Mutation in Welsh
The Initial Consonant Mutation system of Welsh is unique to IndoEuropean languages and has been the subject of much theoretical research. The multi-faceted nature of the phenomenon demands multidimensional treatment and this uniquely comprehensive book provides an integrated overview of this important feature from a wide linguistic viewpoint. In Welsh, initial consonant mutation has implications for historical and comparative analyses, phonetic description, phonological theory, syntactic theory, and the interfaces between phonetics and phonology, morphology and phonology, and phonology and syntax. It also requires examination from semantic, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives. This study, therefore, brings together a variety of approaches to a wide range of levels of linguistic analysis, all concentrated on one unusual linguistic feature. A detailed review of past research, together with an exploration of recent theoretical advances in many areas, make this an indispensable book for depart-ments of Celtic Studies, and all scholars of comparative linguistics. Martin Ball is a lecturer in Phonetics and Phonology at the University of Ulster and is the author of many books dealing with phonetics, theoretical linguistics and the Welsh language. Nicole Müller was educated at the University of Bonn and University College Galway. She is currently involved in doctoral research at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Both authors are editors on the editorial board of the recently launched Journal of Celtic Linguistics.
Mutation in Welsh
Martin J.Ball and Nicole Müller
London and New York
First published in 1992 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge a division of Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc. 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1992 Martin J.Ball and Nicole Müller All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Ball, Martin J. Mutation in Welsh. I. Title II. Müller, Nicole 491.66 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ball, Martin J. (Martin John). Mutation in Welsh/Martin J.Ball and Nicole Müller. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. 1. Welsh language–Mutation. I. Müller, Nicole. II. Title. PB2128.B36 1992 491.6’615–dc20 91–30393 ISBN 0-415-03165-6 (Print Edition) ISBN 0-203-19276-1 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-19279-6 (Glassbook Format)
Contents
List of tables Preface Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Introduction
viii x xi xii 1
1 Mutations in Standard Welsh 1.0 Introduction 1.1 Initial consonant mutation 1.2 Varieties of Welsh 1.3 Soft mutation or lenition 1.4 Nasal mutation or nasalization 1.5 Aspirate mutation or spirantization 1.6 Pre-vocalic aspiration
4 4 8 12 19 22 24
2 Previous accounts of mutation 2.0 Introduction 2.1 The ‘classic’ account: Morgan 2.2 Morphophonemic and related accounts 2.3 Transformational theory: Awbery 2.4 Other recent accounts
28 28 29 38 40
3 Comparative and historical aspects of mutation 3.0 Introduction 3.1 Mutation in Modern Celtic languages 3.2 The historical and phonological background 3.3 Historical processes 3.4 Conclusion
46 47 53 61 73
vi
Mutation in Welsh
4 The 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5
phonetics of mutation Introduction Acoustic characteristics of fricatives in Welsh Acoustic characteristics of voicing in Welsh Acoustic characteristics of the fortis and lenis liquids Air-flow investigation of the nasal mutation Conclusions
5 The 5.0 5.1 5.2
phonology of mutation Introduction Rule ordering and mutation Problems with features: a Dependency Phonology approach 5.3 Autosegmental Phonology 5.4 Other approaches
6 The 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6
syntax of mutation Introduction Morphology and syntax of mutation triggers An outline of Welsh syntax Direct-Object Mutation (and others) revisited Gender mutations Zero triggers and the pre-sentential particle system (Re-)defining ICM
78 80 83 86 89 91 92 93 98 112 121 125 127 128 136 161 165 170
7 Interfaces 7.0 Introduction 7.1 Phonology–phonetics interface 7.2 Morphology–phonology interface 7.3 Syntax–phonology interface 7.4 Mutation–mutation interface
171 172 176 182 185
8 The 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4
semantics of mutation Introduction Mutation and semantic load Semantic discrimination in prepositions Mutations and the lexis Ambiguity
192 193 201 204 206
9 The 9.0 9.1 9.2
psycholinguistics of mutation Introduction First-language acquisition Error recognition
211 212 222
Contents
9.3 9.4
vii
Word recognition Slips of the tongue
225 231
10 The sociolinguistics of mutation 10.0 Introduction 10.1 Review of dialect studies 10.2 Problems of data collection 10.3 Design of a study 10.4 Results of the study 10.5 Variable rules for mutation
237 237 242 246 251 256
11 The future of mutations 11.0 Introduction 11.1 Awareness of mutation 11.2 Mutation as a two-term system 11.3 The future of Welsh 11.4 Future research on mutations 11.5 Conclusion
263 264 269 271 273 276
Appendix A1.0 A1.1 A1.2 A1.3
1 The morphology of mutation Introduction Compounds Derivational affixes Inflectional affixes
278 278 280 282
Appendix A2.0 A2.1 A2.2 A2.3
2 Hard mutation Introduction The phonology of HM HM with abstract noun endings Is HM really SM in disguise?
284 284 285 286
Appendix A3.0 A3.1 A3.2 A3.3 A3.4
3 The pronunciation of Welsh Introduction Consonants Vowels Diphthongs Suprasegmentals
287 287 288 289 289
Notes References Index
290 301 317
Tables
1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 6.2 9.1 9.2 10.1 10.2
SEs for SM SEs for NM SEs for AM SEs for PVA Lenition in Modern Irish Eclipsis in Modern Irish ScG1 Mutations in Breton Mutations in Middle Cornish Linguistic periods of Welsh Obstruent and nasal phonemes in Early Brythonic and Early Old Welsh Jackson’s three-way allophonic system of Brythonic stops Fricative spectra, after Strevens (1960) Noise components of /x/ VOT in initial plosives Voicing and frication in initial fricatives Voicing and length in laterals Acoustic characteristics of /?/ Formant structure of the lateral approximant Characteristics of the trills Welsh consonants: underspecified matrices Welsh consonants: fully specified initial matrices Welsh consonants: fully specified lenited matrices PSP types in Modern Standard Welsh PSP types in Modern Standard and Modern Spoken Welsh Results of the error-recognition test Male and female scores in the error-recognition test Scores for linguistic variables 1 Scores for linguistic variables 2
15 21 23 27 47 48 50 52 53 53 56 57 82 83 84 85 87 87 88 89 118 119 120 165 170 226 226 252 252
Tables
10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 11.1
Linguistic variables × sex Linguistic variables × age Linguistic variables × acculturation Linguistic variables × style Linguistic variables × acculturation × style Percentage correct forms identified by group
ix
253 254 255 255 256 267
Preface
While most books within linguistics take up a particular theoretical standpoint, and illustrate this with examples from relevant languages, our approach in this volume is different. We are dealing with a single linguistic feature within a single language. However, what we aim to show is that this linguistic feature pervades the levels of linguistic analysis through which language is normally approached. In doing this, we explore differing theoretical accounts, at different levels of description, ranging from phonetics and phonology through to syntax and semantics, and in particular the interfaces that link these components of the grammar. We also aim to show that other areas of linguistics, including historical and comparative, psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics, all have to be taken into account if we wish to provide an adequate description of the mutation phenomena. We hope that we not only examine the contribution of a variety of current models of linguistic analysis to an account of initial consonant mutation in Welsh, but also show that a single linguistic feature such as this can have implications throughout the linguistic system, and the descriptions of the system.
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the help of James Fife, David Cram, D.Ellis Evans and Erich Poppe who read and commented on early drafts of many of the chapters, and Glyn Jones who helped with some of the examples. Naturally we remain solely responsible for the final version. We would also like to thank Steve Harlow, Maggie Tallerman, Elmar Ternes, Penny Willis and Arnold Zwicky for their help in providing copies of relevant work. Finally, we would like to express our appreciation of the assistance we have received from Routledge at all stages in the production of the work, and in particular from Jonathan Price, Anita Roy and Claire L’Enfant.
Abbreviations
Acc Adj Adv AdvP AM AP asp B Bryth. C CAP CC Conj cons cont CP Cr DOM DP E equat fem GB Gen GPSG H HM ICA ICM IE impers INFL/infl IP ISM L Lat.
Accusative adjective adverb adverbial phrase aspirate mutation adjectival phrase aspect(ual) Breton Brythonic consonant (unit of DP) Control Agreement Principle Common Celtic Conjunction consonantal continuant COMP phrase Cornish direct-object mutation Dependency Phonology English equative feminine Government and Binding theory Genitive Generalized Phrase-Structure Grammar high (variety) hard mutation initial consonant addition initial consonant mutation Indo-European impersonal inflection INFL phrase initial segment mutation low (variety) Latin
Abbreviations
liq LW masc MC ME ModIr. ModW MSE MW N NatP neg NM NP num O OB obj OC OIr. OW p PC PP prep pres pret pron PSP pt PVA PVN PVP rad S ScG SE sg SM SMR SPE subj superl SVO TC TVP V VN V P N voc
liquid literary Welsh masculine Middle Cornish Middle English Modern Irish Modern Welsh morphosyntactic environment Middle Welsh noun Natural Phonology negative nasal mutation noun phrase numeral initiatory gesture (DP) Old Breton object(ive case) Old Cornish Old Irish Old Welsh plural Proto-Celtic prepositional phrase preposition present preterite pronoun pre-sentential particle particle pre-vocalic aspiration pre-vocalic nasalization pre-verbal particle radical ‘sentence’, topmost constituent; segment Scottish Gaelic syntactic environment singular soft mutation soft mutation (restricted) Sound Pattern of English subject(ive case) superlative Subject-Verb-Object Trigger Constraint transitive verb phrase vowel, unit of DP; verb verb-noun verb-noun phrase vocalic
xiii
xiv
Mutation in Welsh
VOT VP VSO W WFR X
voice-onset time verb phrase Verb-Subject-Object Welsh word-formation rule unspecified unit (phonology or syntax)
Introduction
The languages of the Celtic group of Indo-European have several features distinguishing them from their geographical neighbours, including (generally) VSO word order, and groups of prepositions taking personal endings. However, the feature that is most often pointed out as peculiar to these languages is mutation, or more precisely initial consonant mutation (in fact, other languages demonstrate this, or a similar, phenomenon, but it is unique among Indo-European languages as a grammaticalized feature).1 This is a feature whereby regular phonological changes occur to the initial consonants of words; however, what makes these changes notable is that they are not triggered by phonological factors (such as preceding phonological environment, or speech rate), but by non-phonological factors, which are of varying types but all basically syntactic (in that it is the position in the sentence that determines whether a word undergoes mutation or not). We can illustrate this process with an example from Welsh. The word cath ‘cat’ can appear in various spellings (reflecting different pronunciations) according to the syntactic context in which it appears: (0.1) (0.2) (0.3) (0.4)
eu cath ‘their cat’ (radical form) ei gath ‘his cat’ (soft mutated/lenited form) ei chath ‘her cat’ (aspirate mutated/spirantized form) fy nghath ‘my cat’ (nasal mutated/nasalized form)
The different pronunciations of these four forms (in standard southern accent) are as follows: (0.1) /i kaθ/, (0.2) /i gaθ/, (0.3) /i xaθ/, (0.4) It might be argued, from these examples alone, that mutation is simply an effect of pre-cliticization. However, there are many examples of mutation that cannot so easily be linked to clitic usage. For example, the soft mutation of adjectives following feminine nouns in Welsh, and more
2
Mutation in Welsh
clearly, the soft mutation of the direct object when following nonperiphrastic verbs, e.g.: (0.5)
mi_welais i gath (< cath) pt saw+1sg I cat ‘I saw a cat’
(We return in Chapter 7 to a discussion of clitics.) Mutation in Welsh (as in the other Celtic languages) is extremely common: there are so many triggering environments that any utterance extending beyond just a few words is almost certain to contain some examples of mutations; indeed, the modern spoken forms of the language often show greater use of the commonest mutation type than does the literary variety. As noted in the above examples, mutation is considered an integral part of the language, and as such is shown in the spelling. Therefore, any theoretical account of the language has to include mutation, and has to accept that this feature crosses the borders of the traditional components of linguistic analysis and provides evidence for the interfaces between these components. In this book, we show mutated consonants by underlining; where necessary, the radical (unmutated) form is shown in brackets following the example, however the radical can usually be reconstructed depending upon which mutation is being discussed. Word-internal mutation is not marked (except in Appendix 1), and the soft mutation of /g/ → Ø is marked (as in (0.5)) by underlining the space immediately to the left of the segment following the underlying /g/. It is clear, then, that this phenomenon, being on the borders of morphology and syntax and phonology, raises some interesting problems for competing theories of these three areas and the interfaces between them, and some of these problems will be explored in this book. However, wider issues must also be addressed. How did this feature arise historically, and how does the Goidelic branch of Celtic (Irish, Gaelic and Manx) differ in its sets of phonological changes from the Brythonic (Welsh, Cornish and Breton), while maintaining an underlying unity in some of the mutating contexts? Concentrating on Welsh, we need also to investigate the phonetics of mutation. For example, what exactly happens when speakers produce the so-called voiceless nasals (nasal-mutation reflexes of the voiceless stops)? What semantic load is carried by the mutation process; in other words, what meanings are distinguished by the use of the phonological changes? What functions are expressed by mutation; in other words, what sort of grammatical relations are expressed by the process? We can also examine the psycholinguistic aspects of these changes to what appears the most
Introduction
3
salient part of a word. How are mutations learnt by children (and perhaps as important, how are words learnt?)? What evidence have we for where in the speech-production process the mutations are applied? Finally, we must look at the patterns of actual usage of mutations in the speech community. Are all the mutation environments equally likely to be ‘correctly’ used? Are there regional or social-class differences in usage patterns? Are mutations in their present ‘standard’ form likely to survive in spoken Welsh, and, if not, is this a sign of language death? An area of current linguistic interest is the description of the interfaces existing between levels of linguistic analysis, for example the phoneticsphonology interface, the morphology-phonology interface, and the syntaxmorphology interface. Initial consonant mutation of the Welsh type has direct relevance to all three of these. Indeed, to show how mutation is triggered from different types of triggering contexts we will need to include in any adequate description some sort of interfacing device to link morphological, syntactic, phonological and phonetic features. These differing aspects of the Welsh mutations are all addressed in this book, although we do not claim to produce a complete account of all aspects of this phenomenon. Further, while we explore several aspects of linguistic theory with evidence from mutations, we remain theoretically neutral in many instances, as it does not always appear to us possible to assign one account, and one only, to aspects of this complex phenomenon. In bringing together the disparate research on this topic we hope to be able to provide an insight into this interesting area of Celtic linguistics. The book will not answer all the questions, but maybe we will be able to supply some new questions to be asked.
1
Mutations in Standard Welsh
1.0 INTRODUCTION We will start our investigation of the initial consonant mutations in Welsh by examining how this phenomenon operates in the modern standard language. Before we can go into detail on this, however, we must first define more strictly than was done in the Introduction what we mean by mutation, and also what we mean by Standard Welsh. This discussion will be followed by an account of the three consonantmutation types, and the syntactic triggers of these in the modern standard language. Also the related phenomenon of pre-vocalic aspiration will be described (pre-vocalic nasal prefixing as in Irish a n-athair, ‘their father’, is clearly a similar process, but does not occur in Welsh). 1.1 INITIAL CONSONANT MUTATION As noted in the Introduction, this process is on the borderline of phonology and syntax, in that the changes that occur are phonological while the circumstances that produce the changes are not themselves phonological but, in a broad sense, syntactic. This means that initial consonant mutation is unlike most other phonological processes recorded in natural languages, where the changes are triggered by a particular phonological environment or by a particular suprasegmental setting (e.g. allegro speech). 1.1.1 Definitions Phonological changes triggered by phonological environments are, of course, relatively straightforward to capture in phonological rule formation, but initial consonant mutation (ICM) presents problems, as
Mutations in Standard Welsh
5
the environment triggering the change is syntactic. Nevertheless, as a starting point, the following preliminary definition and rule format is proposed. (1.1)
(1.2)
ICM is a process whereby word-initial consonants undergo one of three sets of phonological changes when in certain syntactic environments. The particular set of changes is determined by the syntactic environment. ICM: ##CX → ##C’X/SE (where ## stands for word boundary, C and C’ represent consonants related via a phonological process, X represents any string of consonants and vowels allowed to follow C by phonotactic constraints, and SE stands for syntactic environment.)
This particular formulation will be returned to, and modified in the light of our discussions, in later chapters. Clearly, both the types of phonological change and of syntactic environment need to be specified further, and these will be returned to in 1.3–1.6 below. It should be noted here that only mutation processes affecting word-initial consonants are discussed in detail in this book; similar patterns morpheme-initial but word-internal do occur, and traditional grammars often include these as part of their discussion on mutations. We will look at word-internal consonant changes in connection with the historical development of ICM in Chapter 3. These word-internal changes are, of course, part of the derivational morphology of the language, and are looked at briefly in Appendix 1. However, they do represent the main consonant-mutation types described below (plus one other: ‘hard mutation’, see Appendix 2), and they are of interest in that, as with the syntax, specific mutation triggers (in this case affixes) cause specific mutations. Unlike word-initial mutations, however, the process is not dynamic: the word-internal mutations are static and do not have to be ‘constructed’ by the speaker as word-initial changes have to be (if we assume that derivationally complex words are stored as whole units rather than as parts; see discussion in Chapter 9 on lexical storage in Welsh). 1.1.2 Terminology In the following discussions of mutations throughout this book we employ a set of terminology based on a classification of this feature described below. The mutation types themselves are termed Soft Mutation (SM), Nasal Mutation (NM), Aspirate Mutation (AM) and Pre-Vocalic Aspiration (PVA). The non-mutated form of a consonant is termed the
6
Mutation in Welsh
radical. Descriptions of the processes involved and alternative labels are given in 1.3–1.6. Firstly, the syntactic environment (SE) of a mutation is characterized as consisting of a trigger and a target. The trigger is whatever feature (see below) which, synchronically at least, can be thought of as ‘causing’ the mutation. The target is the word ‘receiving’ (i.e. undergoing) the mutation (Tallerman’s 1987 usage of mutatee for target is rejected due to its artificiality). Whereas usually the relation between these two is relatively free (i.e. the target can be any word that fits the word-class of the target), there are occasionally restrictions holding between the trigger and target (see, for example, in section 1.4 below). Secondly, the triggers themselves have often been classified into types and sub-types (see accounts of previous classifications in Chapter 2). The most common trigger type we term lexical trigger, which covers instances where a single lexical item can be identified as the source of the mutation. The pure lexical trigger consists of a specific lexical item that always ‘causes’ a particular mutation to the following lexical item, the only restriction being that the target has to be of the word-class(es) able syntactically to follow the trigger (semantic restrictions may also play a part, but only so as to produce semantically well-formed utterances). For example, ei gath (‘his cat’ ei+SM); ei chath (‘her cat’ ei+AM); fy nghath (‘my cat’ fy+NM); radical: cath ‘cat’. In these examples ei ‘his’ is seen as a pure lexical trigger of SM, ei ‘her’ as a pure lexical trigger of AM, and fy ‘my’ as a pure lexical trigger of NM. The categorial lexical trigger is a less common variety of this type. Here one category of a potential lexical trigger (rather than a whole class or a specific item) is crucial to the mutation process. For example, the abbreviated pronoun ’i ‘him, his’ only causes PVA when in the accusative (object) case, but not when in the genitive (possessive) case; for example, fe’i hachubwyd ‘he was saved’ as opposed to a’i arian ‘and his money’. The abbreviated pronoun ’i ‘her, hers’ does cause PVA in the genitive, however. An alternative solution could clearly be devised in this instance whereby ’i is established as the homophonous realization of four different pronominal forms; indeed, some of the other categorial triggers listed for the different mutations below could be accounted for in a similar way. We retain the category, however, to account for those instances which cannot so be avoided, and to leave open the possibility of monolexical analyses of forms such as the pronouns noted above. This type should not be confused with, for example, the mutation of feminine nouns following the definite article (though see Chapter 6 for
Mutations in Standard Welsh
7
an alternative account of this context). Here, the target is the item which is restricted, while the trigger is not. Such examples we term restricted lexical triggers, and include instances where a trigger only causes mutation on individual lexical items. Finally, the debate as to whether some or all of the lexical triggers noted below are in fact separate words, rather than clitics, is left to Chapter 7, where notions of phonological words as opposed to morphological words are dealt with. The remaining main trigger type is the syntactic trigger, which covers those instances where no single lexical item can be identified as the source of the mutation; rather, the syntactic/semantic frame (perhaps better expressed as a ‘functional frame’) itself is the trigger. This category can be considered as having two sub-types: the pure syntactic trigger and the restricted syntactic trigger. An example of the former is the SM of object NPs of inflected verbs, this trigger being subject to no further conditions; while the latter is exemplified by SM in apposition, which is restricted lexically, in that with personal names, for example, some combinations do take the mutation while others do not.1 We use the term restricted syntactic trigger to cover restrictions due to lexis, syntax or semantics, or register. Some apparent examples of syntactic triggers result from the so-called ‘zero lexical trigger’; that is, the lexical trigger has been subject to an optional deletion rule dependent on register. Although other treatments have proposed a special category of mutations with no trigger, we class these as varieties of the pure lexical trigger, and examples are given in sections 1.3 and 1.5 below. We return to discuss these in more detail in Chapter 6. The traditional classification of projected versus incorporated might seem to cut across our classification of lexical versus syntactic, in that some of our syntactic triggers seem to have an overt trigger, while others do not. For example, with DOM (direct-object mutation) it has traditionally been claimed that the trigger is the inflected verb, or, more recently, that NP is the trigger in these cases. However, with adverbial mutation there appears to be no overt trigger at all, which has led to the term ‘incorporated mutation’. We argue that for both these cases (and for all the syntactic triggers) the syntactic frame itself is the trigger, not one lexical item out of this frame. We explore this is some detail in Chapter 6 (6.3) when looking at the debate surrounding DOM. It might be felt that there is a need to establish a third main type of mutation trigger to account for the fact that feminine singular nouns undergo SM following the determiner, and also trigger SM
8
Mutation in Welsh
onto adjectives (currently listed as restricted and categorial lexical triggers respectively). In Chapter 6 we return to this aspect and explore an alternative account of these triggers, in an attempt to bring together all mutation triggers that are linked to the features feminine singular. 1.1.3 Further thoughts on mutation types As noted above, we have kept to the traditional labelling of three mutation types (SM, NM, AM) and pre-vocalic aspiration (PVA) in sections 1.3–1.6 below. However, it is arguable that a division into at least five mutation types plus PVA is better motivated. This is because, firstly, some triggers produce AM changes to /p, t, k/ and SM changes to the other mutatable consonants; and secondly, some triggers require SM to operate on /p, t, k, b, d, g, m/ but not on / , / which retain the radical (unmutated) form.2 The first of these exceptional usages could be termed ‘mixed mutation’ in a similar fashion to the mixed mutations of Breton and Cornish, while the second has not generally been given an alternative name. We do not adopt the strategy of increasing mutation types; rather, we consider that the triggers of ‘mixed mutation’ actually are marked as causing two mutations, with AM caused first, thus removing the input of /p, t, k/ from the operation of SM. This ordering is shown in the tables of mutation environments by separating AM from SM with a semi-colon. The second exception type noted above we term ‘restricted SM’, and as such it is noted in the entries for SM triggers (abbreviated as SMR). Such an approach has repercussions for the phonology of SM, but these will be dealt with later. 1.2 VARIETIES OF WELSH This chapter will examine mutations in standard Welsh, and at this point we should spend some time examining what we mean by ‘Standard Welsh’, and how such a variety fits into the range of varieties of Welsh. The following discussion is based on work presented in Coupland and Ball (1989). 1.2.1 Diglossia Fife (1986:141) highlights the problems surrounding the rise in interest in Welsh by linguists who do not distinguish between what he calls
Mutations in Standard Welsh
9
literary and colloquial Welsh (LW and CW). He notes that ‘the problem lies in the tendency for linguists to disregard the divergence between the two and to make assumptions about the language as a whole based on the facts of one or the other (almost invariably the facts of LW are overgeneralized to CW)’. This might not be such a problem if it were not the case that the divide between literary, standard Welsh and vernacular, spoken Welsh was not considerably greater than that found in, for example, English. Fife (1986:148) quotes as an example two versions of the sentence ‘I did not know you had seen him’: (1.3)
ni wyddwn eich bod wedi ei weled (LW) NEG KNOW: IMPF: 1SG YOUR BEING AFTER HIS SEEING
(1.4)
o’n i ’im gwbod bo chi di weld e (CW) BE: IMPF: 1SG I NEG KNOWING BEING YOU AFTER SEEING HE
It needs also to be noted that many speakers only have productive access to the vernacular spoken forms, not speaking, reading or writing the standard forms (therefore often not reading or writing the language at all), though probably able to understand LW when heard read aloud. It is by no means unusual to have a situation where a standard language used in certain circumstances exists side by side with differing (sometimes totally different) vernacular forms used in other contexts: the phenomenon is called diglossia. Ferguson (1959:336) defines the term as: a relatively stable language situation in which in addition to the primary dialect of the language, which may include a standard or a regional standard, there is a very divergent, highly codified, often grammatically more complex, superposed variety, the vehicle of a large and respected body of literature, heir of an earlier period or another speech community, which is learned largely by formal education and is used for most written and formal purposes, but is not used by any sector of the community for ordinary conversation. Following Ferguson, and Fishman (1967), Baetens Beardsmore (1986) has pointed out that diglossia and bilingualism can co-occur (he is describing the linguistic situation in Belgium); so we can get bilingual speakers, one of whose languages operates in a diglossic environment, having divergent H (high) and L (low) varieties. Several authors have noted previously that Welsh currently exists in a diglossic situation (Fife 1986, as already quoted; B.M.Jones 1979;
10
Mutation in Welsh
Price 1984), and indeed G.E.Jones remarks, ‘let us consider two important aspects of the linguistic situation in Wales: (1) It is diglossic and (2) It is bilingual’ (Ball, Griffiths and Jones 1988:192). He goes on: the high variety, known as yr iaith safonol, ‘the standard language’, or yr iaith lenyddol, ‘the literary language’ …is found, as is usually the case with diglossic situations…in literature and in all manner of publications…. The low variety, known as yr iaith lafar, ‘the spoken language’, is the everyday spoken language of the community, within the family, with friends, and usually in all contexts where the high variety is inappropriate. (ibid.) Differences between LW and CW exist at all levels of linguistic structure: phonology, morphology and syntax. Examples of differences at these levels are given in Coupland and Ball (1989) and need not detain us here. What further complicates the situation, however, is the fact that CW exists in many regional forms, and LW has a range of varieties running from archaic biblical forms to bureaucratic official forms. In between these is a form known as Cymraeg Byw, ‘living Welsh’, which attempts to be a nonregional standard spoken form. Many of these competing varieties are described in linguistic and sociolinguistic terms by contributors to Ball (1988b). We will spend some space investigating the standardization debate in connection with modern Welsh. 1.2.2 The standardization debate Diglossia is not intrinsically a sociolinguistic problem. However, in the Welsh context we have the added feature of bilingualism and the competition of a powerful majority language, and (until recently) the lack of institutional support for the H variety (or indeed any others) of Welsh. This has led to a large number of Welsh speakers substituting English for Welsh in domains where the H variety might be expected. For example, in the 1981 census, 503,549 persons over the age of three claimed to be able to speak Welsh, but only 363,116 of those could both read and write the language. This leads to Welsh being associated only with L contexts, and so losing out in the battle of perceived status. The often repeated claim that south Walians and north Walians can only understand each other when speaking English is not surprising if neither has access to any kind of neutral standard language. In the Welsh situation, then, to increase the status of the language and promote
Mutations in Standard Welsh
11
linguistic unity, the quest for a standard has been seen as a main goal for linguists and educators for some time. One school of thought maintains that the standard variety already existing (described above as the H variety, or literary Welsh) needs only to be extended in terms of its domains, and the number of speakers who have access to it (see C.Thomas 1966, 1967). A description of this Modern Standard Welsh is found in Price (1984) and an account of its roots in the literary language in D.Glyn Jones (1988), and its use in official contexts in B.Prys Jones (1988). However, many educators and linguists have felt that the distance that exists linguistically between this standard and the various spoken vernaculars is so great that this form of the Welsh language is not best suited for what might be termed the ‘education standard’; that is to say, a form of the language suitable for use in schools for teaching first(and second-) language Welsh children to read and write, and, incidentally, for use with adults learning Welsh as a second language. Such a variety, it is argued, should be as close as possible to spoken forms on the one hand, but not subject to numerous local variations on the other. Between 1964 and 1970, therefore, the Welsh Joint Education Committee published definitions of a ‘new variety’ of Welsh: Cymraeg Byw (‘living Welsh’). As Davies (1988:200) points out, the intention of the devisors of Cymraeg Byw was ‘not to coin a new language but to define one that already existed’, that is to say, Standard Spoken Welsh. He goes on to note, however, that ‘opponents of Cymraeg Byw vehemently denied that it [i.e. standard spoken Welsh] in any way resembled the artificial dialect…described in the booklets’ (ibid.). C.Thomas (1966, 1967) was one of the leading opponents of this variety, seeing Cymraeg Byw as a ‘hotch-potch of forms randomly selected from the dialects’ (1967: 245). However, no description of the standard spoken Welsh that was claimed to exist already was produced, and Cymraeg Byw certainly has many supporters, particularly as a variety suitable for learners. The development of Cymraeg Byw has generally provided an accessible standard, or closely linked set of standards, as some regional differences have found their way into the variety, at least for education purposes. Over the last twenty years we have seen a marked increase in the use of Welsh in education (see J.L.Williams 1979; Baker 1985). Indeed, many people have looked to this development as a way of reversing the decline in speaker numbers. It seems to be the case from initial research (e.g. S.Thomas 1988) that Cymraeg Byw is beginning to bridge the gap between H and L varieties in some areas, and that local regional forms are ‘losing out’ to Cymraeg
12
Mutation in Welsh
Byw forms amongst younger speakers. This is relevant to our concern with mutations. As we will see in Chapter 10, there are regional and social patterns determining which triggers cause which mutations that are not necessarily identical with those for Modern Standard Welsh (the H variety). Cymraeg Byw, as an intermediate dialect, has, as we might expect, some usage patterns identical with Modern Standard Welsh, and some in common with the vernaculars (or at least some of the vernaculars). We need to make it clear, therefore, what dialect we are using in this book. Unless otherwise noted, and with the exception of Chapter 10, we will be using throughout the literary variety, or Modern Standard Welsh. This is not because it is inherently better in any way, but there are two advantages in adopting this form. Firstly, since the form is transregional we do not continually have to note local varieties, which in the early stages of our description would make our account too complex (though, of course, we do not ignore such differences and return to them later). Secondly, by and large the literary variety shows the maximal use of the ICM process, in that other varieties are distinguished by the loss of mutation triggers, or the convergence of mutation types. It is therefore easier to describe these other varieties as reduced systems (in various ways) from a fuller system already described. In the following chapters, therefore, we will be referring solely to Modern Standard Welsh, except where specifically noted. We do not, however, assume a standard accent (i.e. pronunciation), and will have need from time to time to refer to accent differences in the realization of mutations. Such differences are normally restricted to the main northsouth accent divide; further details of Welsh accents can be found in Ball (1988b). 1.3 SOFT MUTATION OR LENITION
1.3.1 The phonology of SM At first sight, it appears that this mutation encompasses five different processes: voiceless stops become voiced (/p, t, k/ → /b, d, g/); the voiced stops /b/ and /d/ become fricatives (→ /v, ð/); the voiced stop / g/ deletes; the voiceless approximants3 become voiced (/ , / → /l, r/); and /m/ becomes /v/. (Orthographically, p, t, c are changed to b, d, g; b, d, g are changed to f, dd and zero; ll and rh are changed to l and r; and m changes to f.) Is it possible to bring some order to this apparent chaos?
Mutations in Standard Welsh
13
Firstly, we can collapse the two voicing processes together to account for the changes affecting /p, t, k, , / . Secondly, if we allow a minimum of abstraction (based on the evidence of natural phonological processes), we can collapse together the processes affecting voiced stops, producing a change /g/ → *[ ], which by a later rule is deleted. This, however, in traditional generative terms, is as far as we can go. We return in Chapter 5 to a further discussion of this area. We are left, then, with three main rules to account for SM, shown in (1.5) below (the Jakobsonian feature system used is adapted from Awbery 1973): (1.5)a.
b.
c.
A further rule (1.6) is then required: (1.6)
Phonetic adjustment rules will also be needed to account for the change from bilabial to labio-dental articulation in /b/ → /v/ and /m/ → /v/, and the loss of friction in / , / → /l, r/, and for some accents alveolar to dental in /d/ → /ð/. Further, the change /m/ → /v/ also involves a change not only in the feature [cont], but also in [nasal], which moves from [+nasal] → [–nasal]. This variety of SM, then, is assumed to go through three stages: /m/ → *[µ] → *[v] → /v/; as with the SM of /g/, such an account has claimed historical justification (see Morris-Jones 1913). Such a collapse of processes shown in (1.5) clashes, in fact, with the need to mark ‘restricted SM’ for some triggers. For such a
14
Mutation in Welsh
restricted form of SM, we need a phonological rule ‘exempting’ / / and / / from SM, or a conversion rule converting mutated new initials /l/ and /r/ back to (radical) / / and / /. The danger of the latter affecting borrowings with radical /l/ and /r/ (e.g. lamp ‘lamp’, ruban ‘ribbon’; borrowings and fossilized mutated forms are the only ones having these sounds as radicals word-initially) can be avoided if these are marked as ‘non-native’ in the lexicon, and the conversion rule is sensitive to this. (Such a device is needed anyway for /g/-initial borrowings, such as gêm, ‘game’, which do not undergo mutation, likewise many non-Welsh place-names are exempt from mutations: see 8.3.2.) A conversion rule aids simplicity in the characterization of SM, but may be felt to be too abstract, although it does reflect the assumed historical development to some extent (see Evans 1909:82). 1.3.2 Syntactic environments of SM SM has the greatest number of triggers of any ICM type, and they demonstrate all the trigger types described in 1.1.2. In Table 1.1, and the similar lists in 1.4, 1.5 and 1.6, the trigger is shown at the left in terms of as simple a lexical matrix as is needed to specify the word type involved. An arrow, both within a lexical matrix, and following the trigger, represents ‘causes mutation’. The target has its own lexical matrix to the right. Beyond this are listed the actual triggering lexical items or environments. The target matrices for all but restricted lexical trigger targets are simply those of the various word-classes that could be found in such a context. In this context, [+VN] stands for the class verb-noun (see Chapter 6). The triggers are divided into types within the list: pure lexical triggers are connected to their targets by the ‘causes mutation’ arrow, restricted lexical triggers also have a ‘linking bar’ coming back from the target to demonstrate the unity of trigger and target in most of these instances, and categorial lexical triggers have the relevant category highlighted in bold print within the trigger matrix. Syntactic triggers are shown by including a structural description of the relevant syntactic structures, numbering the items, and showing in the structural change which numbered item receives SM. The list does not contain every syntactic environment (SE) for SM, as some of them are archaic or extremely unusual. We have attempted to include the most usual of them, and readers requiring a complete list of SM triggers should consult Morgan (1952), or Williams (1980).
Mutations in Standard Welsh
Table 1.1 SEs for SM
15
16
Mutation in Welsh
Mutations in Standard Welsh
17
18
Mutation in Welsh
Mutations in Standard Welsh
19
1.4 NASAL MUTATION OR NASALIZATION 1.4.1 The phonology of NM This mutation affects six radical initials: the plosives /p, t, k, b, d, g/, which are converted respectively into /, m, n, ?/.4 (Orthographically, p, t, c change to mh, nh, ngh; and b, d, g, change to m, n, ng.) A phonological rule to account for nasal mutation is given in (1.7):
20
Mutation in Welsh
(1.7)
The precise nature of the so-called ‘voiceless nasals’ has been a matter of debate, and it may well be that different speakers produce different realizations of them (see Scully 1973; Ball 1984a; Ball and Williams forthcoming; Chapter 4 below). If, for example, / / is phonetically [ ], then the above rule suffices, as Welsh initial voiceless plosives are also aspirated (e.g. [ph]; see Ball 1984a; G.E. Jones 1984). If, however, these sounds are phonetically clusters, as in [mh] (see Willis 1987), then a phonetic adjustment rule is required to rewrite [ ] → [mh] (or [ ], or whatever the precise nature of the sound is). The use of such a rule allows us to retain the simplicity of rule (1.7) to capture the overall process, and permits the minimum of abstractness in the phonology. Some accents (mainly southern: see Ball 1988b) lack the voiceless nasals altogether, and NM here converts /p, t, k/ to /m, n, / respectively. The choice here is to retain (1.7) and follow it with (1.8): (1.8)
[–voice] → [+voice]/[+nasal]
or through a reworking of (1.7) to give (1.9): (1.9)
The choice between these solutions rests partly on simplicity, and partly on any wish to retain the link with standard Welsh pronunciation (e.g. for variable rules capturing speakers’ stylistic repertoires); but this problem need not concern us further here. 1.4.2 Syntactic environments of NM NM has the fewest triggering environments of any ICM, and one of these concerns the highly irregular (from the mutation point of view) lexical items blwydd ‘year old’, blynedd ‘years’ and diwrnod ‘day’. All the triggers are of the lexical type, though while 1 and 2 are pure lexical triggers, 3 and 4 are restricted lexical triggers (in that there is a restriction on the trigger exercised by the target). Trigger 4 (the numeral un ‘one’), in fact, is somewhat of a hybrid. It is restricted in that it operates only with the lexical items referred to above, but in one sense it is also categorial, in that NM is only triggered on those words when
Mutations in Standard Welsh
21
the number is operating in compounds with other numerals, and does not do so when alone. However, it is felt that the restricted lexical trigger is the better category for this trigger. Table 1.2 SEs for NM
The matrix of the target in 3 of Table 1.2 contains an entry [+[+NM/ [Num]___]], which is to be read as ‘has the feature “takes NM” in the context of following a numeral’; however, such a feature has to match a trigger that is not only [+Num], but also [+→NM]. In other words, numerals lacking this feature will not trigger NM on these targets. The trigger of 4 above contains an entry [+CompNum–]. This not only means that the trigger must be the first part of a compound
22
Mutation in Welsh
numeral (which in Welsh precedes the complement of the numeral), but naturally requires that the target is followed by the second part of the compound numeral (which is marked with the entry [+– CompNum]). 1.5 ASPIRATE MUTATION OR SPIRANTIZATION 1.5.1 The phonology of AM This mutation affects the least number of radical initials, converting /p, t, k/ respectively into /f, θ, x/.5 (Orthographically, p, t, c change to ph, th, ch.) A phonological rule to account for aspirate mutation is given in (1.10): (1.10)
This notation in fact slightly simplifies the phonetic facts, as the AM reflex of /p/ is /f/ not [Φ] as implied in (1.10). [Φ] is not a possible segment of Welsh, so what is needed (as suggested by Awbery 1975) is a phonetic adjustment rule that rewrites the output of (1.10) so that [Φ] is changed to [f] (see 7.1). Another potential problem is the change /k/ → /x/, in that for some dialects at least (see G.E.Jones 1984; Ball and Williams forthcoming; Chapter 4 this volume) it appears that the phonetic realization of /x/ is [χ]. For these instances also we clearly need an optional phonetic re-adjustment rule. 1.5.2 Syntactic environments of AM AM has more triggering environments than NM, but fewer than SM. It is, however, not a straightforward matter to arrive at a total. This is because we have to decide in some cases whether we are dealing with a polysemous trigger item, or homonyms. For example, the form oni causes AM, yet Williams (1980) lists this form three times: (i) oni, interrogative particle (negative question marker); (ii) oni, conjunction ‘if not’; (iii) oni, conjunction ‘until’. As we group our triggers into word-classes, oni is listed below once as a particle, and once as a conjunction with two meanings; this, however, is not meant to claim necessarily that we view it as two separate words. Phonological shape alone is not sufficient in guiding us in these matters either, as can be seen in the example ei. With the meaning ‘her’
Mutations in Standard Welsh
23
it triggers AM, but as we saw in 1.3.2, with the meaning ‘his’ it triggers SM. We need, therefore, to include both the form of the trigger and its meaning, though in Table 1.3 we do not enter the polysemy/ homonymy debate, and simply supply alternative meanings after each form. With one exception, all AM triggers are of the pure lexical type, and are listed below in terms of the word-class of the trigger. An example of the so-called ‘zero lexical trigger’ is discussed further below. Table 1.3 SEs for AM
24
Mutation in Welsh
No. 7 is not a pure syntactic trigger, as there is no syntactic environment where 7 always appears in the same way as direct-object mutation operates with SM (1.3.2 above). Rather, 7 is restricted to operating on the same items as with 4. As we saw for pre-verbal particles with SM, these are often omitted in speech, providing us with apparently zero triggers. As with SM, an answer might well be found in a syntactic rule optionally deleting PVPs (pre-verbal particles), after they have triggered the appropriate mutation (see further Chapter 6, and Ball 1988a). No. 8 is categorial, because the forms ’i and ’w can occur in accusative (or direct object) case (when they cause no mutation) and genitive (or possessive) case (when they do). The form ei (see no. 1) is not subject to such restrictions, as this form does not occur in accusative case. For the sake of simplicity we have treated these three forms as separate lexical entries; an alternative strategy would be to treat them as a single item, though this would add to the complexity of the matrices in the above list. 1.6 PRE-VOCALIC ASPIRATION 1.6.1 Definitions of PVA This process is clearly not an example of ICM, as defined in (1.1) and (1.2) above. Pre-vocalic aspiration (PVA) involves the addition of a consonant (in this process /h/ is affixed to vowel-initial words: orthographically shown by the addition of h) rather than the change of a consonant. Such a process may be termed ‘Initial Consonant Addition’, and described and shown thus:
Mutations in Standard Welsh
25
(1.11) ICA is a process whereby word-initial vowels undergo a phonological process which prefixes a consonant when in certain syntactic environments. (1.12) ICA: ##VX → ##CVX/SE (Where ## stands for word boundary, V represents a vowel and C a consonant, X represents any string of consonants and vowels allowed to follow V by phonotactic constraints, and SE stands for syntactic environment.) (Cf. (1.1) and (1.2) above.) Although there are obvious similarities between ICM and ICA, they are different processes, and it might well be asked why we are including ICA in this book. One reason is the clear historical unity of all these word-initial processes (see Chapter 3); further, in Welsh ICA is restricted to the addition of /h/, and is clearly related in some of its triggers to AM (1.6.3). It has, indeed, been thought by some (see Albrow 1966) as simply part of the AM process, notwithstanding the differences that do exist in the triggers. Because of both the phonological and syntactic differences between PVA and AM, we treat these as separate—though related—processes in this book. Some researchers (e.g. Awbery 1973) treat PVA as a type of initial mutation rather than ICA. This is achieved by considering the /h/ segment as the surface phonetic realization of a vowel-devoicing process. If this is accepted we would need to broaden our original definition of ICM (now to be renamed as ‘initial segment mutation’, ISM) to something like the following: (1.13) ISM is a process whereby word-initial segments undergo one of four sets of phonological changes when in certain syntactic environments. The particular set of changes is determined by the syntactic environment. (1.14) ISM: ##SX ® ##S’X/SE (Where ## stands for word boundary, S and S’ represent segments related via a phonological process, X represents any string of consonants and vowels allowed to follow S by phonotactic constraints, and SE stands for syntactic environment.) The phonology of these two different approaches is described in 1.6.2, where we will also discuss their relative merits. 1.6.2 The phonology of PVA A phonological rule to account for PVA in Welsh is given in (1.15):
26
Mutation in Welsh
(1.15)
This shows the change from vowel initial to /h/-initial that is the Welsh manifestation of the process we have termed ICA. The alternative approach noted above, of treating PVA as a form of ISM, retains the single segment-to-segment conversion of the ICM rules above, giving a rule (1.16): (1.16)
with a later phonetic adjustment rule (1.17): (1.17)
We must now consider which of these two possible accounts of PVA is the most satisfactory. The rules (1.16) and (1.17) have the advantage that they fit into the pattern of rules established for SM, NM and AM, and they allow us to collapse the PVA process with these three into an overall heading of ISM. On the other hand, this approach requires us to take two steps to get to the phonetic facts, while the rule in (1.15) takes only one. We have allowed certain degrees of abstractness to enter our characterizations of the mutation types (for example, SM of /g/ → *[ ] → Ø) to aid in the simplicity of description; however, in this instance we feel that any simplicity metric should apply nearest to the process itself. This leads us to the conclusion that a one-rule description of PVA is to be preferred to a two-rule one, even if this results in the necessity of recognizing PVA as a separate type of process (i.e. ICA) from SM, NM and AM (i.e. ICM). Also, we feel the phonetic evidence supports the analysis of /h/-addition; we do not, therefore, feel it is right to collapse ICM and ICA as ISM, and so do not adopt the descriptions given in (1.13) and (1.14). 1.6.3 Syntactic environments of PVA The triggers of PVA are all lexical: three are pure lexical triggers, one is a restricted lexical trigger, and one a categorial lexical trigger.
Mutations in Standard Welsh
27
Table 1.4 SEs for PVA
No. 3 above is separated from 2 simply in order to show that only the abbreviated form of the first-person possessive/object pronoun causes PVA, while with 2 both the full and abbreviated forms do so. Note that the abbreviated form of ei (’i ‘him’) causes PVA only when in the object (or accusative case), whereas the abbreviated forms of ei ‘her’ cause PVA when possessive or objective. The entry in the target matrix of no. 4 is to be read as ‘takes PVA in the context of following the preposition ar’.
2
Previous accounts of mutation
2.0 INTRODUCTION Initial consonant mutation has interested many linguists, and there have been numerous accounts of the feature from various theoretical standpoints. Some of this work will be of direct relevance to topics covered in later chapters, so will be reviewed there. However, in this chapter we want to examine some of the other accounts which remain of interest even if not directly connected with the theoretical concerns of the rest of this book. We do not claim that the following is a complete review of all that has been written on mutations in pre- and early generative frameworks, and only items concerned solely or mainly with Welsh are included. We have excluded simple descriptions of the feature as might be found in pedagogical grammars (with the exception of Morgan 1952), but nevertheless we hope we have been representative of the trends of argument if not wholly comprehensive. 2.1 THE ‘CLASSIC’ ACCOUNT: MORGAN The ‘classic’ account of the mutations as used in the standard/literary language (see 1.2 above) is Morgan (1952). The usage as described is very much based on literary sources, and notes historical development to some extent. The book’s background is clearly pointed to in the information on the jacket: Trwy astudio amryw destunau, yn farddoniaeth a rhyddiaith, o bob cyfnod yn hanes yr iaith, ceiswyd casglu pob cystrawen lle ceir treiglad, ynghyd ag eithriadau ac amrywiadau ar y brif heol, ac olrhain mewn llawer achos y newid a fu ar y gystrawen neu’r ffordd o dreiglo. (Morgan 1952: cover)1
Previous accounts of mutation
29
(By studying various texts, poetry and prose, from all periods in the history of the language, we have attempted to collect every syntactic environment where mutations are found, together with exceptions and variations in the first instance, and follow in many cases the changes that have taken place in the syntax or the type of mutation.) The information continues by claiming that the book does not set out to be a set of prescriptive rules of desirable usage; rather, a description of modern standard usage. This, however, means there is little room for descriptions of what happens in modern spoken forms of the language. Indeed, if we look for references to the two mutations (NM and AM) which seem to show the most insecure status in spoken Welsh today (see Chapter 10) we find no mention of variability of any kind. Nor does the book attempt to describe the mutations in terms of any particular grammatical theory; rather, the chapters are set out in such a way that the syntactic environments that trigger mutations are discussed in turn, noting which mutation is triggered by each environment—backed up by quotations from literature. This work, then, is invaluable as the reference for standard, literary usage of mutations, but says nothing about a theoretical approach to account for the features, nor gives any insight into spoken usage of mutations, that is, the current dynamics of the system. 2.2 MORPHOPHONEMIC AND RELATED ACCOUNTS 2.2.1 Hamp The first major contribution to the analysis of mutations in terms of linguistic theory appears to have been Hamp (1951). He attempted in this paper to describe the ‘somewhat spectacular “changes” which initial phonemes undergo’ (p. 230) in terms of functions of morphophonemes. He believed that this ‘is precisely what they may most fruitfully be characterized as’ (p. 231). Two of the most important effects of such a treatment Hamp saw as morphological simplification and phonological simplification. Taking as his data base examples from Old Irish, Welsh and Breton, Hamp believed that his approach, from a synchronic viewpoint, has as its greatest value the simplification of the morphology and the phrasal morphology (i.e. syntax) of the language in question. He states that ‘after the phonemes of the language have been established, the morphophonemes should be
30
Mutation in Welsh
stated in a separate section, perhaps to be called the morphophonology’ (p. 232). He notes, moreover, that three things need to be stated about the morphophonemes of each language: ‘what phonetic effects do they produce? What forms produce these effects, i.e. contain these morphophonemes? In what sequences are such effects produced? —for it is only within certain phrasal groups that the mutations obtain’ (p. 232). These three points are discussed in Hamp (1951: sections 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 respectively). It is in terms of describing the phonetic effects of the morphophonemes that the symbolization of this approach is introduced. To deal with the Welsh examples Hamp used five morphophonemes, characterized by capital letters in slant brackets, and described as follows: ‘/L/ lenition, /N/ nasalization, /S/ spirantization, /A/ aspiration, /P/ provection’ (p. 233). These would correspond to the more traditional terms of Soft Mutation, Nasal Mutation, Aspirate/Spirant Mutation, Pre-Vocalic Aspiration and Hard Mutation (non-initial). Hamp gives examples of the simplification of morphological statements that can be obtained through this approach, as follows: fy nhad dy dad ei dad ei thad eu tad
[v= nha d] [d= da d] [i da d] [i θa d] [i ta d]
v=N ta d d=L ta d iL ta d iSA ta d iA ta d (p. 235)
In comparing the phonetic changes caused by mutations in the Celtic languages, Hamp makes the claim that the product of a mutation in one of the Brythonic languages (Welsh, Breton, Cornish) often coincides with an acceptable radical (i.e. unmutated) phoneme (e.g. Welsh /p/ → /b/), whereas in the Goidelic languages (Irish, Gaelic, Manx) the product of the mutation is rarely itself an acceptable radical consonant. (However, for eclipsis in Irish, /p, t, k, b, d/ change to /b, d, g, m, n/, which are acceptable radicals, and only /g/, which changes to / /, fits Hamp’s claim. Also, with Irish lenition, several segments result in acceptable radical initials. It could be that, in this instance, Hamp is referring to spelling, rather than pronunciation.) Therefore, in Welsh and Breton the learner ‘is continually finding himself in the wrong part of the dictionary’ (p. 236); in other words, this learner has to know not only what the mutations are, but which syntactic structures cause them.
Previous accounts of mutation
31
Hamp’s second two points to be given for each morphophoneme do not receive an in-depth treatment. Section 1.2 briefly describes some likely environments which may produce the mutations. Basically he saw a distinction between ‘grammatical forms and lexical forms’ (p. 238), that is, changes due to syntactic factors (what we call ‘syntactic triggers’), or purely caused by a particular lexical item (what we call ‘lexical triggers’). This aspect is not really discussed in detail, however, and Hamp concludes this section by stating: Such forms should be described in their appropriate place in the grammar or lexicon; the fact that they contain these morphophonemes is only incidental, and needs no comment if the morphology has been adequately described in an earlier chapter. (p. 238) Similarly, he hardly discusses at all the question of which syntactic sequences mutations are produced in, believing this to be an aspect of ‘phrasal morphology’ (i.e. syntax) (see Hamp 1951:238–9). Having examined the diachronic aspects of a morphophonological approach, Hamp concludes his paper by looking at the purely phonological advantages of his proposal. Although not using examples from Welsh, the argument could easily be applied to that language. The main advantage is simplification: ‘a reduction in the total stock of phonemes’ (p. 242). In Welsh, assuming that initial mh-, nh- and ngh-are treated as single phonological units rather than clusters (see discussion in Chapter 4), these units would no longer be needed if they can be seen as being reflexes of the /N/ morphophoneme (i.e. /p/+/N/, /t/+/N/, /k/+/N/). In a similar way, initial /v/ and /ð/ can be seen as reflexes of the /L/ morphophoneme: /b/+/L/ or /m/+/L/, 2.2.2 Oftedal Hamp’s treatment of the mutations was followed up some years later by Oftedal (1962). While accepting Hamp’s approach to the mutations in terms of morphophonemes, Oftedal disagreed on certain aspects of this approach. His paper also provides an interesting initial classification of mutation-triggering environments. The first, small point of disagreement voiced by Oftedal simply concerns symbolism. Oftedal agrees that ‘the mutating qualities [of a morpheme] should be indicated in the transcription’, but he prefers ‘to symbolize the morphophonemes by small superscript capitals in order to distinguish them from the segmental phonemes’ (p. 94).
32
Mutation in Welsh
The other point of disagreement concerns Hamp’s view on p h o n o l o g i c a l s i m p l i c i t y, O f t e d a l f e e l i n g t h a t i f t h e morphophonemic symbols are used in every position possible (i.e. including those not derived from synchronic mutation), this will result in ‘too much of an abstraction from the phonetic data’, and he does not find ‘such an extreme simplification is necessary or even desirable’ (p. 96). Apart from these points, Oftedal believes ‘it is evident that Hamp’s basic view is right’ (p. 94). But, whereas Hamp did not have much to say on the environments which cause the mutations, Oftedal does look into this area in greater depth, and attempts what he terms ‘a tentative classification’ (p. 102). The major distinction drawn is that between projected and incorporated mutations (lexical triggers and syntactic triggers in our terminology). The former are defined as ‘an initial mutation conditioned by a mutating quality in the morpheme which immediately precedes the mutated form. The mutation is part of the mutating morpheme, but manifests itself phonemically in the mutated form’ (p. 97). The incorporated type covers ‘all those mutations which are not projected; they are part of the form in which they are manifested and not of any preceding morpheme’ (p. 97). Whereas the majority of initial mutations in Celtic languages are of the projected type (as were all originally—see Chapter 3 —except that the inherent aspect of the trigger was the phonetic context conditioning the mutation), it is the incorporated variety which is further sub-divided by Oftedal (he seems not to have considered the sub-types of lexical triggers we discussed in 1.1.2 above). The first sub-division is that between free and bound incorporated mutations. This terminology clearly reflects the morphological distinction between free and bound morphemes. Free mutations are those that ‘occur initially in an utterance and are accordingly not conditioned by any preceding forms’ (p. 98). Examples from Welsh are negative sentences lacking the pre-verbal negative particle, for example, [xavoð e ðim bid] ‘he did not get anything’ (radical [kavoð], and the soft mutation of vocatives lacking an overt vocative exclamation: [da d tri’garog] ‘merciful Father!’ (radical [ta d]). These examples are taken from Oftedal (1962:98–9, adapted), who in turn took them from Sommerfelt (1925). We argued above in 1.3 (see also 6.5), and elsewhere (Ball 1988a) that it is more insightful and economical to treat such examples as ‘zero lexical triggers’ in that all such examples in Welsh have a stylistic alternative in formal registers with an overt lexical trigger which we claim can be deleted by an optional (or variable) rule.
Previous accounts of mutation
33
Oftedal’s bound incorporated mutations are ‘not projected from preceding morphemes, but the forms in which they appear are syntactically bound to preceding forms’ (p. 100). This category, too, is susceptible to division—Oftedal describes two varieties, inherent and retrospective (pp. 100–1), though it is probable that only the latter is relevant to Welsh. Inherent mutations ‘are always found in certain grammatical forms’ and seem to have a ‘rather weak morphemic status’ (p. 100). An example is given from Lewis Gaelic, where proper names in the genitive are mutated if masculine but not if feminine, regardless of the gender, number or case of the governing noun. No example is given for Welsh— and this category does not seem relevant for that language (our categories of restricted lexical triggers and categorial lexical triggers differ from inherent mutations in that there is still a link between the trigger and the target). The retrospective grouping includes all other bound incorporated mutations, and ‘here the mutation itself is the expression of a syntactic relationship’ (p. 101). Oftedal complains of the lack of detailed descriptions of this type in most grammars of Celtic languages. He provides several examples from Welsh, including apposition, object of non-periphrastic verb, adjective separated from, but following, feminine noun (p. 101). Oftedal believes that the incorporated mutations had been neglected in past studies, but feels they should have more attention paid to them as ‘they are the only initial mutations that have a real bearing upon morphemes, and they are therefore much more interesting to the structural linguist than the projected mutations, which may all be reduced to mere sandhi phenomena by appropriate techniques of description’ (p. 102). 2.2.3 Ellis The last two papers discussed have clearly covered much of the ground in terms of describing within a theoretical framework both the phonological aspects of mutations and their grammatical typology. However, while still working within a similar theoretical framework, a challenge to these previous descriptions came from Ellis (1965). This paper is based to some extent on a previous article by Ellis (1961) where he was concerned with a comparative linguistic approach to the initial consonant mutations of both Welsh and Irish. His initial analysis of the Welsh mutations is developed in the later paper, where,
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Mutation in Welsh
although agreeing ‘in general with Hamp and Oftedal’, he differs in ‘explicitly distinguishing “Functional Series” …specific to a given état de langue’ (p. 316). Ellis, then, is trying to go beyond the simple assigning of morphophonemic labels (Hamp and Oftedal), and the description of basic mutation types according to how they are triggered (Oftedal) and, while accepting the work already done as valuable, he is attempting to create a taxonomy linking the phonological manifestations of mutations to the specific grammatical triggers. He states, ‘to the purely phonological grouping of the mutations by their distinctive phonetic features…we may add a classification taking into account the formal context of their occurrence, referred to as Functional Series (in Welsh nine series)’ (p. 317). Each of these series is considered to be a morphophoneme, and a suitable symbol is assigned to each set. An example of the functional and phonetic differences between the series can be seen by comparing 3 (xh) and 4 (x): 3 4 3 4
ph th ch b d g m ll rh h— ph th ch b d g m ll rh— ... after certain possessive pronominal forms, e.g. ei ‘her’. after certain words, viz., a, ‘and’, â, na, (‘than’), gyda, tra, tua, tri, chwe. (Ellis 1965:59)
The positing of these separate functional series allows Ellis to get round the problem, as seen above, of triggers like ei ‘her’, which trigger both AM and PVA, those like a ‘and’, which trigger only AM, and those like ein ‘our’, which trigger only PVA. Also accounted for are negative preverbal particles which trigger AM on /p, t, k/, but SM on other mutatable radicals (this is accounted for differently in 1.1.2 above), and other instances of ‘mixed’ mutations of various kinds. Following this description of morphophonemes defined on a functional basis, Ellis (1965) discusses, in terms of Hallidayan scale and category grammar, the units of rank within which mutations may operate. He finds (pp. 320–2) that mutations may occur across all five divisions (i.e. sentence-initial, clause-initial, phrase-initial, word-initial and morpheme-initial). The main part of the paper concludes with a discussion on types of mutating environments. Ellis does not agree with Oftedal’s typology completely, and proposes four ‘grammatical degrees’ (p. 325), based on the notion of rank already referred to. These are as follows:
Previous accounts of mutation
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(i) part of exponent of a morpheme (which may terminate exponent of word or group), e.g. naxv…[= na+AM;SM] (ii) exponent of a morpheme, e.g. y+vo…[= y+SMR] (iii) exponent of a word, e.g. /v…[= +SM] (iv) exponent of a group, e.g. //v/…[= +SM] (p. 324) Examples of these may be seen below: (i) ///Sylwir // na / threiglir / yr enw…///. (AM on treiglir; negativeparticle trigger). ‘Observe that the noun is not mutated.’ (ii) /y frawddeg…/. (SM on brawddeg; definite-article trigger). The sentence…’ (iii) ///Gwelaf / ddyn///. (SM on dyn; direct-object trigger). ‘I see a man.’ (iv) ///Y fenw fach orau [[garnwyd]]/ yw / hi/// (SM on carnwyd; relative-clause trigger). ‘She’s the best little woman that was ever hewn.’ (Ellis 1965:321–2) However, the insights gained by this approach into the operation of mutations across grammatical boundaries do not seem to us to provide an adequate classification of the types of mutation environments without the inclusion also of a classification of the kind provided by Oftedal. Similarly, the functional-series classification is not a powerful or elegant description, being little more than an extended version of Hamp’s and Oftedal’s analyses. Our own view, given in 1.1.2, is that a more economic analysis is possible without the need to expand the four basic phonological processes to twice that number of functional processes. Further, a functional analysis would be much better motivated if each series were restricted to a particular grammatical/ syntactic function (e.g. following prepositions); however, as we have seen in 1.3–1.6, no such regularity pertains. 2.2.4 Albrow Also in this broad pre-generative tradition is Albrow (1966). This article is very firmly based within the Firthian school, but the notion of prosodies on which it is based has a certain similarity to that of morphophonemes in this instance. Using Sweet (1884) as a data base, Albrow proposes a set of suprasegmental prosodies to account for the data, and believes this approach ‘expressly by-passes morphophonemic statements’ (p. 3).
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Mutation in Welsh
What is different is the insistence that all mutatable consonants and vowels are entered into the mutation system at all points (p. 3), this of course necessitates a model capable of cancelling mutations as well as generating them. Albrow sets up two separate prosodies: a four-term junction system (the mutations themselves) symbolized as R, N, S, H (radical, nasal, soft, aspirate); and a two-term voicing/aspiration system, symbolized as h, h- (h standing for voiceless aspirated except with S, h-for voiced) (p. 4). They are defined as follows: Exponents of R are in keeping with the nature of initial C or V. Exponents of N are nasality with plosive and nasal initials, orality with all others. Exponents of S are voiced with h words, friction with orality with h- plosives, m and fricatives, in keeping with the nature of initial C or V with h- nasals, liquids and vowels. Exponents of H are friction with orality with h plosives, plosivity with h- plosives, voicelessness or aspiration with h liquids and vowels, aspiration with h- nasals, liquids, fricatives and vowels. (pp. 6–7) This system leads to considerable simplicity in the phonemic inventory; the number of mutatable consonants can be reduced to /p, t, k, m, n, l, r, v/. The following example shows how the system works: Rh
v= i i
pεn [pεn] ‘head’ rad pεn [mhεn] ‘my head’ NM Sh pεn [bεn] ‘his head’ SM Hh pεn [fεn] ‘her head’ AM Nh
praªd [braªd] ‘brother’ rad praªd [mraªd] ‘my brother’ NM Shpraªd [vraªd] ‘his brother’ SM Hhpraªd [braªd] ‘her brother’ AM (adapted from Albrow, 1966; cf. Hamp, above) Rh-
v= i i
Nh-
Albrow concludes by pointing out that this system can distinguish between radicals and mutated consonants that happen to be phonetically the same, e.g. [f] of [i fεn] ‘her head’ is symbolized as (Hh)p, whereas [f] of [fεnεstr] ‘window’ is (h)f or alternatively (h)v (p. 7). This approach is to some extent different from morphophonemic accounts in that it is essentially non-segmental, and as such points the way to recent autosegmental approaches to phonology and morphology (see Chapter 5). It does attempt to provide a phonetic basis for mutation, but seems only to present a series of ad hoc
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37
features in the assignment of the exponents of the prosodies. Also, as with all these approaches, the end result is often a set of unreadable, highly complex transcriptions due, perhaps, to an unwillingness to separate the phonological from the syntactic aspects of the phenomenon. 2.2.5 A.Thomas A.Thomas (1966) was one of the last really important accounts of Welsh phonology in a pre-generative framework, and covers a wide range of material from word-internal vowel changes through to ICM and PVA. We do not have the space here to give a thorough review of all of Thomas’s ideas, but his main aim was to move away from analyses based on historical evidence and restricted to formal, written registers of the language. He is also concerned to develop a framework which was not restricted to a phonemic approach, but explored the morphophonology of the language in a way that illustrated the ‘nature of the “dependence” of certain morphophonological systems upon areas of linguistic structure which lie outside phonology’ (A. Thomas 1966:97). In the specific case of the mutations, Thomas proposed a binary system, dividing them between those conditioned by the grammar, and those conditioned by the lexicon. At first glance this may sound very similar to the main distinction drawn in Chapter 1 between syntactic and lexical triggers; however, in this case the similarity in terminology is misleading. As an example of a grammatically conditioned mutation Thomas gives the third-person singular possessives, in that the masculine triggers SM, and the feminine AM, so the ‘grammatical’ feature gender is the conditioning factor. Lexical conditioning might be exemplified by prepositions triggering SM, where features such as gender have no part to play. This distinction is not, we feel, a very useful one. As Willis (1986) points out, instances such as the possessives do not actually use ICM as the main means of marking gender: many nouns do not start with mutatable consonants in any case, and in spoken Welsh the gender is more reliably marked on the copy pronoun following the noun (e.g. ei ffenestr ef/ei ffenestr hi, ‘his/her window’). She also points out examples where ICM with possessives does not disambiguate between alternative readings, or can indeed promote ambiguity (see Chapter 8). It is clear that, as we have done in Chapter 1, we do need to distinguish between lexical triggers that affect all possible targets from those whose
38
Mutation in Welsh
targets are affected by grammatical considerations such as gender. We also need, however, to account for syntactic targets as well; which in this paper Thomas does not deal with in detail. 2.2.6 Fowkes Fowkes (1949) brought an historical perspective to Welsh mutations, with particular reference to borrowings into Welsh from English. He examines examples where such borrowings have undergone a change of initial consonant under the influence of the mutation system. For example, borrowings with initial /v-/ are often found reanalysed as initial /b-/ or /m-/ (or both, as alternative forms), as native Welsh words can only be found with /v-/ as reflexes of SM. He quotes melfed < velvet, mainc < bench, and the earlier forms micar, bicar for the current ficer ‘vicar’. He returns to this area in further papers (Fowkes 1959, 1976; see also Griffen 1975). We look at the semantic implications of some of these borrowings in Chapter 8 below. 2.3 TRANSFORMATIONAL THEORY: AWBERY Starting from Awbery (1973), there have been numerous other accounts of mutations in the literature: many of these have been set within the generative and post-generative traditions, and will be looked at in the following sub-sections. The most important contribution in this field, however, is clearly that of Awbery (1973, 1975, 1976), and we will concentrate on her work here. Awbery (1973) is concerned first of all with discussing syntactic aspects of the mutations and for devising a formalism to account for them, and secondly with the phonological aspects and their formalism. Throughout, the importance of rule ordering is stressed. Three different types of mutation-triggering environments are suggested (p. 30): structural (Oftedal’s incorporated), lexical (Oftedal’s projected), and stylistic. This last type comes about when the syntactic structure causing the mutation has been derived through an optional (stylistic) transformation (p. 33); the type we have termed ‘changed word order’ above. Awbery (1975) amends this division by dividing the environments into four: lexical, categorial (mutations caused by the category of the word in question, e.g. SM of adjectives after a feminine noun), structural and transformational (i.e. stylistic). The 1973 paper also provides a formal way of describing the different environments via rules, e.g. (lexical):
Previous accounts of mutation
39
(adapted, p. 38) The rules are slightly more complex for other environment types. This formalism was used in an adapted form in Awbery’s (1976) account of Welsh syntax, where transformational rules were used to effect all types of mutations. We will refer to this work again in Chapter 6. Discussion takes place (Awbery 1973:34–8) as to where in the derivation the mutations occur, and the evidence suggests they occur late—though not as surface-structure phenomena, despite the importance of surface-structure ordering for some of the environments. The case is noted (p. 37) of the optional deletion of pre-sentential particles which must take place after they have triggered their mutations (see discussion of zero triggers above and in 6.5). In fact, most researchers would agree that ICM is comparatively late in derivation, whichever framework they are using (see Sproat 1986, discussed in Chapter 5). The second part of the 1973 paper attempts to provide a generative phonological description of the mutations. The rules Awbery drew up for the mutations are basically those we have used above in sections 1.3– 1.6. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of where within the phonological component the above rules should apply. She states, ‘they must follow both the segmental redundancy rules and the morpheme structure rules, since they refer to redundant features which would otherwise be unspecified’ (p. 44) (see also Chapter 5 for discussion of Sproat’s (1986) account of mutation and redundant features). Awbery refers in this instance to the fact that in her approach nasals are redundantly [—cont], and if this is left unspecified then NM cannot apply. Also, other phonological rules will have to follow the mutation rules. Examples are the specifying rules needed to adjust outputs such as *[v], *[ ] and so on (in Chapter 5 we discuss rule ordering in particular relation to *[ ]), allophonic rules, and syllable-adjusting rules (pp. 44–5). Awbery concludes, ‘it appears that they…apply in a block after the segmental redundancy rules and morpheme structure rules, but before any other phonological rules’ (p. 45). The 1975 paper differs little in the formalism of the generative analysis, but is also concerned with the wider theoretical implications of the relation between phonology and syntax (pp. 21f.), and indeed is
40
Mutation in Welsh
one of the early papers in the field of the interface between these two areas that has become increasingly popular, and to which we return in Chapter 7. Two models are discussed: the interface and the interlocking models. The interface model appeared to Awbery to be that adopted by most authors, and she assumes ‘that while information available in the surface structure analysis is available and relevant to phonological rules, information from earlier stages in the syntactic derivation is not relevant and presumably not available to the phonology’ (1975:21). The interlocking model would permit information from earlier stages to be available to the phonology; though this is currently not generally supported (see section 7.3 below). Awbery shows (pp. 21–3) how many of the mutation triggers are compatible with the interface model; but gives examples (pp. 23–4) of where she feels this model breaks down. One of these is the optional deletion of pre-sentential particles already noted (see an account of these in Ball 1988a and Chapter 6, where an alternative explanation is offered whereby the deleted particles leave traces that trigger the mutation), the other being the optional deletion of pronoun subjects of non-periphrastic verb forms. Assuming a direct object is present, this receives SM as in gwelodd ef gi → gwelodd gi ‘he saw a dog’. Without access to the first form, the mutation ci → gi could not have been applied. She concludes, therefore, the necessity of an interlocking relationship between syntax and phonology. However, as noted in 6.5, Government-Binding (GB) theory would posit pro as the subject here. In any case in our syntactic frame approach an overt subject is not required to trigger direct-object mutation. Awbery (1986c) also contains an account of initial mutation as part of a general survey of sandhi phenomena in Welsh. This, however, is mainly descriptive, and is not concerned with theoretical issues. 2.4 OTHER RECENT ACCOUNTS 2.4.1 Knudsen Knudsen’s (1973) thesis is an attempt to provide a generative phonological description of Welsh. The author devotes one chapter to the mutations, where he attempts a maximum of economy in both phonological description and accounts of triggering environments through the adoption of an abstract phonological solution to ICM in Welsh. This account belongs to a small group of such attempts at
Previous accounts of mutation
41
abstract phonological explanations, including Cram (1975) and ThomasFlinders (1981) both for Scots Gaelic; Kallen (1979), however, rejects a similar approach for Irish. Knudsen attempts to construct an account of ICM which is restricted to the phonology and does not have to rely on information from the lexicon or the syntax. In order to do this one can only work with what we have termed lexical triggers. Furthermore, it is necessary to ensure that all such triggers contain a (possibly) abstract phonological feature that is deemed to ‘cause’ the mutation in question, and that this same feature is not found in instances where the particular mutation is not triggered. Knudsen attempts to provide a purely phonological account of AM and NM only; he recognizes that the diverse nature of SM triggering (including, of course, syntactic triggers where it would be impossible to construct an abstract phonological trigger) preclude this mutation type from his analysis. His proposed analyses are both extremely simple, but, as we shall see, both fail the tests noted above. For AM he proposes that the triggers that cause the mutation all have in common the fact that they end with a consonant in pre-vocalic position, this consonant being deleted pre-consonantally (e.g. gyda(g) ‘with’). If these AM triggers are treated as clitics it is possible to construct a rule that requires AM to be triggered by consonant-final clitics (though not by full words), with a rule later to delete the consonant. As Tallerman (1987) points out, such an analysis is not particularly abstract, as the underlying consonants posited all do emerge in pre-vocalic contexts. However, it does fail the two tests we noted above. There are AM triggers that do not have final consonants even pre-vocalically (e.g. tri ‘three’, ei ‘her’), and there are consonant-final clitics that do not cause AM (e.g. y(r) ‘the’). For NM, Knudsen recognizes that a fully abstract solution is not possible. Talking about the NM triggered by yn ‘in’ and yn ( = fy) ‘my’, and the assimilation of the final n to following bilabials, he notes ‘it is not possible to allow either the assimilation of the nasal or the nasalization of the consonant to be general processes in MSW [modern standard Welsh]’ (Knudsen 1973:139), as this features does not follow other n-final words. Nevertheless, he posits a rule of NM and of nasal assimilation which include the two yn forms in the structural description, while the NM of time nouns after certain numerals (see 1.4.2) is listed lexically as an idiosyncratic feature of the numerals concerned. Tallerman queries the necessity of the yn rule, again pointing out the fact that there are nasal-final clitics that do not trigger NM (e.g. gan ‘with, by’: though Knudsen, of course, is not claiming that his rule is general), and there are NM triggers that are not nasalfinal. In the last respect, she concentrates on the numerals, excluded by
42
Mutation in Welsh
Knudsen; but we could also note the fact that fy ‘my’, while it is often pronounced in colloquial speech as [?n], can occur in more formal styles as [v=], as fy afal [v= aval], or as [v], as f’afal [vaval] ‘my apple’. It can be claimed that fy forms, therefore, are also not nasalfinal, yet still trigger NM. It is clear that the numbers of exception to rules of this sort demonstrate that attempts at purely phonological accounts of mutation are not adequate, either at the level of description or of explanation. 2.4.2 Griffen Griffen (1975) follows in many respects the work of Fowkes (1949) in looking at what happens to borrowings from English into Welsh within the mutation system. He points out that older borrowings with initial /v/, /ð/, Ø, /w/, /l/, /r/ are re-interpreted as having radical /b/ or /m/, /d/, /g/, /gw/, / /, / / respectively, and thereby the original English initials are seen as being SM reflexes of the new initials. However, borrowings with initial /b/, /d/, /g/ are not reinterpreted as / p/, /t/, /k/, and so the original initials are not seen as SM reflexes, but as radicals. Griffen then argues that the constraint that was clearly operating during these early borrowings must somehow be captured in the grammar of modern Welsh, despite admitting that recent borrowings do not generally undergo the transformation of initial segments. He explores various ways of doing this, firstly via the phonological component of a generative description which he feels is inadequate to relate different levels of analysis he feels are needed. He concludes with a stratificational model which he feels does adequately relate different levels of structure, and so account for the treatment of borrowings. While this article does provide an interesting use of the stratificational model with Welsh, it may be concluded that the problem addressed is a non-issue. If the restrictions on borrowings are now relaxed, we are here providing an historical explanation of a previous process, but, clearly, we do not need to include this feature as part of any currently operative phonological strategy. 2.4.3 Willis Willis (1982, 1986) investigates the mutation systems of the Brythonic languages, with data mainly from Breton and Welsh. The 1986 publication is an abbreviated form of the 1982 thesis, and is divided into two main
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sections: the first reviews attempts to characterize mutation processes, while the second examines lenition in particular. In her first chapter Willis mainly discusses whether mutations are to be considered as transformational rules, or as part of the morphology (we return to this discussion ourselves in 6.1 below). Her conclusion is that mutations of the type we have characterized as syntactic in Chapter 1 are best captured by transformational rules in the pattern of Awbery (1976); whereas projected mutations of the type we have characterized as lexical should be accounted for via morphological features. The second chapter looks at the idea that in certain circumstances lenited forms of words should be considered unmarked, or basic (see further discussion in 5.3.2 and 5.4.2). Willis does not argue that lenition is always the basic form, but rather that within the phonological word (e.g. prepositional clitic + noun) lenition is to be considered as always in force, unless the clitic is marked for an exception. 2.4.4 Thorne Thorne (1984, 1985) works mainly within a systemic linguistic framework, owing much to the work of Halliday (e.g. 1973), and in phonology to the Firthian school of prosodic phonology. His 1984 paper is concerned mainly with the so-called incorporated mutations (see above), working within the framework laid down by Hamp and Oftedal. He attempts to show that this particular category of mutation can be accounted for in other ways; for example, as we have done, through appealing to the notion of underlying triggers that are subsequently deleted. He also discusses examples of targets separated from their triggers by other syntactic material, a notion which we will return to consider in Chapter 6. Thorne’s (1985) book contains a grammatical sketch of Welsh, within the systemic framework already referred to. A brief account of mutations is given, using the dialect of Maenor Berwig in south-west Wales. Thorne adopts a morphophonemic analysis similar to that of Hamp (Thorne 1985:151–4), positing morphophonemes for SM, SMR, mixed mutation, AM, SM, provection (sometimes called ‘hard mutation’: this feature occurs at morpheme boundaries, word-internally), and a morphophoneme to account for the dialect-specific feature of /w-/ → /χw-/ following a. Unfortunately, the diagrams illustrating the effects of these morphophonemes contain several typographical errors (SMR is not shown to apply to /g/, AM is said to change /k/ → /g/ instead of /k/ → /x/), although the text itself is correct. This approach is clearly within the same
44
Mutation in Welsh
pattern of many of the papers reviewed above, and the account does not purport to be an in-depth analysis of the area. 2.4.5 Others Pilch (1975), while working broadly within a phonemic framework, simply lists mutation under the heading of morphophonemics, but does not discuss the phenomenon in detail. Pilch (1986) is a survey of mutation and other, phonologically conditioned, sandhi phenomena in the Celtic languages. In this account, Pilch concentrates on the Welsh data, though discusses Irish ICM as well. There is an attempt to look at the phonetic relationship between mutated forms other than through traditional distinctive features (see also Chapter 5), but some of Pilch’s conclusions are surprising (e.g. that /l/ is a spirant rather than a liquid; see our evidence against this in Chapter 4). There is also a claim that in colloquial Welsh / m/ and /n/ undergo AM, when the evidence of dialect studies is clear that this is restricted to certain northern dialects only. This account is in a collection dealing with sandhi phenomena which also contains papers on Welsh (Awbery 1986c), Breton (Le Dû 1986) and Irish (Ó Cuív 1986). There is also a contribution by Ternes (1986), who argues that the Celtic mutations cannot rightly be counted as sandhi phenomena in the modern languages, as they are by now aphonological (i.e. triggered morphosyntactically). Mizutani (1986) discusses two aspects of mutation: firstly, by looking at colloquial versus standard; and secondly by attempting a classification system of his own. This system consists of ‘word-class’ mutations, ‘contact mutations’ and ‘functional mutations’, although it is difficult to see how the definitions given for these types actually relate to the examples shown. In fact, many of the examples used suffer from being either extremely unlikely forms (e.g. ?mae e yn talu instead of mae e’n talu ‘he’s paying’) or simply being incorrect (e.g. *fysy’n dechrau instead of fi sy’n dechrau ‘It’s me who’s starting’; this last, being repeated several times, is clearly not a typographical error). Tallerman (1987) provides a different approach to the listing of triggering environments than we have adopted in this chapter, but the main interest of her work lies in its account of Welsh syntax, to which we return in Chapter 6, where we also examine Tallerman (1990b). Tallerman’s (1990a) account of mutation usage in relativization is discussed in Chapter 8. Ternes (1990) presents an interesting comparison of the initial consonant mutation systems of the Celtic languages, and the similar systems found in many of the languages of the West Atlantic group of
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Niger-Congo. Examining the historical backgrounds of the different languages shows that whereas ICM in Celtic is clearly derived from phonological changes triggered across word/clitic boundaries, in West Atlantic the system is derived from previously used prefixes. These differences in history are reflected also in current uses: for example, in Celtic ICM it is possible to identify a ‘base’ form (i.e. unmutated, or ‘radical’), but this is not possible in West Atlantic, as the mutatable words would originally always have been carrying one of the set of prefixes. Naturally, there have also been accounts of patterns of usage from the viewpoints of dialectology and sociolinguistics, and from psycholinguistic perspectives; these are reviewed in relevant later chapters, as are accounts of the historical background to mutation, and the phonetic aspects of the feature.
3
Comparative and historical aspects of mutation
3.0 INTRODUCTION In the introduction to this book, we mentioned that initial mutations are a feature which is common to all Celtic languages. This chapter aims to add a comparative as well as an historical perspective to the discussion of the system of initial mutations in Modern Welsh. In the first part (section 3.1), we will give a short description of the mutation systems in the other Celtic languages. We will concentrate on the description of the phonological changes themselves, rather than provide lists of the environments triggering mutations. Contrastive emphasis will therefore be on the different grouping, in the different Celtic languages, of similar phonological changes. Section 3.2 will set the scene for the historical discussion, by introducing the phonological background, i.e. putting the segments and processes involved in ICM into a wider phonological and historical context. In section 3.3, we present several approaches to the question of how the sound system of Modern Welsh, and in particular ICM, evolved. We will be concerned with relative rather than absolute chronology with respect to the sequence of developments described: the processes we will investigate belong in the main to the pre-history of Welsh as a separate language, and there is very little securely datable material on which to rely (see also section 3.4.3). Section 3.4 provides a short outlook on other aspects of the historical discussion, such as mutation and case, the problems concerned with absolute dating and the establishment of syntactic triggers.
Comparative and historical aspects of mutation
47
3.1 MUTATION IN MODERN CELTIC LANGUAGES 3.1.1 Modern Irish Modern Irish, as well as the older stages of the language, has a two-way system of initial consonant mutations. In addition to this, we find prevocalic aspiration (i.e. prefixing of h- to vowels) and pre-vocalic nasalization (i.e. prefixing of n-). The dialects of Modern Irish do not show significant variations with regard to the phonological processes involved in mutations (although there is some dialectal variation with respect to triggering environments). We will therefore not elaborate on the regional division of Modern Spoken Irish in the following discussion (a description of the dialectal makeup of Modern Irish is to be found, for example, in Ó Siadhail (1989:2ff., with further literature). In anglophone linguistic studies, the two types of Irish mutation are most commonly referred to as lenition and eclipsis (see Table 3.1); for the latter, nasalization is sometimes to be found, especially in works dealing with the older stages of the language (e.g. Thurneysen 1946, and works based thereon). This term, as we will see, is only partly correct. Table 3.1 Lenition in Modern Irish
We will not dwell here on exceptions to the general rules of lenition, for example the non-lenition of certain consonant groups. For these, the reader is referred to Ó Siadhail (1989:112ff.). Lenited /
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Mutation in Welsh
t/ and /d/ in Old Irish resulted in /θ/ and /ð/. These do not occur in Modern Irish. How long the dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ were retained in Irish is a matter of debate. It is obvious from late medieval manuscripts that by that time /ð/ and / / had merged into / / to a considerable extent, if not universally. OIr. /θ/ has become /h/ in Modern Irish. Eclipsis in Irish affects only the stops, and the fricative /f/, as can be seen from Table 3.2. The ‘equivalent’ of eclipsis with initial vowels is prevocalic nasalization, as in (3.1)
a n-athair ‘their father’ a dteach ‘their house’
(Eclipsis in these examples is triggered by the third-person plural possessive.) Table 3.2 Eclipsis in Modern Irish
Note:
Tables 3.1 and 3.2 are adapted from Ó Siadhail (1989:112). See also Ó Cuív (1986:396ff., especially 397–8), for a description of the consonant system and the changes effected by ICM in Modern Irish.
From a Modern Irish perspective, the treatment of /s/ in lenition environments with the definite article an is exceptional: (3.2)
an bhean ‘the woman’ an tseachtain ‘the week’
Lenition is, in these instances, triggered by the article preceding a feminine noun. The apparently exceptional treatment of /s/ in this context is a reflex of the pre-historic form of the article (nominative singular, feminine) *sinda, which in conjunction with initial s- led first of all to */nd h-/ and then to /(n)t/. Orthographically, this change is marked by prefixing t- to the mutated s-. Pre-vocalic aspiration in certain instances correlates with contrastive non-mutation of initial consonants, and can in this way be regarded as part of the mutation system, as in the following example:
Comparative and historical aspects of mutation
(3.3)
a chat ‘his cat’ a cat ‘her cat’
49
a athair ‘his father’ a h-athair ‘her father’
The possessive pronoun, third-person singular masculine, triggers lenition, and leaves initial vowels unchanged. The possessive, thirdperson singular feminine, does not cause any consonant mutation, but triggers PVA. As a marginal note, it may be stated here that in Irish, unlike in Welsh, all mutated consonants (apart from /l, n, r’), the lenited forms of /L, N, R/ ) are clearly marked as such in the orthography. Thus, even if the phonological result of the mutation of two different consonants is identical (e.g. the lenition of /t/ and /s/, or of /d/ and /g/, or the eclipsis of /f/ and the lenition of /b/), the point of departure of the mutation process is still obvious from the spelling. 3.1.2 Scottish Gaelic Gillies (forthcoming: section 1), quoting Jackson (1953b), states that communis opinio would date the emergence of Scottish Gaelic, as distinct from any other form of Gaelic (i.e. Irish or Manx) at around the end of the Middle Irish period (early twelfth century). According to Ó Siadhail, only from the seventeenth century onwards can we speak of Scottish Gaelic and Manx as languages distinct from Irish. Indeed, as Gillies (forthcoming) points out, much of the early written material from Scotland shows the literary register commonly called ‘Classical Irish’, a standardized form of language which was used in Ireland and Scotland alike until well into the seventeenth century. The mutation systems of Scottish Gaelic and Irish are very similar: lenition in Scottish Gaelic and Irish are virtually identical processes. There are, however, differences with regard to the realization of eclipsis (as will emerge below, more properly called nasalization in Scottish Gaelic) in both languages. As we have seen, eclipsis in Irish involves the voicing of voiced stops and /f/ and the replacement of voiced stops by homorganic nasals (this is, strictly speaking, a slightly simplified rendering of the state of affairs, but it will do for the moment). According to historical linguists, this happened where a ‘closely related preceding word had terminated in a nasal in prehistoric times’ (Gillies forthcoming: section 3). In Scottish Gaelic, the development was slightly different, in that final nasal and initial stop and /f/ did not merge into one. Gillies calls this first stage of development from Common Gaelic to the Modern Gaelic dialects (itself preserved in some dialects, either in part or completely) Sc(ottish)
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Mutation in Welsh
G(aelic)1. Eclipsis surfaces as shown in Table 3.3. As a result the failure of the final nasal and the nasalized initial consonant to merge in nasalizing contexts stemming from Common Gaelic final nasals, and Scottish Gaelic contexts where a final nasal preceded initial obstruents could fall together in their treatment of this consonant group. Gillies gives as example the pair nan cat (Irish na gcat) ‘of the cats’, and an cat (Irish an cat) ‘the cat’. The sequence nasal-obstruent could be treated identically in both cases, but only the first instance is a mutation environment on historical grounds. Table 3.3 ScG1
Source: Adapted from Gillies (forthcoming: section 3) From the system given in Table 3.3, ScG1, two further developments are attested in Modern Scottish Gaelic. Gillies refers to these as ScG2 and ScG3 respectively. In ScG2, as in the Gaelic of Lewis, the constrast [+voiced] and [–voiced] is reflected in the nasalized stops, and we find the series /mh, nh, h/ from /p, t, k/, and /m, n, / from /b, d, g/. ScG3 does not show this reflex of the [+voiced]/ [–voiced] contrast (both series of stops are realized as /mb, nd, g/ when nasalized (for a more detailed description see Gillies forthcoming: section 3). Scottish Gaelic shows PVA and PVN, which function according to rules similar to those in Irish. Gillies (ibid.) counts non-mutation among the ICM, since it can be contrastive with lenition, and correlates with PVA (see the process illustrated in example (3.3), for the Irish parallel). 3.1.3 Manx Manx, the Goidelic language until recently spoken in the Isle of Man, exhibits a mutation system which is, according to Broderick (1984:7), ‘in a state of flux’; that is, the use of mutations is not consistent. Lenition, where it occurs, is based on the same principles as in Irish or Scottish Gaelic; however, /N/, /L/ and /r/ are not affected by lenition in Manx. In
Comparative and historical aspects of mutation
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the case of eclipsis, only traces have survived: Broderick lists some isolated instances occurring in late spoken Manx (1984:20). Similar to Irish, Manx also possessed the feature of prefixing t- to s-, and of prevocalic aspiration. Again, usage in late spoken Manx is not consistent (for details see Broderick 1984:21ff.). As might be expected from an historical point of view, the Goidelic languages show great similarities with respect to their initial consonant mutations. If we accept Gillies’s view (and there seems no reason not to) that the realization of eclipsis/nasalization in Scottish Gaelic is a Scottish innovation, then we can note that Irish exhibits the most archaic mutation system of the three Goidelic languages. 3.1.4 Modern Breton The mutations of Breton are more closely related, from a systematic point of view, to those of the other Brythonic languages (Cornish and Welsh) than to those of the Goidelic languages. Breton distinguishes four types of ICM, commonly referred to as lenition (for which we will use the term soft mutation), spirantization (or AM), provection (or hard mutation) and mixed mutation. Stephens (forthcoming: section 3) adds ‘non-mutation’, which includes one consonant change, /k/ → /x/ (or / /), since it is contrastive with respect to SM (for a similar feature, compare PVA in Irish). The phonological processes involved in Breton mutations are set out in Table 3.4. Unless graphemes are especially noted, the phonemic notation is also the orthographic realization. Table 3.4 has been adapted from Press (1986:43) and Stephens (forthcoming: section 3). It should be noted that transcription is broad, and that there is considerable dialectal variation in Breton, with respect both to pronunciation and spelling. For a more detailed description of the mutation system of Breton, including the triggering environments, see also Falc’hun (1951:84–102), Trépos (1980:36ff.), Desbordes (1983: 9ff.), Le Dû (1986:437ff.), Press (1986:44ff.). The nasal mutation of Welsh does not have a systematic counterpart in Breton. There are, however, a few isolated instances of assimilation of /d/ to a preceding /n/, e.g. in an nor ‘the door’, unnek ‘eleven’ (from un + dek). 3.1.5 Middle and Late Cornish We refer here to Middle and Late Cornish, rather than revived or modern Cornish, since only the former represent the unbroken continuation of the
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Mutation in Welsh
Table 3.4 Mutations in Breton
earlier forms of Brythonic. George (forthcoming) dates Middle Cornish (MC) to the period from c. 1200 to c. 1575, Late Cornish from c. 1575 to c. 1800 AD. For details concerning the history and the demise of the Cornish language and the subsequent revival, see the discussion in George (forthcoming: section 1 and Chapter 13, the section on revived Cornish; and the relevant chapters in George 1984). The mutation system of Middle Cornish shows greater similarity to that of Breton than to that of Welsh. According to George (forthcoming: section 3), there is evidence that in Late Cornish, the mutation system was gradually breaking down. George (ibid.) sketches the mutations of Middle Cornish as follows (phonemic notation; for the phonetic notation see George’s discussion, section 3). As the spelling system of Middle Cornish is inconsistent, no graphemes are given in Table 3.5 with corresponding phonemes. (On Middle Cornish orthography, see Lewis 1945: section 7.) Cornish, like Breton, does not show NM as part of the productive mutation system.1
Comparative and historical aspects of mutation
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Table 3.5 Mutations in Middle Cornish
3.2 THE HISTORICAL AND PHONOLOGICAL BACKGROUND 3.2.1 Linguistic periodization The establishment of Welsh as a separate language, as opposed to British, or Brittonic, or Brythonic, is commonly dated to between the middle and the end of the sixth century AD. From then on, the periodization of the language is as shown in Table 3.6 (see e.g. MorrisJones 1913:6–7; Lewis 1946: Chapter 7; Jackson 1953a: 5f; D.S.Evans 1964:xvi–xvii). Table 3.6 Linguistic periods of Welsh
Fife (1990b:2) puts forward arguments in favour of a separate linguistic stage, which he calls classical Welsh (ranging from the fifteenth to the early nineteenth centuries), to denote the period in which a register of literary Welsh became standardized, and a number of other changes from Middle to Modern Welsh took place (see Fife 1990b:2f. for details). Several stages can be distinguished in the pre-history of Welsh and the other Brythonic languages. The period immediately preceding the
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Mutation in Welsh
development of Welsh, Cornish and Breton as linguistic systems, sufficiently different to be referred to as separate languages, is called British by Jackson (1953a:4–5). He distinguishes between Early British and Late British. Schmidt (1990:126), accepting Jackson’s model with slight modifications, divides the Early British period into two stages, from the oldest attested report on Britain (by Pytheas of Massalia, c. 325 BC) down to the Roman invasion of Britain under Claudius (AD 43), and from then on to the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain (AD 450). The sub-Roman period from 450 up to the emergence of the neo-Brittonic languages (Welsh, Cornish and Breton) is labelled Late British. Already in the British period, Jackson would distinguish two main dialect areas, which he calls West British (and Late West British), in Wales and the Midlands, and South-west British (and Late South-west British), in Devon and Cornwall. The Breton migrations, which led to the establishment of settlements of speakers of South-west British/Primitive Breton in Brittany, took place between the mid fifth and the end of the sixth centuries. Whereas the ancestor language of Welsh, Cornish and Breton had been an inflected language of a comparatively ‘archaic’ character, the NeoBrittonic languages are of a type which Schmidt describes as inflectiveanalytic, characterized by ‘reduced syntactic inflection and fixed word order as a corollary (Schmidt 1990:138; see also Schmidt 1975 for the terminology regarding language types). The sources for Late British consist mainly of place-names, personal names and lexical borrowings from Latin. The terminology used to refer to the various historic and prehistoric periods of the language(s) under investigation is not firmly fixed by convention. Where, for example, Jackson uses Brittonic, others refer to Brythonic. In general, British appears most often to be used to denote the immediate ancestor of Welsh, Cornish and Breton. There is, however, no common consensus. Koch suggests that the period starting with apocope (dated by him c. AD 500) and immediately preceding Old Welsh (OW), Old Cornish (OC), Old Breton (OB) be called ‘Archaic (Common) Neo-Brittonic’. The justification for this step he sees in the remarkable similarity of the written language of Wales and Brittany before the ninth century (Koch 1986:44f.). Jackson (1953a:4) uses the term Gallo-Brittonic to refer to the ‘Continental p-Celtic languages’. The terms P-Celtic and Q-Celtic are still a useful shorthand way to distinguish between Goidelic and Brythonic. The term derives from the different development of
Comparative and historical aspects of mutation
55
the Indo-European voiceless labio-velar stop /kw/, for which see (3.4): (3.4) IE *kwetwores > W pedwar, B pevar, vs OIr. ceth(a)ir ‘four’ It should be noted, though, that the Continental Celtic material overall, and especially the testimony of Celtic from the Iberian peninsula, has caused the distinction P- versus Q-Celtic to lose much of its defining power. We will not go into the genesis and development of the different Continental Celtic languages (or dialects?) out of what Jackson (1953a:3) calls Common Celtic, a notional sub-division of Indo-European, not yet differentiated into separate Celtic languages (see e.g., Evans 1990 for a discussion of recent attempts to pinpoint the genesis of Celtic in terms of linguistic and archaeological evidence; also Schmidt forthcoming on the development of Insular Celtic, the terms P- and Q-Celtic and their applicability; further Evans and Eska forthcoming on the Continental Celtic material). 3.2.2 The phonological background: segments As a general rule, albeit a somewhat simplified one, we can state that any process which presents itself as ICM in Modern Welsh goes back to a phonological process without grammatical function, triggered by the cooccurrence of certain sound groups, which are, in the majority of cases, no longer present in the Welsh language. In other words, in origin, the changes which gave rise to the mutation system were external sandhi phenomena. The first question which arises from this is, of course, what were the conditions under which these phonological processes could and did take place. We will in this and the following sections concentrate on the development of the consonant system. Vowel changes will not be dealt with. In addition to the character of the relevant sound changes, their relative chronology is of importance. What we are looking for, then, is a series of phonological processes which led from the state of affairs present in pre-mutation Brittonic to the phonological shape of Modern Welsh, and which, among other things, led to the grammaticalization of ICM and the disappearance, in all but a few cases, of the original triggers. Having mentioned above that our point of departure is the (generally accepted) assumption that in ICM we are confronted with processes arising from contact, i.e. sandhi phenomena, it is clear that as far as the triggers of ICM are concerned, lexical triggers in the
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wider sense (including the category [feminine noun]) are considered the most basic category of triggers, and that triggering of the phonological change in question was at some stage confined to direct adjacency. There seems to be, by and large, a general consensus among historical linguists regarding the consonant system of what P.W.Thomas calls early Brythonic (i.e. the linguistic stage preceding the developments shaping the consonantal segment system of Welsh and the other Brythonic languages) (see P.W.Thomas 1990:2, who excepts the geminate nasal segments from the generally accepted features). The exact character and relative chronology of, and the motivation for, the changes leading from the former to the latter are far from unanimously agreed upon. We follow Thomas (1990) in assuming that the consonant inventories presented here are phonemes. In discussions concerning historical phonology, it is often not clarified whether the segments in question are meant to represent phonemes or not (cf. Jackson’s model, introduced below, where only in the second round of discussion does he make it unambiguously clear that he is talking about allophones rather than contrastive segments). Table 3.7 gives the inventories of obstruent and nasal phonemes of early Brythonic and Early Old Welsh (adapted from P.W.Thomas 1990: p. 2, based on the description of Jackson 1953a and Lewis and Pedersen 1937). Early Old Cornish and Breton shared, most likely, the constellation of nasals and obstruents shown for early Old Welsh, with the exception of the voiceless nasal segments (see P.W.Thomas 1990:2, and the argument Koch 1986:44 advanced for ‘Common Archaic Neo-Brittonic’).
Table 3.7 Obstruent and nasal phonemes in Early Brythonic and Early Old Welsh
Comparative and historical aspects of mutation
57
Jackson developed the theory that the stop phonemes of Brythonic had three allophonic variants with respect to length and articulatory force: a short lenis allophone would be distinguishable from a long fortis one and the latter from a geminate one (see Table 3.8, using Jackson’s notation for the allophones). Table 3.8 Jackson’s three-way allophonic system of Brythonic stops
The distribution of these allophones, Jackson argues, is determined by their environments: the short lenis segment (e.g. [t]) occurs in intervocalic position, the long fortis segment (e.g. [T]) word-initially, the geminate segment in intervocalic position and in certain consonant groups (e.g. /xt, lt, rk, lp/, etc.) (see Jackson 1953a:546; 1960: 127) where ‘they seem to have fallen together with the geminates in British, and we must therefore presumably start with a proximate χTT, lPP etc. in common Brittonic’ (Jackson 1960:127). Jackson’s view of the triple allophonic realization of Brythonic stop phonemes, first stated in his 1953 publication and further developed in 1960, was motivated by the reflexes of these stop phonemes in Welsh (of which more below).2 P.W.Thomas draws attention to the fact that, although Jackson characterizes the short, lenis and the geminate homorganic segments as allophones, they are not free variants in intervocalic position, but contrastive, both with respect to the Brythonic phonological state of affairs and the reflexes in Welsh (consider, for example, the pair */katus/, giving Welsh cad ‘battle’ and */kattus/ (cf. Lat. cattus), resulting in Welsh cath ‘cat’; cf. P.W.Thomas 1990:4, D.E.Evans 1967:171). We will return to Jackson’s theory and further criticism thereof in connection with the various attempts to explain the development of the Modern Welsh sound system. 3.2.3 The phonological background: environments It is generally accepted that in Celtic it is the boundary of the phrase rather than that of the word which constrains contact phenomena such as lenition processes (see P.W.Thomas 1990:23). This means on the one hand, that phonological changes affecting, for example, consonants in intervocalic
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Mutation in Welsh
position will not only work within the word, but across word boundaries (see section 7.2 for discussion of the notion of the phonological word). On the other hand, the environments conditioning changes across word boundaries will be mirrored by developments in identical word-internal environments. British consonants underwent the changes corresponding to the SM of Welsh in the following environments: single stops and /m/, in intervocalic position, following a vowel and before /l/, /r/ and /n/ (/ / and / / are relatively late developments in Welsh; they do not therefore concern us at present). In addition, voiced stops are lenited in an environment following /l/ or /r/ and preceding a vowel. This ‘lenition’ can be illustrated by means of Latin words which entered British (or Brythonic) before this sound change, or at the latest at a time when it was still a productive process, and therefore were affected by it in the same way as native words, see (3.5)– (3.7): (3.5)
Lat. voiceless stops capistrum ciuitas lorica
> W. voiced stops cebystr /b/ ‘tether’ ciwed /d/ ‘people, mob’ llurig /g/ ‘coat of mail’
(3.6)
Lat. voiced stops Februarius barba medicus fuga di + gal
> W. voiced fricatives Chwefror /v/ ‘February’ barf /v/ ‘beard’ meddyg /ð/ ‘doctor’ ffo (see comment below) ‘flight’ OW digal /?/, ModW dial. ‘vengeance’
(3.7)
Lat. /m/ columna
> W. /v/ (early OW [?]?) colofn ‘pillar’
It is to be understood, of course, that native Brythonic words underwent the same sound changes. Evidence from place-names and other onomastic material, also drawing attention to the changes brought upon the names by Anglo-Saxon, is given in Jackson (1953a: e.g. secs. 50ff., 131ff., see also Förster 1941).3 The Modern Welsh disappearance of /g/ through lenition is mirrored by the shape of Latin loanwords in Welsh. However, there is evidence that lenited /g/, i.e. [ ], was preserved in word-initial position right through the Primitive Welsh (Cornish, Breton) period (in Jackson’s terms). Much the same was true for [ ] at the beginning of the second element of compounds. The development of word-internal intervocal /g/ (or /g/
Comparative and historical aspects of mutation
59
following a vowel and preceding a sonorant) is more complicated. We will not pursue it further here, since it is not central to our investigation (for details concerning the development of IE and Lat. /g/ in British see Jackson 1953a:433–70). The conditions in which voiceless stops were turned into homorganic fricatives in Brythonic can be summarized as follows: (1) Geminated voiceless stops in intervocalic position (this is the only position in which they occurred in Latin loanwords, and probably also in native Brythonic words; see P.W.Thomas 1990:13), and single voiceless stops following a sonorant and preceding a vowel; cf. (3.8) and (3.9): (3.8)
Lat.geminates cloppus sagitta siccus
> W.fricatives cloff/f/ ‘lame’ saeth/θ/ ‘arrow’ sych/x/ ‘dry’
(3.9)
Lat. /r, l/+/p, t, k/ serpens torta calcem
> W./r,l/ + fricative sarff/f/ ‘serpent’ torth/θ/ ‘loaf’ calch/x/ ‘lime’
(2) In addition to this, there are a few lexically restricted environments which provoke spirantization. If we assume that it is their phonological shape in Brythonic which led to their triggering AM in Welsh, we have to list the following items here: (a) With final /s/: Bryth. *esjas ‘her’ (ModW ei /i/), *tris ‘three’ (ModW tri), Bryth. *tras ‘over, most’ (ModW tra). The former two items have reflexes in all three Modern Brythonic languages, the latter is restricted to Welsh (see P.W.Thomas 1990:25; D.S. Evans 1964:21).4 (b) With final vowel or /s/: ModW chwe, /xwe/. Note that it is usually the form /xwe/ which is used pre-nominally in Standard Welsh and that it is only this form, in the wider Brythonic context, which normally causes mutation (however, there are spoken forms W / hwex/ ~ /xwex/ used pre-nominally; see Chapter 10, also P.W.Thomas 1990:28). Thomas would therefore think it possible that a vowel-final form */swe/ or */hwe/, as opposed to */sweks/, giving W chwech, B c’hwec’h (which does not trigger mutation) already existed in Brythonic.5 (c) With final Bryth. /k/: Bryth. */ak/: only the Welsh reflex /a( )/, preposition and conjunction, ‘and, with’, in pre-consonantal position triggers AM. The Breton and Cornish reflexes, though of the same
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phonological shape, do not (see P.W.Thomas 1990:29). Similarly, the conjunction MW no(c), ModW na(g) ‘than’ and the conjunction MW, ModW na(c) ‘neither, nor’ (*ne-kwe, with early apocope of final -e; see Pokorny 1953a:635). (d) The Middle Welsh conjunction o(t) (from the stem *au- (aue), ue-, cf. Lat. au-fero; see Pokorny 1953a:72) and the interrogative cw (prevocalic cwt) (from the interrogative stem *kwo-, kwe, kwa-, kwu-, etc.; see Pokorny 1953a:644, 648) are listed by D.S. Evans (1964:21, 79) as triggers of AM.6 For illustrations of the lexical triggers causing AM, the reader is referred to Chapter 1, above. We have already remarked on the fact that the nasal mutation is somewhat exceptional, in that it does not have any systematic parallels in the other Brythonic languages. The conditions for turning a stop into its homorganic nasal counterpart are, as is to be expected, a nasal environment, i.e. following a nasal (before a vowel, or a sonorant). The changes we observe with NM in Welsh are also visible word-internally in Latin loanwords; see (3.10) and (3.11): (3.10) Lat. /mp, nt, nk/ imperator contendo cancellarius
> W/ / ymherawdr/ymherawdr ‘emperor’ cynhenn-u ‘to contend, quarrel’ canghellor ‘chancellor’
Note that the realization of the Latin nasal + stop group in Modern Welsh depends on the word stress: the aspirate/voiceless nasal only occurs in immediate pre-stress position (cf Lewis 1943:20f.). (3.11) Lat. /mb, nd, g?/ Ambrosius calendae angelus
> W/m, n, / Emrys calan ‘firstday (of month)’ angel ‘angel’
In post-stress position, the spelling
realizes /n/ from Lat. /nd/ (e.g. Lat. splendidus, W. ysblennydd; see Lewis 1943:21).7 According to Jackson (1953a:509), the nasal assimilation of the group nasal + voiced stop (in intervocalic position) takes place earlier than that of the voiceless stops in the same environments. Jackson would place the assimilation of nasal + voiced stop after the Roman period (since Latin words were affected in the same way as British words). Evidence from place-names and personal names leads Jackson to suggest that the
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assimilation of /mb/ to /m/ was a lengthy process, beginning towards the end of the fifth century and being more or less complete by the end of the sixth (1953a:639). On the other hand, comparative evidence (i.e. the absence of this particular sound change in Cornish and Breton, where, instead, we find spirantization of the voiceless stops, points to the fact that the assimilation of /mp/ etc. to / / etc. took place considerably later. Jackson argues that some assimilation in external sandhi had already begun well before Primitive Welsh /mp/ etc. in internal position began to develop first into ‘something like mph…in the eighth century, and mh… by the early ninth’ (1953a:506; see also 639f.). Jackson’s rather vague phrasing reflects the impossibility to recover the exact nature of the developments involved. However, we can note that what surfaces as one single process in Welsh goes back apparently to two temporally (and possibly also geographically) separated processes. All we have done so far is give segmental environments of phonological change which somehow led from pre-lenition Brythonic to early Welsh phonemes, as if each of these changes had taken place in vacuo, without temporal or any other connections to the other ones. The example of the development of NM through the history of British and Welsh leads us to the importance of relative chronology, or temporal ordering of sound changes. In the following section, we will present several suggestions concerning the interconnectedness of the developments of ICM. 3.3 HISTORICAL PROCESSES 3.3.0 Introduction The policy we have adopted in this section is to let the different suggestions concerning the history of the Welsh sound system, and in particular that of ICM, speak for themselves, as far as this is possible. Many of the contributions to the ongoing discussion are reactions, mostly critical, to preceding studies, thus providing different angles of investigation. We present here what we regard as major arguments in the debate, covering roughly the past forty years. We begin with Jackson’s theory as set out mainly in his (1953a) publication Language and History in Early Britain, and developed in later publications (e.g. Jackson 1960, 1967). Jackson naturally drew on earlier work, for example Pedersen (1909, 1913) and Lewis and Pedersen (1937), and Förster (1941). We will have occasion to refer to these and other works. Limitation of space, however, forbids a full discussion. Jackson’s criticism concerning the works mentioned is set out in Jackson (1953a), in the relevant sections.
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Jackson’s magnum opus attempts not only to provide a description of the phonological development of the Brythonic languages up to the Early Welsh, Cornish and Breton period, but also to provide the link with the history of the Latin of Britain and the arrival and spread of Anglo-Saxon, and to put the linguistic continuum into a framework of absolute chronology. 3.3.1 Jackson: ICM as separate processes; the theory of gemination We have already mentioned that Jackson posits a three-way allophonic system of plosive phonemes (e.g. /p/: [p, P, PP]; see above, section 3.2.2), which were conditioned partly by their environments, partly by their etymology. Soft mutation (lenition in Jackson’s terms) affected the short, lenis allophones, resulting in voiced stops from voiceless stops and voiced fricatives from voiced stops and /m/, in the environments illustrated above in section 3.2.3. Jackson perceives the two developments as one single process, taking place simultaneously. His judgment here differs from the views of Förster and Loth, who concluded that the spirantization of /b, d, g/ was older than the voicing of /p, t, k/, since at no stage is there any sign of the two series merging, and, for example, intervocalic /p/ resulting in / v/ (see Jackson 1953a:544; Loth 1892:87; Förster 1941:162). Jackson explains the absence of a merger during the process of lenition by the simultaneous advance of, for example, /p/ and /b/ towards /b/ and /v/ ([β]) respectively, simultaneity guaranteeing phonemic distinction during the process.8 With regard to relative chronology, Jackson points out that lenition must have preceded apocope (the loss of final syllables of polysyllabic words), since stops in word-final positon after apocope could not have been affected by lenition, which was restricted to voiced contexts (e.g. *mapos > *mabos > mab ‘son’, neglecting the possible development of the final vowel and -s). The key feature in Jackson’s theory concerning voiceless spirantization (aspirate mutation) is the existence of voiceless geminate segments (see above). There seems to be no doubt that original voiceless geminates or those in Latin loanwords were transformed into voiceless fricatives (for the relevant contexts, see again section 3.2.3). Jackson assumes that voiceless stops in certain consonant groups (/xt, lp, lt, rk/) were fortes and had fallen together with geminates in British. This explains the development of, for example, *artos to Welsh arth ‘bear’ (rather than *ard), via an intermediary stage of British *arTTos.
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A similar development, according to Jackson, leads to the conditions for AM following proclitics originally ending in consonants: the final consonant of these proclitics is assimilated, during the process of gradual weakening and loss of final syllables, to the initial consonant, resulting in a close speech group of, for example, *a PPrenn (> W a phren ‘and a tree’) from earlier *ac Prennos (Jackson’s notation). The final stage of the development was the spirantization of the voiceless geminates. Jackson characterizes this process as a fortition, a ‘sharpening of expiratory force’ (1960:128), whereas lenition is described by him as a ‘loosening and slackening in the articulation of the C[ommon] C[eltic] consonants’ (1953a:544). As is illustrated by the derivation of a phren ‘and a tree’ from *a PPrenn, Jackson places the assimilatory gemination of the voiceless stops before the total loss of final syllables, and before the development of old geminates to fricatives; their subsequent spirantization just after the loss of final syllables, that is to say, in Primitive Welsh in Jackson’s periodization (see Jackson 1953a:638, 696; 1967:320). The considerable degree of variation with respect to the realization of AM in Brythonic indicates that no fixed pattern of development had evolved by the time the languages separated (1953a:638).9 At this stage one wonders why, according to Jackson, the masculine article W y does not trigger AM, considering that the reconstructed British form *sindos given by Jackson ends in -s (like the feminine singular possessive W ei, *esjas, which is an AM trigger), and in view of the fact that there is limited AM triggered by articles in Breton (masculine singular, feminine plural referring to persons only, and masculine plural referring to inanimate objects or to animates other than persons; the only consonant affected is /k/). Jackson states that the final *-os > *- ∂∑ (the vowel weakened to ∂, the -s into an unspecified weakened consonant -Σ, somewhere between /s/ and /h/) did indeed cause gemination of initial voiceless stops before the sibilant was lost, which happened before the loss of final syllables: *sindos cattos > Late British *Σind∂ CCaTT∂(Σ). Absence of AM triggered by the article in Welsh and Cornish is attributed to the fact that ‘the article gave up the spirant mutation in W. and C. before the period of the written texts’ (Jackson 1967:319; Jackson introduces Σ to denote the weakened /s/, ‘without prejudice to its exact phonetic nature…. Maybe a strongly aspirate [ h]?’, p. 517). One cannot help thinking that this is an ad hoc explanation, advanced for want of anything more convincing and more securely based. Jackson’s suggestion of an intermediary stage *rTT etc. (for older *rt), leading to W /r?/, is a step towards unification of the contexts for
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spirantization, which would otherwise show a remarkable similarity with one of the environments which triggers spirantization (i.e. soft mutation) of voiced stops and /m/: /rpV/ > /rf(V)/, /rbV/ > /rv(V)/ (see also P.W.Thomas 1990:11). Jackson explains the fact that there is no gemination of voiced stops in environments producing voiceless geminates by suggesting the possibility that all voiced geminates or consonant groups which could have led to them were simplified, probably at quite an early date (cf. the reasonably secure derivation of W aber ‘estuary’ from British *abbero-, from earlier *ad-bero-; Jackson 1953a:634). The contexts leading to nasalization of stops and thereby to the nasal mutation, giving Jackson’s relative and absolute dating of the processes, have been discussed above in section 3.2.3. 3.3.2 Greene: AM as a ‘special case of non-lenition’ Greene’s (1956, 1966) criticism of Jackson’s theory is directed mainly against the postulated opposition of unlenited versus geminate consonants, and thereby against the three-way distinction of consonant length. Against Jackson’s invocation of Old Irish parallels of geminate consonants as sandhi phenomena (spellings such as fri nnech ‘against anyone’ or a ccú ‘her dog’) Greene voices the opinion that with stops the only opposition is one of lenited versus unlenited consonants (liquids and nasals do occur in geminate variants), and that the doubling of consonants in Old Irish is purely an orthographic device to clarify this opposition (1956:286–8). The difficulties which are, according to Greene, not resolved by Jackson’s explanation, are that AM affects only the voiceless stops, and that the reflexes of *-s + /p, t, k/ do not correspond to those of word-internal pre-spirantization -sp- (cf. here the remarks to this effect in section 3.2.3). Greene offers an alternative explanation of the development of AM, agreeing with Jackson’s (relative and absolute) dating of the process, after the loss of final syllables (1956:289). He perceives AM as a ‘special case of non-lenition’, the change from a form such as */i ki/ to ei chi ‘her dog’ as initially a purely phonetic change. He suggests the following scenario. After lenition, Brythonic had two sets of voiced stops, the fortis series /B, D, G/ representing original initial and geminate sounds, the lenis series /b, d, g/. The one voiceless series /P, T, K/ continues the original unlenited and geminate voiceless stops, as well as single stops after /l, r/. These lost their fortis quality, for lack of lenis counterparts. This leads to the following stop and fricative system, at the period of final-syllable loss (1966:118):
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(3.12) /p, t, k; B, D, G; b, d, g; v, , ð/ The next step was a weakening of the voiceless stops in all positions except absolute initial and certain consonant clusters (cf. e.g. W swllt ‘shilling’, gwest ‘treasure’). This process might have been provoked by the evolution of a new set of geminates in intervocalic position, with which the lenis voiceless stops contrasted, for example a */kapil/ (or /kepil/ (ModW ceffyl ‘horse’)) occurred alongside *wippo (MW gwyppo ‘know (3sg.pres.subj)’). This new opposition led to the spirantization of /p, t, k/. Since no new voiced geminates developed, no spirantization of voiced stops was provoked (1966:119). 3.3.3 Harvey: isolating synchronic from diachronic processes Harvey (1984) takes up the Jackson-Greene controversy, adding a new dimension: the threefold distinction [p, P, PP] serves, according to Harvey, to capture the developments of consonant phonemes at different points in time (i.e. the prospective lenition or non-lenition of single stops, denoted by [p] and [P] respectively). Therefore, a way to avoid the problematical notation is to identify those characteristics that are of phonemic relevance at any given time in their development (Harvey 1984:88); that is, to slice the diachronic development into synchronic cross-sections, and to take note only of the distinctive features present at that particular point in time. Harvey examines the development of etymologically single and geminate voiced and voiceless stops in the following environments: initial sandhi (-/s/ + /t/-, -/s/ + /d/-, -V + /t/-, -V + /d/-; i.e. environments leading to triggering contexts of AM and SM); absolute initial position (/#t-/, /#d/); internal intervocalic position (/t/, /d/, /tt/, /dd/); and the structure /rt/, as in *artos, to include positions in which the voiceless stop, though etymologically single, was never lenited (i.e. did not undergo soft mutation; cf. W arth, OIr. art) (1984:90). According to Harvey, the first relevant step of the development was the series of phonetic adjustments that determined which consonants were subsequently to be lenited. His notation of the allophonic state of affairs in pre-lenition Goidelic and Brythonic employs geminates to denote stops which were not subsequently lenited (e.g. *[#tto ta ], W tud ‘region, country, people’, [#ccat=s], W cath ‘cat’), Harvey does, however, perceive the problem connected with this concerning Brythonic: at least the supposed gemination in the item *artos > *arttos (cf. Jackson’s derivation, 3.3.1 above), would be very hard to explain.10 In addition, it is hard to establish a causal connection between gemination and spirantization: ‘the nature of gemination in articulatory
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terms is such as to prevent, rather than to encourage, spirantization’ (Harvey 1984:95).11 Harvey solves the question of how to relate gemination and spirantization by suggesting that ‘we do not view phonemic gemination and spirantization as being connected’ (1984:96). The phonemic structure of Brythonic immediately after lenition is characterized by the opposition unlenited versus lenited, as is illustrated in (3.13) (adapted from Harvey 1984:96). (3.13) Post-lenition Brythonic /VΣ + tu da / /V + du da / /#tu da / /kat=Σ/ /art=Σ/
Common Celtic */esja s to ta / */esjo to ta / /kattus/ */artos/
Welsh ei thud ei dud tud cath12 arth
(The development of the single and geminate voiced stops moves in parallel, the contrastive pair at this stage is (unlenited) /d/ versus (lenited) /ð/). The loss of final syllables, the next stage in the development, has the result of making lenition morphophonemic (cf. the now identical environments resulting from the first two items quoted in (3.13), transforming /V + tü d/ and /V + dü d/ into a contrasting minimal pair). Looking for the motivation for the subsequent spirantization of unlenited voiceless stops in post-vocalic position and following /r/ (resulting in [V + θü d], [kaθ] and [arθ]), Harvey disagrees with Greene, in that he does not accept the existence, at this stage in the development, of ‘tenseness’ as a contrastive feature (Greene’s series / B, D, G/ versus /b, d, g/). He perceives the asymmetry of the system to be the non-existence of voiceless fricative phonemes, as opposed to the occurrence of both voiced stop and voiced fricative phonemes. According to Harvey, there was ‘therefore the opportunity, without disturbing the distribution of phonemes, for the voiceless stops to become spirantized at a purely realizational level, as prompted by the phonetic environment’ (1984:98). Harvey’s view concerning the acquisition of phonemic status by what originated as fricative allophones is similar to that of Greene, in that he sees the emergence of new voiceless stops resulting from syncope (i.e. the loss of unstressed internal syllables), happening roughly contemporaneously with spirantization, as the decisive factor exercising enough pressure on the consonant system to prompt spirantization.13
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His analysis, Harvey claims, adequately explains the distribution of lenition and spirantization (and thereby of SM and AM) in modern Brythonic, doing away with the problematic three-way distinction developed by Jackson, as well as with the necessity to posit phonemic status for geminate stops after the time of lenition.14 3.3.4 P.W.Thomas: spirantization as exponent of lenition P.W.Thomas uses the method of internal reconstruction to explain the nature and sequence of the processes involved in the development of Welsh stop and fricative phonemes. He argues that both voicing and spirantization are two exponents of what can be classified as lenition, that is, shifts in articulation leading to a higher degree of sonorization (in the case of voicing) or opening (spirantization) (see Lass 1984:177– 83 for the definition of lenition adopted by Thomas). Thus he subsumes the two processes making up soft mutation (voiced spirantization and voicing) and the spirantization of voiceless stops under one Brythonic consonant shift.15 Thomas assumes that the spirantization of voiced stops precedes the voicing of voiceless stops (which two processes Jackson perceives as one, happening simultaneously), on the grounds that considerable phonemic confusion (leading to, for example, /t/ resulting in /ð/) would have been inevitable if, for example, /t/ had progressed towards /d/ at the same time as /d/ towards /ð/ (Thomas 1990:5).16 Comparing voiced contexts in medial positions modifying Brythonic stops, Thomas draws attention to the environment /L___V/ in which voiceless stops are spirantized, rather than voiced, as in other voiced contexts (e.g. Lat. calcem → W calch; L represents both /r/ and /l/). Since spirantization also occurs with etymologically geminate voiceless stops, a common development for both environments might be traced. In both contexts, the first consonant could have protected the second one from voicing: the first stop in a geminate by virtue of being voiceless; the liquid in, for example, *artos by virtue of being partially devoiced in the environment of a voiceless stop. The period of voicelessness in an otherwise voiced context thus being prolonged is sufficient to prevent voicing of the stop: (3.14) */artos/, Thus there is no need to invoke gemination in the context /L___V/ (Thomas 1990:14). A preceding liquid, having the feature [continuous], would not, however, have prevented spirantization.17
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With respect to the etymological geminates, Thomas posits a rule whereby these were degeminated before voiceless spirantization (1990:16). He understands degemination and voiceless spirantization to be related to voiced spirantization and voicing, in that all form part of a ‘fourphase process occurring in continuous (voiced) environments before Final Syllable Loss’. The relative chronology suggested by Thomas is the following: (a) Voiced Spirantization, (b) Voicing, (c) Degemination, (d) Voiceless Spirantization (e) Final Syllable Loss ((f) Surface Output), as illustrated in (3.15):
(Adapted from Thomas 1990:18; the first, second and fourth example derivations are his.) The advantages Thomas sees in the derivation sketched above, as compared to Harvey’s analysis (above, 3.3.3), are the fact that at no stage is it necessary to posit a ‘dubious Gemination rule’, the definition of a common basis for all processes involved, which is allowed to occur in one common environment, and the primacy given to ‘phonological processes rather than to thorny interpretations of scanty written data’ (Thomas 1990:18).18 The initial motivation for the Brythonic sound shift was probably the asymmetry to be observed in the inherited stop and fricative system (see Table 3.3 above), with respect to both the inventory itself (i.e. absence of voiced fricatives, incomplete voiceless fricative series) and the distribution of the stop phonemes: there was a two-way (voiced versus voiceless) opposition word-initially and in pre-consonantal position; in intervocalic position the distinction was threefold (voiced, voiceless and voiceless geminate). The intervocalic position thus being asymmetrical, change would be expected to start here, with the weakest (in articulatory terms) elements, namely the voiced stops. (For a detailed description of how Thomas envisages the structural change, cf 1990:20–3.) Returning to the relative chronology sketched above (3.15), it has to be explained how the triggers of AM in Welsh fit into the scenario. Their
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reconstructed predecessors end in consonants. However, for them to fit into Thomas’s view of spirantization being part of an overall lenition process, there has to be a continuous (voiced) context. Another question which remains is why, if both voicing and voiceless spirantization occur before the loss of final syllables, albeit temporally ordered, there are no forms such as **tafarn theg (instead of tafarn deg, SM following a feminine noun). Thomas resolves the latter problem by positing that voiced spirantization and voicing had already ceased to operate productively and were morphophonologized by the time voiceless spirantization began (and since the same triggers, by virtue of having provided the same phonological context, had led to both voiced spirantization and voicing, the two processes became identified as forming one morphophonological change). The necessary continuous context to trigger voiceless spirantization following items originally ending in -s is provided, according to Thomas, by the loss of final -s, before the loss of final syllables. This change Thomas sees as beginning before voiceless spirantization, and still continuing after the completion of voiceless spirantization (1990: 27).19 Similarly, two rules are posited to account for the triggers W a (prevocalic: ac) ‘and’ and W chwe (pre-vocalic: chwech) ‘six’: k → Ø/___ s#, and k → Ø (seen in conjunction with the loss of final -s, the two rules can be collapsed into one); that is, ‘the word-final segments were…lost from phonotactically unacceptable clusters’ (1990:30), preserving the velar segment in pre-vocalic position. He places the loss of final -k in his relative chronology after voicing, and before degemination (in an item such as */ak kattos/, the single /k/ in the intermediary stage */a katos/ could equally well result from degemination or -k loss).The loss of final / -s/ and /-k/ are not seen to be temporally ordered with respect to each other.20 To account for the absence of NM after the possessive eu ‘their’ (from earlier *eon), Thomas posits a rule for the loss of final /-n/, affecting polysyllabic forms only (thus, the possessive /=/, /=n/ ‘my’ and the homophonic preposition yn ‘in’ remain unchanged). This would take place after voiceless spirantization, since otherwise we would have to expect the vowel-final form to trigger AM in Welsh (1990:38, 40). Recalling Jackson’s relative chronology, whereby the nasal assimilation of voiced stops is considerably older than that of voiceless stops, with the NM of voiceless stops only taking place in Early Welsh, one might rephrase Thomas’s theory concerning /-n/ loss accordingly: we might expect (by the time of final syllable loss) nasal assimilation after */eon/ with voiced
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but not with voiceless stops. (Cf. the development of */nawan/ ‘nine’, which yields MW naw nyn ‘nine men’ (Jackson 1953a:641); similarly, with MW seith ‘seven’, dec ‘ten’, cant ‘hundred’, deudec ‘twelve’, pymtheg ‘fifteen’, NM occurs only with a few nouns; all of those given in D.S.Evans (1964:22) show an initial voiced stop.) The complete set of rules formulated by Thomas, in their relative chronological ordering, is as follows: (3.16) (a) Voiced Spirantization, (b) Voicing, (c) Loss of final /k/ and final /s/, (d) Degemination, (e) Voiceless Spirantization, (f) Loss of final /n/, (g) Nasal Assimilation, (h) Final Syllable Loss (with loss of /-s/ overlapping with Voiceless Spirantization, as sketched above) 3.3.5 Koch: lenition—fortis versus lenis The suggestions presented so far have in common that the process of lenition includes that of voicing of voiceless stops. Jackson includes the characteristic lenis, fortis into his model of lenition, the new postlenition opposition is, for example, (fortis) non-lenited [P]: (lenis) unlenited [b], (fortis) non-lenited [B]: (lenis) lenited [ß], etc. The further development in Welsh was that the remaining series of fortes lost their fortis character, resulting in the opposition e.g. /p/:/b/, /b/:/v/ (from earlier [β]). In a recent article, Koch (1990) suggests a different development, drawing on a suggestion by Martinet (1952), whereby intervocalic voiceless stops could have been lenis (voiceless mediae) in intervocalic position (i.e. [VpV] → [VbV]. This purely allophonic/phonetic process could have taken place as early as Proto-Celtic.21 Koch posits a process he calls Old Celtic lenition, leading to an allophonic opposition of fortis (in absolute initial position) and lenis (in intervocalic and some other positions) stops:22
(Also in the pre-historic period: in PCeltic.) To support his suggestion, Koch quotes evidence from the Modern Celtic languages: voiceless stops are still aspirate in absolute initial prevocalic position (note, however, that Martinet would consider this as an Insular Celtic innovation (1952:201)), lenited voiceless stops are still
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voiceless in Welsh and Breton in many positions (for details see Koch 1990:199, and the literature quoted there). Confusions of initial consonants such as Lat. gladius from */kladjos/ and mons Graupius from Craupius he explains by the effect of the following liquid, robbing the initial stop of its aspirate quality, therefore the aspiration of voiceless stops in absolute initial position is already a feature of Old Celtic (Koch 1990:199). The eventual voicing of lenited /p, t, k/ in Welsh and Breton is, according to Koch, a comparatively late process, ‘based on Neo-Brittonic, i.e. post-apocope/syncope, distribution of vowels and consonants’ (1990:200). Since the spellings of Old Welsh and Old Breton show lenited /p, t, k/ as ‘every bit as consistently as …during the RomanoCeltic horizon’, it is unlikely, Koch states, that they had merged phonemically with /b, d, g/ at that stage. The merger was complete in Welsh before the fourteenth century, judging by the evidence of cynghanedd. In Breton, the two series never converged completely (Koch 1990:200).23 3.3.6 Gemination revisited and the ‘mixed mutation’ As we have mentioned in Chapter 1, the Modern Welsh negative particles ni, na trigger SM of voiced stops and AM of voiceless stops, as in, for example, ni chred ‘he does not believe’, ni ddywedais ddim ‘I did not say anything’. Evidence from early texts demonstrates that this is a comparatively late development (it had become more or less established by the Middle Welsh period). Earlier, the negative particle triggered SM in a relative clause, and AM in a main clause. AM of the verb in main clauses is also attested with the pre-verbal particles neu (affirmative) and ry (perfective) (examples from D.S. Evans 1964:62): (3.18) neu cheint ‘I have sung’ pt sing (1sg.pret.) ry chedwis detyf ‘He kept the law’ pt keep (3sg.pret) law
(BT 19) (BBC 14.7)
In relative clauses, ry triggers SM. Thus, there is evidence that the distribution was originally one of clause type rather than consonant type (see D.S.Evans 1964:62 for further examples and literature).24 The problem of how this system could have arisen is tackled by Koch, who perceives the position of the Proto-Celtic accent in the verbal complex (i.e. preverb + verb) to be the decisive factor. At the basis of his
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explanation is the premise that ‘the Late Indo-European dialect which became Celtic had had a system like that directly observable in Vedic Sanskrit, in which a PVB [preverb], in a main clause, bore the accent, and verbs in main clauses—except when they stood in sentence-initial position—were enclitic’ (1987:145). He concludes that in Proto-Celtic ‘the accent was still (often, at least) in its Indo-European position, but its primary prominence had been converted from pitch to stress’ (1987:146), demonstrable by patterns of syllable reduction and loss shared by Gaulish, Goidelic and Brittonic. Given that the preverbs which are observed to trigger AM in main clauses all, at some stage, end in vowels, and that therefore the consonant undergoing AM is in intervocalic position in Proto-Celtic (or between vowel and liquid), and given, on the other hand, that Proto-Celtic (or Latin) intervocalic geminates, but not intervocalic single voiceless stops, end up as fricatives in Welsh, the thought is tempting that AM in verbal complexes such as ry chedwis above goes back to a process of gemination in Proto-Celtic. Koch develops this theory, adopting the premise that Proto-Celtic featured regular external sandhi patterns (1987:143). Since a final syllable ending in a short vowel cannot be stressed (as in a stress accent system, the position of the accent is sensitive to syllable quantity), a phrase (main clause) such as IE *pró-kan- ‘sing forth’ was not acceptable in Proto-Celtic. Koch, on the evidence of early Welsh and Irish, suggests that gemination of the initial consonant evolved. Though the first consonant of the geminate belonged semantically to the verb, phonetically it was part of the preverb, thus making the syllable heavy while preserving the stress pattern. This process is illustrated by what Koch calls the ‘mutation system of Tuscan Italian’, where a short stressed vowel followed by an initial consonant triggers gemination:25 (3.19) caffè nero [kaf.fé n.néro] ‘black coffee’ (the full stops mark syllable boundaries). Similarly: (3.20)
MW ry chant < PC *[ró k.kan-]+INFLECTION pt sing (3sg.pret)
Once the stress receded from the preverb, enclisis gemination became phonemicized. It was now a feature marking main clauses and a distinctive characteristic of object pronouns (e.g. ry-th peris ‘he has made thee’ < *rô t.tu kwa.riist; Koch 1987:150). Although the parallel looks attractive, one wonders whether it is generally possible to transfer processes observed in one language to
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another without modification. Also, there seems to be no secure method to determine how resilient certain accentual patterns might have been in certain contexts. However, one has to admit that the Irish evidence quoted by Koch, together with his derivation of AM after ry etc., seem to fill a gap in historical reconstruction.26 3.4 CONCLUSION 3.4.1 Other approaches The suggestions concerning the historical development of the Welsh obstruent system are either theory-neutral, or work more or less within a classical phonological framework (Harvey), or within distinctive-feature phonology (P.W.Thomas). Fulk (1980) contributes to the discussion by suggesting that laminal quality of sonorants could have been a decisive factor in the rise of sonorant lenition. The historical debate has not provoked much activity on the side of ‘general’ linguistics, two exceptions being Griffen and Willis: Griffen’s studies rework aspects of the history of ICM within the theories of Stratificational Grammar (1975) and Dynamic Phonology (1984, 1985, 1990). Griffen largely accepts the elements of historical change as developed by Jackson (1953a, 1967), including in the most recent article some aspects from Harvey (1984) and Russell (1985a). Especially reminiscent of Jackson’s views is Griffen’s proposed fortislenis scale [θ]-[d]-[t]-[ð], with the voiceless fricative in highest position: compare Jackson’s statement that spirantization of voiceless stops represents a fortition. For a detailed review of Griffen’s approach, the reader is referred to Willis (1987). 3.4.2 Mutation and case One of the characteristics of the Irish mutation system is that ICM can reflect case relations, as in the following examples: (3.21) genitive singular masculine: teach an fhir mhóir ‘the house of the big man’ (3.22) nominative plural masculine, following a palatal (‘slender’) consonant: na cnoic ghlasa ‘the green hills’
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(3.23) genitive plural (following the article): tithe na bhfear ‘the houses of the men’ The list is not meant to be exhaustive. What we intend to show is that, in Modern Irish, ICM following the definite article and certain noun classes still reflects case endings with a final vowel (see (3.21) and (3.22)) or nasals (see (3.23)). The former have survived as triggers of Irish lenition, the latter of eclipsis (see section 3.1). Modern Irish has seen some levelling out of the system which prevailed in Old Irish (for which see Thurneysen 1946:176ff.), and which presents a more exact reflection of the old case system (e.g. Irish lenition following the dative singular article and noun, ultimately going back to nonphonemic lenition caused by a vocalic case ending, before the loss of final syllables). The fact that the marking of case relations is not incorporated in the Welsh mutation system could be explained in two ways: Welsh could have had, at some stage in the past, ICM reflecting case, comparable to that of Old Irish, and subsequently lost it some time between the loss of final syllables and the attested Welsh texts. The second possibility is that at the time when the assimilatory processes leading to ICM were productive, overt case marking was reduced to a great degree, generalizing endings which did not trigger these processes. The first type of development is envisaged by Hamp (1976). He assumes that British Celtic after the loss of final syllables ‘retained traces [of overt case marking] in the shape of vowel affections and initial mutations’ (1976:55). Although there is ample evidence for the former feature, this is not the case with mutation, as far as we can see from the attested material. According to Hamp, the projected mutations were dropped, along with regular vowel affections and vestiges of consonantal stem suffixes on the principle of redundancy: word order and prepositions marked case relations (1976:57). Apparently, Hamp (1976:57) considers the development of direct-object mutation, as an additional distinction between subject and object, to be linked with the loss of ‘case mutation’ and vowel affection. It should be noted, though, that SM as a regular feature which distinguishes the object from the subject is a comparatively late development (see D.S.Evans 1964:17; Morgan 1952:182ff.). Against the well-established opinion that declension was a feature in British until the loss of final syllables, and that the loss of declension was caused by that of final syllables, Koch advances the suggestion that differentiation of overt case marking by means of case endings had
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largely been neutralized by the time of final-syllable loss (Koch 1986). A fully differentiated declensional system would probably have resulted in a state of affairs similar to that in Old Irish. We would expect to find e.g **y mardd in direct-object position, from an old accusative form */ sindon bárdon/, *[siNDo-MBbardon] ‘that/the bard’ (1986:204f.). Koch’s main concern is the dating of Early Welsh texts, and how these can be made to fit in with the chronology of sound changes. For our purposes, let it suffice to say that the assumption that overt case marking was largely neutralized (to a singular: plural opposition) before the loss of final syllables is one way to explain the absence of ‘case mutation’ in Modern Welsh. 3.4.3 On absolute dating Throughout this chapter, we have made very little reference to the absolute datings of any of the sound changes described. The reason, already mentioned, for this reluctance is twofold: First of all, an adequate treatment of the question would require more recourse to extralinguistic data than the limited amount of space we have at our disposal permits; secondly, and this reason is closely related to the first one, the linguistic period we have dealt with is one which has left us with only very little material that can be securely dated. The data which can be described as being older than Old Welsh consist largely of onomastic material, personal and place-names and suchlike, sometimes only accessible as borrowings into Anglo-Saxon. The chronology given by Jackson (1953a:694ff.), though widely accepted, has also provoked much criticism. Some of this was sparked off by the rather short period of time in which, according to Jackson’s dating, British was transformed into Early Welsh (Cornish, Breton), roughly between AD 450 and 600. Much of the dating of British as well as Irish sound changes hinges on the dating of the Patrician mission in Ireland, or rather on the phonological shape of Christian Latin words which were introduced to Irish in its course. The earlier loans show Irish lenition, but no sign of British lenition. The logical conclusion is that they entered the Irish language before either process (see Jackson 1953a:560–1). The later, that is postPatrician, loanwords show, among other features, British lenition; cf. the names Cothriche and Pátric (with [d] and [g]), two versions of Patricius borrowed at different times.27 Recently, the established dating of British and Irish lenition has been criticized in various ways: by re-examining the available data for secure datability (see Harvey 1985), or questioning the relevance of the Patrician mission as transmitter of loanwords with respect
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to their dating (Sims-Williams 1990), or by redating Patrick’s career (Koch 1990). More detail concerning the debate of absolute and relative chronology with respect to phonological change and other aspects of the development of the Welsh language can be found in D.E.Evans (1990) and SimsWilliams (1990). 3.4.4 Concluding remarks: on syntactic triggers (DOM) The above is largely an attempt to present an insight into the ongoing discussion concerning the development of British and Welsh phonology and the emergence of ICM. The controversy is, as we have seen, almost exclusively concerned with the genesis and nature of SM and AM. Without doubt, the most recent approaches we have quoted from will in turn be criticized (e.g. P.W.Thomas 1990; Koch 1990). We have described the development of ICM largely in terms of the establishment of lexical triggers (including the category [feminine noun]), and there seems very little room for doubt that this category was the first one to be firmly established. Little can be said with certainty about the way in which syntactic triggers came to be part of the grammatical structure of Modern Welsh. As we have mentioned, lenition of the direct object (DOM) as a distinctive syntactic feature is comparatively late. In Middle Welsh, we find lenition of the subject as well as of the object. Morgan (1952:182ff.) presents a detailed discussion concerning contexts in Early Welsh in which SM occurred of either the nominal subject or the nominal object in sentences of the following structures: (a) verb + noun (subject or object); (b) verb + nominal subject + nominal object; (c) verb + pronominal subject + nominal object. In pattern (a), certain verb forms would have conditioned SM of the following noun, irrespective of its syntactic status. SM of the object would be much more frequent than SM of the subject, simply because ‘among the six persons in every tense and mood, only one can be followed by a nominal subject (i.e. the third singular), all six can take a nominal object’ (Morgan 1952:193; our translation). With pattern (b), the nature of the nominal subject would have determined the occurrence or non-occurrence of SM with the object. With respect to pattern (c), Morgan notes a regular tendency in early texts for the subject pronoun to trigger SM of the following noun, be that a subject in apposition or the direct object (pp. 197f.). Morgan perceives statistical pressure to be a decisive factor in the emergence of the regular SM of the nominal object. The reinterpretation
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of a process originally conditioned by a variety of contexts as a marker of syntactic status is thus a secondary development. Morgan considers the suggestion (voiced, for example, by Morris-Jones 1913:317) that DOM arose to distinguish between the object and the subject as too simplistic and as containing too much ‘grammatical consciousness’ (p. 184; our translation).
4
The phonetics of mutation
4.0 INTRODUCTION The three types of ICM generally result in substituted segments that are part of the phoneme inventory of the language. The one possible exception to this rule is found in the nasal mutation of /p, t, k/, and this is returned to later in this section and in 4.4 below. However, it should also be noted that although SM, AM and NM of /b, d, g/ do result in segments that are phonemes of Welsh, these processes also result in changes to the phonotactic constraints that generally operate on non-mutated forms. These constraints are described in Awbery (1984a) and in Ball and Williams (forthcoming), but their relevant aspects in connection with ICM can be summarized here. Clearly, as the phonology of Welsh, through ICM, produces changed initial consonants, these enter the phonotactics as acceptable initial forms. Nevertheless, as we will see below, in many instances there are differences between the phonotactics of non-mutated, and that of mutated words. In connection with SM, the reflexes of /p, t, k/ (that is /b, d, g/) do not break any of the constraints on non-mutated phonotactics. However, the reflexes of /b, d, g/ (i.e. /v, ð/, Ø) do so. Word-initial /v/ in non-softmutated contexts is restricted to borrowings (e.g. ficer, ‘vicar’), ‘fossilised’ mutated forms, such as fyny ‘up’ (from i fyny), and a small set of function words (e.g. fe ‘he, him’, felly ‘so, therefore’ (both through syllable loss)). Likewise, word-initial /ð/ in non-soft-mutated environments is only found in fossilized mutated forms such as ddoe ‘yesterday’, derived from doe via the adverbial mutation rule noted in 1.3.2. While the operation of SM on / g/ results in the deletion of that consonant, it can produce initial sequences that violate normal phonotactic constraints. For example, although gardd → _ardd (‘garden’) leaves us with a perfectly acceptable vowel-initial sequence, changes such as glas → las (‘blue’) produce initial /l/, which is
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non-permissible (in native words at least) in non-mutated environments. The same would be true with gr- clusters, at least in those areas which retain / / as a phoneme, and to a lesser extent with gw- clusters, as initial w is generally restricted to certain diphthongs, except in borrowings and some fossilized mutations. Turning now to the remaining consonants subject to SM, we find that the mutation of the liquids / , / to /l, r/ also breaks the constraints on radical consonant phonotactics, as noted above under /g/ → Ø. Initial /l/ is only found in borrowings (e.g. lamp ‘lamp’) or fossilized mutated forms such as lawr ‘down’ (presumably from i + llawr). Initial /r/ is permissible in those accents lacking /h/ and its related phonemes (see Ball and Williams, forthcoming), but in others it is found in non-mutated position only in borrowings such as ruban ‘ribbon’, or contractions such as rwan ‘now’ (from yr awr hon). The AM results in the change of /p, t, k/ to /f, θ, x/, and two of these latter sounds are unusual in word-initial position. While /f/ is quite a usual initial sound (although many words with initial /f/ are in fact old borrowings), initial /θ/ is restricted to a very few borrowings, often from Greek (e.g. thema ‘theme’). Initial /x/ is common enough in the cluster / xw-/, it otherwise occurs only in a few instances (e.g. chi ‘you’ from the older form chwi). Indeed, chw- is realized as /hw-/ or /w-/ in some dialects (see contributions to Ball 1988b). The NM reflexes of /b, d/ are /m, n/ which are found word-initially in non-mutated environments. The reflex of /g/, however, is / /, which is not found word-initially apart from in mutation contexts. In respect of this sound it might be argued that it is not in word-initial position, but postclitic, in that NM always occurs following either fy ‘my’ or yn ‘in’. However, the form fy is often found reduced to /=/ or even Ø, giving utterances such as: (4.1)
ble mae ’ngeiriadur? /ble maI =Irjadir/ ‘Where’s my dictionary?’
The NM reflexes of /p, t, k/ are the so-called voiceless nasals. If these are phonetically [ ], then we clearly have segments that are not otherwise found in the phonemic system of Welsh. On the other hand, if they are phonetically [mh, nh, ?h], then we have segment sequences, the segments of which are found in the system, but sequences that are not otherwise found word-initially (although they are found word-medially, as in amhosibl < {an} + {posibl} ‘impossible’). The problem of the phonetic description of the reflexes of NM are returned to in 4.4 below.
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It can be seen from the above discussion that the majority of reflexes of ICM are not in fact directly comparable to radical, unmutated consonants. This chapter will, therefore, not examine phonetic differences between radical and mutated reflexes of a particular consonant or consonant group. Indeed, acoustic and impressionistic descriptions of the phonetics of Welsh have never demonstrated any such differences. Instead, we will concentrate on examining those aspects of the consonant systems that are important in distinguishing radical consonants from their reflexes: fricatives as opposed to stops, and voiced as opposed to voiceless. We will also examine the somewhat controversial phonetic status of the fortis and lenis liquids (i.e. / , / and /l, r/), and the phonetic processes undergone in nasal mutation. Much of the information in the following sections is based on material also reported in Ball (1984a), and Ball and Williams (forthcoming). 4.1 ACOUSTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF FRICATIVES IN WELSH 34.1.1 The fricative system Welsh possesses a rich fricative system in terms of place of articulation, although fortis-lenis pairs are regularly found in only two instances (see G.E.Jones 1984). Welsh, then, has a pair of labiodental fricatives (/f/-/v/), and a pair of dental fricatives (/θ/-/ð/); some southern accents of Welsh have a pair of alveolar fricatives (/s/-/z/), although the /z/ phoneme only occurs in loans from English, e.g. sw, / zu/ ‘zoo’. Most northern accents have only /s/, which would be used instead of /z/ in these loans (e.g. /su/). Indeed, speakers of these accents replace /z/ with /s/ when using English, giving forms like /Is/ and /w=s/ for ‘is’ and ‘was’. There are two fricative places that have only fortis representatives. The palato-alveolar fricative (/ /) has a wider distribution in southern dialects, where it is found for orthographic <s> following high front vowels (e.g. is, /i /, ‘lower’), whereas most northern accents would retain the original /s/. However, all accents retain / / in borrowings from English and in original ‘si’ combinations (e.g. siop ‘shop’, ceisio ‘try’; an exception is sir ‘county’, which most accents pronounce as [sir]). The Welsh back fricative has been variously described as velar or uvular. It would appear that there is a geographical distinction here, though precisely what this is is unclear (see Ball and Williams,
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forthcoming). It may be that northern accents use a uvular form while southern ones tend to a velar pronunciation. However, more research is needed here to determine precisely what the distribution is. This fricative has a phonotactic restriction in that, with very few exceptions, it is only found initially in /xw-/ clusters (or perhaps it might be more accurate to describe this as a labialized form of the fricative). There is also a regional restriction on this initial cluster, which in southern accents is often realized as initial /w-/. There are no restrictions, however, on the occurrence of /x/ in medial or final position. The glottal fricative is restricted regionally in that some southern accents lack the phoneme from their system, or stylistically (see B. Thomas 1980). For the purposes of mutation, we are especially interested in the one fricative reflex of a stop whose description seems unclear: /x/. If this is velar, the phonological rule /k/ → /x/ is straightforward; if, on the other hand, it is uvular, we need to account for changes affecting two features rather than one. 4.1.2 Noise spectra of Welsh fricatives Less spectrographic work has been carried out on fricatives than on stops, but nevertheless that which has been done gives us a clear idea as to the location of the noise spectra of fricatives, and the peaks of energy within those spectra. For example, Hughes and Halle (1956), Strevens (1960) and Heinz and Stevens (1961) have all published accounts of the acoustic characteristics of fricatives. To illustrate their findings, we can quote the findings of Strevens (1960) on voiceless fricatives in Table 4.1. This table contains information concerning some fricatives absent from the Welsh system ([Φ], and [ç]), but lacks information on [ χ]. Indeed, little, if any, spectrographic evidence seems to be available on the lateral fricative, which, for convenience, we treat together with the other liquids in 4.3 below. Also, we can note the inclusion of both [x] and [χ] in Table 4.1; this is of interest to Welsh phoneticians due to the variable realization of the grapheme noted previously. Of chief interest to us, therefore, will be an analysis of speakers’ realizations of ch, and the acoustic characteristics of [ ]. The data presented below is taken from the spectrographic analysis of two subjects: Subjects A and B. A list of twenty-six words was drawn up, which included intervocalic fricatives, and the unpaired fricatives in initial and final position. Both the lateral fricative and the lateral approximant were illustrated in initial, medial and final position, but the
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Table 4.1 Fricative spectra, after Strevens (1960) (all measurements in Hz)
data from these are reported in 4.3. The subjects for this experiment were both first-language Welsh speakers: a female speaker from northeast Wales, and a male speaker from south-west Wales (Subjects A and B respectively). The tokens were recorded and analysed spectrographically in the same way as with the experiments reported more fully in Ball (1984a) and in 4.2 below. The noise components of the other fricatives ([f], [θ], [s], [ ] and [h]) were sufficiently similar to those given in Table 4.1 not to warrant further comment. As Strevens noted, voiced fricatives will be similar to their voiceless counterparts in terms of the ‘hiss’ (or ‘noise’) component. However, ‘the major difference in articulation is that in voiced fricatives for a given air-pressure the air-flow is less than for the voiceless items’ (pp. 45–6). This means that the acoustic energy is less, and results, incidentally, in spectrograms that are more difficult to read. This experiment also found that while the acoustic patterns of [v] and [ð] were basically similar to those of [f] and [θ] respectively, they were both shorter in length and contained less acoustic energy (see 4.2 for more detail on voicing in fricatives). Table 4.2 gives information on the noise components of /x/ for both Subject A and Subject B. From this it is hoped that we can assess the nature of the /x/ phoneme for these two speakers. This table clearly shows that there is a difference between the two speakers in their realization of the phoneme /x/. If we compare the figures with those given in Table 4.1, we find that Subject A seems to be producing something near to [χ] (indeed clear formant patterns were visible on two of the spectrograms), whereas the figures for Subject B suggest [x]. This in fact confirms the impressionistic transcription done by the first author from the tape. It is interesting to note that Subject A is a north Walian, while Subject B is from the south. This confirms the view noted above that the [x]-[χ]
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Table 4.2 Noise components of /x/
distinction is a regional one. However, from such a small subject base no firm conclusions can be drawn, and this is clearly an area which needs further research. This brief review of the acoustics of Welsh fricatives has provided information in one problematic area for the specification of the phonetics of SM: the nature of the back fricative. The need for a full-scale investigation into regional and stylistic differences in the use of the back fricative is clearly seen to be necessary in order to complete our knowledge on this point. 4.2 ACOUSTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF VOICING IN WELSH For the purposes of mutation, the main voicing contrast we need to be concerned with is that between the plosives, as utilized in SM. However, both voiced and voiceless fricatives occur as mutation reflexes (of SM and AM), so it is worthwhile examining this area also. 4.2.1 Voicing in stops Among early acoustic experimentation on English were studies of the voice-onset time (VOT) of stops, particularly comparing fortes and lenes, and the situation in post-/s/ initial clusters where the fortislenis distinction breaks down (see, for example, Lisker and Abramson 1964; DavidsenNeilsen 1969). Interestingly enough, a similar situation appears to be present in Welsh, and initial, unpublished investigations were carried out by G.E.Jones. A full-scale study of voicing in initial and in final stops was undertaken by the first author, and is reported fully in Ball (1984a). This work also gives details of tokens used and subjects recorded, and this will not be repeated here.
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The analysis of the data involved the production of wide-band spectrograms, and the measurement on these of the voicing component. For initial stops, the onset of voicing was measured in terms of the plosive burst, and the VOT measurements discussed below refer to the amount of time following the plosive burst before the onset of vocal-fold vibration. Traditionally, the plosives of Welsh have been described as consisting of two sets: /p, t, k/, termed voiceless (or fortis), and /b, d, g/, termed voiced (or lenis). However, the spectrograms produced showed that very little voicing (if any) occurred during the closure stage for /b, d, g/. An alternative description might be (as in English) to utilize the terms ‘aspirated’ and ‘unaspirated’ instead of voiceless and voiced respectively. This aspiration refers to the period of voicelessness following the plosive release and before the onset of voicing (i.e. the greater the VOT, the more aspiration is present). The results of three measurements showed that indeed the fortis plosives demonstrated considerable aspiration, whereas the lenis showed little. The figures in Table 4.3 illustrate this difference. These results clearly show that VOT is indeed a sufficient distinguishing feature between the fortis series and the lenis in initial position. Initial /s/+stop cluster lacks the fortis-lenis contrast, but as these clusters do not enter the mutation system, they are not discussed further here (see Ball 1984a: Ball and Williams, forthcoming, for details on these clusters and on final stops). Table 4.3 VOT in initial plosives
4.2.2 Voicing in fricatives Ball (1984a) also presents a spectrographic investigation of initial and final fricatives. In the analysis the main features measured were the amount of voicing and the length of frication (i.e. fricative noise) and their relation to
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each other. In this study, only those fricatives that occur in fortis-lenis pairs in all Welsh accents were examined: /f-v/ and /θ-ð/. In initial position (see Table 4.4) it was found that the fortis fricatives were totally voiceless, with an average frication length of 140ms. On the other hand, the lenes had a shorter frication element, on average 69ms. Other differences were noted with the lenes, however. While some speakers simply used length of frication as a distinguishing feature (i.e. the frication was fully voiceless), others utilized an amount of voicing in the lenis fricatives (although they were still not fully voiced). For example, with one speaker, the length of frication with initial /v/ was 120ms, all voiceless; another subject also produced an initial /v/ of 120ms, of which only the first 50ms were voiceless. The full results of this study are reported in Ball (1984a), who includes details on the subjects used. Table 4.4 below presents the length of frication in milliseconds (two tokens per subject for /f/ and /v/, one for /θ/ and /ð/), and for the lenes an extra, initial, figure showing the length of the voiceless component of the sound.
Table 4.4 Voicing and frication in initial fricatives
An explanation for the comparatively small acoustic differences between these initial fricatives might lie in the fact that phonemic constrastivity between them in this position is rare, with the lenes occurring mainly as a result of mutations. Also, initial /θ/ is rare in any event, mutated or unmutated. Nevertheless, it is important that they are distinguishable, as some mutation triggers (e.g. ni, negative pre-verbal particle) cause the set of six stops to change to the set of six homorganic fricatives, and so homonymic clashes must be avoided. However, such instances are doubtless uncommon. Final fricatives were also examined, and are reported on elsewhere (e.g. Ball 1990e; Ball and Williams forthcoming).
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As with the case of the stops, this study has demonstrated that in Welsh, the feature of voicing in both stops and fricatives is perhaps less important for the contrasting of fortis and lenis pairs than features to do with timing: aspiration, length of frication etc. So for the phonetics of mutation, phonological rules of the type [–voice] → [+voice], have to be intepreted in a complex way, combining features of vocal-fold activity, and length of segment. 4.3 ACOUSTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FORTIS AND LENIS LIQUIDS In this treatment, we consider that Welsh has four liquids: the two laterals / , l/ and the two trills / , r/. Two of these, / , /, clearly display turbulent air flow, and have often been classed as fricatives (see further discussion in Chapter 5). The voiceless alveolar lateral / /, the lateral fricative, is known widely as the fearsome Welsh ‘double-l’. This, of course, is fortis, but we argue that it has a lenis counterpart: /l/. This is an approximant, lacking the frication of the other lenis fricatives, but is a clear counterpart to / /, so is considered in this section. Phonologically too, Welsh considers these as a pair, in that in initial position (excepting loanwords) / / only can occur in radical forms of the word, being replaced by /l/ in SM. The Welsh fortis trill (/ /, orthographically ‘rh’) is also sometimes considered a fricative, and it too has a lenis counterpart, the voiced trill /r/ , which again are related through SM. Those southern dialects which lack /h/ also lack / / (as well as lacking the voiceless nasals). We need to look in particular at the friction component of the fortis liquids, to see whether the phonological rule in SM converting the fortes to lenes is simply a matter of [–voice] → [+voice], or whether this has to be interpreted phonetically to include information about the air flow of these sounds. 4.3.1 The laterals We will look first at the lateral fricative and its lenis counterpart, the lateral approximant. As noted previously, these do not appear to be strictly speaking a straight pair of the type we have been looking at up till now, in that, whereas / / has a clear fricative component, /l/ lacks this. In Table 4.5 the figures given are for length of voicing and length of segment, measured from tokens included in the experiment referred to in 4.1 above. It will be seen that, whereas /l/ is virtually fully voiced in all positions, / /
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is mostly fully voiceless. Subject A shows intervocalic voicing ‘leakage’, but also, in final position, evidence of voicing ceasing before the onset of frication. Table 4.5 Voicing and length in laterals
In terms of segment length, the distinction between fortis and lenis is maintained with the length of / / on average almost twice that of /l/ in all positions. We must assume that the main perceptual difference between these sounds is the presence versus absence of friction. It is interesting, however, that length and voicing distinctions are maintained, but unlike with the fricatives there appears no tendency to devoice initial or final /l/. As we can see from Table 4.6, / / displays a clear formant structure for both subjects (except in one case, where the second formant is either not present, or not strong enough to register on the spectrogram). The formant structure clearly demonstrates the link with /l/, while the noise component shows its link to the fricatives. In terms of the location of this component, the frication of this sound is closest in quality to /s/, which again is what we might expect impressionistically. Table 4.6 Acoustic characteristics of /?/
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Table 4.7 Formant structure of the lateral approximant
The data on the lateral fricative given in Table 4.6 showed a formant pattern reminiscent of a lateral approximant, together with the fricative noise component. Table 4.7 gives the formant structure of the lateral approximant for the same two subjects (details on length and voicing of the laterals are given above in Table 4.5). Table 4.7 demonstrates the similarity between the formant values for the lateral approximant and the lateral fricative, particularly in the case of Subject B. The differences between Subjects B and A is probably due to regional factors. /l/ in northern accents are generally darker (i.e. velarized or pharyngealized), and this is reflected in the F1 and F2 values for Subject A, a north Walian speaker. The raised F1 and lowered F2 are a sign of this dark-l quality though, interestingly, this is not reflected in the lateral fricative. 4.3.2 The trills There are two trill phonemes in Welsh—voiced /r/ and voiceless / /. The latter generally occurs only in word-initial position, and syllable-initial word-internally following affixes, though /r/ can occur initially (in loanwords), as the second member of a stop+trill cluster,1 medially and finally. In Table 4.8 information on length and number of taps is given, together with length of frication for / /. The noise component for both speakers was similar to that found with /h/. In one case, the spectrogram did not show the number of taps clearly. Table 4.8 again shows a difference between the two subjects in terms of voicing. While B only shows voicing in the trills in intervocalic position, A retains voicing for /r/ in all positions in the word. It will also be seen that although the number of taps does vary, two is the most common number. It would appear that the only consistent distinguishing feature between the fortis and lenis trills used by both subjects is length of
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Table 4.8 Characteristics of the trills
segment, and the noise component. The increase in length of fortis over lenis is, of course, a consistent feature of difference that we have noted with the other sounds discussed in preceding sections. From the mutation point of view, the information in this section supports the view that the two pairs of liquids are related acoustically, but that the relation between the members of each pair involves not just voicing but also frication and length. 4.4 AIR-FLOW INVESTIGATION OF THE NASAL MUTATION In section 1.4 we raised the problem of the so-called voiceless nasals. Phonologically, it is much simpler to treat these as single segments, voiceless and aspirated, e.g. [ ], as opposed to a cluster analysis, such as [mh, nh, h]. In this section we review a study by Scully (1973) that used aerometry to investigate the precise nature of the NM reflexes of /p, t, k/. We can summarize the problem addressed by Scully in her experiment as follows: was the phonetic process involved in the nasal mutation the same as the phonological rule [–nasal] → [+nasal], and if not, what was in fact involved? In order to investigate this problem, Scully utilized the technique of electro-aerometry. The subject involved read a set of utterances including nouns starting with the unmutated plosives (/p, t, k, b, d, g/), and then a set with the same nouns commencing with the mutated reflexes of these consonants (/mh, nh, h, m, n, /). The nouns were placed in similar phonetic environments. The aerometer equipment recorded the volume velocities of airflow through the subject’s mouth and nose, both in- and out-flowing. Also
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recorded was the pressure drop across an alveolar or bilabial constriction. Traces from these sources were obtained (uncalibrated) on a U-V recorder. A larynx microphone provided a trace recorded on a duplex oscillogram, and this showed both wave shape and the intensity of high frequency sound energy. Spectrograms were made both from the mask microphone, and also later when the subject was not wearing the mask to check against any effects from the mask. Only a small number of tokens were used, and these were read by only one speaker. Nevertheless, the author felt that certain trends were observable. The first question examined was ‘whether a single “nasality” feature of articulation can account both for the nasal mutation d → n and for the nasal mutation t → nh’ (Scully 1973:64), and similarly, of course, for the other sounds in the mutation series. Discussing the results presented from the experimental procedure, Scully states that ‘d and n can be distinguished by only one articulatory action; in n the velum is lowered at about the same time as the tongue tip is raised towards the alveolar ridge’ (p. 69). Also noted was that the tip of the tongue was lowered again before the completion of the velum raising, with the result that the following vowel would be nasalized to some degree. The feature of voicing, however, did not differ to any extent between d and n. Looking at the results for t and nh, however, a different picture was seen. Scully notes that for t ‘it seems likely that a deliberate extension of the closure phase may need to be made in order to ensure that the vocal folds have time to open before the oral release is made’ (Scully 1973:69). Considering nh, it appeared that the velum was lowered with the same timing relative to the oral closure as with n, and so it can be claimed that the feature of ‘nasality’ does occur whether the nasal mutation is applied to t or d. However, when the feature of ‘voicing’ is examined, ‘it is clear… that a definite change is made in the timing of the vocal fold articulation’ (ibid.). The opening of the vocal folds for t begins at the same time as the start of the oral closure; but in nh the abduction of the vocal folds ‘is delayed by about 40ms with respect to the oral closure’. This results in a ‘clearly nasal, occlusive segment occupying about 60ms…followed by a clearly aspirated segment, the first part of which is nasalized’ (ibid.). So, the overall results lead Scully to the conclusion that nh ‘is not merely the automatic result of applying to t the same features of nasality as those applied to d in order to effect the nasal mutation to n’ (p. 70). The author then continued by examining which articulatory and perceptual features were important in accounting for the particular forms that the subject did use as the nasal mutation reflexes of /p, t, k/. She concluded that the articulation that was adopted by the informant (that of t → nh)
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‘enhances the perceptual clarity of the nasality while retaining aspiration’ (ibid). An alternative realization used by some speakers appears to be t → (n) , but this ‘demands adjustments in the articulation besides the addition of velum lowering’ (ibid.). Scully’s study showed, then, that the nasal mutation reflexes of the voiced and voiceless plosives were in fact different, and that for most speakers the ‘voiceless nasals’ were in fact nasals followed by heavy aspiration. These conclusions support the need, noted in 1.4.1, to follow the main NM phonological rule with some kind of phonetic adjustment rule, realizing the voiceless nasals as voiced nasals followed by an aspirated segment (i.e. [h]). 4.5 CONCLUSIONS In this chapter we have attempted to examine a set of phonetic features that are particularly relevant to the operation of mutations. While we have not described in detail the sets of phonetic adjustment rules needed (see 7.1 for further dicussion in this area), it is clear that in several cases, the simplicity of the mutation rules presented in sections 1.3–1.6 of Chapter 1, has to be balanced by precise rules of phonetic realisation. This applies to aspects of place (/k/ → /x/), ‘voicing’ in both liquids, stops and fricatives, and nasalization.
5
The phonology of mutation
5.0 INTRODUCTION In Chapter 1 we introduced the phonological changes triggered by the initial consonant mutation system in terms of a set of phonological rules. These were constructed within the classical paradigm of generative phonology (deriving, in fact, from work by Awbery 1975). We did not, in that chapter, discuss the problem of rule ordering in the case of mutation. To some extent such a discussion pre-empts the problem of the interface between phonology and syntax, which we look at in some detail in Chapter 7. However, there is one specific case in Welsh where the interaction between mutation rules and morphology arises, and we feel that this problem can well be examined in this chapter. Therefore, section 5.1 below looks at this, and proposes alternative solutions within the area of rule ordering. Following this section, we raise the question of what kind of phonological characterization of mutation itself is to be preferred. We noted that the array of changes required for SM was, at first sight, quite daunting: voiceless stops become voiced, /b, d/ become /v, ð/ respectively, /g/ deletes, /m/ becomes /v/, and / , / become /l, r/ respectively. These five seemingly separate changes can be collapsed somewhat (with the aid of an abstract underlying segment */ /) to produce three changes: voiceless stops and liquids to voiced, voiced stops to voiced fricatives, and /m/ to /v/. These changes are shown in (5.1) below (repeated from (1.5) above). The question that arises is why does Welsh lenition (i.e. SM) present such a seemingly complicated appearance, when changes such as this regularly appear in natural language (see, for example, Lass 1984:177f.)? One answer may well be that it is the theory that is the complicating mechanism, and that alternative approaches to phonology may well provide us with other formulations that can collapse still
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further the phonological changes of SM. Section 5.2 below looks specifically at one such alternative approach, in an attempt to overcome one of the aspects of the feature-bound approach of traditional generative theories: that some consonant changes within SM are valued as more salient than others because they involve changes of major class. This latter problem also affects the nasal mutation, and we try to show in section 5.2 that a Dependency Phonology account not only avoids the problem of major class classification, but provides a satisfactory mechanism for collapsing the changes of all the mutation types into one overall process. Other approaches to phonology also have claims to make, however; and in the specific instance of the mutations we might very well expect insights from approaches such as Autosegmental Phonology and Natural Phonology. Section 5.3 below reviews some of the arguments put forward both for and against an autosegmental analysis of Welsh mutation, while 5.4 briefly reviews the contributions from other recent developments in phonological theory. However, it is not our intent in this chapter to arrive at the one ‘perfect’ solution for the phonology of Welsh mutation (should such a thing be remotely possible). Rather, we wish to explore the contribution these approaches can make to the area, while recognizing that the last word is a long way away from being said. 5.1 RULE ORDERING AND MUTATION 5.1.1 The rules As we noted in Chapter 1, SM can be captured by a Generative Phonological rule of three parts, (1.5a-c) repeated here:1
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This rule provides us with a segment *[ ] as the reflex of /g/, and we need a further rule (5.2), deleting it: (5.2)
This now gives us /g/ → *[ ] → Ø, which we argued in Chapter 1 was a justifiable abstraction in order to promote a greater simplicity of the rule schema in 5.1 (see also Zwicky 1974 for arguments in favour of using this approach). These rules ((5.1) and (5.2)) must, of course, be ordered as shown, if only because the input for (5.2) is not present within the phonology until (5.1) has been operated. There is, however, one area of the phonology of Welsh where the ordering of these and other rules is also important, and this will be discussed in the following subsections. 5.1.2 Proclitics and /g/-mutation Various proclitic functives in Welsh have separate forms (i.e. allomorphic alternation) depending upon whether they precede vowelinitial or consonant-initial words. As SM on /g/ very often results in a previously consonant-initial word becoming vowel-initial (e.g. gardd → _ardd ‘garden’), it is important to see how this process interacts with examples of the proclitic functives referred to. For the purposes of this discussion we will examine the use of the negative particle ni(d), and the determiner y(r). 5.1.3 Ni(d) This particle precedes verb forms and marks them as negative. The nid form is used when preceding vowel-initial verb forms, whereas the ni form is used before consonant-initial verb forms. 2 The ni form causes SM to all mutatable consonants except /p, t, k/; to which latter it causes AM. This change was characterized in Chapter 1 as ‘AM; SM’. Examples of the use of these forms is given below: (5.3)
Ni ddangosodd Siôn y llun NEG showed to M. ‘Siôn didn’t show the picture to Mair’
i Mair S. the picture
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Here, the normal, ‘radical’, form of the verb, dangosodd, is changed through the operation of Soft Mutation caused by ni. (5.4)
Nid arhosodd Siôn yn y NEG stayed ‘Siôn didn’t stay in the city’
ddinas S. in the city
Here, the vowel-initial verb aros is preceded by the nid form of the negative particle. We can now examine what happens in the case of a verb with initial /g/ , for example galw ‘call’: (5.5)
Ni _alwodd Siôn draw i NEG called his friend ‘Siôn didn’t call round to see his friend’
_weld ei ffrind S. over to see
Here, the negative particle causes SM to the verb, resulting in the deletion of /g/ through rules (5.1) and (5.2) above. This leaves us with a vowelinitial verb form, galwodd → _alwodd, but we do not find nid as the realization of the particle, which might have been expected, but ni. The implications of this are examined below. 5.1.4 Y(r) The determiner, or definite article, in Welsh has two allomorphs of interest to our discussion: yr and y (a third, ’r, occurs in post-vocalic position, but does not affect this problem). The former is found before vowel-initial nouns, the latter before consonant-initial ones. The determiner causes SM to feminine singular nouns, but masculine singular and plural ones are unaffected. Examples of its use can be seen below: (5.6)
merch—y ferch ‘girl—the girl’
(5.7)
bachgen—y bachgen ‘boy—the boy’
(5.8)
awr—yr awr ‘hour—the hour’
In the case of a feminine noun beginning with a /g/+vowel, we get the following: (5.9)
gardd—yr _ardd
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‘garden—the garden’ In this last example, the determiner has caused SM to the noun, and then appears in its pre-vowel form. 5.1.5 Rule ordering We have seen that the negative particle and the determiner behave in different ways with regard to the use of the pre-vocalic allomorphs following the SM of /g/. These two are representatives of certain other proclitics with deletable final consonants dependent on the initial sound of the following word. Interestingly, however, the other proclitics of this type all behave, with respect to /g/, in the same manner as does ni(d). They are all negative particles, and include na(d), a negative particle found in relative clauses, and oni(d), a negative-interrogative particle. Others can be found listed in Williams (1980). A phonological account of Welsh must address itself to this issue, therefore, and be able to account for the different behaviour of these two groups of proclitics. The most economical account would be to assume that all these proclitics have underlying forms which include the final consonant, and that there exists a rule which deletes this final consonant at some later stage of the derivation before consonant-initial words, shown here as (5.10). (5.10) C → Ø/___ #CObviously, this deletion rule must be specified in the lexicon to operate only on the specific sub-set of proclitics we have been discussing. We do not consider here the relative ordering of this rule in respect of the rule deleting the vowel in ’r forms, which one would consider should precede our rule (5.10) above; examples like Mae’r dyn yn dod ‘The man is coming’, as opposed to Roedd y dyn yn dod ‘The man was coming’, and Mae’r afal yn neis ‘The apple is nice’, as opposed to Roedd yr afal yn neis ‘The apple was nice’ support this. Clearly, too, these two rules must be in disjunctive ordering, such that if y-deletion occurs, then (5.10) is blocked. Base forms such as nid are supported by evidence such as the use of the full form before nouns (whether consonant- or vowel-initial); and such as yr by the allomorph ’r after vowels (whether before consonant- or vowelinitial words). The difference in behaviour of the two particles can be explained then in terms of rule-ordering differences. However, different analyses are possible here, which will now be discussed.
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The first account utilizes the two phonological rules (5.1) and (5.2) responsible for causing SM and deleting *[ ], and the deletion rule removing the final consonant from proclitics (5.10). To account for the behaviour of ni(d) we can posit the following stages, with rules ordered as shown: (5.11) i. rule (5.10), changing nid to ni where appropriate. ii. rules (5.1) and (5.2), changing, for example, galwodd to _alwodd. On the other hand, to account for y(r), this order must be reversed: (5.12) i. rules (5.1) and (5.2), changing, for example, *yr merch to *yr ferch, and *yr gardd to yr _ardd. ii. rule (5.10), changing *yr ferch to y ferch, but leaving yr _ardd as it is. There is, however, an alternative solution to this problem that would leave the respective ordering of the two rules (5.1) and (5.10) the same for both ni(d) and y(r). This is brought about by using the rule (5.2). The difference between the two particles would be shown as follows. For ni(d) the ordering of the rules would be: (5.13) i. rule (5.1): /g/ → *[ ]; ii. rule (5.10): nid → ni; iii. rule (5.2): *[ ] → Ø; e.g. ni _alwodd. The ordering of these rules for y(r) would only differ in respect of where the [ ]-deletion rule (5.2) occurred: (5.14) i. rule (5.1): [g] → *[ ]; e.g. *yr gardd → yr * ardd; ii. rule (5.2): *[ ] → Ø; yr _* ardd → yr _ardd. iii. rule (5.10): yr → y; yr _ardd; y bachgen. Which of these two accounts is preferred depends largely upon one’s ideas of simplicity. The first account keeps together the two rules required for SM, whereas the second keeps the same ordering for the two higher level rules, i.e. the main rule for SM and the rule for consonant deletion, varying only in the rule of *[ ]-deletion. This second account does suggest that rule (5.2) is not a low-level phonetic re-adjustment rule (which would be post-cyclic), but a lexical phonological rule (see 7.1 and 7.2 for further discussion of the areas of phonology-phonetics and morphology-phonology interfaces). It appears to us that the second solution as described in (5.13) and (5.14) is to be preferred as it stresses the common aspects of proclitic behaviour. Nevertheless, this problem has demonstrated that rule ordering
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does play an important role in the mutation system, and follows on from the discussion given in Awbery (1975), described in Chapter 2. 5.2 PROBLEMS WITH FEATURES: A DEPENDENCY PHONOLOGY APPROACH 5.2.0 Introduction The lateral fricative phoneme of Welsh, / /, presents a problem to the phonologist as to whether it should be classed with the other lateral, /l/, as a liquid sonorant, or with the other fricatives as an obstruent. 3 This problem has implications for phonological rule formulation in Soft Mutation. In this mutation as expressed in rule 5.1 above (and indeed in AM as well) although different phonological features may be involved, by and large major class features are preserved. There are certain apparent exceptions to this general principle that can now be considered. Firstly, we find in the case of the voiced velar plosive that SM gives the change /g/ → Ø. As argued in Chapter 1 and section 5.1 of this chapter and elsewhere (e.g. Awbery 1975; Ball 1990d) this change is perhaps best considered as part of a general rule, [–cont] → [+cont], giving /g/ → *[ ]. If this is accepted, then /g/ → *[ ] still preserves major class features, in that both are obstruents. A second problem is /m/ → /v/. This is quite a complex change involving alterations to the features [cont] and [nasal] as well as adjustments of place, and resulting in a major class change from sonorant to obstruent. The presumed historical process of /m/ → *[µ] → *[v] → /v/ does not offer an alternative explanation, though it may help a simplification of the basic phonological rule (see Awbery 1975). However, this change is isolated in that it is the only nasal consonant to be affected by Soft Mutation (or indeed by any of the mutations). Also, nasal stops (which are sonorants) are phonetically similar to oral stops (which are obstruents). This means that a [–cont] → [+cont] change with oral stops results in fricatives (i.e. obstruents → obstruents), and the same rule applied to nasal stops gives us fricatives, but this time we see sonorant → obstruent. It must be admitted, however, that the application of SM to /m/ does result in what is apparently a major class change. We will return later to the Nasal Mutation.
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Let us now turn our attention to / /. / / is one of a group of sounds affected by the phonological rule [–voice] → [+voice]. The others are the oral stops /p, t, k/ and the trill / /. In the case of the first three we have / p, t, k/ → /b, d, g/, which involves the retention of the major class of obstruent, while with the last we find / / → /r/ with the class sonorant unaffected. The change with / / gives us / / → /l/, and the question that faces us here is this: does this change also involve a change from obstruent to sonorant, as well as the altered value to the voice feature?4 If / / is included with the sonorants due to its shared features with other liquids (such as /l/), then no such extra change is involved. If, however, it is classed as an obstruent because of its similarity to other fricatives, then such a change has to be accounted for. 5.2.1 Descriptions in the literature Most traditional, and indeed modern, descriptions of Welsh phonetics and phonology have not considered in detail the problem noted above. Nevertheless, reference to a selection of these will show that different authors have considered / / to be either a liquid or alternatively a fricative. For example, Morris-Jones (1913) classes / / as a voiceless liquid. He recognizes, of course, the ‘hiss’ element of the sound, but his main description is that it ‘is a voiceless l pronounced on one side’ (p. 19). This description is also very much what occurs in Williams (1980: 2). Evans (1909) is not very helpful in his description of / /. He does not attempt to assign it to any consonant category, simply giving an account of its articulation: Ll represents a peculiar sound. If the vocal organs be in readiness to pronounce tl as in English antler, the sound ll can be arrived at by attending to two particulars— (i) Emit the breath more freely than for tl, and (ii) Let the emission of the breath be continuous, without the sudden explosive sound of t at the beginning. (p. 64) With S.Jones (1926) we are on firmer ground. He clearly classes / / with the fricatives, stating ‘a strong current of air is forced through the narrow aperture, giving the ear the impression of a strong fricative’ (p. 14). He concludes that ‘the is therefore best described as a voiceless lateralfricative’ (p. 14).
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Sommerfelt’s (1925) study of Cyfeiliog Welsh also attempts a classification of the vowel and consonant system. In his classification he appears to recognize the problem found with / /, for he does not class it either with the spirants (fricatives) or the liquids, but in a separate class he calls ‘spirant-liquids’ along with / /. This dual nature is stressed in his description of the sound: ‘the tip of the tongue is in the same position as for l…L [i.e. ] is energetically blown and followed by strong aspiration’. A more recent approach to Welsh phonology is found in the collection edited by Ball and Jones (1984). In Jones’s chapter on the distinctive vowels and consonants of Welsh, / / is classed as a fricative (p. 46). In Awbery’s chapter on Welsh phonotactics (1984a), the author notes the importance of the sonorant-obstruent distinction in her discussion of consonant clusters in Welsh. Unfortunately, she does not specify to which group / / is assumed to belong; at one point it is termed a ‘voiceless lateral’ (p. 71), but soon after it is included in an example of a fricative+stop cluster (p. 72). The table for consonants (p. 81) suggests, however, that the classification of /?/ as a fricative is the one intended by the author. Interestingly, the discussion by Awbery (1984a) on consonant clusters reveals that the classification of / / as a (liquid) sonorant or as an obstruent would not affect the constraints she describes for consonant-cluster phonotactics. / / in clusters only occurs in wordmedial and word-final positions, and only with a following obstruent (or preceding sonorant). Considering word-final position (Awbery notes that medially all four obstruent/sonorant combinations are permissible), this would produce an obstruent-obstruent cluster if / / is a fricative, or a sonorant-obstruent cluster if it is a liquid. Both these types are phonotactically possible in Welsh (Awbery 1984a: 87). Words like iarll ‘earl’ will be characterized as either sonorant-so-norant, or sonorant-obstruent; again both of these are phonotactically allowed. Some experimental data on / / (and other Welsh consonants) is available in Ball (1990e; also Chapter 4 this book), and Ball and Williams (forthcoming) and this evidence will be looked at in 5.2.2 below. 5.2.2 Phonetic evidence As in any phonological question, evidence from phonetics may be fruitfully brought to bear. In this case what we require is evidence concerning the acoustic characteristics of [ ] as compared to fricatives and liquids, both in general and in the specific case of Welsh.
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In his major survey of the sounds of languages based on the UPSID corpus (= UCLA Phonological Segment Inventory Database), Maddieson (1980, 1984) includes under the heading ‘liquid’ ‘all lateral segments except lateral clicks and all sounds that are included in the somewhat heterogeneous class of r-sounds’ (1980:93). Within the lateral class he notes four main types: ‘lateral approximants, taps/ flaps, fricatives and affricates’ (p. 94). In this same discussion on laterals, Maddieson brings up the important point for us in this discussion of whether there is a real distinction between voiceless approximants and voiceless fricative laterals. If there is not, then the classification of [ ] as the same as allows us to place it in the sonorant class of consonants. In terms of phonological systems, Maddieson feels that such a distinction may be an important one to maintain. ‘Unlike voiceless approximants, voiceless lateral fricatives are reported in inventories that contain no voiced lateral approximant…so there may be an important distributional difference between the two types of sounds’ (p. 95). Further phonological evidence is preferred by Lass (1984). Referring to the distinction between sonorants and obstruents, he notes that voicing preference can play a part: ‘this might be a cross-linguistic definition of the feature [±obs]: segment types showing a clear statistical preference for voicelessness are obstruents, those with a preference for voice are sonorants’ (p. 155–6). This would lead him to classify [ ] as an obstruent, as with lateral fricatives the voiceless variety is much commoner than the voiced (as shown in Maddieson 1980, 1984). However, this view is relaxed when Lass describes the liquid sonorants. He notes that the term ‘liquid’ covers a disparate set of segments, primarily lateral approximants and ‘r’, i.e. alveolar and post-alveolar trills, taps, and approximants, and occasionally fricatives, and some uvular and velar trills, fricatives and approximants. (p. 157) The important point to note here is that fricatives can be ‘liquids’, and in this respect Lass states, ‘whether a fricative “counts as” an obstruent or a liquid is a matter of phonological analysis’ (p. 157). Of course, this conclusion would suit us well in the attempt to regularize the status of the Soft Mutation in terms of the feature changes involved.
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However, this is still phonological not phonetic evidence, and we must turn elsewhere to find information on any [ - ]distinction. Maddieson and Emmorey (1984) examined this distinction instrumentally to see whether it was a valid one. They point out that many phoneticians have viewed the term ‘voiceless lateral’ as synonymous with ‘lateral fricative’, while for others ‘voiceless lateral fricatives and voiceless lateral approximants are distinct types of sounds’ (p. 181). Maddieson and Emmorey address the question of whether these two labels actually refer to different sounds rather than a terminological/ transcriptional difference. They point to the fact that phoneticians working on languages of Africa, the Americas and Europe tend to utilize the description of lateral-fricative, and those working on Asian languages prefer the term voiceless lateral. The investigation they undertake includes languages from both categories in an attempt not only to establish phonetic differences, if any, but to look at the areal consequences of any such differences. In an instrumental analysis of five languages (unfortunately, not including Welsh) the authors came to the conclusion that on several parameters [ ] and [ ] are clearly distinguishable phonetically. They note in their summary that the lateral fricatives ‘tend to have later onset of voicing, relatively greater noise amplitude and greater energy at high frequency than the approximants’ (Maddieson and Emmorey 1984:187). They add that, as with many phonetic features, these differences are not absolutes, and that languages differ from each other in this respect by degree.5 The question for us must be, then, whether Welsh [ ] is most like Maddieson and Emmorey’s fricative lateral or voiceless lateral approximant. The only experimental phonetic data on Welsh / / known to the authors is that in Ball (1990e) and Ball and Williams (forthcoming), and Chapter 4 of this book. The spectrographic data available there does not completely reproduce the analysis of Maddieson and Emmorey, but the information given on the noise component in Welsh / / clearly aligns it with the [ ] category of those authors. From a phonetic viewpoint, then, it would appear that / / in Welsh is a fricative (and therefore an obstruent) rather than an approximant (and so a sonorant). It should be noted, however, that the analysis in Ball (1990e) and in Chapter 4 above does show that / / in Welsh shares to some extent the same formant structure as the sonorant /l/, though this does appear to be a less prominent feature. Phonology does not, however, need to be a simple copying of phonetics, but can be thought of as an interpretation of phonetic facts. In 5.2.4 below we will explore a possible phonological account in terms of generative
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phonological rules that does attempt to avoid the problem outlined in 5.2.0 above. Before this we must confront the problem of Welsh [ ]. 5.2.3
in Welsh
This attempt to address the phonological nature of Welsh / / is complicated by the fact that a voiceless alveolar lateral approximant, [ ], also occurs in Welsh. This sound is generally classified as an allophone of /l/, and is described by G.E.Jones (1984) as follows: ‘Except where it is devoiced by a preceding voiceless consonant as in, e.g. K Isd ‘ear’, [p iv] ‘parish’, the lateral is generally voiced’ (pp. 48–9). In word-initial position the only preceding voiceless consonants occurring in native words are /p-, t-, k-/ and /f-, s-/, with these last two being much less common and usually deriving from loanwords, albeit well-integrated and long-standing loans in most cases. The combination of /l/ following a fortis obstruent can also occur wordmedially across a syllable boundary, for example, machlud, [maxlId] ‘sunset’, but it is unclear whether in these environments we get a devoiced allophone, and if so whether it is as devoiced as in wordinitial position. No acoustic evidence is available for in Welsh, though it would appear to be a partially devoiced approximant, thereby fitting many of the acoustic characteristics noted by Maddieson and Emmorey as regards [ ] in their study. It is worth noting here that although Welsh [ ] is usually classed as an allophone of /l/ in terms of complementary distribution, there is perhaps an equally strong argument for considering it part of an / / phoneme (we will not go into the argument here as to whether the /l/– / / distinction is truly phonemic). [ ] occurs after fortis obstruents prevocalically, whereas [ ] occurs pre- (and post-)vocalically, but never after fortis obstruents word-initially. Indeed, except in loans and after SM, word-initial [l] is not permitted phonotactically, and so occurrences of [ ] in post-obstruent position might seem to be linked more closely to / / with its greater phonotactic ‘mobility’. (Apparent exceptions, like lan, [lan] ‘up’, can be explained as being derived, at least in formal registers of Welsh, via SM.) However, the fact that SM does produce word-initial [l] means that this sound is part of the phonotactics, and so arguments such as the above cannot really be conclusive.
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Nevertheless, whatever phonemic analysis is proposed, it appears we still have two voiceless laterals to account for: a sonorant and an obstruent [ ]. 5.2.4 A Generative Phonological account As we noted earlier, phonology is an interpretation of phonetics. This is not the place to re-enter the debate on abstractness in Generative Phonology, but a proposal can be advanced that accounts for both [ ] and [ ] in Welsh, and which results in a soft mutation change of / / → /l/ without invoking a major class change. In order to examine this proposal we first need to look at the distinctive-feature matrices for liquids. In fact, for the rule schema suggested below, we need only to give a full matrix for the voiceless lateral approximant— [ ]. Therefore, in this proposal we have an underlying segment [ ] only, with the following feature matrix: (5.15)
This would differ by only one feature from the specification for /l/ —in terms of voice. Therefore, the soft mutation rule shown in (5.1), [–voice] → [+voice], can equally well apply here. A later specification rule can be applied to remaining unmutated examples of [ ], changing the features necessary to derive the surface form / /, this being shown in the two related rules (5.16a) and (5.16b) where the first changes the major class features and the second the manner feature of [strident]: (5.16) a.
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b. To account for the remaining [ ] in post-fortis consonant position, two strategies are available, reflecting the problem of whether [ ] is to be considered an allophone of /l/ or of / /. In the former case we need a rule (5.17) to be applied after (5.16): (5.17)
In the latter, we need only to specify that rule (5.16) must not apply after a fortis consonant. This can be shown as in (5.18), where the rule is specified according to just those phonological environments where it can occur: (5.18)
5.2.5 The nasals and mutation We must now return to the problem of the nasals and mutation. As noted in 5.2.0, another reflex of SM involves a major class change: /m/ → /v/. Coupled to this is the Nasal Mutation which changes fortis and lenis plosives to homorganic fortis and lenis nasals. Using the same kind of abstract phonology proposed in 5.2.4, and the arguments from historical linguistics put forward in Morris-Jones (1913), we can posit for the first of these changes (i.e. /m/ → /v/) an abstract underlying segment *[v]: the SM reflex of /m/ (it might of course be necessary to chart this as going through a first stage of *[µ] (=[β]). If this can be classed as a sonorant (admittedly debatable), then major class change is avoided, and in the same way as with [ ] → / / can be subject to a later phonetic specification rule converting it to surface /v/.
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However, such an analysis is not possible with the NM, whose changes have to be seen as being of a different type to those of the other two mutations: as involving not just a segment change, but a change from obstruents to sonorants. Any other solution would surely be pushing abstractness too far. The attempts to provide an account of the lateral fricative in traditional Generative Phonological terms has created problems. We have had to resort to strategies that are not supported by phonetic evidence, and that are, in reality, devices that postpone the change sonorant to obstruent to a later stage in the description. Nevertheless, there is nothing in Welsh phonology that suggests that NM is viewed as somehow a more salient change than AM or SM, or indeed that within SM the change involving lateral fricatives is itself more salient than the other consonant changes.6 Perhaps it would be more fruitful to scrutinize the adequacy of the traditional feature analysis in this particular case. Why should a change of [ ] → [l] be counted as greater than [b] → [v]; and why should [b] → [m] be likewise counted as greater than [b] → [v] or [p] → [b]? Alternative feature systems, such as the multivalued system of Ladefoged (1971), do not offer a solution, as the sonorant-obstruent distinction is maintained. It might be necessary, therefore, to look outside Generative Phonology to other theoretical accounts. 5.2.6 Dependency Phonology Recently, there has been a growth in interest in ‘new phonologies’. It is possible that several of these (in particular non-segmental theories) could help to resolve the problem outlined in 5.2.0 above. In this subsection we will examine the contribution of Dependency Phonology (DP). It is not our intention to defend or promote this particular phonological theory in toto, rather to explore how Dependency Phonology can provide a satisfactory account for just that one area of the phonology of Welsh described in earlier sub-sections of this section. As its name suggests, DP as a theory of phonology is concerned with describing the dependency relationships that hold between syllables, segments, segment features and so on, in particular the relative strengths or importance of these factors. What is of immediate interest to us, however, is that binary, or multivalued features (and divisions into ‘major’ and ‘minor’ features) are absent from DP. Instead, we have a set of unary ‘gestures’. These gestures may be individually absent, present or in combinations of various dependency types (see Anderson and
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Durand 1986:24f.; Anderson and Ewen 1987:151f.; Anderson and Durand 1987). There is as yet no complete agreement as to how these gestures are organized (Anderson and Durand 1986:21f.), but one account divides them into three groupings: categorial (consonantality, voice, continuancy and sonorance in traditional parlance), articulatory (place, height, rounding, backness, nasality), and initiatory (glottal stricture, glottalicness, velar suction). Of particular relevance to us is the categorial gesture. Two components are suggested for this gesture: ‘|V|, a component which can be defined as “relatively periodic”, and |C|, a component of “periodic energy reduction”’ (Anderson and Durand 1986:34). Combining these via various dependency relations gives us an inventory of category types: (5.19)
vowels nasals liq vls+liq vd+frcs vls+frcs vd+pls vls+pls These configurations can also be shown in a simpler notation (from Anderson and Durand 1986; a slightly different version is used in Lass 1984 and Anderson and Ewen 1987): (5.20) {|V|}, {|V;C|}, {|V;V,C|}, {|V,C;C|}, {|V,C;V|}, {|V:C|}, {|C;V|}, {|C|} These notations are explained by Anderson and Durand (1986:24) as follows: ‘a notation employing unary components which may individually be absent, present, in simple combinations, or, if in combinations, either of equal or unequal strength’. And further (p. 25): Unary components may either be absent or present. If two components—a and b—are part of a gesture…, they may enter into a simple combination (symbolised by a comma)…. But they may enter into contrastive dependency relations whereby a governs b…, or b governs a…, or a and b mutually govern each other…government in the case of components is often symbolised in the DP literature by semi-colon for unilateral government…and by colon for mutual government. Looking at (5.19) and (5.20) above, we can see that vowels are characterized by the co mponent |V| (‘relatively periodic’) alone, whereas liquids are characterized by the component |V| governing the
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simple combination of |V| and |C| (‘periodic energy reduction’). In other words, liquids are governed by sonorancy, with continuancy represented by the combination of |V| and |C|. (Other accounts suggest {|V;V:C|} is a better-motivated characterization of liquids (see Anderson and Ewen 1987), but this difference does not materially affect the argument below.) If we consider the soft mutation data from 5.2.0, we will see that all the changes involve a move from one type of sound to another, with no one such change being classed as major or minor in the sense utilized in Generative Phonology. For example, the soft mutation change of /p, t, k/ → /b, d, g/ involves a change from |C| → |C;V| (an increase in sonorization), whereas /b, d, g/ → /v, ð, * /7 is a change from |C;V| → |V,C;V| (an increase in opening); in each case an increase in the ‘V’ value. There are clearly some sound types not included in (5.19) and (5.20), for example voiceless nasals. To cope with these DP utilizes the initiatory gesture, and in particular the component |O| (‘glottal opening’) (see Ewen 1982:88; Lass 1984:290; Anderson and Durand 1986:40). There is, unfortunately, no precise agreement yet as to how this component should be utilized to show different phonation types, but we will follow Anderson and Durand (1986) who show the use of the initiatory gesture along with the categorial gesture in, for example, vowels: (5.21)
vowels Normally, however, the inclusion of |O| is redundant. As Anderson and Ewen (1987:192) state, ‘while both voiced and voiceless sonorants will display |O| phonetically, …one member of the opposition lacks the component in phonological representations’. This member for sonorants is the voiced one, capturing the difference in naturalness between voiced and voiceless sonorants. Obstruents can, of course, occur as both voiced and voiceless: but here the distinction is well captured via the |V| and |C| components, so here too |O| is usually redundant (though it can, of course, be utilized for full
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phonetic specifications). It is needed, however, to show aspirated stops and /h/ (see below; Lass 1984:289f.; Anderson and Ewen 1987:193). Adapting Lass (1984:292), we can draw up a diagram demonstrating a hierarchy of lenition. This shows the various routes and stages that different languages go through in consonant softening, and it will be seen that Welsh soft mutation of the stops is captured here (incidentally, it also captures Goidelic lenition, which takes a slightly different route from that of Welsh): (5.22) a.
b.
(Example (5.22b) illustrates (5.22a) with velar consonants.) This diagram shows that at each step on either axis there is a rearrangement of the dependency relations generally involving minor adjustments (e.g. |C| → |C;V| and |C| → |O;C| etc.), which demonstrates the gradual increase of strength of the |V| component and decrease of strength of the |C| component. This fact was recognized by Ó Dochartaigh (1978) for Irish, and (1980) for Celtic lenition as a whole. He proposes a DP analysis of lenition which uses similar formulations to those given here. Ewen (1982) also addresses mutation in Welsh from a DP perspective, looking at all three ICM processes, and PVA, and we return to some of his proposals below. However, (5.22a) does not include the changes / / → /l/ or / / → /r/. As voiceless liquids (or approximants) we can show them in the following notation: (5.23)
The process of lenition whereby the voiceless approximants become voiced can therefore be seen in (5.24) below, and is again an increase in the power of V:
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(5.24)
This change is therefore no more major than, for example, the weakening of voiceless plosives to aspirated voiceless plosives9 (see (5.22)).
Ewen (1982) suggests, however, that notation restricted to |C| and |V| disguises the difference between SM and AM, and proposes an analysis making full use of |O| to distinguish them. The following examples (adapted from Ewen 1982:88–90) illustrate that SM can now be seen as an overall reduction in the prominence of |O| and an increase in the prominence of |V|, while AM sees no reduction in the prominence of |O|, only an increase in |V|. Examples in (5.25) illustrate SM, while (5.26) show AM:
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Dealing with nasals, Anderson and Durand (1986:40) suggest that voiceless nasals can be shown as: (5.27)
We can therefore construct a ‘nasal’ section to the lenition hierarchy to deal with both /m/ → /v/, and nasal mutation. This is shown in (5.28): (5.28) a.
b.
(Example (5.28b) illustrates (5.28a) with labial consonants.) a. Ewen (1982:90) illustrates a similar chart with full specification of |O|, and notes that NM behaves in a similar fashion to AM, in that there is an increase in |V|-ness, but no decrease in |O|-ness. The change represented by {|O|;|V;C|} to {|V;C|} (e.g. → m) is not part of any mutation, but is reflected in those (mainly southern) dialects of Welsh, where all voiceless nasals are replaced by voiced (see G.E.Jones 1984; and Ball and Williams forthcoming). Clearly, the phonology will need to state which of the above operations actually takes place in any one dialect, and for which places of articulation. Again it is seen from (5.28) that changes from obstruent to nasal sonorant or vice versa are of the same type as other Welsh mutation changes, and we have avoided the problems raised by the major/minor classes of Generative Phonology.
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5.2.7 Conclusion The DP approach clearly avoids the undesirability of the traditional phonological analysis of SM, whereby one process involves changes of differing magnitudes: from a phonological viewpoint it no longer matters whether / / is more a lateral than a fricative. There may, of course, be other interesting solutions for this particular problem, and there are naturally other approaches that can be used in descriptions of the phonology of mutation. Some of these will be examined in the following two sections of this chapter. 5.3 AUTOSEGMENTAL PHONOLOGY 5.3.1 Mutations and Autosegmental Phonology The fact that initial mutation is initial, that is to say occurs at a set place in the word, clearly points to a possible analysis utilizing one of the nonsegmental approaches to phonology that have grown up in post-SPE times. In fact, of the many theoretical frameworks available, that of Autosegmental Phonology and Morphology has been the one adopted in some recent work. Goldsmith is one of the most prominent scholars working within the framework (see, for example, Goldsmith 1979), and a good overview of Autosegmental Phonology is available in Goldsmith (1990). Like many other non-segmental approaches, this framework operates with tiers of representation, allowing non-segmental phonological material (e.g. tone) to be represented separately, and attached to a relevant place in the utterances. In just such a way, the changes involved in initial consonant mutation can be represented on a separate tier, which is attached to wordinitial position. The first important paper concentrating on mutation and autosegmental theory is Lieber (1983). She uses the term ‘Autosegmental Morphology’, which is a framework developed out of the purely phonological approach by McCarthy (1979, 1981) and Marantz (1982). Lieber’s paper rests on a set of assumptions about the operation of Autosegmental Phonology/ Morphology, which is worthwhile repeating here for those not familiar with the area. (a) Words are not necessarily composed of linear sequences of morphemes which are themselves linear sequences of segments. Rather, words may be linkings of a number of autosegmental tiers, where an autosegmental tier is defined as a projection of some set of distinctive features. Autosegmental tiers may have the status of mor-
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phemes. (b) The distinctive feature bundle which comprises each segment is exhaustively partitioned among autosegmental tiers such that each feature (except in cases of lexical idiosyncrasy) is normally projected on exactly one tier. (c) The skeleton tier is defined as that tier which is composed of at least the feature [syllabic], and is given unusual status only in that it is the one tier to which all other tiers must be linked. The melody tier is normally composed of the remaining distinctive features. (d) A universal association convention links melody slots with skeleton slots one to one, left to right until either melody segments or skeleton slots are exhausted. Extra melody segments remain unattached and are not phonologically interpreted. Remaining skeleton slots may be associated by language particular association rules. (e) A feature which in some language is normally projected on one autosegmental tier may in certain lexically idiosyncratic cases be projected on another tier (e.g., if [high] is usually projected on a floating autosegment in some language it may nevertheless be projected on stem melodies in a few words). Where features appear on a tier other than their normal projection they are called preattached. Features which are preattached always take precedence over the same features appearing on their usual projection. (Lieber 1983:165–6) Lieber notes that consonant mutation is of two main types (based, it would seem, on Oftedal’s (1962) analysis, although this is not referenced): incorporated and projected. Incorporated mutations are those with no overt trigger, and in fact, in our analysis, given in Chapter 1, we avoid this distinction through the operation of zero triggers, linked stylistically to overt trigger words. Lieber illustrates incorporated mutations with the language Fula (a West Atlantic language), and projected mutations with Nuer (a Nilo-Saharan language). She also devotes some space to Welsh, and in particular the SM of object NPs following inflected verbs. She notes that languages with mutations differ from those without in a single way within autosegmental theory. Non-mutating languages have a phonological core consisting of two tiers: ‘a skeleton, which will be a projection of the feature [syllabic] and a melody tier on which all of the remaining distinctive features will be projected’ (Lieber 1983:166). Mutating languages have the same skeleton, being a projection of the feature [syllabic], ‘but the melody tier will not provide all the remaining distinctive features. In effect, the
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initial…segments of the melody tier will be underspecified. The missing feature or features (…the mutation features) will be provided by a floating autosegment attached to the phonological core by language particular association rules’ (ibid.). We can illustrate how this operates through Lieber’s example of Fula. Here nouns have a classifier system of up to twenty-five possible classes signifying singular, plural, diminutive and others. In Fula, some of these classes are marked by initial consonant mutation, so, for example, the word for ‘monkey’ appears as waa- in classes 2, 9, 11, 13, 14 and 20, as baa- in classes 1, 3–5, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23–5 and as mbaa- in classes 6–8, 10, 12, 15, 18, 22. To represent this situation autosegmentally we need a skeleton for the stem of ‘monkey’ showing the projection of the feature [syllabic], i.e. CVV. The melodic tier specifies the distinctive features of these units, but the initial segment is underspecified for two features: [continuant] and [nasal] —these being the features which vary in the mutations. We can display the resultant arrangement as follows: (5.29) noun stem ‘monkey’
(Lieber 1983:167) The missing features of [continuant] and [nasal] will be supplied by nounclass morphemes, which are represented by Lieber as floating autosegments, as follows: (5.30) a. Class morpheme for classes 2, 9, 11, 13, 14, 20
b. Class morpheme for Classes 1, 3–5, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23–5
c. Class morpheme for Classes 6–8, 10, 12, 15, 18, 22
(Lieber 1983:167)
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To illustrate the actual mutation process, Fula will have a special association convention linking the floating autosegments of the noun-class morphemes to the initial C slot of the skeleton. This is illustrated by Lieber for the waa- form of the noun ‘monkey’: (5.31)
(Lieber 1983:167) Later in her paper, Lieber turns her attention to SM in Welsh. Within her examples, she simplifies the process for ease of illustration to the SM of voiceless stops, though her grasp of the Welsh data is somewhat doubtful, as her footnote on Welsh lenition mentions only that SM operates on voiceless stops and voiced stops, and fails to mention voiceless liquids, and /m/ → /v/; Sproat (1986) notes that she has subsequently revised this account, and has provided accounts also for AM and NM, which we look at in the following sub-section when examining Sproat’s response to the autosegmental analysis. Nevertheless, it is clear that floating autosegments can be drawn up to account for Welsh SM in the same sort of manner as illustrated above for Fula. The problem she concentrates on is that of the SM of direct-object NPs following inflected verbs. This particular trigger has occasioned much investigation, most of which we return to in Chapter 6. Here, however, the question is not so much how to characterize the trigger, but the problem of non-adjacency of trigger and target. If we assume that the verb form is the trigger (see Chapter 6 for opposing views to this), then the target can be one linguistic constituent away from the trigger (i.e. following the subject NP). Such a situation goes against the prediction of Autosegmental theory that consonant mutation must be strictly local. Lieber states, if consonant mutation is triggered at all, it must be triggered at the periphery of a morpheme by a contiguous morpheme. Triggers cannot be separated from the initial or final consonant whose mutation they condition—if they were, a violation of the usual autosegmental convention ruling out the crossing of association lines would result. (Lieber 1983:169) It is clear that if we maintain the inflected verb as the trigger of direct-object mutation, then we cannot maintain the strictly local convention required to
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stay within autosegmental theory. Lieber proposes an ingenious device to get round this problem, and to account for the facts that neither periphrastic nor impersonal verbs trigger SM onto their direct objects. She assumes that, where possible, case is assigned to object NPs. But case in Government-Binding theory, under Stowell’s (1981) principle can only be assigned locally (i.e. to those object NPs in impersonal and periphrastic constructions that directly follow the verb, with no subject NP interposing). Remaining ‘object’ NPs cannot receive case, and, according to Lieber, in these instances a null preposition is inserted before the NP. This dummy is semantically null, and phonologically consists only of the floating autosegment bearing the SM features. Supporting evidence for this dummy preposition is adduced from English of-insertion (e.g. destruction of the city), and for the preposition to trigger SM from the other numerous preposition triggers in Welsh. The formalism of this account is given here. The rule of preposition insertion says ‘a preposition is to be inserted before an NP not adjacent to its governing verb…: NP → [p] NP in env.: V NP___’ (Lieber 1983:173). Utilizing this framework, the autosegmental description of the sentence Gwelodd y dyn gi ‘The man saw a dog’, with direct-object SM of the word ci ‘dog’, is given as follows: (5.32)
Other attempts to utilize the notion of case to explain direct-object mutation, and alternatives using the notion of NPs as triggers are returned to in Chapter 6.
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Rice and Cowper (1984) also examine mutations and Autosegmental theory in response to Lieber’s work. They deal with data from Mende (a Mandan language of Sierra Leone), but their analyses suggest that this language is not suited to an autosegmental account. They examine two potential autosegmental analyses. In the first, they maintain strict locality of triggering, but find their floating autosegment is completely ad hoc and lacking morphological content. When they set up an autosegment with morphological content, however, the triggering rule is not local. They conclude that an autosegmental approach has not been shown to be better motivated for Mende than a segmental one, but that this may be because the mutations in Mende are much more clearly phonologically motivated than those discussed by Lieber. An autosegmental approach to Welsh mutation using psycholinguistic evidence from lexical organization is discussed in 9.3. 5.3.2 The case against an Autosegmental analysis The most forceful counterarguments to Lieber’s account came from Sproat (1986), who in turn proposes an account of Welsh mutation relying on redundancy rules within a broadly Lexical Phonological framework (see Kiparsky 1982a, 1982b, 1985 for accounts of this approach). Sproat gives an account of Lieber’s analysis, but notes that problems arise in her treatment of AM (which she terms ‘frication’). This is because her ‘analysis of lenition crucially assumes that the segments /p, t, k/ are underlyingly prespecified as [–continuant], yet the spirant mutation [i.e. AM] must change this feature to [+continuant], which is impossible given Lieber’s assumptions about prespecification’ (Sproat 1986:5). Lieber’s solution to this relies on the use of a new feature [aspirated]; /p, t, k/ are underlyingly unspecified for this feature, and while SM and NM supply the feature [–aspirated], AM supplies [+aspirated] in a floating autosegment. A later low-level rule changes [–voice, + aspirated] segments to [+continuant]. Sproat feels that such an account relying on an ad hoc abstract device shows that ‘much as the autosegmental approach might seem more desirable, we cannot reasonably conclude at this point that it has been shown to be more explanatory’ (Sproat 1986:7). Indeed, we might well ask how Lieber’s account is going to cope with the fact that initial voiceless stops in Welsh are heavily aspirated in any case (see Ball 1984a), and what feature is to be used at a phonetic level to distinguish aspirated stops from ‘aspirated-meaningfricative’ segments? Sproat also disputes Lieber’s claim that Autosegmental Phonology predicts strict locality, by showing instances where this is not so. Sproat’s alternative analysis draws mostly from the lexical use of mutations: that is lexically triggered by prepositional clitics, but also compound words, and words with derivational affixes. He points out that
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in the great majority of instances of these three types, lenition is the norm (see our discussion of Willis in Chapter 2, and 5.4.2 below). He concludes therefore that ‘the correct characterization of lenition, then, would appear to be that it is not actually triggered by the preceding morpheme, but merely by non-initiality’ (Sproat 1986:8). Note that as clitics are to be counted as part of the same phonological word as the following lexical item, this definition holds for prepositions and other similar ‘triggers’ discussed in Chapter 1. (Further discussion of clitics and the phonological word is found in 7.2 below.) Unfortunately, there are, of course, examples of pre-nominal elements that do not cause mutation, such as non-mutating prepositions, pronouns and numerals. The phonology of lenition is, according to Sproat, to be viewed as a set of redundancy rules, as described in Kiparsky (1982a) or Archangeli (1984). They are defined as ‘a rule which fills in features which have previously been left unspecified in a feature matrix’ (Sproat 1986:8). Sproat illustrates this approach with an underspecified matrix for Welsh consonants, where each feature is marked ‘+’ or ‘–’ only across the board, and where a series of redundancy rules are supplied to fill in the blanks. These are reproduced in Tables 5.1 and example (5.33). Table 5.1 Welsh consonants: underspecified matrices
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Given these redundancy rules, we can fill in the underspecified matrix of Welsh consonants to provide a fully specified version, as shown in Table 5.2. Table 5.2 Welsh consonants: fully specified initial matrices
Sproat now suggests that lenition can be accounted for with a pair of default rules operating in non-initial position that ‘interfere’ with the normal operation of the redundancy rules in (5.33) above. These he writes as:
Where W means any non-phonological material to the left. Sproat shows that the ordering of this lenition rule must follow redundancy rule (f) above, but precede rule (g) (in fact Kiparsky’s Elsewhere Condition that ‘the particular rule must be applied before the general rule that it blocks’ guarantees this ordering). A final matrix is given in Table 5.3, showing the effect of the lenition rule of (5.34). Just as in other accounts, ‘clean-up’ rules are required to cope with *[ ] and *[v] etc. Sproat also gives the rules for AM and NM, and, interestingly, shows how a floating autosegment could be used to account for the hard mutation that can occur word internally before suffixes (e.g. gwlyb → gwlypach ‘wet → wetter’; see also Appendices 1 and 2 ). In discussing where in the derivation mutations apply, Sproat separates lenition from the other two types of ICM. As NM and AM are triggered by particular morphemes, they must apply cyclically, that is on the cycle
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Table 5.3 Welsh consonants: fully specified lenited matrices
where the morpheme is attached. Lenition, on the other hand, being triggered (according to Sproat) by non-initiality can be triggered late in the derivation, as indeed are the redundancy rules themselves. As Sproat supports the view of direct-object mutation being in fact caused by a preceding NP (see Chapter 6), this also implies a late application of the lenition rule. Sproat also has to deal with exceptions to his non-initiality context for lenition, that is those prefixes of clitics that do not trigger SM. He resorts here to marking these items in the lexicon as inducing redundancy rules (g)-(i), as opposed to the lenition rule. Sproat’s approach to lenition involves both a phonological and a syntactic change to the outline of mutations given in Chapter 1. From the phonological viewpoint Sproat’s proposals clearly differ from the Generative Phonological rules given in 1.3–1.5 (he does not discuss PVA) mainly in their location within the phonology. If one is working within a framework of feature redundancy, then this approach adequately reflects the phonology of mutation. A complete evaluation of this approach as opposed to more orthodox generative approaches is outside our scope, and we remain neutral as to which is to be preferred; suffice it to say that both account for the facts. The syntactic aspects of Sproat’s account are, however, somewhat problematic. By wishing to assign lenition as being triggered by noninitiality, we have to take on board a whole battery of exceptions. Firstly, there are those prefixes (20 per cent, according to Sproat) that do not cause lenition; then there are preposition clitics (such as rhag ‘against’) that do not cause any mutation, or others (such as yn ‘in’) that cause another mutation (in this case NM). Further, there are contexts that trigger SM—lenition—that cannot be classed as non-initiality. Sproat discusses direct-object mutation, and whether we class this as mutation after NP (see Chapter 6), or as caused by an inflected verb form, it is clearly not non-initiality; likewise with other contexts such as adjectives
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following feminine nouns. Finally, NM and AM are, according to Sproat, to be triggered by marking the trigger morphemes (clitics within the same morphological word as the target) to invoke the relevant rules; if this is done for these mutations why not do the same for SM? This avoids the necessity for marking so many exceptions as noted above.
5.4 OTHER APPROACHES 5.4.1 Natural Phonology The use of Natural Phonological processes within this approach (see, for example, Stampe 1969, 1973; Donegan and Stampe 1979; Dressler 1984) would seem to have particular relevance to the mutation systems encountered in the Celtic languages (particularly with the extension of the paradigm to morphophonology and morphology; see, for instance, Dressler 1985). While we do not intend here to examine the theory in detail, nor to look at how the mutation system as a whole might be characterized via NatP (this abbreviation is preferred to Dressler’s (1984) use of NP in order to avoid confusion with ‘noun phrase’), we will look at a potential problem area concerning the different lenition types found in Welsh and Irish (or, more generally, Brythonic and Goidelic). A basic premise of NatP is that phonological relationships can be categorized in two ways: into phonological processes that are ‘natural’ in senses discussed in Donegan and Stampe (1979:134f.), and ‘rules’ that do not reflect this naturalness. If we look at the phonological changes involved in ICM in Welsh, they would appear to be ideal candidates for process status, and lenition, for example, is so listed by Dressler (1985:48–9). This same source exemplifies the changes of both SM and AM as natural processes, but, interestingly, only illustrates that part of NM affecting voiced stops. We need to remember, however, that under the heading of stop lenition we find as a natural process a change of both voicing and spirantization; that is to say both the Welsh strategy of /p, t, k/ → /b, d, g/ and the Irish strategy of /p, t, k/ → /f, *θ, x/ (with [*θ] later changing to /h/) being seen as part of a natural process. As we saw in Chapter 3, the two branches of the modern Celtic languages took alternative routes in the lenition process; it is a shame that NatP’s current theoretical framework is not yet developed enough to help determine which of these routes is more ‘natural’. While there is a set of principles within the theory (e.g. rules before processes and fortitions before lenitions), the cross-linguistic evidence is yet to be gathered to enable a more detailed account of process typology.
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However, before we conclude that what we have with mutation is an example of natural processes in operation (within the terms of the theory) we have to look also at the function of ICM in the modern Celtic languages. According to Donegan and Stampe (1979), rules (as opposed to processes) lack current phonetic motivation, and ‘are sometimes the historical results of “fossilized” or conventionalized processes which have lost such motivation’ (p. 144). Further, ‘processes lack positive semantic or grammatical functions, which some rules…do have’ (ibid.). Rules are learnt behaviour in NatP, whereas processes are ‘natural responses to innate limitations or difficulties’ (ibid.). It would appear then that ICM may originally have been processes, but must now be characterized as rules within NatP. This phonological framework, therefore, does highlight the change in ICM from a naturally occurring phonological process to an arbitrary system of changes no longer prompted by the phonology. This clearly is useful, but as we have noted, the NatP approach does not help in accounting for other aspects of the system. 5.4.2 Is lenition the base form? As we saw in 2.4.3, Willis has argued that in some circumstances lenition can be considered the basic—or default—form of a particular word. We wish briefly to explore this notion further, and look at some suggestions from other writers along the same lines. Sproat (1986) along with Willis (1982, 1986) has argued that lenition is the basic, or default, form within the phonological word, on non-initial morphemes. Powers (1986) has argued for a similar analysis elsewhere: that the default form for all verb forms should be the lenited version, again with certain exceptions so marked. Utilizing case, Zwicky (1984b, 1986) states that a set of mutation contexts can be explained if we assume that accusative case has as its default the use of the lenited form of the word, while genitive has the unlenited form. Furthermore, accusative is considered the default case. This, according to Zwicky, will account for direct-object SM, SM in vocatives, and SM in noun adverbials among others (we return to the problem of direct-object mutation in 6.3). It must be stressed, however, that none of these authors claim that lenition (SM) is to be considered the base form per se. As Willis (1986) points out, the radical form must be considered the underlying form, even if a lenition rule is felt to be the default in certain areas of the grammar. This can be shown in various ways: firstly as initial /v-/
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is generally the SM reflex of either /b/ or /m/, the correct ‘nonmutated’ form could not be generated if SM forms are considered underlying. Secondly, vowel-initial forms in SM contexts may derive from /V-/ in the radical, or from /gV-/; again if the SM form is underlying we have no way of deriving the ‘unmutated’ form from it. Finally, borrowings from English mean that we can now find initial /l/ and /r/ as radicals, and as SM reflexes of / / and / / respectively. If the SM form is underlying we will not be able to derive the correct ‘unmutated’ form for these liquids. We have argued above (5.3.2) against an analysis of lexical trigger contexts as being considered +SM by default. While this may well be an adequate characterization of what happens with compounds and prefixes, we feel that the number and type (i.e. no mutation or other mutations) of exceptions with clitics (that may well be within the phonological word, but are clearly syntactically and morphologically distinct from prefixes) do not justify the necessity to treat the mutation processes separately. Powers’s arguments for verbs are stronger, in that, particularly in the vernaculars, there does seem to be a tendency to use SM for positive, negative and interrogative forms, even when pre-sentential particles are missing. It has been argued elsewhere (Ball 1988a: Chapter 6), however, that in Modern Standard Welsh the most economical analysis lies with the notion of the zero trigger, and that speakers of this dialect do still retain command over the mixed mutation (AM;SM) with negative particles, and the radical in affirmative sentences, which undermines some of Powers’s arguments. We retain, therefore, an analysis for the standard language of radical forms for the verb. We will not discuss Zwicky’s arguments over case at this stage (see 6.3), but the association of mutation with case is not something that would fundamentally upset our analysis of Chapter 1. 5.4.3 Are mutations phonology at all? Finally, we must ask a question that few researchers seem to have wanted to face when writing on Celtic mutations: should they be treated as part of the phonology at all? An alternative analysis can be easily thought of where a set of forms of a lexical item are listed as allomorphs in the lexicon to be supplied to particular contexts; these forms being what would traditionally have been termed the radical and the various mutated reflexes.
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While this on the face of things does remove mutations from the phonology, we would be left with sets of forms for each lexical item that are clearly very similar phonologically. If we resort to suppletion (i.e. implicitly claiming they are all totally unrelated) the resultant analysis would be seen as eccentric to say the least, and as inadequate in that it refused to account for an obvious set of similarities between the forms. If, on the other hand, we attempt to link the forms, we can only do so via a phonological description. It would seem, therefore, that whatever phonological approach we adopt, and wherever the rules are situated, there is no adequate account of mutations that does not involve some kind of phonological formalism.
6
The syntax of mutation
6.0 INTRODUCTION The study of Welsh syntax was restricted until comparatively recently to traditional accounts of the type found in Morris-Jones (1931), Richards (1938), Williams (1959, 1980). The first major publication on modern linguistic approaches that used Welsh data was Watkins (1961): a survey of linguistics in general rather than of Welsh syntax. In the mid-1970s there appeared the first treatments of Welsh syntax utilizing a transformational-generative approach: Awbery (1976) and Jones and Thomas (1977); while the first of these deals with certain mutation triggers (via transformational rules), the second, unfortunately, treats the entire system as being outside its scope of syntax and semantics and so does not discuss it. More recently, we have seen work on Welsh within a GB framework, notably Sproat (1985), Tallerman (1987) and Sadler (1988) the last two of whom do discuss mutations to different degrees. Most recently, Rouveret (1990) has also addressed aspects of Welsh syntax within the GB framework, while Awbery (1990) brings a broadly theory-neutral approach to a study of dialect syntax that also involves consideration of mutation in various contexts. Research within Generalized Phrase-Structure Grammar (GPSG) and related frameworks is also noteworthy, represented by several papers by Borsley (e.g. 1986, 1989, 1990) in recent years. Functional Grammar is represented by Thorne (1985) working within a Hallidayan framework, and the recent publication of Fife’s (1990b) account of Welsh syntax, set within the cognitive approach of Langacker and others (see also Fife 1985b, 1990a). More specific treatments of aspects of Welsh syntax will be referred to in the sections below. This chapter does not claim to be an in-depth account of Welsh syntax, and we will mainly be concerned with just those areas where
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the mutation system and the syntax come together. Furthermore, we will concentrate on those areas where the syntax determines the mutation, rather on using mutation evidence to support a particular syntactic analysis. However, not all readers will be familiar with the syntax of Welsh, and we therefore provide a brief description of the main surface syntactic characteristics of the language in 6.2, together with discussion of those areas of debate concerning the analysis of the syntax that have some relevance for the syntactic mutation triggers. Before we do this, however, we look again at the problem of what constitutes a syntactic trigger. While in a broad definition all mutations are syntactic (in that their position in the syntactic frame determines the mutation), some are clearly better dealt with via morphological features stored in the lexicon, while others appear not to be. Following our examination of Welsh syntax we turn to look at three problems of syntax and mutation that need to be addressed. The first of these concerns mainly the SM of the direct object of inflected verbs (but will include other triggers, such as non-normal word order). Several different accounts of this context are critically examined, and we also highlight the distinction between formal and functional analyses and constituent and syntactic triggering. We then look at the area of SM on adjectives following feminine singular nouns, and how to account for what triggers the mutation on those adjectives after the first one, and those separated from the noun by intervening constituents. Finally, we turn our attention to what we termed in Chapter 1 the ‘zero triggers’, in particular the pre-sentential particle system of Welsh, and discuss alternative analyses involving both standard and spoken varieties of the language. An area which has been of special interest to many linguists (e.g. Harlow 1981, 1983; Tallerman 1983, 1987, 1990a; Rouveret 1990), that is, relativization, is largely neglected in this chapter (though see Chapter 8). This is not to down-play its importance or interest; but while mutations may provide evidence for particular analyses of relativization, relativization does not present especial complications for accounts of mutation. There are naturally other areas of the interaction of syntax and mutation that we do not have the space to discuss in this chapter. In particular, readers may wish to consult Tallerman (1987:130ff.) for an explanation of the apparent loss of SM on adverbs in some contexts after complementizing yn.
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6.1 MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX OF MUTATION TRIGGERS In Chapter 1 we divided the triggers of mutation into two main types on a formal basis: lexical triggers were particular lexical items followed by mutation (with possible restrictions on aspects of the trigger or target); and syntactic triggers were those instances where position in a syntactic frame appeared to be important to the triggering of the mutation. This last idea is somewhat more complex than the first. It includes instances which have in the past (e.g. Oftedal 1962) been termed ‘incorporated’ mutation, such as the SM on adverbials, as well as features that have been termed ‘projected’, such as the SM on direct objects of inflected verbs. If we consider how mutation is triggered in a theoretical account of Welsh, it may well be that this binary division is not sensitive enough. We would want to say that those mutation triggers that have been termed lexical in Chapter 1 are triggered through a feature that is part of the bundle of morphological and morphophonological features listed for the lexical item in the lexicon, and in Chapter 1 we showed how such features might appear. At some stage, these features will be realized phonologically, and we return to the interface between morphology and phonology in Chapter 7. The syntactic triggers are not so easily dealt with, however, and various accounts have been provided in the literature of how to describe them. In 6.3 we look in detail at alternative approaches to three syntactic triggers: direct-object mutation, non-normal word order and i+NP+X, where explanations have ranged from SM being an aspect of Case marking, to phrasal categories being marked as SM triggers. We will not pre-empt the discussion here on these problems. We look in Chapter 7 at how to interface a syntactic account of mutation triggering with the phonological realization of the mutation. One feature of the triggers of Chapter 1, however, does appear to need a treatment different from both lexical triggers, and accounts of the other syntactic contexts. If we look at the role of gender and mutation, we find that feminine singular nouns trigger SM onto following adjectives. It appears to us that, in terms of triggering mechanisms, what is responsible here is not the lexical item so much as a particular morphological feature: [+feminine] (a similar account is suggested by Tallerman 1987). We could even extend this analysis to those instances where SM is triggered onto feminine singular nouns (for example by y ‘the’, and un ‘one’), and envisage this morphological feature triggering onto following adjectives
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(and adjectival nouns) and when following the determiner or numeral. We look at this area in a little more detail in 6.4 below, and consider various ways in which gender mutations may be triggered. 6.2 AN OUTLINE OF WELSH SYNTAX 6.2.1 Surface syntax For readers unfamiliar with Welsh syntax, we give here a very brief account of its surface characteristics. At the level of the main clause, Welsh demonstrates a VSO order for normal, unemphatic declarative statements. This is realized in one of two main ways: firstly, with an inflected verb (i.e. a main verb carrying tense/person inflection) in initial position followed by subject NP where appropriate (Welsh permits prodrop in formal registers) and an object NP where appropriate. Alternatively, one of a series of auxiliary verbs may occupy the initial slot (carrying the inflection), followed by the subject NP, then the main verb (with aspect marker in the case of the auxiliary bod ‘to be’), then the object NP. The following examples illustrate this difference: (6.1)
Gwelodd Rhodri’r gath saw + 3sg Rh the cat ‘Rhodri saw the cat’
(6.2)
Roedd Rhodri’n gweld y gath was + 3sg Rh pt see the cat ‘Rhodri was seeing the cat’
(6.3)
Gwnaeth Rhodri _weld y gath did + 3sg Rh see the cat ‘Rhodri saw the cat’
(pt: progressive aspect)
As described in section 6.5, Welsh contains a set of pre-sentential particles that denote sentence function (though many of these are now restricted to the modern standard language). These are illustrated below: (6.4)
Fe _welodd Rhodri’r gath pt saw + 3sg Rh the cat ‘Rhodri saw the cat’
(fe/mi: affirmative)
(6.5)
A _welodd Rhodri’r gath pt saw + 3sg Rh the cat ‘Did Rhodri see the cat?’
(a: interrogative1)
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(6.6)
Ni _welodd Rhodri’r gath pt saw + 3sg Rh the cat ‘Rhodri didn’t see the cat’
(6.7)
Oni _welodd Rhodri’r gath? pt saw + 3sg Rh the cat ‘Didn’t Rhodri see the cat?’
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(ni: negative2)
(oni: negative+ interrogative)
(Ways of marking these roles in Modern Spoken Welsh are discussed in section 6.5.) Positive declarative sentences can also appear with no presentential particle as in (6.1) above. Changes in emphasis and focus can be achieved through fronting of various constituents, as in the following examples: (6.8)
Y ty a _welodd Rhodri the house pt saw + 3sg Rh ‘It was the house that Rhodri saw’
(6.9)
Rhodri a _welodd y ty Rh pt saw + 3sg the house ‘It was Rhodri who saw the house’
(6.10) Gweld y ty a _wnaeth Rhodri see the house pt did + 3sg Rh ‘It was seeing the house that Rhodri did’ Pronoun objects display two stylistically optional patterns of use with inflected verbs, and a third pattern with periphrastic verbs: (6.11) Fe’m gwelodd Wyn pt me saw + 3sg W ‘Wyn saw me’ (6.12) Fe _welodd Wyn fi pt saw + 3sg W me ‘Wyn saw me’ (6.13) Roedd Wyn yn fy ngweld (i) was + 3sg W pt my see me ‘Wyn was seeing/saw me’ Welsh displays quite a complex set of subordination and relativization patterns, dependent upon whether an inflected or periphrastic verb construction is used, and whether the verb ‘to be’ is involved. These are
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best illustrated through the following examples, which, however, are not exhaustive: (6.14) Gwelais i ef pan aeth ef i mewn saw + 1s I him when came + 3sg he to in ‘I saw him when he came in’ (6.15) Gwelais i ef oherwydd ei fod (ef) yn y ty saw + 1sg I him because his be him in the house ‘I saw him because he was in the house’ (6.16) Gwelais i beth oedd ef yn ei _wneud saw + 1sg I what was + 1sg he pt its do ‘I saw what he was doing’ (6.17) Gwn y daw ef know + 1sg pt come + 3sg he ‘I know he will come’ (6.18) Gwn fod llawer o bobl yn dod know + 1sg be lot of people pt come ‘I know lots of people will come’ With relativization we find examples like the following, starting with two periphrastic constructions: (6.19) y dyn sydd yn/sy’n mynd the man who-is pt go ‘the man who’s going’ (6.20) y dyn a oedd yn mynd the man pt was + 3sg pt go ‘the man who was going’
(present)
(other tenses)
(6.21) y dyn a aeth yno ddoe the man pt went + 3sg there yesterday ‘the man who went there yesterday’ The relative particle a is used for extraction out of subject or object position, and the particle y for extraction out of other constituents: (6.22) y dyn a _welais i the man pt saw + 1sg I ‘the man I saw’
(subject)
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(6.23) y dyn a’m gwelodd/ a _welodd fi the man pt me saw + 3sg/ pt saw + 3sg me ‘the man who saw me’ (6.24) y dyn y siaradais i â fe the man pt spoke + 1sg I with him ‘the man I spoke with’
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(object)
(adjunct)
The particle a can, in fact, be responsible for ambiguity (as discussed further in 8.1.4): (6.25) y dyn a _welodd fe the man pt saw + 3sg him/he ‘the man he saw/the man who saw him’ In negative relatives, the particle na (nad before vowels) is used in most instances. In wh-questions, Welsh allows both pied-piping and preposition stranding, with the latter somewhat more formal stylistically: (6.26) Ar beth (yr) ydych chi’ n edrych? on what (pt) are you pt look ‘What are you looking at?’ (6.27) Beth ydych chi’ n edrych arno? what are you pt look at + 3sg/masc ‘What are you looking at?’ Copular constructions should be briefly noted, as they require the use of a complementizing particle: (6.28) Mae Siân yn hapus is S pt happy ‘Siân is happy’ (6.29) Mae Ieuan yn athro is I pt teacher ‘Ieuan is a teacher’ If, however, the complement is definite, we find this construction, with emphasis distributed by the order: (6.30) Yr athro yw Ieuan the teacher is I ‘The teacher is Ieuan’
~ ~
Ieuan yw ’r athro I is the teacher ‘Ieuan is the teacher’
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A final point to note at the clause level is the common use of the preposition i ‘to’ to introduce subordination (sometimes as a less formal variant to constructions with bod ‘to be’): (6.31) Rhaid i’r dynion fynd necessity to the men go ‘The men must go’ (6.32) cyn i Siân ddod before to S come ‘before Siân comes’ At the NP level, we need to note that Welsh allows a small set of determiners (including the definite article y; there is no indefinite article) to appear before the head. Adjectives, and other modification are posthead: (6.33) y ferch dal, deg the girl tall fair ‘the tall fair girl’ We can also note that plural forms of nouns are not used after numerals. In terms of pronouns, Welsh has a complex system of personal pronouns, and we do not have the space to describe them here; readers are referred to Watkins (1977) and Williams (1980). Finally, we must take a brief look at genitive constructions. In Welsh the possessum precedes the possessor, and while the latter can be marked for definiteness, the former cannot: (6.34) beic y bachgen bike the boy ‘the boy’s bike’ (6.35) beic bachgen bike boy ‘a boy’s bike’ At the VP level (assuming we admit this constituent, see discussion below), we can note that Modern Standard Welsh allows four inflected tenses: present, past, imperfect and pluperfect. In Modern Spoken Welsh (such as Cymraeg Byw) this is normally reduced to three (and the paradigms simplified): present-future, past and habitual/ conditional. In periphrastic constructions we find a range of aspect markers used with bod ‘to be’, as follows:
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(6.36) Mae Ieuan yn mynd is I pt go ‘Ieuan is going’
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(progressive)
(6.37) Mae Ieuan wedi mynd ‘Ieuan has gone’
(perfective)
(6.38) Mae Ieuan wedi bod yn mynd ‘Ieuan has been going’
(progressive+perfective)
Other markers include newydd, recent perfect; ar ‘about to’; am ‘want, intend to’; heb ‘not’; i ‘supposed to, going to’; gan ‘in the process’; and dan ‘whilst’ (for discussion of these last two see Sadler 1988:23; for a fuller account of meanings, see Uned Iaith Genedlaethol Cymru 1978: Chapter 7). While inflected verbs are marked for person and number, third-person singular is used with all nouns, singular and plural. Third plural is restricted to the third plural personal pronouns. In the PP, we can note that Welsh has prepositions, not post-positions, and that when used with personal pronouns the class of common prepositions take personal endings: (6.39) gan Siân ‘with Siân’
~ ~
ganddi hi ‘with her’
Finally, we can examine the AP. Welsh adjectives are subject to four degrees of comparison: positive, comparative, superlative, equative: (6.40) cryf ~ strong ~
cryfach na ~ cryfaf stronger than ~ strongest
~ cyn gryfed â ~ as strong as
The equative can also be expressed using the positive degree: mor gryf â ‘as strong as’. Verbal complements of adjectives can be found with an intervening preposition, or without: (6.41) parod i fynd ‘ready to work’ (6.42) balch o _wybod ‘proud to know’ (6.43) bodlon gweithio ‘prepared to work’ Readers requiring more detail on Welsh syntax should consult Williams (1980) for a traditional account, or Jones and Thomas (1977) for a transformational approach.
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6.2.2 Some points of debate One area of dispute in theoretical accounts of Welsh syntax has revolved around whether at the D-structure level Welsh is VSO (as at S-structure level), or SVO. As we noted above, this is not clear from Welsh sentences, as we have a post-subject V-constituent with periphrastic constructions. T h e p r o p o s a l s c o m p l e m e n t o n e a n o t h e r f o r, i f w e p o s i t underlying VSO, we need a rule that moves V elements rightwards beyond the subject in case the V-initial element is filled by an auxiliary; on the other hand, if we posit underlying SVO, we need a rule to move the entire V constituent leftwards to INFL in case there is no auxiliary. Jones and Thomas (1977) support the SVO analysis, while Awbery (1976) prefers an underlying VSO. The debate here has continued since these early works, with Harlow (1981), Koopman (1984), Sproat (1985) and Sadler (1988) supporting the SVO account, and Borsley (1984) discussing problems connected with it when accounting for control and raising verbs. As concerns the mutation system, the two alternatives on offer here are mainly neutral. One possible overlap lies with the controversy over directobject mutation (see 6.3). To avoid the necessity of having this mutation triggered across another constituent (from the inflected verb, across the subject, onto the object), it might be argued that an underlying SVO order allows direct triggering of DOM by the verb before any movement takes place. However, Tallerman (1987), while discussing various approaches to the SVO hypothesis, demonstrates that such an account raises more problems than it solves. It also breaches constraints on the syntaxphonology interface noted in 7.3. In our discussions below we will have occasion to illustrate the phrase structure of Welsh sentences, but in so doing we do not intend to enter the debate over SVO and VSO. The phrase structures given in 6.5, for example, come from the recent SVO tradition, but the argument would not be affected materially if an alternative were adopted. The discussion as to whether Welsh (or any other Celtic languages) has a VP constituent is directly related to the debate on underlying word order. Sproat (1985:175f.) and Sadler (1988:17) argue convincingly that within an underlying SVO account, a VP constituent can be posited. Awbery (1976), on the other hand, suggests that no VP exists: with inflected verbs there is a V-initial constituent, with periphrastic verbs the main verb (traditionally termed the ‘verb-noun’
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(V P)) is considered a NP within a PP, with the aspect marker counted N as the preposition. This leads us to the final point of issue that will be covered here: the status of the verb-noun. There are several aspects of the use of verb-nouns that suggest they may best be treated as nouns: (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g)
they they they they they they they
can be preceded by the article; can be followed by adjectives; display gender; can be preceded by possessives; can act as objects of prepositions; can act as clausal subjects or objects; can act as denominal adjectivals.
There are also several aspects that suggest they may best be treated as verbs: (a) they can be modified by adverbs; (b) they are linked periphrastically to auxiliary verbs; (c) used with aspect markers they create the equivalent of participles in other languages; (d) in co-ordinated strings, they can replace a finite verb with the same subject; (e) they can express action even without an overt subject. Commenting on this problem, Sproat (1985) examines in turn whether VNPs can be classed as PP, NP, VP or ¯. He finds support for the last two possibilities, arguing that VNP with yn as an aspect marker is in fact a VP, while with wedi as an aspect marker, it is ¯. Sproat’s arguments for dismissing the NP analysis are threefold. Firstly, unlike derived nominals, possessives with V Ps only refer to the object; for N example gweld Siôn ‘seeing Siôn’ can only mean that Siôn is the object of the seeing, never ‘Siôn’s seeing’; though note that with bod ‘to be’ possessors of V Ps express the subject: bod Siôn ‘Siôn being’. Secondly, N Sproat looks at wh-extraction, and notes that only V Ps and not NPs can N drop the pre-nominal possessive clitic in spoken forms of the language: (6.44) Pwy y mae hi wedi (ei) _weld? who pt is she pt its see ‘Who has she seen?’ (6.45) Pwy y gwelaist ti ei lun? who pt saw + 2sg you his picture ‘Whose picture did you see?’
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Again, it is worth noting that (6.44) is dialectal, and the form with the prenominal possessive is required in Modern Standard Welsh, and in many spoken varieties. Evidence is needed as to whether, in fact, dialects that allow pre-nominal possessive deletion in the one case do not also allow it in the other. Sproat’s final point concerns the fact that the V part of a V P can be N N fronted for emphasis, but with NPs the entire NP must be fronted, not just the head N. However, while this is true of Breton, most Welsh informants only accept fronting of the entire V P, not just the verb-noun N part of it. It is clear from the discussion above that V Ps are both like and N unlike NPs and VPs, and that Sproat’s arguments are not upheld in most cases. It is unfortunate, therefore, that most syntactic frameworks will force us to assign them to one or other category. As we will see later on (sub-section 6.3.6), the interpretation as VPs can create problems for analyses of DOM, involving both Case assignment and phrasal triggering of mutation. It is argued that V Ps cannot take Case as they N are VPs; nevertheless we have seen above that they can take gender. It may well be that a solution whereby V Ps are both VPs and NPs is well N motivated. This might take the form of double category assignment, or the positing of two separate (but phonologically identical) lexical entries: one nominal and the other verbal, or recognizing V as a N constituent in its own right (basically, this last strategy is that adopted by Rouveret 1990). In our future proposals within this chapter, therefore, we will assume an analysis along these lines, while recognizing that other scholars have operated with a more constrained theoretical framework. 6.3 DIRECT-OBJECT MUTATION (AND OTHERS) REVISITED 6.3.1 The problem of DOM One of the syntactic triggers described in section 1.3 is what we have termed direct-object mutation (following Harlow 1989, DOM hereafter). We have referred briefly (section 6.1 above) to triggering mechanisms of the mutation contexts listed as ‘syntactic’ in Chapter 1; while some are clearly triggered by lexical features (as in the gender mutations), with others, such as DOM, parenthetic and non-normal word-order mutations, we have till now assumed that the syntactic frame itself is responsible for the triggering of SM in these instances rather than particular lexical items or features.
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In most recent accounts of Welsh mutations, and indeed many traditional frameworks, however, the focus has been placed on the discovery of a trigger word for these mutations. In the case of DOM, for example, traditional accounts place the mutation trigger on the inflected verb, with the target on the direct object. As in most instances (excepting cases of null subjects) there is an intervening constituent (the subject NP) between the supposed trigger and the target in this account of DOM, objections have been raised. These are based on the trigger constraint (TC), as expressed (for example) by Zwicky (1984b):
]
(6.46) Trigger constraint ‘The trigger determining a rule feature for a morphophonemic rule must be adjacent to the affected word and c-command it’ (p. 389).
An analysis relying on the inflected verb as trigger clearly breaks this constraint. While plausible evidence is produced in Stump (1988) that the constraint is broken (or at least has to be re-interpreted) in some dialects of Breton and in Irish for certain mutation contexts, it is clearly desirable to explore alternative accounts for DOM in Welsh, if we agree with Zwicky (1984b:387–8) that ‘one hopes that conditions like “there is a verb earlier in the sentence” and “the second word preceding this one is an adjective” are not available in general linguistic theory’. At a later stage we will challenge the assumption that syntactic frames are invalid as conditions for the operation of rules, and that a trigger constraint is valid in a phonological process that is no longer linked to an immediate phonological environment. In recent years there have been several accounts proposed for DOM that have attempted to avoid a breach of the trigger constraint, and we will examine four of these below: empty prepositions; Case assignment; default marking of SM; and most influential in recent times, NP___ as a trigger of SM (indeed, this last has been extended to include several other SM contexts listed separately in Chapter 1). We conclude by discussing an alternative account avoiding the problems encountered with these approaches, and adopting an overtly functional viewpoint. 6.3.2 Empty prepositions In 5.3 we discussed Lieber’s (1983) proposals for an autosegmental analysis of ICM; we did not, however, explore her account of DOM. In fact, Lieber’s arguments stem from a problem concerned with Case assignment. GB theory states that overt NPs have to be assigned Case, and
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further, according to Stowell (1981), Case can only be assigned under adjacency. (We will not debate this further, though for many languages this claim would appear to be counterintuitive.) If it is assumed that object NPs are assigned Case by the inflected verb we find here a breach of adjacency principles exactly paralleling the breach of the mutation trigger constraint. Lieber proposes that it is, in fact, an empty preposition which assigns Case. This preposition is inserted by a syntactic rule before an NP not adjacent to its governing verb (evidence is presented of an analogous process proposed for English; see Lieber 1983:173). She notes that this strategy can also be used to overcome the seeming breach of the TC, and this is especially important for an autosegmental analysis because if triggers are separated from their targets then there results ‘a violation of the usual autosegmental convention ruling out the crossing of association lines’ (p. 169). The solution lies in the use of the empty preposition as a SM trigger (and many common prepositions do, of course, trigger SM). How this would operate can be seen in the following example: (6.47) Gwelodd y ddynes gath saw + 3sg the woman cat ‘The woman saw a cat’ having the structure: (6.48)
(See 5.3.1 for an explanation of the floating autosegment.) We have already discussed some of the problems connected with Lieber’s analysis from a phonological point of view (see 5.3.2), and can now turn to some weaknesses in the syntactic aspects (based mainly on Harlow 1989).
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Zwicky (1984b) makes the general point that the problem of phonological activity triggered across syntactic distances can always be avoided ‘if such “silent morphemes” are permitted in a transformational framework’ (p. 388). This criticism of the somewhat ad hoc mechanism of the empty preposition (a linguistic deus ex machina) is followed by the comment ‘a silent morpheme could be distributed in the same way as some preposition of substance and so could have all manner of phonological effects in sentences’ (p. 388). This point is elaborated by Harlow (1989), who notes two instances where the empty preposition does not behave as real prepositions do—both concerning wh-movement. The first of these involves the occurrence of pied-piping and preposition stranding (stylistic options in Welsh) in examples such as (6.49) and (6.50) (Harlow’s (8) and (9)): (6.49) I bwy (y) rhoddodd y dyn yr anrheg t? to whom pt gave the man the present ‘To whom did the man give the present?’ (6.50) Pwy (y) rhoddodd y dyn yr anrheg iddo t? who pt gave the man the present to + 3sg.m ‘Who did the man give the present to?’ If Lieber’s empty preposition behaved like overt prepositions we would expect a similar option to be available, as in (6.51) and (6.52) below (adapted from Harlow’s (10) and (11)): (6.51) Pwy (pt) gwelodd y dyn P t? who saw the man ‘Who saw the man?’ (6.52) *P bwy (pt) gwelodd y dyn t? The second objection revolves around the choice of optional particle in examples such as (6.50) and (6.51). If the empty-preposition analysis were correct, we would expect to find the particle y (the normal choice for extraction out of a PP); however, only (6.53) below is acceptable, with (6.54) impermissible: (6.53) Pwy a _welodd y dyn? (6.54) *Pwy y gwelodd y dyn?
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While assigning Case via an empty preposition is not supported by these examples, they do not, of course, rule out a Case solution as such. We turn next to just such a proposal. 6.3.3 Case assignment: Acc as a SM trigger Zwicky’s first (1984b) proposal to account for DOM involves Case assignment, and the notion that accusative case is a trigger for SM. Zwicky’s first task in this account is to find a way around the apparent breach of the trigger constraint that DOM appears to constitute. This involves the notion of a discontinuous constituent; that is to say that Welsh has a VP constituent consisting of V+(NPobj)+(X), but that this is in some way ‘wrapped-around’ the NPsubj constituent. The precise mechanism of how this is accomplished need not detain us here (see Zwicky (1984b:390) for two alternative phrase-structure-based accounts: one relying on discontinuous constituents within a more traditional transformational paradigm derived from Bach 1980; the other using a ‘phantom category’ within GPSG, as in Gazdar and Pullum 1982; see also Gazdar et al. 1985), but its implications are important. If we accept a discontinuous constituent,3 the TC holds, as the trigger (the verb) is now adjacent to the NPobj, and c-commands it. Having reached this point, Zwicky then moves on to consider how NPobjs are governed: that is the assignment of Case. Zwicky states, ‘NP in construction with a finite V has one mark—let us say [+X] — while NP in construction with an infinitive V has a different mark—let us say [–X]’ (1984b:391). This distinction is made to capture the difference between direct objects of inflected verbs (that require DOM), and direct objects of periphrastic verbs (that do not), as in (6.55) and (6.56): (6.55) Gwelodd y ddynes gath saw + 3sg the woman cat ‘The woman saw a cat’ (6.56) Yr oedd y ddynes yn gweldcath pt was + 3sg pt see cat ‘The woman was seeing/saw a cat’ To investigate what Case labels might be assigned to [+X]/[–X], Zwicky turns to evidence from the pronominal system of Welsh. His examples (10) and (11) (p. 391) are reproduced below: (6.57) Gwelodd y dyn ni ‘The man saw us’
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(6.58) Yr oedd y dyn yn ein gweld (ni) ‘The man saw us’ While (6.57) displays the object form of the pronoun (for some persons the same as the subject, though different for first-person singular, for example), example (6.58) shows the form used with possessives, e.g. (6.59) ein cath (ni) ‘Our cat’. From this evidence Zwicky proposes (a) that finite verbs govern Acc[usative] objects; (b) that infinitive verbs govern Gen[itive] objects, which is to say that if the infinitive verbs are categorized as Ns, their modifiers are marked Gen; (c) that the Acc mark on a noun is realized as the soft mutation of that noun; and (d) that the Gen mark on an object of a verb is realized as the Gen form of this subject as a modifier of that verb. (1984b:391) Zwicky seems to suggest in (b) above that infinitive verbs (traditionally ‘verb-nouns’) are best classified here as N rather than V, in that they will then operate as in genitive noun constructions: (6.60) Ty Rhodri ‘Rhodri’s house’ (6.61) …yn gweld Rhodri ‘…seeing Rhodri’ As we noted in 6.47 above, there is considerable debate as to whether what Sproat (1985) terms VNPs are in fact NPs or VPs (or, indeed, other constituents). It seems to us that Zwicky’s proposals concerning Case assignment do not stand or fall on this point, as an infinitive verb can be marked to assign Gen, whether or not it is categorized as N (though see below for discussion on constituents receiving Case). Support for this difference of Case assignment (and indeed for the particular cases chosen) comes from Irish. Here we find Acc (morphologically the same as Nom in Modern Irish) assigned to object NPs of inflected verbs, but Gen assigned to object NPs in periphrastic constructions, with overt morphological marking of case:4 (6.62) Thóg sé teach anuraidh built + 3sg he house + Acc last-year ‘He built a house last year’ (6.63) Tá sé ag tógáil tí is he pt build house + Gen ‘He is building a house’
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Zwicky extends his description of Case marking to other genitives, where (as in (6.60) above) SM is not triggered (we return to this point in considering the NP___ trigger proposal in 6.3.5 below); and to other accusatives, for example, prepositions where SM is triggered. This last example is somewhat less well founded, however. As Zwicky admits, some prepositions take other mutations, while many take no mutation at all. We have to balance, therefore, the cost of listing a large number of prepositions (possibly a majority depending on how one counts complex prepositions) in the lexicon as being exceptionally marked as to how Acc is realized phonologically, against a restriction of Acc → SM (i.e. Accusative Case being realized as SM) to finite verbs, and the retention of mutating prepositions as direct lexical triggers, as noted in Chapter 1. An alternative, assigning a different Case (say dative) to non-mutating prepositions cannot be independently supported. In our opinion, the restriction of Acc → SM to finite verbs requires a division into only two categories (i.e. verbs vs prepositions), rather than dividing prepositions into several groups (+SM, +NM, +AM, +rad), which Zwicky’s proposal requires, and is thus to be preferred. Indeed, Comrie (1975, 1976) argues in favour of Welsh being an ‘anti-ergative’ language having a special case for marking direct objects but only when a subject constituent is present (thereby maintaining an analysis of object for NPs following impersonal verb forms, where SM is not found). This special case avoids the need for grouping prepositions and the Case they assign with direct objects. The remainder of this part of Zwicky’s (1984b) account is concerned with the point that object NPs marked Acc have SM realized on the first element of the NP, which is not necessarily the head, as in (6.64): (6.64) Gwelodd hi bob ty yn yr heol saw + 3sg she every house in the street ‘She saw every house in the street’ He gives examples of several languages where Case marking is at the periphery of the NP, and proposes that the Control Agreement Principle (CAP) of Gazdar and Pullum (1982) accounts for the distribution of the Case throughout a NP from the head N to determiners, quantifiers and adjectives. Harlow (1989:298, n. 15) claims that the CAP will wrongly predict SM on post-head adjectives, and that Zwicky has failed to notice this. On the contrary, Zwicky states (1984b:396), ‘what is peculiar to Welsh, in this proposal, is the form in which the Acc feature is realized. We will have to say soft mutation affects phrase-initial words marked Acc’.
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However, Harlow does point out other potential problems with this analysis. Some of these are to do with the formulation of rules within a GPSG framework, and the difficulty of referring to adjacency of constituents within a rule (and thus maintaining the trigger constraint); though recall that the GPSG approach was simply one alternative proffered by Zwicky. Tallerman (1987) also attacks the artificiality of ‘phantom rules’ in general. More importantly, perhaps, is the problem with wh-movement already encountered in Lieber’s account (see 6.3.2). Example (6.53) above should show SM on pwy if Acc was marked as triggering SM to the NP from which it was extracted. Unfortunately, the syntax of Irish precludes a direct comparison with this particular example. A last problem highlighted by both Tallerman (1987) and Harlow (1989) concerns non-finite verbs following inflected verbs. An example might be as in (6.65): (6.65) Gall Rhodri ddringo’r mynydd can Rh climb the mountain ‘Rhodri can climb the mountain’ (Other examples are given in Harlow 1989:299–300.) If ddringo in the above sentence is a V, then Zwicky’s proposals fall, because a V cannot be expected to take Case. As we have already noted, the status of this constituent is controversial, and an NP treatment avoids this criticism. We are, however, in danger of falling into a circular argument here: VNPs take Case, so they are NPs ~ VNPs are VPs, therefore they cannot take Case. While the balance of argument within GB theory (as Sproat 1985) lies with a VP analysis, it would be wise not to rely on this aspect alone in any decision on the merits of Zwicky’s Case proposal. While, as we have seen, a Case analysis of DOM and related structures is initially attractive, especially considering the use of Case in Irish, it fails to convince: firstly, in respect of the wider application of Acc (with prepositions); and secondly in respect of wh-movement. No doubt a mechanism could be constructed to account for this latter problem, but it is difficult to see how this could be anything but ad hoc. We will therefore examine further proposals in following subsections. 6.3.4 SM as the default In 2.4.3, 5.3.2 and 5.4.2 we made initial examinations of SM as a default phonological rule. Here, we will examine Zwicky’s second (1984b)
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proposal, also noted in Zwicky (1986), which suggests a default SM rule in the restricted context of NP (interestingly the proposals of Willis discussed in 2.4.3 suggest a default SM rule that clashes almost totally in its contexts of operation with that of Zwicky). This foreshadows to some extent Harlow’s (1989) proposals (discussed in 6.3.5). Surprisingly, though, although he looks in detail at the Case analysis, Harlow does not mention this alternative account. (Tallerman 1990b dismisses this second analysis of Zwicky by appealing to Harlow’s criticisms of Zwicky’s approach; as we have just stated, this does not, in fact, apply to the default SM proposal. Tallerman 1987 does deal with this proposal in some detail, however.) Zwicky points out that the initial word of a NP is frequently subject to SM from a variety of triggers (noted separately in Chapter 1). These include, he notes, vocatives, nouns in apposition, time and place adverbials, various separated subjects5 (often classed as ‘non-normal word order’, ‘parenthetic’, etc.), ‘verbless presentation sentences’ (i.e. NPs following dyma/dyna ‘here is/there is’), as well as direct object of the inflected verb. (See examples in Zwicky 1984b: 397–8.) Clearly, if some mechanism can be found to unite these seemingly diverse SM triggers, the number of apparent triggering contexts would appear to be reduced (though whether this will reflect any kind of functional unity is debatable). Zwicky’s suggestion that NPinitial words are automatically subject to SM unless specifically blocked by a [–SM] feature of some kind appears, initially, to achieve this. (We discuss in Chapter 1 and Chapter 8 the need for features blocking the application of certain mutations.) However, in reality, this proposal accounts only for NP-initial SM in these contexts; some of them will be able to be followed by other constituents which will also be subject to SM; for example, APs in apposition and following dyma/dyna. Also, unless V P is classed as N NP, it still does not account for all the SM characteristics of inflected verbs of the type shown in (6.65). Problems also arise with the blocking mechanism required to allow NPs whose initial words are not subject to SM. Subject NPs of inflected verbs are marked [–SM], according to Zwicky, through being ccommanded by an immediately preceding V (this accounts for subjects receiving SM in non-normal word order, as they are then no longer immediately preceded by a V). This also explains the [–SM] mark for the objects of periphrastic verbs, though this requires that V Ps are treated as N Vs (something Zwicky claims to support at this stage in his paper, though this is not really clear in his Case proposal). However, a further [–SM] marking is required to account for non-mutated NPs in sentence-initial
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position, as in Zwicky’s examples (32) and (33), expanded and adapted below: (6.66) Pwy yw hwn? who is this ‘Who is this?’ (6.67) Dyn yw hwn man is this ‘This is a man’ (6.68) ty a _welodd y dyn house pt saw + 3sg the man ‘The man saw a house’ These escape SM by the fact that S-initial words are marked [–SM], but note one of Zwicky’s earlier examples (27) with a time adverbial: (6.69) Ddwy flynedd yn ôl, fe ddaethon nhw two years ago pt came + 3p they ‘Two years ago, they came’ To avoid this clash, the S-initial [–SM] must be marked as optional for adverbials, for indeed (6.69) is found alongside (6.70): (6.70) Dwy flynedd yn ôl, fe ddaethon nhw It would appear, then, that the economy of triggering promised in the default analysis is not as great as first suggested, and the blocking mechanisms may prove to be more complicated than they seemed. However, more far-reaching problems emerge if we look at the following points: mutation of V NPs after inflected verbs, possessive NPs and conjoined object NPs. As in the Case-assignment proposal, examples such as (6.65) cannot be accounted for. If VNPs are NPs then we immediately destroy one of the [– SM] conditions, and can no longer block SM on the direct objects of infinitive verbs; on the other hand, if they are Vs (as Zwicky claims here) then we cannot include them under the default principle, and so cannot account for examples such as (6.65). There appears no way out of this impasse. In possessive constructions we can have two contiguous NPs: (6.71) Gwelais i [NPgi mawr] [NPmaer y dref] saw + 1sg I dog big mayor the town ‘I saw the town mayor’s big dog’
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The second of these is not subject to SM. We cannot institute a mechanism blocking SM following NPs, as, of course, this would block DOM following subject NPs (and several other instances of SM). It has been disputed whether possessa are in fact NPs or just Ns (though the example above is clearly not a single N), and we return to this in detail in 6.3.5 below; this does not alter the problem that the possessor NP is not [+SM], though it might aid the framing of a [–SM] rule in this case. Alternatively, Case, in the form of Gen, might be appealed to here (and to account for the objects of periphrastic verbs, as noted in 6.3.3), but it clearly adds to the complexity of the account. Turning to conjoined object NPs, we should note that Zwicky gives an example of such NPs where all the nouns show SM, except for the last, where AM has been triggered by a ‘and’ (see 7.4 for discussion of hierarchies of mutation): (6.72) Gwelodd y dyn gi, gath, a chog saw + 3sg the man dog, cat and cuckoo ‘The man saw a dog, a cat and a cuckoo’ (Zwicky 1984b:399) This example, unfortunately, is not acceptable in either standard or vernacular forms of the language (see Watkins 1975:475, and personal communication; Harlow 1989:314–15, n. 26; Morgan 1952: 182), where we would in fact find: (6.73) Gwelodd y dyn gi, cath, a chog Here, only the first object NP receives the default SM, with others being [– SM] or, following a ‘and’, [+AM]. It is possible that this problem, together with the previous one can be accounted for within X¯-theory through an appeal to bar levels of the NPs involved, and we discuss this in respect of the mechanism proposed for DOM and related phenomena in the next sub-section. It appears to us, however, that together with the problems noted earlier, this account needs several exceptions, and we are justified in looking for a simpler approach. 6.3.5 Is NP___ a trigger of SM? The most influential recent account of DOM has been one that assumes Welsh has a phrasal trigger for SM: that is, following NP. (As we will see below, this can also be used to account for several other SM contexts listed in Chapter 1.) The first proposal of this analysis occurs in Rhys Jones (1977)6 —a pedagogical grammar of the modern spoken language. This
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has been adapted and investigated in some detail in Harlow (1981, 1983, 1989), Borsley (1984) and Tallerman (1987, 1990b). NP___ as a SM trigger is claimed to account for the following mutation contexts (though not all of these would necessarily be supported by all the authors noted): DOM: (6.74) Gwelodd [NPy ddynes] gath saw + 3sg the woman cat ‘The woman saw a cat’ (6.75) Gwelodd [NPhi] gath she ‘She saw a cat’ (6.76) Roedd hi [VP’n [Vgweld]] cath was + 3sg she pt see cat ‘She saw/was seeing a cat’ Non-normal word order: (6.77) Roedd [NPyna] gathod yn y ty was + 3sg there cats in the house ‘There were cats in the house’ (The categorization of yna as NP is claimed by Harlow 1989, though it would seem to have a less convincing claim to NP status than do VNPs.) (6.78) Mae ganddi [NPhi] gath is with + 3sg her cat ‘She has a cat’ (6.79) Mae yn y [NPstryd] blismyn is in the street policemen ‘There are policemen in the street’ I+NP+X: (6.80) Mae’n rhaid i [NPRodri] fynd is pt necessity to R go ‘Rhodri must go’ (6.81) Cyn i [NPRodri] fynd before to R go ‘Before Rhodri goes’
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Apposition: (6.82) [NPLlywelyn] Fawr Ll big ‘Llywelyn the Great’
~
[NLlywelyn] mawr Ll big ‘big Llywelyn’
(6.83) [NPArthur] Frenin A King ‘Arthur the King’ Tallerman (1987, 1990b) examines how far this analysis fits Zwicky’s (1984b) version of the TC (as in (6.46), repeated here as (6.84)): (6.84) Trigger constraint ‘The trigger determining a rule feature for a morphophonemic rule must be adjacent to the affected word and c-command it’ (p. 389). She notes one example where, although the NP trigger is adjacent to the target, it does not c-command it. We can examine her examples here: (6.85) Mae’n rhaid [PPi [NPmi] fynd is pt necessity to me go ‘I must go’ (6.86) Gwelais i [PPar [NPy bryn] gastell saw + 1sg I on the hill castle ‘I saw a castle on the hill’ She suggests the following structure for these examples: (6.87)
(Tallerman 1990b:400) Here, the triggering NP does not form a constituent with the target, so Tallerman proposes a weaker version of the TC: (6.88) Trigger constraint (Welsh) ‘The trigger determining a rule feature for a morphophonemic rule must immediately precede its target’ (1990b:400).
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Harlow (1989), however, feels that this change is unnecessary, as the examples in (6.85) and (6.86) above can meet the TC as originally formulated in (6.84) if the phrasal triggering device is expanded from NP___ to XP___ (or more particularly in this case PP___). In other words if all phrasal constituents, or at least PPs, also trigger SM, then the PPs in (6.85) and (6.86) do c-command the targets, and Zwicky’s version of the TC is met. In fact, as Tallerman (1990b) illustrates, it is extraordinarily difficult to produce evidence to confirm or disprove the idea that XP___ is a SM trigger. In the case of PPs, as they normally have an NP at the end in any event, it is not possible to show whether it is the NP or the PP that operates as the trigger. With other phrasal units, such as VP (assuming we accept Welsh has such a constituent, as Tallerman does), AP or AdvP, we often find a following adverbial constituent that does show SM. However, as noted in Chapter 1, adverbials seem to demonstrate ‘inherent’ SM, in that they optionally take SM whatever they follow, and, indeed, in sentence-initial position, where clearly there is no preceding trigger. Where these phrasal units precede nonadverbials, the situation is far from clear. With VPs and APs, no SM occurs: (6.89) Mae hi [VP’n [VNgweld]] cath is she pt see cat ‘She’s seeing/sees a cat’ (6.90) Mae ef [APyn gryfach] dyn is he pt stronger man ‘He’s a stronger man’ On the other hand, AdvPs do seem to cause SM (though here, we also have non-normal word-order): (6.91) Gwelais i [AdvPyn [Adjsydyn]] blismyn yn y stryd saw + 1sg I pt sudden policemen in the street ‘I suddenly saw policemen in the street’ In fact, if we avoid the non-normal word order, we see that AdvPs also do not always trigger SM: (6.92) [AdvPYn sydyn] cerddodd Iwan i mewn i’r ystafell pt sudden walked + 3sg I to in to the room ‘Suddenly, Iwan walked into the room’
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Tallerman (1990b) states that SM after phrasal categories other than NP is only testable on adverbial targets (p. 403); we have seen from the above that this is not the case. It is clear, however, that VP (if we recognize it for Welsh) is not such a trigger, neither is AP, and it might be argued that the only reason that AdvP shows up as triggering SM is that it has non-normal word order. We are able, therefore, to support Tallerman’s conclusions, albeit reached via a different route, that there is no evidence in favour of all phrasal categories triggering SM. This also implies that Zwicky’s version of the TC will not be met in cases of i+NP+X triggers discussed above. To return to DOM, there appears superficially to be some exceptions to the notion of NP___ triggering the SM in this context. The examples in (6.93) and (6.94) show no overt NP trigger: (6.93) Gwelodd gath saw + 3sg cat ‘She/he saw a cat’ (6.94) Pwy a _welodd gath? who pt saw + 3sg cat ‘Who saw a cat?’ If the first of these is analysed as containing pro (following pro-drop), and the second as containing an NP trace, as in: (6.93') Gwelodd pro gath (6.94') Pwy a _welodd t gath? then these two features can be included as aspects of the NP category, and the description of the trigger here holds. Harlow (1989) examines another instance of a missing subject where the object NP does not receive SM, the inflected impersonal: (6.95) Gwelir cath see + impers cat ‘A cat is seen’ As Harlow points out, at first glance cath might appear to be the subject NP here, and therefore no missing intervening constituent need be posited. However, if we look at the periphrastic impersonal syntax, we find an arrangement that looks similar to other periphrastic constructions:
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(6.96) Yr ydys yn gweld cath pt be + impers pt see cat ‘A cat is being seen’ Harlow assumes from this that cath in (6.96) is an object, and so cath in (6.95) is also an object, because of the patterning with personal periphrastic forms: (6.97) Yr ydwyf yn gweld cath pt am pt see cat ‘I am seeing/see a cat’ It might appear, however, that there is no reason not to take the opposite view: that cath is, in fact, the subject of yr ydys yn gweld; however, this point is not crucial to the NP___ trigger debate, as we see below. The possible use of infixed forms of personal pronouns (traditionally thought of as object case) with impersonals, however, does add weight to the object analysis here, and Fife (1985b) argues strongly for this view (see also Comrie 1976:56–7). Assuming an object analysis for cath, Harlow shows how the missing subject NP can avoid triggering SM. A GPSG approach would simply require an obligatory absent subject; however, under the Extended Projection Principle of GB theory this solution is not available. One answer would be to use PRO here, and to assume it is transparent to mutation effects—that is, neither blocking nor causing any mutation. Harlow produces evidence from other constructions to support this view (see Harlow 1989:311), and Sadler (1988) also argues in favour of this analysis. Comrie (1975, 1976), on the other hand, uses this evidence to support his analysis of an anti-ergative case for Welsh, whereby SM is triggered onto direct objects of inflected verbs only where there is a subject present; his analysis allows impersonals to be subjectless. Fife (1985b) argues that the underlying subject in impersonals is likely to be pro, because of the need for theta-role assignment and subcategorization. If this is so, it would raise major problems for the NP___ analysis, as pro in pronoun-drop examples would need to count as NP, but in impersonals could not. We do not have the space to explore this issue fully here, but it does suggest that ‘empty NPs’ of various types are problematic to the proposal, and Harlow’s hesitation over the PRO solution for impersonals may well be justified. We should not accept PRO simply because it appears to be transparent to mutation in other instances, and it is clear that a closer look is needed here. Borsley (1984) explores alternative analyses of control and raising verbs in Welsh, and in particular the difference between analyses
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involving sentential complements and VP complements. One of the pieces of supporting evidence he uses to argue for VP complements is that these fit better with a simple version of the NP___ trigger. Sentential complements would require this trigger to list a variety of exceptions. Indeed, he raises the problem of PRO in this respect, arguing that the VP-complement solution avoids the necessity of using PRO. He does not, however, extend the analysis to impersonals, as discussed by Harlow, so we still need to assume a ‘mutationtransparent’ PRO for impersonals if we maintain the object status of the NP. Tallerman (1990b) looks at barriers to SM following NP. Following Harlow (1989), she claims that clause boundaries act as a barrier in this instance. We can see this in the following examples: (6.98) Gwelais [NPi] [CPpwy oedd yn dod] saw + 1sg I who was + 3sg pt come ‘I saw who was coming’ (6.99) Gwelais i [NP’r dyn] [CPpan aeth e i mewn] saw + 1sg I the man when came + 3sg he to in ‘I saw the man when he came in’ (6.100)Prynwch deisen neu [CPprynwch dorth o fara] buy + 2pl cake or buy + 2pl loaf of bread ‘Buy a cake or buy a loaf of bread’ Tallerman claims that there is a difference between CP clauses, that do act as a barrier to NP___ (as in the examples above), and IP clauses where for many speakers SM does follow NPs and is targeted on bod ‘to be’ when acting as a subordinator. Examples of this are given below, though it should be noted that in Spoken Welsh the mutation usage with bod as a subordinator is highly variable: (6.101)Mae e [VP’n gweld] [IPbod Rhodri yn gywir] is he pt see be Rh pt right ‘He sees that Rhodri is right’ (6.102)Gwelodd [NPe] [IPfod Rhodri yn gywir] saw + 3sg he be Rh pt right ‘He saw that Rhodri was right’
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Harlow feels that a final barrier to mutation is found with PPs. He notes examples like the following (pp. 305–6), where the initial preposition of the PP does not mutate following a NP: (6.103) Mae [NPgardd] [PPgan y dyn] is garden with the man ‘The man has a garden’ (6.104) Mae Siôn yn sefyll dan y goeden neu is S pt stand under the tree or [PPdan y bont) under the bridge ‘Siôn is standing under the tree or under the bridge’ It can be argued, however, that prepositions behave somewhat differently as regards SM as compared to other lexical items. As we discuss in 8.2, many prepositions have developed both lenited and radical forms, sometimes with a semantic difference attached: indeed the examples given above could be claimed actually to show the application of SM, and so in some sense to be mutated; forms such as these never undergo further SM changes in any syntactic frame. It might be better, therefore, to treat the ‘exceptions’ to mutation in these examples as being specific to particular prepositions, rather than invoking the notion of barriers; for, while a clause barrier is convincing, it seems less insightful to invoke a barrier at the PP level rather than at the level of other phrasal constituents. It should be noted, however, that the clause barrier does not apply to all mutations. While it clearly does with NP___ (if we accept that this is a trigger of SM), and with some lexical triggers, such as neu, it does not with other lexical triggers, as the following example with a ‘and’ + AM shows: (6.105) Prynwch deisen a phrynwch dorth o fara buy + 2pl cake and buy + 2pl loaf of bread ‘Buy a cake and buy a loaf of bread’ In this sub-section we have explored the proposal that NP___ operates as a trigger for SM, and in so doing allows us to collapse several contexts for SM (including DOM) into one. We turn in the next section to some of the problems we find with this account. 6.3.6 Problems with the NP___ trigger In looking at this particular analysis we can examine two main types of counterexample to the NP___ trigger proposal. The first type will consist of examples of SM triggered under the contexts claimed to be all part of
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NP___ that are not, in fact, triggered by NPs, but follow other constituents. The second type will consist of examples of NPs that are not followed by SM. The problem of pro/PRO and impersonals, raised above, is not reopened here. We saw above that four contexts listed separately in Chapter 1 are claimed to be all part of one NP___ trigger. These are apposition, non-normal word order, i+NP+X and DOM. Apposition as a mutation context is highly idiosyncratic, with apparently similar constructions differing as to whether SM is found on the second element. By its very nature, however, apposition requires a noun as a first element, therefore we will not expect exceptions of the first type in this context. With non-normal word order, however, we can find examples of the SM being triggered by a constituent other than NP; indeed, we have already seen this example in (6.91) above, repeated here as (6.106): (6.106) Gwelais i [AdvPyn [Adjsydyn]] blismyn yny stryd saw + 1sg I pt sudden policemen in the street ‘I suddenly saw policemen in the street’ Clearly, it is uneconomical to have one explanation for non-normal word order with NPs, and a different one with other constituents. As noted above, we cannot extend the NP___ trigger to other constituents, so (6.106) would have to be accounted for in a different way. With both i+NP+X and DOM one only expects to find NPs in the relevant position, so it might appear to be impossible to find examples with other constituents in the relevant position. However, if, as those supporting the NP___ analysis have consistently argued, the V P constituent is a verb not a noun, then we can find such N examples: (6.107) Cyn i [VP_weithio] fynd allan o ffasiwn before to work go out of fashion ‘Before working goes out of fashion’ (6.108) Gwnaeth [VPgweithio] bres i’r bobl made + 3sg work money to the people ‘Working made money for the people’ These examples both show SM triggered onto the constituent normally following the NP for these two constructions, but in these instances they follow VP (or possibly S, the actual nature of the constituent is not important for the argument here). If it is argued that in fact verb nouns are
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NPs, then, of course, the analysis of periphrastic verbs falls, as the direct object following verb-nouns in these structures do not receive SM. (As we noted in 6.2.2, an analysis whereby these forms are both Ns and Vs might avoid this problem; but this is not argued by proponents of the NP___ trigger solution.) We turn now to examples of NPs that are not followed by SM: four types of these are found. First, we can return to apposition. As noted above, SM with apposition is variable in that some instances always require it while others do not. However, if apposition is analysed (as Tallerman does) as [NP][NP/AP], then we clearly find some breaches of the NP trigger: (6.109) [NPDafydd] Frenin ‘Dafydd the King’
~ ~
[NPIfor] Bach ‘Ifor the Small’
On the other hand, if the first element is not a NP, then the NP trigger cannot be appealed to to account for those examples where SM does occur in apposition. Indeed, if the first constituent is not an NP then a useful way of distinguishing apposition with adjectives from N+Adj sequences is lost: (6.110) [NPIfor] Bach ‘Ifor the Small’
~ ~
[NIfor] bach ‘little Ifor’
A second example involves multiple adjectivization. Note that a feminine noun followed by an adjective forms an NP; if another adjective follows that it is predicted that SM will occur on this second adjective, indeed Tallerman (1987:200) claims this as an explanation for these structures. In the following example this might well appear well motivated: (6.111) [NPbord gron] fawr table round big ‘big round table’ Unfortunately, as soon as we examine examples where the head noun is masculine, we find that SM is not triggered by the NP: (6.112) [NPbwrdd crwn] mawr table round big ‘big round table’ (The difference between bord and bwrdd is regional, with the former being a southern form.) The third example is found with NP co-ordination. Harlow (1989: 314, n. 26) notes that co-ordinated object NPs are a problem to his
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analysis, but in fact these co-ordinated structures might as easily be found as other constituents (e.g. subjects). Harlow’s example is given here (adapted): (6.113) Bwytais i [NPfara], menyn a chaws ate + 1sg I bread, butter ‘I ate bread, butter and cheese’
and cheese
The final example involves genitive constructions. In such constructions the possessum precedes the possessor, as in the following example: (6.114) [NPci] maer y dref dog mayor the town ‘the town mayor’s dog’ As this example clearly shows, the NP here does not trigger SM onto the possessor. This last example was first discussed in Fife (1986), but was criticized by both Borsley (1987) and Harlow (1989). They claim that the natural analysis of genitive constructions is as follows: (6.115) [NP[Nci] [NPmaer y dref]] This claim appears unfounded to us, however. As we can see below, the possessum NP can be expanded to a constituent that has all the characteristics of a NP (though see below on an X¯ account of genitive constructions): (6.116) [NPhen gi] maer y dref old dog mayor the town ‘the town mayor’s old dog’ (6.117) [NPhen gi mawr] maer y dref big ‘the town mayor’s big old dog’ (6.118) [NPhen gi mawr hynod o hyll] maer y dref remarkable of ugly ‘the town mayor’s remarkably ugly big old dog’ The above evidence suggests then, that NP as a trigger is not an accurate account of SM contexts in Welsh. However, Tallerman (1987, 1990b) suggests a way around the problem of NPs that do not trigger mutation. If we utilize X¯-theory we do find that a distinction between N’ and N? (with only the latter triggering SM) can account for some of the problems noted
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above. To take the apposition problem first; we could, of course, claim that those appositions that normally trigger SM are N?, while those that do not are N’. Alternatively, all apposition NPs can be classed as N’, and the SM forms marked exceptionally in the lexicon. Next, we can look at genitive constructions. Tallerman (1987: 198f.) notes that an X¯-account of these constructions suggests that the possessum NP is in fact N’, while the possessor is N?; this analysis is also supported by Sadler (1988). The following example will illustrate this: (6.119) [N″[N′cap] [N″bachgen]] cap boy ‘a boy’s cap’ If we reconsider the examples of genitive NPs we looked at earlier, we will note that a complex possessum is, in fact, subordinate in bar values to a relatively simple possessor: (6.120) [N″[N′hen gi mawr hynod o hyll] [N″maer y dref]] The same distinction is available for co-ordinated NPs, of the sort that caused problems to Harlow. Tallerman (1987:201) notes that this construction too is open to an X¯-account: (6.121) Bwytais [N″i] [N″[N′fara], [N′menyn] a [N′chaws]] ate + 1sg I bread, butter and cheese ‘I ate bread, butter and cheese’ However, we can find examples where it would appear that N″ is a better description of the co-ordinated objects: (6.122) Gwelais [N″i] [N″[N″’r dynion mawr], [N″rhai saw + 1sg I the men big some merched bach] a [N″’r plant drws nesaf]] women small and the children door next ‘I saw the big men, some small women and the next door children’ If this analysis is correct, then N″ does not trigger SM in these cases. Turning to multiple adjectivization, we can mark the N+Adj unit (following Tallerman 1987:200) as N″: (6.123)
[N″[N″bwrdd crwn] mawr] table round big ‘big round table’
Again, we have an N″ that does not trigger SM, at least with masculine heads.
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It might appear, then, that X¯-theory does get around some of the counter examples to the NP trigger hypothesis, through changing the trigger from NP to N ″. However, we are still left with a couple of exceptions to this rule,7 and the fact that there are constituents that trigger SM in those contexts claimed to be NP___ (or N″___) that are not NPs or N″s, thus robbing the proposal of its claim of generality. We might further question the change from NP to N″ that appears to get round many of the objections raised above. If we admit any phrasal category as a mutation trigger, is it psycholinguistically realistic to claim that speakers will distinguish between different bar levels of this phrasal category, especially when the lower bar level can include structures clearly more syntactically complex than higher ones do? It may well be possible to prove that this is realistic, but combined with the objections concerning comprehensibility of the claimed trigger, we are entitled to explore a solution to DOM and other syntactic triggers that does not raise these questions. We turn to such an account in the following subsection. 6.3.7 Function and syntax and DOM If we can overcome the objections raised in the previous sub-section to N″___ as a trigger for SM, we arrive at a superficially very elegant solution of how to categorize three apparently different instances of syntactic triggering of mutation (ignoring here the problematical area of apposition). Formally, such a solution appears to offer much; not only does it collapse three contexts into one, it maintains the TC and claims that syntactic triggering is in reality not very different from lexical triggering. This analysis is, however, purely formal. If we look at the functions of the mutations subsumed by the N″___ trigger, we find that any collapsing of contexts obscures rather than simplifies. We discuss in Chapter 8 the fact that generally the semantic load of mutations in Welsh is not great, however that does not mean that they lack linguistic function altogether. As Fife (1986) points out, ‘the claim that this mutation [DOM] is governed by a preceding NP…offers no insight into the functional load this mutation carries in the language’ (p. 182). Syntax is more than purely formal: it also has a linguistic function. This is being increasingly recognized in recent theoretical approaches to syntax, and while we do not intend to adopt any particular functional framework, we will explore below an alternative to a purely formal account of mutation. Let us examine in turn the functions of the three main mutation types we have looked at in previous sub-sections: non-normal word order,
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i+NP+X and DOM. It would appear to be the case that SM in non-normal word order is used to mark the fact that the normal ordering of the syntax has been altered: it highlights the shift in focus from one constituent to another. This is seen in the fact that it applies not only after NPs, but after other constituents (such as AdvPs), as shown in example (6.91/6.106). The mutation type categorized here as i+NP+X can be thought of as another example of change of word order. Let us look at a couple of examples: (6.124) cyn i mi fynd < *[cyn mynd] i mi before to me go ‘before I go’ (6.125) mae’n rhaid i blant fod yn ddistaw is pt necessity to children be pt quiet < *[mae’n rhaid bod yn ddistaw] i blant ‘Children must be quiet’ Again, the mutation can be seen as a marker of the integration of the bracketed syntax in the examples above (which is acceptable in itself) into a construction with an NP (see Morgan 1952 for a similar analysis). This is accomplished by inserting the NP preceded by i; the resultant ‘disruption’ is marked by SM on the constituent immediately following the inserted material. It can be noted that constructions such as cyn mynd i mi were acceptable in Middle Welsh. Finally, we turn again to DOM. The function of the mutation here is clearly to show that the NP in question is the object rather than the subject. While normally this is obvious as the subject is overt, prodrop examples are potentially ambiguous: (6.126) gwelodd cath ‘a cat sees’ (6.127) gwelodd gath ‘he/she sees a cat’ While this function may not be ‘needed’ in most cases, it is clearly the fact that it is the object that is important here, not that it follows an empty category. We feel therefore, along with Fife (1986), that traditional analyses based on the functions of the mutations are to be preferred to purely formal analyses that obscure these functions. This opens the question, however, of how we would account for the triggering of SM in DOM and the other syntactic triggers we have been looking at. In order to address this we need to look again at the TC. It is obviously to be desired that morphophonemic processes should be triggered from an adjacent item: by definition, this is what we would expect. But as Fife
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(1986) points out, overt morphology such as case endings, can be triggered by non-adjacent governors; we have made it plain throughout this book that ICM in Welsh (and the other Celtic languages) is not traditional morphophonemics, as the phonology of the mutations is not conditioned by the phonology of the context. They are, therefore, much more similar to features such as case endings. Fife notes, ‘rule (1) [NP___] is as insightful as saying that Latin accusative case is assigned by a neighbouring nominative instead of being dictated by the verb’s semantic case frame’ (1986:182, n. 2). We follow this view, and as first expounded in Chapter 1, feel that DOM and the other features treated above, are syntactically triggered (see also Fife 1991 for an account of DOM utilizing the notion of ‘autonomy’). This does not necessarily mean that we believe in these instances in non-adjacent triggering. One syntactic analysis of DOM might be that it is triggered by an inflected verb, across the subject NP and onto the NP: (6.128) V[+infl] NP NP —————→ [+SM] However, it is equally possible to avoid the notion of triggering by a single component in these syntactic mutations. Indeed, as they are syntactic, we would claim that the syntactic/semantic frame is itself the trigger, and that notions of adjacency are therefore irrelevant. Thus, DOM might be expressed (as in Chapter 1) as follows: (6.129) V[+infl, +pers] (NP) NP[+obj1] → V[+infl, +pers] (NP) NP[+obj1, +SM]8 This is interpreted as: ‘any syntactic/semantic frame having a verb with personal inflections, an optional subject, and an object NP, receives SM on the first object NP’. This is a syntactic trigger into the phonological component, rather than a traditional transformational rule. In fact, this integrates well with a possible description of another SM context that is generally agreed to be ‘incorporated’ (i.e. lacking a triggering item): adverbial mutation. The mutation of adverbials can be thought of as being triggered by the syntactic frame in just the same way as DOM, although in this case it will be much simpler: (6.130) (X) Adv (X) → (X) Adv[+SM] (X) (See Chapter 1 for a slightly more detailed version of this frame, accounting for different types of adverbial.) We recognize that such a formulation may well not fit into many of the current theoretical approaches to syntax, and for scholars working within
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such frameworks, accounts such as those described in previous subsections may well be preferable. For us, however, solutions that ignore the functions of the mutations are less preferable than those that take account of them. Further, constraints such as the TC appear vacuous in instances where firstly the features involved are not phonologically conditioned, and secondly where the triggers are syntactic/semantic frames, rather than individual lexical items or morphological features. 6.4 GENDER MUTATIONS 6.4.1 Noun + adjective As we noted in Chapter 1, a feminine singular noun triggers SM onto a following adjective (or noun used adjectivally); this can be seen in example (6.131): (6.131) merch dal ‘a tall girl’ This particular mutation was classed as a lexical trigger in Chapter 1. However, as suggested in 6.1 above, this may well not be the best way of treating this particular SM context. Consider what happens when we have a string of adjectives following a feminine noun: (6.132) merch dal, gref ‘a tall, strong girl’ (6.133) merch dal, gref, ddoeth ‘a tall, strong, wise girl’ At first sight this might appear to constitute another breach of the trigger constraint (see 6.3 above), as it can be argued that the SM on all the adjectives has been triggered by the noun. This would imply that for all the adjectives in such a string apart from the first, the trigger is not adjacent to the target as the TC requires. If this mutation trigger were treated as syntactic we would argue that this is not important for, as with the case of DOM in the previous section, it would be the syntactic frame that was the trigger, not the individual lexical item. However, such an analysis in this case would appear to lose useful insights into the mechanism of this mutation context, by not highlighting the importance of the morphological features [feminine] and [singular]. An alternative account, suggested also by Tallerman (1987), would view mutation in this instance as being triggered by neither the lexical item nor the syntax, but by the morphological feature bundle [+feminine, +singular] itself. (Note that ‘feminine’ by itself is possibly insufficient here, as feminine plurals do not trigger mutation—though one can argue
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that gender does not exist in any functional or formal way in the plural. A variant of this approach would posit that feminine singular adjectives are the triggers.) The proposed mechanism of this trigger, to account for what happens in strings of adjectives (which, interestingly, is the opposite of what happens with DOM and strings of object NPs), is that the feature bundle triggers SM rightwards as far as the boundary of the NP or until any other mutation trigger intervenes, and then stops (Tallerman terms this ‘feature percolation’). There are a couple of points here that need further explanation. Tallerman (1987:108) feels adjectives that start with non-mutatable segments ‘break the sequence’ implying that the SM trigger has to ‘jump over’ such adjectives. She quotes the following example: (6.134) y frawddeg enwol bur the sentence nominal pure ‘the pure nominal sentence’ Although a small point, a better description is to say that the SM trigger (the morphological feature bundle) does, in fact, trigger SM onto all the adjectives; it is simply that those whose initial segments do not show the necessary structural description for the input to the phonological part of mutation will naturally not show the structural change either.9 The second point concerns the interpolation of other mutation triggers (see 7.4 for further discussion of trigger ‘clashes’). If, for example, a ‘and’ (a trigger of AM) is found between two adjectives in a string, then AM is triggered, cancelling out the effect of the morphological feature trigger. This AM will only be overt on p-, t-, cinitial adjectives, but, as noted above, will also affect all other adjectives by leaving their initial segments as radicals. If we assumed that AM did not affect other adjectives, we would expect to find SM percolating through, and this is not the case. (6.135) merch dal a chref ‘a tall and strong girl’ (6.136) merch dal a doeth ‘a tall and wise girl’ Tallerman (1987:109f.), in fact, misses this last point, claiming that SM does percolate through other triggers and cancels their effects.10 She gives the following example: (6.137) * y ddynes dra fawr the woman extremely big ‘the extremely big woman’
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Unfortunately, she does not note whether this is an example culled from Spoken Welsh, where some uncertainty does exist over AM triggers such as tra ‘extremely’ (see Chapter 10), but in Modern Standard Welsh this example is unacceptable, and would be as follows: (6.138) y ddynes dra mawr A more serious challenge to the feature-percolation approach, and to the trigger constraint, comes from the fact, as noted by Oftedal (1962) amongst others, that mutated adjectives can occur separated from the feminine singular noun by other material outside the relevant NP. Oftedal uses examples such as the following to argue in favour of a category of mutation triggers he terms ‘retrospective’ (i.e. separated from the preceding trigger): (6.139) cath fawr oedd yno, dewaf yn y byd cat big was there, fattest in the world ‘a big cat was there, fattest in the world’ In this instance, we cannot argue that the SM on dewaf is triggered by the preceding NP, as in the case of a masculine or plural noun this mutation would not appear. (This is probably not a good counterexample for the NP trigger, as that was not claimed to operate across clause boundaries in any case.) To account for examples of this type, without extending the percolation abilities of morphological features beyond reasonable limits, we have to assume that what is triggering the mutation is a trace of an original NP, identical to the first NP, that has undergone deletion: (6.140) cath fawr oedd yno, cath dewaf yn y byd ⇒ (6.141) cath fawr oedd yno, t dewaf yn y byd This trace clearly must retain the morphological features [feminine] and [singular], and so trigger SM onto following adjectives in the same way that overt NPs do. (The problems involved with traces triggering mutations are discussed in more detail in 6.5.3 below.) Alternatively, we can assume an account whereby the second adjective has been extraposed from the initial NP, and this avoids the problem of traces triggering mutation. It is interesting here to note the function of the mutation (similar to that of overt case marking) as a mark of concord, and perhaps also an aid to constituent processing. 6.4.2 The determiner and un + feminine nouns The other main area where gender plays a part in determining mutation also concerns feminine singular nouns, but in this instance we find these
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nouns undergoing SM when following the determiner y ‘the’, and the numeral un ‘one’. These instances were both treated as examples of restricted lexical triggers in Chapter 1: in other words, the triggers were considered to be y and un respectively, restricted by the morphological features of the target. However, if we have treated [+feminine, +singular] as an SM trigger for adjectives, it would make an insightful generalization if we could extend this analysis to noun mutation as well. It appears to us that there are two possible ways that this might be approached. Firstly, we can consider that the morphological features are a property of the noun alone. In cases of following adjectives, these features are passed on rightwards along the string as noted above, triggering SM onto each adjective in turn. Another mechanism must then be proposed that first applies the trigger to the noun itself, if and only if that noun is preceded by y or un. (We omit from the discussion here other numerals that cause mutation on feminine singulars alone, such as pumed ‘fifth’, though it may well be possible to integrate them into the account.) Such an internal trigger for mutation would appear to be unusual, although SM on adverbials might well be thought to be somewhat similar. What we have constructed appears to be a cross between a morphological and a lexical trigger. An alternative to this can be constructed whereby the rightwards percolation of the feature trigger is preserved, and we do not have to rely on internal triggering. In this analysis, we assume two forms of the determiner and the numeral: masculine and feminine. There is support for this amongst the lower numerals, where we have masculine dau ‘two’, tri ‘three’ and pedwar ‘four’, against feminine dwy, tair and pedair. In this case, however, the feminine determiner and numeral will be phonologically identical to the masculine, but will carry the morphological feature bundle [+feminine, +singular]. Just as with nouns, this will trigger SM rightwards onto the noun, and indeed from the noun rightwards onto any adjectives. One important objection to unifying the two gender mutation triggers is that the mutation triggered by feminine nouns to following adjectives is SM, while the mutation triggered by the determiner and un to following feminine nouns is SMR. This is offset to some extent by the fact that after both these pre-modifiers full SM is triggered onto adjectives and deadjectival nominals. If we wish to unite these gender triggers, then, some mechanism must be drawn up to mark nouns as taking, exceptionally, SMR (perhaps by using the rule to reverse SM on and initial words as noted in Chapter 1). Both these analyses rely in different ways on unusual features: with one we find a trigger that is its own target, while with the other we
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need to posit an underlying masculine-feminine distinction in the triggers. If it is desirable to extend the gender triggering mechanism of adjectives to include nouns, we would favour the second account, but, bearing in mind the problem of mutation type noted above, remain agnostic as to whether the original restricted lexical trigger analysis is not the simplest. 6.5 ZERO TRIGGERS AND THE PRE-SENTENTIAL PARTICLE SYSTEM 6.5.1 PSPs in Standard and Spoken Welsh As we saw in 6.2, Welsh has a system of pre-sentential particles (PSPs) that mark the function of the sentence in that they show whether the sentence is a statement or a question, and whether it is positive or negative. (A system of particles is also used in relative clauses, which was described in 6.2. We exclude these particles from the following discussion.) If we examine the system used with verbs other than bod ‘to be’ (which uses a slightly more complicated set of particles—see Ball 1988a), we can draw up a table like 6.1 of PSPs in main clauses with normal word order. Table 6.1 PSP types in Modern Standard Welsh
This symmetrical system of particles in Modern Standard Welsh has, however, undergone considerable changes in Modern Spoken Welsh. These changes can be illustrated by comparing examples in the two varieties of Welsh, as shown below, where the first form is Modern Standard Welsh, and the second is the Standard Spoken variety: (6.142) Fe _welodd Rhodri adar → _Welodd Rhodri adar pt saw+3sg Rh birds ‘Rhodri saw some birds’
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(6.143) Ni _welodd Rhodri adar → _Welodd Rhodri ddim adar pt saw+3sg Rh birds nothing ‘Rhodri didn’t see any birds’ (6.144) A _welodd Rhodri adar? → _Welodd Rhodri adar? pt saw+3sg Rh birds ‘Did Rhodri see any birds?’ (6.145) Oni _welodd Rhodri adar? ? Welodd Rhodri ddim adar? pt saw+3sg Rh birds ‘Didn’t Rhodri see any birds?’ These examples show a complete lack of PSPs, although the fe/mi particle is often found, especially to show extra emphasis. The positive-negative distinction is now expressed by post-verbal particles derived from dim ‘anything, nothing, at all’ (in one of three syntactically defined forms: dim, ddim, mo). The statement-question distinction is now carried by the intonation alone. It is unclear why a system that appeared so economical and comprehensive should break down so completely. It would appear to be a combination of the extension of post-verbal negative particles, and the effect of intonation. Even in Middle Welsh, post-verbal negative particles were optional: ‘a negative part. is frequently supplemented by dim “at all”’ (Morris-Jones 1913:424). This particle has become all but compulsory in Modern Spoken Welsh (though alternatives such as neb ‘anyone, no-one’ can also be used), and carries relatively heavy stress within the sentence. The shift of both stress and semantic content to the post-verbal particle seems to have resulted in the eventual loss of the negative PSPs. It can only be assumed that the sentence end-stress that results from the normal Welsh question intonation led similarly to the abandonment of the question PSPs. If these changes took place at the same time historically, then it is quite likely that the effects of analogy speeded up the process, and spread to positive statements such that fe/mi became restricted in its use. 6.5.2 Theoretical implications of the loss of PSPs These changes in the particle system raise questions as to the characterization of sentences within a grammatical description of Welsh. Working within the GB framework, and assuming an underlying SVO structure, Welsh sentences in the Modern Standard variety can be characterized as:
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(6.146) S’ → COMP—S (6.147) S → INFL—NP—VP as in the following example: S (6.148)
The PSPs would be categorized for positive-negative and statementquestion within the lexicon and, as we have noted in Chapter 1, would be marked as lexical triggers of particular mutation types. However, as we have seen, Modern Spoken Welsh does not utilize the PSP system in the same way that the formal standard language does. To account for the changes we have noted between the two varieties, three possible alterations to the above rule system can be considered. Firstly, any sentence-initial complementizing category can be removed, producing a rule such as: (6.149) S → INFL—NP—VP GB theory supports an initial COMP category, however, even when it is empty phonologically. Furthermore, we have already noted that the fe/mi particle is still retained in Spoken Welsh in certain circumstances. Secondly, if we assume COMP is retained, we can posit that in main clauses it has only two possible realizations: fe/mi affirmative/ emphatic, and Ø elsewhere. We have already noted for Standard Welsh that a Ø realization is needed for positive statements as an alternative to fe/mi; this, therefore, would seem an economical solution to the problem. We will,
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however, argue that it is in fact not the most insightful one, and that another strategy is better motivated. This third strategy involves providing a full range of PSPs for the spoken language, in much the same way as the standard language. We debate below what these PSPs might be like phonologically (6.5.3). Why should this solution be preferred to the second strategy outlined above? One argument can be advanced from stylistic and regional variation within Spoken Welsh, which show that some PSPs do still appear, both positive and negative (see Ball 1988b). If we wish to capture this variation via variable rule schema (see also 10.5), then we clearly need to retain PSP as a realization of COMP in main clauses. The main argument, however, lies in the mutation usages we find in examples like (6.142)–(6.145). It should be noted that in the standard forms of each example, the PSPs have triggered ICM on the following verb; in the spoken forms of each example ICM is triggered onto the clause-initial verbs, although no overt trigger is included. It would be difficult (and counterintuitive) to characterize the mutation here as syntactic (i.e. due to being sentence- or clause-initial), or even inherent (triggered by the verb itself). One reason for this is that verbs can appear in sentence- or clause-initial position without mutation, and no suitable description could capture the verb itself as an inherent trigger while excluding those instances where there is no mutation (see Ball 1988a:143–4, n. 9). More important is the patterning of ICM that we find. While the PSPs fe/mi and a trigger SM, ni and oni both trigger AM;SM (the so-called mixed mutation). We find in Modern Spoken Welsh that sentences where we would have the SM-triggering particles in Standard Welsh we get SM on the initial verb, while in sentences where we would have the mixed mutation triggers in the standard language, we get AM;SM in Modern Spoken Welsh (except for those speakers who no longer use AM). Clearly, then, we require an analysis of the spoken language that recognizes the link between the zero PSPs and the actual PSPs of the standard variety. How this might be done we examine in the following sub-section. 6.5.3 Zero PSPs as zero mutation triggers In Ball (1988a) it was assumed that the zero PSPs of Spoken Welsh could be accounted for via a stylistically governed deletion rule. This required the full system of PSPs of the standard language to account for the mutation effects observed. However, a problem arises with this
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analysis concerning how to integrate the deletion process and the mutation process. In Ball (1988a) two alternative solutions are proposed. In the first, we assume that the deleted items leave traces, and we assume that these traces retain some morphological information: namely the mutationtriggering features. The claim that deletion can be partial in this way is controversial, in that it is usually assumed that deletion encompasses both category and content (e.g. Chomsky and Lasnik 1977). A second solution that does not depend upon traces triggering mutation is proposed, based on Awbery (1975). This requires an ‘interlocking’ rather than an ‘interfacing’ relationship between phonology and syntax, in that information from earlier stages in the syntactic derivation is available to the phonology. This leads to mutation being triggered ‘before’ the deletion of the PSPs, and so does not require this deletion to leave traces containing morphological features. Clearly, such a claim has consequences for models of the interfaces between phonology and syntax, to which we return in more detail in Chapter 7. While it is true that information from the syntax is generally agreed to be necessary on occasions in the phonology (while the opposite is generally considered unacceptable), current thinking accepts that only surface syntax is available, and so it is worth exploring another account. A third approach utilizes the notion of phonologically empty particles (see 6.3.2 for discussion of phonologically empty prepositions). We assume here that each of the PSPs noted above has a stylistically controlled ‘empty’ variant. This is not to be confused with the absence of a PSP (i.e. null realization of COMP, and so no mutation triggered) found in Modern Standard Welsh in sentences such as the following (as a more formal version of (6.142) with fe): (6.150) Gwelodd Rhodri adar saw+3sg Rh birds ‘Rhodri saw some birds’ The PSPs available to the two varieties of Welsh could be listed as in Table 6.2, where superscript zero represents a phonologically empty particle. Such an approach can be utilized for other contexts that were noted as ‘zero mutation triggers’ in Chapter 1, such as vocatives, following the supposed vocative particle o! It does, however, create problems when we consider the solution proposed in 6.4 above for distant triggering of SM on feminine adjectives. There one proposal was that the actual trigger was a preceding NP, deleted under an equi-NP deletion rule. While this process can clearly be accounted for under either of the first two solutions outlined
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Table 6.2 PSP types in Modern Standard and Modern Spoken Welsh
above (traces or interlocking phonology), it is unconvincing to claim that sets of phonologically null NPs are activated in equi-NP deletion. This would then support the alternative notion of an extraposed constituent, though this too would seem to have implications for the level of syntax interfacing with phonology. We will leave open for now the debate on which of these accounts is most adequate for the PSP system of Standard and Spoken Welsh, but will return in the next chapter (see 7.3) to discussion on the interlocking model of phonology and syntax proposed by Awbery (1975). 6.6 (RE-)DEFINING ICM To conclude this chapter, and to bring together the discussions on various aspects of mutation triggering, we feel able to restate our formal definition of the ICM process, as given first as (1.1): (6.151) ICM is a process whereby word-initial consonants undergo one of three sets of phonological changes when in certain morphosyntactic environments. The particular set of changes is determined by the morphosyntactic environment. The triggering mechanisms can be morphophonological features assigned lexically, the morphological feature [+feminine singular], or syntactic frames. (6.152) ICM: ##CX → ##C’X/M-SE M-SE: [+→XM]; [+feminine singular]; (A+B+C) [+→XM] (Where [+→XM] means ‘causes unspecified mutation’; and (A+B+C) [+→XM] means a particular syntactic frame marked to cause unspecified mutation onto one constituent of the frame.)
7
Interfaces
7.0 INTRODUCTION So far in this book we have examined various linguistic aspects of mutation in Welsh as if they were totally separate and have often found this separation difficult. It is clear, however, that to account for both the triggering of mutation and the resultant sound changes, we also need to examine various linguistic interfaces. In fact, the investigation of the interfaces between different levels of linguistic analysis has gained the attention of many scholars in recent years, some of whom have used evidence from ICM in Celtic languages to illustrate their arguments. Because of the nature of the analysis we have presented in previous chapters, we will be concerned here with three main interfaces. Firstly, we will continue the debate of Chapters 1, 4 and 5 concerning the interface between phonological rules and their phonetic realizations: in other words, the phonology-phonetics interface. Secondly, we will look at the morphology-phonology interface, and examine how different models of lexical arrangement can deal with the lexical triggers of mutation. Finally, we will enter the debate concerning the syntax-phonology interface and how it copes with the analyses of syntactic triggers proposed in Chapter 6. In all cases we will be mainly concerned with how evidence from ICM can inform a choice among different approaches, or can develop areas of interest in current research. Following these three areas, we look also at how mutations interface with each other: that is, what happens when a word is the potential target for two different mutation triggers. The apparent mutation hierarchy is illustrated in this last section.
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7.1 PHONOLOGY-PHONETICS INTERFACE 7.1.1 Theoretical preliminaries Recent work within models of speech production and perception suggest that, within modular approaches at least, a binary division between a phonetic and a phonological component is no longer supported. For example, Mlcoch and Square (1984), Hewlett (1985) and Code and Ball (1988), using evidence drawn from acquired neurological disorders and normal speech all point to a tripartite division, between a phonological, planning level at one extreme, an articulatory, physiological level at the other, and intervening a motorplanning level which, following Tatham (1984), Code and Ball (1988) term ‘cognitive phonetics’. Some of the evidence supporting this approach is seen in the differential effects of aphasia, apraxia of speech and dysarthria. While non-fluent aphasics demonstrate disorders of phonological planning, dysarthric subjects clearly have difficulty at the level of motor implementation (i.e. of ‘articulatory phonetics’). However, subjects with apraxia of speech have no motor impediment (they can often produce sounds in isolation or repetition with which they otherwise experience difficulty), nor do they show problems of phonological planning: the impairment here is clearly one at the level of planning the subsequent motor activity.1 However, in terms of linguistic description, it is clearly easier to operate within a traditional framework consisting of a phonological level of description encompassing the patterning of sounds within a language, and a phonetic level of description, dealing with the physical properties of the sounds. Therefore, when dealing with the interface between phonology and phonetics, we will mainly be referring to this binary descriptive model, while bearing in mind that this is an abstraction from a more complex system of actual speech production and perception. Nevertheless, we return later in this section to the insights provided by the work referred to above to deal with one aspect of this interface and its relation to ICM in Welsh. Keating (1988) gives a review of current research within the phonology-phonetics interface, and points out three main areas of study. These are firstly feature theory, secondly phonetic rules and finally phonetic naturalness and explanation. All these areas interact with our study of ICM. As we saw in Chapter 5, the traditional approach to distinctive features throws up problems when attempting an account of the changes occurring in ICM; and we explored there an alternative
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approach that, arguably, is a closer representation of phonetic information. In the field of phonetic rules, we saw in Chapters 1 and 5 that in order to restrain the complexity of phonological description (in whatever framework) it was necessary to assume that phonetic rules exist which re-adjust the output from the phonology. As Keating (1988) notes, such rules are necessary in any case to fill in (like the orchestration of a piece of music) all the articulatory details of a phonological string. In our case we need to re-adjust the output of ICM to specify labio-dental fricatives rather than bilabial, and so forth. One area of debate clearly concerns whether these rules are really phonetic rather than phonological, and if not whether phonological rule simplicity should be sacrificed for descriptive accuracy. However, as Keating (1988) states, ‘it is too early to decide the exact division of labor between phonological and phonetic rules; in fact it is no longer clear what is at stake in positing such a division, or what arguments would be relevant in deciding’ (p. 288). In this chapter we will not, then, be reopening the debates of previous chapters on features or rules to any great extent, although we do return briefly to the area of phonetic rules later. We will, instead, turn our attention to notions of phonetic and phonological naturalness and phonetic explanation in phonology. 7.1.2 Phonetic naturalness and ICM ICM in Welsh involves a series of phonological processes that have been termed (for example, in Natural Phonology) lenitions, in that the resulting segments are all lower on the strength hierarchy of consonants than their antecedents. Keating (1988) points out that a recurring area of interest within the phonology-phonetics interface concerns the phonetic naturalness of rules or processes (e.g. Schane 1972; Hooper 1976; Stampe 1979), and clearly processes as pervasive as ICM in Welsh deserve such attention. As noted in Chapter 3, lenition in various guises is found throughout the Celtic languages; and indeed, processes such as spirantization and voicing are encountered in the phonologies of many languages from different linguistic families. If such patterns are phonologically natural, then, can we argue that they are also phonetically natural: does phonetic naturalness always underlie phonological naturalness— is the former a prerequisite for the latter? Note that we will not enter the debate here as to whether lenition processes as a whole are more phonetically natural (in an absolute sense) than fortition processes. Clearly, context has a role
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to play as to which class of process is triggered. Instead, we will look at what might be the phonetic motivation for ICM, and whether we can isolate phonetic characteristics that ‘explain’ or ‘predict’ the phonology of ICM. Researchers into phonetic naturalness have examined both acoustic aspects of the speech signal (e.g. Stevens et al. 1986), and articulatory aspects (e.g. Ohala 1983; Westbury and Keating 1986). Further, it is clear that phonetic accounts of phonological rules should take both these aspects into consideration. While ‘ease of articulation’ may be claimed to account for some phonological changes, an increase in acoustic (and ultimately perceptual) distinctiveness can be posited for others. Such different phonetic motivations may, indeed, work together in some instances or conspire against each other in others. If we examine the SM of stops in Welsh it can be argued that historically (see Chapter 3) the phonetic motivation was one of ease of articulation: in intervocalic position it must be articulatorily easier to maintain vocal-fold vibration, than to turn it off for the duration of the closure phase, and then turn it back on (/p, t, k/ → /b, d, g/); or to avoid moving the active articulator to a complete closure and then to move it away again, and instead utilize an incomplete closure (/b, d, g/ → /v, ð, * /). Similar explanations can be advanced for the other instances of mutation. Even in the contemporary language, when the phonetic/phonological environment originally prompting these changes is missing, it is still arguable that sounds lower in the fortis-lenis hierarchy will require less articulatory effort than those higher.2 However, while in the case of ICM, ease of articulation can clearly be claimed to be underlying the phonological changes we see in some way, to what extent can phonetic constraints motivate or predict a particular phonological response? Dinnsen (1980) notes that while phonetic information can help ‘define’ a problem that should be solved in the phonology, it cannot predict what solution will be chosen. Following Andersen (1981) and Keating (1985), Keating (1988) notes, ‘even phonetically natural phonological rules may be more or less arbitrary in their instantiation in a given language’ (p. 298). The classic example of this for us lies in the differences between ICM in the Brythonic and Goidelic languages (see Chapter 3). An originally similar phonetic environment (intervocalic stops) gives in Welsh, for example, a lenition we term SM, whereby voiceless stops voice, and voiced stops spirantize (amongst other changes). However, as we noted in
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5.4.1, in Irish the equivalent lenition sees both voiceless and voiced stops spirantizing. In Welsh, voiceless stops spirantize in the mutation we term AM, which is not a process separate from lenition in Irish, whereas the voicing of stops is. Finally, we must note that, while we can see ease of articulation as prompting ICM, there is no actual necessity for any phonetic change to have occurred in the relevant contexts; while intervocalic position (for example) often results in lenition in languages, it is phonetically perfectly possible to retain the fortis sounds (see below). It is clear, then, that while a study of the phonology-phonetics interface will not predict what phonological rules a language will have, it can go some way to explaining why they might have come about. Particularly interesting in our case (where the original phonetic environments no longer exist) is Keating’s (1988) observation: ‘one sound induces a phonetic effect on another sound, and then disappears; but the allophonic effect on the second sound is preserved even without the surface trigger’ (p. 299). She goes on to note that in instances such as this the grammar has in fact ‘suppressed’ the phonetic patterning through the process of ‘fossilizing’ it. For example, in Modern Welsh, intervocalic stops across word boundaries are no longer subject to SM (unless they meet the non-phonetic, nonphonological triggering conditions): afalau teg ‘nice apples’. We can conclude then that, whereas ICM can be shown to be historically phonetically as well as phonologically natural, there is in fact little predictive power in such a statement; and in the context of the modern language phonetic naturalness can only apply to the effect, not the cause. 7.1.3 Cognitive phonetics and phonetic re-adjustment rules We return now briefly to the notion of a model of speech production utilizing a tripartite modular structure. Tatham (1984), in his account of the cognitive phonetic component, illustrates his discussion with a comparison of /s/ in English and Spanish. The cognitive phonetic component of an English speaker must plan a fairly precise articulation of /s/ to avoid perceptual confusion with / /; the Spanish speaker, on the other hand, lacks the palato-alveolar, with the result that /s/ in Spanish shows a wider range of possible articulations. In a similar way, we could envisage the output of NM on /t/, for example, being input to a cognitive phonetic component. Here considerations of ease of articulation and perceptual distinctiveness (see discussion in 7.1.2 above) would come into play, with the result (as noted
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in Scully 1973, and reported in Chapter 4) that articulations ranging from [ ] via [ ] to [nh] might be programmed. Whether such re-adjustments as /p/ → *[Φ] → /f/ (AM), or /m/ → *[µ] → *[v] → /v/ (SM) could also be considered part of a cognitive phonetic planning component is more debatable, as the intermediate forms here have not been noted as surfacing in actual speech. It would appear to be the task of the phonology to specify that Welsh does not contain the (allo)phones [µ], [v] or [Φ], but if this information is also accessible to a cognitive phonetics, then clearly all these re-adjustment rules could be situated there. 7.2 MORPHOLOGY-PHONOLOGY INTERFACE 7.2.1 The problems In Chapter 1 we drew the main distinction between triggering contexts of ICM as being whether the trigger in any particular instance could be assigned to a single lexical item or to the syntactic frame as a whole. Under this definition, the great majority of ICM triggers in Welsh belong to the lexical categ1ory. We have assumed, following many other authors, that lexical triggers contain in their lexical entry a feature ‘cause XM’3 together with details of the category of word onto which the specific mutation can operate (where there are restrictions, of course). What we have not done up till now is explore how such a system actually operates: how this lexical feature interfaces with the phonology to trigger the mutation in question. There appear to be two main questions that have to be addressed in this regard: firstly, how to cope with the fact that the triggering feature operates across word boundaries; and secondly, how the triggering feature actually activates the phonological change (i.e. whether the phonological rule is activated from the trigger word, or from the target word), with this last question clearly depending upon how we address the first. In attempting to answer these questions we clearly have to look at models of how morphology and phonology interface; nevertheless, we will find that aspects of syntax have also to be taken into account. 7.2.2 Morphology in modern grammar As Anderson (1988b) points out, developments in modern linguistic theory have often seen the relegation of morphology as an area of theoretical interest, only for it to be rehabilitated as the particular
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school of thought progresses. This is especially the case with generative linguistics, where after the publication of The Sound Pattern of English (SPE: Chomsky and Halle 1968) the ‘duties’ of morphology were divided between the phonology and the syntax. However, in recent years researchers within this overall approach have returned to the idea of a separate morphological component within grammar (see references in Anderson 1988b; Spencer 1991). Work such as that reported in Hammond and Noonan (1988) witness the revival of interest in this area; Szpyra (1989) looks at the specific area interesting us (the morphology-phonology interface); and, working within a Natural Phonology/Natural Morphology paradigm, Dressler (1985) addresses aspects of phonology, morphology and the interface between them (’morphonology’); see also the collection of case studies available in Gussman (1985), using a variety of approaches to the phonology-morphology interface. While clearly several different theoretical approaches can be taken to this area, within the space available to us we wish to concentrate on current proposals within generative grammar. Much recent work in post-SPE morphology has developed out of the interests of lexical phonology (see Kiparsky 1982a, 1982b, 1985; Archangeli 1984; Kaisse and Shaw 1985), and proposes an integrational model of morphology and phonology: where the lexicon is divided into strata, and that morphological rules (termed ‘word-formation rules’ or WFRs) are interspersed with phonological rules. Thus word derivation is a cyclic process whereby, for example, affixes of a particular stratum may be applied followed by the appropriate lexical phonological rule(s), and then affixes of the next stratum can be considered. Following this procedure, post-cyclic (or post-lexical) phonological rules apply, that do not interact with WFRs. Szpyra (1989) recognizes the need for phonological rules and WFRs to interact, but produces evidence from English and from Polish that suggests a separational model with the ability for derivations to re-enter the system where necessary through the establishment of a ‘phonology-morphology loop’ (also incidentally a ‘syntax-morphology loop’). We will not discuss the relative merits of the two approaches here, but will refer back to them in later discussion. The end of the morphological process is thought of in most recent approaches to be lexical insertion into a lexically interpreted S-structure, and following that a post-lexical phonological component (see Szpyra 1989:240). However, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that a formal interface between morphology and syntax is needed: overt grammatical case marking in nouns, for example (as well as ICM), suggests that
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syntactic information does interact with WFRs, and this is discussed in detail in Anderson (1988b: section 6.2.1) and in Szpyra (1989:174f.). We return below to the implications of this idea for consonant mutation in Welsh. 7.2.3 Mutation and word boundaries As we have noted, the derivation of words is seen as involving the interaction of morphological WFRs and lexical phonological rules (either interacting as in the lexical phonology approach, or via a loop in the ‘refined’ separation approach). However, this procedure is restricted to single words, and, as we have already noted, ICM is a process that applies across word boundaries. Clearly, if the lexical trigger and the target of ICM were in fact part of a single word (in the way that affixes operate), then mutation changes of this type could be easily accounted for within the word-derivation procedure. There is a way in which this might be accomplished: through appeal to the notions of the phonological word, and the clitic. Much recent work on clitics stems from the influential work of Zwicky (1977), who examined not only types of clitics but also their syntax and phonology. We will concentrate here on phonological aspects of clitics; syntactic aspects of some pronominal clitics in Welsh are discussed in Sadler (1988), though B.M.Jones (1990b) points to problems with an analysis of possessives in terms of clitics. Zwicky (1977) defines the clitic as follows: ‘morphemes that…are neither clearly independent words nor clearly affixes’ (p. 1). He describes several types of clitic, and his basic division into ‘simple clitics’ and ‘special clitics’ is found in much later work also (e.g. Anderson 1988a, b; Kaisse 1985), and though Zwicky’s (1984a) article refines the definition of clitic as opposed to independent word, this does not affect a consideration of the lexical triggers of ICM in terms of Zwicky’s original definitions. Typical simple clitics are listed by Zwicky (1977) as auxiliaries, personal pronouns, determiners, dummy nouns, prepositions, conjunctions and complementizers, and adverbial words of various types including particles marking sentence role (e.g. PSPs in Welsh). Special clitics too are generally drawn from this list, the main difference between the two classes being that while simple clitics are unaccented (and so phonologically reduced in some way) versions of equivalent full word forms, special clitics show special syntax (in that the syntax may differ from that of the full forms) and are phonologically opaque (in that they may not be closely related to the
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full accented form; though see Kaisse 1985 for further discussion of these differences). Clearly, many of the lexical mutation triggers listed in Chapter 1 fall into the categories listed above. Many of these will also demonstrate unaccented forms in natural speech; however, unlike English, Welsh does not show marked phonological reduction (e.g. through vowel weakening to schwa, [= ]) in unaccented positions (see Ball and Williams forthcoming). Nevertheless, as there are no unaccented forms which are phonologically unlinked to accented forms, nor displaying special syntax, we can assume that many of these triggers are simple clitics when unaccented. These would include prepositions triggering SM, AM or NM; conjunctions triggering SM and AM, possessives triggering SM, AM and NM; pre-verbal particles triggering SM and AM; and determiners triggering SM. While clitics are grammatically in a borderline position between affixes and independent words, many researchers have considered that they can be considered to be part of the same phonological word as their ‘host’ (though see Nespor and Vogel 1986 for an account of the debate concerning whether they are best characterized as part of the phonological phrase, phonological word or are split between the two). Assuming they are part of the same phonological word, and so behave somewhat in the same way as affixes, then any phonological adjustments taking place between the clitic and its host can be described within the morphology. This can be done by WFRs, for example, although it is probable that a separate clitic sub-component may be better motivated for this task (see Selkirk 1980; Kaisse 1985). Unfortunately for our description of ICM triggers, the clitic solution falls down on two main points. Firstly, it would appear that not all the lexical triggers of mutation are suitable to be classed as clitics. If we count the SM of adjectives after feminine singular nouns, this is clearly not a context reducible to cliticization (though see 6.4 and 7.4 for an alternative analysis of this trigger). Even without this example, we have the case of numerals that trigger SM, AM and NM in various contexts. Numerals are generally not thought of as clitics as they do not demonstrate the loss of accent required. This leads us to the second point: all the triggers open to categorization as clitics also have accented variants. These may simply be used for contrastive purposes, but nevertheless, it does mean that all these triggers also operate as full words. This does not discount their being clitics, but it does mean that the phonological word cannot be the location of the morphology-phonology interface for ICM, as the triggers still cause mutation when acting as full words.
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Further, as discussed in Kaisse (1985), it is by no means certain whether cliticization is part of the word-derivation process, and not as she claims (p. 20) a component that operates post-lexically, just prior to postlexical phonology, on lexically interpreted surface structure. Finally, as we noted above, some of the proposed clitics (including pronominal possessives) have been criticized on syntactic grounds by B.M.Jones (1990b), because of the range of items that can intervene between the clitic and the host. 7.2.4 Morphology and syntax It seems, then, that it is not possible to account for the lexical triggers of mutation without recourse to syntactic information. As Anderson (1988b:167) notes, ‘there seem to be some irreducibly morphological properties of words which are not independent of the syntactic structures in which they occur, and which must not be invisible to syntactic rules’. In this case, Anderson is referring to grammatical inflections such as overt noun case (see also Anderson 1988a). However, as we note elsewhere in this book, ICM is in some ways similar to inflection, and we can note Anderson’s (1988b) definition of agreement properties which fits well with our case: ‘aspects of a word’s form that are determined by reference to the properties of some other word(s) in the same structure’ (p. 167). Anderson argues convincingly that the view held by many lexical phonologists that inflectional and derivational morphology are both derived within the lexicon is incorrect, and that an adequate description of inflection requires the operation of several different subtheories. We can briefly examine those sub-theories relevant for the operation of lexically triggered mutations. The theory of morphosyntactic representations concerns the structure of the inflectional properties of the word in question which interface with the syntax. Anderson suggests that this should be in the form of hierarchical lists of features representing the relevant categories (such as case, gender, etc). In our case, we would clearly need the feature [+ →XM] to be listed, and depending upon our analysis of the morphological trigger (see 7.4), the feature bundle [+feminine, +singular]. The theory of configurational assignment deals with the way in which particular inflectional categories are assigned to the phrases or words that bear them. Anderson distinguishes between structural assignment (e.g. overt case marking of direct objects), and lexical assignment of features which could not be predicted from the structure of the phrase as a whole. This last type clearly reflects the case of
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ICM, where a feature is assigned dependent on the preceding lexical item, rather than because it is in a particular phrasal slot. There is some debate as to precisely how the features are copied over to the target: whether rules should be allowed to ‘examine’ the internal structure of the assigning word (trigger) before assigning the relevant feature, or whether it is assumed that the target generates the feature anyway (e.g. some kind of unspecified ‘mutation’ feature) which is then subcategorized from the trigger for the ‘correct’ version of the mutation. If this last view is supported, there may well be an argument for assuming that all potential mutation targets in Welsh have some kind of unspecified mutation feature, which is ‘switched’ to the relevant mutation (or non-mutation) during configurational assignment (see further discussion in Chapter 10 on the use of a general [+mut] feature). However, as we saw in Chapter 1, we do need rules to scan the feature specifications of both trigger and target to account for categorial and restricted lexical triggers. The theory of agreement would seem to be an area of the morphology-syntax interface that could deal with the gender mutations described in 6.4 and 7.4. This theory accounts for the agreement of modifiers with their heads, and so would cover the agreement of adjectives with nouns. The theory is based clearly within the framework of X¯-syntax, which allows the projection or inheritance of features within categories, although the gender mutations derived from the determiner or numeral un ‘one’ cause a problem in that we might wish to claim here that the features are projected onto the head from the modifier. However, as noted in 6.4, it may well not be possible to integrate these triggers into the gender analysis, because of the different mutation type (SMR as opposed to SM on nouns) involved. We will not pursue this aspect further, as alternatives were discussed in 6.4 above. The last part of Anderson’s (1988b) account of inflection examines how the inflectional material is introduced phonologically into words marked morphologically to receive it through the procedures we have just been describing. In terms of mutation, we want to see how the phonological realization of the mutation process is achieved. The phonology of mutation in Welsh is predictable in that, once we know which mutation is required, and the radical initial segment of the target, we know what change will occur. For predictable processes such as this, Anderson suggests that inflectional word-formation rules (such as ICM) ‘operate on a pair {S,M} consisting of a stem S chosen from the lexicon…and the morphosyntactic representation M of the syntactic position in which the word is inserted’ (Anderson 1988b:179). This latter,
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in the case of mutation, must be assumed to include the [+XM] feature, assigned from the trigger’s [+→XM] feature during configurational assignment. The phonological change itself must occur at this stage, therefore. As Anderson (1988b) points out, such inflectional changes operate on a lexical stem and a morphosyntactic representation, while derivational rules operate solely within the lexicon. This implies that inflectional processes such as ICM are post-cyclic. An alternative approach, that allows the phonological aspects of processes such as mutation to take place within the lexicon (as WFRs), can be seen in Szpyra (1989). She describes some compound lexical items in Polish that are clearly derived through the operation of syntactic rules, and suggests that a syntax-morphology loop would allow forms constructed via the syntax to re-enter the wordformation process. If applied to ICM, we could re-enter lexical items that had been marked [+XM] into the lexicon, where the phonological change could take place. In answer to the questions posed in 7.2.1, we can say that with lexical triggers the morphology and the syntax must clearly interact to allow the correct assignment of the mutation feature from the trigger to the target; and that the morphology and the phonology (and indeed the syntax) must interact to change the target, marked with its mutation feature, to the required mutation output. 7.3 SYNTAX-PHONOLOGY INTERFACE 7.3.1 Introduction As we saw in the previous sub-section, even to account for the lexical triggers of mutation it is necessary to invoke a process whereby the syntax is involved in assigning the mutation feature to the correct target. Clearly, when considering the syntactic triggers of ICM, we will need to examine the interface between syntax and phonology. This is an area which has excited much interest and work in recent years from scholars working within a variety of theoretical frameworks. Primarily amongst these researchers are Zwicky and Pullum, and the development of their views can be traced through Zwicky (1969, 1984b, 1985), Zwicky and Pullum (1983, 1986, 1988, forthcoming) and Pullum and Zwicky (1984, 1986) among others. Influential work within this area also includes Selkirk (1984), Kaisse (1985) and Nespor and Vogel (1982, 1986). This is clearly too great a field of enquiry to do justice to in this section, so we will concentrate our discussion on one main area of debate:
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how far syntactic and phonological rules interact, and illustrate this with examples from the syntactic triggers of ICM. 7.3.2 The interaction of phonology and syntax As Zwicky and Pullum (1988) point out, there are two ways in which the syntactic and phonological components of a grammer might interact: firstly, some syntactic rules may need to take account of phonological information; secondly, some phonological rules may need to take account of syntactic information. As in previous articles, however, they argue strongly in favour of the principle of phonology-free syntax (see also Zwicky and Pullum 1986): in other words, they do not admit that phonological information is accessible to syntactic rules. We do not need to discuss here the evidence in favour of such a principle, since it is clear that, in the case of syntactic triggers of ICM, we are looking at the syntactic information that is accessible to phonological rules rather than the converse. In discussing the sort of syntactic information that might be available for phonological rules, Zwicky and Pullum (1988) point to the fact that under a variety of syntactic frameworks it is assumed that syntactic representations are constituent structures: ‘they indicate the way in which contiguous constituents, belonging to specified categories, are grouped into constructs of specified categories’ (p. 258). They go on to note that such representations do not contain information that might well be needed for the operation of various phonological rules. They point to features such as the head constituent of certain constructs, which items are modifiers and which complements of certain heads, and the grammatical relation between complements and heads. In considering syntactic triggers of ICM, we would assume that under an analysis of syntactic-frame triggering (as proposed in 6.4), we would need information attached to an entire frame to the effect that a certain constituent receives a mutation, to be available in the syntactic description. Zwicky and Pullum (1988) conclude from this discussion that ‘constituent structure-based frameworks are not obviously adequate for linguistic description’ (p. 258). They feel that questions in this area are still open, and appeal for examples about the kinds of information that must be available to the phonology. An analysis involving syntactic-frame triggers clearly needs a device whereby syntactic strings are matched against the frames proposed for the triggers in Chapters 1 and 6; where a fit is found the [+XM] feature (in fact, this is always [+SM]) is copied onto the relevant target. Whether the phonological realization of this
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feature is triggered post-lexically or via WFRs through a syntaxphonology loop in the way described in the previous sub-section is still open to debate. Zwicky and Pullum (1988) describe various ‘conditions on shape’, which ‘are sensitive to more than just the internal feature composition of words’ (p. 261), and which sound as if they may be relevant to the operation of mutation. In fact, their three sub-types here— filtering shape conditions, realizational shape conditions and referral shape conditions—do not appear to be applicable to syntactic-frame triggers (though they may be relevant to lexical triggers) in that they appear to be strictly local, and do not operate over strings. We, therefore, propose a new condition on shape, as described above: the ‘syntacticframe condition’, while realizing that such a non-local (i.e. nonadjacent) condition has not so far been admitted by Zwicky and Pullum. 7.3.3 What level of syntax is available to phonology? The final main area of debate in the field of the syntax-phonology interface concerns the level of syntax (i.e. surface or underlying) that is available to phonology. There have been many studies in the literature that have attempted to show that phonological rules may need access to earlier levels of syntactic representation, and a range of these are reviewed in Zwicky and Pullum (1988). They conclude by noting: ‘we draw from this bewildering profusion of analytical proposals just a single point: more recent analyses almost uniformly agree on one thing, namely that it is surface syntactic structure…that is relevant for the determination of w h e t h e r a g ive n wo r d s e q u e n c e c a n h ave t h e c o n t r a c t e d pronunciation’ (p. 271). Among the linguistic features considered by the authors is listed the Celtic mutation phenomenon, although, disappointingly, all that is remarked is that this ‘is highly sensitive to aspects of syntactic structure’. We have already seen (6.5) that in terms of the level of syntax made available to the phonology, the zero pre-verbal particle triggers do create a problem for the surface condition proposed above. We will look again briefly at this area by recalling Awbery’s (1975) account, where the phonology interacts with an earlier level of the syntax by allowing the particles to trigger the mutation before they are deleted. Alternative analyses involving trace theory or phonologically null particles were proposed; but it may be possible to rescue the original view of
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Awbery, while at the same time conserving something of the constraint on surface syntax interfacing with phonology. In our account of lexical triggers (in 7.2 above), we assumed that at some stage in the morphology-phonology interface the feature [+XM] was copied to the target, and that this feature was realized phonologically later. If this was assumed to occur with the particles, then it is possible to claim that the phonology (at the time the rule is activated) is no longer interacting with the syntax at all, but with a morphophonological feature. We realize, of course, that to achieve the correct siting of this feature we have had to interface the morphology with an earlier level of the syntax, so this proposal may be no more than a terminological alternative. Clearly, features such as zero triggers have to be examined to see whether the notion of surface syntax only being available to the phonology is justified, and whether either of the alternative analyses proposed in 6.5 is sustainable. If we recall the problem of ‘right-stranded’ feminine adjectives discussed in 6.4 (see example (6.139)), the two alternative solutions there relied either on traces retaining the ability to trigger SM, or an earlier level of syntax being available to the phonology. The common denominator among all these problems, then, appears to need either manipulation of the level of syntax available to phonology/morphology (perhaps in the way just described), or an ability for traces (which, after all, are claimed to count as NPs by those supporting NP___ triggers of SM) to contain morphophonological features (or at least one). 7.4 MUTATION-MUTATION INTERFACE 7.4.1 Introduction In this last section of our investigation of interfacing and mutation, we follow a different interpretation of the term, and examine what happens when mutations interface with each other: that is to say, when two mutation triggering contexts co-occur. As we saw in Chapter 1, there are a large number of possible mutationtriggering contexts in Welsh, and it would not be surprising to find instances of a ‘clash’ of triggers (indeed, we have referred to this several times in earlier chapters); when this does occur we need to know what the hierarchy of mutation triggers is; that is to say, what type of mutation trigger has precedence. As in the conclusions to the previous chapter (6.6), we will recognize three main types of mutation trigger: lexical, morphological and syntactic.
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7.4.2 Lexical triggers The large numbers of lexical mutation triggers (as opposed to the other trigger types) means that it is likely that there may occur instances where two lexical triggers co-occur. We can see some of these in the following examples where the triggers concerned are in italics: (7.1)
Rwy am i bobl gadw draw o fan hyn am+I for to people keep away from place this ‘I want people to keep away from here’
(7.2)
Marged a’ i chathod M and her cats ‘Marged and her cats’
(7.3)
Mae hi ‘n eistedd yn fy nghar is she pt sit in my car ‘She’s sitting in my car’
In each of the above examples, however, we have two triggers of the same mutation type: two SM triggers in (7.1), two AM triggers in (7.2) and two NM triggers in (7.3). Naturally, we need examples of mixed triggers to be able to see which trigger takes precedence: (7.4)
Geraint a’ i gathod G and his cats ‘Geraint and his cats’
(7.5)
Mae hi ‘n eistedd yn dy gar is she pt sit in your car ‘She’s sitting in your car’
(7.6)
Fy meic a fy nghar ‘My bike and my car’
(7.7)
Mae’n bryd i’w chathod fynd is pt time to her cats go ‘It’s time for her cats to go’
We can clearly see in these examples that, as might have been expected, where triggers of two different mutations co-occur, it is the one next to the target (the rightmost) which takes precedence.4 In (7.4) SM of i blocks AM from a; in (7.5) SM from dy takes precedence over the NM of yn; in
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(7.6) NM of fy stops the operation of AM from a; and finally, in (7.7), AM of ’w prevents the triggering of SM from i. So far, then, our scheme for a mutation-triggering hierarchy must contain the rule that it is the rightmost trigger that operates, all others being blocked. Obviously, this is just another way of stating that ICM must be applied to the word immediately following any lexical trigger. Indeed, with two adjacent lexical triggers (if the phonological shape of the second trigger is suitable) we find that the first will trigger a mutation onto the second (see also discussion in 8.2): (7.8)
A thrwy _ardd ei gymydog y cerddodd ef and through garden his neighbour pt walked he ‘And through his neighbour’s garden he walked’
7.4.3 Morphological triggers The morphological trigger type occurs with only a small number of items marked as [+feminine, +singular], and, as in the examples explored in the previous sub-section, of two neighbouring triggers, these can co-occur with each other: (7.9)
yr un ferch ‘the one girl’
In this instance we can argue either that the morphological features have been converted into lexical triggers (see 7.1), and so are simply obeying the rule of rightmost trigger supremacy (though here it is not possible, of course, to see the effect of that rule as both ‘triggers’ cause SM), or that we have an example of feature percolation: through all the carriers of the morphological features concerned. This latter view is supported by the examples of feminine nouns followed by strings of adjectives, as described in 6.4: (7.10) tref fach ddeniadol town small attractive ‘an attractive small town’ Here, the features spread throughout the NP until they reach the NP boundary. However, evidence counter to this analysis can be found in a modifier that might be assumed to carry the features [+feminine, +singular], yet does not trigger SM: ei ‘her’, which triggers AM. In fact, this example creates problems for either analysis of morphological triggers: that is that the mutation is directly triggered by
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the features which also take part in feature spread, or that the features are converted into lexical triggers within the lexicon. However, if we adopt the lexical solution, we need only to posit that the conversion of the features into a lexical trigger is blocked if the lexical item concerned is already marked to cause a mutation. It is still possible, though, to rescue the purely feature account if we state that feature percolation (and so feature triggering) is blocked by any intervening lexical triggers. This is clearly the case in strings of adjectives, as a modified version of (7.10) shows: (7.11) tref fach a deniadol town small and attractive ‘small and attractive town’ An example with ei ‘her’ is simply a modification of the strategy of this last sentence: the morphological feature triggered SM is blocked by the lexical trigger of AM: (7.12) ei char hi her car she ‘her car’ We can conclude, then, with an addition to our principles of interaction between trigger types, that lexical triggers take precedence over morphological triggers (whether we consider this precedence taking place within the lexicon or not is immaterial). As both morphological and syntactic triggers cause only SM, it might be thought unnecessary to examine their interaction; however, no interactions between them can occur, as the morphological features either apply from the determiner or un (which block the application of syntactic triggering onto NPs) or onto adjectives following nouns (and none of the syntactic triggers apply to this position). 7.4.4 Syntactic triggers In Chapter 1 we listed six examples of syntactic triggers (three pure, three restricted). In this sub-section we look at possible interactions between these triggers and lexical triggers. In most cases where a lexical trigger cooccurs with a syntactic one, the lexical trigger actually occupies the site which would have received the mutation from the syntactic trigger. As most lexical triggers do not start with mutatable consonants, it appears as if the syntactic trigger has been lost; the following example shows that this is not so, however.
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(7.13) Gwelais i dri char saw+1sg I three car ‘I saw three cars’ Here, we have the syntactic trigger DOM causing SM to the numeral tri, co-occurring with AM triggered by the numeral onto the following noun. There is, however, one good example of genuine co-occurrence of lexical and syntactic triggers (referred to also in 8.2). This involves the lexical trigger of AM, a ‘and’, interacting with the syntactic trigger of adverbial constituent. As a would normally be considered to be located outside the adverbial constituent, we have a direct clash between a trigger that states words following a receive AM, and a trigger that states that the initial word of an adverbial receives SM. To test this example we need to find adverbials commencing with voiceless stops: the only consonants susceptible to AM. The following sentences demonstrate the word tridiau ‘three days’ heading adverbial phrases both with and without preceding conjunctions. (7.14) Aeth ef yn ôl i Gaerdydd dridiau ar ôl yr _wyl went he back to Cardiff three+days after the festival ‘He returned to Cardiff three days after the festival’ (7.15) Aeth ef yn ôl i Gaerdydd wedi’r parti ond went he back to Cardiff after the party but dridiau ar ôl yr _wyl three+days after the festival ‘He returned to Cardiff after the party but three days after the festival’ (7.16) Aeth ef yn ôl i Gaerdydd wedi’r parti a went he back to Cardiff after the party and thridiau ar ôl yr _wyl three+days after the festival ‘He returned to Cardiff after the party and three days after the festival’ These examples clearly show that in the interaction between lexical triggers and syntactic triggers, it is the former that take precedence.5 The adverbial mutation context is known, however, for its variability. Many of the words denoting time, place or measure (as well as prepositions, see 8.2) have adopted fossilized or quasi-fossilized SM forms: so we find gartref ‘at home’ from cartref ‘home’; and ddoe ‘yesterday’ from doe. Furthermore, the adverbial mutation is not always
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applied, especially in sentence-initial position. As noted in Morris-Jones (1913) and Morgan (1952), literary Welsh has a rule whereby adverbials in this position do not undergo SM (though Morgan points out that this is not a strictly observed rule). These two factors play a part in determining what happens when the two triggers noted above coincide. For example, some instances of apparent precedence of SM over AM may be due to these fossilized forms: (7.17) Roedd ef yn y gwaith yn y bore a gartref yn was he in the work in the morning a at home in y nos the night ‘He was at work in the morning and at home at night’ Likewise, while we would expect a to block adverbial mutation even onto words not susceptible to AM (i.e. not starting with voiceless stops), examples where this happens may simply be due to the uncertain application of SM in adverbials at the beginning of sentences. Thus, we can get both the following: (7.18) a dwy flynedd yn ôl ‘and two years ago’ (7.19) a ddwy flynedd yn ôl ‘and two years ago’ These examples seem to suggest that the interaction between these two triggers is more complex than appeared at first sight. We suggest, therefore, that when lexical and syntactic triggers co-occur, the lexical trigger takes precedence as long as there is a consonant available for it to mutate; if there is none, the syntactic trigger operates (subject to the variability noted for adverbial mutation). 7.4.5 Defining the ICM hierarchy In concluding this chapter, we will add to our formal definition of the ICM process the findings noted above on the ICM hierarchy: (7.20) ICM is a process whereby word-initial consonants undergo one of three sets of phonological changes when in certain morphosyntactic environments. The particular set of changes is determined by the morphosyntactic environment. The triggering mechanisms can be morphophonological features assigned lexically, the morphological feature [+feminine singular], or syntac-
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tic frames. With lexical triggers it is the rightmost trigger that takes precedence over any others; lexical triggers take precedence over morpho -logical triggers; lexical triggers take precedence over syn -tactic triggers (7.21)
(Where [+→XM] means ‘causes unspecified mutation’; and (A+B+C) [+→XM] means a particular syntactic frame marked to cause unspecified mutation onto one constituent of the frame; Greek lettering is used to mark hierarchy of mutation triggering.)
8
The semantics of mutation
8.0 INTRODUCTION Mutations, like other agreement features in language, clearly have grammatical functions: and some of these were explored in Chapter 6.1 They are, thus, information-bearing, though often that information may be communicatively redundant. There are instances, however, where it seems that mutation has developed into the sole marker of certain grammatical or lexical information. It is these instances that we will term in this chapter the ‘semantic load’ of mutations. However, we do not intend to equate this term with an overall ‘functional load’ of the system, and we argued in Chapter 6 that it is this very functional load that is obscured by approaches that concentrate solely on formal analyses of mutation contexts. Historically, the mutations developed from being phonologically triggered to being triggered by lexical and syntactic features. It is clear, then, that it is lexical and syntactic information that is conveyed by the system. In the first section below we examine some instances of lexical items and syntactic structures where mutations appear to operate as a means of disambiguating otherwise identical utterances. Next, we look at the specific case of prepositions, where the operation of the general trigger of SM in adverbial elements has led to the development of sets of doublets: radical and +SM forms of certain prepositions, where in some cases semantic distinctions can be noted. In the following section, we turn our attention to the lexis, and examine the phenomenon of reradicalization—that is, the reanalysis of the mutation reflex as the radical, unmutated form, and we investigate which areas of the lexis are subject to variable or categorial blocking of mutation effects. We turn finally to the area of homonymic clashes produced through the operation of mutation; examples of this are not numerous, however.
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8.1 MUTATION AND SEMANTIC LOAD We have so far discussed the mutation processes from mechanistic, historical and theoretical perspectives. That is to say, we have examined what phonological changes occur with mutation and what environments trigger them, what historical process was responsible for the development of the triggering environments, and we have compared different theoretical frameworks in terms of how these approaches account for the phonology and syntax of mutation and the interaction between them. We have not yet examined the semantic load that mutation carries. It is not accidental, however, that we have not devoted an entire chapter to this topic, as, remarkably, this semantic load is quite small. We can illustrate this with one of the common trigger environments for SM, that is following those prepositions listed in Chapter 1. The phrase trwy Gaerdydd ‘through Cardiff’, sees the radical form of the place-name (Caerdydd) changed, via SM to Gaerdydd. This change /k/ → /g/ is semantically redundant, as the information on direction is carried by trwy, and does not need the mutation to disambiguate the meaning from any other possible meaning. This can be demonstrated with the phrase trwy Aberhonddu, ‘through Brecon’, where, as the place-name does not start with a mutatable segment, the mutation is blocked. Indeed, trwy Caerdydd could not be understood as anything other than ‘through Cardiff’, though the missing mutation might be noticed by the listeners (though as a oneoff performance error, it might well be passed over). Many of the mutation triggers listed in Chapter 1 are similar in this respect; that is, the mutation is redundant, and the semantic load is carried by something else in the utterance that remains operative even in contexts where the mutation is blocked (by lack of mutatable segments, for example). Such redundancy in pure semantic terms is often found in languages, of course; many instances of noun case and/or number marking, for example. There are, however, some instances where a semantic function has been claimed for particular mutation contexts (some more successfully than others), and we will examine these. As we shall see, the problem each time with these claims is that there are always words that are non-mutatable, and so fall outside the disambiguating function claimed for the mutation. 8.1.1 Yn In Welsh the particle yn has several functions. One of these is as the preposition usually translated as ‘in’. As the preposition it triggers
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NM, so yng Nghaerdydd ‘in Cardiff’. A second function is as a complementizer, used with the copula to link verb and complement, and before adverbs. In this usage it triggers SM, so Mae Alun yn gyfoethog (← cyfoethog) ‘Alun is rich’. Finally, it is used in periphrastic constructions as an aspectual particle, indicating progressive. In this usage it triggers no mutation, so Mae Alun yn mynd ‘Alun is going’. From a lexical point of view these three usages can, of course, be accounted for by assuming we are dealing with three different yn’s, but from a phonological standpoint we can claim that it is only the mutation (or lack of mutation) triggered that allows us to disambiguate utterances using yn. This claim, however, is not as strong as it appears at first sight. It is quite difficult to construct many examples where the choice of mutation would cause any ambiguity, as places, nouns/adjectives and verbs are usually not found in identical phonetic form. There are a few well-known exceptions to this: for example, the difference between Mae Alun yn fyw ‘Alun is alive’ and Mae Alun yn byw ‘Alun lives’ is only marked by the SM of byw in the first example where it is behaving as an adjective, and the radical form in the second example where it is a verb. (The pair Mae Alun yn farw ‘Alun is dead’ and Mae Alun yn marw ‘Alun is dying’ work in the same way.) One example, however, where nouns and verbs do come in identical forms concerns the verb-nouns (see the discussion in Chapter 6 on the status of these). When these are behaving as verbs, in periphrastic constructions, they retain the radical after aspect marker yn; when behaving as nouns they undergo SM after complementizing yn. We can see the operation of this distinction as follows: Mae hwn yn canu ‘This (one) is [Vsinging]’ Mae hwn yn ganu ‘This is [Nsinging]’ (as in Mae hwn yn ganu da ‘This is good singing’). By and large, though, other potential ambiguities would result only from accidental similarities of phonological form between words whose context would easily disambiguate them even without the help of mutation.2 In this instance, the choice of mutation is clearly functionally guided (in the same way as grammatical case or intonation patterns etc. are functionally guided), and the correct mutation usage is required by the language; we only wish to point out that while contributing to the intepretation of the message, the mutation usage here is not the sole semantic mark as is sometimes implied. Finally, this example also comes up against what we term the ‘nonmutatable segment principle’ (‘all mutation triggers with semantic load lose that load with words beginning with a non-mutatable segment’), for example, Mae Alun yn neidio. Without knowledge that neidio is in fact a
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verb (‘to jump’) we would not be sure whether the yn in this example is a preposition, a complementizer or an aspect marker. The phrase translates as ‘Alun is jumping’, but it is not the mutation that tells us the meaning of yn. 8.1.2 Ei, ei, eu A second example often claimed to show the semantic function of mutation are the possessives ei ‘his’, ei ‘her’ and eu ‘their’. In many dialects these three are pronounced the same: [i], or in more formal contexts, the spelling pronunciation [=I] can be heard. In some northern dialects the form eu has the pronunciation [] or [=], which would disambiguate it from the other two. Ei ‘his’ triggers SM, ei ‘her’ triggers AM, while eu maintains the radical. Therefore, it is claimed, these three forms with identical (for most accents) pronunciation can only be told apart through the mutations they trigger. An example might be as follows: (8.1)
ei gath ‘his cat’
(8.2)
ei chath ‘her cat’
(8.3)
eu cath ‘their cat’
This appears most convincing, until we confront examples like: (8.4)
ei nain ‘his grandmother’
(8.5)
ei nain3 ‘her grandmother’
(8.6)
eu nain ‘their grandmother’
These appear to be totally ambiguous. It is only when we look at actual patterns of usage in both written and spoken Welsh do we see that normally (whether the mutation disambiguates or not) such constructions make use of a ‘copy-pronoun’ following the noun. It is much more likely, therefore, that (8.1)–(8.6) above would appears as: (8.1') ei gath ef ‘his cat’ (8.2') ei chath hi ‘her cat’ (8.3') eu cath nhw ‘their cat’
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(8.4') ei nain ef ‘his grandmother’ (8.5') ei nain hi ‘her grandmother’ (8.6') eu nain nhw ‘their grandmother’ Before we leave this example, however, it is worth pointing out that studies described in Ball (1984b, 1988b) and referred to in Chapter 9, suggest that many speakers are aware of the claimed semantic importance of mutation following the possessives, and actively seek to retain AM after ei ‘her’, where elsewhere it is being lost, because of this very claim. 8.1.3 Direct-object mutation In Chapter 6 we examined the debate concerning the best way of characterizing direct-object mutation, and we have no wish to reopen that debate here. However, in semantic terms this is an interesting mutation context, because it is often claimed that it is one of the few examples carrying a semantic load. The following type of example is usually given: (8.7)
Gwelodd Alun gi (←ci) saw+3sg Alun dog ‘Alun saw a dog’
(8.8)
Gwelodd ef gi (←ci) saw+3sg he dog ‘He saw a dog’
(8.9)
Gwelodd gi (←ci) saw+3sg dog ‘He/she saw a dog’
(8.10) Gwelodd ci saw+3sg dog ‘A dog saw’ These examples demonstrate that in inflected verb forms the pronoun subject can be omitted (as in (8.9)), with the inflection alone marking the subject. However, as Welsh is VSO (at least on the surface), any following object would be confused with the subject in cases like (8.9), unless that object were marked in some way. In the Welsh case, this
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marking is achieved by having SM triggered on all direct objects of inflected verbs (except impersonals). This allows us, crucially, to distinguish between (8.9) and (8.10); the latter does not show SM on the word ci, which therefore must be the subject and not the object of its sentence. However, the non-mutatable segment principle again comes into play: (8.11) Gwelodd nain saw+3sg grandmother ‘He/she saw grandmother’ or ‘Grandmother saw’ How does one get at the meaning of such utterances if the mutation does not help here? Part of the answer lies in the translation we offer for (8.11) and indeed for (8.9). Ambiguity already exists in verb forms where the third-person singular pronoun is dropped and the subject is carried by the inflection alone (i.e. is it masculine or feminine?). It is clear, then, that a pro-drop strategy can only be adopted where the previous context of utterance makes it clear what the subject is, and so the likelihood of confusion between potential subject and object is lessened. Also an examination of Welsh socio-linguistics shows that such subjectless utterances are generally restricted to formal and literary registers. Indeed, in spoken Welsh vernaculars it is increasingly the case that periphrastic verb forms are being used in preference to inflected ones, even in the simple past of the examples above. Such periphrasis avoids the trigger that causes SM on objects, as the examples below show: (8.12) Fe fuodd e’n gweld ci pt aux+3sg he pt see dog ‘He saw a dog’ (8.13) Fe fuodd ci’n gweld pt aux+3sg dog pt see ‘A dog saw’ As in the previous example discussed, object mutation has a crucial semantic load only in restricted circumstances: restricted by register, and restricted by mutatable consonants. Nevertheless, it clearly does have a very important part to play in signalling grammatical function (i.e. the direct object of an inflected verb), even if it is not always the only semantic marker of this constituent.
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8.1.4 Relativization A final example of potential semantic load that we can examine concerns relative clauses. These have occasioned a lot of interest among linguists, and are discussed from various theoretical standpoints in Awbery (1977), Harlow (1981, 1983), Sells (1983) and Tallerman (1990a) among others. There are two main markers of relativization in Welsh: a, which triggers SM, and y(r), which maintains the radical. While in less formal registers these particles are often omitted, the SM/ radical distinction is maintained. It might be thought that examples could arise where the use of the mutation or radical could be the only marker available to disambiguate types of relative clause. In fact, as we shall see, this does not happen, and indeed the system is open to ambiguity. The (a)+SM relatives (‘direct relatives’) are found when the position relativized on is subject or direct object of a finite clause, as in the following examples: (8.14) y dyn (a) _welais i the man pt saw+1sg I ‘the man that I saw’ (8.15) y dyn (a) _welodd fi the man pt saw+3sg me ‘the man that saw me’ The (y(r))+radical relatives (‘indirect relatives’) are found when the position relativized on is the object of a preposition, or is in a possessive NP, or when the position relativized is a noun denoting place, time, cause or manner. Examples include: (8.16) y dyn (y) siaradais i ag e the man pt spoke+1sg I with him ‘the man I spoke to’ (8.17) y dyn (y) gwelais i ei dy the man pt saw+1sg I his house ‘the man whose house I saw’ As can be seen from the above examples, the syntax of these two types is sufficiently different to make it very unlikely that the particles alone (and their mutation reflexes) will be the only signal of semantic difference between direct and indirect relatives. The nearest we can find are examples like:
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(8.18) y rheswm (a) ddefnyddiodd e the reason pt used+3sg he ‘the reason he used’ (8.19) y rheswm (y) defnyddiodd e siwgwr the reason pt used+3sg he sugar ‘the reason he used sugar’ Even here, however, the indirect relative requires an object, while the direct form requires no object. Interestingly, then, we have an example where the use of mutation plays a major part in marking a meta-principle of Welsh subordination: the opposition between direct and oblique subordinate clauses. It does not, however, play a purely semantic role in distinguishing, for example, subject and object. In fact, because of the nature of the direct relative, we can encounter examples where ambiguity occurs, and where the mutation system cannot help to disambiguate. Because the a particle is used where the position relativized on is subject or direct object of a finite clause, we have the potential for clash between subjects and objects. Consider: (8.20) y dyn (a) _welodd Alun the man pt saw+3sg Alun ‘the man who saw Alun’ or ‘the man who Alun saw’ It is possible to avoid this construction through the use of auxiliaries (see Jones and Thomas 1977:191), but nevertheless in non-periphrastic constructions it is often not possible to utilize any device such as mutation to clarify the meaning. However, Tallerman (1990a) claims that mutation can be used to disambiguate forms like those in (8.20). She notes examples where the final NP is indefinite (thereby lacking a determiner), where the direct object mutation marks whether this NP is an object or a subject: (8.21) y bachgen a _welodd gi the boy pt saw+3sg dog ‘the boy who saw a dog’ (8.22) y bachgen a _welodd ci the boy pt saw+3sg dog ‘the boy that a dog saw’ (Tallerman 1990a:300) Other examples are provided where determiners such as rhai ‘some’ also show the mutation of the direct object.
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Tallerman feels that the use of SM here, as in direct-object mutation in simple sentences, is an example of the semantic use of the mutation. She comments, ‘since mutation is grammaticalized in modern Welsh, rather than phonetically conditioned, it would be more surprising if its continued existence did not serve some role in the syntax: otherwise, why should any instances of mutation persist?’ (p. 301). This is, indeed, a good question, because, of course, as with the previous examples, SM cannot disambiguate those relative clauses where the relevant form does not begin with a mutatable consonant, or where SM is blocked by a determiner. As we noted above, the role played by the mutation here is, as Tallerman notes, a syntactic one: one of marking major subordination category, which can clearly conflict with purely semantic marking. We turn in the next sub-section to this problem of redundancy and the resilience of mutation. 8.1.5 The redundancy of mutations If all these claims for the semantic load of mutations are at best only partially valid, we might echo the comment of P.W.Thomas (1984: 234), which incidentally directly contrasts with Tallerman’s claim just referred to, ‘considering their [i.e. mutations] low information value and their marginality to the system…it might have been expected that they would have disappeared long ago’. In psycholinguistic terms, why are mutations still acquired by the first-language learner when their semantic load is so small; why are they retained by the adult speaker when (as we shall see below) they create complexities in lexical storage particularly at the probably more salient word-initial position? The answer is twofold. Firstly, as we shall see in Chapters 9 and 10, there is some evidence that in many vernaculars the least-used mutation types (AM and NM) are in fact suffering erosion, though the more common SM does not appear to be doing so and may indeed be increasing its triggers in some dialects. But the second answer is that although mutations may very well be semantically redundant, that does not mean they are not information-bearing, and there are many other features that are also redundant, but are still retained by languages. Examples from English include the third-person singular present-tense ending -s, the distinction between am, is and are in the verb to be, plural marking after numerals, and so on. If the child only learned those linguistic features with a high semantic function, then there would be major intergenerational language changes, and highly simplified systems emerging. That we do not see this may possibly be because the child is
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not able at an early stage to distinguish high information-bearing subsystems, from semantically redundant ones; nor, indeed, may the adult in any overt way. Alternatively, it could be assumed that syntacticosemantic functions exercised by such features are clearly important, and judgments of redundancy made on pure semantics grounds alone misleading. 8.2 SEMANTIC DISCRIMINATION IN PREPOSITIONS
8.2.1 Mutation of prepositions Prepositions in Welsh rarely occur in lexically triggered mutation contexts.4 One such context where they can occur is following a ‘and’, an environment where AM is triggered in Standard Welsh. Normally AM would only affect prepositions beginning with p, t or c, and should have no effect on word-initial g, as found in gan ‘with’, gyda ‘along with’. However, we find (in Standard Welsh, though rarely in the spoken vernaculars) when these prepositions do occur following a ‘and’, a change of initial from c to ch: (8.23) a chan Siân mae pedair cath and with S are four cat ‘and Siân has four cats’
(gan → chan)
(8.24) Daeth Pedr gyda Heledd a chyda phump came P along with H and along with five arall o ’i ffrindiau fe (gyda → chyda) other of his friends he ‘Pedr came with Heledd and with five other of his friends’ How, then, can we characterize this change? To list these different forms separately in the lexicon is uneconomical, and counterintuitive. Likewise, to class the ch-forms as allomorphic alternations of the g-forms ignores the similarity of these changes to other mutation changes in this triggering context. However, to extend AM to include /g/ → /x/, or to devise a new mutation just for these instances would again be difficult to defend. The most adequate account assumes an abstract underlying form of *can and *cyda, which provide the input to the AM rule after a, but elsewhere are subject to some kind of universal SM rule, changing /k/ → / g/, leaving us with gan and gyda. This account is supported by historical evidence for these two words (see e.g. Morris-Jones 1913:105–6; D.S.Evans 1964:190f.), though it
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should be stressed that such historical evidence is not a prerequisite for a theoretical account. Other prepositions also support this analysis: for example trwy ‘through’, tan ‘under’ and tros ‘over, across’ very often appear as drwy, dan and dros, though still usually giving thrwy, than and thros in AM contexts. Interestingly, these examples do still retain the ‘radical’ form, which has been lost by gan and gyda; we will return below to this point. We need to examine what kind of rule there could be that would be responsible for causing SM to the prepositions in environments other than following a (or other AM triggers). Such an SM trigger is probably simply part of a wider adverbial context (as listed in Chapter 1 as 23, see also the discussion in 7.4), whereby the initial element of an adverbial element is subject to SM. In modern usage, this appears restricted to time duration and measurement adverbials (see S.J.Williams 1980), though the evidence of certain lexical items suggests a wider use in former times. Examples include ddoe ‘yesterday’, from original doe, now rarely encountered in most forms of the language; and gartref ‘at home’, from cartref ‘home’. Prepositional phrases can normally be considered as adverbial elements in syntax, and this adverbial trigger naturally causes SM to occur on the preposition itself (as first element of the adverbial), thus giving gan, gyda, drwy, dan, dros from original *can, *cyda, trwy, tan, tros. It is interesting to note that when one of these prepositions follows a, although it is still the first word of an adverbial, the lexical mutation trigger is more powerful than the syntactic one (see 7.4); although the nouns we looked at above (e.g. ddoe and gartref) do not appear to follow this trend, perhaps because these forms have been fossilized (or, see 8.3, reradicalized). However, this mutation does not apply categorially; its use is variable (see Chapter 10 for accounts of variability in mutations). So we can get: (8.25) Bydda’ i yno ddydd Gwener nesaf will be I there day Friday next ‘I will be there next Friday’ alongside (8.26) Bydda’ i yno dydd Gwener nesaf where the word dydd ‘day’ is variably subject to SM. (This may be a regional feature, as suggested by S.J.Williams 1980, or dependent on register.) This variable behaviour is also found with some of the prepositions, as already remarked, in that, apart from the g-initial forms, we noted pairs of
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forms commencing with both radicals and SM reflexes. We turn below to look at the semantics of this distinction. 8.2.2 The semantics of preposition pairs Apart from the prepositions noted above, which are susceptible to both AM and SM, there are other prepositions that we can note that enter the SM process only: gwrth/wrth ‘against/by, with’, and *gwedi/wedi ‘after’. These pairs illustrate different extremes of historical development of the SM of prepositions, noted also above. With *gwedi/wedi (older spelling gwedy), the process of SM has been completed, in that the new form wedi is the only one found, even in AM contexts (where we might have expected gwedi, and where *can and *cyda re-emerge as chan and chyda). With gwrth/wrth, on the other hand, as with trwy/drwy, tan/dan and tros/dros, the two versions are retained. However, the process has gone even further with gwrth/ wrth than with the others just noted in that this pair is now considered to consist of two separate prepositions, with separate meanings, and gwrth is not found for wrth following AM triggers, in the way that than (← tan), for example, can be. This illustrates the development of semantic distinctions between those pairs of prepositions still retained in current usage. For gwrth and wrth, as just noted, this has reached a maximal extent; gwrth has a main meaning of ‘against’, and is frequently found as a prefix, for example gwrthwynebu ‘oppose’. Wrth has a bundle of meanings, including ‘by, with, next to’. While it is possible to see the semantic connection between them (‘against’ physically ? ‘against’ in an abstract sense), it is not possible to substitute one form for the other as it is still possible with the three other such pairs (at least for their basic meanings). Of the three prepositions trwy, tan and tros, it is only the SM forms of the last two that show semantic differences from the radical form: both trwy and drwy mean ‘through, by means of. With tan/dan there is a common meaning of ‘under’, while tan itself has the extra meaning of ‘until’, and dan is the form much more commonly found before verbnouns with the meaning of ‘while’. Finally, both tros and dros share the meaning of ‘over’, while dros is the more usual form found with the meaning of ‘on behalf of. We cannot be sure when the differentiation of meaning in these prepositions took place. Probably they ‘split’ in order to cover the wide range of meanings already established, rather than these meanings developing after some kind of split; we have no realiable information at
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our disposal to support this view or to suggest when this might have taken place, however. Clearly, these prepositions are a special case of the semantic load of mutation, but it is obviously not a productive system, rather an example of the fossilization of a syntactic mutation trigger, and the gradual emergence of semantic differentiation in a sub-set of a small group of items. 8.3 MUTATIONS AND THE LEXIS 8.3.1 Reradicalization The changed forms of prepositions that we have just examined can be thought of as examples of reradicalization. Reradicalization is a term that can be used to describe the process whereby the mutated reflex of the initial consonant of a particular lexical item is reanalysed as a radical. The lexical item can then appear in non-mutating environments with the ‘new’ radical, and, where possible, may also feed back into the mutation system producing ‘new’ mutation reflexes. This process is not common, but can be illustrated with an example often quoted as partaking in it (see Willis 1986:44): pobl ‘people’; under SM this yields bobl (/p/ → /b/). For some speakers, bobl has become the new radical, and (it seems more rarely) can appear as fobl in SM contexts (/b/ → /v/). Other examples noted include cegin ‘kitchen’ being reradicalized as gegin (though personally we have never encountered an SM reflex of this, which would be: ?*-egin). An explanation for this process would rely on the commonness of certain words occurring in mutation (in these cases, SM) contexts, and a converse rareness of their occurring in non-mutating contexts. This is especially prone to happen with those feminine nouns that usually cooccur with the article (e.g. y gegin ‘the kitchen’ is the commonest way of referring to one’s own kitchen). As the radical is rarely heard, speakers reanalyse the word (though whether they assume a gender shift as well is untested, but unlikely). The next step of remutating this new radical has not often been recorded, but, as noted above, is potentially possible with some initial consonants. Situations can arise where it is unclear whether reradicalization has taken place, or a ‘wrong’ mutation triggered. For example, ei bobl hi ‘her people’, has either a reradical initial /b/, thus not subject to the AM triggered by ei ‘her’, or the incorrect triggering of SM on radical initial /p/ instead of AM, either as a performance error (through the influence of ei ‘his’ (+SM)) or as part of a general
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breakdown of the AM system (see Chapter 10 ). Only examination of the subject’s wider usage patterns can illuminate this, for example an occurrence of ei fobl e ‘his people’ would confirm that reradicalization has taken place. 8.3.2 Lexical blocking We have been assuming up to now that mutations operate on all lexical items that come within an appropriate triggering context. There are however, exceptions to this generality: some to do with specific items, others with classes of items. Among specific items that ‘block’ the operation of a mutation trigger we can list the following: (a) braf ‘fine’. Only mutation context in which it appears: SM; never mutates. (b) bod ‘to be’. Inflected forms following the negative particle ni variably take SM or radical. (c) mor ‘as’. Never mutates. (d) -s d-. Feminine nouns ending in -s followed by adjectives beginning with d- variably take SM or radical; for example, nos da ‘good night’, ewyllys da ‘good will’, ynys ddu ‘black island’. (See S.J.Williams 1980:30.) Among the classes of items that block mutations we can note the following: (e) Personal names. Unlike the Goidelic languages, Welsh does not normally apply any mutations to personal names. This is generally the rule with first names: dros Dafydd ~ *dros Ddafydd ‘on behalf of Dafydd’; though the names of families can be subject to mutation: dros Domosiaid Y Bala ‘on behalf of the Thomas’s of Bala’. The names of books are also usually not mutated, though journals can be: yn ‘Crwydro’r Cledrau’ ‘in “Crwydro’r Cledrau”’, but yng Nghymro’r wythnos hon ‘in this week’s “Cymro”’. (f) Place-names. Place-names generally take mutation: for example, Caerdydd, i Gaerdydd, yng Nghaerdydd, a Chaerdydd ‘Cardiff, to Cardiff, in Cardiff, and Cardiff. Place-names from outside Wales generally only mutate if there is either a Welsh version of the name, or where the name is considered to be common enough to be brought into the system; this last distinction is not always easy to make, and so some ‘foreign’ places are variably subject to mutation. Examples:
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Caeredin, i Gaeredin ‘Edinburgh, in Edinburgh’; Paris, ym Mharis ‘Paris, in Paris’; Brwsel, o Frwsel ~ Brussels, o Brussels ‘Brussels, from Brussels’; Timbucktoo, yn Timbucktoo ~ ?*yn Nhimbucktoo ‘Timbucktoo, in Timbucktoo’.5 (g) g-initial borrowings. Whereas most borrowings (though see also (h) below) do enter into the mutation system, some borrowings beginning with g tend not to be subject to SM. SM changes /g/ → Ø, and it is clearly felt that these borrowings do not ‘sound right’ with the g deleted. Thus we have gêm, y gêm, ‘game, the game’, not *yr-êm. (h) Nonce borrowings. Nonce borrowings, that is, not established borrowings but borrowings made on the spur of the moment by a particular speaker to fill a momentary lexical gap, are variably subject to mutation, perhaps reflecting the degree to which the borrowing is felt to be ‘natural’ or integrated by the speaker. Martin Jones (1980) quotes the following two examples: (8.27) mae popeth yn barochial iawn yma is everything pt parochial very here ‘everything is very parochial here’ (8.28) ’d’wy’n compulsive eater am pt compulsive eater ‘I’m a compulsive eater’
(+SM, p → b)
(radical, k → g blocked)
With the exceptions noted above, mutations are generally categorial. This does not mean, however, that all speakers always use all of them. As we shall see in Chapter 10, there is a great deal of variability in actual usage patterns of mutations as compared to the patterns supposed for the standard language. Some of this variability is due to performance errors, but other examples are due to different systems of mutation usage that exist in the non-standard, or vernacular forms of the language. 8.4 AMBIGUITY 8.4.1 Mutation and homonymy In the first section of this chapter we examined those areas where the mutation system might have a semantic load; that is to say, might have been responsible for maintaining contrasts otherwise lost. In this final section we will look at the opposite: those instances where the operation of mutation leads to ambiguity between otherwise distinct forms. In doing
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this we will concentrate on SM, though we will also note ambiguity involving AM and NM. Much of the following discussion is based on Ball (1990a). It might be thought that a system such as SM could result in large-scale production of homonymic clashes. By and large, however, those consonants that become new initials through the operation of SM are themselves subject to SM (such as /b, d, g/) or occur extremely rarely or not at all as radical initials (such as /v, ð, l, r/). There are some exceptions to this. Firstly, the change /g/ to Ø produces potential homonymic clashes in that words with radical /g/ can be confused with those which are radically vowel-initial (which do not undergo any SM changes). Examples of these include: (8.29) garth ‘enclosure, hill’ —arth ‘bear’ (8.30) galar ‘mourning’ —alar ‘surfeit’ It has to be acknowledged, however, that these examples would normally not be likely to be confused, as context would disambiguate them. Indeed, many potential homonyms of this type in Welsh do, in fact, constitute alternative radical forms of the same word, as in the following examples. (8.31) gallt, allt ‘hillside’ (8.32) gonest, onest ‘honest’ This last example is clearly a borrowing from English, and the g- form demonstrates back-formation, where the borrowers assume that the vowelinitial form must derive (through the application of SM) from an original form with g- (see Fowkes 1949). Problems can also arise with initial /gl/ and / /, as both will result in mutated initial /l/. An example of this is given in (8.33): (8.33) glo ‘coal’—llo ‘calf’ though again context will normally disambiguate. (Other /g/-initial clusters are also affected, but will not be discussed here.) Finally, and the problem we will concentrate on in this section, are the changes /b/ to /v/ and /m/ to /v/. This feature is discussed in the following subsection. Turning briefly to other mutations, Willis (1982:15) notes that the AM change /p/ → /f/ may produce a clash with initial radical /f/, which, of course, is not subject to AM. The other consonants subject to AM produce new initials (/Ø/ and /x/) which are not found as radical initials. The
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example she gives is the loss of contrast between ei ffair hi ‘her fair’ and ei phair hi ‘her cauldron’; naturally enough, there is little likelihood with this pair of real ambiguity, as context is virtually certain to distinguish them. With NM, two changes have a potential for producing ambiguity: / d/ → /n/ and /b/ → /m/. Examples include fy nant ‘my tooth ~ my brook’, from radical forms dant ‘tooth’ and nant ‘brook’; and ym mannau uchel Eryri ‘in the high places of Snowdonia ~ in the high peaks of Snowdonia’, from radical forms mannau ‘places’ and bannau ‘peaks’. This last example, at least, could perhaps cause genuine confusion. 8.4.2 Homonymic clashes with /b/ and /m/ As we have just noted, the operation of SM on radical word-initial /b/ results in the same new initial (/v/) as that on the radical initial /m/. This clearly has the potential to produce homonymic clashes. As with the previous examples with /g/ and vowel-initial words, these will normally be distinguished via context; see the examples below. (8.34) ban ‘peak’ —man ‘place’ (8.35) bodd ‘will, pleasure’ —modd ‘manner’ Although context will normally disambiguate, it is possible to imagine circumstances where both the examples in (8.34) and (8.35) could be confused. In particular, speakers may well be unsure whether bodd or modd is the radical form underlying the first part of the phrase fodd bynnag ‘however’, which demonstrates a permanent or ‘fossilized’ mutation, or in the phrases ei fodd e, meaning either ‘his manner’ or ‘his pleasure’ (see also Willis 1986:15). As with the back-formation noted for (8.30) above, so we find a similar process in borrowings from English starting with /v/. As Fowkes (1949:207–8), notes, an English loanword when first heard by a Welshman must often, in its context, have sounded to the latter as if it were a mutated form, especially if it began with a consonant such as v, e.g., which occurs in Welsh, when initial, only as the voiced mutation of b or m. Hence, in restoring what was thought to be the ‘radical’ sound, the Welsh speaker had to choose between two possible initial consonants.
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Fowkes gives examples of such borrowings, some of which are listed in (8.36)–(8.39) below, together with examples where the general confusion in this area has also affected loans beginning with b and m. (8.36) (8.37) (8.38) (8.39)
melfed ‘velvet’ becsio ‘worry’, from ‘vex’ mainc ‘bench’ basarn, baser ‘goblet’ from ME ‘mazer’
(/v/ to /m/) (/v/ to /b/) (/b/ to /m/) (/m/ to /b/)
8.4.3 Ambiguity in numerals There is, however, one homonymic clash which is not easily resolvable through context, and has potentially drastic results; further, it is likely to occur more frequently with the expansion of the registers in which Welsh is used (see contributions to Ball 1988b). This particular example involves the higher numerals miliwn ‘million’ and biliwn ‘billion’, both clearly borrowings from English. In contexts triggering SM, both these forms will be realised as filiwn, and, as they are both part of identical semantic fields, it might very well be impossible to disambiguate the resulting utterance. As the two forms have identical plural suffixes (miliynau/biliynau, lenited filiynau) the potential for confusion is expanded. However, gender provides some help in this instance. Miliwn is feminine while biliwn is masculine. This means that the only two numerals with the potential for triggering SM in Modern Welsh will not cause confusion when in combination with the two forms as we can see in (8.40) and (8.41) below: (8.40) un filiwn ‘one million’ —un biliwn ‘one billion’ (8.41) dwy filiwn ‘two million’ —dau filiwn ‘two billion’ The numerals saith ‘seven’ and wyth ‘eight’ are not included here, as in Modern Welsh they no longer trigger SM; indeed, S.J.Williams (1980) states that initial m was not affected by these numerals in any case. Nevertheless, expressions with mutated miliwn/biliwn in the singular or plural are quite possible to envisage, and some examples are given below. (8.42) (8.43) (8.44) (8.45)
llawer o filiynau o bobl ‘many millions/billions of people’ cant o filiynau o ddoleri ‘a hundred million/billion dollars’ mae ganddo filiwn ‘he has a million/billion’ gwelodd e filiwn ohonynt ‘he saw a million/billion of them’
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(8.46) gormod o filiynau o bunnoedd ‘too many millions/billions of pounds’ While (8.42), (8.43) and (8.44) could be avoided with an alternative construction (i.e. (8.42') sawl miliwn/biliwn o bobl (8.43') can miliwn/can biliwn o ddoleri, (8.44') mae miliwn/biliwn ganddo), an alternative, disambiguating form for (8.45) would require an explicit un ‘one’, altering the semantics slightly: (8.45') gwelodd e un filiwn /un biliwn ohonynt. Certainly, a plural numeral in (8.45) would be even more difficult to disambiguate: (8.45″) gwelodd e filiynau ohonynt ‘he saw millions/billions of them’. Finally, it is difficult to envisage an alternative, disambiguating form for (8.46). In the coverage of financial news, described in several programmes by the Welsh-language media, there is frequent reference to high numbers including billions as well as millions, so it is clear that in this register listeners cannot be certain as to which of ‘million’ or ‘billion’ would be the most likely meaning of filiwn in the expression Gwariodd y llywodraeth filiwn o bunnau ar y cynllun newydd ‘The government spent a million/billion pounds on the new scheme’. It might be argued that in today’s financial situation ‘billion’ is the most likely meaning. Examples of the confusion between miliwn and biliwn in scientific writing are given in Ball (1990c), but we can add here one example that has come to light since that publication. An article in the Welsh-language newspaper Y Cymro (20 February 1991, p. 5) includes the following in an account of the Queen’s wealth: ‘Y mae hi werth chwe mil chwe chant o filiynau o bunnau!’ (She is worth six thousand six hundred million/billion pounds!). The issue we have addressed here is, of course, a minor one, and we are not trying to imply that SM as a whole, or even in the specific case of /m/ and /b/, generally creates examples of homonymy. However, we have seen that in some cases problems do arise: problems that cannot always be solved through context.
9
The psycholinguistics of mutation
9.0 INTRODUCTION A process that affects the beginnings of words rather than the ends is, arguably, affecting the psychologically more salient part of the word. This type of process is not unique in the world’s languages, and we have noted mutation processes in other languages, apart from features such as the prefixes of Bantu languages. Nevertheless, there are several aspects of mutation as we have described it in Welsh that open up interesting psycholinguistic questions. First amongst these might well be how the system is learned in firstlanguage acquisition: at what stage of language development do mutations appear and do some triggers cause more problems than others? Secondly, we might ask what effect mutations have on word-recognition tasks undertaken by adult speakers, and, connected to this, how aware such speakers are of errors in mutation usage, as this might tell us to what extent certain aspects of the system are part of their linguistic repertoire. Finally, we might take evidence from slips of the tongue to see how the mutation system is integrated into other aspects of the linguistic system as a whole. These four aspects of the psycholinguistics of mutation are explored in the following sections, but there are, naturally, other areas of psycholinguistic interest that are not covered here: in particular, given the large number of child and adult second-language learners of Welsh, the acquisition of mutations in second language. Aspects such as this await detailed research on Welsh second-language learning to complement the gradually expanding work on first-language acquisition in the language.1 Another area of psycholinguistic interest is what happens to the mutation system in language breakdown: particularly in agrammatism and other types of aphasia. While Pilch
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(1976) has studied aphasia in Welsh, there are simply not enough examples of mutation usage (as pointed out by Willis 1986) for us to draw clear conclusions.2 9.1 FIRST-LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 9.1.1 The repetition test One of the earliest major accounts of the acquisition of Welsh as a first language appeared in Bellin (1984; though see also B.M.Jones 1984, 1985, 1988a), who looked specifically at mutation as one aspect of the language-learning process. To simplify the study of mutations, Bellin examined direct-object mutation only. This was an interesting choice, because, as it is clearly not one of the mutation types triggered by a lexical item, but relies on a broader syntactic frame (whether that be direct object or post-NP, see Chapter 6), it might be thought to be a more complex mutation type, and thus one learnt later. Also, investigating this mutation type allows us perhaps to make statements about the children’s sense of grammaticality, that other triggering environments (such as following a preposition) might not. Bellin notes that Gleitman, Gleitman and Shipley (1972) used a sentence-repetition test to investigate children’s sense of grammaticality. The task involved the repetition of a set of sentences, some of which were ungrammatical. It was found that older children made changes in sentences they found unacceptable, and so we can infer from this their sense of what forms followed grammatical rules. Bellin designed a similar repetition task for Welsh-speaking children involving sentences with potential direct-object mutation. These sentences were of two types: those where the target of the mutation was a noun, and those where the target was a verb-noun (see Chapter 6 for discussion of this term). He gives the following examples of these two types: (9.1)
Fe _wneith Mam de pt do+fut3sg mother tea ‘Mother will make tea’
(9.2)
Fe _wneith Mam dalu pt do+fut3sg mother pay ‘Mother will pay’
He also notes that the local dialect of the children involved in this investigation extended the use of periphrastic constructions such that the sentence type of example (9.1) would likely appear as:
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(9.3)
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Fe _wneith Mam _wneud te pt do+fut3sg mother do tea ‘Mother will make tea’
The effect of this is, of course, to restrict the rule of direct-object mutation in this dialect to verb-nouns, and to exclude nouns. Nevertheless, even if the informants convert all noun object examples to verb-noun objects, they are still retaining the trigger of direct-object SM and a target. It would also be interesting to see if the older children, having been exposed to the non-periphrastic forms through schooling, would be able to repeat examples in this format. Examples with verbs other than gwneud were also included, but even here the dialect would tend to convert the inflected verb to a periphrastic construction with gwneud, as in: (9.4)
Yfith Mair de drink+fut3sg M tea ‘Mair will drink tea’
(9.5)
_Wneith Mair yfed te do+fut3sg M drink tea
Bellin recruited five children for this experiment, aged 3;10, 4;4, 5;2, 5;11 and 6;8. All had begun full-time schooling through the medium of Welsh, and the home language was also Welsh. To simplify the test, Bellin used only the phonological alternations /p/ → /b/; /t/ → /d/; /k/ → /g/; and with the forms of gwneud ‘do’, /g/ → Ø. Sixteen sentences were used, eight of which were grammatically correct, eight containing errors in the use of SM on direct objects. Grammatical and ungrammatical sentences were paired in presentation. Three native speakers acted as judges for the transcription of the children’s utterances, and 100 per cent agreement was required before a consonant was noted as being different from that presented in the test sentence. Bellin (1976) lists the full results of this study, but here we can simply note the types of result that were encountered. The two youngest children regularly converted the test sentences to conform to the dialect pattern of periphrastic verb-phrase constructions, and while the form_wneud was used correctly mutated by these subjects, with other instances the verbs were not mutated. In those utterances where the direct object was a verb-noun, these children failed to apply the SM rule. With the three older children, there was more of a tendency to retain the syntax of the examples (i.e. to avoid conversion to periphrastic forms),
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and indeed to retain correct direct-object mutation, and even convert the ungrammatical sentences to soft mutation of direct objects. This was strongest in sentences from their own dialect (i.e. those with a verb-noun as direct object), but was found to varying degrees throughout the examples. One child in particular (5; 11) showed great consistency in the use of ‘correct’ mutation forms with all examples. Bellin concludes by suggesting that before the age of five, the rule for direct object mutation might be followed, but without a strong intuition. At around five years, not only do children have a strong linguistic intuition about the rule, but they can go beyond their own dialect in recognizing the domain of application for the rule. (1984:173–4) He feels, also, that these data add to the debate concerning the acquisition of language in children. They suggest, feels Bellin, that children learn early ‘an appreciation of the common structure in kinds of sentences that differ according to semantic criteria’ (p. 174). 9.1.2 The elicitation test Bellin (1988) describes another study of the acquisition of the mutation system in children’s Welsh. In this investigation, Bellin was particularly interested in any differences in developmental patterns between children in Swansea whose home language was Welsh, and those whose only exposure to the language was through Welshmedium schooling. Using these differences as a control, the final part of the study was to look at children brought up in London, whose home language was Welsh, but who were exposed only to English in all contexts outside the home, and to see which of the control groups they resembled most closely. Bellin devised an elicitation test of twelve items, using vocabulary deemed to be suitable for the ages involved (five to nine years). Each item was a short text of two or three sentences accompanied by a picture, with the final word of the text missing, and this had to be supplied by the subjects. The missing word was preceded by a possessive pronoun: ei ‘his’ (to produce an SM trigger), ei ‘her’ (to produce an AM trigger) and fy ‘my’ (to produce an NM trigger). Bellin gives an example of the type of text used, in this case to trigger potential NM: mae Dafydd a Siân yn cweryla. Mae Dafydd wedi torri tegannau Siân. Mae Siân yn gwaeddu: ‘Paid â chwarae gyda fy…’ (Dafydd and Siân
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are quarrelling. Dafydd has broken Siân’s toys. Siân shouts: ‘Don’t play with my…’) (1988:222) The target word here is tegannau ‘toys’, which under NM would appear as nhegannau. Other target words used included pen ‘head’, pwrs ‘purse’, te ‘tea’, cap ‘cap’, brawd ‘brother’, dillad ‘clothes’, drôr ‘drawer’ and menig ‘gloves’. The test was tape-recorded, and all utterances were transcribed and agreed on by two judges. Bellin (1988:223) gives the full results of this study for the children from English- and Welsh-speaking homes in Wales. His conclusion is that ‘both sub-groups improve with age but children from Welsh-speaking homes can be expected to keep a little ahead of the others on this particular set of items. However, only one or two of the items were implicated in this separation.’ The difference between the language background groups appears most marked at age eight, when the E (English) group scored a mean of 5 ‘correct’ mutations out of 12, while the W (Welsh) group scored 8; by age nine that gap had closed somewhat to just above 6 for the E group to just above 8 for the W. In terms of age, the interesting result is the fall (by more than 1 mean point) in mean scores for both W and E groups at age seven compared with age six, followed by a rise for both groups at age eight to a higher level than at age six. Without full details of precisely what happened for each target (e.g. was AM or NM replaced by SM), we cannot offer a satisfactory proposal to account for this change (it is not discussed by Bellin). However, it could be the pattern often encountered in language acquisition where a system is overregularized (in this case perhaps by the overextension of SM), and later exceptions to the system are ‘re-’ learnt. The results for the seven children from London homes were analysed in comparison with the Swansea children. Their results, contrasted with the relevant age groups, showed that they behaved in terms of mutation usage more like the W group than the E group, but that this difference was not significant. In examining the factors that distinguished the W and E groups of Swansea children, Bellin found that two items were mainly responsible for the differences in scores. These items were both clearly borrowings from English: te ‘tea’, and cap ‘cap’ (though pwrs ‘purse’ and drôr ‘drawer’ did not cause this problem). It is quite likely, as Bellin notes, that borrowings may somehow be more ‘immune’ to mutation with speakers who are dominant in the language from which the borrowing came, as they may
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likely not see the word as part of the Welsh system at all. Bellin notes research on Breton which supports this notion (Dressler and WodakLeodolter 1977). Bellin concludes (p. 224) that ‘the elicitation test established that the children undergoing a home-school language switch were improving with age in the production of mutated forms, in spite of the fact that formal teaching of such rules is neither practical nor part of the curriculum in bilingual schools’. Following the description of the elicitation test, Bellin describes a follow-up study of spontaneous speech produced by a sub-set of the Swansea children (one child from each age group, age six to nine). A game-playing procedure was adopted that prompted the children to use certain lexical items following personal pronouns. These contexts allowed direct comparison with the items produced from the elicitation test. The full results were reported in Bellin (1985). The general trends were interesting, in that all the six-year-old group had higher ‘correct’ scores in the formal elicitation test than the score of the six-year-old in the spontaneous situation. With the older children, the scores were generally reversed, in that the spontaneous situation showed higher scores than the elicitation test. Bellin feels that a potential explanation for these results may lie in the pervasive nature of the mutation system, which may require that it operates psycholinguistically as a separate level. At an early age (e.g. five to six), the tacit strategic knowledge of this system is triggered by the formal context of the elicitation test, and thus produces higher scores than in spontaneous speech, where for these children such knowledge is not triggered as it has yet to be integrated into their productive language capacity. On the other hand, older children have integrated this system, and therefore produce mutation naturally in spontaneous speech, while the formality of the test context may cause unease, and so disrupt the mutation system in production. 9.1.3 The development of NM in schoolchildren Hatton (1983, 1988) reports on a study undertaken on primary school pupils (ages seven to eleven) in a Welsh-medium school in Swansea. The purpose of the study was to examine patterns of usage of NM by the children, as observation had suggested that this mutation seemed to be an inconsistent feature of the language of the children. Hatton was especially interested in looking at the correlation between the use of NM and nonlinguistic factors, such as age, linguistic background and context of utterance (see Chapter 10).
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Hatton divided the children in the study into four groups according to their linguistic background: Group A (ten children), both parents local and Welsh-speaking; Group B (seven children), one parent local and Welsh-speaking; Group C (four children), English-speaking parents; Group CH3 (five children), at least one parent Welsh-speaking but from another area. The children were also divided into four age groups, according to the class they were in within the school, with class 1 having the youngest children (ages from seven) and class 4 having the oldest (up to eleven). The children were not divided into sex groups, and this variable was not investigated in the study. The NM triggers included were following fy ‘my’, following yn ‘in’ and following certain numerals with the words blwydd, blynedd, diwrnod, ‘year, years, day’ (see Chapter 1). The data were collected through the use of a linguistic questionnaire, administered as an interview, and through the collection of spontaneous conversations. The questionnaire consisted of two parts: a translation exercise, and a pattern-completion exercise. The conversations were between the investigator and the child, and included a picture-description exercise. In looking at the results for fy, Hatton found a surprising eleven different patterns used by the children. While some of these were clearly highly irregular, suggesting a second-language learning problem, several of the remainder were alternative patterns often encountered in vernacular adult speech (such as use of SM instead of NM, or use of a postposed pronoun instead of a possessive, thus obviating the need for any mutation). Interestingly, all the children used the standard fy+NM at least for some of the examples, while none used the pronunciation [?n], which is usually noted as the vernacular pronunciation for fy, all preferring the standard form [v=]. Generally speaking, the use of NM after fy was slightly higher in the pattern-completion task than in the translation tasks, while the conversation produced lower scores, quite considerably so for all groups except Group C. The age groupings also show an increase in the use of NM after this trigger with the increase in age, such that the oldest group in the questionnaire gave results in the high 90 per cents, when the lowest age group were only just scoring 50 per cent. For the different linguistic groups, the results for conversation were similar, apart from Group C as already noted. These results showed a usage of NM between 40 and 45 per cent. In the questionnaire, however, Group CH clearly scores highest (about 90 per cent), with B in the 70 per cents and A in the 60 per cents, and Group C in the 40 per cents.
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Hatton feels that the results show the children are aware of the formalizing effects of the data-collection methods, but that Groups A, B and CH show the difference between school Welsh and home Welsh in the choice or otherwise of NM, while Group C has school Welsh as its only model, and so shows little difference between formal and nonformal contexts. When looking at NM following yn, Hatton found that this trigger was far less established in the children’s speech than was fy. The three commonest variants were yn+NM, yn+radical, and yn+SM. In the questionnaire, there was little use of NM until class 3, and by class 4 it had reached 37 per cent. For all children the most common result was radical consonant (see also Chapter 10 for similar findings with adult speakers from this area), and even in class 4, radical occurred 50 per cent of the time. With the linguistic groupings, Group A used NM most (though only at a 17 per cent level); C was next, again reflecting the school norms and the absence of vernacular norms; CH followed, perhaps due to influences from outside the area, with B at 7 per cent the lowest scorer. The retention of the radical was again the most popular alternative for all these groups. In conversation the use of NM was even more infrequent. The only interesting feature was the score of 17 per cent by Group C (over twice as big as the next lowest score of Group CH), again reflecting the influence of school Welsh. The final area explored in this study showed quite a high recognition of the exceptional use of NM after certain numbers and with certain time nouns. Difficulties in analysis ruled out several subjects, so scores are not broken down into age or background groups. Overall, a fairly high score of 47.3 per cent was found for the use of NM in these expressions, while the retention of the radical consonant was scored at 46.8 per cent. Looking at the individual nouns, it was clear that NM was much more common with the nouns blwydd and blynedd (at 50 per cent and over), and much less frequent with diwrnod (7 per cent), which may be related to the fact that in the standard language, diwrnod is variably subject to NM. Hatton concludes by suggesting that her data suggest that, from a developmental perspective, NM increases in use markedly between the ages of seven and eleven, but that this development is earlier for fy than for yn. Further, her results show that children are influenced in their use of NM by degrees of formality, which in turn links into the difference between standard norms of mutation usage, and vernacular usage. Lastly, the linguistic background (i.e. first language vs second language) of the
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subjects determines to what extent these vernacular norms are accessible to the children. 9.1.4 Other studies D.G.Davies (1982) conducted an investigation into the usage of AM and NM in schoolchildren in Dyfed. The main purpose was to investigate children’s abilities to perceive and produce these mutations in written Welsh. The children investigated were in the last two years of primary school, and were divided into groups according to age and sex. There were ten older boys and four older girls, together with eleven younger boys and three younger girls. In the older group ages ranged from 11;0 to 11;6, in the younger from 9;7 to 10;5. A linguistic-background questionnaire was prepared together with two language tests. The first of these was a multiple-choice answer test. Here sentences were provided with one word in the sentence marked out as having three possible forms—only one being correct. For example: 1. farn 3. Yn fy 2. barn i, ofn yr hen ddywediad sydd arnynt. 3. marn’ [‘In my opinion, the fear of the old saying is on them’] (D.G.Davies, 1982: App. 4) The second test consisted of English sentences followed by the Welsh translation in a jumbled order with no mutations marked. The children had to ‘unscramble’ the Welsh version and mark the correct mutation. Both these aspects of the task were made clear to them. The results showed that for the multiple-choice test, the younger children scored better than the older, and the girls better than the boys. However, most surprisingly, no discussion follows as to why this should be, especially considering the unexpected nature of the age-group results. The re-arrangement test showed fairly good results in the task itself, but success in marking the mutation was generally low. Davies makes the valid comment ‘y mae’n bosibl fod y gwaith o atrefnu wedi mynd â bryd rhai o’r plant mor llwyr nes iddynt fethu sylweddoli yr angen i dreiglo’ (p. 59) (it is possible that the rearrangement task took so much of the children’s concentration that they failed to realize the need for mutation). Overall, in this second test, the older children performed better than the younger, and again the girls did comparatively better. Davies noted that linguistic background did not play a major role in the results, though on
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the whole children from English-speaking homes did not score so well. In conclusion she feels, ‘gellir casglu bod y plant yn ystod dyddiau ysgol yn gallu meistroli i raddau mwy neu lai y gallu i gynhyrchu treigladau mewn gwaith ysgrifenedig’ (p. 59) (we can conclude that children during school time are able to master, more or less, the ability to produce mutations in written work). However, to us, this conclusion is somewhat premature. The testing methods are open to criticism: the chance involved in multiple-choice procedures, and the two tasks involved in the re-arrangement test. If the results are looked at closely it can be seen that, over both tests and taking all the children together, an overall figure of only 40 per cent correct is achieved, and only the younger group in the multiple-choice test achieved a figure of 50 per cent correct. It may well be that the results of this study tell us more about the procedures than the ability of the children to use the mutation system. Ascott and Ball (1987) presented a preliminary study of various aspects of language proficiency in Welsh-English bilingual children, looking in particular at differences between children from Welsh-speaking and from English-speaking backgrounds. Nine children took part in the study, and all were taken from the top class in a Welsh-medium primary school in an urban area of south-east Wales. The age range of the children was 6;7 to 7;6. They were divided into three groups according to their linguistic background: WW where both parents were Welsh speakers, WE where one parent only was a Welsh speaker, and EE where both parents were English speakers. The groups were not balanced for sex: the WW and EE groups had one female each, the rest, and all of the WE group, were male subjects. The results, therefore, may be affected somewhat by this imbalance. The study was conducted by reading to each subject individually a story illustrated by a set of pictures. The child was then asked to retell the story using the pictures. This task was undertaken once in Welsh, and once in English (though different stories were used for each language). The child was recorded retelling the story, and these recordings later transcribed. The analysis of the data reported in Ascott and Ball concentrated on aspects such as mean length of utterance, and measures of syntactic complexity to do with verb phrases and noun phrases, and the comparison of the groups across the two languages. However, there was also an ‘error analysis’ section, which, among other features, looked at mutation usage in the Welsh stories. The largest number of errors noted
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occurred with the mutations. Most commonly, these were simply omitted; however, also included in this heading was an example of an unnecessary mutation, and a non-mutated word being ‘unmutated’ (in this instance the word drws, ‘door’ was reinterpreted as being the mutated reflex of a non-existent form *trws, which form was the one used). Calculated as percentages of total possible mutation usage, it appears strange that the EE group are clearly ‘better’ mutation users at 35.6 per cent errors, than the WE group at 58 per cent, and even slightly ahead of the WW group at 38.6 per cent errors (indeed, this group had one individual with no errors alongside an average of the other two at 58 per cent). This has to be explained sociolinguistically. Teachers lay great stress on ‘correct’ (i.e. standard) mutation usage; however, as we discuss in Chapter 10, first-language speakers consistently replace certain mutation contexts by non-mutation, or certain AM and NM contexts by SM. It would appear, then, that the WW and WE speakers are reflecting vernacular norms to some extent, whereas the EE subjects are reflecting classroom language norms (see also Hatton’s results in the previous sub-section). It may also be, as in Bellin’s study reported in 9.1.2 above, that for the EE subjects the tacit strategic knowledge of the mutation system is triggered by the nature of the task, whereas the WW and WE speakers treat the task more as spontaneous speech. A major study of the acquisition of Welsh undertaken at University College Aberystwyth has recently begun to publish some of its findings (e.g. B.M.Jones 1988b, 1990a, c). As far as mutations are concerned, however, we have yet to see any detailed results from this study. Jones’s (1988b) study looks at discourse acts undertaken in spontaneous speech by five-year-olds, and does not specifically mention mutation usage. Nevertheless, it is possible, by examining the transcripts provided, to see that these children are, in fact, using a wide range of mutation contexts, and that generally speaking SM is used as we might expect, but AM is not. Examples from the transcripts are as follows: I:
paid â cym’yd rhai fi off y rhaw. nei di ddweud wrtho fo, Mr Jones? ‘Don’t take mine off the spade. Will you tell him, Mr Jones?’ (B.M.Jones 1988b:177)
Here, the AM following â was not triggered (i.e. cym’yd occurred rather than chym’yd), but SM was triggered after nei di to give ddweud from radical dweud. However, SM also displays some irregularities of use:
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R: beth am mynd i neud castelle? ‘What about going to make castles?’ (B.M.Jones 1988b:180) Here, the SM following am was not triggered (i.e. mynd occurred rather than fynd). No examples of potential NM were included in the transcripts. Without a detailed examination of mutation usage, such data, while supporting the findings we have already referred to in this chapter, cannot be considered very firm evidence. Jones’s (1990c) study is particularly concerned with the use of pronouns in the speech of three- to seven-year-olds. As has been made clear, possessive pronouns are important triggers of all three ICM types in Welsh, and while Jones is not concerned with a direct account of the development of mutations here, he does discuss them as part of his description of possessive-pronoun development in noun phrases and verbnoun phrases (‘verbnoun phrases’ in his terminology; see also VNP in Rouveret 1990). In describing various different types of Pron+NP/ Pron+VNP in his child-language data, he notes that four of these types retain the use of mutation (with or without the possessive pronoun and the copy pronoun), while three types do not retain the mutation. Those not using any mutation are clearly marked as non-standard according to Jones. He concludes that his data show ‘that the usage of the children is based primarily on the nonstandard variants and, in particular, on the muchmaligned use of a posthead personal pronoun [i.e. copy pronoun] only’ (p. 64). He also notes that the non-standard variants are particularly high with the three-year-olds, which fits in well with what we have reported earlier, as the emergence of regular mutation use around five. (See also B.M.Jones 1990a.) It has to be recognized that this last study was not directly aimed at mutations, but rather at a set of similar constructions, where mutation use can be avoided through the syntax rather than ignored. The results, therefore, are not strictly comparable with other studies we have described. 9.2 ERROR RECOGNITION 9.2.1 Problems with imitation tests As we noted in 9.1 above, sentence-imitation tasks have been used to investigate a subject’s sense of grammaticality, or linguistic competence, and we described in that section work by Bellin (1984) on child
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language. However, one of the problems we noted with that investigation was the conversion of test sentences under the influence of dialectal differences. This sort of test, therefore, is open to failure if the subjects repeat a significantly altered response that avoids using the feature under investigation due to regional or stylistic variation, yet is still grammatical. It might also be argued that, whereas this kind of task works with children, adults would not make such good subjects. They would perhaps be too likely to repeat completely what was said, even if they had noted mistakes (see for example Ball 1981:14). Wolfram and Fasold (1974) also criticize this sort of test, noting that ‘if an utterance is short enough, an informant may be capable of mimicking it whether it is part of his competence or not’ (p. 59). They also point out the problem of length, noting that conclusions cannot be drawn on the basis of the few examples of a variable likely to be included in a test short enough to be used easily. As a way of avoiding the drawbacks of the imitation test, it has been suggested (Bellin, personal communication) that an error-recognition test may be devised. This would entail recording a list of sentences: some containing ‘errors’, some correct; these ‘errors’ being the non-standard variant of the variable under consideration. The tape would then be played to the subjects, who would be asked to note any errors they heard. It is argued that speakers who seldom use the standard variant of a particular variable would be less likely to note the ‘error’ of non-standard usage. However, the narrowing of concentration required in a task like this, coupled with the knowledge that errors were likely, would seem to suggest that, as long as the subjects had access within their linguistic repertoires to the standard usage of the mutations, such a test would yield high scores of error recognition throughout. This, then, implies that a low score could point to features not well etablished in a speaker’s competence. An errorrecognition test is therefore a test of competence rather than of performance. The study described in the following section is based largely on Ball (1985). 9.2.2 An error-recognition test of mutations It was decided to investigate this proposal further, looking at ICM in Welsh, concentrating on the use of AM and NM as studies have shown these to demonstrate the highest degree of variability in usage in a wide range of dialects (see Chapter 10). A list of sentences was constructed, some with errors and some without. The errors covered usage of AM and NM, a few examples of SM
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being replaced by radical and radical replaced by SM (as a control, to see whether the commonly used mutations were recognized by the subjects) and a few extra unrelated errors as distractors. Under AM, the basic ‘error’ is non-usage (i.e. replacement by the radical); however, substitution of SM for AM in negative verbs was included (e.g. ches i ddim → ges i ddim ‘I didn’t get’), as this appears to be a common non-standard usage, no doubt through analogy with SM on negative verbs apart from those with initial / p, t, k/ (see Chapter 1). Under NM was included substitution of SM for NM, and radical for NM. The environments chosen for AM and NM, and the errors included were: AM 1 a ‘and’: AM replaced by radical 2 tri ‘three’: AM replaced by radical 3 â ‘with’: AM replaced by radical 4 na ‘nor, than’: AM replaced by radical 5 ei ‘her’: AM replaced by radical 6 negative verbs: AM replaced by SM NM 7 yn ‘in’ + common nouns: NM replaced by radical 8 yn ‘in’ + common nouns: NM replaced by SM 9 yn ‘in’ + proper nouns: NM replaced by SM (All these non-standard forms are found in the vernaculars but are not necessarily the only non-standard variants found.) The complete list of sentences, in the order they were recorded, is given in Ball (1985), but as examples of the types of sentence used, see the following: (9.6)
Yn yr_ardd roedd criw o blant a *cwn yn chwarae (cwn < chwn) AM → rad ‘In the garden was a group of children and dogs playing’
(9.7)
Mae Siân wedi rhoi’r llyfr yn focs Mrs Jenkins (focs < mocs) NM → SM ‘Siân has put the book in Mrs Jenkins’s box’
Example (9.6) shows the replacement of standard AM following a ‘and’ by the radical consonant, while (9.7) demonstrates the replacement of standard NM following yn ‘in’ by SM. The sentences were recorded on tape and were played to eight subjects (four males and four females), who were requested to mark on an answer sheet whether the sentence was correct or incorrect or whether they were uncertain. If incorrect, they had to note what the
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incorrect item was. Time was left after each sentence to allow this. The subjects were all first-language Welsh speakers, aged between thirty and forty. No major dialect differences were noted, and all had been educated in standard Welsh. 9.2.3 Results of the error-recognition test The results were analysed into the different types of error, and correct sentences were also looked at to see if any non-existent ‘errors’ were claimed. Errors that were correctly claimed had all been correctly assigned to the relevant lexical item. Table 9.1 shows the results for the eight subjects. Differences between male and female subjects were slight, as can be seen in Table 9.2, where figures are given for the correct identification of the sixteen error sentences. The results in Table 9.1 certainly do show a difference between the ability to spot errors involving AM, and other errors. Within AM itself, ei ‘her’ seems to be easily spotted when used incorrectly (the semantic load of this particular trigger has been commented on previously, e.g. Chapter 8); other AM triggers are noted only just over half the time. This corresponds with findings on variation in the usage of AM reported in Chapter 10. However, the NM, although also being described as variably used, commanded a high error-recognition figure. The results of the error-recognition test are certainly interesting from a psycholinguistic perspective. They suggest that AM and NM are treated separately in terms of linguistic competence, although superficially they are both variables in the definition of the sociolinguist. This sort of test, then, together with the more straightforward counting of occurrences of variants, is a way of determining the status of different variables in the competence of the speaker. If the ‘correct’ or prestige variant of a variable consistently gains low scores on an errorrecognition test, it could well be argued that it has an insecure status in the speaker’s competence; high-scoring prestige variants, on the other hand, are likely to be part of the speaker’s competence, even if, for sociolinguistic reasons, they may not appear consistently in that speaker’s performance. 9.3 WORD RECOGNITION 9.3.1 The psycholinguistics of lexical organization An area that has long interested psycholinguists is how lexical items are organized in the mental lexicon, and in particular the relationship between
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Table 9.1 Results of the error-recognition test
Table 9.2 Male and female scores in the error-recognition test
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morphological variants of a word. The question that has been posed is whether these morphological variants share a common lexical representation, or whether there are separate representations for each (or indeed, both). We need, of course, to clarify precisely what is meant here by morphological variation. Two main factors have been investigated. Firstly, there is the difference between inflectional morphology and derivational morphology, for example write ~ writes and good ~ goodness; and secondly, there is the difference between external affixation and internal affixation, for example walk ~ walked and run ~ ran (see also discussion in 7.2). Lexical theory has long supported the view that inflectional morphological variants at least, whether regular affixing or otherwise, are part of the same underlying word, or as Matthews (1974) terms it, lexeme. From a psycholinguistic viewpoint, the question is whether this theoretical grouping of variants together is reflected in how the variants of the lexeme are actually represented: are they accessed and generated from a single representation or not? As Boyce et al. (1987) put it, are there ‘any constraints on the kind and degree of phonological likeness, or the kind and degree of functional relationship, which in and of themselves exclude certain words from participating in such morphologically based groups’? (p. 420). Clearly, if such constraints could be illustrated, this would add to our knowledge of the psycholinguistics of lexical organisation. Boyce et al. point out that in cases such as English pour ~ pouring functional and formal factors coincide, such that it is not really possible to separate them. Other, less regular forms, however, do give us the opportunity to investigate this area. Such irregularities may be formal (i.e. phonological form), such as shake ~ shook, or functional such as form ~ formal, where the phonological change is transparent, but the semantic relationship between the two forms is not straightforward. The logogen model of Morton (Morton 1969, 1970, 1979; Kempley and Morton 1982) assumes that the input lexicon has a set of receptors which fire on recognizing the stimulus of an incoming signal. It is further assumed that for a word such as poured there are two receptors: one for pour and one for -ed. Naturally, the receptor for pour is also shared by forms such as pouring, pours and pour. In this model, and other similar models (see references in Boyce et al.), the lexicon is considered to be modelled by shared recognition units, of the type we have demonstrated with pour. Such a model of the lexicon, however, suggests that irregular phonological forms, such as shake ~ shook or decide ~ decision do
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not enter into the system of shared recognition units, as they are phonologically too distinct, and do not share a common phonological unit. Other models of the lexicon, where irregular morphological variants are permitted to share the same base form, with form-altering stored rules, are not supported by perceptual experimental evidence (see Kempley and Morton 1982; Stanners et al. 1979). If we consider languages other than those with largely regular affixing morphology (such as English is), we find a variety of patterns that do not seem to fit into the model just described. Boyce et al. point out that these include examples of infixation (e.g. Tagalog), consonantal roots (e.g. Arabic, Hebrew), or vowel mutation (e.g. German strong verbs). With languages of this kind we have to ask how the lexicon is organized. Boyce et al. note that ‘if continuity and separability are essential to lexical organization, related morphemes in these languages will behave like separate words. Conversely, if the related morphemes in these languages behave like regular affixed forms, then it would seem that lexical structure can be adapted to accomodate the various kinds of regular grammatical alternations found in the world’s languages’ (p. 422). This brings us back to the dichotomy referred to above: is it form or function that dominates in lexical organization? The predominant method of testing this area has been the repetition priming paradigm. As Boyce et al. describe it, ‘this technique relies on the fact that if a word is presented twice to a subject it is recognized more easily, and faster, on the second repetition’ (p. 422). In testing lexical organization and morphological variants, two morphologically related, but different, tokens are presented, and a measure made of the ‘extent of facilitative influence from the first presentation (prime) to the second (target)’ (ibid). The logogen model would predict that morphologically related forms would prime each other, as the base form has already been accessed recently and would not have to be ‘fired up again from cold’. Experiments on English, reported in Boyce et al. show that regular morphological variants do prime each other, to a slightly lower degree than do same words (e.g. poured ~ pour as opposed to pour ~ pour). However, irregular forms such as shake ~ shook or worse ~ bad, show no or only partial priming. The conclusions regarding derivationally related word forms, and semantically related but phonologically distinct word forms are somewhat unclear. It appears that a certain amount of priming does occur in these cases, suggesting a semantic link in the lexicon between certain words, but as it is not as strong as phonologically
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regular inflectionally related forms, it suggests there is no shared base form. However, Stanners et al. (1979) argue that the differences between inflectional and derivational morphology in English is attributable to the fact that derivational morphology nearly always involves some degree of irregularity: either phonological (e.g. divide ~ division) or restricted distribution (e.g. -ive is only attachable to a sub-set of verbs), or functional/semantic (e.g. form ~ formal), or combinations of these factors. It would therefore prove important in an analysis of how morphological variation is structured in the lexicon to look at a language where a change in form (as opposed to affixation) is associated with complete regularity (in the sense we have just discussed). As Boyce et al. point out, Welsh, and specifically the mutations of Welsh, provide such an example. 9.3.2 Lexical organization in Welsh ICM in Welsh is clearly a regular process of morphological variation, but nevertheless we cannot posit a regular base form onto which mutations are affixed. We can illustrate this in the following way: the radical pont ‘bridge’, can appear in mutated forms as bont, phont or mhont (SM, AM, NM respectively). These differences are not only phonologically regular (in that all p-initial words behave the same way), but also apply to all words in the particular mutating context. However, the only part of each form which is in common between these variants is -ont, which is not, of course, a free-standing form, or even (in traditional terms) a bound morpheme. As Boyce et al. (1987) note, we can use the mutation system to investigate whether a shared continuous base form is required for words to share a lexical entry, or whether the main factor is regularity of the paradigm. In comparison with English, we are asking whether the forms pour ~ poured prime each other because they share a base form pour, or because the affix, or paradigm, is regular. A series of experiments involving radical, SM and AM forms of sets of Welsh words is described by Boyce et al. The initial experiments were designed to look at the role of the change in form in priming in Welsh. Clearly, full or strong priming would indicate that it is not necessary to have a shared continuous base form to claim a single lexical entry or recognition unit. The researchers also looked at whether there was any difference between priming of base forms by mutated forms and vice versa. This was intended to examine the claim of Stanners et al. (1979) that irregular inflections, while not sharing a
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single entry, have separate but closely related entries. Any asymmetry in the results in mutations, therefore, could be taken as supporting this view. The final experiment examined if there were differing recognition rates for different mutation types. Psycholinguistic research reported in Boyce et al. has long maintained that the initial portion of a word is highly salient, and has a special status in word recognition. If this is so, how are mutatable words recognized? If there is a ‘short-list’ process of word recognition triggered by the initial segment(s) of a word (see Boyce et al. 1987:427), and if all mutated forms are found to belong to a single lexical entry, in which short-list would the set pont, bont, phont belong? If, as would appear obvious, it is in the pinitial short-list (though see arguments in 5.4.2 for SM as the base form), this would argue for extra complexity in the processing of the mutated reflexes. The experimenter used fifty-six first-language Welsh-speakers as subjects for their experiments. A series of words in radical, SM and AM forms were recorded, and played back to subjects in noise created to match the amplitude envelope of the signal. Subjects heard a pre-test to ensure a noise level appropriate for each subject. They then had a priming list of tokens played to them twice (but in different, randomized order), and finally the target list. To ensure attention was given to the tokens on the priming tape, subjects had to note for each item its supposed frequency in spoken Welsh on a scale of 0–100. About five minutes after the completion of this task, the subjects were presented with the list of target tokens, and requested to write down the entire phrase they heard, which included the target word. The three experiments undertaken supported the notion that mutation-related variants of a word do all share a single lexicalrecognition unit. Boyce et al. state ‘that morphological variants, in order to prime each other (1) do not need to be concatenative (affixal); (2) do not need to share an unmodified base form; and (3) do not need to share an initial consonant’ (p. 441), this means that models of lexical access and organization such as the logogen model referred to above are not supported in their claims over how single entries are constrained. The initial experiments not only found strong priming between forms related by mutation, but also found no difference between priming by the base, radical form, and priming by mutated forms, thus not upholding the views of Stanners et al., referred to above on separate but related entries. The final experiment did find a difference in priming between the mutation types (with AM forms
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recognized less well than radical and SM), even with the group of non-mutatable words included in this experiment. This suggests that the difference is not phonological, but related to the syntactic context itself, or perhaps to the decreased use of AM in vernacular speech (see Chapter 10). The conclusion that Boyce et al. are drawn to is that a model of the lexicon must contain two separate dimensions: ‘a lexical dimension that accesses a single entry for each set of…morphological variants, and a morphological dimension that accesses the morphophonological classes of BASE, SOFT, or ASPIRATE [and of course NASAL]’ (p. 441). These two entries are shown to be autonomous by the fact that even the non-mutating words in the final experiment entered into the differences found between the mutation types. This approach also allows us to associate with the different mutation classes different degrees of recognizability, again to account for the difference between AM and SM, and BASE in the final experiment. The study is concluded by an investigation of how the single lexical entry is to be modelled phonologically, in other words, how are we to get around the ‘short-list’ problem with an unstable initial segment. Boyce et al. turn to an autosegmental solution (see 5.3), with an underspecified initial and a floating autosegment, though they also make use of Griffen’s (1985) ideas on process strength (see Chapter 3). This, they claim, brings about a phonological account that is close in many respects to current approaches in the area of ‘connectionism’ or ‘parallel distributed processing’. We have already noted in Chapter 5 some of the disadvantages of autosegmental accounts of mutations, but alternatives (such as underspecified lexical entries along the lines of Sproat 1986) would doubtless also fit into the account of lexical organization proposed in this study. Though this study shows that in word recognition the mutated forms can all be linked within the lexicon, this does not preclude us from looking outside the lexicon into morphological, syntactic and phonological components of the grammar for descriptions of how the entire system operates, as was done in Chapter 7. 9.4 SLIPS OF THE TONGUE 9.4.1 Speech-error research The study of speech-error data within (psycho-)linguistics was given impetus by the writings of Fromkin in the early 1970s and after (see
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e.g. Fromkin 1971, 1973, 1980). Spontaneously produced speech errors recorded by observers (as opposed to potential errors, not so recorded—see Bierwisch 1982) are clearly important data against which to test linguistic and psycholinguistic models of language production (see also Cutler 1982 on the problems of recording errors). Such models must be able to account not only for non-error speech, but for these speech errors: both different types of errors and how they come about. Speech errors are of many different types. Some involve phonological processes, such as the so-called spoonerisms. A typical example might be where the first segment or segments of one word are exchanged with the first segment(s) of the following word. Clearly, it is examples of this type that would interest us in the case of ICM in Welsh, and we return to this in 9.4.2 below. Other errors may involve the lexicon, where a wrong, but similar (usually phonologically similar) word is exchanged for the target, or where a nonsense word is used blended out of two possible words (see Bierwisch 1982, amongst many others). Errors connected with syntax, syntactic complexity, and ordering are also possible, and are discussed by Bierwisch (1982); see also the review of the field in Fromkin (1988). Cutler (1988) addresses the problem of errors whose linguistic source is difficult to ascertain, because disruption to more than one part of the speech-production process could have caused them. As an example of this difficulty she gives instances where anticipation of a word later in an utterance causes it to be brought in too early instead of the intended target. However, the target and the error also share many phonological characteristics, so it is unclear whether the error is due to timing, phonological interference or both. Returning to the phonological switching of the type found in spoonerisms, we can use data of this sort to look at where in the speechproduction process certain morphophonological processes are undertaken. In particular we can examine what have often been termed phonetic realization rules, or phonetic adjustment rules. Meara and Ellis illustrate this with examples from English; in these examples ‘I’ stands for the intended target utterance, and ‘E’ for the actual, error, utterance. I:
a houseful of cats /s/ E: a catful of houses /Iz/ I: prongs of a fork /z/
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E: forks of a prong /s/ (Meara and Ellis 1982:243) If we can assume that the error of switching between the words in the above examples happens relatively late in the production process (the words themselves have to be ‘in place’ before the error can occur), then we can confirm from these examples that phonetic adjustment rules are even later than the error process. This is plain because the phonetic shapes of the plural morphemes required in the targets above are not those found in the errors: the plurals have been adjusted for the new shape of the error word. The following sub-section will examine this area in relation to Welsh mutations. 9.4.2 Slips of the tongue and mutations Meara (1981) and the expansion of that study, Meara and Ellis (1982), examine speech-error data from Welsh with particular concentration on ICM. The authors spent just under two years collecting data from Welsh, and from this a total of only nine errors was found, most containing mutating contexts. It is of interest that so few examples emerged, and it may well be that certain languages are less prone to speech errors than others (see the discussion of Hindi in Ohala and Ohala 1988). As Meara and Ellis conclude, ‘it seems possible that the additional processing involved in mutation may provide extra opportunities for…covert error detection and correction’ (p. 249). The nine mutation speech errors collected by the authors fell into several sub-groups. The simplest contained no potential mutation, and involved a straightforward exchange of initial consonants. Three more contained exchanges where one word could be subject to mutation (in fact, in one of these the mutation—SM—had been missed, though this is not noted by the authors), and the exchange involved the already mutated consonant with no accomodation after the exchange. All these examples had the potential mutation on the second of the two words, and can be illustrated with the following example: cost y bont /k/ /b/ Tr: ‘the cost of the bridge’ E: bost y cont /b/ /k/ I:
(Meara and Ellis 1982:246)
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The next type involves an exchange before the application of any mutation changes, so that the mutation is then triggered onto the error radical, resulting in an error mutation. In two examples only one mutation is involved, as below: I:
i fferm y teulu /f/ /t/ Tr: ‘to the family farm’ E: i derm y ffeulu /d/ /f/ (Meara and Ellis 1982:246) In this example, the exchanged initial t is now subject to SM following i ‘to’ (/f/, of course, is an unmutatable consonant), so becomes /d/ in the surface realization. A more complex example, involving two mutations is looked at next: I:
y mân _wahaniaethau /m/ /w/ Tr: ‘the small differences’ E: y gwân fahaniaethau /gw/ /v/ (Meara and Ellis 1982:246) This example is clearly more complex. What is happening here is that the exchange is occurring before the mutation rules are applied, so that the deletion of /g/ in gwahaniaethau → wahaniaethau does not occur, resulting in the initial cluster /gw/ in the error. At the same time, the new initial of the second word does undergo the necessary mutation (SM in adjective-noun compounds, see Chapter 1), changing underlying /m/ to /v/. Example 8 in the corpus is different again, in that what appears to have happened is that the exchange is between the mutations that should have been triggered rather than the resulting consonants. In this example we have in succession a trigger of AM and a trigger of SM; what actually occurs is that the first trigger causes SM and the second AM: I:
mae hi wedi cael ei dwy goes off /d/ /g/ Tr: ‘she had both her legs taken off’ E: …ei ddwy choes off /ð/ /x/ (Meara and Ellis 1982:246)
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The final error recorded is of an ambiguous nature, as it is impossible to determine whether the underlying segments reversed, and were then subject to the relevant mutation, or whether they were mutated and then reversed, as the same result would occur under both conditions: I:
y ddau dy /ð/ /d/ Tr: ‘the two houses’ E: y dau ddy /d/ /ð/ (Meara and Ellis 1982:246)
The authors note that this set of data support an analysis of the following type: words are retrieved from the Welsh speaker’s mental lexicon in their canonical, unmutated forms and maintained in underlying, DEEP PHONOLOGICAL REPRESENTATION. Mutation rules then apply where appropriate to produce a SURFACE PHONOLOGICAL REPRESENTATION which, in turn, acts as input to articulatory phonetic processes. (Meara and Ellis 1982:248) They then argue that phonemic reversals can occur at different stages during this process, which would explain the different sorts of error found in the data (i.e. reversals before or after mutation, or reversal of mutation). Meara and Ellis also pose the question as to whether such an organization of the speech-production mechanism and the mental lexicon is universal or restricted to just those languages (like Celtic languages) which have processes like mutation. They quote research on phonetic accommodation in languages such as English and German that suggests that deep and surface phonological representations may indeed be necessary for all languages, and may well coincide with the tripartite model of speech production described in 7.1. It is, of course, interesting to compare the analyses of the mental lexicon proposed in this study, and that suggested by Boyce et al. (1987), and discussed in 9.3 above. While Meara and Ellis argue for a two-tier phonological representation, Boyce et al. propose a model with a lexical dimension and a morphological dimension. Whereas the Meara and Ellis model is derived from speech-production data, and Boyce et al.’s from speech recognition data, it is, of course, significant that they both propose binary models. What is required clearly in research into the
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psycholinguistics of lexical organization in Welsh is an attempt to unify these approaches, and work towards a model that accounts for mutation (and other aspects) in both production and comprehension. It is also necessary in this case, and in linguistics as a whole, that the models of speech production and perception developed within the psycholinguistic tradition be integrated with the grammatical models proposed by theoretical linguists (see discussion in Frazier 1988); until this can be achieved we are clearly only scratching the surface of how mutation in Welsh is operated by the speaker.
10 The sociolinguistics of mutation
10.0 INTRODUCTION This chapter moves away from the standard language as defined in Chapter 1, and investigates patterns of variation in the use of mutation in different varieties of Welsh. Until comparatively recently, investigations of forms of non-literary Welsh have been dominated by the dialectology paradigm, with its concentration on non-mobile, older, rural males as informants (the socalled norms; see Hudson 1980). Many such studies have been undertaken, and some of these are reviewed in section 10.1 below. (Readers unfamiliar with Welsh dialect geography are referred to Ball 1988b.) Sociolinguistic studies of Welsh have begun to appear, however, and some of these are also described in the first section of the chapter. The rest of this chapter is devoted to a description of a sociolinguistic investigation of mutation usage in vernacular forms of Welsh, and discusses the problems of experimental design, data collection and data analysis, and concludes with an examination of how the results can be expressed formally in terms of variable rules. 10.1 REVIEW OF DIALECT STUDIES 10.1.1 Traditional dialectology One of the first surveys of a Welsh dialect was Sweet (1884). He refers briefly to mutations (pp. 432–5), noting the inclusion of /m/, /n/ and /w/ in the AM of the Dyffryn Gwynant dialect,1 and the non-mutation of feminine nouns after un ‘one’ and the apparent anomalies of nos da (instead of *nos dda ‘good night’) and the non-mutation of braf ‘fine’ (both of these are found in all other dialects as well, see 8.3.2). However, the major source of Welsh dialect material is found in the theses presented for higher degrees to the University of Wales. Usually,
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these mention the mutations only briefly, but some information on local usages can be obtained in many cases. A selection only of these will be described below, concentrating on those that give details of mutation usage. D.G.Evans (1930) studied the dialect of Cwmtawe, and noted that AM was usual following ei ‘her’, na ‘nor, than’ and â ‘with’; sometimes found after tri ‘three’, a ‘and’ and ni negative marker; and not found after chwe ‘six’. NM was usual after fy ‘my’ and yn ‘in’ (though the latter did not usually affect place-names).2 J.J.Glanmor Davies (1934) studied the Ceinewydd area and concluded that the use of SM generally followed the norms of the literary language; AM was usual after a, na (‘nor’), ei, but was not found after tri, chwe, â, or na (‘than’). NM was found after fy, but yn was usually followed by the radical. R.O.Rees (1936) investigated the dialect of Dyffryn Aman, and noted few differences in the mutation system from the literary language. SM failed to affect proper nouns, but after negative particles verbs took SM only, rather than the mixed AM and SM. NM followed both fy and yn; while AM was not found following chwe, was usual after tri, and was found after â, tua, gyda, a and na. Evan J.Davies (1955) studied the speech of Dihewyd and Llandygwydd. Concerning AM he comments, ‘Diflannodd y Treiglad Llaes bron yn llwyr o dafodieithoedd Dihewyd a Llandygwydd’ (‘the AM disappeared almost completely from the dialects of D. and Ll.’) (p. 147). Apart from a few set expressions it appears only after ei, negative sentences after ni and after tri in compounds (see Appendix 1 ). NM occurs after fy, but yn is followed by the radical. SM is used as in the literary language. L.Davies (1968) studied the dialect of Merthyr Tudful and found the usage of SM to be similar to that of the literary language. Regarding AM, Davies noted ‘mae siaradwyr y dafodiaith yn hepgor y Treiglad Llaes yn gyson’ (‘the speakers of the dialect regularly avoid the AM’) (p. 156). However AM is usual after ei, but rare after a, and chwe. Davies also noted that either NM or SM can follow fy and yn. Ruddock’s (1969) study of Hirwaun yields little information on mutations except that NM and SM can both be found after yn and fy; AM is usual after ei, and occasionally found after a and tri. Bevan (1970) looked at the dialect of two areas in Bro Morgannwg, finding SM to follow standard usage, and NM restricted to following fy (yn causing SM). With regard to AM, examples are quoted following ei, but no information given on other triggering environments.
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Samuel (1970) studied the Rhigos dialect and found SM to be basically as the standard language, with the exceptions that questions, neu ‘or’, un and pan ‘when?’ did not cause any mutation. Fy triggered NM, but yn triggered NM, SM or the radical. AM was found after ei, otherwise was rare except in set expressions. Thorne (1971) investigated the Llangennech area and noted that SM behaved generally as in the standard. NM was found only after fy, though SM was triggered here as well, and was always so triggered by yn. AM was found in negative sentences, after tri, sha (dialect equivalent of tua ‘towards’); was usual after a, â, na and occasionally after tri, chwe and gyda. This information is also given in Thorne (1976). A.E.Roberts (1972, 1988) investigated the speech of the Pwllheli area, and includes many of the insights of sociolinguistic methodology in her study, in attempting to include variables such as age, class and context in the section on mutation usage. NM is not found after yn except in formal contexts, being replaced by SM or the radical. NM is found after fy, though there is a tendency to avoid fy through changing the syntax (e.g. fy nghi → ci fi ‘my dog’ → ‘dog me’) especially with younger speakers. AM is rarely found, particularly among younger speakers. SM is basically as standard. D.W.Griffiths (1974) investigated the dialect of Llanfair Caereinion, and noted a general tendency to ignore mutations. AM is usual after ei, but unusual after the other triggers. Both fy and yn trigger NM, but this is not extended to place-names. A more recent study is Awbery’s (1986b) investigation of the phonology of Pembrokeshire Welsh. The data collection for this investigation appears to have followed the traditional pattern of dialect studies, but the results are presented in generative terms. Unfortunately, no data is presented on mutation usage. None of these studies, however, can claim to have examined mutations in any detail. No attempt is made to define terms like ‘usually’, ‘often’; and hardly any investigation is made into factors governing the usage of mutations. However, the studies reported do highlight some sort of instability in the AM and NM systems. 10.1.2 Sociolinguistic studies Work of a specifically sociolinguistic nature on the usage of mutations and what non-linguistic factors correlate with this usage is rare, and few examples of this approach can be found in the literature prior to the 1980s. (For a sociolinguistic study of mutations in Breton, see Timm 1985.) The
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first of them (apart from A.E.Roberts’s 1972 study referred to above), R.O.Jones (1976; see also 1983, 1984), includes aspects of the NM and the AM as two linguistic variables amongst others investigated in the speech of inhabitants of Gaiman, Y Wladfa (Patagonia). This area demonstrates many facets of the phenomenon of language decay (see Dorian 1973, 1978a, b), and particular attention was paid to linguistic variables under the influence of interference from Spanish, the majority language of the area. The non-linguistic variables taken into account were age, sex, cultural affiliation and context of utterance (formal ~ informal). The major linguistic variables examined were the phonetic realizations of / x/, /t/, / /, /=/ and /h/. It is together with this last phoneme that the mutations were grouped, /h/ is found as part of PVA, and with the NM reflexes of the voiceless stops. Jones studied the use of /h/ in these and other environments; but only with the oldest age group was enough use made of the phoneme to require further analysis. This group was divided into two sections (those with a Welsh cultural affiliation, and those with a Spanish one), and in terms of the mutations, the Welshaffiliated group showed approximately a 50 per cent use of /h/ with PVA, and about 75 per cent usage with NM. However, with the other group no usage of /h/ at all was recorded with either mutation, and Jones noted that there was about 20 per cent non-usage of the mutations themselves. While Jones’s study did not look at the mutations in detail, P.W. Thomas (1984) did intend to investigate variation in the usage of mutations, though the particular circumstances of the data base preclude direct comparison with the study reported in later sections of this chapter. Thomas examined mutation usage in South Glamorgan Welsh, and drew his data from ‘16 tape-recorded extended interviews drawn from the archives of the Welsh Folk Museum, St Fagans, and the Welsh Language Research Unit, Cardiff (p. 209). The recordings had been made by two different researchers, but the speakers were all of a rural background, with a minimum of formal education, and ‘the only formal instruction they had received in Welsh was at Sunday School during their childhood’ (p. 209). Thomas admits that this data base precludes any manipulation of style contrasts that interview-based procedures allow, but feels that in the Welsh bilingual context (see Chapter 1), particularly at the time many of the recordings were originally made (starting in 1953, but extending up to 1980), prestige or formal varieties of speech would imply the use of English, the informal, ‘home’, language being Welsh. A more prestigious Welsh variety would be encountered by chapel-goers (where literary/biblical
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Welsh would be heard), and ‘the opportunity to produce these varieties was further confined to an elite within this sub-group’ (p. 210) —here Thomas is thinking of chapel officials such as deacons. One of Thomas’s aims is to ‘consider the consonant mutation of speakers who had access to the prestige variety in their communities’ (p. 210). It was not possible for Thomas to acquire further material from this set of speakers, as most had died, taking the South Glamorgan dialect of Welsh with them. Thomas decided to divide the speakers into four groups on the basis of the frequency and function of their interaction in Welsh. Group I consisted of four speakers noted for their prominent social roles, and their use of Welsh in formal situations (lay-preaching, published writing, etc.). It was to be expected then that the taperecordings might well reflect a fairly formal style. Group II again consisted of four speakers who, although lacking any usage of Welsh in any formal situations, had lived in Welsh-speaking communities all their lives. For these speakers, then, the use of Welsh was a marker of non-formality. Group III had two speakers who had lived in basically anglicized areas, where Welsh had been used only with older inhabitants. Therefore, speaking in Welsh would become increasingly unusual. This could result in two alternatives: either the usage of older linguistic variants, or the less frequent use of complex rules (e.g. mutation), or, of course, both of these might occur in different instances. Group IV had four speakers who were similar in linguistic situation to Group III, but a generation younger. It was expected, therefore, that rules like mutations would occur even more infrequently with this group. Thomas looked at the use of AM, NM and SM for all four groups. His conclusions show that AM and NM were declining in usage overall, but SM was spreading to new environments, the only general exceptions to this were possessive pronouns plus nouns (i.e. ei ‘her’ + noun, and fy ‘my’ + noun) where AM and NM respectively were often maintained. Group I, as expected, used the other AM and NM forms more often. Thomas suggests that these may be acting as markers in the Labovian sense (Labov 1972). Groups II and III share many tendencies with Group I, suggesting that many environments are fairly stable. However, NM is used more often by Group III than Group II following yn and fy. Here Group II ‘would appear to reflect a general ongoing trend in Southern varieties of Welsh, with the nasal mutation yielding to the soft mutation or non-mutation’ (p. 234). Group III are, however,
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retaining an earlier stage, reflecting their contact with only older speakers. In other instances (e.g. AM after a, SM after ei ‘his’), Group III chooses mutation less often; this, Thomas argues, ‘may be attributed to rule loss associated with decreasing use of the language’ (p. 234). Group IV showed less tendency to mutate in all environments tested. This study shows the important roles played in mutation usage by age and acculturation (realized here by frequency of language use). The design limitations (acknowledged by the author) preclude any attempt to analyse these factors separately for the South Glamorgan data, but they are certainly features that need to be considered in any full-scale study of mutation usage. 10.2 PROBLEMS OF DATA COLLECTION 10.2.1 Data sufficiency In any sociolinguistic study, one of the main problems to be overcome centres on the methods of data collection. At its simplest this can be thought of as the decisions to be made concerning whether to use a questionnaire, individual interviews or group interviews. But, more basic to these practical concerns is the problem of ensuring that sufficient relevant data is collected. By this we mean that in a study of mutation usage, for example, we must try to ensure that enough examples of mutation environments occur so that we can make sensible statements on the usage patterns of subjects. In fact, a mutation study is more complicated than it might at first appear. As is plain from the studies referred to above, the main variation in the use of mutations is not in whether or not an entire mutation system (e.g. AM or NM) is used as in the standard language, but whether particular mutation triggers are used as in the standard language. This means that not only must we ensure that our data contain sufficient examples of AM and NM, but sufficient examples of the different triggers of AM and NM. In this regard, Wolfram and Fasold (1974) note ‘there is obviously no certain guarantee of success in the elicitation of free conversation’ (p. 50), and ‘even in quite extended interview situations, we may not get all the linguistic data for which we are looking’ (p. 56), concluding that some of the unobtained features may be crucial for an adequate linguistic statement. They describe a series of techniques for use as well as interviews, including direct questioning, repetition tests, structural elicitation (including the use of pictures) and the use of reading passages.
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10.2.2 Style manipulation Another problem that arises in the collection of data for sociolinguistic investigation is the need to acquire linguistic samples from different styles of speech. The danger of a monostylistic analysis is that it is not representative of the speech community being investigated. Indeed, most elicitation techniques, including interviewing, have a tendency to formalize, that is to say, to create an environment where the speaker is not at ease, and consequently is likely to pay more attention to various aspects of the social interaction, including their speech; the result of this is usually that they produce variants of linguistic variables closer to a prestige or standard norm. One of the aims of sociolinguistic study (according to Labov and others; see e.g. Labov 1972) is to find out how members of a speech community speak naturally, that is, when they are not being systematically observed. The ‘observer’s paradox’ is that this can only be achieved through systematic observation. One of the problems in style manipulation, then, is to acquire casual speech, but another is to achieve a whole range of styles, including those that might be even more formal than that achieved in the interview situation. This clearly links in with the problem just faced of ensuring sufficient data are collected. Some of the techniques suggested to force subjects to use particular linguistic forms—such as reading tasks—have been found to produce highly formal styles. What is also needed are techniques that can guarantee both the data required and less formal styles. In relation to both these problems, Ball (1981, 1984b) describes various initial studies designed to help in the setting up of a sociolinguistic investigation of mutation usage in Modern Spoken Welsh, and we note some of those findings below. Traditional sociolinguistic studies (e.g. Labov 1966; Trudgill 1974) found that one way of increasing formality, and indeed predicting the occurrence of certain linguistic variables, was to use written material to be read aloud by the subjects. The use of a short piece of prose (the ‘reading passage’) tended to produce more formal speech styles than in the interview situation; however, when the subjects read lists of words (‘wordlist’ style), the concentration on the task was even greater, and an even more formal style emerged. The big problem in applying such techniques to the study of mutation usage is the effect of the orthography. The reading tasks themselves are formalizing for several reasons: firstly, because they direct attention clearly to the linguistic features in question; secondly, because reading aloud with a stranger might well be considered a stressful activity
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reminiscent of school; and finally, because often (though not always) the spelling reflects the more formal variant of a variable. Nevertheless, for most phonological variables, for example /h/ retention vs dropping, the fact that an /h/ is present in the spelling will not automatically ensure that a subject will use /h/, even if it makes it more likely. With mutations, however, things appear a little different. Mutations cause a change from one phoneme to another in the majority of cases, and these are reflected in the spelling. As Ball (1984b) discovered in a pilot study, where mutations are concerned the spelling dominates the pronunciation: whether the mutations are left out in the spelling, or put in when not required makes no difference: the subjects read exactly what was written, though afterwards most of them pointed out the fault to the tester. It is clear, then, that such reading styles can only work when the target of the mutation is not represented in such a way that the spelling predicted the variant to be spoken by the informant. The answer proposed by Ball (1984b) was to use both numerals, and pictures embedded within an otherwise ordinary set of sentences. To see how this worked with the use of numerals, we can look at one of the test sentences: (10.1) mae 7 cath a 4 ci gyda John is 7 cat and 4 dog with J ‘John has 7 cats and 4 dogs’ This sentence predicts that we will get an example of the AM trigger a ‘and’ followed by a mutatable word pedwar ‘four’. But by leaving the target as a numeral it allows both pedwar or phedwar to occur. We must also bear in mind that census data have shown that not all Welsh speakers are literate in Welsh. In the study reported here, all subjects were able to read Welsh, though some felt more comfortable than others when doing so. To acquire casual speech, previous studies have relied on a variety of techniques, including group speech, emotive questions (Labov’s 1966 ‘danger of death question’, Trudgill’s 1974 ‘amusing story question’), and tasks designed to distract the speaker from monitoring their speech (e.g. Labov’s 1966 ‘shoelace test’, where subjects are required to explain in detail how to tie a pair of shoelaces). The problem with many of these techniques (especially the ones used in individual interviews) is that they do not always work, and they do not always guarantee examples of the variables being investigated even when they do work.
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If we consider those mutations that are described in previous studies as being most prone to variation (NM and AM), they are triggered by linguistic contexts that are not very common. Ball (1984b) therefore designed a procedure to augment the traditional emotive question (in this case the amusing story) to gain less monitored speech. This technique is the ‘reporter’s test’, originally designed by DeRenzi and Ferrari (1978) to investigate the expressive abilities of aphasics. It is based on the ‘token test’ (DeRenzi and Faglioni 1978), which had been designed to investigate the comprehension abilities of aphasics. The token test utilizes a set of coloured circles and squares (some large, some small); and the investigator reads a list of instructions to the subject, who has to respond by touching or moving the relevant token(s). The reporter’s test was derived from this format by a reversal of the role of the investigator and the subject. Here, the investigator moves and touches the tokens, while the subject has to say what is happening. The following initial instruction is recommended: Imagine that a person is sitting beside you, but is prevented from seeing what I am doing by a curtain…. Your task is to describe what I am doing as carefully as possible, so that this person would be able to repeat exactly my performance on another set of tokens. (DeRenzi and Ferrari 1978:281) The relevance of this procedure to the study of aphasics is not of importance here (see Müller et al. 1981 for a review of this area). However, it can clearly be seen that an adaptation of this procedure, using a variety of actions and activities as stimuli, could be a good way of eliciting syntactic structures, or vocabulary items without the need for linguistic cues. There is also some resemblance between this method and the ‘shoelace test’, but the reporter’s test is more flexible. As described in Ball (1984b), a pilot study using the reporter’s test demonstrated that the procedure was able to guarantee that certain linguistic forms would appear in the data, and that the style of speech produced was much closer to casual than to formal varieties, probably because the concentration on the task in hand lessened the subjects’ linguistic selfawareness. 10.2.3 Selecting subjects A third area in the construction of a sociolinguistic study that we must consider concerns the selection of subjects. In traditional dialect studies, as noted above, subjects tended to be chosen who were older, non-mobile,
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rural males. This clearly cannot give the researcher a picture of the speech community as a whole, and early sociolinguistic research tried to avoid this selectivity by adopting random sampling, or stratified random sampling. This technique requires the use of some sort of list of inhabitants of a speech community, from which list, every nth person can be approached to participate in a study. If the list can be stratified first (into perhaps male and female speakers, or into geographical areas), then the number of subjects to be chosen can generally be reduced. This method should provide a subject base that is representative of the community as a whole. A problem arises with studies of minority languages, however, as pointed out by R.O.Jones (1976). The use of an ordinary electoral register (or similar) cannot guarantee that the subjects chosen actually are able to speak the minority language, and much time and effort may have to be expended before a suitable subject base is recruited. Other researchers (e.g. Milroy 1980/7) have pointed out the artificiality of random sampling, and have suggested that an investigation of social networks provides a more realistic picture of a speech community and facilitates group interviewing. A social network focuses on the individual within a speech community, the network being the links between that individual and other people with whom he/she is in contact (i.e. socially through work, family or neighbourhood association, etc). High-density networks are those where many of the individual’s associates also know each other, whereas low-density networks are those where most of the individual’s associates do not know each other. It is often found that the social networks of minority-language speakers are fairly dense, in that it is the social network (rather than a geographical area) that maintains the usage of the language. In this case, if researchers can gain access to such a network, therefore, they can often obtain linguistic data from many members of the network, and an analysis of a set of networks will probably be representative of the speakers of the minority language in that community as a whole. 10.3 DESIGN OF A STUDY 10.3.1 Linguistic variables The study reported here was carried out between 1980 and 1984, and is reported more fully in Ball (1984b). Following the review of previous studies given above and various pilot studies described in Ball (1984b), it was decided to finalize a set of linguistic variables for the main
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study. These were chosen exclusively from NM and AM (SM being too extensive to cover satisfactorily, though any non-standard usages were noted, and are reported on in Ball 1984b). The variables are described in terms of the triggers which cause the mutation in the standard language. For AM, the following triggering environments were chosen: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
a ‘and’; â, gyda ‘with’; tri ‘three’ chwe ‘six’; na ‘nor, than’, tua ‘towards’; ei ‘her’; negative verb (ni, na or Ø + inflected verb). For NM, the following triggering environment was chosen:
8 yn ‘in’. With 1–6 the variants expected are [+AM] and [radical]; with 7 the variants expected are [+AM], [+SM] or [radical]; with 8 the variants expected are [+NM], [+SM] or [radical]. Comment is needed on the way in which the variables above have been grouped together. As can be seen, within the AM group it was thought best to separate the triggering environments as much as possible to avoid overgeneralization. However, numbers 2 and 5 each consist of two triggers. In an attempt at some degree of economy these two groups were set up on well-motivated grounds. Not only are â and gyda similar in meaning and etymologically linked, they are also often stylistically interchangeable (e.g. siarad â ~ siarad gyda ‘speak with’, but note peidio â ~ *peidio gyda ‘do not (do)!’). Also the dialect studies reviewed in 10.1 tend to show these two forms as being of similar status vis-à-vis triggering AM. With number 5, the two items are classed together mainly because they are relatively rare items in comparison with the others, and again because previous studies do not note any marked differences in their usage patterns. Tri and chwe, on the other hand, are kept separate because differences in their usage are quite often noted. Ei is afforded special status because of the common claim that AM following it is retained more often than with other triggers because on occasions the AM is the only distinguisher between ei ‘her’, ei ‘his’ and eu ‘their’ (see Chapter 8). It is worth looking at this claim closely as, of course, AM only affects initial c, p and t, and so cannot serve as a distinguishing feature for words beginning with other sounds. Further, as noted in Chapter 8, the use of ‘confirming
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pronouns’ following the noun will also provide gender/person information. 10.3.2 Non-linguistic variables The non-linguistic variables included context of utterance. The interview was designed to include four different contexts (see 10.3.4 below): casual, formal (both through manipulation of the conversational part of the interview), reporter’s test and reading passage. These divided clearly into two linguistic styles: ‘formal’ (formal interview and reading passage) and non-formal (casual interview and reporter’s test). The other non-linguistic variables were all controlled in terms of the subjects chosen: sex, age and acculturation. The sex variable naturally presents only the two variants of male and female. The age variable has, however, been split into many different variants according to different researchers’ aims or resources. For this study, in order to keep the number of different variants reasonably low, three age categories only were chosen, and speakers under the age of 20 were not selected as subjects. The age ranges chosen were: 20–39, 40–59, 60+. In previous sociolinguistic studies, social class has been widely chosen as a non-linguistic variable. However, its operation in the minority-language situation is arguably different from a monolingual situation (see also R.O.Jones 1976:54), and in any case the notion has been criticized as being too abstract (Trudgill 1974) and as lacking ‘any kind of objective, or even inter-subjective, reality’ (Milroy 1980: 14). R.O.Jones (1976) constructs groups of speakers, in the minority-language situation, according to a general concept of acculturation, or cultural affiliation (see 10.1.2), taking into account such aspects as education, religion, self-evaluation and economic status. Naturally, this approach could be used in monolingual speech communities as well. The difficulty in keeping to a social-class analysis in a bilingual situation is that the speakers who are bilingual are liable not to be spread evenly through the classes, especially when the language under investigation is the minority language in the community chosen. Only in areas where Welsh is spoken by a large majority of the inhabitants would an even class mix be found. The area chosen for this study was Cwmtawe (the Swansea Valley), which has recently changed to a minority Welshspeaking area. For this reason, social class was not chosen as a variable but, rather, use was made of an adapted form of R.O.Jones’s acculturation
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index. This gave initially two groups: a W-group (acculturated to Welsh) and an E-group (acculturated to English). An analysis of the results revealed that this initial classification was too general, and it proved possible to increase the sensitivity of the measure, and produce three groups: group A, group B and group C, with group A the most Welsh affiliated, and group C the most English affiliated (see Ball 1984b for full details of these groupings). 10.3.3 Subject networks As just noted, the subjects were chosen from the Cwmtawe region. Only one dialect area was chosen in order to avoid the geolinguistic variable, as this would have added extra complexity to the study. In fact, Ball (1984b) reports on a smaller additional study of mutation use in Anglesey Welsh, that supported many of the main findings of the Cwmtawe study in terms of those environments most subject to loss of mutation-trigger status. Subjects were not chosen by random sampling, due to the disadvantages of this method in minority-language situations noted above in 10.2.3. Instead, the concept of the social network was utilized. Two fairly dense networks were used, and eleven subjects chosen from each. All these subjects were given individual interviews (see 10.3.4 below), but the networks were also exploited to gain group interviews. In one sense a random sampling of the networks took place as not every member of the two networks was included in the study. In reality, this was, however, a quasi-random sampling as it was ensured that of the total interviewed, half were male and half female. Full details of the subjects are given in Ball (1984b), but if we examine the speakers in terms of the three age groups, we find that age and acculturation interact. Age group I (20–39) contained two male and two female speakers, and all but one were members of affiliation group C. Age group II (40–59) contained ten members (five male and five female), two in affiliation group C, four in affiliation group B and three in affiliation group A. Age group III contained four male and four female subjects, one in affiliation group C, four in group B and three in group A. It is interesting to note from this quasi-random approach that, although both networks had representatives in the three age groups and the three affiliation groups, Welsh speakers in the youngest age group were rare, and 75 per cent were in affiliation group C. Conversely, there was no shortage of older speakers, and the oldest age group had the highest percentage of group A affiliations (37.5 per cent), and only
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one group C member. Only the middle age group had a mixture of affiliation groups, with group B accounting for half of them. Doubtless younger A speakers and older C speakers could have been found, but as both networks displayed similar characteristics, it was felt that this was representative of a sociolinguistic trend in Cwmtawe, where previous census data has shown the area to be very much on the edge of Welsh-speaking Wales. This is because it had just fallen below 50 per cent Welsh-speaking between the 1971 and 1981 censuses, and because areas to its immediate east are more heavily anglicized, while those to its west are still above 50 per cent Welsh-speaking. As regards male and female speakers and the acculturation groupings, there was little difference: group A contained four males and three females, group B had four males and five females and group C had three males and three females. 10.3.4 Interview schedule The individual interviews for the study followed the same general format for each informant, though, where necessary, the order of questioning would be changed to encourage the subjects. There were seven main parts to the procedure, which was based to some extent on the schedule used by Trudgill (1974) in his study of Norwich English. Part A consisted of a series of ten questions a b o u t t h e i n f o r m a n t ’ s b a c k g r o u n d , b o t h t o ga i n n e c e s s a r y information about the subject, but also to gain ‘interview style’ speech samples. In part B a set of sixteen written sentences were required to be read. These contained a mixture of mutation trigger items and ‘blinds’ to distract the subjects from the focus of the study. All the sentences contained either numerals or pictures for the mutation target. Part C continued the background questions, asking specifically about the local area, educational background (including language of education) and a set of alternative ‘emotive’ questions (family reminiscences and humorous anecdotes) to promote casual speech. Part D was the reporter’s test (see 10.2.2), which involved various coloured shapes, and sets of actions (such as lifting an arm) designed to produce a variety of mutation triggers, though it did not prove possible to include all the linguistic variables listed in 10.3.1. Part E contained questions of a specific linguistic nature, asking about their participation in Welsh linguistic networks, and their opinion of the local dialect of Welsh and their own command of the language. Also asked was their opinion as to the future of the language. These factors all played
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a part in the assignment of the subjects to the different acculturation groupings. The final two sections (F and G) were concerned with measuring the linguistic self-awareness of the subjects in respect to mutation usage. We will return to this topic in Chapter 11. At the end of each interview session, the subjects were asked whether they knew what the focus of the study was. While some clearly had worked out that mutation usage had been concentrated on, the majority had not done so. 10.4 RESULTS OF THE STUDY 10.4.1 Linguistic variables As noted above, variables 1–5 had only two variants, so in these results percentage of non-mutation usage is given. Variables 6, 7 and 8, however, had three variants, and in an attempt to show degree of nonstandard usage, index scores were calculated for these (though percentage standard usage is often also noted). For 7 the following values were assigned to each variant: AM (most standard), 1; SM (a mutation marked, albeit not the standard one), 2; radical (no mutation marked, least standard), 3. For 8 the following values were assigned to each variant: NM (most standard), 1; SM (a mutation marked, albeit not the standard one), 2; radical (no mutation marked, least standard), 3. Variable 6 (ei ‘her’) has the same three variants as 7; however, in this case the use of SM would cause ambiguity with ei ‘his’, so the SM variant is here deemed to be the least standard: AM, 1; radical, 2; SM, 3. The method of calculating final scores is to multiply the value of each variant by the number of times it occurs for a subject and divide by the total of instances of the variable. The resultant index score is given numerical value by subtracting 1 and multiplying by 100 (giving a range of possible scores of 0–200). The results for all subjects for variables 1–5 are shown in Table 10.1. As can be seen, the a variable approaches nearest to standard usage with 70 per cent non-mutation. The next most standard is â, gyda. However, both these variables are well over the 50 per cent non-mutation level. Na, tua seems to fit with â, gyda into a medium scoring group, while tri and chwe form a high non-standard scoring group. A linguistic explanation for the differences can be offered. The common SM mutation often occurs following prepositions and some conjunctions (e.g. neu ‘or’), and the lowest non-standard groups contain
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Table 10.1 Scores for linguistic variables 1
prepositions and conjunctions, possibly because they are associated with triggering mutation. Numerals, with a couple of exceptions, generally do not trigger mutation; further, tair, the form of tri before feminine nouns, does not trigger a mutation, and chwech, the form of chwe when not preceding nouns, also does not trigger a mutation, and is a common substitute for chwe in Cwmtawe Welsh. It would seem that the greater use of AM after a than after the other triggers may be due to the more frequent occurrence of this word, and because there exist several idioms where the mutation has been ‘fossilized’ (e.g. ceffyl a chart ‘horse and cart’). Table 10.2 Scores for linguistic variables 2
The results for all subjects for the index-scored variables 6–8 are given in Table 10.2. Ei has the result nearest to Standard Welsh of all the variables. This must in part be explainable by the semantic load carried by this trigger (see discussion above, and Chapter 8). Questioning of the subjects on this point also lead to the conclusion that particular emphasis had been put on the ‘correct’ usage of the mutation in this instance by teachers because of the supposed semantic load, and this had been retained by speakers. The next variable is yn followed closely by the category neg verb. Although both these variables showed evidence of the expansion of SM at the expense of NM and AM respectively, mutation loss seems to be a
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stronger factor than mutation replacement. (This assumes that evidence from previous studies is to be trusted, and that a change in the mutation system is occurring. As Hennessey (1990) points out for Breton, dialects showing deviation in mutation use from the standard language might well have been using these patterns for many centuries.) Interestingly, as Chapter 11 will show, it would appear from testing informants, that the standard usage of NM following yn is well known, even if not used consistently in this dialect; whereas standard AM usage after all the other triggers (excepting ei) is not so well known, with many subjects assuming that standard usage was in fact the radical for many of the triggers. 10.4.2 Non-linguistic variables The first non-linguistic variable we will examine is the sex of the subjects. Table 10.3 shows the scores (percentages and index scores) for all variables compared with sex, and it will be seen that in all but one case there is a difference in that female speakers use nonstandard variants more often than males, although this is not statistically significant except with chwe. Table 10.3 Linguistic variables × sex
These results seem counter to many other sociolinguistic studies (e.g. Trudgill 1974), which have found that women are generally more conservative linguistically than men, and are more statusconscious, thereby retaining standard variants of linguistic variables. There are two possible explanations for the findings here. Firstly, it seems to be the case in this community that men are more likely to belong to literary societies, or hold leading positions within the chapel, and so are more exposed to literary/standard forms of Welsh than are women.
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Secondly, as knowledge of literary Welsh is so limited, we can view the women as being more conservative by retaining the local dialect’s mutation usage, against changes being brought in by Welsh-medium education and media. It is also possible that Welsh for this community has yet to establish any dialect that has prestige; it will be interesting to note whether the changes in education and media will provide such a prestige model for younger speakers, as is suggested in Hatton (1988), and reviewed in Chapter 9. Table 10.4 Linguistic variables × age
The scores for the three age groupings are given in Table 10.4. As might be expected, the general trend of these results suggests that age is a factor here, as with certain exceptions group I score higher than group II, who are in turn generally higher than group III. Statistically, the only significant differences were found with negative verb and with ei. There was overlap reported by Ball (1984b) between the scores for the three age groups, and it should be remembered that these groups do interact with the acculturation groupings. The scores of subjects in the three cultural-affiliation groups are given in Table 10.5. Statistically, the following variables showed significant differences between the three groupings: a, â/gyda, tri, chwe, na/tua and yn. Various intergroup differences were also significant. These data clearly suggest that, for group C at least and probably for group B, these speakers do not have the first five of these variables as mutation triggers in their dialect, and that only group A has ready access to the standard language in this respect. Indeed, it would appear that this grouping reflects which form of Welsh the speakers use as a model of ‘correctness’. Group A would appear to be those who have Standard Welsh as a model, and have had access to Welsh education etc; group B seem to
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Table 10.5 Linguistic variables × acculturation
operate within Cwmtawe Welsh, using the dialect as standard. The main diagnostic (for AM at least), is that most of this group still have access to a + AM, which is still a peripheral feature of the dialect. Group C (mainly younger speakers, and clearly identifying as English-dominant) appear to have no model for mutation usage in this respect. While not semi-speakers, this group did display considerable lexical borrowing from English.
Table 10.6 Linguistic variables × style
The final non-linguistic variable was style. Here sufficient reliable data was collected for only five variables, and is shown in Table 10.6. The expected result that standard usage increases with formal context is found here with one exception. However, a table such as this is of only limited interest. What is more interesting is how style shifting correlates with the membership of the cultural-affiliation groups, which, as we have already suggested, seems to have a link with which dialect of Welsh (if any) is used as a model for the speakers. While interactions between other non-linguistic variables are explored fully in Ball (1984b), we will only look at the that between style and affiliation, as shown in Table 10.7, using just the first four percentage scored variables
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(see Ball 1984b:243–5 for discussion of the style and acculturation differences found with yn). Table 10.7 Linguistic variables × acculturation × style
If we compare the scores for each group for the two different styles, and calculate the mean differences, we get the following results: Group A: 15.15 per cent Group B: 14.95 per cent Group C: 0 As we would expect, group A shows the greatest differences, though B has almost as many. However B has a fairly consistent difference score for each variable (range 6–22). On the other hand, A shows great differences for tri and chwe (19 and 46 respectively), though the differences for a and â, gyda are much less. This suggests that standard usage of these latter two variables is a natural part of A’s competence, whereas standard usage of tri and chwe is learnt behaviour triggered by formality of context. The results from this study have shown a complex pattern of variation surrounding both AM and NM usage. The seven AM trigger variables do not all have the same status, and this therefore justifies the decision not to treat AM as the variable, but rather the AM triggers. 10.5 VARIABLE RULES FOR MUTATION 10.5.1 Variable rules Variable rules to account for the results of sociolinguistic studies within a theoretical framework were first suggested by Labov (1969), where he states, ‘the notion “rule of grammar” is enlarged to include the formal treatment of inherent variation as a part of linguistic structure’ (p. 715). He notes that if variable rules are incorporated into a generative
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approach ‘it will be possible to enlarge our current notion of the “linguistic competence” of a native speaker’ (p. 736), and therefore variation need no longer be classed with other types of performance ‘errors’. The way such rules would work is explained by Labov in relation to copula contraction and deletion processes of Black English: First is an input variable which sets the overall frequency with which the rule is selected. Second, there are variable constraints which differentiate the frequencies with which the rule applies according to the syntactic and phonological features of the environment…and third, of course, there are extra-linguistic features such as age, sex, ethnic group, social class, and contextual style. (Labov 1969:733) He feels that such a development shows an advance in accountability over the use of the term ‘free variation’, that implies that linguistic variability is random and does not correlate with any non-linguistic factors. Labov’s ideas about variable rules were further developed in Labov (1970, 1972), Cedergren and Sankoff (1974), Fasold and Shuy (1973) and Sankoff (1978). Amongst these developments are the provision that constraints on rule operations should be independent of each other, and the introduction of numerical and statistical data into the format of the rules. The use of variable rules has concentrated on phonological variation, though other areas have been covered (see Guy 1973 for a survey). It will naturally be interesting to apply variable-rule methodology to Welsh mutations, where we see an interaction of lexical/syntactic and phonological aspects. 10.5.2 The place of variable rules for mutation in the grammar As noted above, variable rules, within the framework of Generative Grammar, have been proposed for both phonological and syntactic variation, and for areas (such as copula contraction and deletion) which are on the borderline between the two. These variable rules, then, can be brought into either a Generative Phonological account or, within syntax, to one of the different types of rules of syntax, depending on the exact nature of the variation (though arguments exist as to whether syntactic variation can be dealt with in terms of variables; see Lavendera 1978). Naturally, a variable-rule format could also be devised for other approaches to both phonology and syntax.
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As regards the variable nature of mutation usage in Welsh described above, the question that arises is, where should variable rules to account for this phenomenon be situated? Awbery (1975) asks whether the mutations are syntax or phonology. Indeed, this is one of the questions we have been addressing throughout this book. In the context of variable rules, and of the variables examined in the study reported above, the answer has to be that in the normal sense of the terms, neither. The claim of phonology is, superficially, a strong one: the result of the application of mutation is a sound change, and one that is, usually, phonemic. One the other hand, these sound changes are triggered by a particular syntax (in the broadest sense of the term): for example, the syntax of a trigger preceding a target. Other factors that play a part are gender and number in nouns, and morphology/semantics in the choice of inflected or periphrastic verb forms. However, as we noted in Chapter 1, mutation triggers fall into two broad categories: lexical, in that a particular word triggers the phonological change; and syntactic, in that a particular syntactic frame triggers the phonological change. In terms of the sociolinguistic study reported above, only triggers of the first type were investigated; therefore only this type of trigger should be described via variable rules (indeed, Ball 1984b reported very little variation in the use of the syntactically triggered mutations). In terms of lexically triggered mutations, therefore, as Awbery (1975) points out, and as we note in Chapter 6, these can best be characterized as phonological rules triggered from somewhere within the lexicon (see also 7.2). Mutations that occur after specific words are clearly features peculiar to those words. Even mutations dependent on gender and number can be specified in the lexicon, for example through a lexical redundancy rule specifying: (10.2)
[+noun, +fem] → [+mut, +SM]/___[+adj]
(where [+mut] is a lexical feature meaning ‘causes mutation to following word’, and the specific mutation is characterized afterwards), or: (10.3)
[+det] → [+mut, +SM]/___[+noun, +fem].
See the discussion in 6.4. As described previously in Chapter 1, mutations on negatives of nonperiphrastic verb forms lacking a negative pre-verbal particle seem most economically characterized as being triggered by ni or na, which are later variably deleted (presumably by a variable rule), their retention being a mark of literary or formal Welsh.
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For our purposes, then, we can state that the mutations that most interest us (from the sociolinguistic viewpoint) originate in the lexicon as sub-categorization features of particular lexical items. These features will then trigger off the relevant phonological rule at a later stage of the derivation. If the mutations originate in the lexicon, it is only a short step to the view that variation in mutations should somehow be characterized as being within the lexicon. Variable rules within the phonology will not be adequate for our purposes: they would work if the mutations were uniformly variable, but, as we noted above, variation in the use of mutations can only be related to the different mutation triggers. The only way the variation could be accounted for within the phonology would be for each trigger to be uniquely categorised in respect of its own version of a mutation, and to have different phonological rules (variable or categorial as the case may be) for each trigger. This, of course, would be grossly uneconomical, lack simplicity and run counter to our intuitions. 10.5.3 Variation in the lexicon The variable rules discussed earlier were all concerned with phonological or syntactic variation. We have proposed here variation that exists within the lexicon, specifically within the sub-categorization features of lexical entries. Initially, it appears difficult to see how the concept of a rule, variable or categorial, can apply to the assigning of sub-categorization features to a lexical item. The features are considered inherent, as can be seen in Radford’s (1981) description of a syntactic feature: ‘any lexical item of category X will be subcategorized with respect to the type of X-phrase it can occur in’ (p. 125). Descriptions like this do not show an easy way to assign features variably. The solution would appear to lie either in the use of some kind of variable feature, or in adapting other lexical rules to a variable format. To take the second point first: Radford (1981) describes the lexicon as consisting of lexical entries, containing syntactic, morphological, semantic and phonological features; together with two main sets of rules: redundancy rules (dealing with both feature and morphological redundancy) and restructuring rules (which deal with variability in the syntactic behaviour of certain lexical items). From this description it would seem unlikely that redundancy rules could easily be used to capture the variability we have examined (again [+mut] would need to be characterized differently for each trigger). Their primary purpose, as with all redundancy statements, are as devices for promoting descriptive
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simplicity. However, the restructuring rules may well be adaptable for our purpose. An example of the use of a restructuring rule is given by Radford (1981:137) as follows: (10.4) [Vtake [NPadvantage] [PPof [NPsomeone]] → [Vtake advantage of] [NPsomeone] This accounts for the different syntactic structures this construction can appear in, that similar surface structures would not be able to fulfil. It is only a short step from this to a rule variably altering the feature specification of a lexical item, or the effect of that feature specification. An example of such a usage is shown below, though, at this stage, without the variable aspects of the rule: (10.5) tri [+quant, +mut, +AM] → [+quant]3 Indeed, for a trigger such as tri, with its generally low mutation triggering, the above rule reversed could well capture the situation in many dialects. Radford describes these rules as being ‘somewhat idiosyncratic and highly lexically governed’ (1981:138), a description which would fit in well with our needs. The alternative proposal envisaged variable features, an idea not previously used to our knowledge. These could be characterized within angled brackets (the notation suggested by Labov (1969) for any variable constraint within a rule), and the precise nature of any variable application of each type of feature fully specified in redundancy rules. In other words, different degrees of AM usage (near categorial as in ei, or varying according to style and acculturation for a and others) would have to be noted in the optional features. An example might be as follows: (10.6) a [+conj, <+mut, +AM2>…] This entry means that a variably causes AM, and the type of variation is further specified under a redundancy rule for AM, variability pattern 2. These redundancy rules can be drafted in a similar pattern to the variable rules proposed by Labov and others. It is not easy to choose between these alternative solutions at this stage. The restructuring rules present the simplest answer: existing rules being simply adjusted slightly to a new role. Intuitively, however, the notion of variability inherent in the feature specifications of the lexical items themselves is perhaps more appealing. It would appear also that variable features would offer the most elegant solution to the problem of different usage patterns between
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preposition+noun and preposition+place-name, noted in Ball (1984b) for native place-names and in Chapter 8 for non-native placenames. The mutating prepositions can be categorially marked [+mut], with native place-names marked with a variable feature <+blocks mut>, and nonnative place-names with the categorial feature [+blocks mut]. This also justifies separating the general feature of causing a mutation, [mut], from the specific mutations which are entered into the phonology: [SM], [NM], [AM] (something we have not done up till now), as this blocking feature of place-names will apply to all mutations (as all three types are triggered by different prepositions). The use of restructuring rules to capture the placename distinction would necessitate a more complex formulation. 10.5.4 Some mutation variable rules Any variable rule can have variable conditioning on its application in terms of its linguistic environment (e.g. X will occur less often in the environment A___B than in the environment C___D), and/or in terms of sociolinguistic factors (i.e. age, sex, class, etc). An example from Labov (1972:240) shows a rule for the variable (-ing) (whether or not the final nasal is velar in this verb suffix), which is governed by non-linguistic factors: (10.7)
Po = a·(SEC) + b·(style) + c This last line shows the overall probability operating on the rule above it, and that this probability is derived from socio-economic class factors and style factors, and possibly other, unspecified factors. Numerical values can be put to these probabilities, but the above format is suitable for explicatory purposes. It is clear, then, that for most of the mutation variables we have studied, rules of this type can be formulated. It is therefore possible to draw up a restructuring rule for a as follows: (10.8) a [+conj, +mut, +AM…] → [+conj] <+mut, +AM> P o = a·(acculturation) + b·(style) + c Any mutation trigger that showed variation only in which mutation was triggered would, of course, maintain [+mut] as a categorial feature, and vary only in the precise mutation to be triggered. A variable such as personal pronoun ei ‘his’ showing categorial SM triggering in the context +noun, but variable triggering in the context
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+verb (as reported in P.W.Thomas, 1984), would clearly need the linguistic environment incorporated into the rule formulation: (10.9) ei [+pron, +masc, +mut, +SM] → [+pron, +masc] <+mut, +SM>/ ___[+vb] (It would be assumed here that the features would remain categorial in all contexts not marked.) As noted above for prepositions, a variable feature analysis would account for this differently. These examples show that variation can be accounted for within the lexicon in a relatively straightforward manner. It is possible, therefore, to capture, within a theoretical framework the patterns of variability that have emerged from the study of ICM usage in Spoken Welsh. Indeed, as Trudgill (1974) notes, ‘one of the main aims of research of this type is to shed light on various aspects of linguistic theory. Studies which are able to do this are obviously of more value than those that are not’ (p. 4).
11 The future of mutations
11.0 INTRODUCTION In the previous chapter we discussed patterns of use of the mutations in Modern Spoken Welsh, and noted that many of the mutation triggers of Standard Welsh no longer appear to be active. This is thought by some not to be surprising; we can recall again P.W. Thomas’s (1984) comment, ‘perhaps the most amazing feature of the mutations…is the persistent nature of the alternations in some environments: considering their low information value and their marginality to the system’ (p. 234). So perhaps it is the survival of the system at all that is surprising, not that it appears to be undergoing change. However, as we noted in Chapters 6 and 8, while mutations may lack direct semantic connotations, they may be viewed as analogous to, for example, case inflections in other languages, and they certainly do show syntactic function in many instances. In this chapter we will be looking at the developments that are taking place within the system of ICM, and discussing whether the system is in fact changing (or, indeed, has in fact changed) to produce a major difference between Standard Welsh on the one hand, and spoken Welsh on the other, or whether the changes we have noted are purely a sign of the decay of certain dialects. In order to do this, we will firstly examine Welsh speakers’ awareness of the mutation system, both from evidence from the complaint tradition within Wales, and from linguistic self-awareness testing undertaken on speakers taking part in the study described in Chapter 10. We will then go on to examine a recent suggestion that in spoken dialects the mutation system is not being abandoned, but rather reorganized into a two-way rather than a four-way system.
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Also important for the future of the mutation system, of course, is the future of the Welsh language. We therefore conclude our investigation of mutations by looking at recent demographic and geolinguistic evidence as to the present and future strengths of Welsh—if it seems probable that in the near future there will no longer be any first-language speakers, speculation on all or any changes within the language are naturally purely hypothetical. Finally, we will point the way forward to areas of further research about the mutation system in Welsh. 11.1 AWARENESS OF MUTATION 11.1.1 The complaint tradition Many languages have a complaint tradition associated with them (see Milroy and Milroy 1985), whereby prescriptive attitudes to linguistic forms are publicized through mass media or other similar means. Welsh is no exception, and since the spread of broadcasting and publishing in Welsh (see contributions to Stephens 1979 and Ball 1988b), such public complaints over the standard of Welsh used in these media have increased, and can regularly be found in Welsh-language periodicals. The interest of the complaint tradition is not the effect such fulminations might have on speakers of a language, but rather the insight it gives us about what features of a language (perhaps undergoing change) are actually consciously thought about: in other words, those features that speakers are aware of. Of course, the participants in the complaint tradition may well be a very small number, and may not signal that any change will be resisted in anything more than a nominal way. Nevertheless, taken together with other evidence, it might show us whether the standard language will retain or lose a feature no longer part of the vernaculars. One example of linguistic controversy in recent years that roused both the complainants and defenders did indeed involve the mutations. A pop group of the early 1980s deliberately chose a name containing a mutation mistake (and titled a record with another mutation mistake). The group was Y Treiglad Pherffaith ‘The Perfect Mutation’, which name includes AM on the adjective perffaith ‘perfect’, instead of the correct form (the radical). Further, AM would never appear in any nounadjective sequence on the adjective, where only SM or radical are permitted (see Chapter 1). To illustrate the debate surrounding this group, a series of correspondence from the Welsh-language newspaper Y Cymro will be quoted in translation (translation ours).
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A. 13 December 1983 Mutating perfectly for nursery children I would like to refer to last week’s article about Y Treiglad Pherffaith. I agree completely with the view that they’re a very popular group with school children—that is nursery-school children. I must confess, after reading the article and listening to the words of their songs, that I thought they were trying very hard to be funny. Unfortunately boys, most people won’t be laughing with you, but at you…. How can any group that thinks that undermining the Welsh language is amusing (through bringing out a cassette with a linguistically incorrect title) [Ar Taith instead of Ar Daith ‘On Tour’; substituting radical for SM] claim it is supporting the Welsh Language Society or anything else Welsh? Therefore…let’s hope that people will realize…that confusing the minds of children to believe things that aren’t true is a dangerous and unhealthy thing. B. 3 January 1984 Keep on mutating I am one of the hundreds who like Treiglad Pherffaith very much indeed, although I am far beyond nursery-school age. Where’s D…ap S…’s sense of humour I wonder? Isn’t it perfectly obvious that the title of the cassette is an extension of the group’s (deliberately) ungrammatical name? Dear D…, few songs these days are composed that are completely grammatical…and it’s a shame to read a letter criticizing grammar which is itself full of grammatical errors. Keep on mutating, boys! C. 10 January 1984 Sad mutations I must answer the letter by N… Rh… O…that appeared on the entertainments page last week. I must agree that only a few songs nowadays are grammatically correct, but I was not criticizing their grammar (mine is far from perfect). The linguistic mistakes you get from Tecs and Meic Stevens in their songs, and from me in my letter are unintentional mistakes, that most of us make now and again…. But I can’t stand seeing a group busy downgrading the language purposely as Treiglad Pherffaith does. If they need the pleasure of making fun of language why don’t they do it to the ‘thin language’ [i.e. English]. Why can’t Treiglad Pherffaith do something of importance instead of undermining our culture and heritage?
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N. Rh. O…’s letter asks where my sense of humour is. I don’t see anything funny in the fact that a group is busy destroying something that is very dear to my heart and to the hearts of many people. The only feeling I have now is one of sadness. Sadness in the fact that a rock group that claims it supports the language is downgrading it, and sadness that some Welsh people are blind enough to support them in this farce. D. 10 January 1984 Correct language not everything I must agree with N… O…’s letter that appeared in Y Cymro last week. Why write such an unimportant letter, D…ap S…? In the world of Welsh pop music, it’s the music that’s important, not the language—that must be obvious to everyone sensible. Good for you Treiglad Perffaith [sic] for drawing attention to this fact through purposely mutating incorrectly. It’s about time that Wales [Welsh people?] realized that there’s more to being Welsh than speaking the language correctly. [This letter contained numerous grammatical errors, including mutation errors, and mispelling of the group’s name. It is impossible to know whether all these were the fault of the letter-writer or the typesetters.] This small selection of correspondence illustrates the lively interest in Wales about matters of language purity which extends into the area of mutation usage. However, this is clearly not representative of a general awareness about mutation usage, and the patterns of such usage in the standard language. The following sub-section takes a more controlled look at this point. 11.1.2 Linguistic self-awareness Many sociolinguistic studies have included tests of the linguistic awareness of subjects through measures of linguistic recognition, selfevaluation and linguistic security. The classical paradigm was developed in Labov (1966). In his study of New York English Labov wanted not only to examine how people used the variables under consideration, but also how well aware they were of the ‘standard’ or prestige forms of the variables, and how aware they were of their own performances. These patterns of awareness can be examined through forcedchoice tests, where subjects are presented with a choice between two (or more) stimuli which differ only in the variants of the variable under study, and are asked to point out which of the utterances was
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‘correct’, or closest to their own usage, etc. Not only do studies of this sort allow us to gauge subjects’ knowledge of the prestige variants of a variable, but also their own accuracy in self-reporting their own patterns of use, as we can compare their claimed use with their actual use. In the study reported in Chapter 10 (Ball 1984b), it was decided to measure both the speakers’ awareness of the mutation rules of the standard language, as well as their accuracy in self-reporting. For our discussion here, the first of these tests is of interest, as we will be able to see whether the low figures for AM and NM occurrence after some of the triggers investigated in Chapter 10 is due to the fact that speakers are no longer aware that the standard language expects mutation in these contexts. If so, we may well be able to conclude that change is under way in the entire mutation system (see 11.2 below). The measure used consisted of a set of ten sentences in pairs and triplets, each sentence differing only in the variant of the mutation trigger variable concerned. Several dummy examples were used to draw subjects’ attention away from the mutation system. To simplify the administration of this test the numeral triggers were represented by tri alone (chwe being ommitted). However, to gain further insights into specific variables, na and tua were analysed separately, and yn was looked at in two environments (following the evidence of P.W.Thomas 1984): yn 1 with common nouns, and yn 2 with placenames. The results of this investigation are presented in Table 11.1, with the subjects divided into the three cultural affiliation groupings described in Chapter 10. The scores represent percentages of forms correctly identified as being ‘grammatically correct Welsh’ by the groups. There is, of course, nothing surprising in the high scores of group A, or the lower scores of B and C. It is interesting to note, however, that in five cases group C scores higher than B. These differences are usually small, Table 11.1 Percentage correct forms identified by group
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though (and it must be remembered that we are dealing here with a relatively small amount of data), but may perhaps be attributed to greater attention to the task being given by this group, aware perhaps of their ‘inadequacies’ with mutations (a comment voiced by many informants in the study), with group B more sure of its behaviour and less likely to guess. Looking at the variables themselves, we can note that ei, a and to a lesser extent â/gyda are all fairly well recognized as AM triggers. On the other hand, tri is not so well recognized, and indeed no group achieved over 50 per cent recognition of this form as being a trigger of AM, and group C fell to a score of 0. Negative verbs (with no preceding particle in the examples in the test) are similar, but here three possible variants were presented to subjects, with over half of them choosing SM as the correct form here. Na and tua show different results in this test, despite the similarities reported for the use of these two triggers. Na shows over 50 per cent recognition of AM for all groups, whereas tua is not so well recognized, and overall just achieves 50 per cent. Yn is fairly highly recognized as an NM trigger by all groups, with the exception of yn 2 by group C, although even here NM is the majority choice. The few subjects not recognizing NM as being triggered by both types of yn all chose SM instead. That yn2 is recognized less well by group C (while the other groups show hardly any difference between the two types) fits in with the view of P.W.Thomas (1984) that place-names are susceptible to the blocking of mutation, particularly in speakers whose dominant language is not Welsh. These results suggest, then, that the ‘correct’ mutation usage of the following triggers is part of most speakers’ linguistic competence, or rather is accessible to the speakers as part of their linguistic repertoires (whatever variation is found in the performance of those repertoires): ei, yn, a, â/gyda. On the other hand, ‘correct’ (i.e. standard) mutation usage of the remaining triggers appears not well established (particularly among speakers who have not been exposed to Standard Welsh, or who are dominant English): tri, negative verb, tua and to some extent na. For those triggers that had three variants to choose from in the test (ei, negative verb, yn), two patterns of substitution emerged from those subjects not choosing AM/NM as the ‘correct’ trigger. For ei, where in fact only one subject did not chose AM, radical was the alternative. Possibly, the fact that ei+SM has another meaning (‘his’) affected this choice. For negative verb the alternative offered was SM with one exception, when radical was preferred. This may
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well be due to the fact that SM is indeed standard usage for negative verbs except for those starting with p, t, c (see Chapter 1). Interestingly, if we look at the subjects’ production of this variable as described in the previous chapter, we find that well over half used the radical with negative verbs of this type, followed by AM, with SM as the lowest score. Finally, for yn, SM was again the alternative proffered for NM, with no-one opting for radical, despite the fact that in their performance over half of the usages of yn were in fact followed by the radical (see Chapter 10). 11.2 MUTATION AS A TWO-TERM SYSTEM The results from both the study of mutation production (Chapter 10) and mutation recognition (11.1.2) tend to suggest that in vernacular forms of Welsh some sort of change is taking place in the use of mutations. The questions that naturally arise are what sort of change, and what evidence do we have? As noted in the work of Dorian (1977, 1981), changes to consonant mutation can be seen as part of a whole bundle of changes characteristic of language decay and death. In the case of her studies, mutation of initial consonants in East Sutherland Gaelic was changed to no mutation in the majority of cases, which might suggest that such changes are somehow a stronger sign of language decay than changes to a different mutation, which may well be the effects of analogy in the system as a whole. In all investigations of differences between standard and vernacular forms we have to be careful, however. As described by Hennessey (1990), variation in Breton mutations that had previously been thought to be a sign of language death, turned out, at closer examination, to be a static pattern of linguistic behaviour that could be traced back historically to a much earlier period. What information we have in the dialect studies of Welsh (see 10.1.1), however, suggests that until comparatively recently the majority of the variable triggers examined in Chapter 10 were regularly noted as being followed by standard usage, at least in the district investigated. One has to be aware, however, that many of these earlier studies adopted a methodology that does not allow us a broad sample of different styles from individual speakers, and it could well be the case that the patterns of usage noted in Chapter 10 date back to older varieties of the language, in a similar way to Hennessey’s findings. The strongest recent claim that the mutation system is undergoing change comes from Awbery (1986a). Using many of the dialect studies
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of Welsh referred to in 10.1.1 as her source, and concentrating on South Wales dialects (as, indeed, do the dialect studies in general), she states, ‘we find clear evidence of a change in progress’ (Awbery 1986a:162). Further, this change is in a particular direction: ‘the nasal and aspirate mutations are losing ground; the soft mutation is becoming stronger’ (ibid.). In fact, what we are seeing, according to Awbery, is a change from a four-term system as found in Standard Welsh (that is radical, SM, NM, AM) to a two-term system in the southern dialects of radical and SM only. Awbery feels that this change has been brought about through a crossdialectal conspiracy, whereby ‘a number of small and apparently unrelated changes can be seen to lead, in combination, to a single overall structural shift’ (ibid). She points out that the change from a four-term to a two-term system is a result of a series of changes involving the individual triggers of AM and NM. She goes on to describe the forms that these individual changes take. For both fy ‘my’ and yn ‘in’ she claims the evidence supports a change from triggering NM to triggering SM. For negative verbs +AM, she notes a change to +SM. For most of the other AM triggers she claims that the change is one to the retention of the radical; that is, the loss of mutation altogether. The triggers she specifically cites in this respect are a ‘and’, tri ‘three’ and na ‘than’. She points out the difference between AM and NM by saying that there are no clear instances where NM is replaced by the radical. This last point is interesting in that if we look at the data presented in Chapter 10, we see that for yn (fy was not studied) over half the instances were followed by radical, with +SM third, with only 12 per cent. For our data at least, then, Awbery’s claim for the NM triggers does not stand up; the only support it gains is in the data discussed in 11.1.2, where those subjects not aware of NM as the ‘correct’ mutation after yn claimed that SM was; but numbers doing so were very small. Nevertheless, our results do agree with the broad direction of Awbery’s argument. Further data reported in Ball (1984b) support Awbery’s comments on SM: ‘the soft mutation is stable, even expanding’ (Awbery 1986a:163). Awbery sounds a note of caution, however, about this shift from a four-term to a two-term system. She feels that this change is still in progress, and that it seems to have gone further in some districts than in others. She notes also the differential degree of shift between older and younger speakers, and the effect of set phrases or idioms in retaining mutation practices that might well have been changed in looser
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constructions. She does not, unfortunately, raise the two features explored as part of the study described in Chapter 10: style and speaker acculturation. These clearly have an effect on mutation usage, and their omission in Awbery’s account may well be due to the paucity of information on these features in the dialect studies she refers to. Nevertheless, A.E.Roberts’s (1972) work did utilize these variables, and, although not based on a southern dialect, might have provided some clues to their potential effects elsewhere. Awbery concludes by noting that the discussion has been based on a variety of studies, done at different times, and varying in depth and coverage. She states, ‘only a thorough study of mutations in these dialects, long overdue, will be able to confirm my suggestion or show in what ways it should be modified’ (1986a:164). We would hope that the study we report in Chapter 10 goes some way to fulfil this need, and that it supports a modified version of Awbery’s claim: the system is simplifying, but changes to radical are stronger than changes to SM; all changes are subject to restraint from style and from exposure to standardizing forces. It will also be interesting to see what effect Welshlanguage education (with its force for standardization) will have on this change (Hatton’s 1988 study suggests that education does have an effect: see 9.1.3). 11.3 THE FUTURE OF WELSH Any discussion on the future development of linguistic features in a minority language naturally has to take into account the future of that language as a living means of communication: this is clearly true of Welsh. The decline in both numbers of Welsh speakers and the percentage of Wales’s inhabitants who can speak Welsh is shown dramatically in the census figures this century: c 50 per cent (1901), 43.5 per cent (1911), 37.1 per cent (1921), 36.8 per cent (1931), 28.9 per cent (1951), 26.0 per cent (1961), 20.9 per cent (1971), 19.0 per cent (1981); and of actual speakers we have seen a drop from about 930,000 in 1901 to just over 500,000 in 1981. Even since the 1971 census there has been a considerable drop in total speakers, and as Baker (1985:40) points out, ‘the 1981 Census of Britain revealed a loss of some 39,000 Welsh speakers since the previous Census, and signs of a dying language’. Baker (1985), Aitchison and Carter (1985) and Pryce and Williams (1988) all discuss the geographical break-up in the Welsh heartland (variously defined, but for example areas with over 70 per cent Welsh
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speakers) into fragmentary and isolated areas surrounded by increasingly anglicized regions. This is compounded by second-home and retirementhome buying in the remaining heartland areas by ‘outsiders’ which, together with rural depopulation of native Welsh speakers, increases social tensions as well as linguistic ones. Such a gloomy picture may suggest that attempts to predict future trends in particular features of spoken Welsh may well be overtaken by the loss of the language as a spoken vernacular. However, we also saw in the 1981 census results an increase (albeit slight) in Welsh spoken in the south-eastern urban areas of Wales. It is unclear as yet how much this is due to an actual revival of the language in these areas (through, for example, the expanding bilingual schools movement), and how much it results from the attraction of the Welsh-speaking professional classes from the heartland areas for employment purposes in the newly expanded Welsh-medium professions (the media including the Welshlanguage television channel, local government, the Welsh Office, education, etc). Concern over the ever-decreasing numbers of Welsh speakers has led to the formation of various bodies to defend and promote the language. Some of these advocate direct action, peaceful in the case of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (‘The Welsh Language Society’), others less so: for example Meibion Glyndwr (‘Sons of Glyndwr’) acting directly against the second-home crisis. Other bodies are concerned with promoting the language in specific domains: legal, medical, educational, amongst the young, second-language teaching for adults, etc. An overall co-ordinating body of ‘eminent people’ (Bwrdd yr Iaith, ‘Welsh Language Board’) has recently been set up. Such activities have kept the language at the forefront of debate over the last thirty years, and have won considerable progress in the expansion of the domains in which the language can be used, thereby increasing the status of the language. Whether these developments have been sufficient to halt, let alone reverse, the trends of the last ninety years awaits the results of the 1991 census. (A full account of the recent sociolinguistics of Welsh can be found in R.O.Jones (forthcoming).) In demographic terms Welsh may be shifting from a set of rural heartlands where the language is dominant, to a set of social networks in both rural and urban areas where it dominates only within the network, with outside these networks English as the main medium of communication. This need not be a death-blow for the language, however. But, in such a situation the survival of the language may well depend upon a widely
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accepted standard spoken variety of the language to avoid total fragmentation. We have discussed above (see Chapter 1) recent developments in this area, which have been promoted in education and the media. This standard spoken variety (Cymraeg Byw) is, however, at odds with traditional Standard Welsh in its literary forms. In particular, there are differences in the use of mutations. Whereas Modern Standard Welsh (i.e. literary Welsh) insists on the full range of mutation contexts listed in Chapter 1, Cymraeg Byw advocates the ‘dropping’ of many of these, particularly with respect to AM. It may well be, then, that the Welsh of the next century will see a struggle between vernacular varieties and Cymraeg Byw, on the one hand, and the literary tradition, on the other, with respect to the sorts of changes outlined by Awbery (1986a). Interestingly, a victory for the literary language may be hollow: a sign that Welsh has retreated from a set of spoken vernaculars to a written historical relic. 11.4 FUTURE RESEARCH ON MUTATIONS While we hope we have managed to show in this book the breadth of interest that one particular linguistic phenomenon can raise, we do not claim to have covered all the linguistic consequences of a system of initial consonant mutation. In this final section we will highlight two areas that warrant further study: literary aspects of ICM, and mutation and discourse. Other areas, such as neurolinguistics and mutation (e.g. the effects of aphasia) and the applied linguistics of ICM (e.g. the teaching and learning of the system by second-language students), have already been touched on in 9.0. Welsh has a long literary tradition (see D.Glyn Jones 1988), part of which is concerned with strict metre poetry utilizing cynghanedd— systems of alliterative verse (Morris-Jones 1925). The requirements of alliteration often appear to override the normal mutation rules of literary Welsh. This can be in the form of ignoring mutations that might be expected, or indeed including mutations that would not be expected. A problem in this area of analysis, however, lies in the fact that such mutation usages may also reflect historical changes or dialectal differences in the mutation system. While we have not examined this phenomenon in any detail (e.g. in terms of specific authors/periods, types of verse, effect of the rhythm of the verse, etc.), we include a few examples below to illustrate some of the forms that occur. The first two of these are explained by Morgan (1952) as being due to the effect of the pause at the end or middle of a line, though the requirement to fit the cynghanedd is an equally strong explanation
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(here, bold type marks the words where mutation would have been expected): (11.1) Dir yw i bob aderyn Dysgu anrhydeddu dyn1 ‘Every bird must learn to honour man’ (11.2) Y ddraig goch ddyry cychwyn2 ‘The red dragon gives the lead’ (11.3) At Duw a’r sain(t) drwy y sêr3 ‘towards God and the saints through the stars’
(I+NP+X)
(DOM) (prep+NP)
In the following examples of unexpected mutation, it is generally accepted that the usages reflect regular rules of earlier stages of the language; it may well be, however, that these have been retained longer in poetic registers because of the demands of cynghanedd (in these examples bold type marks the words where mutation would not now be expected): (11.4) Fe ddôi gof am Ddafydd Gam4 ‘memory would come of Dafydd Gam’
(Subj NP)
(11.5) Nid oes gerdd ond i _was gwych5 ‘there was music only for an excellent servant’
(Subj NP)
(11.6) A Duw ni _wnaeth dynion _well6 ‘and God does not make better men’
(comp Adj)
As we noted above, another area of future research concerns the use of mutations within natural discourse. Of specific interest here would seem to be the use of filled and unfilled pauses. It is clear that such pauses can occur between forms that are syntactically and semantically closely linked (even if they are more common at more major syntactic boundaries). It is quite possible, therefore, for such a device to occur between a mutation trigger and its target. When this does happen it will be interesting to discover whether the mutation is maintained or dropped or whether such behaviour is variable; whether any pattern emerges concerning the types of pauses, the length of unfilled pauses, the types of mutation involved, speaker and style differences and so on. Naturally, it is necessary to ensure that any such examples that exhibit loss of mutation triggering are due to the discourse factor, rather than being one of the triggers subject to variable realization in all circumstances (as described in Chapter 10 above). Awbery (1984b) is one of the first studies of discourse in Welsh, and discusses in detail various discourse particles. Unfortunately, she does not
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have examples of such particles occurring between mutation triggers and targets. As an initial contribution to this particular aspect of discourse analysis, we include the following examples culled randomly from personal interactions. In these examples bold type marks a target following a filled or unfilled pause, and underlining shows where the mutation was maintained. (11.7)
Mae ’na…chi ’m ’bod…gormod o bobl yna is there you pt know too-many of people there ‘There are…you know…too many people there’
(11.8)
Gawsoch chi…marc da ddô? got+2p you mark good yesterday ‘Did you get…a good mark yesterday?’
(11.9)
Mae’r dre ’ma’n… m…fechan iawn is the town here pt small very ‘this town is…um…very small’
(11.10) Ma’ Dafydd a minnau’n mynd i… _weithio yn is D and me pt go to work in y bora the morning ‘Dafydd and me are going to…work in the morning’ These examples show that both filled and unfilled pauses can cause blocking of mutation triggering, but do not necessarily do so; though, of course, these examples do not show which behaviour is most common, or whether the blocked mutations reflect nothing more than occasional performance errors. Some more information in this regard is available from the material collected in the ‘Survey of Educated Welsh’ undertaken by Bob Morris Jones and Alan Thomas in the 1970s. The following examples are marked by the file card number of that survey:7 (11.11) Ond fedrwn ni _wneud ddim i…ddistewi’r gwynt? but can we do nothing to quieten the wind ‘But can’t we do anything to quieten the wind?’ (282) (11.12) Dowch i ni [?] …gyfeirio at…enghraifft glasurol come to us refer towards example classical ‘Let’s point to a classical example’ (284)
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(11.13) _wna i ddim ond rhoi dwy enghraifft ohonyn do I nothing but give two examples of nhw, dwy wedi bod…yn…Ne [mf=] Iwerddon (286) them, two after be in South Ireland I’ll only give two examples of them, two of which were in Southern Ireland’ (11.14) y gwahanol…fathau (290) ‘the different types’ (11.15) ma na fathau arbennig [?]o\[?]o dyfiant (291) is there types special of [+stutter] growth ‘there are special types of growth’ (11.16) ac iddo ef o’r gwmdog a’r gwmdogaeth… and to him from the neighbour and the neighbourhood _orfod dioddef yn fawr o’r herwydd (294) had to suffer greatly of the because ‘and he had to suffer a lot from the neighbour and the neighbourhood on account of it’ (11.17) i fanylu ar… [?=] cacwn mwnci (295) to detail on cock-chafer beetle ‘to go into detail on the cock-chafer beetle’ These data clearly show that pauses, both filled and unfilled, and disfluencies do not normally disrupt the mutation process. Only (11.17) shows a blocked mutation, and if the filled pause there is interpreted as the article y, that would have blocked SM in any case. Of course, we would still need further data to find the balance of blocked and unblocked mutations in examples such as these, and to discover what variables, if any, control the patterns of usage of mutation within discourse. 11.5 CONCLUSION This book is intended to be, more than anything else, an introduction to the fascinating field of initial consonant mutation in Welsh. We cannot claim to have answered all the questions arising from the different aspects of ICM. We hope that we have contributed to a concentration of the debate, gathering different facets of the discussion together in one sourcebook. It has become clear, we feel, that it is impossible adequately to account for the operation of mutation contexts in Modern Welsh
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without taking into consideration the interplay between phonology, morphology and syntax on the synchronic level. Furthermore, we hope we have demonstrated the dangers involved in an overreliance on a purely formal description of mutation environments, which ignores the functions that the mutations fulfil. As regards the diachronic development, we have attempted to show that we are dealing with a highly complex series of processes which led to the establishment of ICM in Present-Day Welsh; the debate concerning the precise character of this development is not yet concluded.
Appendix 1 The morphology of mutation
A1.0 INTRODUCTION Mutation occurs as part of morphology in three main contexts: derivational morphology in compounds, derivational morphology with affixes and inflectional morphology with certain suffixes. The mutations triggered are SM, NM, AM and HM (hard mutation, or provection, described in Appendix 2). In the following lists, examples only are given of the various mutation contexts; for fuller lists readers are referred to S.J.Williams (1980).
A1.1 COMPOUNDS A1.1.1 Proper compounds A proper compound has the same word-class as the second element of the compound. They are of two sub-types: strict (stressed as a single word), and loose (with both elements taking stress). Strict compounds take SM on the initial consonant of the second element (though following n, ll is often retained), or in certain phonological contexts (see Appendix 2 ), HM to the final segment of the first element. With some exceptions, the phonological contexts of HM take precedence over the general rule triggering SM. Examples are as follows: +HM abad + ty costawg + ci dryg + hin pob + ty
→ → → →
abaty costawci drycin popty
‘abbey’ ‘watchdog’ ‘stormy weather’ ‘bakehouse’
Appendix 1: The morphology of mutation
gwrid + coch brag + ty lled + chwith
→ → →
gwritcoch bracty lletchwith
‘ruddy’ ‘brewery’ ‘awkward’
+SM gwaith + ty glas + bryn du + coch clust + meinio hir + parhau
→ → → → →
gweithdy glasfryn dugoch clustfeinio hirbarhau
‘workshop’ ‘green hill’ ‘dark red’ ‘listen intently’ ‘persevere’
279
Loose compounds are written as two separate words, hyphenated, or as a single word with secondary stress on the first element of the compound and primary stress on the second element. Loose compounds normally trigger SM to the second element. Those loose compounds written as two words always have an adjective as the first element (thus triggering SM). Some adjectives invariably come before the noun (see Chapter 1) and it is arguable whether these constitute a compound, rather than just a phrase. One can argue also that those adjectives that variably precede a noun also are just an exceptional phrasal unit often with different semantics to the normal word order. Some examples are included here, but this does not necessarily imply we support a compound analysis for these constructions. (a) separate words hen + dyn → hen + gwr → hoff + can → prif + peth → cryn + dwsin →
hen ddyn hen wr hoff gan prif beth cryn ddwsin
‘old man’ ‘old man’ ‘favourite song’ ‘main thing’ ‘full dozen’
(b) hyphenated amcan + cyfrif wyneb + dalen chwerw + melys cam + trin ail + dweud
→ → → → →
amcan-gyfrif wyneb-ddalen chwerw-felys cam-drin ail-ddweud
‘estimate’ ‘title-page’ ‘bitter-sweet’ ‘ill-treat’ ‘repeat’
(c) one word cam + defnydd → cam + cymeriad → prif + dinas →
camddefnydd camgymeriad prifddinas
‘misuse’ ‘mistake’ ‘capital city’
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ysgol + meistr arall + geiriad
→ →
ysgolfeistr aralleiriad
‘school master’ ‘paraphrase’ (g → Ø)
A1.1.2 Improper compounds Improper compounds are words in their natural word order that are joined and stressed as a single word. The word class will be that of either the first or second element depending on the normal word order, and the dominant word of the compound (i.e. the head of the constituent: e.g. noun+adj will be a noun, numeral+noun will be a noun). In these compounds SM, AM or NM (and occasionally HM) will only occur if these mutations would normally occur in such syntactic environments. Examples are as follows: +Radical tri + darn gwr + da cant + punt
→ → →
tridarn gwrda canpunt
‘three parts’ ‘nobleman’ ‘hundred pounds (£)’
+SM dau + pwys hin + da haul + gwyn
→ → →
deubwys hindda heulwen
‘two pounds (lb)’ ‘fine weather’ ‘sunshine’ (g → Ø)
+NM yn + blaen yn + cylch yn + pen
→ → →
ymlaen ynghylch ymhen
‘forward’ ‘concerning’ ‘within’
+AM tri + pwys chwe + cant chwe + ceiniog
→ → →
triphwys chwechant chwecheiniog
‘three pounds (lb)’ ‘six hundred’ ‘sixpence’
+HM pob + peth
→
popeth
‘everything’
A1.2 DERIVATIONAL AFFIXES A1.2.1 Prefixes The vast majority of prefixes trigger SM to the following element of the word, with a few triggering NM, AM or variably SM or radical. In the list
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below we give a selection of these prefixes, their approximate meaning, and examples of their use; they are classified into the mutations they trigger. (a) Radical disaffirmative negative e(h)‘before, without’ ech‘before’
distaw, disgloff, eofn, echdoe,
(b) +SM ad-
adflas,
addafailallamar-
‘second’ ‘re-’ intensive negative ‘second’ ‘re-’ ‘other’ ‘around’ intensive opposite
arch‘arch’ atintensive cam‘wrong’ ‘mis-’ cy-/cyd-/cyf-‘co-’ ‘together’
cyndad-/datdardi-
‘pre-’ negative intensive ‘without’
dirintensive dointensive enintensive go-/gwo-/gwa-‘sub-’ hy‘well, fine’ gwrth‘contra-’ lled‘half-’ prif‘chief’ rhag‘pre-’ rhy‘too’
‘quiet’ ‘free from lameness’ ‘fearless’ ‘the day before yesterday’
‘aftermath’, adlais, ‘echo’ addfwyn ‘gentle, meek’ afraid, ‘unnecessary’ ailddechrau, ‘to recommence’ allforio, ‘to export’ amgylch, ‘environment’ ardystio, ‘to endorse’ Arfon, place-name (opposite Môn) archdderwydd, ‘archdruid’ atgas, ‘hateful’ camddeall, ‘misunderstand’ cywaith, ‘fellowship’ (g →Ø); cydfod, ‘agreement’; cyfliw, ‘hue, same colour’ cyn-faer, ‘ex-mayor’ datgysylltu, ‘disconnect’ darbwyllo, ‘persuade’ di-dâl, ‘free’ (=without payment) dirgel, ‘secret’ dolef, ‘cry’ enfawr, ‘huge’ gobennydd, ‘pillow’ hyfryd, ‘pleasant’ gwrthgorffyn, ‘antibody’ lledlwm, ‘tattered’ prifardd, ‘chief bard’ rhagfarn, ‘prejudice’ rhydyllu, ‘perforate’
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rhyng-
‘inter-’
tryym-
‘through’ reflexive
rhyngwladol, ‘international’ (g → Ø) tryloyw, ‘transparent’ (g → Ø) ymolchi, ‘wash oneself’ (g → Ø)
(c) Variable Radicall+SM eil‘second’
eilddydd/eildydd, ‘second day’
(d) +NM ang-/am-/an negative cyng-/cym-/cyn ‘com-, con-’
annheg, cyngerdd,
‘unfair’ ‘concert’
(e) +AM adygor-/gwartra-
athrist, dychryn, gwarchod, trachywiredd,
‘sorrowful’ ‘fear’ ‘to guard’ ‘precision work’
intensive intensive ‘super-’ ‘over, excessive’
A1.2.2 Suffixes A few suffixes trigger HM to the final consonant of the preceding stem (HM, thereby, does not fit our definition of ICM). These are mostly suffixes creating verb forms. (a) verb formation +HM -hau/-au gwacau, ‘to empty’ (← gwag+ha+u) -ha/-a bwyta, ‘to eat’ (← bwyd+ha) Some forms trigger HM to the initial consonant of the following suffix. Where phonologically possible, they also trigger HM to the final consonant of the stem (e.g. dicter, ‘anger’, ← dig+der). The suffixes involved are those marking abstract nouns. (b) noun formation +HM -der braster, ‘grossness’ (cf. poethder, ‘heat’) -did ieuenctid, ‘youth’ (cf. glendid, ‘cleanliness’) -dra cyfleustra, ‘convenience’ (cf. mawrdra, ‘greatness’) A1.3 INFLECTIONAL AFFIXES The inflections marking the comparison of adjectives trigger HM to the final consonant of the stem. The equative, comparative and superlative degrees are illustrated below with the adjective teg ‘fair’.
Appendix 1: The morphology of mutation
equative comparative superlative
teced tecach tecaf
(← teg+(h)ed) ‘as fair (as)’ (← teg+(h)ach) ‘fairer’ (← teg+(h)af) ‘fairest’
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Appendix 2 Hard mutation
A2.0 INTRODUCTION The term ‘hard mutation’ or ‘provection’ is used to describe a set of consonant changes that occur at morpheme boundaries (as noted in Appendix 1), but do not occur in Welsh at word boundaries like the other mutations. Hard mutation is different also in that rather than affecting the initial segment of a morpheme or word in the way that ICM processes do, HM usually affects the final segment of the morpheme concerned. Further, HM is triggered mainly by the phonological environment found at the morpheme boundary; even with the morphological mutations we find that the other mutations are still triggered by specific prefixes etc., and for the majority of cases it is not predictable phonologically which mutation will result.
A2.1 THE PHONOLOGY OF HM In HM the consonants affected are /b, d, g/ and less commonly /v, ð/, and they are changed to their voiceless counterparts: /p, t, k, f, θ/. The morphological environments where these changes can occur are preceding a compound word boundary, preceding certain derivational endings and preceding certain inflectional endings (as noted in Appendix 1). In some cases, the initial segment of a derivational suffix is affected by HM, rather than the final segment of the stem, and these are returned to in A2.2 below. The phonological environment of HM is that the mutation is triggered when two voiced obstruents abut across a morpheme boundary, or when a voiced obstruent abuts /h/, or when a voiced obstruent abuts a voiceless obstruent. In the great majority of cases the second voiced obstruent is only potentially so voiced (through the expected operation of SM). In
Appendix 2: Hard mutation
285
these cases we have assumed that the HM operation precedes any application of SM, so simplifying the rule to produce a triggering environment of voiceless obstruents and /h/ only. This differs somewhat for those suffixes referred to above that take the HM on the initial segment of the suffix, and again this is discussed in A2.2. These aspects of HM can be expressed in the following rule schema:
(A2.1)
A2.2 HM WITH ABSTRACT NOUN ENDINGS As noted above in Appendix 1, there are a set of abstract noun endings where HM appears to operate differently from other instances. With these endings we find that the initial voiced obstruent of the suffix (in each case /d/) is changed to its voiceless counterpart (/t/). This procedure is variable, in that while some stems ending with voiceless obstruents seem to trigger it, others do not (e.g. bras+der → braster poeth+der → poethder). It appears then, that this example of HM is much more lexically dependent than the other examples. Nevertheless, we can formulate a rule for this type of HM, bearing in mind that this rule will be lexically determined.
(A2.2)
The one problem case that arises here is the form dicter (>dig+der). Here we must assume that HM has operated on both the final consonant of the stem (dig → dic), and the initial consonant of the suffix (der → ter). The two rules (A2.1) and (A2.2), however, cancel each other out in this case, as (A2.1) can only operate once the suffix has been changed, and (A2.2) can only operate once the stem has been changed. One way around this impasse would be to alter the structural description of the (A2.1) by allowing both voiced and voiceless obstruents to be in the triggering environment. To alter the simplicity of the rule for this one case may be considered unnecessary, though it would also allow SM reflexes of the second elements of compounds to be considered triggers, and obviate the necessity for rule ordering. However, unless other evidence were forthcoming, we feel the simplicity of the original rule formulations
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outweigh the problem raised by dicter and similar forms, which are perhaps best marked as exceptions. A2.3 IS HM REALLY SM IN DISGUISE? It might be argued that HM as a separate mutation process is not necessary; as the results of HM are to some extent the reverse of those of SM it might be possible to construct an analysis that uses SM as the mutation process, but reverses the basic form. Let us take an example. We saw in Appendix 1 that the adjective teg ‘fair’ undergoes HM when the suffixes for comparison are added: equative comparative superlative
teced ‘as fair (as)’ tecach ‘fairer’ tecaf ‘fairest’
We have assumed here a change teg → tec-. However, if the underlying form of the adjective is assumed to be *tec, we could construct a rule that states that the final consonant of stems of adjectives undergo SM when no suffixes are added. Similar descriptions could be drawn up to deal with the other instances of HM described in Appendix 1. This analysis, however, is not descriptively adequate, without supposing major changes to the SM process as we have previously described it. For example, such a rule would predict that adjectives showing stem-final /v, ð/ before these endings, for example, should show stem-final /b, d/ when no suffixes are added. In fact, we find cryf ‘strong’ ← cryfed/cryfach/cryfaf (not *cryb), and peraidd ‘fragrant’ pereiddied/ pereiddiach/pereiddiaf (not *peraid). To account for this, we would need to construct another restricted version of SM (see Chapter 1), that only affects /p, t, k/. Further, as we have seen, HM can also affect /v, ð/, changing them in some contexts to /f, Ø/. This also would require a change to SM which does not affect voiceless fricatives. It would seem, therefore, that HM as a separate category is justified to account for the data found in word morphology.
Appendix 3 The pronunciation of Welsh
A3.0 INTRODUCTION Welsh orthography is largely phonemic, by which we mean there is a high degree of correspondence between graphemes and phonemes. This is particularly true in formal styles of speech, and for the accent of North Wales. For the benefit of readers not familiar with the language, we give here a brief guide to the pronunciation of the examples used in the text, using the northern standard accent, but noting those features which differ in the southern standard accent. A3.1 CONSONANTS Grapheme p t c b d g tsi ~ tsh ~ -ts j ff ~ phth s si ~ sh ~ -s ch f dd
Phoneme /p/ /t/ /k/ /b/ /d/ /g/ /t / (final -ts also /ts/) /d3/ /f/ (ph- AM reflex of p-) /θ/ /s/ (final -s usually /s/) / / /χ/ (/x/, southern) /v/ /ð/
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h m n ng mh nh ngh l ll r rh wV iV
/h/ (often missing, southern) /m/ /n/ / / ~ / g/ (this last less usual) /mh/ = [mh] ~ [ ] [/m/ southern) /nh/ = [nh] ~ [ ] (/n/ southern) / h/ = [ h] ~ [ ] [/ / southern) /l/ // /r/ = [r] /rh/ = [ ] (often /r/, southern) /w/ (see also vowels) /j/ (see also vowels)
A3.2 VOWELS Grapheme i~î i e~ê e a~â a ô~o o w~w w û~u u y~y y
Phoneme /i/ /I/ /e/ /ε/ /ɑ/ /a/ /o/ /ɔ/ /u/ /t/ /i/ (/i/, southern) /I/ (/I/, southern) /i/ (/i/, southern) /I/ ~ /ə/ (/I/ ~ /ə/, southern)
Notes: generally, long vowels are found in open syllables and before voiced obstruents; short vowels before voiceless obstruents and clusters. Before nasals and liquids both can occur, here long vowels may be marked with a circumflex. The grapheme generally represents /ə/ in all but final syllables.
Appendix 3: The pronunciation of Welsh
289
A3.3 DIPHTHONGS Grapheme ae ai au aw ei eu ew iw oe oi wy yw ~ ow
Phoneme /ɑi/ (/aI/ southern) /a1/ /ai/ (/aI/ southern) /aυ/ /əI/ /ə / (/əI/ southern) /eυ/ /iυ/ /ɔ / (/ɔI/ southern) /ɔI/ /υ / (/υI/ southern) /əυ/
Notes: the southern forms noted here are formal style, further changes are found in informal styles. The grapheme <wy> can also stand for /wi/. Other <wV> and combinations have consonantal /w/ and /j/. A3.4 SUPRASEGMENTALS There is no space to give a detailed analysis of Welsh intonation here, for which see Ball (1989). Stress in Welsh is generally regular, falling on the penult. In some instances irregular stress is found, and generally this is on the final syllable. In a few borrowings it is on the antepenult. Examples are given below. canaf caniadau ymladd Cymraeg melodi ffilosoffi
/’kanav/ /kan’jadai/ /əm’lað/ /kəm’raig/ /’mεlɔdi/ /fI’lɔsɔfi/
‘I sing’ regular stress ‘songs’ regular stress ‘to tire oneself’ final stress ‘Welsh’ final stress ‘melody’ initial stress ‘philosophy’ antepenult stress
Notes
Introduction 1 Oftedal (1985) attempts to show that similar mutations can be found in other languages, in particular Spanish. However, Fife (1985a) argues that the consonant changes noted by Oftedal carry ‘no functional load, and so [are] not a grammaticalized process’ (p. 184). West Atlantic languages also display initial consonant mutation that is not phonologically conditioned, and Ternes (1990) compares some of these to Celtic languages, pointing out similarities and differences. Details of some of these languages are discussed in Chapter 5. Chapter 1 1 There appears no phonological/lexical reason why, for example, Hywel Dda ‘Hywel the Good’ takes SM, while Rhodri Mawr ‘Rhodri the Great’ does not, unless it is to be argued that the latter should be translated as ‘Big Rhodri’. 2 Other restricted forms of SM have been noted, for example following the numerals saith ‘seven’ and wyth ‘eight’, but these are now considered archaisms. 3 The phonetic status of these is discussed in Chapter 4. 4 The phonetic status of the voiceless nasal segments is returned to below, and in Chapter 4. 5 In the traditional literature on Welsh grammar, this mutation type has been variously termed ‘aspirate mutation’ and ‘spirant mutation’. ‘Spirant’, as an alternative term for fricatives (see Hockett 1958:72) would seem a more precise label for this process; ‘aspiration’ generally being utilized to describe release stages of stops (although it can be argued that in its widest sense it conveys only the use of turbulent airstreams at some stage during articulation). However, for purely pragmatic purposes the name ‘aspirate mutation’ is retained in this book to facilitate the abbreviation AM, patterning with the other abbreviations SM and NM; ‘spirant mutation’ could not be abbreviated SM, as it would clash with soft mutation.
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Chapter 2 1 We are unable to ascribe this quotation unambiguously to Morgan as, being cover information, it may well have been written or adapted by the publishers. We can assume, however, that it does reflect the author’s views. Chapter 3 1 In one of the two tables he provides to illustrate the mutations in Middle Cornish, George uses what he calls ‘phonetic notation’, transcribing the input for the mutations as /pp, tt, kk, bb, dd, gg, mm, nn, ll, rr, g, gw/. We assume that, for example, /pp/ designates a long stop. Although George notes that, by the Middle Cornish period, /p, t, k/ versus /pp, tt, kk/ had phoneme status, we have chosen not to show consonant length for reasons of economy. As can be seen from George’s tables, consonant length of the mutation input is consistent, with the exception of the opposition /g/ → (SM) /Ø/, (Provection) /k/, (SM and Provection) /h/ and /g/ → (SM) /w/, (SM and Provection) /γw/ . The latter /g/, noted separately in Table 3.5, is the reflex of Primitive Cornish [?w]. Note that Lewis (1945: sec. 8) does not list the ‘mixed mutation’ as a separate category. 2 Jackson derived support for his theory from Falc’hun’s studies of the articulatory properties of Modern Breton (see Falc’hun 1951): he discerns a possible correlation between the position of a stop and its length. Sommerfelt’s results regarding the development of the consonantal system in Brythonic are similar, though he points out that the likelihood for survival of such a typologically unusual system was very small indeed (Sommerfelt 1954:103f.). 3 The examples here are not meant to be exhaustive in any way. A more detailed treatment of the Latin loans in Welsh is provided in Lewis (1943) and Loth (1892). Gratwick (1982) deals critically with Jackson’s notion of ‘British Latin’ (1953a:76ff.). Jackson’s main claim is that the Latin spoken in Britain was considerably more archaic than ‘Vulgar Latin’. Gratwick’s major criticism is that neither ‘British Latin’ nor ‘Vulgar Latin’ are in any way unified or standardized forms of language, and that the Vulgar Latin innovations noted by Jackson for their absence in British Latin (e.g. the confusion of /b/ and /w/, the palatalization of /tj/, etc.) are either of only marginal significance with respect to their overall text frequency or of very uneven spread throughout Vulgar Latin. Gratwick’s results were in their turn criticized by, among others, McManus (1984a), who states that overall Gratwick does not succeed in ‘dismantling Prof. Jackson’s case for a partially conservative British Latin’. Another critic of Gratwick’s study is Russell (1985b), who gives a detailed appraisal of the points raised there, and, while disagreeing with the main drift of Gratwick’s argumentation, concludes that ‘British Latin can no longer be accepted uncritically as archaic and conservative’ (1985b:29) A further challenge of Jackson’s ‘conservative British Latin’ comes from Smith (1983). He draws attention to, among other things, the fact that the paucity or destruction of texts prevents us from attaining certainty with regard to likely, but not certain developments of Latin in Britain in the fourth
292
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5
6
7
8 9
10
11
Mutation in Welsh
century. He further notes that Jackson did not sufficiently consider the learned influence of the Latin-speaking Celtic Church (1983:947f.). Without going into further detail here, we can state that the debate concerning ‘British Latin’ seems far from being concluded (see also the discussion provided by D.E.Evans 1983:974ff.) Note here that internal s + /t, k/ show varied developments: For IE /-st-/, Welsh shows both /st/ and /s/. IE /-sk-/ gave British /-xs-/, but Latin /sc/, /skw/ is reflected as /-sk-/; cf. W dysgu < Lat. disco (Jackson 1953a: 529–34). As far as we can see, Lat. /-st-/ gives W /-st-/ (W distyll < Lat. destillo), Lat. /-sp-/ results in W /-sb-/ (via British /-sp-/) (W osb < Lat. hospes). The occurrence of AM following numbers would seem to contradict Koch’s statement that ‘it [AM] can only occur between two words sharing a single stress and not between two stressed words’ (Koch 1989:126). Surely the stress pattern of tri thy ‘three houses’ differs from that of ei thy ‘her house’. The triggers of both SM and AM (‘mixed mutation’) are verbal particles in Middle Welsh (partly preserved in Modern Welsh): MW negative particles ny, na, affirmative neu, ry, verbal prefixes go-, di-, dy-, etc. (see Evans 1964:21, 61f.). These will be dealt with at a later stage. The development of the nasal + stop groups (either Latin or British) did not only lead to the results shown in (3.10) and (3.11). The position of the consonant group in the word was of crucial importance (cf. e.g. Lat. praesentem → OW presen, where the final -nt group, preserved throughout Primitive Welsh was simplified to /n/ in Old Welsh), and thereby the relative position to word stress, and also the segment following (stop + nasal) (IE and Lat. -/ntr/- and -/ntl/ -become -/θr/- and -/θl/- in Welsh: Lat. contrarius > W cythrawl. What we intended to show, in these and the preceding examples, was that the sound changes provoked by mutation triggers have parallels wordinternally, in identical segmental environments. See P.W.Thomas (1990:5) for a critical appraisal of treating discrete consonantal segments as being capable of advancing along a continuum. Jackson’s relative chronology ‘lenition’—loss of final syllables— ‘spirantization’, differs markedly from the views of Lewis and Pedersen (1937: 61f.), Martinet (1952:198) and Sommerfelt (1954:106), who all assume that both lenition and spirantization had occurred in intervocalic position, that is, before apocope. Harvey’s choice of [tt] etc. to mark any consonant not to be lenited is criticized by Koch (1989:120) as misleading: [tt] in, for example, *brattos (Harvey’s example) has two tensions and divides syllables, whereas the phrase-initial simplex in *tuda has neither of these features. Furthermore, Koch claims that ‘the reflexes of Old Celtic fortis allophones of initial simplex voiceless stops have not converged [in Neo-Brythonic] with those of the corresponding intervocal geminates, as they have in Irish’, giving as evidence the different velar and dental phonemes in broch ‘badger’ vs ci ‘dog’, cath ‘cat’ vs ty ‘house’ (1989:122). In Harvey’s analysis, the different realization is rather a question of position, in that a phrase-initial voiceless stop remains unaffected by spirantization (see below). Jackson avoids this problem by envisaging spirantization as a process of fortition rather than weakening, as we have seen above.
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12 We have substituted W cath for Harvey’s example brath (contained in W brethyn ‘cloth’, cf. OIr. brat(t) ‘cloak’ < CC *brattos. The replacement serves to avoid confusion with W brath ‘bite, sting, wound’. 13 Whether the new voiceless stops were phonetically long or even geminate makes no difference. It is not necessary to postulate phonemically long consonants, Harvey states, since they have never stood in opposition to phonemically short stops (Harvey 1984:99). 14 Harvey agrees with Greene on the point that the ‘geminate mutation’ of Old Irish (see the discussion in Greene 1956, 1966) was an orthographic device ‘having no reality in the spoken tongue’ (Harvey 1984:100). Hamp (1951), however, includes gemination in the ‘Morphophonemes of the Keltic Mutations’. 15 Following Awbery (1973, 1975), Thomas classifies /m/, being the only nasal segment to take part in the process of voiced spirantization, as a voiced stop. 16 Sims-Williams (1990:233f.) also suggests this ordering of voiced spirantization and voicing; his argument is based, however, on the relative dating of Irish and Welsh lenition. 17 Russell (1985a:53–6) suggests that both voiced and voiceless stops remained unlenited, but were spirantized, in the context [r___ V] (e.g. */marko-/ > W march ‘horse’, */kerda / > cerdd ‘art, music’. This process would, of course, result in the ‘lenited’ form of the voiced stops. Russell views this process as an assimilation of the stop to the continuant /l, r/. He assumes that stops in the context [r___ V] did not undergo lenition, backing up his assumption by evidence from Irish, which does not show lenition in this environment either (e.g. OIr. marc, cerd, ModIr. ceard). Russell would, unlike Thomas, keep the development of geminate voiceless stops to fricatives (e.g. [-tt-] > [-θ-]) apart from the assimilation of, for example, *[rtV] to [rθ(V)]. The idea underlying Russell’s interpretation is not very different from Thomas’s principle that both lenition and voiceless spirantization are assimilation processes. Whereas Thomas tries to build all contexts of lenition and spirantization into his model of a Brythonic sound shift, Russell would set the context [r___ V] apart from other contexts involved in lenition and voiceless spirantization. 18 It should be remembered, though, that Harvey’s view includes gemination only as a purely realizational phenomenon which is not contrastive, and that he denies the existence of contrastive gemination after the time of lenition. 19 This process would therefore only have time to affect a very limited number of environments: namely the two triggers ending in */-s/, but not, for example, the article *sindos (masc.sg), or the nominative singular ending *-os etc. The question remains, though, what reason there might have been for any environment to be affected by the loss of final /-s/ earlier than others. 20 We have only taken into account the relative ordering of rules as applicable to Welsh. Thomas accounts for the divergences between the Neo-Brythonic languages with respect to AM and SM by suggesting different ordering of the same rules. For details see Thomas (1990:30–6, and the Appendix; ibid., 40). In a short ‘diachronic excursus’, Ternes (1986:17f.) connects AM triggered by a ‘and’, as in the phrase mam a thad with the regular development of the consonant cluster /kt/ to Welsh /θ/ word-internally. One should add the remark, however, that the transformation of IE /kt/ is generally held to be an early process, in which two stages can be
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24
25
26
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Mutation in Welsh
distinguished: first, /kt/ > /xt/, this happened, according to Jackson (1953a: 404f.), as early as Common Celtic. Indeed the same change is shared by Goidelic (cf. Ir. ocht, W. wyth, but Lat. octo). In Brythonic, the development did not stop there, however. British /xt/ was changed further to W /iθ/, rather than simple /θ/; cf. e.g. W cyfraith ‘law’, *kom-rekt-, as compared to OIr. recht, comrecht ‘law, joint law’. It seems more appropriate, therefore, to keep the development of */kt/ apart from the emergence of AM as triggered by a ‘and’ (see Jackson 1953a:404f., with further literature, for the merging of IE /pt, kt, kwt/ into Common Celtic /xt/. Martinet cautiously concludes from material gathered by Gray (1944) that ‘the sum of the evidence is enough to suggest that there must have been in that language a tendency to weaken intervocalic consonants’ (1952: 195). D.E. Evans (1967: 400ff) notes marked tendency on Gualish for and to be confused, and for to disappear intervocalically. He states that, whereas some scholars would interpert this as evidence to support this claim insufficent (e.g Pokorny 1953b; Watkins 1955; see also D.E. Evans 1967:401ff.). Evans draw the conclusion that ‘the tendency to confuse voiced and unvoiced stops in the remains of Gualish . . . may be due to very large extent to the fact that the single and short voiceless stops were lenis constants in Common Celtc. . . . Of Celtic lenition in the technical sense, however, there is no definite trace’ (p. 403; for further literature concerning the presence or absence of mutation in Continental Celtic, see D.E.Evans 1979:527f.). We concentrate in the following on the side of the argumentation concerning the development of the Brythonic sounds. For details concerning Irish spirantization see Koch (1990:198f.). If we interpret Koch’s argument correctly, he modifies his view considerably by saying that ‘Anglo-Saxon borrowings of the Cerdic type suggest that voicing in internal position was as old as the Migration Period, but it is likely that Brythonic speakers were still keeping the series distinct on the basis of degree of voicing’ (1990:202). Are we to assume then, that the in Cerdic (from British *Coroticos or *Caraticos—Jackson 1953a:613f.) represents what was a voiced consonant to Anglo-Saxon ears, but a not-quite-voiced one to those of a Brythonic speaker? Similarly, does stand for [k] in Anglo-Saxon terms, if so, does it reflect not-quite-[g] or as far as the Brittonic speaker is concerned? D.S.Evans lists alternative forms of Middle Welsh verbal compounds showing either AM or SM triggered by the preverb; for example, dy-bryssyaw, dyfryssyaw ‘hasten’, dy-ganu, dy-chanu ‘sing’ (1964:62). According to Koch’s analysis, it is not possible in Welsh for a light syllable to enter into a disyllabic stress matrix with an adjacent syllable in a following word: a stressed light syllable, following Allen’s (1973:79) analysis, is the most prominent member, always, of a compound accent comprising two syllables. It would seem that this compound accent cannot cross word boundaries in Tuscan Italian, nor, Koch states, in Proto-Celtic (1987:148ff.; also for evidence from Old Irish). For a further application of this theory, albeit maybe slightly less convincing with respect to the derivation of Gwrtheyrn from *[Wort.te.ger.nos] as the only possible phonetic realization of */wortegernos/, see Koch (1989:123). It had long been accepted wisdom that Latin words were borrowed into Irish in
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two distinct strata, commonly called the Cothriche and the Pátric group; the two versions of the name Patricius show several of the sound changes characteristic of each group (see McManus 1983:21f.). This theory has recently been criticized, especially through the work of McManus (e.g. 1982, 1983, 1984b, 1984c). McManus rejects the concept of two discrete strata of loanwords and suggests that the borrowing of Latin words into Irish ‘was nonintermittent and continued over an extensive period of time’ (1983:41; see also Sims-Williams 1990:225–36 for a discussion of British and Irish lenition and the questions concerned with the chronology of loanwords).
Chapter 4 1 In /dr/ and /tr/ clusters, the /r/ is in fact a post-alveolar frictionless /d/ (i.e. [dɹ]), and a post-alveolar voiceless fricative following continuant following /t/(i.e. [tɹ]); see G.E.Jones (1984:49).
Chapter 5 1 An earlier version of this section appeared as Ball (1990e). 2 The nid form is the only one used when negating nouns in emphatic sentences, e.g.: (i)
nid cathod oedd yn y ty NEG cats were in the house ‘There weren’t cats in the house’ The full form nid does not cause SM. 3 An earlier version of this section appeared in Ball (1990b). 4 Of course, this class change also involves a change to the feature strident. 5 The final section of Maddieson and Emmorey (1984) discusses the phonological implications of maintaining this distinction. These are not of great relevance to the discussion here, though it is noted that crosslinguistically [] has a greater distribution phonotactically than [ ] which coincides with the Welsh data. 6 Indeed, sociolinguistic evidence reported in Ball (1988b) and in Chapter 10 suggests that the aspirate mutation is the least salient in terms of retention in that it is most likely to be dropped. Soft mutation is the most resilient to this change, with the nasal mutation somewhere between the two. Within soft mutation, there is no marked distinction between usage with // and other consonants, though for historical reasons // and / / are excluded from the operation of the mutation in the case of a few of the triggering environments (see, for example, Williams 1980; and Chapter 1 above). 7 For a discussion of *[γ] see 4.1. 8 It is, of course, no longer necessary at this level of description to distinguish between // and [ ], as we have now removed the major/minor class distinction. DP can capture this difference, however, as representations are available to show the strident ~ non-strident contrast (see Anderson and Ewen 1987:165). This would be incorporated into the phonetic description,
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where all voiceless laterals are realized as // except when following voiceless plosives in a cluster. It is also not necessary here to distinguish // from / /, although again representations are available to distinguish laterals from non-laterals (Ewen 1982:84; Anderson and Ewen 1987:164). 9 The inclusion of the dependency relations to show stridency (and indeed laterality) would, of course, produce more complicated diagrams. However, a complexity of notation does not imply necessarily that these sound classes differ from others in a ‘major’ way.
Chapter 6 1 In most varieties of Spoken Welsh the a or oni (see example 6.7) particle is dropped, and the interrogative is marked solely by intonation. In Cymraeg Byw (see Chapter 1) written forms, it is marked only by punctuation. 2 In most varieties of Welsh apart from the most literary styles, negation is also marked by the use of dim, ddim or mo (dependant on the verb form) following the subject. A slightly less formal version of both (6.6) and (6.7) would see the inclusion of mo after the subject and before the object. In spoken varieties the ni or oni is often dropped, and negation is carried by the dim form. 3 Evidence from English that discontinuous constituents are a well-founded notion is noted by Zwicky. This is in the form of the transitive verb phrase (TVP) constituent, which ‘wraps around’ its object NP: persuade to leave town → persuade Robin to leave town (Zwicky 1984b:388). 4 In Irish this does not involve the ICM system in these constructions. 5 In fact, not only subject NPs are involved here. For example, object NPs of periphrastic verb forms (normally [–SM]) are subject to mutation if we have an adverbial construction moved in front of them: (i) ⇒ (ii)
Rwy ’n gweld plism ynyn y stryd am pt see policemen in the street Rwy’n gweld yn y stryd blismyn ‘I see in the street policemen’
6 Interestingly, he only proposes this analysis on pedagogical grounds, noting ‘the grammatical rule is that the direct object of the personal form of the verb will undergo Soft Mutation but the learner will find the above explanation easier in practice’ (Rhys Jones 1977:167). 7 Further evidence against N″___ as a trigger of SM comes from the poetic register, where we find gnomic proverbs of the following type: (i)
[N″nid byd] byd heb _wybodaeth not world world without wisdom ‘A world world without wisdom is no world
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(ii)
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[N″nid aur] popeth melyn not gold everything yellow ‘All that glistens is not gold’
Our thanks to James Fife for pointing out these examples. 8 For those approaches classing V N Ps as VPs, this frame needs to be expanded as:
(i)
where [+sub] stands for a subordinate verb phrase. The subscript 1 accounts for the fact that only the first NP within coordinate objects receives SM. 9 The same can be thought to happen in other mutation contexts as well. 10 In fact, she uses this example to consider an alternative analysis treating tra as a modifier, causing SM as do many others. She is clearly mistaken in this analysis for Modern Standard Welsh. Chapter 7 1 Kent (1991) points out that there is not, in fact, such a straightforward relationship between these acquired neurological disorders of speech and the tripartite model described here; nevertheless, his evidence generally supports a three-level approach. 2 From a neurophonetic point of view, however, one could claim that fricatives, for example, are more ‘difficult’ to produce than stops, as the requisite air channel to produce the frication requires a greater degree of articulatory precision than that required for a complete closure. This view is reinforced by the common occurrence of ‘fricative stopping’ processes in child language acquisition. One can only assume that in the trade-off between neurophonetic precision and physiological effort in the adult system, the latter wins, at least in the case of lenition processes involving spirantization. 3 If, as was asserted in 6.4, we admit the morphological feature bundle [+feminine, +singular] to have the status of a trigger of SM, it is probably simplest to assume that a lexical feature redundancy rule re-interprets this bundle to have the extra feature [+cause SM], and so enter into the same triggering relationship as the other lexical triggers. This is, of course, open to alternative accounts; see the discussion in 7.4 4 It appears that there are examples in a dialect of Breton and in Irish of the first of two mutation triggers taking precedence over the second. These are documented in Stump (1988), amongst whose examples from Breton is:
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(i)
va holl zud (← tud) my all people ‘all my people’
demonstrating AM triggered by va, instead of the expected SM triggered by holl. For Modern Irish, Stump gives an example provided by McCloskey, showing the interaction of possessives and the numeral dhá ‘two’ (normally a lenition trigger): (ii) (iii) (iv)
a dhá bhád (← bád) ‘his two boats’ a dhá bád ‘her two boats’ a dhá mbád ‘their two boats’
(a + lenition = ‘his’) (a + radical = ‘her’) (a + eclipsis = ‘their’)
No examples of this type are found in Welsh. 5 These examples are given in Modern Standard Welsh. In many spoken varieties the a no longer triggers AM (see Chapter 10), and the SM of the adverbial would be retained. Chapter 8 1 We would like to thank James Fife for his support in our early attempts at a chapter on semantics, and his insightful comments on the early draft. Thanks are also due to David Cram for his comments on a later draft. Naturally, the final version does not necessarily reflect their views. 2 Examples like Mae’r lle yn gaer—Mae’r lle yng Nghaer (‘The place is a castle—The place is in Chester’) are possible to construct. Clearly, here the mutation is the only distinguishing feature without which ambiguity is possible; but such examples are not only rare, but clearly rather artificial. 3 Some northern dialects do, in fact, extend AM to n- initial words, so for these ‘her grandmother’ would be realized as [i nha?n], so distinguished from the masculine form of [i na?n]. See discussion in R.Owen Jones (1967). 4 An earlier version of this section appeared in Ball (1990c). 5 Thanks to Peter Wynn Thomas for drawing this example to our attention, based originally on T.J.Rhys Jones (1977:106). As we note in Chapter 10, lexical blocking of mutation with place-names has, in fact, been noted as being extended to native place-names in many studies of vernacular speech.
Chapter 9 1 There has grown up in the last thirty years or so a small industry in the field of teaching Welsh as a second language: both in terms of the school and adult second-language teaching. Numerous course books have been published, involving a variety of teaching methods. What has been lacking, however, has
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3
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been any body of research on the effectiveness of this second-language teaching, either within the school or for adults. Naturally, there are a wide range of features of Welsh that prove difficult for the (predominantly) Englishspeaking students: grammatical gender, verb inflections, VSO sentence order, and so on. However, personal experience suggests that ICM is near the top of any such list of difficulties. Such personal experience and anecdotal evidence also suggest that the approach of teachers to the system is somewhat uncertain. Due to the differences between Standard Welsh, spoken varieties of the language and the officially sanctioned ‘second-language’ variety, Cymraeg Byw, described in Chapter 1, teachers are often unsure of which mutation triggers they should concentrate on, and which ignore. Further, there appears to have been unofficially adopted an ‘explanation’ of the ICM system: that it is simply there to ‘make the words easier to say’ (and further, that if you ignore the system ‘people will still understand you’). It is clear that students often demand a reason why they should mutate words in particular places (students of second languages often do ask ‘why’ the new language does something their own does not), and this explanation is clearly felt useful as it does provide an answer. Of course, as with all such questions, the real answer is ‘because it does’, and we wonder whether the above strategy is in fact very useful, as personal experience suggests that learners, being faced with the NM in a phrase such as yng Nghaerdydd ‘in Cardiff’, remain unconvinced that this is ‘easy to say’. It will be interesting to examine research on second-language teaching and learning (see the preliminary work with children reported in B.M. Jones 1988b, 1990a, c), and in particular the success or otherwise of different methods of introducing the initial consonant mutation system. The neurolinguistics of mutation is of particular interest to theories of how mutation is stored in the mental lexicon (see discussion in 9.3). As Grodzinsky (1990), among others, has pointed out, linguists should be required to construct theories of language that not only account for normal language, but can also predict patterns of language breakdown. Of particular relevance in this regard are patterns of language use encountered within the different aphasic syndromes, and for the purposes of our study here, we would be looking for data concerning mutation usage in aphasic patients. The study of disordered speech and language in the Celtic context is very much in its infancy, and has concentrated mostly on children’s phonological problems (see e.g. Ball et al. 1984; Munro 1988; Ball and Williams forthcoming), and, as noted, the little work undertaken on aphasia in Welsh does not add much to our knowledge of how ICM is affected. Willis (1986) reports on work by Dressler (1977) on aphasia in Breton speakers, who produces evidence to suggest that lenition spreads at the expense of other mutation types, and that such spread is more common than loss of mutation. In the Welsh alphabet digraphs count as single letters, so in ‘counting’ by letters CH follows C.
Chapter 10
300
Mutation in Welsh
1 This feature is also noted for Dyffryn Nantlle by R.O.Jones (1967), where /l, m, n, r, j, w/ all participate in AM by adding /h/ (p. 105). 2 In the following discussion, triggers are not translated after their first mention. Throughout, ei stands for ‘her’, a for ‘and’ and yn for ‘in’. 3 Whether we use this format to delete the mutation features, or change the + to –, is not debated here. Chapter 11 1 Cywyddau Iolo Goch ac Eraill, eds H.Lewis, T.Roberts and I.Williams, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2nd edn 1937, pp. 147, 25–6. 2 Deio ab Ieuan Du, in Gorchestion Beirdd Cymru, ed. Rhys Jones, Shrewsbury, 1773, p. 177. 3 Gwaith Lewis Glyn Cothi, eds Tegid and Gwallter Mechain, Oxford, 1837, p. 38. 4 The Poetical Works of Dafydd Nanmor, eds T.Roberts and I.Williams, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1923, pp. 57, 60. 5 Barddoniaeth Wiliam Llyn, ed. J.C.Morrice, Bangor, 1908, p. 169. 6 Gwaith Lewis Glyn Cothi, eds Tegid and Gwallter Mechain, Oxford, 1837, p. 416. 7 Our thanks to James Fife for providing these examples.
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Index
abstract phonology 40–2 accounts of mutation 28–45; borrowings and 38, 42; ‘classic’ 28–9; comparative 45; morphophonemic 29–35, 44; morphophonological 37–8; prosodic 35–7; stratificational 42, 73; systemic 43–4; transformational 38–42, 42–3 acoustic phonetics see phonetics, acoustic acquisition: first language 211, 212– 22; second language 211 adjacency 56, 115, 137–8, 140, 148 adjectives 17, 19, 133; comparison of 133; following feminine noun 33, 161–3; multiple 155, 157, 185, 188 adverbials 19, 144, 189–90, 202 adverbs 16, 24 agreement, theory of 181 airflow 89–91 ambiguity 193–201, 206–10 Anglo-Saxon 58, 62 aphasia 211 apposition 19, 33, 144, 148, 154, 156– 7 articles 17, 95–6, 132, 163–5 aspect 132–3; aspect particle 15, 194 aspirate mutation (AM) 1, 5, 30, 51–2, 53, 59, 63–5, 68–9, 79, 175, 201–2, 224–5, 238–9, 241–2, 247; phonology of 22, 109–10, 117; syntactic environments of 22–4 autosegmental phonology 112–17, 137–40
awareness of mutation 264–9 Bantu 211 barriers to mutation 152–3 Breton 2, 29–30, 51–2, 54, 59, 61–2, 239, 269 British see Brythonic Brittonic see Brythonic Brythonic 2, 53–77, 174 Case 73–5, 138–43; accusative 141–3; dative 142; genitive 141–2 Celtic 1–2, 29–30, 46, 54–5, 57, 70–2, 235 clitics (and proclitics) 1, 94-7, 117, 178–80 cognitive grammar 125 COMP 167 comparative aspects of mutation 47–53 competence 225 complementizer 194 complaint tradition 264–6 configurational assignment, theory of 180–1 conjoined constituents 146, 155–7 conjunctions 15, 17, 23 connectionism 231 Continental Celtic 54–5 Control Agreement Principle (CAP) 142 copula 131, 194 Cornish 2, 30, 51–4, 59, 61–2 Cymraeg Byw 10–12 data collection 242–6
318
Mutation in Welsh
dependency phonology 106–11 dialectology 237–9 dialects (of Welsh) 237–42; Anglesey 238; Cwmtawe 238 diglossia 8–10 direct-object mutation (DOM) 7, 18, 33, 40, 76–7, 115, 134, 136–61, 212–14; semantics of 196–7 discourse 275–6 distinctive features 73, 98–106, 172 dynamic phonology 73 eclipsis 30, 48, 49–50, 51 ei, ei, eu, semantics of 195–6 elicitation test 214–16 English 235 error analysis 220–1 error recognition test 223–6 features see distinctive features feminine singular 161–5, 170, 187–8, 190–1 fortis 57, 80–1, 84–6, 86–9, 174 fricatives, acoustics of 80–3, 84–6; voicing in 84–6 Fula 113–14 function (grammatical) 3, 158–61, 163, 192, 201; functional series 34–5 functional grammar 125 future of mutation 263–77 Gaelic, Scottish 2, 30, 33, 49–50, 269 Gaulish 72 gender mutations 161–5 Generalized Phrase-Structure Grammar (GPSG) 125, 140, 143, 151 generative phonology 38, 103–5 genitive 132; see also possessive constructions German 235 gesture, phonological 107–8 Goidelic 2, 65, 72, 108, 174 Government-Binding theory (GB) 40, 115, 125, 137, 151, 166 Hard Mutation (HM) 5, 30, 51–2, 53, 278–9, 280; environments of 282– 6; phonology of 284–5 hierarchy of mutation 185–90, 190–1
historical aspects of mutation 28–9, 38, 42, 53–77; dating 75–6 historical processes 61–73; case 73–5; fortis v. lenis 70–1; gemination 62– 4, 71–3; non-lenition 64–5; spirantization 67–70; synchronic/ diachronic 65–7 homonymy 206–10 I+NP+X 18, 147, 154, 159 impersonals 151 imitation test, problems with 222–3; see also repetition test incorporated mutation 32, 113; bound 32; free 32; inherent bound 33; retrospective bound 33 Indo-European 1, 55, 72 initial consonant addition 24–5 initial consonant mutation (ICM) 1–3, 4–8, 37, 46, 55, 78, 170, 181–2, 190–1; as a two-term system 269– 71; see also accounts of; aspirate mutation; awareness of; barriers to; comparative aspects of; future of; Hard Mutation; hierarchy of; historical aspects of; lexis and; mixed mutation; Nasal Mutation; phonological background of; phonology of; pre-vocalic aspiration; psycholinguistics of; semantics of; sociolinguistics of; Soft Mutation; syntax of initial segment mutation 25 Interfaces 171–91; morphologyphonology 3, 176–80; morphologysyntax 180–2; mutation-mutation 185–90; phonetics-phonology 3, 172–6; syntax-phonology 3, 39–40, 169, 182–5 Irish 2, 30, 44, 47–9, 72, 74, 141, 175; Old Irish 29, 64, 74–5 Italian 72 language death 3 lateral fricative 86–8, 98–111; phonetics of 100–2 laterals, acoustics of 86–8 Latin 54, 58–60, 72, 75 lenis 57, 80–1, 84–6, 86–9, 174
Index
lenition 30, 47–8, 49–50, 50–1, 57–9, 70–1, 75, 108, 174–5; see also Soft Mutation lexeme 227 lexical organization 225–31; logogen model of 227–9; in Welsh 229–31 lexical phonology 117–21 lexical theory 227–9 lexical trigger 6, 15–18, 21–2, 23–4, 26–7, 31, 55–6, 176, 186–7, 190–1; categorial 6, 17, 24, 27, 38; pure 6, 15–17, 21, 23–4, 27; restricted 7, 17–18, 21–2, 27 lexis, mutation and 204–6, 225–31; lexical blocking 205–6; variation in 259–62 linguistic periodization 53–5 linguistic self-awareness 266–9 liquids 107, 109; acoustics of 86–9 Manx 2, 30, 50–1 Mende 116 mixed mutation 8, 51–2, 53, 71–3 morphological trigger 127, 161–5, 187–8, 190–1 morphology 2, 43, 176–8; of mutation 278–83 morphophonemes 29–35 morphophonological features 170, 190–1 morphosyntactic environment 170, 190–1 morphosyntactic representations, theory of 180 mutation see aspirate mutation; gender mutation; incorporated mutation; initial consonant mutation; lexical trigger;
Nasal
Mutation; pre-vocalic aspiration; projected mutation; Soft Mutation; syntactic trigger
Nasal Mutation (NM) 1, 5, 30, 60–1, 79, 224–5, 238–9, 241–2, 247; development of in children 216–19; phonetics of 89–91; phonology of 19–20, 110–11; syntactic environments of 20–2
319
nasalization see Nasal Mutation nasals 56, 105–6; voiceless 79, 110 Natural Morphology 177 Natural Phonology 121–2, 177 noise spectra 81–3 non-mutable segment principle 194–5, 197 non-normal word-order mutation 19, 136, 144, 147, 154, 159 nouns 17; feminine 163–5; noun phrase 132 NP___ /N? trigger 146–58; problems with 153–8 numerals 16, 18, 21–2, 23, 163–5, 209–10 obstruents 56, 108 parallel distributed processing see connectionism parenthetic mutation see nono-normal word-order mutation particles 15, 18, 23, 94–5, 139; see also pre-sentential particles P-Celtic 54–5 performance 225 personal names 205 phonemes 78 phonetics 2, 80–91; acoustic phonetics 80–9; cognitive 172, 175–6 phonetic naturalness 172–5 phonetic rules 13, 172–3, 175–6 phonological background of mutation 55–61; segments 55–7; environments 57–61 phonological rules 13–14, 20, 22, 25, 38–9, 93–4, 104–5, 116 phonological word 178–80 phonology 2, 39–40, 123–4; deep/ surface 235; segmental 56–7 phonology of mutation 92–124; see also autosegmental phonology; dependency phonology; generative phonology; lexical phonology; Natural Phonology; rule ordering; phonotactics 78–9 phrasal trigger 148–50 pied-piping 139 place names 205–6 possessive constructions 145–6, 156–7
320
Mutation in Welsh
prepositions 15, 21, 23, 27, 133, 142, 153, 192; null/empty 115–6, 137– 40; pairs of 203–4; preposition phrase 133; semantics of 201–3; stranding 139 pre-sentential particles 40, 94–5, 128– 9, 165–70; phonologically null 169–70; see also zero lexical trigger Pre-Vocalic Aspiration (PVA) 5, 30, 37, 47, 48–9, 50, 51; definitions of 24–5; phonology of 25–6; syntactic environments of 26–7 Pre-Vocalic Nasalization (PVN) 4, 47, 50 PRO 151–2 pro 150–1 proclitics see clitics projected mutation 32, 113 pronouns 15, 17, 21, 23, 24, 27, 129, 195–6; copy 195–6; development of 222 prosodies 35–7 provection see Hard Mutation psycholinguistics 3, 211–36 psycholinguistics of mutation 211–36 Q-Celtic 54–5 questions 131 radical (consonant) 1, 6, 78–80 redundancy, semantic 193–201 redundancy rules 118–20 relativization 44, 129–31; semantics of 198–200 repetition priming 228–31 repetition test 212–14 reporter’s test 245, 250 reradicalization 204–5 restricted soft mutation (SMR) 8, 164; phonology of 13–14; syntactic environments of 16–18 rule ordering 93–7 sandhi phenomena 33, 40, 44 Sanskrit, Vedic 72 scale and category grammar 34–5 Scottish Gaelic see Gaelic, Scottish second language learning 211
semantics 2, 192–210; semantic load 192–201 semantics of mutation 192–210 slips of the tongue see speech errors sociolinguistics 237, 239–62, style in 243–5; subjects in 245–6, 249–50 sociolinguistics of mutation 237–62; interview schedule 250–1; results 251–6 Soft Mutation (SM) 1, 5, 30, 51–2, 53, 58–9, 62, 78, 93–7, 174, 238–9, 241–2; phonology of 12–14, 93–7, 98–9, 107–11, 115–16, 117–21; syntactic environments of 14–19; as unmarked form 43, 117–21, 122–3, 143–6 sonorization 107, 109; sonorants 59, 108 Spanish 240 Speech errors 211, 231–6; and mutations 233–6 spirantization see aspirate mutation stops 57, 61–73; voicing in 83–4 stratificational phonology 42, 73 subordination 129–30, 132, 199 syntactic environment 5, 6, 29; see also morphosyntactic environment syntactic frame 160–1, 170, 184, 190– 1 syntactic trigger 7, 18–19, 31, 126, 136–7, 188–90, 191; pure 7, 18–19; restricted 7, 19 syntax 2, 125–170; levels of 184–5; of Welsh 128–36 syntax of mutation 125–170 target 6 tense 132–3 traces 163, 169 transformational-generative grammar 125 transformational rules 39, 43, 125 trigger 6, 127–8, 137, 176; categorial 38; clashes 162, 185; morphology of 127–8; structural 38; stylistic 38; syntax of 127–8; transformational 38; see also lexical trigger; morphological trigger; NP___ trigger; phrasal trigger; syntactic trigger; trigger constraint
Index
trigger constraint (TC) 137, 140, 148– 9 trills, acoustics of 88–9 underspecification 118–19 variable rules 256–62 variables 225; linguistic 246–8, 251–3; non-linguistic 248–9, 253–6 variants 225 verbless presentation sentences 16, 144 verb-noun 134–6, 141, 143–5, 154–5, 212–14, 222 verbs 16, 18; verb phrase 132–3, 134– 5 vocatives 16–17, 144 voicing, acoustics of 83–9 vowels 107–108
321
literary 9–10, 28, 197, 273; Middle Welsh 59–60, 166; Modern Spoken 165–70, 197; Modern Standard 11– 12, 29, 55, 165–70, 201; pronunciation of 287–9; standardization in 10–12; Standard 8, 11–12, 28; see also dialects West Atlantic (Niger-Congo) 45 wh-movement 139, 143 words see lexis, lexical organization word boundaries 58, 176, 178–80 word formation rules (WFRs) 177–8 word-internal mutation 5, 58, 278–83 word-order 1, 128, 134 word recognition 211, 225–31 X¯-bar theory 146, 156–8 yn, semantics of 193–5
Welsh 1–3, 29–30, 58, 174–5; colloquial 9–10, 201, 217–19; future of 271–3; history of 53–77;
zero lexical trigger 7, 16–17, 24, 32, 165–70, 184
