Ling 2101 – online
Projects
The two projects assigned to you apply the concepts of Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, respectively, to an unknown language, that will be assigned to you in due time. The exercise aims to verify your understanding of the phonological and morphological mechanisms, and the way you can apply this knowledge to a foreign language.
There are two extra documents that give you models for these two projects, both on Romanian (posted separately on D2L under Project1model and Project2model). Do not copy these texts, but try to emulate the organization of the material, the type of discussion and the convention for referencing, while presenting the language assigned to you.
BE WARNED: The two projects rely on your own, independent research, with no bibliographical advice from me. Gathering the information you need is part of the learning process and may be time consuming (any good research is). Please start your inquiries as early as you can. For materials you need, search on the UNB database, in E-journals, Catalogue and UNBS library. Do not rely on web materials only, because you may end up plagiarizing, which is prohibited.
Each project will be typewritten, single spaced, on standard US letter setup, in Times New Roman 12, using Word (that allows me to insert comments directly in the text). Please keep a copy of your work before you submit it. There is no minimum page number requirement. The work is assessed for the accuracy of the information and its relevance to the questions asked. Insertion of diagrams, youtube clips (http address), or any other media supported illustration is highly encouraged, but only insofar as such additions are relevant to the topic of your paper.
For both projects, you will be researching one of the languages listed below. The language will be assigned to you by a random pairing made by the computer and will be sent to you in an email message. Please monitor your emails carefully. You will research the same language for both projects.
The structure of each project is:
- Introduction of the language discussed (e.g., where it is spoken, by whom…) = one paragraph
- Define the theoretical concepts you will look at. One sentence per concept. In order to decide what concepts you will work with, you have to look at the questions.
- Answer the questions assigned (see below). This is the main body of your research.
- Conclude the description by placing your language in a cross-linguistic perspective (what other languages have the same system; can you classify it typologically?)
- Give the bibliographical list (References) of all the materials you used for your project. References should also be given in the text, every time information from the respective book/article is used in your paper. Examples are provided in the Project models, on your D2L site.
If you provide textual examples, you have to gloss them and then translate them. The glosses have to be aligned to the words in the original text. You will find examples of glossing in the Project 2 model (e.g. Table 2).
Project #1 – Phonetics and Phonology
The title of your project will be:
The phonological system of X (name of your language)
The questions for this project are the following:
- What is the list of phonemes in the language? Use IPA to represent all the classes of sounds that qualify as phonemes.
- Are there phonotactic constraints, allophones or peculiarities in alternations? At this point, you may introduce phonetic information (e.g., how many pronunciations can we find for the same phoneme?). Not all languages present peculiarities in these areas; discuss only what is specific to that language.
- What are the main supra-segmental properties of the language? At this point, you must consider the syllable structure, syllable accent/tone, or any other peculiarity.
Please AVOID the following issues and any other issue that is irrelevant to the topic:
- Writing systems (alphabets)
- Pronunciation of words for English speakers or other foreigners
- Translations issues
- Cultural/historical/political issues
Project #2 – Inflectional Morphology
The title of your project will be:
The inflectional morphology of X (the name of your language)
The questions for this project are the following:
- What is the structure of lexemes in this language? (roots, bound, free morphemes etc).
- Focus on inflectional (not on derivational) morphology: what are the operations? (affixation, reduplication etc.).
- How does this language inflect nouns? (list all the features; examples)
- Is there anything important about the relation between nouns and other grammatical categories? (e.g., articles, adjectives). Do not describe these other categories, focus only on their relation with the noun (e.g., is there any agreement?)
- How does this language inflect verbs? (list all the features; examples)
Please AVOID any irrelevant information, such as:
- Details about vocabulary and meanings/lists of words
- Etymologies, historical discussions
- Cultural/political implications
SAMPLE PAPER
This documents give you model for the project, it’s on Romanian .Do not copy this texts, but try to emulate the organization of the material, the type of discussion and the convention for referencing, while presenting the language assigned to you.
The phonological system of Romanian
Virginia Hill
Romanian is a Romance language spoken in Romania, by approximately 20, 000, 000 people. The capital of Romania – Bucharest – is the central area for the standard spoken and written dialect. The following site provides a map showing the location of Romania in Europe: http://www.aboutromania.com/maps192.html
This paper aims to offer an overview of the Romanian sound system. For this purpose, I will make a distinction between phones (the possible sounds of this language) and phonemes (sounds that have an impact on the meaning of words) and will focus on the latter. Constraints on alternations will be mentioned only when they have peculiar manifestations, specific to this language. In this paper, the term alternations means phonetic modifications that arise when sounds are produced in strings (Zsiga 2006: 44). Finally, I shall address the question of syllable structure and stress.
1. The phonological system
The list of Romanian phonemes comprises vowels, consonants, diphthongs and triphthongs. The following tables present these classes of phoneme: vowels and consonants are classified according to their phonetic features; diphthongs and triphthongs are only listed. The information is compiled from Chițoran (2001) and Teodorescu et al. (2012). The symbols come from standard IPA (Zsiga 2006: 21).
1.1. Vowels
Table 1: The phonemic vowels
front central back
closed i ɨ u mid e ə o opened a
Table 1 indicates the following language specific properties:
- There is no phonemic distinction between short versus long or tense versus lax vowels.
- The closed central vowel is rare to find in world languages. It is not common in IndoEuropean languages. A pronunciation sample can be found at this site (Teodorescu et al. 2012):
www.etc.tuiasi.ro/sibm/romanian_spoken_language/en/vocale_ascultate_en.htm
The phonemic property of the vowels in Table 1 can be verified through minimal pair tests, e.g.:
/kot/ = ‘elbow’
/kit/ = ‘even’
1.2. Consonants
Table 2: The phonemic consonants
| |
bilabial |
labio-dental |
dental |
postalveolar |
velar |
glottal |
| nasal stop |
m |
|
n |
|
|
|
| oral stop |
p b |
|
t d |
|
k g |
|
| affricate |
|
|
ts |
tʃ dʒ |
|
|
| fricatives |
|
f v |
s z |
ʃ ʒ |
|
h |
| trill |
|
|
r |
|
|
|
| lateral |
|
|
l |
|
|
|
The list of phonemic consonants is unexceptional, these sounds having a high incidence in the world languages (Crystal 1987: 165-172). A language specific property is that stops followed by [i] undergo palatalization (an assimilation process), and that this palatalization is phonemic in word final position. For example, in (2), the contrast between palatal and non-palatal /p/ triggers a contrast between first and second person interpretation in verbs (/p/ = [p], [pj]).
(2) [rup] = ‘I break’
[rupj] = ‘you break’
1.3. Diphthongs and triphthongs
Diphthongs are strings of two vowels that occur as one nucleus in a syllable. In
Romanian, they are rising (i.e., the second vowel predominates in articulation) or falling (i.e., the first vowel predominates in articulation). Most diphthongs involve the palatal glide [j] and the velar glide [w] in combination with vowels. Hence, some researchers (mainly, Chițoran 2001) do not consider these strings as diphthongs, but as vowel-glide alternations (i.e., assimilation). In that case, only those strings of vowels that do not contain the glides would qualify as diphthongs, which amounts to /e̯ a/, /e̯ o/ and /o̯ a/. E.g.:
(3) /re̯ a/ = ‘bad.FEM.SG.’
/mo̯ ara/ = ‘mill.the’ /vre̯ o/ = ‘some’
The following list will include the vowel-glide strings as diphthongs, for a more complete illustration.
Table 3: The complete list of diphthongs
Falling diphthongs: /aj/, /aw/, /ej/, /ew/, /ij/, /iw/, /oj/, /ow/, /uj/, /uw/, /əj/, /əw/, /ɨj/, /ɨw/. Rising diphthongs: //e̯ a/, /e̯ o/, /ja/, /je/, /jo/, /ju/, /o̯ a/, /wa/, /we/, /wə/, /wɨ/.
All the diphthongs are phonemic, since we can build minimal pair tests; e.g.:
(4) /re̯ a/ = ‘bad.FEM.SG.’
/rəw/ = ‘bad.MASC.SG’
/rɨw/ = ‘river’
/raj/ = ‘heaven’
Samples of Romanian diphthongs are available as sound files at:
http://www.etc.tuiasi.ro/sibm/romanian_spoken_language/en/diftongi_ascultare_en.htm
Following Chițoran’s (2001) reasoning for defining diphthongs in Romanian, we may also say that there is only one triphthong in this language, namely, /e̯ o̯ a/. All the other triphthongs involve the glides [j] and [w] combined with diphthongs.
Table 4: The complete list of triphthongs
/e̯ aj/, /e̯ aw/, /jaw/, /jaj/, /jej/, /jew/, /joj/, /jow/, /o̯ aj/, /waw/, /waj/, /wəj/, /e̯ o̯ a/, /jo̯ a/
Triphthongs are phonemic, as shown by the minimal pair test in (5).
| (5) |
/be̯ aj/ = ‘you were drinking’ |
/mjaw/ = a cat’s call |
| |
/be̯ aw/ = ‘I am drinking’ |
/mjej/ = ‘baby sheep.MASC.PL.’ |
2. Suprasegmentals
The syllable structure in Romanian is flexible and unexceptional, allowing for consonants or consonantic strings in both onset and coda. The nucleus is vocalic and includes diphthongs and triphthongs.
Romanian is a stress (versus tone) language, and the location of the syllable stress is variable. The only restriction is that the stress falls on the syllables of the word stem, not on ultimate syllables if they consist of inflectional endings. Cases where stress is phonemic may occur, as shown in (6), but they are not systematic. Thus, we cannot classify Romanian as a lexical or a paradigmatic stress language.
(6) Paradigmatic stress: [‘ĩntrə] = ‘he’s coming in’ [‘baza] = ‘base.the’
[ĩn’trə] = ‘he came in’ [ba’za] = ‘to base’
Lexical stress: [‘veselə] = ‘joyful’
[ve’selə] = ‘dishware’
For the rhythm, Romanian is a syllable-timed language. That is, the articulation of syllables is equal w.r.t. time of production, irrespective of where the stress is located.
3. Conclusions
The phonological system of Romanian is generally typical for Romance languages. The only exception is the closed central vowel. For the syllable structure, this language belongs to the syllable stress group, with further classifications as stress-timed and variable sound distribution in the coda.
References
Chițoran, I. 2001. The Phonology of Romanian: A Constraint-based Approach. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter
Crystal, D. 1987. The Cambridge encyclopedia of language. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Teodorescu, H-N; L. Pistol; M. Feraru; M. Zbancioc; D. Trandabăţ. 2012. Sounds of the Romanian Language Corpus. http://www.etc.tuiasi.ro/sibm/romanian_spoken_language/index.htm, accessed Dec 15, 2015.
Zsiga, E. 2006. The sounds of language. In Fasold, R.W. & J. Connor-Linton (eds.), An
Introduction to Language and Linguistics. 13-54. New York: Cambridge University Press.
