Erin Cote March 3, 2013 Phonology Project Hindi Phonology Problem Based on the feedback I received I have added:

morphology breaks in the Hindi Vowel Alternation data set, a minimal pair for /m/ and /n/ in Hindi Nasal Allophones, the word for salty and an additional hint to the Rule Ordering section. I also fixed the formal rule for nasal assimilation and added phoneme charts. I added information throughout the problem which prompts the reader to consider an epenthesis solution as well as the deletion rule to deal with . Background Hindi is a language originating in northern India and is spoken natively by 260 million speakers and as a second language by another 120 million people since it is used as a lingua franca throughout much of the Indian subcontinent (Lewis, Paul, Simons & Fenning, 2013). This vast number of speakers makes it the worlds third most common language (Shukla, 2000). The dialect in question is often called Hindi-Urdu as well as Standard Hindi, Standard Urdu or more archaically Hindustani. This dialect is the vernacular used by Hindi-Urdu speakers throughout India. It is distinct from both high/literary Hindi and high/literary Urdu which draw heavily from Sanskrit and Perso-Arabic respectively (Ohala, 1983). Orthography also separates the formal versions of this language as Urdu is written in a modified Persian script while Hindi is written in Devanagari (Shukla, 2000). Part 1: Hindi Vowel Alternation The vowel is unusual in Hindi as it undergoes a major alternation while most other Hindi vowels have no readily perceptible allophones. Examine the following data and develop two rules which would explain the phenomenon. Do not assume one of the stems is the underlying form and instead write a rule for both possibilities. Show both stem allomorphs for two of the semantically related pairs below (Ohala 1983). de-ani brother in laws wife nmk salt psl slip k-na to get uprooted l-a bright sk slurp up top Part 2: Hindi Nasal Allophones Nasals in Hindi have a wide range of pronunciations and are some of the few Hindi consonants which show readily perceived allophony. Hindi has two nasals /n/ and /m/. Two others appear de brother in law nmk-in salty psl-a slipped k-a uprooted l-ana to brighten (causative) sk-a a slurp up-i pertaining to the top

only in Sanskrit loanwords so will be ignored for this problem (Shukla, 2000). Using the following data set determine a rule encompassing all allophones of Hindi nasals. Hint: Ignore vowel quality. ban habit pi bird sad dialogue smbl support pnti a wayfarer pk mud p an arbiter pnt a surname Part 3: Rule Ordering The following data set appears to show exceptions to the nasalization rule we just developed. Consider the rules we have developed thus far. The following data set gives insight into which of the rules from Part 1 is correct. Choose the correct rule and show how rule ordering with the nasalization rule can account for the exceptional words below. State the ordering type (ie. bleeding etc.). Also derive the surface form of sma, snki and mkila (Ohala, 1983). nmkin salty ma tongs sma understood dmkana to threaten mkila bright snki whimsical nka clanked mka a kind of earring nka jingled Hindi Problem Solution Additional Background Simply to flesh out the understanding of Hindi phonology a little more I have included a consonant and vowel chart. Hindi has quite a large number of segments. Those that appear in brackets are only present in loan words and it is therefore debatable whether they are true phonemes of Hindi. Loan phonemes are primarily from literary/high Urdu, Sanskrit or English. Notice that both the vowel and consonant distribution is quite symmetrical. All stops, affricates and taps/flaps also have aspirated versions which are not shown in the chart below. These aspirated stops are separate phonemes and aspirated voiced consonants have breathy voicing. In addition, all vowels also have nasalized versions which bring the total phoneme count of Hindi to 61 phonemes (Ohala, 1983 and Weinberger, 2013). bam terrace or roof of a house pki a small fan ga the Ganges ga a bald person smbnd relationship gnda dirty st a year

Stop Nasal Tap/flap Fricative Affricate Approximant Lateral Approximant

BiLabio- dental alveolar PostRetroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal labial dental alveolar p b t d k g [q] m n [] [] f s z [] [x][] l j

Front Central Back Close i u Close-Mid e o Open- Mid Open a Hindi has fairly loose rules about segment sequences. Clusters of up to three consonants exist in Hindi and occur only in the onset. Consonant clusters follow the sonority sequencing principle similar to English. Hindi is one of the worlds languages which allows geminates and near geminates (a stop followed by an aspirated stop at the same place of articulation) (Shukla, 2000). The Dropping Rule and Items of Interest There were two ways to solve this problem given the data presented in the first section. The correct answer would develop a rule which deletes between two consonants as shown below: /VC_CV An alternate rule is epenthesis of to break up a consonant cluster in a coda. This rule is written below: /C_C] The actual rule in Hindi is the deletion rule. This is not true for any other vowel in Hindi. This ability to drop in the middle of a word is even reflected in the Devanagari syllibary in which Hindi is written. Each CV syllable in Hindi is written as a combination of a consonant with a shortened form of a vowel attached to it. The exception is the vowel . A consonant which appears without a vowel attached to it is considered to have an inherent as the nucleus of the syllable. Essentially when this type of syllable appears in between a VC and a CV segment the is dropped. The allomorphs for the stems listed above are as follows:

de and de brother in law nmk and nmk salt psl and psl slip k and k uprooted l and l bright sk and ska slurp up and upi top The Nasal Place Assimilation Rule and Items of Interest This data set shows us that nasals have place of articulation assimilation with a following obstruent. Notice this rule applies not only to stops but to all obstruents. The formal rule is shown below: [ ] [ ] [ ]

One interesting complication of this allophony is that literate Hindi speakers would be aware when they were applying this rule as in the Devanagari syllibary the allophones of /n/ can be written with a general nasal segment or with an entirely separate symbol for the velar, palatalized and retroflex nasals. This complicates the matter of whether these are simply allophones of /n/ or phonemes which can appear in only very limited environments. Most Hindi scholars agree however that the different nasals in Hindi are in fact allophones of /m/ and /n/ (Ohala, 1983 and Shukla, 2000). Rule Ordering Solution The first task for Part 3 is to decide which of the two rules dealing which alternation is correct. The only way to account for a violation to the nasal place assimilation rule is to understand that when that rule applied the environment which was needed for the rule was not present. If an was in between the nasal and the obstruent the environment for nasal place assimilation would not be met. Because this is not in the surface form it must have been deleted. We can therefore create a rule order in which the nasal place assimilation rule occurs before the dropping rule to solve the inconsistency. Underlying Representation Nasal Place Assimilation e Dropping Surface Form /sma/ --[sma] [sma] /snki/ --[snki] [snki] /mkila/ --[mkila] [mkila]

This is a counterfeeding order because if the rules were swapped the Dropping Rule would feed an environment to the Nasal Place Assimilation rule which it could apply to.

References Chand, S. (2008). An English-Hindi Dictionary. Ranchi: Catholic Press. Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.), 2013. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Seventeenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com. Ohala, M. (1983). Aspects of Hindi Phonology. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Shukla, S. (2000). Hindi Phonology. Muenchen: Lincom Europa. Weinberger, S. (2013). Speech Accent Archive. George Mason University. Retrieved from http://accent.gmu.edu