Phonological Rule Order

Rules are an important part of phonology. In certain cases it is claimed the rules need to be ordered. If the first rule creates an environment in which the second can apply, the rules are in a feeding relationship. However, if the first rule creates an environment in which the second can no longer apply, they are in a bleeding relationship.

For example, in many varieties of Brazilian Portuguese, the word "cidade" (city) is pronounced with a word-final [i] and the [d] is pronounced as a voiced alveopalatal affricate that corresponds to the English "j". The affricate only occurs before the high front [i]. To explain this sound change, two rules can be created. Rule A is unstressed word-final vowel raising which changes the mid front vowel to a high one. Rule B is palatalization which changes the voiced dental plosive to an affricate. The two rules are in a feeding relationship. The application of the first rule, vowel raising, creates the environment in which palatalization can occur.

However, this suggests that one rule precedes the other. It is possible that vowel raising and palatalization apply simultaneously. Though certain Brazilians apply word-final vowel raising but not palatalization, this does not prove that the two rules cannot apply at the same time. The concept of rule ordering does not necessarily have to exist in reality but simply on an abstract level.

A well-known example of feeding occurs in French. In the phrases "ma petite maison" (my small house) and "mon petit lit" (my small bed) the word for "small" is pronounced differently. The word "petite" has a word-final plosive but "petit" does not. It is claimed that there are two rules. One rule is word-final vowel deletion and the other is word-final consonant deletion. In "petite" the final vowel is deleted and in "petit" the word-final consonant is deleted. Rule A, word-final vowel deletion, feeds Rule B, word-final consonant deletion.

These rules are unsatisfactory on several levels. First of all, "petite" and "petit" are spelt differently. This is an indication that they should be pronounced differently. Second, "petite" is a feminine form which occurs with feminine nouns and "petit" is a masculine form which occurs with masculine ones. Phonology should not ignore spelling and grammar.

Another problem is that word-final vowel deletion is an optional rule. Though it is true that it is applied by most French speakers, in certain cases the vowel is pronounced as a schwa, particularly in careful speech. It does not apply categorically. In the phrase "mon petit lit", there is no evidence that a word-final vowel was deleted and then a word-final consonant. In fact, it is possible that the word-final vowel was added to created the feminine form.

In addition to feeding and bleeding, phonologists also use the terms counterfeeding and counterbleeding. These are terms used to describe cases in which the application of two rules is reversed.

In the phrase "mon petit lit" the two rules of word-final vowel deletion and word-final consonant deletion are applied to "petit" so that it is pronounced without a word-final schwa or word-final consonant. However, in the phrase "ma petite maison" the word-final vowel is deleted but not the word-final consonant. Many phonologists label this counterfeeding. They explain that the application of the rules is reversed. Rule B, consonant deletion, applies before Rule A, vowel deletion. If we apply Rule B first, it is blocked because "petite" has a word-final vowel. Then we apply Rule A, vowel deletion, to derive the correct pronunciation of "petite". Since one of the rules applies, this is labelled counterfeeding. The problem, however, is that there is no reason that "petite" should be pronounced the same as "petit". In fact, distinct masculine and feminine adjective forms are a characteristic of not only French but all Romance languages.

Counterbleeding can be clarified with an example from Portuguese. The word "bom" (good) has a fully nasalized vowel but no nasal. Two rules can be formed. Rule A is the vowel nasalization rule which states that a vowel becomes nasalized if it is followed by a nasal in the same syllable. Rule B is the nasal deletion rule which deletes a word-final nasal. If the order of the two rules were reversed and we applied nasal deletion first, the word "bom" would become "bo". In this case, the environment for vowel nasalization would be destroyed and it would fail to apply. This is an example of counterbleeding.

However, this example also has problems. It is not always the case that a vowel becomes nasalized before a nasal segment. For example, in Hungarian vowels do not nasalize before nasals. In the Hungarian word "szent" (saint) the "e" is not nasalized. Thus vowel nasalization is not a universal phenomenon. Second, it is not clear that vowel nasalization first applies and then nasal deletion. It is a possibility that the two rules apply simultaneously so that they coalesce. If the vowel and the nasal coalesce, neither vowel nasalization nor nasal deletion precedes the other.

Phonological rule orders often present many problems. One problem is that it is not always evident that one rule must precede the other. Other problems are that the rules are often not universal and in certain cases are optional rules. Phonological rules and rule orders often fail to capture the reality of the sound changes they represent.

Polish Dill Pickle Soup

One of my favourite soups is Polish dill pickle soup. It can be served either hot or cold. I prefer to have it cold. This soup does not take too long to prepare. Here is a recipe for this tasty soup.

1 tablespoon butter
1 onion, sliced
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 and 1/2 cups chopped dill pickles
2 cups water
4 potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sour cream
salt and black pepper

Melt the butter in a pot. Fry the onion until it is golden brown. Add the broth, pickles, water and potatoes. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat. Cook until the potatoes become tender.

Blend the flour with the sour cream. Add some hot soup to the mixture of sour cream and flour. Slowly pour it into the hot soup while stirring. Simmer until the soup is slightly thickened. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot or if desired, cool in the refrigerator and serve cold.

This soup is especially good when eaten with rye bread. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Word Order Typology

The languages of the world can be classified by their word order. Using the three constituents of subject, verb and object, it is possible to construct a word order typology. With these constituents, six word orders are possible- SVO, SOV, VSO, VOS, OSV and OVS.

Certain languages differ in their use of subject, verb and object. For example, French uses the order SVO with nouns but SOV with pronouns. "Michel parle italien" means "Michel speaks Italian" but "Michel le parle" is "Michel speaks it". In German, SVO occurs in independent clauses but SOV in dependent ones. "Ich weiss es" is "I know it" but "She knows that I know it" is "Sie weiss, dass ich es weiss". For these reasons, it is necessary to establish the conditions under which subject, verb and object must occur for a basis of comparison.

The constituents of subject, verb and object should occur in declarative sentences, they should be in an independent clause, the subject and object must be nouns and no unit should have special emphasis. This aims to rule out special circumstances such as the word order of dependent clauses in German and the position of the subject and verb with an object pronoun in French.

The most common word order typology in the languages of the world is SVO. Also common is the word order SOV. Far less common is VSO. The remaining three types are rare. VOS and OVS only occur in a small number of languages and OSV in an even smaller number.

SVO is the most common word order. It occurs in English, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, German, Dutch, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Bulgarian, Russian, Chinese and Swahili.

The word order SOV is also common. It is found in languages such as Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Basque, Farsi, Malayalam, Tamil, Hindu, Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali and Nepali.

Less common but also found in a significant number of languages is VSO. This word order occurs in Hawaiian, Irish, Breton, Welsh and Tagalog.

The remain three word order types are not common. VOS occurs in Fijian and Malagasy. OVS is found in Kixkaryana, a language spoken in Brazil. The last type, OSV, is found in Warao and Xavante, also languages of Brazil.

One method of classifying languages is word order. With the units of subject, verb and object, all languages can be categorized into six possible types. The most common word order is undoubtedly SVO and the least common, one that is very different from SVO and is not found in any widely-spoken language, is OSV.

Phoneme Inventory

The phoneme inventory of a language indicates the number and types of phonemes which it has. Phonemes are the distinctive units of sound in a language. One method to determine phonemes is minimal pairs.

If two words share the same number and order of segments but one and those different segments create different words, the words are minimal pairs and the sounds are phonemes. For example, the English words "bell" and "sell" are minimal pairs. The only segments which are different are the word-initial "b" and "s". Since they create different words, they are phonemes of English.

The UCLA Phonological Segment Inventory Database, also known as UPSID, contains the phoneme inventories of more than 400 languages. In the UPSID database, Rotokas, a language spoken in Papua New Guinea, has only 11 phonemes. In contrast, Xu, a language spoken in southern Africa, has 141 phonemes. Many of those phonemes are click sounds common to the languages of southern Africa.

It is often difficult to determine the precise number of phonemes in a language. This is due to several factors. One is that diphthongs are often classified as phonemes in certain languages but not in others. For example, the diphthong which most English speakers have in "take" is classified as a phoneme but the diphthong of the Spanish word "reina" (queen) is not. The Spanish diphthong is phonemic because "reina" (queen) contrasts with "rana" (frog). However, most Spanish speakers do not view the diphthong as a single sound but as two due to the orthography which represents it with two letters.

The short and long vowels of Hungarian are classified as phonemic but the short and long vowels of Finnish are not. The difference is that the Hungarian short and long vowels are considered qualitative and quantitative but the Finnish vowels only quantitative. However, for many Hungarian speakers the high vowels /i/ and /u/ are merely quantitative. In some speakers, the short/long distinction in these vowels is actually non-existent. However, it is traditional to classify the Hungarian short and long vowels as phonemic.

In Finnish, though, the difference is merely considered one of length, so the long vowels of Finnish are excluded from the Finnish phoneme inventory. The phonemic length of Finnish vowels can be considered chronemic. Likewish, consonants can also be chronemic. The Finnish word "kuka" (who) differs from "kukka" (flower) merely in consonant length but phoneme inventories exclude long consonants. This is merely convention.

The number of phonemes in English ranges from 36 to 48. Certain inventories classify the rhotic vowels such as those of "car" and "ear" as phonemic and certain ones classify them as separate segments. In non-rhotic varieties of English such as Received Pronunciation, also known as RP, words such as "ear" are analyzed as a high front vowel followed by a schwa, a diphthong which certain linguists classify as a phoneme and others do not. Thus, the standards for determining the number of phonemes in a phoneme inventory vary.

Phoneme inventories are useful for comparing the number and types of sounds of different languages. It is often the case that languages of a particular area share common features. For example, click sounds are common in languages of southern Africa, consonant clusters are common in Germanic languages, and the existence of only one liquid such as an alveolar lateral or alveolar tap is common in many languages of eastern Asia.

Mora

The mora is a unit of sound. It is between a segment and a syllable. A syllable with one mora is monomoraic. If it has two moras, it is bimoraic.

A short syllable has one mora and a long syllable has two. The onset of the syllable never has a mora. The nucleus has one mora if the vowel is short and two if the vowel is long or is a diphthong. In many languages, the syllable coda is also a mora. For example, the English word "cat" is bimoraic.

Japanese speakers are very much aware of the mora. In fact, the Japanese haiku poem consists of 17 moras divided into verses of 5, 7 and 5. "Tokyo" has two syllables but four moras because the two vowels are long- to-o-kyo-o. "Osaka" has three syllables but also four moras- o-o-sa-ka. "Sapporo" also has four moras- sa-p-po-ro.

Hungarian is a language which can have short and long consonants in the syllable coda. For example, "megy" is the verb "goes" and "meggy" is "sour cherry". The word "megy" has two moras and "meggy" has three.

Moras are closely connected to duration and syllable weight. If a syllable has no coda, it is a light syllable. If it has a coda, it is a heavy syllable. However, a syllable that ends in a diphthong can be classified as light but has two moras as in "day" and "my".

The mora is a unit of sound which is often associated with syllables. It is possible for a syllable to have more than one mora. Japanese is one language which is famous for its use of moras. They are the units used for writing haiku.

Most Common Family Names

I researched the most common family names of countries in Europe and Asia. Now I will report the results.

The most common family name in England is Smith. In Germany it is Mu:ller which is often spelt Mueller in English. In the Netherlands the most common family name is De Jong. The most common Norwegian family name is Hansen. In Denmark the most common is Jensen and in Sweden it is Johansson.

The most common Finnish family name is Virtanen and the most common Hungarian one is Nagy. The most common Russian family name is Smirnov (sometimes spelt Smirnoff), the most common Polish one is Nowak, the most common Czech one is Novak and the most common Croatian one is Horvat.

The most common French family name is also a given name, Martin. The most common Spanish family name is Garci'a, the most common Portuguese one is Silva and the most common Italian one is Rossi.

Now I will focus on Asian family names. The most common Chinese family name is Wang (sometimes spelt Wong). The most common family name in Japan is Sato and in Korea it is Kim. The most common Vietnamese family name is Nguyen.

A list of the most common family names in different countries reveals that even in neighbouring countries with related languages the names are often quite different. In Denmark, Norway and Sweden the most common family names are Jensen, Hansen and Johansson respectively. However, in the Czech Republic and Poland they are virtually identical- Novak and Nowak. In the case of France, the most popular family name, Martin, is also a popular given name for men.

Curds and Whey

Dravle is tne name of a Norwegian dessert which consists of curds and whey. In order to get curds and whey, it is necessary to add buttermilk or yoghurt to a combination of milk, cream and eggs. Dravle is very easy to make.

Put 2 litres of milk (homogenized works best) and 200 millilitres of cream in a pot. Bring to a boil. Now whip in 600 millilitres of buttermilk or yoghurt, 100 millilitres of sugar and 5 eggs. Remove about 1/3 of the whey and simmer for about an hour. Add raisins if desired.

Dravle can be eaten hot or cold. I prefer to eat it cold. I enjoy this dish very much. I hope you do too.