LING 450/550 Hargus

Term Project Guidelines

In a nutshell Pick a language not already in Handbook or JIPA

o need at least 3 sources Turn in prospectus, must be approved Turn in draft on vowels Turn in draft on consonants Final draft: revise vowels, revise consonants, include suprasegmentals

Overview This project involves writing up a short description of the phonetics and phonology of some language in the style of Illustrations of the IPA (Journal of the International Phonetic Association, Handbook of the IPA). This project is essentially a literature review. You are to read the literature on the phonetics and phonology of some language, and synthesize it and condense it into a succinct summary (ten page limit).

You must choose a language for which there is not already a description in either JIPA or Handbook of the IPA. I.e. it must not be on my list of such languages, which you can find posted on the class web site. It may be a language which is related to the one you chose for the Illustrations of the IPA critique assignment (in fact, this is desirable). However, a different dialect of a language for which there is already a published description is probably not suitable, unless there are substantial differences in the consonant and vowel systems (usually not). Also off limits are the languages of model term papers posted on the class web site.

Some thought should go into selection of the language. You may choose a language that you know well or speak natively, but it must also be a language for which there is sufficient published documentation (which is either here in one of the UW libraries or something which you can get your hands on quickly) that you will be able to condense into a paper for this course without the help of a native speaker. The

language should be one which is actually attested (not reconstructed, like Proto-Indo-European) and still spoken (so not Latin, Sanskrit, etc.). The language you describe should have some exotic or unusual phonetic/phonological property, and/or it should represent a language family or area of the world which is currently unrepresented (or underrepresented) in this type of article. Languages that you may think are exotic just from their name may turn out to be phonetically or phonologically uninteresting (e.g. Swahili), and it may be difficult for you to find much to say about such languages. If in doubt, discuss what you have in mind with me as soon as possible.

If your language spans a large geographical area and/or contains a large number of speakers, you may do well to limit your description to a particular dialect. Deep dialect differences can also be found with small languages which have occupied a particular area for a long time (e.g. Basque).

To underscore a point mentioned above: you will not be working with a native speaker to ferret out information about the language—in fact, working with a native speaker is off limits for this project. Think of this project as the stage of preparation for a JIPA article where you read and synthesize as much as you can about what is known about the phonetics and phonology of a language before you work with a speaker. The sole exception to this policy is that you may describe a language that you speak natively, provided that it is not on the JIPA or Handbook of the IPA list, and draw on your own knowledge of the language as a data source, but you cannot rely exclusively on yourself: you must also provide citations and references. (And you will be held to a higher standard for presentation of the data than other students. You must present minimal or near-minimal sets if you are a describing a language that you speak natively.)

Therefore for this project for this class you will not make accompanying sound recordings, but you are encouraged to consider turning this into a real JIPA article (with translation of the usual text, ‘The North Wind and The Sun’)---after you have taken a few more phonetics and phonology courses (at least 451 and 453) and preferably also some sociolinguistics. (You could enroll in an independent study course with one of the phonetics and phonology faculty to do so.)

The project will have three intermediate deadlines.

Prospectus: identification of language and sources (about one page)

This may either be written up like a standard linguistics article (i.e. containing citations which are spelled out in a bibliography at the end), or as an annotated bibliography. See examples of each format on the class web site.

Regardless of which format you choose, your prospectus should include the following information.

language name (and dialect, if restricting your study to a particular dialect_ ISO 639-3 language code (see Ethnologue) language family sources of information you have consulted and/or plan to consult. You must

consult a minimum of three sources. These should be peer-reviewed (published) sources or theses/dissertations from a reputable institution of higher learning. Note: Wikipedia is not an acceptable source for you to cite in this stage of the project (or in the final version). However, Wikipedia may guide you to other, acceptable sources, which may include: articles about phonetics/phonology book-length descriptive grammars which include information about

phonetics and/or phonology dictionaries may be useful if there is an introduction with grammatical,

including phonetic/phonological, information. Dictionaries may also be useful as a source of minimal and/or near-minimal pairs, or other data.

For each source say what it seems useful for. Beware of:

sources which focus on the interaction of phonology and morphology and have only superficial comments about phonetics. The focus of your term paper is contrast and allophony, not phonology-morphology interaction. (I will say more about this in class.)

pedagogical grammars (written to help others teach or learn the language). These may or may not turn out to be useful for this project.

sources of information which were written 75 years ago or longer (you can use these but will have to do more interpretive work)

Vowels (one-three pages)

You should include:

Vowel chart(s). This should be a chart of phonemes. Preferably place symbols in a trapezoid. Prepare separate charts for monophthongs and diphthongs (these can be placed side by side to save space). Explain (provide description of) any symbols which depart from IPA usage. You should use IPA symbols even if your sources do not.

For sequences that could be diphthongs, try to identify whether these are: VV (vowel sequences, like Japanese). does any vowel quality occur with any

other vowel quality? (if space permits, it can be useful to provide a chart and word list illustrating all possible vowel sequences)

VC (vowel semi-vowel, like Thai or Malay) or CV (semi-vowel vowel, e.g. English [ju]): if one component of the diphthong is a high vowel, it could be a glide. Does the semi-vowel component pattern with other consonants (usually approximants)?

none of the above: diphthong (unit phoneme) There should be some discussion of this issue if your language has these phonetic sequences; i.e. do not just create a separate chart without comment.

A word list illustrating each vowel phoneme in the chart or charts. This is preferably minimal set---required if you are a native speaker analyzing your own language. Remember the most important rule for near-minimal pairs/sets: sounds should be in the same position. A long list should have some structure. Divide words into groups and label

the groups as to what they show. For example, there can be separate lists for monophthongs and true diphthongs.

Glosses must be provided for all data in word lists or elsewhere in your paper.

Try to illustrate phenomena with monomorphemic lexical items. However, if any of your data are morphologically complex (contain hyphens separating morphemes), you should provide glosses of each morpheme.

Use standard phonetic symbols throughout, even if your source does not. Simply say that you have retranscribed your source(s) so that data are in accord with current transcriptional conventions.

You may include additional words (minimal pairs or sets) illustrating phonetically similar contrasts. ([h] vs. [ð] are less similar than [h] vs. [x], so you might include additional pairs for [h] vs. [x] but additional pairs for [h] vs. [ð] would be a waste of space.)

Rules predicting significant allophones. Note that all such grammatical statements (about allophony) must be supported by data and/or citations from the literature. Some JIPA articles put this information (for vowels, consonants and suprasegmentals) in a section entitled Conventions (more on this below), but in this class this kind of information should be located in the respective sections on consonants and vowels.

The focus of your description should be word-internal phenomena.

Your transcription should be no narrower than necessary. Do not leave contrastive phonetic information out of your transcriptions; e.g. you need to transcribe vowel nasality if contrastive; you need to transcribe tone if contrastive.

Your sources may conflict. That is okay (indeed, a great research opportunity). It is your job to summarize and point this out. But also point out what all sources agree on. You may decide that one (or more) of your sources is/are more convincing than the others. If so, say why.

Many illustrations of the IPA in JIPA or the Handbook of the IPA also include an orthographic representation of each word. You may do that as long as you do not confuse phonetics/phonology and orthography (orthography cannot be used as justification for phonemic representation). However, also keep in mind that you must stay within the page limit for this assignment. If you choose to include orthographic

representations and this causes you to exclude information which is more important, then your final grade will suffer.) When in doubt, leave out the orthographic representation.

You should not scan and paste in tables of segments or data from other sources. For both contentful and aesthetic reasons, you should instead retype tables (or some subset) when they contain information relevant to your paper (and of course cite your source when you do so). Figures are another matter. See me if you have doubts about what you can excise from another work and paste into your document.

This stage of the project will be returned to you with comments.

Consonants (two-four pages)

This section should include:

consonant chart (phonemes). Your chart should not include columns for places of articulation that are not contrastive in your languages (ditto re rows).

word list illustrating each consonant. This is preferably a minimal set. However consonant inventories can be too large to find a single minimal set, so you could subdivide this into smaller sets for which you might be able to find minimal pairs or sets: e.g. voiced vs. voiceless stops at each place of articulation.

additional words (minimal pairs or sets) illustrating phonetically similar contrasts in environments not shown in the preceding word list (not all JIPA/Handbook languages do this), or additional data on any point in the consonant system which you feel requires more data or explication

phonological justification for any segments (such as affricates) which could be interpreted as sequences or unit phonemes

define any transcriptional symbols which depart from IPA usage, but you should use IPA symbols even if your sources do not

The same comments under the bullet points in Vowels apply to this section: focus on word-internal phenomena, point out where your sources conflict and who you believe, provide rules and data for significant allophones, orthographic representation only if you have space for it (be consistent with your vowels section).

Final version This is your chance to revise any previous work you did on the sections you turned in and received comments on. In fact, all comments on first drafts should be responded to in some way in the final draft.

The length limit is 10 pages, double-spaced, including all charts, figures and references. The references section does not need to start on a new page. All text and data set off from the text should be in 12 point font (although footnotes can be in a smaller font).

Your final paper should include at least the following sections:

Introduction

(brief mention of genetic affiliation: languages it is related to; geography: where spoken; demographics: how many speakers/degree of endangerment)

Consonants

(consonant chart, words illustrating each contrastive consonant, data illustrating allophones)

Vowels

(vowel chart, words illustrating each contrastive vowel, data illustrating allophones)

Suprasegmentals

(stress and/or tone ---varies depending on the language; words illustrating contrasts or rules)

Although JIPA guidelines ask for inclusion of information about intonation, since the focus of this project is word-internal phenomena, you need not include intonation in your description, or if you do, you may provide only single-word illustrations.

As mentioned above, many of the JIPA and Handbook articles include a section called Conventions, the purpose of which is to explain conventional use of symbols; e.g. [t] to represent a dental stop. A section called Conventions is really only appropriate for the shortest of the Handbook articles. Your papers should incorporate such information in the respective sections on consonants, vowels, etc.

Depending on the language, it may be appropriate to include one or more other sections for phenomena which involve both consonants and vowels; e.g. Russian [j] vs. [j] distribution with respect to vowel qualities.

Topics beyond the scope of this class, covered in 451, include morphophonemics and syllables. These should generally be saved for your later class (where you have the option of writing a term paper). However, morphophonemics can often be recast and discussed in this paper as contextually limited contrast. Information about syllabification may interact with stress.

Grading When it comes time for me to grade your final paper, I will print out the following pages and check off the good and the bad. I start with a base score of 20 points, then add points to it for things done well and subtract points for things not done well. The maximum possible score is 25 points.

Points will be awarded for Writing, organization, and referencing

clear writing good organization

o insightful section headings o cross-references to sections elsewhere in document

finding, reading and citing relevant sources beyond the minimum number

Phonetic and phonological analysis

minimal and near-minimal sets of data (since much of this paper and this course is about contrast)

analysis beyond the minimum (e.g. acoustic-based vowel charts) phonetically/phonologically sophisticated writing, especially regarding

o issues in phonemicization (unit phoneme or not for certain sounds) o contextually limited contrast

Presentation

easy to read figures and tables

clear and thoughtful presentation of data, captions included

Points will be deducted for Phonetic/phonological problems

writing lacking in phonetic/phonological sophistication; doesn’t use terms/concepts discussed in class or readings

data problems o incorrect consonant or vowel charts o aspects of charts not justified (e.g. /Cw/ as opposed to /Cw/) o inconsistencies between text discussion and charts, or text discussion and

word list o transcription issues (e.g. not using IPA) o missing glosses o insufficient examples o grammatical statements not illustrated with data

o point of data (or figure, table) not clear sparse information content

o sections too short, not enough information included o suprasegmentals section missing

analytical problems o wrong terminology (e.g. misuse of “allophone”) o confusing terminology (e.g. “root word”) o unclear analysis o data-rule mismatch o failure to justify phonemic representation or reliance on orthography to

justify o misuse of / / or [ ] or other symbols (e.g. hyphen)

redundant information provided; e.g. “/k/ is velar” (phonetic descriptions not needed for symbols with standard values)

irrelevant information provided o discussion of spelling, not phonetics or phonology o discussion of morphophonemics instead of contrast; i.e. writing a 451 paper

instead of 450 paper. In general, examples that involve morphophonemics can be discussed in terms of contextually limited contrast.

o discussion of diachronic instead of synchronic phonological information

Other linguistic problems

glosses or other information missing from morphologically complex data too much information in demographics not relevant to phonetics/phonology

Organizational problems

no title no or too few section headings too many section headings; e.g. not needed for every paragraph inappropriately named section headings missing cross-references sections out of sequence information in the wrong place within sections

repetition of already presented information without a clear reason and/or reminder

failure to state obviously related phenomena as a single generalization. E.g. /Vr/ → [Vː] and /Vl/ → [Vː] (and no other consonants do this). These should be presented together (not in separate sections on /r/ and /l/).

Citation/reference issues

reliance on one or two sources only reference list

references in bibliography not cited in paper information missing from bibliography mostly or exclusively unpublished sources (e.g. internet only) incorrect author, date or other information in reference

citation issues wrong citation cited in text but missing from bibliography (either in whole or in part) citation missing from text; i.e. data, diagrams or even an idea is taken from

some source and no reference is provided missing year inconsistent formatting improper format (not author-date format)

Data presentation

failure to number linguistic examples failure to introduce/explain examples before presenting them improper formatting of data set off from text improper formatting of data in line with text improper formatting of data in tables (e.g. row or column headings needed) convoluted reference to examples in text absence of tables (needed for complex phenomena) misuse of tables (not needed for simple phenomena) improper figures (e.g. diphthong charts without points labeled)

Writing and formatting

unclear writing (e.g unclear referents of proforms like it, this, etc.)

disjointed writing (leaping from one idea to another) large number of distracting typos (poor proof-reading) bad page or line breaks (especially within tables) cutting and pasting anything except a vowel chart from sources

Lateness

failure to meet any and all deadlines

o language and sources

o vowels

o consonants

o final draft

General issues

problems that could have been avoided by paying attention to class presentations (holds of first as well as final drafts)

font issues (poor proof-reading) failure to adhere to page limit (holds of first as well as final drafts) failure to number pages

Failure to correct first draft

It is a major annoyance to see that a problem that was spotted in the first draft and needed to be corrected or addressed is still present in the final draft. If you don’t understand comments, ask for clarification. The first thing that will be done before reading your final drafts is to reread the comments on your drafts.