation has become phonemic due to a large influx of loanwords. Thus, the phonology rather than the phonetics alone – marked or otherwise – dominates the absorption of loans.

Resolving the convergence of low-back vowels in English constitutes a pivot with repercussions for the rest of the vowel system. We consider how speakers on an eastern Caribbean island co-opt the inherent variability of vowel systems to differentiate themselves. Examining the vowels of Bequia English (St. Vincent and the Grenadines) shows the main source of variation to lie in the position and duration of four low back vowels ( cloth , lot , palm , thought ), which do not act as the same pivot point for realignment of the vowel space as in North American English. The crucial distinction between transmission and diffusion lies at the heart of our findings: principles of language change derived from varieties characterized by transmission may differ from principles associated with histories of diffusion central to many contact and creole varieties.

This study investigates the formal variation in elements involved in incorporation structures. Although it has traditionally been assumed that only stems can be incorporated, several languages also show incorporation of formally more complex elements. Most theoretical approaches to incorporation are, however, limited to incorporated stems and the few that do include more complex forms consider the incorporation of simple and complex elements separate processes. The present study, by contrast, recognizes the many shared characteristics between incorporation structures with simple and complex elements and adopts the approach to incorporation advocated in Functional Discourse Grammar, which proposes a unified account of incorporated simple stems, derived stems, inflected words, phrases and clauses. In addition, the study hypothesizes that these forms constitute an implicational hierarchy, i. e., that more complex incorporated elements only occur in languages that also allow the incorporation of all simpler forms. Results from a typological study of incorporated elements in a variety sample of 30 incorporating languages show that all forms except clauses are indeed found incorporated and that the hypothesized implicational pattern holds. The study thus demonstrates that the incorporation of simple and complex elements is interrelated, supporting a unified treatment of incorporated elements of different degrees of complexity.

The goal of the present study is to identify a novel paradigm of epistemic modal operator derived from disjunction . Our main data involves an inquisitive disjunction marker nka in Korean, the presence of which enhances a speaker’s epistemic uncertainty and forms a modalized question. We show how nka contributes the modal effects in question within a theory of nonveridicality. In particular, we propose that the prerequisite of nka are non-homogenous nonveridical states that are partitioned in equipoised epistemic spaces because of the absence in ranking between them. The distinct notions of disjunction, question, and possibility modals can thus be systematically captured under the framework of nonveridical equilibrium . The current analysis offers important insights into the relationship between the classes of nonveridical and modal ingredients involved in inquisitive disjunction: First, Korean facts importantly reveal that modalized questions do not form a uniform class with regular questions, since interrogative semantics alone cannot predict the epistemic uncertainty. Second, languages parameterize as to how they lexicalize the function of manipulating modal base. The implication of our findings is that disjunction needs to be recognized as a novel device for encoding a speaker’s weakest perspective on epistemic modality.

In modern Danish, main clauses have the word order X>Verb>Adverb (i. e., V2) whereas subordinate clauses are generally characterized by the “subordinate clause” word order Subject>Adverb>Verb. Spoken Danish has a high frequency of “main clause” word order in subordinate clauses, however, and in the article we argue that this “Main Clause Phenomena” (cf. Aelbrecht et  al. 2012) functions as a foregrounding device, signaling that the more important information of the clause complex is to be found in the subordinate clause instead of in its matrix clause. A prediction from the foregrounding hypothesis is that a subordinate clause with Verb>Adverb word order will attract more attention than a clause with Adverb>Verb word order. To test this, we conducted an experiment under the text change paradigm. 59 students each read 24 constructions twice, each containing a subordinate clause with either Verb>Adverb or Adverb>Verb word order. Half of the subordinate clauses were governed by a semifactive predicate (open to both word orders) and the other half by a semantically secondary sentence (in itself strongly favoring Verb>Adverb word order). Attention to the subordinate clause was tested by measuring how disinclined the participants were to notice change of a word in the subordinate clause when re-reading it. Results showed significantly more attention to Verb>Adverb clauses than to Adverb>Verb clauses (though only under semifactive predicates), and more attention to subordinate clauses under semantically secondary than semifactive predicates. We consider this as strongly supporting the hypothesis that Verb>Adv word order functions as a foregrounding signal in subordinate clauses.

The complex and cross-linguistically uncommon phonological phenomenon of “emphasis” is best known from Central Semitic languages such as Arabic and Aramaic. It is, however, found to varying degrees in a number of non-Semitic languages in contact with Arabic. This paper describes how in Kumzari, an Indo-European language spoken around the Strait of Hormuz, uvular-pharyngeal emphasis has arisen through language contact and has proliferated through language-internal processes. Beginning with the retention of emphatic consonants in a direct, extensive lexification by Arabic dating back at least 1300 years, emphasis has progressively penetrated the language by means of lexical innovations and two types of sound changes in both borrowed and inherited vocabulary: (i) analogical spread of emphasis onto plain but potentially emphatic consonants; and (ii) a sound change in which z has been invariably recast as an emphatic ẓ with no plain counterpart. The role of the back consonants w , x , q and ḥ , which induce emphasis on potentially emphatic consonants in diachronic processes but not synchronically, highlights the unique way in which this complex phenomenon operates in one non-Semitic language in contact with Arabic.