Phonology question

Mon Mar 17 03:33:16 UTC 2008

At 10:19 PM -0400 3/16/08, Neal Whitman wrote:
>I've wondered about this question, too, and have deliberately avoided it
>when teaching phonology in an introductory linguistics class. I first
>noticed it in 'painstaking,' when I finally realized that it was
>morphologically 'pains-taking', not 'pain-staking'. I think it's interesting
>that for this word, it wasn't just an /s/ migrating from the end of one
>syllable to the beginning of another: it first had to turn from a [z] to an
>[s].

And in the other direction, there's "disaster", which (once speakers
stopped associating it with ill-fortune foretold by the stars)
shifted from /dIs &st at r/ to /d@ Z&st at r/ (dis-aster > duh-zaster),
while the still transparent "disable" and "disarm" retain the
original syllabification and the original /dIs/.

LH

>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2008 7:35 PM
>Subject: Re: Phonology question
>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail
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>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>Subject:      Re: Phonology question
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>At 3:09 PM -0700 3/16/08, David Borowitz wrote:
>>>A possible explanation for syllabifying "distaste" as "dis.taste" jumps to
>>>mind: s followed by an aspirated t is not a valid onset, and aspiration
>>>somehow happens before syllabification. So "di.staste" would need to have
>>>an
>>>aspirated t, which is not allowed, hence "dis.taste." (Not that I have the
>>>energy to reword that in proper OT...)
>>
>>Not being a phonologist either, my sense has always been that the
>>di.sC... is easier in articulatory terms but less transparent in
>>preserving morphological integrity. (I guess that is something
>>phonologists talk about in terms of faithfulness vs. markedness in
>>some guise or other.)  And similarly with "mis-" words.  So in cases
>>like "distaste", "mistape", or "mistook", where the compositionality
>>has been preserved, the prefix/root break is preserved as well, but
>>in cases like "disturb", "distinct", or "mistake", which are no
>>longer analyzed as dis + turb or mis + take, the /s/ has migrated to
>>the root syllable and the /t/ consequently loses its aspiration.
>>Frequency is a factor too; the more frequent words are more likely to
>>undergo the resyllabification.  It may be a bit tricky to sort out
>>the cause-and-effect, but the correlation is clear:  semantic
>>transparency (compositionality)/morphological integrity/no
>>resyllabification/ease of discrimination vs. semantic
>>opacity/morphological opacity/resyllabification/ease of articulation.
>>
>>LH
>>
>>>
>>>I don't know that my explanation has to do with certain prefixes per se,
>>>except insofar as different prefixes can have different lexical
>>>stress-shifting properties, which in turn affects aspiration. Nor am I
>>>really claiming the MOP is still popular among phonologists, not being one
>>>myself.
>>>
>>>On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 1:35 PM, Scot LaFaive <scotlafaive at gmail.com>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>  -----------------------
>>>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>>  Poster:       Scot LaFaive <scotlafaive at GMAIL.COM>
>>>>  Subject:      Re: Phonology question
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>>  >Where doesn't it work?
>>>>
>>>>  It seems like the principle doesn't work for some prefixes, such as
>>>>  "distaste," but perhaps it isn't supposed to work there. I honestly
>>>>know
>>>>  some about it, though phonology wasn't a large part of my program and
>>>>we
>>>>  were merely told about the principle and that it works. Are there more
>>>>  intricacies about it?
>>>>
>>>>  Scot
>>>>
>>>>  On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 6:58 PM, Dennis Preston <preston at msu.edu>
>>>>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>  > -----------------------
>>>>  > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>>  > Poster:       Dennis Preston <preston at MSU.EDU>
>>>>  > Subject:      Re: Phonology question
>>>>  >
>>>>  >
>>>>
>>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>  >
>>>>  > Lots of us still like it. Where doesn't it work?
>>>>  >
>>>>  > dInIs
>>>>  >
>>>>  > >---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>  > >-----------------------
>>>>  > >Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>>  > >Poster:       Scot LaFaive <scotlafaive at GMAIL.COM>
>>>>  > >Subject:      Phonology question
>>>>  >
>>>>  >
>>>>
>>>>  >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>  > >
>>>>  > >This isn't a dialect question, but I know there are some smart
>>>>  > phonologists
>>>>  > >on this list who can answer my question. I'm curious if the Maximal
>>>>  Onset
>>>>  > >Principle is still considered valid in today's linguistics. I ask
>>>>this
>>>>  > >because sometimes it doesn't seem to be working in speech and I
>>>>don't
>>>>  > know
>>>>  > >if another theory has taken its place. (Or maybe there are certain
>>>>  > >environments it doesn't work in that I'm unaware of.)
>>>>  > >
>>>>  > >Scot
>>>>  > >
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>>>  > >
>>>>  >
>>>>  > --
>>>>  > Dennis R. Preston
>>>>  > University Distinguished Professor
>>>>  > Department of English
>>>>  > Morrill Hall 15-C
>>>>  > Michigan State University
>>>>  > East Lansing, MI 48864 USA
>>>>  >
>>>>  > ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>  > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>  >
>>>>
>>>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>--
>>>It is better to be quotable than to be honest.
>>>-Tom Stoppard
>>>
>>>Borowitz
>>>
>>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
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>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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