LINGUIST List 21.2571 Fri Jun 11 2010 Review: Linguistic Theories, Phonetics, Phonology: Benus (2009) Editor for this issue: Joseph Salmons <jsalmonslinguistlist.org> This LINGUIST List issue is a review of a book published by one of our supporting publishers, commissioned by our book review editorial staff. We welcome discussion of this book review on the list, and particularly invite the author(s) or editor(s) of this book to join in. If you are interested in reviewing a book for LINGUIST, look for the most recent posting with the subject "Reviews: AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW", and follow the instructions at the top of the message. You can also contact the book review staff directly. Directory         1.    Peter Richtsmeier, Optimality Theory and Phonetics-Phonology Interface Message 1: Optimality Theory and Phonetics-Phonology Interface Date: 11-Jun-2010 From: Peter Richtsmeier <prichtsmeierku.edu> Subject: Optimality Theory and Phonetics-Phonology Interface E-mail this message to a friend Discuss this message Editor's note: This issue contains non-ISO-8859-1 characters. To view the correct characters, go to http://linguistlist.org/issues/21/21-2571.html. Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/20/20-691.html AUTHOR: Stefan Benus TITLE: Optimality Theory and Phonetics-Phonology Interface SERIES: LINCOM Studies in Theoretical Linguistics 40 PUBLISHER: Lincom YEAR: 2009 Peter T. Richtsmeier, Ph.D., Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University SUMMARY ''Optimality Theory and Phonetics-Phonology Interface'' provides an account of Hungarian vowel harmony within the framework of Optimality Theory (hereafter OT; Prince & Smolensky 2004). Benus' approach to vowel harmony, and phonology in general, incorporates articulatory data of Hungarian vowel production and the dynamic formalism of Articulatory Phonology (Browman & Goldstein 1995, Gafos 2002, Gafos & Benus 2006). Chapters 1, 2, and 3 provide introductions to phonology, OT, and articulatory dynamics, respectively. The scientific heart of the book, however, is Chapter 4. There Benus presents word sets outlining the general patterning of vowel harmony in Hungarian, phonetic data regarding vowel articulation in different harmonic environments, and an OT analysis. Benus keeps much of his analysis focused on the Hungarian vowels that are transparent to harmony: /i/ and /i:/, and to some degree /e/ and /e:/. He argues that these vowels are transparent because 1) they can be retracted phonetically with minimal change to their perceptual characteristics, and 2) this retraction does not push them into the perceptual space of other vowels. Based on these generalizations, he proposes OT constraints that specify the articulation of Hungarian vowels. A class of AGREE markedness constraints requires vowel harmony within the stem and across suffixes. These interact with IDENT faithfulness constraints that require uniformity of vowel perception and articulation from underlying to surface representation. The most exciting section of the book is the review of past formal analyses of vowel harmony. The basic finding running through previous research is that transparent vowels do not participate in harmony on a perceptual level but do at an articulatory level: Articulation of the vowel changes with the harmonic environment, but the percept remains constant (Bakovic & Wilson 2000, Gafos 1999, Kaun 1995). In other words, /i/ in Hungarian may participate in harmony at an articulatory level but not at a perceptual level. The non-high vowel /e/ has less wiggle room with respect to its percept, however, which is why it appears to be less transparent. EVALUATION The OT account Benus provides is internally consistent. Markedness constraints push morphologically complex forms to harmonize their vowels while faithfulness constraints preserve the contrasts we see on the surface. Nevertheless, the marriage between OT's parallel architecture and the inherently time-dependent nature of Articulatory Phonology's dynamic specification seems contradictory. Ultimately, the book does not explain how articulatorily specified whole words are evaluated by a set of constraints, and the reader is left to wonder how this tricky theoretical task is accomplished. This dilemma is obscured to some degree in the book because the constraints are presented as if they are evaluated at a single point in time. The argumentation goes something like this: If vowel articulation at some point is at such and such position, no violation; if the articulation is at some other point, one or more violations. Presumably, however, words in the lexicon are not timeless transcriptions but instead gestural scores, or records of articulatory placement over time. So, for the OT grammar to evaluate a candidate, it must evaluate the temporally specified gestural score rather than a set of phonemes. Benus (personal communication) argues that the gestural score consists of ''parameters such as stiffness, initial position, target location, etc.'' which can be evaluated by an OT grammar without respect to time. However, this specification is not detailed in the book, so it is difficult to understand how this evaluation will work. Another concern raised by the analysis is that it treats non-contrastive articulatory differences as phonological. As mentioned above, the analysis allows for transparent vowels such as /i/ to have multiple articulatory specifications while maintaining a constant percept. The problem is that the analysis implies that the different articulations of /i/ are themselves goals, similar to allophones. This creates a problem with respect to multiple /i/ vowels: If all the vowels are specified for position, the number of /i/ vowels should not change which suffixes are permitted. This turns out not to be the case. Compare, for example the alternating azpirin-ban/ben (aspirin-in) to kabin-ban/*ben (cabin-in). Why would combinations of transparent vowels be less transparent (i.e., allow for the fronted suffix -ben) than single transparent vowels? This fact is most readily explained if articulation of transparent vowels is the result of coarticulation, as others have suggested (Gordon 1999, Valima-Blum 1999), which would allow later /i/ vowels in a word to maintain a nominally fronted articulation. Benus essentially adopts this coarticulation analysis for stems with multiple transparent vowels, but he does not provide an account that makes predictions for why transparency effects are the result of coarticulation in some places but not in others. With respect to future work, it seems essential that a better explanation be given for how Articulatory Phonology can be incorporated into an OT framework. The present analysis, while suggestive, is far from complete. Furthermore, additional articulatory data may clarify the relationship between vowel transparency and coarticulation. If Benus is right to adopt the view that transparency does occasionally involve perceptually indistinct articulatory goals, further evidence is necessary, particularly in terms of explaining when coarticulation accounts for apparent cases of harmony and when it does not. REFERENCES Bakovic, Eric & Colin Wilson (2000) Transparency, strict locality, and targeted constraints. In R. Billerey and D. B. Lillehaugen (Eds.), WCCFL 19 Proceedings, 43-56. Browman, Catherine P. & Louis M. Goldstein (1995) Dynamics and articulatory phonology. In R. F. Port and T. van Gelder (Eds.), Mind as Motion, pp. 175-193. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Gafos, Adamantios (1999) The articulatory basis of locality in phonology. New York: Garland. Gafos, Adamantios (2002) A grammar of gestural coordination. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 20, 269-337. Gafos, Adamantios & Stefan Benus (2006) Dynamics of phonological cognition. Cognitive Science 30(5), 905-943. Gordon, Matthew (1999) The ''neutral'' vowels of Finnish: How neutral are they? Linguistica Uralica 1, 17-21. Kaun, Abigail (1995) The typology of rounding harmony: An Optimality Theoretic approach. Doctoral dissertation, UCLA. [Published as UCLA Dissertations in Linguistics, No. 8]. Prince, Alan & Paul Smolensky (2004) Optimality Theory: Constraint interaction in generative grammar. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Valimaa-Blum, Riitta (1999) A feature geometric description of Finnish vowel harmony covering both loans and native words. Lingua 108, 247-268. ABOUT THE REVIEWER Dr. Richtsmeier studies language learning in young children using artificial grammars. His current research focuses on the contributions of phonetic variability and word-type frequency to phonological learning. Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue Page Updated: 11-Jun-2010       About LINGUIST    |   Contact Us       While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.