Talk:Catalan phonology

Regarding the ela geminada, is it ever written with the Unicode character Latin Capital Letter L with Middle Dot? [1] Or do most people type the dot independently? A-giau 01:30, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

May I suggest a few tables? They make it a lot easier to get a general picture of the sounds. Template:prettytable is very useful for this purpose. Check out Swedish phonology or Dutch language. Peter Isotalo 22:37, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

Copyediting guidelines

I'm in the process of formatting the article. This means:

• IPA conversion: almost done, spotted a few mistakes of my own. See IPA in Unicode. If you add to the article, use {{IPA| (whatever) }} to insert phonemic or phonetic notation, even if it is not a specific IPA character.
• Citation forms: for Catalan words (or English words) used as examples, Wikipedia italics; for glosses, "double quotes". For example: llop "wolf". No parentheses or commas.
• For spellings: italics. I'll be changing single quotes (like 'qu') to italics (qu).
• Latin words: I don't think it's OK to cite Latin in Small Caps just because it's traditional to do so in some grammar books, or as if Latin were more important than other languages so as to deserve a different notation.

Input on this would be appreciated. --Pablo D. Flores 13:09, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please convert the article to being just a phonology. Having a sound-to-orthography table at the bottom of the article isn't a problem, but the focus is way too much on spelling rather than phonology right now. The article is a pretty hard read, too, since it consists of almost nothing but bullet points. Try to convert it into more free-flowing prose.

Peter ^Isotalo 08:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Question

Under vowels, shouldn't it say "/ə/ e, è. Only in unstressed position"? I'm not exactly a linguistics expert so I might be wrong, but right now it contradicts the info under the other vowel categories... ugen64 01:05, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Use of tilde

Why is the Catalan language's use of the Latin alphabet not discussed here? I wanted to find information about Catalan's use of the tilde but can find no such description here, nor in the Catalan language article. This seems a serious omission. Badagnani 10:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Lead paragraph

This article needs a lead paragraph. Badagnani 23:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Scope

The article's scope is a bit muddled between phonology and orthography. Other than Latin, all the other phonology pages are just about the phonology. I think there should be a Catalan phonology page and Catalan orthography page, the latter of which would be one and the same with Catalan alphabet. If nobody opposes, I'll probably start it myself in a few days. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:44, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Vowel harmony

Vowel harmony [2] lists "dialects of Catalan language", but the Catalan phonology does not mention vowel harmony. Is one or the other incorrect? Barefact (talk) 15:57, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I've never heard of it. The vowel harmony article doesn't source it so I'd say we remove it until someone finds a source. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Would you consider questioning the fact instead of outright removal? I wonder if there is some meat in it. Barefact (talk) 02:39, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you're right... Let's see, a cursory look at Google scholar shows some interesting citations

• Jiménez, Jesús (1998). "Valencian Vowel Harmony". Rivista di Linguistica. 10: 137–161.

There's also this book which has a chapter on vowel Harmony in Romance languages and goes into detail about Valancian VH. The Catalan Wikipedia does have this ma[ that shows vowel harmony in Valencian but the cited source is a geocities website. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 03:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Catalan does not contain vowel harmony. Vowel harmony is when all of the vowels within a word change to become all front vowels, all back vowels, or all round vowels based on a trigger vowel. What Catalan has is vowel reduction, similar to English. Vowels in unstressed positions change to become more unmarked vowels, in this case for Catalan, two of the unmarked vowels are [u] and schwa. Vaaht (talk) 07:59, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

That is one form of vowel harmony, though as the vowel harmony lead section states, vowel harmony is any assimilatory process of a language involving vowels not sequentially connected. This means that any feature of a vowel could transfer to other vowels in a word.

I recommend you check out this book which has a chapter on vowel harmony in Valencian (which hasn't the vowel reduction process you describe) and Andalusian Spanish. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]}`

First off, vowel harmony is an assimilatory process in a language from one vowel to the next over the domain of application (which may be language-specific, but is usually the word) possibly through intervening vowels (so-called "transparent" vowels). It may also be blocked by intervening vowels (so-called "opaque" vowels). One vowel transferring a feature to another vowel non-iteratively is probably more appropriately called "assimilation", not "harmony".

Second, the wikipedia page you linked on vowel harmony is misconstruing what vowel harmony is. Yes, vowels are not always adjacent to each other since there is usually an intervening consonant between them. However, the emphasis made on the fact that harmony is between "non-adjacent sounds/segments" is blatantly wrong when you consider that Autosegmental Theory states that different segments may appear on different phonological tiers. Two of the most recognized tiers are the consonant tier and the vowel tier. These were proposed for two reasons: (1) vowel harmony seems to treat consonants transparently, and (2) languages like Arabic contain verb roots which only refer to the consonants (verb conjugation is typically done by changing the various vowels that intervene between the consonants). If Autosegmental Theory is correct, then two vowels are adjacent on the vowel tier, regardless of whether a consonant intervenes between them or not.

Now to look at the article you linked. If you'll notice, Lloret's examples for the Catalan and Andalusian Spanish both only contain one or two syllables. Since this wiki page isn't concerned with Andalusian Spanish, I will disregard it in my explanation (plus further look at this article by Lloret and Jiménez, seems to indicate that Andalusian Spanish has some type of weak vowel harmony, although it's not completely regular).

What Lloret describes can be reanalyzed as plain and simple total assimilation. The domain of application is only the foot. True vowel harmony extends throughout the entire word, so her three-syllable examples should have harmonized. Note that the [-ATR] harmony examples for the three-syllable words in (20) are ungrammatical. You might say, "Well, maybe they just can't cross intervening [+ATR] vowels." Well, yes, that might be true and is also pretty common. However, it doesn't negate the fact that the only application of "vowel harmony" for her Catalan examples is from one syllable to the next syllable, with no iterativity. Now, if she had given a three- or four-syllable example showing the same process, there would be nothing to discuss.

At this point you might say, "Well, what about the examples in (21)?" Yes, these examples do seem like real vowel harmony. However, Lloret's examples do not demonstrate a corresponding word without the final /a/ that does not contain "harmony" within the same dialect, which makes it conceivable that the underlying representation for the dialect in question does not in fact contain /a/ in these words, but the [-ATR] counterparts. It's possible that what she is describing is a diachronic phonological account of the dialect in question, but she does not present it as such. However, even if it is a diachronic account, this does not explain why the only vowel that alternates is the /a/. The one exception is the vowel /o/ in the word "towel"; however, since she presents no other examples, it is possible that this is the only word showing true vowel harmony. This example is further discounted if we consider that this word is probably a borrowing from another language (Latin maybe?), and loan-words are frequently known to interact uniquely with regards to phonological processes.

Thus, given all of this evidence, I must conclude that this dialect of Catalan does not contain "vowel harmony" as such. It may contain total assimilation of the /a/ to a preceding [-ATR] vowel; however, the evidence for that is also weak given the lack of morphological alternations demonstrating this assimilation. Perhaps examples from adjectives in this dialect would back up Lloret's analysis more than the data that she currently gives.

For further reading on true vowel harmony, I recommend that you read Bakovic's dissertation on vowel harmony, demonstrating regular vowel harmony in multiple languages, as well as vowel transparency, opacity, and other related processes. Vaaht (talk) 10:19, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be working backwards from a preexisting conclusion. You've decided that there is no vowel harmony in Catalan and your refutations of the article amount to "I don't buy it, show me more." At the very best, you've shown that the existence of vowel harmony is debatable, not that it's definitely absent. If you've got the research capabilities and the know-how, perhaps you could find a review or discussion of Lloret's work. I'll check out the dissertation when I get a chance later today. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 15:51, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't have access to the dialect in question, otherwise, yes, I could conduct my own research to verify this claim (I'm currently studying Linguistics in grad school and so I am familiar with linguistic academic research, particularly field work). However, it might be possible to talk to either Lloret or Jiménez via e-mail to verify if they have checked adjectives when they were doing research on this topic. I'll let you know if I have any luck with that. Vaaht (talk) 01:12, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

IPA Transcriptions

This page concerns me because a lot of the IPA transcriptions as well as the IPA consonant chart are blatantly wrong. There is no symbol corresponding to the voiceless alveolopalatal fricative in words like 'baix' [baʃ] and 'caixa' [kaʃə], yet these are very common pronunciations in Barcelona Catalan. I believe the palatal fricatives and affricates are not found in the majority of the dialects (although feel free to correct me; I only have experience with Barcelona Catalan and Valencian). Also, the transcription for 'poble' should be [pɔpːlə] (Barcelona dialect, and possibly others). The source of my information is first-hand experience staying in Barcelona living with a Catalan speaker from just outside of Barcelona as well as a Valencian speaker, as well as the following article: "Els sons del català" by Joan Julià i Muné out of the book "Gramàtica del català contemporani: Volum 1 - Introducció, Fonètica i fonologia, Morfologia". In terms of the articles cited here, I'm not familiar with all of them, but it's possible that they were describing a different dialect of Catalan, and are not, in fact, incorrect for all dialects of Catalan. Vaaht (talk) 08:30, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Are you saying that the postalveolars of Catalan are not actually alveolo-palatal as Recasens et al say? Keep in mind that the article's transcription of caixa and baixar is specific to Valencian. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:23, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I am merely saying that I have an article that the book I have on Catalan phonology states otherwise with regards to what those fricatives are. If it turns out that other articles have stated the same, then they should be included as alternate sounds.

Also, when I introduced those word examples, I was commenting on word transcriptions found in the book I have, not the Valencian pronunciations, since I know they are different. I'm sorry if I was unclear.

Also, it is unclear what is meant by "frontness" and "backness" in the following quote, since "front" and "back" are usually properties of vowels, and not of consonants: "Phonetic notes: /t/ and /d/ are denti-alveolar, having both dental and alveolar contact with the tongue. /n/, /l/, and /ɾ/ are "front alveolar;" /s/ and /r/ are "back alveolar" (or postalveolar); /ʎ/ and /ɲ/ are "front alveolo-palatal"; and /ɕ/, /ʑ/, /tɕ/ and /dʑ/ are "back alveolo-palatal." The phonetic term could be advancement and retraction, but I'm not sure. Also, if you'll glance through cited article #5 for this quote, you'll notice that the article is talking about consonant clusters, and not pronunciation in isolation, which makes it unclear why this article was referenced here in the first place. (If you can't access the article for some reason, let me know and I'll upload it for you to look at.) Vaaht (talk) 01:12, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

My understanding of "front" and "back" is exactly what you've surmised. Front=advancement and back=retraction.

It's odd, I have a pdf copy of the article but the file is corrupted and I don't recall how I was able to download it (if I recall correctly, this tidbit was actually a citation in another article that then cited Recasens and Pallares, so I could have made the citation say "cited in..."). If you could copy and paste relevent bits either here or in my talk page, I would appreciate it. Daniel Recasens seems to have done enough electropalatographic studies to determine that the postalveolar fricatives are alveolo-palatal (though he continues to transcribe them as /ʃ/ and /ʒ/, probably because it's consistent with transcription in other scholarship) as other articles I've seen by him in regards to Catalan endorse the alveolopalatal description. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Unreleased stops in Catalan?

The article Unreleased stop includes Catalan as a language in which final stops are not released. However, what I have heard from on-line pronunciation files of Catalan indicate that this is not the case; there is an audible release at the end of words such as Cornet and Montjuïc. Being a native speaker of Korean and being somewhat familiar with Thai, both of which do not release final stops, I hear a clear difference from the way final [t] or [k] would be pronounced in Korean or Thai and the way they are in these sound files. Maybe the sound files do not represent native pronunciations, or maybe the claim that Catalan has unreleased stops is wrong. Which is the case? --Iceager (talk) 12:09, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I haven't seen anything about that, but I don't have any reason to believe that the sound files aren't native or near-native pronunciations. We can remove the information from Unreleased stop— Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 17:48, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

You should add Valencian pronunciation

Valencian is a Catalan dialect, with a different language institution and it's got its own rules and pronunciation (pretty much as Catalan). The standard dialect is not the one from Valencia city, but the dialect from the South of Valencia Province and the North of Alicante Province (Southern Valencian). /dʑ/, /tɕ/, /ɕ/ and /ʑ/ do not exist in Valencian. They are /tʃ/, /dʒ/, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ respectively. /ʒ/ exists in few words. Example; peix blau [pe(i)ʒ blau̯], caixmir [kaʒ'miɾ]. Also, /c/ and /ɟ/ do not exit in Valencian. Only in the Balearic Islands. /v/ exists in Valencian, the Valencian phonology differenciates between /b/ and /v/. Valencian also has [β̞]. In Valencian occurs a vowel hormony, i don't know if such thing is found in any other romance language. In Valencian porta is pronounced /'pɔɾtɔ/, vora /vɔɾɔ/, pilota /pilɔtɔ/, terra /'tɛrɛ/, serra /'sɛrɛ/, tela /'tɛlɛ/, merda /'mɛɾð̞ɛ/. Valencian's open vowels /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ get further open /æ/ and /ɒ/ or /ɔ̞/. As Valencian does not use vowel heights as much as Catalan, /ə/ doesn't exist. Vowel heights occurs sometimes, with "o" (pronounced /u/, /eu̯/ and /au̯/, /w/), "e" (pronounced /a/ or /i/) and "a" (pronounced /e/). Examples of Valencian vowel heights.

Ho [u], [w] or [eu̯]. Obrir [au̯'β̞ɾiɾ/. Obert [u'β̞ɛɾt]. Tossir [tu'siɾ]. Collir [ku'ʎiɾ]. Cosir [ku'ziɾ]

Escoltar [askol̪'taɾ]. Entendre [an'tendɾe]. Sencer [san'ser].Encara [aŋ'kaɾa].

Genoll [gi'noʎ]. Mengar [min'dʒaɾ]. Senyor [si'ɲoɾ].

Ell cantaria [kanta'ɾie]. Ell canta ['kante]. Ell cantava [kan'tave].

In Valencian some words with "qua-" are pronounced /ko/ pronounced

Quaranta [ko'ɾanta], quallar [ko'ʎaɾ].

Important links for the Valencian pronunciation

http://www.avl.gva.es/PDF/GNV.pdf

http://www.avl.gva.es/PDF/Diccionari/Oral.pdf

Catalan has two main dialects, Catalan and Valencian (two languages institutions for one language). Just as Portuguese, where exists a European Portuguese and a Brasilian Portuguese, however Catalan is a minority language whereas Portuguese is a global language. Would be perfect to differenciate Valencian phonetics from Catalan phonetics. 86.180.91.251 (talk) 22:19, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the sources. I should mention two things

1. This article does mention Valencian. I suppose there can be more added as long as it's sourced
2. Several editors (mostly in my talk page) have questioned this article's use of the alveolo-palatal fricatives when a number of reputable sources use the palato-alveolar characters to transcribe the postalveolar consonants. Because it seems that the latter set are more typographically available and because Recasens (2001), which makes the phonetic character of the postalveolars clear, it seems that even when sources use the palato-alveolar characters that we should understand them to actually be alveolo-palatal. This includes sources on Valencian.

I can't read Valencian, btw, so I'm not sure what it all specifically says. The information may be more appropriate at Catalan orthography. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 00:10, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

As it has got its own language institution (Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua); it specifies its pronunciation, and it's got its own phonology, grammar and orthography (pretty much the same as Catalan).

The Valencian phonology does not mention the existence of schwa /ə/ on its phonology inventory (as the Institut d'Estudis Catalans does) but mentions a vowel harmony. 86.180.91.251 (talk) 12:36, 26 January 2010 (UTC)