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  • Contemporary views on architecture and representation in phonology
  • San Duanmu
Contemporary views on architecture and representation in phonology. By Eric Raimy and Charles Cairns. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009. Pp. 424. ISBN 9780262681728. $45.

This book grew out of a conference under a similar title that took place at CUNY in 2004. As the title suggests, the book focuses on two fundamental issues in phonology: the architecture of [End Page 455] the phonological component and the representation of phonological objects. The book points out that the centrality of these issues has often been ignored since the rise of optimality theory (OT). The hope, therefore, is that by offering 'a coherent view of phonology that is not Optimality Theory based' (back cover), the book can complement OT and move the field beyond it.

The representations of three phonological objects are discussed in some detail: the speech sound, the syllable, and metrical structure. The term 'architecture' refers to a modular view of grammar: in particular, what modules there are in phonology, the interactions among them, and the interaction between phonology and other parts of grammar.

The book has nineteen chapters. Ch. 1 is an overview written by the editors. It nicely summarizes the goals of the book and the contents of the chapters to follow.

Chs. 2–4 deal with the representation of speech sounds, or feature theory. Ch. 2 is written by G. NICK CLEMENTS, a pioneer in feature geometry. He first argues for the importance of distinctive features and against 'a tendency to reduce or eliminate the role of features' (20). He then proposes a theory called 'feature economy', or E = S/F, where S is the number of sounds (phonemes) in a language, F the number of features needed to distinguish S, and E the value of feature economy. Clements suggests that there is a pressure for every language to maximize its E, which could be achieved in two ways. First, a language can try to increase S without increasing F (by filling distributional gaps with new sounds). Second, a language can try to decrease F without a significant decrease in S (by dropping some 'odd sounds' that require extra features). The theory makes some strong predictions. In particular, feature economy is a driving force in sound change, and the E value of a language should increase over time. This is, presumably, not always the case, even though Clements tried to gather supporting evidence from the UPSID database. Therefore, Clements proposes some additional constraints: avoiding marked features, favoring 'robust' features, and enhancement (adding or favoring features if they can enhance perception). These constraints can conflict with feature economy and with each other, a point that would resonate with OT.

The importance of features is echoed by MORRIS HALLE (Ch. 3) and BERT VAUX (Ch. 4). Some questions remain in feature theory itself, however. For example, Halle questions Clements's choice of certain features, in particular [palatal] and [voice]. Similarly, Vaux asks whether features should be binary, equipollent, or privative, whether we should assume full specification or underspecification, and how markedness is determined. Vaux also questions the nature of feature economy (is it an intentional plan of the mind or an emerging result of competing forces?), and points out some pitfalls in using phonemic corpora.

Bert Vaux and ANDREW WOLFE wrote the lead chapter on syllable structure (Ch. 5), which is followed by three commentary chapters. Vaux and Wolfe offer a theory of 'appendix', or how to treat an extra C before or after a syllable. Evidently, once appendices are excluded, syllable structures become simpler and the sonority sequencing requirement is better observed. Vaux and Wolfe propose that an extra C must be attached to a higher prosodic unit (e.g. a foot or a P-word), and a language can choose whether to allow such an attachment and to which prosodic level the attachment is made. It is worth noting that, since a word can contain two or more feet, if appendices can attach to a foot, then extra Cs can be found in word-medial positions, which does not seem to happen, at least in English (Borowsky 1989...

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