This book contains a number of studies on modern approaches to phonological segment structure. There are three main sections: (i) a general section, concerned with the basic theory of segmental structure, features, and the organization of segmental structure into feature-geometric trees, (ii) the representation and behaviour of nasality, and (iii) the representation and behaviour of the laryngeal features.
The Segment in Phonetics and Phonology unravels exactly what the segment is and on what levels it exists, approaching the study of the segment with theoretical, empirical, and methodological heterogeneity as its guiding principle. A deliberately eclectic approach to the study of the segment that investigates exactly what the segment is and on what level it exists Includes new research data from a diverse range of fields such as experimental psycholinguistics, language acquisition, and mathematical theories of communication Represents the major theoretical models of phonology, including Articulatory Phonology, Optimality Theory, Laboratory Phonology and Generative Phonology Examines both well-studied languages like English, Chinese, and Japanese and under-studied languages such as Southern Sierra Miwok, Päri, and American Sign Language
This study investigates the phonological behavior of coronal consonants, i.e. sounds produced with the tip or blade of the tongue. The analysis draws on data from over 120 languages and dialects. A definition of coronality is proposed that rejects the current view holding that palatals are positively marked for this feature. The feature [coronal] is assumed to be privative; the natural class of noncoronals is captured with the feature [peripheral], which dominates [labial] and [velar] in feature geometry. The book contains a detailed examination of the phonological patterning of segments belonging to each of the six coronal subplaces (i.e. interdental, dental, alveolar, retroflex, palatoalveolar, and alveolopalatal). A universal set of features is posited that accounts for these facts. Inventories of coronal consonants are treated in depth and impossible contrasts are accounted for with several if-then statements. The present study also contains a lengthy analysis of the phonology of rhotic consonants. A set of features is postulated which captures natural classes involving rhotics and nonrhotic consonants and which distinguishes the various stricture types among rhotics (i.e. trill vs. tap vs. approximant).
Despite earlier work by Trubetzkoy, Jakobson and Greenberg, phonological typology is often underrepresented in typology textbooks. At the same time, most phonologists do not see a difference between phonological typology and cross-linguistic (formal) phonology. The purpose of this book is to bring together leading scholars to address the issue of phonological typology, both in terms of the unity and the diversity of phonological systems.
This book contains some of the material which originally appeared in my Ph. D. thesis Lexical Phonology, submitted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but it can hardly be called a revised version of the thesis. The theory that I propose here is in many ways radically different from the one that I proposed in the thesis, and there is a great deal of new data and analyses from English and Malayalam. Chapter VI is so new that I haven't even had the time to try it out on my friends. As everyone knows, research is a collective enterprise, even though an individual's name appears on the first page of the book or article. I would think of this book as a joint project involving dozens of people, in which I acted as the project coordinator, collecting suggestions from a wide variety of sources. Four major influences on what the book contains were Morris Halle, Paul Kiparsky, Mark Liberman, and Joan Bresnan. I learned the ropes of doing research on phonology, phonetics, and morphology from them, and almost everything that I discuss in this book owes its shape ultimately to one of them. Among the others who contributed generously to this book are: Jay Keyser, James Harris, Douglas Pulleyblank, Diana Archangeli, Donca Steriade, Elizabeth Selkirk, Francois Dell, Noam Chomsky, Philip Lesourd, Mohammed Guerssel, Michel Kenstovicz, Raj Singh, Will Leben, Joe Perkell, Victor Zue, Paroo Nihalani. P. Madhavan, and Stephanie Shattuck-Hafnagel.
Phonology: Critical Concepts, the first such anthology to appear in thirty years and the largest ever published, brings together over a hundred previously published book chapters and articles from professional journals. These have been chosen for their importance in the exploration of theoretical questions, with some preference for essays that are not easily accessible.Divided into sections, each part is preceded by a brief introduction which aims to point out the problems addressed by the various articles and show their relations to one another.-
This volume offers a theory of phonological structure which pays particular attention to the representation of 'complex segments', such as affricates. The first two chapters are concerned with the primitives needed to express place of articulation in phonological segments. In chapters 3 and 4 the relevance of complex segments to phonological theory is discussed from a general perspective. Chapter 3 also provides a general formalisation of complexity in segmental phonology, namely as branching in the segmental structure. Chapter 5 is concerned with the structure of the other phonological dimension that is investigated, namely manner. The second part of the volume deals with specific studies of segmental complexity on the place and the manner dimension, respectively: chapter 6 is concerned with place complexity, and chapters 7-9 with manner complexity. Chapter 7 deals with affricates, chapter 8 with prenasalised stops and chapter 9 with /s/ plus stop clusters. Chapter 10, finally, discusses a category of segments which combine two root nodes under a single timing position, such as consonants with secondary articulation and short diphthongs.
Designed to acquaint the reader with the field of phonology -- the study of the systems of linguistically significant sounds -- this book begins with a brief introduction to linguistics and a discussion of phonology's place within that field. It then goes on to cover a variety of topics including the nature of phonological units, phonological rules, which types of phenomena interest phonologists, and the evolution of phonological theory. Suitable for many applications, this volume assumes no previous knowledge of linguistics. An excellent text for use in first or second year phonology courses, it will also be of value to those involved in cognitive science, neuroscience, artificial intelligence and computer science.
The papers in this volume focus on notions which are central to the work of John M. Anderson - the founder of Dependency Phonology - and to phonological theory: the idea of structural analogy between phonology and syntax; the head/dependent relation; the idea that phonological representations are best conceived of in terms of a set of privative elements (rather than as binary-valued features); and the related notions of contrastivity and specification (and non-specification). An important issue dealt with is the relationship between specification and derivationality, and the question whether derivations are necessary in phonological theory. Many of the contributions provide sound empirical support for the appeal to elements and to headhood at all levels of phonological analysis. The book will be of interest to anyone interested in current issues in phonological theory.
