The diachronic origins of Lyman's Law: evidence from phonetics, dialectology and philology

Modern Japanese has a set of morphophonemic alternations known collectively as rendaku that involve initial consonants in second elements of compounds, as in /jama+dera/ ‘mountain temple’ (cf. /tera/ ‘temple’). An alternating element like /tera/ ~ /dera/ has an initial voiced obstruent in its rendaku allomorph and an initial voiceless obstruent in its non-rendaku allomorph. Lyman's Law blocks rendaku in a second element containing a medial voiced obstruent. This paper gives three arguments that Lyman's Law originated as a constraint prohibiting prenasalisation in consecutive syllables. First, constraints on similar consonants in close proximity generally apply not to voicing but to features with phonetic cues that are more spread out, such as prenasalisation. Second, in some Japanese dialects with prenasalised voiced obstruents, rendaku cannot occur if it would result in adjacent syllables containing these marked consonants. Third, phonographically attested Old Japanese compounds are consistent with a constraint on adjacent syllables.

Variation in Breton word stress: new speakers and the influence of French

This paper investigates stress patterns in Breton across speakers of different ages and with different linguistic backgrounds. Centuries of contact with French have led to French influence in Breton lexis, phonology and morphosyntax, and Breton's current status as an endangered minority language makes it vulnerable to further change. Additionally, younger ‘new speakers’ of Breton, who have acquired the language through Breton-medium education, are said to transfer features from French into their Breton. Analysis of stress usage shows that older, traditional speakers use stress largely as expected, while there is a greater degree of interspeaker variation among younger, new speakers. These data are used to form a metrical analysis of stress in Breton, taking into account lexical exceptions, loanwords and the variability of younger speakers. Rather than widespread transfer of French stress patterns into Breton, some younger speakers seem to be using two competing stress systems.

Homophony avoidance in the grammar: Russian nominal allomorphy

It has long been observed that languages tend to preserve contrast, either by introducing sound changes or by inhibiting them. However, it is not clear if any instances of so-called homophony avoidance reported to date constitute an active synchronic restriction in the grammar. This paper presents an instance of homophony avoidance in Russian masculine nouns. A perception experiment shows that the trends observed in the corpus are only partially extended to nonce words. I argue that the asymmetry observed in the experimental results can only be attributed to a synchronic restriction against homophonous forms in the same paradigm. Thus this paper presents strong evidence in favour of a synchronic anti-homophony constraint.

Articulatory coordination distinguishes complex segments from segment sequences

Phonological patterning motivates a distinction between complex segments and segment sequences, although it has also been suggested that there might be reliable phonetic differences. We develop the hypothesis that, in addition to their distinct phonological patterning, complex segments differ from segment sequences in how constituent articulatory gestures are coordinated in time. Through computational simulation, we illustrate predictions that follow from hypothesised coordination differences, showing as well how coordination is conceptually independent of temporal duration. We test predictions with kinematic data collected using electromagnetic articulography. Electromagnetic articulography data comparing labial-palatal gestures in Russian, which we argue on the basis of phonological facts to constitute complex segments, and similar labial-palatal gestures in English, which we argue constitute segment sequences, show distinct patterns of coordination, providing robust support for our main hypothesis. At least in this case, gestural coordination conditions patterns of kinematic variation that clearly distinguish complex segments from segment sequences.