lexical representations a variationist perspective Gregory R Guy phonoLAM group July 2013 The problem of lexical scope Some phonological generalizations are valid only for a subset of the lexicon ID: 508188
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Slide1
Lexical exceptions andlexical representations: a variationist perspective
Gregory R. Guy
phonoLAM
group
July 2013Slide2
The problem of lexical scopeSome phonological generalizations are valid only for
a subset of the lexicon
in a given language.
The subsets are at least partly defined by lexical identity, not phonological shape.
Subsets range in size from small to very large.Slide3
Example: English laxing rule /i/ alternates with /E/ in many derived words:
serene-serenity, obscene-obscenity, scheme-schematic, spleen-splenetic
…but famously fails to alternate in
obese-obesitySlide4
Related lexical issues for phonologyLexical exceptions
Historical
borrowings with distinct phonology (e.g., Latinate vocabulary of English, Chinese-origin vocabulary of Japanese)
Recent
(unassimilated) borrowings; cf. in English
‘Bach’
[
bax
]
Proper namesSlide5
Lexical exceptionsLexical exceptions are lexical items that exceptionally fail to conform to some generalization found in the rest of the lexicon, or show some phonological pattern that (most) other words do not have.Slide6
Lexical exceptionsand lexical classes“
Exceptions
”
typically involve just one or a few words.
Larger sets of lexical items showing distinct patterns exist in some languages (e.g. Chinese-origin words in Japanese); these are not usually treated as exceptions, but involve the
similar issues:
how to tie phonological processes to specific
words?Slide7
Partial lexical scope:The theoretical issueHow to associate the statement of the phonological generalization (typically captured by the rule or constraint component of the phonology) with the appropriate lexical set (typically defined in the lexicon) Slide8
Two strategies for handling lexically-restricted patternsWord-based: define lexical entries that pre-empt or pre
-determine
output
Phonology-based: constrain
processes
to
apply
only to
particular lexical subsetsSlide9
The lexical strategyA lexically-restricted generalization is already encoded in underlying representations, not generated by the phonology
Words that fail to show some generalization get URs that block that outcome Slide10
The phonological strategyIn a rule-based phonology:
Exception features: rules are sensitive to features associated with particular lexical items
(cf. Chomsky &
Halle 1968)
Features can trigger or block specific rules
Phonological rules are thereby co-indexed with lexical items they apply toSlide11
The phonological strategy in OTIn a constraint-based approach:Define different constraints for different subsets of the lexicon
Co-phonologies: different constraint rankings for different subsets of the lexicon
(cf. Inkelas, Ito & Mester, Pater & Coetzee)Slide12
Example: Philadelphia /æ/The TRAP vowel (a.k.a. ‘short a’
, /
æ
/) has tense and lax variants in Philadelphia English:
/
æ
/ is tense before
tautosyllabic
front nasals and fricatives (e.g.,
ham, man, half, path, pass
)
but
mad, bad, glad
are also tense
w
hile all other words with following /d/ are not tense (e.g.,
sad, Dad, had, pad, lad
…)Slide13
Example: Philadelphia /æ/Lexical strategy: list mad, bad, glad with tense /
æ
/ in the
lexicon
Phonological
strategy: the tensing rule
can be triggered
by an exception feature, which is listed in the lexical entries for
mad, bad,
gladSlide14
How to choose?In the above example, the two approaches to exceptionality make the same predictions, and are essentially notational equivalentsBoth strategies are evident in early generative phonology
Forty
years of
research
has not decided the issue
Both
strategies survive
the transition to constraint-based phonology Slide15
The practiceIn the absence of a theoretical or empirical proof of the superiority of one or the other, the issue has been left undecidedPhonologists pick and choose their strategies according to their preferenceSlide16
And yet…The two strategies make quite different claims about mental grammar:The lexical strategy implies that speakers store lots of detail in the lexicon, even if it is redundant and generalizable
Phonological
strategy implies that speakers always seek to maximize the use of generalizations Slide17
An obstacle to resolution: The focus on invariant processesA choice between the two strategies is hampered by the focus on invariant processes:
obesity
always has /
i
/,
serenity
always has /E/
No interaction with contextSlide18
The limitations of an invariant perspectiveCategorical processes are abruptIn any given context, a unique outcome is expected
Hence, they cannot reflect effects of intersecting constraints
(in
variationist
terminology, all constraints are
‘knockouts’)Slide19
An alternative approach: look at variable processesWeinreich, Labov and Herzog (1968):
“
Orderly heterogeneity
”
: language variation shows systematic quantitative regularities, probabilistically constrainedSlide20
The insights from variationVariable processes reflect multiple constraintsEvery item is affected simultaneously by every contextual featureHence, quantitative patterns can reveal phonological nuances that don
’
t show up in categorical processes.
They may provide solutions to unresolved theoretical problemsSlide21
Lexical exceptions in variationMany variable processes are known to exhibit unusual frequencies of occurrence in particular lexical items.
-e.g
., coronal stop deletion in English is exceptionally frequent in
‘
and
’
(Exceptional because deletion occurs significantly more often in
and
than in phonologically comparable words like
sand, band, hand
, etc.)Slide22
Table 1. Exceptional and in the ONZE corpus:
N
Deletion
rate
and
597
80
%
other words 3348
29%Slide23
Some other examplesFinal /-s/ deletion in Caribbean Spanish: certain discourse markers have exceptionally high rates of –s absence.
entonce
(s)
‘then’,
digamo
(s)
, ‘let’s say’.
Final /-s/ deletion in Brazilian Portuguese: the first person plural verbal suffix –
mos
shows an exceptionally high rate of –s absence.
temo
(s)
‘we have’;
falamo
(s)
‘we speak’Slide24
How to handle lexical exceptions to variable processes?Phonological strategy: exceptional lexical items have a feature that raises or lowers the probability of a given phonological process occurring in that word
.
Lexical strategy: exceptional words have distinctive lexical entries that affect the surface frequencies of occurrence of variants.Slide25
Background: The VR frameworkThe ‘variable rule
’
model of variation treats variable productions as a function of contextual constraint effects (cf. Labov 1968, Cedergren & Sankoff 1973)
Each context affecting a phonological process is associated with a probabilistic weight (p
i
, p
j
, …) expressing that effect
The probability of occurrence of a process in a particular utterance is a logistic function of all relevant contextsSlide26
A VR account ofEnglish coronal stop deletionThe deletion of final stops in cases like
west side >
wes
’
side, old man>
ol
’
man
is independently affected by
preceding segment: more deletion after
obstruents
(
west
) than laterals (
old
)
following segment: more deletion before
consonants
(
wes
’
side
) than before vowels (
west end
)
morphology: more deletion in
monomorphemic
words (
mist
) than past tense forms (
missed
)Slide27
The frequency of final -t deletion in west side is therefore a function of
presence of a preceding /s/,
presence of following /s/
morphological status as monomorpheme
Each of these effects is independent of all others, and makes a separate contribution to the overall outcome Slide28
Phonological strategy for and in the VR model
The
phonological treatment of lexical exceptions simply assigns a distinct weight to
and
which is not associated with other lexical items.
This weight is high, strongly favoring deletion
Tokens of
and
are still equally affected by all other factors, e.g., following segment Slide29
The lexical strategy for and A lexical treatment of the exceptional behavior of
and
assigns it an alternate entry
that pre-
encodes
the output of the process.
and
has an
alternate lexical entry
an’
or
‘n’
.
When this form is selected, it always surfaces without a final /d/, thereby boosting the apparent rate of coronal stop deletion.
(cf.
rock
‘
n
’
roll
, an orthographic representation of this underlying form?)Slide30
Testing the strategies:Variation as a window into phonological organization
The two strategies for handling lexical exceptions may not be decidable on obligatory/categorical data because of absence of constraint interaction
But variation data, showing constraint interaction, allows a test of the models. Slide31
The two strategies make different quantitative predictionsThe phonological strategy using an exception feature
simply
boosts the overall probability of deletion in
and
, leaving other constraint effects unchanged.
Hence,
the effect
of following C vs. V should be the same in exceptional and unexceptional words:
Cheese
‘
n
’
crackers
is always deleted more than
ham
‘
n
’
eggsSlide32
The lexical strategy achieves
elevated surface rates of -d absence in
and
by selection of UR
an
’
, which
does not undergo coronal stop deletion
, and is therefore insensitive to constraints on that process.
Hence, lexical exceptions show reduced effect of following C
vs
V:
Cheese
‘
n
’
crackers
is no more likely than
ham
‘
n
’
eggsSlide33
The specific quantitative
effect of the lexical strategy:
A surface corpus of exceptional words is a mixture of two sets of forms:
-some are derived from underlying full forms (e.g.
and
) and show the effects of constraints on the process,
-others are derived from underlying reduced forms (
an’
)
and are not affected by constraints on the processSlide34
The mixture of the two sets has the quantitative effect of attenuating
the observed
effect of constraints on the process.
Tokens derived from underlying
and
, showing an external context effect of a certain magnitude
m
, are mixed in with tokens derived from
an
’
showing zero external context effect. The total set will show an effect intermediate between 0 and
m
.Slide35
Measuring attenuationIn a multivariate analysis, this attenuation should be manifested as a smaller range of values in lexical exceptions for a factor group
that measures
a constraint on the process (e.g., the following segment effect on coronal stop deletion).Slide36
PredictionsException feature: constraint effects should be equivalent in exceptional and nonexceptional corpora
Multiple underlying entries: constraint effects should appear to be weaker in exceptional than
nonexceptional
corpora.Slide37
Table 2. Following context effect on English CSD and exceptional and
Non-exceptional
Exception
(
and
)
words
N % del N % del
__C 572 39.3 441 95.7
__V
495
15.8 312 82.1
Range
:
23.5
% > 13.6%
(
Source:
Neu
1980)Slide38
Table 3. Context effects in the ONZE corpus
Other words
and
Following
N
%
del
N
%
del
Context:
__C 1339
58.3
315
87.9
__V 1477
10.4
182
75.3
Range:
47.9
%
>
12.6
%
(
18 speakers from the ONZE corpus at U Canterbury)Slide39
Table 4. Multivariate analysis of following context effect in the ONZE data
Following
Other words
and
Context:
Adjusted p
robabilities of –d deletion
__C[+
cor
] .83 .63
__C[-
cor
, +
vce
]
.
90
.73
__C[-
cor
, -
vce
]
.
76
.52
__/w/
.
72
.59
__V
.
29
.42
Range:
.
61
>
.
31
(
18 speakers from the ONZE corpus at U Canterbury)Slide40
Following context effect appears significantly weaker in exceptional andIn both raw deletion percentages and multivariate analyses, in two independent corpora, the effect of following context is much weaker for tokens of
and
than for other words
This is consistent with the lexical strategy:
and
has an additional UR without a final /d/Slide41
Contextual effects on Brazilian Portuguese –s deletionPrior research shows this to be strongly constrained by following contextMainly occurs in
preconsonantal
position
Deletion rates are affected by place, manner, and voicing of following C
Do these constraints affect exceptional
–
mos
words just like other words?Slide42
Table 5. Lexical exceptions in Brazilian Portuguese -s deletionFeatures
of following C Non-exceptions Lexical exceptions
(
-
mos
forms)
Voice/Manner:
sonorant
.
69
.49
voiced
obstruent
.
44
.58
voiceless
obstruent
.
36
.44
Range
.
33
>
.14
Place:
labial
.
32
.58
coronal
.
61
.53
velar
.
44
.39
Range
.
29 >
.
19
N:
5880
1225
Goodness of fit (log likelihood) -704.8 -791.5Slide43
Following context effect appears significantly weaker in exceptional -mos
Range of probabilities is smaller for both the place effect and the manner/voicing effect
The goodness of fit measure is significantly worse for the exceptional forms, suggesting that they aren’t as well explained by the contextual conditions
Again, this is consistent with a lexical account: the first singular morpheme has an alternate entry
–
mo
without final –s.Slide44
Contextual effects on Salvadoran Spanish –s deletionLike other Caribbean Spanish dialects, the Spanish of El Salvador has variable final –s deletionHoffman 2004 finds strong constraint effects on deletion; more deletion in stressed syllables, more deletion before consonants, especially voiced consonants, than before vowels
Three discourse markers show exceptionally high rates of deletion:
entonces
,
digamos
,
puesSlide45
Table 6. -s deletion in Salvadoran Spanish (Hoffman 2004)
Non
-exceptional words Lexical exceptions
Following context:
(
entonces
,
digamos
,
pues
)
sonorant
.
60
.
63
voiced
obstruent
.
75
.
55
voiceless obstruent .
33
.
38
vowel
.
36
.
38
pause
.
44
.
56
Range
.
42
>
.
25
Syllable Stress:
stressed
.
38
.
42
unstressed
.
62
.
58
Range
.24
>
.
16Slide46
Another variable: monophthongal /ay/ in Southern American English (SoAmEng)
The English diphthong /ay/ is
monophthongized
to /a/ in Southern American English
This is a variable process, subject to social and contextual constraints
More
monophthongs
are found in pre-voiced contexts (
ride
vs.
right
), in phonetically shorter syllables, and among lower status speakers
I
and
my
are lexical exceptions, with very high rates of
monophthongization
, even before voiceless consonants (
cf
:
‘my time’
)Slide47
Table 7. /ay/ monophthongization in SoAmEng by following context (Woods 2008)
Other
words
I, my
%
monophthong
34
%
53
%
Fol. Context:
__C
[+
vce
]
.76
(.51)
__V
or G
.41 (.49)
__C
[-
vce
]
.
17
(.48)
Range:
.
59
>
.03
(
n.s
.
)Slide48
Table 8. /ay/ monophthongization in Southern AmEng: duration effect
Other words
I
, my
Duration:
shorter
.89
.68
longer .49
.
45
Range:
.
40
>
.
23
(Data from Woods 2008)Slide49
Contextual effects are much weaker on exceptional I, my in SoAmEngFollowing context effect is not significant for
I, my
Duration effect is much weaker
Monophthongization
occurs much more often in these two words, and is relatively insensitive to context.
This is consistent with alternate URs with
monophthongal
syllabic nuclei /a:/, /ma:/ Slide50
Summary: In 7 constraints on 4 processes in 3 languages…
Magnitude of constraint effect is always weaker for exceptional lexical
items than for non-exceptional words
This is consistent with predictions of the
alternate
lexical entry
model
These results contradict the phonological ‘exception feature’ model, which predicts that contextual effects should be stable and independent of exceptional statusSlide51
Conclusion: Speakers alter the lexiconLexical exceptions to variable processes are
encoded in the mental grammar
by alterations
to
underlying
representations,
and the existence of multiple
lexical entries for exceptional words
(cf.
Kiparsky
’
s treatment of -
t,d
deletion in
stratal
OT
)Slide52
Another model: Exemplar TheoryEvery word is represented by an exemplar cloud of remembered tokens; hence all words are equally ‘exceptional’, differing only by lexical frequency
High frequency forms should undergo high rates of lenition
and
has a high deletion rate simply because it is the highest frequency word eligible for coronal stop deletion
Other high
frequency
words like
just
should behave similarly to
andSlide53
Exemplar modelAn exemplar-theory treatment of lexical exceptions is like a multiple-entry model (some remembered exemplars have /d/, others do not, and in production, speakers sometimes chose a target lacking a final segment)
But words should differ mainly as a function of frequency; thus all high frequency words should have attenuated contextual
effects in lenition processesSlide54
Prediction of the Exemplar ModelThere should be no special status of ‘lexical exceptions’In lenition processes, ‘lexical exceptions’ should simply be high frequency words that have an elevated number of
lenited
exemplars in memory.
S
uch words should not behave differently from other
high frequency wordsSlide55
Are lexical exceptions just high frequency words?This does not appear to be the case.The second-highest frequency word in the ONZE corpus was just
; it showed significant following context effects and did not behave like
and
Spanish
menos
is higher in frequency than
entonces
and
digamos
, but does not behave exceptionallySlide56
A possible asymmetryPhonological strategy, using exception features, permits both positive and negative exceptions (lexical items that undergo a process at a higher or lower probability than other words)
Lexical strategy, with alternate URs,
allows only positive exceptions, with higher probabilities
(e.g., what UR would block
-
t,d
deletion?)Slide57
Impressionistic confirmationAll lexical exception cases in variation studies I am familiar with involve elevated rates of occurrence of a variable process, never reduced rates.This confirms the prediction of the lexical entry approach
.
In other words, speakers can pre-encode the output of a general phonological process in a UR, but they don’t appear to block such a process in specific lexical items.Slide58
ConclusionsIn phonological variation, speakers consistently handle lexical exceptions by means of alternate lexical entries.The types of lexical exceptions that occur are restricted to those which can be handled in this way
Mental grammars
don’t use
exception features (
pace
Chomsky & Halle 1968) Slide59
Is this finding valid for invariant phonological processes?
Perhaps not, but such processes may not permit an empirical test of the two strategies
In the 40 years since SPE was written, no definitive evidence has emerged favoring the
‘
exception feature
’
strategySlide60
The empirical resolution presented here depends crucially on looking at variable processes
Linguistic variation offers a unique window into the phonological operations of the mental grammar Slide61
Thank you!
Gracias
Obrigado
Merci
Arigato
Dank je
wel
!