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Formal Parameters of Phonology

From Government Phonology to SPE

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Interfaces: Explorations in Logic, Language and Computation (ESSLLI 2008, ESSLLI 2009)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 6211))

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Abstract

Inspired by the model-theoretic approach to phonology deployed by Kracht [25] and Potts and Pullum [32], I develop an extendable modal logic for the investigation of phonological theories operating on (richly annotated) string structures. In contrast to previous research in this vein [17,31,37], I ultimately strive to study the entire class of such theories rather than merely one particular incarnation thereof. To this end, I first provide a formalization of classic Government Phonology in a restricted variant of temporal logic, whose generative capacity is then subsequently increased by the addition of further operators, thereby pushing it up the subregular hierarchy until one reaches the level of the regular stringsets. I identify several other axes along which Government Phonology might be generalized, moving us towards a parametric metatheory of phonology.

This paper has benefited tremendously from the comments and suggestions of Bruce Hayes, Ed Keenan, Marcus Kracht, Ed Stabler, Kie Zuraw, the members of the UCLA phonology seminar (winter quarter 2009), and two anonymous reviewers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles

    Thomas Graf

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  1. Thomas Graf
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Stanford University, Stanford,, CA, USA

    Thomas Icard

  2. Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Reinhard Muskens

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Graf, T. (2010). Formal Parameters of Phonology. In: Icard, T., Muskens, R. (eds) Interfaces: Explorations in Logic, Language and Computation. ESSLLI ESSLLI 2008 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 6211. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14729-6_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14729-6_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-14728-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-14729-6

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