Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T19:56:51.282Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Metrical structure in Scottish Gaelic: tonal accent, glottalisation and overlength

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2019

Donald Alasdair Morrison
Donald Alasdair Morrison*
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
*
E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Scottish Gaelic displays a phonological contrast that is realised in different dialects by means of tonal accent, glottalisation or overlength. In line with existing analyses of similar oppositions in languages such as Swedish, Danish, Franconian and Estonian, I show that this contrast reflects a difference in metrical structure. Using the framework of Stratal Optimality Theory, I argue that this metrical contrast is derived, and results from faithfulness to foot structure that is built regularly at the stem level, but rendered opaque by subsequent phonological processes. Scottish Gaelic therefore represents an intermediate stage in the diachronic development of underlyingly contrastive metrical structure. This analysis successfully accounts for the complex properties of svarabhakti, a process of copy epenthesis that is intimately connected to the phonological contrast in question, and also sheds light upon the relationship between the oppositions of tonal accent, glottalisation and overlength found in various languages of northern Europe.

Type
Articles
Information
Phonology , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , August 2019 , pp. 391 - 432
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I am grateful to Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero for many years of guidance, Pavel Iosad and two anonymous reviewers for useful comments and suggestions, and audiences at the 26th Manchester Phonology Meeting, the 16th Annual Conference of the French Phonology Network, the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain, the 16th Old World Conference on Phonology and Fonologi i Norden 2019 for helpful feedback. This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number ES/J500094/1).

References

Anderson, Cormac (2016). Consonant colour and vocalism in the history of Irish. PhD dissertation, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań.Google Scholar
Bermúdez-Otero, Ricardo (2015). Amphichronic explanation and the life cycle of phonological processes. In Honeybone, Patrick & Salmons, Joseph C. (eds.) The Oxford handbook of historical phonology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 374–399.Google Scholar
Bermúdez-Otero, Ricardo (2018). Stratal Phonology. In Hannahs, S. J. & Bosch, Anna R. K. (eds.) The Routledge handbook of phonological theory. Abingdon & New York: Routledge. 100–134.Google Scholar
Borgstrøm, Carl Hj. (1937). The dialect of Barra in the Outer Hebrides. Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap 8. 71–242.Google Scholar
Borgstrøm, Carl Hj. (1940). A linguistic survey of the Gaelic dialects of Scotland. Vol. 1: The dialects of the Outer Hebrides. Oslo: Aschehoug.Google Scholar
Borgstrøm, Carl Hj. (1941). A linguistic survey of the Gaelic dialects of Scotland. Vol. 2: The dialects of Skye and Ross-shire. Oslo: Norwegian Universities Press.Google Scholar
Bosch, Anna R. K. (1994). Syncope and epenthesis in Scottish Gaelic: rules and phonotactics. In Davison, Alice, Maier, Nicole, Silva, Glaucia & Yan, Wan Su (eds.) Papers from the 4th Annual Meeting of the Formal Linguistics Society of Midamerica. Iowa City: Department of Linguistics, University of Iowa. 35–47.Google Scholar
Bosch, Anna R. K. (1998). The syllable in Scottish Gaelic dialect studies. Scottish Gaelic Studies 18. 1–22.Google Scholar
Bosch, Anna R. K. (2010). Phonology in Modern Gaelic. In Watson, Moray & Macleod, Michelle (eds.) The Edinburgh companion to the Gaelic language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 262–282.Google Scholar
Bosch, Anna R. K. & de Jong, Kenneth (1997). The prosody of Barra Gaelic epenthetic vowels. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 27:1. 1–15.Google Scholar
Bosch, Anna R. K. & de Jong, Kenneth (1998). Syllables and supersyllables: evidence for low level phonological domains. Texas Linguistic Forum 41. 1–14.Google Scholar
Branderud, Peter & Traunmüller, Hartmut (eds.) (2009). Proceedings of FONETIK 2009: the 22nd Swedish Phonetics Conference, June 10–12, 2009. Stockholm: Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University.Google Scholar
Broselow, Ellen, Chen, Su-I & Marie Huffman (1997). Syllable weight: convergence of phonology and phonetics. Phonology 14. 47–82.Google Scholar
Brown, Morag (2009). An investigation into prosodic patterns in the Ness dialect of Scottish Gaelic. MA dissertation, University of Edinburgh. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/10409.Google Scholar
Clements, G. N. (1986). Syllabification and epenthesis in the Barra dialect of Gaelic. In Bogers, Koen, van der Hulst, Harry & Mous, Maarten (eds.) The phonological representation of suprasegmentals. Dordrecht: Foris. 317–336.Google Scholar
Cyran, Eugeniusz (1996). Licensing properties of nuclei and principle ranking in Irish. The Linguistic Review 13. 1–31.Google Scholar
Dilworth, Anthony (1972). Mainland dialects of Scottish Gaelic. Fort Augustus: Abbey Press.Google Scholar
Dorian, Nancy C. (1978). East Sutherland Gaelic: the dialect of the Brora, Golspie and Embo fishing communities. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.Google Scholar
Fraser, J. (1914). Accent and svarabhakti in a dialect of Scotch Gaelic. Revue Celtique 35. 401–409.Google Scholar
Gårding, Eva (1977). The Scandinavian word accents. Lund: Gleerup.Google Scholar
Gillies, William (2009). Scottish Gaelic. In Ball, Martin J. & Müller, Nicole (eds.) The Celtic languages. 2nd edn. London & New York: Routledge. 230–304.Google Scholar
Grannd, Seumas (1985). Some distinguishing features of the Gaelic of Islay. Scottish Language 4. 19–31.Google Scholar
Green, Anthony Dubach (1997). The prosodic structure of Irish, Scots Gaelic, and Manx. PhD dissertation, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Gussenhoven, Carlos & Peters, Jörg (2004). A tonal analysis of Cologne Schärfung. Phonology 21. 251–285.Google Scholar
Gussmann, E. (1986). Autosegments, linked matrices and the Irish lenition. In Kastovsky, Dieter & Szwedek, Aleksander (eds.) Linguistics across historical and geographical boundaries: in honour of Jacek Fisiak on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday. Vol. 2. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 891–907.Google Scholar
Hall, Nancy (2003). Gestures and segments: vowel intrusion as overlap. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Hall, Nancy (2006). Cross-linguistic patterns of vowel intrusion. Phonology 23. 387–429.Google Scholar
Halle, Morris (1995). Feature geometry and feature spreading. LI 26. 1–46.Google Scholar
Halle, Morris, Vaux, Bert & Wolfe, Andrew (2000). On feature spreading and the representation of place of articulation. LI 31. 387–444.Google Scholar
Hammond, Michael, Warner, Natasha, Davis, Andréa, Carnie, Andrew, Archangeli, Diana & Fisher, Muriel (2014). Vowel insertion in Scottish Gaelic. Phonology 31. 123–153.Google Scholar
Hayes, Bruce (1989). Compensatory lengthening in moraic phonology. LI 20. 253–306.Google Scholar
Hayes, Bruce (1995). Metrical stress theory: principles and case studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hermans, Ben (2012). The phonological representation of the Limburgian tonal accents. In Botma, Bert & Noske, Roland (eds.) Phonological explorations: empirical, theoretical and diachronic issues. Berlin: de Gruyter. 223–239.Google Scholar
Hind, Kevin (1996). The structure of epenthesis in Gaelic. Journal of Celtic Linguistics 5. 91–119.Google Scholar
Hind, Kevin (1997). Phonologising Articulatory Phonology. PhD dissertation, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Holmer, Nils M. (1938). Studies on Argyllshire Gaelic. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
Holmer, Nils M. (1957). The Gaelic of Arran. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.Google Scholar
Holmer, Nils M. (1962). The Gaelic of Kintyre. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.Google Scholar
Hyde, Brett (2011). The Iambic–Trochaic Law. In van Oostendorp, Marc, Ewen, Colin J., Hume, Elizabeth & Rice, Keren (eds.) The Blackwell companion to phonology. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell. 1052–1077.Google Scholar
Iosad, Pavel (2015). ‘Pitch accent’ and prosodic structure in Scottish Gaelic: reassessing the role of contact. In Hilpert, Martin, Östman, Jan-Ola, Mertzlufft, Christine, Rießler, Michael & Duke, Janet (eds.) New trends in Nordic and general linguistics. Berlin: de Gruyter. 28–54.Google Scholar
Iosad, Pavel (2016). Prosodic structure and suprasegmental features: short-vowel stød in Danish. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 19. 221–268.Google Scholar
Jones, George (2000). Beagan mu'n stad ghlotasach ann an Gàidhlig ceann a deas Earraghaidheil. Scottish Gaelic Studies 20. 201–211.Google Scholar
Jones, George (2010). The Gaelic of Jura: a description. PhD dissertation, Aberystwyth University.Google Scholar
Kehrein, Wolfgang (2018). There's no tone in Cologne: against tone-segment interactions in Franconian. In Kehrein et al. (2018). 147–194.Google Scholar
Kehrein, Wolfgang, Köhnlein, Björn, Boersma, Paul & van Oostendorp, Marc (eds.) (2018). Segmental structure and tone. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul (2000). Opacity and cyclicity. The Linguistic Review 17. 351–365.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul (2018). Livonian stød. In Kehrein et al. (2018). 195–209.Google Scholar
Köhnlein, Björn (2011). Rule reversal revisited: synchrony and diachrony of tone and prosodic structure in the Franconian dialect of Arzbach. PhD dissertation, University of Leiden.Google Scholar
Köhnlein, Björn (2015). The complex durational relationship of contour tones and level tones. Diachronica 32. 231–267.Google Scholar
Köhnlein, Björn (2016). Contrastive foot structure in Franconian tone-accent dialects. Phonology 33. 87–123.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, Peter (2003). Commentary: some thoughts on syllables – an old-fashioned interlude. In Local, John, Ogden, Richard & Temple, Rosalind (eds.) Phonetic interpretation: papers in laboratory phonology VI. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 269–275.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, Peter, Ladefoged, Jenny, Turk, Alice, Hind, Kevin & Skilton, St. John (1998). Phonetic structures of Scottish Gaelic. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 28. 1–41.Google Scholar
Lehiste, Ilse (1960). Segmental and syllabic quality in Estonian. In Indiana University Committee on Uralic Studies (ed.) American studies in Uralic linguistics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 21–82.Google Scholar
Lehiste, Ilse & Ivić, Pavle (1986). Word and sentence prosody in Serbocroatian. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lindblom, Björn (2009). F0 lowering, creaky voice, and glottal stop: Jan Gauffin's account of how the larynx works in speech. In Branderud & Traunmüller (2009) 8–11.Google Scholar
MacAulay, Donald (1992). The Scottish Gaelic language. In MacAulay, Donald (ed.) The Celtic languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 137–248.Google Scholar
McCarthy, John J. (2000). The prosody of phase in Rotuman. NLLT 18. 147–197.Google Scholar
McCarthy, John J. (2002). A thematic guide to Optimality Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Morén, Bruce (1999). Distinctiveness, coercion and sonority: a unified theory of weight. PhD dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park.Google Scholar
Morén-Duolljá, Bruce (2013). The prosody of Swedish underived nouns: no lexical tones required. Nordlyd 40. 196–248.Google Scholar
Morrison, Donald Alasdair (2018a). Ness Gaelic vowels and the broad/slender contrast. Paper presented at Rannsachadh na Gàidhlig 10, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Morrison, Donald Alasdair (2018b). Scottish Gaelic svarabhakti: not evidence for prosodic identity in copy epenthesis. Paper presented at the 26th Manchester Phonology Meeting.Google Scholar
Nance, Claire (2015). Intonational variation and change in Scottish Gaelic. Lingua 160. 1–19.Google Scholar
Ní Chiosáin, Máire (1991). Topics in the phonology of Irish. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Ní Chiosáin, Máire (1995). Barra Gaelic vowel copy and (non-)constituent spreading. WCCFL 13. 3–15.Google Scholar
Ó Baoill, Dónall P. (1980). Preaspiration, epenthesis and vowel lengthening: interrelated and of similar origin? Celtica 13. 79–108.Google Scholar
Odden, David (1997). Some theoretical issues in Estonian prosody. In Lehiste, Ilse & Ross, Jaan (eds.) Estonian prosody: papers from a symposium. Tallinn: Institute of Estonian Language. 165–195.Google Scholar
Ó Dochartaigh, Cathair (1981). Vowel strengthening in Gaelic. Scottish Gaelic Studies 13. 219–240.Google Scholar
Ó Dochartaigh, Cathair (1994–97). Survey of the Gaelic dialects of Scotland: questionnaire materials collected for the Linguistic Survey of Scotland. 5 vols. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.Google Scholar
Oftedal, Magne (1956). A linguistic survey of the Gaelic Dialects of Scotland. Vol. 3: The Gaelic of Leurbost, Isle of Lewis. Oslo: Aschehoug.Google Scholar
Ó Murchú, Máirtín (1989). East Perthshire Gaelic: social history, phonology, texts, and lexicon. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.Google Scholar
Oostendorp, Marc van (2018). Tone, final devoicing, and assimilation in Moresnet. In Kehrein et al. (2018). 237–251.Google Scholar
O'Rahilly, Thomas F. (1972). Irish dialects past and present: with chapters on Scottish and Manx. 2nd edn. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.Google Scholar
Peters, Jörg (2006). The Cologne word accent revisited. In de Vaan, Michiel (ed.) Germanic tone accents: proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Franconian Tone Accents, Leiden, 13–14 June 2003. Stuttgart: Steiner. 107–133.Google Scholar
Prince, Alan (1980). A metrical theory for Estonian quantity. LI 11. 511–562.Google Scholar
Riad, Tomas (2009). Eskilstuna as the tonal key to Danish. In Branderud & Traunmüller (2009). 12–17.Google Scholar
Scouller, Alastair MacNeill (2017). The Gaelic dialect of Colonsay. PhD dissertation, University of Edinburgh. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/31514.Google Scholar
Smith, Norval (1999). A preliminary account of some aspects of Leurbost Gaelic syllable structure. In van der Hulst, Harry & Ritter, Nancy A. (eds.) The syllable: views and facts. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 577–630.Google Scholar
Sommerfelt, Alf (1922). Un cas de coup de glotte en irlandais. Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 23. 7–14.Google Scholar
Stanton, Juliet & Zukoff, Sam (2018). Prosodic identity in copy epenthesis: evidence for a correspondence-based approach. NLLT 36. 637–684.Google Scholar
Ternes, Elmar (1973). The phonemic analysis of Scottish Gaelic, based on the dialect of Applecross, Ross-shire. Hamburg: Buske.Google Scholar
Ternes, Elmar (1980). Scottish Gaelic phonemics viewed in a typological perspective. Lingua 52. 73–88.Google Scholar
Ternes, Elmar (2006). The phonemic analysis of Scottish Gaelic, based on the dialect of Applecross, Ross-shire. 3rd edn. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.Google Scholar
Watson, Adam & Clement, R. D. (1983). Aberdeenshire Gaelic. Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness 52. 373–404.Google Scholar
Watson, Joseph (1974). A Gaelic dialect of N. E. Ross-shire: the vowel system and general remarks. Lochlann 6. 9–90.Google Scholar
Wentworth, Roy G. (2005). Rannsachadh air fòn-eòlas dualchainnt Ghàidhlig Gheàrrloch, Siorrachd Rois. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.Google Scholar
Zec, Draga (1995). Sonority constraints on syllable structure. Phonology 12. 85–129.Google Scholar