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this
exercise
on
your
own
at
home.
Once
you’ve
worked
it
out,
look
over
the
answer
key
on
the
following
3
pages
of
this
document.
This
key
not
only
gives
you
the
answer,
but
also
walks
you
through
how
I
got
the
solution.
Worksheet
Language
Files;
Ch.
3,
Exercise
27:
Standard
Italian
Consider
the
following
data
from
Standard
Italian,
an
Indo-‐European
language
of
the
Romance
family,
spoken
in
Italy.
Answer
the
questions
that
follow.
a.
[tinta]
‘dye’
e.
[ʤɛnte]
‘people’
i.
[fuŋgo]
‘mushroom’
b.
[tɛnda]
‘tent’
f.
[sapone]
‘soap’
j.
[bjaŋka]
‘white’
c.
[dantsa]
‘dance’
g.
[tiŋgo]
‘I
dye’
k.
[aŋke]
‘also’
d.
[neɾo]
‘black’
h.
[tɛŋgo]
‘I
keep’
l.
[faŋgo]
‘mud’
Part
1:
Are
there
any
minimal
pairs?
If
so,
what
are
they,
and
what
can
you
conclude
to
be
true
of
Italian
from
those
minimal
pairs?
Part
2:
i.
State
the
phonetic
environments
in
which
the
sounds
[n]
and
[ŋ]
appear.
Identify
any
natural
classes
of
sounds
that
appear
in
the
environments
you’ve
provided.
ii.
Given
what
you
know
about
the
distribution
of
sounds
and
the
environments
you
listed
in
(i),
are
[n]
and
[ŋ]
in
complementary
or
contrastive
distribution?
Please
explain.
(And
to
answer
these
questions,
we
can
walk
through
the
steps
below)
Step
1:
Identify
the
sounds
you
are
investigating.
Step 2: Identify any minimal pairs (If there are some, what are they? If there are none, move to Step 3).
Step
3:
List
the
environments
for
each
sound.
Do
any
environments
overlap?
If
not,
they
are
in
complementary
distribution.
Step 4: Make generalizations (using natural classes) about the environments in which each sound appears.
Step 5: Determine which is the underlying sound (the phoneme) (that is, which has the wider distribution?).
Step 2: Identify any minimal pairs (If there are some, what are they? If there are none, move to Step 3).
With
these
sounds
[n]
and
[ŋ],
there
are
no
minimal
pairs.
They
are
not,
then,
in
contrastive
distribution,
so
we
can
assume
they
are
in
complementary
distribution.
And
we
can
confirm
this
with
Step
3.
Step
3:
List
the
environments
for
each
sound.
Do
any
environments
overlap?
If
not,
they
are
in
complementary
distribution.
[n] [ŋ]
i__t i__g
ɛ__d ɛ__g
a__t u__g
#__e
a__k
ɛ__t
a__k
o__e a__g
None
of
these
environments
overlap,
so
they
are
indeed
in
complementary
distribution
(as
we
predicted
from
Step
2).
Step 4: Make generalizations (using natural classes) about the environments in which each sound appears.
Nothing
may
jump
out
at
first
as
a
possible
generalization.
Both
can
follow
vowels
(or
a
word
boundary
in
the
case
of[n]).
Both
can
be
preceded
by
vowels,
and
both
can
be
followed
by
consonants
(or,
in
the
case
of
[n],
by
vowels
also).
But
if
we
look
at
which
of
these
consonants
can
follow
the
two
sounds,
we
see
that
only
[g]
and
[k]
seem
to
follow
[ŋ].
[n]
can
be
followed
by
[t],
[d],
or
the
vowel
[e]:
[n] [ŋ]
__t __g
__d __k
__e
What
do
we
know
about
[g]
and
[k]?
Both
are
velar
stops
([g]
is
voiced,
[k]
is
voiceless).
So
we
could
generalize
further
and
just
say:
[n] [ŋ]
__d
__e
(Note
that
even
if
you
see
that
[t]
and
[d]
are
both
alveolar
stops
and
want
to
collapse
those
in
a
similar
fashion,
you
still
have
to
stipulate
the
__e
environment,
so
the
[n]
still
has
more
environments).
Step 5: Determine which is the underlying sound (the phoneme) (that is, which has the wider distribution?).
From
this
generalization,
we
see
that
[n]
appears
in
3
(or
2,
if
you
collapse
the
[t]
and
[d]
into
alveolar
stops)
environments
while
[ŋ]
appears
only
in
one.
[n]
has
the
wider
distribution,
therefore,
and
is
the
underlying
sound
(phoneme):
/n/ phoneme
Standard
Italian,
therefore,
has
one
phoneme
/n/
that
is
realized
phonetically
as
either
[n]
or
[ŋ],
depending
on
the
environment.
The Italian phoneme /n/ is realized as [ŋ] before velar stops ([g] and [k]) and as [n] everywhere else.
Notice
that
this
rule
makes
sense—the
alveolar
nasal
/n/
is
realized
as
a
velar
nasal,
[ŋ]
when
it
precedes
a
velar
stop
([g]
and
[k]).
This
is
an
instance
of
place
of
articulation
assimilation.
We
can
now
answer
the
actual
questions
that
appear
with
this
problem,
stated
above
and
repeated
below
for
convenience:
i.
State
the
phonetic
environments
in
which
the
sounds
[n]
and
[ŋ]
appear.
Identify
any
natural
classes
of
sounds
that
appear
in
the
environments
you’ve
provided.
As
we
noticed
in
Step
3,
[ŋ]
appears
before
[g]
and
[k],
which
are
both
velar
stops.
We
can
then
say
that
[ŋ]
appears
before
velar
stops
(a
natural
class)
(as
determined
in
Step
4).
[n]
appears
everywhere
else.
ii.
Given
what
you
know
about
the
distribution
of
sounds
and
the
environments
you
listed
in
(i),
are
[n]
and
[ŋ]
in
complementary
or
contrastive
distribution?
Please
explain.
These
sounds
are
in
complementary
distribution,
as
we
determined
in
Step
3.
None
of
the
environments
overlap.