Coordinate compound ordering effects and abstract phonological scales

    In spite the phonetic grounding that has characterized much of phonological theory since the
1990s (see e.g. Archangeli and Pulleyblank 1994; Hayes and Steriade 2004), there is a growing body of
evidence that language users are aware of relationships between the sounds of their languages which
cannot be translated transparently into phonetic terms. This paper argues for the existence of language-
specific, phonetically arbitrary scales over phonological categories.The argument is based primarily
upon phonologically-conditioned ordering effects in Mong Leng and Qe Nao coordinate compounds.
    Like most language of mainland Southeast Asia, Mong Leng and Qe Nao have in their lexicons nu-
merous coordinate compounds (compounds lacking a single morphological head). In both Mong Leng
("Green Hmong") and Qe Nao, it is possible to predict the ordering of constituents in such compounds
based solely upon the tones of the conjoined stems (specifically the tone of the final syllable of each
stem). For Mong Leng, coordinate compounds are always arranged according to the set of precedence
relationships given in (1). Thus, a conjunct with the falling tone (e.g. ntse `face') will always be ordered
before a conjunct with the breathy tone (e.g. mua `eye') so that ntsê-ma `face' is a licit cocompound but
sequences like *ma-ntsê are not. An analogous constraint holds in Qe Nao, but it makes reference to a
different scale (2).
     I propose that there is a string-internal correspondence relationship (Walker 2000; Rose and Walker
2004) between the stem-final tones of each conjunct in this construction. I argue, further, that one
class of constraints that can hold over entities in such a relationship are "directional antifaithfulness"
constraints (WAX). WAX[S] requires that, given two corresponding entities of some type, the preceding
is lower along some scale S than the following. I demonstrate that the Mong Leng scale given in
(1) is actually best decomposed into two interacting scales (a binary "register" R scale independently
motivated by tone sandhi behavior and a second scale T). Ordering effect result from a competition
between a higher ranked WAX[T] and a lower ranked WAX[R] such that register-motivated orderings
only emerge when the two tones under comparison are identical relative to T.
     The most striking facet of this analysis is the high level of abstraction necessary in the definition
of the relevant scales, as shown in (3). These scales clearly do not divide some phonetic dimension
in the same way that other proposed phonological scales like tonal prominence (de Lacy 2002), vowel
height, sonority, and "inherent voicing" (Gnanadesikan 1997) do. However, the logical structure of
these relations is fundamentally the same as that of other, substantially grounded, scales. Learners
have constructed phonological scales without the help of substantial cues.
     Against this claim, it may be argued that these ordering effects are purely morphological and there-
fore have no relevance to our understanding of the organization of phonology. However, I show that a
purely morphological analysis would require the specification of morphological features that are wholly
predictable from phonological contrasts (and which are, therefore, redundant), that such a hypoth-
esis would save a restricted view of the phonology by unprincipled expansions of the power of the
morphology, and that a purely morphological analysis cannot account for data like (4), where a purely
phonological alternation (tone sandhi) triggers a reversal in the ordering of the same two morphemes
in order to satisfy WAX[T]. Just as significantly, I argue, a phonological account is necessary to account
for the type of productivity that these constructions and generalizations display.
     These cases are part of a wider class of phonological phenomena characterized by logical coherence
but phonetic arbitrariness. Such phenomena, as a class, provide important evidence that phonological
knowledge, defined broadly as knowledge about the sound system of one's language, is composed largely
of rich structural relationships which need not be grounded synchronic phonetics.


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Examples
                                                               b. T = {x, x2 }3 > {x, x1 }2 > {x, x}1 > {x, x}0
  (1) Precedence relations among Mong Leng tones
      x (falling)  x (high)  x (creaky)  x (low)
                                                               a. p - ntû     p - té
         x (breathy1 )  x (rising)  x (breathy2 )        (4)
                                                                  fill heaven fill earth
        x (mid)
                                                                  `create the world'
  (2) Precedence relations among Qe Nao tones
      x (super high)  x (low)  x (falling) 
                                                               b. á - té ó         - nt
        x (super low)  x (high)  x (rising)                       tract land region heaven
        a. R = {x, x, x, x}1 > {x, x, x1 , x2 }0
  (3)                                                             ` wo r l d '


References
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D3 LACY, PAuL 2002. "The interaction of tone and stress in Optimality Theory". Phonolog y 19:1­32.

GNANAD3SIKAN, AMALIA ELISAB3TH 1997. Phonolog y with Ternary Scales. Ph.D. thesis, University of
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HAY3S, BRuC3 AND DONCA ST3RIAD3 2004. "Introduction: the phonetic bases of phonological marked-
    ness". In Bruce Hayes, Robert Kirchner, and Donca Steriade (eds.), "Phonetically based phonol-
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ROS3, SHARON AND RACH3L WALK3R 2004. "A typology of consonant agreement as correspondence".
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WALK3R, RACH3L 2000. "Long distance consonantal identity effects". In "WCCFL 19", .




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