The Routledge Handbook of North American Languages

Daniel Siddiqi, Michael Barrie, Carrie Gillon, Jason Haugen, Eric Mathieu, Daniel Siddiqi, Michael Barrie, Carrie Gillon, Jason Haugen, Eric Mathieu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351810265
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The Routledge Handbook of North American Languages is a one-stop reference for linguists on those topics that come up the most frequently in the study of the languages of North America (including Mexico). This handbook compiles a list of contributors from across many different theories and at different stages of their careers, all of whom are well-known experts in North American languages. The volume comprises two distinct parts: the first surveys some of the phenomena most frequently discussed in the study of North American languages, and the second surveys some of the most frequently discussed language families of North America. The consistent goal of each contribution is to couch the content of the chapter in contemporary theory so that the information is maximally relevant and accessible for a wide range of audiences, including graduate students and young new scholars, and even senior scholars who are looking for a crash course in the topics. Empirically driven chapters provide fundamental knowledge needed to participate in contemporary theoretical discussions of these languages, making this handbook an indispensable resource for linguistics scholars.

Part I

Common Phenomena in North American Languages

1
Phonological Inventories

Keren Rice

1. Introduction

One of the first things that is often done in examining the sound system of a language is to determine the inventories of consonants, vowels, and, if present, tones of the language. This can be done in various ways, but the basic assumption is that it is possible to come to a phonemicization of a language, identifying the distinctive sounds and fitting each into a chart such as that used for presenting the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). There may be disagreements around phonemicization: for instance, it might be controversial to determine whether a sound is truly contrastive or is an allophone of some other sound; it might be difficult to determine what should be considered the phoneme and what should be considered the allophone. Nevertheless, there is something important about the notion of inventory, the topic of this chapter. Phonological inventories provide information about the distinctive sounds of a language and about the patterning of those sounds, and, as Maddieson (1984: 1) writes, generalizations about “the content and structure of phonological inventories has been a significant objective of recent work in linguistics”.

This chapter examines characteristics of consonant and vowel inventories of languages indigenous to North America. I begin by identifying some of the challenges inherent in such work, and then turn to a study of inventories, considering contrasts and how inventories grow, taking vertical (sound change) and horizontal (borrowing) effects into account. I then address positional inventories, phonological patterning and inventories, and inventories and orthography.

2. Some Challenges

While establishing the phonological inventory of a language is an early step in the analysis of a sound system, it can be a challenge in many ways.

2.1. Perception and Underdetermination

Perception plays a large role in establishing an inventory. The linguist who does the transcription of a language that they do not speak fluently may miss a contrast. For instance, Buckley (2007) writes that Alsea (Alsean) most likely had ejective sonorants as well as obstruents, but that the transcriptions (Frachtenberg 1917; 1920) are difficult to interpret, and he does not include them in the inventory. Thus, it is likely that the Alsea consonant inventory was underdetermined by Frachtenberg.

2.2. Analysis and Possible Overdetermination of Inventories

It might be that two sounds are in complementary distribution, but they are treated as distinctive. For example, Golla (1996: 366) analyzes Hupa (Dene) as having six phonemic vowels, /i, a, o, e:, a:, o:/, noting allophones. Goddard (1905: 7), on the other hand, includes more vowels: i, e, a, o, i:, a:, o:, u:. Goddard does not give a phonemic analysis, but his inventory can be interpreted as including allophones as well as phonemes.

Central Alaskan Yupik (Eskimo-Aleut) presents another example. One version of the consonant inventory is shown in (1).¹

Compton (2008: 31) proposes the smaller inventory in (2), with some of the consonants in (1) being allophonic, and thus predictable in distribution.

Beyond allophones, other decisions must be made about what to include in an inventory. Are sounds from loanwords and special types of vocabulary to be included? Are infrequent sounds? For example, Golla (1996: 383) lists Hupa sounds that occur in sound symbolism. I use Golla’s transcription in (3).

Golla notes that b, š, g, k, k’ exist only in sound symbolism, and he does not include these in the Hupa consonant inventory.

Similar questions arise in many languages. For instance, Chafe (1996: 553–554) does not include labials in the Seneca (Iroquoian) inventory, saying that they occur only in nicknames and expressive vocabulary. Uchihara (2016: 43), on the other hand, notes that /m/ is marginal in Cherokee (Iroquoian), found in just a handful of native words and loanwords and not patterning with other consonants in terms of clusters, but he nevertheless includes it in the inventory. Li (1946: 399) includes /m/ in the Dene Su̜ɬiné (Dene; also called Chipewyan) inventory, but writes that in his material it occurred in only one word.

Considering loanwords, Haas (1946: 338) includes /b, d, g, f/ in the consonant inventory of Tunica (isolate), but states that they occur “only in a few isolated words (of foreign or probably foreign) origin”. Hill (2005) includes sounds found only in loanwords for Cupeño (Uto-Aztecan). Some do not include such sounds in the inventory. For instance, Moore (2002: 322) does not include /p/ in the inventory of Kaska (Dene) consonants but gives a loanword with /p/. Boudreault (2009: 23–25) partitions the Sierra Popoluca (Mixe-Zoquean) inventory into native phonemes and restricted phonemes, with the latter occurring in ideophones, lexicalized expressions, borrowings, and stylistic alternations.

2.3. Phonemes vs. Sequences?

There is debate about whether something is best analyzed as a single sound or as a sequence. Li (1946: 398) includes labialized velars /g^w, k^w, k^w’, x^w, ɣ^w/ (his transcription) in the consonant system of Dene Su̜ɬiné, while Cook (2004: 3) treats these as deriving from Cu sequences. The inventories presented by Cook and Li for the same language thus differ.

Montgomery-Anderson (2015: 20) includes aspirated resonants (sonorants written /hw, hy, hn/) in the inventory in Cherokee (Iroquoian), while Uchihara (2016: 37) treats them as clusters of /h/ followed by a resonant. Uchihara (2016: 38) and Montgomery-Anderson (2015: 20) include /ts, kw, tl/ in the inventory; Cook (1979: 5) treats these as sequences for a different Cherokee variety. Zuni (isolate) is considered by some to have ejectives /ts’ tʃ’ k’ k’^w/ (Walker 1964), while others analyze these as sequences of /C+ʔ/ (Newman 1965: 16).

2.4. Variation and Phonemicization

There may be variation between sounds, with a decision made about which to include in the inventory. In Plains Cree (Algonquian), and other languages, variation is found between [s] and [ʃ] and between [ts] and [tʃ] (Wolfart 1996: 430). Wolfart writes these as /s/, /ts/ (his symbol c), not including the variant in the consonant chart, a decision that might be interpreted as being about phonemicization.

2.5. Other Challenges

Transcription conventions vary, with different symbols used for the same sound and the same symbol used for different sounds. For instance, older sources often use ‘ for aspiration; this is not common today. ‘c’ might be used for an alveolar affricate, an alveopalatal affricate, or a palatal stop. The same author may use different symbols for the same sound at different times. For instance, Golla (1996: 368) uses /g^y/ for the Hupa front velar voiceless unaspirated stop, and /ġ/ for what he calls a back velar voiceless unaspirated stop; while Golla (2011: 82) uses /k̯/ for the voiceless unaspirated front velar and /q/ for the voiceless unaspirated back velar (uvular). In the Dene literature generally, symbols d, g, etc., are used for what are usually identified as voiceless unaspirated stops and t, k, etc., for voiceless aspirated stops.

Terminology changes over time. For example, for Dene Su̜ɬiné, Li (1946: 398) uses the term ‘guttural’ where Cook (2004: 9) uses ‘velar’, and Li distinguishes fricatives with ‘surd’ and ‘sonant’ where Cook (2004: 7) uses ‘voiceless’ and ‘voiced’. ‘Resonant’ is commonly used in some language families (e.g., Salish), while ‘sonorant’ is used in others.

Inventories may differ by where a sound is placed in a phonemic chart. For instance, Haas (1946: 338) includes /y/ (IPA /j/) under semivowels in Tunica, while Li (1946: 398) includes it with the sonant (voiced) fricatives in Dene Su̜ɬiné. /w/ is variably treated as a labial, a velar, or a labiovelar consonant depending on the source. See also §6.2.

Considering vowels, the symbol e might be used for a phonetically lax vowel if there is no contrast between tense and lax vowels in a language. Maddieson (2013b) includes discussion of the types of factors used to determine the size of vowel inventories, including the challenges of length, nasalization, and diphthongs. For example, a distinction might be considered as primarily featural (e.g., tense/lax) by some, and as involving timing (long/short) by others.

2.6. Summary

Comparison of inventories must be done carefully, ascertaining that assumptions underlying the choice of symbols and the composition of inventories are shared. While it is important to be aware that assumptions might differ, nevertheless, inventories are worthy of study.

3. Factors Determining Inventory Shapes

Gordon (2016) provides an overview of accounts of the typology of inventory shapes, including phonetic (perception, articulation), phonological, and historical factors. Dispersion (pressure for segments to be maximally dispersed throughout the available phonetic space), perceptual distinctness, articulatory simplicity, feature economy, featural robustness, and symmetry have been argued to play important roles in shaping inventories. See Gordon (2016), Hall (2011), and Mielke (2009) for overviews and references. We will see some unusual features in inventories of languages of North America, given these factors.

As a preview, in this section I review expectations of consonant inventories based on typological studies. Gordon (2016), building on Maddieson (1984), chapters in Dryer and Haspelmath (2013), and others, investigates common cross-linguistic characteristics of inventories. While languages indigenous to North America meet many of these, some properties are present that stand out as unusual. The 20 cross...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Editor’s Note by Daniel Siddiqi
• Part I Common Phenomena in North American Languages
• Part II Selected Language Families and Issues in the Historical Linguistics of North America
• Languages Index
• Subject Index