LIN229H1 Lecture 6: Rules
Document Summary
A morpheme may be pronounced identically in all instances. Think of the difference in plural marking suffixes between the word house, tent, cabin and antenna. A morpheme may have an alternation for some speakers some of the time; (glottal stop in antenna-ish), or it can have widespread contextual alternations. Underlying representation (ur: stored in mental lexicon, one form per morpheme, outputs of morphology. Surface form (sf: what people speak and perceive. Phonology works in the following order: syntax morphology /ur/ phonological processes [sf] Focus on the phonological processes to determine ur. Recall: a b /c __ d: a sounds like b when in the environment of c and d. There"s no [+high] be/c the value of high is irrelevant. Phonologist"s job is to observe surface form and determine ur and its phonological rules. Case study: amharic [ ] vs [ : steps: Look at syllable position or stress: the before environmental factors seem to be post-alveolars and palatals.
