Email:oostendorp@rullet.leidenuniv.nl
Thursday
Schwa as an underlying vowel; underlying schwa in the syllable; stress behaviour; feature attraction and the ban on emptiness; schwa as a mid vowel; ways to fill the void.
Schwa in the syllable
We have seen that schwa in French cannot occur in a closed syllable. In Dutch, there are also several restrictions on the syllable shape in which it can occur:
- It cannot occur in an onsetless syllable:
- It does not occur as the first segment of a word (*[@Gal]).
- It does not occur immediately after a vowel (*[hi@t])
Both of these properties are also attested in other languages, e.g. French.
- It cannot occur in a syllable with a complex onset (*[papavr@]). I have found no other languages yet in which this restriction seems to hold (except maybe for German dialects).
- It cannot occur in the environment __C1C2], except if C2 is coronal (*[ad@mp], *[kat@rk])
- It has a clear preference for syllables closed by a sonorant: words such as hennep, tinnef, etc. are very rare.
- It cannot be surrounded by identical consonants.
r@l
kerel 'guy'
korrel 'pellet'' |
r@n
toren 'tower'
koren 'corn' |
r@m
harem (id.) |
r@r
-- |
m@l
stamel 'stammer'
rammel 'rattle' |
m@n
samen 'together'
amen (id.) |
m@m
-- |
m@r
marmer 'marble'
emmer 'bucket' |
n@l
panel (id.) |
n@n
binnen 'inside' |
n@m
'face' |
n@r
toner (id.) |
l@l
-- |
l@n
molen 'mill' |
l@m
golem (id.) |
l@r
trailer (id.)
propeller (id.) |
Schwa in stress
- Dutch: When schwa is the final vowel of the word:
- If schwa is preceded by one or more consonants, stress is on the antepenultimate syllable.
- If schwa is not preceded by consonants, stress is either on the penultimate or on the antepenultimate syllable.
- Indonesian: Stress is systematically invisible for stress:
| cári |
`search for' |
| bicára |
`speak' |
|
| b@rí |
`give' |
| gám@lan |
`Indonesian orchestra' |
- Yupik: Schwa is unstressed in most dialects. E.g. in General Central Yupik, stress is generally on the second syllable of the word. If this syllable contains schwa, this vowel is deleted:
| /qayapigkani/ |
[qayáápixkani] |
`his own future kayak' |
|
| /qan@qa/ |
[qánqa] |
`my mouth' |
Deletion
Schwa is quite easily deleted:
- Damascene Arabic: unstressed schwas get deleted
- French
- Dutch: When a word has two consecutive syllables with schwa as their vowel, the first of these schwas may be deleted.
| tokkelen |
[tOk@l@(n), tOkl@(n)] |
`to pluck' |
| dobberen |
[dOb@r@(n), dObr@(n)] |
`to float' |
| geraamte |
[g@ramt@, *gramt@] |
`skeleton' |
| beloven |
[b@lov@(n), *blov@] |
`to promise' |