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The linguistics encyclopedia 224
derive the phonemes and to derive the allophones. Hence the phoneme has no place in the
GP framework; phonemic transcriptions are, according to Chomsky and Halle, merely
‘regularized phonetic representations’, while ‘complementary distribution’, the
fundamental criterion of phonemic analysis, is ‘devoid of any theoretical significance’
(Chomsky, 1964a, p. 93).
Since the lexical representation is intended to contain only non-predictable
information, it will take the form of redundancy-free feature matrices in which
predictable features are unspecified. Since, however, redundant features may be required
for the operation of phonological rules, these features must be inserted by a set of
conventions, redundancy rules or morphemestructure rules, which express in indirect
form the constraints on segment types and morpheme structures in the language
concerned. These rules, together with rules to eliminate superfluous structure etc. are
called readjustment rules, and they will apply before the application of the phonological
rules proper.
The rules of the phonological component thus operate on fully specified feature
matrices constituting the phonological, or underlying, representation. These rules are of
the form:
A→B/ C——D
where A is the feature matrix of the affected segment(s), and B the resulting matrix; C
and D represent the context,——being, the position of the affected segment(s) A. In the
standard theory these rules are in part ordered so as to apply in a fixed sequence. Thus,
from English /k/ we can derive [s] and : electric [k], electricity [s], and electrician
; but since is also derived from [s] in, e.g., racial, cf. race, the of electrician
is best derived by two ordered rules: /k/→[s], [s]→ .
The application of rules may be constrained by grammatical factors. Thus the rules for
English stress depend on whether the word is a noun or a verb: 'import v. im'porl, while
the realization of German /x/ as [x] or [ç] in words such as Kuchen [ ] (‘cake’) and
Kuhchen [ ] (‘little cow’) depends on the morphological structure of the words,
which can be represented as / / and / / respectively. There is therefore no
need for the phonemic ‘separation of levels’, nor for ‘juncture phonemes’ (see
PHONEMICS).
A special case of the relationship between syntax and phonology is the cyclical
application of rules, where some sets of rules may reapply to progressively larger
morphological or syntactic domains. In the description of English stress, which takes up a
large part of SPE, the different stress patterns of blackboard eraser and black boarderaser
follow the cyclical application of the stress rules. If these expressions have
different structures, with different bracketing of constituents, then a cyclical procedure
whereby rules apply within the brackets, after which the innermost brackets are deleted
and the rules apply again, will achieve the desired results. On each cycle, primary stress
is assigned, automatically reducing other levels by 1:
[[[black] [board]] [eraser]]
Cycle 1 [1] [1] [1]