Abstract
The concept of `markedness' has been influential in phonology for almost a century, but a recent movement in the field has argued that phonological theories do not need to make reference to the concept; instead, if it is meaningful at all, markedness should be thought of as emergent. In this paper, we propose a simple mathematical model based on the principles of Evolutionary Phonology (EP; Blevins 2004) to explore how a theory without markedness can replicate some of the insights of the markedness-based worldview. We see that markedness can be treated as an epiphenomenon of random, phonetically grounded sound change.
Highlights
The concept of ‘markedness’ has been influential in phonology for almost a century, but a recent movement in the field has argued that phonological theories do not need to make reference to the concept; instead, if it is meaningful at all, markedness should be thought of as emergent
Haspelmath’s definition strictly only includes token frequency, we can extend the concept to type frequency: a marked segment should appear in fewer words in the lexicon than an unmarked one
/q/ appears in fewer languages than /k/, so under this definition, ∗ We would like to thank Ryan Budnick for all the days he spent listening to our ideas about the importance of modeling sound change
Summary
The concept of ‘markedness’ has been influential in phonology for almost a century, but a recent movement in the field has argued that phonological theories do not need to make reference to the concept; instead, if it is meaningful at all, markedness should be thought of as emergent. We see that markedness can be treated as an epiphenomenon of random, phonetically grounded sound change.
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