Infants exploit vowels to label objects and actions from continuous audiovisual stimuli

Before the 6-months of age, infants succeed to learn words associated with objects and actions when the words are presented isolated or embedded in short utterances. It remains unclear whether such type of learning occurs from fluent audiovisual stimuli, although in natural environments the fluent audiovisual contexts are the default. In 4 experiments, we evaluated if 8-month-old infants could learn word-action and word-object associations from fluent audiovisual streams when the words conveyed either vowel or consonant harmony, two phonological cues that benefit word learning near 6 and 12 months of age, respectively. We found that infants learned both types of words, but only when the words contained vowel harmony. Because object- and action-words have been conceived as rudimentary representations of nouns and verbs, our results suggest that vowels contribute to shape the initial steps of the learning of lexical categories in preverbal infants.

Theoretical Implications of Directionally Asymmetric Transparency

Transparent segments have been a well known challenge for accounts of patterns of long distance agreement, such as vowel and consonant harmony. Two standard ways to account for transparency are autosegmental feature spreading with underspecification (e.g. Kiparsky 1981; Steriade 1987) and Agreement by Correspondence (ABC; Walker 2000; Walker & Rose 2004; Hansson 2001). Both, however, fail to derive the multiple instances of transparency encountered in Tsilhqút'í­n (Cook 1993; 2013). Here, non-retracted dorsals act both as transparent and as opaque to the process of vowel retraction, depending on which side of the trigger, a retracted sibilant, they are located. On the other hand, both retracted and non-retracted dorsals are transparent in sibilant harmony, in which sibilants are forced to agree in retraction. I propose a superset approach that combines feature spreading and underspecification with ABC: All dorsals are transparent in sibilant harmony, because they are outside the correspondence relation. At the first step of the derivation, non-retracted dorsals are not specified for retraction, allowing them to be transparent to regressive retraction. At a later step, they are negatively specified and hence able to block progressive retraction.

Erzya stem-internal vowel-consonant harmony: A new approach

Although Erzya harmony is discussed as a kind of vowel harmony traditionally, suffix alternations show that there is a close interaction between consonants and vowels, therefore we should speak about a consonant-vowel harmony. This paper demonstrates that the palatalizedness of the consonants and the frontness of the vowels are also strongly connected inside stems: first syllable front vowels are quite rare after word-initial non-palatalized dentals but are dominant after palatalized ones; first syllable back vowels are dominantly followed by non-palatalized dentals, while the latter are very rare after front vowels.

Consonant Harmony

The term consonant harmony refers to a class of systematic sound patterns, in which consonants interact in some assimilatory way even though they are not adjacent to each other in the word. Such long-distance assimilation can sometimes hold across a significant stretch of intervening vowels and consonants, such as in Samala (Ineseño Chumash) /s-am-net-in-waʃ/ → [ʃamnetiniwaʃ] “they did it to you”, where the alveolar sibilant /s‑/ of the 3.sbj prefix assimilates to the postalveolar sibilant /ʃ/ of the past suffix /‑waʃ/ across several intervening syllables that contain a variety of non-sibilant consonants. While consonant harmony most frequently involves coronal-specific contrasts, like in the Samala case, there are numerous cases of assimilation in other phonological properties, such as laryngeal features, nasality, secondary articulation, and even constriction degree. Not all cases of consonant harmony result in overt alternations, like the [s] ∼ [ʃ] alternation in the Samala 3.sbj prefix. Sometimes the harmony is merely a phonotactic restriction on the shape of morphemes (roots) within the lexicon. Consonant harmony tends to implicate only some group (natural class) of consonants that already share a number of features, and are hence relatively similar, while ignoring less similar consonants. The distance between the potentially interacting consonants can also play a role. For example, in many cases assimilation is limited to relatively short-distance ‘transvocalic’ contexts (. . . CVC. . . ), though the interpretation of such locality restrictions remains a matter of debate. Consonants that do not directly participate in the harmony (as triggers or undergoers of assimilation) are typically neutral and transparent, allowing the assimilating property to be propagated across them. However, this is not universally true; in recent years several cases have come to light in which certain segments can act as blockers when they intervene between a potential trigger-target pair. The main significance of consonant harmony for linguistic theory lies in its apparently non-local character and the challenges that this poses for theories of phonological representations and processes, as well as for formal models of phonological learning. Along with other types of long-distance dependencies in segmental phonology (e.g., long-distance dissimilation, and vowel harmony systems with one or more transparent vowels), sound patterns of consonant harmony have contributed to the development of many theoretical constructs, such as autosegmental (nonlinear) representations, feature geometry, underspecification, feature spreading, strict locality (vs. ‘gapped’ representations), parametrized visibility, agreement constraints, and surface correspondence relations. The formal analysis of long-distance assimilation (and dissimilation) remains a rich and vibrant area of theoretical research. The empirical base for such theoretical inquiry also continues to be expanded. On the one hand, previously undocumented cases (or new, surprising details of known cases) continue to be added to the corpus of attested consonant harmony patterns. On the other hand, artificial phonology learning experiments allow the properties of typologically rare or unattested patterns to be explored in a controlled laboratory setting.

Long-distance major place harmony

In previous surveys of long-distance consonant harmony, the major place features [labial], [dorsal] and [coronal] are conspicuously absent from the set of possible harmonising features. Ngbaka Minagende displays major place harmony between labial-dorsal segments and simple labials and velars, thus filling this empirical gap. The presence of complex segments with multiple place is crucial to seeing this harmony pattern clearly. These patterns are best handled in the Agreement by Correspondence framework with an active CC-Ident[place] constraint. Other analyses either cannot capture the pattern at all or require fundamental changes elsewhere in phonological theory. The data are supported by a new digitisation and statistical analysis of a Ngbaka Minagende dictionary.

Phonological templates in development

This chapter presents cross-linguistic data from two children each from the language groups represented in Chapter 4. The child’s consonantal resources are evaluated, with examples of the child’s word forms. This is followed by an account of the child’s prosodic structures and their relative frequency of use. Active template use is evaluated, based in part on the extent to which the child adapts words to fit those structures. A correlation is found between the children’s production of consonant matches and the extent of variegation in their word forms. Finally, an overview is provided of template use in the 18 children whose patterns have been considered in detail. Consonant harmony is found to be the pattern most frequently deployed, but a VCV pattern is used by five of the children (French, Finnish, Italian, Welsh). The pattern is traced to accentual aspects of the ambient language.

Emphasis Harmony in Arabic: A Critical Assessment of Feature-Geometric and Optimality-Theoretic Approaches

This overview article examines vowel-consonant harmony, specifically emphatic harmony (also referred to as pharyngealization, velarization, or uvularization), which is found in Semitic languages. It provides a comprehensive overview of emphasis harmony in Arabic dialects from feature-geometric and optimality-theoretic perspectives. From the feature geometric account, emphatic consonants are considered as a natural class within the guttural group that has the [pharyngeal] or [RTR] ‘retracted tongue root’ feature. This view has been questioned and challenged recently by some researchers who argue for the exclusion of emphatics from the guttural group. The different arguments discussed in this paper show that researchers cannot reach a consensus regarding which consonants belong to the guttural group and which features are shared between these consonants. This paper shows that studies adopting an optimality-theoretic perspective provide a more comprehensive view of emphasis harmony and its fundamental aspects, namely, directional spreading and blocking, spread from secondary emphatic /r/ and labialization. However, this paper reaches two main conclusions. Firstly, unlike feature geometry, optimality theory can provide a clearer picture of emphasis harmony in an accurate and detailed way, which does not only clarify the process in one Arabic dialect but also describe the differences between dialects due to the merit of (re)ranking of constraints. Secondly, emphasis harmony is different from one Arabic dialect to another regarding its direction, involvement of emphatic /r/, and labialization. These differences between dialects indicate that emphasis harmony is not an absolute phenomenon.

Ejective harmony in Lezgian

This paper contributes to the typology of laryngeal harmony by analysing an unusual case of long-distance laryngeal co-occurrence restrictions and alternations in Lezgian. This pattern, previously unmentioned in the phonological literature, is the first known case of alternations involving ejective harmony. In Lezgian, local processes mask the interaction of ejectives and plain voiceless stops. This is robustly supported by our dictionary analysis, which reveals a ban on the co-occurrence of ejectives and plain voiceless stops within the foot. Both harmony alternations and static co-occurrence restrictions are sensitive to foot structure, unlike previous cases of consonant harmony. Harmony also interacts opaquely with vowel syncope, and certain co-occurrences of plain and ejective stops are resolved with dissimilation rather than harmony, showing a conspiracy to avoid co-occurrences. We demonstrate an account within the Agreement by Correspondence framework and discuss implications for the typology and analysis of consonant harmony.

Sibilant Harmony in Kinyarwanda

Kinyarwanda is a Bantu language spoken in Rwanda which exhibits puzzling alternation of the past-participal morpheme, which in certain contexts triggers sibilant harmony. Sibilant harmony is part of the broader class of consonant harmony, which has presented challenges to phonological theories. This presentation will present a sketch of Kinyarwanda phonology along with an analysis of sibilant harmony exhibited in Kinyarwanda under an autosegmental framework using mutation morphology. Finally, dialectical variation in sibilant harmony will be considered, comparing the Conogolese dialect with the Kigali dialect.