LING 52400: Seminar in Phonetics and Phonology:

The Phonetics and Phonology of Phonological Neutralization

Autumn 2003

Meeting time:  MW 10:00-11:20 in Rm. 309 Classics

http://home.uchicago.edu/~aclyu/seminar.html

 

Instructor: Alan Yu

aclyu@uchicago.edu

Office: 309 Classics (702-8527)

Office hours: Wednesday 2-4

 

This seminar focuses on the phonetic bases of positional neutralization in phonology. Positional neutralization refers to a situation where, for a given set of oppositions, one structural position licenses a wider array of contrasts than another (e.g., in Maidu and Klamath, voiced, voiceless, aspirated, glottalized consonants do not contrast in the coda). Special attention will be given to the phenomenon of incomplete neutralization where a presumed neutralized phonological opposition is found to be contrastive at the phonetic level.

 

Prerequisites: At least one course in phonetics and phonology. Open to advanced undergraduates and graduate students.

 

Course requirement: Class presentations and a final squib.

 

Tentative schedule (subject to change)

 

1

Introduction (Sept. 29, Oct. 1)

 

*Steriade, Donca. 1994. Positional neutralization and the expression of contrast. Ms. UCLA.

*Barnes, Jonathan Allen. 2002. Positional neutralization: A phonologization approach to typological patterns. PhD dissertation. University of California, Berkeley. Chapter 1.

Lass, Roger. 1984. Phonology: An introduction to basic concepts. Chapter 3: Opposition, neutralization, features. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 39-54

Ohala, John. 1993. The phonetics of sound change. In C. Jones (ed.), Historical Linguistics: Problems and Perspectives. London: Longman. 237-278.

 

2

Voicing neutralization: The basics (Oct. 13, 15)

 

*Steriade, Donca. 1997. Phonetics in phonology: the case of laryngeal neutralization. Ms. UCLA.

Lombardi, Linda. 1991. Laryngeal features and laryngeal neutralization. PhD dissertation. University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Silverman, Daniel. To appear. On the rarity of pre-aspirated stops. Journal of Linguistics

Howe, Darin and Douglas Pulleyblank. 2001. Patterns and timing of glottalization. Phonology 18: 45-80.

 

3

Voicing neutralization: Incomplete neutralization (Oct. 20, 22)

 

*Warner, Natasha, Jongman, Allard, Sereno, Joan, and Kemps, Rachèl.  In press.  Incomplete neutralization and other sub-phonemic durational differences in production and perception:  Evidence from Dutch.  Journal of Phonetics.

*Ernestu, Mirjam, and R. Harald Baayen. To appear. The functionality of incomplete neutralization in Dutch: The case of past-tense formation. Papers in Laboratory Phonology.

Ernestu, Mirjam and R. Harald Baayen. 2003. Predicting the unpredictable: Interpreting neutralized segments in Dutch. Language 79(1): 5-39.

Port, Robert F. and M. L. O’Dell. 1985. Neutralization of syllable-final voicing in German. Journal of Phonetics 13: 455-471.

 

4

Vocalic neutralization: Stressed vs. unstressed (Oct. 27, 29)

 

*Barnes, Jonathan Allen. 2002. Positional neutralization: A phonologization approach to typological patterns. PhD dissertation. University of California, Berkeley. Chapter 2.

Crosswhite, Kathrine. In press. Vowel reduction. In Bruce Hayes, Robert Kirchner and Donca Steriade (eds.) Phonetically Based Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Smith, Jennifer. 2000. Prominence, augmentation, and neutralization in phonology. In L. Conathan et al. (eds.) Proceedings of the 26th annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. 247-257.

 

5

Vocalic neutralization: Final vs. non-final (Nov. 3, 5)

 

*Barnes, Jonathan Allen. 2002. Positional neutralization: A phonologization approach to typological patterns. PhD dissertation. University of California, Berkeley. Chapter 3.

 

6

Vocalic neutralization: Initial vs. non-initial (Nov. 10, 12)

 

*Barnes, Jonathan Allen. 2002. Positional neutralization: A phonologization approach to typological patterns. PhD dissertation. University of California, Berkeley. Chapter 4.

 

7

Tonal neutralization: Contour tone distribution (Nov. 17, 19)

 

*Gordon, Matthews. 2001. A typology of contour tone restriction. Studies in Language 25:423-462.

 

8

Tonal neutralization: Incomplete tonal neutralization (Nov. 24, 26)

 

*Peng, Shu-hui. 2000. Lexical versus ‘phonological’ representations of Mandarin Sandhi tones. In Michael B. Broe and Janet B. Pierrehumbert (eds.) Papers in Laboratory Phonology V: Acquisition and the Lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

9

Place neutralization (Dec 1, 3)

 

*Ohala, John J. 1990. The phonetics and phonology of aspects of assimilation. In John Kingston and Mary Beckman (eds.) Papers in Laboratory Phonology I: Between the grammar and the physics of speech. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 258-275.

*Steriade, Donca. 1995. Licensing retroflexion. Ms. UCLA.

*Steriade, Donca. 2001. Directional asymmetries in place assimilation: a perceptually based account. In Elizabeth Hume and Keith Johnson (eds.) Perception in phonology. Academic Press.

Fujimura, O., M. Macchi and L. A. Streeter. 1978. Perception of stop consonants with conflicting transitional cues: A cross-linguistic study. Language and Speech 21: 337-346.

 

10

Student presentations