Dissertation - Michael Becker

5.2.2 The search for underlying representationsA necessary component of making lexical trends available to the grammar, I haveshown, is assuming that roots always have surface-true underlying representations. Thisapproach was taken in Hayes (1999), who went as far as to suggest doing away withunderlying representations altogether, based on evidence that speakers of Yidiñ do notuse derived forms to build consistent underlying representations for roots. Similar claimsabout the role of the surface forms of bases were made in Albright (2008), mostly basedon evidence from historical change that suggests the restructuring of the grammar after theloss of phonological material from roots.This approach contrasts sharply with the tradition in generative linguistics, which looksto bases and derived forms to glean information about underlying representations of roots,with the stated goal of making the grammar as regular and as general as possible (see e.g.chapter 6 of Kenstowicz & Kisseberth 1979, and more recently in Odden 2005). This modelof the grammar has been explored formally under the rubrics of surgery or contrast analysis,using paradigmatic information to piece together an abstract underlying representation(Tesar et al. 2003; Tesar 2004; Alderete et al. 2005; Tesar 2006; Merchant 2008). Thegoal of reaching a consistent grammar also informs the approach taken in Boersma (2001),Apoussidou (2007), and Jarosz (2006).The evidence, it seems to me, is squarely on the side of those who don’t allow abstractunderlying representations for roots. Speakers use grammatical tools to predict derivedforms from the surface forms of bases, and the (partially) predictable information thatspeakers have should be made available to the grammar, and not be relegated to the lexiconvia abstract underlying representations. This is not to say, however, that the issue is closed.Specifically, two thorny issues remain: The role of underlying representations in the propertreatment of opacity, and their role in the treatment of sentence phonology.Opaque generalizations are ones that depend on some property of the UR, not on thesurface form. For example, Beduin Arabic allows [a] in open syllables only in syllables224