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Lexical exceptions and Lexical exceptions and

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Lexical exceptions and - PPT Presentation

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

words lexical exceptions deletion lexical words deletion exceptions phonological exceptional effect context strategy processes effects process high constraint variable

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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

!