adnominal-person morphology
3.2. Phonetic phenomena behind allomorphic variation
3.2.2. Palatal harmony
Palatal harmony in Erzya affects the alveolar stops in af x onset, i.e. orthographically the neutral plosives T and D, as well as the nasal N are realized with subsequent palatal marking in ь, е and я. Since there are other af xes ending in %Онь ‘GEN; POSS-1SG>GEN
(with kin and relation terms)’, and %Оть ‘POSS-2SG>GEN (with kin and relation terms)’ but these are never realized as non-palatal variants in the standard language, we might as-sume that the neutral stops, phonematically represented with majuscule archiphonemes in %ON and %OT, are non-palatalized phonemes with allophonic variation in t / t́; d / d́, and n / ń respectively. Hence the Erzya literary language provides marginal evidence in rebutal to the experimental minimalization of consonant phonemes (cf. Abondolo 1987).
Palatal harmony is triggered by the left context, and the sets applicable to vowel harmony can be extended by more speci c articulation point sets, see table (3.11), below.
Table 3.11 Sets used in the description of Erzya palatal harmony
Short
Abbre-viation Speci cs Sets
Non-Palatal-ized Alveolar Consonants
AlvC Alveolar consonants with no
subse-quent marking for palatalization = [ɞ|ɡ|ɥ|ɧ|ɪ|ɫ|ɬ|ɰ]
Labial
Consonants LabC Labial consonants = [ɩ|ɛ|ɮ|ɜ|ɦ]
Velar
Consonants VelC Velar Consonants = [ɤ|ɝ|ɯ]
Post-Alveolar
Consonants P-AlvC Post-Alveolar Consonants = [ɱ|ɲ|ɠ|ɳ]
Non-Alveolar
Consonants N-AlvC LabC, P-AlvC and VelC = [ɩ|ɛ|ɮ|ɜ|ɦ|ɱ|ɲ|ɠ|ɳ|ɤ|ɝ|ɯ]
The neutral alveolar stops affected by palatal harmony are followed by palatal marking when the left context can be described by:
(a) FTV (b) BTV
(c) FTV AC* N-AlvC
Palatalization does not occur in the alveolar stops when the left context is:
(d) AlvC
Synchronic variation can be observed in the palatalization of alveolar stops when the left context is the following:
(e) BTV NPC* N-AlvC
The range of palatal harmony is illustrated in the table below, where the majuscule archiphonemes Tand N indicate the target alveolar stops.
Table 3.12 Range of palatal harmony in Erzya af xes
Morpheme Gloss Harmony trigger
Preceding vowel Preceding consonant
%T PL + +
%Tano PRES.PRED-1PL + +
%Tado PRES.PRED-2PL + +
%Tan PRES.PRED-1SG>2SG + +
%Tanzat PRES.PRED-3SG>2SG + +
%Tadi͔ź PRES.PRED-X>2P + +
%OT POSS-2SG +
-%ON POSS-1SG +
-%Ne DEF.PL ± +
The fact that the %Ne ‘DEF.PL’ marker, in af x-onset position, is conditioned by the pre-ceding vowel, is related to the position this af x holds on the grammaticalization cline.
As discussed above, the mid non-back vowel has two allophones in front e and central e͔. Since there is an extremely low attestation of a hypothetical mid central phoneme, on the basis of corpus material, it might be surprising to note that the mere back-vowel in the left context is suf cient to prevent the phonetic palatalization of N after a non-alveolar consonant even though it is followed by a front vowel. Double is the surprise, however, when the non-alveolar consonant has been dropped both in speech and in the orthography, e.g. the NOUNS2 declension type [iśt́atne] истя+т+нэ like-this/that_PRON
-DEF+PL+DEF.PL, which is the regular declension of [iśt́amo] истямо like-this/that_PRON
-DEF.ABS such that the stem- nal mid vowel has been dropped and the labial nasal, as well, see section (4.1.) NOMINAL-TYPEWORD-STEMMORPHOLOGY.
Palatal harmony contributes to ambiguity in front-vowel contexts in the interpre-tation of surface coda %ń and %t́. Adnominal 1SG%ON marking is realized in coda %ń and thus is a homonym of the realization of the inde nite declension genitive %Oń, which is also used in marking the genitive case on distinct, singular referents, especially proper nouns and possessa of the 1SG possessor, see (1–2). (See also sections 4.2.3.1.1. FIRST PERSON, 4.2.3.1.2 SECONDPERSON and 4.4. PARADIGM DEFECTIVITYIN ERZYAPOSSESSORIN
-DEXING.) Adnominal 2SG%OT marking is realized in coda %t́ and thus is a homonym of the realization of the 2SG possessive declension kin-term genitive %Ot́ and sometimes the nominative plural in %T, see (3–4).
(1) a. ćora+ON => ćoran
son_N+POSS-1SG>NOM.PL ~ son_N+POSS-1SG>GEN.PL
b. ćora+Oń => ćorań
son_N+GEN ~ son_N+POSS-1SG>[KIN]GEN
(2) a. ńi+ON => ńiń
wife_N+ POSS-1SG>NOM.PL ~ wife_N+ POSS-1SG>GEN
b. ńi+Oń => ńiń
wife_N+GEN ~ wife_N+POSS-1SG>[KIN]GEN
(3) a. ćora+T => ćorat son_N+PL.NOM
b. ćora+Ot́ => ćorat́
son_N+POSS-2SG>[KIN]GEN
c. ćora+OT => ćorat
son_N+POSS-2SG>NOM ~ son_N+POSS-2SG>GEN
(4) a. miŕd́e+T => miŕd́t́ ~ miŕd́et́
husband_N+PL.NOM
b. miŕd́e+Ot́ => miŕd́et́
husband_N+POSS-2SG>[KIN]GEN
c. miŕd́e+OT => miŕd́et́
husband_N+POSS-2SG>NOM ~ husband_N+POSS-2SG>GEN
3.2.3. Devoicing
In the modern Erzya standard, synchronic devoicing affects the voiced alveolar plosive d and the voiced velar plosive g in af x onset position. The term “synchronic devoicing”
is used to illustrate the fact that in intervocalic position the re ex of these plosives is voiced. Hence, when the re ex is not voiced following a non-voiced consonant, the phenomenon can be regarded as synchronic devoicing, although “diachronic voicing”
might also be forwarded (cf. Bartens 1999: 37–41; Abondolo 1987), see examples below.
Table 3.13 Devoicing of af xal onset plosives following voiceless consonants and plosives (cf. Imaikina 2008: 134)
Ablative -DO Prolative -Ga
kudo ‘house; home’ kudo+do kudo+va
klass ‘classroom; class’ klass+to klass+ka
zal ‘hall; living-room’ zal+do zal+ga
ked́ ‘hand; arm’ ked́+t́e [ket́:e] ked́+ga
krug ‘circle’ krug+do krug+ka [kruk:a]
In practice it is suf cient to characterize the left-context trigger of this phenomenon by the following two statements:
(a) Voiceless consonant
(b) Voiced plosive of same articulation point
The range of the devoicing phenomenon is also minimal, whereas it involves the morphemes: ablative %DO and prolative %Ga.
3.2.4. Voicing
In colloquial speech and especially in older texts, there is also a voicing phenomenon affecting the T of the predicate markers -Tano ‘PRES.PRED-1PL’, %Tado ‘PRES.PRED-2PL’,
%Tan ‘PRES.PRED-1SG>2SG’, %Tanzat ‘PRES.PRED-3SG>2SG’ and %Tadi͔ź ‘PRES.PRED-X>2P’.
This phenomenon is triggered by the [+VOICED] feature of the adjacent consonant in the left context. Hence, the literary moĺ+t́ano go_V+IND.PRES.PRED-1PL is pronounced [moĺd́ano], by some. The phenomenon of progressive voicing in Erzya permeates the oral and literary language, as it is attested at the boundary of stem and conjugational in ections, free morph + free morph lexemes, as well as syntactic collocations.