L212 Firthian Prosodic Analysis.
Lecture 5.
Phonetic exponency 2.
In this lecture, we will look at different kinds of exponency relation; consider the problems arising from the kinds of exponency relations proposed in FPA, and suggest a couple of ways in which the exponency relation might be constrained.
Quick recap:
Separation of levels: phonological statement and phonic substance. Phonetics as a level of abstraction, a technique for bringing order to the phonic substance.
Exponency is a relation between two different levels of linguistic statement. An exponency statement connects two levels of linguistic statement.
1.	The Principle of Mutual Consistency:
(i). Material on each ‘side’ of an exponency statement must be appropriate to its level, and well formed according to a set of principles statable at that level.
(ii). The phonetic and phonological levels each have a separate language of description.
Some notation: (RAO’s own: take it or leave it!). If y is a phonological category, y’ is the set of phonetic exponents of y.
2.	One-to-one relations
This is the simplest relation, and one that is encapsulated in phonemic phonology under the idea of biuniqueness. For any phoneme string, there’s only one phonetic realisation, and for any phonetic string, there’s only one phonemic representation. In other words, there’s never ambiguity.
Examples of one-to-one relations: h’ = voicelessness; y’ = “yotization”; w’ = labiovelarization; /’ = glottalization. 
These are rather common in FPA; perhaps we need to wonder what the phonetic terms mean. Do the relations work the other way round: ie. if we hear glottalization, do we necessarily have / in the phonology? ie. is glottalisation always the exponent of /?
3.	Many-to-one relations — The Principle of Multiple Identification:
Grammatically and phonologically different structures are permitted to have identical phonetic exponents. Conversely, identical phonetic stretches are permitted to relate to different phonological statements, depending on grammatical alternations.
Example: Carnochan (1957).
Orthographic mm is analysed as gemination and nasalisation in the case of rigammu, but as two instances of nasalisation in gidammu, on the basis of grammatical alternations. 
In rigammu, the long duration of the nasal is treated as an exponent of gemination, since in this word is a feminine noun. Feminine nouns have g at the junction between the stem and a personal suffix: rigakka, rigakki, rigassa, rigatta, rigammu. Gemination is therefore taken as characteristic of the junction between feminine noun stems and personal suffixes, and provides the most coherent analysis of the long nasal in rigamma. 
However, masculine nouns have nasality at the junction between stem and personal suffix: gidanka, gidanki, gidansa, gidanta, gidammu, so that here mm is treated as an exponent of two similar adjacent phonological units. The corresponding phonological structures for rigammu and gidammu respectively are wLIvvGAgnBU and vGI/vDAnnBU.
There are modern parallels to this. [S] in English may be (i) lexical as in ship, (ii) derived from C+i, as in confess, confession; relate, relation, etc. (iii) postlexical as in “I mi[S] you”. In FPA, these might be treated a belonging to different systems: a lexical system, a word-internal juncture system, and an inter-verbal juncture system.
4.	One-to-many — The Principle of Co-exponency:
It is permissible for phonological categories to relate to phonetic exponents in a one-to-many fashion. If A is a phonological category which has the sets of exponents a b g, then a b g are known as co-exponents of A.
This has two senses:
(a) The phonetic interpretation of something implies a bundle of phonetic parameters. Eg. it’s very common for a language to have both nasality and voice working together; or both backness and rounding in vowels. Likewise: “voicing” usually implies a large set of phonetic events.
(b) One phonological category can have more than one phonetic interpretation. For example, Carnochan (1957) uses B to mean “labial”; in conjunction with v or / its exponents include bilabial closure and release, but in conjunction with h its exponents include labiodental close approximation.
(b) is more problematic than (a), since (b) may lead to ambiguity: you have to know which interpretation applies at any one time.
The question of phonetic naturalness is raised here. What things may “naturally” be grouped together? Is there a “natural” connection between eg. lowered velum and vocal fold vibration? This is a question for phonetic theory. The need for a language-based phonetics (linguistic phonetics). Idea of a conventional phonetic association, eg. laterality and darkness in many varieties of English.
Firth suggests time and again that we need to invent new categories of phonetics in order to state exponents economically (eg. Firth 1957a: 15, where the point is made no less than three times). No hint is given as to what these categories might be, nor are reasons given for the inefficacy of conventional descriptions. Perhaps he wants us to state phonetic exponents in as non-random (“natural”) a way as possible, since one possible criticism of FPA is that there is nothing to prevent “unnatural” groupings of phonetic features as exponents of any particular category. 
5.	The Principle of Overlapping Exponency:
Phonetic features may serve as the exponent of more than one phonological category at any one time; in doing an analysis, phonetic features are not subtracted from the signal.
Firth insisted on this: “There can be no question of ‘residue’ in the phonic material after any particular abstraction for a specific purpose has been made. All the phonic material is still available for further abstractions for a different order in separate analyses.” (Firth 1957: 15). Allen (1957) reflects an attempt at trying to disprove the worth this approach; he sees the approach where material is abstracted away and accounted for only once as “more exacting” (Allen 1957: 69).
At any one point in the speech signal we may be hearing the phonetic exponents of more than one phonological category, since different features of the sound could be the exponents of different categories of the phonological statement. For instance, in Finnish, a word-final (pre-stressed) apical plosive expones (ie. is the exponent of) two things. The closure and release are exponents of a category expressing a lexical or morphological contrast, but the apicality is the exponent of word-final consonantality.
6.	Stating phonetic exponents
We need a theory of phonetics in which to state phonetic exponents. 
FPA is non-segmental in its phonetics: the phonetic exponent of anything is generally not going to be eg. [p] or [¨], because these are merely symbols which stand for a bundle of phonetic events, any one of which may be relevant (Sprigg 1957). For example: [p] is made up of: closure, pressure build-up, release, absence of vocal fold vibration, bilabiality, non-nasality… and all, any or even none of these things may be what is of importance to the statement at any given point. What’s more, there are things that [p] doesn’t tell us: it doesn’t tell us whether the lips are closed before the voicing stops (which would give audible bilabial transitions) or after the cessation of voicing (which would give no audible transitions, and may give eg. preaspiration). Yet this might be important!
We generally need to make two kinds of statement: parametric and temporal. Parametric statements tell us what we have to move or do; temporal statements tell us when we have to do it, and how long for.
Another problem for phonetic theory: how much information or detail do we need? Where do we stop? It’s important to remember Firth’s idea that phonetics is an abstraction, a technique for talking about phonic substance. In other words, a level for making generalisations at.
7.	The Principle of Structural Interpretation:
The statement of phonetic exponency must make reference to system and structure.
This is powerful: interpreting things in a context (ie. in relation to their system and structure), combined with the one-to-many approach means that any one thing in the phonology may have more than one interpretation; and what is to say that there is no connection between the co-exponents?
Example: English plurals.
We want to say that horses, cats and dogs have something similar in the way they do their plurals; the different noises we get out could be because of a one-to-many relation. Where do we stop? Could the endings in children and oxen be exponents of the same thing? (They are all alveolar, for example!) cf. also the B example from Carnochan (1957), discussed above.
8.	Constraining phonetic exponency
Why?
• A theory makes predictions about what can and can’t happen. Constraining it makes it more testable.
• There’s nothing to stop you combining any two things you like as co-exponents; combine that with the PSI…
On the other hand: we don’t want to lose the ability to be able to explain phonetic detail, which is what we can do in FPA by combining the PSI with the Principle of Co-exponency.
One important issue is sameness and difference. Sameness in notation implies sameness of exponents. This is exploited in eg. Sprigg (1957), where he is at pains to say that n in a two-term system isn’t the same as n in a three-term system; but since it has the same exponents in both system, he treats them as the same, at some level.
(a)	Core exponency
The idea here is that any co-exponents have something in common; it may not be identical, but it has to be similar. So we wouldn’t expect B’ to be bilabial in one situation and eg. lateral in another. But we might need to be imaginative: eg. bilabial and velar places of articulation often go around together (“labiovelarisation”) because they have similar acoustic effects. What core exponency is about is removing arbitrariness from the phonetic exponency statements.
(b)	Reusability
Linguists tend to believe that language is a symbolic system. We don’t expect it to have thousands of primitives. Phonological categories should be reused: it would be strange to have eg. B D G L R N in the onset system, but H K S  X in the coda system, where no terms in the two systems overlap. If you use the idea of polysystems without some idea of reusability, then such patterns are predicted.
9.	Universality
FPA has nothing to say about universality. What can we say?
• Universals might not be categories per se, but relations between categories.
• There might be consistent relations: eg. the coda system is a subset of the onset system; the head (obligatory element) of any structure has a bigger system of contrasts than the non-heads.
• There are certainly universal phonetic constraints, imposed on the system by (i) articulatory constraints (eg. you can’t easily put your tongue tip on your velum, so that’s not a likely articulation)—how trivial are these? (ii) acoustics of the vocal tract. Quantal theory suggests that some articulations are more acoustically stable than others, and therefore are preferred.
• Any statements that are true of all languages are universally true: these might be made a priori, which isn’t very Firthian. So we might suggest that syllables universally are structure S —> O R, etc. Or they may be made after analysing lots of languages.
Conclusion
We tend to believe that languages have limited resources that they use over and over again, in different combinations and perhaps with different exponents; but it’s the re-using, and the ‘coreness’ of the exponents that makes a language what it is. In other words, the limitations imposed on the phonology and the interpretation of the phonology are one of the characteristics of any language.