Headhood, Elements, Specification and Contrastivity

Abstract

Introduction This piece takes inspiration from two strands of phonological thought. One of these is the tradition of work which recognises that 'lenition' processes can be theoretically insight-offering and interesting, and the other is one of the main traditions that have been established in the analysis of the internal structure of phonological segments. Both can be traced back to work by John Anderson. In what follows I do not blindly follow that work, nor indeed any off-the-peg phonological framework, but the model of segmental structure that I assume connects with an Anderson-influenced tradition which has become one of the most influential in this area (especially in European research culture), and the types of processes discussed in this article all have clear characteristics in common with cases of lenition, so they fit in with an identifiable Anderson-Lass-Harrisian tradition of interest (see e.g. Lass &