Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdallah UniversityFaculty of Arts and

Human SciencesDhar Mehraz, Fez

Applied Language Studies and

Research in Higher Education Master

Program

Naturalness and Natural Classes

Academic Year: 2014/2015

Presented by:Mohamed Benhima

El Ourf Mounir

Supervised by:

Dr. Souad Slaoui

Introduction……………………………………………………………………...

1. Naturalness

2. NaturalnessA. Definitions

a. Naturalness

b. Natural generative phonology

c. Natural phonology

3. Natural processes

2. NP framework A. Natural classes

B. Natural segments

C. Natural processes and context

3. Phonological strength hierarchies

Conclusion ……………………………………………........................................

Natural :• Reasonable or expected in a particular situation

(Macmillan English Dictionary)

• “to be expected”, “frequently” found across languages”.

In phonology : • The probability that particular sounds, classes of

sounds, or phonological rules occur in any language

(Richards and Schmidt, 2010).

Naturalness

• Any sequence of adjacent consonants, especially those occurring initially or finally in a syllable, such as the initial [br-] of bread, or the final [-st] of best.

• Not all possible combinations of consonants occur in a language.

Clusters

• A model of phonology which requires that phonological rules and representations bear a direct relation to surface linguistic forms (Crystal, 2008).

• Phonological representation are simply depicted as linear arrangement (linear phonology) where phonological rules operate on such strings (they delete, insert, or permute segments, or change their feature values).

Natural Generative Phonology

• A theory of phonology developed by David Stampe and others in the 1970s. NP makes ‘rule naturalness’ its prime theoretical consideration, distinguishing between natural processes and learned processes (Trask, 1996).

Natural Phonology

A system of subconscious mental processes

voicing

tense

lenition

fortition devoicing

lax nasalisation

assimilation

patalisation

• A phonological process is a mental operation that applies in speech to substitute, for a class of sounds or sound sequences presenting a specific common difficulty to the speech capacity of the individual, an alternative class identical but lacking the difficult property

• a set of universal, obligatory, inviolable processes which govern the phonology of a language. They are said to be ‘natural’ because they are phonetically plausible, as evidenced by their tendency to appear similarly in a wide range of languages (Crystal, 2008).

Natural processes

• universal processes of phonology that are motivated by:

the physiology of the speech organs . the acoustic characteristics of speech

sounds.

Learned Processes

Language specific phonological process which can in no way be regarded as natural, but which must be simply stipulated by the analyst and learned by the child (Trask, 1996).The central idea is that a child is born with a set of universal natural processes, and that learning an additional language consists partly of unlearning these innate processes as required and partly of acquiring the idiosyncratic and largely unnatural rules peculiar to the language being learned.

Physiological

constraints

Natural = more likely=unmarked=prmissible segments

Unnatural=occur rarely=marked=impermissible segments

Markedness

Natural SegmentsNatural ClassesNatural Processes

NATURAL SEGMENTS, NATURAL CLASSES AND NATURAL

PROCESSES

NATURAL SEGMENTS•Indvidual segments contain natural features:

•The combination of labial and uvular is unnatural for the simple reason that the lips cannot touch the uvula

• The features that recur again and again are said to be unmarked or natural. The examples below are infrequent in English, hence unnatural.

Voiceless sonorantsVoceless approximantsVelaric airstreamFront rounded vowelsNasalized vowels

•Natural Classes:• Two or more segments are said to constitute a

natural class if fewer features are required to specify the class than to specify any one member of the class. For example, The class of voiceless stop /p,t,k/ constitutes a natural class because fewer features (three features [–voice, –cont, –del rel) are required to specify the class than to specify each member of the class (five to four) as can be seen in the graph below:

Figure1: Hyman ( 1995: 139)

• Criteria to categorize segments into natural classes:

the two segments undergo phonological rules together;

the two segments function together in the environment of phonological rules;

one segment is converted into the other segment by a phonological rule;

one segment is derived in the environment of the other segments as in assimilation.

•Natural Processes:• The context plays a pivotal role in the operation of phonological processes. Different phonological processes are determined by the context wherein they occur. For example, palatalization occurs in the context of front vowels [ki]. Labialization occurs in the context of labial vowels [kɔ]. Nasalization occurs in the context of nasal sounds [ɔn]. Voicing occurs in the context of voiced sounds. All these processes are less natural because they occur in restricted contexts. It is the phonological environment that determines the phonological process in the aformentioned examples.

Strength Hierarchies:• Strength hierarchies are used to represent phonological processes

• Figure 2: strength hierarchy based on the parameter of manner of articulation 1st version (Katamba: 104)

• N.B: movement from the left to the right ( > ) illustrates the direction of weakening (or lenition).

Figure 3: Sonority Hierarchy (ibid:104)

Fig5: Strength hierarchy with the parameters of sonority and manner of articulation

Fig6: Strength hierarchy with the parameters of sonority, place of articulation and gemination

• Notice that geminate segements occupy the strongest place of the strength hierarchy.

•Conclusion: • Natural Phonology as theory developed by Stampe

(1970) came as a reaction to Generative Phonology developed by Chomsky and Halle (1965). According to natural phonology, language consists, for the most part, of natural segments, natural classes, and natural processes. The latter are distinguished from rules by virtue of the fact that they are not conventional. Natural processes can be represented in terms of strengthening (fortition) or weakening (lenition) along a strength hierarchy.

• Refernces

• Crystal , D.(2008). Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics.• Fromkin V., Roodman R., and Hyams N.. (2003). An Introduction to

Language (seventh edition). Tomson Corporation, Wadsworth, Massachusetts (consulted but not cited)

• Hyman, L. M. (1975). Phonology: Theory and Analysis. Washington, D.C: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

• Katamba, F. (1989). An Introduction to Phonology. London: Longmans• Lass, R. (1984). Phonology an Introduction to Basic Concepts.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.• Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary© Oxford University Press, 2010• Richards, J., and Schmidt, R. (2010). Longman Dictionary of Language

Teaching and Applied Linguistics (4 ed.).• Stampe, D. (1979). A Dissertation on Natural Phonology.• Trask, R. L. (1996).Dictionary of Phonetics and Phonology.• Yule G.. (2010). The Study of Language (fourth editions). Cambridge

University Press, New York. (consulted but not cited)

THANK YOU

VERY MUCH

FOR YOUR

ATTENTION2014/2015