This book brings together papers on various aspects of prosodic development from a generative linguistic perspective. It addresses issues such as the relationship between tone, stress and quantity, the evidence for prosodic change from metrics and discusses the role of analogy, language contact, and language acquisition in change. The unique combination of different methodologies and perspectives investigating development in prosodic systems provides a new and broader scope on historical linguistics.

Understanding Phonology, Fifth Edition, provides a clear, accessible and broad introduction to phonology. Introducing the basic concepts, it provides a comprehensive account of phonological topics like segmental contrasts, syllables and moras, quantity, tone and intonation, word stress, and prosodic constituent structure. This new edition has been streamlined to match widely applied course requirements. Key features include:

Reorganized chapters to introduce key concepts earlier and increase accessibility for new students.

New developments and an updated bibliography.

Illustrations from languages spoken all over the planet, including Arabic, Central Alaskan Yupik, Hawaiian, Mandarin, French, Yabem, Yanyuwa, Yine and Zulu.

Over 100 exercises to test understanding.

A consistent illustration of Optimality Theory as applied to word stress.

Updated online resources for students and instructors, including audio files, a key to questions, teaching goals and PowerPoint slides.

Understanding Phonology is essential reading for students coming to this topic for the first time.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

The IPA Chart

1. Structures in languages

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Awareness of linguistic structure

1.3 Language diversity

1.4 What linguists do

1.4.1 Language-external evidence

1.4.2 Language-internal evidence

1.5 Morphosyntactic structure

1.5.1 Morphemes and words

1.5.2 Syntax: phrases, clauses and sentences

1.5.3 Some mismatches between phonology and morphosyntax in English

1.6 Changing sounds

1.7 Conclusion

2. The production of speech

2.1 Introduction

2.2 The lungs and the larynx

2.2.1 The vocal folds: the open and vibrating glottis

2.2.2 Devoicing and aspiration

2.2.3 Special types of phonation

2.2.4 Pitch

2.2.5 The glottal stop

2.3 The vocal tract

2.3.1 The pharynx

2.3.2 The nasal cavity

2.3.3 The mouth

2.4 Vowels

2.4.1 Monophthongs

2.4.2 Diphthongs

2.4.3 Nasalization

2.5 Consonants

2.5.1 Places of articulation

2.5.2 Types of constriction

2.6 Segmental durations

2.7 Complex consonants

2.7.1 Secondary articulations

2.7.2 Double articulations

2.7.3 Manner-contour consonants

2.8 Nonpulmonic consonants

2.9 Conclusion

3. Some typology: sameness and difference

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Varying complexity

3.3 Universals and implicational relations

3.3.1 Plain or special?

3.3.2 Avoiding complexity

3.3.3 A word of caution

3.3.4 Speech ergonomics

3.3.5 System gaps

3.4 Cultural and ambient factors in the development of sound systems

3.5 Conclusion

4. The varying shapes of sounds and words

4.1 Introduction

4.2 Allophonic variation

4.3 Loanword adaptation

4.3.1 The process of nativization

4.4 Morpheme alternants

4.5 The underlying form

4.5.1 Choosing the underlying form

4.5.2 Grammars vs ‘dictionaries’

4.6 Conclusion

5. A system of distinctive features

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Features for consonants

5.2.1 Major class features

5.2.2 Laryngeal features

5.2.3 Manner features

5.2.4 Place of articulation features

5.3 Features for vowels

5.4 Redundant vs contrastive features

5.5 Complex segments

5.6 Conclusion

6. Making the form fit: serial rules or violable constraints?

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Serial rule application

6.2.1 Rule formats

6.2.2 Serial rule ordering

6.3 Constraints

6.3.1 Tableaux

6.3.2 OT and loanwords

6.4 Serial rules or ranked constraints?

6.5 Conclusion

7. Lexical phonology, postlexical phonology and phonetic implementation

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Defining an intermediate level of representation

7.3 Lexical Phonology

7.3.1 Reference to morphological labels

7.3.2 Exceptions

7.3.3 Structure preservation

7.3.4 Native-speaker intuitions

7.3.5 Application across word boundaries

7.3.6 Lexical rules apply before postlexical rules

7.4 Reference to phonological information in the lexicon

7.5 Beyond surface representations

7.5.1 Models of implementation

7.5.2 Deciding between phonology and phonetic implementation

7.6 Conclusion

8. Between the segment and the syllable

8.1 Introduction

8.2 Syllabification and the Maximum Onset Principle

8.2.1 The Sonority Profile

8.3 Expanding the representations: hierarchies and autosegments

8.3.1 Skeletal slots

8.3.2 Autosegments

8.3.3 Unfilled and unassociated slots

8.3.4 Compensatory lengthening

8.4 Moras

8.5 Syllable-based generalizations

8.6 Post-MOP syllabification rules

8.7 Conclusion

9. Tones

9.1 Introduction

9.2 The inadequacy of a linear model

9.3 Word melodies

9.3.1 Language-specific association

9.4 Tone stability

9.5 Tonal morphemes

9.6 Accent

9.7 The phonetic implementation of tone

9.7.1 The vertical dimension: scaling

9.7.2 The horizontal dimension: phonetic alignment

9.8 Not by f0 alone

9.8.1 Voice quality

9.8.2 f0 perturbations and tone distribution

9.9 Conclusion

10. Word stress

10.1 Introduction

10.2 Primary stress, secondary stress and no stress in English

10.3 Basic dimensions of foot structures

10.3.1 Foot type

10.3.2 Aligning words and feet

10.4 Syllable weight

10.4.1 Uneven feet?

10.5 Stress clash

10.6 Unbounded systems

10.7 The roles of morphology

10.8 Interactions of stress with segments and tones

10.8.2 H-tones attracting stress

10.9 Conclusion

11. Phonology above the word

11.1 Introduction

11.2 Generalizations involving prosodic constituents

11.3 The Strict Layer Hypothesis

11.4 Factors determining prosodic phrasing

11.5 Prosody above the foot

11.5.1 The prosodic word

11.5.2 The phonological phrase

11.5.3 The intonation phrase

11.5.4 The phonological utterance

11.6 Deriving prosodic constituents

11.6.1 Clitics

11.6.2 The syntactic residue

11.7 Conclusion

References

Language Index

Subject Index