Linguistics 001: Practice Problems for Phonology

Language Files 3.6 Exercises 1. Exercise 9 (Ukrainian), p. 136 2. Exercise 14 (one question) 3. Exercise 15 a, c, e, g NOTE: Exercise 25 (Mokilese) This practice exercise has a detailed answer in the back of your book. So it will not be discussed in recitation (unless you have specic questions about it). However, you should now try doing it, and then read the explanation to see what you do or do not understand. 4. Exercise 26 (Sindhi) 5. First do practice exercise 36 (Canadian French) on p. 143 of Language Files. Then look at the additional data below (also from Canadian French), and answer the questions that follow the data. These data show various related words which share a basic part called a stem. For example, the rst set of words are all built from the stem [demkrat-] (in the same way that the English translations given at right are all based on the stem democrat-. This stem has various suxes attached to it (just like English -ic, -ize) in the rst set of words. Adding the suxes can have the eect of changing the environment in which a phoneme appears, with the result that a rule applies in some cases but not in others. The resulting changes are known as alternations. Note that in some cases there is no explicit sux, e.g. in [demkrat] the stem appears with no sux; in some other cases all the words have a stem with an ax. To help you, the boundary between the stem and the ax that follows is shown by a hyphen. The standard French spellings of the words are provided in the leftmost column, but they are not needed to solve the problem (and may in fact be more confusing than helpful, unless you have studied French). Bear in mind that this is Canadian French, so even if you studied French in school the pronunciation may be dierent from what you learned.

For reference, below are the phonetic values of the symbols used which are not in English.
[y] [] [] high front tense rounded vowel (rounded equivalent of [i]) high front lax rounded vowel (rounded equivalent of [ ]) mid front lax rounded vowel (rounded equivalent of [ ]) labial-palatal glide (rounded equivalent of [j]) mid front tense rounded vowel (rounded equivalent of [e])

[] [] [] [] [ ] [r]

[]

voiceless dental a(ricate, like a combination of [t] and [s] voiced dental a(ricate, like a combination of [d] and [z] nasalized low central vowel: like [a] except with both nasal and oral air*ow

nasalized mid lax back round vowel: like [ ] except with both nasal and oral air*ow In Montral among older speakers, usually a *ap [ ] but sometimes a trill [r]

Data Set 1 dmocrate dmocratique dmocratiser parachute parachutiste parachuter parachutisme parachutage gratter gratte grattement gratture lphante lphantesque lphantine lphanteau direct directement directeur directif [demkrat] [demkra-k] [demkra-iz-e] [parat] [paray-st] [parayt-e] [paray-izm] [parayt-a ] [grat-e] [grat] [grat-m] [gra-yr] [eleft] [eleft-sk] [elef-n] [eleft-o] [ irkt] [ irkt-m] [ irkt-r] [ irk-f] democrat democratic democratize parachute parachutist to parachute parachuting (as an activity) (an instance of) parachuting, airdrop to scratch scratch! (a) scratch scrapings female elephant like an elephant having to do with elephants baby elephant direct directly director (male) directive (adjective)

directroire directrice consente consentant consenti consentir consentement

[dirkt-war] [dirkt-rs] [kst] [kst-] [ks-i] [ks-ir] [kst-m]

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group of board members director (female) permits, agrees to consenting, agreeing to agreed to to permit, to agree consent

Question a. Are the data in Data Set 1 consistent with your hypothesis from exercise 36? Why or why not? Now examine data set 2 below: Data Set 2 mthode mthodisme mthodique mthodologie marchander marchandage marchandeuse marchandait marchandise perdre perdu perdait perdant druide druidesse druidisme vide vider vidoir vidures [metd] [met-izm] [met-k] [metd-li] [mard-e] [mard-a ] [mard-z] [mard- ] [mar-iz] [prd] [pr-y] [prd- ] [prd-] [drd] [drid-s] [dri-izm] [vd] [vid-e] [vid-war] [vi-yr] method methodism methodical methodology to haggle over a price haggling female merchant was haggling merchandise to lose lost was losing losing (male) druid female druid druidism, druid practices empty to empty receptacle for emptied water waste products (from slaughter)

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Questions b-d: b. What new alternation is illustrated in the data in data set 2? c. Reformulate your answer to Exercise 36, generalizing the rule so that it will correctly produce the alternations in stem-nal consonants shown in this problem. d. How does the notion natural class of sounds help to explain the range of alternations in stem-nal consonants in the data? Note: There are certain additional alternations in vowel quality (between tense and lax vowels) which, although they are correct from Canadian French, are not relevant to this problem. You do not have to analyze them.