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Deriving the Feature-Filling/Feature-Changing Contrast: an Application to Hungarian Vowel Harmony

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Deriving the Feature-Filling/Feature-Changing Contrast: an Application to Hungarian Vowel Harmony Deriving the Feature-Filling/ Feature-Changing Contrast: An Application to Hungarian Vowel Harmony Charles Reiss Thearticle explores an alternative to the interpretive procedure adopted in SPE andproposes a unifiedinterpretive procedure for all languages. Theproposal solves long-standing problems by makingit unnecessary torefer to athirdvalue of binaryfeatures [ ÀF],to introduce negation intolexical representations (e.g., [ NOT ` rd]),or tointroduce a feature filling/featurechanging diacriticon rules.The article provides a metric forcomparing extensionally equivalent rule systems and argues that themost concise formulation is notalways the correct one, by appeal- ingto crosslinguistic evidence. The proposal is illustratedby applica- tionto the target/ triggerrelations in Hungarian vowel harmony. Keywords: underspecification,Hungarian vowel harmony, subsump- tion,structural descriptions, phonological rules, conciseness Unfortunately,within linguistics it has notbeen generally recognized how important such formal, theoretical workis; instead there is a feelingthat too much concern for theoretical detail is a wasteof time.. ..[T]he attitudethat formal, theoretical work is boundto be bothad-hoc and sterile is, I amconvinced, fundamentally mistaken. .. MorrisHalle, ‘ ‘ConfessioGrammatici’ ’ 1Distinctness andthe Interpretationof Structural Descriptions Inpractice, as inspectionof any introductory phonology book will show, it has been implicitly assumedin generative phonology that a rulewill apply to any representation that contains a supersetof theinformation contained in the rule’ s structuraldescription (SD). Inother words, if theSD ofaruleR subsumesa representationQ, thenQ isaninput to R. Rulesapply to natural classesof segments, and a naturalclass is represented by a representationthat subsumes the representationof eachof itsmembers. Thisarticle has benefitedfrom discussion with several audiences,including the Acme Balkanica Conferenceat ConcordiaUniversity in 2001 and the Ohio State UniversityLinguistics Department. Especially helpful individuals have beenAfton Lewis, MarkHale, SylviaBlaho, David Odden, Alain The ´riault,Peter Liem, MorrisHalle, Daniela Isac, and anonymousreviewers. Finally,Pe ´ter Sipta´rdeserves special thanksfor vastly improving the discussion of Hungarian throughcareful readingand helpful criticism. Linguistic Inquiry, Volume 34, Number 2,Spring 2003 199–224 q 2003 bythe Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology 199 200 CHARLESREISS Itturns out, however, that this is not theinterpretive procedure developed in Chomskyand Halle1968 (hereafter, SPE),thefoundational work in the field. (1) Interpretiveprocedure from SPE (p. 337) Aruleof the form A N B / X —— Y appliesto any string Z 4 . X¢A¢Y¢ . ., where X¢, A¢, Y¢ arenot distinct from X, A, Y, respectively;and it converts Z to Z¢ 4 . X¢B¢Y¢ . ., where B¢ containsall specified features of B inaddition to all features of A¢ notspecified in B. Distinctnessis definedas follows: 1 (2) Distinctnessin SPE (p. 336) Two units U1 and U2 aredistinct if andonly if there is atleast one feature F suchthat U1 isspecified[ aF] and U2 isspecified [ bF] where a is plus and b is minus . The(typically implicit) appeal to subsumptionin generalphonological practice derives from the assumptionof a logicalequivalence between subsumption and nondistinctness, the idea that if x isnondistinctfrom y, then either x subsumes y or y subsumes x. Thisequivalence does not hold, however,except under the working assumption of the SPE erathat representations are fully specifiedfor allfeatures. It is truethat if either x subsumes y or y subsumes x, then x and y are nondistinct,but a simpleexample can illustrate that the converse is not valid if we allowfor partiallyspecified feature matrices in lexical entries. Let x 4 [` round, 1 back]and let y 4 [` round, ` high].The representations x and y do notdisagreewith respect to any features and are thus nondistinct, but oneclearly does not subsume theother. And we clearlydo not expect, say, that x wouldsatisfy an SD specifiedas y. As afurtherexample, consider that by strict application of the SPE interpretiveprocedure, anunderspecified vowel that had only the feature [ 1 round]would satisfy the SD ofarulelike (3),since the representation [ 1 round]is not distinct from therepresentation [ 1 nasal]. (3) [1 nasal] N [1 voiced] Thisis surelyan undesirable result. Nondistinctrepresentations are, in the general case, what is called‘ ‘consistent’’ inunifica- tion-basedframeworks —thatis, they have no incompatible feature values. But nondistinctness, orconsistency,does not reduce to subsumption. 2 Thepreceding discussion should make it clear thatthe interpretation of SDs ingenerative phonology warrants reexamination. 1 Ihaveomitted reference tononbinary feature values. 2 Ihavefound the same pointmade byBayer andJohnson (1995:sec. 2) in a discussionof Lambek Categorial Grammar: ‘‘Interestingly,in cases where features are fullyspecified, these subsumptionand consistency requirements are equivalent.’’ However,I donot think that the relevance ofthisobservation to the application of phonological rules has beennoted. DERIVINGTHEFEATURE-FILLING/-CHANGINGCONTRAST 201 2Feature-CountingEvaluation Metrics Perhapsall that is needed is to reject the SPE interpretiveprocedure in favor of one appealing tosubsumption, since this is whatthe practice has been for thelast several decades. Under this view,any representation subsumed by (containing a supersetof theinformation contained in) a rule’s SDistaken to be a licitinput to the rule. This interpretive procedure has the desirable effectof allowing rules to apply to more than just single representations— they can apply to a naturalclass of representationswhose description is subsumed by the rule’ s SD. Thisinterpretive procedure entails that a rulethat changed feature values —say,from ` F to 1 Ffor somefeature F— would apply vacuously to representationsthat are already 1 F before theapplication of the rule. 3 For example,a straightforwardstatement of Polish coda devoicing mightbe writtenas follows: (4) [` cons, 1 son] N [1 voiced]in coda Thisrule applies nonvacuously to [ ` voiced]inputs that are [ ` cons, 1 son];in other words, itmakes them [ 1 voiced].However, according to the subsumption-based convention of rule interpretation,the rulealso applies, albeit vacuously, to [ 1 voiced]inputs that are [ ` cons, 1 son]. Toreiterate, both [ ` voiced]and [ 1 voiced]can satisfy the SD tobe inputs to the rule. Thisinterpretation of SDs isrelated to the SPE feature-countingevaluation metric, the over- archinggoal of which is to minimize redundancy in the grammar, as seen in the Conciseness Conditionformulated by Kenstowicz and Kisseberth (1979). (5) TheConciseness Condition (one component of the SPE evaluationmetric, from Kens- towiczand Kisseberth 1979:336) If thereis more than one possible grammar thatcan be constructed for agivenbody ofdata, choose the grammar thatis most concise in terms of the number of feature specifications. Withhindsight, it is now apparent that the Conciseness Condition is flawed by virtue of its parochialness—inchoosing a modelof grammar,the analyst should take into account the models necessaryto generateother languages as wellas theone in question, and not just choose the most concisegrammar thatcan generate a givencorpus. Thus, we cansee that the Conciseness Condition asstated here is in direct conflict with the search for UniversalGrammar (UG), thegrammar of 4 S0 ,theinitial state of thelanguage faculty. 3 Iadoptwithout argument a binary-valuedfeature system. Thearticle is compatiblewith theories that allow various kindsof underspecification. 4 Animportant question is whetherthe correct formulationof a ruleis necessarily themost concise onethat is consistentwith the data andwith the crosslinguistic (universal) demands discussed here. I arguein Reiss 2002that learnabilityconsiderations provide yet another reason to favor less concise rulesthan are traditionallyposited. 202 CHARLESREISS (6) Choosingamong extensionally equivalent grammars (Chomsky 1986:38) Becauseevidence from Japanesecan evidently bear on the correctness of atheoryof S0 ,itcan have indirect —butvery powerful —bearingon the choice of the grammar thatattempts to characterize the I-language attained by a speakerof English. Inother words, evidence from onelanguage should bear on thebest analysis of otherlanguages. If twohypotheses, A andB, concerningUG areempirically adequate to provide an explanatory accountof English, but only one of the two —say,A— isadequate to provide an explanatory accountof Japanese,then we shouldselect A asthebest available hypothesis for atheoryof S 0 thatcan lead to acquisition of bothlanguages. Thetraditional interpretation of SDs suchas (4) isnot the only logical possibility. It could havebeen argued that a rulelike Polish devoicing should be formulated so as not to apply vacuously,as in (7). (7) [` cons, 1 son, ` voiced] N [1 voiced]in coda It seemsthat the decision to adopt the Conciseness Condition, and thus the rule format of (4), ratherthan (7), was motivatedby theinfluence that engineering approaches to informationtheory hadon thepioneers of generativephonology, an influencethat has been described as leadingto adeadend (Morris Halle, 1975:532 and personal communication). Formulation (4) was seenas themore efficient, and thus better, engineering solution since it was moreconcise than (7). 5 Inthis article, I exploreanother logical possibility for theinterpretation of SDs andshow thatit solveslong-standing problems
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