Explanation in variable phonology: An exponential model of morphological constraints
Explanation in variable phonology: An exponential model of morphological constraints
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可变音系学的解释：形态约束的指数模型
DOI：
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发表时间：
1991
影响因子：
1
通讯作者：
Gregory R. Guy
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Gregory R. Guy
摘要 语音过程的变异论处理通常提供了条件环境因素对过程发生的影响的精确定量说明，并且这些影响已被证明对于几个经过充分研究的过程来说是稳健的。但就该学科目前的状况而言，理论解释的可比精度通常是难以捉摸的。也就是说，分析师通常无法说出为什么参数应该具有它们所具有的特定值，尽管人们通常可以解释环境的相对顺序。本文试图以定量理论预测的形式，对英语音韵学的一项稳健的定量观察给出精确的解释。众所周知，最终辅音簇的减少（通常称为 -t,d 删除）取决于目标词的形态结构。删除更多地适用于单词素词（例如，mist），而不是屈折词（例如，missed）。在词汇音系学理论中，这些类别的词通过派生历史进行区分，在不同的形态层次上获得它们的最终簇。该理论进一步假设规则可以适用于多个推导级别。如果 -t,d 删除被视为具有这种架构的音韵学中具有固定应用率 (p0) 的可变规则，则未派生形式（其中最终簇存在于底层并贯穿整个推导过程）中较高的应用率是多次暴露于删除规则的结果，而屈折形式（仅在推导后期满足规则的结构描述）具有较少的暴露和较低的累积删除。这进一步允许对不同形态类别中的表面缺失率进行精确的定量预测。它们应该作为 p0 的指数函数相关，具体取决于规则的暴露次数。这一预测在对 7 名说英语的人进行的 -t,d 删除研究中得到了实证验证。
ABSTRACT Variationist treatments of phonological processes typically provide precise quantitative accounts of the effects of conditioning environmental factors on the occurrence of the process, and these effects have been shown to be robust for several well-studied processes. But comparable precision in theoretical explanation is usually elusive, at the current state of the discipline. That is, the analyst is usually unable to say why the parameters should have the particular values that they do, although one can often explain relative ordering of environments. This article attempts to give a precise explanation — in the form of a quantitative theoretical prediction — of one robust quantitative observation about English phonology. The reduction of final consonant clusters (often called -t,d deletion) is well-known to be conditioned by the morphological structure of a target word. Deletion applies more in monomorphemic words (e.g., mist) than in inflected words (e.g., missed). In the theory of lexical phonology, these classes of words are differentiated by derivational history, acquiring their final clusters at different levels of the morphology. The theory further postulates that rules may apply at more than one level of the derivation. If -t,d deletion is treated as a variable rule with a fixed rate of application (p0) in a phonology with this architecture, then higher rates of application in underived forms (where the final cluster is present underlyingly and throughout the derivation) are a consequence of multiple exposures to the deletion rule, whereas inflected forms (which only meet the structural description of the rule late in the derivation) have fewer exposures and lower cumulative deletion. This further allows a precise quantitative prediction concerning surface deletion rates in the different morphological categories. They should be related as an exponential function of p0, depending on the number of exposures to the rule. The prediction is empirically verified in a study of -t,d deletion in seven English speakers.