The History of Modern Phonology

1. The History of Modern Phonology Josh, Nick & Issac

2. 1900 2012 The Timeline Of Phonology Early 20th Century Linguistic Scientific Traditions Generative Phonology Post Generative Phonology

3. The Pre-Generative Era • Movements in phonological theory coincide with changes in philosophical interpretations of the role of science • Death of Ferdinand de Saussure (1913) signals break with descriptive/taxonomic linguistics & 19th c. Darwinian naturalism - universe as a product of natural laws • New era of structuralism (1920s-1970s) emerges motivated by quest to legitimize linguistics as a true “science”

4. Structuralism dictates that without structure there is no meaning (onion/layers analogy). Language is thus a system of structures. • Prague School (1926-40s) - challenges role and importance of phonetics, which was largely descriptive and empiricist (experiential) and not the stuff of a “real” science • Key players: Trubetzkoy (1890-1938) and Jakobson (1896-1982) - founders of modern phonology, provided key concepts, theoretical framework and methodologies

5. Principles of Phonology (1939): phonemicization procedures, neutralization, and feature theory • “Phoneme” seen as abstract entity and bundle of distinctive features, and language as structured system of phonological oppositions • Emphasized that oppositions (i.e. meaningful contrasts) such as /s/ and /z/ not due to mental image (emic) but strictly audible contrast (etic)

6. This strengthens their position that phonemes are points in a system rather than mental entities • Other structuralist approaches: Stratification Phonology (1960s) - in the phonemic stratum phonemes are realized as morphemic elements; ‘morphons’ /k/ ‘critic’ and /s/ ‘critic-ism’ realized as phonemes • Aside: Baudouin de Courtenay (1845-1929) credited with mentalist interpretation of phoneme, which was not revisited until generative phonology hit the scene

7. Generative Phonology • Stems from the work of Chomsky and Halle • Belongs to the “Transformational-Generative” theory • Chomsky was critical of his predecessors’ ideas of a taxonomic approach to linguistics • Where the previous phonological theories were focused on classification, Generative phonology is concerned with accounting for the competence of a native speaker

8. Basic Theories of Generative Phonology • Generative phonology uses information from Syntax and Semantics and converts this information to the phonetic form • Wolfram (1974) gives us this flow chart: Example from: (Wolfram 1974)

9. Generative Phonology Continued • The goal of generative phonology is to establish rules that produce only the well-formed utterances of a language • Lexical information aids in the finding of the Underlying Representation • The UR is, as Wolfram (1974) puts it, “An abstraction from which the various phonetic forms of an item are eventually derived through the process of applying various phonological rules” • An important distinction: Previous phonological theory puts the phoneme as the basic unit. As we will see, Generative Phonology uses something else as the basic unit.

10. Some Rules of Generative Phonology • Lexical Representations: • Example: electric, elastic changes to electricity and elasticity. A generalization can be made that certain forms ending in –ic change a final [k] to a [s] when the suffix –ity is added. • Generativists found patterns such as this example over groups of sounds called natural classes • They took these lexical items and applied rules such as the following ones to derive the surface representations • Phonological Rules: • Assimilation • Neutralization • Deletion • Epenthesis

11. Features • Once a rule(s) are determined, as in the k→s example, features become the best way to represent sound change in natural classes • Features allow us to see the important changes that are taking place • Although features were used in previous phonological theories, those theories considered the central unit to be the phoneme whereas generative phonology, features became the central unit.

12. Theories that have stemmed from Generative Phonology • Natural Generative Phonology • Proposed by Vennemann in the early 1970’s • Basically ruled out the UR and claimed that any UR that differed from the surface form must be indentical to one of the surface allomorphs • Rules were regarded as generalizations to the surface form rather than a way to generate the surface form

13. Theories that have stemmed from Generative Phonology • Natural Phonology • Proposed by Stampe in the mid 1970’s • Stampe began by looking at child language acquisition and developed his theories from those studies • Basic thesis is that sound patterns are governed by implicit forces in human vocalization and perception • Phonology is based on innate constraints that are either active or suppressed based on a specific language

14. Post-Generative Phonology • Post-generative theories and frameworks: • Autosegmental Phonology • Metrical Phonology • Lexical Phonology • Optimality Theory • Major post-generative ideas in phonology have generally been extensions of generative phonology or objections/reactions to certain aspects of it.

15. Autosegmental Phonology • First developed by John Goldsmith in the 1970s • Focused on the tonology of Igbo (west Africa) • Non-linear approach to phonology • Features are placed on separate ‘tiers’ which are connected by ‘association lines’ • Weakening of ‘absolute slicing hypothesis’ • Absolute slicing hypothesis: Two sounds cannot be simultaneous or unordered. • In autosegmental phonology, this applies only to the features each tier, not the segments. Example from (Clark 2007)

16. Metrical Phonology • Developed by Mark Liberman in the 1970s • Initially developed as a theory of stress • later applied to other areas • Recognizes syllable as a ‘significant unit’ in phonological theory • Metrical Grid: (S = strong, W = weak) • It has been suggested that metrical phonology and autosegmental phonology could be integrated into a single model Example from: Clark, 2007

17. Lexical Phonology • Renewed interest in morphology • Resembles aspects of pre-generative phonemics, but like generative phonology is rule-based and makes use of abstract underlying forms. • Lexical rules • Generally morphophonemic • Apply to output of morphology • e.g. stem final /k/ changes to [s] before -ity, -ism, etc. /ilɛktrɪk/ → /ilɛktrɪsɪti/ • Contains ordered levels on which morphological and some phonological processes occur • http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsLexicalPhonology.htm • Post-Lexical rules • Apply to output of lexical rules • Unlike lexical rules may apply across word boundaries • e.g. /tj/ → [tʃ] - don’t you → [doʊntʃu] • More unconscious and less tolerant of exceptions than lexical rules

18. Optimality Theory • Developed by Alan Prince & Paul Smolensky in the 1990s • Widely used as a framework for current phonology research • Maintains abstract underlying forms used in generative phonology • Constraint-based rather than rule-based • A universal set of constraints are ranked differently by the phonologies of different languages • The functions GEN and EVAL produce possible surface form candidates and determine which one is ‘optimal’ based on the constraint rankings. Example from: Zuraw, 2003

19. Sources • Clark, J. (2007). The progress of phonology. Boston: Blackwell • Goldsmith, J. & Laks B. (n.d.). Generative phonology: its origins, its principles, and its successors. Retrieved from http://hum.uchicago.edu/~jagoldsm/Papers/GenerativePhonology.pdf • Wolfram, W. (1974). Generative Phonology: The Basic Model. [PDF Document] Retrieved from: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED091943&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED091943 • Trommer, J. (2008). Autosegmental phonology: Tone. University of Lepzig Department of Linguistics. Retrieved from: http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~jtrommer/Nonconcatenative/1a.pdf • Zuraw, K. (2003). Optimality theory in linguistics. Manuscript submitted for publication, Department of Linguistics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California. Retrieved from http://roa.rutgers.edu/files/792-1205/792-ZURAW-0-0.PDF