Phonological Behavior of Multiple Aspirated Consonants in Urdu

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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).
Page 1: 54Madiha EjazPhonological Behavior
Page 5 and 6: APPENDIX A58IPA Letter IPA Letterp.
Page 7 and 8: APPENDIX CTable C1: Data point to v

Phonological Behavior of Multiple Aspirated Consonants in Urdu

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