LINGUIST List 3.537

Fri 26 Jun 1992

Disc: Phonology

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1. John S. Coleman, 3.522 Things Phonological
2. , Re: stress

In response to Rick Wojcik's comment that
>>...in the generative world, ... theory is grounded in intuitions about
>>well-formed linguistic structure. Natural Phonology grounds itself
>>in actual speech production.
Joe Stemberger writes
>It is a reasonable observation about most syntactic theories that they are
>based on intuitions. I don't think that this has ever been true about
>phonology. Phonological theory has OFTEN dealt with low-level phonological
>processes about which naive speakers (and even many trained ones) don't
>have clear intuitions, such as the leftward spread of nasality to vowels
>and approximants in a word like LAWRENCE.

Hear, hear. Rick and I have privately debated this matter, and I have come
to form the opinion that Natural Phonology's claim to being the only
phonological theory that is grounded in phonetic facts of various kinds
is a "territorial" claim without firm support. Some time ago I
invited Natural Phonologists to substantiate the claim by giving
an example of some phonological phenomenon which has not also been
addressed within some other un-Natural phonological theory. So far
I have not been informed of such a case. Maybe there is such a case,
if so, let's all hear about it.

--- John Coleman

Does anyone truly say 'conservAtry'? My native Californian pronun-
cation is 'dIctionary' with a secondary stress on penult. My franco-
phone students say 'dictionAry' and I correct them.

Bob Thiel
Universite de Moncton
Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada
thielrumoncton.ca