Gregory K. Iverson

On the ‘Incomplete Neutralization’ of German Final Obstruents

Recent work in acoustic phonetics purports to show that neutralization of the voiced/voiceless contrast in final position in German is only apparent, because it is incomplete. Thus, a recent study sho

On glottal width features

Abstract The laryngeal feature framework constructed by Halle and Stevens (1971) has been challenged on various phonetic grounds (e.g. Ladefoged 1973; Gandour 1975), but relatively little attention has been paid to the apparently correct phonological restrictions this system imposes. With respect particularly to the glottal width dimension, languages are known to reveal at most three phonological contrasts (e.g. Korean; cf. Kim 1970; Kagaya 1974) even though finer distinctions are observable phonetically; and unlike its more recent, n -ary competitors, the Halle and Stevens characterization logically accommodates no more than three degrees of glottal width (spread, constricted, or neutral [neither spread nor constricted] glottis). The present paper is an apology for this approach to laryngeal features, but it also proposes to correlate certain finer shades of non-distinctive glottal width with other laryngeal gestures. For example, the specification of slack vocal folds for spread glottis (murmur) entails an actually narrower degree of glottal width than does a specification of stiff vocal folds for spread glottis (aspiration). Despite the cross-linguistic existence of more than three phonetic degrees of glottal width, then, it is concluded that the distinctive feature limitation of these to a three-way contrast - with universal redundancies - is defensible phonetically as well as phonologically.

Hierarchical structures in child phonology

Abstract Under a cognitive model of acquisition, theories which recognize hierarchical structuring of phonological strings are better able to explain the complex process of phonological development than are standard, linear generative theories. On this view, children develop their phonological system by constructing and testing hypotheses governing what constitutes a possible ‘word’, ‘syllable’, or other supra-segmental constituent, and by discovering that (in English) features characterize distinctive oppositions between segments rather than higher-level constituents. Many of the observed ‘processes’ in child phonology can then be explained in terms of well-formedness constraints on the internal composition of hierarchically structured constituents in the childs developing grammar. Velar assimilation (where a non-velar consonant assimilates to a velar elsewhere in the word), for example, is seen to be a consequence of the childs having associated the articulatory feature [-anterior] with the word-level constituent instead of having recognized it as a segmental feature, yielding [kok] for ‘coat’ of [gak] for ‘rock’.

Synchronic Umlaut in Old Icelandic

Recent papers by Cathey and Demers (1975, 1976, 1977, ms) have incorporated an analysis of Old Icelandic phonology in which purely phonetically conditioned rules of i -Umlaut and u -Umlaut are crucial not only to the analysis itself, but to the theoretical implications theauthors draw from that analysis. Synchronically, however, the non exceptional application of i -Umlaut is restricted to just four morpho-syntactic classes: athematic and j -thematic verbs in the preterite subjunctive, j -thematic verbs in the non-preterite, adjectives with a consonant-initial comparative suffix, and athematic feminine or plural r -stem nouns. Historical u-Umlaut continues to round a to Q before u in the next syllable even in literary Old Icelandic, but its application is also morphologically induced, viz. a → Q in all feminines, plurals, and u-stems not followed by a vocalic suffix. All intraparadigmatic umlaut alternations are covered by these morphologizations, which in turn obviate the abstractions proposed by Cathey and Demers.

The Revised Alternation Condition in Lexical Phonology

The present paper makes a case for retention of the (Revised) Alternation Condition in Lexical Phonology, a theory in which any single rule which presebts beytralizing, lexical effects restricted to derived forms along with allophonic, derivationally unterstricted dffects is cominally impossible. However, Korean obstruent palatalization does display both of these properties, whereby /t, t h / neutralize with /ĉ, ĉ h / before [i], but only if the [i] occurs in another morpheme (cf. /pat h + i/→ [paĉ h i] ‘field-SUBJ’ vs. monomorphemic [pathi] ‘endure’), whereas / s / acquires the palatal allophone [∫[ before [i] both within ([∫i] ‘poem’) and between (/os + i/→ [o∫i] ‘cloth-SUBJ’) morphemes. The Revised Alternation Condition alone imposes just this restriction on a single palatalization rule functioning both lexically and post-lexically in Korean, which suggests that its removal from the theory is premature.

Foot and Syllable Structure in Modern Icelandic

As is well known, vowel length in Modern Icelandic is in general predictable on the basis of syllable structure such that, in polysyllabic words, stressed vowels in open syllables are long, other vowels are short; in stressed monosyllables, however, vowels are long whether the syllable is open or closed by a single consonant, and short only when the syllable is closed by a consonant cluster. In contrast to the ‘final maximalistic’ strategy of Arnason (1980) and other unlikely syllabification schemes designed to unify these two patterns, we invoke Giegerichs (1985) characterization of foot structure as applied to German and English, according to which stressed monosyllables categorize metrically as disyllabic feet whose rightmost member is null. Thus, CVC structures are metrically /CV.CO/, with the result that the generalization regarding vowel length in words of all types is simply that stressed vowels in open syllables are long, others short.