- INTRODUCTION.*
A word in Haisla consists of an initial element which is
either a root or an extended root, followed usually by one or more derivational
suffixes, and closed off perhaps by inflectional elements or enclitics. In
addition there are a few elements that may be considered proclitics (Lincoln and
Rath, 1986), which I will ignore here. Using conventional terminology, we may
call the roots or extended roots "stems," and the operations or processes which
account for the various possible shapes of the stem "stem extensions." Here are
several examples
:
on the root √bekʷ- (LR: √bkʷ-). The first
three examples illustrate what we may call "end effects": softening ("voicing")
and hardening (glottalization) of the final consonant of the stem, while
examples (4) and (5) illustrate typical stem extensions: reduplication and
internal change of the root. Our focus here will be on the latter type of
modification or alternation.
The stem alternations are of interest for several reasons, of which I will be
concerned here mainly with two: (1) the light that they might throw on the
question of the proper phonological representations of roots and other
expressions of Haisla; (2) the implications that they have for the general
question of possible representations and operations in human language. The
present paper should be considered as a report on preliminary investigations
which will, I hope, ultimately contribute to a better understanding of these two
topics.
Lincoln and Rath (1986) have provided an analysis of Haisla (primarily the
Kitlope language, or X̅enaksialak̕ala, see fn. 1) which we may call the
"vowelless" analysis. I will lay out their analysis in more detail below, but
for now suffice it to say that in that analysis there are no underlying
constrasts of syllabicity; all -- actually not quite all, as we will see --
surface vowels and other syllabic nuclei are either derived from the set of
sonorants or by epenthesis of schwa-like elements. The stem extensions offer
crucial evidence about the phonology of the language.
There has been considerable discussion in the last ten years about the nature of
phonological representations and the possible operations or rules that are
required for the proper treatment of reduplication and similar types of
morphological variation. The variations that we find in Haisla and other
Wakashan languages provide a rich field for investigating such questions.
My concern here is the formal side of the system of stem extensions. But first
a word about the conditions of their use. In the system of the internal word
grammar of Haisla, the stem extensions play a role that is somewhat similar to
the role of cases in the external or phrase grammar of many languages. They are
sometimes required by the addition of particular derivational suffixes or
processes. Sometimes they occur independently, as in the plural forms that are
found for many words. Finally many words just exist as extensions of one or
another kind; for example, the word ḡeḡes 'eye' is historically an
expanded form of a root √ḡes-, but this root occurs only in this word
and words derived from it (like ḡeḡesqen̓ú (LR) 'have eye trouble').
It is possible to discern certain commonalities of meaning for some of the
reduplicated forms: plurality, iterativity and the like.
- STEM EXTENSIONS: A SURVEY.
Here is a sketch of the main types of stem
extensions that occur in Haisla. For each type I give an example of the
extension in more or less surface form followed by the putative shape of the
root and, for later reference, the representation of the root in the
Lincoln/Rath system in parentheses.
Type 1: bíxbika √bik- (√byk-)
lightning transfer fire ?
In this pattern, the complete root is repeated. (In the tag example, the / x /
comes about by a regular rule of Spirantization.)
Type 2: cíx̄ʷcex̄ʷa √cixʷ- (√cyxʷ-)
eat crabapples crabapple, sour
Here the root is followed by a reduced form of the root: the two consonants of
the root with a (predictable) schwa (e) vowel between them.
Type 3: c̓ec̓én √c̓en- (√c̓n-)
rapids move in a mass, tidal rapids
In this type, the first consonant of the root is repeated followed by a schwa
(e) vowel.
Type 4a: p̓ip̓ála √p̓al- (√p̓hl-)
work plural work, lay hands on
In this pattern, the first consonant is repeated, followed by / i /. The stress
is still on the original root position. The stress is the only difference
between this pattern and the next variant, where the stress is on the new
(first) syllable:
Type 4b: bíbegʷanem √bekʷ- (√bkʷ-)
people human
Type 5: bábel̓a √bel- (√bl-)
sexually jealous prevent
This type is just like Type 4b, but the new vowel is / a / instead of / i /.
Type 6: dúdeqʷela √duqʷ- (√dwqʷ-)
see plural see, look
Here we see the initial consonant and the vowel of the root repeated, then
the reduced form of the root (the two consonants of the root separated by the
schwa vowel (e)).
Type 7: cáaseksala √ces- (√cs-)
rush off in all directions swarm, move in a group
In this type, there is no reduplication but instead a modification of the
internal shape of the root. The nature of the modification depends on the shape
of the root. Note these further examples (and recall that the digraphs
stand for open E and O respectively as explained in `footnote 1).
c̓áipiu cedar waxwing √c̓ip-/c̓iʼp- (√c̓yp-/c̓y̓p-)
ḡáux̄ʷəksala squander, scatter berries √ḡux̄ʷ- (√ḡwx̄ʷ-)
k̕áux̄ʷəksala run in all directions (LR) √k̕ix̄ʷ- (√k̕yx̄ʷ-)
c̓ámaksala point aimlessly (LR) √ʼcem- (√ʼcm-)
dáasəksala play around diving (LR) √das- (√dhs-)
Type 8: ḡáḡak̕a (LR) √ḡek- (√ḡk-)
try to get a wife woman
In this type we see two /a/ vowels with a repetition of the first consonant.
Type 9: búsbeqʷʼa √buqʷ- (√bwqʷ-)
sea anemone bud, knob
Finally, we may have one or another of the previous types of reduplication
together with the insertion of a new consonant (here "s") in the first syllable.
This type should then be further subdivided according to the consonant and the
basic type of expansion involved, but since the pattern is rather rare and not
very productive, I won't assign special labels to all of the variants, but just
lump them together into a sort of "waste-basket" or remainder class. The
consonants that may be involved are /s lh x ʼ/.
The last type is relatively sporadic and the same must be said for a few other
types of root extension, such as those which intercalate vowels in roots, as in
kʷen̓áq 'mink' from a root √kʷenq- (compare for Kwakw'ala Boas (1947):
pp. 220, 222-223).
Sometimes these reduplications occur with changes in the first consonants.
Common changes are: /y/ for /s/, /l/ for /th lh/:
sayagidemái take a boat / car ride √sak- travel in a boat or vehicle
thalakáp̓ canoe race √thak- paddle
lhalaḡálh cave √lhaq-
- BASIC PHONOLOGY OF HAISLA.
Vink [1980] and Lincoln and Rath (1986) have
adopted a view of Haisla phonology which minimizes or eliminates the distinctive
role of syllabicity at the most basic level of representation. I will limit
myself here to a discussion of the analysis used in LR, since it is both the
more fully elaborated and also more readily available.
The backbone of the LR analysis is the set of sonorants (resonants), which
underlie not only the consonantal segments (represented by the consonant letters
themselves) but also the vocalic segments as indicated here:
| h |
w |
y |
l |
m |
n |
hʼ |
w̓ |
y̓ |
l̓ |
m̓ |
n̓ |
| a |
u |
i |
l |
mͅ |
nͅ |
a̓ |
u̓ |
i̓ |
l̩̓ |
m̩̝ |
n̩̓ |
A second part of the analysis is the introduction of schwa-like vowels by rules
of epenthesis. There remains a residue of exceptional items of two kind: those
schwas which occur in places where they cannot be accounted for by the
epenthesis rules, which are represented by the use of the symbol ə; and
items which do not contain epenthetic vowels where the analysis would lead you
to expect them, which are represented by use of a period, which can then be
interpreted as a signal to suppress the usual epenthesis rules. Situations of
reduplication introduce a further factor. Here the LR analysis makes of a colon
as special boundary marker ":". It should be noted that there are a number of
independent parts to this analysis, in particular, it is not necessary --
although it is certainly prettier -- to treat all of the sonorants listed above
in the same way.
The rules which introduce the distinction between vocalic and consonantal
reflexes of the sonorants operate in broad outline as follows (for details see
LR: pp. 4 - 8): (1) sonorants that are word initial or follow the reduplication
boundary (:) are consonantal, (2) h that is not initial (including the :
condition) is always vocalic, (3) a string of plain sonorants will alternate
right to left to make the maximal string conforming to the pattern (V)V(CV)* up
to the first obstruent or consonantal sonorant (as determined by (1)), (4) in
marking off maximal strings of sonorants for (3), h is treated as the final
element of each preceding string and simultaneously as the initial element of
the next string of sonorants ((2) follows from this). (A few further provisions
must be made for the glottalized sonorants.)
The epenthesis rules reflect the rather tight syllabic constraints on surface
forms in Haisla. (i) Every word-initial syllable must begin with a consonant
and with no more than one consonant. This constraint drives (1) and part of (3)
in the preceding paragraph and also allows a rule of epenthesis to operate on
words built on roots like LR's postulated √bkʷ- to give surface forms like
those in our first examples (1 - 5) above. (ii) Medial clusters of obstruents
are limited to ones in which the non-final obstruents are spirants (and as far
as I know the maximal number of such spirants is two in items like
álhxdem 'burying place' (and name of Gobeil Island at the head of Kildala
Arm) or sequence of two with the first being an aspirated stop. (ii) motivates
epenthesis to apply in items like example (3) above, in the LR representation
bk̓ʷs and also (optionally) in items like páp(e)lha (LR: p. 9),
(note that this item is a reduplicated plural form for pálha 'freshet').
(There is a spirantization rule, alluded to above, that applies to syllable
final aspirated (front and back) velars and the aspirated lateral affricate, and
an s + s -> c rule as well as a couple of other rules that will effect the
ultimate phonetics of medial clusters.)
Given these assumptions then we will have underlying representations like those
given in parentheses after the examples of stem extensions in the preceding
section, or examples of full words like these (taken from LR: p. 8, my brackets
and retranscriptions on the right):
/k̕yghwlmmhlh́s/ [k̕igaulemmalás] 'material for caulking'
/ɬmhy/ [lhemái] 'to anchor out'
/cwyəkʷ/ [cúyəkʷ] 'dried'
How are we to interpret these underlying representations? Following much work
of the last decade, I will assume that phonological representations may make use
of the organization of segments into structures of various kinds, including in
particular syllables.
I will assume that representations of syllabic
structure replace the use of a feature of syllabicity. We might then
translate the assumptions of Lincoln and Rath into a theory which makes the
claim that the underlying representations of roots and other morphemes in
Haisla are simply not organized into syllables (and possibly other prosodic
structures). Rules of the sort sketched above are then to be interpreted as
rules for organizing the segmental material into syllables or structures that
include syllables. What is special about the sonorants then would be the fact
that they can be associated either with the nuclear or the peripheral part of
the syllable structure. Representations of the sort given above as surface
representations are to be thought of as informal and typographically more
convenient shorthand for "official" representations like the following, as a
first approximation (please keep the caveat of fn. 3 in mind):
σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
kʷ i g au l em m a l a s lh e m ai c u y ə kʷ
The final consonants in the first and the last of these representations are
deliberately left unattached. These representations are only partial. I assume
that the syllables are organized into higher structures such as stress feet and
phonological words, but I won't discuss this further elaboration here.
I will now argue for underlying representations that are organized into
syllables. The argument goes as follows: I will first argue that the
identification of initial / h / and interior / a / is incorrect. Then, I will try
to show that the processes of stem extension surveyed in the last section need
to make use of the kind of information encoded into syllabic structures like
those shown here (or equivalent ones). Of course, this argument merely indicates
that the organization into syllables must precede these particular rules and
constitutes an argument for the underlying organization only in that this
"ordering" would follow directly without stipulation from the assumption that
the underlying representations already have such an organization. I will then
show that there are significant generalizations and constraints on the actual
form of the roots of Haisla that can be naturally understood on the basis of
syllable structure and not otherwise.
A preliminary nonargument: The necessity of including the unpredictable schwas
(ə) in the LR analysis show that SOME vowels must be represented in
underlying structures. I do not believe that this fact provides any strong
argument against the "vowelless" analysis, although it goes against the spirit
of such analyses in some weak sense. In some theories ("once a phoneme, always
a phoneme"), it might count against the use of an epenthesis rule to introduce
the overwhelming majority of surface schwas. This aspect of the LR analysis
seems to me quite in keeping with the idea that predictable information should
be eliminated from underlying representations. Specifying schwas in places
where they "don't belong" should not make us specify them in the vast number of
places where they are completely predictable. (On the other hand, the use of
the juncture symbols (: .) deserves discussion; see below.)
It will have been noted that the rules for vocalizing (syllabifying) the
sonorants must make a special provision for /h/. The effect is that /h/ never
occurs as a consonant interior to a word, except under conditions of
reduplication, and hence there will never be any direct alternations of vocalic
and consonantal variants of the sort that can be found for the other sonorants.
It would be a spectacular confirmation of the analysis if we could find
situations like this: an initial reduplication of the first consonant of a root
beginning with /h/, say a hypothetical *√hn- and a word like *hnm
(cf. ḡnm 'woman') with a plural form (say) *hhnm[hanm] (cf.
ḡḡnm 'women'). I have been unable to find any items like this, and
anyway what we should get on the L & R analysis is *h:hnm with the
reduplication boundary ":".
What we do find in reduplications of
items beginning with /h/ are usually alternate forms with /h/ (after
: in LR) or with / ʼ / (hʼ in the LR orthography), more usually the
latter, as in these examples of items and their plural forms:
hémsa (h́sa) hémʼesa (h́ʼsa) 'eat'
hénca (hńca) hihénca / hiʼénca (hi:hńca / hiʼńca) to sink
I conclude that the identification of /h/ and /a/ should be abandoned.
Additional evidence for this conclusion will be found in the next section, when
we consider root shapes of the language. If this view is right, we would then
have a system with two underlying vowels (at least): / a ə / (in Bach
(1975) I reached a similar conclusion about Kwakw'ala).
Let us now look at the operations of stem extension surveyed above. I will
concentrate here on Type 3 and Type 6. In each case, we want to ask how to
formulate the operation in question, given various assumptions about the shape
of the arguments to the operation.
In Type 3, we have either a reduplication of the first consonant of the root,
followed by epenthesis, or a prefixation of a light syllable of the form Ce
(Cə) where C takes its value from the first consonant of the root, or
possibly the prefixation of a light syllable with an empty simple nucleus, the
ultimate schwa-type vowel arising simply as a default value, with these various
options mainly determined by the particular theory we are using.
Suppose the initial consonant of the root is a spirant and assume that all (or
almost all) schwas are introduced by epenthesis and that the operation in
question here is simply a prefixation of a copy of the spirant. The result will
now be a form in which the spirant can be followed by an obstruent with no
epenthetic vowel. The most straightforward result would then be reduplicated
stems like *[səsk-] from a root √sk-. In fact, there is a root like
this with a number of reduplicated derivates, the root meaning something like
'sharp, to spear,' but the derived forms show epenthesis: sesek̕ás 'Sitka
spruce,' sesexbá 'sharp (on the end or point).' It is primarily examples
like these which make the reduplication boundary ":" necessary in the LR
analysis (and require an analogous use of "." in Vink [1980]): s:sk̕as
s:sxba.
It is possible to motivate the use of the reduplication boundary on independent
grounds in the following way. Many linguists view reduplication as a kind of
compounding. We know that in many languages it is necessary to treat compounds
as something special (for example, in English stress rules). In a theory in
which prosodic structures such as phonological words are countenanced (see e.g.
Selkirk, 1982), a compound boundary like ":" may be considered just an informal
notation for something that we have alread in our theory for free, so to speak:
simply a word-internal occurrence of the edge of a word. In the context of
Haisla, however, this consideration must be weighed against the fact that on
this view reduplicated structures would constitute the only kind of compounding
in the language.
Now consider the reduplication of Type 6, which prefixes a copy of the first CV
or first two segments of the root to a reduced form of the root, with a schwa
(or nothing) replacing the middle element (what is or will be the nucleus).
There are of course various operations which will have this result, the
formulation just given is intended purely as a neutral description of the result
of some such operation. (This type is common as a way of forming plural forms,
more below.) Here are some examples of plurals (followed by the simple form of
the word and the root):
bábekʷela bákʷela √bakʷ- gather and preserve meat etc. LR
bíbeka bíka √bik- transfer fire
My argument here is that it is really a syllable structure (or CV structure)
that is being reduplicated, rather than just a sequence of two segments, for if
it were the latter we would expect plural forms with repetitions of arbitrary
pairs of first two segments. So, for example, from a root consisting of two or
more obstruents we would expect plural forms consisting of a repetitition of
these first two obstruents as plurals. This is admittedly a rather weak
argument from negative evidence, especially since (as we will see) there are
practically no roots consisting of three or more obstruents. But there are
plenty with two (on the schwa-less analysis) and there is nothing inherently
impossible about getting reduplications of the form that would arise from a
putative operation of this sort (see Types 1 and 2 above), and as far as I know
no plurals of this shape occur (cf. also for Kwakw'ala parallels, the section
headed PLURAL in Boas (1947: pp. 246-251). In Section 4 below, we will look at a
particular theory about reduplications which will nullify this argument as it
stands and lead us to look for further evidence.
- ROOT SHAPES IN HAISLA.
As I noted above, everything I have said so far would
go through -- if it goes through -- simply as arguments that the syllabic
structure (or vocalization rules) should apply before the rules that produce the
extended stems. But there are facts about the canonical root shapes of Haisla
that seem to me to point toward the idea that syllabic structure plays a role
at the deepest level. The central fact about roots in Haisla (and other North
Wakashan languages) is that the overwhelming number of such roots have the form
CVC, where I interpret V to stand for a syllabic nucleus and to include the
reflexes of the sonorants (this is a very Boasian view of the structure of the
roots). Here are some statistics about root shapes (these figures are
approximate, but accurate within ten or so for the largest numbers and
proportionately for the smaller numbers, the chief factor of indeterminacy being
questions about whether to identify various roots of the same form or not):
5 monosegmental roots/stems
474 bisegemental roots/stems of which cv-roots: 31 (443 "cvc")
804 trisegmental roots of which "hollow" cvc-roots: 796
56 quadrisegmental roots/stems of which cvcv: 46
8 five-segment roots/stems
2 six-segment roots/stems
_____
1349 TOTAL
These designations should be self-explanatory for the most part. The breakdown
is based on the the representation in LR. The designation root/stem is to
accomodate the fact that the root list includes some basic stems that have not
been assigned to any root (since these are mostly longer items, removing them
would tend to make my point a little bit stronger, but the number of such items
is very small in any case). If we put together the items in the second and the
third row that end up on surface as conforming to the CVC pattern we have a
total of 1239 out of 1349 or about 86%. I think that this fact is very
suggestive, at least, that syllable structure plays a strong role at the most
basic level of Haisla phonology.
There is one more fact about roots in Haisla that bears on our views about the
basic representations. There are hardly any roots in the language which show
(on the LR type of representations) sequences of identical segments, with the
notable exception of roots of the form √hh.. . This fact seems to support
the decision not to identify the phones [h] and [a] as instantiations of /h/.
As a matter of fact there are hardly any bisegmental (in the LR sense) roots
that have identical obstruents, and the few that do exist are probably onomatopoeic.
This might be used as an argument for fundamental representations with no
vowels (no schwas), since this result would follow from an Obligatory Contour
Principle of some kind (cf. McCarthy's work on biliteral roots in Arabic (1979,
1981). However, given the considerations of the next section, this fact can be
accomodated in another kind of representation.
- REPRESENTATIONS AND OPERATIONS.
The system of stem extensions in Haisla
leads to a number of general questions. Trying to answer them throws further
light back on Haisla itself. The two main questions, which are interdependent,
are these:
- i) What is the structure of a lexical representation in Haisla?
- ii) What are the operations that are needed to specify the stem
extensions?
It is tempting to consider splitting up the roots and stems of Haisla into
consonantal and vocalic components in the manner of the celebrated Semitic
system (see McCarthy, 1979, 1981). On this view, an item like the root of the
family of words that mean 'see, look' would consist of three parts (using a
LISPy notation)
:
duqʷ- ((CVC) (d qʷ) (u))
Here the first component is a pattern or skeleton, and the consonantal and
vocalic components are attached to the pattern by general conventions or
stipulations (parameters) that might be language-particular (e.g. directionality
of association). By varying the components, especially the skeleton (including
prespecifications of individual pieces) we can produce some of the various
stem-shapes outlined above. For example, the plural form of the stem (Type 6
above), would have one of the following two shapes, depending on our treatment
of schwa (as a full vowel in its own right in the first representation, as a
product of epenthesis in the second):
dúdeqʷ- ((CVCVC) (d qʷ) (u ə)) or ((CVCC) (d qʷ) (u))
(For such representations to work, we need to assume that the consonants are
attached or filled in from right to left, unlike Semitic. I don't know if
anyone has suggested the use of such three-part representations directly for the
treatment of reduplicative patterns. Most discussions that I am aware of seem
to assume that the rules and representations for reduplications involve fully
linearized representations. For recent discussion see McCarthy and Prince, ms.;
for discussion from a general point of view more in line with my general
assumptions, see Hoeksema and Janda, 1988; both of these sources contain
references to recent literature.)
Notice that this view solves a certain difficulty that arises on a more
"homogeneous" view of the forms as fully linearized sequences of consonants and
vowels or nuclei. Given an item like duqʷ-, what might be the actual
formal operation needed to derive dudeqʷ-? Given a linearized string like
duqʷ, must we take the first and third segments to get the end of the
derived form (it doesn't help much to have prosodic structures here either)? (I
realize there are other views about reduplication for which this would not be a
problem either.) In any case, the use of the three part representations for
Semitic commits us to the view that such representations are available for any
language, or a considerably stronger view that they are required for every
language.
This view makes the considerations of the last section somewhat problematical.
After all, a three part representation like that just sketched has no syllabic
structure except in the first element or pattern part (on the assumption, not
spelled out here, that the CV representation should be replaced with one which
is more satisfying from the point of view of prosodic theories, see below and
McCarthy and Prince (ms.)). To deal with this worry adequately will demand
something more than the suggestive remarks of the last section, that is, a real
theory about how considerations of syllabic or other prosodic structure can
enter into the construction of descriptively adequate grammars.
Haisla differs from Semitic in that the vocalic components do not seem to have
the life of their own that they enjoy in Semitic. Moreover, the roots that carry
their own (non-schwa) vowels (or non-initial sonorants) always seem to manifest
some reflex of those segments, as we shall see; in this respect these roots seem
to be more like the "hollow" roots of Semitic.
Given such a theory it is easy to handle a (rather rare) type of stem extension
that I mentioned but did not include in the survey of Section 1 above. Taking
the example cited there we might have:
ROOT ('?') DERIVATE ('mink')
√kʷnq- ((CVC) (kʷ n q) ()) kʷnáq ((CCVC) (kʷ n q) (a)) or
√kʷenq- ((CVC) (kʷ n q) ()) kʷenáq ((CVCVC) (kʷ n q) (ə a))
The first of these representations is more in line with the LR analysis, the
second follows a more "vowel-full" analysis. In either case it is necessary to
force the sonorants like / n / to play double roles as nuclei (or components of
nuclei) or as consonantal elements. That's just a fact about the language and
it is the central insight about the role of the sonorants that is embodied in
the LR analysis.
Another derivate from the same root is the Haisla word for 'frog, toad':
kʷíkʷnaq ((CVCCVC) (kʷ n q) (i a)) or
kʷíkʷenaq ((CVCVCVC) (kʷ n q) (i ə a))
These examples raise an interesting question: what is the proper representation
for a derived or extended stem? It seems that a number of derived words in the
language are built on the root that underlies a given stem rather than on the
word or stem itself. There is a very productive pattern for forming words that
mean 'to hunt or go after X' where X stands for the name of an animal or plant.
An example is kʷákʷenq̓a meaning 'hunt or trap mink' (the q̓ is a regular
"end effect" for the suffix -!a that triggers the reduplicative pattern, the
notation -! to mark suffixes that trigger glottalization is borrowed from Boas).
It is straightforward to derive this form from a representation that retains the
root intact (either in the fashion under discussion here or in some other way),
not so nice to have to deform the surface form of the derived word.
So where are we with respect to the initial questions about the basic phonology
of Haisla? It seems to me that adopting the tripartite structures changes the
questions somewhat. Recall that I "translated" the LR analysis into one in
which syllabic structure was not represented at all in underlying forms. In the
tripartite structures, the syllabic structure is represented not in the
consonantal or vocalic tiers, but in the patterns or templates -- either
implicitly in the CV representations, or explicitly in a version of the theory
in which these patterns are spelled out as actual prosodic structures. From
this point of view, then, the question whether the underlying representations of
the phonology lexical items includes specifications of syllabicity reduces to
the questions whether the prosodic patterns should be included in these basic
representations or not.
Whatever the fate of the idea of forming partial reduplications on the skeletal
part of a tripartite (or bipartite) structure, reduplications of Types 1 and 2
(complete reduplication of the stem, with or without reduction of the second
component) require a different treatment.
A somewhat more orthodox approach to reduplication is to assume that the
reduplicated element is simply an affix of some kind, but one which contains
just a minimal amount of specification. What this content is and how it is
structured if at all is what distinguishes various theories that are currently
under discussion.
The content of the reduplicated material is then
copied in from the root or stem to which the affix is affixed. (It is not
clear to me whether the current general theories of such operations exclude
elaborations that would amount to a variant of the ideas we have just been
entertaining.)
In the theory of prosodic morphology under investigation by McCarthy and Prince
(ms.) the targets for the reduplications must be prosodic units as provided by
the general theory of such structures and further specified by choices and
constraints of the language at hand. One of the main arguments for a theory of
this sort is that material can be drawn from the source item which is not
structured prosodically in the way it ends up in the reduplication. The theory
says: "Make a structure of such and such a form!" and not: "Take a structure of
such and such a form!"
If we adopt this kind of a framework, one of the arguments I gave in Section 2
will no longer go through. In discussing Type 6 reduplications (like
dúdeqʷela), I used the fact that this reduplication never takes two
obstruents for reduplication as evidence for having syllabic structure in the
input to the operation. In a theory which requires the target structures to be
prosodic constituents, this result would follow no matter what the input, as far
as I can see. And the fact that such double segment reduplications do not occur
would just take its place alongside the many other "negative facts" marshalled
by McCarthy and Prince to support their theory.
It is not easy to see how to get the second, reduced part of extended stems of
this type. Such reductions also can be found in other types, notably Type 2 in
which the whole root is followed by a reduced form of the root (cíx̄ʷcex̄ʷ-).
We could construct a whole target form consisting of two syllables of the
specified types, but this would more or less reduce to the approach of skeleton
filling considered above, with the only difference that we would not
(necessarily) be assuming separate vocalic and consonantal tiers. An oddity of
such an approach is that we would be prefixing a target to something that would
disappear entirely.
Adopting the McCarthy and Prince approach would settle a question about the
other type of reduplication discussed in Section 2 (Type 3: c̓ec̓en). Since
the McCarthy/Prince theory does not allow the use of single segments as
targets the type in question here would have to be derived by using a minimal
or "core" syllable (ə~S012c~S010) as the target.
There are two more points that throw some light both on the question about the
basic phonology of Haisla and on the general questions of this section.
The first is a continuation of the discussion of the formation of plurals in the
pattern of Type 6. I believe that a case can be made for this type being the
default or "regular" mode of plural formation for roots of the type of √duqʷ-,
that is, roots that have (or will have) a full vowel in a shape of the form CVC.
The default pattern for roots of the form CV (including CR) and CC (or CeC)
where the second C is an obstruent is CiX (where X is CV or CR or CC). Here are
some examples:
bibex̄á √bex̄- (√bx̄-) make laces
didená √den- (√dn-) pull sth.
didiá √di- (√dy-) wipe
bibuá √bu- (√bw-) escape
pipáa √pa- (√ph-) lay boards
The operative principle here seems to be a distinction in syllable weight,
although this fact is somewhat obscured by the transcriptions here. A more
consistent transcription for the first four items would be either with / i u /
resolved into /ey ew/ (which is phonetically more accurate) or in a more
basic transcription (according to the LR and Vink analysis):
/bybx̄á dydná dydyá bybwá/
We know that the distinction between light and heavy syllables plays a role in
the stress system of Kwakw'ala and probably in Haisla as well (Boas, 1947; Bach,
1975). So here is a point where prosodic structure seems to play a role in
allomorphy. (The remaining type of root, with an internal sonorant, such as
√c̓elk- (√c̓lk-) 'make baskets' shows both types of plurals, except that the
first type retains the sonorant in the second syllable: c̓ic̓élkila as
well as c̓élc̓elkila.) Note also that here /a/ seems to line up right
along the other sonorants, contra my conclusions above, but there is also a
parallelism with schwa, if indeed there is a schwa in these examples.
The second and final point has to do with the interesting stem extensions of
Type 7, which show no reduplication but rather a modification of the nuclear
part of the root. I repeat the examples from above with examples for the
remaining types of roots not illustrated above but all with the same suffix:
cáaseksala rush off in all directions √ces- (√cs-)
dáasəksala play around diving √das- (√dhs-)
k̕áix̄ʷəksala run in all directions √k̕ix̄ʷ- (√k̕yx̄ʷ-)
ḡáux̄ʷəksala scatter berries (LR) √ḡux̄ʷ- (√ḡwx̄ʷ-)
k̕áux̄ʷəksala run in all directions (LR) √k̕ix̄ʷ- (√k̕yx̄ʷ-)
c̓ámaksala point aimlessly √ʼcem- (√ʼcm-)
ḡaĺqeksala pick up, put down randomly (LR) √ḡelq- (√ḡlq-)
dáyaksala wipe randomly √di- (√dy-)
báwaksala flee in all directions (group) √bu- (√bw-)
Recall that the digraphs stand for simple vowels open E and O. However,
there is independent evidence for a coalescence of a + i and a + u to form
these vowels. Thus, the common factor here is obviously the incorporation of
/ a / into the nucleus of the root. Notice the first two examples
which show that roots with / a / and either nothing or schwa end up with the
same shape: a long / a / (represented as a sequence). It seems to me that
this fact speaks for an inclusion of a schwa vowel in the representation at
least at the level where these stem extensions take place. One way to think
about it is to suppose that the heavy nuclei of all but the last two examples
consist of an / a / followed by a second component. In the case of the
glides and other sonorants, if the syllable is closed they join that vowel in
a complex nucleus. In the case of the schwa, perhaps it is just an empty
(unspecified) vocalic slot which then soaks up the value of the incorporated
/ a /. You will notice that there is one type still missing from the
above examples, that is the roots in simple / a / (/ h /). Perhaps
characteristically, this phoneme displays its ambiguous status in two
alternate forms:
dadáksala / dáaksala take here and there √da- (√dh-)
- NOT FINAL THOUGHTS.
I have to admit that I am far from convinced as to the
right way of looking at Haisla phonology. There are still a number of questions
to be raised. For example, in an earlier paper about Kwakw'ala (Bach, 1975), I
argued for an analysis in which the surface vowels /i u/ were reflexes of
diphthongs formed with schwa, and I think that this is a reasonable option to
consider for Haisla as well. But it raises its own questions about the status of
schwa and the way in which epenthesis operates: if these surface vowels are
analysed in this way, is the schwa component there from the start or does it
arise by epenthesis? From the point of view of general theories, I hope to
have shown that Haisla like other languages of its part of the world has much to
contribute to our understanding of natural languages.
*Acknowledgments. I wish to thank the Haisla people of Kitamaat Village
for their hospitality and help over the years. I am indebted to a number of
people for their help: Louise Barbetti, Amelia Grant, Kay Grant, Garry Grant,
Gordon Robertson, Samson Ross, Irene Starr, and the late Jeffrey Legaik and Mike
Shaw. I am also grateful for discussion of some of the issues raised in the
paper with Ellen Broselow and Juliette Levin. None of these people are
responsible for any errors of fact or thinking I may have made here. The
research reported on here has been supported in part by the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, and the National Science Foundation.