THE PHONOLOGY OF THE WORLD’S LANGUAGES THE PHON Cone OANA TOTP —- _—THE PHONOLOGY OF THE WORLD'S LANGUAGES Series Editor: Jacques Durand, Université de Toulouse-le-Mirail The Phonology of ArmenianTHE PHONOLOGY OF THE WORLD'S LANGUAGES. — ‘The phonology of most languages has until now been available only in a fragmented way, through unpublished theses, or articles scattered in more or less accessible journals. Each volume in this series will offer an extensive treatment of the phonology of one language within a modem theoretical perspective, and will provide comprehensive references to recent and more classical studies of the language. The following will normally be included: an introduction situating the language geographically and typographically, an overview of the theoretical assumptions made by the author, a description of the segmen- tal system and of the rules or parameters characterizing the language, an outline of syllable structure and domains above the syllable, a discussion of lexical and postlexical phono- logy, an account of stress and prominence, and, if space allows, some overview of the intonational structure of the language. While it is assumed that every volume will be cast in a modern nonlinear framework, there will be scope for a diversity of approach which reflects variations between languages and in the methodologies and theoretical preoccupations of the individual authors. Published in the series: The Lexical Phonology of Slovak Jerzy Rubach The Phonology of Dutch Geert Booij The Phonology of German Richard Wiese The Phonology and Morphology of Kimatuumbi David OddenTHE PHONOLOGY OF ARMENIAN Bert Vaux CLARENDON PRESS - OXFORDThis book has been printed digitally and produced in a standard specification in order to ensure its continuing availability OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi ‘Sto Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto with an associated company in Berlin Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Bert Vaux 1998 ‘The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) Reprinted 2002 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above ‘You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer ISBN 0-19-823661-1This book is dedicated to Andrea and MorrisACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The intellectual fathers of this book are Andrea Calabrese and Morris Halle, who were my thesis advisors and have continued to help me refine my ideas in subse- quent years. My love of linguistics and my mental health are largely due to their exceptional mentoring, inspirational scholarship, and generous friendship. Talso owe a great debt to those who created and expanded my fascination with the Armenian people and their language. My Armenian professors Kevork Bardakjian and James Russell won my etemal respect and gratitude with the blood and sweat they spilled for me on the intellectual and political battlefields of Erevan and Cambridge. To this list I must also add Jos Weitenberg; though I was never his student, he has been my Armenological role model and inspiration since we met in 1991. The boundless support that these three distinguished senior scholars have given this junior colleague is truly remarkable. My Armenological contemporaries Michele Sigler and Hagop Hachikian have been continuous sources of inspiration and encouragement over the years through the example of their own work and their support for my own. Michele’s work on Armenian syntax sets a standard of intellectual and linguistic excellence that I will always strive to equal. Hagop’s general erudition in Armenological matters, his levelheadedness, and his eagerness to help with my research have been indis- pensable to me over the past few years. Vast thanks are also due to the many native speakers of Armenian who endured my dreary linguistic interrogations while preparing this book: Vladimir ‘Arutyunyan (Stepanakert, Karabagh), Mary Balamian (Erzurum), Lusin Chorbajian (Marash), Takuhi Der Manvelian (Marash), Siranush Dilbarian/ Yeghishian (Van), Lusadzin Donikian (Everek), David Elizian (SEA), Kegham and Zaghir Gazarian (Kesab, Syria), Mary Goudsouzian (Zeytun), Betty Gregory (Van), Carmen Habosian (Tiflis), Hagop Hachikian (SWA), Garo Kadian (Bitias, Musaler, Syria), Anna Maranci (Bayburt), Harutyun Maranci (Istanbul), Ervand Melik-Moussian (Agulis), Hayk Merian (Covinar), Dikran Panosian (Xdrbek, Musaler, Syria), Artashes Petrosyan (Vank, Karabagh), Lena Petrosian (Agulis), Paren Sanentz (Marash), Seda, Verena, and their mother (Sasun), Avik Topchian (Hamshen), Vahakn (Vakif, Musaler, Syria), and Temel Yilmaz (Homshetsma). Many thanks also to Harry Parsekian for introducing me to many of these informants. I would also like to thank Jacques Durand for making suggestions on drafts of this book and for editing the series in which it appears. Finally, I would like to thank my family and Christina for their support and understanding, and I would like to thank Christina and Manya for making it pos- sible for me to concentrate.CONTENTS Transcription key Map of the principal Armenian dialects INTRODUCTION 1 SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY 1.1. The dialects 1.1.1. Historical dialectology 1.2. Phonetics and phonemics . SEA . SWA 1.3, Basic alternations . R-aspiration . Final devoicing . Fricative voice assimilation |. S-aspiration }. Place assimilation 5. R-assimilation .3.7. Vocalic alternations 1.4, Syllable structure . Underlying word-initial clusters . Final consonant clusters .4.5. Plural formation 1.4.6, Tests for syllable affiliation in Classical Armenian 2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1, Representations 2.1.1, Feature organization The Labial node ‘The Coronal node 2.1.1.3. The Laryngeal node : The Upper Vocal Tract node 2.1.2. Prosodic structure : Syllable structure 2.1.3, Full specification 2.2. Rules 2.2.1. Sensitivity 2.2.1.1. Features 2.2.1.2. Cyelicity 12 12 16 16 16 7 17 18 18 19 19 21 22 26 27 29 30 zt 35 et 36 38 38 39 40 40 42 45 46 47 48 50x CONTENTS 2.2.2. Constraints and repairs 33 2.3. The Architecture of the grammar 35 2.3.1. Distributed morphology 55 2.3.2. The Structure of lexical entries 55 2.3.3. Interlevel access 37 Morphological access of syntactic structure 37 Phonological access of syntactic structure 59 Phonological access of morphological structure 60 3 SYLLABIFICATION 61 3.1. Introduction 61 3.2. Basic elements of syllabification 66 3.2.1. Epenthesis versus deletion 66 3.2.2. Lexical syllabification 70 3.2.3, The sononicy tierarchy: 74 3.2.3.1. Vowels 15 3.2.3.2. Consonants 8 . Nuclei 7 Onsets 80 . Codas and appendices 82 1. Codas 82 2. Appendices 83 3. Coda assignment 85 3.2.6.3.1. The Sonority Blocking Constraint 86 3.2.7. Epenthesis 87 3.2.8. The cycle 89 3.2.9. Directionality 94 3.3. Peculiarities of Armenian syllabification 95 3.3.1. Nuclei 95 3.3.1.1. Vowel sequences 95 3.3.1.1.1, Sequences of nonhigh vowels 95 3.3.1.1.2. Sequences containing one high vowel 96 3.3.1.1.3. Sequences containing high vowels 98 3.3.2. Onsets 101 3.3.2.1, Sibilants 101 3.3.2.2. Prothesis 102 3.3.3. Codas 103 3.34. Posteyclic syll ation 104 3.3.4.1, Intransitives 105 3.3.4.2. Postcyclic assignment 109 3.3.4.2.1. Ordering 109 3.3.4,2.2. Constraints on attachment 109 3. Phrasal syllabification 112 3.3.4.3.1. Onset appropriation 112 3.3.4.3.2. Appendix licensing and resyllabification 13 3.3.5. Related rules 118 3.35.1. Plural selection _a CONTENTS 3.3.5.2. Syllable counting in Classical Armenian 3.3.6, Geminates 3.3.7, Variation 3.4, Conclusions 3.5. Data STRESS ASSIGNMENT AND METRICAL STRUCTURE 4.1. The facts 4.2. Theoretical assumptions 4.3. Projection 4.4, Edge marking and heading 4.5. Stress clash 45.1, Penultimate stress systems 4.5.2. The stress hierarchy 4.6, Unstressed vowel deletion VOWEL HARMONY 5.1. Theoretical assumptions 5.2. Root harmony 5.3. Word harmony 5.3.1. Agulis 9.3.2. Karchevan 5.4, Epenthetic harmony 5.4.1. Karchevan 5.4.2, Marash CONSONANT-VOWEL INTERACTIONS 6.1. ATR-voice interactions 6.1.1. Adjarian’s Law 6.1.2. Interactions between consonant voicing and vocalic (ATR] values 6.1.3. Analysis 6.1.4. Implications of [ATR] interactions for Unified Feature theories 6.1.5. Aresh fronting 62. Uvular effects Agulis, Kesab, and Zeytun Uvular-back interactions in Kesab and Homshetsma Conclusions 6.3. Nasal raising 6.4, Coronal-front interactions 6.4.1. Evidence for coronal fronting 6.4.2, Place features for consonants and vowels 6.5. Conclusions xi 123 125 126 129 129 132 132 136 137 138 141 141 145 148 151 152 155 160 160 165. 169 169 7 174 474 174 177 178 180 181 182 183 187 190 194 194 200 201 206 209xii CONTENTS 7 LARYNGEAL FEATURES AND CONSONANT SHIFTS oo 7.1. Basics 7.2. Phonetic aspects of voiced aspirates 7.2.1. Phonetics of crosslinguistic laryngeal contrasts 7.2.2. Phonetics of Armenian voiced aspirates 7.3. Phonological behavior of voiced aspirates 7.3.1. K-assimilation 7.3.2. Nasal voicing 7.33, R-aspiration 7.3.4. Fricative assimilation 7.3.5. Aspiration delinking 7.4. A contour-based analysis 7.4.1. Contour segments 74.2. Edge effects 7.43, New Julfa edge effects 7.4.4, Word-final laryngeal features 7.5. Consonant shifts 7.6. Conclusions PROSODIC PHENOMENA 8.1. Reduplication 8.1.1. Armenian reduplication with fixed coda material 8.1.2. M-reduplication 8.2. Hypocoristics 8.3, Long-distance compensatory lengthening 8.3.1. Basic aspects of Svedia phonology 8.3.2. Altemtions triggered by the definite article 8.3.3. Analysis and parallels 8.3.4. Problems References Index 21 21 212 212 214 25 215 217 m2 224, 226 230 233 237 238 241 242 242 242 246 249 249 252 2355 262, 264 273TRANSCRIPTION KEY Transliteration Armenian script Transliteration Armenian Pe ry ee gy Sy wre ro Pen rae nF BPW BA oor 808 MOST ova wots ce. MWY & Ba RR MI A MS Ee Qe Ws oo- yas wyiasy2 <INTRODUCTION ‘Armenian is one of the most widespread languages of the world, with distinct dialects located as far west as Transylvania and as far east as India. It has a rich literary history dating from the fourth century ap, when the Bible was translated into Classical Armenian. It is one of the most linguistically divergent of the Indo- European languages, having undergone a host of complicated phonological, morphological, and syntactic changes that continue to resist satisfactory analysis by historical linguists. The historical interest of the language derives in part from the significant lexical and grammatical influence of neighboring languages (primarily Iranian, Turkic, Anatolian, and Caucasian); none the less, a significant portion of the Armenian lexicon cannot be related to any known source. ‘The Armenian language possesses a rich phonological system of a level of synchronic and diachronic complexity that easily equals that of its neighbors Arabic, Russian, and Turkish. Significant Armenian communities exist in the United States, Europe, and many other countries with active communities of linguists. Nevertheless, Armenian has essentially been ignored by linguists out- side Armenia, whereas neighboring languages have played a central role in the development of modern linguistic theory. Kenstowicz (1994), the standard hand- book of phonological theory, devotes more than fifty pages to discussion of Phenomena found in various Arabic dialects, seventeen pages to Russian, and seven pages to Turkish. On the other hand, there is not a single mention of Armenian in this or any other phonological textbook. This lacuna is primarily due to the fact that the Armenian language has for the most part not been studied by linguists who write in languages other than Armenian and Russian. The purpose of the present work is to remedy this problem and bring Armenian into the sphere of phonological discussion by making available to western readers the results of Armenological work published in Armenian and Russian. Furthermore, I present theoretical analyses of many of the more striking phono- logical phenomena described in these sources or culled from my own fieldwork. My data are drawn primarily from the two modem literary dialects, Standard Western and Standard Eastern Armenian, as well as from various non-literary dialects and the Classical language. I focus on the primary areas of contemporary phonological research: syllabification, stress assignment, vowel harmony, feature geometry, consonant—vowel interactions, and prosodic structure. The eight chapters of this book discuss the following topics. 1. Survey of Armenian phonology This chapter presents the basic elements of Armenian phonology with a minimum of theoretical machinery, in order to provide non-specialists with a context for the more complicated issues discussed in later chapters. I begin with a brief2 INTRODUCTION exposition of the Armenian linguistic domain, surveying the number and extent of the ancient and modern dialects, and developing a historical dialectology of the modern dialects. With this general background, I then set out the phonemic inventories of the modem literary dialects, and discuss the allophonic and phonetic manifestations of each phoneme resulting from basic processes such as consonant assimilation and vowel reduction, Finally, I survey the surface inven- tory of syllable types and plural allomorphy in Standard Armenian, in preparation for the more analytical discussion of these issues in Chapter 3. 2. Theoretical background The basic principles of the theory of phonology in which this book is cast, Rules and Representations Theory (RRT), are summarized in this chapter. RRT assumes that language is stored in the brain of speakers as a hierarchically organized set of discrete linguistic elements, and a set of rules and constraints that act on these elements. The forms in which words are stored in the brain are converted into surface pronunciations via the operation of these rules and constraints, which are organized into five basic modules: Syntactic Structure, Morphological Structure, Phonological Structure, Phonetic Form, and Logical Form. This chapter presents Armenian examples illustrating the workings of the main components of RRT; specific theoretical machinery required to deal with individual components of the grammar is presented in the relevant chapters. 3. Syllabification Ammenian syllabification tums out upon close inspection to be extremely complex, This chapter focuses on the process of epenthesis (vowel insertion) that Armenian employs to deal with the long sequences of consonants that occur in underlying representations but are not allowed in surface representations. +Previous analyses have implied that the placement of epenthetic schwas in Armenian is unpredictable (cf. Bardakjian and Thomson, 1977). I demonstrate that epenthesis is in fact rule-governed and entirely predictable, according to a syllabification procedure familiar from the seminal work of Dell and Elmedlaoui (1985). I then analyze a number of morphological and phonological phenomena in Armenian that relate to syllable structure, including plural selection, augment deletion, and cluster simplification. These processes indicate that the syllabic structures assigned to Armenian words are often more complex than one would be led to guess by observing the pronunciation of words in isolation, 4, Stress assignment and metrical structure Though most Armenian dialects do not distinguish prosodic weight (e.g. long vs. short vowels, heavy vs. light syllables) and superficially appear to lack metrical structure, closer inspection reveals that metrification in these dialects is actuallyINTRODUCTION 3 quite intricate. This chapter surveys and analyzes the two basic pattems of stress assignment found in Armenian dialects, the so-called ‘final stress’ and ‘pen- ultimate stress’ systems. I demonstrate that the penultimate stress systems are actually identical to the final stress systems—in other words, they assign stress to the final full vowel in a word—except that they have added a rule of stress clash deletion that applies in certain environments. I then examine a range of rules involving stress clash and vowel reduction that are sensitive to metrical structure. The behavior of these rules suggests that the metrical structure assigned to Armenian words is significantly more complex than has traditionally been assumed. 5. Vowel harmony A significant number of modern Armenian dialects possess vowel harmony systems, though ancient Armenian did not. Armenian thus presents one of the few cases where we can trace the development of a harmonic system, and is therefore of interest to historical and theoretical linguists alike. In this chapter I examine representative examples of the three basic types of harmony system found in the Armenian dialects: root harmony, word harmony, and epenthetic harmony. In root harmony systems, the vowels in a root must agree with each other in back- ness and rounding; word harmony systems require the same agreement through- out the entire word. Epenthetic harmony systems require that epenthetic vowels agree in backness and rounding with adjacent vowels. The Armenian harmony facts enhance our understanding of the workings of harmony systems in ways that better-studied systems such as the Turkish one do not. For example, the Armenian. facts suggest that a language can possess more than one harmony rule, and that these rules can be ordered relative to one another. Furthermore, the rules of harmony do not necessarily treat all vowels alike: some rules consider only con- trastive vowel features, and some consider only marked vowel features. The range of facts discussed in this chapter represent a significant addition to the corpus of harmonic systems available in the linguistic literature. 6. Consonant-vowel interactions Interactions between consonants and vowels have traditionally interested phono- logists, because these interactions provide insight into the relationships between consonantal and vocalic features. The fact that coronal consonants commonly correlate with front vowels, for example, suggests that coronality has something in common with fronting of the tongue. This chapter focuses on the insights of this sort that can be gained from careful study of consonant—vowel interactions in Armenian. I present four case studies involving interactions between vowels and voiced, uvular, nasal, and coronal consonants. The first two are argued to involve direct interactions between features shared by both consonants and vowels; the4 INTRODUCTION latter two, on the other hand, are shown to require the postulation of equivalency relationships between certain features that are not shared by consonants and vowels. I first examine Adjarian’s Law, a rule that fronts or raises vowels after voiced obstruents. I suggest that this process is related to the interactions between vocalic tenseness and consonant voicing that we find in many other languages, and demonstrate that all of these processes ultimately result from the activity of the tongue root. I then consider the effects of Armenian uvulars on adjacent vowels, with an eye toward establishing the feature composition of these segments. I suggest, on the basis of the effects of the consonants {z # *} on vowels, that these consonants form a natural class in Armenian, defined by the features [+back, —high, -ATR]. This natural class is identified with the tradi- tional class of uvulars. The next case involves interactions between nasal con- sonants and vowel height in a number of dialects. I demonstrate that nasal consonants typically raise the height of neighboring vowels, in effect behaving as if they were [+high]. This behavior is tied to the involvement of the palatoglossus muscle in the production of both [+nasal] and [+high]. The final case deals with the relationship between coronality in consonants and frontness in vowels. I ulti- mately conclude that, as in the case of the nasal-high interactions, coronal—front interactions require the postulation of an equivalency relationship of the sort [+cons, coronat] = [-cons, —back]. 7. Laryngeal features and consonant shifts Armenian presents fertile ground for the investigation of laryngeal features: many dialects contrast three series of stops (voiced : voiceless : voiceless aspirated) or even four series (voiced : voiceless : voiceless aspirated : voiced aspirated). In this chapter I explore the phonological behavior of laryngeal features in the New Julfa dialect, which contrasts four series of stops, and I develop an analysis of the extensive series of consonant shifts that occurred in the modern Armenian dialects. I offer evidence from a number of phonological rules in New Julfa suggesting that voiceless fricatives are [+spread glottis] (roughly equivalent to ‘aspirated’) but voiced fricatives are not. I also explore the relationship between voicing and aspiration as it is revealed in rules of aspiration assimilation and delinking. Regarding the consonant shifts, I propose that the phonetic impetus leading to the development of the Armenian voiced aspirates is closely paralleled in modern English, where in word-initial position underlying voiced stops are realized as voiceless, and voiceless stops as voiceless aspirated. The English and Armenian developments are suggested to result from a phonetic process which associates the feature [+spread glottis] with word-initial consonants.INTRODUCTION 5 8. Prosodic phenomena This chapter provides brief sketches of a number of prosodic phenomena found in the moder dialects. Armenian shares with Turkish two reduplication types, one involving fixed coda material (¢.g. spitak ‘white’ > sep-spitak ‘very white’, karmir ‘ted’ — kas-karmir ‘very red’), another involving fixed onset material (e.g. ptus ‘fruit’ > ptus mtus ‘fruit and the like’). The selection of coda material in the former reduplication type is suggested to be controlled by the Obligatory Contour Principle. The latter type is noteworthy in not applying to m-initial roots, a fact that is suggested to parallel the behavior of English schm- reduplication. I next tum to hypocoristic formation. The most common formation of this type in Armenian involves affixation of - to a maximal syllable constructed from the base form, parallel to the formation of -ie hypocoristics (Annie, etc.) in English. Finally, I examine an extremely complicated system of vowel length and quality alternations found in several Syrian dialects. These alternations are suggested to be the morphological descendant of a compensatory lengthening process triggered by the loss of the definite article, followed by a series of quali- tative changes that apply to long vowels. 9. Note on the content and structure of this book Before launching into the subject-matter of this book, I would like to take a moment to explain the particular approach I take to the Armenian data. The last seven chapters of the book contain a significant amount of formal theoretical machinery, and go into great detail in areas of Armenian grammar that many Armenologists would consider ‘obscure’. There are compelling reasons for both of these facts. The last hundred years of linguistic research, spearheaded by Ferdinand de Saussure and Noam Chomsky, have shown that there is much more to Language than knowledge of a set of words or a set of historical changes. The task of the modem linguist is to figure out exactly what these additional com- ponents of Language are. We know that part of every speaker’s knowledge of Language consists of a set of hierarchically organized linguistic elements— features, phonemes, morphemes, and so on—as well as a set of rules and con- straints that act on these elements. Each of these components of Language plays an important role in the theoretical formalism employed in this book. This theoretical formalism is not a toy that linguists conjure up to amuse them- selves; rather, it is a model, for those who take human Language seriously, of the workings of an important subcomponent of the human brain. A theoretical frame- work is also necessary to put the linguistic data in perspective; it is the theory that tells us what data are interesting, and what questions to ask next. Many data sets that are easily brushed off by the non-linguist as ‘trivial’, such as the plural selec- tion rule discussed in Chapter 3, turn out to be quite complex when one actually attempts to develop a formal analysis of their behavior. Consequently, though I6 INTRODUCTION have included an atheoretical chapter describing basic linguistic data for the benefit of readers who are not linguists, I must emphasize the fact that it is the last seven theoretical chapters that are of the most value, for they evaluate the data within a clearly articulated theoretical framework, and make specific claims about the workings of Armenian and human Language in general that can be tested, and refuted if necessary, by future scholars. Native speakers of Armenian may find that some of the forms presented in this book are not familiar, or are ‘incorrect’. One of my informants recently com- plained, for example, that he does not use the form [andzrevadsur] ‘rainwater’, which I discuss in Chapters 1 and 2. This does not mean that the form does not exist; in fact, it can be found in many dictionaries, and is cited as an example in a standard grammar of Eastern Armenian (Abexjan, 1923). Another informant objected that many of the plural forms cited in another important grammar, Atfaijan (1971), are incorrect; for example, he preferred the plural [storer] ‘curtains’ over Atfatjan's [storner]. However, it is highly unlikely that Atfaijan, the greatest Armenian linguist, would produce the incorrect plural form for an entire class of simple nouns in his native language. It actually appears to be the case that the rules governing plural selection have changed slightly since Atfarjan learned the language in the nineteenth century. This does not mean that we cannot use Atfafjan’s forms; the rules of plural selection that he internalized are no less valid a subject of linguistic inquiry than the rules in the head of a young Armenian living in Erevan today. The two problems just mentioned are symptoms of an important characteristic of the Armenian language. Armenian is not a simple homogeneous language, but rather a vast continuum of related dialects and idjolects. The idea that Armenian consists solely of the literary languages—Classical, Middle, Standard Eastern, and Standard Wester Armenian—is an illusion perpetuated by prescriptive grammarians and individuals who have not worked closely with speakers of the language. Since significant Armenian communities have existed in all of the world’s major trade cities for centuries, it is to be expected rather than doubted that the individual communities would have developed local variations in their language due to the influence of local languages, isolation from other Armenian communities, and so on. In addition, any linguist who has studied a language closely knows that no two speakers of the language have exactly the same grammar: careful inspection inevitably reveals differences, whether subtle or striking. In light of this great variety to be found within the Armenian linguistic com- munity, I ask for the reader’s indulgence in petusing the chapters that follow. Rather than railing against the folly of ‘incorrect’ forms, the reader should revel in the diversity of this remarkable language.SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY In this chapter I present the basic elements of Armenian phonetics and phonology, focusing on the phonemes and their allophones, and syllable typology. This being the first systematic theoretical study of Armenian phonology (useful non- theoretical studies include Abexjan, 1923; 1932; Fairbanks, 1948; Allen, 1950; Johnson, 1954; Atfatjan, 1971; XatYfatrjan, 1988; Sukiasjan, 1989), I have drawn my material directly from primary sources, which are cited in the appropriate locations. Throughout this study I concentrate on standard eastem Armenian (SEA), spoken in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Iran, primarily because it distinguishes in pronunciation the three consonant series (voiced, voiceless, and voiceless aspirated) employed in both western and eastern orthography. I also make use of standard westem Armenian (SWA) and various non-literary dialects where they help to shed light on the phenomena under consideration or them- selves manifest interesting phenomena not found in SEA. 1.1. THE DIALECTS Various scholars have put the number of Armenian dialects between two and 120. The average Armenian distinguishes two dialects, eastern and western, which basically correspond to what I term SEA and SWA. There are in fact many more than two distinct dialects—many of which are mutually unintelligible, such as the Agulis dialect spoken in eastern Nakhichevan, which is called Zokeren ‘the Zok language’ by Armenians, or the Svedia dialect spoken in Syria, called Kist'inak lizu ‘Christian [language]’ by its speakers. I follow D3ahukjan (1972) in assuming the existence of thirty-six basic dialects. These can be divided into two main groups, roughly corresponding to the eastern and western portions of the Armenian linguistic area (basically defined by position relative to the Armenian-Turkish border), based on a number of isoglosses including the presence of a locative case (eastern dialects) and present formations employing forms of the particle ku (western dialects). The dialects and their basic divisions are listed in (1) (see also the map on p. xiv). (1) Western dialects Eastern dialects Agn Agulis Amasia Aresh Arabkir Arvin Cilicia Astraxan8 SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY Western dialects Eastern dialects Crimea Erevan Erzurum Julfa Eudokia Karabagh' Hamshen Maragha Istanbul ‘Meghri Malatia Shamaxi Mush Tiflis Nicomedia Xoy Ordu Transylvania Rodosto Sebastia Shabin-Karahisar Smyma Syria Tigranakert Trebizonde Van Xarberd/Erznka Xotorjur 1.1.1. Historical dialectology ‘The two subgroups in (1) are further subdivided by a number of isoglosses, of which I present a few of the most significant here. I concentrate on linguistic inno- vations (relative to Classical Armenian), since common preservations are not valid criteria for historical subgrouping. Perhaps the most striking innovations in the post-Classical dialects occur in the verbal morphology, where excepting the aorist none of the classical formations remains in place. One may consult Vaux (1995a) for a synopsis of the changes that have occurred; here I consider only the simple present formation. The Classical Armenian present tense was formed by adding one of four thematic vowels directly to the verb root, followed by a set of personal endings, as schema- tized in (2). (2) Classical Armenian present tense formation Root Thematic vowel —Isg. Surface form Gloss bere m [berem] Icarry kam i m [kamim] I wish gna m [ganam} Igo fot u m {rotum) Tallow ' Karabagh in many respects is not a single dialect: its dozens of subdialects often disagree with respect to important isoglosses, such as the present formation and Adjarian’s Law (see discussion in LL).SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY 9 This formation is now the standard subjunctive formation in all of the modern dialects, and the present function has been filled by a number of new formations. SWA simply augments the classical present with a particle ku, which surfaces in various forms in all of the western dialects (ku is used to form the future tense in many eastern dialects). SEA and most of the eastern dialects employ a locative participle in -um followed by present forms of the copula to form the present tense. In addition to these formations, which cover the majority of Armenian dialects, we find a number of other developments. The dialects of Artvin, Meghri, and (much of) Karabagh employ a participle in -lis combined with the copula; many other eastern dialects including SEA use this formation with monosyllabic verbs. An interesting innovation among the western dialects is a present form that adds various manifestations of the particle ha to the classical present, found in Rodosto, Nicomedia, Agn, Malatia, Kesab, Aramo, and Edesia. These develop- ments are summarized in (3). (3) Modern present formations Source Underlying form Surface form Gloss SWA gu pier-e-m gaperem Icarry SEA ber-um e-m berum em Icarry Meghri —mn-a-lis i-m mana(lijs im I stay Kesab ha pen-e-m ha paenem I work The geographical distribution of peculiar innovations such as the ha present suggests historical movements. For example, one might speculate that the dialects of Nicomedia and Rodosto in north-west Turkey and Aramo and Kesab in Syria migrated from somewhere near Agn, Malatia, and Edesia in central Turkey some time after their common ancestor developed the ha construction. Similarly, the isolation of Artvin from the rest of the -lis dialects suggests either that this speech community moved from the Karabagh area some time after the -lis formation developed or that the area in between Karabagh and Artvin, which employs -lis with monosyllabic verbs, has innovated. Perhaps the most famous and least understood aspect of Armenian phonology is the extensive series of consonant shifts that occurred between Proto- Indo-European and the modern dialects. The basic developments are schematized in (4), with coronal stops representing the outcomes of stops at all places of articulation; representative examples are given in (5). (4) Correspondences in initial position aoe Indo-European 1 d a e Sebastia 2 t a e Erevan 3. d df Istanbul aed t e Sasun, Middle Armenian 5 d@ tt ff — Malatia, SWA 6 « df — Classical Armenian, Agulis, SEA a t t e Van10 SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY () *D D “T Indo-European dek'm ‘10’ Beremi‘Icarry’ —ok'ta 8” Sebastia dasa Berem ut’o Erevan tassa Berem ut’ Istanbul dasa berem tity Sasun das peram ut SWA dasa (/dasn/) —_prerem ut’a(/ut’n/) Classical tasn berem ut Van tas pirem ut It is interesting to note that the voiceless aspirates remain unchanged in all of the dialects; the distinctions between these dialect groups therefore lie in the first two series alone. Many scholars, most recently Garrett (1991), have suggested that group 1, which most closely resembles the Indo-European system structurally, is in fact a direct descendant of Indo-European, and the other systems are later innovations. There is reason to believe, however, that all the modern systems developed from the Classical Armenian system (group 6); Agulis, Artvin, ‘Meghri, Tiflis, and Amasia preserve this system intact. The group 6 dialects? exist in isolated patches throughout the Armenian-speaking area, a typical feature of archaisms, whereas the other consonant systems occupy continuous areas, typical of later innovations. Further evidence for this position is presented in Chapter 7, where I also examine the mechanics and relative chronology of the various con- sonant shifts. Another interesting innovation in the consonant system is Adjarian’s Law, which describes the fronting of back vowels after voiced obstruents (Vaux, 1992). This development occurs in the dialects of Agulis, Karabagh, Maragha, Meghri, Salmast, Shamaxi, Shatax, Syria, Van, and Xoy; representative examples are provided in (6). a Classical Van Gloss bah pey spade botk payk radish buk* yk snowstorm gain Ker sheep got Kew thief gund Kynd heap danak teenek knife dotal toval tremble durs ts outside b. paraw patav old woman port puort navel 2 Tuse the term ‘group 6 dialects’ in a descriptive sense; I do not believe that the archaism shared by group 6 dialects isa valid criterion for historical subgrouping In Malatia, vowels are more closed (actually [+ATR] in my interpretation) afier original voiced obstruents than after voiceless aspirates (Danieljan, 1967: 22).SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY mW Classical Van Gloss putuk putuk vessel kanat{ kanatif green kov kov cow kuft kuft side tak’ tak” hot tokank* tuokank* punishment tun tun house In many of these dialects the original plain voiced series has become voiceless, merging with the original voiceless series, suggesting that the loss of the voicing distinction is somehow correlated with the vowel fronting process. Agulis, Meghri, and the Kirzan subdialect of Karabagh are particularly interesting in this regard, since they preserve the plain voiced series yet undergo Adjarian’s Law. (7) Classical Agulis = Meghti. Kiran Gloss bah bh beh beh spade gain gains —gérn ger sheep darman — dermen — derman_—deermen __ cats The Meghri and Kirzan facts indicate that Adjarian’s Law was not related to the loss of voicing contrasts (I consider some further theoretical aspects of Adjarian’s Law in Chapter 6). As for the history of this innovation, one notices that most of the Adjarian’s Law dialects are located within the triangle formed by Lake Van, Lake Urmia, and Karabagh, with the exception of Syria, in the south-west comer of the Armenian linguistic area. Given the non-trivial nature of Adjarian’s Law, I assume that the Syrian dialect community resided in the above-mentioned triangle at the time the rule applied, and subsequently migrated westward. This being the case, we should be able to date the application of Adjarian’s Law on the basis of our knowledge of when the Armenian community in Syria was estab- lished. We only know that the Armenian community in Syria was well established by the eleventh century, however (Sanjian, 1964). Atfaijan (1952) dates his law between the seventh and eleventh centuries, based on the fact that Arabic loans (seventh century) undergo the rule but Turkish loans (eleventh century and following) do not. Muradjan (1962) dates Adjarian’s Law to the fifth century, for unspecified reasons. With our knowledge of the history of the Syrian Armenian community and the behavior of loanwords, I think it fairly safe to assume a date before the eleventh century. Given the set of innovations discussed above, one wonders whether the isoglosses correspond to geographical or political boundaries in historical Armenia. This is difficult to ascertain, due to the extensive series of migrations and deportations that have occurred over the past 1500 years. Note, for example, that many of the modern western dialects lie outside the fifteen administrative divisions of historical Armenia, due to a series of migrations in the Middle Ages ‘4 Adjarian’s Law does not apply before the uvular consonants (zs #) in Agulis.12 SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY to eastern Europe, the Crimea, and Astraxan, (perhaps) earlier migrations to Syria and westem Turkey, and later deportations in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from Karabagh to Burdur, from Julfa to Isfahan, from Erzerum to Georgia, etc. To take an extreme case, every dialect that shows the ha present lies outside of historical Armenia, and unfortunately we know little about the move- ments of these dialect communities between the time of the Cilician kingdom (tenth to fifteenth centuries) and the present day. 1.2. PHONETICS AND PHONEMICS Now let us move on to the synchronic phonemic systems found in modern Armenian. The best source for phonetic and phonological information on standard (particularly Eastern) Armenian is XatYatrjan (1988), which provides minimal pairs for all phonemic contrasts and extensive discussion of phonetic issues such as voice onset time, duration of consonants and vowels in stressed and unstressed syllables, and vowel formants. In the sketch below I focus on phonetic and phonological features of SEA, with some attention given to SWA as. well. 1.2.1.SEA p Pp bm fF Cee ey k kg ag h i u e 2 a Fig. 1.1. (* For ease of notation, I represent the lax mid vowels as e and o in Standard Armenian forms.) SEA has the phonemic inventory in Fig. 1.1. In addition to these phonemes, SEA has an epenthetic schwa pronounced much like standard Turkish , which is treated in detail later in this chapter and in Chapters 3 and 5. With the exception of this schwa, which in certain positions is reflected in the orthography, Armenian orthography is basically phonemic. The main exception to this is vowel sequences, which in SEA are spelled according to their phonetic realization, whereas their SWA spelling is generally based on Classical Armenian ortho- graphy, which is linked more closely to the phonemics. For example, SEA /dziun/SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY 13 ‘snow’ [dzjun] is spelled , whereas the SWA equivalent /¢siun/ [¢sjun] is spelled (SWA regularly represents underlying /u/). Orthographic (and phonetic) and are allophones of underlying /i/ and /u/ respectively that surface when adjacent to vowels (the exact conditions are discussed further in Chapter 3). The fact that surface [j v] are allophones of /i u/ allows us to account for the absence of morpheme-intemnal *ji and *vu sequences in Armenian: the underlying form of these sequences would be /ii/ and /uu/ respectively, which are ruled out by the Obligatory Contour Principle. We would be unable to account for this distributional fact if we assumed that j and v were phonemic in Armenian. By assuming that [v] is an allophone of u we can also account for alternations between u and v such as we find in SEA astvats ‘god’, instrumental astuis-ov; dzu ‘egg’, plural dzav-er. However, this hypothesis cannot easily account for forms such as SEA vka ‘witness’ [vaka], vnas ‘harm’ [vanas], vstah ‘sure, trusting’ [vasta], viang ‘danger’ (vatayg]. If the orthographic in these forms represented an under- lying /u/, we would expect the surface forms *[uka], *[unas], *[usta], *[utang]. The simplest way of accounting for these forms is to postulate a phoneme /v/. ‘There are at least two problems with this postulation, however: it fails to capture the fact that vC-initial words are extremely rare in Armenian, and it deprives us of our account for the absence of *ji and *vu sequences developed above. Therefore, I prefer to maintain the earlier proposal that there is no phoneme /v/. In order to do so, I must stipulate that the few forms of the vka type actually contain an empty vocalic position between the initial /u/ and the following consonant. Empty vocalic positions of this type are independently required for reasons discussed in 3.2.1.1. SWA also has an initial corresponding to SEA , both of which are pro- nounced [h]; in this case SWA orthography preserves the Classical state of affairs, when this initial h was in fact a /j/. I take this segment to be an underlying A in both SWA and SEA, since there are no altemations to justify postulating an absolute neutralization rule. Both SEA and SWA employ four mid-vowel graphemes, . Though both forms of e and both forms of o are phonetically identical, they nevertheless are separate phonemes: /e/ and /o/ differ from their ‘long’ counterparts in under- going initial diphthongization (8),° and differs from the other mid vowels in undergoing reduction in unstressed syllables (9).¢ (8) Orthographic form Surface form —_Glloss eraz Jeraz dream ef ef donkey otf votf no ad ot* air 5 However, in many non-standard dialects the mid vowels do not diphthongize. © ‘The diphthong eu behaves in the same manner in the one word in which it occurs in unstressed position: eu ‘and’ surfaces as jev when stressed, and as u when enclitic to a preceding word.14 SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY 9) Root Gloss Derived verb Gloss ser (ser] love (n) sirel love ber produce (n) berel carry olor [volor| twisting (adj) —_olorel [volorel] _ twist axit [osit] dowry axtel {ostel] endow We can tell that forms of the type in (8) involve underlying /e-/ and /o-/ rather than [je-/ and /vo-/ sequences by the fact that the glide does not appear in compounds: (10) Underlying root Surface form Gloss Compound Gloss a ere jerk song parerk* dance-song (*parjerk’) ep*e-l jepel cook (v) anep* undercooked (tanjep") b. ordi vort'i son Keforti mother’s brother’s son orof vorof certain anorof uncertain (*anvorof) Based on the ablauting behavior of in (9), I assume it to be an underlying diphthong /eif; furthermore, I assume <°> to be an underlying diphthong /au/. In both cases, my underlying forms recapitulate the historical origins of these vowels. For example, Classical Armenian possessed a diphthong /au/ that alter- nated synchronically with /a/ in preconsonantal position (11).? (11) Root Instrumental sg. _ Instrumental pl. Gloss am am-a-u[amav] — am-a-u-K*[amok'] year. At some later date the combinations of suffixes that produced such alternations fell out of use, so that the modern language in fact shows no productive alter- nations between au and 0. Nevertheless, I assume that the preconsonantal neutralization rule is still active in the language. This being the case, we need no special machinery to account for the failure of to diphthongize in initial Position, since at the time the rule applies, words such as [o#"] ‘air’ have an initial au-, and a does not undergo the rule (cf. akif ‘shovel’ —> [aki/]). We do need to account for the behavior of initial /ei/, however, which we might expect to surface as *[jej-], based on the syllabification procedures to be discussed in Chapter 3. I assume that the diphthongization rule does not apply to segments that are already diphthongs. We must also explain why unstressed /ei/ becomes [i] rather than [e] and why unstressed /au/ does not become [a], which we might expect since unstressed i and u are generally deleted (cf. 1.3). 1 am forced to assume that the reduction rule treats [+high] elements of diphthongs differently from simple high vowels. Some interesting structural features of the SEA consonantal inventory are the 7 ‘This 0: seems to have been different from o in classical Armenian (perhaps (o] vs. (2]), judging tinction in the orthography and in many modern dialects such as Van and Mush,SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY 15 opposition of three series such as we find in Thai: the existence of uvular but not velar fricatives; two contrastive rhotics, one trilled (#) and one flapped (r); and the presence of aspirated affricates but not fricatives. Tripartite consonant systems often show interesting laryngeal neutralization effects, as in the well-known case of Thai; SEA presents a more complicated variant of the behavior of Thai in this respect, as I describe in 1.3, Even more complicated laryngeal behavior is found in the New Julfa dialect, which like Hindi has four stop series. I consider New Julfa laryngeal neutralization and the problem of aspirated affricates and frica- tives in Chapter 7. Some dialects, including SWA, merge the two varieties of rhotics; SEA neutralizes the opposition to F before coronal consonants (cf. sections 1.2 and 6.2). The feature specifications of Armenian r and # are considered in more detail in Chapter 6, The uvular fricative » is somewhat problematic, in that it behaves as a coronal with respect to a number of phono- logical rules discussed in Chapters 3 and 6. Historically this is not altogether surprising, since it developed from a dark J (cf. aw ‘salt’: Latin sal, gox ‘thief’: Latin vol- ‘rob’), but in synchronic terms it is not immediately clear whether to treat as a uvular with certain special properties or as a [+back] coronal lateral which becomes uvular at the phonetic level in all environments. I know of no contrasts between aspirated consonants and stop + h sequences. It is possible to construct a handful of stop + h sequences using the prefix followed by h-initial roots, e.g. ‘general’, but the fact that the surface form [ant‘anur] shows a voiceless aspirate is independent of the following h: cf. [ant’arat')] ‘against’. F2 2990 2900 1900190149010 1090-800 + 100 i : 2 720 "sg + 300 ° : T 400 + 500 + 600 2 : +700 Fl Fig. 1.2. Formant frequencies of SEA vowels (XatYatrjan, 1988: 164)16 SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY The SEA vowels as studied by Xat'fatrjan (1988) show an interesting phonetic distribution, which I have schematized in Fig. 1.2. Note that in this diagram, where the difference between the first and second formants (x-axis) basically corresponds to backness and the value of the first formant (y-axis) corresponds to height, e and a are closer to central vowels than front vowels. It is not clear how to reconcile these phonetics with the fact that in many dialects, including SEA, e patterns as [—back] together with i, palatalizing preceding consonants, whereas a, which is strikingly similar to e acoustically, does not palatalize (see also 1.2.2).* ‘The low vowel a is very low and back, approaching [2] for many speakers. 1.2.2. SWA SWA has the phonemic inventory in Fig. 1.3. The only significant differences from the SEA inventory are the absence of a plain voiceless series, which has merged with the voiceless aspirates, and f, which has merged with r. The low vowel a tends to be less retracted than in SEA. Pb om fy» Cee ee 5 oe eg, x « h i S Fig. 1.3 1.3. BASIC ALTERNATIONS The alternations discussed in this section occur in SEA, but many are also true of SWA. As a general rule, SEA pronunciations that deviate from phonological representations directly reflect features of the Erevan dialect, which is only logical since Erevan is the center of eastern Armenian culture. Nevertheless, ‘learned’ pronunciations that reflect the phonemics more directly are often heard. 1.3.1. R-aspiration For example, SEA (like most Armenian dialects) generally changes voiced stops and affricates into voiceless aspirates after r (12a) and word-finally after a vowel (12b), but many words are pronounced without this change (12c). * According to XaiJarjan (1988: 104), stops are palatalized before i, e, and y, but this palatalization is more noticeable with dorsals than coronals, and more noticeable with coronals than labials.SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY 17 (12) Underlying form Surface form Gloss a. bardz barts high verds verti end trd-el Pordfel soak erdgan-ik jertfanik happy furds furtf around ardzagank* artsagank? echo mard mart" man Die ad; ary tight (direction) meids meth in audz ot snake deag deak* cub mug muk* dark tag tak" crown ec. gorg gorg carpet kamurds kamurds bridge furdj-an Jardgan circuit Plain voiceless stops and affricates surface as such in these environments. (13) Underlying form Surface form Gloss af ay growth muk muk mouse. In this study I employ leamed pronunciations unless I have positive evidence to the contrary; for example, underlying voiced stops in final position are transcribed as such even though they are often pronounced as voiceless aspirates (see below). 1.3.2. Final devoicing Some continuants are devoiced in final position, most notably r, which as in ‘Turkish is pronounced much like af in this position? (14) Underlying form Surface form Gloss hamar hamar for us uf strong fas Set dew 1.3.3. Fricative voice assimilation Fricatives assimilate in voicing to following consonants, regularly in the case of voiced fricatives (15a) and across word boundaries in the case of voiceless frica- tives (15b) (XatYatrjan, 1988: 101-4). 9 In some dialects, word-final ! and r in fact merge with /.18 SURVEY OF ARMENIAN PHONOLOGY (15) Underlying form Surface form Gloss a dzusp deugp fish egg kewts kexts deceitful ovds voxtt whole axb ap trash xeoyf xexey miserable tust tugt sheet of paper vaz-k* vask* race b. of-grit sfazgarit precise keis-gifer kezgifer midnight keis 3am kez 3am half an hour With the exception of vazk', the forms showing devoicing provided by Xatfatrjan are all morpheme-internal, and therefore do not provide evidence for a process of voicing assimilation; one could simply postulate a constraint on underlying clusters requiring that they agree in voicing. There are a number of indications that voicing assimilation is an active process, however. For example, we find cases of assimilation across a morpheme boundary, such as vazk' (cf. vazel ‘run’) and the forms in (15b). In addition, forms such as asb ‘trash’ [axp] and oxd3 ‘whole’ [voze'/] show voicing assimilation, if we assume the orthography repre- sents the phonemic structure of words (if it does not, then we merely have more instances of the constraint discussed above). Note that if the underlying form of ‘trash’ is in fact /axb/, voicing assimilation must apply after the rule that devoices and aspirates final voiced stops. We must also assume a rule, ordered after the voiceless aspiration rule, that deaspirates stops after uvular fricatives in order to account for forms like fazp] (similar processes are found in many eastern dialects; see Chapter 7). Affricates, however, always appear as voiceless aspirates after x. 1.3.4, S-aspiration As in many dialects, SEA aspirates stops in position before sibilants (Xatatrjan, 1988 : 106). (16) Underlying form Surface form Gloss apstambel ap'stambel revolt apfel ap'fel be surprised ‘The behavior of this rule in the New Julfa dialect is examined in Chapter 7. 1.3.5. Place assimilation As in most languages, the coronal nasal n undergoes place assimilation (Allen, 1950; Xat'fatrjan, 1988: 106).