English 401: English Language in America - 50megszapotec.Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. University of Chicago Press. Croft, William. 1990. Typology and Universals. Cambridge

English 401 Course Packet

References

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Baker, C. L. 1995. English Syntax: Second Edition. MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Comrie, Bernard. 1989. Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. University of Chicago Press.

Croft, William. 1990. Typology and Universals. Cambridge University Press. Dryer, Matthew S. 1992. The Greenbergian Word Order Correlations. Language, Vol.

68, No. 1, pp. 81-138. available at http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0097-8507%28199203%2968%3A1%3C81%3ATGWOC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J

Hurford, James R. 1994. Grammar: A Student's Guide. Cambridge University Press. Labov, William, Paul Cohen, Clarence Robins, and John Lewis. 1968. A Study of the

Nonstandard English of Negro and Puerto Rican Speakers in New York City. Final Report, Cooperative Research Project No. 3288, United States Office of Education.

Maddieson, Ian. 1984. Patterns of Sounds. Cambridge University Press. Munro, Pamela and Felipe Lopez (with Olivia V. Méndez, Rodrigo Garcia and Michael

R. Galant). 1999. Dicyonaary X:te:e’n Di:i’zh Sah Sann Luu’c: San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec Dictionary. Diccionario Zapoteco de San Lucas Quiaviní. UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. Los Angeles.

O'Grady, William, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff and Janie Rees-Miller. 2001. Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction Fourth Edition. Bedford/St. Martin's. Boston.

Pinker, Steven. 1999. Words and Rules. Perennial. New York. Stewart, Thomas W. and Nathan Vaillette, eds. 2001. Language Files: Materials for an

Introduction to Language & Linguistics. Ohio State University Press. Ohio Williams, Joseph M. 2003. Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace. Longman. New

York.

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Appendix 1: Phonetic Charts

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Consonant Chart:

P L A C E S O F A R T I C U L A T I O N bilabial labio-

dentalinter-dental

alveolar alveo-palatal

palatal velar labio-velar

glottal

stops voiceless

voiced

p b

td

kg

affricates voiceless

voiced

tS dZ

fricatives voiceless

voiced

fv

θ D

s z

S Z

h

nasals (nasal stop)

m

n N

lateral liquid

l

(central) liquid

r

M A N N E R S O F A R T I C U L A T I O N

glides

j w

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Vowel Chart: Front Central Back

ij High I

uw U

ej Mid E

ow √ ç

Low Q

a A:

Tense Vowels: [ij, ej, uw, ow, A:, aj, aw, çj] Lax Vowels: [I, E, Q, , √, U, ç] Rounded Vowels: [uw, U, ow, ç] [çj] starts rounded and becomes unrounded. [aw] starts unrounded and becomes rounded Note that [j] has an articulation very similar to [ij] and [w] one very similar to [uw]. Thus, [aj] has an articulation that starts low, central and goes toward [ij] high front. [aw] starts low central and goes high back, becoming rounded.

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Appendix 2: Paper Topics

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General Paper Information

The main idea here is to take the information we have been learning in class and apply it to a language other than English.

The language discussed in the paper can be essentially any natural language: one that is your native language, one you have studied in school, or simply one you are interested in. If you are not a native speaker of the language, you are strongly encouraged to consult with one or more persons who are.

If you are a native speaker of some other language, you may rely on your own knowledge to do the paper, and indeed will probably be most rewarding if you do so. If you are not a native speaker of another language, feel free to consult native speakers, such as classmates, parents, friends. Depending on the paper topic, you may want to consult introductory language textbooks and/or a dictionary, but you shouldn't need any additional sources. Do the analysis yourself, don't just copy it out of a grammar on the language. (Introductory textbooks usually don't do these kinds of analyses so they can be ok to consult.) I don't feel that this paper requires much more than these sources, but do state where your information comes from and cite all published material you use.

For the paper you will write on one of the following aspects of the language: the phonetics/phonology of the language, the morphology or the syntax. Details of each of these, along with samples where available, are given below.

Other topics that explore another language (perhaps its history, semantics, acquisition, acoustic phonetics) are also possible though they require prior approval from me.

For EACH of these paper topics, you are required to give some background information on the language being discussed. The details of this are discussed here: Background Paragraphs. An example introduction is located here and is included in many sample papers.

Assignments must be typed up, though phonetic symbols may be written in by hand. You can also download a FREE IPA font to use in your paper.

Also, all papers must include a bibliography citing the works used in writing the paper. Obviously, if you rely only on your own native internal knowledge you will not need to cite other works.

When writing the paper, keep in mind who your audience is for this paper: me. In other words, I know what phonemes, morphemes, etc. are. You do not need to give me definitions of these terms. You will show me that you know what these terms mean by using them correctly in your analysis. Also, keep in mind that this is a technical writing assignment. Lots of flowery prose is not needed. Clear writing, clear layout, summary charts and lots of example are needed.

You can access the Grading Criteria for these topics here.

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http://www.sil.org/computing/fonts/encore-ipa.html


Paper Topics(You will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view all the sample papers (in .pdf form). Finally, these sample papers are guides, not Bibles. In particular, they may not be the best papers but those that cover languages less likely to be duplicated in class, though this may not be true for the Armenian.) The specific criteria for each paper can be found in the link immediately following the Topic Number.

• Topic 1: Phonetics/Phonology. An example phonetics paper on Khmer.

• Topic 2: Morhpology. An example morphology paper on Armenian is available.

• Topic 3: Syntax. An example paper on Khmer is available.

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http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html


Grading Criteria for Paper

The language project papers will be graded according to the following five criteria. Up to 4 points will be awarded for each criterion on the following scale: 4 Excellent Work, Accurate and Complete 3 Good Work, one or two small errors or omissions 2 Acceptable Work, but numerous errors/omissions or a major mistake. Lack of understanding. 1 Unaccpetable Work, Criterion is barely considerd. No evidence of understanding.0 Work/Section omitted, criterion not addressed. These points will be totaled and the letter grades will be assigned according to following scale: 20=A+, 19=A, 18=A-, 17=B+, 16=B, 15=B-, 14=C+, 13=C, 12=C-, 11=D+, 10=D, 9=D-, 8/Below=F.

1. Accuracy and Completeness of Data

o Information provided is accurate and complete for the language

o All information requested in the paper description is provided

2. Analysis

o Analysis is accurate and complete and does what is asked:

phonemes/allophones/minimal pairs

phonotactic analysis, combination of phonemes considered, generalizations made

morphemes identified and analyzed, properly labeled

syntactic heads identified, consistency with head-initial/head-final pattern observed

o exhibits command of concepts and terms

o uses terms appropriately and accurately and as necessary

3. Presentation of Data with Tables and Examples

o Glossing Done as appropriate/needed

o Summary tables provided as required/necessary

o Relevant Examples given to sufficiently support analysis

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4. Audience/Writing Style Appropriate, Technical Concise Prose NO Plastic Binder

o When writing the paper, keep in mind who your audience is for this paper: me. In other words, I know what phonemes, morphemes, etc. are. You do not need to give me definitions of these terms. You will show me that you know what these terms mean by using them correctly in your analysis. Also, keep in mind that this is a technical writing assignment. Lots of flowery prose is not needed. Clear writing, clear layout, summary charts and lots of example are needed.

5. Edited Written English

o Follows the conventions of formal written English

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Bacground Information for the Paper

These paragraphs will provide a little background on the language you will be investigating during the course.

• Give the name of the language. Tell which specific variety you will be documenting. For example, you will discuss Spanish as it spoken in Mexico, or Spain, or Puerto Rico, or Bolivia, etc. This is very important since there may be significant differences between the dialects. Be explicit about which you will be describing. You may note differences between dialects but be clear that this is what you are doing.

• Tell a little about your experience with the language: is it your native language, are you multilingual and this is one of the languages you grew up speaking, did you learn it in school (at what level and for how many years), is it a language your parents/relatives speak, but you do not, etc.

• Tell what sources you will be using: your own native knowledge, native knowledge of other speakers, such as friends, family members and classmates, or introductory instructional textbook.

• Use the Ethnologue and other sources which you cite to give a little background on the language such as countries where it is spoken, number of speakers and the language family which it belongs to.

An example introduction is included with most example papers.

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http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/


Topic 1: Phonetics

Always provide a phonetic transcription of all example words from the language that you include. If it is helpful to you, you may also give the words in their standard orthography (writing system). But, remember to ALWAYS include a phonetic transcription, set off in either brackets [ ] or slashes / /.

Always provide an English translation in single quotes ' ' of all example words. Thus, your examples may look something like this example from Cochabamba Quechua, giving the orthographic form, transcription and gloss:

Remember, we are interested in the actual sounds of the language and the way the language is pronounced. We are not interested in how the language is written. The writing system of the language may be a helpful guide to you in determining the sounds of the language, but keep in mind that there are frequently problems with writing systems that can lead you astray (because they leave out sounds, don't distinguish every sound, represent the same sounds in different ways, etc.), but luckily most aren't as bad as English spelling (except perhaps for French spelling). Keep your ears open for sounds not present in English.

For this topic, do the following three things, and answer any related questions.

1. Provide a table of the consonant phonemes (given as phonetic symbols) of the language. Arrange the symbols according to their places and manners of articulation as we did for the sounds of English. List only those manners and places which are found in the language. The language may not make use of the same distinctions that English does (and of course it may make distinctions English doesn't). Then, give at least one example word, with transcription and gloss, for each sound. It is often helpful to give examples of the sound in different positions in the word: beginning, middle, end (though not all sounds will occur in these positions). Discuss each manner and any unusual (non-English) places of articulation. Note any differences between English and the language being discussed.

2. Provide a chart of the vowel phonemes of the language arranging them according to their height, backness, rounding, etc. Remember non-English features like nasal vowels, vowel length contrasts, etc. Then, give at least one example word, with transcription and gloss, for each sound. Discuss similarities and differences between the language and English. Discuss any combinations of features not employed in English (and vice versa).

Note: To find the phonetic symbols for the language try the following methods: If you are a native speaker of the language try to think very carefully about how you are making the sound in question. If you can determine this you can look up the symbol on a chart at the following site. You can also use the UCLA Phonetics Archive to hear the sounds for each symbol and compare them to the sounds in the language. Finally, you can also come to see me about finding the right symbol and description for the sound.

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http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/course/chapter1/chapter1.html


3. Minimal Pairs/Near Minimal Pairs: Provide examples and minimal pairs establishing that the sounds listed in your charts are contrastive phonemes in the language. Ideally, you will provide minimal pairs/sets contrasting all vowels from each other and all similar consonant sounds (that is, consonants that are differentiated by only one feature). However, in some languages it is harder to find minimal pairs than in others. Minimally, then you should attempt to provide at least one minimal pair that establishes a contrast in a series of sounds. For example, in English, voicing is contrastive in stops and fricatives. Provide at least one example showing a voicing contrast for stops and one for fricatives:

Actually, for a feature like voicing it is often useful to show that it remains contrastive not only in word initially, but also word medially and word finally:

Also you want to show that different places of articulation that are nearby are

contrastive. For example, in English we want to show that alveolar fricatives and alveopalatal fricatives are contrastive:

Further, if the language does make a distinction that English does not, provide a

minimal pair establishing that contrast. (Remember, that the language may not make distinctions that English does. So, for example just because the language has a p does not mean it contrasts in voicing with b. This must be established through minimal pairs.)

Finally, note that although this is set off as a separate point, you can actually combine this with the requirements in 1-2 of providing examples and the paper will actually read better if minimal pair evidence is given along the discussion of the phonemes.

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Paper Topic 2: Morphology Remember, always provide a phonetic transcription and an English translation of all words and morphemes. Identify all morphemes and remember to always provide examples. Part 0: Morphological Type As a rough guideline you might say what morphological type best characterizes your language. Does it tend toward isolating, agglutinating, fusional or polsynthetic. Remember this will describe the predominant trend of the language though no pure types exist. Part 1: Verbal Inflections Identify verbal inflectional morphology. 1a. How does the language mark person, number and gender of the subject? (Grammatical gender can include things like masculine/feminine, but also may be based on other features such as animacy, respect hierarchies, object properties (mass nouns vs. count), or arbitrary categories). Does the verb change or is the number, person, gender, etc. only reflected in the subject itself? Or perhaps, does some word other than the main verb change (maybe an auxiliary)? If the verb or auxiliary changes does it change through suffixation, prefixation, infixation, circumfixation, root internal changes or suppletion? Identify all (productive) morphemes that mark these categories.

Remember not all languages make the same distinctions in their morphology. Some will show less than English, others more. Some may distinguish categories of subjects not found in English at all (like 1st inclusive vs. exclusive 'we'). Others make additional distinctions in number (like singular vs dual (two) vs plural (more than two)). Others make distinctions in gender inflections on the verb (he vs. she vs. it) or make distinctions concerning the level respect due the person being addressed or talked about (you (informal) vs. you (formal) or he/she (respected) vs. he/she (neutral) vs. he/she (revered/God) vs. he/she (animal) vs. it (object)).

The best way to do this is to take one verb (or perhaps several) and put it in a series of short sentences with all varieties of subjects and see if the verb changes. Then you can use this to identify the morphemes. Remember, languages often have irregular verbs. It is best to avoid those and use a regular verb (or a verb that shows the most distinctions). If the language has regular classes of verbs that take different inflections, report on those.

So, you might want to run through the following:

I dance You (my friend) dance You (my teacher) dance You (my child) dance (there may be more of these)

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He dances She dances It dances You and I dance He and I dance You two dance (again consider formality) Those 2 dance Those 2 men dance Those 2 women dance Those 2 things dance Y'all and I dance They and I dance Y'all dance (again consider formality) Those (many) people dance Those (many) men dance Those (many) women dance Those (many) things dance

You do not need to provide an example of all of these, just report on your findings. But do give examples of your claims. You can use some other verb as well. It is probably best to try several.

Do NOT provide a list of the above sentences without an analysis. That is a guaranteed F.

Do provide an example at least of the basic six (even if they are all the same):

1st singular I dance 1st plural We dance 2nd singular You dance 2nd plural You dance 3rd singular He, she, it dances 3rd plural They dance

Then include anything else that is distinct from the chart you give.

1b. How does the language mark objects? Do verbs agree with them in terms of person number and gender? If so, give a chart (similar to the one for subjects showing the agreement pattern for objects. Discuss if the language shows a nominative/accusative, ergative/absolutive or active pattern, etc.

2. How does the language mark tense such as the past and future. Separate words, bound morphemes? Only through the use of temporal words like 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow'? Give examples.

Part 2: Nominal Inflectional Morphology

Does the language mark number on nouns? How? Is gender indicated (are masculine nouns distinguished from feminine ones (and possibly from neuter)? Does the language use case inflections? The way to tell the latter, is to put a noun in at different

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positions in a sentence and see if its form changes (note there may be several classes of nouns, taking different endings. You may mention this in passing but you only need to give the details for one class). So, you minimally want to check the following environments (case names given in parentheses):

Subject (Nominative): John went to the store. Direct Object (Accusative): The dog bit John. Indirect Object (Dative): I threw John the ball. Possessor (Genitive): John's dog is cute.

Also, check this with pronouns (afterall, this is the only place English shows case):

Subject (Nominative): I went to the store. Direct Object (Accusative): The dog bit me. Indirect Object (Dative): He threw me the ball. Possessor (Genitive): My dog is cute.

Part 3 Adjectival Inflectional Morphology:

Do adjectives agree with the nouns they modify? In what categories? Number, gender, case? How does the language indicate comparatives (ie taller) and superlatives (tallest)? Not all languages use affixes to do this.

Final Thoughts:

Remember, that not all languages will have significant nominal or verbal inflections, etc. If you language is lacking in some area and you feel you don't have enough to report on then focus on and give more details about the features the language does have, like additional morphemes, allomorphs, etc. No real verbal morphology? Talk about compounds. Not much inflectional morphology? Discuss derivational morphemes. Also, you can consider one of the following areas to round out your description, if necessary:

Reduplication Is there one or more reduplication scheme? Describe each. What class of words can be reduplicated? Is it total or partial? If partial, describe the rule. What is the meaning associated with the reduplication? Can it only be applied to words of certain shapes (for example those with CV(C)) structures?

Derivational Morphology All of the morphology given in response to parts 1, 2 and 3 would be inflectional morphology. Does the language have derivational morphemes? Identify as many as you can and their uses.

Mass nouns vs. Count Nouns Does the language distinguish mass nouns vs. count nouns? Not every language classifies the same nouns in the same way. For example, 'underwear' may not be a mass noun in other languages. But things like 'water' usually are. Compare this to nouns like 'bird, man, car' to see if the language treats the words differently. If so, how?

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Paper Topic 3: Syntax

Part 1: Basic Word Order

What is the basic word order of the language? That is, consider the order of the Verb (V), Direct Object (O) and Subject (S) in your language. When all three are present in a sentence (such as 'Mary knows the answer.' or 'Fred is flying the plane.') what is the preferred/most common order for these three elements: SVO, SOV, VSO, VOS, OSV, OVS?

Give at least four example sentences illustrating relevant word orders. (Try both 'action' verbs like hit, kill, kick, throw, etc. and stative verbs/perception verbs like know, believe, see, hear,etc. Avoid verbs like like, be, have (when discussing basic word as they behave differently from other verbs. You are encouraged to think about how these verbs might work in the language, but do so in a different section). Be sure to phonetically transcribe the examples and provide a morpheme by morpheme definition of each morpheme in the sentence, as well as a free translation of the sentence. Some examples from Macuiltianguis Zapotec (MacZ), a VSO language:

1. Ruuni naan quí'yà' yíína'tó'. Ruuni naan quí' =yà' yíína' -tó' H/do mother of =1G chili -DIM

My mother is making yellow mole.

2. Raa beyùù' chà'nintè' què' dùùàlù' thaarí'á. Raa beyùù' chà' =ni =ntè' què' dùùà =lù' thaarí' =á H/say man of/1G =PROX =me COMP H/live =2 north =INVIS

My husband tells me that you live in the North.

3. Nii gwéndí nabia'ni bènné'ntè'. Nii gwéndí nabia'ni bènné' =ntè' here a.lot H/know person =me

A lot of people know me here.

Abbreviations for MacZ: 1, 2, 3 = first, second, third person; G = genitive; PL = plural; PROX = proximate, DIST = distal/visible; INVIS = distal/invisible; DIM = diminutive; C = completive aspect; H = habitual aspect; P = potential aspect; NEG = negation; EMP = emphatic; FOC = focus; COMP = complementizer; = represents a clitic boundary, - an affix boundary, / fused morphemes and . separates multi-word glosses.

If you use abbreviations in your glosses, as I have, be sure to give a list saying what they mean. (Note that the abbreviations/terms I use for MacZ are only relevant for that language and many, if any at all, will not be relevant for other languages.)

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It is important to consider sentences both with pronouns (as in 2-3 above) and sentences with full Noun Phrases (as in 1). Basic word order is based on the position of full Noun Phrases in the sentence. In many languages (though it is not the case for either MacZ or English) pronouns occupy different positions than full NPs (for example, this is true of French and Spanish.)

Note then if the VP has a head-initial (verb before object) order or a head-final order (object before verb).

Possibly, consider the other 5 possible word orders. Can they ever be used? Are there certain instances when they must be used (for example, when using pronouns instead of full NPs)? If other orders are possible are they associated with a certain meaning or are they restricted to certain contexts? For example, English is basically SVO, but we can get a VSO order in questions Is he the doctor?, and OSV order to add emphasis Now, that car, I like.

Part 2: Phrasal Word Order

Now that you've consider the word order of Subjects, Objects and Verbs, think about the order of words within various phrases. Keep in mind the word order correlations in your one handout.

1. Adpositional Phrases: Not all languages have adpositions, but many do. Consider how such concepts are rendered in your language. If there are no adpositions, state how such concepts are expressed. Consider PPs like over the rainbow, under the car, in the house, up the tree, through the door, around the house, below the street, along the path, across the river, with my friend, by the police, from the corner etc. If the language does have adpositions, does the P (over, under, in, etc.) come before (a preposition) or after (postposition) the NP? Then, is the PP head-initial or head-final? Give two example PPs and with glosses and translations as described above.

2. Embedded Clauses: Consider instances where one Clause (Sentence) is contained inside another. In English, there are many different kinds as we've discussed. For this assignment, there are three environments to consider. Two of these occur inside Verb Phrases, the other inside Noun Phrases. One kind found inside VPs are those in which the subject of the main clause is often (or always) taken to be the subject of the embedded clauses: I want to leave. He likes to swim in the ocean. Another kind found inside VPs are those in which the subjects aren't as likely to be the same: I think (that) he left. I believe that someday, she will be president. In English, these two types are treated very differently. This may or may not be the case in your language. Give an example of each and kind and describe how they are formed. Is the verb marked or altered in anyway? Is there a complementizer (a word like that in the last two sentences)? If there is a Complementizer does it come before or after the embedded sentence? Does this follow the prediction of the Correlation List?

So, for the English examples above I would note that clauses introduced by verbs like want, like cannot stand on there own as full sentences. So, To swim in the ocean cannot readily stand as a sentence by itself. The subject of the sentence is left out and the verb

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appears in the "infinitive form" (to+bare verb form). If the subject should appear, in a sentence like I want him to leave. the subject doesn't show up in the Nominative (Subject) form he, but in the non-Nominative form, him.

In the case of verbs like know, think, believe, tell, etc. the Clause introduced by these verbs is a fully inflected clause that can stand on its own. For example, Someday, she will be president. is a well-formed sentence by itself. These clauses, when embedded, are often introduced by the complementizer that, but it is frequently optional. (Is it always optional? Can it not appear in some cases? I leave these questions for you to explore.) The Complementizer precedes the sentence it introduces, whence that someday, she will be president. (Remember, of course, to gloss your examples. I didn't gloss the above examples because they are in English.)

The last type of embedded clause to consider is the Relative Clause, as in the man who I saw yesterday, the girl who knows me, the man I gave the book, the tree I climbed up, the man whose books I borrowed. Does the head-N of the Relative Clause (the man, the girl, the tree in the above) come before or after the modifying clause. Is this head-initial or head-final? Give two example sentences with glosses and translations. Is the Relative Clause introduced by relative pronoun (wh-word), a complementizer, nothing? Does the Relative Clause have a gap corresponding to the head noun? A resumptive pronoun? (If your up to it, and I hope you are: In the five examples given above, the head noun corresponds to the Direct Object of the modifying sentence, the subject, the indirect object, the object of a PP and the possessor of a NP. Can your language create Relative Clauses from all five roles in a sentence? Are they formed in different ways? Give examples and gloss them).

3. Verb Phrases: You've already considered the order of the Verb and Direct Object. Now consider the order of the Verb and other elements in the VP. For example, the order of Manner Adverbs (quickly, quietly, loudly, angrily, etc. and Verbs and the order of PPs and Verbs. (Again, there may not be PPs and independen Manner Adverbs in the language). In English, though other orders can occur, the most basic order seems to be Manner Adverb Verb PP, Manner Adverb before Verb and Verb before PP: I quietly handed the note to him. and He quickly ran to the road. Do these orders follow the word order correlates in your handout? (Since English is a VO language we would have expected V PP (which we get) and V Manner Adverb (which, while possible, does not seem to be the basic order to me).

Also, what is the order of V and Embedded Clauses, like those in discussed in 2? Does the Verb come before (head-initial) or after (head-final) the Embedded Clause.? 4. Noun Phrases: Give examples of the order of elements within the Noun Phrase. You have already said if the head noun comes before or after the Relative Clause. Does it come before or after Adjectives (if your language has Adjectives)? What about Numbers (one, two, three, etc., do they come before or after the noun? What about Demonstratives, like this, that? Does the language have articles, like a, the? Where do they go? Give at least one example of each.

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English largely has the order Dem Num Adjective Noun Relative Clause. This is exemplified in examples like:

Those three big gorillas that are chasing the banana truck are really men in monkey suits.

Finally, investigate how possession is indicated in the language. What is the order of the possessed and possessor? Is either one marked with additional morphology? Are they linked by a preposition? Consider both cases where the possessor is a pronoun, my, your etc. and a full NP (John, the book, Those three big gorillas that are chasing the banana truck, etc. Consider also examples where the possessed is a body part or family relation versus cases where it is not (like my car, his book). Is there a difference in how they are formed? Give examples with glosses.

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Appendix 3 Phonological Effects on Non-Native Grammar:

An Example Paper on English

by

John Foreman April 22, 2003

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1. Introduction Throughout my teaching career, I have encountered many writing samples by

non-native speakers of English. Among other difficulties they may have, the students frequently fail to produce the correctly inflected forms of words. Verbs may fail to be properly inflected for tense or nouns for number. Consider the following examples from a native Spanish speaker's writing. The student shows problems with realizing the –ed verbal suffix, as shown in the examples below. -ed omitted (relevant verb underlined) (1) a. "…we are introduce to the stages of the word-learning process." b. "…the order in which words are require like the tense in speech." c. "…learned words by observing how the words are use in intelligible contexts." d. "Mysteries have being (sic) solve but new ones have arose…" -ed correctly applied (relevant verb underlined) (2) a. "One of the important stages is semantics, which govern (sic) the way words are

interpreted." b. "Many studies have being (sic) conducted to find out…" c. "…provide the information when it is wanted can significantly improve…" d. "…because that's when the degree of meaning is applied." e. "Lying is categorized in three different degrees." f. "We are introduced to the fact that English speakers…" At first glance, it may appear that the student has only a tenuous grasp of the syntactic environments requiring an –ed suffixed form of the verb. The student clearly knows the correct auxiliary verbs (italicized in 1-2) to form the perfect and passive constructions in English (as schematized in 3). (3) a. HAVE + Verb-ed perfect b. BE + Verb-ed passive However, the student apparently fails to fully grasp the second requirement of these constructions that the main verb be in the past participle form, usually realized with an -ed suffix. This feeling is reinforced by the fact that some verbs such as introduce sometimes appear correctly with the –ed suffix (2f) and sometimes do not (1a). In this paper, I will show that the student does in fact have mastery of all aspects of the constructions in (3). The errors in (1) are not problems of understanding the morphology or syntax but are problems of phonology. The student knows when to utilize the –ed suffix, but phonological considerations may result in the deletion of the inflectional morpheme.

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2. Hypothesis Why does the writer of (1) and (2) have trouble with English inflectional morphology? It is unlikely that it is due to the number of inflectional morphemes in English. Compared to numerous other languages, such as Spanish, Italian, Russian, Lakhota or Quechua, English inflectional morphology is severely limited. In English, there are at most only two forms for lexical nouns (singular or plural) and regular verbs have only four forms all using an identical set of suffixes(-∅, -s, -ed, -ing). Even the relatively small number of irregular verbs have at most only one additional form (-en) and are usually only irregular with respect to the –ed forms of the verb.1 By comparison, Spanish and Italian verbs come in about 50 forms, while Kivunjo, a Bantu language, can have about half a million forms for a verb (Pinker 1994). Thus, it seems unlikely that it is the sheer number of inflections which has caused the student in (1-2) difficulty with English. Furthermore, as I will show in this paper, it is also not a problem with understanding the syntactic environments in which the inflected forms are used. Instead, some other factor is at work.

It has been observed that problems like those in (1) are not problems of

morphology or syntax, but of phonology. Although there are only a few inflectional suffixes in English, they are frequently not very salient, because they frequently result in sequences of consonants, particularly final consonant clusters. Such clusters are relatively rare across languages and thus pose difficulties for non-native speakers. The speakers may have difficulty both perceiving and pronouncing all of the individual consonants in such environments. As a result, the inflectional affixes may either not be heard or may be deleted in order to ease pronunciation. In fact, this loss of inflection through consonant cluster simplification is observed not only with non-native speakers but also in various dialects of English, such as African American English (Labov 1995, Green 2002 and references therein) and Chicano English (Santa Ana 1996). The prediction then is that the student is more likely to omit an inflectional suffix in cases in which the addition of a suffix results in a consonant cluster when it is attached to a word that ends in one or more consonants. For example, the –ed morpheme has three allomorphs, [-t], [-d] and [-id] as illustrated below: (4) a. crashed [krQ St] b. crammed [krQmd] c. glided [glajRid] picked [pIkt] starved [starvd] booted [buwRid] elapsed [´lQpst] died [dajd] banded [bQnRid] The[-t] allomorph only occurs after voiceless obstruents (excluding /t/) and thus always results in the creation of a consonant cluster. The [-d] variant follows voiced sounds (excluding /d/) and also frequently produces coda consonant clusters when following voiced consonants, as in the crammed example. It can also follow vowels, however, so it

1 Of course, be has a few additional forms bringing its total to eight, while three other verbs also have irregular –s forms, has, does and says.

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does not always result in a consonant cluster.2 The [-id] variant, which only follows /t/ or /d/, which are usually phonetically realized as [R], results in an extra syllable being added to verb and because of the intervening vowel does not produce a consonant cluster. If presence of final consonant clusters are playing a factor in the student's realization of the –ed suffix, then the prediction is that the [-t] variant of –ed should be the least salient and therefore most susceptible to being deleted, the [-d] variant should be more salient, at least when following a vowel, and less susceptible to deletion, and the [-id] variant should be the most salient and least likely to be deleted. The prediction is summarized below in (5). Prediction of increasing likeliness that –ed will be deleted (5)

/t/ and /d/ verbs verbs ending in vowels verbs ending in other consonants

If, however, it is merely the case that the student has not fully mastered the syntactic frameworks like those in (3), then the phonological form of the verb and issues of consonant clusters should make no difference on whether the suffix is deleted or retained. Errors of omission should fall equally and randomly across the different verb types and allomorphs. Similarly, if the phonological hypothesis is correct, irregular –ed forms should also be relatively free of errors. Irregular –ed forms rely mostly on vowel changes to signal grammatical differences and thus do not usually suffer problems arising from consonant clusters. For example, the differences between find and found is indicated by a very salient vowel change and does not rely on consonant clusters. Again, if the phonological hypothesis is correct, such verbal forms should be correctly produced.3 3. Methodology To test the hypothesis that consonant cluster simplification is leading to the deletion of inflectional morphology within the student writing of (1), I focused on the realization of the regular past participle morpheme –ed in perfect and passive constructions as schematized in (3), repeated below: 2 How frequently it forms a consonant cluster depends on the status of diphthongs, however. If the diphthongs consist of a vowel component and a following glide component, [aj] for example, the [-d] will almost always form a cluster. The only case where it would not form a cluster would be when it follows a verb ending in schwa. If an analysis of two vowel components is more accurate for diphthongs in English, [aI] for example, there will be many more instances in which [-d] is not part of a consonant cluster. 3 An alternative hypothesis for why irregulars are less error prone might be because they are more frequent. This issue is not addressed in the present paper, but if frequency plays a role for irregulars it should factor into realizations of regulars as well. Since, a priori there is no reason to suspect that verbs ending in /t/ or /d/ should be more common than verbs ending in other consonants, such as /k/ for example, we would expect the frequency effects to be evenly distributed across the allomorphs. They are not, however, and verbs ending in /t/ or /d/ show disproportionately fewer errors than other regular verbs. This fact seems difficult to account for in terms of frequency alone. So, while frequency may play a role, it is not the only factor at work, and the observed patterns fit well with the phonology hypothesis.

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(3) a. HAVE + Verb-ed perfect b. BE + Verb-ed passive This particular suffix in these particular constructions were chosen for a number of reasons. First, the –ed morpheme, as discussed in section 2, crucially has three allomorphs, two of which can be in a coda consonant cluster and one which cannot. In contrast, the lack of variation in the present progressive morpheme –ing makes it unsuitable for testing the current hypothesis. Second, the rather restricted, but overtly marked, environments of (3) make it very clear when the suffix is correctly applied and when errors of omission have been made. The factors governing the use of the past tense –ed or the plural –s for example are more complex and not always overtly present in the syntax. Judging if an omission is an error in such cases can be tricky requiring guesses at the writer's intent. Third, the environments in (3), particularly the passive construction, were well represented in the available data. I went through five writing samples of the student's and counted and evaluated the perfect and passive constructions detailed in (3). There were 69 instances of these constructions involving regular past participles (those marked with –ed) and an additional 38 instances involving irregular past participles (formed without the –ed suffix). I tabulated each group separately. Perfect and passive constructions of the correct form AUX + Past Participle (Verb-ed for regular past participles) were counted as correct instances, while AUX + Bare Verb4 (for regulars, Verb without –ed) were counted as incorrect.

Note that I did not include other (potential) instances of the –ed suffix such as the past tense –ed or adjectival –ed. As noted above, the conditioning environments are more complex and are not always conveniently signaled by an auxiliary as the constructions in (3) are. Only the environments in (3) were considered, even other potential auxiliaries such get and got were excluded. There were five instances of conjoined past participles which were included. Of these, three of second conjuncts were irregular and all were correctly formed while one regular was correct and one incorrect.

In addition to this information, I also recorded whether the regular verb root

ended in /t/ or /d/, another consonant, or a vowel, assuming a vowel analysis of diphthongs. I also noted whether a vowel, consonant, or phrase boundary followed the verb to determine if this had any confounding influence. 4. Findings Out of 107 potential past participle environments as defined above in section 3, the student had 21 errors, 19.6% of the total environments. The errors were not randomly 4 In these environments, the student either gave the correct form or produced the bare form of the verb. There were not erroneous instances of other verb forms, with the exception of being which was systematically used in place of been. I judged this to be merely a spelling error or misperception that the past participle and present participle of be is identical. I do not feel it was a misanalysis that have can occasionally take an –ing verb as this was never seen for any other verb. Finally, there was one instance, lead, of an irregular verb with an identical bare form and past participle form. This was counted as correct.

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distributed as might be expected if the errors were merely the result of incomplete mastery of the morpho-syntactic environments of (3). Instead, the errors are, as predicted, disproportionately represented in cases involving clusters. That the student has in fact internalized the morphological requirements of (3) is evidenced by the successful use of irregular past participles and past participles of regular verbs ending in /t/ or /d/. As summarized below in Table 1, of the 38 (potentially) irregular past participles, 36 were correctly inflected.5 Even more impressively, 100% of the 23 regular /t/ /d/ verbs were correctly suffixed. Table 1. All irregulars t/d roots # correct 86 36 23 total environments 107 38 23 percentage correct 80.4% 94.7% 100%

This indicates then that the student has mastered the morphological requirements of the perfect and passive constructions in English. The student knows that perfect have and passive be are followed by past participial verb forms, which are regularly formed via the suffixation of –ed. If this were not the case, we would expect the approximately 20% error rate found in all cases to be reflected in the past participles of irregulars and /t/ /d/ verb roots. We should expect 7 or 8 errors with the irregulars and 4 or 5 errors with the /t/ /d/ roots. Instead, there were only 2 errors in total. All others are disproportionately found with the [-t] an [-d] allomorphs.

The main predictions that /t/ /d/ regular verbs and irregular verbs have more

salient past participles which are thus more likely to be correctly realized are borne out. What about the secondary predictions that regular verbs ending in consonants should be more susceptible to deletion of the –ed suffix than vowel final verbs?

Surprisingly, this prediction doesn't hold for the available data. Errors were

disproportionately found with vowel final regular verbs, as summarized below in Table 2.

Table 2. regular verbs t/d roots other C V # errors 19 0 12 7 total environments 69 23 33 13 percentage correct 27.5% 0% 36.4% 53.8% 53.8% of the regular verbs ending in vowels failed to take the expected –ed suffix, while only 36.4% of the consonant final verbs were incorrectly inflected. What might account

5 Note that as discussed in Footnote 4, this does include 13 instances of been spelled which were just to be correct. Even if we put these cases aside, 23 of 25 other irregulars, or 92%, were still correct, suggesting that, as predicted, irregulars are correctly inflected in part at least because they do not have the phonological difficulties (consonant clusters) of many regular verbs.

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for this difference? Other phonological factors, such as following consonants, cannot account for the discrepancy. One possibility is that this is simply an artifact of the relatively small sample size. There were only 13 total vowel final regular verbs present in environments that were investigated. It is highly likely that the errors were simply overrepresented in such a small number of environments. Another possible factor is that, as mentioned above, the diphthongs of English should be analyzed as vowel-consonant sequences. The –ed suffix would produce a cluster then and would be just as susceptible to deletion as it would be following any other consonant. Three of the errors are following [r 1], which I counted as a vowel. Perhaps for this speaker it is better analyzed as [´r]. The remaining errors follow [oU] and [i:]. If these are realized as [ow] and [ij], however, then the words could be analyzed as having a consonant cluster and could explain the deletion of the –ed suffix. Whether this truthfully reflects the student's pronunciation or perception is unknown.6 5. Conclusion Linguistics can help with second language learning by helping identify the patterns in student errors and determine exactly which areas of the language cause difficulties. In this example, we have seen that it was not the syntactic or morphological rules that were causing difficulties, but rather perceiving and pronouncing the effects of those rules. Having finally identified the problem, how do we assist students in progressing toward the standard English pattern? For speakers who are first learning to apply the rules in (3), it is important to present words in those environments which will help make the suffixes most salient. As seen in the data here and as suggested by Labov (1995), that environment for the -ed suffix is following words ending in /t/ or /d/. Students who have clearly mastered the rule but still lose the suffix through phonological reduction can benefit from having this made explicit to them and can then use test words such as construct to help them observe if the past participle ending should be present or not.

6 Another possibility not considered here is that, for this native Spanish speaker, word final [d] is no more salient following a vowel than following another consonant. This explanation is unsatisfactory, however, since Spanish has word final /d/ or at least [D] as in ciudad 'city,' though perhaps not in this speaker's dialect. Additionally though, the two errors made with irregular past participles were with the verbs show and know, whose past participles are formed by phonetically adding [-n]. While [d] may not occur word finally in Spanish, [n] certainly does. So, this account will not explain why [n] was left off. The diphthong/cluster hypothesis might, however.

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6. References Green, Lisa J. 2002. African American English: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. Labov, William. 1995. Can Reading Failure Be Reversed: A Linguistic Approach to the Question, in V.

L. Gadsden and D. A. Wagner, eds., Literacy Among African-American Youth: Issues in Learning, Teaching, and Schooling. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. 39-68.

Pinker, Steven. 1994. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language. New York: HarperCollins.

Santa Ana, Otto. 1996. Sonority and Syllable Structure in Chicano English. Language Variation and Change, 8.1.

7. Data Appendix

sequence frame correct?

verb ends in

verb followed by

key

are introduce to passive n C C n=no is use to passive n C C y=yes are introduce to passive n C C T/D=/t/ /d/ was use to passive n C C IRR=irregular being (been) solve but passive n C C C in Column 4=Consonant and burn by passive n C C other than /t/ or /d/was more like(ly) use was passive n C C C in Column 5=Consonant are train to passive n C C V=Vowel are use in passive n C V .=phrase final be use as passive n C V are perceive as passive n C V is perceive as passive n C V is also introduced. passive y C . are introduced to passive y C C are introduced to passive y C C is characterized by passive y C C being processed that passive y C C was marked by passive y C C were confirmed during passive y C C are seemed to passive y C C is many times misused not passive y C C is categorized as passive y C V is described as passive y C V are also discussed in passive y C V was produced in passive y C V was imposed upon passive y C V past on. passive y C V be well explained and passive y C V is established as passive y C V is categorized in passive y C V have learned. perfect y C . has evolved to perfect y C C

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have learned about perfect y C V are interpreted. passive y T/D . be decode it. passive y T/D . was tested, passive y T/D . was innovated. passive y T/D . being (been) conducted to passive y T/D C being (been) conducted to passive y T/D C is wanted can passive y T/D C was suggested that passive y T/D C was suggested that passive y T/D C were submitted to passive y T/D C is connected to passive y T/D C being (been) conducted to passive y T/D C being (been) conducted to passive y T/D C was recorded through passive y T/D C being (been) recorded that passive y T/D C is divided into passive y T/D V are invented and passive y T/D V had predicted that perfect y T/D C have recorded their perfect y T/D C have recorded the perfect y T/D C have innovated to perfect y T/D C have supported and perfect y T/D V have decided is perfect y T/D V is follow by passive n V C is follow by passive n V C are require like passive n V C was discover that passive n V C being (been) study and passive n V V were later discover and passive n V V been borrow or passive n V V or modified. passive y V . is clearly accompanied by passive y V C and modified with passive y V C be modified dramatically passive y V C modified and passive y V V is applied. passive y V . have show that perfect n IRR C are given a passive y IRR V are given a passive y IRR V are known as passive y IRR V were found in passive y IRR V was made; passive y IRR . was done where passive y IRR C was found that passive y IRR C is said to passive y IRR C have arose but perfect y IRR C

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and lead vast perfect y IRR C have had many perfect y IRR C has being (been) findings x13 perfect y IRR C being (been) proven that passive y IRR C have shown that perfect y IRR C were know in passive n IRR V must of taken time perfect y IRR C and well written for passive y IRR C have had a perfect y IRR V and maybe written down passive y IRR C be written down passive y IRR C have taken long perfect y IRR C be written down passive y IRR C have gone through perfect y IRR C were not taken away passive y IRR V has being (been) proven to passive y IRR C

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ReferencesP L A C E S O F A R T I C U L A T I O NstopsvoicelessvoicelessFront Central BackLax Vowels:[(, (, (, (, (, (, (]4 Excellent Work, Accurate and CompletePart 1: Basic Word OrderAppendix 3

April 22, 2003

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English 401: English Language in America - 50megszapotec.Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. University of Chicago Press. Croft, William. 1990. Typology and Universals. Cambridge