Aspects of phonological structure: with particular reference to English and Dutch

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with establishing the notational system of dependency phonologyq first developed by Anderson and Jones (1974a, 1977), as a framework for the characterisation of phonological structures and systems in languages of the world. As such, it is offered as an alternative to other,, phonological frameworks that have been proposed, notably models based on the concept of the distinctive feature, such as those of Jakobson et al (1952), Chomsky and Halle (1968), and Ladefoged (1971).

Chapter 1 deals with what it is that a notational system should be able to characterise - i. e. what properties such a system should have - while in chapters 2 and 31 examine various notational systems whi'ch have been proposed. In chapter 4 the formal properties of the dependency model are developed and illustrated, and in chapter 51 make various proposals as to how the-phonological sdgment, should be divided into sub-matrices, or 'gestures'. On the basis of this, I investigate in detail in chapters 6,8,,. and 9 the nature of each of these gestures - the categorial, the articulatory, and the initiatory and offer a set of dependency components, whose function is to represent the various aspects of the segment characterised by the'three gestures. In chapter 71 depart from the characterisation of the segment to look at the structure of sequences in the light of the representations of the categorial gesture set up in chapter 6, and devote some space to a discussion of the representation of 'complex segments' and related issues, Finally, I consider two large scale phonological processes in terms of dependency phonology - initial mutation in Welsh. and diminutive formation in Dutch.