بررسي قانون مجاورت هجا در واژه هاي بسيط زبان فارسي

Syllable Contact Law in Persian Simple Words

هدف از انجام اين پژوهش، بررسي ميزان رعايت قانون مجاورت هجا (SCL)، در واژه هاي بسيط چندهجايي زبان فارسي است. براي انجام اين پژوهش، 9553 واژه بسيط چندهجايي از فرهنگ لغت يك جلدي مشيري استخراج شد كه در آنها 4694 توالي همخواني در مرز هجاها مشاهده و شيب رسايي در آنها بررسي شد. بررسي ها نشان مي دهد كه در 45% از توالي ها افت رسايي مشاهده مي شود و در 55% از موارد شاهد نقض SCL هستيم. همچنين، در 68% از مجاورت هاي موجود در واژه هاي بسيط فارسي سره، شاهد افت رسايي در توالي هاي همخواني هستيم. در نتيجه، با وجود اينكه SCL در اكثر توالي هاي همخواني فارسي سره رعايت مي شود، به طور كلي مجاورت همخوان ها در مرز هجاهاي واژه هاي بسيط بررسي شده محدود به قانون مجاورت هجا نيست.

1- INTRODUCTION One of the effective factors in phonotactic constraints is the level of sonority of phonological units. This factor is effective at the level of syllable, and also determines the type of phonological sequence in the syllable boundaries at the word level (Syllable Contact Law). In this researh, the rate of SCL observance is investigated in Persian simple words. 2- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Sonority refers to the amount of sound let out as a segment is pronounced. Ladefoged (1975) defines the sonority of a segment as its loudness relative to that of other sounds with the same length, stress, and pitch. Speech sounds can be ranked on grounds of sonority level. Parker (2002, 2008) argues that universally, segments can be divided into the following 17-part scale, listed from the most sonorous to the least sonorous segments: Considering the sonority scales proposed by Jespersen (1904) and Parker (2002, 2008), the sonority of Persian phonological segments can be scaled as follows: Voiceless stops (0) > Voiceless affricates (1) < Voiceless fricatives (2) > Voiced stops (3) < Voiced affricates (4) < Voiced fricatives (5) < Nasals (6) < Laterals (7) < rhotics (8) < Glides (9) Syllable Contact Law (SCL): Based on Murray and Vennemann (1983), the preference for a syllabic structure A$B, where A and B are marginal segments and a and b are the consonantal strength values of A and B respectively, increases with the value of b minus a. Therefore, the preferences in sonority of initial and final segments in syllable boundaries can be scaled as follows: Initial segment: Final segment: It is worth noting that, as a weakness of perception-based approach, Henke, Kaisse & Wright (2012) claim that just because certain segments are perceptually ideal, does not mean that they are never targeted for changes in phonology. 3- METHODOLOGY In this discriptive-analytical research, 9553 words were collected from a one-volume Persian dictionary containing 40,000 words. Almost all relevant data, including the sonority slope of consonants in syllable boundaries, were listed in a statistical analysis program (Microsoft Excel) and the observance of SCL was analyzed in syllable contacts of Persian words and also pure Persian words separately. 4- DISCUSSION 4694 consonant sequences were observed in syllable contacts of 9553 words. The results show that, the frequencies of different sonority slopes in consonant sequences of Persian simple words are as follows: sonority drop (2104 cases), equal sonority (1305 cases), and sonority rise (1285 cases). All kinds of sonority slopes in the range of -9 to 9 were observed in these syllable contacts; however, the sonority slopes of 0 and -2 were more significant than the others (1305 and 672, respectively). Also, 468 consonant sequences were observed in syllable contacts of pure Persian words. The frequency of sonority drop, equal sonority, and sonority rise was 321, 57, and 95 respectively. It should be noted that, sonority slopes of 8 and 9 were not observed in pure Persian words. But, the number of sonority drops in syllable contacts was about three times the sonority rise and equal sonority, and the frequencies of sonority slopes of (-2) and (-3) were more significant than others (100 and 92, respectively). This may be due to the simple cv(c)(c) syllable structure of Persian words, in which the adjacency of more than three consonants is impossible in syllable contacts, and thus, the sonority constraints of consonants in syllable boundaries are less than languages that have a more complicated syllable structure (e.g. English syllable, (c)(c)(c)v(c)(c)(c)(c), and Old Persian syllable, (c)(c)(c)v(c)(c)). 5- CONCLUSIONS According to the results of this research, all three types of sonority slopes happen in the syllable boundaries of Persian words (sonority drop 45%, equal sonority 28%, and sonority rise 27%) and also in pure Persian words (68%, 12%, and 20% respectively). Therefore, the Syllable Contact Law is to a large extent observed in Persian polysyllabic simple words, but despite the significant amount of sonority drop, consonant sequences in syllable contacts of Persian words are not limited to Syllable Contact Law. Therefore, perception cannot be the only factor for answering phonotactic phenomena and there are still phonological currents in every language that influence its phonotactic constraints.