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

5.2.3. Kean’s (1980) revision of the marking conventions
Kean’s 1975 MIT dissertation, published as Kean (1980), is a revision of the SPE
theory of markedness. Kean proposes that markedness statements are restricted
in format, so that for every feature, F, there is a markedness convention of the form
(5.7) that specifies a + or – value of the unmarked specification of F, [u F].
(5.7) Markedness convention (Kean 1980: 11)
[u F] [α F] / X where X is
⎡ ____⎤
⎢ ⎥
β1 G1
⎢ ⎥
⎢ M ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎣ βn Gn⎦
F, G 1, …, G n, are features, and α, β 1, …, β n, are + or –.
For example, Kean proposes the markedness € conventions in (5.8) for the
main vowel features [back], [low], [lab], and [high]. 5
(5.8) Some markedness conventions (Kean 1980: 23–25)
a. V [u back] [+back] /
b. VI [u low] [+low]/
€
c. VII [u lab] [+lab]/
€
5 Kean employs a unified set of features that apply to vowels as well as consonants. For
illustrative purposes, I have extracted the features that are most relevant to vowels. [lab] is the
same as [round] when applied to vowels. The Roman numeral indicates the ordering of the
convention with respect to the entire list.
€
⎡ ____⎤
⎣ ⎢ –ant ⎦ ⎥
⎡ ____ ⎤
⎢ –cons⎥
⎣ ⎢ +back⎦
⎥
⎡ ____ ⎤
⎢ –cons⎥
⎢ +back⎥
⎣ ⎢ –low ⎦ ⎥
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