The Phonology Of Catalan

by Wheeler, Max W.

• ISBN13: 9780199258147
• ISBN10: 0199258147
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-11-17
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This is the most comprehensive account of Catalan phonology ever published. Catalan is a Romance language, occupying a position somewhere between French, Spanish, and Italian. It is the first language of six and a half million people in the northeastern Spain and of the peoples of Andorra,French Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and a small region of Sardinia. Dr Wheeler describes Barcelona pronunciation and the major varieties of western Catalonia, Valencia, and Majorca, and considers social and stylistic variation. The author's approach is through a clear, pragmatic version of orthodox Optimality Theory and is informed by close attention to articulatory phonetics. He includes a substantial account of post-lexical (phrasal) phonology and has designed his approach to be of maximum use to those seeking eitherto understand the phonology and morphology of Catalan and its varieties or to set these within a comparative or typological perspective. After an introduction to the varieties of Catalan the author devotes chapters to segment inventories; syllable structure; phrasal phonology; coda voicing; codaplace; cluster reduction; epenthesis; stress and prosody; word phonology and allomorphy; and the syllabification of pronominal clitics. The book is fully referenced and contains a comprehensive bibliography. It is likely to be the standard account of its subject for many years.

Author Biography

Max Wheeler is Reader in Linguistics at the University of Sussex where his research focuses on phonology, and on change in inflectional morphology. He is joint editor of the electronic Journal of Catalan Studies. He is co-author with Alan Yates and Nicolau Dols of Catalan: A Comprehensive Grammar (1999).

Table of Contents

Preface	x
1 INTRODUCTION	1	(9)
1.1 The Catalan language: its varieties and standard(s)	1	(2)
1.2 Theoretical assumptions and framework	3	(2)
1.3 Outline of contents	5	(1)
1.4 Guidance notes	6	(4)
1.4.1 Orthography	6	(2)
1.4.2 Transcriptions and glosses	8	(1)
1.4.3 Abbreviations in glosses	8	(1)
1.4.4 A note on Catalan surnames	8	(2)
2 PHONOLOGICAL PRIMITIVES AND SEGMENT INVENTORIES	10	(68)
2.1 Consonant inventory and contrasts	10	(27)
2.1.1 Plosives	10	(1)
2.1.2 Affricates	11	(2)
2.1.3 Fricatives	13	(11)
2.1.3.1 Labiodental fricative	13	(1)
2.1.3.2 Alveolo-palatal fricatives	13	(2)
2.1.3.3 Relation between alveolo-palatal fricatives and affricates	15	(7)
2.1.3.4 Interpretations of [f]	22	(1)
2.1.3.5 Dorso-palatal fricative [j]	22	(1)
2.1.3.6 Varieties without voiced strident phonemes	23	(1)
2.1.4 Nasals	24	(1)
2.1.5 Glides (semivowels)	24	(1)
2.1.6 Rhotics	24	(10)
2.1.6.1 Distribution of rhotic types	24	(2)
2.1.6.2 Interpretations of rhotic distribution	26	(8)
2.1.7 Laterals	34	(2)
2.1.7.1 Alveolar lateral	34	(1)
2.1.7.2 Alveolo-palatal lateral	34	(2)
2.1.8 Place in coronals	36	(1)
2.1.9 Contrasting geminate consonants	36	(1)
2.2 Vowel inventory	37	(15)
2.2.1 Stressed vowel contrasts	37	(15)
2.2.1.1 Gaps in the distribution of mid front vowels in central Catalan	38	(3)
2.2.1.2 Mascaro's law	41	(4)
2.2.1.3 Instability in the lexical incidence of half-close and half-open mid vowels	45	(7)
2.3 Vowel reduction	52	(26)
2.3.1 Introduction	52	(1)
2.3.2 Vowel reduction in western Catalan	52	(1)
2.3.3 Vowel reduction in Majorcan	53	(1)
2.3.4 Vowel reduction in eastern Catalan, except Majorcan	54	(1)
2.3.5 The interpretation of Catalan vowel reduction	55	(1)
2.3.6 Excluding [&epsilon:, a] from unstressed syllables	56	(1)
2.3.7 Basic vowel reduction in eastern Catalan	57	(3)
2.3.8 Basic vowel reduction in Majorcan	60	(1)
2.3.9 Exceptions to eastern Catalan vowel reduction, 1: *[a' a], *['aa], *[aa]	61	(4)
2.3.10 Exceptions to eastern Catalan vowel reduction, 2: adjacent mid vowels	65	(5)
2.3.11 Exceptions to eastern Catalan vowel reduction, 3: post-tonic [e], [o]	70	(3)
2.3.12 Further non-reduction of unstressed [e] in Majorca	73	(5)
3 SYLLABLE STRUCTURE	78	(46)
3.1 Onsets	78	(10)
3.1.1 Onset-driven resyllabification	84	(4)
3.2 The syllabification of vocoids	88	(36)
3.2.1 Introduction	88	(1)
3.2.2 Default syllabification of high vocoids within words	88	(2)
3.2.3 High vocoids following other vocoids	90	(9)
3.2.3.1 Stressed vowel + high vowel hiatus	91	(1)
3.2.3.2 Hiatus before `underlying' stress	92	(4)
3.2.3.3 Unstressed vowel followed by unstressed high vocoid	96	(3)
3.2.4 High vocoids preceding other vocoids	99	(21)
3.2.4.1 Labio-velar obstruents?	100	(2)
3.2.4.2 Other post-consonantal high vocoids followed by non-high vocoids	102	(1)
3.2.4.3 Vocoid sequences of rising sonority in relation to word stress	103	(2)
3.2.4.4 High vocoid followed by stressed non-high vocoid in initial syllable	105	(4)
3.2.4.5 Word-initial pretonic sequences of rising sonority	109	(1)
3.2.4.6 Initial pre-pretonic sequences of rising sonority	109	(1)
3.2.4.7 Non-initial sequences of rising sonority, with second element stressed	110	(4)
3.2.4.8 Pretonic non-initial sequences of rising sonority	114	(6)
3.2.5 High vocoid sequences	120	(5)
3.2.5.1 Adjacent dissimilar high vocoids	120	(1)
3.2.5.2 Adjacent similar high vocoids	121	(3)
4 PHRASAL PHONOLOGY: VOWEL SANDHI	124	(21)
4.1 Introduction	124	(1)
4.2 Stressed vowel followed by unstressed vowel	125	(7)
4.2.1 Stressed vowel followed by an unstressed high vowel	125	(4)
4.2.2 Stressed vowel followed by an unstressed non-high vowel	129	(3)
4.3 Unstressed vowel followed by stressed vowel	132	(3)
4.4 Contact between unstressed vowels	135	(5)
4.5 Observations on multi-vocoid sequences	140	(4)
4.6 Summary of evidence for constraint rankings for vowel sandhi	144	(1)
5 CODA VOICING NEUTRALIZATION AND ASSIMILATION	145	(21)
5.1 Distribution of voiced and voiceless obstruents	145	(4)
5.2 'Incomplete' neutralization	149	(2)
5.3 Accounting for voicing neutralization and assimilation	151	(6)
5.4 Towards an OT account of voicing neutralization in Catalan	157	(5)
5.5 Word-final sibilants	162	(2)
5.6 Appendix: Steriade's 'P-map' approach to voicing neutralization	164	(2)
6 CODA PLACE AND MANNER ASSIMILATION AND NEUTRALIZATION	166	(54)
6.1 Introduction	166	(2)
6.2 Morpheme-internal coda-C clusters	168	(11)
6.2.1 Heterorganic nasal coda clusters	173	(1)
6.2.2 Heterorganic denti-alveolar-C clusters	173	(1)
6.2.3 Labial-alveolo-palatal cluster	174	(2)
6.2.4 Alveolo-palatal-C clusters	176	(1)
6.2.5 Velar-C clusters	177	(1)
6.2.6 Constraints for formal style	177	(2)
6.3 Nasal and lateral assimilation and associated assimilations in less formal style	179	(1)
6.4 Inter-word coda-C clusters	180	(6)
6.4.1 Inter-word coda-C clusters in less formal styles	183	(2)
6.4.2 Summary of style-reflecting place assimilations in inter-word consonantal contacts	185	(1)
6.4.3 Heterorganic major place inter-word contacts	185	(1)
6.5 Minor place assimilation	186	(21)
6.5.1 Survey of cluster realizations	190	(2)
6.5.2 Denti-alveolar contacts	192	(5)
6.5.3 Alveolo-palatal onsets	197	(4)
6.5.4 High DAC contacts	201	(3)
6.5.5 Conclusions and Summary	204	(3)
6.6 Consonantal contact in Majorcan: place and manner	207	(13)
6.6.1 Labial coda inputs	211	(3)
6.6.2 Alveolar coda inputs	214	(1)
6.6.3 Alveolo-palatal coda inputs	215	(5)
7 CLUSTER REDUCTION	220	(30)
7.1 Introduction	220	(1)
7.2 Cluster reduction in stems	221	(6)
7.3 Cluster reduction in stems with a consonantal suffix	227	(8)
7.4 Cluster reduction in uninflected stems followed by vowel-initial words	235	(2)
7.5 Cluster reduction in uninflected stems followed by consonant-initial words	237	(3)
7.6 Cluster reduction in inflected stems followed by vowel-initial words	240	(4)
7.7 Cluster reduction in inflected stems followed by consonant-initial words	244	(5)
7.8 Summary of constraint rankings relating to word-final clusters	249	(1)
8 EPENTHESIS AND OTHER SONORITY-RELATED PHENOMENA	250	(26)
8.1 Introduction	250	(2)
8.2 Non-edge epenthesis	252	(5)
8.3 Codas and epenthesis	257	(6)
8.4 Sibilants and epenthesis	263	(2)
8.5 Minimum sonority distance and voiced stop gemination	265	(4)
8.6 Balearic verb forms with coda clusters violating the sonority sequencing principle	269	(7)
9 STRESS, FEET, AND PHRASES	276	(34)
9.1 Word stress: introduction	276	(1)
9.2 Unstressed words	277	(2)
9.3 Compounds and complex words	279	(5)
9.3.1 Compounds	279	(3)
9.3.2 Complex words with affixes	282	(2)
9.4 Verb stress	284	(4)
9.5 Prosodic word constraints	288	(9)
9.6 Rhythmic constraints above the word: a provisional account	297	(9)
Appendix: evaluation of alternative foot and colon parses for word types in (29-31)	306	(4)
10 WORD PHONOLOGY AND PHONOLOGICALLY CONDITIONED ALLOMORPHY	310	(31)
10.1 Coda/Onset alternations: lenition	310	(17)
10.1.1 Introduction	310	(2)
10.1.2 Fricatives or approximants	312	(2)
10.1.3 Lenition and the theory of effort	314	(2)
10.1.4 Lenition and the enhancement of contrast	316	(1)
10.1.5 Variation in Catalan lenition	317	(7)
10.1.6 Further interpretation of the hierarchy of leniting contexts in Catalan	324	(2)
10.1.7 Remaining issues	326	(1)
10.2 Consonant/zero alternations	327	(11)
10.2.1 N/zero alternation	327	(6)
10.2.2 R/zero alternation	333	(5)
10.3 Alternations involving stem-final labials	338	(3)
11 THE SYLLABIFICATION OF PRONOMINAL CLITICS	341	(30)
11.1 Introduction	341	(1)
11.2 Single clitics	342	(3)
11.3 Clitic clusters	345	(3)
11.4 Syllabification constraints affecting clitics and clitic clusters	348	(18)
11.4.1 Epenthesis	348	(7)
11.4.2 Deletion of consonants and other issues in the syllabification of pronominal clitics	355	(8)
11.4.3 Non-edge epenthesis in verb-clitic sequences	363	(3)
11.5 Epenthesis in clitic clusters to avoid geminate sibilants	366	(3)
11.6 Summary of constraint ranking	369	(2)
References	371	(11)
Index	382