Critical Book Review

Critical Book Review

Phonology Analysis and Theory

Edmund Gusmann

2002

ISBN    978-0-511-07590-2

New York

The Edinburgh Building,Cambrige CB2 2RU.United Kingdom

Published in the United States of America

By Cambrige University Press,New York

1.1 Syllable Structure and Phonological Effects: Quantity in Icelandic.

In the phonology of Modern Icelandic, namely vowel quantity. We will try to see what the theoretical apparatus developed so far can do to cope with the facts of the language, and also what the facts of the language can tell us about the nature of phonological regularities. Although our main concern will be vocalic length or quantity, we will also need to look at a few other phenomena that are closely connected with it. This reflects the predominant situation in phonology, where very few regularities in the language can be analysed in complete isolation from other data. Normally, phonological regularities are connected in various ways and can only be properly appreciated and formulated when studied jointly. Needless to say, we cannot go into too many details here and for this reason the regularities other than those controlling vowel quantity will be presented briefly, and only to the extent that they are relevant to the discussion.

a.        Preliminaries

Let us start by listing the main vowels and consonants of the language. As we pointed out in the previous chapter, such lists are of questionable phonological significance but they give some idea of the sounds of the language. In Icelandic vowels are classified on the basis of the phonetic oppositions front – back, rounded – unrounded and high – mid – low.  Apart from the above monophthongs, there are five diphthongs, namely [ei, ai,au, ou,  i]. What is characteristic and striking about Icelandic diphthongs is that, just like monophthongs, they can be either short or long. We will return to this point presently.

b. Open syllable lengthening

Icelandic vowels can be long or short in a way which is reminiscent of the Italian lengthening discussed in 5.6. According to standard textbooks stressed, i.e. normally initial nuclei are long in Modern Icelandic in one of the following situations:

1.      they are word-final, e.g.:

·         b´u [pu_] ‘estate’, tvo [thvɔ_] ‘two, acc. masc.’, foe [fai_] ‘I get’

2.      they are followed by a single consonant, e.g.:

·         stara [sta_ra] ‘stare’, l´u a [lu_ea] ‘halibut’, foeri [fai_r] ‘opportunity,

·         kj¨ot [ch__th] ‘meat’, hj´on [cou_n] ‘couple’

A few initial comments are in order with respect to this traditional formulation. For one thing, the stressed vowel referred to in the statement does not have to be primarily stressed but may be secondarily stressed. Further, the claim that the sequence /khj/ is one of the clusters described in [6c] is probably unnecessary if we recognise the existence of the palatal plosive [ch]; theword reykja [rei_cha] ‘smoke’ has a long nucleus because it is followed by a single palatal plosive rather than a consonant sequence. Leaving aside these additions, we can note the problems that the listing in reveals. The obvious task is to try and reduce the three different contexts to some kind of common denominator, apart from the requirement that the long nucleus must be stressed. We would like to be able to see why it is that the word-final position appears to induce the same behaviour as the context of a following single consonant or a specific consonant combination. Even more, we would like to enquire about the nature of the lengthening cluster and ask what it is that causes precisely these consonant combinations rather than any others to act as lengthening contexts.

From the above explanation that has been explained by Edmund Gusmann is clear enough to understand by the reader. So in this chapter I can included interested in the conditions determining the length and shortness of stressed vowels in the present-day language. And This chapter has been entirely devoted to an in-depth analysis of one phenomenon in the phonology of Modern Icelandic. We have been As is frequently the case in phonology, what starts off by being a trivial-looking minor problem develops into an intricate regularity or set of regularities with significant theoretical implications.In the Icelandic case we formulated a simple condition connecting vowel length with rhyme structure: if the rhyme contains no consonantal coda, the nucleus must branch.We found evidence supporting this generalisation both within native vocabulary and also in loan-words, including proper names. Once we realised that vowel length is controlled by the openness of syllables we changed our strategy and set ourselves a new task. Assuming that a long vowel implies that there is no following coda, and that a short one necessarily entails one, we looked at more data in Icelandic in an attempt to find out what the quality generalisation can reveal about the structure of onsets, codas and coda–onset contacts.

In this way we started by using phonological theory to help us understand a language-specific problem, and then exploited what we hoped were reliable results to probe further theoretical questions. Two issues emerged as particularly relevant: the status of final consonants and of coda–onset contacts.

Icelandic vowel quantity provides additional support for the claim that wordfinal consonants are onsets licensed by empty nuclei. What is singularly striking about Icelandic is theway it reveals that final consonant sequences can be branching.

So here I can include that English language and Iclandic language have some similarities like from alphabet in Iclandic and English. And have pronouncation which almost the same.

II.               The Phonology of Polish

(second edition)

Edmund Gusmann

2007

ISBN    1 3 5 7 9 1 9 0 5 6 4 2

New York

The Edinburgh Building,Cambrige CB2 2RU.United Kingdom

Published in the United States

By Oxford University Press,Inc.,New York

II.1. Structure of The Syllable and The Vowel Presence

Polish is consonantal clusters that have bedevilled phonologists of all sorts of theoretical persuasion are studied within the highly constrained GP theory of syllabic constituents. Existing consonant combinations result from licit constituents such as a branching onset or a coda and a branching-onset contact, but they also arise as a result of the vowel–zero alternations. These are interpreted as a consequence of a morphophonological mechanism which attaches floating melodies in some contexts but not in others. In addition to a phonetic zero resulting from an unattached floating melody we also recognize empty nuclei; these are subject to the condition that domain-internally no sequences of such nuclei are tolerated. The interaction of floating melodies and empty nuclei is analyzed on the basis of the behaviour of certain prepositions and prefixes; morphology is claimed to play an indirect role in the pattern by supplying or adjusting domain boundaries. The absolute majority of consonantal clusters—initial, medial, and final—are shown to arise due to unattached floating melodies and empty nuclei.The mechanisms controlling floating melodies and empty nuclei are predominantly morphophonological. An additional type of morphophonological regularity is developed which relates lexical items rather than transforming or replacing segments in specified contexts.

The structure of the Polish syllable seems to hold a particular fascination forphonologists not  directly concerned with Slavic languages almost exclusively on account of the consonantal clusters that the language allows. These can not only reach four or five elements but, fundamentally, the arrangement or order of the consonants in a sequence appears to defy principles established on the basis of well- (or, at least, better-) behaved languages. There are words galore of the type łgarstw [wgarstf] ‘lie, gen. pl.’, which are traditionally held to be monosyllabic and where the nucleus is surrounded by consonantal sequences violating. The Icelandic consonant system consist of 18 phonemic consonant,12 allophone consonant.

So in Icelandic. All of Icelandician used polish language. And polish language have phonological rule of the english. Polish syllable seems to hold a particular fascination forphonologists not  directly concerned with Slavic languages almost exclusively on account of the consonantal clusters that the language allows. These can not only reach four or five elements but, fundamentally, the arrangement or order of the consonants in a sequence appears to defy principles established on the basis of well- (or, at least, better-) behaved languages. There are words galore of the type łgarstw [wgarstf] ‘lie, gen. pl.’, which are traditionally held to be monosyllabic and where the nucleus is surrounded by consonantal sequences violating.

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