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Examples: |
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(See
Comments
for key to special characters used.)
There are six forms
in Hanunóo which show metathesis (based on our survey of Conklin
1953). Three involve C/C metathesis, with a glottal stop metathesizing with
the following consonant, after the deletion of the intervening vowel.
Note that all words with metathesis involve numerals.
|
?usa |
‘one’ |
kas?a |
‘once’ |
| ?upat |
‘four’ |
kap?at |
‘four times’ |
| ?unum |
‘six’ |
kan?um |
‘six times’ |
The remaining
three involve root-initial C/V metathesis.
| duwa |
‘two’ |
tigudwa |
‘two apiece’ |
| tulu |
‘three’ |
tigutlu |
‘three
apiece’ |
| lima |
‘five’ |
tigilma |
‘five
apiece’ |
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Conditions: |
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Metathesis applies
just in case a glottal stop would otherwise occur in preconsonantal position
as the result of vowel syncope triggered by prefixation.
When a consonant
other than a glottal stop occurs in preconsonantal position, metathesis fails
to apply.
|
duwa |
‘two’ |
kadwa |
*kawda |
‘twice’ |
| tulu |
‘three’ |
katlu |
*kaltu |
‘thrice’ |
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Motivation: |
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Phonotactic restriction:
An examination of
Conklin's (1953) dictionary reveals that there are no words in which glottal
stop occurs in preconsonantal position. Glottal stop occurs prevocalically
(#__V, ?agaw 'grasping'; V__V, para?an 'method'; C__V but?ul 'bone') and
postvocalically (V__#, bati? 'feeling, emotion'). |
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Related information: |
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Mielke & Hume
(2001) comment on the nature of metathesis in Hanunóo
. Unlike most cases of metathesis, all forms in this language involve
root-initial metathesis -- in the vast majority of languages with metathesis,
metathesis occurs away from the left edge of the word. M &
H argue that the greater number of observed cases of metathesis occurring
away from the left edge may be because it disrupts word recognition less
in this position than at the beginning of the word. While Hanunóo
may appear to be a counter-example to this claim, they suggest that the
restricted nature of the process in the language is significant. As
they point out, numerals form a closed set of words. As a result, the
impact on word recognition may be minimized, as compared to the same type
of word-initial metathesis occurring among a larger, open set of words.
Word frequency may also be relevant. Numbers are fairly frequent lexical
items and so are typically more prone to modification. |
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Comments: |
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Special symbols:
? = glottal stop
Last modified:
2/20/2001 (EVH)
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References: |
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Conklin, H. 1953. Hanunóo-English
Vocabulary. University of California Publications in Linguistics.
Volume 9. University of California Press. Berkeley and Los Angeles.
Kenstowicz, M and C.
Kisseberth 1979. Generative Phonology. Academic Press.
Mielke, Jeff and Elizabeth Hume.
2000. Consequences of word recognition for metathesis. In E. Hume,
N. Smith & J. van de Weijer, Surface Syllable Structure and Segment Sequencing.
Leiden, NL: HIL.
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