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Pre-Print: Kochetov, Alexei (in press, 2010). Palatalisation. In: Colin Ewen, Beth Hume, Marc van Oostendorp, and Keren Rice (eds.) Companion to Phonology. Wiley Blackwell. http://www.companiontophonology.com/

Palatalization∗

1. Introduction The term ‘palatalization’ denotes a phonological process by which consonants acquire secondary palatal articulation or shift their primary place towards or close to the palatal region. This usually happens under the influence of an adjacent front vowel and or a palatal glide (e.g. kikji, tjaʧa). As such, palatalization is a type of consonant-vowel interactions. The term may also refer to a phonemic contrast between consonants with secondary palatal articulation and their non-palatalized counterparts (e.g. pja vs. pa). The primary focus of this paper will be on palatalization as a process, and particularly as a synchronic phonological process manifested in segmental alternations. Palatalization has been typically viewed as a classical example of a ‘natural’ phonological process – the one that is widely attested across world languages and has a clear phonetic motivation, such as in consonant-to-vowel coarticulation (e.g. Hyman 1975). However, many formal accounts of palatalization undertaken over the last forty years have faced considerable challenges. These challenges partly stem from the fact that palatalization processes show a wide range of manifestations – across languages and within a given language. Many synchronic palatalization processes also exhibit complex phonological and morphological conditioning and pervasive opacity effects, reflecting complicated historical sound changes and paradigmatic restructuring. Given this, the difficulty faced by many theoretical approaches has been in providing an empirically adequate and uniform formal treatment of the phenomenon, capturing both cross-linguistic and language-particular generalizations. The goal of this paper is to review some of the key formal accounts of palatalization, focusing particularly on the challenges posed by the phenomenon for generative theories of phonological representations. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents some concrete example of palatalization followed by an overview of cross-linguistic patterns of the phenomenon. Section 3 examines how the feature system of the early generative phonology capture natural classes involved in palatalization. Section 4 focuses on two key approaches to palatalization within the Feature Geometry framework. Section 5 turns to treatments of palatalization within Optimality Theory, and Section 6 concludes with a review of some alternative proposals. � ∗ The chapter has benefited greatly from the insightful comments and helpful suggestion provided by two anonymous reviewers and the editors Marc van Oostendorp and Elizabeth Hume.

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2. Background 2.1 Some examples We will begin with some relatively well-known examples of palatalization. English, in fact, has at least three kinds of alternations that fall under the general definition of palatalization processes. So called coronal palatalization involves an alternation between alveolars [t d s z] and palato-alveolars [ʧ ʤ ʃ ʒ], as shown in (1). In these examples, the palato-alveolars occur before a palatal glide (in an unstressed syllable), while alveolars occur elsewhere. These alternations can be analyzed as a process – a change of alveolars to palato-alveolars in the context of [j] (Chomsky & Halle 1968; Borowsky 1986, among others).1

The process is assimilatory in the sense that the consonants targeted by palatalization become more similar in place of articulation to the segment that triggers palatalization. Note that stops not only shift in place, but also undergo assibilation (becoming sibilant affricates). All the other features of target consonants (e.g. continuancy, voicing, etc.) remain unchanged.

(1) t - ʧ perpe[t]uity perpe[ʧ]ual d - ʤ resi[d]ue resi[ʤ]ual

s - ʃ gra[s]e gra[ʃ]ious z - ʒ plea[z]e plea[ʒ]ure The second process – velar softening – is exhibited by alternations between velar stops [k g] and coronal fricatives or affricates [s] and [ʤ] respectively. The coronal alternants are found before certain Latinate or Greek suffixes beginning with (mainly) front vowels; the velar alternants are found elsewhere (2). Given this, the alternations are usually analyzed as a palatalizing change of velars to coronals triggered by front vowels (Chomsky & Halle 1968; Borowsky 1986). Unlike coronal palatalization, this process is more complex, as it actually involves two non-identical changes – a shift of the voiced velar stop to the palato-alveolar affricate and a shift of the voiceless velar stop to the alveolar fricative. While the outputs of velar softening are not identical in terms of minor place of articulation and continuancy, they are both sibilant coronals. (2) a. k - s medi[k]ation medi[s]ine criti[k] criti[s]ize

b. g - ʤ analo[g] analo[ʤ]y pedago[g]ue pedago[ʤ]y

The third process – spirantization – exhibits alternations between the alveolar stop [t] and the alveolar fricative [s] (or [ʃ] in conjunction with coronal palatalization). The latter segment occurs before suffixes with an unsyllabified /i/ (3), and thus process is assumed to involve a change of stop to fricative before high front vowel (Borowsky 1986). As such, the process does not involve a change in place of articulation, but a change in continuancy and sibilancy.

� 1 Similar, albeit optional and phonetically gradient, alternations are also exhibited across words, as in go[ʧ] you, plea[ʒ]e yourself, etc. (Zsiga 1993).

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(3) t - s secre[t] secre[s]y

regen[t] regen[s]y emergen[t] emergen[s]y par[t] par[ʃ]ial

The three palatalization processes manifested by alternations in (1)-(3) differ in several respects. The targets of palatalization are anterior coronals (alveolars) in (1) and (3), and dorsals in (2). The outputs are posterior coronals (palato-alveolars) in (1) and (2b) and anterior coronals in (2a) and (3). The triggers are /j/ in (1) and high front vowels in (2) and (3). (The processes are also obviously different in terms of their phonological or morphological conditioning: morpheme boundaries, particular suffixes, stress, etc.) What the processes have in common, however, is that they appear to be triggered by front vocoids and result in coronal segments, notably, all sibilants. As such, they are representative of the three general types of palatalization processes, as defined by Bhat (1978): ‘coronal raising’ (1), ‘velar fronting’ (2), and ‘spirantization’, which may or may not be accompanied by change in place ((2) and (3) respectively), as discussed in the next section. Another important type of palatalization, not exhibited by the English processes, is an addition of secondary palatal articulation, without a change in primary place or assibilation. As shown in (4a), Russian exhibits alternations between non-palatalized consonants of all places – labials, anterior coronals (dentals), and dorsals and their palatalized counterparts. The palatalized segments in such alternations occur before front vowels (/e/ in (4a)), while non-palatalized consonants are unrestricted (Kenstowicz & Kisseberth 1979). These alternations can be straightforwardly analyzed as an assimilatory process involving a simple addition of secondary palatal articulation (the high front position of the tongue body) before front vowels. This process in Russian is fairly general, not restricted to particular morphological categories. Secondary palatalization may co-occur in a given language with ‘place-changing’ palatalization. In Russian, non-palatalized dentals and velars also exhibit alternations with palato-alveolars, with the latter occurring before certain verbal suffixes (4b) (Lightner 1965; Kenstowicz & Kisseberth 1979). Note that the palatalizing suffixes may or may not begin with overt front vocoids, showing that place-changing palatalization in Russian is a more opaque, morphologically-conditioned process. Note also that the relation between targets and outputs of palatalization in (b) is less transparent than in (a): for example, the same palato-alveolar output [ʧ] can result from two different target consonants, /t/ or /k/. (4) a. nom. sg. dat. sg.

p - pj trap-a trapj-e ‘path’ t - tj sjirat-a sjiratj-e ‘orphan’ k - kj sabak-a sabakj-e ‘dog’

b. infinitive 3 pers. sg. 1 pers. sg. t - ʧ prjat-atj prjaʧ-it prjaʧ-u ‘hide’

k - ʧ plak-atj plaʧ-it plaʧ-u ‘weep’

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Palatalization in Russian produces outputs that are phonemic, since the language has palatalized consonants and posterior coronals whose occurrence is not conditioned by front vowels. The same can be said about the English palatalization processes. Allophonic palatalization is also quite common, however. In Nupe (5), for example, the velars have secondary palatal articulation before front vowels (a), secondary labial articulation before round vowels (b), and no secondary articulation before the back unrounded /a/ (c). This pattern can be analyzed as allophonic assimilatory process involving palatalization and labialization of phonemic plain velars before front and round vowels respectively (Sagey 1990; Archangeli & Pulleyblank 1994). (5) a. egʲi (/egi/) ‘child’ egʲe (/ege/) ‘beer’ b. egʷũ (/egũ/) ‘mud’ egʷo (/ego/) ‘grass’ c. ega (/ega/) ‘stranger’ So far we have examined fairly representative examples of palatalization, those involving changes that are common across world languages. It is worth contrasting these examples with that from two Southern Bantu languages, Tswana and SiSwati, shown in (6). Here, labials alternate with (labialized) palato-alveolars in the context of the passive suffix –wa. Consonants of other places remain unaffected (cf. Tswana ratʷa /rat-wa/ ‘love’; SiSwati pʰegʷa /pʰeg-wa/ ‘cook’). These alternations are also considered to manifest palatalization (Halle 2005; Bateman 2007), however, the process is different from the cases above in several important respects. First, the targets are labial consonants to the exclusion of the other places, and the labials change their place of articulation, something that is usually restricted to coronals and dorsals. (Coronals, however, do undergo palatalization in other contexts.) Second, the trigger of the process, the suffix –wa, does not contain an overt or even an underlying front vocoid, but presumably develops it as a result of labial dissimilation (Kotzé & Zerbian 2008). Third, the process in SiSwati is not strictly local, as it can target labials occurring in non-adjacent syllables. All this makes palatalization in Tswana and SiSwati (and similar processes in other Southern Bantu languages) a relatively ‘unnatural’ case in the typology of palatalization, as well will see below. (6) non-passive passive

a. Tswana p - ʧʷ lɔpa lɔːʧʷa (/lɔp-wa/) ‘request’ pʰ - ʧʰʷ tlʰʊpʰa tlʰʊːʧʰʷa (/tlʰʊpʰ-wa/) ‘choose’ b - ʤʷ roba rɔːʤʷa (/rob-wa/) ‘break’

b. SiSwati b - ʤ hamb- hanʤwa (/hamb-wa/) ‘go’ ɓ - ʧ’ seɓenta seʧ’entwa (/seɓent-wa/) ‘work’

pʰ - ʃ sipʰula siʃulwa (/sipʰul-wa/) ‘uproot’ The examples from English, Russian, Nupe, Tswana, and SiSwati provide a snapshot of a vast range of variation found in palatalization processes both within and across languages. Of

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particular interest here is the variation and preferences in terms of featural composition of segmental classes involved in palatalization – its triggers, targets, and outputs. There are clearly many other theoretically important issues relevant to palatalization – including those of allophonic/phonemic status, morphological or lexical conditioning, locality, etc.; these, however, are beyond the scope of this paper (on some of these topics, see 20 DERIVED ENVIRONMENT EFFECTS; 113 SLAVIC PALATALIZATION; 150 LOCAL ASSIMILATION; ? SECONDARY ARTICULATIONS AND DOUBLY ARTICULATED CONSONANTS). 2.2 Typological patterns of palatalization To better understand the complexity of the phenomenon, it is useful examine cross-linguistically more and less common patterns of palatalization. The following discussion is based on the author’s survey of synchronic palatalization processes with some reference to the earlier often-cited survey by Bhat (1978), and the more recent one by Bateman (2007).2

(See also Chen M. 1973; Kochetov 2002; Stadnik 2002 for surveys specific to certain geographic areas or phonological contrasts.)

The survey covers cases of palatalization as exhibited by segmental alternations (as opposed to phonotactic restrictions or historical changes) selected from theoretical phonological literature for the purposes of this article. Altogether, it contains data from 64 languages and dialects belonging to 17 languages families and 25 genera. We will begin with observations about targets and outcomes of palatalization, and corresponding general types of palatalization processes. The focus will be on changes targeting labial, (anterior) coronal, and dorsal (velar) stops. Table 1 represents three general processes of palatalization: secondary palatalization (Type I), palatalization resulting in a posterior coronal (palato-alveolar or (alveolo-)palatal, Type II), and palatalization resulting in an anterior coronal (alveolar or dental, Type III). Type II process can produce either non-sibilants or sibilants, resulting in two sub-types ((a) or (b)). The same sub-division is given for Type III process. Columns on the right schematically present typical (or expected) changes involved in each process, depending on the target consonant – labial, coronal or dorsal. (To avoid cluttering the table, voiceless stops/affricates stand here for respective segments regardless their laryngeal specification, e.g. ‘ʧ’ can include [ʧ], [ʧ’], [ʧʰ] or [ʤ]; changes in continuancy are not noted, e.g. ‘kʦ’ includes the changes to [ʦ] or [s]). To facilitate the comparison, each change is labeled as ‘common’, ‘rare’, or ‘absent’, indicating its relative frequency in the sample, based on numbers of separate language families and genera (given in parentheses), rather than individual languages.3

� 2 The latter two studies have certain limitations with respect to the goals of this paper. Although quite extensive, Bhat’s survey does not clearly distinguish between synchronic processes and historical sound changes, of which only the former are relevant here. Bateman’s survey, while drawing on a genetically-balanced language sample and focusing on synchronic processes, is restricted to only certain types of palatalization processes, leaving out, for example, place-changing palatalization of labials and changes resulting in anterior coronals. The latter types are important for our discussion, as these are the ones that have been most problematic for theoretical accounts.

See the online Supplementary Materials for examples of the processes.

3 As an example, Type IIb(cor) palatalization in English and Russian (1) and (4b) represent a single case of palatalization at the level of family (Indo-European), and as two separate cases at the level of genus (Germanic and Slavic). This allows for an estimation of cross-linguistic frequency that is relatively conservative and less biased towards certain language families or genera. For expository reasons, ‘common’ changes are defined as occurring in

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Table 1. Targets and outputs of palatalization (alternations only) and corresponding processes, and their relative frequency in world languages (based on numbers of language families and genera, given in square brackets; see the text for details) Type Palatalization labial coronal dorsal I. Secondary p pʲ t tʲ k kʲ common [6,9] common [6,8] common [6,7] II. To a posterior

coronal a. to a non-sibilant

p c t c k c rare [1,1] common [7,8] common [4,6] b. to a

sibilant p ʧ t ʧ k ʧ

rare [1,1] common [9,14] common [4,7] III. To an anterior

coronal a. to a non-sibilant

p t n/a k t absent [0,0] absent [0,0] b. to a

sibilant p ʦ t ʦ k ʦ

rare [1,1] common [3,6] rare [2,4] Note that the typology of processes in Table 1 is compatible with the typology of changes in Bhat (1978), whose terms are based on the SPE feature terminology (see section 3.1). Taking coronal targets as an example, Type I and Type IIa correspond to Bhat’s process of alveolar ‘raising’ without ‘spirantization’ (i.e., [-high] [+high] in the SPE notation), Type IIb corresponds to ‘raising’ accompanied by ‘spirantization’ (i.e., [-high, -strid] [+high, +strid]), and Type IIIb corresponds to ‘spirantization’ without ‘raising’ (i.e., [-strid] [+strid]). Bhat’s terms are not fully appropriate for our purposes, as they do not distinguish between secondary and place-changing palatalization, in addition to being tied to a specific feature framework. Place-changing processes (Type II and III) involving noncoronals have also been known as ‘coronalization’ (Hume 1992; Flemming 2002). What is interesting about the different types of palatalization shown in Table 1 is that certain targets and outputs (and the corresponding processes) are common, while others are rare or unattested. Overall, there is a tendency for place-changing palatalization to result in sibilants rather than non-sibilants. While both sibilants and non-sibilants are possible outputs for Type II palatalization, only sibilants are possible for Type III palatalization. Another important observation is that labials as targets of place-changing palatalization processes (Types II and III) are exceedingly rare, compared to coronals and dorsals. The only examples of labial place-changing palatalization (with stops as targets) in the sample are Southern Bantu languages (see (6)) and Moldova Romanian (e.g. plop ‘poplar tree’, ploc /plop-i/ plural, drob ‘block (of salt)’ droɟ /drob-i/ plural: Bateman 2007). Among the other two place categories, coronals as targets tend to occur overall more frequently than dorsals. Notably, the most common palatalization process is a change of alveolars to palato-alveolars (Type IIb, shown in bold), attested in 9 language families and 14 genera. Further examination of the cases (Table 2) shows that in a given language, coronals and dorsals can be targeted by palatalization independently or together, while labials are targeted only when coronals (and dorsals) are targeted too (but see (6)). This

at least three or more families, and ‘rare’ changes occur in one or two families. The study uses the language classification from WALS.

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suggests implicational relations among targets of palatalization, with place-changing palatalization of labials implying palatalization of coronals and dorsals (cf. Chen M. 1973; Foley 1977; Bhat 1978). The results of the survey are also indicative of a greater propensity of coronals to palatalization, compared to dorsals. This is consistent with some previous studies (cf. Bateman 2007), while in part contradicting those based on more limited language samples or mixed synchronic/diachronic data (Chen M. 1973; Foley 1977; see section 3.2). Table 2. Targets of palatalization and their relative frequency in world languages Target Consonants Occurrence coronal only common [13,16] dorsal only common [4,6] labial only absent [0,0] coronal and dorsal common [3,5] coronal and labial rare [1,1] dorsal and labial absent [0,0] coronal, dorsal, and labial common [6,9] Turning to triggers of palatalization, Table 3 shows that these include front vocoids (vowels and glides) that differ in height and high vocoids that differ in backness. Non-high back vowels do not trigger palatalization. Among all the triggers, high front /i/ and /j/ are the most likely triggers, followed at a considerable distance by mid front vowels. Recall that these are the triggers in all examples showed above (leaving aside the more opaque Bantu cases). Examples of the rare types of palatalization triggered by front low vowels or high back vocoids include Slovak (vnuːʧa /vnuːk-æ/ ‘grandson’, diminutive; Hume 1992) and Lomongo (konʤwá /kond-wa/ ‘cover with sand’, passive; Kenstowicz & Kisserberth 1977). It is important to note that in a given language, low and mid front vowels trigger palatalization, apparently only if high front vowels trigger it too.4

Similarly, non-front high vocoids are triggers, when front high vocoids are also triggers. These observations are indicative of implicational relations between vowel height/frontness and the ability to trigger palatalization (cf. Chen M. 1973; Foley 1977; Bateman 2007). Further, there are some interesting dependencies between triggers and targets. Coronals tend to be targeted by high vocoids, and especially by /j/, while dorsals are almost exclusively targeted by /i/ and other front vowels (see Bhat 1978: 52-56 for details).

� 4 Bhat (1978) mentions some cases where mid front vowels palatalize velars to the exclusion of high front vowels. None of these cases, however, appear to involve alternations.

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Table 3. Triggers of palatalization, and their relative frequency in world languages Trigger Occurrence Backness Height E.g. front only high only i/j common [17,24] front only high & mid i/j, e/ɛ common [4,5] front only high, mid, & low i/j, e/ɛ, æ rare [1,1] front only mid/low e/ɛ/æ absent [0,0] front & back high only i/j, ɨ/u/w rare [1,1] back only high only ɨ/u/w absent [0,0] back mid/low ɑ/ə/o/ɔ absent [0,0] In terms of directionality, palatalization processes can be regressive (right-to-left) or progressive (left-to-right). Both types are quite common, with regressive palatalization attested in 8 families and 16 genera, and progressive palatalization in 9 families and 9 genera (but mainly in the Americas). Some languages show both types, although in different morphological/phonological contexts, as, for example, Chimalapa Zoque (7) (Kenstowicz & Kisserberth 1977). The overwhelming majority of palatalization processes are local, triggered by immediately adjacent vocoids. In a few cases, however, palatalization can apply across a consonant as in Barrow Inupiaq (7b) (Archangeli & Pulleyblank 1994), or across one or more syllables as in Harari (7c) (Rose 1997; cf. SiSwati in (6)). (7) a. tɨʧi /tɨʦ-i/ ‘dry’ cf. tɨʦ-pa ‘‘it is drying’

kuj ʧeʦ-pa /kuj ʦeʦ-pa/ ‘is carving wood’ cf. ʦeʦ-pa ‘is carving’ b. isiχsuq /isiq-tuq/ ‘be smoky’ (3sg int.) isiʀʎuni /isiq-luni/ (3sg irrealis)

c. kiʧǝbi /kitǝb-i/ ‘write!’ (2sg fem.) cf. kitǝb (2sg masc.) 2.3 Summary Our examination of particular cases and cross-linguistic patterns of palatalization processes reveals a number of asymmetries involving targets, triggers, outputs. Some of the key observations are re-stated in (8). First, certain places of articulation are better targets of palatalization than others (a). Among the three places, the key difference is between coronals and dorsals on one hand and labials on the other. Another important difference is between coronals and non-coronals. Second, certain vowels/glides are better triggers of palatalization than others (b). Particularly, front vowels are considerably better triggers than non-front vowels, and among the former class, high vowels are the best and low vowels are the worst triggers. Third, there are important dependences between the vowel height (and syllabicity) of triggers and the place of targets (c). Fourth, outputs of palatalization are either palatalized consonants or coronals; among the latter, posterior coronals and/or sibilants are the preferred outputs (d). In addition, all but a few cases of palatalization are local, triggered by immediately preceding or following vocoids.

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(8) Main typological generalizations about palatalization (‘>’: ‘better, more likely’) a. Target place asymmetry (place-changing palatalization):

i. coronal, dorsal > labial ii. coronal > dorsal, labial

b. Trigger asymmetry: i. (high) front > high central/back ii. high front > mid front > low front

c. Trigger-target dependencies: i. front vowels and dorsals ii. high vocoids (especially /j/) and coronals

d. Output asymmetries: i. posterior > anterior ii. sibilant > non-sibilant

It should be noted that as a type of consonant-vowel interactions, palatalization is somewhat unique. (See 96 CONSONANT-VOWEL PLACE FEATURE INTERACTIONS.) Although other consonant-to-vowel assimilation processes commonly result in consonants with secondary vowel articulations (ttw /_u), they hardly ever exhibit synchronic shifts in primary place of articulation (tp or k /_u) (cf. Ní Chiosáin & Padgett 1993). If such alternations are indeed observed, they appear to imply palatalization alternations, like in Ikalanga, where vowels (through gliding) trigger both place-changing velarization and palatalization (9) (Mathangwane 1996). In addition, unlike palatalization, hardly any other vowel-consonant interactions affect consonant manner features, in a way that, for example, produces sibilant affricates or fricatives from stops. Equally implausible are the processes that would produce the reverse effect of place-changing palatalization, for example, converting sibilant coronals to coronal or non-coronal stops (ʧt or k). All this underscores the seemingly unique place of palatalization in the typology of consonant-vowel interactions and its highly asymmetric nature. (9) plain diminutive a. ʒínó ʒiŋwáná /ʒino-ana/ ‘tooth’

ʃamú ʃaŋwáná /ʃamu-ana/ ‘lash’ b. báni baɲáná /bani-ana/ ‘forest’

seme seɲáná /seme-ana/ ‘basket’ What makes palatalization so special? Why are some patterns of palatalization cross-linguistically more common, while other patterns are rare or unattested? It has long been known that the naturalness of many palatalization processes has its roots in phonetics – articulation and perception. As Hyman (1975: 171) noted in his discussion of velar palatalization, gradient fronting of a [k] before [i] is a phonetic process that is universal, shared by all languages. The two articulatory gestures – the tongue body backing for [k] and the tongue body fronting for [i] simply cannot be co-produced without this coarticulatory adjustment. In this sense, the process is automatic, part of the ‘universal phonetics’ (although the degree of velar fronting can be language-particular). Further, fronted velars or palatals tend to be produced with greater frication at the release, which makes them acoustically more similar to palato-alveolar affricates. Given this acoustic similarity, the former are often auditorily confused with the latter (but not the

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reverse), resulting in common historic shifts of velars to palato-alveolars (Guion 1996). The change kʧ before [i] is therefore motivated by both articulation and perception. Similar articulatory, and possibly perceptual, reasons underlie the change of tʧ before [j] or [i] – presumably arising due to overlap of the tongue tip and tongue body gestures, producing a more retracted laminal constriction with a turbulent sibilant-like release (Zsiga 1993). In contrast, the articulation of [p] before [j] or [i] presents no articulatory difficulties, as the two gestures – the lips and the tongue body – are physically uncoupled and therefore can be freely co-produced. Despite some frication at the release, [pj] is still quite acoustically different from [ʧ] and thus is less likely to be confused with the former. This suggests that unlike dorsal and coronal palatalization, labial palatalization is phonetically much less plausible, and therefore phonologically less natural. Indeed, comparative historical evidence suggests that cases of labial palatalization have arisen through ‘telescoping’ – a series of historical changes involving glide strengthening and cluster simplification (Hyman 1975; Bateman 2007). In fact, different stages of these developments are often reflected in closely related languages or dialects, as the case with Tswana and Moldova Romanian (10) (Kotzé & Zerbian 2008; Udler 1976). Finally, the lack of phonetic motivation can explain some of the asymmetries in triggers of palatalization (e.g. high front vocoids vs. low and back) and the unnaturalness of changes reverse to palatalization (e.g. ʧt or k). (10) a. Tswana Northern Sotho Lobedu

-gaʧʷa /-gap-wa/ -gapʃa -habja ‘request’ (passive) b. Moldova Romanian dialects Standard Northern Bukovina Chernovcy aric /arip-i/ aripc aripj ‘wing’ (plural)

While the diachronic phonetic sources of palatalization have rarely been debated, most phonologists would agree that at least some of the common patterns and important asymmetries in palatalization in (9) (or any phonological process) require synchronic explanation (but see section 6). Further, regardless of historical changes, it is commonly agreed that synchronic grammars should have ways of modeling palatalization alternations (as in English or Russian) or allophonic variation (as in Nupe). Yet the question of how to represent the process synchronically while capturing relevant significant generalizations has proven to be difficult, if not impossible. It is remarkable, that almost forty years after the first generative account of English velar palatalization in Chomsky & Halle (1968), Moris Halle (2005: 23) concedes that “to this time there has been no proper account of palatalization that would relate it to the other properties of language, in particular, to the fact that it is found most commonly before front vowels.” (p. 23). This is despite the fact that palatalization has received extensive treatment in early generative phonology, autosegmental phonology, and more recently in Optimality Theory. The goal of this paper is to review some of the influential theoretical treatments of palatalization as a synchronic process, while focusing particularly on distinctive features and feature geometry representations as ways of capturing naturalness of common palatalization processes. As we will see, some of the problems encountered by formal models of palatalization can be attributed to the complexity of the phenomenon; other difficulties, however, seemingly stem from the reliance on a universally-fixed closed set of rigid, unidimensional representations. We will also examine other formal ways of capturing relevant generalizations using constraints and constraint

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hierarchies or more phonetically detailed representations in Optimality Theory, and conclude with a brief review of some recent alternative proposals that challenge traditional generative assumptions. 3. Palatalization in early generative phonology 3.1 Distinctive features and marking conventions of SPE One possible way of capturing the naturalness of phonological processes is through stating natural classes of segments involved (as triggers, targets, and outputs) using distinctive features. The concept of natural classes encoded by a universal set of features has been an important part of generative phonology since Chomsky & Halle’s (1968) ‘Sound pattern of English’ (SPE). The distinctive features in SPE were exclusively articulatorily-based (unlike the auditorily-based features of Jakobson, Fant, & Halle 1952). One proposal that has important theoretical consequences for our discussion is the use of features [±high], [±back], and [±low] for both vowels and consonants. Among the latter, these features are used as “a natural manner to characterize subsidiary consonant articulations such as palatalization, velarization, and pharyngealization” (p. 305), which are defined as [-back, -low], [+back, -low], and [+back, +low] respectively. This proposal was intended to capture the fact that secondary articulations tend to occur before vowels of the same qualities, for example, palatalized consonants before front vowels (cf. Nupe (5)). The feature specification thus allowed one to state these restrictions as “an obvious case of regressive assimilation” (p. 308). In addition, the proposal captured a cross-linguistic observation that the three types of secondary articulations are mutually exclusive, as, for example, palatalized consonants cannot be simultaneously velarized or pharyngealized. These feature specifications also helped stating typical vowel raising and fronting changes next to palatalized consonants as a simple case of assimilation. An example from Russian is shown in (11a), where underlying vowels /e/ and /a/ shift to [i] when occurring after a palatalized consonant in an unstressed syllable (Kenstowicz & Kisseberth 1979). An SPE-style rule capturing the process is stated in (11b). (11) a. 1st pers. pl. 1st pers. sg.

pjíʃim pjiʃú ‘write’ mjéʧim mjiʧú ‘throw’

vjáʒim vjiʒú ‘bind’ máʃim maʃú ‘wave’

b. [+syll, -high] [+high, -back] / [-syll, +high, -back]___ Note that in this respect the SPE feature system is a step forward compared to Jakobson’s etal. (1952) system, where consonants with secondary articulations and corresponding vowels did not share the same feature values. For example, palatalized consonants were specified for [+sharp] (and [+grave] or [-grave]), while (high) front vowels were [-sharp] and [-grave]. The SPE specification for [+high, -back] was not limited to high front vowels and palatalized consonants, but also extended to palatals and post-alveolars. This is important, because it naturally grouped together common triggers and outputs of palatalization processes (Types I and

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II). The feature system, however, treated palatals as non-coronals and grouped them with velars: both are [-cor, -ant, +high] and differ in [±back]. Notably, palatalized velars were not distinguished from palatals (both are [-cor, -ant, +high, -back]). These two specifications created certain problems. First, Type I (secondary) palatalization was represented as two different featural processes: a change in from [-high] to [+high] (raising) for coronals and labials (which are [+/-cor, +ant, -high, -back]), and a change from [+back] to [-back] (fronting) for velars. This also predicted – partly incorrectly – that palatalization of velars should be triggered by front vowels only (regardless of height), while secondary palatalization of coronals and labials should be triggered by high vowels only (regardless of frontness/backness). Another seemingly non-trivial problem is revealed by the treatment of place-changing palatalization processes (Types II and III). Consider the rules proposed to account for English coronal palatalization (12a) and velar softening (12b) (see (1) and (2)). As Chomsky & Halle note (p. 424), palatalization is an intrinsically assimilatory process. Nothing in the rules below, however, captures its assimilatory nature. In fact, specifications of triggers and outputs in each of the rules do not share a single feature. (12) a. [-son, +cor] [-ant, +strid] /__ [-back, -voc, -cons][-cons, -stress] b. [-cont, -ant, <-voi>] [+cor, +strid, <+ant>] /__[-back, -low, -cons] Acknowledging this and other problems arising from the excessively permissive rule notation mechanism as a “fundamental theoretical inadequacy” (p. 400), Chomsky & Halle propose to supplement rules and feature specification with a substantive component – a theory of markedness consisting of a list of ‘marking conventions’ (chapter 9). They illustrate the application of these conventions in rules representing historical palatalization processes in Slavic. The so-called ‘first velar palatalization’ in Slavic (Type IIa; k g x ʧ ʤ ʃ) can be stated as a “simple assimilation rule” (p. 400) by which velars ([-ant]) acquire the [-back] value from following front vowels (13a). The change of stops to strident coronal affricates and fricatives ([+cor, +del. rel., +strid]) is not an assimilatory effect, but is due to an application of relevant marking conventions (13b). According to these conventions, a post-alveolar affricate [ʧ] is less marked than a palatal stop [c] or a palato-alveolar stop [ṯ], and therefore “when velar obstruents are fronted, it is simpler for them also to become strident palato-alveolars with delayed release” (p. 423). Thus, the unmarked value of the feature [coronal] ([ucor]) for [-back, -ant] consonants is [+cor], and the unmarked values for the other two features of posterior coronals are [+del. rel.] and [+strid]. Similar assimilation rules and marking conventions were proposed for the Slavic ‘second velar palatalization’ and language-specific realizations of ‘dental palatalization’ (Types IIab and IIIb). (13) a. [-ant] [-back, +cor, +del. rel, +strid] /__[-cons, -back] b. [ucor] [+cor] / [__, -back, -ant]

[udel rel] [+del rel] / [__, -ant, +cor] [ustrid] [+strid] / [__, +del rel, +cor]

The combined use of rules and marking conventions made it possible to formulate palatalization as an assimilatory process. Yet, it remains unclear when marking conventions should be invoked

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in general, and there are questions about appropriateness of some of the conventions for particular cases of palatalization. For example, while it is true that post-alveolar affricates are less marked (at least less cross-linguistically common) than palatal or post-alveolar stops, the same is true, even more so, about the unmarked status of alveolar or labial stops (both [-ant, -back]) – the segments that are never produced by palatalization. Further, the account views all place-changing palatalization processes as consisting of two consecutive stages – the fronting or secondary palatalization followed by simplification (e.g. kc ʧ; ttj ʧ). While these stages may correctly recapitulate historical development of some palatalization processes (as in Slavic), one may argue that they are simply unnecessary as statements of synchronic rules of a language. 3.2 Naturalness and phonological rules Questions about alternative ways of constraining the excessively powerful rule machinery of SPE have been central to the theoretical debate in the late 60s and the 70s (see Hyman 1975 for a review). Why is, for example, the palatalization rule in (14a) cross-linguistically common, natural, while the exact reverse of it (14b) is highly unlikely, unnatural? From the point of view of computational simplicity, both rules are equally simple, involving the same number of features. The fact that the formal theory had no way of distinguishing between natural and unnatural rules was seen by some phonologists as highly problematic. In response to this, Schachter (1969) proposed to encode naturalness directly into phonological rules, introducing the feature specification n, marking feature values that are ‘natural’ for a given process. Given this, the rule of velar palatalization can be re-written as (14c), stating that the natural value of the feature [±back] before front vowels is [-back]. Features marked as natural are not counted by the rule simplicity metric, thus rendering the rule in (c) less ‘costly’ than the rule in (b). Taking this idea further, Chen M. (1973) proposed to formalize the target place and trigger height asymmetries of palatalization (8a and 8bii) as part of special meta-rules – language-specific rules supplemented with universal constraint statements. For example, his meta-rule in (14d) states that consonants become palatalized before front vowels (1 back = {i, e, æ}), however, with certain implicational relations: (i) if a consonant of a given point m along the backness scale undergoes palatalization, so does the consonant higher on the scale (i.e. [p] implies [t] and [k], [t] implies [k]; cf. (8a), but see (8b)); (ii) if a consonant undergoes palatalization by a vowel of a given point n of the height scale, so it does before any vowel higher on that scale (i.e., [æ] implies [e] and [i], and [e] implies [i]; cf. (8bii)). In a related proposal, Foley (1977) formulated ‘synchronic truth statements’ – implicational relations among triggers and targets of palatalization and provided detailed calculations of relative probability of palatalization depending on the target place and trigger height (among other factors), as shown in (14e).

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(14) a. C[+back] [-back] / __V[-back] (kʧ /__{i, e, æ}) b. C[-back] [+back] / __V[+back] (ʧk /__{u o a}) c. C[+back] [n back] / __V[-back] d. C[αback] palatalized / V[1 back, βhigh] language-universal constraints: α ≥ m, β ≥ n, where C backness scale: 1 [p], 2 [t], 3 [k]; V height scale: 1 [æ], 2 [e], 3 [i] e. Relative probability scale of palatalization kj > ki, tj > ke, ti, pj > kæ, te, pi > tæ, pe > pæ These proposals, despite some empirical inadequacies, are interesting as first relatively systematic attempts to directly incorporate substantive factors into the formal computational mechanism. The use of phonetic naturalness as a formal phonological criterion, however, did not receive much support in the mainstream generative phonology at the time, as it was difficult to be reconciled with the fact that languages allow both natural and unnatural rules, seemingly without preference for the former. If naturalness considerations were part of the grammar, why would some languages maintain such phonetically implausible rules as labial palatalization (cf. Hyman 1975 on the Bantu rule ps /_i)? 4. Feature Geometry New ways of constraining the application of phonological rules was brought by the framework of Feature Geometry (FG; Clements 1985; Sagey 1990 [1986], among others). More elaborate, geometrically organized autosegmental featural representations were expected to delimit the typology of phonological rules, distinguishing between possible, natural and impossible, unnatural processes. Within FG, it is useful to distinguish two main approaches to palatalization. Both of them view palatalization as an assimilatory phenomenon, but differ in the feature specification of the main triggers of the process – front vocoids. The first approach treats front vocoids as [dorsal], essentially following the SPE tradition. The second approach specifies front vowels as [coronal], in an attempt to state some of the generalizations missed by the SPE-style featural accounts. Palatalization is thus modeled as either spreading of [dorsal] or spreading [coronal] (hence [dor] and [cor]). (See also 130 ORGANIZATION OF FEATURES.) 4.1 Palatalization as spreading [dorsal] One key proposal of this approach, initially developed in Sagey’s dissertation (1990 [1986]), is that vowels, glides, dorsal consonants, and secondary articulations like palatalization and velarization are characterized by the [dor] node with features [±high, ±back, ±low]. In contrast to SPE, labials and coronals are not specified for these features, but are characterized by [lab] and [cor] nodes respectively. The feature [ant] in the new approach is limited to coronals only, being specified under the [cor] node. Palatalized consonants in this system are viewed as complex segments with temporally unordered primary [labial] or [coronal] nodes and the secondary [dorsal] node specified for [+high,-back] (with ‘designated articulators’ – primary nodes – marked diacritically with a pointer from the Root node):

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Root x … Place [dorsal] [labial] or [coronal] [+high][-back] As in SPE, this system does not allow for palatalized velars distinct from palatals: both are designated as ‘ky’, ‘gy’, etc. and represented as simple segments having Place [dor[+high,-back]]. Given these feature specifications, palatalization processes are treated as spreading [+high,-back] either with or without the [dor] node. Sagey presents data from Zoque to illustrate the application of palatalization. As shown in (15), palatal glide /j/ triggers palatalization of following consonants by adding a secondary palatal articulation to labials and velars, and changing anterior coronals to posterior coronals ([ṯ] = an alveolo-palatal stop, [-ant]). Sagey analyzes palatalization as spreading [-back] from the preceding /j/ to all places (together with [dor] for labials and coronals), with a subsequent deletion of the glide. This analysis is illustrated for labials in (16). Spreading [-back] produces the needed results for labials and dorsals, but not for coronals. For the latter, the addition of [dor[-back]] to [cor[+ant]] results in palatalized alveolars instead of the expected posterior coronals. What is necessary here, Sagey argues, is an additional process that would simplify the complex coronal structure Place [cor[+ant]]*[dor[-back]] to a posterior articulation, [cor[-ant]]. She refers to this process as ‘fusion’, by which coronal and dorsal nodes are fused to produce a simple posterior coronal. (15) a. /j-pata/ pjata ‘his mat’ b. /j-kama/ kjama ‘his cornfield’ c. /j-tatah/ ṯatah ‘his father’

/j-ʦʌhku/ ʧahku ‘he did it’ (16) a. b. /j/ /p/ x x … … Place dor lab [-back]

[j] [pj] x x … … Place dor lab [-back]

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In sum, while the model provides a relatively simple and intuitively appealing account of secondary palatalization, its treatment of place-changing coronal palatalization as a two-stage process is arguably problematic for the same reasons as the SPE solution. Even more problematic, the critics would argue, is the analysis of place-changing velar palatalization (Types IIa and IIb) (cf. Hume 1992; Lahiri & Evers 1991). Such an analysis is not worked out in the dissertation, but would presumably involve a subsequent change of palatalized velars/palatals (Place[dor[-back]]) to posterior coronals (Place[cor[-ant]]). This, however, cannot be motivated by structural complexity, as palatalized velars (or palatals) are assumed to be simple articulations. Given this, fusion is not an option. Nor it is clear why this ‘simplification’ should result in a posterior coronal, as opposed, for example, an anterior coronal or a labial. Further, the model remains silent about the role of sibilancy in outputs of palatalization, and does not predict palatalization to anterior coronals (Type III) as a possible option. Despite these and other limitations (see Kenstowicz 1994), the approach to palatalization as spreading [dor] has been relatively successful when dealing with contrastive palatalization, particularly with systems having both palatalized and velarized consonants. For example, both in Irish and in Russian consonants in clusters assimilate to following consonants in secondary palatalization or velarization, and vowels get fronted or backed by adjacent palatalized and velarized consonants. These facts can be easily stated as spreading the [dor] node with either [-back] or [+back] (Ní Chiosáin 1991; Rubach 2000). The use of the binary feature [±back] is also useful when it comes to stating morphological ‘exchange rules’ – reversing palatality of consonants ([αback] [-αback]) to mark certain morphological categories, as in Kildin Saami and Scots Gaelic (17) (Kert 1971; Macaulay 1992). (17) a. kɛbb ‘illness’ (nom.sg.) kɛbʲbʲɛ (dat.-illat.sg.)

kobʲbʲ ‘pit’ (nom.sg.) kobba (dat.-illat.sg.) b. maːɫ ‘rent’ (nom.sg.) maːlj (gen. sg./nom.pl.) ahərj ‘father’ (nom.sg.) ahər (gen. sg./nom.pl.) 4.2 Palatalization as spreading [coronal] The approach to palatalization as spreading [cor] was advanced to remedy some of the inadequacies of the [dor] spreading model. It develops the original insight of Clements (1976) that palatalization and coronality are related, and that front vowels and coronals should form a natural class. While treatments of palatalization as spreading [cor] was advocated in a number of works (Broselow & Niyondagara 1990; Mester & Itô 1989; Clements 1991; Lahiri & Evers 1991), the most extensive development of the idea was presented in Hume’s dissertation (1992 [1994]). Hume’s FG model builds on Clements’ (1991) proposal to use distinct tiers for consonant and vowel places, C-Place and V-Place nodes. These separate tiers were introduced for reasons largely independent of modeling palatalization – to allow for cross-consonantal assimilatory effects (such as vowel harmony and umlaut). These structures also made it possible to represent consonants with secondary articulation as having both C-Place and V-Place nodes. The V-Place

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node of vowels included the features [±cor] and [±dor], with front vowels being [+cor[-ant]]. Height features were represented under a separate Stricture node, the property that would be relevant to our further discussion. Unlike the binary V-Pace features, C-Place features were assumed to be primitive: [lab], [cor], and [dor]. The [+ant] under the [cor] nodes referred to dentals and alveolars (as in Sagey’s framework), while [-ant] referred to various posterior coronal articulations, crucially including palatals. Despite some formal inconsistency in the use of binary and primitive features, the model allows for representing front vowels, coronal consonants, and palatalized consonants as a natural class – all sharing [cor], specified either at the V-Place or C-Place. This is clearly a considerable advance in theoretical modeling of palatalization, as both secondary palatalization (Type I) and place-changing palatalization (Types IIa and IIb) can be stated as assimilatory processes, virtually involving a single step. According to this analysis, secondary palatalization is triggered by spreading V-Place[cor[-ant]] from a front vowel or glide to the consonant. In the case of place-changing palatalization, this spreading is accompanied by delinking the original C-Place and promoting V-Place to the position of the former. Changes in other features, such as stridency or continuancy are not considered to be part of the assimilation process per se, being specified as a rule parameter (the ‘constriction status change’). Hume’s analysis of the two general processes is illustrated in (18). (18) a. b. Constriction status change: No C V … … C-Pl C-Pl [F] (V-Pl) V-Pl [cor] [-ant]

Constriction status change: Yes C V … … C-Pl C-Pl [F] V-Pl [cor] [-ant]

The key insight of the [cor] spreading approach is that secondary palatalization and place-changing palatalization (also known as ‘coronalization’ with noncoronal targets) are essentially the same general process. Hume notes that both are cross-linguistically common, and in fact may optionally apply under the same phonological conditions in a given languages, as in Acadian French (19). (19) a. ki ~ kji ~ ʧi ‘who’

kɛ ~ kjɛ ~ ʧɛ ‘quay’ cf. ka ‘case’, kut ‘cost’, kote ‘side’

b. tjed ~ tjed ~ ʧed (/tied/) ‘lukewarm’ cf. dyp ‘dupe’, typ ‘type’

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While these data nicely illustrate the similarity between secondary palatalization and place-changing palatalization, they also highlight some problems with the model. The triggers of the processes involving dorsals (a) and coronals (b) are different: front vowels in the first case and [j] in the second case. The target-trigger dependencies (see (8c)) are therefore not predicted by the model (cf. Kenstowicz 1994). While the same is true for Sagey’s and SPE models, Hume’s model has a structural limitation – stricture features are assumed to be independent of place features, and therefore statements of such dependencies are not possible. In fact, the model predicts that vowel height is not a factor in the process and any front vocoid can equally well palatalize a consonant of any place of articulation. While correctly capturing the important role of front vowels in palatalization processes, Hume’s model does not allow for finer-grained frontness/height distinctions and rules out some of the attested processes. Among such processes are vowel raising next to palatalized consonants (as in Russian (11)) and a shift of velars to anterior coronals – the phenomena that could be relatively straightforwardly handled in the SPE approach. 4.3 Further developments Subsequent work in the framework of FG included attempts to resolve some of the problematic aspects of either approach, or to combine the insights of both. Lahiri & Evers (1991) propose to revise the [cor] spreading approach by simplifying the two-tier place system and dispensing with the tier promotion mechanism used by Clements (1991) and Hume (1992). While maintaining the treatment of place-changing palatalization as due to spreading [Cor[-ant]], they analyze secondary palatalization as spreading [+high] (specified under the Tongue Position node) – a representationally elegant, yet arguably empirically problematic approach (Hume 1992; Jacobs & van de Weijer 1992). Calabrese (1993) uses alternative feature geometry representations and markedness filters in an attempt to address some of the issues largely overlooked in the Sagey’s and Hume’s approaches. Among these are the propensity of palatalization to produce sibilant affricates and fricatives, and the possibility of anterior coronals as outputs of the process. Jacobs & van de Weijer (1992) propose that front vowels are complex articulations, having both [cor] and [dor] nodes (cf. Halle 2005). Palatalization may involve spreading only dorsal features, as in case of velar fronting (x ç), or both coronal and dorsal features, as in case of place-changing palatalization of velars. This specification is also intended to characterize the class of coronals and dorsals as common targets of palatalization, as opposed to labials. While the move to specify front vocoids for both features adds flexibility to analyses of palatalization, its implications for analyses of other processes, such as vowel harmony, consonant harmony, or the interactions of these processes with palatalization still remain to be explored. For example, is the patterning of front vowels in palatalization (as triggers) consistent with their patterning in backness vowel harmony (as targets or transparent vowels)? Do palatalized consonants always block backness harmony (as in Turkish: Kenstowicz & Kisserberth 1979)? Why do front vocoids fail to block coronal consonant harmony in some languages (Sanskrit: Calabrese 1993), while triggering it in other languages (Rundi: Broselow & Niyondagara 1990)? Finally, none of the above reviewed approaches seems to address the important question of why palatalization is special among consonant-vowel interactions – that is, why front vowels systematically displace consonant primary place of articulation, while other vowels hardly ever do so (cf. Ní Chiosáin & Padgett 1993).

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To conclude this section, palatalization has played an important role in the development of FG framework, serving as a testing ground for competing proposals. While the rigidly constrained featural representations combined with a set of simple operations have contributed to a more empirically adequate account of cross-linguistic patterns of palatalization, it became clear that the same representations often stood on the way of further empirical coverage of the phenomenon (and sometimes creating problems for accounts of other phenomena). This particularly applies to cases of palatalization that can be considered less phonetically natural, such as place-changing processes resulting in anterior coronals or involving labial consonants. Ironically, some of the processes that could be easily stated in the SPE-style approach (although not always in a natural and insightful way), could no longer be stated in the FG approach without making some ad-hoc stipulations. At the same time, the discrete and binary FG representations have also turned out to be incapable of capturing the finer-grained, presumably phonetically-motivated scalar phenomena and trigger-target dependencies. This subsequently led some phonologists to (at least partly) revise the traditional view that representations are fixed and universal, and to explore ways of capturing cross-linguistic generalizations and variability in phonological processes through underspecification (Steriade 1995), contrastive specification (Avery & Rice 1989), contrastive feature hierarchies (Dresher 2009), or a system of parameterized rules (Archangeli & Pulleyblank 1994). 5. Constraints and representations in Optimality Theory The advent of Optimality Theory (OT: Prince & Smolensky 1993) brought back the phonetic substance into phonology, now in the form of violable markedness constraints. While feature geometry-style representations and feature spreading assumptions have continued to play an important role in most OT accounts of palatalization, the task of capturing relevant feature asymmetries was partly relegated to constraints and constraint hierarchies. For example, the labial/non-labial target asymmetry could now be formalized as a universally fixed hierarchy of constraints prohibiting palatalized labials, dorsals, and cornals (20a) (Chen S.-I. 1996; Rose 1997), while the trigger height asymmetry was represented as a fixed hierarchy of PALATALIZE (spread V-Place) constraints indexed for vowel height (20b) (Rubach 2003). Meshing these two hierarchies and combining them with different rankings of other markedness (e.g. AFFRICATION and POSTERIORITY: Rubach 2000) and faithfulness constraints can generate a restrictive factorial typology of palatalization patterns (cf. (14)), somewhat approximating the actual typology of palatalization (see section 2). However, as the objects of constraint manipulation were the same inviolable FG representations, some of the earlier noted problems persisted into OT analyses. (20) a. *[LAB]/VPL[COR] » *[DOR]/VPL[COR], *[COR]/VPL[COR]

b. PAL/j, PAL/i » PAL/e » PAL/æ One possible solution to these problems was sought in the use of more detailed, phonetically realistic representations. Chen’s S.-I. (1996), for example, uses articulatory gestures in conjunction with the traditional FG representations to analyze palatalization in Japanese, Polish, and SiSwati. All palatalization processes are assumed to involve spreading V-Place[cor] from front vocoids (following Hume 1992) and resulting in abstract complex segments with a

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secondary place and the original primary place (e.g. [Dor]/V-Place[Cor]). The cross-linguistic diversity in outputs of palatalization arises, according to Chen, from language-particular phonetic implementation via articulatory gestures (Browman & Goldstein 1989). Bateman’s (2007) OT analysis of cross-linguistic patterns of palatalization fully replaces the traditional FG representations with articulatory gestures. She models secondary palatalization and place-changing palatalization as resulting from two different gestural coordination strategies: the coordination of the vowel gesture at the release of the consonant gesture or at the center of it – producing either consonants with secondary articulation or simple articulations of intermediate constriction location and degree respectively. The appeal of both proposals is in the use of independently motivated, physically concrete representations and a simple mechanism of gestural overlap. Problems arise, however, as before, with treatments of articulatorily less natural cases of dorsal and labial place-changing palatalization. In Chen’s analysis, velar palatalization results in the abstract phonological structure [Dor]/V-Place[Cor], which can be phonetically interpreted as [kj], [c], [ʧ], or [ʨ], depending on the language. Yet, it is not clear how this mapping would work in languages with more than one velar palatalization process (as Russian (4)). In Bateman’s analysis, the process kʧ cannot be reasonably analyzed as resulting from gestural blending only (which would give only [kj] or [c]), and requires additional markedness stipulations (cf. Chomsky & Halle 1968 on cʧ). While Chen analyzes labial palatalization in SiSwati as a case of phonological neutralization to the default coronal place, this is not an option for the gestures-only framework of Bateman. As gestural blending is technically impossible between the mechanically uncoupled gestures of the lips and the tongue body, labial palatalization is in principle ruled out by the model. Bateman contends that the few attested cases of labial-coronal alternations (as in Southern Bantu and Moldova Romanian) can be explained diachronically. Yet, these cases still arguably require a synchronic analysis. A different approach – exploring the phonetically detailed, scalar auditory features – is taken by Flemming (2002 [1995]). He analyzes palatalization as a process driven primarily by constraints requiring perceptual enhancement of phonological contrasts (as part of his Dispersion Theory). In this analysis, secondary palatalization is an optimizing strategy, as it enhances the contrast of the vowel with other vowels by extending the span of its second formant (F2) to the preceding consonant (e.g. Nupe [egʲe]-[ega] vs. [ege]-[ega]). The change of the fronted velar or palatal stop to a palatoalveolar affricate is yet another step in the enhancement of the contrast (e.g. [eʤe]-[ega]), by which the duration of frication and its loudness are increased, while the contrast with the non-palatalized counterpart in F2 still remains relatively large. Thus, sibilants as outputs of palatalization are fully expected, as affrication is part of contrast enhancement: “It is easier to enhance a contrast by exaggerating a difference that would be present anyway as an articulatory side-effect, rather than attempting to reverse the articulatorily motivated pattern” (p. 106). The same kind of enhancement through affrication is also possible for coronals, but is unlikely for palatalized labials, since the production of these does not involve as much frication. While the actual implementation of this analysis of palatalization is relatively complex, it does capture some important generalizations about palatalization processes that have evaded many previous analyses. The Dispersion Theory approach thus provides an interesting insight into how palatalization may arise through auditory enhancement of phonological contrasts (cf. Padgett 2001, 2003). It remains, however, to be seen how the approach can model synchronic alternations, and particularly more complex cases of morpho-phonological palatalization.

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6. Recent alternatives Despite the greater flexibility and apparent naturalness provided by violable substantive constraints in OT, some of the problems with formal modeling of palatalization have not been resolved. In part, these difficulties appeared to stem from a more fundamental problem – the persistent use of traditional featural representations (with some modifications), which were assumed to be inviolable, universal, and innate. These assumptions about representations were clearly important in the development of generative phonology, as the universal set of features provided a simple formal tool to state phonological rules and to capture significant cross-linguistic generalizations about natural classes of segments. Yet, the basis for these assumptions has hardly been questioned or systematically investigated until recently. As Mielke’s (2008 [2004]) survey of phonological processes shows, unnatural classes are widespread in languages, with some of them being more common than typical natural classes. As the traditional feature theories are incapable of characterizing many of these classes, the usefulness of maintaining the assumptions about feature universality and innateness is in serious doubt. Mileke’s proposal is that features are not innate but emergent, arising from language learners’ phonetic generalizations (cf. Hayes & Steriade 2004 on OT constraints). If features, and phonological representations in general, are indeed emergent, this has some wide-ranging implications for phonological theory, and for formal modeling of phonological processes. Specifically with respect to palatalization, languages may be expected to vary in how they define features and natural classes involved in the process, while at the same time showing many similarities, given the similar articulatory and acoustic properties of alternating consonants and vowel triggers. One may also expect that featural representations are not immutable within a given language, but possibly reflect local generalizations, specific to certain morphological domains or lexical strata (as, for example, in cases of multiple palatalization processes targeting the same consonants). These and many other implications for analyses of palatalization, however, have not yet been explored. Another notable recent development reflects resurgence of interest in diachronic explanation for synchronic phonological patterns. This approach is most systematically represented by Blevins’ (2004) Evolutionary Phonology (EP), where cross-linguistically common, ‘natural’ sound patterns are explained exclusively diachronically – as a by-product of recurrent phonetically-motivated sound changes. Given the well-established phonetic motivation for palatalization in coarticulation and auditory misperception (see section 2.3), synchronic patterns of palatalization can be interpreted as arising from sound changes involving these phonetic factors. As such, these patterns arguably do not require synchronic explanation – either structural or substantive (cf. Kochetov 2002 on the phonotactics of palatalization contrasts). Taking velar place-changing palatalization as an example, the unidirectional nature of this change (kiʧi, *ʧiki) and its common result (a post-alveolar affricate) has little to do with phonological grammar per se, as it can be attributed to common errors in the perception of fronted velars (Guion 1996). The same applies to the asymmetry between high and non-high front vowels as triggers – listeners simply make more errors of the type kiʧi than keʧe. By the same token, listeners rarely make errors like piʧi, unless under some specific phonetic conditions (see Ohala 1978) – the fact that

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explains the labial/non-labial asymmetry in palatalization. If most or all the cross-linguistic generalizations about palatalization in (8) can be accounted for by phonetically-based sound changes, the goal of synchronic grammar becomes much simpler – to state language-particular generalizations about the patterning of segments in alternations or their phonotactic distribution. What specific form would these language-particular synchronic grammatical generalizations take, however, is not clear, and has not been sufficiently explored by the proponents of EP. One interesting implication of the approach is that synchronic patterns of palatalization alternations should mirror sound changes involving the process. Whether this is true, however, is subject to further typological research. Another related question is how to reconcile the substance-free grammar envisioned by EP with apparent evidence that speakers possess some phonetic knowledge and seem to use to make higher-level grammatical generalizations (Hayes & Steriade 2004). An interesting relevant case is provided by the cross-linguistically common use of palatalization in baby-talk and diminutive sound-symbolism – presumably reflecting bottom-up generalizations, grammaticalized associations between the phonetics of palatalized consonants and the meaning of smallness and childishness (Kochetov & Alderete, to appear). Whether phonetic knowledge plays a role in phonological generalizations, and specifically whether phonetic naturalness considerations are part of the grammar are important questions that could be possibly answered through systematic psycholinguistic experimentation and computer simulations (see some relevant work by Wilson 2006). The challenge for the future work is, therefore, to tease apart synchronic phonological and phonetic knowledge of palatalization and historical influences shaping cross-linguistic patterns of palatalization over time. References Archangeli, Diana & Douglas Pulleyblank. 1994. Grounded phonology. Cambridge, MA: MIT

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