[Lingtyp] papers on non-uniqueness in tone and stress
Martin Haspelmath
martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de
Thu Feb 4 13:32:07 UTC 2021
It seems that there are at least three different issues here:
(i) whether all speakers of a language have the same system even when
their conventional behaviour is identical; there happens to be an
example of indeterminacy in the latest issue of /Phonological Data and
Analysis/ (see Matthew Gordon's earlier message):
Bennett, W. G., & Braver, A. (2020). Different speakers, different
grammars: Productivity and representation of Xhosa labial
palatalization. /Phonological Data and Analysis/, /2/(6), 1–29.
https://doi.org/10.3765/pda.v2art6.9 <https://doi.org/10.3765/pda.v2art6.9>
(ii) on what basis one decides between different analyses of a
language-particular system; e.g. Schane's (1968) example of English
[spin], which can be phonemicized as /sbin/ (with phonetic devoicing of
/b/ after sibilant) or /spʰin/ (with phonetic deaspiration in the same
environment).
(iii) how one links language-particular phenomena to comparative
concepts; Erich Round's paper on “Australian Phonemic Inventories
Contributed to PHOIBLE 2.0” https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3464333
<https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3464333> is a clear example of this last
type. It seems that the issue in Chácobo that Adam Tallman mentioned
("tone" vs. "stress") also falls in this category.
Phonologists do not always distinguish between (ii) and (iii)
(particular description vs. general comparison), as pointed out
prominently by Lass (1984) and Simpson (1999) (cited by Erich). But
Kiparsky (2018) (also cited by Erich) explicitly rejects the distinction
– I have argued against Kiparsky here: https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1817.
Best,
Martin
Am 04.02.21 um 13:28 schrieb Erich Round:
>
> Hi Adam,
>
> I’ve enjoyed the conversations you’ve sparked here on the list
> recently, please keep them coming!
>
> Thanks for raising an important topic. I have some paper suggestions
> below. I’d start by saying, though, that you might be getting formal
> phonologists wrong. Generative theorists from the start were well
> aware of the non-uniqueness problem, and that’s one reason why they
> were so keen on metrics to evaluate multiple candidate grammars. Now,
> that’s not to say it proved to be plain sailing, but there’s a deep
> appreciation of the problem buried in the theory, even if for
> practical purposes much theoretical work (just like much typological
> work) assumes only one analysis in order to get some other task
> completed in a finite amount of time. In optimality theory, the
> notion of Richness of the base is one new-ish incarnation of attempts
> to deal with the matter.
>
> Canonical Typology (Corbett 2005, Round and Corbett 2020) provides the
> conceptual tools for asking not just whether ‘the best analysis’ is A,
> B or C, but to what extent, in multiple different regards, A, B and C
> differ and therefore can be considered (dis)advantageous in different
> ways. This helps us clarify why and how multiple analyses arise in the
> first place. My forthcoming chapter (2021) on phonotactics in
> Australian languages discusses this with respect to complex segments;
> Kwon & Round (2015) discuss it with respect to phonaesthemes; my
> review (2017) of Gordon’s Phonological Typology (2016) discusses the
> idea of doing typology over a distribution of possible analyses (which
> I term ‘factorial analysis’) and points out some places where Gordon’s
> own work covertly does this when confronted with non-uniqueness.
> Parncutt (2015) applies the idea to reduplication, and a current PhD
> student of mine, Ruihua Yin presented some of her fascinating results
> regarding sonority sequencing at the Australian Linguistics Society
> conference in December; her thesis should be finished early this year,
> and will be a major undertaking in this kind of typology. Round (2019)
> discusses how I addressed the issue of non-uniqueness when compiling a
> typologically nuanced set of 400 Australia phoneme inventories for
> Phoible. Natalia Kuznetsova’s work (2019) is relevant to prosody and
> responds to Hyman’s (2006) classic paper. Other serious discussions of
> the issue from various angles, typically very thoughtful and some
> quite in-depth are: Hockett 1963, Lass 1984, Simpson 1999, Hyman 2007,
> 2008, 2017, Dresher 2009, van der Hulst 2017, Kiparksy 2018.
>
> Best,
>
> Erich
>
> Corbett, Greville G. 2005. “The Canonical Approach in Typology.” In
> /Linguistic Diversity and Language Theories/, edited by Zygmunt
> Frajzyngier, Adam Hodges, and David S Rood, 25–49. Amsterdam: John
> Benjamins.
>
> Dresher, B. Elan. 2009. /The Contrastive Hierarchy in Phonology/.
> Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
>
> Gordon, Matthew K. 2016. /Phonological Typology/. Oxford University Press.
>
> Hockett, Charles F. 1963. “The Problem of Universals in Language.” In
> /Universals of Language/, edited by Joseph Greenberg, 1–29.
>
> Hyman, Larry. 2006. “Word-Prosodic Typology.” /Phonology/ 23: 225–57.
>
> Hyman, Larry M. 2007. “Where’s Phonology in Typology?” /Linguistic
> Typology/ 11: 265–71.
>
> Hyman, Larry M. 2008. “Universals in Phonology.” /The Linguistic
> Review/ 25: 83–137.
>
> Hyman, Larry M. 2017. “What (Else) Depends on Phonology?” In
> /Dependencies in Language/, edited by Nicholas Enfield, 141–58.
>
> Kiparsky, Paul. 2018. “Formal and Empirical Issues in Phonological
> Typology.” In /Phonological Typology/, edited by Larry M. Hyman and
> Frans Plank, 54–106. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
>
> Kuznetsova, Natalia. 2019. What Danish and Estonian can show to a
> modern word-prosodic typology. In Goedemans, R., Heinz, J., & van der
> Hulst, H. (Eds.). The study of word stress and accent: Theories,
> methods and data. CUP.
>
> Kwon, Nahyun, and Erich R. Round. 2015. “Phonaesthemes in
> Morphological Theory.” /Morphology/ 25 (1): 1–27.
>
> Lass, Roger. 1984. “Vowel System Universals and Typology: Prologue to
> Theory.” /Phonology Yearbook/ 1: 75–111.
>
> Parncutt, Amy. 2015. “Towards a Phonological Typology of Reduplication
> in Australian Languages.” Honours Thesis, University of Queensland.
>
> Round, Erich R. 2017. “Review of Gordon, Matthew K. Phonological
> Typology, OUP 2016.” /Folia Linguistica/ 51 (3): 745–55.
>
> Round, Erich R. 2019. “Australian Phonemic Inventories Contributed to
> PHOIBLE 2.0: Essential Explanatory Notes.”
> https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3464333
> <https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3464333>.
>
> Round, Erich R. forthcoming 2021. “Phonotactics.” In /Oxford Guide to
> Australian Languages/, edited by Claire Bowern. Oxford: Oxford
> University Press. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.23022.13120
>
> Round, Erich R., and Greville G. Corbett. 2020. “Comparability and
> Measurement in Typological Science: The Bright Future for
> Linguistics.” /Linguistic Typology/ 24 (3): 489–525.
>
> Simpson, Adrian P. 1999. “Fundamental Problems in Comparative
> Phonetics and Phonology: Does UPSID Help to Solve Them.” In
> /Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences/,
> 1:349–52. Berkeley: University of California.
>
> Van der Hulst, Harry. 2017. “Phonological Typology.” In /The Cambridge
> Handbook of Linguistic Typology/, edited by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
> and Robert MW Dixon, 39–77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
>
> *From: *Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf
> of TALLMAN Adam <Adam.TALLMAN at cnrs.fr>
> *Date: *Thursday, 4 February 2021 at 9:20 pm
> *To: *VAN DE VELDE Mark <Mark.VANDEVELDE at cnrs.fr>,
> "lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org" <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Subject: *Re: [Lingtyp] papers on non-uniqueness in tone and stress
>
> Thanks, yes, I've read this paper.
>
> Adam
>
> Adam James Ross Tallman (PhD, UT Austin)
>
> ELDP-SOAS -- Postdoctorant
> CNRS -- Dynamique Du Langage (UMR 5596)
> Bureau 207, 14 av. Berthelot, Lyon (07)
>
> Numero celular en bolivia: +59163116867
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *De :*Lingtyp [lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org] de la part
> de Mark Van de Velde [mark.vandevelde at cnrs.fr]
> *Envoyé :* jeudi 4 février 2021 11:57
> *À :* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Objet :* Re: [Lingtyp] papers on non-uniqueness in tone and stress
>
> Dear Adam:
>
> I can recommend Hyman (2012).
>
> All the best,
>
> Mark
>
> Hyman, Larry M. 2012. In defense of prosodic typology: A response to
> Beckman and Venditti. /Linguistic Typology/. De Gruyter Mouton 16(3).
> 341–385. https://doi.org/10.1515/lity-2012-0014
> <https://doi.org/10.1515/lity-2012-0014>.
>
> On 04/02/2021 11:12, TALLMAN Adam wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> I'm looking for papers on the notion of non-uniqueness in
> phonology (or morphosyntax if applicable). I have three so far
> (Chao, Hockett, and Schane).
>
> I'm particularly interesting in non-uniqueness in the domain of
> the description of suprasegmentals - like when we have a system
> that seems to mix tone and (other types of) prominence whether the
> system should be described as tonal with a stress mapped to it or
> vice versa. Phonologists discuss the issue as if there is an
> obvious unique best way of describing such relations in all cases.
> But I think that's probably false and it choosing one over the
> other just amounts to an expositional decision - some of the
> discussion in Tallman and Elias-Ulloa (2020) point in this
> direction in Chácobo.
>
> There's also the related issue of */when/* the acoustic correlates
> of some phonological category are organized in such a way as to
> genuinely merit the designation "tone". Phonologists seem to
> assume that this issue is trivial or obvious - again, I think this
> is probably false (the notion is more open ended than is
> recognized) regardless of the phonological evidence that can be
> rallied in support of one position or another.
>
> @Article{chao:1934:phonemes,
> title = {The non-uniqueness of phonemic solutions of phonetic
> systems},
> author = {Yuen Ren Chao},
> journal = {Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology,
> Academia Sinica},
> year = {1934},
> volume = {4},
> number = {},
> pages = {363-397},
> %doi = {},
> %urldate = {},
> }
>
> @incollection{hockett:1963:universals,
> Author = {Charles F. Hockett},
> Booktitle = {Universals of language (Volume 2)},
> Editor = {Joseph H. Greenberg},
> Pages = {1-29},
> Publisher = {MIT Press},
> Address = {Cambridge, MA},
> Title = {The problem of universals in language},
> Year = {1963},
> Edition = {}}
>
> @Article{schane:1968:nonuniqueness,
> title = {On the non-uniqueness of phonological representations},
> author = {Sanford A. Schane},
> journal = {Language},
> year = {1968},
> volume = {44},
> number = {4},
> pages = {363-397},
> %doi = {},
> %urldate = {},
> }
>
> @Article{tallman:eliasulloa:2020:acoustics,
> title = {The acoustic correlates of stress and tone in Chácobo
> (Pano)},
> author = {Adam J.R. Tallman},
> journal = {The acoustic correlates of stress and tone in
> Chácobo (Pano): A production study},
> editor = {Adam J.R. Tallman and José Élias-Ulloa},
> year = {2020},
> volume = {147},
> number = {4},
> pages = {3028},
> doi = {https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0001014
> <https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0001014>},
> %urldate = {2019-07-04},
> }
>
> Adam
>
> Adam James Ross Tallman (PhD, UT Austin)
>
> ELDP-SOAS -- Postdoctorant
> CNRS -- Dynamique Du Langage (UMR 5596)
> Bureau 207, 14 av. Berthelot, Lyon (07)
>
> Numero celular en bolivia: +59163116867
>
>
>
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> --
>
> Image removed by sender. LLACAN
>
>
>
>
> Mark Van de Velde
> Directeur du LLACAN (CNRS-INaLCO)
> mark.vandevelde.cnrs.fr <https://mark.vandevelde.cnrs.fr>
> bantu.cnrs.fr <https://bantu.cnrs.fr>
>
>
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--
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
https://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/42385/25522
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