What Are Vowels Made Of? The ‘No‐rule’ Approach and Particle Phonology*

Abstract

According to current unarist theories of vowel systems, minimal components (like A, I, U, etc.) are structured in relation to one another either in terms of dependency (or government) relationships (dependency and government phonologies), or by their relative weight (particle phonology). No attempt has been made in order to evaluate both formalisms, which are sometimes used simultaneously to represent vowel height. The present paper claims that both government and weight are required in the representation of vowel structure, insofar as each notion is specifically motivated. It is argued that government and weight express respectively the 'functional' and the 'structural' aspects of vowel systems. The main point is that such a distinction allows for a strict 'principles and parameters' approach to vowel structure and processes. This theory, which is formally an autosegmental development of particle phonology, provides, as is fully shown by Portuguese data, a unitary and natural account of complex processes by substituting one universal principle for several descriptive rules.* I am grateful to Marc Klein (Paris VIII) and Marc Plinat (Paris X) for helpful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of the present paper. I am also indebted to Mrs. Helen Dochney-Lepine for the revision of the manuscript.

How to marry (structuralist) contrast and (generative) processing

“…specifications of two different features: [Àback], [+high]; it produces contrast by being either present or absent. The unary idea was introduced by Anderson and Jones (1974) and then implemented in three theories in the 80s, each with its own characteristics: Dependency Phonology (Anderson et al, 1985, condensed in Anderson andEwen, 1987), Government Phonology (Kaye et al, 1985;Lindsey, 1995, 2000) and Particle Phonology (Schane, 1984;Carvalho, 1994).…”

A note on the strength of vowels

“…6 In footnote 2, we recalled one of our claims: less sonorous consonants spread to more sonorous consonants. If we consider the sonority hierarchy put forward by Selkirk (1984), |I| and |U| are supposed to be less sonorous than |A| (see Carvalho 1993;1994;2002 concerning the assymetry between A, I and U). In this respect, vowels seem to behave like consonants.…”

Formally–grounded phonology: From constraint–based theories to theory–based constraints

“…In Carvalho (1993Carvalho ( , 1994, for example, vowel height was given the weight-based representation shown in the following matrices, in the line of Schane's (1984a, b) views:…”

“…supra § 2.4), a problem arises from the representations in (17): as was outlined by Anderson & Ewen (1987:254±255) concerning Schane's (1984a, b) particle phonology, if vowel height depends on a number such as the weight of a primitive, then what in the theory limits weight, and thus disallows an infinite number of height degrees? Let W be the number of particles in a given segment; there is, in Carvalho's (1993Carvalho's ( , 1994 particle phonology, a linear relation between the maximal number of height degrees (H) and W such that H W 1: as is shown in (17), if W 3, then H 4. What then disallows, say, W 39 in a given vowel system, which would therefore have 40 height degrees?…”