Carole Paradis

Category Preservation and Proximity versus Phonetic Approximation in Loanword Adaptation

In this article, we argue that loanword adaptation is overwhelmingly phonological and that phonetic approximation plays a limited role in the sound changes that loanwords undergo. Explicit criteria are used to compare the predictions of the phonetic approximation and phonological stances against 12 large corpora of recent English and French loanwords in several different languages. We show that category proximity is overwhelmingly preferred over perceptual proximity and that typical L2 perception/interpretation errors are not reflected in the adaptations of the loanwords of this database. Borrowers accurately identify L2 sound categories, operating on the mental representation of an L2 sound, not directly on its surface phonetic form.

On coronal transparency

This article is concerned with the internal structure of coronals. Although coronals are often considered the least marked consonants on the basis of frequency and acquisition, current models of feature geometry assign coronality no special status among places of articulation. 1 In this paper, we argue that the structure of coronals differs from that of other consanats in that coronals lack a Place node altogether.

Lexical phonology and morphology : the nominal classes in Fula

Foreword. Preface. Overview. Acknowledgements. Abbreviations. Introduction. 1. Class Markers in Pulaar 2. The Vowel System 3. Consonants and their Status 4. The Sonority Constraint and Consonant Clusters 5. Syllables, Skeleton and w and y Variants. Conclusion. Bibliography. Lexicon. Pulaar-English Section. English-Pulaar Section

Guttural deletion in loanwords

Among 4,499 segmental malformations found in English loanwords in three large corpora of French, the laryngeal /h/ is the only segment that is never adapted, i.e. replaced by another segment. We suggest that the systematic deletion of /h/ in French follows from the fact that, phonologically, French, like Portuguese and Italian, does not employ the Pharyngeal node, the articulator that characterises gutturals. This prevents English /h/ from being handled phonologically (deleted or substituted) in those languages. The non-availability of the Pharyngeal node also explains systematic deletion of the pharyngeal and laryngeal gutturals in Arabic loanwords in French. In contrast, English /h/ is adapted by languages employing the Pharyngeal node phonologically, such as Spanish, Bulgarian, Catalan, Mandarin Chinese, Greek and Russian. Likewise, the availability of the Pharyngeal node in Fula and English allows the adaptation of Arabic pharyngeal and laryngeal gutturals in Fula, and non-glottal gutturals in English.

Principled syllabic dissolution in a primary progressive aphasia case

Abstract In this longitudinal study, the syllabic paraphasias (here defined as insertions or deletions of a phoneme) produced by a Primary Progressive Aphasia case to syllabic adaptations of loanwords were compared. It is shown that paraphasias are phonologically principled and thus highly predictable. More specifically, it it shown that the repair strategies applied by the patient are very similar to those applied by normal speakers when they adapt borrowings. The rate of segment preservation as opposed to segment deletions is very high in borrowings and in the syllabic errors produced by the patient. However, the type of repair strategy applied by the patient changes with the progression of thephonological deficit, segment deletions being more frequent than segment insertions in the late stages of the illness. The evolution of the syllabic error pattern is accounted for by the effect of two principles: the Preservation and the Threshold Principles. The combined effects of these two principles entail tha...

INTRODUCTION: ASYMMETRY AND VISIBILITY IN CONSONANT ARTICULATIONS

Publisher Summary This chapter provides an overview of asymmetry and visibility in consonant articulations. It reviews the theoretical problems posed by the behavior of coronals and the overall conclusions that can be drawn from the research. Most of the research presented in the chapter assumes a hierarchical model of feature organization. Most current research assumes that some feature specifications are absent from underlying representation (UR) and are filled in either during derivations or at a later stage. Theories of underspecification diverge as to what feature specification is absent from UR and when it is filled in. Two types of theories of underspecification can be distinguished: (1) radical and (2) contrastive. Radical underspecification is essentially a theory of markedness, while contrastive specification is essentially a theory of redundancy. Nasalization of a vowel when this vowel is preceded by a nasal consonant consists of adding an association line between the [+nasal] feature of the consonant and the following oral vowel, a process called spreading.

French verbal inflection revisited: Constraints, repairs and floating consonants☆

Abstract This article updates Paradis and El Fenne (1991, 1992). The C/0 alternation (including the Ṽ/VN one) in French verbal inflection (e.g. dort [dor]/dorment [dorm] ‘to sleep’ 3sg. and 3pl. Present Indicative), which occurs in 588 regular (non-suppletive and non-defective) verbs, is explained and related naturally to the C/0 alternation found in many other morphological and syntactic environments. More specifically, we maintain that the notion of ‘floating consonant’ (i.e. a consonant without a timing slot) along with two principles, the No Empty Onset Principle and the Licensing Principle, used in the framework of the Theory of Constraints and Repair Strategies (cf. Paradis, 1988a,b), suffices to handle the C/0 alternation in verbal inflection and elsewhere. Not only does the system we propose result in a considerable simplification of French verbal inflection (it gets rid of numerous thematic segments and ad hoc - when not contradictory - context rules), it makes important new predictions concerning the selection of Infinitive suffixes in relation to the nature of a stem-final consonant (floating/non-floating). We show that these predictions are confirmed by the results of production tests, administered by El Fenne (1994), which clearly indicate that the floating consonant system we propose reflects the competence of French speakers.

Apparent phonetic approximation: English loanwords in Old Quebec French

A key debate in loanword adaptation is whether the process is primarily phonetic or phonological. Is it possible that researchers on each side are viewing equally plausible, but different, scenarios? Perhaps, in some language situations, adaptation is carried out mainly by those without access to L2 phonology and is, perforce, perceptually driven. In other situations, adaptation may be done by bilinguals who actively draw upon their knowledge of L2 phonology in adapting loanwords. The phonetic strategy would most likely be favored in situations where the vast majority of the population did not know the L2, thus having no possible access to the L2 phonological system. The phonological strategy, on the other hand, is most likely to be favored in situations where there is a high proportion of speakers who are bilingual in the LI and L2. This possibility is tested by comparing the adaptations of English loanwords in I9th- and early 20th-century Quebec French, when bilinguals were few, to those of contemporary Quebec French, in which the rate of bilingualism is far higher. The results show that even when the proportion of bilinguals in a society is relatively small, they determine how loanwords are pronounced in the borrowing language. Bilinguals adapt loanwords on the basis of phonology, not of faulty perception of foreign sounds and structures. However, in a society where bilinguals are few, there is a slight increase in non-phonological influences in loanword adaptation. We address the small role played by non-phonological factors, including phonetic approximation, orthography, and analogy (true or false), showing that false analogy, in particular, may give the impression that phonetic approximation is more widespread in a loanword corpus than is actually the case.

Nondistinctive features in loanword adaptation: The unimportance of English aspiration in Mandarin Chinese phoneme categorization

Based on a corpus of 500 stops included in 371 borrowing forms from English in Mandarin Chinese (MC), we show that English stop aspiration, which is agreed to be phonetic, does not influence phoneme categorization in MC, despite the fact that MC has phonemic aspirated stops. Thus even if their mother tongue predisposes MC speakers to distinguish aspirated from unaspirated stops, they do not rely on aspiration in English to determine phoneme categorization in MC. Both aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops of English systematically yield an aspirated stop in MC, whereas English voiced stops, which are disallowed in MC, systematically yield a voiceless unaspirated stop. These facts disfavor the perceptual stance in loanword adaptation and lend support to the phonological one.

Strata and Syllable Dependencies in Fula: The Nominal Classes

In t bis article, I propose t o sketch out the nominal class marker System of Fula and to show how this system, traditionally described äs ad hoc and complex, can be accounted for in a simpler way. To this end, I will offer a brief survey of the phonology and morphology of this language. It is generally considered that the different variants of each classmarker suffix in Fula are arbitrary. I will argue that they are in fact [ predictable on three grounds: 1) lexical stratum, 2) constraints on conI sonantal sequences, and 3) syllabic structure (more specifically, the nuclear content). The Fula dialect studied in this paper, Pulaar, is spoken in the area of \ Kaedi in Mauritania and has 21 class-marker suffixes. In this language, f all nouns and adjectives with the exception of a few loan words must contain a class marker. This marker may have a meaning äs, for example, j the plural and diminutive markers do but, most of the time, it is seman; tically empty and simply marks a grammatical class, similar to the markers l for feminine and masculine in French. Not only are there many class markers in Fula, but each of them seems to have several phonetic variants. For instance, the marker gel in Pulaar seems to take the variants el, yel, yel gel V gel äs can be observed in the following examples: