Volume 32, Issue 2 - A theoretical synopsis of Evolutionary Phonology

1. An overview of Evolutionary Phonology 1.1. Explaining sound patterns Phonology is the study of sound patterns of the world's languages. In all spoken languages, we find sound patterns characterizing the composition of words and phrases. These patterns include overall properties of contrastive sound inventories (e.g. vowel inventories, consonant inventories, tone inventories), as well as patterns determining the distribution of sounds or contrastive features of sounds (stress, tone, length, voicing, place of articulation, etc.), and their variable realization in different contexts (alternations). A speaker's implicit knowledge of these patterns is often evident in their extension to novel items and in experiments probing phonological well-formedness. This implicit knowledge – its content, formalization, and representation, – is the central focus of modern theoretical phonology, including generative phonology and many of its derivatives (natural phonology, government phonology, dependency phonology, optimality theory).

0. Introduction This is an important paper which deserves attention for several reasons, (i) by virtue of the project it outlines, that of investigating the diachronic origins of recurrent synchronic neutralization patterns; (ii) for the theory of phonological change it proposes and the attempt to cast this in terms of evolutionary theory; and (iii) for its discussion of ‘voicing’ neutralization.

1. Introduction Evolutionary Phonology attempts to explain the sound patterns that are recurrent in the world's languages, including the distributions of sounds within segment inventories. Perhaps one of the strongest arguments made by Evolutionary Phonology concerns the nature of explanation.

Determining the structure of the phonological component is crucial in understanding the predictive power of theories of transmissibility like Evolutionary Phonology. This article argues for a highly restricted, innatist phonological component. It discusses two testable predictions: the ‘straitjacket’ effect limits functionally well-motivated phenomena in arbitrary ways, the ‘functional ignorance’ effect means that some functionally well-motivated phenomena never occur. A restricted phono-logical component means that the explanatory domain of Evolutionary Phonology (and theories of transmissibility more generally) is i-language external phenomena, such as typological frequency.

1. Introduction Theoretical phonology centrally focuses on representing the implicit knowledge that speakers have of the sound patterns in their language, as Blevins (this volume) points out on the first page of her synopsis. Equally important, according to Blevins, is it to provide explanations for the distribution of sound patterns across attested spoken languages. While this has been aimed at in numerous studies in different frameworks, Blevins mentions Generative Phonology and Optimality Theory in this context, the alternatively proposed Evolutionary Phonology (henceforth: EP) is claimed to differ from previous work in maintaining a principled distinction between phonological and extra-phonological explanations for sound patterns. For this purpose, EP focuses on diachronic processes and tests the hypothesis that “regular phonetically based sound change is the common source of recurrent sound patterns” (p. 2).

1. Introduction This commentary outlines a typology of final laryngeal neutralization under the assumptions of ‘laryngeal realism’, an approach to feature representation which distinguishes structurally the two-way contrasts of ‘voice’ languages (Dutch, Polish, Spanish) from those of ‘aspiration’ languages (German, Somali, Washo). The typology in turn opens the door to a fresh test for what has emerged as a central debate about Evolutionary Phonology (EP), namely, the status of ‘unnatural’ developments, in particular, the possible occurrence of ‘final voicing’ patterns. While EP allows for the existence of such systems, Kiparsky (this volume) argues vigorously that the proposed cases should all be reanalyzed, and that final voicing is actually unattested because it is impossible in human language.

1. Synchronic and historical explanation Evolutionary Phonology . Evolutionary Phonology seeks to derive typological generalizations from recurrent patterns of language change, themselves assumed to be rooted in perception, production, and acquisition. The goal is to eliminate UG by providing diachronic explanations for the cross-linguistic evidence that has been used to motivate it.

Structuralism One of the most significant developments of linguistics in the past century is undoubtedly the introduction of the distinction between form and substance . The adoption of this dichotomy was a crucial part of the launching of structural linguistics . Although today these Saussurean terms may have an obsolete ring to them, it is nonetheless true that this distinction still enjoys the status of ‘inescapable’ cornerstone of linguistic methodology. For the linguist the primary focus is on structure whereas the study of the way this structure is actualized in speaking and listening falls in the domain of performance, behavioral research and experimental phonetics.

1. Evolutionary Phonology The primary goal of Evolutionary Phonology is to explain recurrent sound patterns in spoken languages across time and space. One domain of explanation is diachronic, and much of my own work has focused on diachronic explanations (e.g. Blevins 2004, 2006a, to appear a, to appear b, to appear c, this volume). Another domain of explanation is synchronic. A range of synchronic factors, from the mechanics of speech perception and production (e.g. Myers and Hansen 2005, To appear), to aspects of languages use (e.g. Blevins 2005a, 2005b), to general cognitive strategies in learning, categorization, and pattern-matching (e.g. Wedel 2004a, 2004b, to appear a, to appear b), are likely to play a major role in defining recurrent aspects of sound patterns.