بررسي تبديل واكه به واكه [a] يا [o]در گويش فردوسي در چارچوب نظريه‌ بهينگي

An Optimality–Theoretic Account of Changing to [a] or [o] in Ferdos Persian Accent

بررسي دقيق انواع داده‌ها در لهجه شهر فردوس نشان داد كه واكه پسين/A/ در هجاي اول واژه‌هاي دوهجايي و هجاي دوم واژه‌هاي سه‌هجايي طي فرايند «پيشين‌شدگي» به واكه [- پسين] و كشيده [a?] تبديل مي‌شود. ولي اين فرايند در هجاي آخر واژه‌ها رخ نمي‌دهد. عامل اين تبديل محدوديت نشان‌داري *[A] و علت عدم رخداد آن در هجاي آخرِ واژه‌ها تسلط محدوديت پاياييِ ضد اين تبديل بر محدوديت نشان‌داري *[A] است. همچنين، مشخص شد كه واكه /A/ در بافت پيش از همخوان‌ خيشومي /m/ به واكه [o] تبديل مي‌شود. از سويي ديگر، واكه /A/ در بافت پيش از همخوان خيشومي/n/، در هجاي ماقبل آخرِ واژه‌هاي چندهجايي به واكه [a?] و در واژه‌هاي تك‌هجايي و هجاي آخر واژه‌هاي چندهجايي به واكه [o] تبديل مي‌شود. افزون بر اين، همخوان‌ /n/ در واژه‌هاي تك‌هجايي و هجاي آخر واژه‌هاي چندهجايي حذف مي‌شود. محدوديت نشان‌داري *[A]N عامل تبديل واكه /A/ به واكه [o] در بافت پيش از همخوان‌هاي /m/و/n/ است. اين محدوديت تواليِ واكه [A] و همخوان خيشومي را مجاز نمي‌شمارد. هدف اين مقاله تحليل و تبيين دلايل رخداد و دلايل عدم رخداد تبديل واكه /?/ به واكه [a?] يا [o]در بافت‌هاي گوناگون در گويش فردوسي در چارچوب نظريه بهينگي (پرينس و اسمولنسكي، 2004/1993) از طريق دست‌يابي به رتبه‌بندهاي دربرگيرنده از محدوديت‌هاي مختلف است.

1- INTRODUCTION Ferdos also written as Ferdous, and Ferdows; named Toon or T?n until 1929 is a city located in the northwest of South Khorasan Province in Iran. It is about 345 kilometres south of Mashhad and 195 kilometres northwest of Birjand. An accent of Persian called “Ferdos Persian” is spoken in this city. This paper provides an account of Changing /?/ to [a?] or [o] in Ferdos Persian accent within Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky, 1993/2004). It aims at coming up with inclusive rankings of constraints to explain occurrences and non-occurrences of these vowel changes in various phonological environments in Ferdos Persian accent. This work starts by introducing Optimality Theory (OT) and some of its basic concepts. Then it investigates the phonological processes of fronting, raising and rounding in this framework. 2- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OT is one of the most significant developments in generative grammar. The first detailed exposition of the theory appeared in Prince and Smolensky (1993), entitled ‘Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar.’ Its goal was to explain the phonology of languages only by using a set of universal constraints. No phonological rule is being applied to its analyses, because they generally appear as language-specific phenomena. In contrast, constraints in OT are not merely solutions to language-specific problems; they are in fact claims about Universal Grammar (UG), seeking to explain phonological phenomena universally. Furthermore, there is no interaction between rules and a constraint, i.e., OT is not a mixed theory. The principles of SPE namely rules and serial derivations between underlying representation (UR) and phonetic representation (PR) have been abandoned by OT; however, UR and PR which are renamed as input and output respectively, are being assumed in the classical sense. 3- METHODOLOGY This paper is a descriptive and analytical research. The data in this paper were initially collected through audio recordings collected by one of the researchers who is a native speaker of Ferdos Persian accent. Her linguistic intuition assisted this research as well. The audio recordings included several hours of conversations by ten male and female native speakers. In order to identify the phonological processes, the data were carefully analyzed in separate groups which were formed according to various phonological environments. Then, these environments were analyzed to determine the constraints involved in these vowel changes. 4- DISCUSSION Careful analysis of Ferdos Persian accent showed that the back vowel /?/ changes to the front vowel [a?] in the first syllable of bisyllabic and the second syllable of trisyllabic words. However, this does not occur in the last syllable. It was also found that different processes occur before nasals; /?/ changes to [o] before /m/. But before /n/, it changes to [a?] in the penult of words having two or more syllables, and to [o] in monosyllabic words as well as the last syllable of words having two or more syllables. Moreover, /n/ is deleted in monosyllabic words and the last syllable of words having two or more syllables. All the constraints which were involved in occurrences and non-occurrences of these vowel changes were introduced and their ranks were justified. 5- CONCLUSION The significance of this research is that it discusses both occurrences and non-occurrences of these vowel changes. It is equally important to determine why a phonological process does not take place in a certain context. Moreover, this paper contributes to introducing Ferdos Persian accent through its phonological processes and since the same or somehow similar phonological processes may take place in some other languages, dialects and accents, the findings of this research can be used by other researchers interested in phonology or dialectology. Future research suggestions may include: (1) analyzing the phonological processes discussed in this paper within other phonological frameworks such as Autosegmental approach; (2) investigating other phonological processes that take place in Ferdos Persian accent.