LINGUIST List 11.523

Fri Mar 10 2000

Disc: Underlying Shwa?

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

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  • Yongsung Lee, Re: 11.511, Disc: Underlying Shwa?
  • Geoffrey S. Nathan, Underlying schwas

    Message 1: Re: 11.511, Disc: Underlying Shwa?

    Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2000 16:45:27 +0900
    From: Yongsung Lee <linguisttaejo.pufs.ac.kr>
    Subject: Re: 11.511, Disc: Underlying Shwa?


    We can also think of the phonological aspects of English to answer the question about underlying schwas. If the surface schwas alternate with other vowels on the surface, we surely posit a full vowel in the underlying representation and resort to vowel reduction to explain the schwas. But if there is no surface alternation as shown in the typical example of SPE, effVrt, amVzon and others, (cf. SPE, 37, footnote 27) we find no evidence of positing any full vowel in the underlying forms. The weak vowels in these cases can be viewed as underlying schwas.

    Further consider the following contrast: (Data from Lee (1999), IUPWL) (a) delta - deltaic algebra - algebraic zebra - zebraic (b) aorta - aortic vanilla - vanillic apnea - apneic (cf. delta - deltic, deltaic)

    All the words in (a) and (b) end in a surface schwa before {-ic} suffixation. But they differ after the suffixation. In (a) the final schwa alternates with a full vowel, while it deletes in (b). One plausible way to explain the difference is to posit underlying schwas for the words in (b). With the assumption that a schwa cannot be stressed, and that {-ic} must be added to a stressed syllable, the underlying schwa has to delete in (b) in {-ic} suffixation. The variation shown in /delta + ic/ indicates that the output seems to depend on how the speaker treats the word-final vowel. This line of thought may support the presence of underlying schwas.

    Another less strong evidence is also found in m-final stems in {-atic} suffixation: (c) film - filmic rhythm - rhythmic atom - atomic phoneme - phonemic (d) problem -problemATic symptom - symptomATic idiom - idiomATic (cf. system - systemic, systematic)

    Again the choice between {-ic} and {-ATic} seems to be dependent on the nature of the stem final vowel. Extending the idea from (a) and (b), we find that AT is inserted before the suffix, so that the suffix can be added after a stressed syllable. The data are not plenty, but there are certain parts of English phonology (such as stress as discussed by Prof. Fidelholz that renders phonological support to the underlying schwas.

    - ------------------------------------------------ Yongsung Lee Professor, English Department Pusan University of Foreign Studies. email: ysleetaejo.pufs.ac.kr - ------------------------------------------------

    Message 2: Underlying schwas

     Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 08:12:44 -0600
    From: Geoffrey S. Nathan <geoffnsiu.edu>
    Subject: Underlying schwas


    While I entered this conversation somewhat late, and I apologize if this issue has already been discussed at an early stage, I feel the necessity to inject an additional complicating factor in a discussion that includes words like 'cactusia' and so on. This is my strong belief that for (at least) English speakers, underlying forms (lexical representations, phonemic storage--choose your flavor) are normally not phonological at all, but visual/orthographic. And since there's no spelling for schwa, stress shifts will always show up as some unreduced vowel or other. Think about it: we hyperliterate academic folks probably learn a majority of our vocabulary first through our eyes, not our ears, and I believe we store a large amount of our vocabulary that way. I wrote a paper on this twenty years ago (CLS Parasession, 1979), and I continue to collect evidence, such as tip of the tongue phenomena that indicate that primary storage is orthographic. My favorite, not surprisingly, is my name. The number of times that people call me 'Greg' or 'Glenn' as we pass in the hallway is only explicable if the top sort handle in their mental lexicon is the letter 'g', not the phoneme /dZ/. I know we teach our students that orthography is just a pale reflection of 'real' phonology, but I think the psychological reality of orthographic storage is much stronger than we would like to believe, and I think it makes the question of underlying schwas much trickier to sort out, and citing made up examples based on existing words, or anything based on visually presented data is terminally contaminated by our five-vowel orthography.

    Geoff (with a dZ)

    Geoffrey S. Nathan Department of Linguistics Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Carbondale, IL, 62901-4517 Phone: (618) 453-3421 (Office) / FAX (618) 453-6527 (618) 549-0106 (Home) geoffnsiu.edu