Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T09:29:09.466Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Understanding near mergers: the case of morphological tone in Cantonese*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2007

Alan C. L. Yu
Alan C. L. Yu
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A growing body of work on exemplar-based theories of learning suggests the possibility of formal models of phonological representation which will offer deeper explanations of basic phonological properties than current models allow. The main purpose of this paper is to shed light on near merger, a recalcitrant problem in sound change and in phonological theory, with this newer perspective, through a case study of tonal near merger in Cantonese.

Type
Research Article
Information
Phonology , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , May 2007 , pp. 187 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Batali, John (2002). The negotiation and acquisition of recursive grammars as a result of competition among exemplars. In Briscoe, Ted (ed.) Linguistic evolution through language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 111–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bauer, Robert S. & Benedict, Paul K. (1997). Modern Cantonese phonology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blevins, Juliette (2004). Evolutionary Phonology: the emergence of sound patterns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boersma, Paul & Weenink, David (2005). Praat: a system for doing phonetics by computer (version 4.3.14). http://www.praat.org.Google Scholar
Burton, Martha W. & Robblee, Karen E. (1997). A phonetic analysis of voicing assimilation in Russian. JPh 25. 97–114.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan (2001). Phonology and language use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chao, Yuen Ren (1948). Mandarin primer. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Matthew Y. (1970). Vowel length variation as a function of the voicing of the consonant environment. Phonetica 22. 129–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Matthew Y. (2000). Tone sandhi: patterns across Chinese dialects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheng, Teresa M. (1973). The phonology of Taishan. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 1. 256–322.Google Scholar
Clopper, Cynthia & Pisoni, David B. (2004). Some acoustic cues for the perceptual categorization of American English regional dialects. JPh 32. 111–140.Google ScholarPubMed
Cohn, Abigail (1990). Phonetic and phonological rules of nasalization. PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Di Paolo, Marianna (1988). Pronunciation and categorization in sound change. In Ferrara, K., Brown, B., Walters, K. & Baugh, J. (eds.) Linguistic change and contact: Proceedings of the 16th Annual Conference on New Ways of Analyzing Variation in Language. Austin: University of Texas. 84–92.Google Scholar
Dinnsen, Daniel A. & Charles-Luce, Jan (1984). Phonological neutralization, phonetic implementation and individual differences. JPh 12. 49–60.Google Scholar
Downer, G. B. (1959). Derivation by tone-change in Classical Chinese. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 22. 35–78.Google Scholar
Ernestus, Mirjam & Baayen, R. Harald (2003). Predicting the unpredictable: interpreting neutralized segments in Dutch. Lg 79. 5–38.Google Scholar
Faber, Alice & Di Paolo, Marianna (1995). The discriminability of nearly merged sounds. Language Variation and Change 7. 35–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flynn, Choi-Yeung-Chang (2003). Intonation in Cantonese. Munich: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar
Fok, Chan Yuen-yuen (1974). A perceptual study of tones in Cantonese. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Fourakis, Marios & Iverson, Gregory K. (1984). On the ‘incomplete neutralization’ of German final obstruents. Phonetica 41. 140–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Francis, Alexander & Ciocca, Valter (2003). Stimulus presentation order and the perception of lexical tones in Cantonese. JASA 114. 1611–1621.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Francis, Alexander L., Ciocca, Valter & Kei Chit Ng, Brenda (2003). On the (non) categorical perception of lexical tones. Perception and Psychophysics 65. 1029–1044.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gahl, Susanne & Yu, Alan C. L. (eds.) (2006). Special theme issue: Exemplar-based models in linguistics. The Linguistic Review 23. 213–379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gandour, Jack (1981). Perceptual dimensions of tone: evidence from Cantonese. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 9. 20–36.Google Scholar
Giannini, Antonella & Cinque, Umberto (1978). Phonetic status and phonemic function of the final devoiced stops in Polish. Naples: Seminario di studi dell'Europa orientale.Google Scholar
Goldinger, Stephan D. (1996). Words and voices: episodic traces in spoken word identification and recognition memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 22. 1166–1183.Google ScholarPubMed
Harrington, Jonathan, Palethorpe, Sallyanne & Watson, Catherine (2000). Monophthongal vowel changes in Received Pronunciation: an acoustic analysis of the Queen's Christmas broadcasts. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 30. 63–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, John (1985). Phonological variation and change: studies in Hiberno-English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hintzman, Douglas L. (1986). ‘Schema abstraction’ in a multiple-trace memory model. Psychological Review 93. 411–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iverson, Gregory K. & Salmons, Joseph C. (2007). Domains and directionality in the evolution of German final fortition. Phonology 24. 121–145 (this issue).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jassem, Wiktor & Richter, Lutosława (1989). Neutralization of voicing in Polish obstruents. JPh 17. 317–325.Google Scholar
Johnson, Keith (1997). Speech perception without speaker normalization: an exemplar model. In Johnson, Keith & Mullennix, John W. (eds.) Talker variability in speech processing. San Diego: Academic Press. 145–165.Google Scholar
Jurafsky, Daniel (1988). On the semantics of Cantonese changed tone: women, matches, and Chinese broccoli. BLS 14. 304–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kam, Tak Him (1977). Derivation by tone change in Cantonese: a preliminary survey. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 5. 186–210.Google Scholar
Keating, Patricia A. (1990). Phonetic representation in a generative grammar. JPh 18. 321–334.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul (1985). Some consequences of Lexical Phonology. Phonology Yearbook 2. 85–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirchner, Robert (1999). Preliminary thoughts on ‘phonologization’ within an exemplar based speech processing model. UCLA Working Papers in Phonology 2. 207–231.Google Scholar
Kong, Qing-Ming (1987). Influence of tones upon vowel duration in Cantonese. Language and Speech 30. 387–399.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kruschke, John K. (1992). ALCOVE: an exemplar-based connectionist model of category learning. Psychological Review 99. 22–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Labov, William (1971). Methodology. In Dingwall, William Orr (ed.) A survey of linguistic science. College Park: University of Maryland Linguistics Program. 412–497.Google Scholar
Labov, William (1975). On the use of the present to explain the past. In Heilmann, Luigi (ed.) Proceedings of the 11th International Congress of Linguists. Vol. 2. Bologna: Mulino. 825–851.Google Scholar
Labov, William (1994). Principles of linguistic change. Vol. 1: Internal factors. Oxford & Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Labov, William, Karen, Mark & Miller, Corey (1991). Near-mergers and the suspension of phonemic contrast. Language Variation and Change 3. 33–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William, Yaeger, Malcah & Steiner, Richard (1972). A quantitative study of sound change in progress. Philadelphia: U.S. Regional Survey.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, Peter (2000). Vowels and consonants: an introduction to the sounds of languages. Malden, Mass. & Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lee, Wai Sum (1999). A phonetic study of the speech of the Cantonese-speaking children in Hong Kong. PhD dissertation, City University of Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Manaster Ramer, Alexis (1996). A letter from an incompletely neutral phonologist. JPh 24. 477–489.Google Scholar
Milroy, James & Harris, John (1980). When is a merger not a merger? The MEAT/MATE problem in a present-day English vernacular. English World-Wide 1. 199–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nosofsky, Robert M. (1986). Attention, similarity, and the identification-categorization relationship. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 115. 39–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nunberg, Geoffrey (1980). A falsely reported merger in eighteenth-century English: a study in diachronic variation. In Labov, William (ed.) Locating language in time and space. New York: Academic Press. 221–250.Google Scholar
Ohala, John (1993). The phonetics of sound change. In Jones, Charles (ed.) Historical linguistics: problems and perspectives. London & New York: Longman. 237–278.Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, Janet B. (1990). Phonological and phonetic representation. JPh 18. 375–394.Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, Janet B. (2001). Exemplar dynamics: word frequency, lenition and contrast. In Bybee, Joan & Hopper, Paul (ed.) Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: Benjamins. 137–157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierrehumbert, Janet B. (2002). Word-specific phonetics. In Gussenhoven, Carlos & Warner, Natasha (eds.) Laboratory Phonology 7. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 101–139.Google Scholar
Port, Robert F. & Crawford, Penny (1989). Incomplete neutralization and pragmatics in German. JPh 17. 257–282.Google Scholar
Port, Robert F. & O'Dell, Michael L. (1985). Neutralization of syllable-final voicing in German. JPh 13. 455–471.Google Scholar
Sancier, Michele L. & Fowler, Carol A. (1997). Gestural drift in a bilingual speaker of Brazilian Portuguese and English. JPh 25. 421–436.Google Scholar
Sankoff, Gillian (2004). Adolescents, young adults and the critical period: two case studies from ‘Seven Up’. In Fought, Carmen (ed.) Sociolinguistic variation: critical reflections. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 121–139.Google Scholar
Tenpenny, Patricia L. (1995). Abstractionist versus episodic theories of repetition priming and word identification. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 2. 339–363.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tieszen, Bozena (1997). Final stop devoicing in Polish: an acoustic and historical account for incomplete neutralization. PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin, Madison.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter (1974). The social differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Vance, Timothy J. (1976). An experimental investigation of tone and intonation in Cantonese. Phonetica 33. 368–392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vance, Timothy J. (1977). Tonal distinctions in Cantonese. Phonetica 34. 93–107.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vance, Timothy J. & Walker, Carol A. (1976). Tone and intonation in Cantonese. CLS 12. 640–655.Google Scholar
Wang, Li (1932). Une prononciation Chinoise de Po-Pei (Province de Kouang-si) étudiée à l'aide de la phonétique expérimentale. Paris: Libraire Ernest Leroux.Google Scholar
Warner, Natasha, Jongman, Allard, Sereno, Joan & Kemps, Rachèl (2004). Incomplete neutralization and other sub-phonemic durational differences in production and perception: evidence from Dutch. JPh 32. 251–276.Google Scholar
Wedel, Andrew (2007). Feedback and regularity in the lexicon. Phonology 24. 147–185 (this issue).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitaker, Katherine Po Kan (1955–56). A study on the modified tones in spoken Cantonese. Asia Major 5. 9–36, 184–207.Google Scholar
Wong, Maurice Kuen-Shing (1982). Tone change in Cantonese. PhD dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar
Wong, Patrick C. M. (1999). The effect of downdrift in the production and perception of Cantonese level tones. In Ohala, John J., Hasegawa, Yoko, Ohala, Manjari, Granville, Daniel & Bailey, Ashlee C. (eds.) Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Berkeley: University of California. 2395–2397.Google Scholar
Wong, Patrick C. M. & Diehl, Randy L. (1998). Effects of speaking fundamental frequency on the normalization of Cantonese level tones. JASA 104. 1834.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wong, Patrick C. M. & Diehl, Randy L. (1999). The effect of duration on the perception of Cantonese level tones. JASA 106. 2150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wong, Wai Yi Peggy (1996). Tempo, processing rate and clarity drive in Hong Kong Cantonese connected speech. MA dissertation, Hong Kong Polytechnic University.Google Scholar
Wong, Wai Yi Peggy (2004). Syllable fusion and speech rate in Hong Kong Cantonese. In Bel, Bernard & Marlien, Isabelle (eds.) Actes des XXVes Journées d'Étude sur la Parole. Fès, Morocco: AFCP. 255–258.Google Scholar
Yip, Moira (1980). The tonal phonology of Chinese. PhD dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Yip, Moira (1989). Contour tones. Phonology 6. 149–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yip, Moira (2002). Tone. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yu, Alan C. L. (2004). Explaining final obstruent voicing in Lezgian: phonetics and history. Lg 80. 73–97.Google Scholar
Yuan, Jiahua (1983). Hanyu fangyan gaiyao. [Survey of Chinese dialects.] Beijing: Wenzi Gaige Chubanshe.Google Scholar