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

emains /a, i, u/. The vowels /i, u/ are considered to be marked for [back], 4 so
other vowels in the inventory could be marked for [high] or [low]. Of the other
vowels in (5.4) that have complexity 2, /Å, y, ˆ/ are marked for [round], so
cannot be added to an inventory containing /a, i, u/, as none of these vowels are
marked for [high].
This still leaves vowels /Q, e, o/ which have complexity 2. Now the
vowel system /a, i, u, e, o/ is preferred to /a, i, u, æ, o/ by (5.5b) because in the
former only the features [high] and [back] are marked, whereas in the latter
[high], [back], and [low] are all marked. Thus, condition (5.5b) builds in a
symmetry requirement, since symmetrical systems will tend to have marked
values restricted to fewer segments than unsymmetrical ones. In this case,
symmetrical /e, o/ are both marked for [back] and [high], whereas in
unsymmetrical /e, æ/, /e/ is marked for [back] and [high] and /æ/ is marked
for [back] and [low].
Thus, it is clear that Chomsky and Halle were moving in the direction of
imposing a consistent feature hierarchy on the markedness statements of SPE,
though this goal remains unachieved in SPE itself. A revision that completed this
change was undertaken a few years later by Mary-Louise Kean.
4 Recall that /i, u/ are specified [+back] and [–back], respectively in (5.4), rather than by u or m.
These specifications count as marking, since they contribute to a segment’s complexity score.
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