Phonotactic Restrictions on Ejectives A Typological Survey ___________________________ Carmen Jany

This presentation  Introduction  Language sample  Restrictions Based on syllable structure Based on position and co-occurrence  Ejectives & Phoneme Inventory  Summary & Conclusions

Introduction  This paper: examines phonotactic restrictions of ejective stops and phoneme inventories  Sample: 27 mostly unrelated languages, but from 3 major geographical areas  Goal: to find general tendencies in phono- tactic restrictions and possible explanations

Introduction  Ejectives occur in 18% of the world’s languages (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996)  Strongly regional geographic distribution (Maddieson 2004)  Ejectives are non-pulmonic egressive consonants produced with closed glottis while occlusion in the oral cavity

Introduction  Generally no sharp division between ejectives and plosives + glottal stop  Ejectives are mostly voiceless stops (only voiceless ejective stops examined in this paper)  Tendency to occur only at same places of articulation as other stops in same language  Occurrence hierarchy: velar > dental/alveolar > bilabial > uvular (Maddieson 1984)

Language sample  Ejectives found in 3 areas: the Americas, Africa, the Caucasus  This study: 27 languages, 19 from the Americas and 4 each from other 2 areas  Still great genetic diversity (see handout)  Materials used: grammars & secondary sources (see handout)

Language sample Source: WALS

Restrictions  Two main types: Ejectives do only or do not occur in certain positions (not in coda, leftmost in morpheme) Ejectives can only or cannot co-occur with certain segments (not with other ejectives, only with identical ejectives) => Position within syllable/word & co-occurrence with other segments within syllable/word

Restrictions  Both types depend on phonetic & phono- logical context (segments that precede/follow)  Both types can be attributed to articulatory & auditory features

Syllable-based restrictions  Often described in grammars which cover positional restrictions  Both: positional & co-occurrence  Limitations to onset/coda position in syllables/words & to onset/coda clusters  However: complex onsets/codas not in all languages & sometimes vaguely described

Syllable-based restrictions  Expected restrictions for phonetic reasons: stops not always released in coda position => ejectives limited to onset position (absence of audible release would eliminate contrast)  Blevins (2004): in general, fewer contrasts in coda position than in onset position

Syllable-based restrictions  Information on positional restrictions only for 21/27 languages  8/21 languages do not allow ejectives in coda position (no mention of word-edges)  Assumption: Languages with no restrictions always release coda stops (avoiding neutralization of contrast)

Syllable-based restrictions  Restrictions on consonant clusters for articulatory and auditory reasons  Clusters show similar restrictions in onset and coda position  Cluster information missing for 11 languages  9 lack complex onsets & 7 complex codas  A few restrictions (see handout)

Syllable-based restrictions  Explanations for restrictions to following segments: Blevins (2004): Ejectives commonly contrast with other stops before sonorants, but not before obstruents and word-finally Steriade (1999): Ejectives depend on right-hand context because they are postglottalized

Syllable-based restrictions  Explanation for restrictions to preceding segments: Articulatory difficulty and perceptual complexity (see Bella Coola ban on two-ejective clusters)  Ejectives only in roots: 3/27 languages (may be related to affixing pattern and positional restrictions)

Position/Co-occurrence restrictions  No restrictions reported for 6 languages  Restrictions for 5 languages syllable-based  Positional restrictions: Ejectives occur at the left edge of a domain (stem- initial, leftmost in morpheme)  Explanations: Initial position perceptually more salient; stops tend to be released initially

Position/Co-occurrence restrictions  Co-occurrence restrictions based on similarity  Some languages allow only very similar segments (homorganic, same laryngeal features), others only dissimilar segments  Some languages allow only identical segments to co-occur  Some languages ban co-occurrence within morpheme or root

Position/Co-occurrence restrictions  Explanation (MacEachern 1997): Restrictions based on auditory similarity and identity 4 Patterns, each with subset of restrictions of next pattern forming implicational hierarchy E.g. pattern 4 with most restrictions: co-occurrence of extremely similar no, but identical yes Co-occuring elements on scale of similarity: identical – very dissimilar  Syllable-based co-occurrence restrictions also based on similarity (ejective not next to glottal stop)

Ejectives & Phoneme Inventory  Maddieson’s (1984) claims tested a) Ejectives in the same places of articulation as other stops in a given language b) Certain places of articulation are preferred over others: velar > dental/alveolar > bilabial > uvular  a) and b) mostly confirmed  Two contradictions: Tzutujil, Hupa

Summary & Conclusions  Restrictions either positional of co-occurrence  Positional: ejectives at left edge (syllable or other domain) Articulatory explanation: lack of stop release in coda position Auditory explanation: marked segments in perceptually more salient position

Summary & Conclusions  Articulatory and auditory reasons working together: Lack of an audible release in coda eliminates phonetic cue for contrast perception resulting in laryngeal neutralization  Co-occurrence limitations based on auditory similarity Languages differ where they set the point at which similarity becomes unacceptable (dissimilar-identical) Languages also vary with respect to the domain of the restriction (root, morpheme, syllable, word)

Summary & Conclusions  All phonotactic restrictions of ejectives can be explained in terms of articulatory variation and ease and on perceptual complexity and similarity  Given that languages vary with respect to articulatory features and with regard to perceptual similarity, different restrictions found cross ‑ linguistically  Cross ‑ linguistic phonetic analysis is needed to have experimental confirmation of these tendencies

Questions? Thank you!