Phonology: case studies
By Scott Myers and Megan Crowhurst
Department of Linguistics at the University of Texas
Vowel reduction in Central Catalan
Dialects of Catalan also have processes of vowel reduction, in which certain vowels appear as schwa when they occur in unstressed syllables. These processes work differently in Central Catalan and Mallorquí. Moreover, both of the Catalan patterns differ from the GAE pattern presented on the previous page. In this section, we will describe and analyse the pattern found in Central Catalan first, and then proceed to a discussion of vowel reduction in the Mallorquí dialect.
In this section, an acute accent on a vowel in phonetic transcriptions indicates stress. Unstressed vowels have no accent mark. In the forms in (5), which we have seen before, we see many examples of stressed [á] (shown in boldface). Conversely, we see no examples of [a] without stress. On the other hand, we see schwa [ə] in unstressed syllables, but never in syllables with stress. In fact, wherever underlying /a/ is stressless on the surface, it is realized as the reduced vowel [ə], shown in boldface. (Orthog stands for orthographic representation, or standard spelling.)
| (5) Central Catalan: stressed [á] vs. unstressed [ə] |
| fet blat | /fet blat/ | [féb blát] | 'made wheat' |
| puc cantar | /puk kanta/ | [púk kəntá] | 'I can sing' |
| puc banyar | /puk baɲa/ | [púg bəɲá] | 'I can bathe' |
| pot guanyar | /pɔk gwaɲa/ | [pɔ́g gwəɲá] | 's/he can win' |
| plat preparat | /plat pɾepaɾat/ | [pláp pɾəpəɾát] | 'prepared plate' |
| cap banda | /kap banda/ | [káb bándə] | 'nowhere' |
We can be confident that the phoneme /a/ underlies schwa in the roots for sing, bathe, and win because schwa in these forms in (5) alternates with [á] in the related nouns for 'singing', 'bath, bathroom', and 'profit, gain', where stress falls on the root vowel /a/. These forms are presented in (6)
| (6) Central Catalan: stressed [á] vs. unstressed [ə] |
| [kán] | can | 'singing' | [kəntá] | cantar | 'to sing' | |
| [báɲ] | bany | 'bath' | [bəɲá] | banyar | 'to bathe' | |
| [gwáɲ] | guany | 'profit, gain' | [gwəɲá] | guanyar | 'to win' | |
For the vowels [e] and [ɛ] we can make observations that are very similar to those we made for [a] above. That is, [e] and [ɛ] are found only in stressed, and never in unstressed positions on the surface. The examples in (7) show that the stressed mid front vowels, tense [é] and lax [ɛ́] in the first IPA column (i.e. [téns], etc.) correspond to (unstressed) [ə] in the second IPA column (I.E. [təní], etc.) These alternations establish that the alternating vowel in roots for 'take' and 'blind' is /e/, while that in the roots for 'honey' and 'dry' is /ɛ/.
| (7) Central Catalan: stressed [é] and [ɛ́] vs. unstressed [ə] |
| [téns] | tens | 's/he takes' | [təní] | tenir | 'to take' | |
| [sék] | cec | 'blind' | [səɣésə] | ceguesa | 'blindness' | |
| [mɛ́l] | mel | 'honey' | [məlós] | melós | 'xx' | |
| [sɛ́k] | sec | 'dry' | [səkáʎ] | secall | 'xx' | |
Thus, the vowel phonemes /a ɛ e/ all have a reduced allophone [ə] that surfaces when these vowels lack stress on the surface. The back round vowels /o/ and /ɔ/ are also reduced when unstressed, but in these cases, the effect is different: the alternations in (8) show that the surface vowels [o] and [ɔ] in stressed positions alternate with [u] in unstressed positions.
| (8) Central Catalan: stressed [ó] and [ɔ́] vs. unstressed [u] |
| [bót] | bot | 'leap (noun)' | [butá] | botar | 'to jump' | |
| [ós] | os | 'bear' | [usɛ́t] | osset | 'little bear' | |
| [dónə] | dona | 'woman' | [duná] | dunar | 'xx' | |
| [plɔ́] | plo | 'crying (noun)' | [pluɾá] | plorar | 'to cry' | |
| [ɔ́s] | os | 'bone' | [usút] | ossut | 'xx' | |
| [dɔ́nə] | dona | 'xx' | [dunásə] | dunassa | 'xx' | |
Finally, the examples in (9) show that the high vowels /i u/ are not reduced: [i] and [u] appear in both stressed and unstressed syllables.
| (9) Central Catalan: the high vowels /i/ and /u/ |
| [súrt] | surt | 's/he takes' | [surtídə] | surtida | 'to take' | |
| [kúk] | cuc | 'silkworm' | [kukɛ́t] | cuquet | 'little silkworm' | |
| [tíŋ] | tinc | 'I have' | [tiŋgí] | tingui | 'xx' | |
| [fíltrə] | filtre | 'filter (noun)' | [filtrá] | filtrar | 'to filter' | |
The result of the stress related processes of vowel reduction is that evidence for Catalan's seven phonemic vowel qualities, /i e ɛ a o ɔ u/, emerges only under stress. Only the three vowel qualities /i ə u/ occur in unstressed positions. In particular, the three-way phonemic contrast between /e ɛ a/ is neutralized in [ə] in unstressed positions. Likewise, a three-way phonemic contrast between /o ɔ u/ is neutralized in [u] under the same conditions.
This concludes our description of vowel reduction in Central Catalan. As we will show in the next section, the facts of vowel reduction in Mallorquí are somewhat different.