Phonological Aspects of Constituency

2.4.1 Phonological Aspects of Constituency

The phenomena related to close juncture have been studied by U Pe Maung Tin and L.E. Armstrong 1925, McDavid 1945, and Sprigg 1957, reviewed by Forbes 1967; and summarized by Wheatley 1982. The distinction between word and phrase in Burmese has been made primarily on differences in juncture, close juncture within words and open juncture within phrases. See appendix B for an overview of Burmese phonology. Table 4 summarizes seven of the various phonological tests of close versus open juncture. Of these seven types of phonological manifestations of juncture, two of them focus on the voicing and stress reduction of the second syllable of a complex of syllables and the other five concern changes that occur in the first syllable shown in bold. What is important to note for the purposes of this study is that while phonology has been used to determine the nature of grammatical and semantic constituents within Burmese, the current analysis regards sentence-final particles as belonging not to the verb phrase but to a superordinate level of the sentence. Many of the post-verbal particles have little to do with the main verbal predication of the sentence. They typically refer to sentential functions such as mood and speaker attitude toward the sentence content or toward the hearer. Semantically, sentence-final particles are not part of the verb phrase but they have been analyzed as such in the past because of phonological binding between the verb and the following particle, thus “cementing” a phonological connection where no immediate grammatical connection occurs. Therefore the structuring of sound and the structuring of meaning are not aligned. It is helpful to keep in mind the difference between constituency of phonological units and constituency of grammatical units. Sections five and six of table 4 demonstrate phonological coarticulation of the verb with the sentence-final particle aom sau and onf sany. These particles are morphophonemic variants of each other, one occurring as an embedded sentence non-final particle and the other the final sentence particle see 4.3.3 . Okell 1969:119 analyzed such final particles as constituents not of the verb phrase but of a unit he called the “verb-sentence,” which is separable from the sentence itself in terms of the types of particles that can terminate the sentence—mostly speaker attitudinal or belief particles. In his linear treatment Okell analyzed the different role of the particles by positing different construction types. The role of phonology in grammatical constructions was not discussed except to describe spreading of voicing in close juncture. Close juncture might be expected to signal a higher grammatical unit above the morpheme e.g., word, or a semantic unit, a lexeme of some variety, but in fact, it does not. Phonological units and semantico-grammatical elements are not coterminus. There is not a one-to-one relationship between sound and meaning. Actually constituent elements of semantic constructions are not always in close juncture, though there is a tendency, as noted by Wheatley 1982:26, for juxtaposed compound nouns of the type N + N to be in close juncture, a\rykH mre pum mjebo ‘map’; vrf:\y lam: pra lambja ‘guide’. Open juncture also is found in this type of compound aq:q|m hce: hc ăra hse hsja ‘doctor’. The situation with compound verbs of the type V + V is even more variable. At the phrase level, Wheatley noted that close juncture is a regular feature of the attributive noun phrase, e.g., Noun + Stative Verb what is here analyzed grammatically as a reduced clause, but not of other types of phrases, such as Determiner + Noun. Interestingly, he notices that “all particles are in close juncture with preceding syllables” and that it is therefore not possible to predict whether morphemes will be in close or open juncture. It is the assertion here that grammatical properties, particularly constituency, are not predictable from phonological features such as juncture. Table 4 summarizes the phonological processes associated with juncture in Burmese. 1 st Syllable Environment 2 nd Syllable Environment Examples

1. Voicing

1 st Syllable 2 nd Syllable Open Juncture unchanged Close Juncture Vowel + Nasal; or open syllable V, or  Voicing of Stop, Affricate, or Fricative other than |S

2. Reduction of Vowel

1 st Syllable 2 nd Syllable Open Juncture full vowel quality in open syllable ulvmxdkif: klA: tai ‘the Indian sits’ kula ‘Indian’ + htuing: ‘sit’ ulvm klA: ‘Indian’ kula ulvmxdkif: kl tai ‘chair’ Indian sitting thing kula ‘Indian’ + htuing: ‘sit’ Close Juncture reduced to schwa  unchanged or Voiced pum: zgA: ‘word’ pum:\yef zgbja:’translator’ sa.ka: ‘word’+ pran ‘return’

3. Nasal Assimilation

1 st Syllable 2 nd Syllable Open Juncture Vowel nasalized unchanged vrf:\y la pja ‘show the way’ lam: ‘road’ + pra. ‘show’ Close Juncture Homorganic nasal copy from 2 nd syllable Voiced vrf:\y lambja ‘guide’ lam: ‘road’ + pra. ‘show’ 1 st Syllable Environment 2 nd Syllable Environment Examples

4. Glottal Assimilation

1 st Syllable 2 nd Syllable Open Juncture V  Stop voiceless ppf s ‘army’, mwf d ‘element’, tdyf e ‘sleep’ Close Juncture V Stop copy from 2 nd syllable Stop voiceless ppfwyf stta ‘the military’ war + troop mwfqD dssi ‘gasoline’ ‘petrol’ , element + oil tdyfcef ekka ‘bedroom’ ‘sleep’ + ‘room’

5. Vowel Shortening

1 st Syllable 2 nd Syllable Open Juncture V — any vowel with Heavy or Plain tone vm la ‘come’ oGm: a ‘go’ Close Juncture V  Voiced vmaom la ‘which came’ oGm: aom a ‘which went’

6. Tone Rising

1 st Syllable 2 nd Syllable Open Juncture V + Heavy Tone oGm: a ‘go’ Close Juncture V + Rising or High Voiced oGm:onf ai ‘go’ 1 st Syllable Environment 2 nd Syllable Environment Examples

7. Stress Reduction

1 st Syllable 2 nd Syllable Open Juncture Stressed at head of phrase with all tones except Plain Stressed at head of phrase aumif: kau ‘good’ aumif:onf kau i ‘It’s good’ Close Juncture Stressed, with all tones but Plain tone Reduced stress aumif:aumif: kau au ‘very good’ Table 4. Summary of phonological processes associated with juncture

2.4.2 Semantic versus Grammatical Constituent Structure