Published Papers by Ryan Gehrmann
Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Prague 2023, 2023
Kuki-Chin languages are known for using tonal variation to mark grammatical relationships [1]–[3]... more Kuki-Chin languages are known for using tonal variation to mark grammatical relationships [1]–[3]. This paper provides evidence that tone is used to mark an inclusive-exclusive distinction in pronominal subject agreement markers on Kanise Khumi verbs. An inclusive-exclusive distinction is common for Kuki-Chin independent pronouns, but not for pronominal agreement marking on the verbal complex [4], [5]. Using elicited sentences, this paper compares exclusive and inclusive agreement prefixes with respect to vowel quality (F1) and pitch (F0). When the object is 3rd person, segmental information (i.e. vowel quality) is one feature that distinguishes exclusive from inclusive in the person-marking prefix. Pitch is another. However, in reflexive/reciprocal interpretations, pitch is the distinguishing feature between exclusive and inclusive agreement prefixes. Thus, exclusive-inclusive pronominal agreement provides an example of morphosyntactic tone in Kanise Khumi.
Theses (PhD & MA) by Ryan Gehrmann
PhD Thesis, 2022
Suprasegmental contrasts of tone and register are commonplace phonological phenomena among the la... more Suprasegmental contrasts of tone and register are commonplace phonological phenomena among the languages of Mainland Southeast Asia and its periphery (MSEA) (Matisoff 1990, 2001). Insofar as we have come to understand the origins and evolution of such contrasts, two theories predominate: tonogenesis (Haudricourt 1954) and registrogenesis (Huffman 1976). In their classical forms, tonogenesis and registrogenesis are well suited for modeling the development of tone and register in the best known, most studied languages of MSEA, but there is much additional complexity that they fail to capture. This is especially true for languages of Austroasiatic stock, which in many cases have developed tone and register in ways that must be considered ‘unorthodox’ with respect to the received models (Ferlus 1979, 2004, 2011; Diffloth 1982a, 1982b; Svantesson 1989; Gehrmann 2015; Sidwell 2015, 2019).
The goal of this thesis is to present a possible way forward towards a unified conceptual framework for tone and register evolution in the languages of MSEA: desegmentalization. Expanding on Dockum’s (2019) concept of desegmental phonology, desegmentalization is the process by which one or more segmental properties (onset phonation, vowel height, vowel length or coda phonation) condition changes in the distribution of a language’s suprasegmental contrasts. A general survey of the Austroasiatic language family is presented, in which documented examples of desegmentalization are presented and discussed. Austroasiatic constitutes a useful laboratory for such a survey, because the identification of the segmental origins of suprasegmental contrasts in Austroasiatic languages is relatively straightforward in comparison to the other language families of MSEA. Based on this survey of desegmentalization processes in Austroasiatic, ten discrete desegmentalization models are proposed. The output typologies for the suprasegmental contrasts produced by each model are compared and implications for a general model of tonogenesis and registrogenesis are explored.
This thesis offers (1) a digestible introduction for the non-specialist to the historical development of suprasegmental contrast in MSEA, (2) a resynthesis of current tonogenetic theory which integrates classical tonogenesis, classical registrogenesis and various other, lesser-known evolutionary pathways under the larger umbrella of desegmentalization and (3) a comprehensive overview of tone and register origins in the Austroasiatic family.
Payap University, MA Thesis, 2016
This thesis presents an exploration of the historical phonology of the West Katuic language famil... more This thesis presents an exploration of the historical phonology of the West Katuic language family (< Katuic < Austroasiatic). West Katuic (WK) is divided into two sub-groups called Kuay and Bru (Ferlus 1974a, Diffloth 1982, Sidwell 2005). As no previous publication has concerned itself solely with the comparative phonology of WK, it was determined that this thesis should provide a review of previously published phonological descriptions of WK languages, a reconstruction of the segmental inventories of Proto-West Katuic (PWK), Proto-Kuay (PKuay) and Proto-Bru (PBru), and an isoglossic analysis of the phonological changes apparent in a representative sampling of modern Kuay and Bru languages. Additionally, a word list data collection tool was developed, which is aimed at eliciting etyma from other, previously undocumented WK varieties that will provide data pertinent towards the isoglossic analysis of those varieties.
The lexical data supporting the analysis in this thesis comes from three previously published sources and seven new data sources collected by the author. A 973-item comparative lexicon of WK that is cross-referenced with Sidwell’s (2005) comparative dictionary and lexical reconstruction of Proto-Katuic (PK) is provided as an appendix.
It was found that WK languages are differentiated from other Katuic languages based on the combination of the following four innovations/retentions: 1) the split in Sidwell’s (2005) PK *ia, *ua to PWK *ea, *oa and PWK *ɛɛ, *ɔɔ; 2) the split in PK *ii, *uu to PWK *ii, *uu and PWK *ia, *ua; 3) the maintenance of PK *ie, *uo as PWK *iə, *uə and 4) the reanalysis of PK *ɛɛ in open syllables to PWK *-aj. Also noteworthy is that PWK had four levels of height contrast in its back long vowel inventory due to the intrusion of PK *ua > PWK *ɔɔ, which caused the lowering of PK *ɔɔ > PWK *ɒɒ. No register split is reconstructed for PWK vocalism on account of the transitional, pre-register vocalism described for modern Suay (Ferlus 1971). This precludes the possibility of PWK and PKuay being marked by register contrast. No significant consonant changes were found between PK and PWK, though the process of initial stop devoicing likely did begin in the PWK period or slightly after under Middle Khmer influence.
An analysis of the phonological isoglosses discovered here reveals that the Kuay sub-group may be further divisible into an eastern branch and a western branch. This makes sense based on the geographic isolation of the western Kuay languages (Suay) of Laos. While intra-Bru isoglosses were discovered, no indications were found of sub-groupings within the Bru language community and the entire Bru area remains best described as a dialect continuum.
It is hoped that this thesis will serve as a synthesis of the WK research that has gone on up to this point and provide a starting point for the further investigation of WK languages.
Conference Presentations by Ryan Gehrmann
33rd Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 2024
PKC *a(ː)k, *a(ː)ŋ Kanise /a/, /ã/ *paa-laak 'bat' /pã˥ ʰla˧/ *ʔaak 'raven / crow' /pã˥ ʔa˧/ *... more PKC *a(ː)k, *a(ː)ŋ Kanise /a/, /ã/ *paa-laak 'bat' /pã˥ ʰla˧/ *ʔaak 'raven / crow' /pã˥ ʔa˧/ *saa-I, sak-II 'build / connect / erect' /sa˧/ 'to build' *tak-shaa 'body' /ʔəta˧ bũ˥/ *maŋ 'dream' /ʔa˧ mã˥/ *naŋ 'you' /nã˥/ *kaaŋ-I, kaŋʔ ⪤ kan-II 'burn / blaze' /ʰmaɛ˥ kã˧/ *shaaŋ-I, shaan-II 'high / tall' /ʔa˥ sa˩/ PKC *a(ː)w Kanise /a/ *raaw 'spirit' /ʔã˧ ɣa˩/ *kaaw 'wide / open' /ʔə˥ ka˩/ 'wide, broad' *haaw-I, hawʔ-II 'demand / ask' /ʔə˥ ha˧/ 'to seek, look for' *law 'farm / field' /ʰla˥/ 'swidden rice field' *thaw 'fly / mosquito / maggot' /pətʰa˧/ 'a fly' *ɓaw 'bump / swell' /ʔə˥ ba˧ ta˧/ 'swollen' *thaw-I, thoʔ-II 'rise / get up / stand up' /ʔã˥ tʰa˧/ 'to get up' *khawʔ 'sturdy / rigid / strong / tough' /ʔə˥ tã˩ kʰa˥/ 'tough (meat)' PKC *a(ː)w Kanise irregular /aɛ, aɔ, ə/ *saaw 'long' /ʔə˥ saɛ˩/ *naaw 'child / infant / young' /naɛ˥ di˩/ *tsaw, tsoʔ-II 'dig' /ʔə˥ taɛ˧/ *ʔaaw 'scream / call out / shout' /ʔa˥ ʔaɔ˥/ 'to shout' *taw 'sit / squat' /ʔa˥ tə˩/ 28
33rd Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 2024
There has long been debate surrounding the history of register in the Katuic branch of Austroasia... more There has long been debate surrounding the history of register in the Katuic branch of Austroasiatic. Diffloth showed how the register contrasts of Kuay, Bru and Pacoh are all explicable with reference to segmental contrasts reconstructible to Proto-Katuic and hypothesized that the register contrast of Ta’oi was possibly a retention of a Proto-Austroasiatic voice quality contrast. Ferlus hypothesized that Ta’oi register was probably also the result of post-Proto-Katuic restructuring. More recently, Gehrmann (2022) has presented evidence that the all modern Katuic register contrasts do seem to have their origin in the restructuring of Proto-Katuic segmental contrasts. Thus, Proto-Katuic was likely not a register language.
However, evidence remains, which casts doubt on this analysis. Firstly, Proto-Katuic had too many vowels for a conservative Austroasiatic language. Secondly, only a small number of simple onsets are reconstructible as voiced stops in Proto-Katuic, and there are many examples of voiceless stop onsets in Proto-Katuic corresponding with voiced stop onsets elsewhere in Austroasiatic. Following these seemingly devoiced pKatuic onsets, we find examples of the kind of vowel raising that is typical of Khmer-model register languages (selected examples below). This raises the possibility that Proto-Katuic might have already been through one round of registrogenesis via stop devoicing or that Proto-Katuic borrowed words from a language that had already done so. These and other issues will be explored, as part of ongoing efforts to reconstruct Katuic historical phonology and the history of registrogenesis in the Austroasiatic languages.
Proto-Katuic (Gehrmann) Proto-Vietic (Ferlus) Proto-Monic (Diffloth)
*cmpɨak civet *s-baːk weasel, civet -
*pɨar flower *baːr flower -
*prɨat banana - *braːt banana
*ʔatᶤɜm right side *dam/tam right side -
*kᶤɜl tree trunk *gəl / kəl tree *t[l]gəl stump
*pᶤɜc cut, slash, chop - Mon /pa̤c/ chop (< *bac)
International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL26), 2023
afternoon-preferred talk orders Slot Talk Presenter(s) 1 Tone, stress and length interactions in ... more afternoon-preferred talk orders Slot Talk Presenter(s) 1 Tone, stress and length interactions in Central Neo-Štokavian Božović 2 Accent and tone: the double origin of the Paici tone system Lionnet 3 Tone and voicing in Cao Bằng Tai: implications for tonal evolution and change Kirby & Pittayaporn 4 Tone splits from vowel height in the Austronesian language of Raja Ampat Arnold 5 A diachronic study of grammatical tone in northwestern Bantu Grimm 6 A Database of Tonogenetic Events (DTE) and what it can tell us about tonogenesis Saebø, Moran, Grossman 7 Tonal density and its correlation with the types of tonal systems: Diachronic aspects
25th International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL25), 2022
Languages from five major language families (Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Hmong-Mieng, KraDai & S... more Languages from five major language families (Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Hmong-Mieng, KraDai & Sino-Tibetan) participate in the Greater Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic convergence area (GMSEA), covering Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Malay peninsula, northeast India and southern China (Enfield & Comrie 2015). The vast majority of these languages employ lexical contrasts of tone or register, which are typically thought of as the contrastive implementation of pitch and voice quality, respectively; but this oversimplifies the phenomena. Tone and register overlap in both synchronic phonetic expression and in diachronic development to such an extent that various recent proposals have questioned the necessity of the tone-register typological bifurcation (Brunelle & Kirby 2016, Dockum 2019, Dockum & Gehrmann 2021, Tạ 2021, Gehrmann 2022).
One such proposal is the concept of the East Asian Voicing Shift (EAVS), a massively crosslinguistic transphonologization of onset voicing contrasts as tones or registers that spread across GMSEA over the past millennium (Dockum 2019, Dockum & Gehrmann 2021). EAVS is integral to the received models of both tonogenesis and registrogenesis (Haudricourt 1954, Huffman 1976), but the question remains: why should EAVS produce clearly suprasegmental contrasts cued by pitch and voice quality (i.e. tones) in some languages and debatably suprasegmental contrasts cued by vowel quality and voice quality (i.e. registers) in others? We present two hypotheses here to address this question.
The Sequential Interpretation builds on the conventional explanations (Haudricourt 1965, Matisoff 1973) and predicts two outcomes when a language undergoes EAVS, depending on their suprasegmental typology: (1) If the language is non-tonal, it will become registral, but (2) if it has already developed tones under conditioning from historical coda laryngeal contrasts, it will undergo tone splits (cf. the ‘Great Tone Split’; Brown 1975). Thus, it is the relative historical ordering of EAVS with respect to tonogenetic events that determines the output.
The Simultaneous Interpretation is a new proposal, developed in response to the absence of unambiguous examples of languages innovating coda-conditioned tone contrasts without also undergoing EAVS (Gehrmann 2022). In this hypothesis, EAVS comes first, in the form of a phonetic shift in historical onset voicing contrasts from a VOT phasing realization to a register realization, cued by any combination of differential VOT, pitch, voice quality and/or vowel quality (Kirby & Brunelle 2017). Thereafter, two outcomes are predicted for languages that have undergone EAVS, depending on the relative prominence of these cues: (1) tone tends to develop in languages in which pitch has greater prominence (e.g. Vietnamese, Sinitic, Hmong-Mien, Kra-Dai), but (2) register tends to develop in languages where vowel quality cues are more prominent (e.g. various Austroasiatic languages, including Khmer). The Simultaneous Interpretation follows Thurgood (2007) in casting register as the primary driver of tonogenetic innovation in GMSEA, albeit with a different interpretation of the phonetic underpinnings of the process, decentering the role of voice quality.
We weigh the merits of these two interpretations, drawing on examples from modern GMSEA languages. The nature and chronology of EAVS and associated sound changes carries significant implications for the investigation and interpretation of suprasegmental diachrony in this region—specifically, modelling tone diversification within families, the regional spread of tonogenesis, reconstruction of past suprasegmental systems, and the interpretation of linguistic evidence from historical written sources.
9th International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics (ICAAL9), 2021
Prototypically, Mainland Southeast Asian languages have innovated tonal contrasts under condition... more Prototypically, Mainland Southeast Asian languages have innovated tonal contrasts under conditioning from a combination of historical onset phonation contrasts and coda laryngeal contrasts (Matisoff 1973). In this tonogenetic context, historical rime glottalization is often reanalyzed as tone, the sắc-nặng tones in Vietnamese open and sonorant-final syllables being a prime example (Haudricourt 1954). Rime glottalization (*-ʔ or *-Nˀ) is uncontroversially reconstructable for Proto-Vietic, where it contrasted with non-glottalized rimes (*- or *-N) (Ferlus 2004). Comparable contrasts of rime glottalization or laryngealization appear in two other branches of Austroasiatic - Katuic and Pearic - however these contrasts are not cognate across the three branches (Diffloth 1989, Sidwell & Rau 2015). They are proposed to be independent innovations within each branch (Ferlus 2004; Gehrmann 2015, 2019; Sidwell 2019).
Thus, at this time, Proto-Vietic rime glottalization is generally considered to be an innovation. However, evidence has been presented that Proto-Vietic rime glottalization contrast is in fact cognate with tonal contrasts in Bolyu, a language outside of Vietic (Benedict 1990, Edmondson & Gregerson 1996). Bolyu and Bugan, the Pakanic languages of southern China, and the Mang language of northern Vietnam are tentatively coordinated under a primary branch of Austroasiatic called Mangic (Sidwell 2021).
In this paper, new evidence supporting the cognacy of Proto-Vietic rime glottalization with tonal contrasts in Bolyu, Bugan and Mang is presented. These correspondences are unique within Austroasiatic and, depending on whether they represent (1) a shared, northeastern innovation or (2) a retention from Proto-Austroasiatic, their existence has implications for either (1) the sub-classification of Austroasiatic (i.e. a new Vieto-Mangic Hypothesis) or (2) the reconstruction of Proto-Austroasiatic rime glottalization patterns (cf. Diffloth’s (1989) Proto-Austroasiatic Creaky Voice hypothesis), respectively. The relative merits of these two hypotheses are discussed.
References
Benedict, Paul K. 1990. How to tell Lai: An exercise in classification. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 13.2. 1–26.
Diffloth, Gérard. 1989. Proto-Austroasiatic creaky voice. Mon-Khmer Studies 15. 139-154.
Edmondson, Jerold & Kenneth Gregerson. 1996. Bolyu tone in Vietic perspective. Mon-Khmer Studies 26. 117-133.
Ferlus, Michel. 2004. The Origin of Tones in Viet-Muong. In Somsonge Burusphat (ed.), Papers from the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 297-313. Tempe, Arizona: Arizona State University, Program for Southeast Asian Studies.
Gehrmann, Ryan. 2015. Vowel height and register assignment in Katuic. Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistic Society 8. 56-70.
Gehrmann, Ryan. 2019. On the origin of rime laryngealization in Ta’oiq: a case study in the phonatory restructuring of vowel quality contrasts. Paper presented at the 8th International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, Aug. 29-31, 2019.
Haudricourt, André-Georges. 1954. De l’origine des tons en Viêtnamien. [On the origin of tones in Vietnamese]. Journal Asiatique 242. 69-82.
Matisoff, James. 1973. Tonogenesis in Southeast Asia. In L.M. Hyman (ed.), Consonant Types and Tone, 71-96. (Southern California Occasional Papers in Linguistics 1). Los Angeles: University of Southern California.
Sidwell, Paul & Felix Rau. 2015. Austroasiatic comparative-historical reconstruction. In Mathias Jenny & Paul Sidwell (eds.), The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages, 221-363. Leiden: Brill.
Sidwell, Paul. 2019. Proto-Pearic and the role of vowel height in register formation. Paper presented at the 8th International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, Aug. 29-31, 2019.
Sidwell, Paul. 2021. Classification of MSEA Austroasiatic languages. In Paul Sidwell & Mathias Jenny (eds.), The Languages and Linguistics of Mainland Southeast Asia. (World of Linguistics 8). Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter Mouton.
95th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, 2021
Video poster presentation with narration available here:
https://youtu.be/_Ma7PfrSSn4
We present... more Video poster presentation with narration available here:
https://youtu.be/_Ma7PfrSSn4
We present here a new unified model to explain the origins and evolution of tone and register in East and Southeast Asia, topics which have generally been investigate separately in different academic circles. After briefly introducing this new Desegmental Model, we focus in on one of its principle component sound change mechanisms which we call the East Asian Voicing Shift (EAVS). Through EAVS, onset voicing contrasts transphonologize into a register contrast upheld by a bundle of co-varying phonetic cues including pitch, voice quality and vowel quality. With few exceptions, this register contrast then either conditions a doubling of the lexical tone inventory in languages which already employ lexically contrastive pitch or it conditions a doubling of the vowel inventory in languages which do not. EAVS is massive in scope, having affected the vast majority of langauges in the region across five separate langauge families. It is perhaps the most sweeping sound change event yet described in linguistics.
This paper is part of a broader investigation into the phonology of Ta'oiq, an underdocumented, p... more This paper is part of a broader investigation into the phonology of Ta'oiq, an underdocumented, phonologically aberrant language in the Katuic sub-group of Austroasiatic (AA). Most Katuic languages carry a phonological opposition of modal versus breathy voice quality in their vocalic inventories, but Ta'oiq stands out as the only Katuic language with a modal-creaky contrast. Furthermore, while most modal-breathy contrasts in Katuic have their origin in the Southeast Asian register phenomenon, in which consonant onset voicing contrasts are transphonologized into laryngeal features of vowels, the contrasts in the vocalisms of of Ta'oiq and its closest relative, Pacoh, are wholly unrelated to proto-onset voicing. In fact, the vowel phonation contrasts of Ta'oiq and Pacoh are not the result of any phonological split at all. Instead, evidence suggests one of two possible explanations for the emergence of the contrastive vowel phonation pairs in these two Katuic languages: 1) Proto-Katuic (PK) vowel phonemes which were previously redundantly differentiated by both vowel quality and voice quality converged in terms of their vowel quality while preserving and phonologizing the voice quality of each member of the pair or 2) Proto-Katuic itself was a language which had voice quality contrasts and the modern Ta'oiq and Pacoh contrasts are iterations on this old, PK contrast. At this point, both hypotheses remain viable and both have their strengths and weakenesses but in this paper we will argue for the second hypothesis, the PK contrast hypothesis. At this point, this hypothesis fits the Katuic vowel correspondences best but the future viability of the hypothesis will hinge on whether or not the emergence of PK vowel phonation contrasts can be confirmed through external comparison with other AA languages.
29th Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 2019
In the 1970’s, linguist Franklin Huffman undertook extensive field work on the Katuic languages, ... more In the 1970’s, linguist Franklin Huffman undertook extensive field work on the Katuic languages, an Austroasiatic sub-family. Thanks to the efforts of Paul Sidwell and Doug Cooper, WAV files of Huffman’s audio recordings, high quality scans of his notebooks and accompanying digitized databases of the data contained therein have been made available on sealang.net. The Huffman Archives document register languages from most Katuic sub-groups, including Ta’oi (Ir & Bru Talan), Kriang (Ngeq), Bru (Bru Ubon, So Mangkong, So Sakol-Nakorn, So Khammouane & Katang) and Kuay (Souei Saravan, Kuy Surin & Kuy Srisaket). These languages have diverse register systems both in terms the phonetic features, largely qualitatively defined at this point, which uphold the phonological register contrast and also in terms of the registrogenetic processes which produced them. The diverse sample of Katuic register languages contained in the Huffman archives presents a unique opportunity to qualitatively asses the acoustic correlates of the register phenomenon across Katuic and to set a baseline which will inform further work on the production and perception of Katuic register. The purpose of this paper is to determine (a) if Huffman’s recordings are of sufficient quality for acoustic analysis, especially spectral slope analysis, and (b) if so, which acoustic cues most readily distinguish register contrast in various Katuic languages.
Here, we have begun with an analysis of Huffman’s Souei recordings (hereafter, Suay). Suay [kdt] is a particularly interesting test case as Huffman (1976) describes it as a Transitional register language, in which register is not yet phonologized but stereotypical lax register features (breathy voice, F1 lowering, etc…) are present. These register features have not yet become a feature of the language’s vocalism, but rather remain associated with the historical voiced stop onsets, which are in the middle of a devoicing process. Huffman (1979) further notes that the register contrast is ambiguous and possibly neutralized in the close vowels of Suay.
The Suay data contain 1,408 items spoken 2 times each in isolation by a single male speaker. Of these, we analyse 303 instances (151 unique lexical items) with long vowels or diphthongs which can be organized into two register categories. After hand-segmenting the TextGrids to demarcate the syllabic onset and rime, acoustic measures were taken using Praat. We measured Voice Onset Time (VOT) as well as spectral characteristics (f0, F1/F2/F3, and harmonic amplitudes H1-H4 and A1-A3) at 5 msec intervals. Harmonic amplitudes were then corrected for the effects of formant frequencies and bandwidths (Iseli & Alwan 2004). We focused primarily on the analysis of vowels following voiceless unaspirated stops, as this is the context where register features are present in Suay.
Our preliminary analysis of the Suay data shows that the two expected register categories are readily identified in terms of VOT, vowel quality (especially F1) and spectral tilt (H1*-H2*) over the first half of the syllable rime. As anticipated, these categorical differences are more apparent in non-close vowels. Similar results are obtained for other spectral tilt measures but importantly, pitch (f0) does not appear to play a role for this speaker.
Despite considerable background noise, our initial investigations demonstrate that spectral analysis of the Huffman archives is indeed feasible and that the results are useful both for aiding in interpreting Huffman’s transcriptions, as well as for reasoning about historical sound change. Segmentation and analysis of additional Kuay language data is currently underway.
References
Iseli, M., and A. Alwan. 2004. An improved correction formula for the estimation of harmonic magnitudes and its application to open quotient estimation. Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), Montreal, 669-672.
Huffman, Franklin. 1976. The register problem in fifteen Mon-Khmer languages. In Philip N. Jenner, Laurence C. Thompson & Stanley Starosta (eds.), Austroasiatic Studies, 575-590. Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii.
Huffman, Franklin. 1979. Analysis of Souei. In Paul Sidwell (ed.),
Huffman Papers. Online: www.sealang.net/archives/huffman (Accessed 27 January, 2019).
International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics 8, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 2019
This paper is part of a broader investigation into the phonology of Ta'oiq, an underdocumented, p... more This paper is part of a broader investigation into the phonology of Ta'oiq, an underdocumented, phonologically aberrant language in the Katuic sub-group of Austroasiatic (AA). Most Katuic languages carry a phonological opposition of modal versus breathy voice quality in their vocalic inventories, but Ta'oiq stands out as the only Katuic language with a modal-creaky contrast. Furthermore, while most modal-breathy contrasts in Katuic have their origin in the Southeast Asian register phenomenon, in which consonant onset voicing contrasts are transphonologized into laryngeal features of vowels, the contrasts in the vocalisms of of Ta'oiq and its closest relative, Pacoh, are wholly unrelated to proto-onset voicing. In fact, the vowel phonation contrasts of Ta'oiq and Pacoh are not the result of any phonological split at all. Instead, evidence suggests one of two possible explanations for the emergence of the contrastive vowel phonation pairs in these two Katuic languages: 1) Proto-Katuic (PK) vowel phonemes which were previously redundantly differentiated by both vowel quality and voice quality converged in terms of their vowel quality while preserving and phonologizing the voice quality of each member of the pair or 2) Proto-Katuic itself was a language which had voice quality contrasts and the modern Ta'oiq and Pacoh contrasts are iterations on this old, PK contrast. At this point, both hypotheses remain viable and both have their strengths and weakenesses but in this paper we will argue for the second hypothesis, the PK contrast hypothesis. At this point, this hypothesis fits the Katuic vowel correspondences best but the future viability of the hypothesis will hinge on whether or not the emergence of PK vowel phonation contrasts can be confirmed through external comparison with other AA languages.
7th International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics (ICAAL 7), 2017
The Katuic languages are an Austroasiatic sub-group spoken in southern Laos, Vietnam, Thailand an... more The Katuic languages are an Austroasiatic sub-group spoken in southern Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. Katuic Languages on the geographically eastern fringe of the langauge family in the Annamite Mountain Range which separates Laos and Vietnam are found to have unpredictable contrasts of two to three vowel qualities in their unstressed, penultimate syllalbes (presyllables). This is the handout which accompanied a presentation given at ICAAL 7 in Kiel in 2017. In it, I propose that the unexpected emergence of presyllable vowel contrasts in Katuic is a result of contact influence from the Old Northern Chamic language, which was spoken on the coastal plain in Vietnam at latitudes parallel to Katuic during the first millenium AD. An overview of Katuic presyllable structure and an analysis of the synchronic distribution of presyllable vowel contrasts in Katuic is presented, followed by a diachronic explanation for the emergence of environmentally conditioned presyllable vowel qualities and their subsequent phonologization as a tool for morphological marking. Finally, evidence supporting the influence of Old Northern Chamic in the development of Katuic presyllable vowel contrasts is presented.
Other by Ryan Gehrmann
(Version 4 - 2022)
This word list aims to allow researchers (i) to conduct in-depth lexical inve... more (Version 4 - 2022)
This word list aims to allow researchers (i) to conduct in-depth lexical investigation when doing fieldwork on languages of Southeast Asia, and (ii) to navigate between languages and dialects, through the use of a unique identifier for each lexical entry. The first version of this word list was created by Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO) for a broad investigation launched in 1938 and interrupted by the war in 1940. A second version of the word list was elaborated at the CNRS laboratory CeDRASEMI (Centre de documentation et de recherche sur l'Asie du Sud-Est et le monde insulindien). This overhaul was supervised by Lucien Bernot, probably between 1960 et 1970; the list was jointly prepared by the Centre de documentation et de recherche sur l'Asie du Sud-Est et le monde insulindien (EPHE-CNRS, Paris) and the Department of South Asia and Oceania of the School of Oriental Studies (University of London) with a view to creating an Ethnolinguistic Atlas of Southeast Asia. Michel Ferlus re-typed the 22-page list to adopt a format suitable for use in the field. As the list remained insufficiently comprehensive for in-depth linguistic fieldwork, Michel Ferlus added further items in the course of his field trips to Vietnam in the 1990s. This list was circulated among Michel Ferlus's colleagues and collaborators. Khmer glosses were added, based on a version of the CeDRASEMI-SOAS list to which Marie Martin had added Khmer glosses. Version 1 of the present document was updated at the International Research Institute MICA in 2013-2014. Chinese glosses were added; English glosses were supplemented; and Vietnamese glosses were revised. The word list is offered online in Open Office format (.ods) and MS-Excel format (.xlsx). In Version 2 (2016), the full set of English translations was checked. In Version 3 (2019), Central Thai, Northern Thai, Lao and Burmese translations were added. In Version 4 (2022), Tibetan translations were added.
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Published Papers by Ryan Gehrmann
Theses (PhD & MA) by Ryan Gehrmann
The goal of this thesis is to present a possible way forward towards a unified conceptual framework for tone and register evolution in the languages of MSEA: desegmentalization. Expanding on Dockum’s (2019) concept of desegmental phonology, desegmentalization is the process by which one or more segmental properties (onset phonation, vowel height, vowel length or coda phonation) condition changes in the distribution of a language’s suprasegmental contrasts. A general survey of the Austroasiatic language family is presented, in which documented examples of desegmentalization are presented and discussed. Austroasiatic constitutes a useful laboratory for such a survey, because the identification of the segmental origins of suprasegmental contrasts in Austroasiatic languages is relatively straightforward in comparison to the other language families of MSEA. Based on this survey of desegmentalization processes in Austroasiatic, ten discrete desegmentalization models are proposed. The output typologies for the suprasegmental contrasts produced by each model are compared and implications for a general model of tonogenesis and registrogenesis are explored.
This thesis offers (1) a digestible introduction for the non-specialist to the historical development of suprasegmental contrast in MSEA, (2) a resynthesis of current tonogenetic theory which integrates classical tonogenesis, classical registrogenesis and various other, lesser-known evolutionary pathways under the larger umbrella of desegmentalization and (3) a comprehensive overview of tone and register origins in the Austroasiatic family.
The lexical data supporting the analysis in this thesis comes from three previously published sources and seven new data sources collected by the author. A 973-item comparative lexicon of WK that is cross-referenced with Sidwell’s (2005) comparative dictionary and lexical reconstruction of Proto-Katuic (PK) is provided as an appendix.
It was found that WK languages are differentiated from other Katuic languages based on the combination of the following four innovations/retentions: 1) the split in Sidwell’s (2005) PK *ia, *ua to PWK *ea, *oa and PWK *ɛɛ, *ɔɔ; 2) the split in PK *ii, *uu to PWK *ii, *uu and PWK *ia, *ua; 3) the maintenance of PK *ie, *uo as PWK *iə, *uə and 4) the reanalysis of PK *ɛɛ in open syllables to PWK *-aj. Also noteworthy is that PWK had four levels of height contrast in its back long vowel inventory due to the intrusion of PK *ua > PWK *ɔɔ, which caused the lowering of PK *ɔɔ > PWK *ɒɒ. No register split is reconstructed for PWK vocalism on account of the transitional, pre-register vocalism described for modern Suay (Ferlus 1971). This precludes the possibility of PWK and PKuay being marked by register contrast. No significant consonant changes were found between PK and PWK, though the process of initial stop devoicing likely did begin in the PWK period or slightly after under Middle Khmer influence.
An analysis of the phonological isoglosses discovered here reveals that the Kuay sub-group may be further divisible into an eastern branch and a western branch. This makes sense based on the geographic isolation of the western Kuay languages (Suay) of Laos. While intra-Bru isoglosses were discovered, no indications were found of sub-groupings within the Bru language community and the entire Bru area remains best described as a dialect continuum.
It is hoped that this thesis will serve as a synthesis of the WK research that has gone on up to this point and provide a starting point for the further investigation of WK languages.
Conference Presentations by Ryan Gehrmann
However, evidence remains, which casts doubt on this analysis. Firstly, Proto-Katuic had too many vowels for a conservative Austroasiatic language. Secondly, only a small number of simple onsets are reconstructible as voiced stops in Proto-Katuic, and there are many examples of voiceless stop onsets in Proto-Katuic corresponding with voiced stop onsets elsewhere in Austroasiatic. Following these seemingly devoiced pKatuic onsets, we find examples of the kind of vowel raising that is typical of Khmer-model register languages (selected examples below). This raises the possibility that Proto-Katuic might have already been through one round of registrogenesis via stop devoicing or that Proto-Katuic borrowed words from a language that had already done so. These and other issues will be explored, as part of ongoing efforts to reconstruct Katuic historical phonology and the history of registrogenesis in the Austroasiatic languages.
Proto-Katuic (Gehrmann) Proto-Vietic (Ferlus) Proto-Monic (Diffloth)
*cmpɨak civet *s-baːk weasel, civet -
*pɨar flower *baːr flower -
*prɨat banana - *braːt banana
*ʔatᶤɜm right side *dam/tam right side -
*kᶤɜl tree trunk *gəl / kəl tree *t[l]gəl stump
*pᶤɜc cut, slash, chop - Mon /pa̤c/ chop (< *bac)
One such proposal is the concept of the East Asian Voicing Shift (EAVS), a massively crosslinguistic transphonologization of onset voicing contrasts as tones or registers that spread across GMSEA over the past millennium (Dockum 2019, Dockum & Gehrmann 2021). EAVS is integral to the received models of both tonogenesis and registrogenesis (Haudricourt 1954, Huffman 1976), but the question remains: why should EAVS produce clearly suprasegmental contrasts cued by pitch and voice quality (i.e. tones) in some languages and debatably suprasegmental contrasts cued by vowel quality and voice quality (i.e. registers) in others? We present two hypotheses here to address this question.
The Sequential Interpretation builds on the conventional explanations (Haudricourt 1965, Matisoff 1973) and predicts two outcomes when a language undergoes EAVS, depending on their suprasegmental typology: (1) If the language is non-tonal, it will become registral, but (2) if it has already developed tones under conditioning from historical coda laryngeal contrasts, it will undergo tone splits (cf. the ‘Great Tone Split’; Brown 1975). Thus, it is the relative historical ordering of EAVS with respect to tonogenetic events that determines the output.
The Simultaneous Interpretation is a new proposal, developed in response to the absence of unambiguous examples of languages innovating coda-conditioned tone contrasts without also undergoing EAVS (Gehrmann 2022). In this hypothesis, EAVS comes first, in the form of a phonetic shift in historical onset voicing contrasts from a VOT phasing realization to a register realization, cued by any combination of differential VOT, pitch, voice quality and/or vowel quality (Kirby & Brunelle 2017). Thereafter, two outcomes are predicted for languages that have undergone EAVS, depending on the relative prominence of these cues: (1) tone tends to develop in languages in which pitch has greater prominence (e.g. Vietnamese, Sinitic, Hmong-Mien, Kra-Dai), but (2) register tends to develop in languages where vowel quality cues are more prominent (e.g. various Austroasiatic languages, including Khmer). The Simultaneous Interpretation follows Thurgood (2007) in casting register as the primary driver of tonogenetic innovation in GMSEA, albeit with a different interpretation of the phonetic underpinnings of the process, decentering the role of voice quality.
We weigh the merits of these two interpretations, drawing on examples from modern GMSEA languages. The nature and chronology of EAVS and associated sound changes carries significant implications for the investigation and interpretation of suprasegmental diachrony in this region—specifically, modelling tone diversification within families, the regional spread of tonogenesis, reconstruction of past suprasegmental systems, and the interpretation of linguistic evidence from historical written sources.
Thus, at this time, Proto-Vietic rime glottalization is generally considered to be an innovation. However, evidence has been presented that Proto-Vietic rime glottalization contrast is in fact cognate with tonal contrasts in Bolyu, a language outside of Vietic (Benedict 1990, Edmondson & Gregerson 1996). Bolyu and Bugan, the Pakanic languages of southern China, and the Mang language of northern Vietnam are tentatively coordinated under a primary branch of Austroasiatic called Mangic (Sidwell 2021).
In this paper, new evidence supporting the cognacy of Proto-Vietic rime glottalization with tonal contrasts in Bolyu, Bugan and Mang is presented. These correspondences are unique within Austroasiatic and, depending on whether they represent (1) a shared, northeastern innovation or (2) a retention from Proto-Austroasiatic, their existence has implications for either (1) the sub-classification of Austroasiatic (i.e. a new Vieto-Mangic Hypothesis) or (2) the reconstruction of Proto-Austroasiatic rime glottalization patterns (cf. Diffloth’s (1989) Proto-Austroasiatic Creaky Voice hypothesis), respectively. The relative merits of these two hypotheses are discussed.
References
Benedict, Paul K. 1990. How to tell Lai: An exercise in classification. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 13.2. 1–26.
Diffloth, Gérard. 1989. Proto-Austroasiatic creaky voice. Mon-Khmer Studies 15. 139-154.
Edmondson, Jerold & Kenneth Gregerson. 1996. Bolyu tone in Vietic perspective. Mon-Khmer Studies 26. 117-133.
Ferlus, Michel. 2004. The Origin of Tones in Viet-Muong. In Somsonge Burusphat (ed.), Papers from the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 297-313. Tempe, Arizona: Arizona State University, Program for Southeast Asian Studies.
Gehrmann, Ryan. 2015. Vowel height and register assignment in Katuic. Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistic Society 8. 56-70.
Gehrmann, Ryan. 2019. On the origin of rime laryngealization in Ta’oiq: a case study in the phonatory restructuring of vowel quality contrasts. Paper presented at the 8th International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, Aug. 29-31, 2019.
Haudricourt, André-Georges. 1954. De l’origine des tons en Viêtnamien. [On the origin of tones in Vietnamese]. Journal Asiatique 242. 69-82.
Matisoff, James. 1973. Tonogenesis in Southeast Asia. In L.M. Hyman (ed.), Consonant Types and Tone, 71-96. (Southern California Occasional Papers in Linguistics 1). Los Angeles: University of Southern California.
Sidwell, Paul & Felix Rau. 2015. Austroasiatic comparative-historical reconstruction. In Mathias Jenny & Paul Sidwell (eds.), The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages, 221-363. Leiden: Brill.
Sidwell, Paul. 2019. Proto-Pearic and the role of vowel height in register formation. Paper presented at the 8th International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, Aug. 29-31, 2019.
Sidwell, Paul. 2021. Classification of MSEA Austroasiatic languages. In Paul Sidwell & Mathias Jenny (eds.), The Languages and Linguistics of Mainland Southeast Asia. (World of Linguistics 8). Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter Mouton.
https://youtu.be/_Ma7PfrSSn4
We present here a new unified model to explain the origins and evolution of tone and register in East and Southeast Asia, topics which have generally been investigate separately in different academic circles. After briefly introducing this new Desegmental Model, we focus in on one of its principle component sound change mechanisms which we call the East Asian Voicing Shift (EAVS). Through EAVS, onset voicing contrasts transphonologize into a register contrast upheld by a bundle of co-varying phonetic cues including pitch, voice quality and vowel quality. With few exceptions, this register contrast then either conditions a doubling of the lexical tone inventory in languages which already employ lexically contrastive pitch or it conditions a doubling of the vowel inventory in languages which do not. EAVS is massive in scope, having affected the vast majority of langauges in the region across five separate langauge families. It is perhaps the most sweeping sound change event yet described in linguistics.
Here, we have begun with an analysis of Huffman’s Souei recordings (hereafter, Suay). Suay [kdt] is a particularly interesting test case as Huffman (1976) describes it as a Transitional register language, in which register is not yet phonologized but stereotypical lax register features (breathy voice, F1 lowering, etc…) are present. These register features have not yet become a feature of the language’s vocalism, but rather remain associated with the historical voiced stop onsets, which are in the middle of a devoicing process. Huffman (1979) further notes that the register contrast is ambiguous and possibly neutralized in the close vowels of Suay.
The Suay data contain 1,408 items spoken 2 times each in isolation by a single male speaker. Of these, we analyse 303 instances (151 unique lexical items) with long vowels or diphthongs which can be organized into two register categories. After hand-segmenting the TextGrids to demarcate the syllabic onset and rime, acoustic measures were taken using Praat. We measured Voice Onset Time (VOT) as well as spectral characteristics (f0, F1/F2/F3, and harmonic amplitudes H1-H4 and A1-A3) at 5 msec intervals. Harmonic amplitudes were then corrected for the effects of formant frequencies and bandwidths (Iseli & Alwan 2004). We focused primarily on the analysis of vowels following voiceless unaspirated stops, as this is the context where register features are present in Suay.
Our preliminary analysis of the Suay data shows that the two expected register categories are readily identified in terms of VOT, vowel quality (especially F1) and spectral tilt (H1*-H2*) over the first half of the syllable rime. As anticipated, these categorical differences are more apparent in non-close vowels. Similar results are obtained for other spectral tilt measures but importantly, pitch (f0) does not appear to play a role for this speaker.
Despite considerable background noise, our initial investigations demonstrate that spectral analysis of the Huffman archives is indeed feasible and that the results are useful both for aiding in interpreting Huffman’s transcriptions, as well as for reasoning about historical sound change. Segmentation and analysis of additional Kuay language data is currently underway.
References
Iseli, M., and A. Alwan. 2004. An improved correction formula for the estimation of harmonic magnitudes and its application to open quotient estimation. Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), Montreal, 669-672.
Huffman, Franklin. 1976. The register problem in fifteen Mon-Khmer languages. In Philip N. Jenner, Laurence C. Thompson & Stanley Starosta (eds.), Austroasiatic Studies, 575-590. Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii.
Huffman, Franklin. 1979. Analysis of Souei. In Paul Sidwell (ed.),
Huffman Papers. Online: www.sealang.net/archives/huffman (Accessed 27 January, 2019).
Other by Ryan Gehrmann
This word list aims to allow researchers (i) to conduct in-depth lexical investigation when doing fieldwork on languages of Southeast Asia, and (ii) to navigate between languages and dialects, through the use of a unique identifier for each lexical entry. The first version of this word list was created by Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO) for a broad investigation launched in 1938 and interrupted by the war in 1940. A second version of the word list was elaborated at the CNRS laboratory CeDRASEMI (Centre de documentation et de recherche sur l'Asie du Sud-Est et le monde insulindien). This overhaul was supervised by Lucien Bernot, probably between 1960 et 1970; the list was jointly prepared by the Centre de documentation et de recherche sur l'Asie du Sud-Est et le monde insulindien (EPHE-CNRS, Paris) and the Department of South Asia and Oceania of the School of Oriental Studies (University of London) with a view to creating an Ethnolinguistic Atlas of Southeast Asia. Michel Ferlus re-typed the 22-page list to adopt a format suitable for use in the field. As the list remained insufficiently comprehensive for in-depth linguistic fieldwork, Michel Ferlus added further items in the course of his field trips to Vietnam in the 1990s. This list was circulated among Michel Ferlus's colleagues and collaborators. Khmer glosses were added, based on a version of the CeDRASEMI-SOAS list to which Marie Martin had added Khmer glosses. Version 1 of the present document was updated at the International Research Institute MICA in 2013-2014. Chinese glosses were added; English glosses were supplemented; and Vietnamese glosses were revised. The word list is offered online in Open Office format (.ods) and MS-Excel format (.xlsx). In Version 2 (2016), the full set of English translations was checked. In Version 3 (2019), Central Thai, Northern Thai, Lao and Burmese translations were added. In Version 4 (2022), Tibetan translations were added.