Exploring “E-lowering” in Turkish

Ece Eroglu
Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Methodology

1.2 Background

1.3 Organization of the Paper

2.0 Redefining E-lowering in Turkish

2.1 Where Do Its Roots Lie?

3.0 The Role of Frequency

4.0 Conclusion
1.0 Introduction

In phonology, one of the many intriguing phenomena that have captured the attention of
scholars is “e-lowering”. The term refers to a phonological process where the mid-front
vowel /e/ undergoes a phonetic change in specific environments, resulting in a lower variant
[æ]. In Turkish, there are three allomorphs of the non-high, unrounded, front vowel /e/.
These consist of a mid, front, closed vowel [e], an open-mid, front vowel [ε], and finally a low
front vowel [æ]. (Göksel & Kerslake,2010) This paper analyzes the lowering of [e] to its
lowered counterpart [æ]. It is important to note here that occurrences of this sound change
in Turkish sometimes emerge due to dialectal variance. However, I will disregard the dialectal
divergence in this study. The fact that participants all live in the same area and still vary
significantly in their spelling or are able to produce both forms demonstrates that the sound
change is not rooted in dialectal difference, rather, there might be an ongoing phonological
change in the language. The study aims to investigate the patterns, environments, and
linguistic implications of this particular phonetic change. Understanding the mechanism
behind this phenomenon is vital for unfolding the manifold ways in which sound change may
be occurring within languages. I, hereby, pursue answers to a range of questions;

1) What are the environments for “e-lowering” to occur in Turkish?

2) What are the potential phonological processes driving “e-lowering” in Turkish?
3) To what extent does frequency affect the pattern of this sound change, if it does at
all?

1.1 Methodology

The data analyzed in this paper consist of native speakers’ speech producing the lexical
items that are presented to them respectively. A total of 7 native speakers whose ages were
clustered around 25 were studied while pronouncing a total of 20 items in isolation, some of
them being kendi ‘self’, belki ‘maybe’, hem ‘both’, endişe ‘worry’, bel ‘waist’, kel ‘bald’, hele
‘all in all’ zevk ‘pleasure’, keşke ‘i wish’, deha ‘genius’. All the words had a phonologically
similar counterpart for which e-lowering was not expected to occur. The productions of the
native speakers were studied carefully to differentiate between the two distinct vowels in the
pursuit of specifying an environment for the rule. The frequency of the selected lexical items
is checked from the Turkish National Corpus (TNC) and these frequencies are compared with
one another to figure out any potential correlation.

1.2 Background

Previous research in the field by Göksel & Kerslake (2010) suggests that “e-lowering” takes
place when immediately followed by a sonorant, namely [æ] occurs before /l/, /m/, /n/, /r/
and specifically when the vowel and sonorant sequences do not precede a vowel. It is further
suggested that native speakers are divided into two groups, one opting for the pronunciation
of words such as elbise ‘dress’, kendi ‘self, or hem ‘both’, with [æ], while others pronounce
the same words with [e]. (Göksel & Kerslake, 2010)

There is limited research on Turkish “e-lowering”, one coming from Gopal and Nichols (2017)
in their talk at OCP mentions that /e/-lowering is a widely attested phonological rule in
closed syllables or before a rhotic coda. However, they point out that the particular case with
Turkish is that the rule applies to all finals characterized by [+sonorant].

This study will present additional data where the sound change could also be observed
before [+fricative] finals.

1.3 Organization of the Paper

I start the discussion by explaining what we consider e-lowering thoroughly, in the following
chapter Blevins’ typology of sound change is introduced and predictions regarding the
particular sound change is argued. In the next section, the potential role of frequency on
synchronic/diachronic sound changes in a language is explained and the predictions are
made on the bases of frequencies calculated from TNC. After setting the grounds on which
results are going to be evaluated, I present a piece of the data analyzed from native speakers’
speech samples which are given within comparison to frequency rates of the selected lexical
items. In the last chapter of this paper, the analyses are discussed for further implications
and a brief conclusion is presented.
2.0 Redefining E-Lowering in Turkish

The phonological rule of ‘E-lowering’ refers to the mid-front closed vowel /e/ appearing as
one of its allophones, a low front vowel [æ] in the environment of a coda where it is followed
by a sonorant. Vowel lowering before a rhotic coda or in closed syllables is a common
attested pattern, however, it is interesting that Turkish generalizes this sound change is
observed specifically before sonorant endings. (Nichols & Gopal, 2017) What is more curious
is that within the scope of this study, I happen to find that /e/-lowering is, in fact, not
restricted to pre-sonorant environments; instead, this sound change seemingly occurs before
[+continuant] sounds, as well. To be more precise, a number of items where /e/ is followed
by fricative sounds such as /s/, /,v/, /f/,/ ʃ/, /h/ were tested and all 7 speakers have been
found to use a low front vowel [æ] before fricatives as well as in pre-sonorant environments.
Previous research proves right in predicting this particular sound change occurs only before a
coda. There is no further evidence coming from this study that refutes the pre-defined
condition. However, more specifically, there are 2 items in this research proving that the
sound change may occur in open syllables just as well, being deha ‘genius’ and ela ‘hazel’. In
light of the data coming from this study, we need to revise the rule of /e/-lowering in Turkish.
It occurs before fricatives and sonorants in either an open or closed syllable immediately
followed by a coda.

Another intriguing finding is yet another class of sounds that might be triggering the change.
Upon further direct questioning, participants have reported that items including an /e/ which
is followed by oral stops are potentially subject to this sound change. However, it is
important to note here that none of these speakers who live in Istanbul and have a standard
Turkish dialect produced such instances. 6 out of 7 speakers agreed that /e/-lowering before
oral stops is highly dialectical as opposed to the production of [æ] in pre-nasal, pre-liquid,
and pre-fricative environments which can also easily be produced by Standart Turkish
speakers as stated above.

2.1 Where Does Its Root Lie?

Most of the recurrent sound changes have a dominant source as well as external and internal
factors playing a role in their success rates of maintenance. According to a general typology
presented by Blevins (2007), sound changes might be initiated due to several occurrences
between the speaker and the listener such as CHANGE, CHANCE, and CHOICE factors.
CHANGE instances are seen as a result of misperception by the listener of the phonetic
signals, CHANCE is used to refer to instances where there is no misperception of the phonetic
signal, however, there is a phonological ambiguity which is causing the listener to pick a
different phonological representation than that of the listener. Finally, CHOICE refers to cases
where there are multiple variants of a single phonological form and they are all perceived
correctly, the listener and the speaker simply select different underlying representations
from the available options. (Blevins, 2007)

In my opinion, /e/-lowering in Turkish is unlikely to be a case of misperception. Rather, it is

reasonable to assume that it belongs to the CHOICE group. As the sound [æ] appears as an
allophone of the phoneme /e/ in Turkish, speakers are possibly well aware of their options.

4.0 The Role of Frequency

It is been debated whether high-frequency words have a tendency to undergo sound

changes at a slower rate, whereas low-frequency words are prone to change more swiftly or
vice versa. Bybee (2007) has put forward two tendencies called the Conserving Effect (CE)
and the Reduction Effect (RE). The CE suggests that words with high frequency are
strengthened and therefore become more resistant to changes. On the other hand, RE
implies that high-frequency words are more easily affected by sound changes and it is further
explained that “repetition of neuromotor sequences leads to greater overlap and reduction
of the component articulatory gestures”. (Bybee, 2007)

Another study comes from Phillip (2006) suggesting that it is possible for high-frequency
words to be subject to change first. Upon studying stress shift in English, he concludes that
this type of sound change occurring due to assimilation or reduction affects only the
phonetic realization of the words, thus causing the highly frequent lexical items to display
the change in the beginning. However, this should not be the case with sound changes that
first invoke abstract schemas. That is, the least frequent words are supposed to be the first to
get affected by modifications that rely on a more in-depth understanding of word structure.
Researchers like Labov (2006) have explained the correlation between frequency and sound
changes might be redundant or at least, secondary in some cases where the shift is solely
triggered by the linguistic environment.

The discussion conducted by these researchers will have importance in defining to what
extent frequency might be playing a role in /e/-lowering in Turkish. It is crucial to understand
not every sound change is analogical like the English past tense which has been central to the
discussion on the correlation between morphological/phonological changes and frequency.
The fact that the most common verbs of English resist this sound change is an expected
outcome due to its analogical nature. Whereas, loss of phonemes in the process of
assimilation is likely to first affect the most common words in a language.

As for /e/-lowering in Turkish, according to Gopal and Nichols (2017) optionality between

[e]~ [æ] can be seen in a few words which have a high frequency; however, on their account,
as the frequency decreases the optionality seems to disappear. In this section, I will present
some comparisons within selected pairs of words having low versus high frequencies and
native speakers’ judgments on the viability of optionality as well as what they had produced
before having been explicitly asked about their opinions.

I will be comparing only the lexical items that have a considerable amount of difference in
their frequency rates. All of the frequencies presented here have been calculated from the
TNC data. The word belki ‘maybe’ having a frequency of 0.0603%, is one of the most variable

lexical item in terms of the optionality between [e]~ [æ]. 4 out of 7 speakers pronounced the
lexical item with an [e], whereas 3 speakers used [æ]. However, when they were asked to
give judgments, all speakers found both options equally available. It could be argued that a
word of very high frequency is resisting the phonological change here.

In contrast, items such as deha ‘genius’ having a frequency of 0.0005%, sevk ‘dispatch’ with a
frequency of 0.0031%, hele ‘all in all’ with a frequency of 0.0139% have proven to be less
flexible with respect to the optionality. Without exception, all of the speakers pronounced all
three items with [æ], and when they were asked to give judgments they agreed to the
acceptability of [e] in these cases but found these utterances highly dialectical and
unavailable to them.
Moreover, a noteworthy instance is observed with the words efendi ‘master’ and efendim
‘ma’am’, having frequencies of 0.0083% and 0.0119% respectively. The latter one is used for
many purposes in Turkish such as when responding a call or asking for repetition, it is not
simply an inflected form of efendi ‘master’ being attached with a first-person possessive
suffix ‘-m’. Although, it can be used in some contexts as the inflected form of ‘master’, in the
prevailing majority of the instances it is used for other multiple pragmatic purposes. What is
central to our discussion in this paper is the fact that the item with a higher frequency,
although occurring in almost the same linguistic environment is pronounced with [e], while
efendi ‘master’ is pronounced with the low front vowel by 5 out of 7 speakers. When asked
explicitly, the participants stated the unavailability of pronouncing efendim ‘ma’am’ with a
lowered variant. That is, they acknowledge the presence of such an option, however, almost
never use it. This is another case lending credence to the view that words which have
common use resist this sound change and the effects of sound change are predominantly
observed in low-frequency words.

However, it is important to remind here the discussion at the start of this section. It has been
pointed out that it would be a misconception to generalize all sound changes in a way to
imply they all act on the same bases in terms of frequency correlations. The conclusion
drawn from the data only encompasses the particular phonological rule that is being
observed in this paper and strikingly, it further supports that /e/-lowering is, indeed, a rule
invoking abstract schemas depending on a deeper comprehension of the lexical structure, as
put forward by Phillip (2006). Gopal and Nichols (2017) are also right in pointing out
specifically that some highly frequent words show optionality more than others, which is in
line with the results coming from this study as in the case of two high-frequency words belki
‘maybe’ and efendim ‘ ma’am ‘ exhibiting distinct behavior in terms of optionality.

5.0 Conclusion

This study revealed the possibility that /e/-lowering in Turkish is not restricted to pre-
sonorant environments, rather it also occurs before fricatives. Testing a total of 7 Standart
Turkish speakers’ pronunciation of isolated lexical items, and comparing these items’
frequencies have shown that the phonological rule which is predicted to come into being by
a CHOICE factor, targets words that are not highly frequent in the language and slowly
proceeds from these words to items with higher frequency. It is important to add here that

optionality between [e]~ [æ] is present with particular high-frequency words, while it is
completely absent for some.

For further research, the reasons behind the varying behavior of optionality among common
lexical items could be studied. Additionally, more items testing /e/-lowering before fricatives
with an extended number of participants should be implemented. Another weakness of this
study comes from presenting the words in isolation which constructs an artificial
environment and lowers the possibility of observing natural speech occurrences. Future
research should eliminate this disadvantage by strategies such as story-telling which would
necessitate the use of items to be tested.
References

Blevins, J. (2006a). A theoretical synopsis of evolutionary phonology.

Theoretical Linguistics, 32(2). https://doi.org/10.1515/tl.2006.009

Bybee, Joan. 2002. ‘Word frequency and context of use in the lexical diffusion
of phonetically conditioned sound change’. Language Variation and
Change 14, 261-290.

Bybee, Joan. 2007. Frequency of use and the organization of language. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.

Gopal, D. & Nichols, S. (2017). Sonorant-conditioned mid-vowel lowering in

Turkish. Old World Conference on Phonology Düsseldorf 2017
https://manling.wordpress.com/2017/02/23/gopal-and-nichols-at-ocp/

Göksel, A., & Kerslake, C. (2010). Turkish: A comprehensive grammar.

Routledge.

Labov, William. 2006. ‘A sociolinguistic perspective on sociophonetic research’.

Journal of phonetics 34, 500-515.

Phillips, Betty. S. 2006. Word Frequency and Lexical Diffusion. Basingstoke:

Palgrave Macmillan.