Chapter 2: Typology of prevocalic epenthesis in selected Germanic and Slavic
2.1 Site of epenthesis
2.1.2 The left edge of a constituent
As has been argued in section 2.1.1, prevocalic consonant epenthesis is a commonly employed strategy of hiatus resolution. However, onsetless syllables, which are avoided cross-linguistically may also occur at the beginning of a constituent. Thus, phonological material may also be inserted prevocalically at the beginning of constituents of various types (i.e., metrical, morphological, or prosodic constituents).
In addition to providing the syllable onset, the inserted segment may also signal the beginning of such a constituent. As has already been observed in the literature, the application of epenthesis or its frequency may be conditioned by the level of constituency itself. This section is structured as follows: 2.1.2.1 discusses prevocalic epenthesis at the left edge of a metrical constituent. Section 2.1.2.2 describes epenthesis at the left edge of a morphological word. Section 2.1.2.3 illustrates epenthesis at the beginning of a morphological root, and 2.1.2.4. outlines consonant insertion at the beginning of a prosodic constituent larger than the prosodic word.
2.1.2.1 The left edge of a metrical constituent
In some languages, prevocalic consonant epenthesis may be found at the beginning of a metrical constituent, such as the syllable or foot. The beginning of a metrical constituent may sometimes coincide with vowel hiatus. This may be observed, for instance, in German, as shown in (25a) and (25b) below (after Wiese, 1996: 58‒59).
In (25b), the beginning of the syllable coincides with hiatus. However, as the data in (25c) show, hiatus on its own is not resolved with epenthesis. The presence of a stressed syllable is a necessary condition for epenthesis to apply.
46
(25) German: glottal stop insertion in vowel-initial stressed syllables) SPELLING SURFACE FORM GLOSS
a. Atem [ˈʔa:təm] ‘breath’
Opa [ˈʔo:pa] ‘grandpa’
offen [ˈʔɔfn̩] ‘open’
Igel [ˈʔi:gl̩] ‘hedgehog’
Übung [ˈʔy:bʊŋ] ‘exercise’
b. Theater [teˈʔatɐ] ‘theatre’
Poet [poˈʔe:t] ‘poet’
Ruine [ruˈʔi:nə] ‘ruin’
Diode [diˈʔo:də] ‘diode’
chaotisch [kaˈʔo:tɪʃ] ‘chaotic’
c. Thea [ˈtea] ‘proper name’
Poesie [poeˈzi:] ‘poetry’
Ruinös [ruiˈnø:s] ‘ruinous’
Chaos [ˈka:ɔs] ‘chaos’
Georg [ˈge:ɔʁk] ‘proper name’
Glottal stop epenthesis at the beginning of stressed syllables in German illustrated above is optional (see, for instance, Wiese, 1996; Hall, 1992; Pompino-Marschall and Żygis, 2010). The examples in (26) below demonstrate the possible realization of vowel-initial stressed syllables.
(26) 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’
A parallel example of glottal stop insertion may be found in Polish, in which stressed, onsetless syllables are realized with a glottal stop. Like in German, onsetless stressed syllables may sometimes align with the beginning of a word, as indicated by
47
the examples in (27a) below (Sawicka, 1995; Osowicka-Kondratowicz, 2018).18 Additionally, according to Osowicka-Kondratowicz (2018: 40‒41), a glottal stop is also found word-medially at the beginning of a stressed, onsetless syllable, in words such as poeta [pɔˈɁɛta] ‘poet’ or nauka [naˈɁuka] ‘science’. This claim, however, is at odds with some sources such as Rubach (2000)19, Karaś and Madejowa (1977), and Michałowska (1994) who claim that in Polish, as in most Slavic languages, hiatus of non-high vowels is tolerated. According to Osowicka-Kondratowicz (2018), all the words in (27) may be expected to contain an epenthetic glottal stop.
(27) Polish: word-medial glottal stop insertion in stressed syllables SPELLING SURFACE FORM GLOSS
a. igła [ˈɁigwa] ‘needle’
Ala [ˈɁala] ‘proper name’
ucho [ˈɁuxɔ] ‘ear’
b. paella [paˈɁɛja] ‘paella’
maestro [maˈɁɛstrɔ] ‘maestro’
aorta [aˈɁɔrta] ‘aorta’
noetyka [nɔˈɁɛtɨka] ‘noetics’
oaza [ɔˈɁaza] ‘oasis’
koala [kɔˈɁala] ‘koala bear’
Onsetless syllables in Dutch also start with a glottal stop if the syllable is stressed, as shown in (28a) below. The examples in (28b) show that there is no glottal stop insertion when the following syllable is not stressed.20
18Evidence supporting epenthesis at the beginning of vowel-initial words can be found in dialectal Polish. In Podhale Goralian Polish, spoken in the southern area of Poland, one can find archaic forms of spelling such as Hameryka ‘America’, Hadam ‘proper name (Adam)’ (see, for instance, Dejna, 1973;
Kąs, 2015). This may indicate that a glottal segment, or at least a certain form of its realisation was perceptible word-initially.
19Rubach (2000: 292) argues that in Polish, glottal stop may be inserted word-initially for emphasis, for instance in phrases such as Ależ leje! [ʔa.lɛš lɛjɛ] ‘what a rain!’.
20Note that the glottal stop surfaces only after /a/. Elsewhere in hiatus, speakers of Dutch insert a homorganic glide (recall section 2.1.1.1).
48
(28) Dutch: glottal stop insertion in stressed syllables (Booij, 1999: 66) SPELLING SURFACE FORM GLOSS
a. paella [paˈʔɛlja] ‘paella’
aorta [aˈʔɔrta] ‘aorta’
b. chaos [ˈxaɔs] ‘chaos’
farao [ˈfarao] ‘pharaoh’
Consonant epenthesis at the beginning of onsetless stressed syllables may also be found in South African English (henceforth SAE; Lass, 1996). As has been shown in (23) above, in SAE there is the mechanism of linking /r/, however, when the vowel-initial syllable is stressed, a glottal stop is inserted instead, as is [thə mʌðə ˈʔɪz hɪə]
This variety of English shows epenthesis at the beginning of stressed syllables word-medially. However, in contrast to the languages discussed above, a glottal stop is replaced with /h/. According to Lass (1996: 139), the surface forms are just a realization of a glottal stop, which he dubs ‘murmured [ɦ]’.21 Illustrative examples are given in (29) below.
(29) SAE: /h/ epenthesis at the beginning of a stressed syllable (Lass, 1996: 139)22 SPELLING SURFACE FORM
create [kriˈɦeɪt]
liaison [liˈɦeɪzən]
cooperate [kəʊˈɦɒpəreɪt]
proactive [prəʊˈɦæktɪv]
pre-empt [priˈɦempt]
biology [baɪˈɦɒlədʒi]
piano [piˈɦænəʊ]
21Lass (1996: 139) follows Ladefoged (2000: 124) in explaining the nature of what he calls ‘linking h’:
‘Murmured sounds occur in English in the pronunciation of / h/ in between vowels as in 'ahead, behind'.
In most speakers of English I have been able to observe, the / h/ in these words is made with the vocal folds slightly apart along their entire length, but still continuing to vibrate as if they were waving in the breeze. The term voiced h is sometimes used for this sound, but it is somewhat confusing as there is certainly no voicing in the usual sense. The murmured h is preferable. The symbol for this sound is [ɦ].’
22Originally, Lass (1996: 139) does not provide the transcription of the words in (29). It was added by the author of the present dissertation.
49 2.1.2.2 The left edge of a morphological word
In some languages, onsetless syllables appear at the beginning of morphological words.23 The requisite onset is often provided through consonant epenthesis, as it is, for instance, in German. As has been said in section 2.1.2.1, in German, a glottal stop is inserted in onsetless stressed syllables, which sometimes align with the beginning of a word. However, the data from Wiese (1996: 59) in (30) show that the word-initial onsetless syllable does not have to be stressed to give rise to glottal stop insertion.
(30) German: word-initial glottal stop epenthesis (Wiese, 1996: 59) SPELLING SURFACE FORM GLOSS
Antenne [ʔanˈtɛnə] ‘aerial’
Atom [ʔaˈto:m] ‘atom’
Antenne [Ɂanˈtɛnə] ‘aerial’
egal [ʔeˈga:l] ‘identical’
Idee [Ɂiˈdeː] ‘idea’
The requirement for vowel-initial words to begin with a glottal stop is also present in Czech, as shown in (31a) below. However, according to Spencer (1996: 64), a glottal stop is not inserted if the vowel-initial word is attached to a consonant-final prefix. The examples in (31b) may indicate that in Czech there is resyllabification across morpheme boundaries, which provides onsetless root-initial syllable with an onset. The resyllabification, however, seems not to take place across word boundaries (31c).
23This section discusses prevocalic epenthesis at the beginning of a morphological word which may, however, align with the beginning of a prosodic word (PW). Epenthesis at the beginning of PW will be discussed in section 2.2.2.4.
50
(31) Czech: word-initial /ʔ/ insertion (Rubach, 2000: 289; Spencer, 1996: 64) SPELLING SURFACE FORM GLOSS
a. operovat [ˈʔɔpɛrɔvat] ‘to operate’
učitel [ˈʔʊtʃitɛl] ‘teacher’
Amerika [ˈɁamerika] ‘America‘
ulice [ˈʔulitsɛ] ‘street’
b. v-operovat [ˈvɔpɛrɔvat] ‘to transplant’
pod-učitel [ˈpodʊtʃitɛl] ‘junior teacher’
c. v Americe [f ˈɁamɛritsɛ] ‘in America’
váš otec [vaːʃ ˈɁɔtɛts] ‘your father’
The same requirement for vowel-initial words to start with a glottal stop is also present in Bulgarian, as shown by the dataset in (32) below. The examples in (32b) show that there is no resyllabification across word boundaries, as the second word starts with a glottal stop despite the fact that it is preceded by a consonant-final preposition.
(32) Bulgarian: word-initial glottal stop insertion (Rubach, 2000: 287‒288) SPELLING SURFACE FORM GLOSS
a. urnata [ʔurnata] ‘the urn’
Amerika [ʔamerika] ‘America‘
Irak [ʔirak] ‘Iraq’
b. s Amerika [s ˈɁamerika] ‘with America’
v Amerika [v ˈɁamerika] ‘in America’
s obed [s ˈɁobet] ‘with dinner’
Word-initial onsetless syllables are sometimes tolerated, and languages do not employ epenthesis to provide word-initial syllables with an onset. This is the case, for instance, in Slovak, as shown with the examples in (33).
(33) Slovak: onsetless word-initial syllables (cf. Rubach, 2000: 274) SPELLING SURFACE FORM GLOSS
Irán [iraːn] ‘Iran’
ucho [uxo] ‘ear’
51
While the data presented in this chapter thus far focused on current linguistic observations, remnants of historical processes in a language spoken today sometimes offer a window into the synchronic phonology of that language at a specific time.
Processes that are lexically restricted today might have been fully productive in that language in the past. Reflexes of phonological insertions, for instance, can be found in Ukrainian, where word-initial epenthesis (or, in other words, prothesis) was once productive. Consider the examples in (34) below (after Czaplicki, 2007: 26). The voiced labiodental approximant /ʋ/ appears on the surface before /u/ and /ɔ/, as in (34a). This environment suggests that, most likely, the original epenthetic segment was /w/, which is homorganic with the vowels, with a later change to /ʋ/ as a result of glide strengthening. The corresponding palatalized consonant appears before /i/, (34b). However, related forms from other Slavic languages such as Polish and Russian (on ‘he’, od ’from’) suggest that the words in (34b) were historically realized with the mid rounded vowel /ɔ/ and later changed to /i/ in Ukrainian. The labiodental approximant /ʋ/, however, was not the only epenthetic segment word-initially, as the voiced glottal fricative /ɦ/ is found before /a/ and /ɔ/, as shown in (34c). The examples in (34d) show that not all words are subject to prothesis. This fact, and the arbitrary choice of the epenthetic segment suggest that the process of word-initial consonant epenthesis in Ukrainian is historical and no longer productive.
(34) Modern Standard Ukrainian: historical prothesis (Czaplicki, 2007: 26) SURFACE FORM GLOSS
a. [ʋ]ulyc’a ‘street’
[ʋ]uxo ‘ear’
[ʋ]ona ‘she’
b. [ʋ’]in ‘he’
[ʋ’]id ‘from’
c. [ɦ]arbuz ‘watermelon’
[ɦ]oriz ‘nut’
d. armija ‘army’
elevator ‘elevator’
oko ‘eye’
Czaplicki (2007: 28, following Žovtobrjux and Kulyk, 1972) observes that in south-western dialects of Ukrainian one finds forms such as harmija ‘army’, helevator
52
‘elevator’, hoko ‘eye’. Such forms suggest that word-initial epenthesis is still productive in some regional dialects of Ukrainian.
In sum, standard Ukrainian shows reflexes of a type of word-initial epenthesis that was historically phonetically motivated: /w/ was inserted before word-initial /u/ and /ɔ/. Subsequent diachronic changes resulted in the loss of productivity and phonetic transparency of the process. There is evidence that in some regional dialects of Ukrainian, word-initial epenthesis is still used productively today.
2.1.2.3 The left edge of a morphological root
A glottal stop may also be inserted in the prevocalic position inside morphologically complex words, for instance in those consisting of a root and a prefix. The glottal stop is often found at the beginning of a vowel-initial root. This occurrence may be observed, for instance, in German. The words in (35) below (Alber, 2001: 8‒9), in which glottal stop insertion occurs, consist of a separable prefix and a root. The glottal stop is not only inserted in hiatus (35a) but also when the vowel-initial root is preceded by a consonant (35a).24 Alber (2001: 8) notes that the glottal stop is not inserted at the root-suffix boundary.
(35) German: glottal stop epenthesis at the left edge of a morpheme SPELLING SURFACE FORM GLOSS
a. ver-antwort-en [fɛɐ̯ˈʔantvɔrtən] ‘to take responsibility’
er-arbeit-en [ɁɛɐˈɁarbaɪtən] ‘to obtain by work’
Er-eign-is [ɁɐˈɁaɛgnɪs] ‘event’
b. um-arm-en [ɁumˈɁaʁmən] ‘to embrace’
an-erkenn-en [ˈɁanɁɐkɛnən] ‘to acknowledge’
auf-erleg-en [ˈʔaufʔerlegən] ‘to impose on’
24While there is a consensus that in German morphological boundaries are impervious to consonant resyllabification (see, for instance Féry, 1995; McCarthy and Prince, 1993), according to Alber (2001:
8) resyllabification may appear in fast speech. Thus, in fast speech one could expect surface forms such as this of umarmen [Ɂu.maʁ.mən] ‘to embrace’, where prefix-final consonant is resyllabified into the onset of the following syllable. At the phrase level, German also implements resyllabification, for instance in the phrase ‘bin ich’ (‘am I’) the word final /n/ may be syllabified into the onset of the following word, thus resulting in [bɪnɪç]. Alternatively, a glottal stop is inserted into the onset of the second word forming [bɪn.ʔɪç] (Wiese, 1996: 59).
53
A corresponding occurrence may be observed in Polish, where a glottal stop may also be optionally inserted at the beginning of a vowel-initial morphological root, as indicated by the examples in (36) below (cf. Kraska-Szlenk and Żygis, 2012: 5‒6).
Thus, there are two possible realizations of words consisting of a prefix and a root:
there is either glottal stop insertion at the beginning of the root, or the prefix-final consonant is resyllabified into the onset of the following syllable. Kraska-Szlenk and Żygis (2012) demonstrate that the choice between glottal stop insertion and resyllabification depends in large part on the frequency of the complex words, with more frequent words exhibiting resyllabification.
(36) Polish: glottal stop insertion at the prefix-stem juncture SPELLING SURFACE FORM1 SURFACE FORM2 GLOSS
nad-aktywność [nadɁakˈtɨvnɔɕʨ] [nadakˈtɨvnɔɕʨ] ‘hyperactivity’
pod-edukować [pɔdɁɛduˈkɔvaʨ] [pɔdɛduˈkɔvaʨ] ‘to educate (a little)’
z-aktywizować [zɁaktɨviˈzɔvaʨ] [zaktɨviˈzɔvaʨ] ‘to activate’
2.1.2.4 The left edge of a prosodic constituent
It has been argued in the literature that epenthesis is more likely to occur at the beginning of larger prosodic units. Thus, in languages which exhibit prevocalic consonant insertion elsewhere, the frequency of consonant epenthesis is more likely with constituents which occupy higher positions in the prosodic hierarchy. For instance, articulatory studies of Dutch have shown more occurrences of glottal stops phrase-initially than in other contexts (Jongenburger and van Heuven, 1991: 102).
Homorganic glide insertion, which was described in section 2.1.1.1, is often correlated with vowel hiatus and applies within an intonational phrase, at the edge of a vowel-final and another vowel-initial phonological phrase, as illustrated in (37). Note that IPstands for an intonational phrase, and ‘ϕ’ symbolizes a phonological phrase.
(37) Dutch: epenthesis at the edge of a phonological phrase (cf. Booij, 1999: 150)
INTONATIONAL PHRASE TRANSLATION
[(Marie)ϕ[j](eet niet)ϕ]IP ‘Mary doesn’t eat’
[(Henk)ϕ (haalde)ϕ (de vlo)ϕ [ʋ] (uit het eten)ϕ]IP
‘Henk removed the flea from the food’
54
The prosodic position may also influence the quality of the epenthetic segment.
In Dutch, a glottal stop is normally inserted at the beginning of a vowel-initial phonological word (Booij, 1999: 67). The data in (38) below shows that the hiatus which arises across compounds may be resolved with a glide or a glottal stop.
According to Booij (1999: 67), this is because in Dutch glides are inserted within phonological words, and glottal stops are inserted at the beginning of vowel-initial phonological words (PW). Thus, in compounds, a glottal stop may be inserted at the beginning of a vowel-initial word, as shown in (38) below.
(38) Dutch: epenthesis variation in compounds (Booij, 1999: 67)
SPELLING UNDERLYING FORM SURFACE FORM1 SURFACE FORM2 GLOSS zee arend /ze/+/arənt/ [ˈzejarənt] [ˈzeɁarənt] ‘sea eagle’
koeachtig /ku/+/ɑxtəx/ [ˈkuʋɑxtəx] [ˈkuɁɑxtəx] ‘cow-like’
The beginning of vowel-initial intonational phrases also tends to be realized with a glottal stop or with glottalization of the initial vowel. For English, this has been shown, for instance, by Pierrehumbert and Talkin (1991). Furthermore, in their study of a speech corpus of English, Dilley, Shattuck-Hufnagel, and Ostendorf (1996) show that the glottal stop is inserted more frequently at the beginning of a vowel-initial intonational, pitch-accented phrase than in other contexts. Thus, one may find a prevocalic glottal stop at the beginning of an intonational phrase, which is another prosodically conditioned environment of glottal stop insertion.
In general, glottal stop epenthesis is postulated to be more frequent at the beginning of a phrase than in other contexts. For instance, Malisz et al. (2013:144) suggest that the glottal stop in German is inserted more frequently in the phrase-initial position, i.e., at the beginning of a vowel-initial word which begins a phrase, while glottalization is more likely to occur phrase-medially. In the same paper, the authors also investigated glottalization in Polish utterances. While the results showed that glottal stop insertion and glottalization in Polish is less frequent than it is in German in general, it is also more likely to occur phrase-initially than phrase-medially. Thus, epenthesis in these environments in Polish may be argued to play a role of a constituent marker. In German, additionally, the realization of the inserted glottal stop phrase- or word-initially may vary depending on several factors. The results of a study conducted by Pompino-Marschall and Żygis (2010) indicate that its realization (i.e.,
55
from a proper glottal stop to glottalization) depends on word type, stress, or position in an utterance. The rate of speech, however, turns out to be the most influential factor.