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

7.2.1. Contrast and markedness
MCS proposes that contrasts are determined by the SDA operating on a
hierarchy of features. Since a more marked representation is permitted only if
needed to establish a contrast with a less marked one, the theory of MCS leads us
to expect a relation between the amount of segmental markedness a system
allows and the number and nature of contrasts it has.
The assumption that markedness is related to contrast is inconsistent with
the view that markedness scales are universally fixed (Chomsky and Halle 1968,
Cairns 1969, Kean 1980, Beckman 1997, Lombardi 2002, Prince and Smolensky
2004, de Lacy 2006; see Rice 2007 for discussion). For example, in a vowel
inventory with a front and back vowel, say /i, a, u/, either /i/ or /u/ may
pattern as marked with respect to phonological activity, because only one
contrast is required to distinguish front unrounded from back rounded vowels
(say, [labial] or [coronal], but not both). 3 However, if a central vowel such as /ˆ/
or /´/is added, the prediction is that both the front and back vowels will pattern
distinction between logical (structural) and natural (phonetic) markedness (cf. Rice 2007). In MCS
the emphasis is on logical markedness, which is relative to a particular inventory.
3 I will continue the practice of the previous chapters of using the feature names used in my
sources. In MCS we have been using vowel features [coronal] and [labial], and sometimes
[peripheral] (see Rice 1994, 2002). However I take no stand here on whether vowel features are
identical to consonant features or distinct from them (see Clements and Hume 1995 and Halle,
Vaux and Wolfe 2000 for different views). For purposes of this book, [coronal] is interchangeable
with [front] and [labial] with [round].
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