Why phonology is flat: the role of concatenation and linearity

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• Dr Tobias Sheer (Directeur de Recherche au CNRS, University of Nice, Sophia-Antipolis)
• Thursday 25 February 2016, 16:00-17:30
• GR06/07, English Faculty Building, 9 West Road, Sidgwick Site.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Theodora Alexopoulou.

The genuine contribution of Government Phonology to phonological theory are lateral relations among syllabic constituents. Government and licensing describe a dependency relationship between a head and a dependent, but are non-arboreal. Their application therefore mechanically leads to the elimination of trees (deforestation). The talk investigates whether there is reason to believe that dependency relations (which are ubiquitous in language) are embodied by two distinct mechanisms in morpho-syntax (trees) and phonology (lateral relations). It is shown that the different expression of dependency in syntax and phonology is due to two things: a design property of syntax, concatenation (which is absent from phonology), and an input condition to phonological computation, linearity (which is absent from syntax). Hierarchical structure is thus implemented in module-specific ways: concatenation in syntax (the minimalist device Merge) produces trees (while invalidating the lateral option). It is therefore argued that the arboreal means of expressing dependency relations is the result of concatenation, and of nothing else: no concatenation, no trees. It thus follows from the fact that phonology does not concatenate anything that there cannot be any tree-building device in this module. An appreciable side-effect of this perspective is an explanation of a long-standing observation, i.e. the absence of recursion in phonology: no trees, no recursion. On the other hand, linearity in phonology produces lateral relations (and makes trees unworkable). A related issue discussed is what kinds of third factor explanation are desirable, given that everybody is after ‘‘more general, language-unspecific’’ motivations for the workings of grammar: Chomskian minimalism/biolinguistics as much as anti-chomskian ‘‘Cognitive’’ Grammar and the work in Dependency Phonology (John Anderson). Candidates are global notions such as cognitive salience on the one hand, or more concrete things such as linearity and concatenation on the other. It appears that the current striving for the former is an attempt at turning back the clocks: the evolution of Cognitive Science since Franz-Joseph Gall’s 19th century phrenology was in the opposite direction.

This talk is part of the Cambridge Linguistics Forum series.

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• Cambridge Forum of Science and Humanities
• Cambridge Language Sciences
• Cambridge Linguistics Forum
• Cambridge talks
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• GR06/07, English Faculty Building, 9 West Road, Sidgwick Site
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