Orthometric patterns and pre-phonetic interfacing: a reply to Manaster Ramer

Abstract

In a recent squib Manaster Ramer attempts to show ‘that rules of versification may not be sensitive to representations deeper than phonemic (or the similar lexical and syntactico-phonological levels of Lexical Phonology)’ (1994: 321–322). Manaster Ramer includes some of my work on Early Irish alliteration (1988c), challenging my claim that explication of such alliteration requires orthometric (versificational) interfacing at an underlying level of phonological representation and claiming that my explication ‘involve[s] rules which were clearly invented by native grammarians and metricians and often violated in natural, as opposed to formal, verse, and which, even more to the point, make crucial reference, not to deep levels of phonology, but rather to the orthography’ (1994: 321). I will attempt to counter this statement in §2, though I am somewhat handicapped by the fact that Manaster Ramer does not actually give any evidence for his position. However, since his claim goes beyond Irish to challenge deep-level orthometric interfacing in any and all languages, in the rest of this reply I will appeal to non-Irish evidence in attempting to show the weakness of his position. In particular, I will briefly review some of my work in Hebrew metre (§ 3) and Turkish rhyme (§4) – work cited by Manaster Ramer in his references but not addressed in the body of his paper (Malone 1982, 1983, 1988b).