Prosodic constituency in Samoan

Talk at at Workshop “The Effects of Constituency on Sentence Phonology”, 07/29/16 - 07/31/16, UMass Amherst.

See https://gsellblog.wordpress.com/program/ for more information about the workshop.

Transcript

1. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? Prosodic constituency in Samoan Kristine M. Yu krisyu@linguist.umass.edu Department of Linguistics, UMass Amherst Workshop on the effects of constituency on sentence phonology July 31, 2016 Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 1
2. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? Collaborators Matthew Frelinger Deniz Özyıldız Ed Stabler UMass Amherst UMass Amherst UCLA/Nuance Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 2
3. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? Background A fine-grained model of the syntax-prosody interface Indirect and direct reference theories agree that phonological rules refer to cross-categorical relationships rather than specific syntactic categories. (Kaisse and Zwicky 1987, p. 7). Here for Samoan interface: We place tones by individual rules that refer to specific morphosyntactic constructions. In Samoan, prosodic constituents do not appear to be unified by sharing some common syntactic relation. Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 3
4. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? Background Other fine-grained models of interface Similar examples from languages where word-level tone overlays apply in specific morphosyntactic contexts: Dogon languages of Mali (Heath and McPherson 2013, McPherson and Heath 2016), also Papuan languages Awa and Usarafu, and Nigerian languages Nkoroo and Kalabari. In Tommo So (Dogon): gamma ‘cat’ HH; also in ‘three cats’ and ‘the cat’ but ‘black cat’, ‘one cat’, ‘Sana’s cat‘: LL Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 4
5. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? Background Samoan’s ergative-absolutive case system Subject of transitive clause receives “ergative” case, marked with prepositional element [e] Subject of intransitive clause and object of transitive clause receive “absolutive” case, said to be unmarked Prepositional element [i] marks “oblique” case on indirect objects, locatives, etc. Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 5
6. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? Background Basic sentences (1) Transitive clause na past lalaNa weave *(e) erg le det malini marine le det mamanu. design ‘The marine wove the design.’ Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 6
7. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? Background Basic sentences (1) Transitive clause na past lalaNa weave *(e) erg le det malini marine le det mamanu. design ‘The marine wove the design.’ (2) Intransitive clause na past Nalue work le det malini marine (i obl le det mamanu). design ‘The marine worked (on the design).’ Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 6
8. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? Background Word order Primarily VSO word order in transitive clauses, although VOS possible Fronted arguments, with SVO or OVS word orders in clefted structures Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 7
9. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? Background Word order Primarily VSO word order in transitive clauses, although VOS possible Fronted arguments, with SVO or OVS word orders in clefted structures (3) Fronted argument [Po [topic le det malini] marine] na past lalaNa weave le det mamanu. design ‘It was the marine that wove the design.’ Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 7
10. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? Background Basic word prosody Described as a non-tonal language in a non-tonal language family Basic primary stress pattern: moraic trochee at right edge (Zuraw, Yu, and Orfitelli 2014) Primary stress on final vowel if long, otherwise on penultimate vowel ◦ ("manu) ‘bird’ , ma("lini) ◦ la("va:) ‘energized’ Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 8
11. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? Background Basic sentence-level prosody Rising pitch accent associated to primary stressed syllable (“LH*”) (Orfitelli and Yu 2009, Calhoun 2015) appears on every content word, presence seems insensitive to discourse conditions Sentence-medial high edge tones (“H-”) including before an absolutive (Yu 2011, 2016) Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 9
12. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? Background Fieldwork/data All consultants from (Western) Samoa Primary consultant: born in Samoa, moved to United States at age 15, age 19-23 during elicitations ◦ Data collected in 2008-2009, and later in additional elicitation sessions through 2016 Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 10
13. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? Background Fieldwork/data All consultants from (Western) Samoa Primary consultant: born in Samoa, moved to United States at age 15, age 19-23 during elicitations ◦ Data collected in 2008-2009, and later in additional elicitation sessions through 2016 Work with 5 additional speakers in trips to Apia, Samoa in November 2011 and to Carson, CA in January 2012 Work with 4 additional speakers in trips to Auckland, New Zealand in July 2015 Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 10
14. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? Background Fieldwork/data All consultants from (Western) Samoa Primary consultant: born in Samoa, moved to United States at age 15, age 19-23 during elicitations ◦ Data collected in 2008-2009, and later in additional elicitation sessions through 2016 Work with 5 additional speakers in trips to Apia, Samoa in November 2011 and to Carson, CA in January 2012 Work with 4 additional speakers in trips to Auckland, New Zealand in July 2015 Data primarily elicited in tautala lelei (formal language) Data primarily elicited out-of-the-blue, unless pronominal elements present, in which case referent introduced Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 10
15. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? Background Fundamental frequency contour: transitive clause 100 125 150 175 Fundamental frequency (Hz) Time (s) 0 0.5 1 1.5 LH* LH* H- LH* L-L% LH* LH* H- LH* L-L% na lalaNa e le malini le mamanu na la la Na e le ma li ni le ma ma nu F0 contour for transitive clause in (1) Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 11
16. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? Background F0 contour: intransitive clause 100 125 150 175 Fundamental frequency (Hz) Time (s) 0 0.5 1 1.5 LH* H- LH* LH* L-L% LH* H- LH* LH* L-L% na Nalue le malini i le mamanu na Na lue le ma li ni i le ma ma nu F0 contour for intransitive clause in (2) Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 12
17. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Where H- tones invariably occur Absolutives: at right edge of word preceding absolutive (Yu 2011, 2016) Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 13
18. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Where H- tones invariably occur Absolutives: at right edge of word preceding absolutive (Yu 2011, 2016) Coordination: at right edge of first coordinate (Orfitelli and Yu 2009, Yu 2011, 2016) Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 13
19. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Where H- tones invariably occur Absolutives: at right edge of word preceding absolutive (Yu 2011, 2016) Coordination: at right edge of first coordinate (Orfitelli and Yu 2009, Yu 2011, 2016) Clefts: at right edge of fronted argument (Orfitelli and Yu 2009, Yu 2011, 2016; Calhoun 2015) Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 13
20. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Where H- tones invariably occur Absolutives: at right edge of word preceding absolutive (Yu 2011, 2016) Coordination: at right edge of first coordinate (Orfitelli and Yu 2009, Yu 2011, 2016) Clefts: at right edge of fronted argument (Orfitelli and Yu 2009, Yu 2011, 2016; Calhoun 2015) None of these syntactic environments can coincide: an H- can be uniquely traced back to its syntactic source Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 13
21. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Where H- tones invariably occur (4) Absolutive na past lalaNa weave *(e) erg le det malini marine H- abs le det mamanu. design ‘The marine wove the design.’ Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 14
22. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Where H- tones invariably occur (4) Absolutive na past lalaNa weave *(e) erg le det malini marine H- abs le det mamanu. design ‘The marine wove the design.’ (5) Coordination na past lalaNa weave [*(e) [erg le det malini marine H- coord ma conj Malu] Malu] H- abs le det mamanu. design ‘The marine and Malu worked on the design.’ Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 14
23. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Where H- tones invariably occur (4) Absolutive na past lalaNa weave *(e) erg le det malini marine H- abs le det mamanu. design ‘The marine wove the design.’ (5) Coordination na past lalaNa weave [*(e) [erg le det malini marine H- coord ma conj Malu] Malu] H- abs le det mamanu. design ‘The marine and Malu worked on the design.’ (6) Fronted argument [Po [topic le det malini] marine] H- front na past Nalue work i obl le det mamanu. design Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 14
24. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s A closer look at the phonetic realization of H- 150 165 180 195 210 Fundamental frequency (Hz) Time (s) 0 0.2 0.4 ma li ni No H- [LH* not followed by H-] 150 165 180 195 210 Fundamental frequency (Hz) Time (s) 0 0.2 0.4 ma li ni [LH* followed by H-] Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 15
25. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Evidence that H- tones are edge tones: Bach test Is steady/rising pitch over the last mora in a H- correlated with stress position or the word edge? Problem: Samoan primary stress is realized no further left than on penultimate mora → tonal crowding Solution: Separate the influence of primary stress and boundary tones by doing a Bach test Use a nonce stress pattern, with primary stress aligned to the left edge Introduce as English personal name to be codeswitched in Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 16
26. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s More on Lise Menn’s Bach test (Halle 1978) Traditional wug test can’t rule out a list grammar over an alphabet of segments Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 17
27. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s More on Lise Menn’s Bach test (Halle 1978) Traditional wug test can’t rule out a list grammar over an alphabet of segments Bax test: use a nonce form that ends in a nonnative phoneme x is [-voice] /bax-z/ → segment-based rules /bax-s/ → feature-based rules Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 17
28. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s The Bach test for intonation: task naturalness Codeswitching between Samoan and English is a common everyday occurrence Loanwords may receive aberrant stress, cf. [ > tsai´ ami > tsa] ‘diameter’ [Audio] Great liberty and variety in personal names in Samoan, e.g. (in Samoan orthography) pese ‘song’, moa ‘chicken’, lagi ‘sky’ mauaituaolefaleolemalo ‘found behind the government house’, maua for short alofa | ile | lautusi | o | le | salamo ‘love the pages of the song’, names split up among children in same family Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 18
29. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Example: f0 contours and stress position S1 S2 S3 Following 160 180 200 220 240 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 Time slice in word Mean fundamental frequency (Hz) Stress position initial penult final Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 19
30. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Homophonous H-’s No positive evidence that H-’s are realized differently depending on syntactic structure Lengthening at right edges with H-’s compared to baseline when no H- is present Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 20
31. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Homophonous H-’s No positive evidence that H-’s are realized differently depending on syntactic structure Lengthening at right edges with H-’s compared to baseline when no H- is present Other examples of “homophonous” tones: overlapping tonal inventory for lexical and grammatical tones in Bantu languages; high tones can be edge tones or pitch accents in head/edge-prominence languages, e.g. Turkish, French Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 20
32. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Sensitivity of presence of to speech rate (7) Sensitivity of prosodic phrasing to speech rate in Calcutta Bengali (Hayes and Lahiri 1991) a. (Omor) Armor (čador) scarf (tara-ke) Tara-obj (díečhe) deliberate speech gave ‘Armor gave a scarf to Tara’ b. (Omor čador) (tara-ke) (díečhe) faster speech c. (Omor) (čador tara-ke) (díečhe) faster speech d. (Omor čador tara-ke) (díečhe) very rapid speech Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 21
33. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Sample minimal pair from speech rate stimuli (8) A sample minimal pair from speech rate data set a. Transitive clause na past laNona hear e erg malini marine H- abs le det.sg liona lion i obl le det.sg aoauli. afternoon ‘The marines heard the lion in the afternoon.’ b. Intransitive clause na past manoNi smelly H- abs malini marine i obl le det.sg liona lion i obl le det.sg aoauli. afternoon ‘The marines were smelly to the lion in the afternoon.’ Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 22
34. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Invariability in presence of H-: speech rate (a) subject under slow speech rate (b) subject under normal speech rate Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 23
35. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Invariability in presence of H-: speech rate (c) subject under normal speech rate (d) subject under fast speech rate Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 24
36. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Methodological aside: using minimal comparisons From Elordieta and Selkirk on Basque, Friday talk: Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 25
37. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Methodological aside: using minimal comparisons From Elordieta and Selkirk on Basque, Friday talk: Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 25
38. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Properties of Samoan registers tautala lelei ‘good language’: used in literary contexts and and Westernized contexts, with foreigners tautala leaga ‘bad language’: used in traditional ceremonies and meetings, with family and friends Case markers often dropped (Mosel and Hovdhaugen 1992, Mayer 2001) (9) Mergers from tautala lelei to tautala leaga a. /t/ and /k/ → /k/ b. /n/ and /N/ → /N/ Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 26
39. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Invariability in presence of H-: register (10) Transitive sentence minimal pair in tautala leaga a. VSO word order Na past laNoNa hear ∅ erg le det.sg lioNa lion H- abs le det.sg malie. shark ‘The lion heard the shark.’ b. VOS word order Na past laNoNa hear H- abs le det.sg lioNa lion ∅ erg le det.sg malie. shark ‘The lion was heard by the shark.’ Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 27
40. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Invariability in presence of H-: register (a) f0 over 3-syll verbs (b) f0 over 3-syll ARG 1 Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 28
41. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? The phonetic realization of the H- Invariability in the presence of H-’s Other invariability in presence/placement of H-’s Word order Prosodic length (number of syllables/words in arguments) Information structural manipulations (Contrastive and informational focus) Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 29
42. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? What is the absolutive H-? Following Collins (2014, 2015, 2016) (and Legate (2008)): Absolutive is default, syncretic marking of nom and acc Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 30
43. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? What is the absolutive H-? Following Collins (2014, 2015, 2016) (and Legate (2008)): Absolutive is default, syncretic marking of nom and acc Collins: S and P behave different in nominalized clauses: S must be genitively marked, while P can have same marking as in finite clauses Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 30
44. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? What is the absolutive H-? Following Collins (2014, 2015, 2016) (and Legate (2008)): Absolutive is default, syncretic marking of nom and acc Collins: S and P behave different in nominalized clauses: S must be genitively marked, while P can have same marking as in finite clauses In nominalizations, H- possible for transitive object P but not for intransitive subject S Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 30
45. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? What is the absolutive H-? Following Collins (2014, 2015, 2016) (and Legate (2008)): Absolutive is default, syncretic marking of nom and acc Collins: S and P behave different in nominalized clauses: S must be genitively marked, while P can have same marking as in finite clauses In nominalizations, H- possible for transitive object P but not for intransitive subject S Case markers adjoined to arguments in spellout, additional spellout rules for coordination and clefted structures Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 30
46. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? What is the absolutive H-? Following Collins (2014, 2015, 2016) (and Legate (2008)): Absolutive is default, syncretic marking of nom and acc Collins: S and P behave different in nominalized clauses: S must be genitively marked, while P can have same marking as in finite clauses In nominalizations, H- possible for transitive object P but not for intransitive subject S Case markers adjoined to arguments in spellout, additional spellout rules for coordination and clefted structures Verb-initial ordering derived by fronting the VP to a function head F below T after the arguments have been raised out of it (Collins) Head movement moves T na to C (Collins) Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 30
47. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? What is the absolutive H-? Following Collins (2014, 2015, 2016) (and Legate (2008)): Absolutive is default, syncretic marking of nom and acc Collins: S and P behave different in nominalized clauses: S must be genitively marked, while P can have same marking as in finite clauses In nominalizations, H- possible for transitive object P but not for intransitive subject S Case markers adjoined to arguments in spellout, additional spellout rules for coordination and clefted structures Verb-initial ordering derived by fronting the VP to a function head F below T after the arguments have been raised out of it (Collins) Head movement moves T na to C (Collins) Other ideas about abs: (1) material preceding abs fronted into high Spec position, (2) abs arguments extrapose Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 30
48. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? Derived syntactic trees (Yu and Stabler 2016) Absolutive Coordination Clefting Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 31
49. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? Absolutive H- is distinct from other H-’s Anecdotal mentions of “always optional” particle, ia, that precedes absolutives (Hovdhaugen 1987, Mosel and Hovdhaugen 1992, Vonen 1988) Frequency of usage of absolutive ia currently seems very sporadic, but speakers still have systematic intuitions about distribution Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 32
50. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? Absolutive H- is distinct from other H-’s Anecdotal mentions of “always optional” particle, ia, that precedes absolutives (Hovdhaugen 1987, Mosel and Hovdhaugen 1992, Vonen 1988) Frequency of usage of absolutive ia currently seems very sporadic, but speakers still have systematic intuitions about distribution ia illicit in syntactic environments where other segmental case markers also illicit (Yu and Özyıldız 2016) ia licit only where absolutive H- occurs, not where cleft or coordination H-’s occur (Yu & Özyıldız 2016) Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 32
51. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? Absolutive illicit in naPo constructions Calhoun (2014) noted that no absolutive H- occurs after naPo. My consultants don’t accept ia with naPo either: (11) No absolutive ia, H- na past laNona hear e erg Melina Melina *H- *abs *ia *abs naPo only *H- *abs *ia *abs le det.sg liona. lion ‘Melina heard only the lion.’ Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 33
52. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? NaPo ‘only’ cannot occur with any case morpheme (12) No ergative e na past laNona hear *e *erg naPo only Melina Melina *e *erg H- abs (ia) (abs) le det.sg liona. lion ‘Only Melina heard the lion.’ (13) No oblique i na past leaNa bad H- abs (ia) (abs) Melina Melina *i *obl naPo only *i *obl le det.sg liona. lion ‘Melina was bad to only the lion.’ Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 34
53. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? Hypothesis for origin of absolutive H- Hypothesis: Absolutive H- emerged diachronically from segmental [ia] particle: segmental deletion and reassociation of orphaned tone ia is bimoraic and receives penult stress; pitch accent provides source tone for reassociation H H = manu i a Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 35
54. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? A unifying syntactic relation? Suppose we take an H- as a diagnostic for some phonological constituent. What could be a general syntactic relation between the H-’s that maps to a common phonological constituent? (Help from simple country syntacticians very much appreciated!) Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 36
55. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? A unifying syntactic relation? Suppose we take an H- as a diagnostic for some phonological constituent. What could be a general syntactic relation between the H-’s that maps to a common phonological constituent? (Help from simple country syntacticians very much appreciated!) Why is it that H-’s always appear, and don’t disappear with fast speech rates or decreasing prosodic length (Yu and Stabler 2016) Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 36
56. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? A unifying syntactic relation? Suppose we take an H- as a diagnostic for some phonological constituent. What could be a general syntactic relation between the H-’s that maps to a common phonological constituent? (Help from simple country syntacticians very much appreciated!) Why is it that H-’s always appear, and don’t disappear with fast speech rates or decreasing prosodic length (Yu and Stabler 2016) In contrast, appearance of sentence-medial L edge tones variable within/across speakers Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 36
57. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? Variable appearance of L- tones: example sentences (14) L- before erg Po top le det.sg mamanu design H- front na past lalaNa-ina weave-INA L- e erg le det.sg malini marine i obl le det.sg aso: day ‘It was the marine that wove the design today.’ (15) L- before obl na past malaNa journey H- abs le det.sg malini marine L- i obl le det.sg moana sea i obl le det.sg aso: day ‘The marine journeyed to the sea today.’ Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 37
58. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? Variable appearance of L- tones: f0 contours We don’t expect syntactically conditioned H-’s where these L- tones showed up. 150 175 200 225 250 Fundamental frequency (Hz) Time (s) 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 LH* H- plateau *? L- resetLH* LH* L-L% LH* H- plateau *? L- reset LH* LH* L-L% ’o lemamanu na lalaNaina e le malini le aso: 150 175 200 225 250 Fundamental frequency (Hz) Time (s) 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 LH* H- *? L- reset LH* LH* L-L% LH* H- *? L- resetLH* LH* L-L% na malaNa le malini i le moana i le aso: (a) L- in fronting, before ergative (b) L- in VSO, before oblique Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 38
59. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? Phonological constituency and succinctness Why posit phonological constituents? To make phonological grammars more succinct. (see also Yu 2016a) Here: does positing phonological constituents where H-’s appear help make phonological grammars more succinct? Not clear. Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 39
60. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? Phonological constituency and succinctness Why posit phonological constituents? To make phonological grammars more succinct. (see also Yu 2016a) Here: does positing phonological constituents where H-’s appear help make phonological grammars more succinct? Not clear. Additional phonological constituency tests besides distribution of H-’s? Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 39
61. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? Disfluencies and phonological constituency Not clear whether we would want to say H-’s are placed at the right or left edge of a phonological constituent. Placement of abs H- to the left: could be explained if Samoan tends to group case markers leftward, prosodically. Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 40
62. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? Disfluencies and phonological constituency Not clear whether we would want to say H-’s are placed at the right or left edge of a phonological constituent. Placement of abs H- to the left: could be explained if Samoan tends to group case markers leftward, prosodically. Evidence for this: asymmetric chunking in disfluencies—higher frequency of function words being “enclitic” rather than “proclitic” in disfluencies/hesitations (Himmelman 2014) Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 40
63. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? f¯ agogo from The Archive of M¯ aori and Pacific Music Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 41
64. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? Hypothesis 1: H- does not demarcate a prosodic constituent (16) The absolutive H- is an edge tone but does not demarcate a prosodic constituent. (Verb H-)PWd ( . . . and (Verb e)PWd ( . . . Length can appear to support contour tones, which are not necessarily edge tones; length isn’t necessarily always a correlate of a prosodic boundary. Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 42
65. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? Hypothesis 2: Prosodic phrasing of abs and erg the same (17) The prosodic phrasing of the absolutive and ergative arguments is the same even though no H- appears before the ergative, and there are non-tonal phonetic correlates of prosodic constituency. (Verb H-)PPh ( . . . but (Verb e)PPh ( . . . Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 43
66. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? Hypothesis 3: H- demarcates a PPh (18) The absolutive H- demarcates a prosodic constituent higher than a prosodic word, e.g. a phonological phrase. That is, an absolutive argument induces a prosodic domain higher than the prosodic word. (And what about coordination, fronting?) (Verb H-)PPh ( . . . but (Verb e)PWd ( . . . Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 44
67. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? Conclusion In Samoan, placement of sentence-medial high edge tones entirely predictable with knowledge of syntactic structure But not clear that a cross-categorial syntactic relation unifies configurations where H- appears Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 45
68. Introduction Sentence-medial high edge tones A unified source for H-’s? A general syntactic relation? A general phonological relation? Conclusion In Samoan, placement of sentence-medial high edge tones entirely predictable with knowledge of syntactic structure But not clear that a cross-categorial syntactic relation unifies configurations where H- appears Opportunity to carefully evaluate assumptions underlying why we posit phonological constituents Kristine M. Yu www.krisyu.org Prosodic constituency in Samoan 45