nasal place assimilation

Stricture andNasal Place AssimilationJaye Padgett

Stricture

• Stricture features determine the degree of constriction in the vocal tract; [son], [ cons], [cont]

• [-cont]: Verschluss im mediosagittalen Bereich

Standard Theory (McCarthy 1988)

Articulator Group

Argument for [cont] being independent of place of articulation• Sagey 1986• In some languages, nasal consonants assimilate

in place, but not stricture, to a following consonant

• Kpelle: /N + fela/ -> [mvela]

Stop-Fricative Asymmetry

• Nasals typically assimilate to stops• Before fricatives, they most commonly• don‘t assimiliate, receiving a default place• delete• assimilate, but simultaneously harden the fricative

to a stop or an affricate• When fricatives do assimilate to nasals in a

language, they assimilate to stops also (does not obtain in reverse)

Explanation by articulator group

• Place assimilation derives *[+nas, +cons, +cont]->nasal place assimilation to a fricative creates a nasalized fricative

Assimilation to stops works, however

Fallbeispiel: Englisch


• Assumption: Nasal is placeless underlyingly and receives coronal place by default rule


• Standard theory: [-cont] trigger would derive the same result


• But: would require the same stipulation for similar rules in many languages, without acknowledging the generalization across languages

• Simpler rules denote more natural processes -> predicts wrongly that the rule without the stipulation should be more common

Fallbeispiel: Englisch 2

Marking Condition• Underspecification: Universal Redundancy Rule

[+nas, +cons] -> [-cont]• Nasal/Continuant Marking Condition:

If [+nas, +cons], then [-cont]

prohibits the assignment of only a [+cont] value-> allows the assimilation to an affricate (assumed to have a [-cont] and [+cont] specification) -> Nasal acquires both [cont] values

Assimilation to Affricates

No assimilation, default place assignment: Polish• Default place assignment – nasal consonant

must bear its own place specification• Polish: Place assimilation occurs before stops

and affricates, nasal gliding occurs before fricatives and word-finally

No assimilation, default place assignment: Polish• ‘Nasal vowels‘ a [o] and e – sequence of mid

vowel and consonant, realizes as a sequence of oral vowel and nasal segment

• The nasal portion of a and e is realized as a place assimilated nasal stop before stops and affricates

No assimilation, default place assignment: Polish

No assimilation, default place assignment: Polish• Before fricatives, the nasal segment surfaces as

the nasalized glide w

No assimilation, default place assignment: Polish• n undergoes a similar assimilation pattern, but

also postlexically (domain of application across words) -> marking condition is in effect throughout the phonology of polish

No assimilation, default place assignment: Polish

No assimilation, default place assignment: Polish• Gliding of m in casual speech only before a

labial fricative

No assimilation, default place assignment: Polish• OCP-related rule deletes the first two adjacent

labial specifications• The nasal cannot assimilate to a following labial

fricative, and so it receives a place specification by default

No assimilation, deletion of the nasal: Zoque• Pronominal prefix N assimilates in place to the

following stop or affricate

No assimilation, deletion of the nasal: Zoque• Before continuants, the nasal deletes (l here

treated as [+cont])

No assimilation, deletion of the nasal: Zoque• Nasals within stems do not undergo place

assimilation

No assimilation, deletion of the nasal: Zoque• Why does the nasal delete, instead of receiving a

default place?• Constraint prevents default place assignment

No assimilation, deletion of the nasal: Zoque• Double-linked place node does not match the

structural description of the constraint

No assimilation, deletion of the nasal: Zoque• Alternative account: licensing condition• Syllable can license exactly one onset place node• N can exist by linking to an independently

licensed place

Summary

Alternative Geometries

• α-node (‘Oral Cavity‘ node (Clements), Supralaryngeal node (Davis))

• Allows for Place spread without[cont] spread


• Separate placement of [cont] and the articulator


• The two articulations of a complex segment may differ in stricture, which can easily be represented by geometry a

Alternative Principles

• A sequential constraint rather than a segment-internal featural constraint?

• In some languages, nasals undergoing place assimilation do not appear before voiceless segments

• [voice] not grouped under place features• Can stop/fricative asymmetry be explained

similarly?


• Nasals may trigger voicing to a following consonant even without being place assimilated

• No definitive cases of post-nasal hardening without place assimilation

• No nasal deletion without place assimilation


• Sequential constraints are typically asymmetric• Stop-fricative asymmetry also in progressive

nasal place assimilation, since the relevant effect is segment-internal and should not be directional

Other Place Assimilations

• Place assimilation involving non-nasal consonants

• As expected by the articulator group, some evince stricture and place assimilation together

• A few seem, however, not to


• Sanskrit: word-final s assimilates in place to a following consonant

• Lardil: epenthetic consonants share place of articulation with a preceding (son.) consonant


• Sanskrit: Place assimilation is optional• Where it does not occur, s in invariably reduced

to placeless [h ] (the ‘Visarga Rule‘)• Explanation: the only phonological rule is

Visarga; [Фp] and [xk] are alternate realizations of effectively preaspirated [h p] and [hk], perhaps due to some overlap of aspiration and the oral closure gesture


• Lardil: how can [rt] be place-linked? ([l] is a stop in some languages)

• Two series of liquids: alveolar [l] and [r], apicodomal (retroflex) [r]

• Epenthesis of a homorganic stop occurs following [l] and [r ], and fails after [r]


• Hales suggestion: epenthesis occurs, and [t] is then deleted by a late rule

• Articulator group explanation: epenthesis fails because [r] is [+cont]

• Suppose epenthesis involves the insertion of a [-son] (Root) node, with place features supplied by spreading from the sonorant


• -> Spreading from [r] is blocked because Lardil has no [+cont] obstruent (fricatives)

• [r ] has [l] as an allophone• If we have in fact phonological [l ], then there is

no obvious problem involved with place-linking

Summary

• Interaction of place features and [cont] appears in a range of phonological phenomena.

• The articulator group geometry assumes that [cont] is placed under the place node, and research to the question of other oral stricture features ([cons], [appr]) is suggested.

Literature

• Hall, Alan T. Phonologie – Eine Einführung. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2000.

• Padgett, Jaye. “Stricture and Nasal Place Assimilation.“ Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 12, 1994: 463-513.

nasal place assimilation

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