4.1 Tonal neutralization in Taiwan Southern Min
4.1.3 The extrametricality of neutral tones
4.1.3.1 Invisibility to tone sandhi
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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
fundamental principles of the universal phenomenon known as extrametricality, or alternatively extraprosodicity in Hsiao’s (1995) terms. In this section I deal with these properties respectively. §4.1.3.1 addresses invisibility, and §4.1.3.2 copes with domain-finality.
4.1.3.1 Invisibility to tone sandhi
As we have introduced in the outset, each of the seven categories of lexical tones in Taiwanese has two variants in tonal alternation: one base tone and one sandhi tone (the paradigm being repeated here). The selection between base forms and sandhi forms is purely positionally-conditioned. Specifically, base tones can only in the final position of some certain domain, while sandhi tones occurs elsewhere. Assuming that base form is underlying, the paradigmatic alternation can be translated into the tone sandhi rule in (26), which has the effect of converting all but the final tone within a tone sandhi domain into their corresponding sandhi tones.
(25) The categories of lexical tone in Taiwanese (=2)
Categories Base Tone Sandhi Tone
T1 55 si1 ‘poetry’ 33 si1bun2 ‘poetry and prose’
T2 52 si2 ‘to die’ 55 si2lang5 ‘dead people’
T3 21 si3 ‘four’ 52 si3tiam2 ‘four o’clock’
T4 2 si4 ‘color’ 5 sik4tshai2 ‘color’
T5 13 si5 ‘time’ 33 si5kan1 ‘time span’
T7 33 sik7 ‘temple’ 21 si7sing1 ‘temple monk’
T8 5 sik8 ‘ripe’ 2 sik8te5 ‘baked tea’
(26) Tone sandhi rule in Taiwanese (adapted from Chen 1987: 113)
B → S / _ B within a sandhi domain, where B is base tone and S is sandhi tone.
A sandhi domain, in consequence, may consist of a string of sandhi tones followed by
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
a single base tone, as illustrated in the following sentence, where tones within the same domain are enclosed in parentheses.
(27) Illustration of tone sandhi rule in (26)
As for the way of defining sandhi domains, Chen (1987) in his pioneer work on Amoy demonstrates that the tone sandhi domains are syntactically determined phrase-level constituents. The proposed account is listed in (28).
(28) Sandhi domain formation (adapted from Chen 1987, 1992)
Mark the right edge of every XP with a sandhi domain boundary, except where XP is an adjunct c-commanding ots lexical head.
The second half of the rule addresses the distinct differences in tone sandhi behavior between arguments and adjuncts, which does not concern us here, while the maximal projection condition (i.e. XP) in the first half of the formation rule covers a large range of categories, indicating that the formation rule is not sensitive to categorical distinction, but rather makes reference to categorical hierarchy. This phrase-level constituency corresponds to phonological phrase (ϕ) in the Match theory. Accordingly, tone sandhi in Taiwanese can be translated as the following: all but the final tone within a phonological phrase change into their corresponding sandhi forms. Such a correspondence is shown below, with the very same sentence as in (27). Note in particular that the prosodic structure here allows embedded phrases, as opposed to that Lau7tsim2po5 m2=siong1sin3 ing1ko1 e7=kong2ue7
Old.woman NEG=believe parrot can=talk (S S B) (S S S S B) (S S B)
‘The old lady does not believe that the parrot can talk.’
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國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
proposed in Chen, meaning that Nonrecursivity is crucially dominated by SP-MAX-XP.
(29) Embedded phonological phrase matched with syntactic structure
The presence of neutral tones pose a threat, however, to the given formation of tone sandhi domain. The problem comes from the fact that neutral tones, being carried by a grammatical word with degree of grammaticalization lower than or equal to 2, are required to occur at phrase-final positions (we will turn to this finality in the next subsection). Since neutral tones must surface with some pitch through the strategies introduced in §4.1.1, they become exceptional ― the only non-based tone in the final position. What is further peculiar is that in this case, the location for the realization of base form shifts to the syllable immediately followed by the neutral-toned syllable. This is illustrated in (30), where N stands for neutral tone.
(30) Invisibility of neutral tone
This is clearly a case of extrametricality too1. Therefore, following the same rationale
1 Hsiao (1995) analyse this invisibility of neutral tone in the same vein, terming it extraprosodicity and propounding three fundamental principles: (a) Invisibility: an extraprosodic element is outside of a prosodic system and invisible to phonological rules in the system. (b) Peripherality: an extraprosoddic element must be assigned to a designeted edge, either left or right. (c) Nonuniformity: all the elements
[[Lau7tsim2po5NP/DP] [m2=siong1sin3 [[ing1ko1NP/DP] e7=kong2ue7VP]CP] CP]
Old.woman NEG=believe parrot can=talk
(( S S B ϕ) (S S S (( S B ϕ)( S S B ϕ) ϕ)
‘The old lady does not believe that the parrot can talk.’
[u7 khuann3-tioh0VP]
PRF see-PHA
(S B N ϕ)
‘(I) have seen it.’
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國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
for the extrametricality in Sixian Hakka (see §3.2.2), we can assume that those invisible function words (Fnc≥2) must be immediately preceded by some right edge of a phonological phrase and they themselves are not included in any instance of phonological phrase. In other words, those indivisible function words are phrase-level extrametrical for not being parsed in a phonological phrase. This idea can be schematized in (31), where “ ι) ” represents the boundary of intonational phrase. This configuration clearly shows that the function words is outside the domain for tone sandhi and the tone carried by the preceding syllable would be always phrase-finally and thus take on its base form.
(31) Extrametrical to the paradigmatic tone sandhi in Taiwanese ( … σ σ ϕ) Fnc≥2 ι)
S B N
This can also be captured by the alignment constraint we proposed for Sixian Hakka, but this time, it is specific to grammatical words with degree of grammaticalization lower than or equal to 2, and in that way it dictates that the right edge of a given phonological phrase be licensed by the right edge of a word in that degree, (i.e. Fnc≤2),
which includes numerals, classifiers, phasal complements as well as lexical words.
immediately dominated by the node α on a prosodic tree must be of uniform level, except an extraprosodic element may be of a lower level. These principles, expecially principle (c), are inspiring to the present analysis.
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國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
(32) ALIGN-R(ϕ, Fnc≤2)
Assign one violation mark for every phonological phrase (ϕ) which is not right-aligned with some word with degree of grammaticalization lower than or equal to 2 (Fnc≤2).
With this alignment constraint ranked above ALIGN-R(ϕ, XP), function words that would carry neutral tone are forced to be located outside any phonological phrase. The following tableau illustrates this desirable results.
(33) ALIGN-R(ϕ, Fnc≤2) ≫ ALIGN-R(ϕ, XP) INPUT: (=30)
CAND 1: a. ( S S ϕ) B ϕ) CAND 2: a. ( S B ϕ) N))
/INPUT/ ALIGN-R(ϕ, Fnc≤2) ALIGN-R(ϕ, XP)
CAND 1 *!
CAND 2 *