Gender and morphology by Jesús Jiménez
Revista de Filología de la Universidad de La Laguna, 2020
Resumen Con la desaparición del género neutro en el paso del latín a las lenguas románicas, los a... more Resumen Con la desaparición del género neutro en el paso del latín a las lenguas románicas, los adjetivos latinos de tres terminaciones se adaptaron en catalán como adjetivos de dos ter-minaciones, normalmente con las marcas Ø para el masculino y-a para el femenino, como en clar-Ø 'claro' ~ clar-a 'clara'; este patrón es transparente y máximamente icónico. Los adjetivos de dos terminaciones, en cambio, se convirtieron en invariables, como en catalán antiguo fort-Ø 'fuerte'. El sincretismo de género, a pesar de los problemas de iconicidad y transparencia que genera, podría mantenerse si las clases invariables estuvieran definidas por propiedades extramorfológicas que contribuyeran a su estabilidad, como sucede en español con la terminación-e, que permite adscribir los adjetivos a la clase de invariables (por ej., fuerte). En catalán, sin embargo, la ausencia de terminaciones específicas para los invariables agrava los problemas de iconicidad y transparencia de estas formas, por lo que la tendencia a crear femeninos analógicos (como fort-a 'fuerte, fem.') es más fuerte que en español. //
Abstract Due to the loss of the neutral gender in the evolution from Latin to Romance languages, three-ending Latin adjectives were adapted as two-ending adjectives in Catalan, usually with the marks Ø in the masculine and-a in the feminine, as in clar 'clear, masc.' ~ clar-a 'clear, fem.'; this pattern is transparent and maximally iconic. Two-ending Latin adjectives became invariable instead, as in old Catalan fort-Ø 'strong', giving rise to gender syncretic forms, which lack transparency and iconicity. Despite the naturalness challenges raised by syncretism, it can be maintained if invariable classes are defined by extramorpholog-ical properties that enhance their stability, as is the case of Spanish with the ending-e determining membership to the invariable gender class (e.g., fuert-e 'strong'). In Catalan, though, the lack of exclusive endings for invariable adjectives worsens their iconicity and transparency, and so the tendency to create analogical feminine forms (e.g., fort-a 'strong, fem.') is stronger than in Spanish.
Meter & Rhythm by Jesús Jiménez
Estudis en honor del professor Rafael Alemany Ferrer , 2023
Resum. L’estructura rítmica d’un autor està determinada per diversos factors, entre els quals es ... more Resum. L’estructura rítmica d’un autor està determinada per diversos factors, entre els quals es troben els principis universals que determinen la idoneïtat de les combinacions o la gramàtica mètrica i el lèxic de la seua llengua. A més d’aquests factors, la mida dels versos i la posició dels accents obligatoris també condicionen les eleccions possibles. Tenint en compte això, aquest treball se centra en l’anàlisi rítmica del poema «Demanda feta per mossèn Ausiàs March a Joan Moreno» (recollit com a poema CXXIV a l’obra d’Ausiàs March). En el treball mostrem com la selecció del metre del vers condiciona els patrons rítmics disponibles. Així, els hemistiquis del poema CXXIV, amb accents a la cinquena i a la desena i amb un cesura darrere de la cinquena, no es poden dividir en peus de la mateixa mida. Entre les diferents opcions accentuals disponibles, Ausiàs March i Joan Moreno seleccionen el ritme amb dos peus de mida mínimament diferent que millor satisfà el requeriment que els períodes accentuals més llargs estiguen situats al final. A més, possiblement per a compensar el desequilibri en la llargària dels peus, solen optar per una reiteració del ritme en els dos hemistiquis, tal com trobem de vegades en altres formes bimembres com les dites. // Abstract: The rhythmic structure of an author is determined by several factors, among which the universal principles that determine the suitability of the stress combinations or the metrical grammar and the lexicon of his language. In addition to these factors, the size of the lines and the position of the obligatory stresses also condition his possible choices. Taking this into account, this work focuses on the rhythmic analysis of the poem "Demanda feta per mossèn Ausiàs March a Joan Moreno" (collected as poem CXXIV in the work of Ausiàs March). In the paper, we show how the selection of the meter of the line conditions the available rhythmic patterns. Thus, the hemistiches of poem CXXIV, with stress on the fifth and tenth and with a caesura after the fifth, cannot be divided into feet of the same size. Among the different accentual options available, Ausiàs March and Joan Moreno select the rhythm with two feet of minimally different size that best satisfies the requirement that the longest accentual periods be placed at the end. In addition, possibly to compensate for the imbalance in the length of the feet, they usually opt for a reiteration of the rhythm in the two hemistiches, as we sometimes find in other two-membered forms such as the sayings.
Cultura, Lenguaje y Representación, 2022
The goal of this paper is to show how different aspects of meter, such as syllable count, rhyme a... more The goal of this paper is to show how different aspects of meter, such as syllable count, rhyme and rhythmic patterns, can be used to obtain information about linguistic variation during earlier periods. The study analyses certain formal variants in the poems of Ausiàs March (1400–1459) which serve to meet the metric requirements of the line. Regarding syllable count, we focus on the treatment of vowel sequences with decreasing sonority as hiatuses or diphthongs: despite the overwhelming majority of hiatuses, the data suggest that some modern-day constraints were already active in March’s time, such as the tendency to avoid diphthongs in vowel sequences close to the main stress. Rhyme and rhythm may also indicate the correct pronunciation and spelling for some dubious words, such as the quality of mid vowels or the stress location in doublets like ésser~esser ‘to be’. Finally, the analysis of rhythm reveals the need for a certain relativity in the concept of tonicity due to the behaviour of rhythmically ambiguous elements, including the relative què ‘which’. In this case, though, the information also flows in the opposite direction, i.e., from the language to the meter, since the distribution of ambiguous elements, with a clear tendency to gravitate toward low-prominence positions, helps us to understand the relationships of prominence among the different parts of the verse.
Rhythmic structure in Ausiàs March (1400‒1459) and Vicent Andrés Estellés (1924‒1993): A quantitative constraint-based approach
Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie
A poet’s choice of rhythmic patterns is affected by three factors: a universal set of metrical co... more A poet’s choice of rhythmic patterns is affected by three factors: a universal set of metrical constraints, common to all languages; the metrical grammar and lexical structure of the poet’s own language; and the poet’s personal style. The first aim of this paper is to analyse how these three factors influence the frequency of different stress patterns in the customary metre of Ausiàs March (1400–1459): the decasyllable with caesura a minore (4+6 syllables). The second aim is to compare March’s schemes of stress with the patterns used by Vicent Andrés Estellés (1924–1993) in his alexandrines in the 1971 book Llibre de meravelles (Book of Wonders). The comparative analysis shows that the same metrical constraints operate in both authors and that their weight is equivalent. This equivalence can be seen first in the similarity of their arrangement of patterns in terms of frequency, which shows a clear preference for models that are rhythmically better; and second in the similarity of the proportions of their use of different schemes. The twofold coincidence indicates that March and Estellés, in spite of the vast distance in time between them, share the same metrical grammar. All that separates them is March’s slight inclination toward patterns of binary rhythm compared to Estellés’s preference for ternary rhythm. This difference, which is independent of the metre used by the authors, must be attributed to their stylistic preferences.
Summary: Metrical phonology deals with rhythmic patterns in natural languages and also with the s... more Summary: Metrical phonology deals with rhythmic patterns in natural languages and also with the stress grid in poetry. According to the basic hypothesis of the optimal model we follow (v. Golston, 1998, among others), verse exemplars that meet the requirements of a set of metrical constraints are preferred and, therefore, are predicted to be more frequent. To test this hypothesis, we analyze the alexandrines from Estellés' Llibre de meravelles and show that his metric preferences are grounded on general rhythmic constraints whose satisfaction can explain the frequency differences of the attested verse lines. In particular, we find constraints that promote more eurythmic lines and constraints which, on the contrary, seem to favor rhythmically worse patterns allowing, though, a larger portion of the vocabulary to fit in the line. «[…] precisament perquè la suma d'aquests dos segments és de dotze temps, l'alexandrí és el vers que admet més variacions de tots. Dotze és un número divisible per dos, per tres, per quatre i per sis, i és potser en aquesta característica on cal anar a buscar totes les seves propietats.» (Oliva, 1980: 125)
Resum: La fonologia mètrica estudia els patrons rítmics de les llengües naturals i s'ocupa també de l'estructura accentual dels textos poètics. La hipòtesi fonamental del model optimal en què s'insereix el treball (v. Golston, 1998, entre altres) és que els esquemes accentuals d'un vers que s'adeqüen millor a les exigències d'un conjunt de paràmetres mètrics generals són preferibles i, per tant, han de ser més freqüents. Partint d'aquesta hipòtesi, estudiem els alexandrins del Llibre de meravelles d'Estellés i mostrem que les seues preferències mètriques es fonamenten en principis rítmics d'abast general i que, en efecte, el grau de compliment d'aquestes restriccions pot explicar les diferències de freqüència dels patrons documentats. En concret, trobem principis que vetlen per l'eurítmia del vers i principis que, per contra, semblen afavorir patrons rítmicament pitjors, però que permeten encabir una major porció de vocabulari en el vers.
Papers on Spanish as a second language by Jesús Jiménez
RLA. RLA. Revista de Lingüística Teórica y Aplicada, 2018
ABSTRACT In this paper we compare the Spanish and Chinese vowel systems as pronounced by native s... more ABSTRACT In this paper we compare the Spanish and Chinese vowel systems as pronounced by native speakers in order to analyze afterwards the peculiarities of the Spanish vowels produced by a group of Chinese students with an intermediate level of Spanish. The study of the similarities and differences between the two native systems allows us to predict the points in which the Spanish vowels from Chinese learners may differ from the native system. The results indicate that the vowel system displayed by these students is structurally similar to the native system, but with some phonetic differences. Firstly, it shows a greater F1-amplitude, as a result of the direct translation of the distances between the Chinese vowels. Secondly, some vowels, particularly /a/, /e/ and /o/, show more dispersion than in the Spanish native system. Finally, the vowels produced by Chinese learners are clearly longer than in Spanish, although shorter than in Chinese. All in all, we have found that, even though Chinese learners do not experience great difficulties in acquiring the Spanish vowels, the features of the Chinese vowel system influence their realization, especially their openness and their duration.
RESUMEN En este trabajo se comparan los sistemas vocálicos del español y del chino pronunciados por hablantes nativos con el objetivo de presentar a continuación las peculiaridades del sistema vocálico español de un grupo de estudiantes de China con un nivel intermedio de español. El estudio de las similitudes y las diferencias entre los sistemas nativos nos ha permitido prever en qué áreas pueden diferir las vocales pronunciadas por aprendices chinos de las vocales españolas. Los resultados indican que el sistema vocálico español de los estudiantes chinos es estructuralmente similar al sistema nativo, pero con algunas diferencias fonéticas: en primer lugar, tiene una extensión mayor por lo que respecta a F1, como resultado del traslado directo de las distancias entre las vocales del chino; en segundo lugar, algunas vocales, particularmente /a/, /e/ y /o/, muestran más dispersión que en el sistema nativo, y, finalmente, las vocales de los aprendices chinos son más largas, aunque más cortas que las vocales del chino. Así pues, se ha comprobado que, si bien los aprendices chinos no encuentran grandes dificultades para adquirir las vocales del español, los rasgos del sistema vocálico chino afectan a su realización, especialmente a su grado de abertura y a su duración. Palabras clave: Chino, español como lengua extranjera (ELE), fonética, producción de las vocales, sinohablantes.
Papers on Vowel Harmony & Vowel Systems by Jesús Jiménez
![Research paper thumbnail of TANG, Anqi; JIMÉNEZ, Jesús, «四平方言中元音声学研究» [Jí lín sheng sì píng shì pu tong huà zhong yuán yin sheng xué yán jiu (An acoustic analysis of mid vowels in Siping Chinese (Jilin province)], 中国语音学报 [Zhong guó yu yin xué bào (Chinese Journal of Phonetics)], 18.2, 2022, p. 158-169.](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/104784953/thumbnails/1.jpg)
中国语音学报 [Chinese Journal of Phonetics], 2022
摘要 本文从声学上分析四平方言的中元音变体。通过研究该地区女性发音人的中元音的第一、第二共振峰频率、音长和音强，讨论中元音变体数量及其特性。结果表明，四平方言区中元音存在最多五个元音 [o]，... more 摘要 本文从声学上分析四平方言的中元音变体。通过研究该地区女性发音人的中元音的第一、第二共振峰频率、音长和音强，讨论中元音变体数量及其特性。结果表明，四平方言区中元音存在最多五个元音 [o]，[ɤ]，[ə]，[e̞] 和 [e]，但对于某些发音人来说，最后某些音被视为同一个元音的变体。在学界，尽管有些学者根据互补分布规则认为中元音只需一个音位，但由于这五个变体之间较远的声学距离，大部分学者根据唇形的圆展和发音部位的不同，普遍认为中元音需多个独立的音位。这是
关键词 中元音，四平方言，共振峰，音长，音强
Abstract In this paper, we analyze the mid vowels that are found in the Chinese spoken in Siping (Jilin province, northeastern China). The study has two main objectives: first, to characterize acoustically the realization of these vowels and, second, to discuss which phonological interpretation fits better the attested variants. To study the mid vowels, we have recorded a group of six young female speakers from the Siping variety, with a similar cultural background. The vowels appear in eight different contexts: in open syllables, after a palatal consonant: yē ‘coconut’, after a velar consonant: gē ‘brother’, after a retroflex alveolar consonant: shē ‘luxurious’, and after a labial consonant: pō ‘hillside’, and, in closed syllables, before a front glide: gēi ‘to give’, before a back round glide: gōu ‘ditch’, before an alveolar nasal: gēn ‘to follow’, and before a velar nasal, gēng ‘to change’, All the words have been registered inside the carrier sentence wǒ shuō _ dā yí cì ‘I say _ dā once’, to obtain a sample as homogeneous as possible both segmentally and tonally. The subjects have been asked to read aloud each sentence seven times. All in all, we have analyzed a sample of 336 vowels: 6 speakers x 7 repetitions x 8 contexts. The vowels have been manually segmented and labeled with Praat, taking the spectrogram and the intensity as acoustic cues. A Praat script has been used to extract the duration of the whole segment and, measured at the center of each vowel, the intensity and the first two formants, which have been normalized following Watt & Fabricius (2002) procedure. With these data, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests have been carried out, taking the extracted parameters as the dependent variables and the vocalic contexts as the independent variable.
The results show that there are no differences in the intensity of the vowels. As for the duration, vowels in closed syllables tend to be longer than vowels in open syllables, as expected. Finally, the data drawn from the normalized formants indicate that there are up to five different segments: [o] (context gōu), [ɤ] (contexts gēn, gē, shē, and pō), [ə] (context gēng), [e̞] (context yē), and [e] (context gēi). According to the first normalized formant, the variants display two degrees of openness, with [o] and [e] as slightly more closed than [ɤ], [ə], and [e̞]. Since the two most closed vowels, [o] and [e], appear before the glides [w] and [j], their relative closeness can be attributed to the assimilatory influence of these segments. On the other hand, although the statistic test distinguishes between [e̞] and [e], these sounds can be considered variants of the same vowel, whose openness depends on its length, being the longest segment, [e̞], the most open vowel.
As for the place of articulation of the segments, based on the second normalized formant, there are four distinctions, going from the back round vowel [o] to the front vowels [e̞] and [e], with [ɤ] closer to [o] and [ə] closer to [e̞] and [e]. The back unrounded vowel [ɤ] displays small differences in place of articulation in the contexts gēn, gē, shē, and pō, but the test interprets these variants as occurrences of the same vowel, realized as slightly fronted (in the context gēn) or slightly backed (in the context pō) with respect to a central reference in the contexts gē and shē. The realization of the vowel in the context pō, approximately as the vowel in gē and differently from the back round segment in gōu (namely, as a back unrounded vowel [ɤ]), is a typical feature of the Chinese spoken in northeastern China (see, among others, Cai Yue, 2021). As for the variants [ɤ] (context gēn, gē, shē, and pō) and [ə] (context gēng), defined by the statistic as different, their distance is similar to the separation found in the allophones of the vowel /a/ in the contexts gān ‘to dry’ and gāng ‘just’; hence, they could be considered variants of the same vowel as well.
The five variants identified in the Siping variety by the statistic tests occur in complementary distribution and, therefore, could be derived from a single mid vowel, as suggested by some researchers (see, for instance, Cheng, 1973, and Duanmu, 2007). In our case, /ɤ/, which is the variant appearing in most open syllables, would be the best candidate to derive the other pronunciations. However, the great acoustic distance existing between some of these variants makes more plausible their interpretation as realizations of different mid phonemes, which is the most common view among Chinese researchers (see, for instance, Wang, 1983; Tian, 1996; Huang & Liao, 2002; Shao, 2007, and Liu, 2015): according to our data, a front unrounded vowel /e/, with two contextual variants [e̞] and [e]; a back unrounded vowel /ɤ/, with a more fronted variant [ə] and a more backed variant [ɤ], and a back round vowel /o/. This Siping three-vowel system is, hence, defined by the roundness of the segments and by their place of articulation, with height differences mostly dependent on the length of the variants, as determined by their syllabic distribution.
Keywords Mid vowels, Siping Chinese, Formants, Duration, Intensity
Actes du XXVe Congrès International de Linguistique et de Philologie Romanes, 2010
* Este trabajo forma parte del proyecto de investigación HUM2007-65531/FILO financiado por el MEC... more * Este trabajo forma parte del proyecto de investigación HUM2007-65531/FILO financiado por el MEC y el FEDER (http://www.ub.edu/lincat) y en el caso del primer autor también del proyecto HUM2006-13295-C02-01. La segunda autora forma parte del grupo de investigación 2005-SGR01046 de la Generalitat de Catalunya.
Jiménez & Lloret (2020). Vowel harmony. In Sonia Colina, Fernando Martínez-Gil (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Spanish Phonology. Oxon, New York: Routledge, 100-128.
The Routledge Handbook of Spanish Phonology, 2020
Vowel harmony refers to the phonological phenomenon that requires vowels in certain morphological... more Vowel harmony refers to the phonological phenomenon that requires vowels in certain morphological or prosodic domains to agree in specific phonological features. This chapter presents a thorough revision of vowel harmony in southeastern peninsular Spanish, where the loss of some final consonants is compensated by opening the preceding vowel and the lax character of this vowel extends to the preceding syllables, as in nenes /nenes/: [ˈnɛnɛ] ‘boys’. Although the opening of the rightmost vowel is usually transmitted to the left irrespective of the morphological filiation of the deleted consonant (as in Granada and Murcia), vowel harmony may be limited to lax vowels related to the loss of consonants belonging to certain inflectional suffixes (as in Jaén). The behavior of high vowels is another source of variation: they can either fully participate in the process (as in Jaén) or act as neutral vowels (as in Granada and Murcia). Regarding the harmonic domain, vowel harmony obligatorily targets the stressed syllable — the most prominent in the word —, but it can also affect the stressed and the posttonic syllables — the main foot — or all the syllables in the word, sometimes permitting gapped configurations (as in Granada). After formalizing the different harmonic patterns attested in southern peninsular Spanish within a prominence-based licensing approach in Optimality Theory, we extend the typology to other Iberian Romance varieties displaying vowel harmony (Cantabrian Spanish, Asturian, and Valencian Catalan).
Nunc dimittis. Estudis dedicats al professor Antoni Ferrando, 2019
ABSTRACT: The most striking difference between the Catalan and the Spanish vowel systems is the f... more ABSTRACT: The most striking difference between the Catalan and the Spanish vowel systems is the fact that Catalan distinguishes two more vowels in stressed position, including, in addition to the Spanish vowels /i, e, a, o, u/, the two mid-open vowels /ɛ/ and /ɔ/. Besides having a larger set of segments in stressed syllables, Catalan varieties display other features that suggest the same global configuration of the system. Focusing on Valencian data, we show that, in unstressed position, this variety regards all the open vowels as a class, so that the low vowel /a/ is realized as a closer vowel as well, similarly to what happens in Eastern Catalan. In stressed position, on the other hand, we detect a tendency to prefer mid-open vowels to mid-close vowels, emphasizing thus the stressed syllables, already prominent by definition, with a prominent feature - the openness of the vowel.
RESUM: La diferència bàsica entre els sistemes vocàlics del català i del castellà és el nombre major d’unitats en l’inventari del català en posició tònica, que inclou, a més de les vocals /i, e, a, o, u/ del castellà, les dues vocals mitjanes obertes /ɛ/ i /ɔ/. A banda d’un nombre major d’unitats en la posició tònica, les varietats del català presenten altres peculiaritats que apunten a una mateixa configuració global dels sistemes. Centrant-nos en les dades del valencià, mostrem que, en la posició àtona, aquesta varietat tracta el conjunt de vocals obertes com una sola classe i tanca també la vocal /a/, de manera semblant al que ocorre en els dialectes orientals. En la posició tònica, d’altra banda, detectem una tendència a utilitzar en totes les varietats el segon grau d’obertura de les vocals mitjanes per a emfatitzar amb un tret prominent –l’obertura– allò que és ja per naturalesa prominent –la posició accentuada.
Treballs de Sociolingüística Catalana, 2019
ABSTRACT The vowel system of a language can be modified due to the influence of another language.... more ABSTRACT The vowel system of a language can be modified due to the influence of another language. When dealing with this influence, sociophonetic studies usually focus on the modifications in the phonemic inventory, either by adding or by eliminating some units. In addition to this type of change —clearly noticeable—, other —less noticeable— changes are observed, which do not alter the number of phonemes, but affect the global shape of the systems. In our study, we present, first of all, the traditional patterns of variation between stressed and unstressed position in the Catalan vowel system, which are aimed at maintaining the equidistance between contiguous peripheral vowels in terms of their degree of aperture. Secondly, we show that, in some Valencian urban areas heavily influenced by Spanish, the contact with this language is causing, in some speakers, the disappearance of the distinction between open and close mid vowels and, in a more generalized way, the attenuation of height changes in the low vowel aiming at maintaining the equidistance between the units of the system.
RESUM El sistema vocàlic d’una llengua pot veure’s alterat per influència d’una altra llengua. En analitzar aquesta influència, els treballs de sociofonètica solen centrar-se en les modificacions de l’inventari de fonemes, bé amb l’addició, bé amb l’eliminació d’unitats. A més d’aquesta mena de canvis —clarament perceptibles—, s’observen altres modificacions —menys perceptibles— que no alteren el nombre de fonemes, però que afecten la configuració global del sistema. En el nostre estudi sobre les vocals del valencià, presentem, en primer lloc, els patrons tradicionals de variació entre la posició tònica i la posició àtona que serveixen per a mantenir l’equidistància en l’eix de l’obertura entre vocals perifèriques adjacents. En segon lloc, mostrem com, en zones urbanes valencianes fortament influïdes pel castellà, el contacte amb aquesta llengua està provocant, en alguns parlants, la desaparició de la distinció entre vocals mitjanes obertes i tancades i, d’una manera més generalitzada, l’atenuació dels canvis en l’obertura de la vocal baixa tendents a mantenir l’equidistància entre les unitats del sistema.
Clàssics d’ahir i d’avui en la gramàtica del català, 2015
Studies in phonetics, phonology and sound change in Romance (LINCOM Studies in Romance Linguistics, 73), 2013
En la bibliografía se considera que la armonía vocálica surge generalmente como una fonologizació... more En la bibliografía se considera que la armonía vocálica surge generalmente como una fonologización de un proceso previo de coarticulación parcial entre vocales. El objetivo de este estudio es presentar dos variedades del valenciano septentrional que corresponderían a los dos estadios en la consolidación de la armonía. Por una parte, la variedad de Nules, que presenta en general elevados índices de coarticulación entre una vocal labial tónica /ɔ/ y una vocal baja postónica, pero que solo presenta igualación total de los rasgos en un contexto especialmente asimétrico: cuando la vocal baja aparece en posición postónica interna. Por otra, la variedad de Borriana, en que una vocal baja se asimila totalmente a una vocal labial tónica /ɔ/ precedente, excepto cuando están separadas por un límite morfológico de palabra, un contexto en que solo se observan fuertes efectos coarticulatorios, similares a los de Nules.
In: Lloret, Maria-Rosa; Pons-Moll, Clàudia (ed.), Noves aproximacions a la fonologia i la morfologia del català. Volum d’homenatge a Max W. Wheeler. (Symposia Philologica, 21.) Alacant: Institut Interuniversitari de Filologia Valenciana, pàg. 243-273, 2011
Abstract
Valencian vowel harmony is a phenomenon by which a final unstressed low vowel assimilate... more Abstract
Valencian vowel harmony is a phenomenon by which a final unstressed low vowel assimilates to a preceding stressed open mid vowel [ɛ] or [ɔ] (cf. terra ‘land’ [ˈtɛrɛ], cosa ‘thing’ [ˈkɔzɔ]). One assumption in the literature is that this assimilation is linked to a extreme degree of aperture in Valencian mid vowels. In this work we study two Northern Valencian varieties —Nules, a non-harmonic variety, and Borriana, a variety with only Labial harmony— in order to assess if there is a correlation between the presence of vowel harmony and a greater opening of the vocal [ɔ] in Borriana. We will compare the formant values of the final low vowel and the mid open vowels in harmonic and non-harmonic contexts. Among the non-harmonic contexts, we will pay special attention to proparoxytones such as catòlica ‘Catholic, FEM’, with an intermediate vowel between the stressed vowel and the final vowel, and sequences such as mol-la ‘grind it, FEM’, with a morphological boundary between the two vowels.
Resum
L’harmonia vocàlica del valencià és un fenomen pel qual la vocal àtona final a s’assimila a les vocals mitjanes tòniques [ɛ] i [ɔ] precedents (cf. terra [ˈtɛrɛ], cosa [ˈkɔzɔ]). Una de les assumpcions de la bibliografia és que aquesta assimilació s’associa amb l’especial obertura de les vocals mitjanes obertes en valencià. En aquest treball estudiarem dos parlars pertanyents al valencià septentrional —el de Nules, que no presenta harmonia, i el de Borriana, que presenta harmonia únicament en la sèrie velar— per comprovar si, efectivament, l’harmonia implica una major obertura de la vocal [ɔ] en el parlar de Borriana. Amb aquest objectiu analitzarem i compararem els valors dels formants de les vocals mitjanes obertes i de la vocal a final en contextos harmònics i no harmònics. Dins d’aquests últims contextos, valorarem especialment la repercussió que té la presència d’una síl•laba intermèdia entre les vocals obertes tòniques i la a final, com en catòlica, o d’un límit morfològic, com en mol-la.
Estudis Romànics 33: 53-80, 2011
Vowel harmony is an assimilatory phenomenon that entails, in general, articulatory benefits for t... more Vowel harmony is an assimilatory phenomenon that entails, in general, articulatory benefits for the speaker and perceptual benefits for the listener, although these gains bring about the weakening or even the deletion of the underlying properties of the harmonized vowels. Because of that, the parameters that control the extension of the spread features must determine, in each case, which are the causes that favor the homogenization in spite of the concomitant loss of information. The aim of this work is to review, with examples taken from the Romance languages spoken in the Iberian Peninsula, some of the characteristics shared by the different attested phenomena of vowel harmony, in order to establish a typology of harmonic patterns.
Verba. Anuario galego de filoloxía 36: 293-325, 2009
This work presents an analysis of vowel harmony in Andalusian Spanish within the framework of Opt... more This work presents an analysis of vowel harmony in Andalusian Spanish within the framework of Optimality Theory. The approach we pursue fits well in the positional licensing or markedness view, according to which harmony attempts to improve the perceptibility of features that originally appear in structurally weak positions (such as unstressed syllables) by spreading them to structural positions that are relatively stronger (such as stressed syllables). In the Andalusian harmony case, the spread of the ‘open’ ([–Advanced Tongue Root]) feature —grown out of the weakening of -// or -//— from the final unstressed vowel to the precedent stressed vowel minimally guarantees its perceptibility. The extension of this feature to posttonic and pretonic vowels further increases the perceptibility of the harmonic feature and gives rise to different harmonic patterns, which turn to be homogeneous or heterogeneous depending on specific harmonic domain restrictions. In the optimal analysis we propose, the re-ranking of constraints predicts not only the attested harmonic patterns but also the impossibility of deriving the non-attested ones, which proves the suitability of the theoretical model used here.
"Altres fenòmens vocàlics en el mot". In J. Solà et al. (ed.) (2002) Gramàtica del català contemporani, 1, 171-194.
Actes del Novè Col·loqui d’Estudis Catalans a Nord-Amèrica. (Selected Proceedings.) Barcelona, 1998., 2001
Papers on Epenthesis & Clitic Allomorphy by Jesús Jiménez
Estudis de llengua i literatura catalanes (Miscel·lània Lídia Pons I), LXXVI, 2022
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Gender and morphology by Jesús Jiménez
Abstract Due to the loss of the neutral gender in the evolution from Latin to Romance languages, three-ending Latin adjectives were adapted as two-ending adjectives in Catalan, usually with the marks Ø in the masculine and-a in the feminine, as in clar 'clear, masc.' ~ clar-a 'clear, fem.'; this pattern is transparent and maximally iconic. Two-ending Latin adjectives became invariable instead, as in old Catalan fort-Ø 'strong', giving rise to gender syncretic forms, which lack transparency and iconicity. Despite the naturalness challenges raised by syncretism, it can be maintained if invariable classes are defined by extramorpholog-ical properties that enhance their stability, as is the case of Spanish with the ending-e determining membership to the invariable gender class (e.g., fuert-e 'strong'). In Catalan, though, the lack of exclusive endings for invariable adjectives worsens their iconicity and transparency, and so the tendency to create analogical feminine forms (e.g., fort-a 'strong, fem.') is stronger than in Spanish.
Meter & Rhythm by Jesús Jiménez
Resum: La fonologia mètrica estudia els patrons rítmics de les llengües naturals i s'ocupa també de l'estructura accentual dels textos poètics. La hipòtesi fonamental del model optimal en què s'insereix el treball (v. Golston, 1998, entre altres) és que els esquemes accentuals d'un vers que s'adeqüen millor a les exigències d'un conjunt de paràmetres mètrics generals són preferibles i, per tant, han de ser més freqüents. Partint d'aquesta hipòtesi, estudiem els alexandrins del Llibre de meravelles d'Estellés i mostrem que les seues preferències mètriques es fonamenten en principis rítmics d'abast general i que, en efecte, el grau de compliment d'aquestes restriccions pot explicar les diferències de freqüència dels patrons documentats. En concret, trobem principis que vetlen per l'eurítmia del vers i principis que, per contra, semblen afavorir patrons rítmicament pitjors, però que permeten encabir una major porció de vocabulari en el vers.
Papers on Spanish as a second language by Jesús Jiménez
RESUMEN En este trabajo se comparan los sistemas vocálicos del español y del chino pronunciados por hablantes nativos con el objetivo de presentar a continuación las peculiaridades del sistema vocálico español de un grupo de estudiantes de China con un nivel intermedio de español. El estudio de las similitudes y las diferencias entre los sistemas nativos nos ha permitido prever en qué áreas pueden diferir las vocales pronunciadas por aprendices chinos de las vocales españolas. Los resultados indican que el sistema vocálico español de los estudiantes chinos es estructuralmente similar al sistema nativo, pero con algunas diferencias fonéticas: en primer lugar, tiene una extensión mayor por lo que respecta a F1, como resultado del traslado directo de las distancias entre las vocales del chino; en segundo lugar, algunas vocales, particularmente /a/, /e/ y /o/, muestran más dispersión que en el sistema nativo, y, finalmente, las vocales de los aprendices chinos son más largas, aunque más cortas que las vocales del chino. Así pues, se ha comprobado que, si bien los aprendices chinos no encuentran grandes dificultades para adquirir las vocales del español, los rasgos del sistema vocálico chino afectan a su realización, especialmente a su grado de abertura y a su duración. Palabras clave: Chino, español como lengua extranjera (ELE), fonética, producción de las vocales, sinohablantes.
Papers on Vowel Harmony & Vowel Systems by Jesús Jiménez
关键词 中元音，四平方言，共振峰，音长，音强
Abstract In this paper, we analyze the mid vowels that are found in the Chinese spoken in Siping (Jilin province, northeastern China). The study has two main objectives: first, to characterize acoustically the realization of these vowels and, second, to discuss which phonological interpretation fits better the attested variants. To study the mid vowels, we have recorded a group of six young female speakers from the Siping variety, with a similar cultural background. The vowels appear in eight different contexts: in open syllables, after a palatal consonant: yē ‘coconut’, after a velar consonant: gē ‘brother’, after a retroflex alveolar consonant: shē ‘luxurious’, and after a labial consonant: pō ‘hillside’, and, in closed syllables, before a front glide: gēi ‘to give’, before a back round glide: gōu ‘ditch’, before an alveolar nasal: gēn ‘to follow’, and before a velar nasal, gēng ‘to change’, All the words have been registered inside the carrier sentence wǒ shuō _ dā yí cì ‘I say _ dā once’, to obtain a sample as homogeneous as possible both segmentally and tonally. The subjects have been asked to read aloud each sentence seven times. All in all, we have analyzed a sample of 336 vowels: 6 speakers x 7 repetitions x 8 contexts. The vowels have been manually segmented and labeled with Praat, taking the spectrogram and the intensity as acoustic cues. A Praat script has been used to extract the duration of the whole segment and, measured at the center of each vowel, the intensity and the first two formants, which have been normalized following Watt & Fabricius (2002) procedure. With these data, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests have been carried out, taking the extracted parameters as the dependent variables and the vocalic contexts as the independent variable.
The results show that there are no differences in the intensity of the vowels. As for the duration, vowels in closed syllables tend to be longer than vowels in open syllables, as expected. Finally, the data drawn from the normalized formants indicate that there are up to five different segments: [o] (context gōu), [ɤ] (contexts gēn, gē, shē, and pō), [ə] (context gēng), [e̞] (context yē), and [e] (context gēi). According to the first normalized formant, the variants display two degrees of openness, with [o] and [e] as slightly more closed than [ɤ], [ə], and [e̞]. Since the two most closed vowels, [o] and [e], appear before the glides [w] and [j], their relative closeness can be attributed to the assimilatory influence of these segments. On the other hand, although the statistic test distinguishes between [e̞] and [e], these sounds can be considered variants of the same vowel, whose openness depends on its length, being the longest segment, [e̞], the most open vowel.
As for the place of articulation of the segments, based on the second normalized formant, there are four distinctions, going from the back round vowel [o] to the front vowels [e̞] and [e], with [ɤ] closer to [o] and [ə] closer to [e̞] and [e]. The back unrounded vowel [ɤ] displays small differences in place of articulation in the contexts gēn, gē, shē, and pō, but the test interprets these variants as occurrences of the same vowel, realized as slightly fronted (in the context gēn) or slightly backed (in the context pō) with respect to a central reference in the contexts gē and shē. The realization of the vowel in the context pō, approximately as the vowel in gē and differently from the back round segment in gōu (namely, as a back unrounded vowel [ɤ]), is a typical feature of the Chinese spoken in northeastern China (see, among others, Cai Yue, 2021). As for the variants [ɤ] (context gēn, gē, shē, and pō) and [ə] (context gēng), defined by the statistic as different, their distance is similar to the separation found in the allophones of the vowel /a/ in the contexts gān ‘to dry’ and gāng ‘just’; hence, they could be considered variants of the same vowel as well.
The five variants identified in the Siping variety by the statistic tests occur in complementary distribution and, therefore, could be derived from a single mid vowel, as suggested by some researchers (see, for instance, Cheng, 1973, and Duanmu, 2007). In our case, /ɤ/, which is the variant appearing in most open syllables, would be the best candidate to derive the other pronunciations. However, the great acoustic distance existing between some of these variants makes more plausible their interpretation as realizations of different mid phonemes, which is the most common view among Chinese researchers (see, for instance, Wang, 1983; Tian, 1996; Huang & Liao, 2002; Shao, 2007, and Liu, 2015): according to our data, a front unrounded vowel /e/, with two contextual variants [e̞] and [e]; a back unrounded vowel /ɤ/, with a more fronted variant [ə] and a more backed variant [ɤ], and a back round vowel /o/. This Siping three-vowel system is, hence, defined by the roundness of the segments and by their place of articulation, with height differences mostly dependent on the length of the variants, as determined by their syllabic distribution.
Keywords Mid vowels, Siping Chinese, Formants, Duration, Intensity
RESUM: La diferència bàsica entre els sistemes vocàlics del català i del castellà és el nombre major d’unitats en l’inventari del català en posició tònica, que inclou, a més de les vocals /i, e, a, o, u/ del castellà, les dues vocals mitjanes obertes /ɛ/ i /ɔ/. A banda d’un nombre major d’unitats en la posició tònica, les varietats del català presenten altres peculiaritats que apunten a una mateixa configuració global dels sistemes. Centrant-nos en les dades del valencià, mostrem que, en la posició àtona, aquesta varietat tracta el conjunt de vocals obertes com una sola classe i tanca també la vocal /a/, de manera semblant al que ocorre en els dialectes orientals. En la posició tònica, d’altra banda, detectem una tendència a utilitzar en totes les varietats el segon grau d’obertura de les vocals mitjanes per a emfatitzar amb un tret prominent –l’obertura– allò que és ja per naturalesa prominent –la posició accentuada.
RESUM El sistema vocàlic d’una llengua pot veure’s alterat per influència d’una altra llengua. En analitzar aquesta influència, els treballs de sociofonètica solen centrar-se en les modificacions de l’inventari de fonemes, bé amb l’addició, bé amb l’eliminació d’unitats. A més d’aquesta mena de canvis —clarament perceptibles—, s’observen altres modificacions —menys perceptibles— que no alteren el nombre de fonemes, però que afecten la configuració global del sistema. En el nostre estudi sobre les vocals del valencià, presentem, en primer lloc, els patrons tradicionals de variació entre la posició tònica i la posició àtona que serveixen per a mantenir l’equidistància en l’eix de l’obertura entre vocals perifèriques adjacents. En segon lloc, mostrem com, en zones urbanes valencianes fortament influïdes pel castellà, el contacte amb aquesta llengua està provocant, en alguns parlants, la desaparició de la distinció entre vocals mitjanes obertes i tancades i, d’una manera més generalitzada, l’atenuació dels canvis en l’obertura de la vocal baixa tendents a mantenir l’equidistància entre les unitats del sistema.
Valencian vowel harmony is a phenomenon by which a final unstressed low vowel assimilates to a preceding stressed open mid vowel [ɛ] or [ɔ] (cf. terra ‘land’ [ˈtɛrɛ], cosa ‘thing’ [ˈkɔzɔ]). One assumption in the literature is that this assimilation is linked to a extreme degree of aperture in Valencian mid vowels. In this work we study two Northern Valencian varieties —Nules, a non-harmonic variety, and Borriana, a variety with only Labial harmony— in order to assess if there is a correlation between the presence of vowel harmony and a greater opening of the vocal [ɔ] in Borriana. We will compare the formant values of the final low vowel and the mid open vowels in harmonic and non-harmonic contexts. Among the non-harmonic contexts, we will pay special attention to proparoxytones such as catòlica ‘Catholic, FEM’, with an intermediate vowel between the stressed vowel and the final vowel, and sequences such as mol-la ‘grind it, FEM’, with a morphological boundary between the two vowels.
Resum
L’harmonia vocàlica del valencià és un fenomen pel qual la vocal àtona final a s’assimila a les vocals mitjanes tòniques [ɛ] i [ɔ] precedents (cf. terra [ˈtɛrɛ], cosa [ˈkɔzɔ]). Una de les assumpcions de la bibliografia és que aquesta assimilació s’associa amb l’especial obertura de les vocals mitjanes obertes en valencià. En aquest treball estudiarem dos parlars pertanyents al valencià septentrional —el de Nules, que no presenta harmonia, i el de Borriana, que presenta harmonia únicament en la sèrie velar— per comprovar si, efectivament, l’harmonia implica una major obertura de la vocal [ɔ] en el parlar de Borriana. Amb aquest objectiu analitzarem i compararem els valors dels formants de les vocals mitjanes obertes i de la vocal a final en contextos harmònics i no harmònics. Dins d’aquests últims contextos, valorarem especialment la repercussió que té la presència d’una síl•laba intermèdia entre les vocals obertes tòniques i la a final, com en catòlica, o d’un límit morfològic, com en mol-la.
Papers on Epenthesis & Clitic Allomorphy by Jesús Jiménez