Pausa
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In linguistics, pausa (Latin for 'break', from Greek
Characteristics
[edit]Some sound laws specifically operate only in pausa. For example, certain phonemes may be pronounced differently at the beginning or the end of a word if no other word precedes or follows within the same prosodic unit, such as a word in the citation form. That is the case with the final-obstruent devoicing of German, Turkish, Russian, and other languages whose voiced obstruent consonants are devoiced pre-pausa and before voiceless consonants.
The opposite environment is relevant in Spanish, whose voiced fricatives become stops post-pausa and after nasals. Such environments are often termed pre-pausal and post-pausal, respectively. The phrases in pausa and pausal form are often taken to mean at the end of a prosodic unit, in pre-pausal position, as pre-pausal effects are more common than post-pausal effects.
Very commonly, such allophones are described as occurring "word-initially" or "word-finally", as opposed to other allophones found "word-medially", because that is a more accessible phrasing for most readers. However, that phrasing is accurate only for a word in citation form. It is not always clear in the description of a language whether an alleged word-boundary allophone is actually defined by the word boundary, as opposed to being pausal allophones being defined by prosodic boundaries.
Examples
[edit]In English, the last stressed syllable before a pausa receives tonic stress, giving the illusion of a distinction between primary and secondary stress. In dialects of English with linking or intrusive R (a type of liaison), the r is not realized in pausa even if the following word begins in a vowel. Similarly, French liaison does not operate in pausa.
English words that have weak and strong forms are realized as strong after and often also before a pausa.
In some dialects of English, the voiced fricatives devoice when they are in pausa,[3] making the /z/ a [z̥] in "a loud buzz" but remaining a [z] in "a buzz that's loud".
In Arabic, Biblical Hebrew, other Semitic languages, and Egyptian, pausa affects grammatical inflections. In Arabic, short vowels, including those carrying case, are dropped before a pausa, and the gender is modified. The Arabic alphabet has a letter ة (tāʾ marbūṭa تاء مربوطة) for the feminine, which is classically pronounced [h] in pausa but [t] in liaison. In Biblical Hebrew, /la
In Spanish, voiced fricative/approximants [
In Tuscan, the full infinitive form of the verb occurs only pre-pausa.
In Kombe, a word-final high tone becomes low or downstepped in pausa.
In Mehri, emphatic consonants become ejectives pre-pausa.[5]
In Tapieté, epenthesis of [x] occurs when /ɨ/ is in pausa, while epenthesis of [ʔ] occurs when any other vowel is in pausa.[6] So the word /kɨ/ becomes [kɨx] when it is in pausa, and the word /hẽʔẽ/ becomes [hẽʔẽʔ] when it is in pausa.
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ pausa, Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, on Perseus
- ^
π α ῦσις, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon, on Perseus - ^ Saito, Hiroko (1994). "Devoicing of Word-Final /z/ in English" (PDF). Area and Culture Studies. 49: 139–161.
- ^ cf. Elisha Qimron (2007). "The Nature of Pausal Forms". In Aharon Maman; Steven E. Fassberg; Yohanan Breuer (eds.). Sha'arei Lashon: Studies in Hebrew, Aramaic and Jewish Languages Presented to Moshe Bar-Asher (in German). Vol. 1. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute. pp. 92–106, 95–99. ISBN 978-965-342-945-1.
- ^ Watson & Bellem (2011). "Glottalisation and neutralisation". In Hassan & Heselwood (eds.). Instrumental Studies in Arabic Phonetics. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ISBN 978-90-272-4837-4.
- ^ González, Hebe Alicia (2005). A Grammar of Tapiete (Tupi-Guarani). University of Pittsburgh. pp. 54–55.