Paradigms in Phonological Theory (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Paradigms in Phonological Theory ed. by Laura J. Downing, T. Alan Hall, and Renate Raffelsiefen Curt Rice Paradigms in phonological theoryEd. by Laura J. Downing, T. Alan Hall, and Renate Raffelsiefen. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. 349. ISBN 0199267715. $49.95. The eleven chapters in this volume pursue a deeper understanding of the influence of paradigm structure on phonological processes. The core strategy present in the chapters is to identify apparent exceptions to synchronic phenomena and then to pursue an explanation based on paradigmatic relations.1 The book begins with an unusually useful introduction by the editors, who give us a quick reminder of the importance of notions like paradigm uniformity and paradigm leveling in structuralist linguistics, as well as a brief review of how these notions can be modeled in generative phonology, for example, through rule reordering in an SPE (The sound pattern of English, Chomsky & Halle 1968) model, or through the assignment of a phonological rule to a particular level in lexical phonology. The remainder of the introductory chapter sketches the status of the paradigm in optimality theory (OT), discussing the two main types of models that pervade the book. Base-priority approaches focus primarily on derivational relationships, such that a derivationally simplex form provides some insight into the phonological properties of a complex form for which it serves as a base. Symmetrical models, by contrast, give no priority to a base, but instead allow the members of a paradigm to exert influence upon one another independent of their derivational relationships. The book includes ten chapters in addition to the introduction. Several of these focus on specific languages, including Outi Bat-El on Hebrew, Stuart Davis on English, Laura J. Downing on Jita, and Péter Rebrus and Miklós Törkenczy on Hungarian. Michael Kenstowicz’s chapter surveys several cases, especially of paradigm contrast, while John McCarthy presents an extension of OT to model paradigm uniformity effects. The four remaining chapters, by Adam Albright, Luigi Burzio, Renate Raffelsiefen, and Suzanne Urbanczyk, focus on various issues at the phonology-morphology interface and highlight their relevance for work on paradigms. The chapters share optimality theory as their theoretical context. This review cannot cover all of the chapters in the book, and instead attempts to bring out a few examples of the kind of phenomena under consideration in most of the chapters, as well as some aspects of the formal developments these phenomena demand. Skipping over some of the chapters implies nothing but limited space, and the volume in toto deserves careful consideration by researchers looking at the phonology-morphology interface along with those interested in the kinds of relations that must obtain among lexical items. The overview offered here draws primarily on the chapters by Kenstowicz and McCarthy, presenting examples of the relevant phonomenon and one proposal about how to model their analysis. Kenstowicz’s chapter is a well-organized smorgasbord of the type of phenomena that drive the work in this volume (although see Raffelsiefen’s article for important discussion of alternate views on portions of the empirical object). He sets his sights on examples that do not show ‘containment’ or transparent derivational relationships, that is, cases for which a cyclic analysis would fail. In other words, he stays away from examples like the oft-cited contrast between compensation and condensation, in which responsibility for the nonreduction of the vowel in antepenultimate den is laid at the feet of condense and its derivational relationship to condensation. (For more extensive principled discussion about the (non)role of the derivational relationship in phonology and morphology, see Burzio’s chapter.) Two types of examples are given in the chapter, both involving apparent failures of the synchronic (morpho)phonology. (Presentations of data below follow Kenstowicz’s conventions.) Paradigm uniformity involves cases in which a synchronic process is blocked to avoid having members of a paradigm be too dissimilar. As an example, Kenstowicz (following Aguero-Bautista 1998, and referring also to Crowhurst 1992, Harris 1994, and Elordieta & Carreira 1996) offers [End Page 905] Spanish diminutive formation...