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

nevertheless interact with the phonology via the concept of linking. I will first
briefly review some of the marking conventions, and then look at how linking
works. I will show that these devices do some of the work of specification by a
contrastive hierarchy, but run into problems because they do not take account of
language-particular contrasts.
5.2.2. SPE marking conventions and feature hierarchy
Chomsky and Halle (1968: 404–407) present a ‘tentative statement’ of the
marking conventions. To illustrate the form of these statements I reproduce the
conventions for vowels in (5.2).
(5.2) Some markedness conventions for vowels (SPE: 405)
⎡ +voc ⎤
a. V
⎣ ⎢ ± cons⎦
⎥
€
b. VI [u low]
€
c. VII [+low] [–high]
d. VIII [u high] € [+high]
e. IX [+high] [–low]
g. XI [u round]
⎡ ±ant ⎤
⎢ ±strid ⎥
⎢ +cont ⎥
⎢ +voice ⎥
⎢ ±lateral⎥
⎣ ⎢ etc. ⎦ ⎥
[+low] / _____
⎧ ⎡ ⎤ ⎫
⎪ ⎢ u back ⎥ ⎪
⎨
⎣ ⎢ u round⎦
⎥
⎬
⎪
⎪
⎩ [–low]
⎭
⎡ _____⎤
f. X [u back] [+back] /
⎣ ⎢ +low ⎦ ⎥
€
⎡ _____ ⎤
[α round] / ⎢ α back⎥
€ ⎣ ⎢ –low ⎦ ⎥
[–round] / _____
⎧
⎫
⎪
⎪
⎨
⎬
⎪ ⎡ ⎤ ⎪
⎩ ⎪ ⎣ ⎢ +low ⎦ ⎥ ⎭ ⎪
(i)
(ii)
(i)
(ii)
166