The contrastive hierarchy in phonology 2009 Dresher.pdf - CUNY ...

in the low vowels (0.11121). These precedence relations are meant to account for
why /i, a, u/ is a typical vowel inventory, but /i, Q, A/ and /i, y, a/ are not.
(4.2) Predicted acquisition sequences (Jakobson and Halle, 1956: 41)
Consonants: dental vs. labial ..... 0.1
Vowels: narrow vs. wide ..... 0.11
Narrow vowels: palatal vs. velar ..... 0.111
Wide vowels: palatal vs. velar ..... 0.1111
Narrow palatal vowels: rounded vs. unrounded ..... 0.1112
Wide palatal vowels: rounded vs. unrounded ..... 0.11121
Velar vowels: unrounded vs. rounded ..... 0.1113
Consonants: velopalatal vs. labial and dental ..... 0.112
Consonants: palatal vs. velar ..... 0.1121
Consonants: rounded vs. unrounded or
pharyngealized vs. non-pharyngealized ..... 0.1122
Consonants: palatalized vs. non-palatalized ..... 0.1123
By the same token, (4.20 predicts that the first contrast to be established in
a phonological system is between dental and labial consonants (e.g. /t/~ /k/).
The next consonantal contrast adds a velopalatal consonant (e.g. /k/). This
contrast (0.112) is predicted to follow the acquisition of contrast (0.11), since 0.11
is contained in 0.112, but no implicational relation is predicted to hold between it
and contrast 0.111, since 0.111 is not contained in 0.112. There is no significance
to the fact that one decimal is a smaller number than the other; thus, the chart in
(4.2) is equivalent to the branching tree diagram in (4.3).
124