The past decade has seen a good deal of research on the relation between phonology and syntax, and on the nature of the phonological structures – both intonational and metrical – on to which syntactic structure must be mapped (e.g. Liberman & Prince 1977; Pierrehumbert 1980; Selkirk 1984; Kaisse 1985; Nespor & Vogel 1986). While some of this work breaks genuinely new ground, in at least one respect it relies on a theoretical legacy from work going back at least half a century: the INTONATIONAL PHRASE (IP). The goal of this paper is to examine the properties of the IP as a theoretical construct and to propose a substantially modified approach to intonational phrasing.

A central idea in rule-based phonology is the serial derivation (Chomsky & Halle 1968). In a serial derivation, an underlying form passes through a number of intermediate representations on its way to the surface:

[Scheme here]

Implementational details can differ: the order of rules might be stipulated or it might be derived from universal principles; the steps might be called ‘rules’, ‘cycles’ or ‘levels’; the steps might involve applying rules or enforcing constraints. But, details aside, the defining characteristic of a serial derivation, in the sense I will employ here, is the pre-eminence of the chronological metaphor: the underlying form is transformed into a succession of distinct, accessible intermediate representations on its way to the surface. I will call any theory with this property ‘serialism’.

In Hungarian, stems ending in a back vowel plus one or more neutral vowels show unusual behaviour: for such stems, the otherwise general process of vowel harmony is lexically idiosyncratic. Particular stems can take front suffixes, take back suffixes or vacillate. Yet at a statistical level, the patterning among these stems is lawful: in the aggregate, they obey principles that relate the propensity to take back or front harmony to the height of the rightmost vowel and to the number of neutral vowels. We argue that this patterned statistical variation in the Hungarian lexicon is internalised by native speakers. Our evidence is that they replicate the pattern when they are asked to apply harmony to novel stems in a ‘wug’ test (Berko 1958). Our test results match quantitative data about the Hungarian lexicon, gathered with an automated Web search. We model the speakers' knowledge and intuitions with a grammar based on the dual listing/generation model of Zuraw (2000), then show how the constraint rankings of this grammar can be learned by algorithm.

It is often assumed in work on the phonological underspecification of segments that while representations may at first be underspecified, they end up fully specified. Various kinds of rules are posited to ensure that in output forms all features have values for all segments. In this paper I will consider an alternative view: that underspecification may persist into phonetic representations. I begin by reviewing some of the relevant phonological phenomena and mechanisms, and some of the history of underspecification in phonetic studies. I then show how phonetic data may be taken to reflect the presence or absence of feature values in surface forms. Finally, the extent to which surface specification depends on segmental contrasts is examined. The aim of this paper is to present some phonetic phenomena that are potentially relevant to any theory of underspecification.

The phenomenon studied in this paper is the correspondence between the syllabic position of segments copied in reduplication and the syllabic position of their base counterparts. I will document this correlation and propose a model of reduplication that explains it.

Many theories of intonational phonology have granted some special status to pitch features that occur at the edges of prosodic domains, contrasting them with prominence-lending pitch configurations. The standard American structuralist theory that flourished in the 1950s (Trager & Smith 1951) drew a clear distinction between PITCH PHONEMES and JUNCTURE PHONEMES, the former constituting the body of a contour and the latter describing the movements at the contour’s end. Parallel to this development, a distinction was also drawn within the Prague School between the cumulative and delimitative functions of tonal phenomena (Trubetzkoy 1958), the former including prominence, the latter domainedge marking. Bolinger (especially 1970) distinguished ‘accent’ from ‘intonation’: ACCENT referred to the distinctive pitch shapes that accompany prominent stressed syllables (now generally known, following Bolinger, as pitch accents), while INTONATION included, among other things, distinctive pitch movements at the ends of contours. A distinction very similar, but not identical, to Bolinger’s is made in the theory of intonation developed at the Institute for Perception Research (IPO) in the Netherlands (Cohen & ’t Hart 1967, ’t Hart et al. 1990), namely between PROMINENCE-LENDING and NON-PROMINENCE-LENDING pitch movements.

Feature economy is a principle of sound systems according to which languages tend to maximise the ratio of sounds over features. The major goal of this study is to confirm the predictions of feature economy at the synchronic level, using an objective sampling technique applied to a genetically and areally balanced sample of the world's languages. It also shows that feature economy can be used as a tool in phonological feature analysis, and offers voiced aspirates, voiceless sonorants and various types of glottalised sounds as illustrations. Feature economy applies not only to distinctive feature values, but to redundant values of features that are distinctive or phonologically active elsewhere in the system. Feature economy cannot be reduced to a purely phonetic principle of gesture economy, but may reflect a general principle of linguistic organisation according to which the active categories of a grammatical system tend to be used to maximal effect.

When a medial consonant cluster is simplified by deletion or place assimilation, the first consonant is affected, but never the second one: /patka/ becomes [paka] and not *[pata]; /panpa/ becomes [pampa] and not [panta]. This article accounts for that observation within a derivational version of Optimality Theory called Harmonic Serialism. In Harmonic Serialism, the final output is reached by a series of derivational steps that gradually improve harmony. If there is no gradual, harmonically improving path from a given underlying representation to a given surface representation, this mapping is impossible in Harmonic Serialism, even if it would be allowed in classic Optimality Theory. In cluster simplification, deletion or Place assimilation is the second step in a derivation that begins with deleting Place features, and deleting Place features improves harmony only in coda position.

One of the crucial ways in which prosodic structure governs the distribution of segments is in terms of sonority. By taking into account what is known′ as the sonority of segments, their arrangement within the syllable follows a clear pattern: the most sonorous segment occupies the peak position, while the less sonorous ones occur towards the margins, as observed in a wide range of literature (Jespersen 1904; Saussure 1916; Zwicky 1972; Hooper 1976; Kiparsky 1979, 1981; Lowenstamm 1981; Steriade 1982; Selkirk 1984; Clements 1990). This specific arrangement of segments within the syllable has been attributed in the previous literature to the principle of sonority sequencing, which relegates segments low in sonority towards syllable margins (see Hooper 1976; Kiparsky 1979, 1981; Steriade 1982; Selkirk 1984; Levin 1985; Clements 1990).

In English, a number of rules affect the realisation of a nasal consonant or a segment adjacent to a nasal consonant. These include rules of Anticipatory Nasalisation, e.g. bean /bin/ [bĩn]; Coronal Stop Deletion, e.g. kindness /kajndnes/ [kãjnnes]; Nasal Deletion and optionally Glottalisation, e.g. sent /sent/ [set] or [set'] (see Malécot 1960; Selkirk 1972; Kahn 1980 [1976]; Zue & Laferriere 1979). These rules, characterised largely on the basis of impressionistic data, are widely assumed to be phonological rules of English. Yet current views of the relationship between phonology and phonetics make the distinction between phono-logical rules and phonetic ones less automatic than once assumed and a reconsideration of the status of these rules is warranted. In the present article, I use phonetic data from English to investigate these rules. Based on these data, I argue that Anticipatory Nasalisation results from phonetic implementation rather than from a phonological rule, as previously assumed. It is shown that the basic patterns of nasalisation in English can be accounted for straightforwardly within a target-interpolation model. I then investigate the phonological status and phonetic realisation of Nasal Deletion, Coronal Stop Deletion and Glottalisation. The interaction of these rules yields some surprising results, in that glottalised /t/ [t'] is amenable to nasalisation.

Particle phonology has evolved from a dissatisfaction that I experienced working within the current theoretical and notational framework of generative phonology. I had been looking at historical processes affecting vowels and diphthongs. In trying to describe the kinds of changes undergone by these entities, I was particularly frustrated by the inability of the standard notation to characterise in any enlightening way the internal structure of vowels, as well as relationships evident between particular vowels and diphthongs. The first difficulty – the nature of the internal structure of vowels – was not simply due to an inadequate set of distinctive features. Rather, the problem resided in the very notion of features as autonomous building blocks out of which segments are composed. This view contributed partially to the other difficulty – the expression of relationships between vowels and diphthongs. An additional factor to this problem came from restrictions of the notation in regard what could appear to the left and to the right of an arrow. The notation forced me to formulate rules whose statements often did not accord with my conception of the nature of the processes. It seems to me that a highly-valued notational system should have the property that I have come to call ‘mirroring’. If one believes that a process or change happens in a certain way, then the notation should not just describe that event but should reflect as closely as possible its manner of occurrence.

The term sonority projection refers to behavioural distinctions speakers make between unattested phonological sequences on the basis of sonority. For example, among onset clusters, the well-formedness relation [bn]>[lb] is observed in speech perception, speech production and non-word acceptability (Davidson 2006, 2007, Berent et al.2007, Albright, ms). We begin by replicating the sonority projection effects in a non-word acceptability study. Then we evaluate the extent to which sonority projection is predicted by existing computational models of phonotactics (Coleman & Pierrehumbert 1997, Hayes & Wilson 2008, inter alia). We show that a model based only on lexical statistics can explain sonority projection in English without a pre-existing sonority sequencing principle. To do this, a model must possess (i) a featural system supporting sonority-based generalisations, and (ii) a context representation including syllabification or equivalent information.

The standard method of describing phonation for tone, vocal register, stress and other linguistic categories relies on the ‘continuum hypothesis’ that linguistic sounds are produced by means of glottal states determined by the aperture between the arytenoid cartilages, the endpoints of the voiceless–voiced continuum being ‘open glottis’ and ‘closed glottis’. This paper takes a different view, pointing out that many languages make use of a number of valves, and that these valves are not articulations on a glottal continuum but represent a synergistic and hierarchical system of laryngeal articulations. These valves constitute a principal source of phonological contrast, with an influence on how oral articulatory events are characterised.

In this article, I explore a class of phonological reduction phenomena which highlight the role of segmental complexity in phonological government. I discuss a condition on phonological representations which requires that a segment occupying a governed position be no more complex than its governor, where complexity is straightforwardly calculated in terms of the number of elements of which a segment is composed. More generally, the present enterprise is to be seen as part of a wider programme in which reduction phenomena, including those traditionally referred to as lenition, are examined for the light they shed on the internal structure of consonants.

This collection of thematically related papers in the current issue of the Phonology Yearbook, coming in the wake of recent major works like Selkirk (1984a) and Kaisse (1985), betokens a growing interest in the interfacing problem of syntax and phonology. So far, the most intensively investigated problems such as English contraction and auxiliary reduction fall in the intermediate area of morphosyntax, in the sense that they typically involve the adjunction of clitic-like elements to a neighbouring constituent with certain phonological consequences. The truly phrasal level of postlexical phonology is rather more sparsely populated by well-documented case studies. Chapter 7 of Kaisse (1985) reviews some of the better-known cases, including French liaison, Ewe tone sandhi, Italian raddoppiamento sintattico (initial consonant gemination), and Kimatuumbi vowel shortening (see references cited therein). To this list we may add the highly suggestive case of Chi Mwi:ni vowel shortening (see Kisseberth & Abasheikh 1974; and the insightful reanalysis in Selkirk 1986).

In phonology, one of the generalisations that seems to hold true across most, if not all, languages is that the overall rhythmic pattern tends to be organised such that there is an alternation of strong and weak syllables (cf. among others, Hayes 1980, 1984; Prince 1983; Selkirk 1984). In other words, languages tend to avoid strings of adjacent strong syllables, as well as strings of adjacent weak syllables. These generalisations are expressed by clauses (a) and (b), respectively, of Selkirk's Principle of Rhythmic Alternation (PRA):

(1) Principle of Rhythmic Alternation (Selkirk 1984: 52)

a. Every strong position on a metrical level n should be followed by at least one weak position on that level

b. Any weak position on a metrical level n may be preceded by at most one weak position on that level

Of course, the underlying rhythmic patterns of a language are not always in conformity with the PRA.

The theory of Lexical Phonology, which forms one of the themes of this volume, was developed by Paul Kiparsky and K. P. Mohanan and first introduced in monographs appearing in the early 1980s (Kiparsky 1982a, b; Mohanan 1982). The number of phonologists that have begun to work within or in response to the theory in the short time since its appearance is worthy of remark. One reason that Lexical Phonology has sparked so much interest must surely be that it supplies new tools for analysis and new ways of approaching recalcitrant problems. But another part of its appeal lies in the way it comes as a natural outgrowth of and response to so many of the major trends in phonology and morphology in the last 15 years. Our purpose in writing this introduction is to trace the history of some ideas that come together in Lexical Phonology and to provide the reader with an overview of the model itself. In this we shall be covering some already well-trodden ground, for Kiparsky, Mohanan, and many of their colleagues and students have included eloquent introductions to Lexical Phonology within their articles. However, we trust that readers of the Phonology Yearbook will find it useful to have in hand an exposition of the different facets of the model and the recent challenges and modifications it has undergone. And while our intentions are more pedagogical than critical, we shall from time to time point out difficulties inherent in some or all versions of the model.

Semitic languages such as Hebrew and Arabic are known for what has become characterised as their discontiguous or non-concatenative morphology. In the overwhelming majority of the literature, in both ‘traditional’ and generative grammar, semantically related words in such languages are described as sharing a common ROOT, usually consisting of three consonants. Such consonantal roots are viewed as actual morphemes with lexical status. Words are formed by affixation to roots; the most common type of such affixation is the interleaving of vowels between the consonants of a root. Within current phonology, the morphological status of roots was originally expressed through a multi-tiered representation, where a root occupied a distinguished tier (e.g. McCarthy 1979, 1981). More recently the notion of root has been challenged by Bat- El (1994a), who argues, based on properties of the process of denominal verb formation (DVF) in Modern Hebrew (MH), that the concept of root can be eliminated.

In this paper, I present further arguments that there is no need to refer to roots in the process of DVF in MH. I also show that under such a view a unified, comprehensive treatment of DVF in MH is possible within Optimality Theory (OT; Prince & Smolensky 1993). This analysis goes beyond that originally presented in Bat-El (1994a), in that it has the power to predict the surface pattern of biliteral denominal verbs, whose outputs exhibit variation.

It is generally believed that Turkish stress is always word-final. Closer examination, however, reveals several types of exceptions to this pattern involving both roots and affixes. This paper proposes a unified analysis of regular and irregular stress in Turkish that crucially depends on our definition of the Phonological Word. In addition, we discuss stress in constituents beyond the word, and provide evidence for the Clitic Group as well as the Phonological Phrase. Finally, we also briefly discuss vowel harmony and a set of syllabification phenomena, and show how the latter, in particular, provide independent support for the proposal we advance here.