Le somali comme langue tonale Somali as a tone …...2016/01/16 · Le somali comme langue tonale...

Le somali comme langue tonaleSomali as a tone language

David Le Gac, Université de Rouen

Mardi 19 janvier 2016Workshop/atelier

« Approches sociolinguistique et linguistique des langues de Mayotte et de Djibouti »Site Web

https://projet-ppm.univ-rouen.fr/atelierworkshop-approches-sociolinguistique-et-linguistique-des-langues-de-mayotte-et-de-djibouti

Introduction

U. de Rouen - 19/01/2016 D. Le Gac - "Somali as a Tone Language" 2

Somali as a “tonal/pitch accent language”

• Armstrong (1934): Somali is primarily a tone language vs.Klingenheben (1949): the accentual nature of the pitch contours

• Hyman (1981): Somali = a “tonal accent language”• the underlying forms have neither accent nor tone

• accents (“*”) assigned to the penultimate or final V by morphological rules

• after the application of accent shift and deleting rules, the surviving accents receive invariant high tones (“H”)

• Analysis adopted by Banti (1984, 88), Saeed (1999), Orwin (1995), Le Gac (2000, 01, 03), Green & Morrison (2014, 15).


Do tonal accent languages really exist?

• In recent papers, authors (e.g. Gussenhoven 2004, Hyman 2007, Van der Hulst 2012) have discussed the suitability of a category of ‘tonal or pitch accent languages’

• Hyman (2007) and Van der Hulst (2012) call into question the tonal accent analysis of Somali, along with that of other languages, such as Japanese or Basque, for instance.

• Though these authors defend opposite views about Somali


Van der Hulst (2012): Somali is accentual

• Cf. Hyman (1981:194): “Rather than having a process accent tone pitch, it is possible to go directly from the accent specifications to the pitch integers [=heights] themselves.”

only * at the phonological level, whose acoustic correlate is pitch

• This accounts for the distributional restrictions of the high pitches: • at most 1 accent per word

• on the final or penultimate vowel only

• However some Somali word categories may have no prominence at all


Hyman (2007):Somali is a restricted tone system

• Somali is not an accentual system: • ‘obligatoriness’ is a core property of accent

• the mora (= V) is the tone bearing unit in Somali vs. the syllable in stress systems

• Somali is a restricted tone system in which: • the high pitches are the phonetic realizations of H tones

• the culminative and non-obligatory Hs could be grammatically conditioned boundary H% tones

• More generally, pitch accent is not a coherent notion, but rather, a “pick and choose” among the properties that characterize prototypical tone vs. prototypical accent. “no language should be analyzed with pitch-accent. A tonal analysis is always possible” (p. 661)


Aims of the presentation

• To test Hyman (2007)’s recommendation and propose a tonal analysis of Somali

• By analyzing the intriguing tonal alternations that affect most word categories and especially nouns

• Tone features are needed to explain the varying pitch patterns that characterize Ns and other word categories in Somali

• Accent are unable to capture these pitch variations and should be removed from the phonological representation of words


Data and outline of the presentation

• Data from Andrzejewski (1964), Hyman (1981), Banti (1988), Saeed(1999); Orwin (1995, audio), Le Gac (2001, audio)

• Plan: 1. High tone assignment rules

2. Plural of the declension 1-4 nouns and the nominative case

3. The tonal shifts in the declension 6/7


Part 1.High tone assignment rules


Noun declensions and cases

• The 7 declension system of Orwin (1995) and Saeed (1999), which relies on gender, plural formation and case marking

• 4 cases influence the pitch patterns of the Ns, Adjs and Dets: 1. the vocative (VOC)

2. the nominative (NOM)

3. the genitive (GEN)

4. the absolutive (ABS) : ‘default’ case

• NOM and GEN (tonal and segmental): on the last element of a DetP• wasíir-k-a arrimá-h-a dibád-d-u ‘the foreign minister.NOM’

minister-the-ABS matters-the-ABS abroad-the-NOM

• The ‘premodifier’ form (PREM): ABS báre [–PREM] ~ bará-ha [+PREM]U. de Rouen - 19/01/2016 D. Le Gac - "Somali as a Tone Language" 10

The singular forms of D1-5 nouns

• A tonal contrast between feminine and masculine Ns:• Fem.: a final H pitch inán ‘girl.D1.fsg’ beér ‘garden.D1.fsg’

• Masc.: a penultimate one ínan ‘boy.D2.msg’ béer ‘liver.D2.msg’

• Hyman (1981), Banti (1988): a final or penultimate * assigned by rule according to gender and declension

• In a tonal approach: a final or penultimate H tone


The singular forms of D1-5 nouns

• Does gender really govern the location of the H tone?

Le Gac (1997), Godon (1998), Lampitelli (2013): fem. Ns are suffixed by an empty [CV] to which -i and -VVd suffixes can associatein fem. Ns, the H tone is assigned to the penultimate V as it is in masc. Ns

• The existence of an empty V position influencing the location of the H is corroborated by the fact NOM -i occurs with ADJs and intoned DETs, which also bear a final H regardless of the gender• ABS búug culús ‘book.D2.msg new’ NOM búug culus-i• ABS búug-geér ‘book-that ’ NOM búug-geer-i

Nominative Genitive

Fem. inan-i ‘girl-NOM’ dhár naag-eéd ‘clothes woman-GEN’ sáddex naag-oód ‘3 woman-GEN’

Masc. inan ‘boy’ dhár wiíl ‘clothes boy’ sáddex wiíl ‘3 boy’


Location of H

• This analysis implies that the penultimate – or only – µ is the default location for H ; H is penultimate in :• adverbs: maánta ‘today’, máya ‘no’,…

• the WH word yáa ‘who’

• focus particles wáa, báa, ayáa

• numerals up to ‘8’ (fem. Ns): lába ‘2’, siddéed ‘8’

• verbs: ‘(to) bring (it)’: kéen IMP.sg., keén-i INF, keen-áan SUBJ.Pr.3pl

• If H is final, it can be shown that there is: • a one-V suffix that bears a H tone: ‘(to) stand up’ joog-só IMP.sg., joog-sán INF,

keen-ó SUBJ.Pr.1/3sg., keen-á REST.Pr. 1/3sg.,

• an empty [CV] the existence of which is revealed by the NOM -i and GEN -VVd,

• Exceptions(?) DET-k/t-ií/-eé/Poss; sií/soó; sagaál ‘9’U. de Rouen - 19/01/2016 D. Le Gac - "Somali as a Tone Language" 13

Assignment of H

• At the lexical level some morphemes are assigned: • no H tone, such as INF -i (keén-i), IMP pl. -a (keén-a), DET -k/t-a,…

• vs. a H tone to the only or penultimate µ: lexical roots (ínan, kéen, jóog…) and other inflectional (cf. IMP -só, SUBJ -áan/ó,…) or derivational morphemes

• concatenated intoned morphemes: the last tone deletes the preceding ones

• A unique assignment rule for all categories of words, part of the vocabulary entry of the morphemes (cf. also Lecarme 2002); vs. Hyman (1981), Banti (1984/88); Lampitelli (2013)

• the H tone undergoes further modifications during sentence derivation which can only be captured by a tonal approach

vs.

X


Part 2. The plural of the D1-4 nouns and the nominative case


D1-4 plural forms: data

• Similar pitch patterns: a 3-way pitch contrast (cf. also Andrzejewski 1964) between:

1. a L: [bahallò] in NOM2. a H: [nimán] in [+PREM] and FOC3. a M/Ø [bahallo] in [-PREM]

• vs. 2-way contrast in the singular Ns:1. a L: [inanì] ‘girls’ in NOM2. a H: [inán] elsewhere

• N+o/+Co/+aC (± gender polarity): shimbir-o ‘bird.D1-mpl’, bahal-lo ‘beast.D2-fpl’, roob-ab ‘rain.D4-mpl’, nim-an ‘man.D4-mpl’,

• Godon (1998), Lampitelli (2013): a unique underlying form


D1-4 plural forms: proposal

• The D1-4 plural suffix is marked by a latent H tone, which remains unassociated in ABS[-PREM]: Hlatent deletes the preceding one (cf. HAR)

unspecified/mid F0 at the acoustic level

• Hlatent associates with -o in FOC/PREM

• Alternating analysis: a toneless -o and a H inserted in FOC/PREM? But:• toneless INF -i (keén-i) and IMP pl. -a (keén-a) maintain the H on the root

vs. pl. bahal-lo: no H emerges on the root in the ABS case

• some words never display any H, even in FOC/PREM: SUBJ/OBJ pronouns (e.g. aan ‘I’, i ‘me’,…) and DET -k/t-u/a ‘the’ no underlying H tone

• A latent tone interacting with other tone features: the first evidence for a tonal approach

vs.


The nominative case

• Acoutic data (often a declining F0) a morphemic low tone LNOM

• that associates with the end of the last element of a DetP

• deletes the preceding Has the other final tones do in a word

• LNOM and -i are likely to be both the phonological exponents of a NOM morphological feature anchoring to the end of a DetP

The nominative pitch pattern results from an interaction between tone features only ; an accentual approach is unable to capture the pitch contrasts observed in D1-4 Ns

X X X


Part 3. The tonal shifts in declensons 6 and 7


The declensions 6 and 7

• Two large classes of Ns with particular morphological features while Somali sg. Ns usually end with a C or an epenthetic -i (as *CC#, e.g. ábti‘uncle.D2.msg’, dúgsi ‘school.D2.msg’,…)

• in singular, D6-7 Ns end in a V: • -o in D6 (hooy-ó ‘mother.D6.fsg’)

• -e in D7 (bar-é ‘teacher.D7.msg’)

• in plural, specific suffixes are added: • -óyin in D6 (hooyo-óyin ‘mothers.mpl’)

• -yaál in D7 (bara-yaál ‘teachers.fpl’) N.B. -e/o a /_ C


The D6/7: specific pitch patterns

• NOM: a penultimate H (Kulmíye), not a low pitch as in the other Ds

• ABS: a penultimate or final H, whereas H in the other Ds is invariant in this context:• H is always final in the PREM form

(bará-) and when object of the verb (Kulmiyé), even before a pause (at the end of the sentence)

• H may be penultimate or final in isolation and when focalized(contrast)

• How to account for these tonal patterns? specific * patterns for D6/7 Ns and/or * shifting rules (e.g. *°°*). Descriptive adequacy but the causes of D6/7 tonal alternations are not determined.U. de Rouen - 19/01/2016 D. Le Gac - "Somali as a Tone Language" 21

A proposal

• D6/7 Ns have two underlying H tones

• but for reasons discussed later, the H of -e/o does not delete the preceding H, (as does the H of the plural suffixes for ex.)

• NOM: LNOM deletes the first H leftwards, i.e. the H of -e/o, as it does in the other declensions, but the H of the stem remains

the NOM phonetic HL pattern is not only generated, but the NOM case is also reduced to a unique and hence more understandable process – ‘LNOM deletes the first H leftwards’ – applying to all NOM Ns

Xcf.

X


Tonal alternations in the ABS contexts

• If the D6/7 penultimate H in NOM results from the association of a L tone, then the penultimate H appearing in other contexts might also be due to an observable L.

• This is just what happens in certain ABS contexts:• Le Gac (2001, 2003): contrastive focus in Somali can be

followed – as in many other languages – by a L tone that reaches the bottom of speaker pitch range; I will name it LEMPH and consider it as an intonation morpheme

• In isolation, D6/7 Ns are reported to exhibit either a final or a penultimate H: in the latter case, LFOC is likely to be chosen by the speaker to express some emphasis and is associated with the -e/o suffix


Remaining questions

• Why does the H of -e/o not disassociate the preceding H(s), while other suffixed Hs do?

• How is the final and unique phonetic H tone derived in the PREM or ABS forms?


The structure of Ns

• Following Lampitelli (2013), Ns have the following syntactic structure:

[[[[ Root ] n ]n Th ]n Num ]NumP

• n: a nominalizing functional head; Num: the functional head for number

• Th: a thematic node adjoined to the functional head n (cf. the theme vowel in Latin for instance in Embick and R. Noyer 2007)

• Tonal information is part of vocabulary entries (Cf. Part 1) roots have a H, while functional nodes may be assigned a (latent) H or not

• + a general rule of tone deletion: the H of the last functional head deletes the preceding Hs

• qor-áal ‘writ-er.D2.msg’ = [[[[qoHr]Root -aHaln ]n ØTh ]n ØNum ]NumP

• qor-aal-lo ‘writ-er-s.D2.fpl’ = [[[[qoHr]Root -aHaln ]n ØTh ]n -Co(H)Num ]NumP

X

X X


D6/7-e/o suffixes

• D7 -é often described as an agentive/instrumental suffix (cf. bár ‘to teach’ +é baré ‘teacher’), BUT:• suffixed to an N-l- stem ‘owner of N’: dukaan-l-é ‘shop owner’, waran-l-é ‘spearman’• suffixed to Ns without verbal and independent roots: aabbé ‘father’, cambé ‘mango’,

cukané ‘plant sp.’, hongorré ‘hot wind’, tusé ‘table’, tuxlé ‘gossip’…

• D6 -ó abundantly found with any kind of stem:• suffixed to V3 stems: cariiqsashó ‘provocation’ (<cariiqsó ‘provoke’), duceysashó ‘act of

praying for oneself’ (<duceysó ‘pray for oneself’), dhifashó ‘pulling, snatching’ (<dhifó) • suffixed to Ns without verbal and independent roots: biyó ‘water’, caanó ‘milk’, hooyó

‘mother’, bowdó ‘thigh’, qaaxó ‘wind pipe’,…• suffixed to nominalizing morphemes such as -ním- ‘the state of N’(dóqon

‘fool.D2.msg’ doqonnimó ‘foolishness’), -toóy- ‘N-dom/hood’ (bóqor ‘king.D2.msg’ boqortooyó ‘kingdom’); -dárr- ‘mis-N, lack of N’ (ayáan ‘fortune. msg’ ayaandarró‘misfortune’)

• finally, borrowed words ending with -o/a in the original language, usually Italian, regularly belong to D6: baastó ‘pasta’, boostó ‘post office’, Maayó ‘may’,…


D6/7-e/o as exponents of the Th node

• -e/o have no meaning per se, are correlated to gender for Ns only (cf. Latin)• agentive meaning is to be interpreted as a mere byproduct induced by the

concatenation of a verbal root with -e.

• Representations for D6/7 singular Ns:• D7 sg. baré ‘teacher’:

• D6 sg. doqonnimó ‘foolishness’:

• Th is not a functional head H of -e/o does not delete the preceding Hs; H of the root (baHr) or the nominalizing suffix (-niHm-) may remain

• In plural, -yaál/óyin suffixes are inserted in the Num head position and deletepreceding tones as expected:• D7 pl. barayaál ‘teachers’:

• D6 pl. boqortooyoóyin ‘kingdoms’:U. de Rouen - 19/01/2016 D. Le Gac - "Somali as a Tone Language" 27

Deriving the phonetic final H in D6/7

• Phase theory (Chomsky 2001, 2008; Kratzer & Selkirk 2007; Adger 2007; Selkirk, 2009): • syntactic derivation is ‘chunked’ into phases. Phases = vP,

headed by ‘little v’, and the CP, headed by the C, + DetPheaded by Det (Adger 2007)

• Within a phase, lexical material is inserted and constituents may move up to higher phase-internal syntactic positions

• At the end of a phase, the complement of the phrasal head is spelled out = it is given a phonological form

• In DetP phase, the Hs of the functional heads n and Numdeletes the preceding Hs (Det is phrased apart)

• the H of the Th node and the penultimate one are retained in subsequent phases (vP and CP), in which LNOM and LEMPH are inserted.

• the final D6/7 H shows up within the very last spellout domain, it derives from an OCP-like constraint prohibiting two Hs in the same spellout domain in a DetP phase Kratzer & Selkirk 2007:104


Thank you for yourattention!

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