I will upload all my papers to non-profit pages to avoid third-party monetization of publicly funded scientific work. Thanks for your interest in my research.
This dissertation analyzes Basque diachronic phonology within a phonetically informed approach to... more This dissertation analyzes Basque diachronic phonology within a phonetically informed approach to sound patterns and sound change as well as being grounded in cross-linguistic typological tendencies and incorporates results from laboratory phonology. Linguistic contact is also taken into account. This approach not only calls for the inclusion of phonetic explanations for the historical processes of Basque, it also aims to find typological parallels in genetically unrelated languages, in order to shed light on the processes under analysis. The general hypothesis is that typologically common sound changes and sound patterns are precisely those with well understood phonetic origins (Blevins 2004). In short, typological parallels and phonetic bases provide a deeper understanding of Basque historical phonology and illuminate the important contributions isolates can make to theories of sound change.
Conservative Basque dialects distinguish apical and laminal alveolar sibilants in the fricative a... more Conservative Basque dialects distinguish apical and laminal alveolar sibilants in the fricative and affricate series. This paper analyses the changes this system was undergoing in the Central Basque variety of San Sebastián in the 18th century: (1) the “Western merger”: neutralisation of the laminal and apical fricative sibilants in favour of the latter and the neutralisation of the laminal and apical alveolar affricates in favour of the former, which started in Western Basque and spread to some Central varieties, and (2) the “Central merger”, a more recent development, limited to some central dialects, where both fricative and affricate alveolar sibilants are realised as laminals. A generalised linear mixed-effects model was fitted to the data extracted from an early-18th-century manuscript which shows evidence of both patterns of merger. We propose that sibilant mergers were still in progress in the variety and time period under study and that they are interrelated processes. The ...
This paper aims to respond to an etymology of the Basque word for 'swallow' first propose... more This paper aims to respond to an etymology of the Basque word for 'swallow' first proposed by Michelena (1977), later related to Celtic by McCone (2005) and then further developed by Stifter (2010). Being aware of the need for careful attention to phonological detail in linguistic reconstruction, and profiting from the latest developments in the study of the syllableand root-structure of Proto-Basque, we aim to propose a more accurate etymology for the enara / elai 'swallow' doublet as well as to give an account of its general dialectal distribution. In order to do so, we prefer to rely on the phonological context inferred from attested dialectal variants rather than on hypothetical reconstructions. In addition, the potential relation between the Basque and Common Celtic words for 'swallow' is taken into account and proposals made by previous scholars are reviewed.
Final obstruent devoicing is common in the world’s languages and constitutes a clear case of parallel phonological evolution. Final obstruent voicing, in contrast, is claimed to be rare or nonexistent. Two distinct theoretical approaches crystalize around obstruent voicing patterns. Traditional markedness accounts view these sound patterns as consequences of universal markedness constraints prohibiting voicing, or favoring voicelessness, in final position, and predict that final obstruent voicing does not exist. In contrast, phonetic-historical accounts explain skewed patterns of voicing in terms of common phonetically based devoicing tendencies, allowing for rare cases of final obstruent voicing under special conditions. In this article, phonetic and phonological evidence is offered for final obstruent voicing in Lakota, an indigenous Siouan language of the Great Plains of North America. In Lakota, oral stops /p/, /t/, and /k/ are regularly pronounced as [b], [l], and [ɡ] in word- and syllable-final position when phrase-final devoicing and preobstruent devoicing do not occur.
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2020
Paper preprint here: https://osf.io/79ayb/
This paper presents an acoustic analysis of Mixean Lo... more Paper preprint here: https://osf.io/79ayb/
This paper presents an acoustic analysis of Mixean Low Navarrese, an endangered variety of Basque. The manuscript includes an overview of previous acoustic studies performed on different Basque varieties, in order to synthesize the sparse acoustic descriptions of the language that are available. This synthesis serves as a basis for the acoustic analysis performed in the current study, in which we replicate the various acoustic analyses given in previous studies in a single, cohesive general acoustic description of Mixean Basque. The analyses include formant and duration measurements for the six-vowel system, voice onset time measurements for the three-way stop system, spectral center of gravity for the sibilants, and number of lingual contacts in the alveolar rhotic tap and trill. Important findings include: a centralized realization ([ʉ]) of the high front rounded vowel usually described as /y/; a data-driven confirmation of the three-way laryngeal opposition in the stop system; evidence in support of an alveolo-palatal to apical sibilant merger; and the discovery of a possible incipient merger of rhotics. These results show how using experimental acoustic methods to study under-represented linguistic varieties can result in revelations of sound patterns otherwise undescribed in more commonly studied varieties of the same language.
In Basque, there is evidence, especially in early loans from Latin, that a sequence #DV(R)T… where D is a voiced stop and T is a voiceless (aspirated) stop was optionally produced with devoicing of the first of these stops. An additional particularity of this sound pattern is that the devoiced word-initial stop typically surfaces with aspiration, while the previously aspirated stop loses it: #DV(R)T(h)… > #T(h)V(R)T… This typologically uncommon sound pattern has been described as assimilation of voicelessness in the literature, or spread of [-voiced]. I propose that this sound pattern is triggered by aspiration, not voicelessness, and that it is a case of metathesis, not assimilation. Under the proposed analysis, aspiration of the second stop in the word is reanalysed as originating in the first stop, an instance of perceptual metathesis. This approach accounts for the distribution of aspirated stops before and after the optional change, and the failure of post-sibilant stops to trigger. This account also has implications for the chronology of aspiration-loss in Western dialects: at the time the earliest Latin loans were borrowed, all Basque dialects still maintained a historical series of aspirated stops. Only later, after this process of optional metathesis, did the Western dialects lose *h and stop aspiration.
Modern eastern Basque dialects have several conservative features, including the maintenance of historical /h/, which is lost in other dialects. Zuberoan, the easternmost dialect of Basque still spoken today, shows both this /h/ as well as a phonetically nasalized segment [h̃] which is a reflex of intervocalic *n. In this paper I argue that these two segments contrast in Zuberoan. Evidence for the contrast comes from both a newly described process of assimilation of /h/ to /h̃/ in nasal environments which then serves as a basis of the analogical extension of the nasalized aspirate in a context where it cannot be phonologically derived, and from neighboring Mixean Low Navarrese where the nasalized [h̃] has no other obvious source. Since a contrast between oral and nasalized aspirates is rare crosslinguistically, the Zuberoan and Mixean sound patterns discussed here should be of interest to typologists and phonologists alike.
The apparent loss of initial obstruents in Basque borrowings from Romance (e.g. laru ≪ Lat. claru ) is striking. While Proto-Basque is generally reconstructed as lacking initial clusters, the expected repair in loans, based on typology, phonology and phonetics, is copy-vowel epenthesis, not obstruent loss. Indeed, there is evidence for a vowel-copy process in Basque in other loans with obstruent–sonorant clusters (e.g. gurutze ≪ Lat. cruce ). We suggest that initial obstruent loss before /l/ but not /r/ is related to Romance developments. In the Romance varieties in contact with Basque, /fl pl bl kl gl/ all show evidence of neutralisation to /ʎ/ word-initially. We hypothesise that obstruent loss in words like Basque laru reflects influence from local Romance languages at a time when Basque lacked /ʎ/. In contrast, vowel copy conforming to Basque syllable structure was the norm in Romance loanwords with clusters not affected by this process.
All modern Basque dialects have at least 5 contrastive vowels /i, e, a, o, u/. One Basque dialect, Zuberoan, has developed a contrastive sixth vowel, the front rounded high vowel /y/. This development is arguably due to sustained contact with neighboring Gallo-Romance languages. This paper supports empirically the historical development of the /u/ vs. /y/ contrast and provides a detailed analysis of the contexts that inhibited the /u/ > /y/ sound change. Fronting was inhibited when the vowel was followed by an apical sibilant, a tap /ɾ/ or an rT cluster (where r is a rhotic, and T an alveolar obstruent), arguably due to co-articulatory effects. Fronting occurred when /s̻/, /r/ or non-coronal rhotic-obstruent clusters followed /u/. Zuberoan /u/-fronting illustrates the importance of language contact and phonetics in the phonological analysis of historical developments.
Contrastive vowel nasalization is usually a consequence of the reinterpretation of the phonetic n... more Contrastive vowel nasalization is usually a consequence of the reinterpretation of the phonetic nasalization of a vowel due to coarticulation with an adjacent nasal consonant as originating in the vowel itself. Basque developed contrastive vowel nasalization after the loss of the nasalized laryngeal /ɦ̃/ (from older intervocalic *n). This loss did not occur under the same circumstances in all dialects, and thus yielded different distributions of contrastive nasalization. This paper discusses the development of two different patterns of contrastive vowel nasalization, namely those of Zuberoan and Roncalese dialects. While modern Zuberoan shows contrastive vowel nasalization only in the last syllable, the now extinct Roncalese dialect had phonologically nasalized vowels in any syllable of the word. In addition, these two dialects possessed different nasalized vowel inventories. Other Basque dialects with attested contrastive vowel nasalization, such as Old Bizkaian, are discussed as well. Although the presence of contrastive vowel nasalization in Basque is known in the literature (see Hualde, 1993, and Michelena, 1977/2011, for Zuberoan; and Michelena, 1954/2011, for Roncalese), this paper presents new analyses of vowel nasalization of two neighboring dialects of Basque, Zuberoan and Roncalese.
Egurtzegi, A., 2013, “Phonetics and Phonology”, in Mikel Martinez-Areta (ed.), Basque and Proto-Basque: Language-Internal and Typological Approaches to Linguistic Reconstruction [Mikroglottika 5], Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 119-172., 2013
Fifty years after its original release, Fonética Histórica Vasca continues to be the main referen... more Fifty years after its original release, Fonética Histórica Vasca continues to be the main reference insofar as Basque historical phonology is concerned. Although the seminal work of Michelena is, undoubtedly, the most significant milestone in the history of Basque diachronical phonology (maybe even within Basque diachrony itself), an update of the latest research postdating this work represents indeed an interesting endeavor. There are, however, different ways to undertake such an investment of time and effort. In this work, I have chosen to go beyond a simple compilation of the articles on Basque historical phonology written in the last fifty years, by producing a new survey. Thus, this chapter is a summary of the most significant work on the history of the Basque language, but it also introduces comments and discussion on it.
In E. Blasco, P. Francalacci, A. Nocentini & G. Tanda (eds.), Iberia e Sardegna. Legami linguistici, archeologici e genetici dal Mesolitico all’Età del Bronzo, Firenze: Le Monnier Università, 151-169., 2013
/h/ has historically been a problematic segment within the field of the Basque linguistics. It ha... more /h/ has historically been a problematic segment within the field of the Basque linguistics. It has been deprived of its phonemical status and even completely obviated more than once both in phonology and in historical linguistics. This work aims to justify the etymological status of the Basque aspiration by arguing its diverse historical origins and grounding each of the reconstructed processes on phonetically driven explanations as well as typological parallels. It also wants to justify the different modern realizations of the aspiration by linking them to the processes they resulted from – as well as the segments they derived from – and group them according to their context within the word boundaries. Along the same lines, an analysis of the speech of several informants of the Souletin dialect has been conducted, from which different tendencies have been inferred regarding the production of the aspiration in relation to its position. Last, evidence on the relocation –alongside the dissimilation– of these segments as a consequence of innocent errors biased by the phonotactic structure of the language has also been resented.
Keywords: aspiration, voice, rhinoglottophilia, metathesis, structure preservation.
When aiming to specify the relative chronology of the dialects of a language, it is of utmost imp... more When aiming to specify the relative chronology of the dialects of a language, it is of utmost importance to establish the relative chronology of the phonological processes the different dialects go through. Generally, this goal is pursued through segmental processes, whose rule orderings may be straightforwardly obtained. However, the goal can also be reached by finding the diachronical links between suprasegmental processes, ordering them with respect to segmental developments.
Very different accentual patterns may be found in the modern Basque dialects. This paper proposes a historical reconstruction of the different kinds of accentuation, grounding it in phonetic and historical evidence. Previous proposals regarding Old Basque stress have been taken into account in the development of this new analysis (Martinet 1955, Mitxelena 1958, 1972, 1977,Hualde 1995, 2003, 2007, 2012). Starting from a hypothesized Proto-Basque accentual system, we suggest a relative chronology for the stress-patterns found in the modern Basque dialects.
Key-words: Stress, pitch-accent, accentogenesis, relative chronology.
Egurtzegi, A., 2011, “Euskal metatesiak: abiaburua haien ikerketarako”, International Journal of Basque Linguistics and Philology [ASJU] 45, 1-79., 2011
The typological classification of metathesis, which is usually best understood as any reordering ... more The typological classification of metathesis, which is usually best understood as any reordering of segments or features within the phonological string, has experimented a great step forward in terms of analysis and understanding of the phenomenon as a consequence of the work of Blevins & Garrett (1998, 2004). Following their model, I have analyzed the different metathesis processes found historically within the Basque language and identified the underlying motivation, which is phonetic in nature. The main hypothesis is that metathesis is a phonetically natural process that can be analyzed following the same assumptions made for any other phonological change.
I will distinguish two kinds of metathesis processes, the first involves a single segment being relocated in the phonological string whereas the second interchanges a pair of (different) segments. The former can only involve features bearing elongated phonetic cues (Ohala 1981), and the latter is a nonlocal two-segment transposition involving restricted pairs of vowel or consonants that are similarly produced to some extent, and that are usually located in the same position of two adjacent syllables, i.e. two vowels in the nucleus or two consonants either in onset or coda position.
This work adds new evidence taken from Basque to further develop the analysis of metathesis as a phonetically natural process that is produced by phonetic reasons, based on the common properties of any output driven process (Ohala 1981, 1993), along with articulatory reasons such as motor planning errors (Garrett & Johnson).
I will upload all my papers to non-profit pages to avoid third-party monetization of publicly funded scientific work. Thanks for your interest in my research.
This dissertation analyzes Basque diachronic phonology within a phonetically informed approach to... more This dissertation analyzes Basque diachronic phonology within a phonetically informed approach to sound patterns and sound change as well as being grounded in cross-linguistic typological tendencies and incorporates results from laboratory phonology. Linguistic contact is also taken into account. This approach not only calls for the inclusion of phonetic explanations for the historical processes of Basque, it also aims to find typological parallels in genetically unrelated languages, in order to shed light on the processes under analysis. The general hypothesis is that typologically common sound changes and sound patterns are precisely those with well understood phonetic origins (Blevins 2004). In short, typological parallels and phonetic bases provide a deeper understanding of Basque historical phonology and illuminate the important contributions isolates can make to theories of sound change.
Conservative Basque dialects distinguish apical and laminal alveolar sibilants in the fricative a... more Conservative Basque dialects distinguish apical and laminal alveolar sibilants in the fricative and affricate series. This paper analyses the changes this system was undergoing in the Central Basque variety of San Sebastián in the 18th century: (1) the “Western merger”: neutralisation of the laminal and apical fricative sibilants in favour of the latter and the neutralisation of the laminal and apical alveolar affricates in favour of the former, which started in Western Basque and spread to some Central varieties, and (2) the “Central merger”, a more recent development, limited to some central dialects, where both fricative and affricate alveolar sibilants are realised as laminals. A generalised linear mixed-effects model was fitted to the data extracted from an early-18th-century manuscript which shows evidence of both patterns of merger. We propose that sibilant mergers were still in progress in the variety and time period under study and that they are interrelated processes. The ...
This paper aims to respond to an etymology of the Basque word for 'swallow' first propose... more This paper aims to respond to an etymology of the Basque word for 'swallow' first proposed by Michelena (1977), later related to Celtic by McCone (2005) and then further developed by Stifter (2010). Being aware of the need for careful attention to phonological detail in linguistic reconstruction, and profiting from the latest developments in the study of the syllableand root-structure of Proto-Basque, we aim to propose a more accurate etymology for the enara / elai 'swallow' doublet as well as to give an account of its general dialectal distribution. In order to do so, we prefer to rely on the phonological context inferred from attested dialectal variants rather than on hypothetical reconstructions. In addition, the potential relation between the Basque and Common Celtic words for 'swallow' is taken into account and proposals made by previous scholars are reviewed.
Final obstruent devoicing is common in the world’s languages and constitutes a clear case of parallel phonological evolution. Final obstruent voicing, in contrast, is claimed to be rare or nonexistent. Two distinct theoretical approaches crystalize around obstruent voicing patterns. Traditional markedness accounts view these sound patterns as consequences of universal markedness constraints prohibiting voicing, or favoring voicelessness, in final position, and predict that final obstruent voicing does not exist. In contrast, phonetic-historical accounts explain skewed patterns of voicing in terms of common phonetically based devoicing tendencies, allowing for rare cases of final obstruent voicing under special conditions. In this article, phonetic and phonological evidence is offered for final obstruent voicing in Lakota, an indigenous Siouan language of the Great Plains of North America. In Lakota, oral stops /p/, /t/, and /k/ are regularly pronounced as [b], [l], and [ɡ] in word- and syllable-final position when phrase-final devoicing and preobstruent devoicing do not occur.
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2020
Paper preprint here: https://osf.io/79ayb/
This paper presents an acoustic analysis of Mixean Lo... more Paper preprint here: https://osf.io/79ayb/
This paper presents an acoustic analysis of Mixean Low Navarrese, an endangered variety of Basque. The manuscript includes an overview of previous acoustic studies performed on different Basque varieties, in order to synthesize the sparse acoustic descriptions of the language that are available. This synthesis serves as a basis for the acoustic analysis performed in the current study, in which we replicate the various acoustic analyses given in previous studies in a single, cohesive general acoustic description of Mixean Basque. The analyses include formant and duration measurements for the six-vowel system, voice onset time measurements for the three-way stop system, spectral center of gravity for the sibilants, and number of lingual contacts in the alveolar rhotic tap and trill. Important findings include: a centralized realization ([ʉ]) of the high front rounded vowel usually described as /y/; a data-driven confirmation of the three-way laryngeal opposition in the stop system; evidence in support of an alveolo-palatal to apical sibilant merger; and the discovery of a possible incipient merger of rhotics. These results show how using experimental acoustic methods to study under-represented linguistic varieties can result in revelations of sound patterns otherwise undescribed in more commonly studied varieties of the same language.
In Basque, there is evidence, especially in early loans from Latin, that a sequence #DV(R)T… where D is a voiced stop and T is a voiceless (aspirated) stop was optionally produced with devoicing of the first of these stops. An additional particularity of this sound pattern is that the devoiced word-initial stop typically surfaces with aspiration, while the previously aspirated stop loses it: #DV(R)T(h)… > #T(h)V(R)T… This typologically uncommon sound pattern has been described as assimilation of voicelessness in the literature, or spread of [-voiced]. I propose that this sound pattern is triggered by aspiration, not voicelessness, and that it is a case of metathesis, not assimilation. Under the proposed analysis, aspiration of the second stop in the word is reanalysed as originating in the first stop, an instance of perceptual metathesis. This approach accounts for the distribution of aspirated stops before and after the optional change, and the failure of post-sibilant stops to trigger. This account also has implications for the chronology of aspiration-loss in Western dialects: at the time the earliest Latin loans were borrowed, all Basque dialects still maintained a historical series of aspirated stops. Only later, after this process of optional metathesis, did the Western dialects lose *h and stop aspiration.
Modern eastern Basque dialects have several conservative features, including the maintenance of historical /h/, which is lost in other dialects. Zuberoan, the easternmost dialect of Basque still spoken today, shows both this /h/ as well as a phonetically nasalized segment [h̃] which is a reflex of intervocalic *n. In this paper I argue that these two segments contrast in Zuberoan. Evidence for the contrast comes from both a newly described process of assimilation of /h/ to /h̃/ in nasal environments which then serves as a basis of the analogical extension of the nasalized aspirate in a context where it cannot be phonologically derived, and from neighboring Mixean Low Navarrese where the nasalized [h̃] has no other obvious source. Since a contrast between oral and nasalized aspirates is rare crosslinguistically, the Zuberoan and Mixean sound patterns discussed here should be of interest to typologists and phonologists alike.
The apparent loss of initial obstruents in Basque borrowings from Romance (e.g. laru ≪ Lat. claru ) is striking. While Proto-Basque is generally reconstructed as lacking initial clusters, the expected repair in loans, based on typology, phonology and phonetics, is copy-vowel epenthesis, not obstruent loss. Indeed, there is evidence for a vowel-copy process in Basque in other loans with obstruent–sonorant clusters (e.g. gurutze ≪ Lat. cruce ). We suggest that initial obstruent loss before /l/ but not /r/ is related to Romance developments. In the Romance varieties in contact with Basque, /fl pl bl kl gl/ all show evidence of neutralisation to /ʎ/ word-initially. We hypothesise that obstruent loss in words like Basque laru reflects influence from local Romance languages at a time when Basque lacked /ʎ/. In contrast, vowel copy conforming to Basque syllable structure was the norm in Romance loanwords with clusters not affected by this process.
All modern Basque dialects have at least 5 contrastive vowels /i, e, a, o, u/. One Basque dialect, Zuberoan, has developed a contrastive sixth vowel, the front rounded high vowel /y/. This development is arguably due to sustained contact with neighboring Gallo-Romance languages. This paper supports empirically the historical development of the /u/ vs. /y/ contrast and provides a detailed analysis of the contexts that inhibited the /u/ > /y/ sound change. Fronting was inhibited when the vowel was followed by an apical sibilant, a tap /ɾ/ or an rT cluster (where r is a rhotic, and T an alveolar obstruent), arguably due to co-articulatory effects. Fronting occurred when /s̻/, /r/ or non-coronal rhotic-obstruent clusters followed /u/. Zuberoan /u/-fronting illustrates the importance of language contact and phonetics in the phonological analysis of historical developments.
Contrastive vowel nasalization is usually a consequence of the reinterpretation of the phonetic n... more Contrastive vowel nasalization is usually a consequence of the reinterpretation of the phonetic nasalization of a vowel due to coarticulation with an adjacent nasal consonant as originating in the vowel itself. Basque developed contrastive vowel nasalization after the loss of the nasalized laryngeal /ɦ̃/ (from older intervocalic *n). This loss did not occur under the same circumstances in all dialects, and thus yielded different distributions of contrastive nasalization. This paper discusses the development of two different patterns of contrastive vowel nasalization, namely those of Zuberoan and Roncalese dialects. While modern Zuberoan shows contrastive vowel nasalization only in the last syllable, the now extinct Roncalese dialect had phonologically nasalized vowels in any syllable of the word. In addition, these two dialects possessed different nasalized vowel inventories. Other Basque dialects with attested contrastive vowel nasalization, such as Old Bizkaian, are discussed as well. Although the presence of contrastive vowel nasalization in Basque is known in the literature (see Hualde, 1993, and Michelena, 1977/2011, for Zuberoan; and Michelena, 1954/2011, for Roncalese), this paper presents new analyses of vowel nasalization of two neighboring dialects of Basque, Zuberoan and Roncalese.
Egurtzegi, A., 2013, “Phonetics and Phonology”, in Mikel Martinez-Areta (ed.), Basque and Proto-Basque: Language-Internal and Typological Approaches to Linguistic Reconstruction [Mikroglottika 5], Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 119-172., 2013
Fifty years after its original release, Fonética Histórica Vasca continues to be the main referen... more Fifty years after its original release, Fonética Histórica Vasca continues to be the main reference insofar as Basque historical phonology is concerned. Although the seminal work of Michelena is, undoubtedly, the most significant milestone in the history of Basque diachronical phonology (maybe even within Basque diachrony itself), an update of the latest research postdating this work represents indeed an interesting endeavor. There are, however, different ways to undertake such an investment of time and effort. In this work, I have chosen to go beyond a simple compilation of the articles on Basque historical phonology written in the last fifty years, by producing a new survey. Thus, this chapter is a summary of the most significant work on the history of the Basque language, but it also introduces comments and discussion on it.
In E. Blasco, P. Francalacci, A. Nocentini & G. Tanda (eds.), Iberia e Sardegna. Legami linguistici, archeologici e genetici dal Mesolitico all’Età del Bronzo, Firenze: Le Monnier Università, 151-169., 2013
/h/ has historically been a problematic segment within the field of the Basque linguistics. It ha... more /h/ has historically been a problematic segment within the field of the Basque linguistics. It has been deprived of its phonemical status and even completely obviated more than once both in phonology and in historical linguistics. This work aims to justify the etymological status of the Basque aspiration by arguing its diverse historical origins and grounding each of the reconstructed processes on phonetically driven explanations as well as typological parallels. It also wants to justify the different modern realizations of the aspiration by linking them to the processes they resulted from – as well as the segments they derived from – and group them according to their context within the word boundaries. Along the same lines, an analysis of the speech of several informants of the Souletin dialect has been conducted, from which different tendencies have been inferred regarding the production of the aspiration in relation to its position. Last, evidence on the relocation –alongside the dissimilation– of these segments as a consequence of innocent errors biased by the phonotactic structure of the language has also been resented.
Keywords: aspiration, voice, rhinoglottophilia, metathesis, structure preservation.
When aiming to specify the relative chronology of the dialects of a language, it is of utmost imp... more When aiming to specify the relative chronology of the dialects of a language, it is of utmost importance to establish the relative chronology of the phonological processes the different dialects go through. Generally, this goal is pursued through segmental processes, whose rule orderings may be straightforwardly obtained. However, the goal can also be reached by finding the diachronical links between suprasegmental processes, ordering them with respect to segmental developments.
Very different accentual patterns may be found in the modern Basque dialects. This paper proposes a historical reconstruction of the different kinds of accentuation, grounding it in phonetic and historical evidence. Previous proposals regarding Old Basque stress have been taken into account in the development of this new analysis (Martinet 1955, Mitxelena 1958, 1972, 1977,Hualde 1995, 2003, 2007, 2012). Starting from a hypothesized Proto-Basque accentual system, we suggest a relative chronology for the stress-patterns found in the modern Basque dialects.
Key-words: Stress, pitch-accent, accentogenesis, relative chronology.
Egurtzegi, A., 2011, “Euskal metatesiak: abiaburua haien ikerketarako”, International Journal of Basque Linguistics and Philology [ASJU] 45, 1-79., 2011
The typological classification of metathesis, which is usually best understood as any reordering ... more The typological classification of metathesis, which is usually best understood as any reordering of segments or features within the phonological string, has experimented a great step forward in terms of analysis and understanding of the phenomenon as a consequence of the work of Blevins & Garrett (1998, 2004). Following their model, I have analyzed the different metathesis processes found historically within the Basque language and identified the underlying motivation, which is phonetic in nature. The main hypothesis is that metathesis is a phonetically natural process that can be analyzed following the same assumptions made for any other phonological change.
I will distinguish two kinds of metathesis processes, the first involves a single segment being relocated in the phonological string whereas the second interchanges a pair of (different) segments. The former can only involve features bearing elongated phonetic cues (Ohala 1981), and the latter is a nonlocal two-segment transposition involving restricted pairs of vowel or consonants that are similarly produced to some extent, and that are usually located in the same position of two adjacent syllables, i.e. two vowels in the nucleus or two consonants either in onset or coda position.
This work adds new evidence taken from Basque to further develop the analysis of metathesis as a phonetically natural process that is produced by phonetic reasons, based on the common properties of any output driven process (Ohala 1981, 1993), along with articulatory reasons such as motor planning errors (Garrett & Johnson).
Basque has not always had a voiceless labiodental fricative or /f/, and there is no bascologist t... more Basque has not always had a voiceless labiodental fricative or /f/, and there is no bascologist that reconstructs *f in Proto-Basque. Nevertheless, this segment is present since the oldest Basque texts. In this paper, we present an approximation to this phoneme’s modern distribution and its historical development. To this end, we start from the historical results, as attested in the different Basque dialects, in order to describe the development of this phoneme within Basque as well as its introduction via loanwords. We observe that there is no easy unified account for all the instances of /f/ and their results after processes of loanword adaptation. First, we aknowledge that a precise study of the history of particular words and their etymologies, as well as more precise interpretations of the phonological processes involved in them might be necessary, and we even propose a few. Last, we present evidence for the reconstruction of the older phonetic status of both /f/ (as *[ɸ]) and intervocalic /h/ (as *[h], and not current [ɦ]).
Euskarak ez du betidanik /f/ edo igurzkari ezpainhorzkari ahoskabea izan, eta ez dago euskalaririk *f aitzineuskararako berreraikitzen duenik. Hala ere, euskal testu zaharrenetatik agertzen da segmentu hau. Artikulu honetan, fonema horren egungo distribuzioaren eta berorren garapen historikoaren inguruko hurbilpen bat aurkezten dugu. Horretarako, euskalki ezberdinetan agertzen diren emaitza historikoetatik abiatuko gara, fonema horren euskara barneko sorrera eta maileguetatiko sarrera zehazteko asmoz. Hala bada, ikusi dugu ezen /f/ guztiak nahiz haien egokitzapenak ezin direla modu bateratuan azaldu, bai eta zenbait hitzen etimologiei zehaztapen batzuk egin behar zaizkiela ere. Horretarako, lehenik eta behin, hitzen eta haien historiaren azterketa zehatza eta emaitzekiko koherenteagoak diren bilakabide fonologikoen interpretazio xeheagoak egin beharraz jabetu eta, lan honen neurrian, zenbait proposatu ditugu. Azkenik, bai /f/-ren (*[ɸ]) eta baita bokalarteko /h/-ren (*[h], eta ez gaur egungo [ɦ]) izaera fonetiko zaharra berreraikitzeko ebidentzia berria ekarri dugu honakoan.
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I will upload all my papers to non-profit pages to avoid third-party monetization of publicly funded scientific work. Thanks for your interest in my research.
Final obstruent devoicing is common in the world’s languages and constitutes a clear case of parallel phonological evolution. Final obstruent voicing, in contrast, is claimed to be rare or nonexistent. Two distinct theoretical approaches crystalize around obstruent voicing patterns. Traditional markedness accounts view these sound patterns as consequences of universal markedness constraints prohibiting voicing, or favoring voicelessness, in final position, and predict that final obstruent voicing does not exist. In contrast, phonetic-historical accounts explain skewed patterns of voicing in terms of common phonetically based devoicing tendencies, allowing for rare cases of final obstruent voicing under special conditions. In this article, phonetic and phonological evidence is offered for final obstruent voicing in Lakota, an indigenous Siouan language of the Great Plains of North America. In Lakota, oral stops /p/, /t/, and /k/ are regularly pronounced as [b], [l], and [ɡ] in word- and syllable-final position when phrase-final devoicing and preobstruent devoicing do not occur.
This paper presents an acoustic analysis of Mixean Low Navarrese, an endangered variety of Basque. The manuscript includes an overview of previous acoustic studies performed on different Basque varieties, in order to synthesize the sparse acoustic descriptions of the language that are available. This synthesis serves as a basis for the acoustic analysis performed in the current study, in which we replicate the various acoustic analyses given in previous studies in a single, cohesive general acoustic description of Mixean Basque. The analyses include formant and duration measurements for the six-vowel system, voice onset time measurements for the three-way stop system, spectral center of gravity for the sibilants, and number of lingual contacts in the alveolar rhotic tap and trill. Important findings include: a centralized realization ([ʉ]) of the high front rounded vowel usually described as /y/; a data-driven confirmation of the three-way laryngeal opposition in the stop system; evidence in support of an alveolo-palatal to apical sibilant merger; and the discovery of a possible incipient merger of rhotics. These results show how using experimental acoustic methods to study under-represented linguistic varieties can result in revelations of sound patterns otherwise undescribed in more commonly studied varieties of the same language.
In Basque, there is evidence, especially in early loans from Latin, that a sequence #DV(R)T… where D is a voiced stop and T is a voiceless (aspirated) stop was optionally produced with devoicing of the first of these stops. An additional particularity of this sound pattern is that the devoiced word-initial stop typically surfaces with aspiration, while the previously aspirated stop loses it: #DV(R)T(h)… > #T(h)V(R)T… This typologically uncommon sound pattern has been described as assimilation of voicelessness in the literature, or spread of [-voiced]. I propose that this sound pattern is triggered by aspiration, not voicelessness, and that it is a case of metathesis, not assimilation. Under the proposed analysis, aspiration of the second stop in the word is reanalysed as originating in the first stop, an instance of perceptual metathesis. This approach accounts for the distribution of aspirated stops before and after the optional change, and the failure of post-sibilant stops to trigger. This account also has implications for the chronology of aspiration-loss in Western dialects: at the time the earliest Latin loans were borrowed, all Basque dialects still maintained a historical series of aspirated stops. Only later, after this process of optional metathesis, did the Western dialects lose *h and stop aspiration.
Modern eastern Basque dialects have several conservative features, including the maintenance of historical /h/, which is lost in other dialects. Zuberoan, the easternmost dialect of Basque still spoken today, shows both this /h/ as well as a phonetically nasalized segment [h̃] which is a reflex of intervocalic *n. In this paper I argue that these two segments contrast in Zuberoan. Evidence for the contrast comes from both a newly described process of assimilation of /h/ to /h̃/ in nasal environments which then serves as a basis of the analogical extension of the nasalized aspirate in a context where it cannot be phonologically derived, and from neighboring Mixean Low Navarrese where the nasalized [h̃] has no other obvious source. Since a contrast between oral and nasalized aspirates is rare crosslinguistically, the Zuberoan and Mixean sound patterns discussed here should be of interest to typologists and phonologists alike.
The apparent loss of initial obstruents in Basque borrowings from Romance (e.g. laru ≪ Lat. claru ) is striking. While Proto-Basque is generally reconstructed as lacking initial clusters, the expected repair in loans, based on typology, phonology and phonetics, is copy-vowel epenthesis, not obstruent loss. Indeed, there is evidence for a vowel-copy process in Basque in other loans with obstruent–sonorant clusters (e.g. gurutze ≪ Lat. cruce ). We suggest that initial obstruent loss before /l/ but not /r/ is related to Romance developments. In the Romance varieties in contact with Basque, /fl pl bl kl gl/ all show evidence of neutralisation to /ʎ/ word-initially. We hypothesise that obstruent loss in words like Basque laru reflects influence from local Romance languages at a time when Basque lacked /ʎ/. In contrast, vowel copy conforming to Basque syllable structure was the norm in Romance loanwords with clusters not affected by this process.
All modern Basque dialects have at least 5 contrastive vowels /i, e, a, o, u/. One Basque dialect, Zuberoan, has developed a contrastive sixth vowel, the front rounded high vowel /y/. This development is arguably due to sustained contact with neighboring Gallo-Romance languages. This paper supports empirically the historical development of the /u/ vs. /y/ contrast and provides a detailed analysis of the contexts that inhibited the /u/ > /y/ sound change. Fronting was inhibited when the vowel was followed by an apical sibilant, a tap /ɾ/ or an rT cluster (where r is a rhotic, and T an alveolar obstruent), arguably due to co-articulatory effects. Fronting occurred when /s̻/, /r/ or non-coronal rhotic-obstruent clusters followed /u/. Zuberoan /u/-fronting illustrates the importance of language contact and phonetics in the phonological analysis of historical developments.
of a vowel due to coarticulation with an adjacent nasal consonant as originating in the vowel itself. Basque
developed contrastive vowel nasalization after the loss of the nasalized laryngeal /ɦ̃/ (from older intervocalic *n).
This loss did not occur under the same circumstances in all dialects, and thus yielded different distributions of contrastive
nasalization. This paper discusses the development of two different patterns of contrastive vowel nasalization,
namely those of Zuberoan and Roncalese dialects.
While modern Zuberoan shows contrastive vowel nasalization only in the last syllable, the now extinct Roncalese
dialect had phonologically nasalized vowels in any syllable of the word. In addition, these two dialects possessed
different nasalized vowel inventories. Other Basque dialects with attested contrastive vowel nasalization, such as
Old Bizkaian, are discussed as well.
Although the presence of contrastive vowel nasalization in Basque is known in the literature (see Hualde, 1993, and
Michelena, 1977/2011, for Zuberoan; and Michelena, 1954/2011, for Roncalese), this paper presents new analyses of
vowel nasalization of two neighboring dialects of Basque, Zuberoan and Roncalese.
Keywords: aspiration, voice, rhinoglottophilia, metathesis, structure preservation.
Very different accentual patterns may be found in the modern Basque dialects. This paper proposes a historical reconstruction of the different kinds of accentuation, grounding it in phonetic and historical evidence. Previous proposals regarding Old Basque stress have been taken into account in the development of this new analysis (Martinet 1955, Mitxelena 1958, 1972, 1977,Hualde 1995, 2003, 2007, 2012). Starting from a hypothesized Proto-Basque accentual system, we suggest a relative chronology for the stress-patterns found in the modern Basque dialects.
Key-words: Stress, pitch-accent, accentogenesis, relative chronology.
I will distinguish two kinds of metathesis processes, the first involves a single segment being relocated in the phonological string whereas the second interchanges a pair of (different) segments. The former can only involve features bearing elongated phonetic cues (Ohala 1981), and the latter is a nonlocal two-segment transposition involving restricted pairs of vowel or consonants that are similarly produced to some extent, and that are usually located in the same position of two adjacent syllables, i.e. two vowels in the nucleus or two consonants either in onset or coda position.
This work adds new evidence taken from Basque to further develop the analysis of metathesis as a phonetically natural process that is produced by phonetic reasons, based on the common properties of any output driven process (Ohala 1981, 1993), along with articulatory reasons such as motor planning errors (Garrett & Johnson).
I will upload all my papers to non-profit pages to avoid third-party monetization of publicly funded scientific work. Thanks for your interest in my research.
Final obstruent devoicing is common in the world’s languages and constitutes a clear case of parallel phonological evolution. Final obstruent voicing, in contrast, is claimed to be rare or nonexistent. Two distinct theoretical approaches crystalize around obstruent voicing patterns. Traditional markedness accounts view these sound patterns as consequences of universal markedness constraints prohibiting voicing, or favoring voicelessness, in final position, and predict that final obstruent voicing does not exist. In contrast, phonetic-historical accounts explain skewed patterns of voicing in terms of common phonetically based devoicing tendencies, allowing for rare cases of final obstruent voicing under special conditions. In this article, phonetic and phonological evidence is offered for final obstruent voicing in Lakota, an indigenous Siouan language of the Great Plains of North America. In Lakota, oral stops /p/, /t/, and /k/ are regularly pronounced as [b], [l], and [ɡ] in word- and syllable-final position when phrase-final devoicing and preobstruent devoicing do not occur.
This paper presents an acoustic analysis of Mixean Low Navarrese, an endangered variety of Basque. The manuscript includes an overview of previous acoustic studies performed on different Basque varieties, in order to synthesize the sparse acoustic descriptions of the language that are available. This synthesis serves as a basis for the acoustic analysis performed in the current study, in which we replicate the various acoustic analyses given in previous studies in a single, cohesive general acoustic description of Mixean Basque. The analyses include formant and duration measurements for the six-vowel system, voice onset time measurements for the three-way stop system, spectral center of gravity for the sibilants, and number of lingual contacts in the alveolar rhotic tap and trill. Important findings include: a centralized realization ([ʉ]) of the high front rounded vowel usually described as /y/; a data-driven confirmation of the three-way laryngeal opposition in the stop system; evidence in support of an alveolo-palatal to apical sibilant merger; and the discovery of a possible incipient merger of rhotics. These results show how using experimental acoustic methods to study under-represented linguistic varieties can result in revelations of sound patterns otherwise undescribed in more commonly studied varieties of the same language.
In Basque, there is evidence, especially in early loans from Latin, that a sequence #DV(R)T… where D is a voiced stop and T is a voiceless (aspirated) stop was optionally produced with devoicing of the first of these stops. An additional particularity of this sound pattern is that the devoiced word-initial stop typically surfaces with aspiration, while the previously aspirated stop loses it: #DV(R)T(h)… > #T(h)V(R)T… This typologically uncommon sound pattern has been described as assimilation of voicelessness in the literature, or spread of [-voiced]. I propose that this sound pattern is triggered by aspiration, not voicelessness, and that it is a case of metathesis, not assimilation. Under the proposed analysis, aspiration of the second stop in the word is reanalysed as originating in the first stop, an instance of perceptual metathesis. This approach accounts for the distribution of aspirated stops before and after the optional change, and the failure of post-sibilant stops to trigger. This account also has implications for the chronology of aspiration-loss in Western dialects: at the time the earliest Latin loans were borrowed, all Basque dialects still maintained a historical series of aspirated stops. Only later, after this process of optional metathesis, did the Western dialects lose *h and stop aspiration.
Modern eastern Basque dialects have several conservative features, including the maintenance of historical /h/, which is lost in other dialects. Zuberoan, the easternmost dialect of Basque still spoken today, shows both this /h/ as well as a phonetically nasalized segment [h̃] which is a reflex of intervocalic *n. In this paper I argue that these two segments contrast in Zuberoan. Evidence for the contrast comes from both a newly described process of assimilation of /h/ to /h̃/ in nasal environments which then serves as a basis of the analogical extension of the nasalized aspirate in a context where it cannot be phonologically derived, and from neighboring Mixean Low Navarrese where the nasalized [h̃] has no other obvious source. Since a contrast between oral and nasalized aspirates is rare crosslinguistically, the Zuberoan and Mixean sound patterns discussed here should be of interest to typologists and phonologists alike.
The apparent loss of initial obstruents in Basque borrowings from Romance (e.g. laru ≪ Lat. claru ) is striking. While Proto-Basque is generally reconstructed as lacking initial clusters, the expected repair in loans, based on typology, phonology and phonetics, is copy-vowel epenthesis, not obstruent loss. Indeed, there is evidence for a vowel-copy process in Basque in other loans with obstruent–sonorant clusters (e.g. gurutze ≪ Lat. cruce ). We suggest that initial obstruent loss before /l/ but not /r/ is related to Romance developments. In the Romance varieties in contact with Basque, /fl pl bl kl gl/ all show evidence of neutralisation to /ʎ/ word-initially. We hypothesise that obstruent loss in words like Basque laru reflects influence from local Romance languages at a time when Basque lacked /ʎ/. In contrast, vowel copy conforming to Basque syllable structure was the norm in Romance loanwords with clusters not affected by this process.
All modern Basque dialects have at least 5 contrastive vowels /i, e, a, o, u/. One Basque dialect, Zuberoan, has developed a contrastive sixth vowel, the front rounded high vowel /y/. This development is arguably due to sustained contact with neighboring Gallo-Romance languages. This paper supports empirically the historical development of the /u/ vs. /y/ contrast and provides a detailed analysis of the contexts that inhibited the /u/ > /y/ sound change. Fronting was inhibited when the vowel was followed by an apical sibilant, a tap /ɾ/ or an rT cluster (where r is a rhotic, and T an alveolar obstruent), arguably due to co-articulatory effects. Fronting occurred when /s̻/, /r/ or non-coronal rhotic-obstruent clusters followed /u/. Zuberoan /u/-fronting illustrates the importance of language contact and phonetics in the phonological analysis of historical developments.
of a vowel due to coarticulation with an adjacent nasal consonant as originating in the vowel itself. Basque
developed contrastive vowel nasalization after the loss of the nasalized laryngeal /ɦ̃/ (from older intervocalic *n).
This loss did not occur under the same circumstances in all dialects, and thus yielded different distributions of contrastive
nasalization. This paper discusses the development of two different patterns of contrastive vowel nasalization,
namely those of Zuberoan and Roncalese dialects.
While modern Zuberoan shows contrastive vowel nasalization only in the last syllable, the now extinct Roncalese
dialect had phonologically nasalized vowels in any syllable of the word. In addition, these two dialects possessed
different nasalized vowel inventories. Other Basque dialects with attested contrastive vowel nasalization, such as
Old Bizkaian, are discussed as well.
Although the presence of contrastive vowel nasalization in Basque is known in the literature (see Hualde, 1993, and
Michelena, 1977/2011, for Zuberoan; and Michelena, 1954/2011, for Roncalese), this paper presents new analyses of
vowel nasalization of two neighboring dialects of Basque, Zuberoan and Roncalese.
Keywords: aspiration, voice, rhinoglottophilia, metathesis, structure preservation.
Very different accentual patterns may be found in the modern Basque dialects. This paper proposes a historical reconstruction of the different kinds of accentuation, grounding it in phonetic and historical evidence. Previous proposals regarding Old Basque stress have been taken into account in the development of this new analysis (Martinet 1955, Mitxelena 1958, 1972, 1977,Hualde 1995, 2003, 2007, 2012). Starting from a hypothesized Proto-Basque accentual system, we suggest a relative chronology for the stress-patterns found in the modern Basque dialects.
Key-words: Stress, pitch-accent, accentogenesis, relative chronology.
I will distinguish two kinds of metathesis processes, the first involves a single segment being relocated in the phonological string whereas the second interchanges a pair of (different) segments. The former can only involve features bearing elongated phonetic cues (Ohala 1981), and the latter is a nonlocal two-segment transposition involving restricted pairs of vowel or consonants that are similarly produced to some extent, and that are usually located in the same position of two adjacent syllables, i.e. two vowels in the nucleus or two consonants either in onset or coda position.
This work adds new evidence taken from Basque to further develop the analysis of metathesis as a phonetically natural process that is produced by phonetic reasons, based on the common properties of any output driven process (Ohala 1981, 1993), along with articulatory reasons such as motor planning errors (Garrett & Johnson).
To this end, we start from the historical results, as attested in the different Basque dialects, in order to describe the development of this phoneme within Basque as well as its introduction via loanwords. We observe that there is no easy unified account for all the instances of /f/ and their results after processes of loanword adaptation. First, we aknowledge that a precise study of the history of particular words and their etymologies, as well as more precise interpretations of the phonological processes involved in them might be necessary, and we even propose a few. Last, we present evidence for the reconstruction of the older phonetic status of both /f/ (as *[ɸ]) and intervocalic /h/ (as *[h], and not current [ɦ]).
Euskarak ez du betidanik /f/ edo igurzkari ezpainhorzkari ahoskabea izan, eta ez dago euskalaririk *f aitzineuskararako berreraikitzen duenik. Hala ere, euskal testu zaharrenetatik agertzen da segmentu hau. Artikulu honetan, fonema horren egungo distribuzioaren eta berorren garapen historikoaren inguruko hurbilpen bat aurkezten dugu. Horretarako, euskalki ezberdinetan agertzen diren emaitza historikoetatik abiatuko gara, fonema horren euskara barneko sorrera eta maileguetatiko sarrera zehazteko asmoz. Hala bada, ikusi dugu ezen /f/ guztiak nahiz haien egokitzapenak ezin direla modu bateratuan azaldu, bai eta zenbait hitzen etimologiei zehaztapen batzuk egin behar zaizkiela ere. Horretarako, lehenik eta behin, hitzen eta haien historiaren azterketa zehatza eta emaitzekiko koherenteagoak diren bilakabide fonologikoen interpretazio xeheagoak egin beharraz jabetu eta, lan honen neurrian, zenbait proposatu ditugu. Azkenik, bai /f/-ren (*[ɸ]) eta baita bokalarteko /h/-ren (*[h], eta ez gaur egungo [ɦ]) izaera fonetiko zaharra berreraikitzeko ebidentzia berria ekarri dugu honakoan.