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As discussed in the previous section, consonant epenthesis is one type of repair to hiatus.

The current section explores the nature of a consonant which is inserted as a hiatus breaker in terms of markedness. Theories of markedness have been proposed which are intended to predict which types of consonants should be epenthetic in the context between vowels.

In recent literature, several authors have attempted to summarize features of markedness and the various processes which give insight into segment markedness. Rice (2007:80) lists the following classifications in (21) for marked versus unmarked segments,¹² where (21a) concerns non-phonological properties, and (21b) lists phonological properties.

12 The list given here is an abbreviated version of Rice’s terms, specifically in part (21a). For the exhaustive list, see Rice (2007:80). The bold and italic markings are my own.

(21) Markedness Terms

De Lacy (2006:28) gives similar markedness diagnostics, concluding that epenthesis (among several other processes, including deletion) is a valid diagnostic for determining markedness. His view of markedness classification concerns epenthesis;

however, the formulation is different from that of Rice (2007). De Lacy states the following:

Deletion: If /β/ undergoes structurally conditioned deletion and /α/ does not, then there is some markedness hierarchy in which [β] is more marked than [α].

Consonant Epenthesis: If consonant [α] is epenthesized and [β] is not, then there is some markedness hierarchy in which [β] is more marked than [α].

According to de Lacy’s diagnostics, marked segments are more likely to be deleted, while unmarked segments are more likely to be epenthetic. Thus, Rice and de Lacy agree that the output of epenthesis should be unmarked. In the literature, discussion of markedness is not

restricted to processes which segments undergo (like epenthesis and deletion); rather, markedness is also concerned with individual segments and specific properties of those segments, such as place of articulation. An example of a common place markedness discussion is given below.

Probably the most oft-cited example of consonant epenthesis in the literature is epenthetic [t] in Axininca Campa (Payne 1981), which was presented in the previous section. The data are repeated in (22).

(22) Axininca Campa [t] Epenthesis (from Lombardi 2002:239)

/i-N-koma-i/  [iŋkomati] ‘he will paddle’

/i-N-koma-aa-i/  [iŋkomataati] ‘he will paddle again’

Lombardi (2002) discusses this example within the Optimality Theory (OT) framework (Prince & Smolensky 1993) and states that one would expect glottal stop epenthesis here, since glottal is the least-marked place of articulation, according to the hierarchy shown in (23).

(23) Lombardi’s Universal Place Hierarchy: *DORS,*LAB »*COR »*PHAR

In Axininca Campa, however, there is a constraint against the glottal segment *Ɂ, which is ranked higher than all of the place constraints under the ranking: *Ɂ » *DORS,*LAB »*COR

»*PHAR; therefore, the next least-marked segment which can be epenthesized is [t]. The high-ranked MARKEDNESS constraint against the glottal stop can account for why this language has the more marked epenthetic coronal stop. Under Lombardi’s analysis, the

only way to have an output with epenthesis other than glottal is if other markedness constraints intervene to prevent this. She predicts, however, that the output of an epenthesis process should never be labial or dorsal because these places of articulation are too marked.

De Lacy (2006: 68) and Uffmann (2007) argue along the lines of Lombardi that a segment with a more marked place of articulation will be the output of epenthesis only if some other markedness scale is at work in the language. Thus, a discussion of consonant epenthesis raises many questions relating to cross-linguistic markedness, such as place of articulation of the epenthetic segment. A brief discussion of English R-Epenthesis is given below, as it relates to BG R-Epenthesis in chapter 6.

Many authors (Sweet 1923, Kenyon 1961, Trudgill 1990, Gutch 1992, McCarthy 1991, 1993, Uffmann 2007, Hall 2013, among others) have discussed the pattern of R-Epenthesis in English dialects in England and the Eastern United States. In these regions, a word-final /r/ is deleted unless followed by a vowel in the next syllable. Realization of this intervocalic [r], called Linking-R, was historically generalized onto words with no etymological /r/, a process known as Intrusive-R or R-Epenthesis. Data showing this are given in (24).¹³ The sound transcribed as [r] below is phonetically a central approximant in English, although the claims made in the literature concerning R-Epenthesis also subsume other manners of articulation, e.g. trills.

(24) R-Deletion, Linking-R, and Intrusive-R a. ca(r) ~ car engine

b. saw ~ saw -r- it

13 The different forms of r are represented as follows: an /r/ which is deleted is shown with parentheses around it, as (r). An r – either etymological or not – which is pronounced is written in bold. The r which is set off by dashes in (24b) is specifically intrusive-r.

The data in (24a) show that etymological /r/ is realized when a vowel follows but is deleted in any other context; (24b) is a vowel-final word which is realized with Intrusive-R when the following word begins with a vowel. Thus, a rule of R-Epenthesis is given in (25), where [r] is inserted between vowels.

(25) R-Epenthesis

Ø  [r] / V __ V

One important factor concerning the application of R-Epenthesis is which vowels can occur before an Epenthetic-R. As can be seen in (24b), an /r/ epenthesizes after a low vowel; in English, R-Epenthesis is restricted to after the vowels [ɑ ə ɔ] (McCarthy 1993 and Hall 2013). McCarthy (1993) calls these vowels the only ‘true’ word-final vowels because after non-low vowels, instead of R-Epenthesis, there is Glide Insertion. Examples from Uffmann (2007:463) are given in (26).

(26) Glide Insertion in English

a. The key is [kiːjɪz] b. The zoo is [zuːwɪz]

The pay is [peɪ̯ jɪz] The show is [ʃəʊ̯ wɪz]

The data in (26a) show the glide [j] epenthesized after the front non-low vowels [iː eɪ̯ ], and the data in (26b) show epenthesis of [w] after the back non-low vowels [uː əʊ̯ ]. Many authors have argued that R-Epenthesis and Glide Insertion are the result of a language’s need to break up vowels in hiatus (see Casali 2011, and references therein).

Authors who have discussed epenthesis from the cross-linguistic perspective (e.g.

Lombardi 2002, de Lacy 2006, Rice 2007, among others) usually argue that the output of an epenthesis is an unmarked segment (see discussion above), but cross-linguistically, [r]

is generally considered to be a marked sound. This makes the process of English R-Epenthesis very interesting from the perspective of markedness because these claims appear to be contradictory. Scholars cite a number of languages in which an [r] is epenthesized, but in his study of ten languages purported to have R-Epenthesis, Hall (2013) writes that the evidence is inconclusive as to whether or not languages other than English have productive R-Epenthesis. Based on his investigations, Hall (2013: 19-20) writes four hypotheses, two of which are “The lack of consistent data sets motivating a rule of r-Epenthesis in languages other than English is simply accidental” and “The lack of consistent data sets motivating r-Epenthesis in languages other than English is systematic.”

BG (one of the ten languages investigated by Hall 2013) is often cited as a language with productive R-Epenthesis. The BG data from my study (presented in chapter 6) do not necessarily (dis)prove either of Hall’s hypotheses; however, they contribute to the picture of cross-linguistic R-Epenthesis.

This discussion of consonant epenthesis and markedness shows why the data in chapter 6 are important: BG Consonant Epenthesis (including R-Epenthesis) has implications for the cross-linguistic study of both epenthesis and markedness theory. While I do not give my analyses within the OT framework, it is clear that the data from chapter 6 bear on these topics, regardless of the theoretical framework applied.