Standard Generative Phonology Research Articles

/dˤ/-Variation in Saudi Newscasting and Phonological Theory

In his analysis of /dˤ/-variation in Saudi Arabian newscasting, Al-Tamimi (2020) finds unpredicatble variability between the standard variant [dˤ] and the non-standard variant [ðˤ] in different in-words positions, in different phonetic environments, and in semantically ‘content’ and suprasegmentally ‘stressed’ lexical itmes assumed to favor the standard variant. He even finds in many of these lexical items an unusual realizational flucatuation between the two variants. The present exploratory and ‘theory-testing’ study aims to find a reasonable account for these findings through examining the explanatory adequacy of a number of available phonological theories, notions, models and proposals that have made different attempts to accommodate variation, and this includes Coexistent Phonemic Systems, Standard Generative Phonology, Lexical Diffusion, Variable Rules, Poly-Lectal Grammar, Articulatory Phonology, different versions of the Optimality Theory, in addition to the Multiple-Trace-Model, as represented by Al-Tamimi’s (2005) Multiple-Trace-Based Proposal. The study reveals the strengths and weaknesses of these theories in embracing the variability in the data, and concludes that the Multiple-Trace-Based Proposal can relatively offer the best insight as its allows variation to be directly encoded in the underlying representations of lexical items, a status strictly prohibited by the rest of the theories that adopt invariant lexical representations in consonance with the ‘Homogeneity Doctrine’.

Optimality theory and assessment of developing and disordered phonologies

Optimality theory (OT) is a comparatively recent linguistic theory which has been introduced in the early 1990s. OT's description of children's error patterns as patterns that are derived from a hierarchy of conflicting universal constraints has much higher explanatory power than the underlying phonological representations posited by generative phonology which focused only on production. This tutorial article aims to introduce speech clinicians some information about the basic architecture and formalities of OT and highlights some of its advantages over rule-based generative approaches in different linguistic contexts. The article begins with a brief definition of (functional) phonological disorder and explains the basic components of OT and its proposed model of language development in relation to first language acquisition. Finally, the role of OT and standard generative phonology in the assessment of phonological errors produced by children with atypical phonological development is illustrated using empirical data based on Persian language.

A usage-based analysis of the allomorphy of the Italian masculine definite article

Within standard generative phonology, the distribution of the allomorphs of the Italian masculine definite article has been related strictly to features of the initial segment/cluster of the lexical item following the article. Two main drawbacks characterize such analysis. First, they crucially depend on abstract principles, which are not applied in a very insightful and empirically convincing fashion. Second, they cannot explain the (inter- and intra-) individual variation in the selection of the allomorphs or the changes in their distributional pattern. Conversely, an analysis based on the usage-based framework proposed by Bybee (2001) allows for a more straightforward and unified account of the distribution of the allomorphs and offers new insight to the issues of change and individual variation.

A investigação em fonologia do português

Neste artigo pretende-se traçar uma panorâmica dos estudos de fonologia realizados em Portugal, com especial incidência nas análises formalizadas que se desenvolveram a partir da obra de Chomsky e Halle (1968). Na Introdução referem-se obras que marcaram a fonologia do Português Europeu antes dessa data, e apresentam-se os principais trabalhos de carácter dialectal e filológico, os estudos fonéticos e as obras que se integram na linguística estrutural. Na apresentação das análises formais distingue-se a fonologia generativa clássica das teorias que lhe sucederam O artigo tem um anexo que contém a bibliografia exaustiva dos livros e artigos publicados em Portugal a partir dos anos 70.

The SPE-heritage of Optimality Theory

In this article, we start out discussing the issue of how many phonological levels one might like to distinguish. In addition, we discuss how each level is characterized and how the mapping between levels is handled. Then, against the background of a more general discussion of constraint-ba sed approaches to phonology, we assess phonological Optimality Theory (OT), arguing that this theory is formulated within the conceptual framework of Standard Generative Phonology (SGP) and thus has not freed itself from its SPE-heritage. By implicitly adopting many aspects ofSPE (such as an intra-lavel input/output distinction and one holistic mechanism), OT compares unfavorably with other available constraint-based models in needing the notion of extrinsic ordering and failing to characterize the notion of what a possible language is.

Non-uniqueness in phonology

This paper investigates the consequences of both Kiparsky's Revised Alternation Condition and the theory of underlying archisegmental representations. The principles of standard generative phonology permit non-unique interpretations of the data under discussion. The question is whether non-uniqueness should be suppressed and, if so, how this can be carried out in the framework of the two proposed revisions of the standard theory.

On phonological representations, rules, and opacity

A fundamental concept of standard generative phonology stating that related morphemes have unique phonological representations is criticized. It is argued that much more morphologization of so-called phonological rules is needed to explain certain morphophonemic changes and that rules should be restricted to apply where the morphemic alternants stand in an inflectional (paradigmatic) relationship. Three rules in Israeli Hebrew are discussed, and evidence is brought in from both adults' and children's dialects to support the view outlined above. The concept of opacity is examined and arguments against reordering as a means of obtaining grammatical transparency are offered. The empirical basis underlying evaluation criteria of grammars is emphasized.

Phonetics is not phonology

There has been a recent attempt to account for certain processes of stop deletion and stop insertion in Catalan by a new type of phonological rule ( reciprocal rules ). The data are here re-examined and extended. The implications of the proposed new rules for language specific morpheme structure conditions and for general ordering constraints are looked into. Problems arise and the nature of the rules is found at fault. The data are accounted for by keeping the two-level approach of standard generative phonology, a subset of them being approached from a phonetic angle which makes the new type of phonological rule unnecessary. The physiological processes underlying this subset of the data are revealed by the phonetic reinterpretation carried out here.