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The ambition of this article is to provide a phonological account of an intricate pattern of lenition and gemination in Campidanese Sardinian. The data show two things: that a model of phonology needs some way of showing strength and weakness as positional effects and that neither can be reliably understood in phonetic terms. In this analysis, the discovery procedure does not depend on raw phonetic facts, but rather on a rich model of abstract phonological representations. These representations are of two kinds, melodic and prosodic, and they allow for a substance-free phonological analysis of lenition and fortition in Campidanese that is not confronted by the difficulties inherent in surface-oriented approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study deals with fortition processes in Sistani dialect as spoken in Sistan region located in the north of Sistan and Baluchestan province based on Autosegmental phonology by Goldsmith (1976). This is a descriptive-analytic study. So, 20 females and males more than 50 years old, low educated and Sistani dialect speakers have been selected by random. The data has been gathered by interviewing and recording their free speech for twenty minutes per person . The relevant data has been extracted from the recorded sentences and then transcribed by IPA alphabet. Eventually, the phonological rules of the data have been described and analyzed based on the concepts and principles of Autosegmental phonology. The research results showed that the fortition process in Sistani dialect, is represented as glottal [ʔ] insertion in initial position of word, front high glide [j] insertion and nasal consonant [n] insertion between two vowels at the end of the word in the coda position, the conversion of voiced obstruent /ʁ/ to voiceless obstruent [χ], the conversion of obstruent labio-dental /f/ and /v/ to labial [p] and [b], gemination between two morphemes and at the end of some words and also, aspiration process in the voiceless obstruent consonants in the onset position of the first syllable, the stressed syllables in the middle of words as well as the coda position of the last syllable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fortition as one of the common phonological processes is the opposite of lenition. It occurs mostly in the initial position of the syllables and words. The present research has studied the fortition processes and evolutions from the Middle Persian to the Modern Persian based on positional strength approach, sonority sequencing principle (SSP), and syllable contact law (SCL). To do this, 120 middle Persian words were selected from different Pahlavi dictionaries and were analyzed. The research findings are as follows: 1. Middle Persian words in their evolution to Modern Persian have undergone occlusivization, glide fricativization, buccalization, devoicing, and insertion on their initial positions; 2. The process of glide fricativization in the initial position of syllables has occurred based on sonority sequencing principle and syllable contact law, and it has also occurred to keep syntagmatic and pragmatic oppositions. 3. The strong position of words and syllables in their evolutions from the Middle Persian to the Modern Persian is disjunctive. 4. The fortition trajectory from the Middle Persian to the Modern Persian has two dimensions namely desonorization and the change in laryngeal position and the place of articulation.

Copyright of Tertium Linguistic Journal / Pólrocznik Jezykoznawczy Tertium is the property of Cracow Tertium Society for the Promotion of Language Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Fortition as one of the common phonological processes is the opposite of lenition. It occurs mostly in the initial position of the syllables and words. The present research has studied the fortition processes and evolutions from the Middle Persian to the Modern Persian based on positional strength approach, sonority sequencing principle (SSP), and syllable contact law (SCL). To do this, 120 middle Persian words were selected from different Pahlavi dictionaries and were analyzed. The research findings are as follows: 1. Middle Persian words in their evolution to Modern Persian have undergone occlusivization, glide fricativization, buccalization, devoicing, and insertion on their initial positions; 2. The process of glide fricativization in the initial position of syllables has occurred based on sonority sequencing principle and syllable contact law, and it has also occurred to keep syntagmatic and pragmatic oppositions. 3. The strong position of words and syllables in their evolutions from the Middle Persian to the Modern Persian is disjunctive. 4. The fortition trajectory from the Middle Persian to the Modern Persian has two dimensions namely desonorization and the change in laryngeal position and the place of articulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The fortition is found to be linguistically and socially controlled. • In ESLO 1, men are leading the ongoing change. • In ESLO 2, both gender groups demonstrate fortition. • The fortition may indicate a slow enhancement of a natural rate of occurrence. Based on data extracted from two French sociolinguistic corpora, ESLO 1 (1968–1971) and ESLO 2 (2008–), this article discusses the case of a new linguistic variation and change in French native speech in France: the fortition of the word-initial fricative /ʒ/. In total, 12,276 occurrences of words beginning with /ʒ/ were identified. Mixed-effect logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine both phonological environments (the preceding phonemes and the coronal status of the preceding phonemes) and social factors (the age, gender, and socioeconomic status of the speakers). The results demonstrate that the fortition of the initial /ʒ/ is influenced by both linguistic and social factors. Notably, the initial fortition in this study was an ongoing change led by men in ESLO 1. However, its use has already spread to both gender groups in ESLO 2. From a diachronic perspective, this study suggests that the observed initial fortition is not a reverse deaffrication process but rather a gradual increase in its natural occurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the phenomena of sound changes, i.e., changes of single segmental sound of consonants, found in cognates shared by Indonesian and Palembang Malay. A list containing 2,535 cognates shared by Indonesian and Palembang Malay becomes the corpus. Since Indonesian is a modern language derived from Standard Malay, it becomes the reference language in the efforts of descriptions. Consonant strengthening, fortition, consonant weakening, lenition, and glottalization become the phenomena found in the consonant changes. Various syllabic structures in which the consonants distributed are also described. The differences of productivity of certain consonant-changes compared to others are found. The productivity shows that, compared to Indonesian, the occurrences of weaker consonants lenis consonants are more productive in Palembang Malay. Abstrak Artikel ini membahas gejala penggantian bunyi, yakni penggantian bunyi-segmental konsonan tunggal, yang didapati dalam kognat atau kata seasal yang dimiliki bersama oleh bahasa Indonesia dan bahasa Melayu Palembang. Sebuah daftar yang memuat 2.535 kognat dalam bahasa Indonesia dan bahasa Melayu Palembang menjadi korpus. Karena merupakan bahasa modern yang terderivasi dari bahasa Melayu Baku, bahasa Indonesia menjadi bahasa acuan dalam pembahasan. Penguatan konsonan, fortisi, pelemahan konsonan, lenisi, dan glotalisasi menjadi gejala yang didapati dalam penggantian konsonan. Struktur suku kata yang di dalamnya konsonan tersebut di atas terdistribusi juga dibahas. Didapati perbedaan produktivitas gejala penggantian konsonan tertentu dibandingkan dengan gejala yang lain. Produktivitas itu menunjukkan bahwa jika dibandingkan dengan bahasa Indonesia, kehadiran konsonan lemah atau konsonan lenis lebih produktif dalam bahasa Melayu Palembang.

Word-initial nasals in Korean are known to exhibit prosody-sensitive denasalization. The literature on the subject is still scarce and even the basic description of the process is debated. This study tested the speculation that inconsistencies in the literature may be explained if certain features of denasalization have developed relatively recently as part of an ongoing sound change. Based on apparent-time data from thirty-two speakers of Seoul Korean, the study explored the development of denasalization over a fifty-year period. The phonetic manifestations of domain-initial nasals were examined, along with the effects of prosodic position, place of articulation, and the height of the following vowel. The results revealed that denasalization has advanced rapidly over time, acquiring more plosive-like features of devoicing as well as a complete lack of nasality. Alveolar nasals before a high vowel were most likely to show denasalization and devoicing. Interestingly, the cumulative effect of prosody became weakest and partial denasalization was least likely for the younger group. Based on these results, we speculate that Korean denasalization is in the process of being stabilized into a discrete phrase-level process from a more general, gradient phenomenon of domain-initial strengthening, consistent with the theory of the life cycle of phonological processes.

The Nivkh language family of Sakhalin Island and the adjacent mainland in Northeast Asia is generally considered to be without known external relatives, and since its internal diversity is relatively shallow— leading some authors to treat it as a single ‘language’ divisible only into ‘dialect’-level varieties—comparative linguistics internal to the family has been neglected. The internal diversity of Nivkh is not, however, as trivial as has been portrayed, and involves at least two (Gruzdeva, 1998) and possibly three (Fortescue, 2016) mutually unintelligible varieties, indicating fertile ground for the application of the Standard Comparative Method within the family. Following up on our previous work (Halm, 2017), in which we examined the synchronic sound correspondences and diachronic sound changes pertaining to vocoid sequences, in the present paper we adduce and examine other sound correspondences and attempt to define their underlying diachronic developments. Our clearest findings include: Proto-Nivkh (PN) /*a/ > Amur Nivkh (AN), West Sakhalin Nivkh (WSN), and perhaps North Sakhalin Nivkh (NSN) /ǝ/ when adjacent to or tautosyllabic with a velar consonant and not prohibited by vowel harmony or similar adjacency to a post-velar consonant; PN /*i/ > AN, WSN /ǝ/ | /[t,d]__+/; PN /*mx, *mχ/ > AN, WSN /ŋk/; PN /*ŋq/ > AN, WSN /ŋk/ morphemefinally, and probably in all positions; PN /*χ/ > AN, WSN /x/ | /o(C)__/; PN clusters of a palatal and an alveolar consonant generally assimilate to alveolar articulation for both segments, both historically and synchronically, in East Sakhalin Nivkh (ESN) and South Sakhalin Nivkh (SSN); morpheme-initial clusters with a lenis PN initial consonant are shifted to fortis articulation in SSN; PN velar fricatives /*x/ > Nogliki Nivkh (NgN), SSN /χ/ when preceded in a cluster by /c(h), t(h)/ (with some other conditioning differing between NgN and SSN); and finally, we confirm some sound changes already observed individually in the literature, and refute or question others. We also briefly discuss the phylogeny of the attested varieties in light of shared historical sound changes.

This paper is a modest contribution to the understanding of vocalic strength. Our aim is to show that the strength of consonants and the strength of vowels can be unified. For this, we propose that the only factor of strength is length. More precisely: branching segments are stronger and segments sharing their positions with other segments are weaker. We discuss several examples of phenomena related to vowels which illustrate this strength hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the perspective of standard generative phonological theory, syllable structure is not recorded in the lexicon but it is obtained by means of a syllabification algorithm based on a series of principles. In a given language, the algorithm should parse obstruent+liquid clusters as tautosyllabic both in word-initial and word-internal positions. The tautosyllabic parse as a branching onset complies with all principles on which the syllable-building algorithm is based. In standard theory, if branching onsets of obstruent+liquid are allowed in a language and documented in word-initial position, tautosyllabic parse is predicted to hold also word-internally. Likewise, Kaye's (1992) Uniformity Principle makes the same prediction, since it states that sequences of contiguous positions that are in a governing relation and contain the same phonological material have the same constituent structure. The present paper draws attention to empirical data showing obstruent+liquid clusters being parsed tautosyllabically in word-initial position and heterosyllabically in word-internal position in the same language. An account is proposed to explain the data discussed, claiming that positional factors may also be relevant in determining syllabification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents and analyzes the alternations between glides and fricatives in Atayal, an endangered Austronesian language spoken in northern Taiwan. Distributional gaps and morphophonological alternations suggest that onset glides in the Jianshi variety of Squliq Atayal do not appear before a schwa or a homorganic vowel. The paper argues that the restrictions on onset glides are motivated by the needs to achieve an optimal sonority profile within a syllable and to avoid homorganic glide-vowel sequences. In the proposed OT account, sonority dispersion and similarity avoidance are formalized as separate constraints, which is supported by the attested typology across Atayal dialects. The strengthening data justify the placement of schwa lower in the sonority hierarchy than high vowels, and the adopted conjoined constraints further suggest that sonority-based co-occurrence restrictions are not necessarily restricted to syllable margins (cf. Steriade in Language 64:118–129, 1988a). The paper also shows that (1) the behavior of j and w is asymmetrical in some dialects, with w combining more freely with the following nucleus vowel than j does; and (2) Atayal phonemic /w/ primarily alternates with velar [ɣ], which is peculiar among Formosan languages. The fact that Atayal consonantal w strengthens to velar [ɣ] instead of a labial falsifies the feature theories in which /w/ is characterized only by the [Labial] articulator (Halle et al. in Linguist Inq 31:387–444, 2000; Halle in Linguist Inq 36: 23–41, 2005; Levi in The representation of underlying glides: a cross-linguistic study, 2004; Lingua 118:1956–1978, 2008). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Traitement Automatique des Langues is the property of Association pour le Traitement Automatique des Langues (ATALA) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper gives a detailed description of the consonant system of Campidanese Sardinian and makes methodological and theoretical contributions to the study of lenition. The data are drawn from a corpus of field recordings, including roughly 400 utterances produced by 15 speakers from the Trexenta and Western Campidanese areas. Campidanese has a complex lenition system that interacts with length, voicing, and manner contrasts. We show that the semi-automated lenition analysis presented in this journal by Ennever, Meakins, and Round can be fruitfully extended to our corpus, despite its much more heterogeneous set of materials in a genetically distant language. Intensity measurements from this method do not differ qualitatively from more traditional ones in their ability to detect lenition-fortition patterns, but do differ in interactions with stress. Lenition-fortition patterns reveal at least three levels of prosodic constituent in Campidanese, each of which is associated with medial lenition and initial fortition. Lenition affects all consonants and V-V transitions. It reduces duration, increases intensity, and probabilistically affects qualitative manner and voicing features in obstruents. Mediation analysis using regression modeling suggests that some intensity and most qualitative reflexes of lenition are explained by changes in duration, but not vice versa.

In this paper, we propose that the contexts of fortition and lenition can be represented with a very simple autosegmental tool: branching. We point out a major shortcoming of Coda Mirror Theory: though this model tries to account for strength with lateral relations, length should also be factored in order to account for the inalterability of geminates. In order to unify the principles that regulate strength, we propose a consistent theory built exclusively on length, without lateral relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Autosegmental phonology introduced by Goldsmith as an independent field of generative phonology, phonological representations are made up of different layers. In this approach, each feature or group of features that make a phonological contribution in a language is situated on independent tiers. In Autosegmental phonology, features are independent and have their own existence. The purpose of the present study is to introduce, analyze and describe the phonological processes of consonants in Farimani dialect on the basis of autosegmental phonology approach. The author seeks to assess the effectiveness of this approach on the analysis and justification of phonological processes of consonants in this dialect. Hence, the phonological processes of assimilation, elition, neutralization, compensatory lengthening, lenition, and fortition were studied. The findings indicate that a detailed explanation of the process of lenition, fortition and neutralization is challenging on the basis of nonlinear approach.

This article aims at analyzing the phonological processes of “Fortition” in Ilami Kurdish variants including Arkavazi, Khezeli (Kheirvand), Malekshahi, and Feyli on the basis of “generative theory”. In fortition process, phonetic change occurs in the axis of approximant to fricative and then to stop. The data has been collected by interviewing 100 literate and illiterate male and female informants aged between 30 and 85. Both researchers are native informants of Ilami Kurdish variant (Feyli) and they are also familiar with the other Ilami Kurdish variants. The collected data were transcribed according to IPA alphabet. Research method is descriptive-analytic. Some of the most important results of this research are as follow: 1- In Ilami Kurdish variants, epenthesis has the highest frequency with respect to other phonological processes. 2- in borrowed words with a final consonant cluster where the second sound in the cluster is /r/ or /l/, the syllable is broken and the vowel /ə/ is inserted before the mentioned consonants to maintain sonority sequence principle. 3- In Ilami Kurdish variants the glottal fricative consonant /h/ turns to the anterior and coronal consonant [s] in the initial position of a syllable.

Catalan has a [З] ~ [t⌢∫] alternation that has traditionally been viewed as the consequence of final affrication of an underlying /З/, a fortition operation, followed by general devoicing of obstruents. This interpretation has been held in classical generative rule-based approaches and also in autosegmental models, amounting either to a highly specific process or, when an attempt is made to generalize it, to wrong predictions; these shortcomings are also applicable to optimality-theoretic analyses. Following ideas in (Wheeler, Max W. 2005. The phonology of Catalan. Oxford: Oxford University Press), we propose that underlying affricates are subject to intervocalic lenition triggered by independently motivated general constraints. Sequences of a stop followed by a fricative can become affricates but cannot be affected by lenition. The interaction between affricates and gemination is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing data from written sources from the late-19th to early 20th century, I show several patterns of variation among obstruents, focusing mainly on final obstruent neutralization, a German phenomenon that is characteristic of the English spoken in Wisconsin by newly arrived German immigrants to the Upper Midwest (specifically Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan). Examples were gathered from the writings of these immigrants. I supplement the English data with samples from German authors in the same community and include sociolinguistic data where possible. This paper extends modern sociophonetic work into the past with data from both German and English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the Basque phonological process that affricates sibilant fricatives following sonorant consonants. The analysis of this process is particularly adequate for the discussion of the reciprocal relationship between phonetics and phonology as proposed by Natural Phonology. Within that theoretical framework, this study investigates the phonetic motivation of phonology; on the other hand, the perceptual –perhaps also productive– consequences of the language-specific phonemic systems are explored by comparing the Basque affrication process with the better known English process of stop insertion. It is argued that the terminological choice between affrication and insertion might not be a trivial issue, but the reflection of some difference in the phonological processing of basically equivalent phonetic conditions. The optimization of syllable structure is presented as another possible element in the shaping of the phonological process and an important factor of its relative relevance in typologically different languages. Some comments on spectrographic images are provided in section 3, in order to show the kind of observations that prompted this ongoing research

There is a wide array of spellings attested in Middle English for initial OE hw- in words such as WHEN, WHERE, WHAT, WHO, WHICH. Those beginning with ‘q’, found mostly in the North (including Scotland) and Northeast Midlands, have long been the subject of scholarly debate. The consensus is that they represented an articulation stronger than [hw], usually assumed to be [xw]. Just a handful of scholars have suggested that the articulation could have been [kw], but there is so far little detailed argument for this position. We propose that at least a subset of reflexes of OE hw- words came at least variably to be pronounced with initial [kw]. We suggest that this strengthened pronunciation existed alongside [xw], and lenited [hw] and [w], as well as simple [h] with the [w] deleted. We link (as some other scholars have) the history of these spellings with that of northern lenition of original initial [kw] to [xw]/[hw]/[w]. We approach the problem from a strongly variationist perspective, presenting (in accompanying appendices) detailed information on the ‘q’ spellings accessible from LAEME and eLALME. We review all the data, from the earliest attested forms through to modern dialect surveys, including place-name evidence, and we assess previous arguments on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Licheń pilgrimage center, managed by the Marian order, is a phenomenon in Poland beyond classification and a subject of hot controversy. Media attention has indicated various issues that remain unclear behind the construction and management of the center (see, e.g., Kwiatkowska-England 2007; Dzienisiewicz 2002). Studies by ethnographers show how its legend is being made ad-hoc, often with the help of local artisans (e.g., Marciniak 1999). The opinions of artists show a unanimous abhorrence of the artistic aspects of the statues and paintings located there. Nevertheless, the center continues to grow, burgeoning at an unprecedented rate. It claims to attract (data from 2008) some 1.5 million of visitors a year. This paper offers a semiotic ethnography of Licheń's alternative microcosm. Having carried out an exploration of some of the ways in which boundary issues are manipulated in the precincts of the center, the author proposes that the creation of a surrogate reality there may be one of the factors for Lichen's success. Using ethnographic material gathered during fieldwork in 2010, the paper investigates divisions of the phenomenological space at the center. The divisions are proposed to be rooted in the Batesonian concept of the double bind (cf., e.g., Newman 2004, 2009) coupled with the TartuMoscow version of cultural semiotics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes a unified account of consonant gemination in external sandhi in Italian, also known as Raddoppiamento phenomena. As op-posed to the common interpretation of Raddoppiamento as being driven by well-formedness conditions on Italian rhymes, it argues that gemination in sandhi ought to be analysed as a fortition process driven by positional factors. Not only does this account unify all of the Italian Raddoppiamento phenomena (back-wards Raddoppiamento, synchronic and idiosyncratic Raddoppiamento Sintat-tico) but it provides a picture of the phenomena that is consistent from a theoreti-cal, diachronic, geographic, cross-linguistic and synchronic point of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Hakka, the high vowels [u] and [i] after a zero-initial onset became voiced fricatives due to fortition. The sound change of [u] was earlier than that of [i]. High vowels became voiced stops because stops in Min are more active than fricatives. This occurred in dialects spoken where Hakka and Min had been in contact for a long period of time, such as Fulau Hakka 福佬客, She 畲, and West Southern Min 閩語西片. The rhymes changed in a particular order, depending on two factors. The primary factor was the distance between syllable components: The distance between vowels was more important than the distance between vowels and consonants. The other factor was whether the syllable consisted of only one vowel. Due to language-internal reasons, the order of sound change in West Southern Min rhymes was different from that of Hakka and She. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the Basque phonological process that affricates sibilant fricatives following sonorant consonants. The analysis of this process is particularly adequate for the discussion of the reciprocal relationship between phonetics and phonology as proposed by Natural Phonology. Within that theoretical framework, this study investigates the phonetic motivation of phonology; on the other hand, the perceptual --perhaps also productive-- consequences of the language-specific phonemic systems are explored by comparing the Basque affrication process with the better known English process of stop insertion. It is argued that the terminological choice between affrication and insertion might not be a trivial issue, but the reflection of some difference in the phonological processing of basically equivalent phonetic conditions. The optimization of syllable structure is presented as another possible element in the shaping of the phonological process and an important factor of its relative relevance in typologically different languages. Some comments on spectrographic images are provided in section 3, in order to show the kind of observations that prompted this ongoing research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates patterns of error production in 10 children who use cochlear implants, focusing specifically on the acquisition of obstruents. Two broad patterns of production errors are investigated, fortition (or strengthening) errors and lenition (or weakening) errors. It is proposed that fortition error patterns tend to be related to the process of phonological development, because they are involved with universal implications and notions of markedness. Lenition error patterns, on the other hand, show more context-sensitive effects and reflect properties related to minimization of articulatory effort. The relationship between fortition and markedness is demonstrated in an optimality theoretic analysis, and it is further demonstrated that the observed characteristics of phonological development in children with cochlear implants are similar to those exhibited by children with normal hearing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]