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Michelena. 204-233.

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de I’accent

basque.

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tateko Argitarazioak (ed.). Euskal Gran Enciclopedia Vasca.

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53(l),

positive en basque.

en basque.

Bulletin du Musee Basque

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Paris VII. Reprinted.

102, 1984.

Paris: SELAF. Rebuschi, Rebuschi,

G., 1983a. A note on focalization in Basque. Journal G.. 1983b. Autour du parfait et du passif basques.

Lafitte-ri omenaldia. 545-558. toll. Iker, Vol. 2. Rebuschi, G., 1986. Pour une representation syntaxique lexicale en basque. Salaburu,

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John Anderson and Cohn Ewen, Principles of Dependency Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. x + 3 12 pp. &30. Reviewed by: Jacques Durand. Dept. of Modern Languages. University of Salford, Salford M5 4WT. UK. Anderson and Colin Ewen’s book, Principles of‘ Dependency Phonology for short) is one of the most significant volumes produced in phonology in the last few years. Work in Dependency Phonology (DP hereafter) stretches back to the early seventies (see Anderson and Jones 1974) and the first thorough application of DP was Anderson and Jones’ Phonological Structure and the History qf English (1977). Despite the publication of a solid number of articles within the framework of Dependency Phonology authored by Anderson, Ewen, Jones and others, DP has not attracted the attention it deserves from mainstream generative and non-linear phonology. This is all the more regrettable as many of the insights achieved in DP have progressively been accepted within the standard paradigm or been re-discovered within related frameworks (cf. e.g. many of the representational claims made within John

(Principles

Reviews

95

Particle Phonology or Charm and Government Phonology, even if substantial differences exist between these models and DP). It is to be hoped that the publication of Principles coupled with two other recent publications - Anderson and Durand (1987) Durand (1986) - will give other specialists enough material to appreciate the originality and relevance of its claims. Very much like the developments within metrical and autosegmental phonology and their recent extensions, work within DP has been animated by the conviction that both the internal structure of segments and their external structure had to be more richly articulated than assumed in the SPE tradition. But at the heart of this model is the concept of dependency, or head-modifier relation, claimed to span the syntactic, morphological and phonological domains. The notion of constituency, which is central to much modern work in theoretical linguistics, is claimed not to be primitive, but to be derivable from the dependency relation coupled with linear precedence and rules of association. In Principles, Anderson and Ewen start by showing the relationship between the internal structure of segments and their external structure. This is the subject of Part I of their book (Phonological structure) made up of three chapters: chapter 1 ‘The structure of phonological segments’, chapter 2 ‘The structure of phonological sequences’, chapter 3 ‘Dependency structure in phonology’. In chapter 1, it is argued that ‘minimally componential’ phonological theories which have recourse to standard binary features or scalar features are unable to provide a natural account of a wide range of recurrent phenomena. Instead unary components, which crossclassify vowels and consonants, such as: (1) i ‘palatality’ a ‘lowness’ u ‘roundness’

(or ‘acuteness’ and ‘sharpness’) (or ‘compactness’) (or ‘gravity’ and ‘flatness’)

yield a better account of phonological regularities if in addition to simple co-presence, symbolized by a comma, as illustrated in (2) (where the symbols between diagonals merely abbreviate the set description on the left):

(2) {iI Iii {ial

/e/

(4 lul {a41

/o/

la1 la/ we are prepared

to combine

(3a) /e/ i governor

components

in terms of dependency

(also symbolised

in DP as {i;a})

a dependent (3b) /a/ a governor (also symbolised

in DP as {a;i})

I

I i dependent

as in (3) for instance:

But representations such as those of (3), where a dependent component is subjoined to a head component, are not isolated since it is argued by DP that subjunction paths are also required to deal with the prosodic hierarchy (nucleus, rhyme, syllable. foot, group, etc.) as well as with syntactic and morphological representations. Thus, a syllable such as blind would receive the representation in (4) where the nodes have been labelled for convenience: (4) blind /

@syllable) R(hyme) O(nset), 0

I I I 1

’

I I I I

’

I I I I

0

I I I I

oc

N(ucleus)

C(oda)

n I 0 I I

And representations above the syllable also involve the same head-dependent relations within dependency graphs which combine, in effect, the respective merits of grids and metrical trees, as in (5):

0

0

0

0

lucky students

0

0

0

0

0

go to Salford

In so far as it is correct that both constituency and relative prominence should be expressed suprasegmentally - and Halle and Vergnaud (1987a,b) present an interesting case in favour of this thesis ~ the dependency representation would seem to offer exactly what is required. It is stressed by the authors that the relevance of dependency for phonological and morpho-syntactic representations is a manifestation of the strucrurul urra/r~~r assumption ~ an assumption which has its roots in Hjelmslev’s ‘analogie du principe structurel’ (1948). The idea is that we should expect the same structural properties to recur at different levels and that very strong support is required to motivate properties

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97

which are unique to a given level. The structural analogy assumption sets DP apart from much modern work in phonology where the structural constructs of phonology have been developed in complete independence from the representations of morphosyntax. Recourse to the grid is an example of such a strategy since this latter is a fundamental structural concept without analogue within other components of linguistic description. In Part II of their book, ‘Phonological gestures and their structure’, Anderson and Ewen return to the question of infrasegmental representations. Whereas many earlier writings in DP may have been perceived as offering too narrow a subset of the distinctive features required to characterize phonological regularities, Principles offers a thorough overview of sub-segmental components and their groupings in ‘gestures’. This is dealt with in an introduction which justifies the splitting of segments into sets of interactive components followed by three detailed chapters: ‘The categorial gesture: phonation’, ‘The categorial gesture: initiation’ and ‘The articulatory gesture’. As in previous DP writings, information concerning the ‘major class’ of segments is made available in the categorial gesture which is itself split into two sub-gestures: a phonatory subgesture which is comprised of those sonority-based components which determine the basic combinatorics of segments (as briefly explained infra) and an initiatory subgesture which is concerned with airstream mechanisms. Two components are used in the categorial gesture: V and C. V can be defined in Jakobsonian terms as corresponding to a maximally periodic structure structure: hence, vowels are defined as IV1 (where the verticals indicate that V occurs alone). On the other hand, C is a component of ‘periodic energy reduction’ and voiceless plosives with their obstruction of the airway and their lack of periodic source at the glottis are classified as ICI. These two components are clearly related to the Jakobsonian features [vocalic] and [consonantal] but they are not binary. They can either occur alone or in various dependency relations as set out in part of the universal inventory given below:

(6)

V i

v,c vowels v:c

liquids v:c

C

voiceless fricatives

V voiced plosives

I

V voiced fricatives

i

C nasals C

I

voiceless plosives

Five arguments are offered by the authors in favour of such representations. First of all, natural classes can be appropriately defined (e.g. the obstruents are segments which contain a governing C, etc.). Secondly, markedness is mirrored by the notation

98

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since vowels and voiceless plosives come out as simplest, in accord with standard observations about developmental or cross-linguistic data, with other segment types falling in between them. Thirdly, the above classification defines a hierarchy of sonority from IV’ to ICI without recourse to a scale (ranking e.g. vowels as 1, glides as 2, sonorants as 3, etc.) which is external to the notation. The governing relations within a syllable mentioned above can therefore be directly read off the information of the categorial gesture. Hence the claim that the combinatorics of segments derives from the primitives in the categorial gesture. Fourthly, processes of strengthening and weakening are relatable in a fairly transparent way to the internal structures proposed. These four arguments have been offered in the DP literature before. The fifth suggestion, which is less established in DP, is to equate C and V with the CV tier or skeleton of other multidimensional theories. This is, in fact, done in Part III of the book. The comparison of the DP categorial gesture with the CV tier of Clements and Keyser favours the former since the internal structure of the C and V elements is independently motivated in DP and is not required as an extra-stipulation. But, in a sense, both the CV tier and the DP formulation face the same problem. That is, arguments have been provided within the literature in favour of a skeleton made of pure positions (often labelled X). For instance, in many processes of compensatory lengthening the loss of a C element results in the inheritance by a preceding vowel of its timing position. If this is formulated in terms of X reassignment we obtain an unproblematic and elegant formulation:

(‘I : : + x =x + x ’ /’ x I

6B

I

ci; ii

But in terms of V and C, be they those of DP or of Clements and Keyser, the formulation in (8) is forced upon us, with the unsatisfactory assignment of the ‘consonantal’ component to the vowel which is lengthened: (8)

v c + v c + v c I

I

AB

I

=I

(:B

’ /’

L

One solution, adopted in some recent DP work, consists in appealing to underspecification, thus leaving many of the categorial positions unspecified. Whether this is enough to cope with the wide range of examples involving a skeleton made of pure positions still remains to be demonstrated. As far as the contents of the gestures is concerned, an examination of each of the DP components would take far more space than is available here. It seems worth noting that while Anderson and Ewen demonstrate with elegance the versatility of the i, a, u primitives, they partially fail to grapple with systems which appear to threaten

Review

the assumption

that

‘high backness’

and

‘roundness’

99

can

be fused

as one single

component u. Of course, they do argue that two other components are independently required - a component of centralisation, a, and ATR (Advanced Tongue Root) ~ and that a for instance can be used to handle systems with back unrounded vowels given the fact that systems with an opposition between a high central unrounded vowel and a high back unrounded vowel do not seem to be attested. But it would have been more convincing to see the authors deal with some systems such as Turkish which have a contrast between back rounded and back unrounded vowels. It is in fact my belief that systems like the Turkish one are not over-problematic provided one makes full use of the unary feature hypothesis by treating some segments as empty with respect to articulation (see Anderson and Durand (1988. in press) on unspecified vowels). In other words, this would involve treating the system of Turkish as in (9) along lines proposed by Schane (1984: 139): (9) iii ii)

/e/ {La)

/Y/ {iu)

/W i 1 /w (ul

/a/ ii,u,a)

/a/ {al

if4 WI

A more detailed discussion of this problem is offered in Durand (in press: 58.3.3). On the other hand, the Kpokolo system (see Kaye, Lowenstamm and Vergnaud (1985)) does seem more problematic and under one interpretation may require the reintroduction of an opposition between ‘high backness’ (or perhaps ‘gravity’) and ‘roundness’ as argued by Lass (1984): see once again the discussion in Durand (in press: 4 8.4)). Many scholars, for whom the binariness of phonological features is. as it were. above suspicion, will no doubt remain unconvinced by the so-called i, a, II approach to vowel systems. I should, however, be noted that there are currently three ‘unary’ frameworks known to me which approach vowel systems from this perspective: Particle Phonology, Charm and Government Phonology, and what one might call the ‘Extended DP’ theory defended in The Netherlands by Van der Hulst, Smith and others (see the contributions in Van der Hulst and Smith (in press)). A wide variety of phonological systems have now been analysed within these assumptions and it is difficult to maintain that not enough exemplification of the overall claim has been provided. Moreover, the rise of Underspecification Theory (see Archangeli (1984. 1988) does show that many regularities can only be captured if the assumption of binarity is abandoned initially within derivations. And not irrelevantly, the multidimensional geometrical representations employed in most recent accounts (see Clements (1985) Sagey (1986)) also embody a ‘unary’ claim: portions of structure arc either present or absent. Thus to represent the transparency of some segments vis-a-vis some spreading process a whole node (say the PLACE node for dentals) will be absent from the complex graph representing this segment. The unary hypothesis for segmental features meshes in particularly well with this type of approach and makes a potential stronger claim than the binary alternative. If it is indeed the case, as advocated by Underspecification Theory, that initially within derivations features are

100

Reviews

not binary but one-valued, then one should explore with all seriousness that features go on being unary throughout the whole of phonology.

the possibility

Finally, in Part III of the book Anderson and Ewen relate their accounts of phonological representation to other recent accounts such as that of Clements (1985). The role of the categorial gesture as a kind of skeleton has already been mentioned above and has been seen to be partially problematic if the skeleton is thought of as a level of pure positions. The discussion in this part of the book is interesting and suggestive. The discussion of vowel harmony and tonal phenomena fills in a gap within DP. But, to be fully convincing, it will need to be expanded in future DP writings. Also the articulation of the gestures in a multi-dimensional way requires further elaboration. There is a sense in which the conventions of DP offered in Principles often seem a mixture of linear and non-linear notation from which DP may have to extract itself to rise to the challenge posed by other current accounts. But this may also simply reflect the fact that the bulk of Principles has been available for some time and earlier versions have circulated among dependency phonologists since the early eighties. It is, in fact, a pity that this book was not published earlier as credit for some ‘discoveries’ long argued for in DP seems to have gone to other accounts. All in all the book is carefully organized, well argued, beautifully presented and free of errors. As such it is an excellent addition to the prestigious CUP series ‘Cambridge Studies in Linguistics’. It does not claim to solve all problems of phonological theory but concentrates essentially on the internal and external representation of segments. Other issues such as the construction of a rule-free phonology (see e.g. Kaye et al. (1988)) or the interaction between phonology and morpho-syntax are not directly dealt with. Of course, such issues must be confronted by DP as they are by other phonological models. But the representational issues raised in Principles can be considered in relative independence from derivational issues and the constructs of DP ought to be treated seriously by all practicing phonologists.

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Paul M. Lloyd, From Latin to Spanish, Vol. I : Historical Phonology and Morphobgy of the Spanish Language. Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1987, xii+439pp. Reviewed by: Conception Company, Instituto de lnvestigaciones Filologicas, Universidad National Autonoma de Mexico, Ciudad de la Investigation en Humanidades, Circuit0 Mario de la Cueva, Ciudad Universitaria, Delegation de Coyoacan, 04510 Mexico D.F. The absence of a comprehensive and especially up-to-date handbook on the documentation and theory of the history of Spanish was, until recently, an important gap in general. Lloyd’s excellent study provides at last the means to fill such a gap in Spanish historical phonology and morphology, although for the latter it only discusses