Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

since it too brings the phonetic forces which shape phonological patterns diachronically
directly into their implementations in synchrony. By linking the licensing patterns
directly to the phonetic effects which cause them, these approaches avoid the vast
overgeneration characteristic of the phonetics-free, abstract phonological model.
1.1.4. Neo-Grounded Phonology
Attempts to chart a third path in accounting for positional neutralization patterns
include the approaches of Hayes (1997) and Smith (2002), both of which owe a great deal
to the Grounded Phonology approach of Archangeli and Pulleyblank (1994). According
to Smith, for example, phonological positions and features are combined as before to
form PN-inducing constraints, only now, before incorporation into the grammar, they are
subject to screening by a set of phonetically-sensitive substantive filters which endorse
constraints reflecting articulatory or perceptual reality in some way and reject
combinations of features and positions not grounded in this manner. These filters are said
to constitute a sort of “meta-grammar” of constraint construction. This approach holds
the specter of phonetic detail in phonology at bay while incorporating some of the
restrictiveness of the Licensing-by-Cue model into the theory.
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