The phonology of Hakka zero-initials

Raung-fu Chung

Southern Taiwan University

rfchung@mail.nsysu.edu.tw

2011, 05, 29, Cheng Da

Phonological perspective:

In the OT framework, CV is preferred, and hence we have:

CV

But for the different realization in different varieties or dialects, a constraint like CV seems inadequate.

Edward Flemming’s theory on Dispersion markedness

1. Vowel cues: Formants

2. Stop consonants: VOT

3. Fricative consonants:

Two cues here:

A. Peak of frequency

B. Lower of the frequency band

Peak of noises:(LPC)

Fricatives: friction noises

a. 私 [s] b. 詩 [] c. 西 [i] d. she

The notion of learnability The formal learnability in the sense of Tesar &

Smolensky, 1993 assumed that “all constraints started out being unranked.” In later empirical studies (e.g. Gnanadesikan, 1996; Levelt, 1995), it is pointed out that outputs are initially governed by markedness constraints, rather than by faithfulness constraints. This leads to the proposal that in the initial state of the grammar, all markedness constraints outrank all faithfulness constraints, or “M >> F” for short (Kager, Pater & Zonneveld, 2004; Hayes, 2004; Prince & Tesar, 2004).

There are two algorithms accounting for learnability of constraint rankings: Constraint Demotion Algorithm (CDA) and Gradual Learning Algorithm (GLM). Constraint Demotion Algorithm (CDA), proposed by Tesar & Smolensky (1993, 1998, 2000), ranks a set of constraints based on the positive input. For example, L1 acquisition can be interpreted as constraint demotion (Tesar & Smolensky, 1996)

Gradual Learning Algorithm (GLA), developed in Boersma (1997, 1998) and Boersma & Hayes (2001), handles variation in the input and explains gradual well-formedness. GLA is helpful in accounting for categorization errors a learner makes in both production and perception. L2 learners with restricted constraint sets have to gradually learn to rerank the constraints by raising or lowering the existing ones.

Constraints for Peak: • 1. the *CATEG(ORIZE) family, which punishes

productive categories with certain acoustic values. For example, *CATEG(PEAK: /8000Hz/db/) is against producing / 7500Hz/db / as a particular category. ([], but not [])

• 2. *WARP family, which demands every segment be produced as a member of the most similar available category. For instance, *WARP(PEAK: /6000Hz/db) requires that an acoustic segment with a PEAK of 6000Hz/db should not be produced as any PEAK ‘category’ that is 6000Hz/db off (or more.

This is a tentative proposal for the distinction of the zero-initial in phonetics among different Hakka dialects.

• Thank you for your attention!