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The difficult issue of what is natural in different components of the grammar is addressed. A few phonetic processes recognized as natural in several models are word‐final devoicing, the irreversible change of [s] to [h], excrescence, assimilation, and palatalization. The Universality of the Sonority Hierarchy is upheld and its consequences for change are explored. In the interaction between semantics and other domains, the polarity principle (markedness vs faithfulness) and probable examples of Avoid homophony are adduced. Natural syntactic processes are introduced along with potential examples of natural morphology, e.g. loss of exception marks, Watkins' Law, and corrections of mirror‐principle violations. Iconicity of exponents with the syntactic computation is relevant only to cumulative (not substitutive) morphology and is at best an optimality condition.

This chapter describes the Faroese consonant system, giving an overview, and discussing parallel problems to those in Icelandic, such things as the relation between the fortis and lenis consonant series, both initially and word internally. There are similarities in that both Icelandic and Faroese have ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ dialects, and the number of oppositions allowed differs between positions, initially or internally in feet and words. Palatalization has reached its ‘logical’ conclusion in Faroese, creating palato‐alveolar affricates. Fricatives and glides also raise issues regarding positional restrictions on opposition, historical fricatives having been deleted, but new glides inserted in hiatus. The sonorant system shows similarities and differences vis à vis the Icelandic one. The chapter ends with a proposed elemental analysis of the Faroese consonant system.

Research on partial reduplication has primarily focused on developing a theory that takes into account all of the factors which speakers may invoke in trying to determine how a reduplicant will relate to its base. There have been attempts to characterize the reduplicant in prosodic terms and the role of morphological structure in determining the link between base and reduplicant. This chapter examines verb-stem reduplication in Ndebele, a Southern Bantu language spoken by the Nguni group, and shows how the reduplicant in Ndebele is conditioned by phonological and morphological factors that are “abstract” in nature. It argues that the reduplicant of an Ndebele verb stem must be analyzed as a verb stem itself and explains how its surface form is derived by direct spell-out of its own (identical) morphosyntactic structure, which, in turn, is a direct copy from the base. The chapter also discusses complications arising in the reduplication of stems containing subminimal or “consonantal” verb roots, along with fusion or “imbrication” of perfective -ile, the passive suffix -w-, and palatalization.

This chapter examines Nonderived Environment Blocking (NDEB) in the context of the phonological rule known as Korean Palatalization, which shows NDEB effects and applies only in environments derived by virtue of a combination of morphemes. It discusses Korean Palatalization both diachronically and synchronically, and argues that derived environments arise from a change in the ranking of lexical faithfulness constraints. The chapter also suggests that NDEB is not a rigid principle of grammar but a language-specific consequence of the way individual phonological rules are stated or constraints are ranked in a particular grammar.

In so far as velar softening is a two-stage process involving velar palatalization and velar assibilation, it is claimed that these two sound-change mechanisms ought to be analysed separately. A distinction is made between front velar stop productions, and the (alveolo)palatal stop outcome of gestural blending between velar stops and front vocalic realizations. The chapter also presents and evaluates two general models of velar softening, i.e., the articulation-based model proposed by the Neogrammarians and the acoustic equivalence model proposed by Ohala and colleagues. Several arguments in support of the former model are presented, which are based on articulatory evidence and on experimental findings reported in earlier acoustico-perceptual studies.

This chapter is about the palatalization and assibilation of labial and nasal stops, and of labiodental fricatives. Based on several diachronic pathways, it presents the hypothesis that labial softening is achived through glide fricativization or occlusivization, depending on the language or dialect taken into consideration. A special analysis is performed of labial palatalization and assibilation in the Bantu languages, Romanian dialects, and /Cl/ onset clusters in Romance, where those changes may have taken place once the alveolar lateral shifted to a palatal approximant. In so far as two independent articulators, i.e., lips and tongue, are involved in the production of the labial and labiodental sequences of interest, their diachronic development turns out to be far more complex than the palatalization and softening of velar and dentoalveolar obstruents.

This chapter analyses the origins of a range of consonantal features in MUE. Starting with an overview of the consonant system and a comparison of it to the consonant systems of the input varieties and to those of Ulster Scots and Southern Irish English, the chapter specifically concentrates on a number of key phonological patterns, several of them previously ascribed to Irish influence, which reveal crucial things about the history of the dialect. Features examined include Velar Palatalisation, Pre-R Dentalisation, survival of the dental fricatives, rhoticity, realisation of /l/, epenthesis in consonant clusters, and consonant deletions. It is shown that most consonantal patterns in the dialect derive from English and, to a lesser extent, Scots, possibly with some reinforcement from Irish.

This chapter contains a discussion of the most important synchronic processes that are primarily segmental in character, though very often there is a prosodic component, too, in the environment for the application of some segmental rule. Some of the minor regular processes are discussed already in the vowels and consonants chapters. One of the most interesnting rules is retroflexion, where an /r/ coalesces with a following laminal coronal consonant. The chapter also discusses vowel lowering (of /e/ and /ɛ/), vowel centralization of short /ø/, nasal assimilation, excrescence of /ɡ/, and a set of rules relating to /d/: postnasal d-deletion, assimilation of /d/, and continuization of /d/. Furthermore, there is the spread glottis assimilation (also known as devoicing in the literature), and another couple of small rules. The last sections of the chapter take up rules that are no longer fully productive, but which describe large generalizations in the lexicon, e.g. palatalization of velar consonants, ablaut and umlaut, and regressive spreading of nasality.

The chapter presents the two types of Romance palatalization that have given rise to patterns of allomorphy. These involve principally the first-person singular present indicative and all the forms of the present subjunctive (the L-pattern); and in some cases the third-person plural present (the U-pattern). The diachronic persistence, replication, and ‘repair’ of this morphomic pattern is illustrated. It is argued that the apparent realignment of the alternant just with present subjunctive in Gallo-Romance is itself morphomic, rather than motivated semantically; that the patterns may retain a measure of phonological conditioning in Italo-Romance and Daco-Romance; and that morphomic patterns may involve asymmetrical distributions in paradigms.

This chapter considers the (limited) extent to which conjugation classes in the Romance verb interact with the morphomic patterns of root allomorphy discussed elsewhere. It is shown how, in Ibero-Romance, inflexion-class assignment shows a surprising sensitivity to the morphomic L-pattern. The general resistance (particularly with respect to palatalization) of first-conjugation verbs to morphomic patterns of root allomorphy in most Romance languages is also explored.

This chapter asks how affixes can affect the phonology of their stems, as in harmony/ harmonic/harmonious. Within the Parallel Architecture, phonology is an algebraic form of representation, while phonetic representation is analog in character. Their relation is negotiated by an interface that relates phonological segments and sequences to positions and trajectories in phonetic space. In these terms, the chapter explores aspiration, final devoicing, vowel shift and vowel reduction, affixes like -ity and -ious that manipulate the phonology of their bases, and affixes that can blend with their bases, for instance flattery (= flatter+ery). Again the formal machinery of sister schemas plays an important role in the account, taking over the work done in other theories by derivation (as in SPE and Lexical Phonology) and constraint ranking (as in Optimality Theory)

This chapter explores the linguistic features of French spoken in Northern France, based on the analysis of a speaker from La Madeleine, a small city in the Lille metropolitan area. The first part of the chapter analyses the sociolinguistic profiles of both the speaker and the region, focusing on the links between French and Picard and on the importance of the textile and coal industries. The chapter then provides a detailed discussion of specific features of Northern French, illustrated with representative examples from our corpus. It examines (i) lexical regionalisms, with a focus on the lexical fields of work, war, and school; (ii) syntactic and discursive features, e.g. the absence of the feminine third-person plural subject pronoun, ne-deletion, and the use of quoi as a discourse marker; (iii) phonetic and phonological features, in particular palatalization and depalatalization phenomena; and (iv) dialectal features.

The chapter presents a discussion about the European Union between a former long-haul truck driver and his nephew. Both are from Passy (Upper Savoy), a commune of 11 000 inhabitants in the French Alps facing Mont Blanc. Passy is situated in the centre of the Franco-Provençal area, and its regional variety can be seen as French with a Franco-Provençal substrate. The commented passage contains no specific regional lexicon or syntax, but illustrates very well the Savoy accent, which is characterized mainly by a stress accent on the penultimate syllable, quantity opposition, and the opposition between /a/ and /ɑ/ (even if this latter opposition is weakening). Other features include the general tendency to the loi de position for the mid vowels and the palatalization of plosives before high front vowels.

This chapter examines Louisiana Regional French through the speech of a speaker from Ville Platte, in Evangeline Parish. Our speaker is one of a small number of Louisiana speakers literate in French; despite her literacy, however, her pronunciation remains very representative of Louisiana (minus a few moves toward the standard). Indeed, her limited interaction with the standard (and with idioms of Metropolitan French) poses occasional problems in interpreting her pronunciation. Her speech is particularly interesting for such features as regressive nasalization of vowels, metathesis, and nonstandard morphology, syntax, and lexical items (e.g. asteur, inanimate qui, tac-tac ‘popcorn’). It is also particularly noteworthy for the effects of language death and/including the influence of English at all levels (phonological, morphological, syntactic, and lexical).

This papers deals with the inherent variation in Parisian French, and its relation to ongoing phonetic change. The studied data come mainly from recordings with eight Parisian speakers—all in their 20s—of whom four are from the higher strata of society (haute bourgeoisie), and four from the middle class. Two young upper-working class speakers and two upper-class speakers in their 60s have been added to the analysis, in order to explore potentially social or diachronic divergences from the main speakers. The results show that Parisian speakers indeed exhibit variation, both according to class and age. Social variation is apparent for the palatalization of /k/ (almost exclusively used by middle- and working-class speakers), whereas all speakers seem to engage in the changes concerning schwa-tagging, loss of liaison after c’est, reductions in mid- and low oral vowels, and in nasal vowels. However, the haute-bourgeoisie speakers exhibit important delays for certain variables.

This chapter provides a structural overview of the varieties of palatalization found in Romance varieties today as well as considering diachronic issues. It covers the emergence in Romance of a new order of palatals, both fricatives and affricates, due to original yod, and how new, secondary sources of palatalizing yod developed from asyllabic high vowels; diatopic differences in the palatalizing effects of front vowels, in the susceptibility of different underlying segments, in the palatalization of consonantal clusters, and in the palatalizing effects of postconsonantal laterals; positional differences in conditioning different palatal outcomes; morphologization of palatal/non-palatal alternations; recent waves of palatalization. Specific topics dealt with include: Latin yod and its effects; morphological consequences of palatalization by yod; consonant + front vowel palatalization; velar stop + front vowel; velar stop + A; non-dorsal consonant + front vowel; morphological consequences of front vowel palatalization; consonant + consonant palatalization; consonant + lateral; velar stop + coronal consonant.

Historically, the higher circles of Paris have dictated the bon usage in French pronunciation, and have contributed to the present day Reference French; at the same time, howevr, Paris has preserved some local phonetic features, especially in lower social classes. The young man studied in this chapter is a PhD student, born to Parisian parents and raised in the 14th arrondissement. In the extract, his French is characterized by words from the familiar register (frigo, truc, sympa, clope) and by syntactic structures frequent in spontaneous spoken French (dislocations, clefts, ne-omission, etc.). On the phonetic level, he presents several features of Reference French (a reduced nasal vowel system, loss of /ɑ/, some tendencies towards the reduction of contrasts in mid vowels, three distinct high oral vowels, and an interconsonantal schwa which follows long-established rules). However, his palatalized /k/’s, and his prepausal schwa-tagging makes him sound specifically Parisian.