Constraints on Global Rules in Phonology

Abstract

Evidence has been advanced recently in favor of incorporating a generalized version of derivational history (or global rules) into phonological theory. The innovation of this theoretical device constitutes a significant departure from the standard theory of phonology as articulated by Chomsky & Halle 1968, and vastly increases the range of possible formal grammatical relationships. However, any theory that incorporates a generalized version of derivational history characterizes a wider range of relationships than need be ascribed to natural language. All empirically defensible cases of derivational history are characteristically restricted to deletion phenomena. The restricted nature of this evidence permits-indeed, demands-a highly constrained version of derivational history. Thus the NULL SEGMENT HYPOTHESIS is here proposed as a possible and appropriate constraint. This hypothesis requires the selection of one derivational marker, i.e. the 'null segment', which is naturally assigned to deletion output strings and is carried through the derivation to be recovered in a similarly constrained fashion at a subsequent point in the derivation. The null segment hypothesis and its related constraints thus narrowly define the set of all and only those processes in the necessary empirically defensible derivational history relationship. The role of this hypothesis also has implications for representing certain information in lexical items.*