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This book reviews the history of the interface between
morpho-syntax and phonology roughly since World War II.
Structuralist and generative interface thinking is presented
chronologically, but also theory by theory from the point of view
of a historically interested observer who however in the last third
of the book distills lessons in order to assess present-day
interface theories, and to establish a catalogue of properties that
a correct interface theory should or must not have. The book also
introduces modularity, the rationalist theory of the (human)
cognitive system that underlies the generative approach to
language, from a Cognitive Science perspective. Modularity is used
as a referee for interface theories in the book. Finally, the book
locates the interface debate in the landscape of current minimalist
syntax and phase theory and fosters intermodular argumentation: how
can we use properties of morpho-syntactic theory in order to argue
for or against competing theories of phonology (and vice-versa)?
This book presents a development of Jean Lowenstamm's idea that
phonological constituent structure can be reduced to a strict
sequence of non-branching Onsets and non-branching Nuclei. The
approach at hand is known as 'CVCV', and emerged from Government
Phonology. Since its very beginnings in the early 80s, the central
claim of this theory has been that syllable-based generalisations
are due to lateral relations among constituents, rather than to the
familiar arboreal structure. This book shows that Standard
Government Phonology did not go far enough in implementing this
idea. CVCV completes the missing steps: structure and causality are
fully lateralised. Detailed discussion is offered how basic
phonological objects and processes such as Codas, closed syllables,
long vowels, geminates, syllabic consonants, vowel-zero
alternations, closed syllable shortening, compensatory lengthening,
lenition and the like can be represented within the CVCV frame. The
first part of the book is called "What is CVCV ?". It presents the
properties of the theory. The second part focuses on the reasons
why it is worthwhile considering CVCV a valuable and viable
approach. The primary goal of the book is not to engage the
dialogue with other phonological theories. Rather, it aims at
establishing a player in the general game: defining the properties
of a theory is always prior to its comparison with other models. In
the current OT-dominated phonological scene, then, CVCV appears as
a true theory of the 80s insofar as it is representational at core:
representations exist and are primitive, rather than arising as
accidental results from a heterogeneous set of constraints. The
original analyses presented in this book are grounded in the
languages that the author is best familiar with, i.e. (Western)
Slavic, French, German and some Semitic. Particular attention is
paid to diachronic evidence in its relation to the synchronic state
of languages.
Following up on the Guide to Morphosyntax-Phonology Interface
Theories (2011), written from a theory-neutral point of view, this
book lays out the author's approach to the representational side of
the interface. The book is thus about how information is
transmitted to phonology when an object is inserted into
phonological representations (as opposed to the derivational means,
i.e. phase theory today). The idea of Direct Interface is that
diacritics such as hash-marks in SPE or prosodic constituency since
the early 80s, which mediate between morpho-syntax and phonology,
are illegal in a modular environment where computational systems
can only process domain-specific vocabulary. Direct Interface
instead holds that only truly phonological vocabulary can carry
morpho-syntactic information. It is shown that of all
representational objects only syllabic space qualifies. Couched in
CVCV (or strict CV), i.e. Government Phonology, this insight is
then applied in detailed case studies of Belarusian, Corsican,
Greek and the exhaustive lexical inventory of
sonorant-obstruent-initial words in 13 Slavic languages,. In this
sense, the book is the 2nd volume of A Lateral Theory of Phonology
(2004).
There are books on tone, coronals, the internal structure of
segments, vowel harmony, and a couple of other topics in phonology.
This book aims to fill the gap for Lenition and Fortition, which is
one of the first phenomena that was addressed by phonologists in
the 19th century, and ever since contributed to phonological
thinking. It is certainly one of the core phenomena that is found
in the phonology of natural language: together with assimilations,
the other important family of phenomena, Lenition and Fortition
constitute the heart of what phonology can do to sound. The book
aims to provide an overall treatment of the question in its many
aspects: historical, typological, synchronic, diachronic, empirical
and theoretical. Various current approaches to phonology are
represented. The book is structured into three parts: 1) properties
and behaviour of Lenition/Fortition, 2) lenition patterns in
particular languages and language families, 3) how
Lenition/Fortition work. Part 1 describes the properties of
lenition and fortition: what counts as such? What kind of behaviour
is observed? Which factors bear on it (positional, stress-related)?
Which role has it played in phonology since (and even before) the
19th century? The
everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-lenition-and-fortition
philosophy that guides the conception of the book supposes a
descriptive, generalisation-oriented style of writing that relies
on a kind of phonological lingua franca, rather than on
theory-laden vocabulary. Also, no prior knowledge other than about
general phonological categories should be required when reading
through Part 1. The goal is to provide a broad picture of what
lenition is, how it behaves, which factors it is conditioned by and
what generalisations it obeys. This record may then be used as a
yardstick for competing theories. Part 2 presents a number of case
studies that show how Lenition/Fortition behave in a number of
languages that include systems which are notoriously emblematic for
Lenition/Fortition: Celtic, Western Romance, Germanic and Finnish.
Finally, Part 3 is concerned with the analysis of the patterns that
have been described in Parts 1 and 2. Given their analytic
orientation, Part 3 chapters are theory-specific. They look at the
same empirical record, or at a subset thereof, and try to explain
what they see. Even though Part 3 chapters are couched in a
specific theoretical environment that most of the time supposes
prior conceptual knowledge, authors have been asked to assure
theoretical interoperability as much as they could.
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