Consonant epenthesis: an evolutionary account

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approach. An excursus, which provides additional support for the listener-oriented sound change follows in 3.2.3.

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In other words, epenthesis is not viewed as a markedness-reducing process, which generates CV syllables, as opposed to the more marked onsetless ones. In terms of constraint-based analyses, Blevins (2008) questions the need to postulate O^NSET as the main driver for prevocalic consonant epenthesis. The Evolutionary Phonology analysis of the prevocalic consonant insertion is split into two main environments: intervocalic transitions (3.2.2.1) and the left edge of a constituent (3.2.2.2). Additionally, section 3.2.2.3 discusses the quality of the epenthetic segment.

3.2.2.1 Intervocalic transitions

The typological overview of prevocalic consonant insertions in selected Slavic and Germanic languages in Chapter 2 showed that a vowel hiatus is sometimes resolved with an intervening glide. It has been argued that the inserted glide comes from spreading from one of the neighboring vowels, predictably if one of the vowels comprising hiatus is high (recall, for instance, the data from Polish: trio [ˈtrijɔ] ‘trio]’, where /i/ spawns /j/ and Suez [ˈsuwɛs] ‘Suez’ where /w/ is spawned by the preceding /u/). Blevins (2008:4) argues that historically, glide epenthesis in this environment may be viewed as an intervocalic formant transition that results in a perceptual impression of an intervening glide. The quality of the intervocalic element thus relies fully on the percept of the intervocalic transition, which depends on whether the vowel is /i/ or /u/. Naturally, the phonetic gliding effect differs in for instance, /ia/

and /ua/ clusters. In other words, Blevins views the medial ‘glide’ as a natural transition effect between two vowels rather than a result of a phonological insertion.

Blevins (2008: 4) provides historical linguistic sound changes from three languages of distinct language families: Pre-Hindi (67a), Pre-Chamorro (67b) and Pre-Tauya (67c).

The diachronic evidence indicates that in some languages at a later stage the intervocalic transition underwent phonologization, as indicated by the data from Pre-Chamorro in (67b), where the glides /w/ and /j/ strengthened to /gw/ and /dz/, respectively.

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(67) Glide insertion as a sound change (Blevins, 2008: 4)

LANGUAGE SOUND CHANGE EXAMPLES GLOSS

a. Pre-Hindi */ia/→/ija/ */kia/ →/kijaa ‘done’

b.

Pre-Chamorro

*/ua/→/uwa/ */buaq/ → /puwa/ → /pugwaɁ/

‘betel nut’

*/ia/ →/ija/ */liaŋ/→*/lijan/→/lidzaŋ/ ‘cave’

*/au/→/awu/ */zauq/→*/ʧawuq/→/ʧagoɁ/ ‘far, distant’

c. Pre-Tauya */ie/→/ije/ */nie/→/nije/ ‘I/you (sg.) eat’

*/ia/→/ija/ */nia/→/nija/ ‘they eat’

*/oe/→/owe/ */oe/→/owe/ ‘I/you (sg.)

say’

*/ue →/uwe/ */-tue/→/-tuwe/ ‘I/you give to’

Hence, according to Blevins (2008: 5), the appearance of an intervening glide finds ready explanation in diachronic terms; the sound changes follow from a natural, phonetically based process, which at a further stage is subject to phonologization.

Blevins (2008: 5) thus rejects the explanation offered by the theory of markedness, as it will ‘at best, only duplicate the diachronic explanation’. Importantly, in all of the languages listed in (67) above, glides are found in contexts different than the intervocalic transition. According to Blevins, being exposed to glides in other contexts, the listener is more likely to perceive the ambiguous intervocalic transition as glides.

This assumption relies on the concept of Structural Analogy, formalized in (68) below.

(68) Structural Analogy (Blevins, 2008: 5, citing Blevins, 2004: 247)

‘In the course of language acquisition, the existence of a (non-ambiguous) phonological contrast between A and B will result in more instances of sound change involving shifts of ambiguous elements to A or B than if no contrast between A and B existed.’

The data from Lou, an Austronesian language in (69) below are further used by Blevins (2008) to question the universality of the markedness requirement for all syllables to have onsets. The data illustrate that glides do not arise in all vowel sequences; glides occur only in VV configurations of rising sonority, that is, if the

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second vowel of the hiatus is more sonorous than the first (69b). Word-initial syllables also remain onsetless (69c).

(69) Lou: (Blevins, 2008: 5; citing Blust, 1998) UNDERLYING FORM SURFACE FORM GLOSS

a. /tia-n/ [tijan] ‘his/her abdomen’

/kea/ [keja] ‘swim’

/moloa-n/ [molowan] ‘his/her shadow/spirit’

/suep/ [suwep] ‘digginig stick’

b. /wei-n golom/ [weiŋgolom] ‘your saliva’

/mween/ [mwɛɛn] ‘man, male’

/kapeun/ [kaβeun] ‘bitter’

c. /okok/

/ara-mu ŋata-n/

/i lɪp nɔt/

[okok]

[arɔmŋaran]

[ilɪpnɔt]

‘to float’

‘your head is bald’

‘pregnant’

In sum, the model of Evolutionary Phonology charts a diachronic, listener-oriented path to explain the occurrence of the intervening intervocalic glides. The historical evidence of the sound change indicates that the perceptual impressions in the natural environments often enter the phonological representation at a certain stage of language development. The analysis proposed by Blevins questions the synchronic assumptions of markedness with regard to the resolution of the vocalic clusters by proposing a diachronic account.

3.2.2.2 Epenthesis at the left edge of the constituent

Cross-linguistically, glottal stops are sometimes found prevocalically at the left edge of constituents, such as words or stressed syllables. The process itself, however, is optional, as indicated by the linguistic examples from German. For convenience, the data from Chapter 2 is repeated in (70) below.

(70) German: optional glottal stop insertion (Hall 1992: 58) SPELLING SURFACE FORM1 SURFACE FORM2 GLOSS

arm [ˈarm] [ˈʔarm] ‘poor’

oft [ˈɔft] [ˈʔɔft] ‘often’

Theater [teˈatɐ] [teˈʔatɐ] ‘theatre’

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Additionally, glottal stop insertion has been reported to be more frequent at the beginning of major constituents, such as a phrase (recall the discussion in section 2.1.2.4 of Chapter 2 concerning the /Ɂ/ epenthesis in German and Polish). A similar distribution of a word-initial glottal stop has been documented in an Austronesian language Muna (71a) (Blevins, 2008: 7; after van den Berg, 1989), where vowel-initial words are sometimes realized with an initial glottal stop in a non-contrastive manner.

In Anejom, an Oceanic language, a glottal stop is inserted at the beginning of a vowel-initial word, but not in the word-medial hiatus, as indicated in (71b) (Blevins, 2008:

7; quoting Lynch, 2000). In Renellesse, a language spoken in Polynesia, illustrated in (71c) (Blevins, 2008: 7; after Elbert, 1988), the verb [uɁu] is realized with a glottal stop when in utterance-initial position, but not if it is in the second position preceded by another vowel-final word. Thus, there is an intervocalic transition without a glottal closure. To account for this distribution, Blevins (2008: 7) cites Elbert (1988: 7) in saying that the glottal stop at the beginning of utterance-initial words may be a phonetic property of initial vowels.

(71) Non-contrastive glottal stop in Muna, Anejom and Rennellese SURFACE FORM1 SURFACE

FORM2

GLOSS

a. Muna [Ɂina] [i.na] ‘mother’

[Ɂo.e] [o.e] ‘water’

- [urɛ] ‘high tide’

- [a.i.ni] ‘this’

- [wa.e.a] ‘bat’

b. Anejom [Ɂa.ek] [Ɂa.ba.ma.ek] ‘you (sg.)’/‘you (sg.) come!’

c. Rennellsse [Ɂe uɁu e te hokail] - ‘the lizard bites’

[ɁuɁu mai] - ‘Bite!’

The data from Muna, Anejom and Rennellesse indicate that the requirement of the constraint ONSET, which discriminates against onsetless syllables, is not universal, as it does not extend to word-initial onsetless syllables. Blevins (2008: 7) questions the legitimacy of the constituent-initial status of the glottal stop as a contrastive segment.

In her view, speakers of languages such as English have difficulties both producing vowel-initial words without a preceding glottal stop and perceiving a word which

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begins with it. According to Blevins (2008: 7), a sound of weak perceptibility is not sufficient to satisfy the requirement for a filled onset.

In her analysis of glide epenthesis, Blevins (2008) claims that glide epenthesis is not an onset-driven process. Rather, she argues that intervocalic glides originate from the reinterpretation of the intervocalic formant transition, which in her view is a purely phonetic phenomenon, further supported by the perception of this transition as a separate glide. Blevins however, does not discuss the cases in which glides occur prevocalically at the beginning of a word. The typological overview in Chapter 2 showed that there are languages that have word-initial glide insertion (e.g., dialectal Polish and Kashubian). Word-initially, glides cannot come from intervocalic transitions and must be motivated by other factors, such as the markedness-based requirement for syllables to have onsets

3.2.2.3 The quality of the epenthetic segment: against markedness predictions

Synchronic, markedness-based accounts couched within Optimality Theory sometimes do not predict the epenthesis of segments of certain qualities. As has been shown in Chapter 2, epenthetic segments are ranked on a scale from the least to most marked with respect to their place of articulation. The scale builds on cross-linguistic typological observations. The least marked epenthetic consonants are those which appear the most frequently in the world’s languages. However, as will be shown below, synchronic markedness runs into difficulties as it does not generally predict the insertion of highly marked segments. In some instances, a diachronic path provides a more insightful perspective on the sound change.

As has been shown in (67) above, Blevins (2008) assumes that in Pre-Chamorro the transitional glide phonologized and later hardened do /dz/, for instance in the word */liaŋ/→*/lijan/→/lidzaŋ/ ‘cave’. Hence, the surface form [lidzaŋ] ‘cave’

below results from two sound changes: first, a transitional glide phonologizes (72a) and further undergoes strengthening to [dz] (72b) (Blevins, 2008: 11). In addition, (72) illustrates the change of /w/ to /gw/, as shown in (67) above.

113 (72) Chamorro: sound change

a. /Vi/ → /Vji/

/ua/ → /uwa/

b. /Vji/ → /Vdzi/

/uwa/ → /ugwa/

The data from Chamorro in (73) below (after Blevins, 2008: 11) show that epenthesis occurs across the boundary of a verb stem and a suffix. The case in (73b) shows that /dz/ is inserted intervocalically. The insertion results from the diachronic development of an intervocalic glide, as schematized in (73) above. Thus, one needs a diachronic path to account for /dz/ epenthesis in words such as (73b) below.

However, in synchronic terms, on which markedness relies, the epenthesis of segments such as /dz/ is highly marked. Hence, the synchronic, markedness approach fails to account for the insertion in (73b). In addition, (73c) illustrates epenthesis of a dorsal sound, that is /g/. As has been observed in Chapter 2, dorsals are universally more marked than coronals and are not predicted to be used as epenthetic consonants. Thus, synchronic segmental markedness runs into difficulties accounting for this insertion.

(73) Chamorro: epenthesis across morpheme boundary UNDERLYING FORM SURFACE FORM GLOSS

a. /amot/+/i/ [amoti] ‘take away for’

b. /hatsa/+/i/ [hatsadzi] ‘lift for’

c. /hanaw/+/i/ [hanagwi] ‘go for’

Blevins (2008: 12‒13) also observes that markedness runs into difficulties in accounting for consonant insertions such as linking and intrusive r in English, already discussed in Chapter 2. In her view, the synchronic account needs to extend its assumptions and treat the rhotic as an unmarked segment. Blevins argues that the diachronic path provides a more viable explanation by showing that the inserted consonant was once present in the syllable coda but was later deleted. The alternation was later reanalyzed as insertion through the mechanism of rule inversion. See Blevins (2008) and references given therein for the discussion.

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Taken together, the markedness-based accounts of consonant epenthesis may sometimes make wrong predictions. The insertion of segments such as /dz/ and /gw/

in (73) above or /r/ in English is in conflict with markedness, which does not predict an epenthetic segment of this type. In order to account for this type of insertion, a diachronic explanation is required. This claim will be supported in the excursus in section 3.2.3. It will be shown that markedness may fail to account for the emergence of certain sound patterns.