Dialects of Spanish and of Modern Greek natural

Dialects of Spanish and of Modern Greek: natural laboratories for the generative phonologist Ellen M. Kaisse University of Washington

It’s been a dialect-rich year for the LSA 2013 Summer Institute on Universality and Variability; Hale lecture publication of Labov et al. , One Hundred Years of Sound Change in Philadelphia: Linear Incrementation, Reversal, and Reanalysis in Language

Idea of related dialects as a natural lab isn’t new or new to LSA officers… Weinreich 1954 ‘Is a structural dialectology possible? ’ Word Moulton 1968 ‘Structural dialectology’ LSA presidential address, Language

Examples this evening Two dialects of Spanish • Argentinian, especially Rio Negro and Neuquén • Pasiego, from Northwestern Spain Five dialects of Finnish, most near Helsinki (Anttila, Paunonen) Three dialect areas of Southeast Modern Greek, phenomenon related to the Finnish case

I. Solving intractable old problems with dialects whose characteristics make things much easier Vowel-glide-consonant alternations and variation in Spanish illuminated by Argentinian [ʃ] (Harris & Kaisse 1999

A contrast in Spanish fully integrated into the phonology The problem distribution Non-Arg dialects: [ʝate] ‘yacht’ [jena]~[i. ena] ’hyena’ No contrast intervocalically – klaraboʝa ‘skylight’ but

Some palatal and palato-alveolar segments in Spanish [ʃ] voiceless strident palato-alveolar fricative [ʝ] voiced non-strident palatal fricative (I omit affricated variants of [ʃ] and [ʝ] for ease of presentation) [j] voiced palatal (high front) glide [i] high front (palatal) vowel

Argentinian alternations There is subtle, variable, ill-distributed contrast or exception feature in (e. g. ) Castilian Sp. resulting variously in [ʝ] [j] [i]. It’s utterly clear in Argentinian that there are two different underlying segments: (1) an [ʃ ] ~ [j] (/i/) phoneme vs (2) one that alternates between [ʝ] and [j], call it /i. /

Argentina

Central Patagonia

Argentinian alternations u. ru. ˈγwaj Uruguay u. ru. ˈγwa. ʃ-o uruguay-ADJ. M. SG Uruguayan lej law le. ʃ-es law-PL laws /i/ [j], [ʃ]

Argentinian alternations kre. s-jo grow-PST. 3 SG kre. -ˈʃo /-io/ believe-PST. 3 SG C-final stem kres V-final stem kre-

Syllabic position of glides in Spanish σ σ Ons Rhyme l e j kre. s[jo]rhyme /kres-io/ σ Ons Rhyme l e ʃ kre. ʃ[o]rhyme /kre-io/ e s

Syllabic position of glides σ σ Ons Nuc kr e s kr jo e ʃ o

Argentinian Spanish /i/ is realized as [ʃ] in onset in rhyme (as an offglide or onglide) it is realized as [j] (and if no non-high vowel is adjacent, it is realized as [i])

Argentinian initial contrast /i/ Ar. (Cast. “/i. /”Ar. (Cast. ˈʃate ˈʝate) ‘yacht’ ˈʝena ‘hyena’ ˈjena or i. ˈena) Argentinian minimal pair (Lozano 1979) ˈʃerba ‘dried tea leaf ’ ˈʝerba ‘herb’ /i/ /i. /

Argentinian intervocalic contrast /i/ Ar klaraˈβoʃa skylight /i. / Ar paraˈnoʝa or paraˈnoja paranoia (Cast. klaraˈβoʝa paraˈnoʝa) (contrast invisible in this position) (Harris and Kaisse 1999)

Pan-Hispanic syllabicity contrast /i/ biˈsjamos boˈnjato /i. / basiˈamos di. ˈaβlo ‘we pollute’ ‘sweet potato’ ‘we empty’ ‘devil’

Pan-Hispanic syllabicity contrast We were able to reduce this syllabicity contrast to the same contrast that underlies ʃ in onset vs /ʝ/ in onset in AR: /i/ vs /i/ | Nuc (what we called “i. ” above)

A prediction for Argentinian An informal experiment with nonce forms yields the predicted result. Spanish has a 3 -syllable stress window at right edge of word. taˈraboʃa and words like it were judged acceptable taˈraboja or taˈraboʝa were judged unacceptable. taraˈboja is fine.

A prediction for Argentinian taˈraboʃa /taraboia/ → ta. ra. bo. ja *taˈraboja or /tarabo i a/ → ta. ra. bo. i. a *taˈraboʝa | Nuc Postlexical rules then yield the surface form where. i. is realized as [j] in [taraboja]

II. Finding a dialect with just the characteristic you need! The contribution of Northwestern Iberian Spanish: Vowel harmony in Pasiego Spanish: evidence for the syllabic position of glides (Penny 1969, 2009; Hualde 1989, Kaisse & Levi 2004, Kaisse forthcoming)

Iberian peninsula

Montes de Pas (home of Pasigo dialect)

More from Montes de Pas

Vowel height harmony in Pasiego Mid vowels are raised to high when a stressed high vowel follows (Penny 1969; Hualde 1989) beˈb-er biˈb-is /beb-e/ drink-INF drink-2 PL koˈm-er eat-INF kum-iˈria eat-COND /kom-e-/

Vowel height harmony in Pasiego A glide in a stressed syllable will also trigger the process. (Penny 1969) /merend-/ merenˈd-er mirˈjend-ɐ snack-INF snack-fem

Vowel height harmony in Pasiego Harmony applies between a function word and the next word: el pán the bread el gaˈnaw the cattle il kʊrˈdɪrʊ the lamb il ˈmjew the fear /el/

Vowel height harmony in Pasiego But the palatal allophone in onset (our Argentinian ʃ, Pas. [ʝ]) does not trigger harmony (Kaisse & Levi 2004; Kaisse forthcoming) el ˈʝelsu ne ʝó ‘the plaster’ ‘nor I’ (forms from Penny)

III. Dialects and factorial typology Dialects of Modern Greek in Rhodes and the southeast; dialects of Finnish. The treatment of *ea and *ia

A range of adjacent dialects yields a ‘factorial typololgy’ What can happen (and what doesn’t happen) when small changes are made in the grammar (rule ordering; constraint ranking, partial ordering)

Finnish vowel coalescence (Anttila 2007, 09; Paunonen 1995) *ea >> *ia; FAITH (don’t mess with UR) Coalescence to [ee] eliminates nonoptimal sequences Partial pairwise ordering allows for a limited pattern of variation / usea – mp – i – a / many-COMP-PL-PAR ˈuseampia ~ ˈuseempia ~ ˈuseampii ~ ˈuseempii in Helskinki

Finnish vowel coalescence 5 Finnish dialects explained simply by partially ordering 3 constraints and assuming there is a fixed ranking: *ea >>*ia so /ia/ hiatus is eliminated in a dialect only if /ea/ hiatus is as well FAITH may or may not be ranked between the other two constraints.

Finnish vowel coalescence ia hiatus is eliminated in a dialect only if ea hiatus is as well Due to modulation? (Ohala and Kawasaki. Fujimuri (1997); Henke, Kaisse and Wright 2012)

Finnish vowel coalescence /EA/ Literary Finnish General Häme Töölö (Helsinki older upper class females Western Uusimaa Colloquial Helsinki /IA/ ea ee ea~ee ia ia ia ee ea~ee ia~ii

Dialects of Modern Greek

Dialects of Modern Greek

Rhodes harbor

Background on pan-Greek hiatus amelioration Virtually all Modern Greek dialects underwent sound changes (which may still be alive as phonological rules) • Height dissimilation (ea > ia; eo >io oa >ua; ) *rome-os > romios (cf. rome-ikos) ‘Greek’ • Glide formation (i. V > j. V, Vi> Vj) *romeos > romios > romjos *pe i-a > pe ja ‘foot-PL’ (cf. pe i ‘foot’SG)

Interaction of fricative loss with processes ameliorating hiatus *fleva > flea ‘vein’ *ro a > roa ‘grape Then what? Conservative dialects of SE Greek, including Chios do nothing more Somewhat innovative dialects of Rhodes and other SE dialects apply height diss. Very innovative dialects of central Rhodes apply diss. and glide formation (Andriotis 1939, Tsopanakis 1940; Newton

Secondary hiatus from voiced fricative loss in SE Greek No dialect changes new ia to [ja] but leaves new ea intact. Compare to Finnish

Secondary hiatus from voiced fricative loss in SE Greek Other Greek fleva krivo Cyprus, Chios flea krio Dodecanese, conserv. Rhodes flia krio innov. Rhodes flja krjo

Deletion, glide formation, fric deletion are synchronic… All these rules may be involved in synchronic alternations ˈspiti romˈjos ˈspitja roˈmeikos house SG, PL ton ˈ askalo /ˈ askalo/ Greek (N, ADJ) o ˈaskalos DET-nom teacher DET-acc teacher

Rhodes fate of ‘secondary’ hiatus (Andriotis, Tsopanakis) Chios: new hiatus undergoes no process New hiatus undergoes height dissimilation and gliding New hiatus undergoes height dissimilation

Violation of transitivity In the somewhat innovative dialects of Rhodes: Height Dissimilation < Glide formation (feeding) Glide Formation < Fricative Deletion (counter-feeding) Fricative Deletion < Height dissimilation (feeding)

Theoretical implications of SE hiatus resolution Rule reordering (height dissimilation and gliding are both old, pan-Greek rules that come to apply to new sequences in some dialects) Functional/modulatory explanations; fixed rankings (Kaisse 1976, Anttila 2009) Ordering paradox (Anderson 1974) Scattered rule (Robinson 1976) Counter-feeding from the past (Wolf 2010)

Summing up The meticulous documentation of dialects provides future researchers with invaluable data the original scholar may never have anticipated. (Keep good lab notebooks!) Working on related dialects allows linguists to leverage their knowledge. Most of what has already been figured out is applicable to another dialect.

Summing up A less studied dialect (e. g. Argentinian Spanish) may hold just enough clues to clarify an otherwise intractable problem in a well-studied relative Sometimes you can go out and find a dialect that will test a prediction you’ve made (Pasiego)

Summing up Adjacent dialects can embody a typology, suggesting what may be possible vs impossible changes or states of optional vs obligatory alternation (Finnish monophthongization) Comparing such typologies (between SE Greek and Finnish, for instance) can reveal unsuspected similarities (ea is a worse hiatus than ia, solved differently)

Summing up Adjacent dialects give insight into diachronic developments and how they may be reflected in synchronic grammars (SE Greek) To find cases such as might distinguish HS vs OT, the little laboratories of adjacent (Greek) dialects provide a great opportunity for finding that the right experiment has been done.

References Anderson, Steven R. (1974) The organization of phonology. Academic Press, San Diego. Andriotis, N. P. (1939) De quelques faits phonetiques du dialecte moderne de Samothrace. Archeinon tou Thrakikou laographikou kai glossikou thesaurou 6: 153208. Anttila, Arto (2007) Variation and optionality. In Paul De Lacy, ed. The Cambridge handbook of phonology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. pp. 519 -536. Anttila, Arto (2009) Derived environment effects in colloquial Helsinki Finnish. In Kristin Hanson and Sharon Inkelas, eds. The nature of the word: essays in honor of Paul Kiparsky. Cambridge: MIT Press.

References Harris, James W. and Ellen M. Kaisse (1999) Palatal vowels, glides and obstruents in Argentinian Spanish. Phonology 16. 2, 117 -190. Henke, Eric, Ellen M. Kaisse and Richard Wright (2012). Is the sonority hierarchy an epiphenomenon? In Steve Parker, ed. , The sonority controversy. De Gruyter. Hualde, Jose I. (1989) A. tosegmental and metrical spreading in the vowel harmony systems of Northwestern Spain. Linguistics 27: 773 -805. Hulst, Harry van der and Jeroen van der Weijer (1995) Vowel harmony, in Handbook of phonological theory, ed. by John Goldsmith. 495 -534. Kaisse, Ellen M. (1976) Rule reordering, local order, and the function of rules. CLS 12, 321 -336.

References Kaisse, Ellen M. (forthcoming) Glides in Pasiego vowel harmony. In Rafael A. Núñez Cedeño (ed. ) The Syllable in Romance Languages: Studies in Honor of James W. Harris. Boston: Mouton de Gruyter Kaisse, Ellen M. and Susannah V. Levi (2004) Vowel harmony: nucleus to nucleus or vocalic node to vocalic node. Annual Meeting of the LSA, Boston Labov, William, Ingrid Rosenfelder and Josef Fruehwald (2013) One Hundred Years of Sound Change in Philadelphia: Linear Incrementation, Reversal, and Reanalysis. Language 89: 30 -65

References Lozano, Maria del Carmen (1979) Stop and spirant alternations: fortition and spirantization processes in Spanish. Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University. Moulton, William (1968) Structural dialectology. Language 44: 451 -456. Navarro Toma s, Toma s (1965) Manuel de pronunciacio n española. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cienti ficas, Madrid. Newton, Brian (1971) Ordering paradoxes in phonology. Journal of Linguistics 7: 1, 31 -53. Newton, Brian (1972 b) The generative interpretation of dialect: a study of Modern Greek phonology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

References Ohala, John J. and Haruko Kawasaki-Fukimori (1997) Alternatives to the sonority hierarchy for explaining segmental sequencing constraints. In Stig Eliasson and Ernst Håkon Jahr (eds. ), Language and its ecology: essays in honor of Einar Haugen. 343 -366. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin. Paunonen, Heiki (1995) Suomen kielin Helsigissä, Helsinki. Penny, Ralph (1969) El habla pasiega: ensayo de dialectologi a montañesa. Tamesis Books Ltd. , London. Penny, Ralph (2009) Vowel Harmony and Metaphony in Iberia: A Revised Analysis. Estudos de lingüística galega 1: 113 -134

References Robinson, Orin W. (1976) A ‘scattered’ rule in Swiss German. Language 52: 1. 148 -162 Tsopanakis, A. G. (1940). Essai sur le phonetique des parlers du Rhodes. Verlagder Byzantinisch. Neogriechischen Jahrbucher, Athens. Weinreich, Uriel (1954) Is a structural dialectology possible? Word 10: 388 -400. Wolf, Matthew (2010) On the existence of counterfeeding from the past. Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Baltimore.