Generative and non-linear phonology By Jacques Durand (review)

REVIEWS363 Zubizarreta, Maria Luisa. 1982. The formal interaction of harmony and accent: The tone pattern of Japanese. The structure of phonological representations, ed. by Harry van der Hülst and Norval Smith, Part 11:159-212. Dordrecht: Foris. Department of Linguistics[Received 30 July 1990.] University of California Berkeley. CA 94720 Generative and non-linear phonology. By Jacques Durand. London & New York: Longman, 1990. Pp. xiii, 337. Reviewed by David Odden, Ohio State University Writing an introductory text in a field such as phonology, with its diverse approaches, must be a difficult and unenviable task. In GNLP Durand seeks to provide a broad perspective on issues in linear and nonlinear generative phonology, but two problems detract significantly from its usefulness as a textbook . First, the focus is on presenting theories, with little attention to developing the student's appreciation for good analysis and argumentation. There are no problem sets, and no extended analytic exemplars in the fashion of the Kenstowicz & Kisseberth text (1979). Arguments are often superficial and seriously flawed, and D does not provide the kind ofthorough and incisive argumentation that students need to model their own research on. For instance, the case against the linear treatment of contour tones in Ch. 7 is largely based on one weak argument that linear phonology does not explain the naturalness of certain assimilations. We are not given the stronger argument that the linear treatment is so powerful that it allows the formulation of legions of unattested rules, whose nonexistence is explained on principled grounds in the autosegmental theory. The second problem is the coverage of topics. Although D covers both linear and nonlinear phonology, only one third ofthe book is concerned with nonlinear theories, including Dependency Phonology (DP). Despite this, the coverage of nonlinear phonology almost turns out to be better than the coverage of linear phonology. The central technical issues of linear phonology are ignored, or treated only in passing. The linear theory of notation is never given a systematic treatment. Little is said of the rule ordering debate, iterative versus simultaneous rules, exception features, the cycle, or absolute neutralization. Ch. 1 provides an introduction and argues for using features in rules, with English aspiration given to show the superiority of features. The argument is bolstered with an analysis of onset clusters in English. Here it is noted that CCC clusters are of the form s - {p,t,k} - {l,r,y,w}. Again, {p,t,k} function as a natural class—this rule is stated with symbols, not features. The next step is to explain why y does not appear postconsonantally, contrary to the prediction of our rule; this motivates a condition against (C)CyV. But D does not point out that, if such conditions are stated in terms of symbols, we can eliminate the negative condition by removing y from the list of consonants in the third position: under closer scrutiny an argument for features becomes an argument against features. 364 LANGUAGE. VOLUME 67. NUMBER 2 (1991) The second chapter covers distinctive features. Having made a case for stating rules with features, we consider whether features might be abstract, lacking intrinsic phonetic content. It is stated that this is unsatisfactory, since the mapping between phonological and phonetic features becomes arbitrary. This is as far as the argument goes; we never consider why this is undesirable. The argument should be fleshed out: a theory in which phonological features are arbitrarily mapped onto phonetic features is more powerful than one in which phonological and phonetic features are the same, since the former theory properly includes the latter. D then provides a sketch of features. In the discussion of the features for glides there is a typo (45)—y and w are assigned the value [ + ant]. The assignment of [ + low] to the laryngeals h and ? is a repetition from SPE (Chomsky & Halle 1968:307), and certainly contradicts the definition of [low]. This anomaly goes unnoticed. Ch. 3 touches on the question of binary versus scalar or unary features, markedness, and the theory of 'gestures' in DP. D argues against a theory of privative features which assumes features like 'voice', 'voiceless', etc. The strongest argument for binarity is based on place assimilation of preconsonantal...