Phonology

Phonology......................................................................................................................1
1 Phonology..............................................................................................................1
2 Phonology and phonetics.......................................................................................2
3 Syllables and segments..........................................................................................3
3.1 Syllables.........................................................................................................3
3.2 Syllable parts..................................................................................................5
3.3 Segments........................................................................................................5
4 Phonotactics...........................................................................................................7
4.1 Dependent syllables and syllable classification.............................................7
4.2 Dependent consonants....................................................................................8
4.3 Adjacency.......................................................................................................8
4.4 Ambisyllabicity and floating segments........................................................10
5 Realisation............................................................................................................10
6 Sandhi...................................................................................................................10
7 Optimality............................................................................................................10

1 Phonology
This draft paper is an attempt to fill the gap in Word Grammar theory where there
should be a theory of phonology – none too soon, either, because a theory of language
which doesn’t cover phonology is pretty seriously deficient. The gap is especially
important because some linguists (e.g. Halle & Bromberger, 1989) claim that
‘phonology is different’; e.g. even if the rest of the grammar is declarative, at least
phonology is procedural. One of the main claims of WG is that the whole of language
is formally similar, so phonology is a potential challenge which needs to be addressed
at least in outline.
What I shall suggest below extends the formal and logical apparatus of
semantics, syntax and morphology down into phonology, so – if it works – it does
answer this challenge. Here in outline are the main ideas:
 Phonology is itself the interface with phonetic ‘substance’ – acoustics and
motor programs – without any separate mediating level of phonetics. See 2.
 Phonological structure includes syllables; in fact, syllables are the basic units
of phonology, with a status comparable to the word in syntax. E.g. {hack} is
realized directly by the syllable /hak/, and not by its constituent segments. See
3.
 Phonological structure is defined by independent ‘phonotactic’ rules – i.e. in
Jackendoff’s terms, phonology is a ‘generative’ level like syntax. This is
where we define the notion ‘possible word’ (except that the units concerned
are actually forms, not words). E.g. in English, syllables like /hak/ are ok,
but /ha/ or /hah/ are not.
 Forms are realized by particular examples of phonological structures.
(Remember that in WG, phonology realizes forms, not words.) Since these
structures are generated by phonotactic rules they are fully ‘explained’, and
the only arbitrary element is the realization relation. E.g. {hack} is realized
by /hak/.
  Although forms are realized by permitted phonological structures, they may
not fit the default patterns well, or even at all. For such cases there are
‘phonological rules’ which replace the normal realization by something
which fits the default more closely. These non-default patterns arise in two
ways:
o at the boundaries between adjacent forms. E.g. {feel} is realized by
/fi:l/, but the /l/ ‘prefers’ to be an onset so if it is immediately before a
vowel it moves into the following syllable, as in selling (with clear [l]).
o Even among the permitted phonological structures, some structures
may be ‘better’, i.e. nearer to the default prototype, than others, so the
phonological rule may apply optionally. E.g. even in rhotic accents of
English, /r/ is often omitted before a consonant as in Labov’s famous
fourth floor; presumably this shows that coda /r/ is non-default.
 These phonological rules are the biggest challenge for a declarative theory
such as WG, because they seem to involve procedures for changing the normal
pronunciation into a different one. However, I shall suggest that they can be
handled by means of default inheritance.

Although these ideas have never before been applied to WG, none of them are new or
original. For example, the idea of combining realization rules with phonotactic rules
goes back (at least) to Lamb’s early stratificational grammar.
Unfortunately, I shall have virtually nothing to say about intonation. I’m
aware of this gap, and regret it deeply, but we have to start somewhere and intonation
is even harder to understand than segments and syllables.

2 Phonology and phonetics

The first question is whether we are dealing with a single level of structure or with the
two separate levels traditionally called ‘phonology’ and ‘phonetics’. This is a
meaningful question even in a network theory such as WG because there are already a
number of very clearly distinct levels: semantics, syntax and form. These are different
because:
 Each level has a distinct vocabulary of units (concepts in semantics, words in
syntax and forms in form).
 The units of each level are mapped onto units at the neighbouring levels by
relations of meaning (between syntax and semantics) and realization (between
syntax and form).
 Phonology is very clearly a distinct level from form, with its own units
(syllables and segments) and realization rules to form. However the question is
whether the same is true of phonology and phonetics.
The units are not obviously different if we consider a fairly traditional version
of phonetics – for example as manifested in the IPA. In both cases the units
correspond closely in terms of both size and features of classification; and in theories
such as generative phonology this similarity leads to a rejection of the traditional
distinction between phonetics and phonology. Moreover, if we assume that a form’s
‘underlying’ realization – i.e. the realization that is stored in the grammar – is by
definition phonological, there are good reasons for believing that at least some
phonetic detail must be included:
A great deal of fine detail may be stored lexically; for example, in some accents the
vowel in shandy is longer than the one in brand; and according to Bybee, frequent
words tend to be shorter than phonologically similar but rarer words – e.g. memory is
shorter than mammary.
Fine sub-phonemic detail may be related to speaker categories; for example, people
may be able to distinguish members of different social groups by the height or
frontness of what seems to be the same vowel phoneme.
In both cases, the detail is of a kind which traditionally would have been considered
phonetic, not phonological; and yet it seems to be stored lexically, which is generally
considered a sign of phonological, not phonetic, structure.
Nor does the relation between phonological and phonetic structure look like
‘realization’. I mentioned two other inter-level realization patterns above: from words
to forms and from forms to phonology, i.e. what are traditionally called morpho-
syntax and morpho-phonology. Both these patterns are more or less arbitrary and
allow gross differences from language to language; but this is not true for the relation
between phonology and phonetics, where phonological structure is tied fairly closely
to phonetic substance. Moreover, the link between phonology and phonetics seems to
involve a series of adaptations, as expressed in a generative-phonology ‘derivation’,
rather than the single step of a realization relation.
My conclusion, therefore, is that there is no need to distinguish phonology
from phonetics; instead I shall simply refer to a level of ‘phonology’, whose units are
‘sounds’ and whose notation is [...]. This decision has a number of consequences:
Like every other kind of unit in WG, sounds are concepts which have properties.
However, unlike other linguistic concepts, sounds are ‘multi-modal’ because their
properties include links to both percepts – the acoustic clues used in recognising them
– and motor programs – the instructions issued to the speech organs when producing
the sounds.
 Like other concepts, sounds are arranged in an isa hierarchy which not only
allows different degrees of detail – for example, it could include sound-types
as general as Consonant and Vowel as well as types for very specific sounds –
but also allows defaults to be fully specified for features which are overridden
by exceptions. For example, it would be possible for a default [n] to be fully
specified for place of articulation even if special sub-cases of [n] have
different places.
 Consequently, a form’s default realization may be fully specified for phonetic
detail (as in the ‘full entry’ version of generative phonology), so there is no
need to fill out the detail with later rules (though some of the detail may be
changed by rule). This allows the detailed phonetic entries which I mentioned
above (e.g. for distinguishing shandy and brandy), as well as the more familiar
‘phonemic’ contrasts.

In conclusion, therefore, the units of phonology are sounds which are fully
specified for both acoustic and articulatory properties, but which in non-default
situations may acquire different properties.

3 Syllables and segments

3.1 Syllables
Our alphabetical writing system encourages us to think in terms of letter-sized
segments – vowels and consonants – but I believe the basic unit of phonology is
actually the syllable, not the segment. Here’s why:
Syllables are the smallest units uttered, so they are the phonological equivalents of
words (‘minimal free forms’). A child often hears single isolated syllables, but
virtually never hears individual segments, so it is a fair guess that the child’s first
phonological units are entire syllables, which only later are broken down into their
constituent segments.
 Historically, syllabic writing systems predated alphabetical ones and syllabic
systems are very widely used across the world.
 The research literature on initial literacy has shown that syllables and their
main constituents (onset and rhyme) are much more accessible to introspection
than are segments, and that awareness of segments may in general be a by-
product of learning an alphabetical writing system. (However, this cannot be
true universally because Panini and his colleagues were pre-literate but
analysed the phonology of Sanskrit in terms of segments; and of course units
may be recognised subconsciously without being accessible to introspection.)
 Syllables are the unit where segments meet prosody, because it is syllables
rather than segments that have prosodic characteristics such as prominence
and length. (But see 3.2 below on the role of syllable-parts.)
 Unlike the phrases of syntax, syllables are absolutely solid and un-
interruptable. A dependency phonology could in principle treat syllables like
phrases, as vowels plus all their dependents, but this would leave us without
an explanation for why dependent consonants always, without exception, are
nearer to the head vowel than are dependent vowels. With syllables, we can let
one syllable depend on another without paying any attention to the syllables’
internal structures in terms of vowels and consonants.
 There is nothing at all unrealistic about assuming that a child memorizes every
syllable individually; the number is certainly finite, and quite small, especially
in comparison with the number of forms or words that are memorized.
I shall therefore assume that we store all the syllables of our language in an inventory
comparable with our inventory of forms or words, with a full phonetic specification of
each syllable in terms of acoustics and articulation.
This does not, of course, preclude the possibility of classifying syllables. On
the contrary, it encourages classification in terms of contrasts such as:
main/dependent, reflected by prominence differences. In English, every word-form
has a single main-stressed syllable, and other syllables are less prominent.
 long/short, especially important in languages such as Arabic or Latin where
the position of the main stress in a word-form is predictable from the length of
the syllables.
 open/closed, which in English determines whether or not a syllable may be at
the end of a word-form; e.g. /ka:/ or /kat/ is closed and can be final, but /ka/ is
open and cannot.
This being so, we may assume a fairly rich isa hierarchy in which every individual
syllable is cross-classified in terms of these general categories; e.g. /kat/, with main
stress, isa main and short and open.
Syllables are important for realization rules because they offer a single
phonological unit as realization for a single form; e.g. the morpheme {cat} is realized
by an instance of the syllable /kat/. Moreover, the same is true even for polysyllabic
forms because the main syllable is ‘modified’ by its dependent syllables so as to
distinguish it from other examples of the same syllable; e.g. {catalogue} is also
realized by an instance of /kat/, but this time by an instance which carries the
dependent syllable /ə/ which is in turn modified by /l/. This is exactly parallel with the
effect of dependencies in syntax which distinguish the word cat in big cat from the
one in small cat. Of course, not all morphemes are syllabic; a few are realized just by
a single segment (e.g. {s} is realized by /s/ or /z/), but even these preserve the one:one
relation between forms and phonological units. (Semitic morphology with three
consonants to a stem, e.g. /ktb/ for ‘write’ and vowels supplied by inflectional
morphology, e.g. /katab/, ‘he wrote’ and /ka:tib/, ‘writing’, offers an interesting
alternative which I won’t try to accommodate here.)

3.2 Syllable parts

The standard analysis of syllables divides them into two parts, the onset (the initial
consonants) and the rhyme (the vowel and final consonants). This division seems
well motivated psycholinguistically (e.g. by alliteration and rhyme in poetry, and by
spoonerisms in processing – e.g. I recently heard frog and fost instead of fog and
frost), so I shall adopt it. These are the two parts of a syllable, and in some languages
there is little more to be said about phonological structure because every syllable has a
rhyme, the onset is optional, and each part consists of precisely one segment; i.e. CV
and V are the only possibilities. However, languages like English allow more
complexity within each part, so we shall need to invoke dependencies as well as the
constituent structure. (See 4.) If syllables are listed exhaustively, I assume that the
same is true of syllable-parts, so speakers have another inventory of onsets and
rhymes. In general, onsets and rhymes combine freely, so this inventory is much
smaller than the list of syllables; roughly speaking:
O x R = S (number of Onsets, Rhymes and Syllables respectively)

The list of syllable-parts is presumably sub-classified on parameters which are

relevant to prosody; for example, in languages (such as Arabic) that distinguish ‘light’
and ‘heavy’ syllables in terms of stress, this weight is defined entirely in terms of the
rhyme. A heavy syllable either has a long vowel, or it has two consonants in the coda;
the number of consonants in the onset is irrelevant. Consequently, it is rhymes rather
than syllables that are classified as light or heavy and perhaps even as stressed or
unstressed.

3.3 Segments
In the simplest kinds of syllable, the onset and the rhyme are each just one segment
long, so a simple syllable consists of just one consonant followed by one vowel.
Furthermore, almost every consonant can be used as an entire onset (exception: those
that can only appear in coda position) and most vowels can be used as an entire rhyme
(exception: vowels that require a coda consonant.) For example, the syllable /pɜ:/ has
a single-segment onset /p/ and a single-segment rhyme /ɜ:/.
One way to interpret this structure is in terms of a strict hierarchy of parts, in
which the syllable has two parts, each of which in turn has one part. In this
interpretation, the syllable-parts remain conceptually distinct from the segments.
However, this is not how I shall interpret it. Instead, I shall assume that each part of
the syllable is just a single segment, and any additional segments are attached as
dependents to one of these; for example, in /spɜ:t/ the onset is a /p/ which supports an
/s/ and the rhyme is an /ɜ:/ that supports a /t/. I explain this approach below in 4.
Given this analysis, segments and syllable-parts are the same thing, just as syllables
and poly-syllables are the same and, in syntax, words and phrases are the same thing.
Moreover, in spite of ‘polysystemic’ approaches which stress the different
options available at different structural points, there does seem to be a strong tendency
for a language to draw on a single common list of consonants in the onset and coda of
a syllable; for example, the lists are almost the same in English (with exceptions – for
me, /h/ and /r/ are only in onset and /ŋ/ only in rhyme), and Arabic has a curious lack
of /p/ in both places. These facts seem to suggest that a language has a single list of
vowels and a single list of consonants which are in some sense ‘the same’ when found
in different positions. But nothing much turns on this, and some languages may
indeed have quite different choices in onset and coda positions, suggesting two
fundamentally different lists of consonants. An isa hierarchy can accommodate this as
easily as a single list.
Are segments psychologically real? The evidence from literacy research
(mentioned above) suggests that segments only become real as a result of learning an
alphabetic writing system, but this evidence may only reveal how accessible
segmental structure is to conscious introspection. Internal structural evidence seems to
suggest that segments are psychologically real in any language, regardless of its
writing system (or lack of one). For example, Beja, which has no writing system at
all, includes phonological rules which make specific reference to segments; e.g. one
such rule suppresses a pre-consonantal /n/ in the onset except where it can be attached
as coda to a preceding vowel: so /nga:l/, ‘one’, is pronounced /ga:l/ in /tak ga:l/, ‘one
man’, but the /n/ surfaces after the definite article /u:/ in /u:tak u:nga:l/, ‘the one man’.
In this rule the /n/ is a ‘floating’ segment which has to belong to a preceding syllable
based outside the form that it helps to realize. It is hard to imagine how a floating
segment could be handled if segments are not available for rules.
The conclusion so far, then, is that a language’s phonology includes the
following units:
 a full inventory of syllables, classified according to parameters such as
prominence and openness;
 a full (but much shorter) inventory of the segments that act as syllable-parts,
classified as consonants and vowels and possibly according to other
parameters such as tone and length and also for the familiar contrasts of voice,
place, and so on.
This analysis is summarized schematically in Figure 1. In words, a form’s realization
(more precisely, its pronunciation) is a syllable, which may support other dependent
syllables and which has two parts, an optional consonant as onset and an obligatory
vowel as rhyme, each of which may also support dependent segments.

F orm
p r o n u n c iatio n • C onso nant
o nset
• Syllable Segm ent
rhym e
dependent 1 Vow el dependent

• •

Figure 1: From Form, via Syllable, to Segment

4 Phonotactics
Phonological structure in WG is a mixture of dependency and constituent structure
very similar to the structures of Dependency Phonology (Ewen, 1994). Constituent
structure relates syllables to their parts, the onset consonant and the rhyme vowel.
Dependency structure allows one syllable to be ‘modified’ by another in a more or
less open-ended and recursive way to produce polysyllabic phonological units; and it
also allows a consonant to produce complex rhymes and consonant clusters by
modifying a vowel or another consonant.

4.1 Dependent syllables and syllable classification

Syllables can combine freely with one another, but when they do the result is not
simply a chain of coordinated syllables because they are differentiated prosodically.
As in dependency phonology, WG associates phonological prominence with
dependency. To take a very simple example, banana has one prominent syllable with
a less prominent syllable before it and another after it. This structure is shown in
Figure 2, with the dependencies labelled ‘pre’ and ‘post’ (for ‘pre-dependent’ and
‘post-dependent’).
pre post

/b n : n /
e e

Figure 2: The syllables of banana

It is tempting to assume that prominence is determined by the distance,
counted in dependency links, from the main syllable; for example, in electrification
the secondary stress on lec could be explained by linking it directly to the main
syllable, and so on for decreasing levels of stress on other syllables (see Figure 3).
However dependency distance cannot be the only determinant because the
syllable /ən/ at the end of electrification must depend directly on the main syllable,
and yet it has low prominence. This example is easily explained in terms of the
inherent lack of prominence of the vowel /ə/ but all the details remain to be worked
out.

/ l  k t r  f  k ei   n/
3 2 3 3 1 2

Figure 3: Stress and dependency in electrification

The main point of the discussion is that a syllable may have one or more
dependent syllables. These dependencies are themselves properties of the syllables
concerned, which distinguish these syllables from other instances of the same
syllable-type; for example, the syllable /lɛk/ in electrification isn’t simply the
syllable /lɛk/, but an example of this syllable with /ɪ/ as its ‘pre’ and /trɪ/ as its ‘post’;
and similarly, the main syllable is a very specific example of /keiʃ/ this particular kind
of /lɛk/ as its ‘pre’ and an example of /ə/ as its ‘post’. What this means is that the main
syllable ‘stands for’ the entire structure in just the same way that the syntactic root of
a sentence stands for the entire sentence; so as far as the form {electrification} is
concerned, the answer is simply this one syllable. In a network analysis this is an
important conclusion, because the realization must be a single node rather than a
collection of them.

4.2 Dependent consonants

Similarly, the basic constituents of a syllable may be modified by dependent
consonants; for example, in trend the onset is an /r/ modified by a dependent /t/ and
the rhyme is an /ɛ/ that supports an /n/ which in turn supports a /d/. This structure is
shown in Figure 4 as part of the structure for the polysyllable trendily.
dep
dep

/tr  n d / // /l i /

onset rhym e onset rhym e

rhym e

dep dep dep

/t r  n d  l i/
+1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1
+1

Figure 4: The syllabic and segmental structures of trendily

According to dependency phonology, the dependencies among segments are

determined by their relative sonority, with vowels as the most sonorous segments
followed by liquids and nasals, and then by stops and fricatives. In words like
trendily, this ranking also corresponds to dependency distance so the dependencies
capture an important generalization. How valid this generalization is even within
English, let alone across languages, I don’t know.

4.3 Adjacency
One characteristic of phonology which makes it different from other levels is its role
as an interface with acoustic and motor programs. One consequence is the importance
of mere adjacency of segments, since adjacent segments inevitably influence each
other’s acoustic and articulatory implementation. For example, even though onsets
and rhymes combine freely, every rhyme is influenced by its onset (and vice versa)
because of the transition from one segment to the next.
Most of these details can presumably be left to the acoustics and to
articulatory programs, but some of them seem to belong to phonology. For example,
when a nasal assimilates to the place of the following consonant, this is rule-governed
rather than mechanical because not every nasal does assimilate in this way - /n/ does,
but /m/ doesn’t.
These interactions between adjacent segments cannot be handled in terms of
dependency structures because the segments concerned may have no direct
dependency links. For example, in thin people, the /n/ and the following /p/ are not
even in the same syllable and there is no reason to assume any kind of dependency
between them; and yet the /n/ assimilates to the /p/ giving /mp/ instead of /np/.
Whatever rule is responsible for this assimilation must be able to recognise adjacent
segments, so this information must be made available in the phonological structure
alongside the dependencies discussed above.
What is needed is a relation between adjacent segments: ‘next’ (labelled ‘+1’
in diagrams). If dependency relations are themselves directional (thanks to the
contrast between ‘pre’ and ‘post’), these links are strictly redundant, but they
nevertheless need to be included for the sake of rules that are sensitive to adjacency.
Adjacency links are certainly learnable – indeed, they are much more learnable than
dependency relations, which may be based on mere adjacency – so I assume that they
are also part of a form’s stored realization, along with its dependency and
constituency structure. The phonological structure for trendily is given in Figure 5 is
complete, except for the segmental transcription which I have simplified by omitting
the isa links to the segment types which I discuss below in 5.

/tr  n d / // /li/

onset rhym e onset rhym e

rhym e

/t r  n d  l i/
+1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1
+1

Figure 5: The complete phonological structure of trendily, including adjacency

Unfortunately, lexically specified adjacency links won’t help with examples

like thin people, where the relevant link is the one that crosses the boundary between
words. If the /p/ of people is the ‘next’ of /n/ in thin, then it can be affected by the
same rules as we find within words such as un-pronounceable, where the rules of
morphology can insert the ‘next’ link between un and pronounceable; but without the
‘next’ link, the two patterns cannot be unified. How then can we arrange for adjacency
links across word boundaries?
The solution is to give the last segment of each word an optional ‘next’ link.
This link obviously cannot be ‘satisfied’ inside the word type, but when it is inherited
by a token of this type it may well be followed by another word token whose first
segment can satisfy it. The mechanism for identifying this segment as the value for
the free-floating ‘next’ link is already available in WG: binding. This is the
mechanism that links words together in dependency structures; for example, the has a
free-floating ‘complement’ link which can be satisfied by a following common noun,
so binding finds the best candidate (thanks to spreading activation and the Best Fit
Principle). The same mechanism should have ample power for linking adjacent
segments across word boundaries; so in thin people, it takes the unsatisfied ‘next’ link
of /n/ and satisfies it with the next segment, /p/. On the other hand, this link is
optional, so if thin had been the last word in its utterance the link could have remained
unsatisfied.
There is clearly a great deal more to say about this process. In particular, there
are often syntactic and prosodic constraints on the ways in which adjacent words
influence each other; for example, I would guess that thin is much less likely to
assimilate to people when the two words belong to distinct clauses as in (1).
(1) If you’re thin, people try to feed you.
How these broader considerations can influence the local relations between adjacent
segments I don’t know.

4.4 Ambisyllabicity and floating segments

In a word such as yellow, there are good reasons for treating the /l/ as ambisyllabic –
belonging to both the preceding and the following syllable. On the one hand, the
preceding vowel requires a coda consonant, and on the other hand, the /l/ is clear
rather than dark, as in words where it is the onset (e.g. late, contrasting with ale).
Similarly in meticulous, the preceding vowel requires a coda but the consonant /t/ has
the aspiration associated with the onset of a stressed syllable. The phonological
structure for yellow is shown in Figure 6.

/j  l/ /l ou/

onset rhym e onset rhym e

dep
/j/ / / /l / /o u /

Figure 6: Ambisyllabicity in yellow

Converging arrows are commonplace in WG – in fact they abound in
semantics, syntax and morphology – so there is no theoretical objection to
ambisyllabicity. However there is a potential problem when it occurs across form
boundaries as in selling, where the same arguments for ambisyllabicity apply as in
yellow; notice that the bare morpheme sell has dark /l/, which is replaced in selling by
a clear /l/. The same problem arises in an even more acute form across word
boundaries, as in (2).
(2) Why did you sell it?
Here the normal dark /l/ of sell is replaced by a clear one because the following word
begins with a vowel. In both cases we have to change the default (‘underlying’)
phonological structure for the morpheme into a slightly different one in order to adapt
it to its phonological context. In other theories, this is the role of phonological rules,
so we have to find a declarative equivalent to a phonological rule.
The solution is to locate the peculiarity among the properties of /l/: it prefers to
be an onset. (We shall see the same preference in an even stronger form in /r/.) This is
rather like the word he which prefers to be the subject of a verb, and as with he, the
grammar registers the preference as a property of /l/: by default it is the onset of a
syllable. It is true that the two cases are actually different, because he cannot be
anything but a subject whereas /l/ can be used just as a coda; but this difference can be
accommodated by default inheritance as shown in Figure 7. According to this
analysis, by default /l/ is clear and is an onset, and the last segment of {sell} is a
default /l/; in contrast, dark /l/ has no onset. (The link labelled ‘#’ indicates ‘quantity’,
which distinguishes existent from non-existent relations.) However, when it cannot be
attached to a following syllable, it cannot be an onset so it settles for the non-default
dark pronunciation.
o nset
{sell} •
/l /

onset
dep •
#
• d a r k /l/

0

Figure 7: The sound /l/ prefers to be an onset

The English /r/ is even more fussy about its syllabic status. In all accents it
prefers to be an onset, and even in rhotic accents it is subject to deletion in coda
position (as in Labov’s famous fourth floor investigation); but in non-rhotic accents it
refuses to be anything but an onset. In the latter accents we also find ‘intrusive r’ in
examples like the idea of it or saw it, so the best analysis is a purely phonological one
which inserts /r/ after ‘r-coloured’ vowels such as /ə/ and /ɔ/. The ‘rule’ is expressed
in Figure 8, which combines an r-coloured vowel with a ‘floating’ /r/, a segment
which has no dependency relation to this vowel but which is simply the next segment,
attached as onset to the next syllable. When this is not possible, the /r/ can be omitted.

/r /
+1 onset

r -c o lo u r e d • •
vow el
+1

r -le ss • C o nsonant

Figure 8: An r-coloured vowel needs /r/ if this can be an onset

To summarise this section, phonotactics involves the following units and
relations:
 syllables, which may have other syllables as dependents and which have a
two-part structure:
o an optional consonant, acting as onset
o by an obligatory vowel acting as rhyme
  segments, which are related to other segments in two ways:
o by dependencies
o by mere adjacency
I discussed two related kinds of complexity in phonotactics:
 ambisyllabicity, in which one segment is linked to an earlier syllable as coda
and to a later one as onset;
 floating segments, in which a segment is linked to an earlier one by mere
adjacency, and has to find its structural role in a different syllable.

5 Realization
Phonotactic rules are purely phonological, so they need to be complemented by a set
of realization rules which show how the permitted phonological structures are
exploited by the forms that need a realization. (Strictly speaking, the realization rules
that relate form to phonology are ‘pronunciation’ rules, a sub-case of ‘realization’, in
contrast with ‘spelling’ relations from form to orthography and ‘formation’ relations
between words and forms; but I shall use ‘realization’ here.)

5.1 Forms
The forms that need realization are generated by morphology, so they include not only
simple forms such as {sell} but also more complex ones such as {{sell}{ing}} or
even {{{de}{{stabil}{iz}}}{ing}}. The largest structures are called ‘wordforms’
and, of course, the smallest are called morphemes (whose traditional signal is the
curly brackets that I use for all forms). Wordforms include not only the conventional
roots and affixes that we separate by word-spaces, but also clitics that are attached to
the word concerned. However, roughly speaking, a wordform is the form of a word.
Separate wordforms are not related to each other at this level except in terms
of adjacency, but internally they have a rich whole-part structure shown by the
brackets. This structure is important for the rules of morphology, but has no
significance for phonology so realization rules simply ignore it, paying attention only
to adjacency. For example, since {sell} is realized by /sɛl/ and {ing} by /ɪŋ/, {{sell}
{ing}} merely concatenates these two syllables as shown in Figure 9 (which does not
show the effects of the ambisyllabification discussed in 4.4). In words, {{sell}{ing}}
contains two morphemes, and example of {sell} and {ing} respectively, each of which
is realized by an example of its default realization, which in turn is an example of the
syllable indicated. The order of the syllables follows that of the morphemes and is
indicated by the ‘+1’ (‘next’) relation.
 syllable

/s  l / /  nj /
{sell} {ing }

r e a l i za ti o n
p ar t2

p ar t1 • •
{{sell}{ing }} • •

r e a l i za t i o n

• •
+1

Figure 9: How {{sell}{ing}} is realized

Notice that the wordform itself has no phonological boundaries because it is a
unit of form, not of phonology; as we saw in the rules for making /r/ and /l/ into
onsets, phonology may ignore wordform boundaries.

5.2 Realizations
At least in simple cases, a form is realized by a single unit of phonology. By default, a
morpheme corresponds to an entire syllable, but exceptions are found in both
directions. Some morphemes are realized by less than a syllable (e.g. {s}) and many
more are realized by a ‘modified’ syllable – i.e. a syllable with dependents.
Of course, not all of morphology involves simply combining one morpheme
with another so we have to be able to accommodate patterns in which morphology
affects phonological structure directly – e.g. by changing a vowel (hide ~ hid),
shifting the main stress (convict as verb or noun), affecting the voicing of a consonant
(breath ~ breathe) or even determining the entire syllable structure as in semitic
interdigitation mentioned earlier, whereby the root /ktb/ surfaces as /katab/ in one
form and as /ka:tib/ in another. These changes are phonological, but the rules
responsible for them are morphological.
Moreover, such changes are not mere lexical freaks, like the suppletion of go
and went; there are important generalizations which a good analysis will reveal. For
example, although English irregular verbs show a messy and unpredictable spread of
vowel changes, the important generalization is that what changes is always the main
vowel (and sometimes its coda, as in stand ~ stood). This suggests that the main
vowel is somehow more accessible to the morphology than the rest of the
phonological structure. One way to explain this is to postulate a direct link between
the form and the vowel; for example, the form {hide} has a direct ‘vowel’ link to /ai/,
which would otherwise be linked to it only indirectly (via realization, isa and onset
links), as shown in Figure 10. The extra link is labelled simply ‘vowel’, but it can be
analyzed as a particular specialization of the more general ‘realization’ relation. I
assume that it can be inserted by a very general rule so that it is available to every
form, and not just for those that undergo vowel alternation.

{hide} /h a i d /

r e a l i za ti o n o nset

• • • •
vow el

/h / /a i / /d /

Figure 10: The sound /ai/ has a special relation to the form {hide}
What this special realization relation allows is realization by vowel change,
which greatly simplifies the statement for any irregular form. Past-tense forms are
derived in WG by a morphological relation called ‘ed-variant’, and by default the ed-
variant of a form is another form whose first part is a copy of that form, with an
example of {ed} as its second part. Figure 11 shows how easily an irregular ed-
variant can be added to this network. (The relation ‘copy’ is defined elsewhere as the
relation between two forms that share the same realization; it is tempting to replace it
by a simple ‘isa’ relation, but this produces logical contradictions.)

e d -var ian t

fo r m •
copy p ar t1 p a rt2

• •

e d -var ian t
{hide}
copy •
vow el vow el

• •

/a i / //

Figure 11: The irregularity of hide ~ hid

This section has briefly reviewed the realization relations that complement the
purely phonological phonotactics. Since every realization involves a selection from
the structures permitted by phonotactics, the latter acts like the well-formedness
conditions of old-fashioned generative phonology. However, we also saw that
phonological rules such as those for /l/ and /r/ build directly on the phonotactics, so
the phonotactics provides a motivation for all the details of realization and
phonological rules.

6 Optimality
Finally, why am I not using some version of Optimality Theory, like most real
phonologists? It would have been much more comfortable to follow the herd, just as
in syntax it would have been easier to use phrase structure rather than dependency, but
I having too many reasons for rejecting OT. None of them are original, but here they
are:
 To my mind, the most attractive feature of OT in phonology is the list of very
general constraints on phonological structure. As a summary of known
universals, or universal trends, this is very helpful. But why assume that this
list is part of linguistic competence?
o The constraints all tend to help in processing, so they can be
interpreted as functional pressures on how grammars evolve; why
should we assume instead that they are part of competence?
o If they are not functional pressures, they must be innate; but they face
all the same objections as the supposed innate principles of syntax,
which I find totally implausible.
 One of the basic principles of OT is that the best candidate wins, so there will
always be a winner. It may be no coincidence that this theory started in
phonology, because so far as I know there are no unpronounceable words; the
whole point of phonology is to provide strategies for circumventing problems
so that every word does in fact have a pronounceable realization. But the same
is not true in morphology and syntax: there are genuine gaps where there is in
fact no realization for a particular combination of inflectional properties (my
favourite example is the impossible form *amn’t in English English) or for a
particular interaction of two constructions (e.g. how do you pluralize car in
They have too big a car?). If OT demonstrably fails in morphology and
syntax, it looks less attractive in phonology.
 I find it very hard to imagine how we could apply an OT phonology in actual
processing, given the need in at least some versions of OT to generate an
open-ended set of candidates and then pick the winner. In contrast, a network
theory such as WG provides a very plausible basis for a processing model
using spreading activation to select the winner by the Best Fit Principle.
 I don’t see how OT could be reconciled with network architecture. Since I do
see how network architecture accommodates every level of language, and does
so at least as well as any other theory I know, I don’t see any reason to jettison
networks in favour of OT.

As I said above, these complaints are neither new nor original, and advocates
of OT have no doubt grappled with them, so it may be easier than I think to
incorporate OT into my framework of ideas. And of course, there may be
overwhelming evidence in favour of OT that I’m not aware of, in which case my
current ideas may be seriously wrong. But as things stand, these are my reasons for
preferring a network theory and for thinking it is a better candidate than OT.
 Reference List

Ewen, C. (1994). Dependency phonology. In R.Asher (Ed.), Encyclopedia of

Language and Linguistics (pp. 864-867). Oxford: Pergamon.

Halle, M. & Bromberger, S. (1989). Why phonology is different. Linguistic

Inquiry, 20, 51-70.