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

contrastive features, as identified by the SDA operating on a contrastive
hierarchy, are active in the phonology. The existence of such cases does not,
however, exclude the possibility that there are other cases in which
demonstrably noncontrastive features are also active in the phonology. Such
cases would show that the Contrastivist Hypothesis as stated above is too strong.
In this section I will consider the empirical adequacy of the Contrastivist
Hypothesis in this sense. I will conclude that the Contrastivist Hypothesis in its
strongest form cannot be maintained. This does not mean that the hypothesis
must be abandoned; rather, it can be refined so as to allow for an important class
of apparent counterexamples while maintaining the essential spirit of the
hypothesis.
7.9.1. Is the Contrastivist Hypothesis too weak?
Before considering if the Contrastivist Hypothesis is too strong, I would like to
briefly consider whether it might also be too weak. Saying that a theory is too
weak means that it is not sufficiently constrained, and thus is hard or even
impossible to falsify.
I addressed this question at the end of Chapter 3, where I showed that the
Contrastivist Hypothesis is easily falsifiable. It is enough to find examples of
more features being phonologically active than are permitted to be contrastive.
As the review in the next chapter will show, many theorists assume that such
cases are common, enough that they allow noncontrastive features to freely
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