Bromberger & Halle 89 - Why Phonology is Different

7/27/2019 Bromberger & Halle 89 - Why Phonology is Different

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SylvainBromberger Why Phonology Is DifferentMorris Halle

1. IntroductionUntil well into the 1970sresearchin generativesyntax was based on the presumptionthat the syntacticcomponentof a grammar hould consist of orderedtransformationsthatderive surface structures andlaterlogicalforms)fromdeep structures themselvesgeneratedby phrasestructure ules) through ntermediate tructures.Though herewerediscussions on whether the orderingof transformations eculiarto each languagewasentirely the consequence of universalprinciplesor was in part language-specific,andthough questions were raised about the significanceof intermediatestructures,therewas generalconsensus aboutthe basic premises.Even a cursory perusalof thejournalsof the periodor of such influential extbooks as those by Akmajianand Heny (1975),Baker(1978),or Perlmutter nd Soames(1979)showsthatproblemsconcerning herightorderingof transformations ndtheirapplicabilityo intermediate tructureswere at thecenter of research andteaching.This earlier state contrastsdramaticallywith the situ-ation in syntactictheory in more recent times, especially since the publication n 1981of Chomsky's Lectures on Government and Binding. Questions about the ordering oftransformationsand about intermediaterepresentationshave all but disappeared romsyntax-at leastin theversions of thetheorythat haveacceptedtheGovernment-Bindingframeworkandits laterdevelopments.This course of events obviouslyraises the questionwhetherphonology shouldnotundergo a similardevelopment-that is, whether phonological theory should not berestructured n such awayas to excluderuleorderingandrepresentationshat are neitherunderlying representationsnor surface forms.1Indeed, there have been a number ofattempts in recent years to reformulatephonology without recourse to extrinsic rule

Thisarticle s a modifiedversion of the paperpresentedon April 14, 1988, n Jerusalem t the symposium"The ChomskyanTurn." Theauthorsgratefullyacknowledge he support or work on the paperprovidedbythe Van Leer Foundation,Jerusalem, he Center for CognitiveScience, MIT, and the Center for the Studyof Languageand Information,StanfordUniversity. For criticaldiscussion and advice we are indebtedtoN. Chomsky,J.Goldsmith, . Harris,N. Hornstein,M.Kenstowicz,P. Kiparsky, .McCarthy,K. P. Mohanan,D. Pesetsky, D. Pulleyblank,andJ.-R. Vergnaud.1 We deliberatelyeschew in this discussion the use of "declarativerules" and "procedural ules" incharacterizinghe differencesbetweensyntax/semantics n the one handand phonologyon the otherhand.Thatterminology,whichcarriesa numberof associations romthe domainof computationalinguistics, trikesus as unhelpful.

Linguistic Inquiry, Volume 20, Number 1, Winter 198951-70? 1989 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology 51


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52 SYLVAIN BROMBERGER AND MORRIS HALLEorder, strictcyclicity, and so on; see, for example, Kaye and Lowenstamm(1986)andMajdiand Michaels(1987).

We shall arguehere that derivationsbased on orderedrules (that is, external or-dering)2and incorporatingntermediate tructuresare essential to phonology-in otherwords, that they represent an uneliminableaspect of linguistic knowledge. Somethough not all-of our argumentswill turn out to be updatedversions of originalar-gumentsadvanced n supportof externalordering n phonology (see, for example, Halle(1962)), for many of these appearto be no less sound now thanthey were a quarterofa century ago when they were first advanced. The crux of our position is that factspertaining o the two domains-phonology, on the one hand,andsyntaxandsemantics,on the other-are of a very differentnature and that there is therefore no reason toassume a priorithat they must be covered by formallysimilar theories. Whether thetheories are or are not similaris a contingentmatterto be settled in the light of theevidence, and the evidence, as far as we can tell, indicates that they are not formallysimilar and that the structure of phonology is best thought of as that of a deductivesystem.Syntax/semanticsas practicedin the 1980s is primarilyconcernedwith the condi-tions that the deep structure, surface structure,and logical form of a sentence mustsatisfy.3 These include conditionspeculiarto each level as well as conditions acrosslevels. But the representation f a sentence at each level encodes informationabout thesentence (thematicrole assignments,bindingrelations, sequentialorder,relativescopeof operators, meaning,and so on) that is distinctfrom what a speakermust know inorder to articulatea token.As now understood, each of these three representationss assembled from wordsand other items storedin the lexicon in a manner nstructivelysimilar o the assemblingof pieces of a three-dimensionaligsaw puzzle. Just as in the case of thejigsaw puzzle,the overridingconsiderationsare whether-and how-the pieces fit together and thatat the end there be no holes in the assembled shape nor any pieces left over. But theorder in which the pieces are assembleddoes not matter.To extend the analogy, wemay think of the relationshipamong the three representationsas being like the rela-tionship amongthe different aces of a tetrahedron.The three representations, ike theseparatefaces of the tetrahedron,are distinctfromeach other andabstractable rom thewhole. Yet, like the separatefaces of the tetrahedron, hey share elements and therebyimpose limits on each other. One might even go so far as to say-though at the priceof oversimplification-that the sharingof elements is expressed by the celebratedsingletransformationMove ca,whereasthe distinctness of the representations s expressed bythe fact that Move a must respect conditions peculiar to each level of representation,

2 For the purposeof this article we limitour use of "derivation"and of "ordering" o nondegeneratecases, thatis, derivationsof more thanone step andorderingsof more thanone rule.I We set aside here issues surrounding he need to assume Logical Formas an autonomous evel ofrepresentation; ee, for example,Williams 1988).Nothingin whatfollows requires hat we take a stand onthat issue.


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WHY PHONOLOGY IS DIFFERENT 53such as the 0-Criterionand the Empty Category Principle.If this pictureof the inter-relationamong syntactic representationss correct,thenclearlythere is no theoreticallysignificantordering among the principlesthat govern the interconnectionsamong thethreerepresentations nd there is no interesting ense in whichanyof therepresentationsis "derived" fromany of the othersthrougha sequentialapplicationof rules andinter-mediaterepresentations, ust as there is no significantorderingamongthe mutual con-straints between the faces of a tetrahedronand no derivationwith intermediate ormsof one face from another.4Phonology, on the otherhand,is primarily oncernedwiththe connectionsbetweensurface formsthat can serve as inputto ourarticulatorymachinery andto ourauditorysystem) and the abstractunderlyingorms nwhichwords arestored nmemory.Whereassyntax is concernedwiththerelationsamongrepresentationshatencode different ypesof informationrequiringdifferenttypes of notation,phonology is concerned with therelationshipbetween representations hat encode the same type of information-pho-netic information-but do so in ways that serve distinctfunctions: articulationand au-dition, on the one hand, andmemory, on the other. Since underlyingphonologicalrep-resentations of words are stored in speakers'permanentmemory, whereas phoneticsurfacerepresentationsare generatedonly when a word figuresin an actualutterance,there is a clear and theoretically significantsense in which underlyingrepresentationsare priorto surfacerepresentations,a sense thatjustifies thinkingof the surfaceformas "derived"fromthe underlying orm. This fact in turnbringsup the questionof themannerin which surfacerepresentationsare derived from underlyingrepresentations.The answerclearly is to be decidedby lookingat the actualcontingentevidence ratherthan by reflecting on a priori ogical or methodologicalnecessities. In particular, hereis no a priori reason to hold that the derivationsmust be subjectto a theory formallysimilarto the theory appropriate or syntax/semantics.We therefore turn next to anexaminationof some of the relevantevidence.2. The SynchronicEvidenceThephonologicalsurfacerepresentationmust encode how a wordis pronounced.It mustserve as inputto ourarticulatorymachinery.As a firstapproximationwe shall assume-in conformitywith a well-supported radition in phonology-that the representationsrequiredfor the articulationof differentwords are given in the form of stipulationsof

4 J.-R.Vergnaud as drawnourattentionothe fact that naccounting orconstructionswithparentheticalphrasessuch as John is not-what I'd call-a great loverversus *I would notcall what John is a great lover,it maybe necessaryto assume that the Surface Structure epresentations derivedfrom the Deep Structurerepresentation.Vergnaudnotes, however, that to the best of his knowledgethere do not exist outside ofphonologyderivationswhere the application f a pairof rules or principlesmustbe extrinsicallyordered,andit is the existenceof this type of derivationand of intermediate epresentationshat is at issue here. In short,the issue is not whether representationshemselves can be meaningfully rdered but whetherthe rules orprinciplesapplicable o them areorderedpriorto anyapplication andwhether he rules ever generate nter-mediaterepresentations).


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54 SYLVAIN BROMBERGER AND MORRIS HALLEdiscrete sound segments concatenatedin the order in which they must be produced.5Thus, the English word bell is representedby a sequence of three symbols, of whichthe first stands for the plosive [b], the second for the vowel [e], and the third for thelateral [1].An importantresult of the research of the last fifty years has been to establishtheproposition irstadvancedby Jakobson(1938) hatspeech soundsarecompositeentitiesconstituted by complexes of binary phonetic features such as voicing, nasality, andaspiration. As a first approximationwe may think of this as an interpretationof thealphabetic symbols of the phonetic alphabet.Thus, instead of the sequence [bel] wewrite (1). (It shouldbe noted that the featuresystem employed here is that developedby Sagey (1986)with furthermodificationsdueto Halle(1988)anddiffersquitemarkedlyfrom featuresystems utilized in earlierpublicationsby the present authors.)

(1) cons s cons- cont + cont - contSTRICTURE STRICTUR TRICTURE+ voice + voice + voiceLARYNX LARYNX LARYNX- nasal - nasal - nasalSOFTPALATE SOFTPALATE SOFTPALATELABIAL - back + anterior

- high + lateral- low CORONALDORSAL+ high+ backDORSAL

The representationn (1) encodes the information hat enables a speakerto producethesound sequence [bel]; that is, (1) specifies the vocal tract gymnastics necessary forutteringthe word bell. This vocal tractgymnasticsis performedby a small numberofmovable structures-in effect, six-known as articulators,which arerepresented n (1)by capitalletters. Each articulatorhas a smallrepertoireof distinct(linguistic-phonetic)behaviors known as features, which are represented by lowercase letters. These be-haviors select betweenbinarysets of options, representedby coefficientswhose value5 Forpresentpurposeswe restrictattentionexclusivelyto the articulatory spectof languageandignorethe auditory nterpretive ystem. The role of memory n the interpretation f utterances s obviouslyvery

different rom ts roleinproduction,but we believe that hereagainwordsmust be stored nmaximally uccinctform in order to expeditethe search. See also footnote7.


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WHY PHONOLOGY IS DIFFERENT 55is eitherplus or minus.Thus,we can move the DORSAL(tonguebody)articulator itherbackwardtowardthe rear wall of the pharynx(in response to the featurespecification[+ back])orforward,awayfromthepharynxwall(in responseto the featurespecification[-back]). The absence of any other feature specificationreflects the fact that in pro-ducing speech sounds no indicationof degreeof movementis linguisticallysignificant.Most features can be actualizedonly by a singlearticulator.Thus, [nasal] s alwaysimplementedby the SOFTPALATE, [voicing]by the LARYNX. This fact is encodedgraphically n (1) by grouping he different eaturesandplacingthem above their artic-ulators. These articulator-boundeatures contrast with articulator-freeSTRICTUREfeatures such as [consonantal]and [continuant], hat is, with features that can be exe-cuted by any one of the LABIAL, CORONAL,or DORSAL articulators. Since thechoice of the appropriatearticulatorreflects a linguisticallyrelevant distinction, thischoice must be encoded in the representationof the sound. We have indicated thisgraphically n (1) by means of the arrows connecting [consonantal,continuant] o thearticulatorsappropriate o each sound. It is obvious that not every articulator s-orneed be-actively involved in the productionof every sound. For example, the tongueblade (CORONAL)and tongue body (DORSAL)articulatorsplay no role in the pro-duction of the English consonant[b].This is encodedin (1) by omittingmentionof thesearticulators n the representationof [b]. In similarfashion, a given articulator, houghactive in the productionof a particular ound, may not execute in a linguistically sig-nificantway allfeaturesof which it is capable.Forexample,whenproducing onsonants,Englishspeakers do not deliberatelyroundthe lips or spreadthem: the feature[round],a behavior of the LABIAL articulator, herefore does not figurein the representationof any Englishconsonant, even of one like [b] that requiresactive involvement of theLABIAL articulator.As noted, (1) is a surfacerepresentation f the English wordbell in that in principleit provides the informationneeded by a speaker to produce this word correctly.6 Inadditionto surfacerepresentations uch as (1) words also have abstractunderlyingrep-resentations (thatis, representations hatencode the form in which words are stored inmemory). We must now elaborate on this. Utterances are, to a first approximation,sequences of word tokens producedone after another. But speakers can produce anutteranceonly if they know the words of which it is composed. But what does it meanfor a speakerto know a word? At a minimum, t means that the speakerknows that agiven sequenceof speech sounds is a wordin his or herlanguage.For instance, speakersof English know the words [boy]and [bel] but not [na?ar]and [pa?amon].It is for thisreason that undernormalcircumstances[boy] and [bel]may figurein theirutterances,but not [naSar]and [paSamon].

However, this sort of knowledge is not innate.It must be acquiredandretained-6 For expositoryreasons (1) has been simplifiedby omittinga numberof featuresand otherphonetic

propertiessuch as sonorant,stress, pitch, andlengththatwould have to be included n a full surfacerepre-sentationof the word.


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56 SYLVAIN BROMBERGER AND MORRIS HALLEas is obvious from the fact thatchildrenraised n different anguagecommunitiesacquiredifferent exicons. Thus, learninga language nvolves-among otherthings-registeringa long list of words in memory.There is good reason to assume thatspeakersrepresentwords in their memory by meansof a code that is directly related to ways of producinglinguistic sounds and thatwords are stored in memoryas sequences of items in such acode. Specifically, boy and bell are not representedin memory by a numericalcodewhere some arbitrarynumeral ike 797 stands for the formerand some other arbitrarynumeral ike 2593 for the latter.Rather,the symbolsin memorystand in a directrelationto the productionof sounds, so that, for instance, boy andbell are both representedbythree(complex) symbols, of which-in these two examples-the first are the same, andthe other two different.Not all of the information equired or producinga wordphonetically s needed byspeakers for storingthe wordin memoryandfor retrieving t when the occasion arises,because a significant ractionof thatinformations predictable hroughgeneralrules andprinciples hat governthepronunciation f Englishand thatare also partof the speaker'sknowledge of his or her language.For example, in Englishall vowels and the lateral [1]are invariably[+ voiced] and [ - nasal]. Moreover, the behavior of the tongue body(DORSAL) nthe lateral s governedby specialrulesthatdependon thephoneticcontext.Finally, in vowels the articulator-freeeatures [consonantal]and [continuant]are uni-versally implementedby theDORSALarticulator.Moreover, vowels arealways [+ con-tinuant].Wheninformationrecoverablethroughthese rules is eliminated rom (1), theword bell is representedas in (2).

(2) + cons - cons + cons- cont STRICTURE - contSTRICTURE STRICTURE+ voice + lateralLARYNX CORONAL- nasalSOFT PALATELABIAL - high

-low- backDORSALIf, as implied above, memorystorage and search time are at a premium n the case oflanguage, then (2) will serve as an effective underlyingrepresentationof the word bell,since in (2) information hat is retrieved through the general rules of the language issystematicallyomitted. It is important o notice that the omitted nformation s absolutely


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WHY PHONOLOGY IS DIFFERENT 57crucial for the correctphoneticrealizationof the word and that it must thereforebeaccessible to the speaker.Thus, both representations 1) and (2) play a significantrolein accountingfor our abilityto speak.7The rules supplying he informationmissingin the underlyingrepresentationmustbe appliedin a definiteorder.As evidence, consider the Englishrules of syllabificationand of stress assignment.Both of these rulesprovideinformation ssential for the pro-duction of Englishwords and account for the fact that this information s completelypredictableand mustthereforenotappear n the underlying epresentations. nthe over-whelmingmajorityof Englishwords stress is assignedto the (ante)penultimateyllableS* if the following syllable S** has a nonbranching ore; otherwise, stress is assignedto S**. (For details, see Chomsky and Halle (1968)and Halle and Vergnaud(1987).)Since stress assignment hus dependson whether or not certainsyllableshave a branch-ing core, stress cannot be assigneduntil the wordhas been syllabified.But the syllablestructureof an Englishwordin turn s totally predictable romthe sounds thatcomposethe word. In short, both syllablestructureandstress arepredictable; herefore, they donot appearin the underlyingrepresentationbut are introduced nto the surfacerepre-sentation as a result of the applicationof certain rules. But the rules assigning syllablestructureandthose assigning stress are distinctrules since they affect differentaspectsof the representationand do not always operatein tandem.Moreover, the stress rulesmust apply after the rule of syllablestructureassignmentsince the stress rule requiresinformation hat is not presentuntil syllablestructurehas been assigned.The rules discussed so far are rules that addfeatures omittedfromunderlyingrep-resentations. But underlyingrepresentationscan not only differfromsurfacerepresen-tationsin containing ewer specifiedfeatures.They can also differin assigningdifferentvalues (coefficients) to featurespresent in both. This differencebetween the two rep-resentations is ultimately a consequence of the fact that like all physical systems theindividualarticulatorsaresubjectto inertiaandtheirmovements are influencedby theirearlierpositions andmovementsandby simultaneousmovements andpositionsof otherarticulators.Althoughthese contextual effects have theiroriginin mechanicalfactors,they achieve certainarticulatoryoptimizations hatare broughtabout in differentways

7 JohnMcCarthyhas objectedto ourattributinghe requirement f nonredundant nderlying epresen-tationsto memory imitations.He notes that whateverevidence we have on this matterarguesthatmemoryis freelyavailablebutthat wordrecognition s hard.Phonologymustthereforeprovide"lots of differentwaysto get fromspeechback to the lexical entry," and this retrievalprocess is most effectivelyaccomplished fthe lexical entry is stored in the least redundantorm so that therearenumerousways of getting backfromphoneticsurface to storedentry. We agree with McCarthy'spointsaboutthe relevance of retrievalrequire-ments. But we believe thatmemory imitationsprobablyalso playa role. However,when talkingaboutop-timizingmemorystorage, we mustdistinguishbetweenwhat is required n order to maximizethe numberofwords that can be stored and what is required n order to store a particularword. We believe that there isprobablyanupper butveryhigh) imit o thenumberof representationshatcan be memorizedand nadditionan upper(relatively ow) limit to the complexityof any representation hat can be stored or is likely to bestored on the basis of a few exposures. Theremaybe a trade-offbetween the two limits-that is, the simplerthe representations,he more of themcan be stored. We know too littleabout this to say anythingmore.Butthe fact thatmatters or ourpurpose-and that is relativelyuncontroversial-is thatour abilityboth to storeandto retrieverepresentationss increasedwhenwhat must be storedcomprises ewer elements.


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58 SYLVAIN BROMBERGER AND MORRIS HALLEby differentlanguages. They are thus not mere effects of the physics or physiologyinvolved. They are broughtabout throughthe applicationof language-specificrulesrules that speakersacquire n the course of theirlinguisticmaturationand thatare partof theirknowledgeof theirlanguage.

A typicalexample of this sort is the process of English colloquialspeech that turnsintervocalic [t] and [d] into a voiced flapped stop. The main effect of flappingis toeliminatethe distinctionbetween It!andId/ in certain contexts; as a result, utterances(words)that differ n theirunderlying epresentationsbecomephonetically ndistinguish-able, as illustrated n (3).(3) plotting - plodding

wetting - weddingbutting - budding

In many dialects flappingtakes place on some occasions and not on others. In somedialects,however, flapping s institutionalizedo that it is appliedconsistentlyby speak-ers and failureto flap is perceivedin such dialectsas affectednessor as "puttingon anact." We shall assume here that in such dialects flapping s in part due to a rule thatsomewhatinformally s statedin (4).(4) L-cont[+voiced] in env. [ cons [cons

As a result of (4), underlyingvoiceless It! in certainenvironments s phoneticallyim-plementedas voiced;or,put differently, ncertaincontextsIt!has adifferent pecificationfor the feature[voice] in underlyingrepresentationhanin surfacerepresentation.A strikingfeatureof many Canadiandialects of English is the implementationofthe diphthongs[ay] and [aw] as [Ay] and [AW] in position before voiceless consonants.We exemplifythe contrastsin (5) andgive an informalstatementof the ruleresponsiblefor them in (6).

(5) a. r[ay]z r[Ay]ce r[aw]se m[Aw]setr[ay]be tr[Ay]pe cl[aw]d cl[Aw]tb. r[ayD]ing wr[AyD]ing cl[awD]ed sh[AwD]ed(6) [-cons] -- [-low] in env. [ - voiced]stressed

A fact of special interest is thatin most Canadiandialects that are subjectto both rules(4) and (6), (6) appliesonly to words with underlyingIt!, not to words with underlyingId!. We have exemplifiedthis in (Sb).We can predictthis result if we assume that (6) is orderedbefore (4) and that ap-plicationof a phonologicalrule is subjectto Principle(7).(7) Phonologicalrulesare orderedwith respectto one another.A phonologicalruleR does notapplynecessarilyto theunderlying epresentation; ather,R applies


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WHY PHONOLOGY IS DIFFERENT 59to the derivedrepresentation hat resultsfromtheapplicationof each applicablerule precedingR in the order of the rules.

There are Canadiandialectsin which (6) does not applyin wordsof the type illustratedin (5b) but in which the pronunciationof the words in (5a) is the same as theirpronun-ciation in other dialects. As noted in Chomsky and Halle (1968), these dialects differfrom the others in that (4) is orderedbefore (6), ratherthan afterit.It is worth notingthat Principle 7)was not neededto accountfor the order n whichthe rules of syllabificationand stress assignmentare appliedin English.That orderingdid not need to be explicitlystipulated.It couldbe achievedby the simple proviso thata ruleapplieswheneverconditions or its applicationare satisfied.Principle 7)is neededif conditions for the applicationof more than one rule are satisfiedsimultaneously.Theorder of applicationthen-as the Canadianexample shows-becomes a language-specific matter.The validityof Principle(7) in phonologyand its absence from syntax/semanticsis one revealingmanifestationof the fact that the representations reatedbyphonology differin naturefrom those treated by syntax/semantics.Rule ordering s one of the most powerful tools of phonologicaldescriptions, andthere are numerous instances in the literaturewhere the ordering of rules is used toaccount for phonetic effects of great complexity. Until and unless these accounts arerefuted and are replaced by better-confirmed nes, we must presume that Principle(7)is correct. If we areright n doing so, then Principle 7) is also one of the major eaturesthat distinguishsyntax/semantics romphonology.

We have presentedinstanceswhere the surfacerepresentations derived from theunderlyingrepresentationby the applicationof several ordered rules. It is, of course,possible to account for all of the empiricallyobserved facts of phonology withoutruleordering.Since thenumberof wordsstored n thememoryof a fluentspeaker s relativelysmall(hardlyever exceeding 100,000 tems), it is in principlepossibleto account for thepronunciationof each word by a separaterule. Such an approach, however, would begrossly implausiblesince it wouldexcluderules like (4) and(6), which speakers clearlyknow-as shown, for example,by the fact that when presentedwith writtenwordstheyhave not encounteredbefore, speakers pronouncethese in conformitywith (4) and(6).If every word were acquiredwith its own rule of pronunciationand if speakers knewno phonologicalrules, then speakerswould not knowhow to pronouncewordsthey hadnot previouslyencounteredandthere would be no reasonto expect themto pronouncenew words in a way that corresponds systematicallyto the way they pronounceotherwords.Another logical possibilitywhere Principle (7) would play no role is that all rulesapply to underlyingrepresentationsand that the relation between the underlyingrep-resentationsand the surfacerepresentationss therefore never mediatedby derivationsmade up of intervening orms. We believe that this possibilityis ratherimplausible nthe light of the followingsort of evidence. Consider the second Canadiandialect men-tioned above, in which the contrastbetween ridingand writing s systematicallyelim-


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60 SYLVAIN BROMBERGER AND MORRIS HALLEinated-that is, the dialectin which, according o the accountpresentedabove, rule (4)is orderedbefore rule (6). If rules were appliedto the underlyingrepresentationonly,then insteadof (4) we would need a rule such as (8) to account for the facts.

(8) [-cons] [-low] in env. [-voiced]stressedbut not in env. ___t VThis ruleis morecomplexthan(4) since it includes an exceptionstated in the "but not"clause. The inclusion of this clause is motivated solely by the theoreticaldecision todrop Principle(7). But note that Principle(7) purportsto be a universalprinciple,inother words, a principleof universalphonology. It should thus be viewed as somethingthat does not have to be acquiredbut is part of the innate endowment of potentialspeakers. Rules like (4), (6), and (8) must be learnedseparately.Complexrules withexception clauses are evidentlymore difficult to discover in a randomcorpus than areexceptionless rules.8Thus, the hypothesis that rules like (8) are acquiredratherthanrules like (6) underthe guidanceof Principle 7) is much moredifficultto reconcilewiththe known ease and rapiditywith which children earnto speak theirdialect, and thathypothesis is therefore muchless plausible.It has been known at least since Chomskyand Halle (1968)drew attentionto thisfact that the strictlinear orderof rules implicit n Principle(7) is not maintainedevery-where. These deviantrule orderingsare predictable n the sense that they occur onlywhen specific conditions are met; they are thereforenot violationsof the principle oflinear rule order but ratherextensions of the principle.The most importantof these extensions are the following three. First, if A and Bare two rules, andthe conditions for the applicationof A include all the conditionsforthe applicationof B, butnot vice versa (in otherwords, if the applicationof A is subjectto moreconditionsthanthe applicationof B), then A is orderedbefore B, andB cannotapply to any stringto which A has applied. This type of disjunctiverule orderinghasbeen studiedby Kiparsky 1973);see also Myers(1985),HalleandVergnaud 1987), andMahajan 1988).

8 NorbertHornsteinhasrightlypointedoutto us that thisarguments based on anassumption hat needsindependentustification,namely,on theassumptionhat t is easierto learnrules(4)and(6) andtheirrelativeorderingthan it is to learnrules (4) and (8) and nothingabouttheirordering.All otherthingsbeingequal,learning hree thingsmust be harder hanlearning wo things,but all otherthingsare not equalhere. Notethat(8)is a ruleof greatcomplexitywhen stated ully,that s, whenformalized nthe fullphonologicalnotation.Moreover, heelimination f Principle7)wouldrequirenotonlythereplacement f (6)by themorecomplicatedrule (8) but also the replacementof a host of otherrelativelysimplerules by rules of greatercomplexity.Consideralsothat ourexamplesdealwith the ordering f onlypairsof rulesbut that a realphonology nvolvesorderingof triplets,quadruplets,quintuplets,and so on. The addedcomplexityin such cases rendersthereplacement uletotallyuntransparent,f notunstatable.Finally,there s no reasonto believethattheseaddedcomplexities sharegeneralproperties hat can be encoded in a principle hat is availableto a learner n theway in which ruleordering s available o a learnerequippedwithPrinciple 7). Withoutsome suchprincipleit is unlikelythat a learnerwoulddiscoverthe exceptionclauses. Thus, the evidence available o us at thistime suggests that the answer o Hornstein'squestion s that a theory basedon ruleorderings moreplausiblethanone basedon complicated ontextualrestrictions.We aregrateful o Hormsteinordrawingourattentionto this issue, whichwe hadpreviouslyoverlooked.


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WHY PHONOLOGY IS DIFFERENT 61Second, the order of applicationof some rules is determinedby the internalcon-stituent structureof words. This is the famous cyclic orderof rule application,whichhas provoked some of the most ingeniouswork in modernphonology.9Third, every phonologicalrule must be assignedto one or several blocks or strata,

and the strata to which a given rule is assigneddeterminewhetherit appliescyclicallyto the immediate constituentsof a word or whether it appliesonly once to the entireword.10When fully specified so as to incorporatethese three extensions, Principle (7) isexceptionless.

3. The Diachronic EvidenceFurtherevidence forthepsychologicalrealityof orderedrules(andhence forderivations)in phonology is provided indirectlyby the phenomenonof diachronic sound change.Researchon soundchange beganin the nineteenthcentury as an attemptto account forthe observationthat in Sanskrit,Greek, Latin,anda numberof otherlanguagescognatelexical items exhibit widespreadand systematic phonetic resemblances. It had beensuggestedby Sir WilliamJones, a highofficial in the Britishcivil service in India, thatthe strikingresemblances among cognate words in these languages, spoken in widelyseparategeographic ocales, cannot have arisenby accident and that the only plausibleexplanation or them is thatthese languagesall descend from a commonprotolanguage.Nineteenth-centuryinguistics adoptedthis propositionand devoted its major and bestefforts to displaying n detail the phonologicalregularities hat link the different Indo-European anguagesto theirprotolanguage.By the end of the nineteenthcenturythe phonologicalsystem of the Indo-Europeanprotolanguagehad been reconstructedn a surprisingly onvincingway. A crucialaspectof this reconstructionwas the postulationof "soundlaws" relatingearlierstages of thelanguageto later stages.Consider or instancethe first partof Grimm'sLaw, surelyone of the most securelyestablishedof all "soundlaws," whichaccounts for phoneticcorrespondencesbetweenthe words of Germanicon the one hand and those of the otherIndo-Europeananguages,such as Greek, Sanskrit, Latin, and Baltic, on the other. The "law" consists of threedistinctparts,of whichthe first, which is of specialinterest here, can be statedformallyas in (9a);the evidence for it is found in correspondencessuch as those in (9b).

Lvoicedln [+ cont] except afterobstruent9 We cannotconsiderthis in detailhere,but see, for example,the discussionof the EnglishStressRulein ChomskyandHalle (1968).This cyclic ruleorderhas playeda majorrole in discussionsof the theoryofLexical Phonology.See especiallyPesetsky(1979),Kiparsky 1982),Halle and Mohanan 1985),Halle andVergnaud 1987),and Halle(1987b).The conceptof "strictcycle" in phonology hathas resulted romthesediscussionsis, in ouropinion,one of the most intriguing nd profound esultsof modemphonologicalnves-

tigations.10 See Halleand Mohanan 1985)andHalle(1987b).


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62 SYLVAIN BROMBERGER AND MORRIS HALLEb. Germanic Greek Latin Sanskrit Baltic

fot pod ped pad ped 'foot'Ore tri tres tray tri 'three'xund kun kan svan sun 'dog'naxt nukt nokt naktis nakt 'night'

Formally this "law" is indistinguishableroma phonologicalrule such as (lOa),whichaccounts for the fact that English [p t k] must be aspirated n the words in (lOb)butunaspirated n the words in (lOc).(10) a -[-coined] [+asp] at the beginningof a stressed syllable

b. pill, till, killc. spill, still, skill, soapy, naughty, shaky(9a) and (lOa)have exactly the sameformat and differonly in the features indicated tothe right of the arrow-that is, in the features affected and in the respective contextsin which the rules apply.This formal similaritycouldbe viewed as a merecoincidence. However, there is amuch more plausible explanation, namely, that the addition of phonological rules to alanguage is the main mechanism responsible for phonetic change. According to thisexplanation, lawlike phonetic change occurs when speakers add a new rule to theirlanguage.The characterof the diachronic"sound law" then follows trivially from thecharacterof the addedrule, since it simplyreflectsthe latter'soperation.Onthis view,then, the first part of Grimm'sLaw given in (9a) describes a diachronicchange of formsbroughtabout by the fact that later speaker/hearers ad (9a) in their phonology whereasearlierspeaker/hearersdid not."If we accept this explanation-and the arguments n its favor are very strong-theninformationabout diachronic inguistic change yields informationabout the rules in thesynchronic phonologyof certainspeaker/hearers.The question now arises whethersuch informationcan also tell us anythingaboutrule ordering.In order to answer this question,it is necessary to recall that there is a second partto Grimm'sLaw, which can be formally stated as in (1la) and which accounts for thecorrespondencesbetween Germanicand the other Indo-European anguages llustratedin (llb).

(1) a. [-conti -voiced][-asp" Although his idea is all but self-evident oday, it took linguistsalmostthree-quarters f a centurytoaccept the fact that "soundlaws" are nothingbutphonological ules.Thereasonfor this was thatthe statusof phonologicalrules in speakers'knowledgeof theirlanguagewas not properlyunderstooduntilrelativelyrecently.Thus, as Halle(1987a)hasargued,Schuchardt's pposition o the "neogrammarian"octrineof the

exceptionless functioningof the "sound laws" was foundedon his belief that speakers'knowledge of thephonologyof theirlanguageconsistsexclusively of the knowledgeof words andthatphonological ulesplayno role in it.


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WHY PHONOLOGY IS DIFFERENT 63b. Germanic Greek Latin Sanskrit Baltic

two (Eng) duo duo duva divi (Latv) 'two'yoke (Eng) dzugon yugum yugan yungas (Lith) 'yoke'Grimm'sLaw thus producedthe two sets of changes illustrated n (12):those in (12a)are due to rule (9a), and those in (12b)are producedby rule (lla).

(12) a. p f t 0 k xb. b p d t g kIs there any reason to believe that these two sets of changes were orderedso that theset in (12a)appliedbefore the set in (12b)?Bloomfield(1933, 368)thoughtthat there was, and his reasons are interesting:

. . .it is clear that in pre-Germanicime, the PrimitiveIndo-European b, d, g] can havereachedthe types of PrimitiveGermanic p, t, k] only after PrimitiveIndo-European p, t,k] had alreadybeen changedsomewhat n the directionof the types of PrimitiveGermanic[f, 0, h]-for the actual Germanic orms show that these two series of phonemes did notcoincide.

Bloomfieldassumed rightlythat if a languagehadfirstundergonethe change (12b)andthen the change (12a), the effect would have been to turn both [p] and [b] into [f], [t]and [d] into [0], and [k] and [g] into [x], contraryto known facts about Germanic.Inthe quoted passage Bloomfieldwas, of course, talkingabout diachronicordering, notabout orderingof rules in a synchronicGermanicphonology. However, if we assumethat the mechanismof ruleaddition s responsiblefor the diachronic acts, then Bloom-field's considerationscan be turned nto reasons forholding hat(12a)was orderedbefore(12b)in the synchronicphonologyof Germanicspeakers,since, by the same reasoning,the reverse order would also have had the false consequencesjust described.So it would seem that evidence fromlanguagechangedoes show that the two partsof Grimm's Law must be orderedin the phonology of Germanic.Unfortunately,theevidence, as it stands, is inconclusive. It does not rule out anotherpossibility,andit isnoteworthythat neitherBloomfield-nor to our knowledgeany other student of soundchange-ever entertained t. This possibility is that both sound changes apply to un-derlyingrepresentationsdirectly. Viewed synchronically,this possibility comes downto a denial of Principle (7), at least for rules that bring about linguisticchange. Underthat hypothesis such rules would not be orderedat all. Since no rule would then haveany effect on the input to any other, that would be compatiblewith the facts that ledBloomfield to order (12a)before (12b). In otherwords, these facts tell us how Grimm'sLaw/rules are orderedin the phonology of Germanic f they are ordered,but they donot tell us that they are ordered. We thereforealso need evidence demonstrating hatrulesresponsiblefor diachronicchange abide by Principle 7); in otherwords, thattheydo not applyexclusively to underlyingrepresentations.


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64 SYLVAIN BROMBERGER AND MORRIS HALLESuch evidence is providedby Verner'sLaw, formallystatedas (13).12(13) [+ cont] [+ voiced] afterunstressedvowel

Verner's Law is generallybelieved to have come into the languageafterGrimm'sLaw(9a). The evidence adduced for this ordering s that Verner's Law applies not only tothe continuant s!(whichGermanic nheritedunchanged romproto-Indo-European) utalso to continuants hat haveappearedas a resultof (9a).Thatevidence, conjoinednowin the familiarway with the hypothesis that "sound laws" are the effect of the additionof phonologicalrules,unlike the earlierevidence, does constitute a conclusive argumentfor the view that in the phonologyof Germanic,Verner'sLaw operatedafter(9a). Thisis so because the new evidence shows that (13) must apply to some outputs of (9a),whereas the evidence used by Bloomfield showed that (12b)may not apply to outputsof (12a). It was evidence againstone way of orderingrules, not for ordering hem in acertainway.However, it mightbe objected, as long as we restrictourselves to diachronicevi-dence, (13)-Verner's Law as usually stated-is not the only way to describe the facts.The changes it describescan also be described with a different, morecomplicatedrulethat appliesto underlyingrepresentations,namely, (14).

(14) [+ cont] [+voiced]1 afterunstressedvowelE- ont 1 [+ cont- voiced] [+ voiced J- cont > [+cont] except afterobstruentor unstressedvowelL-voicedI

If we knew that the changes describedby Verner's Law did in fact occur historicallyafter the changes describedby Grimm'sLaw, then we would have a reason to prefer(13)over (14), since we would have reason to believe that(13)describesa set of changesthat actually occurredandaffected the output of a law (Grimm's) hathadalreadyhadits effects. But we do not know that. We have no recordsthatbear on these facts.We mightof course appeal to the fact that (13) is simpler than (14). But simplicityby itself does not constituteevidence aboutwhat happened n history. Simplicitycon-siderationsbecome pertinent,however, if we remember hat the centralmechanismofphonologicalchange is the additionof phonologicalrules. Diachronic aws are nothingbut phonologicalrules thatwere addedto the languageat some point in its history. Oneof the things that distinguishesGermanicfrom other Indo-European anguagesis that

12 Verner's own formulation reads:IE k, t, p firstbecame h, 0, f everywhere by virtue of Grimm'sLaw-SB/MH]; the voiceless fricativesthatarose inthisfashionas well asthevoicelessfricative inherited romIEweresubsequently oiced invoicedenvironmentyllable-initially,butremainedvoicelessin positionafterstressedsyllables.(1876,114)See also Saussure (1949, 200-202) and Bloomfield (1933, 357-358).


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WHY PHONOLOGY IS DIFFERENT 65speakers of Germanicaddedto theirphonologyrules that today we call Grimm'sLaw,Verner's Law, and so on. These laws were at one point phonologicalrules that wereactually acquiredby individualhumanbeingsin the course of theirlinguisticmaturation.As a ruleof synchronicphonology (14)is much less plausiblethan(13), andthis for thesort of reasons alreadycitedin connectionwith the formulationof the rules of CanadianEnglish, namely, (4) and (6). We noted there that it is unlikelythat children(learners)innately equippedwith Principle 7) wouldacquirea rulecontaininga special exceptionclause (see (8))when a functionallyequivalentexceptionlessrule (namely, (6)) is avail-able. By the same reasoning,the exceptionclause makesit unlikelythatchildrenwouldbe able to acquirerule (14) throughexposure to ambientspeech, whereas (13)would berelatively easy to acquire by childrenalready equipped nnatelywith Principle (7). 3In short, then, there are known facts about diachronic changes that are best ex-plained as resultingfromthe introductionof new phonologicalrules in the grammarofcertain speaker/hearers.When we try to specify what these phonologicalrules mighthave been, we find that the more plausible answer assumes that Principle (7) holds ofthese rules too, and hence thatthese rulestoo areordered n the phonologyandoperatethroughderivations.4. A Note on Recent HistoryExtrinsicallyorderedrulesobeyingPrinciple 7) much like those illustratedabove wereemployed in a synchronicaccount of the phonology of a languageby the great SanskritgrammarianPanini over twenty-five hundred years ago. They were assumed stan-dardly-without muchdiscussion-during the nineteenthcentury (and ater) n accountsof differentsoundchanges. (See Verner's statementof his law in footnote 13.) Attemptsto utilize extrinsicallyorderedrules inthe descriptionof synchronicrather han historicalphenomena date back to the 1930s. One of the earliest is Bloomfield's (1939) paper"MenominiMorphophonemics."4 Bloomfield describes his approach n the followingmuch quoted passage:

13 Paul Kiparskyhas observedthat the above account assumes that at the stage where Verner's Lawentered helanguage he firstpartof Grimm'sLaw(that s, (9a))was stillpartof thephonologyof thelanguage.It is conceivablethatthisassumption s incorrectand that the effects of Grimm'sLaw hadbecomelexicalizedby the time Verner'sLaw enteredthe language.Though t is far fromconclusive, there is some evidencemilitatingagainstthe lexicalizationof the effects of Grimm'sLaw. As indicated n (9a), this partof Grimm'sLaw was contextuallyrestrictedso as not to applyin positionafterobstruents.As a result, the firstpart ofGrimm'sLaw did not eliminatevoiceless stops from the languagealtogetherbut only restricted heir distri-bution, andthis fact wouldhaveto be reflected ormally n the phonology,by means of a rulemuch ike (9a).Moreover, 9a)predicts hatvoicelessobstruents tthebeginning fGermanicuffixesshouldalternatebetweenstop andcontinuantdepending n whetherornotthesesuffixesare attached o stems that end in an obstruent.That prediction s borne out by the behaviorof the participial uffix It!, which regularlyalternated n thepredictedway. In view of these facts it seems to us somewhatunlikely hatthe effects of Grimm'sLawwerelexicalized by the time Verner'sLaw came into the language.14 Very similar n approachs Swadesh andVoegelin's(1939)paperon Tubatulabal. t is difficultat this

distance n timeto establishwhetherBloomfieldnfluencedSwadeshandVoegelin,whether helatter nfluencedBloomfield, or whetherthe ideas were developed ndependently.


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66 SYLVAIN BROMBERGER AND MORRIS HALLEThe process of description eads us to set up each morphologicalelement in a theoreticalbase formandthen to statethe deviations romthis basicformwhichappearwhen the elementis combinedwith other elements.If one startswith the basic forms andappliesour statements. . . in the order n which we give them, one will arrive inally at the forms of words as theywere actuallyspoken. Our basic forms are not ancient forms, say of the Proto-Algonquianparent anguage,and ourstatementsof internalsandhiarenot historicalbut descriptive, andappear n a purely descriptiveorder.However, our basic forms do bear some resemblanceto those which wouldbe set upfor a descriptionof Proto-Algonquian,omeof ourstatementsof alternation .. resemblethose which wouldappear n a descriptionof Proto-Algonquian,and the rest . . . , as to content and order, approximate the historical development fromProto-Algonquiano present-dayMenomini.(pp. 105-106)It is somewhat difficult to empathize today with the belief widely held among lin-

guists in the 1930s that principles operative in languages conceived as synchronic systemsfunctioning autonomously were totally different from the principles operative in thehistorical evolution of languages. In particular, to the linguists of that day Principle (7)and derivations of the sort illustrated above seemed appropriate only to historical de-scriptions, not to synchronic accounts. In fact, in his book Language (1933) Bloomfieldfully shared the views about the irrelevance of rule order in synchronic descriptions.He wrote:

The actual sequence of constituents,and their structural rder. . . area partof the language,but the descriptive order of grammatical eatures is a fiction and results simply from ourmethod of describing he forms;it goes without saying, for instance, that the speakerwhosays knives,does not "first"' replace[f]by [v] and "then" add [-z], butmerely utters a form(knives) which in certain featuresresembles and in certain features differs from a certainother form(namely, knife). (p. 213; our italics)As we have seen, some six years later, by the time of composing "Menomini Mor-

phophonemics," Bloomfield had changed positions. The fact that he had done so, how-ever, was totally ignored by the American linguistic community in the 1940s and 1950s.The article was omitted- "inadvertently," according to Hockett (1970, 494)-fromHockett's "Implications of Bloomfield's Algonquian Studies," which was published inthe issue of Language (24.1) dedicated to Bloomfield on the occasion of his sixtiethbirthday in 1948. It is not referred to in Hockett's (1954) influential "Two Models ofGrammatical Description" (which echoes the passage quoted above from Bloomfield(1933) almost verbatim);15 nor was it reprinted in Joos's (1957) Readings in Linguistics.

15 Accordingto Hockett, a modelwith extrinsicallyorderedrules and derivations whichin Hockett'spaperis referred o by the initialsIP) has been rejectedby some workers n favor of a modelthatexpresslyviolatesPrinciple 7) (the latterapproachs labeledIA)because of a feelingof dissatisfactionwith the 'moving-part'r 'historical' nalogy mplicitn IP. At the very least, theseanalogiesseem to implythe necessityof making ertaindecisions n a possibly arbitraryway. Criticsof IP wouldpreferto circumvent uchdecisionsaltogether.Forexample, . . if it be said thatthe Englishpast-tense ormbaked s 'formed'from bakeby a 'process'of 'suffixation', hen no matterwhat disclaimerof historicity s made it is impossiblenot toconcludethat some kind of priority s being assigned o bake,as againsteither bakedor the suffix. And if this priorityis not historical,what is it? Supporters f IP have not answered hatquestionsatisfactorily. p. 211)


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WHY PHONOLOGY IS DIFFERENT 67In fact, the article was so unknownin Americathat Chomskytells us that he had notread "MenominiMorphophonemics"untilhis attentionwas drawnto it by Halle in thelate 1950s. And thereby hangs a tale (with a moralperhaps)with which we concludethis article.In the years immediatelyfollowingWorldWarII graduatestudents in linguisticswere taughtthatwordsandmorphemeshad a numberof distinctrepresentations,eachof whichcorresponded o a specificdescriptive evel. Three such levels wererecognized(the morphophonemic, he phonemic, and the phonetic), and at each level the repre-sentations were composedof entities that were specificto thatlevel (morphophonemes,phonemes, and phones). The primary ocus was on discoveringthe correct phonemicandmorphophonemic epresentations;he correctphoneticrepresentationdid not haveto be discovered, since it was directly given in tokens. Implicit n this doctrine was thefurtherassumptionthat at each level there was only a single representation,and it isthis assumptionof the standard heory of the 1950sthat distinguished t fundamentallyfrom Bloomfield's (1939) (and Panini's)model. As noted, however, the fact that analternativeapproach o phonologicaldescriptionhad beentested successfully by Bloom-field was hardlyknown at the time, and the consensus in the 1940swas thatderivationsandorderedrulesdidnot belongin synchronicaccounts of the phonologyof a language.The prevailingwisdom was challenged n Chomsky's(1951)Master'sthesis, Mor-phophonemicsof ModernHebrew.In this early studyChomskyexplicitlydissents fromthe propositionthat utterances have single representationsat each of the descriptivelevels. Rather,he assumes that at least some levels consist of a set of representationsgeneratedby extrinsicallyorderedrules.Chomskydescribesthe morphophonemicevelas follows:

Beginningwith a sequenceof morphemes . . each statementof the . . grammar pecifiescertainchangeswhich must be undergoneby any sequence of a certainshape. It will appearthat an order s imposed on the statementsrelative to certaincriteriaof simplicity.Thusthestatementsare orderedso as to presenta maximallysimplegrammar. p. 4)In fact, the orderingof the statements s a central objectiveof Chomsky'sinvestigation;he says:

. . .this investigation s limited in that only one "dimension" of simplicity is considered,viz. ordering. p. 5)In the version of Chomsky'sthesis published in 1979there is no reference to thefact that like the rules in Bloomfield's "MenominiMorphophonemics"some of thesynchronicrules of Modern Hebrew are identical with well-known sound changes; forexample,MR 34is identicalwith therule of PostvocalicSpirantization see Brockelmann(1916, 84)), whereas MR 28 is identical with Vowel Reduction (see Brockelmann 1916,

61)). As a studentof Semitic languages, Chomskywas of course fully aware of theseparallelsbetween synchronicanddiachronicrules. Unlike most linguistsof thatperiod


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68 SYLVAIN BROMBERGER AND MORRIS HALLEhe was not concerned about confusing synchronic and diachronic descriptions andviewedthe parallelsbetweenthe two types of rulesas evidence in supportof hisproposedanalysis(Chomsky(personalcommunication)).He assumedthat sound changesaredueto the additionof phonologicalrules, and as a consequence it did not seem to him at allstrange that some sound changesshouldsurvive as synchronicrules for long periodsoftime.Chomsky'streatmentof the segholatesoffers anotherexample n which thehistoricalevolution of forms receives a synchronicinterpretation o that a form such as [melek]is derivedfromunderlying malk].Chomskyreportsthatthisreplacesan earlieraccountwhere [melek]rather han [malk]was the basic underlying ormfromwhich the differentsurfacevariantswere derived. Chomskymade the changeat the suggestionof the lateYehoshuaBar-Hillel,who was one of the few people to studythe rather orbidding extof Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew in considerable detail. Bar-Hillel pointed outto Chomsky that the assumptionthat [malk]is the underlyingform led to a simpleraccount than the alternativethat had figuredin the earlier version that Bar-Hillelwasreading.He also noted thatthis accountparalleled he knownhistoricalevolutionof thelanguage.

In 1951 Chomskythus was independentlyed to the same conclusions thatBloom-field had reachedtwelve years earlier. It is a matterof some puzzlement that none ofChomsky'steachersat the Universityof Pennsylvaniadrew his attention o Bloomfield'spaperandsuggestedthathe take accountof it at least by including t in his bibliography.It is idle at this distancein timeto speculateaboutthe reasonsfor this oversight.In anyevent, as noted above, Chomsky earnedof the existence of Bloomfield'spaperonly inthe late 1950s,many years aftersubmittinghis Master's thesis.'6Chomsky(1988a)notes thathis workon thephonologyof ModernHebrewnaturallyled him to explorewhethersome of the devices he hadused theremightalso have a usein syntax. Such a projectwas especiallyattractiveat that time as phonology was thenwidely viewed not only as the most advancedbranchof the field but also as a model

16 Noam Chomskyhas remarked hatourpresentationof the positionsof structuralist honology-bothAmericanand Praguian-fails to bringout theirempiricistand antimentalisticoundations.For structuralistsphonemesare definedas similarity lassesof phones,and morphophonemess similarity lasses of phonemes:all phonesof a given phonemethereforehad to sharea specific set of phoneticproperties hat distinguishedthem from the phones of any otherphoneme.In Bloomfield's"MenominiMorphophonemics"he relationbetweenmorphophonemesndphonemesand/orphoneswas conceivedin a radicallydifferentway:morpho-phonemeswere relatedto phonemesor to phonesby means of rulesthat "translate" or map) sequencesofmorphophonemesnto sequencesof phonemes/phones. n effect, then, in spite of his frequentlyprofessedantimentalism, ereBloomfieldviewed the two kinds of sequencesas equallyreal (mental)representations fthe words, phrases,orsentencesof a language.Moreover,onthis view there s no longeran a priori definitional)requirementhat the set of phonemes/phoneshat correspond o a given morphophonemehare some distin-guishingset of properties.Thepropositionhatphonology houlddeal with mentalrepresentations-thatis, with facts thatgo beyondphysicalanddirectlyobservableevents (classifiedby the linguist)-was not one that linguistswere ready toacceptin the 1940sand early 1950swhen naive forms of positivismwerealmost universally akenforgranted.As a consequence,Bloomfield'spaperwas treated as a curiousexperiment-not to say, indiscretion-thatdid not meritextensive discussion.


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WHY PHONOLOGY IS DIFFERENT 69for all otherlinguisticdomainsto follow. It took two decades of intensiveresearchforChomskyto concludethat the syntax of a languagedoes in all likelihoodnot includeasystem of extrinsicallyorderedrules (ordered ransformations).Since, as we have triedto suggest in section 1, the subject matterof phonology is intrinsicallydifferentfromthat of syntax, the consequences of this conclusion for phonology are far from self-evident: whether and how the principles-and-parameterspproachof Chomsky (1981)should be extended is an empiricalquestion.None of the argumentsand facts that ledChomsky to this radicalchange in position with regardto syntax has any detectablebearingon the structureof phonological heory. By contrast,there is much evidence ofthe sort adducedabove in supportof the view that in phonology extrinsically orderedrules play a majorrole. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it would thereforebe a mistaketo try to eliminatesuch rules fromphonology. To constructphonology sothat it mimics syntax is to miss a majorresult of the work of the last twenty years,namely, that syntax andphonologyare essentiallydifferent.ReferencesAkmajian,A. and F. Heny (1975)An Introduction o thePrinciples of Transformational yntax,MITPress, Cambridge,Massachusetts.Baker, C. L. (1978)Introduction o Generative-Transformationalyntax, Prentice-Hall,Engle-wood Cliffs, New Jersey.Bloomfield,L. (1933)Language, Holt, New York.Bloomfield, L. (1939) "MenominiMorphophonemics,"Etudes dediees a la memoire de M. lePrinceN. S. Trubetzkoy= Travauxdu Cercle linguistiquede Prague 8, 105-115.Brockelmann,C. (1916) Semitische Sprachwissenschaft,G. J. Goschen'sche Verlagshandlung,Berlin.Chomsky,N. (1951)Morphophonemics f ModernHebrew,Master'sthesis, Departmentof Lin-guistics, Universityof Pennsylvania.Published n 1979by Garland,New York.Chomsky, N. (1981)Lectureson GovernmentandBinding, Foris, Dordrecht.Chomsky,N. (1988a)"A Personal View," paper presented at the conference "The ChomskyanTurn," Jerusalem,April 1988.Chomsky,N. (1988b)"Prospectsfor the Study of Languageand Mind," paper presentedat theconference "The ChomskyanTurn," Jerusalem,April 1988.Chomsky,N. and M. Halle (1968)TheSound Pattern of English, HarperandRow, New York.Halle, M. (1962) "Phonology n a GenerativeGrammar,"Word18, 54-72.Halle, M. (1987a) "Remarkson the Scientific Revolution in Linguistics 1926-1929," in K. Po-morskaet al., eds., Language, Poetry and Poetics: TheGenerationof the 1890s:Jakobson,Trubetzkoy,Majakovskij,Mouton de Gruyter,Berlin.Halle, M. (1987b) "On the Phonology-Morphologynterface," ms., Departmentof LinguisticsandPhilosophy,MIT, Cambridge,Massachusetts.Halle, M. (1988)"Features," ms., Departmentof LinguisticsandPhilosophy, MIT, Cambridge,Massachusetts. To appear n OxfordEncyclopediaofLinguistics, OxfordUniversityPress,Oxfordand New York.]Halle, M. and K. P. Mohanan(1985) "Segmental Phonologyand ModernEnglish," LinguisticInquiry 16, 57-116.Halle, M. and J.-R. Vergnaud 1987)An Essay on Stress, MIT Press, Cambridge,Massachusetts.Hockett, C. F. (1954)"Two Models of GrammaticalDescription," Word 10, 210-231.


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70 SYLVAIN BROMBERGER AND MORRIS HALLEHockett, C. F., ed. (1970)A LeonardBloomfieldAnthology,IndianaUniversity Press, Bloom-ington, Indiana.Jakobson,R. (1938)"Observations ur le classementphonologiquedes consonnes," in Proceed-ingsof the 3rd InternationalCongressof PhoneticSciences, Ghent. [Alsoin Selected Writ-

ings I, Mouton, The HagueandBerlin.]Joos, M., ed. (1957)Readings nLinguistics,AmericanCouncilof LearnedSocieties, Washington,D.C.Kaye, J. and J. Lowenstamm (1986) "Compensatory Lengtheningin TiberianHebrew," inL. Wetzels and E. Sezer, eds., Studies in Compensatory Lengthening, Foris, Dordrecht.Kiparsky, P. (1973) "'Elsewhere' in Phonology," in S. Anderson and P. Kiparsky, eds., AFestschrift for Morris Halle, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.Kiparsky,P. (1982) "Lexical Morphologyand Phonology,"in Linguistic Society of Korea, ed.,Linguistics in the Morning Calm, Hanshin, Seoul.Mahajan,A. (1988) "HindiStress," ms., Departmentof Linguistics andPhilosophy, MIT, Cam-bridge, Massachusetts.

Majdi,B. and D. Michaels(1987) "SyllableStructure,GeminationandLengthin Iraqi Arabic,"paper presentedat the 62nd AnnualMeetingof LinguisticSociety of America.Myers, S. (1985) "The Long and the Short of It: A MetricalTheory of EnglishVowel Quantity,"in Papers from the 21st Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Universityof Chicago, Chicago,Illinois.Perlmutter D. and S. Soames (1979) Syntactic Argumentation and the Structure of English, Uni-versity of CaliforniaPress, Berkeley, California.Pesetsky, D. (1979)"Russian Morphologyand Lexical Theory," ms., Departmentof LinguisticsandPhilosophy, MIT, Cambridge,Massachusetts.Sagey, E. C. (1986) The Representation of Features and Relations in Non-Linear Phonology,Doctoral dissertation,Departmentof Linguisticsand Philosophy, MIT, Cambridge,Mas-

sachusetts.Saussure, F. de (1949) Cours de linguistique generale, Payot, Paris.Swadesh, M. and C. F. Voegelin (1939)"A Problem n PhonologicalAlternation,"Language 15,1-10.Verner, K. (1876) "Eine Ausnahmeder erstenLautverschiebung,"Zeitschrift ur vergleichendeSprachwissenschaft 23, 97-130.Williams,E. (1988)"Is LF Distinct fromS-Structure?"LinguisticInquiry 19, 135-146.

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Bromberger & Halle 89 - Why Phonology is Different

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