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Have we inhibitions related to universal rules?
Journal of Phonetics (1976) 4, 75-81
Have we inhibitions related to universal rules? R. W. P. Brasington Department of Linguistic Science, University of Reading, U.K. Received Ist September 1975
The treatment of Catalan data suggested recently by Roca, as an alternative to the adoption of a reciprocal rule convention, is considered. It is argued that the reciprocal rule convention-initially proposed merely to highlight a problem engendered by the very nature of the standard generative framework~and Roca's alternative are both less satisfactory than a more traditional, essentially Praguian, account of the data.
In a recent article (Brasington, 1973), under the heading of reciprocal rules, I discussed a relationship holding between two operations which, as generative phonologists, we might consider should apply to Catalan basic representations in order to account for the variability in the presence of stop consonants in, for example, the final clusters of such forms as [al(t)s]
76
R. W. P. Brasington
not; e.g. basic /miJrt/ "death", phonetically [miJr(t)] and basic /sErra diJr/ "golden mountain", phonetically [sErr~ diJr(t)]. The merits of a "natural" phonetic account of this situation-stops are naturally articulated in the environment /r - - f ?-should of course be considered. §2. The question of whether the reciprocal rule convention is easily formalized and harmonizes with other existing conventions is a side issue and for this reason I had no more than hinted at an interpretation, talking loosely about the pair of rules derived from the schema as being unordered. I stress again that I am not arguing for the convention, but surely if one wanted there would be no difficulty in tightening up the idea in an appropriate fashion. As far as an expansion convention for a reciprocal rule schema is concerned, the linear order of the rules would be irrelevant (in that sense they are unordered) but the pair might be supposed to form a disjunctively ordered set, i.e. only one rule is allowed to apply. As to harmony with existing conventions, a sufficient number of special conventions have already gained some acceptance-infinitely expandable schemata, mirror image rules, etc.-for this criticism to be discounted. The more serious question, as I suggested, is whether enough is enough. §3. Roca presents two negative arguments purporting to show that the relationship of stop deletion and stop insertion is "asymmetrical" (i.e. that in collapsing the rules a generalization is claimed where none in fact exists). As I suggested, the idea of collapsing rules was not the most appropriate in the event, but in neither case do I see the force of the comments he makes. (a) In the first case, the point is apparently that the rule of stop insertion produces sequences which violate negative morpheme structure conditions while the rule of stop deletion does not. Now, if it is the case that morpheme structure conditions apply by definition to morphemes, then it is not obvious what sense can be made of the idea that the output of a phonological rule applying to a string of morphemes is in violation of a morpheme structure condition. But as to the more substantial point, I do not find it in any way odd that a language should contain words whose internal structure would not be acceptable as the structure of a morpheme-take English "filched", for example-so I assume that we do not propose to eliminate phonological rules which allow such a possibility. Now why should I attach significance to the fact that un-morpheme-like strings should result from the application of one phonological rule and not another? Such a situation, after all, might equally well arise by the mere juxtaposition of morphemes in a case where the basic string is left untouched by any phonological rule. The characteristic function of phonological rules is that they adjust strings of, in themselves, acceptably structured morphemes in such a way that the entire string is, as a larger unit, acceptably structured. Whether the output of a phonological rule is a morphologically acceptable structure is no more relevant to its status as a phonological rule than the fact that some syntactic rules have as outputs word-like strings, while some others do not, is relevant to their status as syntactic rules. (b) The second point aimed at proving the incomparability of stop deletion and stop insertion is said to be that the former is stylistically restricted in its applicability while the latter is not. According to Roca (I 975), "As a first approximation, it appears that it" (stop deletion) "does not apply in Largo, must apply in Presto and is optional in Andante and Allegretto ... Presumably, in many of these cases insertion rule (21) would still be effective." The evidence is somewhat diluted by the qualifications and, even leaving aside the fact that it may look counter-intuitive to have Presto involve more unnatural operations than Largo, if I were to hazard a first approximation, it would not agree with Roca's as to the
Have we inhibitions related to universal rules?
77
incidence of stop deletion in any other style than Andante/Allegretto. I have not found that Catalan speakers speaking slowly consistently pronounce basic stops, nor that speaking quickly they consistently delete them. I have noticed a variation which appears regardless of style. But, of course, it is only in the case of Largo style that Roca can lose. Ifl happen to notice stop variations in Presto, this is not because obligatory stop deletion has failed to apply, but rather that readily available stop insertion has applied. Ifl happen to hear stop transitions in Andante/Allegretto, then it could be that stop deletion has applied but stop insertion has too, or maybe that stop deletion has not applied. The only matter of fact is whether basic stops are consistently pronounced in Largo, and here the facts seem to be against Roca's approximation. Should he in the circumstances consider stop deletion to be optional in Largo, then of course he wins hands down-his position is invulnerable. But now we are close to the important issues. §4. The important questions seem to remain the ones I originally asked. (a) Is it possible or not to justify separating into two different levels of the description (and which?) the processes of stop insertion and stop deletion? (b) Can we imagine some alternative maintaining the one level of standard generative phonology? (c) Can we imagine some more appropriate radically different approach (by my implication more traditional)? By way of a preamble, let me say that I entirely agree with Roca's title: "Phonetics is not phonology". I hope that the phonological framework outlined in §6, below, will show how I think such a distinction (one of a number of equally important ones) may be usefully made. I used the term "one-level" to characterize what seemed to me the usual generative position because I had assumed that within standard generative phonology there was only one level (in the sense of system of rules) having as input a systematic phonemic (basic) representation and as output a systematic phonetic representation, and indeed that this was considered one of the merits of the theory. (Of course, there are two levels of representation, but we are concerned with types of rules). I did suggest under question (a), above, that some might ask whether a two-level approach was feasible either by (a, i) postulating some intermediate representation of a phonemic type or by (a, ii) supposing that some operations are natural not language specific. I am not convinced, as Roca seems to be, that an affirmative answer to (a, ii) is well enough established for us to talk of the "two level approach of standard generative phonology". (The distinction between rules involving binary valued matrices and rules involving integer valued matrices, which is commonly referred to, has, of course, no bearing on the issue.) Roca's reaction to the questions (a) to (c) would seem to be as follows: If I understand his comments on phonotactics/phonemics correctly, the answer to (a, i)-should we postulate some phonemic level ?-and to (c)-can we imagine an alternative, maybe traditional ?-is no. "The lengthy discussions which took place in the midsixties over the subject of taxonomic phonemics settled the character of generative phonology ... " (ibid). If this means that the repetitive and extremely limited attacks on a particular version of phoneme theory have once and for all scotched the more general position, then I can only disagree. (Cf. Matthews, I 972, pp. 237-40, for a clear discussion.) The reciprocal rule convention, which r suggested as an affirmative answer to (b)-can we retain the normal one-level approach ?-is rejected both for the negative reasons discussed in §3, above, and also more positively because Roca considers that an affirmative answer to the remaining question (a, ii)-can we treat some operations as "natural"?solves all our problems. What then is involved in this solution when more than hinted at? §5. To some extent what follows must be guesswork. We are asked to suppose, I think,
78
R. W. P. Brasington
that a description will contain a set of language specific phonological rules and will be related to a set of universal natural phonetic rules. (The former will also surely exhibit "naturalness" in varying degrees, but let us ignore that). The application of the phonetic rules is partially governed by the phonological rules in that all phonetic rules apply unless a phonological rule positively inhibits application. In our case, we are told, the natural phonetic rule is the rule which provides for the insertion of homorganic stop transitions in the environment [sonorant] --[sibilant]. So much is fairly clear, but there are some points which are less so. Firstly, how is such a phonetic rule to be formulated? There is some sense in supposing that as a phonetic rule it would be weighted (i.e. probabilistic) saying, in effect, that the chances are that in this environment there will be a stop transition rather than not. But, although a probabilistic treatment might best account for the phonetic details in some other framework, it is difficult to know what it would mean here if probabilistic phonetic rules were to be inhibited by optional phonological rules. Since, moreover, the rule is meant to be a natural rule, it is more likely that what is supposed is that the rule will express only the "natural", i.e. the most common, operation, and that the "unnatural" cases will be handled only by the extra inhibiting mechanism of a phonological rule. Secondly, what provides for the inhibition of stop insertion? The implication of Roca's general conclusion seems to be that the .phonological rule which provides the inhibiting mechanism is the rule of stop deletion. But this cannot be so. Stop deletion is not the same thing as the inhibition of stop insertion. A separate rule seems to be required. If the interpretation is correct so far, we must, then, have at least three rules in Roca's framework: two phonological rules, stop deletion and stop inhibition, and one universal phonetic rule, stop insertion. Stop deletion, we are told, is optional, obligatory or nonexistent, depending on style (cf. §3, above); stop inhibition must presumably be optional; stop insertion is obligatory unless stop inhibition has applied. There are some problems in this account as it stands: (a) To suggest that there either is or is not a stop transition is clearly not to provide an appropriate account of the phonetic details. (Cf. my statement "there is a continuous range of timings of nasal cavity closure relative to oral release of which the perceptual poles may be represented as [t] and [0]" (Brasington, 1973), which I need hardly say I did not dismiss.) Let us suppose, however, that this on/off approach is merely a temporary expedient and that a more sophisticated treatment is possible. (b) To claim that there is a universal rule of stop insertion entails accounting for the undoubted phonetic differences between two languages such as English and Catalan by varying the formulation of the supposedly phonological inhibition mechanism as between one language and the other. (It is obvious that talking of universal phonetic rules-which are not directly included within language specific descriptions-in no way absolves us from handling, somewhere within language specific descriptions, those phonetic details which characterize particular languages.) There is, of course, a fairly strong precedent for interpreting the distinction between phonetics and phonology in such a way that Roca's position seems now quite clearly to ignore it! But let us leave aside these problems and consider how the account, as presented, would apply to the data. If we proceed style by style, we will establish the following derivations:
79
Have we inhibitions related to universal rules ?
Largo style
STOP INH (opt) STOP INS
/dents/ "teeth" (pl) N /A N /A [dents]
2
3
/prims/ "thin" (pl) applies cannot apply [prims]
/prims/ "thin" (pl) does not apply must apply [primps]
Presto style
2
1
4
3
/dents/ /prims/ /dents/ must apply STOP DEL (obl) must apply N /A applies applies does not apply STOP INH (opt) cannot apply cannot apply must apply STOP INS [dens] [dents] [prims]
/prims/ N /A does not apply must apply [primps]
Andante/Allegretto style
STOP DEL (opt) STOP INH (opt) STOP INS
1
2
3
/dents/ applies does not apply must apply [dents]
/dents/ does not apply N /A N /A [dents]
/dents/ applies applies cannot apply [dens]
STOP DEL (opt) STOP INH (opt) STOP INS
4
5
/prims/ N /A applies cannot apply [prims]
/prims/ N /A does not apply must apply [primps]
As I noted in §3 above, the Largo treatment seems not to accord with the data. As to Presto versus Andante/Allegretto, there is no difference in the data, merely a difference in our way of accounting for it. Should we, then, in the light of no other evidence, forget the difference and ask which of the two ways is the most appropriate way of accounting for the facts? An answer is not easy. On the one hand, the Presto treatment does not show the arbitrariness of columns I and 2 of Andante/ Allegretto, which achieve precisely the same end by different means. On the other hand, do we really feel that column 2 of Presto, in which the stop is obligatorily deleted and obligatorily reinserted, is plausible? Well, then, is there some compromise solution? Could we suppose, as seems reasonable, that although stop deletion and stop inhibition are different processes, they are none the less intimately related in a way that we can account for by ensuring that stop inhibition must apply if optional stop deletion has applied but is otherwise optional?
R. W. P. Brasington
80
Compromise version
STOP DEL (opt) STOP INH (obi or opt, cf. above) STOP INS
2
3
4
/dents/ applies
/dents/ does not apply
/prims/ N/A
/prims/ N /A
must apply
N /A
applies
does not apply
cannot apply [dens]
N/A [dents]
cannot apply [prims]
must apply [primps]
Now this seems to be more like a position one could begin to accept-although I would hesitate to call it standard. The data are clearly handled by an appropriate number of (in themselves) not implausible derivations. But that is not an end to the matter. Does the account as a whole seem appropriate? There is naturally no absolute answer to this question , but my inclination is to consider that it is not. What we seem to be saying now is that the stop in [dents] is a basic /t/ which has been left untouched, while on the other hand the [p] in [primps] is a purely phonetic transition feature. We account for what seems to me the same phenomenon in two different ways. Of course, my inclination to reject this treatment will be all the more strong if an alternative more appropriate treatment is imaginable. §6. The approach outlined here, which was hinted at in Brasington (1973) and is presented in more detail from a generative point of view in Brasington (1976), is essentially a version of a well established, traditional treatment. For these reasons the main features would seem here to suffice. Let us suppose that our description contains a set of morphological statements. From these may be derived strings ofmorphs of the type /dent+ sf "teeth" (pi) and /kumun +sf "common" (pi). Let us further suppose that our description contains a set of phonological statements of the type: "The strings X and Y are non-contrastive" or "The contrast between the strings X andY is neutralized in the environment W". That is to say, our description contains a set of statements concerned with distinctiveness. Now, provided we are not concerned with the treatment of exceptional items, such purely phonological statements may be considered to demand, as an automatic consequence of their presence within the description, the reinterpretation, as phonologically equivalent, of the basic strings .X and Y. In terms of representations we may suppose that the phonological statement has as a consequence the replacement of the strings X and Y by some archistring. In our case, if the description of Catalan contains some phonological statement of the type: "The strings [sonorant] [homorganic stop] [sibilant] and [sonorant] [sibilant] are non-contrastive", then the basic sequences / ... nts/ and/ .. . ns/ are by the above procedure automatically reinterpreted as phonologically equivalent. Let us lastly suppose that our description includes a set of phonetic statements governing the non-distinctly varying forms taken by strings and archi-strings in the various environments in which they occur. Here in our case we would expect to find a statement of the type: "For nasal-tosibilant archi-strings there is a continuous range of timings of nasal cavity closure relative to oral release of which the perceptual poles may be represented as [t] and [0]" (cf. Brasington, 1973). If we wish to suggest that a perceptible stop transition is or is not the most likely variety of transition? or that the type of transition may vary from style to
Have we inhibitions related to universal rules?
81
style, then of course, at this stage we can do so most appropriately. There is, moreover, nothing to prevent us from finding an explanation for the phonetic details of Catalan, once we have presented these, within a general theory of phonetics. And if, in this latter context, we proceed to use the notion of 'naturalness' it seems on the evidence quite plausible to suppose that it is not the production of stop transitions any more than the production of stopless transitions which is most appropriately called "natural" but rather that what is best called "natural" is simply the failure to discriminate in perception or production between sequences with or without stop transitions; in this light the phonological equivalence of /nts/ and /nsf is merely what we then expect. Finally, in terms of a learning theory in which speakers are said not to "learn" what is "natural", the implication of this position (unlike Roca's) would of course be that my Catalan informants would be considered not to have learnt anything since they exhibit entirely "natural" behaviour. We would certainly not need to talk of them acquiring inhibitions. Indeed to talk of "inhibiting a failure to discriminate" would hardly make much sense. Would we not rather say, in terms of a learning theory based on the notion of "progressive differentiation", that those English speakers who distinguish "mints" and "mince" have simply learned a discrimination which my Catalan informants have not? References Brasington, R. W. P. (1973). Reciprocal rules in Catalan phonology. JL 9, 25-33. Brasington, R. W. P. (1976). On the functional diversity of phonological rules. 12, 125-52. Malone, J. L. (1970). Two hypotheses on the origin of an Aramaic apocope-paragoge process. Glossa 4, 206- 11. Matthews, P. H. (I 972). Inflectional Morphology . London: Cambridge University Press. Roca, I. M. (1975). Phonetics is not phonology. Journal of Phonetics 3, 53-62.
Have we inhibitions related to universal rules? R. W. P. Brasington Department of Linguistic Science, University of Reading, U.K. Received Ist September 1975
The treatment of Catalan data suggested recently by Roca, as an alternative to the adoption of a reciprocal rule convention, is considered. It is argued that the reciprocal rule convention-initially proposed merely to highlight a problem engendered by the very nature of the standard generative framework~and Roca's alternative are both less satisfactory than a more traditional, essentially Praguian, account of the data.
In a recent article (Brasington, 1973), under the heading of reciprocal rules, I discussed a relationship holding between two operations which, as generative phonologists, we might consider should apply to Catalan basic representations in order to account for the variability in the presence of stop consonants in, for example, the final clusters of such forms as [al(t)s]
76
R. W. P. Brasington
not; e.g. basic /miJrt/ "death", phonetically [miJr(t)] and basic /sErra diJr/ "golden mountain", phonetically [sErr~ diJr(t)]. The merits of a "natural" phonetic account of this situation-stops are naturally articulated in the environment /r - - f ?-should of course be considered. §2. The question of whether the reciprocal rule convention is easily formalized and harmonizes with other existing conventions is a side issue and for this reason I had no more than hinted at an interpretation, talking loosely about the pair of rules derived from the schema as being unordered. I stress again that I am not arguing for the convention, but surely if one wanted there would be no difficulty in tightening up the idea in an appropriate fashion. As far as an expansion convention for a reciprocal rule schema is concerned, the linear order of the rules would be irrelevant (in that sense they are unordered) but the pair might be supposed to form a disjunctively ordered set, i.e. only one rule is allowed to apply. As to harmony with existing conventions, a sufficient number of special conventions have already gained some acceptance-infinitely expandable schemata, mirror image rules, etc.-for this criticism to be discounted. The more serious question, as I suggested, is whether enough is enough. §3. Roca presents two negative arguments purporting to show that the relationship of stop deletion and stop insertion is "asymmetrical" (i.e. that in collapsing the rules a generalization is claimed where none in fact exists). As I suggested, the idea of collapsing rules was not the most appropriate in the event, but in neither case do I see the force of the comments he makes. (a) In the first case, the point is apparently that the rule of stop insertion produces sequences which violate negative morpheme structure conditions while the rule of stop deletion does not. Now, if it is the case that morpheme structure conditions apply by definition to morphemes, then it is not obvious what sense can be made of the idea that the output of a phonological rule applying to a string of morphemes is in violation of a morpheme structure condition. But as to the more substantial point, I do not find it in any way odd that a language should contain words whose internal structure would not be acceptable as the structure of a morpheme-take English "filched", for example-so I assume that we do not propose to eliminate phonological rules which allow such a possibility. Now why should I attach significance to the fact that un-morpheme-like strings should result from the application of one phonological rule and not another? Such a situation, after all, might equally well arise by the mere juxtaposition of morphemes in a case where the basic string is left untouched by any phonological rule. The characteristic function of phonological rules is that they adjust strings of, in themselves, acceptably structured morphemes in such a way that the entire string is, as a larger unit, acceptably structured. Whether the output of a phonological rule is a morphologically acceptable structure is no more relevant to its status as a phonological rule than the fact that some syntactic rules have as outputs word-like strings, while some others do not, is relevant to their status as syntactic rules. (b) The second point aimed at proving the incomparability of stop deletion and stop insertion is said to be that the former is stylistically restricted in its applicability while the latter is not. According to Roca (I 975), "As a first approximation, it appears that it" (stop deletion) "does not apply in Largo, must apply in Presto and is optional in Andante and Allegretto ... Presumably, in many of these cases insertion rule (21) would still be effective." The evidence is somewhat diluted by the qualifications and, even leaving aside the fact that it may look counter-intuitive to have Presto involve more unnatural operations than Largo, if I were to hazard a first approximation, it would not agree with Roca's as to the
Have we inhibitions related to universal rules?
77
incidence of stop deletion in any other style than Andante/Allegretto. I have not found that Catalan speakers speaking slowly consistently pronounce basic stops, nor that speaking quickly they consistently delete them. I have noticed a variation which appears regardless of style. But, of course, it is only in the case of Largo style that Roca can lose. Ifl happen to notice stop variations in Presto, this is not because obligatory stop deletion has failed to apply, but rather that readily available stop insertion has applied. Ifl happen to hear stop transitions in Andante/Allegretto, then it could be that stop deletion has applied but stop insertion has too, or maybe that stop deletion has not applied. The only matter of fact is whether basic stops are consistently pronounced in Largo, and here the facts seem to be against Roca's approximation. Should he in the circumstances consider stop deletion to be optional in Largo, then of course he wins hands down-his position is invulnerable. But now we are close to the important issues. §4. The important questions seem to remain the ones I originally asked. (a) Is it possible or not to justify separating into two different levels of the description (and which?) the processes of stop insertion and stop deletion? (b) Can we imagine some alternative maintaining the one level of standard generative phonology? (c) Can we imagine some more appropriate radically different approach (by my implication more traditional)? By way of a preamble, let me say that I entirely agree with Roca's title: "Phonetics is not phonology". I hope that the phonological framework outlined in §6, below, will show how I think such a distinction (one of a number of equally important ones) may be usefully made. I used the term "one-level" to characterize what seemed to me the usual generative position because I had assumed that within standard generative phonology there was only one level (in the sense of system of rules) having as input a systematic phonemic (basic) representation and as output a systematic phonetic representation, and indeed that this was considered one of the merits of the theory. (Of course, there are two levels of representation, but we are concerned with types of rules). I did suggest under question (a), above, that some might ask whether a two-level approach was feasible either by (a, i) postulating some intermediate representation of a phonemic type or by (a, ii) supposing that some operations are natural not language specific. I am not convinced, as Roca seems to be, that an affirmative answer to (a, ii) is well enough established for us to talk of the "two level approach of standard generative phonology". (The distinction between rules involving binary valued matrices and rules involving integer valued matrices, which is commonly referred to, has, of course, no bearing on the issue.) Roca's reaction to the questions (a) to (c) would seem to be as follows: If I understand his comments on phonotactics/phonemics correctly, the answer to (a, i)-should we postulate some phonemic level ?-and to (c)-can we imagine an alternative, maybe traditional ?-is no. "The lengthy discussions which took place in the midsixties over the subject of taxonomic phonemics settled the character of generative phonology ... " (ibid). If this means that the repetitive and extremely limited attacks on a particular version of phoneme theory have once and for all scotched the more general position, then I can only disagree. (Cf. Matthews, I 972, pp. 237-40, for a clear discussion.) The reciprocal rule convention, which r suggested as an affirmative answer to (b)-can we retain the normal one-level approach ?-is rejected both for the negative reasons discussed in §3, above, and also more positively because Roca considers that an affirmative answer to the remaining question (a, ii)-can we treat some operations as "natural"?solves all our problems. What then is involved in this solution when more than hinted at? §5. To some extent what follows must be guesswork. We are asked to suppose, I think,
78
R. W. P. Brasington
that a description will contain a set of language specific phonological rules and will be related to a set of universal natural phonetic rules. (The former will also surely exhibit "naturalness" in varying degrees, but let us ignore that). The application of the phonetic rules is partially governed by the phonological rules in that all phonetic rules apply unless a phonological rule positively inhibits application. In our case, we are told, the natural phonetic rule is the rule which provides for the insertion of homorganic stop transitions in the environment [sonorant] --[sibilant]. So much is fairly clear, but there are some points which are less so. Firstly, how is such a phonetic rule to be formulated? There is some sense in supposing that as a phonetic rule it would be weighted (i.e. probabilistic) saying, in effect, that the chances are that in this environment there will be a stop transition rather than not. But, although a probabilistic treatment might best account for the phonetic details in some other framework, it is difficult to know what it would mean here if probabilistic phonetic rules were to be inhibited by optional phonological rules. Since, moreover, the rule is meant to be a natural rule, it is more likely that what is supposed is that the rule will express only the "natural", i.e. the most common, operation, and that the "unnatural" cases will be handled only by the extra inhibiting mechanism of a phonological rule. Secondly, what provides for the inhibition of stop insertion? The implication of Roca's general conclusion seems to be that the .phonological rule which provides the inhibiting mechanism is the rule of stop deletion. But this cannot be so. Stop deletion is not the same thing as the inhibition of stop insertion. A separate rule seems to be required. If the interpretation is correct so far, we must, then, have at least three rules in Roca's framework: two phonological rules, stop deletion and stop inhibition, and one universal phonetic rule, stop insertion. Stop deletion, we are told, is optional, obligatory or nonexistent, depending on style (cf. §3, above); stop inhibition must presumably be optional; stop insertion is obligatory unless stop inhibition has applied. There are some problems in this account as it stands: (a) To suggest that there either is or is not a stop transition is clearly not to provide an appropriate account of the phonetic details. (Cf. my statement "there is a continuous range of timings of nasal cavity closure relative to oral release of which the perceptual poles may be represented as [t] and [0]" (Brasington, 1973), which I need hardly say I did not dismiss.) Let us suppose, however, that this on/off approach is merely a temporary expedient and that a more sophisticated treatment is possible. (b) To claim that there is a universal rule of stop insertion entails accounting for the undoubted phonetic differences between two languages such as English and Catalan by varying the formulation of the supposedly phonological inhibition mechanism as between one language and the other. (It is obvious that talking of universal phonetic rules-which are not directly included within language specific descriptions-in no way absolves us from handling, somewhere within language specific descriptions, those phonetic details which characterize particular languages.) There is, of course, a fairly strong precedent for interpreting the distinction between phonetics and phonology in such a way that Roca's position seems now quite clearly to ignore it! But let us leave aside these problems and consider how the account, as presented, would apply to the data. If we proceed style by style, we will establish the following derivations:
79
Have we inhibitions related to universal rules ?
Largo style
STOP INH (opt) STOP INS
/dents/ "teeth" (pl) N /A N /A [dents]
2
3
/prims/ "thin" (pl) applies cannot apply [prims]
/prims/ "thin" (pl) does not apply must apply [primps]
Presto style
2
1
4
3
/dents/ /prims/ /dents/ must apply STOP DEL (obl) must apply N /A applies applies does not apply STOP INH (opt) cannot apply cannot apply must apply STOP INS [dens] [dents] [prims]
/prims/ N /A does not apply must apply [primps]
Andante/Allegretto style
STOP DEL (opt) STOP INH (opt) STOP INS
1
2
3
/dents/ applies does not apply must apply [dents]
/dents/ does not apply N /A N /A [dents]
/dents/ applies applies cannot apply [dens]
STOP DEL (opt) STOP INH (opt) STOP INS
4
5
/prims/ N /A applies cannot apply [prims]
/prims/ N /A does not apply must apply [primps]
As I noted in §3 above, the Largo treatment seems not to accord with the data. As to Presto versus Andante/Allegretto, there is no difference in the data, merely a difference in our way of accounting for it. Should we, then, in the light of no other evidence, forget the difference and ask which of the two ways is the most appropriate way of accounting for the facts? An answer is not easy. On the one hand, the Presto treatment does not show the arbitrariness of columns I and 2 of Andante/ Allegretto, which achieve precisely the same end by different means. On the other hand, do we really feel that column 2 of Presto, in which the stop is obligatorily deleted and obligatorily reinserted, is plausible? Well, then, is there some compromise solution? Could we suppose, as seems reasonable, that although stop deletion and stop inhibition are different processes, they are none the less intimately related in a way that we can account for by ensuring that stop inhibition must apply if optional stop deletion has applied but is otherwise optional?
R. W. P. Brasington
80
Compromise version
STOP DEL (opt) STOP INH (obi or opt, cf. above) STOP INS
2
3
4
/dents/ applies
/dents/ does not apply
/prims/ N/A
/prims/ N /A
must apply
N /A
applies
does not apply
cannot apply [dens]
N/A [dents]
cannot apply [prims]
must apply [primps]
Now this seems to be more like a position one could begin to accept-although I would hesitate to call it standard. The data are clearly handled by an appropriate number of (in themselves) not implausible derivations. But that is not an end to the matter. Does the account as a whole seem appropriate? There is naturally no absolute answer to this question , but my inclination is to consider that it is not. What we seem to be saying now is that the stop in [dents] is a basic /t/ which has been left untouched, while on the other hand the [p] in [primps] is a purely phonetic transition feature. We account for what seems to me the same phenomenon in two different ways. Of course, my inclination to reject this treatment will be all the more strong if an alternative more appropriate treatment is imaginable. §6. The approach outlined here, which was hinted at in Brasington (1973) and is presented in more detail from a generative point of view in Brasington (1976), is essentially a version of a well established, traditional treatment. For these reasons the main features would seem here to suffice. Let us suppose that our description contains a set of morphological statements. From these may be derived strings ofmorphs of the type /dent+ sf "teeth" (pi) and /kumun +sf "common" (pi). Let us further suppose that our description contains a set of phonological statements of the type: "The strings X and Y are non-contrastive" or "The contrast between the strings X andY is neutralized in the environment W". That is to say, our description contains a set of statements concerned with distinctiveness. Now, provided we are not concerned with the treatment of exceptional items, such purely phonological statements may be considered to demand, as an automatic consequence of their presence within the description, the reinterpretation, as phonologically equivalent, of the basic strings .X and Y. In terms of representations we may suppose that the phonological statement has as a consequence the replacement of the strings X and Y by some archistring. In our case, if the description of Catalan contains some phonological statement of the type: "The strings [sonorant] [homorganic stop] [sibilant] and [sonorant] [sibilant] are non-contrastive", then the basic sequences / ... nts/ and/ .. . ns/ are by the above procedure automatically reinterpreted as phonologically equivalent. Let us lastly suppose that our description includes a set of phonetic statements governing the non-distinctly varying forms taken by strings and archi-strings in the various environments in which they occur. Here in our case we would expect to find a statement of the type: "For nasal-tosibilant archi-strings there is a continuous range of timings of nasal cavity closure relative to oral release of which the perceptual poles may be represented as [t] and [0]" (cf. Brasington, 1973). If we wish to suggest that a perceptible stop transition is or is not the most likely variety of transition? or that the type of transition may vary from style to
Have we inhibitions related to universal rules?
81
style, then of course, at this stage we can do so most appropriately. There is, moreover, nothing to prevent us from finding an explanation for the phonetic details of Catalan, once we have presented these, within a general theory of phonetics. And if, in this latter context, we proceed to use the notion of 'naturalness' it seems on the evidence quite plausible to suppose that it is not the production of stop transitions any more than the production of stopless transitions which is most appropriately called "natural" but rather that what is best called "natural" is simply the failure to discriminate in perception or production between sequences with or without stop transitions; in this light the phonological equivalence of /nts/ and /nsf is merely what we then expect. Finally, in terms of a learning theory in which speakers are said not to "learn" what is "natural", the implication of this position (unlike Roca's) would of course be that my Catalan informants would be considered not to have learnt anything since they exhibit entirely "natural" behaviour. We would certainly not need to talk of them acquiring inhibitions. Indeed to talk of "inhibiting a failure to discriminate" would hardly make much sense. Would we not rather say, in terms of a learning theory based on the notion of "progressive differentiation", that those English speakers who distinguish "mints" and "mince" have simply learned a discrimination which my Catalan informants have not? References Brasington, R. W. P. (1973). Reciprocal rules in Catalan phonology. JL 9, 25-33. Brasington, R. W. P. (1976). On the functional diversity of phonological rules. 12, 125-52. Malone, J. L. (1970). Two hypotheses on the origin of an Aramaic apocope-paragoge process. Glossa 4, 206- 11. Matthews, P. H. (I 972). Inflectional Morphology . London: Cambridge University Press. Roca, I. M. (1975). Phonetics is not phonology. Journal of Phonetics 3, 53-62.