bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Units in the analysis of signs
Authors: van der Hulst Harry
Published: October 2008

The assumption that there is a common set of linguistic principles underlying both spoken language and sign language phonology, which forms part of the human language capacity, is shared by most phonologists working on sign language. See Sandler (1993a) for an extensive discussion of these issues. But even though this assumption is reasonable, since both spoken and signed languages are products of the same human brain and fulfil the same function, it is not clear that theories of representation which have been proposed for spoken languages can be directly applied to the structure of sign languages. Such representations have been developed on the basis of the spoken language modality only. They are often so close to the phonetics of spoken languages that we cannot rule out the possibility that non-trivial aspects of them are modality-specific. Therefore, rather than, for example, attempting to test various competing (spoken language-based) theories of syllable structure, we must first investigate the structure of sign language in its own right. This strategy need not be pushed too far, however. In developing a model of signs we can benefit from general principles which have proved successful in the study of spoken languages, especially if these principles do not seem to be directly based on ‘spoken phonetics’.
Explaining Natural Phonology
Authors: Dressler Wolfgang U.
Published: October 2008

Natural Phonology (henceforth NP), founded by Stampe (1969, cf. 1980), and not to be confused with Natural Generative Phonology (henceforth NGP, as in Vennemann 1972 and Hooper 1976) and other ‘natural’ and ‘concrete’ trends in process phonologies (as in Brucket al.1974, cf. §3·3), has been well expounded in Donegan & Stampe (1979b) and, in terms of its application to language acquisition, in Edwards & Shriberg (1983). Important differences from Generative Phonology (henceforth GP) have been enumerated by Wojcik (1981). It is not my intention to repeat these expositions, but rather to answer those criticisms that have so far been answered only partially, such as the objections to NP discussed in Anderson (1981), Dinnsen (1978), Dinnsen & Eckmann (1977, 1978), Drachman (1978, 1981), Dressler (1974a), Hellberg (1980), Kodzasov & Krivnova (1981: 145ff), Lass (1980, 1981).
Vowel system universals and typology: prologue to theory
Authors: Lass Roger
Published: October 2008

Considering all the work done on vowel system typology and universals in the past half-century (Trubetzkoy 1929, 1939; Hockett Sedlak 1969; Crothers 1978), my title may seem rather arrogant. There are after all theories of vocalic organisation about, or at least models and taxonomies; there are even attempts to explain why certain implicational universals seem to hold (from Jakobson's [laws of solidarity] (1968) to the more sophisticated treatments in Liljencrants & Lindblom 1972; Kim 1973; etc.).
Prosodic phonology and phonetics
Authors: Ohala John J. , Kawasaki Haruko
Published: October 2008

Our colleague Charles Fillmore invented the following parable (personal communication) to characterise the two dominant ways linguists attempt to solve problems of language structure and behaviour.
The fundamentals of particle phonology
Authors: Schane Sanford A.
Published: October 2008

Particle phonology has evolved from a dissatisfaction that I experienced working within the current theoretical and notational framework of generative phonology. I had been looking at historical processes affecting vowels and diphthongs. In trying to describe the kinds of changes undergone by these entities, I was particularly frustrated by the inability of the standard notation to characterise in any enlightening way the internal structure of vowels, as well as relationships evident between particular vowels and diphthongs. The first difficulty – the nature of the internal structure of vowels – was not simply due to an inadequate set of distinctive features. Rather, the problem resided in the very notion of features as autonomous building blocks out of which segments are composed. This view contributed partially to the other difficulty – the expression of relationships between vowels and diphthongs. An additional factor to this problem came from restrictions of the notation in regard what could appear to the left and to the right of an arrow. The notation forced me to formulate rules whose statements often did not accord with my conception of the nature of the processes. It seems to me that a highly-valued notational system should have the property that I have come to call ‘mirroring’. If one believes that a process or change happens in a certain way, then the notation should not just describe that event but should reflect as closely as possible its manner of occurrence.
On the theory of Lexical Phonology
Authors: Kaisse Ellen M. , Shaw Patricia A.
Published: October 2008

The theory of Lexical Phonology, which forms one of the themes of this volume, was developed by Paul Kiparsky and K. P. Mohanan and first introduced in monographs appearing in the early 1980s (Kiparsky 1982a, b; Mohanan 1982). The number of phonologists that have begun to work within or in response to the theory in the short time since its appearance is worthy of remark. One reason that Lexical Phonology has sparked so much interest must surely be that it supplies new tools for analysis and new ways of approaching recalcitrant problems. But another part of its appeal lies in the way it comes as a natural outgrowth of and response to so many of the major trends in phonology and morphology in the last 15 years. Our purpose in writing this introduction is to trace the history of some ideas that come together in Lexical Phonology and to provide the reader with an overview of the model itself. In this we shall be covering some already well-trodden ground, for Kiparsky, Mohanan, and many of their colleagues and students have included eloquent introductions to Lexical Phonology within their articles. However, we trust that readers of the Phonology Yearbook will find it useful to have in hand an exposition of the different facets of the model and the recent challenges and modifications it has undergone. And while our intentions are more pedagogical than critical, we shall from time to time point out difficulties inherent in some or all versions of the model.
Spanish diphthongisation and stress: a paradox resolved
Authors: Harris James W.
Published: October 2008

At the level of description, this study is concerned with the interaction of the rules of stress assignment in Spanish with rules governing the alternation of certain vowels with diphthongs. The descriptive discussion, in turn, relates primarily to two theoretical questions concerning the lexicon, namely, the role of null phonological segments in lexical representations and the nature of lexical diacritics that control the application of non-automatic phonological rules.
Word domains and downstep in Bamileke-Dschang
Authors: Hyman Larry M.
Published: October 2008

The theoretical significance of the Bamileke-Dschang tone system has been evident since Tadadjeu (1974) first pointed out the unusual tonal oppositions found in this language. Whereas the majority of languages with tonal downstep permit this entity (!) only between high (or, perhaps more generally, only between non-low) tones, Dschang contrasts H and !H after both high (H) and low (L) tones and also contrasts L and ! L tones as well. The detailed account provided in Hyman & Tadadjeu (1976) has led to further comments, reactions and reanalyses, including Clark (1979), Hyman (1979), Watters Anderson (1980), Stewart (1981), Hyman (1982), Pulleyblank (1982, 1983), and an exchange of letters between M. Halle, S. C. Anderson and myself in 1981–1982.
Phonological structure: segmental, suprasegmental and extrasegmental
Authors: Anderson John , Ewen Colin , Staun Jørgen
Published: October 2008

In the past few years a great deal of attention has been paid to the representation of suprasegmental phenomena in phonology, with the resulting development of a number of partly competing theories and models of suprasegmental representation – in particular, various versions of AUTOSEGMENTAL PHONOLOGY (see, for example, Goldsmith 1976; Halle & Vergnaud 1981; Clements & Keyser 1983) and METRICAL PHONOLOGY (Liberman & Prince 1977; Hayes 1980, 1982; Prince 1983; Giegerich 1985). Other frameworks have also been developed which allow for the representation of phenomena in this area, notably that of DEPENDENCY PHONOLOGY (Anderson & Jones 1974, 1977; Ewen 1980; Anderson 1984; Anderson & Ewen 1980, forthcoming).It has, moreover, become obvious that although these theories at first seemed very different, many of the differences are more apparent than real, so that in some respects the proposals are complementary rather than alternative - and in many areas it is clear that we are moving towards a situation where a single model can perhaps be developed from the various frameworks (cf. Leben 1982; Goldsmith this volume).
The geometry of phonological features
Authors: Clements G. N.
Published: October 2008

On the notion ‘feature bundle’ The study of the phonological aspect of human speech has advanced greatly over the past decades as a result of one of the fundamental discoveries of modern linguistics – the fact that phonological segments, or phonemes, are not the ultimate constituents of phonological analysis, but factor into smaller, simultaneous properties orfeatures. The apparently vast number of speech sounds found in the languages of the world turn out to be surface-level realisations of a limited number of combinations of a very small set of such features – some twenty or so, in current analyses. This conclusion is strongly supported by the similar patterning of speech sounds in language after language, and by many extragrammatical features of language use, such as patterns of acquisition, language disablement and language change.
Vowel harmony in Khalkha Mongolian, Yaka, Finnish and Hungarian
Authors: Goldsmith John
Published: October 2008

The discussion of vowel harmony in this paper continues the theoretical discussion that was sparked by Clements' first proposals concerning an autosegmental treatment of vowel harmony in general (1980 [1976]). I will attempt to show that problems that arose in early autosegmental treatments of certain types of vowel harmony can be elegantly overcome and that autosegmental theory more generally provides an attractive framework for the treatment of vowel systems and vowel harmony. I will discuss three distinct types of systems here: the slightly asymmetrical system of Khalkha Mongolian, the canonical five-vowel system as it can be seen in Bantu (Yaka, in this case), and the well-known Finnish/Hungarian type of system. The kinds of advances made here answer, I believe, the critical comments made in Anderson (1980), in which significant sceptical questions are raised concerning whether the successes of autosegmental accounts of West African systems can be extended to other types of vowel harmony systems.
The internal structure of phonological elements: a theory of charm and government
Authors: Kaye Jonathan , Lowenstamm Jean , Vergnaud Jean-Roger
Published: October 2008

In this article we have two primary objectives: (1) to elaborate in some detail a theory of phonological representations embedded within a parametric framework, and (2) to apply this theory to a particular vowel system which displays some rather interesting properties. This work is a continuation of a collaboration on a programme of research on phonological theory begun in 1982 (cf. Vergnaud 1982; Kaye & Vergnaud 1984; Kaye et al. 1984, 1985, in preparation).This programme incorporates the view that phonology is to be regarded as a system of universal principles defining the class of human phonological systems. These principles underdetermine given phonologies in certain specific areas. A complete phonological system consists, then, of these principles along with sets of parameter values. Taken together, the principles and language-specific parameter settings give a complete characterisation of the phonological system under study. In this model, a phonological system contains no rule component. The observed phonological phenomena result from a combination of the general principles governing phonological representations and structures and the parameter values in operation in the particular language. We view this line of research as a continuation of the development of a theory of markedness (cf. Chomsky & Halle 1968 (SPE); Kean 1975, 1979). At the moment of writing, this view of phonology remains a long-term objective of our research programme. However, an increasing number of phonological processes which were formerly considered to be manifestations of rules are now successfully derivable from the principles of Universal Phonology (UP) (cf. Kaye & Lowenstamm 1984, to appear).
Consumer's guide to evidence in phonology
Authors: Ohala John J.
Published: October 2008

The purpose of evidence adduced in support of a theory is not to prove that theory true but to demonstrate that competing theories account for facts less well and thus no longer demand our attention. Evidence therefore, if it can unambiguously decide between competing theories, helps the discipline to spend its resources on only a few issues at a time. I evaluate this winnowing capacity of various kinds of evidence which have been offered in support of hypotheses on what knowledge native speakers' have about the sound patterns in their language and how they use it: surface sound patterns, sound change, poetry, speech errors, word games, and experiments. I argue that experiments provide evidence of the highest quality. Four experiments are reported, three psychological and one phonetic, which offer evidence on the following claims: (a) the psychological basis of speakers' awareness of phonotactics, (b) speakers' awareness of the morphemic constituents of complex derived words, (c) whether epenthetic stops of the sort evident in words like team[p]ster are added by purely mechanical constraints of the articulatory apparatus or whether they can be attributed to higher, pre-phonetic levels, and (d) the factors that determine speakers' assignment of allophones to phonemes.
Today the world, tomorrow phonology*
Authors: Ohala John J. , McCawley James D.
Published: October 2008

Generative phonological research has typically relied heavily on gratuitous assumptions about the particular morphemic decompositions that are by convention treated as data, about the relevance of those decompositions to the determination of underlying forms, and about the individuation of linguistic phenomena. I discuss a number of topics that take on a different complexion when these gratuitous assumptions are avoided: the identification of particular segments as making up underlying forms, which is far more problematic than has hitherto been recognised; various prior studies that can be interpreted as showing that ‘Vowel Shift’, while playing some role in the competence of speakers of English, has much less generality than standard tenets of generative phonology would lead one to expect; and individual variation in perceived morphemic relations among words. I report on an experiment that demonstrates the existence of such variation and provides evidence for individual differences in the system of vowel alternations and in the status of vowel shift alternations in that system.
Perceptual constraints and phonological change: a study of nasal vowel height
Authors: Ohala John J. , Beddor Patrice Speeter , Krakow Rena Arens , Goldstein Louis M.
Published: October 2008

To address the claim that listener misperceptions are a source of phonological shifts in nasal vowel height, the phonological, acoustic and perceptual effects of nasalisation on vowel height were examined. We show that the acoustic consequences of nasal coupling, while consistent with phonological patterns of nasal vowel raising and lowering, do not always influence perceived vowel height. The perceptual data suggest that nasalisation affects perceived vowel height only when nasalisation is phonetically inappropriate (e.g. insufficient or excessive nasal coupling) or phonologically inappropriate (e.g. no conditioning environment in a language without distinctive nasal vowels). It is argued that these conditions, rather than the inherent inability of the listener to distinguish the spectral effects of velic and tongue body gestures, lead to perceptual misinterpretations and potentially to sound change.
Towards an articulatory phonology
Authors: Ohala John J. , Browman Catherine P. , Goldstein Louis M.
Published: October 2008

We propose an approach to phonological representation based on describing an utterance as an organised pattern of overlapping articulatory gestures. Because movement is inherent in our definition of gestures, these gestural ‘constellations’ can account for both spatial and temporal properties of speech in a relatively simple way. At the same time, taken as phonological representations, such gestural analyses offer many of the same advantages provided by recent nonlinear phonological theories, and we give examples of how gestural analyses simplify the description of such ‘complex segments’ as /s/–stop clusters and prenasalised stops. Thus, gestural structures can be seen as providing a principled link between phonological and physical description.
Intonational structure in Japanese and English
Authors: Beckman Mary E. , Pierrehumbert Janet B.
Published: October 2008

Comparisons between Japanese and English prosodics have usually either focused on the strikingly apparent phonetic differences between the stress patterns of English and the tonal accent patterns of Japanese or concentrated upon formal similarities between the abstract arrangements of the stresses and tones. A recent investigation of tone structure in Japanese (Pierrehumbert & Beckman forthcoming), however, has convinced us that if the proper prosodic phenomena are compared, far more pervasive similarities can be discovered and of a much more concrete sort than hitherto suspected. In particular, there is now extensive evidence that Japanese tonal patterns are very sparsely specified, which suggests that they are much more similar to English intonational structures than earlier descriptions would have allowed.
Intonational phrasing: the case for recursive prosodic structure
Authors: Ladd D.Robert
Published: October 2008

The past decade has seen a good deal of research on the relation between phonology and syntax, and on the nature of the phonological structures – both intonational and metrical – on to which syntactic structure must be mapped (e.g. Liberman & Prince 1977; Pierrehumbert 1980; Selkirk 1984; Kaisse 1985; Nespor & Vogel 1986). While some of this work breaks genuinely new ground, in at least one respect it relies on a theoretical legacy from work going back at least half a century: the INTONATIONAL PHRASE (IP). The goal of this paper is to examine the properties of the IP as a theoretical construct and to propose a substantially modified approach to intonational phrasing.
Secondary stress and metrical rhythm
Authors: Ladd D.Robert , Roca Iggy
Published: October 2008

This paper explores the relationship between some postlexical prosodic processes and metrical rhythm. The main focus is on Spanish secondary stress and related phenomena. Overall, as in previous studies, we shall differentiate three types of stress in Spanish: primary word stress, corresponding to the highest prominence in the lexical word, main phrasal stress, which signals the accentual peak in the phrase or phonic group, and secondary stress, which includes all remaining discernible stresses. It is intuitively plausible, though unsubstantiated experimentally, to assume that these three types correlate with three different degrees of prominence, of which main phrasal stress is the highest and secondary stress the lowest.
On derived domains in sentence phonology
Authors: Selkirk Elisabeth
Published: October 2008

This paper deals with two distinct but inextricably connected sets of questions
in the area of sentence phonology. The first concerns the organisation of
sentence phonology and the nature of the phonological representation(s) of the
sentence, and the second the relation between syntactic structure and
phonological representation.
Introduction: syntactic influences on phonological rules
Authors: Kaisse Ellen M. , Zwicky Arnold M.
Published: October 2008

Phonological theory asks how phonological shapes are assigned to linguistic units. In this issue of the Phonology Yearbook we bring together examinations of the role that syntactic structure plays in this assignment. The focus is therefore on phenomena that have been labelled, in one framework or another, as external sandhi (as opposed to internal sandhi), phrase phonology (as opposed to word phonology), or postlexical phonology (as opposed to lexical phonology).
Kimatuumbi phrasal phonology
Authors: Odden David
Published: October 2008

Kimatuumbi, a Bantu language of Tanzania, has a number of phonological rules applying between words which are sensitive to syntactic structure. Kimatuumbi thus presents a test for theories of the interaction between syntactic structure and phonology. I argue that phonological rules in Kimatuumbi make direct reference to labelled surface syntactic bracketing, contrary to the claims of boundary theories such as Chomsky & Halle (1968) and Selkirk (1974), as well as the prosodic theories of Selkirk (1980), Nespor & Vogel (1982) and Hayes (1984).
Are phonosyntactic rules necessary?
Authors: Zwicky Arnold M. , Kaisse Ellen M. , Cowper Elizabeth A. , Rice Keren D.
Published: October 2008

Selkirk (1986) proposes that rules of the phrasal phonology apply to a structure called P-structure that is derived from, but not isomorphic to, syntactic structure. While Selkirk claims that most rules of external sandhi fall into the category of P-structure rules, there are three rules that she suggests may still require direct reference to syntactic structure. These are Mende Consonant Mutation (Conteh et al. 1986), Kimatuumbi Vowel Shortening (Odden this volume), and ‘perhaps even rules like English wanna contraction’ (Selkirk 1986: 374). Selkirk says that these rules ‘appear to be sensitive to a richer array of syntactic conditions than would be expressible via the translation of syntax into P-structure’.
Inflected prepositions in Italian
Authors: Zwicky Arnold M. , Kaisse Ellen M. , Napoli Donna Jo , Nevis Joel
Published: October 2008

In Italian certain prepositions (Ps) can appear morphologically combined with articles, inflecting for number and gender. We will dub this the inflected form of the P for the moment, without prejudice as to the analysis of this form:

(1) Sta nella terza camera ‘It's in the third bedroom’ is in/the (fern sg) third bedroom

(2) C' è abbastanza carta sulle scrivanie there is enough paper on/the (fern pi) desks ‘There's enough paper on the desks’

(3) Ci va col vicino there goes with'the (masc sg) neighbour ‘He's going there with his neighbour’

(4) L' ho dato ai ragazzi ‘I gave it to the boys’ it I–have given to/the (masc pi) boys

The inflected form of the P has desinences similar to those found on the articles and the demonstrative adjective quel(lo). These forms are given overleaf in Table I (where only one inflected P is shown, but the forms for the other inflected Ps vary for number and gender in the same way).
French prepositions:no peeking
Authors: Zwicky Arnold M.
Published: October 2008

Spatial location and direction are expressed in French primarily by means of prepositional phrases involving three different prepositions:en, dans and à. Disregarding the usual collection of fixed expressions, lexical idiosyncrasies and subtle pragmatic and stylistic effects, the large generalisation about spatial PPs is that dans and a tend to be used with objects understood referentially, as in (1) and (2) (such ‘determinate’ or ‘particularised’ NPs will typically have a determiner in them), while en is used with non-referential objects, as in (3) (these will typically lack a determiner):

(1) a. dans la prison ‘in(to) the prison’

b. dans une prison ‘in(to) a prison’

(2) a l'ecole ‘in(to) the school’

(3) en prison ‘in(to) prison’
Hungarian cola
Authors: Hammond Michael
Published: October 2008

Stowell (1979) argues that an intermediate level of structure between foot and word tree is necessary: superfeet or cola. Cola are metrical constituents built on the output of footing. Stowell's argument is based on the accentual systems of Passamaquoddy and Seneca. However, in both cases, the analysis is for one reason or another questionable. First, P. LeSourd (personal communication) has suggested that the Passamaquoddy data are more complex than the sample Stowell presents, which undercuts his account. (Stowell's data are drawn from LeSourd's fieldwork.) Second, the Seneca analysis rests on the assumption that bounded and unbounded feet cannot cooccur in the same language – not a necessary component of metrical theory.
Lexical Phonology and the distribution of German [ ç ] and [ x ]
Authors: Hall Tracy Alan
Published: October 2008

This paper examines the distribution of the palatal fricative [ç] and the velar fricative [x] in Modern Standard German. The data are significant with respect to the theory of Lexical Phonology (Kiparsky 1982, 1985; Halle & Mohanan 1985; Mohanan 1986) because the rule of Fricative Assimilation (FA) which spreads the feature of backness from a vowel onto an immediately following tautomorphemic [ —voice, + high] fricative is a counterexample to Kiparsky's (1985) Structure Preservation hypothesis, according to which non-distinctive features must be introduced postlexically. It is also noteworthy that the present analysis produces both [x] and [ç] from a [— voice, + high] fricative which is unspecified for backness, contrary to the general tendency among previous researchers who have taken either /ç/ or /x/ to be the basic segment.
Syntactic and rhythmic effects on downstep in Japanese
Authors: Kubozono Haruo
Published: October 2008

The past decade or so has seen increasing interest in prosodic research, and remarkable progress has been made in the study of accent and intonation, both empirical and theoretical. Research in Japanese intonation is no exception in this respect, as evidenced by such works as Poser (1984) and Beckman & Pierrehumbert (1986), among others, which have developed theoretical discussions on many interesting phonological issues on the basis of their own experimental evidence.
On clashes and lapses
Authors: Nespor Marina , Vogel Irene
Published: October 2008

In phonology, one of the generalisations that seems to hold true across most, if not all, languages is that the overall rhythmic pattern tends to be organised such that there is an alternation of strong and weak syllables (cf. among others, Hayes 1980, 1984; Prince 1983; Selkirk 1984). In other words, languages tend to avoid strings of adjacent strong syllables, as well as strings of adjacent weak syllables. These generalisations are expressed by clauses (a) and (b), respectively, of Selkirk's Principle of Rhythmic Alternation (PRA):

(1)Principle of Rhythmic Alternation(Selkirk 1984: 52)

a. Every strong position on a metrical levelnshould be followed by at least one weak position on that level

b. Any weak position on a metrical levelnmay be preceded by at most one weak position on that level

Of course, the underlying rhythmic patterns of a language are not always in conformity with the PRA.
Atoms of segmental structure: components, gestures and dependency
Authors: van der Hulst Harry
Published: October 2008

In this article I discuss some aspects of a model of segmental structure, in particular the representation of vowels. The central claim is that vowels can be represented in terms of three unary primitives, organised in a binary structure involving both DOMINANCE and DEPENDENCY relations.

My goal is to explore the consequences of this claim. Certain aspects of the proposal differ in matters of principle from the theory of segmental structure advanced in Chomsky & Halle (1968; henceforth SPE), and subsequent work in this tradition up to and including the ‘geometrical model’ as developed in Steriade (1982), Clements (1985), Sagey (1986), McCarthy (1988) and Halle (1988), even though it is argued in some of these works that certain features are unary, that they are organised hierarchically and that certain features enter into dependency relations.
On the category Supralaryngeal
Authors: Iverson Gregory K.
Published: October 2008

In this essay I suggest that the conventional bifurcation of geometrically organised feature bundles into ‘Laryngeal’ and ‘Supralaryngeal’ categories, advocated most prominently in the provocative work of Clements (1985, 1987), Sagey (1986) and Archangeli & Pulleyblank (forthcoming), should be modified to eliminate the Supralaryngeal element altogether. Specifically, the proposal is that the category Place and the features of manner be removed from subordination under the Supralaryngeal node, as in the conventional configuration displayed in (1), and instead be subsumed directly under Root, as depicted in (2):1
Feature encoding by neural nets
Authors: Lathroum Amanda
Published: October 2008

While the use of categorical features seems to be the appropriate way to express sound patterns within languages, these features do not seem adequate to describe the sounds actually produced by speakers. Examination of the speech signal fails to reveal objective, discrete phonological segments. Similarly, segments are not directly observable in the flow of articulatory movements, and vary slightly according to an individual speaker's articulatory strategies. Because of the lack of a reliable relationship between segments and speech sounds, a plausible transition from feature representation to the actual acoustic signal has proven elusive. This paper utilises a theory of information processing, known as PARALLEL DISTRIBUTED PROCESSING (PDP) NETWORKS (also called neural networks), to propose a model which begins to express this transition: translating the feature bundles indicated in a broad phonetic transcription into continuous, potentially variable articulator behaviour.
Diphthongisation and coindexing
Authors: Hayes Bruce
Published: October 2008

The tree model of segment structure proposed by Clements (1985) is an important innovation in phonological theory, making possible a number of interesting predictions about the form of phonological rules, locality of rule application, and the organisation of the feature system. Clements' proposal has given rise to an expanding literature, including Sagey (1986), Schein & Steriade (1986), McCarthy (1988), Archangeli & Pulleyblank (forthcoming) and other work.
C-command or edges in Makonde
Authors: Odden David
Published: October 2008

Kaisse (1985) presents a theory of syntax–phonology interaction whereby a rule may require one element in the environment of the rule to ccommand another element in the environment. A crucial notion in that theory, hereafter referred to as the c-command theory, is domain ccommand, which is defined as follows (Kaisse 1985: 159):

In the structure [xmax … α …], Xmax is defined as the domain of α. Then α c-commands any β in its domain.
Segmental complexity and phonological government
Authors: Kaye Jonathan , Harris John
Published: October 2008

In this article, I explore a class of phonological reduction phenomena which highlight the role of segmental complexity in phonological government. I discuss a condition on phonological representations which requires that a segment occupying a governed position be no more complex than its governor, where complexity is straightforwardly calculated in terms of the number of elements of which a segment is composed. More generally, the present enterprise is to be seen as part of a wider programme in which reduction phenomena, including those traditionally referred to as lenition, are examined for the light they shed on the internal structure of consonants.
‘Coda’ licensing
Authors: Kaye Jonathan
Published: October 2008

One of the main thrusts of the research programme known as Government Phonology has been the attempt to replace the rule component of a phonology by a group of universal principles common to all linguistic systems along with a series of parameters which delimit the nature of linguistic variation from one system to another. Given the wealth of analyses that employ rules and the fact that their number continues to grow, even to this day, it is a daunting task to find plausible alternative stories for each and every analysis that employs phonological rules in some crucial way. One of the leading ideas of work done on syllable structure that I have participated in for the last ten years has been the emergence of such alternative analyses for a series of phenomena that seemed to call for phonological rules.
The English Rhythm Rule as an accent deletion rule
Authors: Gussenhoven Carlos
Published: October 2008

In order to account for the accentual and rhythmical structure of English, a binary-branching prosodic constituent structur is assumed, in which minimally the syllable and the foot must be headed. Feet are potentially marked as accented. This representation makes it possible to describe the prominence patterns of word groups as resulting from three accent deletion rules, the Compound Rule, the Initial Accent Deletion Rule and the Rhythm Rule. It was shown that the structural change effected by Initial Accent Deletion cannot be expressed in theories which represent stress as a relative concept. Moreover, this rule, which like the Compound rule is a lexical rule, provided evidence for the existence of a stratum in the lexical phonology of English in which compounding and so-called ClassII derivation take place. The Rhythm Rule is a postlexical rule, which was shown to apply to the output of the other two rules. Without the aid of any conditions or constraints, it accounted effortlessly for the stress-shift data presented in the recent literature. It could moreover be shown that apparent cases of stress shift in unaccented speech (in which the Rhythm Rule does not apply) should not in fact be viewed as the output of any stress-shift rule at all, but should be explained as the effect of preboundary lengthening as applying to the different constituents in the prosodic hierarchy. It was argued that an analysis of sentence accentuation whereby focused constituents have to be assigned accents can run into problems that do not exist in a ‘deaccenting’ analysis, in which nonfocused constituents are deprived of their accents. Finally, it was argued that English, unlike Dutch, lacks phonological rules that refer to primary word stress, and that, at best, primary stress may reveal itself in low-level timing distinctions.
Prosodic circumscription in Choctaw morphology
Authors: Lombardi Linda , McCarthy John
Published: October 2008

The theory of PROSODIC CIRCUMSCRIPTION (McCarthy & Prince 1990a) is a general approach to the problem of limiting the domain of rules to less than a morphological constituent. For example, in the Arabic singular/ plural pairs ndub/anaadib ‘locust’ and sulṭaan/salaaṭiin ‘sultan’, vowel length in the final syllable remains unaltered despite significant changes in the shape of the rest of the word. Prosodic circumscription theory partitions the singular base into affected (aun, sul) and unaffected (dib, ṭaan) portions, with only the affected portion mapped onto a light–heavy (or iambic) template.
Radical underspecification in language production
Authors: Stemberger Joseph Paul
Published: October 2008

Phonological underspecification plays an important role in phonological theory. Some features are left blank in underlying representations. If they are relevant to the pronunciation of a segment, they are filled in at some point in the derivation; otherwise, they are left blank permanently. When underspecification was reintroduced to phonological theory in the 1980s, researchers originally assumed thatallinformation that could be considered predictable had to be underspecified in underlying representations (Kiparsky 1982; Archangeli 1984). Information can be considered predictable in one of two ways. First, information is predictable if it is redundant or allophonic; the voicing and nasality of the vowel in the wordgrin[grin] in English are predictable (because vowels are always voiced, and are always nasalised before a nasal) and omitted from underlying representations. Second, given that a feature is binary, it is possible to leave one value of the feature blank in underlying representations; if the segment is not specified as e.g. [+ F], then it must be [− F], by default. The approach that defines predictability in this fashion is known as RADICAL UNDERSPECIFICATION
On pharynx—larynx interactions
Authors: Trigo Loren
Published: October 2008

The role which the pharynx plays in the production of speech sounds has long been the subject of debate, in particular as regards the independence of the pharynx from other speech articulators and in particular the larynx. Given that the linguistic and anatomical information about the larynx and the pharynx is quite complex, the objective of this paper is to review the literature relevant to the relationship between these two articulators and to recast some of this information in terms of current articulator-based theories of phonological features such as the ones reviewed in McCarthy (1988). 1 presents two pharyngeal features [ATR/ RTR] ‘advanced tongue root’ and ‘LL/RL’ ‘lowered larynx’separately in two subsections, with definitions, examples and arguments in favour of having two pharyngeal features rather than one. § 2 argues that pharyngeal features are independent of the primary point of articulation features.
On ich-Laut, ach-Laut and Structure Preservation
Authors: Macfarland Talke , Pierrehumbert Janet
Published: October 2008

Hall (1989) introduces a rule of Fricative Assimilation (FA) in German, which, he claims, poses a challenge to the principle of Structure Preservation in Lexical Phonology, as presented in Kiparsky (1985). This claim is based on the observation that FA is demonstrably lexical because it respects morpheme boundaries, but nonetheless introduces a nondistinctive feature, thus violating a marking condition. However, Hall has not appreciated the force of the analysis of Catalan in Kiparsky (1985), which suggests that assimilated sequences may show special behaviour with respect to marking conditions. In this paper we show first, based on arguments in Kiparsky (1985), Hayes (1986) and Itô (1988), that a general constraint on the interpretation of autosegmental formalism specifically rules out the application of the marking condition to the output of FA.
The phonology of the velar glide in Axininca Campa
Authors: Black H. Andrew
Published: October 2008

Three important strands of research characterise modern phonological theory; (i) the cyclic interaction of morphology and phonology; (ii) prosodic structure as it is built from segments into moras, syllables, feet and ultimately the phonological word; and (iii) the precise internal structure of segments, including feature geometry, how these features may reside on autosegmental tiers, and how they may be underspecified.
Contour-tone spreading and tone sandhi in Danyang Chinese
Authors: Chan Marjorie K. M.
Published: October 2008

An important contribution to our knowledge of tone sandhi among the Chinese dialects is Lü's (1980) article on the tones and tone sandhi behaviour of Danyang, a Wu dialect of Chinese. Lü's description of Danyang is, to date, our only source on the dialect. While it is a northern Wu dialect, the tone sandhi patterning in Danyang differs from Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuxi and other dialects in the vicinity. There are a number of interesting problems related to tone in the dialect. This paper restricts the topic to only one of these problems, namely the treatment of the six basic tone patterns in Danyang, focusing in particular on the pattern in which a contour tone is copied Onto adjacent syllables in the tone sandhi domain.
The phonetic interpretation of headed phonological structures containing overlapping constituents
Authors: Coleman John
Published: October 2008

In this paper I shall present a theory of phonetic interpretation of headed phonological representations. The phonological representations in question are non-segmental, hierarchical, graphical objects similar to those in common use in autosegmental, metrical, dependency and ‘government and charm’ phonology, although the details of the phonological formalism I employ are different in some respects from each of these. The theory of phonetic interpretation is based on a parametric, dynamic model of phonetic representation. The distinction between ‘head’ and ‘non-head’ constituents is central to the phonetic interpretation model. As well as being formally explicit, I have developed a computational implementation of this theory, constituting a novel speech synthesis program, ‘YorkTalk’. Consequently, although the theory, like any other, is likely to contain certain faults, it goes beyond pencil-and-paper phonological theories, in that it is capable of algorithmically generating quite natural-sounding speech-like signals of a superior quality to other methods of generating synthetic speech, albeit only for isolated words.
Multiple phonemic stress levels in Kinyambo
Authors: Bickmore Lee S.
Published: October 2008

I have argued that a prohibition on multiple phonemic stress levels cannot be made to follow from (46a) and/or (46b), as neither are absolute principles cross-linguistically. I have also suggested that while (46c) may be a strong cross-linguistic tendency, it does not follow from any deeper theory-internal principles, but rather, must be stipulated. Thus, the claim that Kinyambo has multiple phonemic stress levels necessitates no substantive change in standard grid theory, but merely represents one member of the typology of cases inherently predicted by the basic tenets of the theory.
The consequences of dissimilation in Sundanese
Authors: Cohn Abigail C.
Published: October 2008

Studies of phonological assimilation have played a central role in the development of current phonological theory. As widely discussed in the literature, assimilation is an extremely common phonological process cross-linguistically and therefore an adequate phonological theory should represent it simply and naturally. This has led to the current view of assimilation as spreading (Clements 1976; Goldsmith 1976; Hayes 1986; among others). Much less work has addressed itself to the issue of dissimilation, but recently it has been suggested that dissimilation should be analysed as delinking followed by default fill-in (Odden 1987; Poser 1987; McCarthy 1988; Yip 1988).
Diminutives and augmentatives in Mexican Spanish: a prosodic analysis
Authors: Crowhurst Megan J.
Published: October 2008

This paper argues for a prosodic constraint on the formation of diminutive and augmentative forms in Mexican Spanish. Specifically, the stem preceding diminutive (dim) and augmentative (aug) suffixes in this dialect must comprise an absolute minimum of two syllables. When a stem melody cannot satisfy the two-syllable minimum, an epenthetic vowel (V) [e] surfaces at the right edge of the stem (e.g.panesito‘little bread’ ←pan). In the analysis proposed here, a disyllabic templatef[σ σ] is mapped to stems from left to right as part of dim/aug-formation. Whether or not a consonant (C)/s/ surfaces before the suffix will be analysed as a consequence of syllabification in some cases (e.g.koronita/koronota← korona‘crown’ vs.
On the sources of word prosody
Authors: Roca Iggy
Published: October 2008

In SPE (Chomsky & Halle 1968), stress was formalised as a distinctive feature, on a par with [consonantal], [continuant] and so on. Serious problems with this approach were pinpointed in Liberman & Prince (1977). Building on Liberman (1975), these authors conceived of stress as the product of a syllable-grounded network of hierarchical relations. In particular, they argued that, in any given domain (say, a word), syllables are prosodically organised into layers of binary constituents, each constituent made up of a strong element, construable as the ‘head’, and its weak sister. A path linking heads uninterruptedly leads from the tree root to the most salient, and thus primary stressed, syllable of the domain, which they named the ‘designated terminal element’.
Multiple scansions in loanword phonology: evidence from Cantonese
Authors: Silverman Daniel
Published: October 2008

In loanword phonology we seek to uncover the processes by which speakers possessing one phonological system perceive, apply native representational constraints on, and ultimately produce forms which have been generated by a different phonological system. We are interested in how speakers instantiate segmental and prosodic structure on an input which may or may not abide by native rules. Crucial to this assumed strategy is the idea that loanwords do not come equipped with their own phonological representation. For any phonetic string, it is only native speakers for whom a fully articulated phonological structure is present; as we will see, the input to loanword phonology is merely a superficial non-linguistic acoustic signal. Thus as host-language speakers perceive foreign forms in accordance with their indigenous phonological system, they instantiate native phonological representations on the acoustic signal, fitting the superficial input into the native phonological system as closely as possible.
Vowel quality alternation in Dinka verb inflection
Authors: Andersen Torben
Published: October 2008

Dinka, a major Western Nilotic language spoken in the Sudan, is to a large extent a monosyllabic language. Nevertheless, it has a complex morphology. Thus a significant part of its morphology is non-affixal, being manifested by way of morphophonological alternations in the root. Such alternations involve one or more of the following parameters: vowel quality, vowel length, voice quality, tone and final consonant. While alternations in vowel length, voice quality and tone are treated in Andersen (in press), the present article deals with vowel quality alter-nation. The dialect of Dinka treated here is Agar, more specifically the variety of Agar spoken by people from the area of Pacong, a village about 20 kilometres south-east of Rumbek in Southern Sudan. My principal informants for the present study were Isaac Maker, David Daniel Marial and Peter Gum Panther.
Nasalisation in English: phonology or phonetics
Authors: Cohn Abigail C.
Published: October 2008

In English, a number of rules affect the realisation of a nasal consonant or a segment adjacent to a nasal consonant. These include rules of Anticipatory Nasalisation, e.g. bean /bin/ [bĩn]; Coronal Stop Deletion, e.g. kindness /kajndnes/ [kãjnnes]; Nasal Deletion and optionally Glottalisation, e.g. sent /sent/ [set] or [set'] (see Malécot 1960; Selkirk 1972; Kahn 1980 [1976]; Zue & Laferriere 1979). These rules, characterised largely on the basis of impressionistic data, are widely assumed to be phonological rules of English. Yet current views of the relationship between phonology and phonetics make the distinction between phono-logical rules and phonetic ones less automatic than once assumed and a reconsideration of the status of these rules is warranted. In the present article, I use phonetic data from English to investigate these rules. Based on these data, I argue that Anticipatory Nasalisation results from phonetic implementation rather than from a phonological rule, as previously assumed. It is shown that the basic patterns of nasalisation in English can be accounted for straightforwardly within a target-interpolation model. I then investigate the phonological status and phonetic realisation of Nasal Deletion, Coronal Stop Deletion and Glottalisation. The interaction of these rules yields some surprising results, in that glottalised /t/ [t'] is amenable to nasalisation.