THE

PHONOLOGY
OF
CATALAN
Max W. Wheeler

1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
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_ Max W. Wheeler 2005
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First published 2005
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Wheeler, Max
The phonology of Catalan / Max W. Wheeler
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references
ISBN 0-19-925814-7 (alk.paper)
1. Catalan language–Phonology. I. Title
PC3828.W44 2005
449’.915–dc22 2004066291
Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
Biddles Ltd., King’s Lynn
ISBN 0-19-925814-7 978-0-19-925814-7
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
CONTENTS
Preface x
1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 The Catalan language: its varieties and standard(s) 1
1.2 Theoretical assumptions and framework 3
1.3 Outline of contents 5
1.4 Guidance notes 6
1.4.1 Orthography 6
1.4.2 Transcriptions and glosses 8
1.4.3 Abbreviations in glosses 8
1.4.4 A note on Catalan surnames 8
2 PHONOLOGICAL PRIMITIVES AND SEGMENT
INVENTORIES 10
2.1 Consonant inventory and contrasts 10
2.1.1 Plosives 10
2.1.2 AVricates 11
2.1.3 Fricatives 13
2.1.3.1 Labiodental fricative 13
2.1.3.2 Alveolo-palatal fricatives 13
2.1.3.3 Relation between alveolo-palatal fricatives
and aVricates 15
2.1.3.4 Interpretations of [S] 22
2.1.3.5 Dorso-palatal fricative [OE] 22
2.1.3.6 Varieties without voiced strident phonemes 23
2.1.4 Nasals 24
2.1.5 Glides (semivowels) 24
2.1.6 Rhotics 24
2.1.6.1 Distribution of rhotic types 24
2.1.6.2 Interpretations of rhotic distribution 26
2.1.7 Laterals 34
2.1.7.1 Alveolar lateral 34
2.1.7.2 Alveolo-palatal lateral 34
2.1.8 Place in coronals 36
2.1.9 Contrasting geminate consonants 36
2.2 Vowel inventory 37
2.2.1 Stressed vowel contrasts 37
2.2.1.1 Gaps in the distribution of mid front vowels
in central Catalan 38
2.2.1.2 Mascaro´’s law 41
2.2.1.3 Instability in the lexical incidence of
half-close and half-open mid vowels 45
2.3 Vowel reduction 52
2.3.1 Introduction 52
2.3.2 Vowel reduction in western Catalan 52
2.3.3 Vowel reduction in Majorcan 53
2.3.4 Vowel reduction in eastern Catalan, except Majorcan 54
2.3.5 The interpretation of Catalan vowel reduction 55
2.3.6 Excluding [E, O] from unstressed syllables 56
2.3.7 Basic vowel reduction in eastern Catalan 57
2.3.8 Basic vowel reduction in Majorcan 60
2.3.9 Exceptions to eastern Catalan vowel reduction,
1: *[@_a], *[
_
a@], *[@@] 61
2.3.10 Exceptions to eastern Catalan vowel reduction, 2:
adjacent mid vowels 65
2.3.11 Exceptions to eastern Catalan vowel reduction, 3:
post-tonic [e], [o] 70
2.3.12 Further non-reduction of unstressed [e] in Majorca 73
3 SYLLABLE STRUCTURE 78
3.1 Onsets 78
3.1.1 Onset-driven resyllabiWcation 84
3.2 The syllabiWcation of vocoids 88
3.2.1 Introduction 88
3.2.2 Default syllabiWcation of high vocoids within words 88
3.2.3 High vocoids following other vocoids 90
3.2.3.1 Stressed vowel þ high vowel hiatus 91
3.2.3.2 Hiatus before ‘underlying’ stress 92
3.2.3.3 Unstressed vowel followed by unstressed high vocoid 96
3.2.4 High vocoids preceding other vocoids 99
3.2.4.1 Labio-velar obstruents? 100
3.2.4.2 Other post-consonantal high vocoids
followed by non-high vocoids 102
3.2.4.3 Vocoid sequences of rising sonority in relation
to word stress 103
3.2.4.4 High vocoid followed by stressed non-high
vocoid in initial syllable 105
3.2.4.5 Word-initial pretonic sequences of rising sonority 109
vi contents
3.2.4.6 Initial pre-pretonic sequences of rising sonority 109
3.2.4.7 Non-initial sequences of rising sonority,
with second element stressed 110
3.2.4.8 Pretonic non-initial sequences of rising sonority 114
3.2.5 High vocoid sequences 120
3.2.5.1 Adjacent dissimilar high vocoids 120
3.2.5.2 Adjacent similar high vocoids 121
4 PHRASAL PHONOLOGY: VOWEL SANDHI 124
4.1 Introduction 124
4.2 Stressed vowel followed by unstressed vowel 125
4.2.1 Stressed vowel followed by an unstressed high vowel 125
4.2.2 Stressed vowel followed by an unstressed non-high vowel 129
4.3 Unstressed vowel followed by stressed vowel 132
4.4 Contact between unstressed vowels 135
4.5 Observations on multi-vocoid sequences 140
4.6 Summary of evidence for constraint rankings for vowel sandhi 144
5 CODA VOICING NEUTRALIZATION
AND ASSIMILATION 145
5.1 Distribution of voiced and voiceless obstruents 145
5.2 ‘Incomplete’ neutralization 149
5.3 Accounting for voicing neutralization and assimilation 151
5.4 Towards an OT account of voicing neutralization in Catalan 157
5.5 Word-Wnal sibilants 162
5.6 Appendix: Steriade’s ‘P-map’ approach to voicing neutralization 164
6 CODA PLACE AND MANNER ASSIMILATION AND
NEUTRALIZATION 166
6.1 Introduction 166
6.2 Morpheme-internal coda–C clusters 168
6.2.1 Heterorganic nasal coda clusters 173
6.2.2 Heterorganic denti-alveolar–C clusters 173
6.2.3 Labial–alveolo-palatal cluster 174
6.2.4 Alveolo-palatal–C clusters 176
6.2.5 Velar–C clusters 177
6.2.6 Constraints for formal style 177
6.3 Nasal and lateral assimilation and associated assimilations
in less formal style 179
6.4 Inter-word coda–C clusters 180
6.4.1 Inter-word coda–C clusters in less formal styles 183
contents vii
6.4.2 Summary of style-reXecting place assimilations in
inter-word consonantal contacts 185
6.4.3 Heterorganic major place inter-word contacts 185
6.5 Minor place assimilation 186
6.5.1 Survey of cluster realizations 190
6.5.2 Denti-alveolar contacts 192
6.5.3 Alveolo-palatal onsets 197
6.5.4 High DAC contacts 201
6.5.5 Conclusions and Summary 204
6.6 Consonantal contact in Majorcan: place and manner 207
6.6.1 Labial coda inputs 211
6.6.2 Alveolar coda inputs 214
6.6.3 Alveolo-palatal coda inputs 215
7 CLUSTER REDUCTION 220
7.1 Introduction 220
7.2 Cluster reduction in stems 221
7.3 Cluster reduction in stems with a consonantal suYx 227
7.4 Cluster reduction in uninXected stems followed by
vowel-initial words 235
7.5 Cluster reduction in uninXected stems followed
by consonant-initial words 237
7.6 Cluster reduction in inXected stems followed by
vowel-initial words 240
7.7 Cluster reduction in inXected stems followed by
consonant-initial words 244
7.8 Summary of constraint rankings relating to word-Wnal clusters 249
8 EPENTHESIS AND OTHER SONORITY-RELATED
PHENOMENA 250
8.1 Introduction 250
8.2 Non-edge epenthesis 252
8.3 Codas and epenthesis 257
8.4 Sibilants and epenthesis 263
8.5 Minimum sonority distance and voiced stop gemination 265
8.6 Balearic verb forms with coda clusters violating
the sonority sequencing principle 269
9 STRESS, FEET, AND PHRASES 276
9.1 Word stress: introduction 276
9.2 Unstressed words 277
viii contents
9.3 Compounds and complex words 279
9.3.1 Compounds 279
9.3.2 Complex words with aYxes 282
9.4 Verb stress 284
9.5 Prosodic word constraints 288
9.6 Rhythmic constraints above the word: a provisional account 297
Appendix: evaluation of alternative foot and colon parses
for word types in (29–31) 306
10 WORD PHONOLOGY AND PHONOLOGICALLY
CONDITIONED ALLOMORPHY 310
10.1 Coda/Onset alternations: lenition 310
10.1.1 Introduction 310
10.1.2 Fricatives or approximants 312
10.1.3 Lenition and the theory of eVort 314
10.1.4 Lenition and the enhancement of contrast 316
10.1.5 Variation in Catalan lenition 317
10.1.6 Further interpretation of the hierarchy of leniting
contexts in Catalan 324
10.1.7 Remaining issues 326
10.2 Consonant/zero alternations 327
10.2.1 N/zero alternation 327
10.2.2 R/zero alternation 333
10.3 Alternations involving stem-Wnal labials 338
11 THE SYLLABIFICATION OF PRONOMINAL CLITICS 341
11.1 Introduction 341
11.2 Single clitics 342
11.3 Clitic clusters 345
11.4 SyllabiWcation constraints aVecting clitics and clitic clusters 348
11.4.1 Epenthesis 348
11.4.2 Deletion of consonants and other issues in
the syllabiWcation of pronominal clitics 355
11.4.3 Non-edge epenthesis in verb–clitic sequences 363
11.5 Epenthesis in clitic clusters to avoid geminate sibilants 366
11.6 Summary of constraint ranking 369
References 371
Index 382