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Vowel harmony, neutral vowels and autosegmental theory
Lingua 69 (1986)3-21. North-Holland
VOWEL HARMONY, NEUTRAL AUTOSEGMENTAL THEORY
VOWELS
AND
Andrew SPENCER * Cenlral School of Speech and Drama, London, England, and a Polytechnic of Central London, England
Received December 1985; revised version March 1986
A revision of McCarthy’s analysis of Montaiies vowel harmony is proposed in which autosegmental tiers constitute a separate dimension of the representation whose feature specifications can be given independently. Segments which do not undergo harmony (including neutral vowels) are specified on the segmental tier and are not affected when a word is associated to the autosegmental tier (cf. Booij (1984)). By allowing rules to make reference to the specification of a whole tier within a harmony domain it is possible to simplify McCarthy’s treatment considerably, in particular dispensing with his ‘delinking’ rule and consequently his ‘Duke of York’ analysis. It is also not necessary to invoke extrinsic rule ordering.
1. Introduction
The problem of vowel harmony has been a favourite topic for phonologists, posing as it does deep problems for the theoretician. Following the pioneering work of Goldsmith (1979) in which the theory of Autosegmental Phonology was developed to handle tone systems of African lapguages, it was quickly realized (esp. by Clements (1977,198O)) that the same theoretical approach was eminently applicable to vowel harmony. In Autosegmental Phonology, it is easy to describe long-distance dependencies between elements of phonological structure even if they are separated by other material, provided it is possible to justify setting up separate levels or tiers on which all and only those aspects of phonological structure relevant to those dependencies are defined. These tiers can be operated upon independently, without reference to other, * I am grateful to the participants of one of the London Phonology Seminars held at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, for their comments on an earlier version of this paper, and in particular to Dick Hayward and Al Mtenje. Thanks are also due to Lingua’s editors for suggestions for improving the exposition. Address for all correspondance: Speech Therapy Department, C S S D, Eton Avenue, London NW3 3HY, England.
0024-3841/86/.$3.50 0
1986, Elsevier Science Publishers
B.V. (North-Holland)
4
A. Spencer / Vowels and autosegmental theory
totally irrelevant aspects of structure. In simple concrete terms, this means that we can in principle set up a level on which we define just that feature or combination of features relevant to vowel harmony (say [ + back, + round], [ + advanced tongue root] or whatever) and manipulate them independently to achieve the assimilations, blockings and so on we observe in harmony systems. This tier is linked to segmental material by universal and particular conventions and Autosegmental theory allows us to specify which kinds of segment such a tier is associated to, e.g. just vowels in the case of vowel harmony. In this way the formalism allows us to ignore consonants in writing rules (in canonical harmony systems, at least), thereby allowing us to capture the notion that a vowel harmony system is defined over vowels and nothing else. One set of descriptive problems which the autosegmental approach to vowel harmony elucidates is the question of which vowels undergo harmony, which trigger it, and which fail to undergo it. An illuminating discussion of these matters has recently been provided by Mtenje (1985). In this article I discuss one very particular set of proposals for handling the problem of vowels which are transparent to vowel harmony in that they simply fail to undergo it, socalled ‘neutral vowels’. McCarthy (1984) has analysed vowel harmony phenomena in the Pasiego Montaiies dialect of Spanish, drawing interesting conclusions about the nature of vowel harmony systems in general and about the status of ‘neutral vowels’ in particular. Adopting and adapting recent approaches to vowel harmony in the Autosegmental literature (notably Clements (1977,1980,1981), Clements and Sezer (1983), Halle and Vergnaud (198 l)), McCarthy distinguishes two types of harmony process, one analysed as a feature-specifying rule, the other as a feature-changing rule. The featurespecifying rule type, moreover, admits neutral vowels (i.e. vowels which do not undergo harmony) which may be analysed as participating in the harmony process during intermediate stages of derivation. The feature-changing type, on the other hand involves neutral vowels which play no role whatever in the harmony. In the terminoIogy of Clements (1980) they are excluded from the class of P-bearers. McCarthy analyses the feature-specifying rule as a context free process taking place early in the phonological derivation. The feature-changing rule applies later in derivations and interacts in important ways with other rules. McCarthy discusses several of these and proposes that they must be ordered extrinsically with respect to each other. In this note I suggest that while we may accept McCarthy’s analysis in its general form it is not necessary to accept his premise that extrinsically ordered rules are essential to characterize
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the processes and generate the data he adduces. While it is possible that rule ordering will prove a necessary device in segmental (linear) phonological rule systems, it is undesirable to include it in rich representational system such as Autosegmental theory. Even within ‘purely linear’ analyses the onus of proof is surely nowadays on those who would advocate extrinsic rule ordering statements given the obvious learnability problems associated with the unrestricted use of extrinsic ordering, and particularly given the enormous descriptive and conceptual success of general principles of organization such as Kiparsky’s Elsewhere Condition. (See Kiparsky (1982) for a recent statement.) In a non-linear analysis much of the work done by computational devices such as extrinsic ordering is coded in a perspicuous and natural way in the very representational format of the theory. It is then particularly undesirable to appeal to representational coding in addition to powerful derivational devices when they exhibit such a considerable overlap in function. Much of the most exciting work in syntax of recent years has been devoted precisely to the elimination of such redundancies between subsystems of the theory (cf. Chomsky (1981: 13-14)). While not everything that is true of syntax is true of phonology it seems odd at the very least to pursue one strategy in syntax and rest content with effectively the opposite strategy in phonology. I shall show that justifiable alterations to McCarthy’s rule system result in an improved grammar fragment which does not appeal to stipulated rule ordering, provided that rules defined solely over autosegmental tiers are interpreted as well-formedness conditions. This move not only helps remove the redundancy mentioned above but also seems to provide an autosegmental formalism more consonant with the philosophical underpinnings of that approach. ,
2. McCarthy’s analysis of Montaiies vowel harmony Montafies Spanish has five vowels in lexical representations /i, e, a, o, u/. Of these, /i, a, o, u/ may have lax congeners in surface forms, represented as /I, A, 0, U/. /e/ appears only in a tense variant. Montaiies exhibits two vowel harmony processes, Tense Harmony and [high] Harmony. Tense Harmony is very general: all the vowels of a word must be either tense or lax. All words with lax vocalism end in the masc. sg. nominal suffix, -u/U, though this is not a sufficient condition for lax vocalism. Adjectives exhibit minimal pairs differing only in the tenseness of the vowels. In these adjectives the lax variant exhibits concord with a count noun, while in the tense variant it agrees with a
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1 Vowels and aufosegtnental
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mass noun. Thus, lax vocalism constitutes a morpheme. In other cases the lax variant is lexically conditioned. These facts are illustrated by examples (1). Tense (1 a) sold& (lb) malu (1 c) komfesonarjus
‘soldiers’ ‘evil (masc. sg. mass)’ ‘confessionals’
Lax sOldA W m&U kOmfesOnArjU
‘soldier’ ‘evil (masc. sg. count)’ ‘confessional’
[high] Harmony applies to nonfinal vowels. All non-low vowels must agree with the stressed vowel of the word on the feature [high]. That is, the nonlow vowels of a word must be either [i, u, I, U] or [e, o, 01. The low vowels /a, A/ are neutral and cooccur with any vowel whatever. Vowel height is lexically distinctive in Montafies. Moreover, in forms subject to [high] Harmony it is generally possible to determine the underlying height specification of a mid or high vowel. For when the stem occurs in a form with a stressed /a, A/ the underlying forms surface. Illustrations of these phenomena are given in examples (2) and (3): (2) sintir sentemus sintiis (3) beber bibi: s bebamus
‘to feel’ (1~1. pr. ind.) (2~1. pr. sub.) ‘to drink’ (2~1. pr. ind.) (1~1. pr. sub.)
The fact that the feature [tense] is not distinctive for the vowels subject to Tense Harmony suggests to McCarthy’ that vowels are not underlyingly specified for [tense] and that the Tense Harmony rule is defined over underspecified segments. Contrariwise, the fact that the underlying value of the feature [high] is in general determinate suggests that [high] Harmony must change specifications for that feature. McCarthy treats Tense Harmony as straightforward ‘spreading’ of an autosegment early in the derivation (see rule (7) below). [high] Harmony, however, is a rather more complex, context sensitive, process which, in effect, is split into several steps. The first step is to delete the feature [high] from the autosegmental tier if it is not attached to a segment within the stressed syllable of the word. Then the value of the [high] feature attached to the stressed sylIable spreads automatically (see rule (9) below). Note that rule (9) only
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specifies the deletion operation. The spreading is the consequence of a universal convention on the assumptions of McCarthy, and is not a stipulation. In other words, McCarthy generates [high] Harmonic words by ‘despecifying’ in a context-sensitive fashion, deleting the autosegmental specification for that feature. The vowel /e/ is neutral with respect to Tense Harmony in the sense that it never appears phonetically in a lax variant. However, McCarthy adduces strong evidence that underlying tense /e/ laxes in laxing environments only to retense by dint of a pair of late rules. These sever the connexion between /e/ and the [ - tense] autosegment in a context-free fashion (‘e-Fission’). The /e/ is then subject to a late rule of very general character which specifies all vowels as [ + tense] unless they already bear a specification for this feature (‘Default’). The operation of these rules is shown in (4). Note that in lexical representations the [-T] autosegment is preattached only to the final syllable. It spreads to all other vowels at the start of the derivation by a universal spreading convention. In (4) this process is assumed to have taken place.
Count Morphology (7)
e-Fission (11)
1-V 4 kqrnfyy
1-W [-HI [-HI 1-T [+Tl L-4
Default (12)
L&$
kc!m f
I
-VL
[-%I] [-HI
[-HI
’
( = kOmfesOnArjU)
The reason McCarthy resorts to such an elaborate Duke of York gambit (Pullum (1976)) is that laxing interacts in an interesting way with other phonological rules. McCarthy shows that there is a rule of Raising (see rule
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(8) below) which makes all stressed lax vowels [ + high]. In order to state this rule with maximal generality and without what McCarthy calls a ‘puzzling condition’ (1984: 310) it is necessary that Raising apply ~to underlying /e/. However, this means that at the appropriate stage of the derivation, these vowels must be [-tense]. Thus, the vowel /e/ must participate in Tense Harmony, even though its lax congener never surfaces. Furthermore, the processes of Tense Harmony and Raising together feed the [high] Harmony rule, for there are instances in which [high] Harmony is conditioned by a stressed high vowel derived from underlying /e/ (cf. (5)). Thus, the five rules of Tense Harmony, Raising, [high] Harmony, e-Fission and Default must apply in that order.
(5)
1-V
Count Morphology
(7)
/J/ kunixu - - I\
1-I-U [-HI
1-V
Raising (8)
A kvnjxu
I\ i-HI
[+Hl
1-Y
[high] Harmony
A k&xv u
1
[+I3 (= kUnixU
‘rabbit’)
In addition to these rules McCarthy discusses one further rule of Montafies, Allophony ((10)). In word initial position all height contrasts between nonround tense vowels are neutralized before the consonants /n, s/, Similarly, there is free variation between mid and high nonround vowels in the first syllable of a word between /r, rr/ (cf. (6)). (6a) ast6nOas - est6nOas - ist6nOas ‘then’ enrrIdosu - InrrIdosU ‘naughty’ (6b) rrendir - rrindir ‘to give in’
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These allophonic rules are opaque with respect to [high] Harmony (and hence must bleed that process) though they are transparent with respect to Tense Harmony. McCarthy accounts for this interaction by ordering the Allophony rules after [high] Harmony but before the process of e-Fission and Default. McCarthy’s rule system is given in (7)-(12). (7)
Masculine Singular Count Morphology 1-;Tl I I +y#
(8)
Raising [high] +
[ + high]
I [ + str] I [ - tns]
(9)
[high] Harmony [high] + g % ~
[WI I
I [- str] Allophony
Rules ahigh plow Pback
+ syll -rnd + - str I
+ syll -back - str
[ + str]
1
+ car
- + [ahigh] % ~
(11) e-Fission [ - tns]
+ [-back]
I [-high] (12)
Default Rule
O+[+Tl I I, v
X
- lat + cant 1 + son
IO
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The Tense Harmony process results from rule (7) which associates the autosegment [-tense] to the masc. sg. desinence when attached to the count morpheme. The universally defined process of Spreading then distributes this autosegment to all other vowels. Presumably, stress assignment takes place before or at this stage (possibly along the lines suggested in Harris (1983) for Castilian Spanish) and Raising, (8), neutralizes the distinction between laxed mid and high stressed vowels. A mirror-image rule, [high] Harmony, (9), then severs the connection between a vowel slot and its [high] autosegment, excluding stressed vowels. The [high] specification of the stressed vowel then spreads. At this point the two Allophony rules apply. McCarthy’s formalism here is interpreted as ‘assign arbitrary values to the features [high, low, back] and [high] respectively in the stated environment’. In this way, Allophony may undo the effects of [high] Harmony. However, only rule (1 Ob) will ever apply to lax vowels. Thus, (10a) remains transparent to Tense Harmony inasmuch as it doesn’t interact with that rule. Rule (lob) on the other hand may apply to a vowel which is underlyingly /e/_ If the word has been subject to laxing then this will mean that such a vowel may surface as [I]. Otherwise it will surface as tense [e]. Likewise, underlying /i/ which has been laxed to /I/ may be lowered to /E/ but this vowel will always surface as [e]. Thus, Allophony must be ordered before the e-Fission and Default rules ((1 l), (12)) to guarantee the correct distribution. The neutral vowel /a, A/ is unaffected by [high] Harmony, it doesn’t block harmony and it doesn’t initiate harmony of its own. McCarthy accounts for this by stipulation: [ + low] vowels are excluded from the set of P-bearers. This means that although /a/ is specified [ - high] by a universal redundancy rule it is not given an autosegmental specification on the [high] tier. For this reason it neither triggers nor participates in [high] Harmony. McCarthy contrasts his treatment with that of Kiparsky who (in unpublished work to which I have not had access) reportedly proposes that a vowel is neutral if it is not lexically distinctive for the harmonizing feature. Further, Kiparsky proposes that lexical vowel harmony rules must create lexically distinctive configurations. McCarthy expresses doubt that Kiparsky’s proposal can be applied to his Montafies data because it would imply that the Tense Harmony process is postlexical while the [high] Harmony process is lexical. This would be contrary to the extrinsic ordering established by McCarthy.
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3. A reanalysis Pace McCarthy it is possible to introduce the notion of lexical distinctiveness into an autosegmental treatment of the Montaiies phenomena which not only accounts for the facts but which also provides some independent justification for what is otherwise an ad hoc restriction on the class of P-bearers. To see how this can be done I reconsider some fundamental notions in autosegmental theory. In the delinking-plus-spreading account of harmony we can see very clearly that an autosegmental tier is a derivative notion. A tier is defined as the place where autosegments reside and autosegments are defined largely in terms of their interaction with the elements of the segmental tier (P-bearers). Suppose we reverse this and make the notion of the tier primitive, with the notion of autosegment derivative from it. This, as far as I understand it, is the point of the autosegmental approach. However, it is not brought out very obviously in a formalism which clings to principles of linearity such as those embodied in delinking and spreading. For if the tier is a primitive in the system then we must expect formal operations to refer directly to it and not to reconstruct it in a somewhat clumsy fashion. Let us therefore rewrite McCarthy’s rule of [high] Harmony not as a process affecting the links between autosegments and their P-bearers but purely as an operation on the [high] tier itself. While in the general case the autosegments on a tier will have differing values, in the harmonic case we may reasonably speak of the feature value of the entire tier within a given domain (roughly that of the phonological word). Thus, we may interpret [high] Harmony as: ‘the value for the [high] tier within a domain is that of the stressed syllable’. This idea is captured in (13);
(13) $H]I = EaHn i
[aHI 0
[
+
str
1
where the symbol [F]l designates an autosegmental tier defined by the feature set F. The effect of (13) is to change all the autosegmental values on the tier to [aH] without any delinking or reassociation. P-bearers remain linked to the tier at every stage. In a similar vein we may recast the Tense Harmony process as a tier-specifying rule along the lines of (14):
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theory
i_,n / t-7
(14) U,Tll =
I
+u# Other formulations of (14) spring to mind, for example triggering the [tense] specification by means of a morpholexical feature [lax] rather than a specification prelinked to a P-bearer, as in (15):
(15) UoTll- U_ Tll I [lax1 Again, there is no spreading involved in either of (14) or (15) since we have assumed that all P-bearers are linked to the tier at every stage of the derivation; it is only the value of the tier which changes or receives a specification. I represent these processes in (16) and (17a,b) in a slightly different format.
(16) UH +
II -
-
I
n
C-H I
I
s i n t
-
i + F-1 str
I
sintimus
mus
_n
(17a) uoT
E-J-
3
I
I I
I I
n
soldau
solday (17b) ILOT
I
I
I
I
n
- [_T
solda!
[lax1
,
I
-I I
soldau
- -
]I
bl
Notice that the slight notational change I have introduced incorporates the Obligatory Contour Principle (McCarthy (1981)) for tiers in harmonizing forms. An autosegmental tier is defined as a feature name and a string of +, - specifications whose linear order corresponds to the linear order of Pbearers on the segmental tier, a further very minor notational variant on traditional practice. However, whilst the P-bearers remain linked to the tier it is possible to define a specification for the whole tier which then becomes the specification of each of the P-bearers (as in the SC. of rules (16) and (17a,b)). This notation captures the claim that P-bearers in such a case are linked to the tier itself, not to autosegments on the tier. In (17a) a tier is given a blank
A. Spencer / Vowels and autosegmental theory
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specification but one of the P-bearers is given a - specification. This appears somewhat anomalous within the proposed notational revision so I would prefer the equivalent statement of the rule in (17b). One of the advantages of this notational change is that it allows us to distinguish non-P-bearers by means of a representational format. Let us turn again to the behaviour of /a/ in [high] Harmony environments. If /a/ is not linked to the [high] tier then it will be entirely invisible to [high] Harmony or any other process which makes reference solely to the [high] tier. This can be achieved if we distinguish between specification for a feature on the segmental tier and specification for that feature on an autosegmental tier. That is, we distinguish between (18) and (19).
(18) UH
e CV tier
[ - low
1
CV tier
In (18) the vowel is not linked to the [high] tier, nor could it be, given that it is specified for that feature on the CV tier. Likewise, in (19) /e/ is not specified for [high] on the CV tier and could not be, given it is linked to the [high] tier. If a rule specifies the value of the [high] tier as + then the vowel /a/ will be unaffected. Thus, we capture the fact that /a/ is excluded from the set of Pbearers, but representationally. Moreover, it is a consequence of the fact that /a/ is redundantly marked for the feature by universal convention. This approach makes the interesting prediction that /a/ will be neutral in the unmarked cases in all instances of height harm0ny.l , 1 This idea is identical in essence to that of Booij’s (1984) treatment of Hungarian vowel harmony. Booij represents the neutral vowels /i, i, e/ of Hungarian as specified [-back] on the segmental tier and invokes a principle under which autosegments fail to associate to slots already specified. Thus, the reason the neutral vowels fail to participate in back harmony is essentially the same as that why velar consonants fail to participate. The exceptional roots such as hid which have front vowels but trigger back harmony are represented in underlying forms with segmentally specified [-back] root vowels but a floating [ + B] autosegment. His analysis of Hungarian translates automatically, therefore, into the present framework. My reanalysis of McCarthy’s proposals can, indeed, be considered further confirmation of Booij’s ideas. Notice that there is one residual problem in Booij’s analysis: Booij has to assume that suffixes such as nak/nek have archiphonemic (underspecified) vowels underlyingly, for in his analysis vowel harmony is always feature-specifying. Unfortunately, according to Vago (1980) these suffixes, when used as roots (e.g. when taking possessive inflections), appear to have underlying back vowels. This implies that harmony is in this case feature changing.
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A. Spencer 1 Vowels and autosegmental theory
It will be recalled that McCarthy sets up two rules of Allophony ((10)) and that these have to be ordered after [high] Harmony since they bleed that rule. At the same time rules (10) are transparent to Tense Harmony so they have to be ordered before e-Fission and Default. Let us consider the allophonic processes in greater detail. Informally speaking, we may characterize these processes in the following way: there is no height and backness contrast for unrounded unstressed syllable initial vowels before /n, s/; there is no mid/high contrast for syllable initial unrounded unstressed vowels adjacent to /r, rr/. These formulations refer to a highly specific lack of contrast. One way in which this nondistinctiveness might be captured in the grammar of Montaiies is by a morpheme structure condition giving vowels zero specification for the relevant features in the relevant contexts in lexical representations. Thus, the lexical representation for ‘enrridUsU/InrridUsU’ would be (20): (20)
i Ohigh c
1
nrridusu
‘naughty’
Suppose we now assume a lexical phonological rule of Allophony which randomly distributes values for the unspecified features. This will give us representations (21 a, b): (21a)
e [ -high
1
nrridusu
(21b)
i 1 + high
1
nrridusu
The ruIe of Allophony cannot be ordered relative to Raising or [high] Harmony, (or, indeed, the Tense Harmony rule) because the segments that are affected by it are not given any specification for [high] on the [high] autosegmental tier. In this way they behave exactly like the neutral vowel /a/ in the reanalysis suggested above. We may regard these vowels, whatever their surface phonetic reflexes, as contextually specified neutral vowels with respect to [high] Harmony. Indeed, this is the only appropriate way to regard such vowels given that they are not distinctively marked for [high] (hence the Allophony).2 z In his discussion of a putatively local harmony rule in Chammorro, Poser (1983: 136) claims that context-sensitive specifications of the distribution of underspecified segments within a word ‘are contrary to the spirit if not the letter of Autosegmental theory’. Whatever the veracity of Poser’s impressions (which he presents as opinion, not fact), they have no bearing on the analysis presented here. The archiphonemic representations which are defined in a context-sensitive way
A. Spencer / Vowels and autosegmental theory
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Much of McCarthy’s discussion is devoted to the demonstration that /e/, though on the surface invariably [ + tense], is actually [-tense] at certain stages of some derivations. The crucial rule in McCarthy’s analysis in this respect is rule (8), for the sole effect of this rule, Raising, is to raise lax mid vowels, half of which are abstract segments which never surface. Given the framework of SPE, or any other linear framework, an analysis of such data is constrained to posit such underlying abstractions in mid derivation. As McCarthy points out, the alternative would be to appeal to a ‘puzzling condition’, viz. ‘a context stipulating that the affected vowel is followed somewhere in the word or sandhi domain by a vowel that is associated with however, the feature value [ - tense]‘. (McCarthy (1984: 3 10)). Fortunately, within the autosegmental theory such assumptions of linearity are abandoned in favour of richer assumptions concerning the nature of representations at all levels. These assumptions of non-linearity gain credence to the extent that theoretically desirable rule types can be postulated which make reference to the enriched representations made available. Suppose, therefore, that we interpret the Raising rule, (8), not as a linearized rule applying to segments attached to certain autosegments on a tier, but as a rule applying to segments of a certain type falling within a certain autosegmental domain. Specifically, let us say that Raising attaches a stressed V to a [+ H] autosegment within a [-T] domain. We therefore rewrite (8) as (22):
(22) I[H
1
I[H +
I
I
v=
v
1
l--[+str
, ]
Again, this is not actually a departure from what lies beneath the surface of McCarthy’s account. For recall that Raising refers to three different levels of phonological representation, not two as McCarthy’s formulation would have us suspect. In most current accounts of stress systems such as that of Spanish, capture the allophonic variation observed in these words. Thus, my use of archiphonemes is parallel to the original, Trubetskoyan, use. It is not the case that a spreading rule or its equivalent is bounded by virtue of an unusual distribution of underspecified segments. Thus, if it should turn out that Poser’s injunction is necessary this will not affect the present proposal.
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A. Spencer / Vowels and autosegmental
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stress is assigned *metrically by constructing a binary branching tree labelled s, w. Thus, when McCarthy writes a feature value [ + str] this is a notational shorthand for the stress tree that would be erected by the stress rules (cf. Harris (1983)). In other words, my reinterpretation of McCarthy’s Raising rule is entirely in keeping with the spirit of a theory which appeals to multidimensional representations. Since (22) refers to the [-T] domain and not to a segment marked [-tense] it doesn’t matter whether or not the segments which undergo Raising are actually marked for the feature [tense] at the segmental level. Just as the vowel /a/ is ignored by [high] Harmony because its specification for the feature [-high] is given on a plane other than the autosegmental [high] tier, so the vowel /e/ can be marked [ + tense] on the segmental tier and still be subject to Raising provided (i) it is associated with a particular node on the stress tree of the word, and (ii) it is within a [-T] domain. Granted this, the vowel /e/ can be specified redundantly as [ + tense] (on the segmental tier) at the earliest stages of the derivation, by a rule such as e-Tensing, (23), superseding e-Fission. (23) e-Tensing [+ tense] e Similarly, Default, (12), can apply at earlier stages. In fact, if we assume that these rules apply whenever their S.D.‘s are met we can assume that rules Count Morphology, Default and e-Tensing receive no extrinsic ordering. For e-Tensing is a rule operating over the segmental tier while Count Morphology and Default operate over the [tense] tier. Moreover, the range of application of Default properly includes that of Count Morphology, so that the former must be disjunctively ordered after the latter bp the Elsewhere Condition. Construed as rule (22) Raising is now intrinsically ordered after Count Morphology and fails to interact with Default or e-Tensing. The rules of Allophony, being defined over the segmental tier, fail to interact with any of the other rules. The net effect of this (as pointed out above) is that the rules of Allophony appear to be transparent to Tense Harmony, for Allophony and Tense Harmony represent orthogonal sets of processes. However, Allophony increases slightly the set of segments which are neutral to [high] Harmony by virtue of the fact that those segments are not distinctively marked for [high]. (This is what McCarthy calls opacity3 with respect to [high] Harmony, though 3 Opacity (as shown by low vowels in Akan; Clements (1980)) is very easiIy represented
in the
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and autosegmentul theory
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that locution is a little misleading.) The rule of e-Fission is totally superseded by e-Tensing, and, indeed, there is now no need for delinking rules in the fragment given that [high] Harmony has been redefined as an operation on the specification of a tier. It is easy to see, then, that motivated revisions to McCarthy’s rule system lead to a grammar fragment in which only two rules, Raising and [high] Harmony, need to be extrinsically ordered. Given this, it is worthwhile investigating this rule pair in more detail to determine whether its relative ordering really need be stipulated. Raising must feed [high] Harmony. If both rules were allowed to apply whenever their S.D.‘s were met then there would be cases in which [high] Harmony would have to apply twice, once prior to Raising and once after it. For [high] Harmony would cause all the vowels of a word with stressed /e/ to become mid in a [-T] domain, Raising would raise that stressed vowel, and [high] Harmony would have to reapply to raise all the vowels in the word to high. Given customary assumptions about rule application we would only expect to see such a thing if the rules applied cyclically within different cyclic domains. There is no evidence for such cyclic operation. Raising and [high] Harmony are typologically distinct in that Raising is a feature changing rule, altering the specification of a stressed vowel on the autosegmental tier, while [high] Harmony is a novel type of rule which alters tier specifications. One immediate consequence of this typological innovation is that there can be no total extrinsic ordering of phonological rules, if operations over tiers are regarded as rules. For tiers are in general orthogonal components of the vector given by the representation as a whole. Such vector components cannot be given any non-arbitrary well-ordering. Operations on tiers can only be ordered with respect to each other to fhe extent that their domains overlap. In the earliest autosegmental literature (e.g. Goldsmith (1979)), autosegmental rules were regarded as devices for ensuring that the Well-Formedness present framework. An opaque segment simply defines the beginning of a new tier specification, as in (i): (0 !I+ F ]II[-F ]I. Ill I I P ,... P,...P, Pm+,... P, where Pm+, corresponds to an opaque segment. Notice that under this formalism Mtenje’s (1985) typology of P-bearers, neutral segments and opaque segments falls out automatically: the properties of being a blocker, nonundergoer and spreader are equivalent together to the property of marking the beginning of a new tier specification.
18
A. Spencer / Vowels und autosegmental
theory
Condition was not violated. Goldsmith remarks: ‘A derivation containing a representation that violates the WFCondition is not thereby marked as illformed; rather, the Condition is interpreted so as to change the representation minimally by addition or deletion of association lines so as to meet the Condition maximally’ (1979: 27). Latterly, Clements and Keyser (1983 : 54) have proposed that (in many languages) a Resyllabification Convention holds: ‘The output of every rule is resyllabified according to the syllable structure rules examined up to that point in the derivation’. This Convention is tantamount to the claim that the syllable structure rules determine a wellformedness constraint on syllable structure. Let us tentatively pursue this line of thought to its logical conclusion. Suppose that all rules other than segment structures ruies are regarded as language-particular well-formedness conditions. In particular, rules referring exclusively to autosegmental tiers will be so construed. This means the rules of Default, [high] Harmony and Count Morphology (in the second interpretation suggested above). This will have no discernible effect on the operation of Default and Count Morphology as far as I can see. However, it will substantially affect the operation of [high] Harmony. For this rule will now be interpreted as an injunction to change minimally the representation of a word whose [high] tier does not have a specification coincident with that of the stressed syllable. ‘Changing minimally’ here will have to be interpreted as ‘making the minimal change to the tier’ since otherwise we would require a segment structure rule which, I assume, would be the more marked alternative. I emphasize that this suggestion is at best tentative. However, it seems a worthwhile point of departure for investigations into autosegmental rule typology. Moreover, it is fully in keeping with the linguistic program exemplified by current work in syntax which enriches the representational capacity of the theory at the expense of the rule component (cf. Chomsky (1981)). The major advantage it confers in the present case is that [high] Harmony will be constrained to operate at all stages in a derivation, both before and after Raising. Thus, we will have reached the position that none of McCarthy’s rules are extrinsically ordered and all the work done by extrinsic ordering in McCarthy’s account is given over to enriched representational coding.
4. Neutral vowels The reanalysis of McCarthy’s rule system necessitates a reappraisal of his typology of neutral elements in harmony systems. On McCarthy’s account /a/
A. Spencer / Vowels and autosegmental
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19
is neutral with respect to [high] Harmony because it is excluded from the set of P-bearers by stipulation. However, /e/ is neutral with respect to Tense Harmony only after a specific stage in the derivation when the rules of e-Fission and Default have neutralized derived contrasts between tense and lax varieties of the vowel. No such distinction is drawn on the present account. Indeed, all neutral vowels, including certain vowels in word initial syllables which I have added to that inventory, enjoy neutrality by virtue of being specified for the harmonizing feature on the segmental tier rather than autosegmentally. McCarthy speculates that the distinction he discerns between non-participating and participating neutral vowels (/a/ and /e/) might correspond, at least in part, to the distinction between feature-changing and feature-specifying harmony systems. He claims, in particular, that fully participating neutral vowels will never be associated with feature-changing systems. Translating these suggestions into the present framework, we might hypothesize that a rule may only refer to an entire autosegmental level if that level is defined by an autosegment whose value is given by a feature-specifying rule, not a featurechanging rule (i.e. if that autosegment is not lexically contrastive). How such a constraint could be incorporated formally into phonological theory I am unable to say. Without such a constraint we might imagine that violations of McCarthy’s principle would be observed. That is, we might expect to find a language in which a vowel which was neutral with respect to a feature-specifying harmony nonetheless participated in the harmony process. For instance, we might expect, hypothetically, to find a language Pseudo-Montaiies, just like Montafies but with some rule which, say, fronted all vowels within a [ + high] domain. Thus, we would observe the data of (24) (where [a, y] are the , [-back] congeners of [a, u]): (24) Montaties afloxar afloxemus afluxi : s
‘to loosen’ (1~1. pr. sub.) (2~1. pr. sub.)
Pseudo-Montaiies afloxar afloxtmus &lyxi:s
Provided we observed words of the form e C a: C ti C or ae C ae C i C and the like, we would not be able to postulate a satisfactory segmental rule which did not amount to the claim that /a/ underwent [high] Harmony. This would mean that a rule of a-Fission would be required delinking /as/ from the [ + high] autosegment. It would also entail that a phonetically impossible vowel marked [ + high, + low] would be postulated in mid-derivation.
20
A. Spencer 1 Vowels and autosegmental
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While I cannot think of any solid examples of participation of this kind, it does not seem to me that such a phenomenon would never come to light from a sufficiently exhaustive survey of harmony systems. McCarthy’s suggestion then is a strong empirical claim. If it is falsified this will lend further weight to the reanalysis of his rule system proposed here.
5. Conclusions McCarthy (1984) has presented a meticulous, scrupulously argued and insightful analysis of exceedingly complex data from Montaiies. However, the theoretical machinery to which he appeals lays great emphasis on phonological rules as opposed to phonological representations, to the point that he presupposes a total ordering of the rules of his grammar fragment. I have proposed that this stipulated ruIe ordering can be dispensed with provided we make certain assumptions about the interpretation of rules and representations. I have suggested that the notion ‘autosegmental tier’ be given a more preeminent ontological status, to the extent that rules can refer directly to that notion. This allows us to distinguish between elements specified for a given feature on the segmental tier and elements specified autosegmentally. Only the latter specifications are affected by rules referring exclusively to the autosegmental tier. In this way we can link neutrality with respect to harmony to the notion of distinctiveness. In the case under discussion we no longer need to stipulate that /a/ is neutral by excluding it from the set of P-bearers, for this follows as a consequence of the fact that it is not distinctively marked for the harmonizing feature. Finally, I have removed the residual case of extrinsic ordering by suggesting (admittedly in a tentative fashion) that operations defined exclusively over tiers be interpretkd not as transformational rules on autosegmental graphs, but as well-formedness conditions which drive minimal alterations to representations when violated. The result is a set of rather minor changes to current autosegmental theory which nonetheless better reflect the spirit of that theory and which, in the present case, have the welcome effect of reducing our reliance on rules by making fuller use of the representational possibilities of autosegmental theory.
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References Booij, G.E., 1984. Neutral vowels and the autosegmental analysis of Hungarian vowel harmony. Linguistics 22, 629-64 1. Chomsky, N., 1981. Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris. Clements. G.N., 1977. The autosegmental treatment of vowel harmony. In: W. Dressier and 0. Pfeiffet (eds.), Phonologica 1976, 11 I-l 19. Innsbruck, Austria. Clement& G.N., 1980. Vowel harmony in nonlinear generative phonology: an autosegmental model. Indiana University Linguistics Club, Bloomington, Indiana. Clements, G.N., 1981. Akan vowel harmony: a nonlinear analysis. In: G.N. Clements (ed.), Harvard studies in phonology II. Indiana University Linguistics Club, Bloomington, Indiana. Clements, G.N. and S.J. Keyser, 1983. CV phonology: a generative theory of the syllable. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Clements, G.N. and E. Sezer, 1983. Vowel and consonant disharmony in Turkish. In: H. van der Hulst and N. Smith (eds.), The structure of phonological representations II. Dordrecht: Foris. Goldsmith, J., 1979. Autosegmental phonology. New York: Garland Publishing. [1976] Halle, M. and J.-R. Vergnaud, 1981. Harmony processes. In: W. Klein and W. Levelt (eds.), Crossing the boundaries in linguistics: studies presented to Manfred Bierwisch. Dordrecht: Reidel. Harris, J. W., 1983. Syllable structure and stress in Spanish: a nonlinear analysis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kiparsky, P., 1982. From cyclic phonology to lexical phonology. In: H. van der Hulst and N. Smith (eds.), The structure of phonological representations I, 131-176. Dordrecht: Foris. McCarthy, J., 1981. A prosodic theory of nonconcatenative morphology. Linguistic Inquiry 12, 373418. McCarthy, J., 1984. Theoretical consequences of Montafies vowel harmony. Linguistic Inquiry 15, 291-318. Mtenje, A.D., 1985. Arguments for an autosegmental analysis of Chichewa vowel harmony. Lingua 66, 21-52. Poser, W. J., 1983. Phonological representations and action-at-a-distance. In: H. van der Hulst and N. Smith (eds.), The structure of phonological representations II, 121-158. Dordrecht: Foris. Pullum, G.K., 1976. The Duke of York Gambit. Journal of Linguistics 12, 83-102. Vago, R., 1980. The sound pattern of Hungarian. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
VOWEL HARMONY, NEUTRAL AUTOSEGMENTAL THEORY
VOWELS
AND
Andrew SPENCER * Cenlral School of Speech and Drama, London, England, and a Polytechnic of Central London, England
Received December 1985; revised version March 1986
A revision of McCarthy’s analysis of Montaiies vowel harmony is proposed in which autosegmental tiers constitute a separate dimension of the representation whose feature specifications can be given independently. Segments which do not undergo harmony (including neutral vowels) are specified on the segmental tier and are not affected when a word is associated to the autosegmental tier (cf. Booij (1984)). By allowing rules to make reference to the specification of a whole tier within a harmony domain it is possible to simplify McCarthy’s treatment considerably, in particular dispensing with his ‘delinking’ rule and consequently his ‘Duke of York’ analysis. It is also not necessary to invoke extrinsic rule ordering.
1. Introduction
The problem of vowel harmony has been a favourite topic for phonologists, posing as it does deep problems for the theoretician. Following the pioneering work of Goldsmith (1979) in which the theory of Autosegmental Phonology was developed to handle tone systems of African lapguages, it was quickly realized (esp. by Clements (1977,198O)) that the same theoretical approach was eminently applicable to vowel harmony. In Autosegmental Phonology, it is easy to describe long-distance dependencies between elements of phonological structure even if they are separated by other material, provided it is possible to justify setting up separate levels or tiers on which all and only those aspects of phonological structure relevant to those dependencies are defined. These tiers can be operated upon independently, without reference to other, * I am grateful to the participants of one of the London Phonology Seminars held at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, for their comments on an earlier version of this paper, and in particular to Dick Hayward and Al Mtenje. Thanks are also due to Lingua’s editors for suggestions for improving the exposition. Address for all correspondance: Speech Therapy Department, C S S D, Eton Avenue, London NW3 3HY, England.
0024-3841/86/.$3.50 0
1986, Elsevier Science Publishers
B.V. (North-Holland)
4
A. Spencer / Vowels and autosegmental theory
totally irrelevant aspects of structure. In simple concrete terms, this means that we can in principle set up a level on which we define just that feature or combination of features relevant to vowel harmony (say [ + back, + round], [ + advanced tongue root] or whatever) and manipulate them independently to achieve the assimilations, blockings and so on we observe in harmony systems. This tier is linked to segmental material by universal and particular conventions and Autosegmental theory allows us to specify which kinds of segment such a tier is associated to, e.g. just vowels in the case of vowel harmony. In this way the formalism allows us to ignore consonants in writing rules (in canonical harmony systems, at least), thereby allowing us to capture the notion that a vowel harmony system is defined over vowels and nothing else. One set of descriptive problems which the autosegmental approach to vowel harmony elucidates is the question of which vowels undergo harmony, which trigger it, and which fail to undergo it. An illuminating discussion of these matters has recently been provided by Mtenje (1985). In this article I discuss one very particular set of proposals for handling the problem of vowels which are transparent to vowel harmony in that they simply fail to undergo it, socalled ‘neutral vowels’. McCarthy (1984) has analysed vowel harmony phenomena in the Pasiego Montaiies dialect of Spanish, drawing interesting conclusions about the nature of vowel harmony systems in general and about the status of ‘neutral vowels’ in particular. Adopting and adapting recent approaches to vowel harmony in the Autosegmental literature (notably Clements (1977,1980,1981), Clements and Sezer (1983), Halle and Vergnaud (198 l)), McCarthy distinguishes two types of harmony process, one analysed as a feature-specifying rule, the other as a feature-changing rule. The featurespecifying rule type, moreover, admits neutral vowels (i.e. vowels which do not undergo harmony) which may be analysed as participating in the harmony process during intermediate stages of derivation. The feature-changing type, on the other hand involves neutral vowels which play no role whatever in the harmony. In the terminoIogy of Clements (1980) they are excluded from the class of P-bearers. McCarthy analyses the feature-specifying rule as a context free process taking place early in the phonological derivation. The feature-changing rule applies later in derivations and interacts in important ways with other rules. McCarthy discusses several of these and proposes that they must be ordered extrinsically with respect to each other. In this note I suggest that while we may accept McCarthy’s analysis in its general form it is not necessary to accept his premise that extrinsically ordered rules are essential to characterize
A. Spencer
/ Vowels
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the processes and generate the data he adduces. While it is possible that rule ordering will prove a necessary device in segmental (linear) phonological rule systems, it is undesirable to include it in rich representational system such as Autosegmental theory. Even within ‘purely linear’ analyses the onus of proof is surely nowadays on those who would advocate extrinsic rule ordering statements given the obvious learnability problems associated with the unrestricted use of extrinsic ordering, and particularly given the enormous descriptive and conceptual success of general principles of organization such as Kiparsky’s Elsewhere Condition. (See Kiparsky (1982) for a recent statement.) In a non-linear analysis much of the work done by computational devices such as extrinsic ordering is coded in a perspicuous and natural way in the very representational format of the theory. It is then particularly undesirable to appeal to representational coding in addition to powerful derivational devices when they exhibit such a considerable overlap in function. Much of the most exciting work in syntax of recent years has been devoted precisely to the elimination of such redundancies between subsystems of the theory (cf. Chomsky (1981: 13-14)). While not everything that is true of syntax is true of phonology it seems odd at the very least to pursue one strategy in syntax and rest content with effectively the opposite strategy in phonology. I shall show that justifiable alterations to McCarthy’s rule system result in an improved grammar fragment which does not appeal to stipulated rule ordering, provided that rules defined solely over autosegmental tiers are interpreted as well-formedness conditions. This move not only helps remove the redundancy mentioned above but also seems to provide an autosegmental formalism more consonant with the philosophical underpinnings of that approach. ,
2. McCarthy’s analysis of Montaiies vowel harmony Montafies Spanish has five vowels in lexical representations /i, e, a, o, u/. Of these, /i, a, o, u/ may have lax congeners in surface forms, represented as /I, A, 0, U/. /e/ appears only in a tense variant. Montaiies exhibits two vowel harmony processes, Tense Harmony and [high] Harmony. Tense Harmony is very general: all the vowels of a word must be either tense or lax. All words with lax vocalism end in the masc. sg. nominal suffix, -u/U, though this is not a sufficient condition for lax vocalism. Adjectives exhibit minimal pairs differing only in the tenseness of the vowels. In these adjectives the lax variant exhibits concord with a count noun, while in the tense variant it agrees with a
A. Spencer
6
1 Vowels and aufosegtnental
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.
mass noun. Thus, lax vocalism constitutes a morpheme. In other cases the lax variant is lexically conditioned. These facts are illustrated by examples (1). Tense (1 a) sold& (lb) malu (1 c) komfesonarjus
‘soldiers’ ‘evil (masc. sg. mass)’ ‘confessionals’
Lax sOldA W m&U kOmfesOnArjU
‘soldier’ ‘evil (masc. sg. count)’ ‘confessional’
[high] Harmony applies to nonfinal vowels. All non-low vowels must agree with the stressed vowel of the word on the feature [high]. That is, the nonlow vowels of a word must be either [i, u, I, U] or [e, o, 01. The low vowels /a, A/ are neutral and cooccur with any vowel whatever. Vowel height is lexically distinctive in Montafies. Moreover, in forms subject to [high] Harmony it is generally possible to determine the underlying height specification of a mid or high vowel. For when the stem occurs in a form with a stressed /a, A/ the underlying forms surface. Illustrations of these phenomena are given in examples (2) and (3): (2) sintir sentemus sintiis (3) beber bibi: s bebamus
‘to feel’ (1~1. pr. ind.) (2~1. pr. sub.) ‘to drink’ (2~1. pr. ind.) (1~1. pr. sub.)
The fact that the feature [tense] is not distinctive for the vowels subject to Tense Harmony suggests to McCarthy’ that vowels are not underlyingly specified for [tense] and that the Tense Harmony rule is defined over underspecified segments. Contrariwise, the fact that the underlying value of the feature [high] is in general determinate suggests that [high] Harmony must change specifications for that feature. McCarthy treats Tense Harmony as straightforward ‘spreading’ of an autosegment early in the derivation (see rule (7) below). [high] Harmony, however, is a rather more complex, context sensitive, process which, in effect, is split into several steps. The first step is to delete the feature [high] from the autosegmental tier if it is not attached to a segment within the stressed syllable of the word. Then the value of the [high] feature attached to the stressed sylIable spreads automatically (see rule (9) below). Note that rule (9) only
A. Spencer / Vowelsand autosegmental
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specifies the deletion operation. The spreading is the consequence of a universal convention on the assumptions of McCarthy, and is not a stipulation. In other words, McCarthy generates [high] Harmonic words by ‘despecifying’ in a context-sensitive fashion, deleting the autosegmental specification for that feature. The vowel /e/ is neutral with respect to Tense Harmony in the sense that it never appears phonetically in a lax variant. However, McCarthy adduces strong evidence that underlying tense /e/ laxes in laxing environments only to retense by dint of a pair of late rules. These sever the connexion between /e/ and the [ - tense] autosegment in a context-free fashion (‘e-Fission’). The /e/ is then subject to a late rule of very general character which specifies all vowels as [ + tense] unless they already bear a specification for this feature (‘Default’). The operation of these rules is shown in (4). Note that in lexical representations the [-T] autosegment is preattached only to the final syllable. It spreads to all other vowels at the start of the derivation by a universal spreading convention. In (4) this process is assumed to have taken place.
Count Morphology (7)
e-Fission (11)
1-V 4 kqrnfyy
1-W [-HI [-HI 1-T [+Tl L-4
Default (12)
L&$
kc!m f
I
-VL
[-%I] [-HI
[-HI
’
( = kOmfesOnArjU)
The reason McCarthy resorts to such an elaborate Duke of York gambit (Pullum (1976)) is that laxing interacts in an interesting way with other phonological rules. McCarthy shows that there is a rule of Raising (see rule
8
A. Spencer
/ Vowels and autosegmental
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(8) below) which makes all stressed lax vowels [ + high]. In order to state this rule with maximal generality and without what McCarthy calls a ‘puzzling condition’ (1984: 310) it is necessary that Raising apply ~to underlying /e/. However, this means that at the appropriate stage of the derivation, these vowels must be [-tense]. Thus, the vowel /e/ must participate in Tense Harmony, even though its lax congener never surfaces. Furthermore, the processes of Tense Harmony and Raising together feed the [high] Harmony rule, for there are instances in which [high] Harmony is conditioned by a stressed high vowel derived from underlying /e/ (cf. (5)). Thus, the five rules of Tense Harmony, Raising, [high] Harmony, e-Fission and Default must apply in that order.
(5)
1-V
Count Morphology
(7)
/J/ kunixu - - I\
1-I-U [-HI
1-V
Raising (8)
A kvnjxu
I\ i-HI
[+Hl
1-Y
[high] Harmony
A k&xv u
1
[+I3 (= kUnixU
‘rabbit’)
In addition to these rules McCarthy discusses one further rule of Montafies, Allophony ((10)). In word initial position all height contrasts between nonround tense vowels are neutralized before the consonants /n, s/, Similarly, there is free variation between mid and high nonround vowels in the first syllable of a word between /r, rr/ (cf. (6)). (6a) ast6nOas - est6nOas - ist6nOas ‘then’ enrrIdosu - InrrIdosU ‘naughty’ (6b) rrendir - rrindir ‘to give in’
A. Spencer
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These allophonic rules are opaque with respect to [high] Harmony (and hence must bleed that process) though they are transparent with respect to Tense Harmony. McCarthy accounts for this interaction by ordering the Allophony rules after [high] Harmony but before the process of e-Fission and Default. McCarthy’s rule system is given in (7)-(12). (7)
Masculine Singular Count Morphology 1-;Tl I I +y#
(8)
Raising [high] +
[ + high]
I [ + str] I [ - tns]
(9)
[high] Harmony [high] + g % ~
[WI I
I [- str] Allophony
Rules ahigh plow Pback
+ syll -rnd + - str I
+ syll -back - str
[ + str]
1
+ car
- + [ahigh] % ~
(11) e-Fission [ - tns]
+ [-back]
I [-high] (12)
Default Rule
O+[+Tl I I, v
X
- lat + cant 1 + son
IO
A. Spencer / Vowels and autosegmenlal
theory
The Tense Harmony process results from rule (7) which associates the autosegment [-tense] to the masc. sg. desinence when attached to the count morpheme. The universally defined process of Spreading then distributes this autosegment to all other vowels. Presumably, stress assignment takes place before or at this stage (possibly along the lines suggested in Harris (1983) for Castilian Spanish) and Raising, (8), neutralizes the distinction between laxed mid and high stressed vowels. A mirror-image rule, [high] Harmony, (9), then severs the connection between a vowel slot and its [high] autosegment, excluding stressed vowels. The [high] specification of the stressed vowel then spreads. At this point the two Allophony rules apply. McCarthy’s formalism here is interpreted as ‘assign arbitrary values to the features [high, low, back] and [high] respectively in the stated environment’. In this way, Allophony may undo the effects of [high] Harmony. However, only rule (1 Ob) will ever apply to lax vowels. Thus, (10a) remains transparent to Tense Harmony inasmuch as it doesn’t interact with that rule. Rule (lob) on the other hand may apply to a vowel which is underlyingly /e/_ If the word has been subject to laxing then this will mean that such a vowel may surface as [I]. Otherwise it will surface as tense [e]. Likewise, underlying /i/ which has been laxed to /I/ may be lowered to /E/ but this vowel will always surface as [e]. Thus, Allophony must be ordered before the e-Fission and Default rules ((1 l), (12)) to guarantee the correct distribution. The neutral vowel /a, A/ is unaffected by [high] Harmony, it doesn’t block harmony and it doesn’t initiate harmony of its own. McCarthy accounts for this by stipulation: [ + low] vowels are excluded from the set of P-bearers. This means that although /a/ is specified [ - high] by a universal redundancy rule it is not given an autosegmental specification on the [high] tier. For this reason it neither triggers nor participates in [high] Harmony. McCarthy contrasts his treatment with that of Kiparsky who (in unpublished work to which I have not had access) reportedly proposes that a vowel is neutral if it is not lexically distinctive for the harmonizing feature. Further, Kiparsky proposes that lexical vowel harmony rules must create lexically distinctive configurations. McCarthy expresses doubt that Kiparsky’s proposal can be applied to his Montafies data because it would imply that the Tense Harmony process is postlexical while the [high] Harmony process is lexical. This would be contrary to the extrinsic ordering established by McCarthy.
A. Spencer / Vowels and autosegmental
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3. A reanalysis Pace McCarthy it is possible to introduce the notion of lexical distinctiveness into an autosegmental treatment of the Montaiies phenomena which not only accounts for the facts but which also provides some independent justification for what is otherwise an ad hoc restriction on the class of P-bearers. To see how this can be done I reconsider some fundamental notions in autosegmental theory. In the delinking-plus-spreading account of harmony we can see very clearly that an autosegmental tier is a derivative notion. A tier is defined as the place where autosegments reside and autosegments are defined largely in terms of their interaction with the elements of the segmental tier (P-bearers). Suppose we reverse this and make the notion of the tier primitive, with the notion of autosegment derivative from it. This, as far as I understand it, is the point of the autosegmental approach. However, it is not brought out very obviously in a formalism which clings to principles of linearity such as those embodied in delinking and spreading. For if the tier is a primitive in the system then we must expect formal operations to refer directly to it and not to reconstruct it in a somewhat clumsy fashion. Let us therefore rewrite McCarthy’s rule of [high] Harmony not as a process affecting the links between autosegments and their P-bearers but purely as an operation on the [high] tier itself. While in the general case the autosegments on a tier will have differing values, in the harmonic case we may reasonably speak of the feature value of the entire tier within a given domain (roughly that of the phonological word). Thus, we may interpret [high] Harmony as: ‘the value for the [high] tier within a domain is that of the stressed syllable’. This idea is captured in (13);
(13) $H]I = EaHn i
[aHI 0
[
+
str
1
where the symbol [F]l designates an autosegmental tier defined by the feature set F. The effect of (13) is to change all the autosegmental values on the tier to [aH] without any delinking or reassociation. P-bearers remain linked to the tier at every stage. In a similar vein we may recast the Tense Harmony process as a tier-specifying rule along the lines of (14):
A. Spencer / Vowels and autosegmental
12
theory
i_,n / t-7
(14) U,Tll =
I
+u# Other formulations of (14) spring to mind, for example triggering the [tense] specification by means of a morpholexical feature [lax] rather than a specification prelinked to a P-bearer, as in (15):
(15) UoTll- U_ Tll I [lax1 Again, there is no spreading involved in either of (14) or (15) since we have assumed that all P-bearers are linked to the tier at every stage of the derivation; it is only the value of the tier which changes or receives a specification. I represent these processes in (16) and (17a,b) in a slightly different format.
(16) UH +
II -
-
I
n
C-H I
I
s i n t
-
i + F-1 str
I
sintimus
mus
_n
(17a) uoT
E-J-
3
I
I I
I I
n
soldau
solday (17b) ILOT
I
I
I
I
n
- [_T
solda!
[lax1
,
I
-I I
soldau
- -
]I
bl
Notice that the slight notational change I have introduced incorporates the Obligatory Contour Principle (McCarthy (1981)) for tiers in harmonizing forms. An autosegmental tier is defined as a feature name and a string of +, - specifications whose linear order corresponds to the linear order of Pbearers on the segmental tier, a further very minor notational variant on traditional practice. However, whilst the P-bearers remain linked to the tier it is possible to define a specification for the whole tier which then becomes the specification of each of the P-bearers (as in the SC. of rules (16) and (17a,b)). This notation captures the claim that P-bearers in such a case are linked to the tier itself, not to autosegments on the tier. In (17a) a tier is given a blank
A. Spencer / Vowels and autosegmental theory
13
specification but one of the P-bearers is given a - specification. This appears somewhat anomalous within the proposed notational revision so I would prefer the equivalent statement of the rule in (17b). One of the advantages of this notational change is that it allows us to distinguish non-P-bearers by means of a representational format. Let us turn again to the behaviour of /a/ in [high] Harmony environments. If /a/ is not linked to the [high] tier then it will be entirely invisible to [high] Harmony or any other process which makes reference solely to the [high] tier. This can be achieved if we distinguish between specification for a feature on the segmental tier and specification for that feature on an autosegmental tier. That is, we distinguish between (18) and (19).
(18) UH
e CV tier
[ - low
1
CV tier
In (18) the vowel is not linked to the [high] tier, nor could it be, given that it is specified for that feature on the CV tier. Likewise, in (19) /e/ is not specified for [high] on the CV tier and could not be, given it is linked to the [high] tier. If a rule specifies the value of the [high] tier as + then the vowel /a/ will be unaffected. Thus, we capture the fact that /a/ is excluded from the set of Pbearers, but representationally. Moreover, it is a consequence of the fact that /a/ is redundantly marked for the feature by universal convention. This approach makes the interesting prediction that /a/ will be neutral in the unmarked cases in all instances of height harm0ny.l , 1 This idea is identical in essence to that of Booij’s (1984) treatment of Hungarian vowel harmony. Booij represents the neutral vowels /i, i, e/ of Hungarian as specified [-back] on the segmental tier and invokes a principle under which autosegments fail to associate to slots already specified. Thus, the reason the neutral vowels fail to participate in back harmony is essentially the same as that why velar consonants fail to participate. The exceptional roots such as hid which have front vowels but trigger back harmony are represented in underlying forms with segmentally specified [-back] root vowels but a floating [ + B] autosegment. His analysis of Hungarian translates automatically, therefore, into the present framework. My reanalysis of McCarthy’s proposals can, indeed, be considered further confirmation of Booij’s ideas. Notice that there is one residual problem in Booij’s analysis: Booij has to assume that suffixes such as nak/nek have archiphonemic (underspecified) vowels underlyingly, for in his analysis vowel harmony is always feature-specifying. Unfortunately, according to Vago (1980) these suffixes, when used as roots (e.g. when taking possessive inflections), appear to have underlying back vowels. This implies that harmony is in this case feature changing.
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A. Spencer 1 Vowels and autosegmental theory
It will be recalled that McCarthy sets up two rules of Allophony ((10)) and that these have to be ordered after [high] Harmony since they bleed that rule. At the same time rules (10) are transparent to Tense Harmony so they have to be ordered before e-Fission and Default. Let us consider the allophonic processes in greater detail. Informally speaking, we may characterize these processes in the following way: there is no height and backness contrast for unrounded unstressed syllable initial vowels before /n, s/; there is no mid/high contrast for syllable initial unrounded unstressed vowels adjacent to /r, rr/. These formulations refer to a highly specific lack of contrast. One way in which this nondistinctiveness might be captured in the grammar of Montaiies is by a morpheme structure condition giving vowels zero specification for the relevant features in the relevant contexts in lexical representations. Thus, the lexical representation for ‘enrridUsU/InrridUsU’ would be (20): (20)
i Ohigh c
1
nrridusu
‘naughty’
Suppose we now assume a lexical phonological rule of Allophony which randomly distributes values for the unspecified features. This will give us representations (21 a, b): (21a)
e [ -high
1
nrridusu
(21b)
i 1 + high
1
nrridusu
The ruIe of Allophony cannot be ordered relative to Raising or [high] Harmony, (or, indeed, the Tense Harmony rule) because the segments that are affected by it are not given any specification for [high] on the [high] autosegmental tier. In this way they behave exactly like the neutral vowel /a/ in the reanalysis suggested above. We may regard these vowels, whatever their surface phonetic reflexes, as contextually specified neutral vowels with respect to [high] Harmony. Indeed, this is the only appropriate way to regard such vowels given that they are not distinctively marked for [high] (hence the Allophony).2 z In his discussion of a putatively local harmony rule in Chammorro, Poser (1983: 136) claims that context-sensitive specifications of the distribution of underspecified segments within a word ‘are contrary to the spirit if not the letter of Autosegmental theory’. Whatever the veracity of Poser’s impressions (which he presents as opinion, not fact), they have no bearing on the analysis presented here. The archiphonemic representations which are defined in a context-sensitive way
A. Spencer / Vowels and autosegmental theory
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Much of McCarthy’s discussion is devoted to the demonstration that /e/, though on the surface invariably [ + tense], is actually [-tense] at certain stages of some derivations. The crucial rule in McCarthy’s analysis in this respect is rule (8), for the sole effect of this rule, Raising, is to raise lax mid vowels, half of which are abstract segments which never surface. Given the framework of SPE, or any other linear framework, an analysis of such data is constrained to posit such underlying abstractions in mid derivation. As McCarthy points out, the alternative would be to appeal to a ‘puzzling condition’, viz. ‘a context stipulating that the affected vowel is followed somewhere in the word or sandhi domain by a vowel that is associated with however, the feature value [ - tense]‘. (McCarthy (1984: 3 10)). Fortunately, within the autosegmental theory such assumptions of linearity are abandoned in favour of richer assumptions concerning the nature of representations at all levels. These assumptions of non-linearity gain credence to the extent that theoretically desirable rule types can be postulated which make reference to the enriched representations made available. Suppose, therefore, that we interpret the Raising rule, (8), not as a linearized rule applying to segments attached to certain autosegments on a tier, but as a rule applying to segments of a certain type falling within a certain autosegmental domain. Specifically, let us say that Raising attaches a stressed V to a [+ H] autosegment within a [-T] domain. We therefore rewrite (8) as (22):
(22) I[H
1
I[H +
I
I
v=
v
1
l--[+str
, ]
Again, this is not actually a departure from what lies beneath the surface of McCarthy’s account. For recall that Raising refers to three different levels of phonological representation, not two as McCarthy’s formulation would have us suspect. In most current accounts of stress systems such as that of Spanish, capture the allophonic variation observed in these words. Thus, my use of archiphonemes is parallel to the original, Trubetskoyan, use. It is not the case that a spreading rule or its equivalent is bounded by virtue of an unusual distribution of underspecified segments. Thus, if it should turn out that Poser’s injunction is necessary this will not affect the present proposal.
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stress is assigned *metrically by constructing a binary branching tree labelled s, w. Thus, when McCarthy writes a feature value [ + str] this is a notational shorthand for the stress tree that would be erected by the stress rules (cf. Harris (1983)). In other words, my reinterpretation of McCarthy’s Raising rule is entirely in keeping with the spirit of a theory which appeals to multidimensional representations. Since (22) refers to the [-T] domain and not to a segment marked [-tense] it doesn’t matter whether or not the segments which undergo Raising are actually marked for the feature [tense] at the segmental level. Just as the vowel /a/ is ignored by [high] Harmony because its specification for the feature [-high] is given on a plane other than the autosegmental [high] tier, so the vowel /e/ can be marked [ + tense] on the segmental tier and still be subject to Raising provided (i) it is associated with a particular node on the stress tree of the word, and (ii) it is within a [-T] domain. Granted this, the vowel /e/ can be specified redundantly as [ + tense] (on the segmental tier) at the earliest stages of the derivation, by a rule such as e-Tensing, (23), superseding e-Fission. (23) e-Tensing [+ tense] e Similarly, Default, (12), can apply at earlier stages. In fact, if we assume that these rules apply whenever their S.D.‘s are met we can assume that rules Count Morphology, Default and e-Tensing receive no extrinsic ordering. For e-Tensing is a rule operating over the segmental tier while Count Morphology and Default operate over the [tense] tier. Moreover, the range of application of Default properly includes that of Count Morphology, so that the former must be disjunctively ordered after the latter bp the Elsewhere Condition. Construed as rule (22) Raising is now intrinsically ordered after Count Morphology and fails to interact with Default or e-Tensing. The rules of Allophony, being defined over the segmental tier, fail to interact with any of the other rules. The net effect of this (as pointed out above) is that the rules of Allophony appear to be transparent to Tense Harmony, for Allophony and Tense Harmony represent orthogonal sets of processes. However, Allophony increases slightly the set of segments which are neutral to [high] Harmony by virtue of the fact that those segments are not distinctively marked for [high]. (This is what McCarthy calls opacity3 with respect to [high] Harmony, though 3 Opacity (as shown by low vowels in Akan; Clements (1980)) is very easiIy represented
in the
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that locution is a little misleading.) The rule of e-Fission is totally superseded by e-Tensing, and, indeed, there is now no need for delinking rules in the fragment given that [high] Harmony has been redefined as an operation on the specification of a tier. It is easy to see, then, that motivated revisions to McCarthy’s rule system lead to a grammar fragment in which only two rules, Raising and [high] Harmony, need to be extrinsically ordered. Given this, it is worthwhile investigating this rule pair in more detail to determine whether its relative ordering really need be stipulated. Raising must feed [high] Harmony. If both rules were allowed to apply whenever their S.D.‘s were met then there would be cases in which [high] Harmony would have to apply twice, once prior to Raising and once after it. For [high] Harmony would cause all the vowels of a word with stressed /e/ to become mid in a [-T] domain, Raising would raise that stressed vowel, and [high] Harmony would have to reapply to raise all the vowels in the word to high. Given customary assumptions about rule application we would only expect to see such a thing if the rules applied cyclically within different cyclic domains. There is no evidence for such cyclic operation. Raising and [high] Harmony are typologically distinct in that Raising is a feature changing rule, altering the specification of a stressed vowel on the autosegmental tier, while [high] Harmony is a novel type of rule which alters tier specifications. One immediate consequence of this typological innovation is that there can be no total extrinsic ordering of phonological rules, if operations over tiers are regarded as rules. For tiers are in general orthogonal components of the vector given by the representation as a whole. Such vector components cannot be given any non-arbitrary well-ordering. Operations on tiers can only be ordered with respect to each other to fhe extent that their domains overlap. In the earliest autosegmental literature (e.g. Goldsmith (1979)), autosegmental rules were regarded as devices for ensuring that the Well-Formedness present framework. An opaque segment simply defines the beginning of a new tier specification, as in (i): (0 !I+ F ]II[-F ]I. Ill I I P ,... P,...P, Pm+,... P, where Pm+, corresponds to an opaque segment. Notice that under this formalism Mtenje’s (1985) typology of P-bearers, neutral segments and opaque segments falls out automatically: the properties of being a blocker, nonundergoer and spreader are equivalent together to the property of marking the beginning of a new tier specification.
18
A. Spencer / Vowels und autosegmental
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Condition was not violated. Goldsmith remarks: ‘A derivation containing a representation that violates the WFCondition is not thereby marked as illformed; rather, the Condition is interpreted so as to change the representation minimally by addition or deletion of association lines so as to meet the Condition maximally’ (1979: 27). Latterly, Clements and Keyser (1983 : 54) have proposed that (in many languages) a Resyllabification Convention holds: ‘The output of every rule is resyllabified according to the syllable structure rules examined up to that point in the derivation’. This Convention is tantamount to the claim that the syllable structure rules determine a wellformedness constraint on syllable structure. Let us tentatively pursue this line of thought to its logical conclusion. Suppose that all rules other than segment structures ruies are regarded as language-particular well-formedness conditions. In particular, rules referring exclusively to autosegmental tiers will be so construed. This means the rules of Default, [high] Harmony and Count Morphology (in the second interpretation suggested above). This will have no discernible effect on the operation of Default and Count Morphology as far as I can see. However, it will substantially affect the operation of [high] Harmony. For this rule will now be interpreted as an injunction to change minimally the representation of a word whose [high] tier does not have a specification coincident with that of the stressed syllable. ‘Changing minimally’ here will have to be interpreted as ‘making the minimal change to the tier’ since otherwise we would require a segment structure rule which, I assume, would be the more marked alternative. I emphasize that this suggestion is at best tentative. However, it seems a worthwhile point of departure for investigations into autosegmental rule typology. Moreover, it is fully in keeping with the linguistic program exemplified by current work in syntax which enriches the representational capacity of the theory at the expense of the rule component (cf. Chomsky (1981)). The major advantage it confers in the present case is that [high] Harmony will be constrained to operate at all stages in a derivation, both before and after Raising. Thus, we will have reached the position that none of McCarthy’s rules are extrinsically ordered and all the work done by extrinsic ordering in McCarthy’s account is given over to enriched representational coding.
4. Neutral vowels The reanalysis of McCarthy’s rule system necessitates a reappraisal of his typology of neutral elements in harmony systems. On McCarthy’s account /a/
A. Spencer / Vowels and autosegmental
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is neutral with respect to [high] Harmony because it is excluded from the set of P-bearers by stipulation. However, /e/ is neutral with respect to Tense Harmony only after a specific stage in the derivation when the rules of e-Fission and Default have neutralized derived contrasts between tense and lax varieties of the vowel. No such distinction is drawn on the present account. Indeed, all neutral vowels, including certain vowels in word initial syllables which I have added to that inventory, enjoy neutrality by virtue of being specified for the harmonizing feature on the segmental tier rather than autosegmentally. McCarthy speculates that the distinction he discerns between non-participating and participating neutral vowels (/a/ and /e/) might correspond, at least in part, to the distinction between feature-changing and feature-specifying harmony systems. He claims, in particular, that fully participating neutral vowels will never be associated with feature-changing systems. Translating these suggestions into the present framework, we might hypothesize that a rule may only refer to an entire autosegmental level if that level is defined by an autosegment whose value is given by a feature-specifying rule, not a featurechanging rule (i.e. if that autosegment is not lexically contrastive). How such a constraint could be incorporated formally into phonological theory I am unable to say. Without such a constraint we might imagine that violations of McCarthy’s principle would be observed. That is, we might expect to find a language in which a vowel which was neutral with respect to a feature-specifying harmony nonetheless participated in the harmony process. For instance, we might expect, hypothetically, to find a language Pseudo-Montaiies, just like Montafies but with some rule which, say, fronted all vowels within a [ + high] domain. Thus, we would observe the data of (24) (where [a, y] are the , [-back] congeners of [a, u]): (24) Montaties afloxar afloxemus afluxi : s
‘to loosen’ (1~1. pr. sub.) (2~1. pr. sub.)
Pseudo-Montaiies afloxar afloxtmus &lyxi:s
Provided we observed words of the form e C a: C ti C or ae C ae C i C and the like, we would not be able to postulate a satisfactory segmental rule which did not amount to the claim that /a/ underwent [high] Harmony. This would mean that a rule of a-Fission would be required delinking /as/ from the [ + high] autosegment. It would also entail that a phonetically impossible vowel marked [ + high, + low] would be postulated in mid-derivation.
20
A. Spencer 1 Vowels and autosegmental
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While I cannot think of any solid examples of participation of this kind, it does not seem to me that such a phenomenon would never come to light from a sufficiently exhaustive survey of harmony systems. McCarthy’s suggestion then is a strong empirical claim. If it is falsified this will lend further weight to the reanalysis of his rule system proposed here.
5. Conclusions McCarthy (1984) has presented a meticulous, scrupulously argued and insightful analysis of exceedingly complex data from Montaiies. However, the theoretical machinery to which he appeals lays great emphasis on phonological rules as opposed to phonological representations, to the point that he presupposes a total ordering of the rules of his grammar fragment. I have proposed that this stipulated ruIe ordering can be dispensed with provided we make certain assumptions about the interpretation of rules and representations. I have suggested that the notion ‘autosegmental tier’ be given a more preeminent ontological status, to the extent that rules can refer directly to that notion. This allows us to distinguish between elements specified for a given feature on the segmental tier and elements specified autosegmentally. Only the latter specifications are affected by rules referring exclusively to the autosegmental tier. In this way we can link neutrality with respect to harmony to the notion of distinctiveness. In the case under discussion we no longer need to stipulate that /a/ is neutral by excluding it from the set of P-bearers, for this follows as a consequence of the fact that it is not distinctively marked for the harmonizing feature. Finally, I have removed the residual case of extrinsic ordering by suggesting (admittedly in a tentative fashion) that operations defined exclusively over tiers be interpretkd not as transformational rules on autosegmental graphs, but as well-formedness conditions which drive minimal alterations to representations when violated. The result is a set of rather minor changes to current autosegmental theory which nonetheless better reflect the spirit of that theory and which, in the present case, have the welcome effect of reducing our reliance on rules by making fuller use of the representational possibilities of autosegmental theory.
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] Vowels
and autosegmental
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References Booij, G.E., 1984. Neutral vowels and the autosegmental analysis of Hungarian vowel harmony. Linguistics 22, 629-64 1. Chomsky, N., 1981. Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris. Clements. G.N., 1977. The autosegmental treatment of vowel harmony. In: W. Dressier and 0. Pfeiffet (eds.), Phonologica 1976, 11 I-l 19. Innsbruck, Austria. Clement& G.N., 1980. Vowel harmony in nonlinear generative phonology: an autosegmental model. Indiana University Linguistics Club, Bloomington, Indiana. Clements, G.N., 1981. Akan vowel harmony: a nonlinear analysis. In: G.N. Clements (ed.), Harvard studies in phonology II. Indiana University Linguistics Club, Bloomington, Indiana. Clements, G.N. and S.J. Keyser, 1983. CV phonology: a generative theory of the syllable. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Clements, G.N. and E. Sezer, 1983. Vowel and consonant disharmony in Turkish. In: H. van der Hulst and N. Smith (eds.), The structure of phonological representations II. Dordrecht: Foris. Goldsmith, J., 1979. Autosegmental phonology. New York: Garland Publishing. [1976] Halle, M. and J.-R. Vergnaud, 1981. Harmony processes. In: W. Klein and W. Levelt (eds.), Crossing the boundaries in linguistics: studies presented to Manfred Bierwisch. Dordrecht: Reidel. Harris, J. W., 1983. Syllable structure and stress in Spanish: a nonlinear analysis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kiparsky, P., 1982. From cyclic phonology to lexical phonology. In: H. van der Hulst and N. Smith (eds.), The structure of phonological representations I, 131-176. Dordrecht: Foris. McCarthy, J., 1981. A prosodic theory of nonconcatenative morphology. Linguistic Inquiry 12, 373418. McCarthy, J., 1984. Theoretical consequences of Montafies vowel harmony. Linguistic Inquiry 15, 291-318. Mtenje, A.D., 1985. Arguments for an autosegmental analysis of Chichewa vowel harmony. Lingua 66, 21-52. Poser, W. J., 1983. Phonological representations and action-at-a-distance. In: H. van der Hulst and N. Smith (eds.), The structure of phonological representations II, 121-158. Dordrecht: Foris. Pullum, G.K., 1976. The Duke of York Gambit. Journal of Linguistics 12, 83-102. Vago, R., 1980. The sound pattern of Hungarian. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.