Universals in Phonology This Article A
UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2007) (Commissioned for special issue of The Linguistic Review, 2008, Harry van der Hulst, ed.) Universals in Phonology ABSTRACT This article asks what is universal about phonological systems. Beginning with universals of segment inventories, a distinction is drawn between descriptive universals (where the effect of different theoretical frameworks is minimized) vs. analytic universals (which are specific-theory- dependent). Since there are few absolute universals such as “all languages have stops” and “all languages have at least two degrees of vowel height”, theory-driven or “architectural” universals concerning distinctive features and syllable structure are also considered. Although several near- universals are also mentioned, the existence of conflicting “universal tendencies” and contradictory resolutions naturally leads into questions concerning the status of markedness and synchronic explanation in phonology. While diachrony is best at accounting for typologically unusual and language-specific phonological properties, the absolute universals discussed in this study are clearly grounded in synchrony. 1. Introduction My colleague John Ohala likes to tell the following mythical story about a lecture that the legendary Roman Jakobson gives upon arrival at Harvard University some time in the 1940s. The topic is child language and phonological universals, a subject which Prof. Jakobson addresses in his Kindersprache, Aphasie und allgemeine Lautgesetze (1941). In his also legendary strong Russian accent, Jakobson makes the pronouncement, “In all languages, first utterance of child, [pa]!” 1 He goes on to explain that it is a matter of maximal opposition: “[p] is the consonant most consonant, and [a] is the vowel most vowel.” As the joke continues, a very concerned person in the audience raises his hand and is called on: “But, professor, my child’s first utterance was [tSik].” Prof.
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