Introduction to system relations 1. Intelligibility

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3. Lectal studies

3.1. Introduction to system relations 3.1.1. Intelligibility As can be seen from chapter 1 , the phonologies of the various Bouyei lects can vary rather significantly. What variation is there in the basic lexicon? Is there any way to gauge intelligibility between the various lects based on elicited basic lexical forms? It is the purpose of this study to address these two questions. Variation in the basic vocabulary is fairly easy to assess, and of course is a precursor to addressing the question of intelligibility. However, simply coming up with a lexical cognate percentage based on word lists will not give an accurate picture of intelligibility. 6 A very key factor relating to the intelligibility of two lects is the similarity of their phonological correspondences. If the core lexicon is very similar, but the phonological correspondences are quite different, there will still be much of the lexicon that will not be mutually intelligible. A key element in intelligibility is the mapping of phonemes from the listener’s lect to phones of another lect as they are distributed among the lexical items. For example, a speaker of lect A may have the following lexical items in his speech: uDm13 ‘rain’, v=m13 ‘soft’. A speaker of lect B may have the following: v=m13 ‘rain’, v=m24 ‘soft’. If the speaker of lect B has v in his phoneme inventory, but it does not occur on the lexical item for ‘rain’ in his lect, he may be confused when he hears that word in lect A. Again, lect A may have the following alveolar phonemes: S, r, y, Y, whereas lect B may have these alveolar phonemes: r, b, y. When speaker B of lect B hears speaker A say a word with a S initial, he has to decide which of his phonemes this corresponds to: r or b. Sometimes there is a simple correspondence rule that can be learned over time, such as SlectA → rlectB. Sometimes there is no regular correspondence rule sometimes S → r, sometimes S → b, and speaker B would simply have to learn A’s S correspondences. Now, a speaker of one lect, after exposure to the language of another lect, can learn the regularities relating the sounds of his dialect to those of the dialect he is hearing. So his long-term intelligibility relating to the phonological correspondences will of course be higher than his initial intelligibility his understanding of the noncognate words used in another lect will of course also be increased. By studying the phonology and phone-phoneme correspondences of two or more lects, one can estimate the initial and long-term intelligibility based on the system of sound correspondences and lexical cognate percentages. We will use the idea of systems relations 7 to evaluate the intelligibility of the various Bouyei lects in our survey. Systems relations is a way to gauge intelligibility between lects based on the lexicon and phonological correspondences. The basic idea of system relations is to analyze the phonological correspondence patterns found in comparing the lexicon of two or more lects, and thus to gauge the intelligibility impedance and learnability of a lect with respect to a speaker of another related lect. This, in conjunction with the lexical similarity percentage, will give a picture of the overall lectal intelligibility. 6 Grimes 1988 7 This method is outlined in Milliken and Milliken 1996. Notes on Linguistics 72:15–31. 3. Lectal studies 483 3.1.2. Correspondence types The phonemic correspondences between two lects are classified into three categories, based on how much they are expected to interfere with listening comprehension. Each pair of dialects is analyzed twice: once taking the case of A listening to B and once with B listening to A. A corre- spondence can possibly be one category for the speaker of lect A listening to lect B and another for the speaker of lect B listening to lect A. Class one correspondences are those which do not interfere with comprehension. This class includes both correspondences which are phonetically identical, and those correspondences in which the sounds are more similar to each other than to any other phoneme in the listener’s phonemic system. Example: If … And if … Then … ‘high’ in lect A is r`:M13 and is pro- nounced [ S`M02] in lect B lect A has no other phoneme beside r which is more phonetically similar to [ S] than [r] e.g., it has no S or r[[ the lect A listener will naturally relate the sound [ S] to his own s, which is the correct correspondence. These two phones are phonetically similar. There is no phonological skewing, so this is an example of a class one correspondence. A class two correspondence is one in which the phonemes are phonetically similar, but phone- mically skewed. Say lect B has Y and p. Say also that lect A has y which corresponds only to the Y of lect B and i which corresponds to p of lect B. If … And in … Then … ‘house’ in lect A is y`:m20 lect B ‘house’ is pro- nounced [ Y`:m30] and ‘to knit’ is pro- nounced [ p`:m30] when the speaker of lect B hears ‘house’ in lect A he does not know which of his words it is though he will most likely be able to tell due to the semantic environment that the word is in, he is not able to readily associate it with his Y, though it does correspond. This is a class two correspondence. This type of correspondence may be initially unintelligible, but can be learned, because the correspondence is regular, A’s y always corresponds to B’s Y. A class three correspondence occurs when there is a many-to-one relationship between phonemes, more than one phoneme in the listener’s lect corresponding to one phoneme in the speaker’s lect. Example: If … And … Then … lect A has p and Y and the words ‘house’ p`m20 and ‘delicate’ Y`m20 lect B has y which corresponds both to lect A’s p and Y and the word ‘house’ y`m20 when speaker B says ‘house’ y`:m20, the listener from lect A has no way of knowing if speaker B means ‘house’ p`m20 or ‘delicate’ Y`m20. the y of lect B corresponds in some words to p in lect A in some words to Y in lect A this is a class three correspondence when lect A listens to lect B. 484 3. Lectal studies It may also be a class three correspondence when lect B listens to lect A, but not necessarily. Using the systems relations framework, one studies the phonemic correspondences between two lects and comes up with a percentage of the different correspondence classes for a portion of the language a simple word list in our case. Knowing these percentages of occurrence of the three correspondence classes, one can hypothesize the difficulty a speaker of lect A would have when hearing the lexically corresponding part of lect B, and how learnable that part of lect B would be for the speaker of lect A.

3.2. Methodology