Phonological Behavior of Multiple Aspirated Consonants in Urdu

54Madiha EjazPhonological Behavior of Multiple Aspirated Consonants in UrduAbstract: Urdu words contain multiple aspiratedconsonants. The phonetic representation of these wordsvaries from their phonemic representation. In some casesthat variation occurs in certain context and hence ispredictable while in most of the cases, it shows randombehavior that is hard to predict or generalize intophonological rules. This paper tends to explore those rulesand to explain the phonological behavior of aspiratedconsonants occurring at two or more than two places inUrdu words. These rules are complemented by variouswords present in Urdu vocabulary.Keywords: Aspiration, assimilation, deletion, metathesis,epenthesis, phonotactic constraints.1. INTRODUCTIONA substantial airflow to make the vocal cordsvibrate a bit, despite their separation results in breathy voice.This breathy quality can be added on top of ordinary speechi.e. vowels and consonants to make them plosive oraspirated (Napoli, 1996, p.32). English has many aspiratedconsonants but doesn’t assign any unique character to them.Fortunately Urdu assigns a separate consonant to showaspiration. In Urdu, following the letter representsaspiration generally, but it may represent a separatephoneme as well. There are believed to be as many as 15aspirated consonants in Urdu (Khan, 1997). Among themonly 10 aspirated consonants that are either stops oraffricates, occur at multiple places in Urdu words whilecontinuant aspirates and aspirated nasals doesn’t occur atmultiple places.Urdu is quite persistent in orthography andpronunciation i.e. it shows little contrast in phonemic andphonetic representation but there are cases where they vary.The variation occurs due to some phonological reasons thatare mainly governed by the motive of ease of articulationi.e. those features that require more articulatory effort arenormally dropped either completely or are replaced withthose requiring less articulatory effort. These variations aredescribed through phonological rules and the maincategories of these rules are assimilation, palatalization,loss (deletion), epenthesis (insertion), compensatorylengthening, metathesis (reordering) and dissimilation(Napoli, 1996, 73-99).The aspirated feature is never assimilated toneighboring segments. Dissimilation and deletion widelyoccur with multiple aspirated sounds in Urdu.Compensatory lengthening that normally accompaniesdeletion rule doesn’t occur with multiple aspirated sounds.The phenomenon of metathesis occurs but is not verycommon while epenthesis does not occur at all.2. LITERATURE REVIEWMost of the work done on aspirated consonants ofUrdu is on the ones occurring in isolation in words i.e. asingle aspirated consonant in a word. So the literatureavailable regarding phonological rules of single aspiratedconsonantal words was reviewed and was applied onmultiple aspirated consonantal words of Urdu to study theirphonological behavior.Phonological rules e.g. assimilation, deletion etcdescribe the phenomenon that why surface representation orphysical form of a word differs from its underlyingrepresentation or logical form. These phenomena areexplained as followAssimilation means that a sound changes to becomesimilar to a near by sound (Napoli, 1996, 73-78). It doesn’toccur in aspirated consonants (Nisar & Baqir, 2003).In dissimilation a sound changes to become unlike anear by sound (Napoli, 1996). Dissimilation occurs inaspirated consonants. If two adjacent syllables contain thesame aspirated consonant in their onset, dissimilationoccurs and aspiration is removed from second consonante.g. /b.b/ becomes [b.b] (Nisar & Baqir, 2003),(Zia, 2002). However there is an exception to this rule thatif the word has been formed by reduplication i.e. morphemepluralization has taken place in the word formation processthen dissimilation doesn’t occur e.g. /ps/ + // gives/ps.p.sa/ (Nisar & Baqir, 2003).In deletion either a consonant or vowel is deletedcompletely or only a feature of timing slot is deleted interms of metrical phonology. It can occur word initially,medially and finally. In case of aspirated consonants,deletion of aspiration never occurs word initially (Nisar &Baqir, 2003). Word medially it is deleted e.g. [b.ba]becomes /b.ba/ but the exception to this rule are thewords containing aspirated consonant between a vowel andnasal then feature of aspiration isn’t deleted (Nisar & Baqir,2003). Word finally, it is also deleted e.g. [] willbecome // (Nisar & Baqir, 2003).Metathesis is the phenomenon that transposes orreorders two sounds or sound sequence usually adjacent toeach other (Napoli, 1996, p. 87). It occurs in wordscontaining multiple aspirated consonants e.g. /k./becomes [k.] etc (Nisar & Baqir, 2003).Epenthesis is the insertion of a consonant or vowelor only a feature of timing slot is added in terms of metricalphonology. There is no indication of epenthesis in wordscontaining multiple aspirated consonants.There are two ways to represent these rules, lineargenerative phonology and geometric phonology whilemetrical phonology is used to describe stress pattern. Some

ules are better explained in other than one e.g. assimilationis better described in linear phonology while dissimilationin geometric phonology (Napoli, 1996, p.99).Apart from phonological rules, some otherdescriptions include there is a period of voicelessness afterthe articulation of stop, during this period a burst of aircomes out in aspirated stops (Hussain & Nair, 1995).One of the theories regarding the aspiratedcontinuants of Urdu is that they require more articulatoryeffort and hence they are replaced by the continuantfollowed by /h/ e.g. /d.la/ becomes [dl.ha], in thiscase feature of aspiration is lost and is promoted to /h/consonant and the word is re-syllabified. (Nisar & Baqir,2003). Again there is no indication of multiple aspiratedsonorant consonants.3. PROBLEM STATEMENTMultiple aspirated consonants occur in a singleUrdu word. What phonological rules are followed byaspirated consonants occurring in either adjacent syllablesor different syllables of an Urdu word?4. METHODOLOGYOver 255 words containing multiple aspiratedconsonants were collected from the Urdu dictionary “Ferozul-loghatUrdu Jadeed New Edition”. They weretranscribed both phonemically and phonetically. In order toremove ambiguities, these words were searched in otherdictionaries like “Farhang-i-Asafiyyah” and “Nur-ul-Lughat”, final analysis was done on words found in at leasttwo of these dictionaries. So after removing ambiguities,over 80 words containing multiple aspirated consonantsseparated by vowel or other consonants were analyzed e.g./p.pudi/ while over 70 words containing aspiratedconsonants adjacent to each other were analyzed e.g./pt.tr/ etc. The English translation of these wordswas adopted from “Kitabistan’s Twentieth-CenturyStandard Dictionary”.Apart from words containing multiple aspiratedconsonants, some words containing an aspirated consonantalong with its un-aspirated counterpart were collected inorder to have better understanding e.g. /b.bk/ etc.When the data had been gathered, it was used insentences in such a way that it always came in the middle ofsentences, attempting to hide the actual problem. Nativespeakers were interviewed regarding the phoneticrepresentation of these sentences i.e. word and its carrierphrase but it was observed that if speakers were provideddata in written form and then asked to pronounce it, theypaid attention to its written form and tried to utter as muchas possible according to orthography, especially in case ofthose words that are not commonly used, hence it wasn’ttotally reliable. Along with this it was also judged bylistening to native speakers day-to-day normal conversationthat is unconscious and hence more reliable.555. RESULTSThe analysis of the data showed that Urdu wordsdon’t contain multiple continuant aspirates. Only twowords were found that contained continuant aspirate /l/multiple times in their phonemic representation which are/l.l/ and /kl.l/ and they become [ l.l] and[ kl.l] respectively. Urdu words have only aspiratedstops and affricates (Appendix A). Most of the words havesimilar aspirated consonant rarely dissimilar.Regarding, phonological rules, deletion anddissimilation are very common. Metathesis is quite rarewhile assimilation; epenthesis and compensatorylengthening are absent.5.1 DeletionAnalysis of data showed that aspiration is deletedfrom aspirated consonant, word medially and word finally.Aspiration is never deleted at beginning of word.At word final position it is always deleted i.e. atcoda position of last syllable e.g. / tja.s/ becomes[tja.s]. [+aspirated]Rule 1. Deletion of aspiration from aspirated consonant atword boundary in words. “#” represents word boundary.The data that verifies the correctness of Rule 1 is given inTable B1 (Appendix B).Word medially, aspiration is deleted either syllableinitially or syllable finally or whole segment is deleteddepending on the context.The word that begin with a vowel and that vowelprecedes aspirated consonant in the first syllable, entiresegment is deleted e.g. /d.dm/ becomes [.dm].[-tense]X[+syllabic]X #[-nasal][-continuant][+aspirated]X[-nasal][-continuant][+aspirated]. X[-nasal][-continuant]Rule 2. Deletion of entire segment word medially. “.”represents syllable boundary. The data that verifies thecorrectness of Rule 2 is given in Table B2 (Appendix B).The words that begin with a consonant and theaspirated consonant at coda of first syllable is voiced whilethe other aspirated consonant at the onset of second syllable

is also voiced, then aspiration gets deleted from bothconsonants e.g. /b.i/ becomes [b.i].[+aspirated]X[+aspirated]. X565.2 DissimilationDissimilation occurs in those words where bothaspirated consonants are similar and they occur at onsetposition of adjacent syllables.If the aspirated consonants are voiced thenaspiration dissimilates e.g. /br.b.r/ becomes[br.b.r].[+aspirated][+aspirated][-nasal][-continuant][+voiced][-nasal][-continuant][+voiced]X V (V) (C) . XRule 3. Deletion of aspiration both syllable finally andinitially in case of voiced aspirated consonants. The datathat verifies the correctness of Rule 3 is given in Table B3(Appendix B).The words that begin with a consonant and both ofthe aspirated consonants, one at coda of first syllable andother at onset of second syllable, are unvoiced, thenaspiration gets deleted from consonant at coda of firstsyllable e.g. /t.i/ becomes [t.i].[+aspirated]X[-nasal][-continuant][-voiced]Rule 4. Deletion of aspiration syllable finally in case ofunvoiced aspirated consonants. The data that verifies thecorrectness of Rule 4 is given in Table B4 (Appendix B).Aspiration gets deleted syllable finally in any otherscenario e.g. /a.ra/ becomes [a.ra] etc but there are afew exception to this rule e.g. /tot.ni/ remains same. Herethe rule is that if aspirated consonant is preceded by avowel and is followed by a coronal nasal then aspirationisn’t deleted.[+aspirated]X .[-nasal][-continuant][+aspirated]. X[-nasal][-continuant][-voiced]Rule 5. Deletion of aspiration syllable finally. The data thatverifies the correctness of Rule 5 is given in Table B4(Appendix B).[-nasal][-continuant][+voiced][-nasal][-continuant][+voiced]Rule 6. Dissimilation of aspiration syllable initially in caseof voiced aspirated consonants. V represents single timingslot. The data that verifies the correctness of Rule 5 isgiven in Table C1 (Appendix C).If aspirated consonant are unvoiced then aspirationdoesn’t dissimilate, provided that nucleus of both thesyllables in which they occur, are identical e.g./kl.k.la.na/ remains same. The data that verifies it isprovided in Table C2 (Appendix C).However there are a few exceptions to this rulewhere aspiration is deleted e.g. /k.k.a.na/ becomes[k.k.a.na] and it follows the rule that if the coda ofthe first syllable has an obstruent consonant then aspirationis deleted from following consonant.[-voiced][+aspirated]X V (V) C . X V (V)[-nasal][-continuant][-aspirated][-voiced][+aspirated][-sonorant] [-nasal][-continuant]Rule 7. Dissimilation of aspiration syllable initially in caseof unvoiced aspirated consonants. V represents vowel andthey are same in both syllables. It could be short or long.The data that verifies the correctness of Rule 6 is given inTable C3 (Appendix C).In rest of the cases, aspiration dissimilates. The data thatverifies it is given in Table C4 (Appendix C).All rules that have been discussed so far are thosefor the similar aspirated consonants, in case of dissimilaraspirated consonants, aspiration is always deleted wordmedially. The data that verifies it is provided in Table C4(Appendix C).

5.3 MetathesisThere is only one examples that shows metathesisi.e. /k./ becomes [k.] and it is of courseinsufficient to generalize it into a rule.6. DISCUSSIONRegarding phonological rules; voicing and syllablestructure play a very important rule. Aspiration is alwaysdeleted word finally and never deleted word initially.Word medially, it is deleted either syllable initially orfinally depending on the following contexts.‣ If the word begins with a vowel and has ageminate aspirated stop then the whole segmentis deleted e.g. /.a.vn/ becomes[.a.vn].‣ If the word begins with a consonant and has ageminate voiced aspirated stop then aspirationgets deleted from both of the consonants e.g./b.a/ becomes [b.a].‣ If the word begins with a consonant and has ageminate un-voiced aspirated stop thenaspiration gets deleted from first consonant i.e.end of first syllable e.g. /lt.tn/ becomes[lt.tn] but there are a few exception tothis rule. Line 12 and 24 of Table B4(Appendix B), /dk.ki / becomes [d.ki] and[m.a] becomes / ma.a /. In secondcase compensatory lengthening of the vowel //takes place after the deletion of the wholesegment //.Dissimilation occurs in following context‣ If the word has same aspirated consonant atonset and coda of first syllable then theaspiration gets deleted at coda e.g. /dd.ri/becomes [dd.ri]. There is an exception tothis rule. Line 8 of Table B5 (Appendix B),/kok.la/ becomes [ko.kla] by resyllabification.‣ If both aspirated consonant are voiced and theylie syllable initially in adjacent syllable thenaspiration gets deleted from consonant insecond syllable even if reduplication is there e.g./dn.d/ becomes [dn.d]. Itcontradicts early work, in which it was statedthat aspiration doesn’t dissimilate in case ofreduplication‣ If both aspirated consonant are un-voiced andthey lie syllable initially in adjacent syllablethen aspiration does not dissimilate ifreduplication is there e.g. [p.p.a.na]remains same but if the consonant at codaposition of first syllable is not sonorant thenaspiration dissimilates.‣ In rest of the cases it gets deleted.57Another interesting observation was that when a voicedaspirated consonant occurs syllable initially in the firstsyllable and the same voiced un-aspirated consonant occurssyllable initially in adjacent syllable, the feature of voicingdisappears from the un-aspirated consonant. Its possibleexplanation is the fact that there is a period of voicelessnessafter the articulation of stop, during this period a burst of aircomes out in aspirated stops and this voicelessnessassimilates to the next segment e.g. /b.bk/ becomes[b.pk], /d.dk/ becomes /d.tk/ etc. It is openfor further experimentation.REFERENCES- Ahmed, M.S. Farhenge-e-Asfiah. Sang-e-meelPublishers.2002.- Haqqi, Shan-ul-haq. Farhang-e-Talffuz. Muqtadra QaumiZubaan, Islamabad. 1995.- Feroz-ud-D, M. Feroz-ul-Lughat Urdu Jammi.Ferozsons, Lahore.- Prof. Quraeshi, Bashir Ahmad. Standard TwentiethCentury Dictionary (Urdu into English). KitabistanPublishing, Lahore. 1992.- Napoli, Donna Jo. Linguistics An IntroductionOxfordUniversity Press, USA. 1996.- Khan, M. Urdu Ka Sauti Nizam. Muqtadara QaumiZaban, Islamabad. 1997.- Hussain and Nair. Phonetic Correlates of Lexical Stressin Urdu. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,Northwestern University, IL, USA, 1995.- Sadaf Nawaz. Deletion rules in Urdu language.Akhbar-e-Urdu, 2002.- Ayesha Zia. Assimilation and dissimilation rules inUrdu. Akhbar-e-Urdu, 2002.- Adnan Nisar and Zeeshan Baqir. Phonologicalbehavior of aspirated consonants in Urdu. Akhbar-e-Urdu, 2003.- www.geocities.com/sikmirza/arabic/urdu_alph.html.

APPENDIX A58IPA Letter IPA Letterp.. ..bkAPPENDIX BtdtdTable B1: Data point to verify correctness of Rule 1.No PhonemicPhoneticMeaning in EnglishTranscription Transcription1 Crowd2 a a Splendor3 Pure4 n n Leafless branch5 dad dad Heat6 tat tat Dilute curd7 tja.s tja.s Sixty sixTable B2: Data point to verify correctness of Rule 2.No PhonemicPhoneticMeaning in EnglishTranscription Transcription1 t.tl .tl Shallow2 .a .a Eight (at cards)3 .a.ra .a.ra Eighteen4 .a.vn .a.vn Fifty eight5 t.ta .ta Good, sound, pleasing6 t.tu .tu Suffocation7 d. da . da Half a bottle8 d.dm .dm Noise, turmoil, disturbance9 d.di .di Old coin equivalent to half“damri”Table B3: Data point to verify correctness of Rule 3.No PhonemicPhoneticMeaning in EnglishTranscription Transcription1 bd.du bd.du Simpleton, fool2 b.a b.a Old man3 b.i b.i Carriage4 b.ba b.ba Carpet with patched pattern

59Table B4: Data point to verify correctness of Rule 4.No PhonemicPhoneticMeaning in EnglishTranscription Transcription1 bt.tu bt.tu Scorpion2 pt.tr pt.tr Stone3 p.a p.a Young person4 p.a p.a Buttock5 p.u p.u Stooge6 p.e p.e Muscles7 pt.tm pt.tm Western8 t.a t.a Skin spot9 t.a t.a Pay roll10 t.i t.i Letter11 dk.kn dk.kn South12 dk.ki d.ki Sad13 kt.ta kt.ta Catechu14 p.pa up.pa Bunch15 t.ti t.ti Complication16 .a .a Bundle17 lt.ta lt.ta Skein18 lt.tn lt.tn Signs19 m.u m.u Talkative child20 mt.tr mt.tr Mosquito21 mk.kn mk.kn Butter22 m.l.i m.l.i Liquorices23 m.a ma.a Slow24 ht.ti ht.ti HandleTable B5: Data point to verify correctness of Rule 5.No PhonemicPhoneticMeaning in EnglishTranscription Transcription1 pp.a pp.a Lungs2 tot.ni Remains same Animals pointed mouth3 .a .a Laughter4 dnd.la.na dnd.la.na Irritated5 dd.ri dd.ri Small earthen flask6 tt.la tt.la Shallow7 tit.a ti.t.a Skinny part of flesh8 kok.la ko.kla Hollow9 a.ra a.ra Long skirt

APPENDIX CTable C1: Data point to verify correctness of Rule 6.60No PhonemicPhoneticMeaning in EnglishTranscription Transcription1 ba.br ba.br A kind of plant yielding fiber forbed strings.2 b.bi b.bi Sister in law3 b.but b.but Ashes4 br.b.r br.b.r Crisp5 b.b.ra.na b.b.ra.na Sprinkle6 br.bn br.bn Upset7 b.b.a.na b.b.a.na Play or beat tabla8 b.bu.da b.bu.da One whose trade is parch grain9 bn.bo.na bn.bo.na Gnaw10 bn.b.na.na bn.b.na.na Buzz11 da.dn da.dn Anklet with small bells12 dr.d.ra dr.d.ra Flimsy13 dr.d.ra dr.d.ra Shivering fit14 d.d.ra.na d.d.ra.na Shake suddenly15 dl.d.la.na dl.d.la.na Glisten16 dm.d.ma.na dm.d.ma.na Glitter17 dn.d dn.d Trouble18 dn.do.na dn.do.na Shake to rouse19 dn.dna dn.dna Rattle20 dn.dn.ja dn.dn.ja Fetters21 dn.di dn.di Broken at top22 d.d.i d.d.i Anxiety23 n.or .or Dark cloud24 .t u.t Veil25 o.a o.a Couch shellTable C2:No PhonemicPhoneticMeaning in EnglishTranscription Transcription1 pr.pn.di Remains same Tricky2 p.p.a.na Remains same Flutter3 ps.p.sa Remains same Spongy4 pn.p.na.na Remains same Spread the hood and hiss5 tr.t.ra.na Remains same Shake6 tr.t.ri Remains same Vibration7 n.t.na.h Remains same Tinkle of small bells8 kl.k.la.na Remains same Giggle9 kn.k.na Remains same Cracked10 kn.k.na.na Remains same Wail with a nasal sound

61Table C3: Data point to verify correctness of Rule 7.No PhonemicPhoneticMeaning in EnglishTranscription Transcription1 pt.p.a.na pt.p.a.na Move wings rapidly2 tk.t.ka.na tk.t.ka.na Hate3 k.k.a.na k.k.a.na KnockTable C4:Table C5:No PhonemicPhoneticMeaning in EnglishTranscription Transcription1 p.po.la p.po.la Blister2 p.po.di p.po.di Mould3 pp.pi pp.pi Aunt4 t.ta.na t.ta.na Pout5 .r.na .r.na Shiver6 .k.na .k.na Come to sudden stop7 .ol .ol Ridicule8 ..ra ..ra Seller of vessels9 t.tl.na t.tl.na Fly past with just a touch10 t.tu.dr t.tu.dr Mole12 t.to.ra t.to.ra Childish13 tu.tk tu.tk A ceremony14 k.ke k.ke Vain15 kn.kar.na kn.kar.na Clear the throat16 ko.ka Remains same StallNo PhonemicPhoneticMeaning in EnglishTranscription Transcription1 b.k b.k Dialect2 pl.d.i pl.d.i Small fountain like fire work3 d.ro.ka d.ro.ka Window