Pavel Iosad in Pavel Iosad

Pavel Iosad

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

No Updates

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 12:13:32 UTC

I am somewhat behind with updating this website with some of my latest publications and presentations. If you are looking for something that isn’t yet available here or on my Edinburgh Research Explorer profile, do just email me.

News

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 12:13:32 UTC

Sem2 Teaching

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 12:05:58 UTC

In Semester 2 of ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₀₂₆ I am teaching on Linguistics and English Language 1B (pre-Honours) and Phonological Theory

Teachings

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

Phonological Theory

Wed, 15 Jul 2020 00:00:00 UTC

In ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₀₂₆, I am fully responsible for this course. Students will build on fundamental concepts in phonology to engage with a range of intermediate and advanced topics, with a focus on the following:

Basics of phonological theory: contrast, phonemes, allophones, alternations
Feature theory
Derivations, underlying representations, rules
Process interaction and rule ordering

Throughout the course, there is a strong emphasis on building data analysis and problem solving skills. Teaching sessions are built around discussion of puzzles and data sets. Students are assessed via a semester-long project focused on describing and analysing the phonological patterns of a language of their choice.

This course is also offered for MSc students (as LASC11148). It is suitable for postgraduate students who have had some previous exposure to phonology.

Linguistics and English Language 1A

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 UTC

This is the second half of the introductory first-year sequence. I teach the phonology and historical linguistics components of the course.

Upld25

Sat, 15 Mar 2025 00:00:00 UTC

I participated in the Uncovering the past with linguistic data workshop in Riga, Latvia, with a talk on phonological grammar and language contact.

Presentations

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

Phonological grammar and uncovering past language contacts

Mon, 02 Dec 2024 00:00:00 UTC

In this paper I discuss methodological issues relevant to using phonological phenomena to uncover language contact in the past. Specifically, I argue that abstract patterns of segmental phonology are significantly less prone to contact transfer than often assumed, and call for an exploration of their contact ecology that is more embedded in current approaches to structural and sociohistorical aspects of language contact, including sociolinguistic typology (Trudgill 2011), current approaches to phonological architecture (Natvig 2019), and the life cycle of phonological processes (Bermúdez-Otero 2015). The role of phonology in understanding language contact and areal effects has historically been ambiguous. Some phonological phenomena are widely recognized to be prone to horizontal transfer, at least under certain conditions: examples include phonemic inventories (e. g. Stolz & Levkovych 2021), stress systems (Salmons 1992), and syllable structure (Napoleão de Souza & Sinnemäki 2022). However, phonological phenomena that do not fall under these rubrics are also sometimes cited as indicative of areal effects, often with an appeal to substrate mechanisms. Classic examples relevant in the context of north-eastern Europe include tonal accents and palatalization contrasts (Jakobson 1931; but see Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2006) and distinctive consonant quantity (e. g. Ewels 2009; Daugavet 2013). In this paper, I argue that a proper evaluation of such proposals depends on operationalizing them in terms of current approaches to phonological architecture and sociolinguistic typology, and that not all cases of past contact posited on the basis of phonological evidence stand up to closer scrutiny.

Specifically, I examine the role of phonological patterns in language contact under different modes of agentivity (van Coetsem 1988; Winford 2005). Under recipient-language agentivity (“borrowing”), close contact can lead to convergence (up to complete isomorphy) in areas such phonemic inventories and syllable structure, an outcome that is attested in the Lithuanian-Polish-Belarusian contact zone (e. g. Sudnik 1975). I argue that whilst commonly recognized as an empirical possibility, such changes have an unclear status in contact ecologies: whilst lexical borrowing is a possible vector, it is not always plausible. Instead, I suggest that we sometimes need to reckon with shared sound changes: rather than involving a “source” and “recipient” of transfer, a change affects all varieties in a multilingual repertoire simultaneously, a situation that is attested, for instance, in the Balkan Sprachbund with pre-nasal raising and the reflexes of nasal vowels, for example with *ǫ > ɔ in co-territorial Macedonian and Meglenoromanian (Joseph 2009). This phenomenon represents a “source-oriented” account, emphasizing diachrony as an explanatory factor in convergent developments (Blevins 2004), and remains under-theorized. Most current views of phonological convergence under recipient-language agentivity provide some account of transfer of phonological matter such as phonemes, but they fare less well with relatively abstract phenomena that are better understood as transfer of pattern (Sakel 2007). In particular, cases like those described by Seržant (2010), where languages in contact end up with similar alternations that do not submit to source-oriented accounts, remain an important challenge.

In examining phonological change under source-language agentivity (usually linked to language shift), a key consideration is the demographic and social structure of populations in contact. It is widely recognized that phonetic and phonological interference is pervasive in the speech of individuals acquiring a second language as adults (e. g. Kehoe 2015; Andersson, Sayeed & Vaux 2017), which might lead us to expect substrate effects to be common. However, an examination of relatively well-documented language shift situations such as the Latin West (Adams 2007; Filipponio 2015) or the shift to English in the British and Irish Isles, including Ulster (Maguire 2020), the Isle of Man (Lewin 2017), and Cornwall (Wakelin 1975), turns up surprisingly few clear instances of such substrate interference in phonology. A key reason, I argue, that language shift proceeded too slowly for the individuals showing interference to represent a sufficient share of the overall language community at any given time. I suggest this consideration should lead us towards more stringent evidential standards in using phonology to examine past linguistic contacts.

To illustrate the point, I provide an extended report of the application of the methodology to a posited areal feature of northern Europe, namely stop preaspiration in North Germanic, Celtic, and Sámi languages (Hansson 2001; Rießler 2008). I argue that neither structural nor social considerations support the hypothesis that it spread via language contact, and offer an alternative account in terms of “drift” (Joseph 2013). I also offer some preliminary considerations of how the method can be extended to examining contact and drift in more closely related languages, with a case study of the e~’o alternation in Slavic (Andersen 1998).

Language contact

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

Historical phonology

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

Romance

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

Germanic

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

Fino25

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:00 UTC

I presented a poster on enhancement of quantitative contrast by place as fortition at the FiNo 2025 workshop at the University of Oslo

Enhancement of quantitative contrast by place as fortition

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:00:00 UTC

(Poster presentation)

In this paper I consider multiple cases where a consonant quantity contrast is enhanced by place specifications. Focusing on coronal non-glide sonorants, I argue that this process should be analysed as the counterpart of manner changes that are involved in the fortition of glides, as described by Bybee & Easterday (2019).

I consider several cases where a historical distinction between short and long (singleton and geminate) sonorants, especially laterals and coronal nasals, and in some cases also rhotics, is reflected as a qualitative distinction, usually involving place. Specifically, ‘long’ coronal sonorants are often reflected as laminals: examples include varieties of Ibero-Romance (Haudricourt & Juilland 1949, Martinet 1955) with palatal [ɲ ʎ], Old West Norse (Noreen 1923) with laminal n̪ l̪ , and Goidelic Celtic (Nance & Kirkham 2020) with [n̪ˠ ɲ l̪ ˠ ʎ] all reflecting original geminates. By contrast, singleton sonorants can be reflected as distinctively apical, notably Norwegian and Swedish varieties with [ɭ] for short l

In many languages we find the ‘long’ reflexes of sonorants in word-initial position, where quantity was not originally distinctive. As pointed out already by Martinet (1955), the presence of ‘long’ reflexes follows an implicational hierarchy: r (Spanish) > l (Catalan) > n (Asturian). The same sonority-based hierarchy regulates many other processes (Brandão de Carvalho 1989), but it is not clear whether the word-initial ‘long’ outcomes reflect the historical presence of phonological length (presupposing a process of initial gemination) or arise for other reasons. Very similar generalizations are in force in both Brythonic and Goidelic Celtic, where the changes are also involved in initial mutation.

I argue that the understanding of laminalization (enhancement of quantity by place) as fortition allows us to unify multiple processes whose parallel nature has not always been recognized before. This includes initial strengthening in Ancient Greek, which affects primarily the rhotic (Jatteau 2016), but also the palatal glide as well as, in some sources, nasals and laterals; the developments of palatal glides to obstruents in Romance, Germanic (Holtzmann’s Law, Faroese skerping), and Celtic; strenghtening of initial w- to gw- in Brythonic Celtic and Gallo-Romance.

Furthermore, I argue that this unified approach to fortition as enhancement accounts for how initial strengthening comes about without actual lengthening/gemination in strong (especially word-initial) positions, where it is not always phonologically motivated or supported by evidence, contra, for instance, Cravens (2002); however, I also reject the necessity of word-medial lenition as a prerequisite for initial strengthening, contra Hock (1992). I argue that these insights fit most naturally in a view of phonologization along the lines of Kiparsky (2015), where predictable information is integrated into the phonological grammar as part of the life cycle of phonological processes.

Celtic

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

Amc

Mon, 02 Dec 2024 11:57:37 UTC

I presented an invited talk on the status of phonological patterns in language contact at the Fourth AMC Symposium at the University of Edinburgh.

In search of (lost?) contact-induced change in phonology

Mon, 02 Dec 2024 00:00:00 UTC

This is a keynote presentation at the Fourth AMC Symposium: a themed conference on the topic of language contact and language change. In this talk, I explore how we can integrate current approaches in phonological theory and historical phonology with current understanding in the study of language contact. I argue that phonological patterns, especially those that go beyond exchange of matter such as phonemes, require quite specific social and historical conditions to spread by contact. In the talk I show that these conditions may be met more rarely than is sometimes assumed in the literature, both for recipient-language agentivity situations with stable bilingualism and — especially so — for language shift and ‘substrate’ situations. I also point to further challenges presented by phonology for the study of language contact.

Linguistics and English Language 1A

Wed, 15 Jul 2020 00:00:00 UTC

This is the introductory linguistics ab initio course for all first-year students in Linguistics and English Language. This year, I am the Course Organizer and am teaching the phonetics and skills blocks; in addition, with Graeme Trousdale, I am responsible for the data analysis/language puzzles component of the course.

Teaching

Sun, 11 Aug 2024 17:12:12 BST

In ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₀₂₅, I am convening Linguistics and English Language 1A in Semester 1. I am on research leave in Semester 2.

Promotion

Sun, 11 Aug 2024 17:04:02 BST

I was promoted to Professor, with the award of a personal chair of Synchronic and Diachronic Phonology.

Writings

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

Suprasegmental phenomena in Germanic: Tonal accent

Sat, 10 Aug 2024 00:00:00 UTC

Several Germanic varieties possess a phonological contrast usually referred to as “tonal accent.” They demonstrate phonological contrasts between words that are otherwise identical in their segmental make-up and the location of stress, as in (Urban East) Norwegian bønder ‘farmers’ and bønner ‘beans’, both segmentally [ˈbønːər]. Usually, the contrast is treated as implemented by pitch trajectories; hence, the name ‘tonal accent.’ Within Germanic, tonal accent contrasts are found in three (historically, perhaps four) areas. First, they occur in most varieties of Norwegian and Swedish, as well as in some Danish dialects; in addition, most varieties of Danish show a peculiar type of accentual distinction based on laryngealization, traditionally known as stød. Second, they are found in a set of West Germanic dialects along the middle Rhine and the Moselle, the so-called Franconian tonal area. Third, they are reported from many varieties of Low German, specifically North Low Saxon. Finally, they may have been present historically in Frisian.

Three aspects of Germanic tonal accent systems are of particular interest to linguistic theory. In terms of synchronic analysis, accents have been considered as sui generis objects, as fundamentally tonal phenomena, and as artifacts of contrasts in metrical (foot) structure and its mapping to intonation. Diachronically, Germanic accents are a poor fit to the cross-linguistic typology of tonogenesis: their development is intimately tied to processes manipulating metrical structures, such as vowel lengthening, syllable deletion and insertion, and clash resolution. Finally, they offer some enlightening case studies with respect to the role of language contact in the development of prosodic systems.

Prosodic structure

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

Papers

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

Egg

Sat, 10 Aug 2024 00:00:00 UTC

I taught two courses at this year’s Eastern Generative Grammar summer school in Brașov, Romania: one on Slavic phonology and an Introduction to representations and contrast. The course materials are available on a dedicated website

Oxfordre

Fri, 09 Aug 2024 00:00:00 UTC

My overview of Germanic tonal accents appeared in The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Germanic linguistics.

Representations and contrast

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 00:00:00 UTC

The topic of this course is how segmental representations can help understand phonological behaviour, and in particular the link between subsegmental structure and phonological activity.

The insight that the presence of phonological structure (such as a featural specification) and its activity has a long history in phonological theory. An influential early formalization of this idea was the theory of ‘markedness’ (understood quite literally as the presence of a ‘mark’) in Prague School phonology, where it was also linked to the idea that structure was built in the context of a language’s system of contrasts.

The idea boils down to three key elements:

Underspecification: phonological inactivity or ‘weakness’ follows from absence of structure
Markedness equals size: behaviours characteristic of ‘marked’ categories do not need to be stipulated if they simply derive from the presence (as opposed to absence) of phonological structure
Structure is downstream of contrast: phonological specifications are built only when necessary to make lexical distinctions (or for other pressing reasons)

In this course, we will consider how these ideas have been reflected in current phonological theory, what challenges have been presented to them, and how they could be answered.

Course materials are available here

Slavic Phonology

Mon, 22 Jul 2024 00:00:00 UTC

The sound patterns of the Slavic languages played a foundational role in the development of Western phonological theory. Both structuralist and generative phonology share a history (or pre-history) of close engagement with Slavic data and extensive traditions of its analysis. Despite these historical links, the approaches and results achieved in these traditions in dealing with essentially the same data can be strikingly different. Much of this divergence can be ascribed to differences in how to approach the close and complex interaction of morphology and phonology that is characteristic of Slavic languages.

In this course, we will critically consider a number of Slavic sound patterns and focus on how they have been treated within the generative/SPE tradition. Despite significant changes in the general approach over time, including the development of nonlinear phonology and a swing towards and away from surface-oriented theories such as OT, the approach to Slavic phonology has remained surprisingly stable, and in some ways unchanged since the pioneering era of the 1950s and 1960s. Much current work still operates with abstract underlying representations and long synchronic derivations that more or less explicitly recapitulate historical developments — an approach that has been problematized or fully abandoned in other empirical domains.

We will ask if it is still true consonant palatalization always derives from following front vowels; if consonant-final words still end in yer vowels; how many vowel phonemes we need, and how to find this out; when to give up on phonology; and how to tie it all together.

Course materials are available here

Britac

Thu, 02 May 2024 00:00:00 UTC

I was awarded a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship for January–December 2025 with a project on Phonological microvariation in sound change: Mid vowel alternations in the Slavic languages

The moraic mess that is Danish

Mon, 02 Aug 2021 00:00:00 UTC

In moraic theory, particular syllables of a languages are typically defined as either heavy of light for all phonological rules (Hyman 1985). However, some languages seem to treat the same syllables as light for some rules and heavy for others (e.g. Davis 2011:129-132). To account for such behaviour, Hayes (1995) proposes that moraic structure can be organized as a layered grid, where the bottom layer, typically involved in syllable-internal patterns, underlies the top layer, typically involved in higher-level prosodic structure. The present paper argues that Danish is just such a language: distinguishing two separate criteria for assigning weight to syllables allows us to understand the phonology of stød. We implement a Stratal Phonology analysis (Bermúdez-Otero 2018) by reimagining Hayes’ moraic grid representation as recursion at the level of the mora (Iosad 2013). Specifically, we suggest that maximal moraic projections are involved in syllable-level processes (Hayes’ bottom layer) and minimal moraic projections are involved in the processes assigning stød (Hayes’ top layer).

Previous models of syllable weight in Danish have focused either on syllable-internal structure (e.g. Vazquez-Larruscaín 2021), or on the distribution of stød (e.g. Basbøll 2005, 2008). The key fact of syllable structure is that the maximal syllable in Danish is CVXsC: host [hoːˀst] ‘cough’, tekst [ˈtɛkst] ‘text’. In this account, the ‘core’ syllable is maximally bimoraic, /sC/ is the maximal ‘appendix’, and moraic structure is assigned without regard to sonority.

The key fact of the phonology of stød is that the second mora needs to be sonorous for it. When this condition is met, stød is contrastive: kvart [ˈkhvɑːt] ‘quarter’ vs. start [ˈstɑːˀt] ‘start’. In syllables with only one sonorous mora, (kat [ˈkhæt] ‘cat’), the contrast is neutralized. Basbøll argues that only sonorant segments can project morae, and further, that stød is the default prosody of the second mora of heavy syllables. In this analysis, a syllable with two sonorous morae that does not have stød needs special marking. In particular, word-final sonorants can be specified as extra-prosodic: in this case, they do not contribute to moraic structure, inhibiting stød (ven [ˈvɛn] ‘friend’), as long as they remain word-final. The addition of (most) suffixes causes them to undergo default mora assignment, which results in the appearance of stød (vennen [ˈvɛnˀn̩] ‘the friend’).

The paper develops a model that integrates these two main insights. Vazquez-Larruscaín’s (2021) phonotactic generalizations apply to maximal moraic projections, which are constructed without reference to sonority. Mora recursion, by contrast, is only licensed by high sonority: therefore, obstruents are unable to support non-minimal projections and cannot carry stød. Sonorants do project recursive morae by default, but can be blocked by faithfulness from doing so, accounting to lexical marking of non-stød, as in Basbøll’s model. We show how constraint interaction in a Stratal OT grammar derives the contextual nature of this faithfulness effect. As a result, our model retains the full empirical coverage of the competing approaches whilst simplifying the necessary lexical specification and capturing the morphological influences on stød assignment (Goldshtein 2023, Goldshtein & Iosad 2022).

North Germanic

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

Fino

Fri, 23 Feb 2024 00:00:00 UTC

I presented our work on Danish stød (with Yonatan Goldshtein) at the Fonologi i Norden 2024 meeting at Stockholm University.

Current Issues in Phonology

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 UTC

This advanced course introduces students to a variety of live research issues in phonological theory. I teach this course with my colleagues Patrick Honeybone and Benjamin Molineaux. This year, I am the Course Organizer in additional to being responsible for some of the teaching.

Length in strange places

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:00:00 UTC

(Poster presentations)

Present-day Celtic languages are characterized by a typologically relatively unusual contrast between “lenis” and “fortis” coronal sonorants. It is especially developed in the Gaelic languages. Here, “fortis” nn ll rr contrast with “lenis” l n r in postvocalic position (Irish geal ‘bright’ vs. geall ‘promise’). Furthermore, they participate in the initial mutation system, where the “fortis” sonorants generally occur in the unmutated (“radical”) grade, and “lenis” ones in the “lenited” grade, which historically corresponds to postvocalic contexts. In the Brythonic languages, the most notable correspondent of this pattern is found in Welsh, where ll acts as the “fortis” counterpart of : they contrast postvocalically, and is generally the radical consonant in mutation.

Historically, the “fortis” sonorants word-medially are long and the “lenis” ones are short (Stifter 2023). This circumstance is still reflected in their synchronic behaviour: both Irish (Ní Chiosáin 1991) and Scottish Gaelic (Morrison 2020) show patterns that are insightfully analysed if the “fortis” sonorants are contrastively moraic. However, quantity is rarely implicated in their surface realization (but see Lewin 2023). Instead, “fortis” and “lenis” sonorants are distinguished by properties such as place of articulation (Carnie 2002; Musil 2017, 2019; Nance & Kirkham 2020).

The behaviour of Celtic sonorants is unusual. Word-medially, “fortis” sonorants behave as the marked category, as they need to be specified as mora-bearing. This reflects their historical status as the marked member of the length opposition. Word-initially, the situation is reversed: “fortis” sonorants occur in the elsewhere context, while “lenis” ones are produced by specified mutation triggers. Prima facie, this suggests a lengthening or fortition of sonorants in a strong (word-initial, non-intervocalic) position. Although not entirely unexpected (Ségéral & Scheer 2008; Easterday & Bybee 2019), it is somewhat odd to see this process involve a contrastive feature.

In this paper, I discuss the historical origins of this pattern and draw some parallels to similar phenomena elsewhere. Specifically, I argue that the spread of the pattern to initial position did not represent a lengthening, but rather a change involving place features.

The behaviour of sonorants in initial mutation across Celtic follows an implicational hierarchy. The same hierarchy is observed in several aspects of Romance historical phonology. In particular, it determines the preservation of original length contrasts in Western Romance (Brandão de Carvalho 1989). Remarkably, it is also found in the reflexes of initial sonorants in Ibero-Romance. Whilst the distinction between Latin [l n r] and [ll nn rr] is reflected in terms of place and manner (Spanish [l n ɾ] vs. [ʎ ɲ r]) word-medially, initially we find the “long” reflexes for [r] in Spanish, [r l] in Catalan, and [r l n] in Asturian (Cravens 2002).

I suggest that the spread of “quantity” to word-initial position can be understood as a consequence of the transphonologization of quantity to place and its interaction with the life cycle of intervocalic sandhi processes. Both Celtic and Ibero-Romance can be reconstructed with postvocalic lenition crossing word boundaries. I suggest that once original suprasegmental (quantity) distinctions in sonorants became available as subsegmental (featural) representational entities, it was possible for them to be incorporated into the pattern of sandhi lenition.

I show how the proposed account captures the markedness paradox in Celtic by divorcing the place distinctions from distinctive quantity (moraicity). This also accounts for the fact that mutation patterns persist even when earlier word-medial quantity is lost, as in Brythonic. Furthermore, the Celtic parallel can shed light on the Ibero-Romance patterns without recourse to a poorly evidenced process of sandhi gemination (parallel to Italian raddoppiamento) proposed by Cravens (2002).

Welsh

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

Irish

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

Initial consonant mutations

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

Companion

Sun, 01 Oct 2023 00:00:00 UTC

My overview of Celtic initial consonant mutations appeared in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Morphology, edited by Peter Ackema, Sabrina Bendjaballah, Eulàlia Bonet, and Antonio Fábregas.

Breton

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

Sun, 01 Oct 2023 00:00:00 UTC

The Celtic languages are characterized by an elaborate system of alternations of word-initial segments, traditionally known as ‘consonant mutations’. Although historically they arose from across-the-board phonological sandhi, they are now deeply embedded in morphosyntactic processes. They are relatively phonologically coherent, but also non-concatenative, and sensitive to a wide range of lexical, morphological, syntactic and semantic factors. As a result, Celtic mutations present an important test bed for theories of word structure and its interactions with both phonology and syntax.

Phonological Theory

Wed, 15 Jul 2020 00:00:00 UTC

In ²⁰²³⁄₂₀₂₄, I am fully responsible for this course. Students will build on fundamental concepts in phonology to engage with a range of intermediate and advanced topics, with a focus on the following:

Basics of phonological theory: contrast, phonemes, allophones, alternations
Feature theory
Derivations, underlying representations, rules
Process interaction and rule ordering

This course is also offered for MSc students (as LASC11148). It is suitable for postgraduate students who have had some previous exposure to phonology.

Linguistics and English Language 1A

Wed, 15 Jul 2020 00:00:00 UTC

This is the introductory linguistics ab initio course for all first-year students in Linguistics and English Language. This year, I am the Course Organizer and am teaching the phonetics, language acquisition, and language and communication blocks; in addition, with Graeme Trousdale, I am responsible for the data analysis/language puzzles component of the course.

Sem1 Teaching

Fri, 01 Sep 2023 00:00:00 UTC

In Semester 1 ²⁰²³⁄₂₀₂₄, I am convening the courses Linguistics and English Language 1A (pre-Honours) and Phonological Theory (Honours/MSc).

The ATR/Laryngeal connection and emergent features

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 00:00:00 UTC

I consider an unusual sound change and synchronic alternation in south-eastern dialects of Welsh, traditionally referred to as ‘provection’ (Welsh calediad). This phenomenon involves the ‘devoicing’ of stops following stressed vowels. I suggest that it may be the result of a typologically rare sort of vowel-consonant featural interaction, where ‘devoicing’ is triggered by tense vowels. This is unexpected typologically, since tongue root advancement — often a correlate of ‘tense’ vowel quality — is more frequently associated with voicing rather than devoicing in obstruents. I argue that in Welsh the phonologization of the quality distinction in stressed vowels has created a system where such an interaction is dispreferred.

I suggest that the unusual consonant-vowel interaction in south-eastern Welsh is facilitated by the phonological ambiguity of the ‘tenseness’ contrast in vowels. Although the distinction between ‘tense’ and ‘lax’ vowel pairs is made consistently in most Welsh dialects, it is often fairly inert phonologically. This makes it possible for it to become involved in a variety of phonological processes. I survey the diversity of ways in which quantity-quality interactions in vowels found across Welsh dialects, and argue that the attested multiple paths of phonologization support a bottom-up, substance-free approach to phonologization. I suggest that the particular strength of the substance-free model lies in its ability to account for different — sometimes drastically so — phonological behaviour emerging from ambiguous data.

Substance-free phonology

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

Feature theory

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 UTC

Calediad Published

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 00:00:00 UTC

My paper on the interaction of ATR and laryngeal features in Welsh was published in Primitives of phonological structure, ed. Florian Breit, Bert Botma, Marijn van ’t Veer, and Marc van Oostendorp.

Pavel Iosad in Pavel Iosad

Pavel Iosad

No Updates

News

Sem2 Teaching

Teachings

Phonological Theory

Linguistics and English Language 1A

Upld25

Presentations

Phonological grammar and uncovering past language contacts

Language contact

Historical phonology

Categories

Romance

Germanic

Fino25

Enhancement of quantitative contrast by place as fortition

Celtic

Amc

In search of (lost?) contact-induced change in phonology

Linguistics and English Language 1A

Teaching

Promotion

Writings

Suprasegmental phenomena in Germanic: Tonal accent

Prosodic structure

Papers

Egg

Oxfordre

Representations and contrast

Slavic Phonology

Britac

The moraic mess that is Danish

North Germanic

Fino

Current Issues in Phonology

Length in strange places

Welsh

Irish

Initial consonant mutations

Companion

Breton

Phonological Theory

Linguistics and English Language 1A

Sem1 Teaching

The ATR/Laryngeal connection and emergent features

Substance-free phonology

Feature theory

Calediad Published