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Generative Phonology, Exemplar Theory, and Variable Rules Our reference: LINGUA 2059 P-authorquery-v9 AUTHOR QUERY FORM Journal: LINGUA Please e-mail or fax your responses and any corrections to: E-mail: [email protected] Article Number: 2059 Fax: +353 6170 9272 Dear Author, Please check your proof carefully and mark all corrections at the appropriate place in the proof (e.g., by using on-screen annotation in the PDF file) or compile them in a separate list. Note: if you opt to annotate the file with software other than Adobe Reader then please also highlight the appropriate place in the PDF file. To ensure fast publication of your paper please return your corrections within 48 hours. For correction or revision of any artwork, please consult http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions. Any queries or remarks that have arisen during the processing of your manuscript are listed below and highlighted by flags in the proof. Click on the ‘Q’ link to go to the location in the proof. Location in Query / Remark: click on the Q link to go article Please insert your reply or correction at the corresponding line in the proof Q1 Please confirm that given name and surname have been identified correctly. Please check this box or indicate your approval if you have no corrections to make to the PDF file Thank you for your assistance. + Models LINGUA 2059r 1 Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Lingua xxx (2013) xxx--xxx www.elsevier.com/locate/lingua Highlights Lingua xxx (2013) xxx Linking usage and grammar: Generative phonology, exemplar theory, and variable rules Gregory R. Guy Department of Linguistics, NYU, 10 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, United States Abstract phonology uses abstract operations to explain productivity and regularity. Usage-based phonology uses memory to explain quantitative detail, lexical diversity. Separately, abstract and usage based models each fail to account for some phenomena. Variable rule models meld abstract operations with probabilistic quantification. The VR approach is capable of modeling the widest range of observed phenomena. + Models LINGUA 2059 1--9 Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Lingua xxx (2013) xxx--xxx www.elsevier.com/locate/lingua 1 Linking usage and grammar: Generative phonology, 2 exemplar theory, and variable rules 3 Q1 Gregory[TD$FIRSNAME] R.[TD$FIRSNAME.]Guy[TD$SURNAME] [TD$SURNAME.] 4 Department of Linguistics, NYU, 10 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, United States 5 Received 13 September 2011; received in revised form 26 June 2012; accepted 1 July 2012 6 7 Abstract 8 Rule- and usage-based models in phonology are difficult to reconcile: ‘rule’-based approaches (including generative and optimality 9 models) rely on abstraction and seek to account for regularity and generality. Usage-based models, like exemplar theory, rely on concrete 10 representations, eschewing abstraction; they typically seek to account for lexically differentiated phonological phenomena, including 11 variability, gradience and probabilistic properties. An alternative that incorporates both generative productivity and quantitative precision 12 is the ‘‘variable rule’’ (VR) model of sociolinguistic variation. VR preserves advantages of rule-based models, including abstraction and 13 the capacity to represent categorical processes. But VR resolves many limitations of these formalisms using probabilistic quantification: 14 any phonological process or constraint may be associated with a probability, which permits the treatment of variation and gradience. This 15 paper cites evidence from variation in speech style, child language, and reanalysis across the life span showing that speakers have both 16 discrete abstract and nondiscrete, variable elements of phonology. Variable processes provide a nondeterministic but recoverable link 17 between these different representations. 18 © 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V. 19 Keywords: Usage-based phonology; Exemplar theory; Generative phonology; Variable rules; Abstraction; Probabilistic grammar; Productivity; 20 Lexical exceptions; Quantification 21 1. Introduction The contemporary debate which is the focus of this issue of Lingua opposes ‘rule-based’ and ‘usage-based’ 22 approaches to variation and change. The particular instantiations of these approaches that are most commonly 23 referenced in this regard statement are contemporary descendants of generative phonology on the ‘rule based’ side 24 (cf. Chomsky and Halle, 1968 and its many successors), and Exemplar Theory on the ‘usage based’ side (cf. Bybee, 25 2001, 2002; Pierrehumbert, 2006, and many others). However, it is worth noting that this is an old debate in 26 linguistics, particularly in phonology, dating back at least a century and a half. From the Neogrammarians through 27 the structuralists and generativists to Optimality Theory, the mainstream approaches to phonology have been 28 ‘rule-based’ -- this is the family of models that uses some version of the phonemic principle, postulates abstract 29 mental representations of words, spelled out as strings of phoneme-sized segments that distil the phonological 30 essence out of the phonetic details of an utterance, and postulates a phonological grammar in which there occur 31 operations -- whether rules or candidate selection by constraint rankings in OT -- that capture most generalizable 32 sound patterns of a language. E-mail address: [email protected]. 0024-3841/$ -- see front matter © 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2012.07.007 Please cite this article in press as: Guy, G.R., Linking usage and grammar: Generative phonology, exemplar theory, and variable rules. Lingua (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2012.07.007 + Models LINGUA 2059 1--9 2 G.R. Guy / Lingua xxx (2013) xxx--xxx Opposed to this, throughout the same span of time, there have been views that we could call ‘usage-based’, which take a 33 contrary position on some or all of these points. This family of models runs from the anti-Neogrammarian position of the 19th 34 century, which took issue with the regularity of sound change and was typified by the slogan ‘each word has its own history’ 35 (cf. Jaberg, 1908:6), through lexical diffusion and exemplar theory. In these models, words are represented holistically rather 36 than as strings of segments, typically with rich phonetic detail; phonemic identity is secondary or derivative at best; and the 37 operations of the phonology do not apply across the board to all lexical items, if indeed there are abstract phonological 38 operations at all. So the issues currently under debate have deep roots; hence we can profitably ask how the history of the debate may 39 illuminate present issues, and for that matter, why this matter has not been resolved before? In my view, the useful 40 insights from this history come from looking at what each line of approach has been good at. The Neogrammarian- 41 descended mainstream argues for ‘regular sound change’ in the diachronic dimension -- ‘‘die Ausnahmlosigheit der 42 Lautgesetze’’,lit.‘the exceptionlessness of the sound laws’. The synchronic counterpart of this is regular, across the 43 board operation of phonological processes. In the historical record, Neogrammarian regularity is well instantiated: many, 44 probably most changes do not leave historical residues of unshifted segments in exceptional words. Consider for 45 example the proto-Germanic sound change known as Grimm’s Law, in which the Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirate 46 stops became plain voiced stops. This did not leave ANY voiced aspirate outcomes in any lexical item in any descendant 47 Germanic language. When these phonological units changed to something else, they were well and truly and completely 48 changed. Similarly, when English lost its voiced velar fricative some seven centuries ago, it lost it completely, leaving not 49 a single lexical item that still sports this once-frequent phoneme, despite the fact that it is still graphemically represented 50 by <gh> in standard English spelling, in bizarre orthographic homage to a sound not uttered by most English speakers lo 51 these 700 years! 52 The ‘rule-based’ model developed by the Neogrammarians and still prevalent in phonological theory explains these 53 categorical outcomes by its architecture: the rules and constraints operate on segments and phonological structures, not 54 specific words, and hence all instances of a segment (in the relevant phonological contexts) undergo a sound change or a 55 synchronic operation, regardless of the specific lexical item they occur in. There are further consequences to this 56 architecture. Synchronically, it predicts productivity: speakers know how to pronounce neologisms, loan words, and novel 57 native lexical items for which they have no prior exemplars. It also predicts that speakers can perform abstract 58 phonological operations on entire classes of sounds across the lexicon. But what this model gains in explanatory 59 adequacy, it loses in capacity to account for certain kinds of phonological facts, especially those that involve individual 60 lexical items. Since the mainstream eschews any place for the lexical items in general phonology, it cannot account for 61 lexical frequency effects, lexical diffusion in the course of language change, etc. In fact, the mainstream model predicts 62 that such things should NOT happen. 63 Remedying these defects of mainstream theory (or MT) is precisely what ET sets out to do. Arguments for exemplar 64 theory famously cite, and seek to account for, the following kinds of phonological
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