Patterned Exceptions in Phonology - UCLA Department of Linguistics

(8) Rates of nasal substitution for entire lexicon
percentage of words that substitute
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
10
26 17
253 430 185 177 25
70 97
Different constructions have different overall substitution rates. The bar charts in
(9) show rates of substitution for each stem-initial obstruent in the most common affix
patterns. The breakdown by affix is suggested in part by De Guzman (1978), who
distinguished adversative from nonadversative verbs, 20 and instrumental adjectives (JE(JE
‘writing’, pa-E(JE ‘used for writing’) from reservative adjectives (>=A(JA ‘banquet’,
100
p t/s k b d g
stem-initial obstruent
pam->=A(JA ‘for a banquet (said of clothes, food, etc.)’). 21
20 Adversative verbs are hostile or harmful to the patient (e.g., >=J( ‘stone’, ma-=J( or mam->=J( ‘to
throw stones at’). Nonadversative verbs include inchoatives (F==(J ‘thin’, ma-==(J ‘to become thin’),
statives (>KJEJE( ‘teeming with’, ma-KJEJE( ‘to teem with’), professional verbs (C=(J ‘medicine’, =-
C=(J ‘to practice medicine’), habitual verbs (IEC=HE( ‘cigarette’, ma-EC=HE( ‘to be a smoker’),
distributives (k-um-K(D= ‘get’, ma-K(D= ‘to gather things’), and repetitives (>EJ=(= ‘window’, ma-
EJ=(= ‘to keep looking out a window’).
21 De Guzman claimed that in non-adversative verbs, substitution is obligatory for all obstruents and that in
adversative verbs, substitution is obligatory for voiceless Cs but optional for voiced Cs and glottal stop. (9)
shows that there are some counterexamples to the first clause of the claim; although the classification of
some verbs could be argued over, there are some nonsubstituting verbs that are definitely nonadversative
1
unsubstituted
substituted
23