Premium
WHAT ARE VOWELS MADE OF? THE ‘NO‐RULE’ APPROACH AND PARTICLE PHONOLOGY*
Author(s) -
Carvalho Joaquim Brandão
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
studia linguistica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.187
H-Index - 28
eISSN - 1467-9582
pISSN - 0039-3193
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9582.1994.tb00847.x
Subject(s) - phonology , linguistics , vowel , mathematics , relative articulation , representation (politics) , unitary state , optimality theory , government (linguistics) , dependency (uml) , rotation formalisms in three dimensions , computer science , mid vowel , artificial intelligence , politics , political science , philosophy , law , geometry , formant
. According to current unarist theories of vowel systems, minimal components (like A, I, U, etc.) are structured in relation to one another either in terms of dependency (or government) relationships (dependency and government phonologies), or by their relative weight (particle phonology). No attempt has been made in order to evaluate both formalisms, which are sometimes used simultaneously to represent vowel height. The present paper claims that both government and weight are required in the representation of vowel structure, insofar as each notion is specifically motivated. It is argued that government and weight express respectively the ‘functional’ and the ‘structural’ aspects of vowel systems. The main point is that such a distinction allows for a strict ‘principles and parameters’ approach to vowel structure and processes. This theory, which is formally an autosegmental development of particle phonology, provides, as is fully shown by Portuguese data, a unitary and natural account of complex processes by substituting one universal principle for several descriptive rules.