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

. Phonological rules
i. [ ] [–g] ii. [+f] [+g]
iii. [–f] [+g] iv. [–g] [+f]
c. Derived matrices
A B C
⎡ +f ⎤
⎢ –g ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎣ : ⎦
⎡ +f⎤
⎢ +g⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎣ : ⎦
⎡ -f ⎤
⎢ +g⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎣ : ⎦
Consider now the ordered phonological rules in (4.17b). Rule (4.17bi)
states that a segment unspecified for f is specified [–g]. The next two rules apply
to segments that are specified [+f] and [–f], respectively. The formal question that
arises is whether a segment that is unspecified for f should undergo these rules
or not. On the sub-matrix interpretation of rule application, a segment is subject
to a rule only if the rule is a sub-matrix of the feature matrix of the segment. On
this interpretation, segment A does not undergo rules (ii) and (iii). But, then, if
we add a redundancy rule like (4.17biv), all three segments A, B, and C will end
up being distinct, though they started out distinguished only by the feature f.
Stanley shows that similar results can be obtained if we adopt a different
convention of rule application. On the distinctness interpretation of rule
application, a rule applies to a matrix if the matrix is non-distinct from the
feature matrix of the segment. In that case, a segment unspecified for f will
undergo any rule that mentions either [+f] or [–f], and segments specified for f
undergo rules that do not mention f, if their matrices are otherwise non-distinct
from the structural description of the rule. No matter what the default or
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