"syllabicity"

[CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU]

Some responses to Pat's critique of my remarks re. Lehmann's "syllabicity":

>>I opened Lehmann and immediately put my finger on syllabicity in the last
>>chapter.  Embarrassing!  But I know why I didn't recall it: that chapter (a)
>>had no relevance to my actual interest, viz. Germanic reflexes of laryngeals,
>>and (b) it struck me as utterly nonsensical.

>Why do you not explain why you consider it "nonsensical".

No need to, since I was not claiming that it was, but only that it *struck* me
as such some years ago.  If you want reasons, the ambiguity of his
formulations, and his insistance that syllabicity was a "prosodic feature"
rather than a segmental phone would be reason enough.

>>My gut feeling aside, there's an obvious problem with it even in terms of
>>structuralist theory.  On p. 112 Lehmann states: "If we find no phonemes in
>>complemetary distribution at the peak of the syllable, we cannot assume a
>>segmental phoneme for this position."

>My own gut feeling is that there is no problem whatsoever.

[Lehmann quote omitted]

>All Lehmann is saying is that since no specific vowel can be specified at
>the syllabic peak, one that becomes phonemic by contrast with other phonemic
>vowels (where "phonemic" is defined as providing a semantic differentiation:
>CVC is a different word than CV{1}C), we cannot assume *one* specific vowel
>(e or anything else) at the syllabic peak in stressed positions.
>"Syllabicity" is just a innovative way of describing V{?}.

Innovative to the point that a vowel is somehow not a vowel.  But let it pass.
You're missing the meaning of what I wrote next:

>>Surely not "phonemes in complementary distribution" -- *contrasting*
>>phonemes, or something of the sort.

>"Complementary distribution" in Trask's dictionary means "The relation which
>holds in a given speech variety between two phones which never occur in the
>same environment."

Right!  "Phones."  That is, raw sounds.  Allophones of a single phoneme.  But
Lehmann wrote "phonemes", which makes no sense in that context.  That's why I
suggested "contrasting phonemes".

>With the exception of the qualification "two", this describes the situation
>that Lehmann has supposed for the stress-period of IE (e  e{sub}  e:). You
>may question his analysis but his terminology seems perfectly in accordance
>with standard usage.

No way.

>>Whether complementary or contrastive, the supposed difficulty arises because
>>Lehmann (against Brugmann & Co.) arbitrarily defines [i u] as syllabic
>>allophones of resonant phonemes /y w/ --

>There is nothing arbitrary about this at all. If we assume that IE and AA
>are related through Nostratic (which you may not prefer to do), the decision
>is mandatory. IE CiC does not show up in AA as normal C-C but rather always
>as C-y-C.

Even if your Nostratic correspondence is correct, it would still tell us
nothing about the phonemic situation of any stage of PIE, since the phonemes
of any stage of any language must be defined in terms of that stage alone.  We
need reasons within PIE itself why [i u] must be analyzed as /y w/ rather than
/i u/.  And while I realize that the matter is debated, Lehmann's notion of
syllabicity seems to entail the consonantal analysis, else [e] etc. *must* be
analyzed as one or more segmental vowel phonemes.  But let's be real:
regardless of what has been done in the past, would any competent phonologist
now analyze a language with at least contrasting [i u e] as
having *no* vowel phonemes?

[stuff omitted]

>So far, the only information there we have to support your position is
>Bomhard's *mention* of a paper by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov *with no details*.
>Do you have any arguments for your position?

huh?  I don't make the connection here to anything your or I have said.

[more omitted]

>>With /i u/ there is contrast in position between non-syllabics,

>I have no idea what this means. Could you explain it?

I just did, but in case I wasn't clear: Lehmann's analysis of [e e: e{sub}] as
something other than a vowel phoneme is possible only because he posits no
other vowel phonemes.  With [i u] analyzed as /y w/, this is weird and forced,
but perhaps not wholly impossible: the language would have had no other vowel
phonemes between two consonants, hence [e] etc. need not be analyzed as a
segmental phoneme, since it would not be *contrasting* with any vowel phonemes.
But if [i u] are analyzed as vowel phonemes /i u/, then *contrasting vowels*
between consonants are possible, and any justification for treating [e] etc. as
something other than a vowel phoneme falls by the wayside.  Remember that
phonemes are *contrasting* sounds; they are not in complementary distribution,
though the allophones (realizations) of any given phoneme may be (and usually
are).

>>-- I should add that on p. 113, Lehmann incautiously says that at the next
>>stage of PIE, with phonemic stress, syllabicity with minimum stress "remains
>>non-segmental between obstruents..."  "Between"?  How so?  Anything that can
>>be between phonemes sounds segmental enough to me!

>How about zero-grade "vowels"?

That puzzles me for a variety of reasons, but leads to a question.  I don't
mean to be snide, and I hope you won't be offended; but how familiar are you
with phonemic theory (any version will do)?  "Prosodic features" and
"non-segmental" items are generally called "suprasegmentals", because they
apply on top of some segmental phoneme or sequence of phonemes.  Pitch and
stress have a domain of at least one syllable.  It makes no sense to say that
they occur between segmental phonemes, and no one claims they do.  Yet Lehmann
claims here that one such suprasegmental does exactly that. -- A more modern
version could analyze the zero grade more neatly: a sequence /CVC/ might be
realized in various ways, depending on stress: [CVC] or even [CV:C] under
stress, [C at C] or even [CC] when not stressed.  This last is zero grade (but
not a "zero-grade 'vowel'").  But this works only if /V/ is a
real vowel phoneme, which Lehmann did not want to concede.

Leo

Leo A. Connolly                         Foreign Languages & Literatures
connolly at latte.memphis.edu              University of Memphis