On the Boundaries of Phonology and Phonetics

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1.2.About Nivkh

Nivkh (also called Gilyak) is an isolated language spoken by the people of Nivkh, who live on the island of Sakhalin and in the lower reaches of the Amur River in the Russian Far East. The language has four dialects and the major discrepancy is between the Amur dialect, spoken in the Amur area on the continent and the west coast of north Sakhalin, and the Sakhalin dialect spoken in the east coast of Sakhalin. Nivkh is listed in the UNESCO Red Book on endangered languages as being seriously endangered. According to the census of 1989, the percentage of speakers is 23, 3% of the total population of 4,681._³³ This article concerns the phonology of the Amur dialect spoken by the continental Nivkh. All the examples are from the following sources, unless otherwise mentioned: Krejnovich (1937), and Saveleva and Taksami (1970).

2.Consonant Alternation

2.1.A descriptive sketch

I will first outline the segmental inventory of Nivkh.
2.1 Consonantal inventory of Nivkh

(I) aspirated plosives p t c k q

(II) non-aspirated plosives p t c k q

(III) voiceless fricatives f r s x 

(IV) voiced fricatives v r _³⁴ z  

nasals m n  

lateral l

glides j h

2.2 Vowels

i  u

e o

a
Consonant Alternation (henceforth CA) is a phonological process which changes the feature [continuant] in obstruents when they are placed in certain phonological and morphosyntactic contexts. Descriptively, CA consists of two processes: spirantization, in which a plosive changes to a fricative, and hardening, in which a fricative changes to a plosive. Laryngeal features are also relevant since aspirated plosives only alternate with voiceless fricatives and non-aspirated plosives with voiced fricatives, i.e. the alternation is strictly between the obstruents of row (I) and (III), or (II) and (IV)._³⁵^,_³⁶

2.3 Spirantization: (I) > (III), (II) > (IV)

a. (I) > (III) maca [r]om (< tom) ‘fat of a seal’

seal fat

coli []os (< qos ) ‘neck of a reindeer neck reindeer’

b. (II) > (IV) peq [v]x (< px ) ‘chicken soup’

chicken soup

maca [z]us (< cus) ‘meat of a seal’

seal meat

2.4 Hardening: (III) > (I), (IV) > (II)

a. (III) > (I) cxf [q]a- (< a-) ‘to shoot a bear’

bear shoot

cus [t]a- (< ra-) ‘to bake meat’

meat bake

b. (IV) > (II) tux [k]e- (< e-) ‘to take an axe’

axe take

pnnx [t]u- (< ru-) ‘to teach one's one's sister teach sister’

The phonological contexts of spirantization and hardening are in complementary distribution. Spirantization takes place when the target (plosive) follows a vowel, a glide, or a plosive (2.5). There is no spirantization when the target follows a fricative or a nasal (2.6).
2.5 Spirantization Preceding segment

Vowel maca [r]om ‘fat of a seal’

Glide knraj [r]om ‘fat of a duck’

knraj [v]x ‘duck soup’

Plosive t [r]om ‘fat of a species of duck’

amsp [v]x ‘soup of a species of seal’

2.6 No spirantization

Fricative cxf tom ‘bear fat’

cxf px ‘bear soup’

Nasal ke ti ‘sun ray’

rum df ‘Rum(person)’s house’
On the other hand, hardening occurs when the target (fricative) follows either a fricative or a nasal (2.7). When a segment other than fricative precedes the target, hardening does not occur (2.8).
2.7 Hardening Preceding segment

Fricative cxf [q]a- (< a-) ‘to shoot a bear’

lovr [c]osq-(< zosq-) ‘to break a spoon’

Nasal qan [d]u-_³⁷ (
2.8 No hardening

Vowel  a- ‘to shoot an otter’

ma ra- ‘to bake dried fish’

Plosive t a- ‘to shoot a species of duck’

Glide kj seu- ‘to dry a sail’
Although phonological conditions of these alternations seem to be complex, it turns out to be less so once we focus on the output strings they create. Namely, the accomplished segmental sequence is always vowel-fricative, glide-fricative, plosive-fricative on the one hand and fricative-plosive, sonorant-plosive on the other. In sum, spirantization and hardening conspire to achieve the segmental sequences illustrated below.
2.9 Structural goals of spirantization and hardening

a. vowel

glide fricative

plosive
b. fricative

nasal plosive
Whether this sequence is accomplished by spirantization or hardening is a matter of input. Spirantization activates when a plosive is in the input, whereas hardening activates when a fricative is in the input. In the past, many approaches have overlooked this generalization and described the rules as if they had independent structural goals. This is not the case.

Let us now move to the morphosyntactic conditioning. CA targets a segment at the left edge of a derived morphosyntactic unit in the presence of a preceding segment. CA applies cyclically to every left edge of a morpho-syntactic unit until the maximal projection (NP, VP) is reached.

2.10 Means of derivation

Prefixation p-[r]u (< tu) ‘one’s own sledge’

REF-sledge

Postposition tx-tox ‘towards the top’

top-ALL

tu-rox ‘towards a lake’

qan-dox ‘towards a dog’

Reduplication tk[r]k- ‘to be silent’

(Sakhalin dialect, Hattori, 1962: 107)

NP formation maca [r]om ‘fat of a seal’

VP formation cxf [q]a- (< a-) ‘to shoot a bear’
On the other hand, CA never targets segments in a non-derived environment, nor does it apply across XP boundary, as shown in 2.11 and 2.12, respectively.
2.11 CA does not apply in non-derived environment

utku *ut[]u ‘man’

ns *n[c] ‘teeth’
2.12 No CA across XP boundary (subject-predicate)

el ro- ‘The child holds (something)’

= [_NPel] [_VPro-] (‘child’ is subject)
Example 2.13 below differs minimally from example 2.12 above with respect to the application of CA. In the former, CA applies since the noun is the object of the following predicate. Thus these two words form a VP, differing minimally from example 2.12.

2.13

el [t]o- ‘(Someone) holds the child’

= [_VP[_NPel][_Vto-]] (‘child’ is object)

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