Abstract
Whereas the palatalization of velar consonants before front high and mid vowels is a common property of the Romance languages (Latin [k]ivitatem ‘city’ resulting in Frenchcité or Italiancittà), French is unique in displaying velar palatalization before the low back vowela (Latin [k]antare‘to sing’ giving Frenchchanter). This change has always remained puzzling, as there is no clear phonetic motivation for palatalization. Whereas perception studies have shown that [ki] is likely to be perceived as [tsi], no perceptual confusion is reported between [ka] and [tsa]. Also, in production, the release of a velar or coronal plosive before a high vowel leads to high turbulency, which is not the case when a plosive is released in a low vowel. In this chapter, we review traditional and more recent accounts of the second French velar palatalization and propose a phonological account framed in a constraint-based OT perspective. Furthermore, we explore to what extent OT with Candidate Chains offers a more restricted way of modeling sound change than classical OT.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
As observed above, the voiceless and voiced velar stops [k] and [g] resulted in [ts] and [dӡ] during the First Velar Palatalization, but in [tʃ] and [dӡ] during the Second Velar Palatalization. The precise outcome of palatalization in the Romance languages is subject to a great deal of dialectal variation (cf. Fouché 1958; Meyer-Lübke 1890). In this paper, we will not address the question of why the results of the First and Second palatalizations were different. We refer the reader Calabrese (1993), among others.
- 2.
In this study, we will limit ourselves to velar palatalization in a vowel context, and will not discuss unconditioned velar palatalization. An example of the latter, as pointed out by an anonymous reviewer, is the French variety of la Champagne et la Brie (département de Seine-et-Marne), cf. Bourcelot (1966–1969–1978), where velars palatalize in all sorts of environments. A related issue, also pointed out by an anonymous reviewer, which we will not address due to space limitations, is the precise interpretation of the release of velars in word-final position, as can be observed in contemporary varieties of Parisian en cloque‘pregnant’.
- 3.
It is important to keep in mind that the participants in Guion’s experiments were American English speakers.
- 4.
As a matter of fact, we will argue below that markedness does play a role, but that segmental and contextual markedness must not be confused.
- 5.
An anonymous reviewer has pointed out two potential problems for the claim defended here. First, in Picardy and Normandy varieties of French, velars became palatalized, triggered Bartsch’s law (i.e. the diphthongization of /a/), and then regressed back into plain velars. However, as the reviewer points out, the claim that [k] was fronted in those dialects is not an empirically attested fact, only a non-necessary hypothesis for Bartsch’s diphthongization, under the assumption that diphthongization could only take place after [+high] consonants. Moreover, one could assume, if this traditional hypothesis were accepted, that palatalized [kj] was still a surface allophone of /k/ when the regression took place. A second, more problematic, counter-example is offered by the evolution of the verb tenir in Canadian French, where the formstiens and tient have many variant pronunciations: [tje˜, tʃe˜, ce˜, kje˜, ke˜]. If the variant [ke˜], as the reviewer points out, arises through a chain of changes [tje˜] > [ce˜] > [kje˜] > [ke˜], the claim defended here would be invalidated. Further research is needed in order to empirically falsify this claim.
References
Anttila, R. 1989.Historical and comparative linguistics. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Bhat, D.N.S. 1978. A general study of palatalization. InUniversals of human language, Phonology, vol. II, ed. J.H. Greenberg, 48–92. Stanford: Sage Publications.
Blevins, J. 2004.Evolutionary phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bourcelot, H. 1966-1969-1978.Atlas linguistique et ethnographique de la Champagne et de la Brie. Paris: Editions du CNRS.
Bourciez, E., and J. Bourciez. 1974.Phonétique française. Etude historique. Paris: Klincksieck.
Buckley, E. 2000. On the naturalness of unnatural rules. InProceedings from the second workshop on American Indigenous Languages. UCSB working papers in linguistics, vol. 9, 1–14. Santa Barbara.
Buckley, E. 2003.The phonetic origin and phonological extension of Gallo-Roman palatalization. Philadelphia: Ms, University of Pennsylvania.
Calabrese, A. 1993. Palatalization processes in the history of the Romance languages: A theoretical study. InLinguistic perspectives on the Romance languages, ed. W.J. Ashby et al., 65–83. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Chang, S., M. Plauché, and J. Ohala. 2001. Markedness and consonant confusion asymmetries. InThe role of speech perception in phonology, ed. E. Hume and K. Johnson, 79–101. London/San Diego: Academic.
Cho, T., and P. Ladefoged. 1999. Variation and universals in VOT. Evidence from 18 languages.Journal of Phonetics27(2): 207–229.
Clements, G.N. 1993. Lieu d’articulation des consonnes et des voyelles: une théorie unifiée. InArchitecture des représentations phonologiques, ed. B. Laks and A. Rialland, 101–145. Paris: CNRS Éditions.
Clements, G.N. 1999. Affricates as noncontoured stops. InProceedings of LP’98, ed. O. Fujimura et al., 271–299. Prague: Karolinum Press.
Clements, G.N., and E. Hume. 1995. The internal organization of speech sounds. InThe handbook of phonological theory, ed. J.A. Goldsmith, 245–306. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Fouché, P. 1958.Phonétique historique du français. Paris: Klincksieck.
Grammont, M. 1933.Traité de phonétique. Paris: Delagrave.
Guion, S. 1998. The role of perception in the sound change of velar palatalization.Phonetica55: 18–52.
Jacobs, H. 1993. La palatalization gallo-romane et la représentation des traits distinctifs. InArchitecture des représentations phonologiques, ed. B. Laks and A. Rialland, 147–171. Paris: CNRS Éditions.
Jacobs, H. 2007. Contrasting coronal sibilants: Polish and Ubykh. InUniversité Européenne d’été – Vol. Sciences du langage, 113–128. Paris.
Jacobs, H., and J. van de Weijer. 1992. On the formal description of palatalization. InLinguistics in the Netherlands, ed. R. Bok-Bennema and R. van Hout, 125–135. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Keating, P.A. 1988.Palatals as complex segments: X-ray evidence.UCLA working papers in phonetics,vol. 69, 77–91. Los Angeles.
Kim, H. 2001. A phonetically based account of phonological stop assibilation.Phonology18: 81–108.
Klausenburger, J. 1974.Historische Französische Phonologie aus Generativer Sicht. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Ladefoged, P., and I. Maddieson. 1996.The sounds of the world’s languages. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Lahiri, A., and V. Evers. 1991. Palatalization and coronality. InThe special status of coronals. Internal and external evidence, ed. C. Paradis and J.-F. Prunet, 79–100. San Diego: Academic.
McCarthy, J.J. 2007.Hidden generalizations. Phonological opacity in optimality theory. London: Equinox.
Meyer-Lübke, W. 1890.Grammatik der Romanischen Sprachen, Romanische Lautlehre, vol. 1. Leipzig: Fues’ Verlag.
Ohala, J. 1992. What’s cognitive, what’s not in sound change. InDiachrony within synchrony: language history and cognition, ed. G. Kellerman and M.D. Morrissey, 309–355. Frankfurt: Lang.
Padgett, J., and M. Zygis. 2003. The evolution of sibilants in Polish and Russian.ZAS Papers in Linguistics3: 155–174.
Plauché, M., C. Delogu, and J. Ohala. 1997. Asymmetries in consonant confusion. InProceedings of Eurospeech’97: Fifth European conference on speech communication and technology, vol. 4, 2187–2190. Rhodes: Greece.
Pope, M.K. 1934.From Latin to modern French with especial consideration of Anglo-Norman. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Rubach, J. 1994. Affricates as strident stops in Polish.Linguistic Inquiry25: 119–143.
Rubach, J. 2003. Polish palatalization in derivational optimality theory.Lingua113: 197–237.
Sagey, E. 1986.The representation of features and relations in nonlinear phonology. PhD dissertation, MIT.
Schane, S. 1973.Generative phonology. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jacobs, H., Berns, J. (2013). Perception, Production and Markedness in Sound Change: French Velar Palatalization. In: Arteaga, D. (eds) Research on Old French: The State of the Art. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 88. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4768-5_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4768-5_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-4767-8
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-4768-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)