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On a Morphophonemic Innovation in Old French

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Douglas C. Walker
Douglas C. Walker*
Affiliation:
University of Ottawa
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Extract

Vowel nasalization and the subsequent development of these nasalized vowels constitute one of the most intensively studied areas in French historical phonology. Despite this attention, however, the set of problems associated with these phenomena is not exhausted. I will argue here, for example, that nasalization in French provides evidence for the crucial role of allophonic information (redundant phonetic detail) in initiating and conditioning phonological regularities, thus violating the local determinacy constraint (Chomsky 1964) placed on the phonemic level of representation. The same evidence also illustrates an infrequent type of historical change, and reinforces the impression that much fertile ground remains to be tilled in this particular field.

Type
Remarks/Rémarques
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , Spring 1979 , pp. 52 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1986

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References

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