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MTS.cc.Wayne.edu>What David Stampe and his followers keep refusing to address is the fundamental point which I raised some time ago: While r-deletion is a very common and natural process, found in the speech of children perhaps in every language, and certainly attested in many (adult) languages, the situation found in certain English dialects and which we have been arguing about is NOT. Thus, the "crazy" rule which inserts /r/ after central vowels makes sense, because we are NOT dealing with a natural proces s of the sort that spontaneously arises in all sorts of languages in every generation. IF we adopt Stampe's analysis and say that the /r/ is underlying and then deleted by the natural process alluded to above, then we lose sight of this fundamental distinction. And, after all, the important contribution that Natural Phonology made to linguistic theory was precisely the emphasis on the distinction between those phenomena which are widely attested and which pop up spontaneously in children's speech all over the world, and those which do not. So the issue is NOT whether r-deletion is a possible "natural process". The issue is whether the sort of situation traditionally described as linking /r/ (NO MATTER HOW IT IS ANALYZED) is itself something that is liable to appear in any language in any generation. Or whether on the other hand it is the sort of thing that only appears in languages that previously underwent r-deletion. Stampe's analysis either is empirically vacuous (as I have said I fear) or predicts that this phenomenon should be found where it is not. The traditional (rule inversion, linking r, what ever you may call it) analysis seems to fit in with a theory which would predict (correctly) that this phenomenon will be found just where it is: in dialects or languages which previously lost /r/ in the relevant positions. (In other words, you can only have rule inversion if there is something preexistent to invert).Mail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
atc.boeing.com>It is clear from David Stampe's last note that he doesn't like the idea of automatic /r/ insertion. However, I still do, and I know that David would not have a heart attack if it turned out that such Rule operations existed. His analysis would still stand. The assumption underlying Natural Phonology is that people try to articulate strings of phonemes when they prounounce words. They can either alter the string of phonemes or the articulation of a given string. Natural Phonology ties Rules and Processes directly to those two distinct choices, whereas more orthodox phonologies take no position on how linguistic systems affect behavior. Geoff Nathan says: > There may well be automatic *rules* as well, but, for example > a/an is a little suspicious--people are perfectly happy saying > `a sofa and chairs' so it would be interesting to see how hard > people find it to say `a apple'. Well, Geoff, you're a native speaker. What is the answer? I personally find it difficult to suppress (note the word 'suppress') a/an suppletion. But let's take French liaison. Do French speakers find it difficult to suspend liaison? Or Celtic mutations. I get the distinct impression that Breton speakers find it harder to produce the non-derived forms when a mutation is called for. Rule suspension does not lead to difficult *pronounceability*, but that doesn't necessarily make it easy. David has written that the alleged suspension of k->s in "electrickity" is easy because Rules are easy to suspend. But I would maintain, at least in this case, that no Rule really applies in speech. The k->s rule, in its function as a vocabulary augmentation operation, does not need to apply to 'electricity' in speech production or in speech processing. If you want to study the behavior of Rules, then you should look at the those whose function makes them very active in speech production. -Rick Wojcik (rwojcikMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue