BLOCKING IN NONDERIVED ENVIRONMENTS

Abstract

This chapter discusses blocking in non-derived environments. Previous treatments of non-derived environment blocking (NDEB) have not succeeded in reconciling empirical coverage with theoretical adequacy. The revised alternation condition (RAC) provides a descriptively fairly accurate circumscription of the phenomenon, except that formulating the constraint as a categorical prohibition of absolute neutralization is probably too strong. The RAC is, however, clearly unsatisfactory as a principle of grammar, because of the formal indefinability of the class of neutralization rules, the undesirability of having different principles for obligatory and optional rules, and the dubious status of the concept of derived environment. The strict cycle condition, on the other hand, is preferable on general theoretical grounds but simply fails to match the facts in many specific instances. The chapter presents a new interpretation that resolves this dilemma. It makes essential use of underspecification and of decomposition of structure-changing rules. Its main advantages are that it reduces the blocking effects to independent principles of grammar, predicts their restriction to structure-building rules and to non-vacuous rule applications, recaptures the empirical generalizations behind the original restriction of the alternation condition to obligatory neutralization rules, and correctly subsumes the free element condition of prosodic phonology.