Tobias Scheer Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS

1. Two ways of being minimalist(ic) GovernmentPhonology Round Table Budapest 17-18 November 2017 Tobias Scheer Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS

2. how to reduce the purview of phonology • twoways to do that • smallisbeautiful • only 5% or so of all alternations aroundinvolvephonological computation. • or maybe, there are no alternations that are phonological in kind at all: phonologyboils down to staticdistributional patterns thatoccur in monomorphemic strings. • melody (i.e. items below the skeleton) is not under grammatical control • only items at and above the skeleton are • because the relationship between phonological and phonetic items is arbitrary • phonological computation manages phonological primes below the skeleton, but there are no melodic restrictions on this computation: • ==> anything can be turned into any other thing in any context and its reverse.

3. how to reduce the purview of phonology • a differentway to state the issue: • in the face of irregular alternations, • youdon't care for alternations • they do not tell youanything about phonology. • phonological computation is clean and 100% regular. • youdon't care for irregularity (i.e. melody) • phonological computation isdirty and unconstrained(as far as melodyisconcerned) • in factitis not, or rather: itdoes not makesense to talk about pure vs. dirtymelodic computation becausethese are phonetic notions relating to what the analystexpects (kʧ /__i,eisphonetically clean, but p  r / __i,eis not). • phonologyisblind for phonetics and hencedoes not know about how the melodicprrimeswilleventuallybepronounced. • phonologyknows about phonology, i.e. items of itsownvocabulary: onset, foot, stress etc. There is no irregularityhere.

4. smallisbeautiful • GovernmentPhonology • wasalways on the far end of "smallisbeautiful" • considering that only a small subset of those alternations which can be observed are phonological in kind. • 5% or so of what SPE manages in the phonology is really phonology. • hence exit infamous alternations such as • trisyllabicshortening • velar softening • these do not involve any phonological computation according to GP.

5. smallisbeautiful • outsourcing • if these alternations are not phonological, what are they? • what happens upon production when a speaker pronounces these words? • non-phonologicalmechanisms of production • distinct lexical items (no computation at all) • morpho-phonology (distinct computational system in the structuralist and earlygenerative tradition, Gussmann 2007) • allomorphy • analogy • phonetics

6. smallisbeautiful • Kaye (2014) goes one stepfurther • alternations which involve level 2 (analytic) morphology are not phonological in kind • background: morphology does not have any bearing on phonology. • hence an alternation which has conditioning factors that are morphological cannot be phonological. • the only true phonology is the one that can be observed in monomorphemic strings. • the defining property of level 2 morphology is that the phonology of the morphologically complex form is different from the one observed in monomorphemes: • párent – párent-hood. • ...as opposed to level 1 morphology where the morphologically complex string has the same phonology as monomorphemes: • párent – prént-al.

7. smallisbeautiful • look at monomorphemic strings and you are done • hence this takes phonology down to static distributional patterns observed in monomorphemic strings: the study of these is enough to produce exhaustive insight into the workings of the phonology of a language. • this was also the take of the two Natural Phonologies: no morphology in phonology. • and before these it was the take of American Structuralism: the discovery procedure was only bottom-up (you build phonlogical from phonetic structure) and hence prohibited the use any morphological information in phonological analysis. • sidenote: not sure what a monomorphemic string is in languages of the Semitic kind that have non-concatenative morphology.

8. smallisbeautiful • going down the phonetic road • if you are onlyinterested in surface-truephenomena (100% regular, no morphology), youlikelystudyphonetic variation: thisiswhatmeetsyourcriteria. • direction taken by Natural Phonology in the 70s • direction taken by GP2.0 • [for the samereasons]

9. bigisbeautifulbecause of Saussure'salgebra • Another way of reducing the purview of phonology • also has roots in GP: phoneticinterpretation • Harris & Lindsey (1995: 46ff), Harris (1996), Gussmann (2007: 25ff) • the relationship between phonological and phonetic categories is arbitrary. • hence phonological computation does not know or care for the phonetic properties of the items it manipulates. • Saussure's algebra (algèbrecombinatoire): phonology manipulates (phonetically) meaningless items. • incarnations • Anderson (1981): Why phonology isn't natural • Hyman (2001), Bermúdez-Otero (2006: 498) • Hamann (2011, 2014) • Scheer (2014), modular spell-out • substance-free phonology: Hale & Reiss (2000, 2008), Blaho(2008), Iosad(2017) • Dresher (2009), Hall (2011)

10. no phonetics in phonology: workings • workings of substance-free phonology • phonologicalunits do have a phoneticcorrelate • but not in the phonology • the ONLY locus wherephonologicalobjectsreceive a phoneticidentityis post-phonologicalspell-out • U ↔ rump • I ↔ dip • A ↔ mass • justlikepasttense ↔ -ed • spell-out is a modularnecessity: youcannotbelievethatgrammarismodularwithoutbelieveingthatdifferent modules communicatethrough a spell-out • spell-out operates a lexical access: like in a dictionaryyou match one item recorded in long term memory withanother item thatbelongs to a differentlanguage. • the list of matches islanguage-specific and needs to belearned.

11. no phonetics in phonology: workings

12. no phonetics in phonology: workings

13. no phonetics in phonology: consequences consequence #1 no phonetics of anykind in phonology are shorthand for α ↔ mass δ ↔ noise β↔ dip ε ↔ edge γ↔ rump

14. no phonetics in phonology: consequences consequence #2 melodyisphonologicallymeaningless • melody • has no phoneticidentity (in the phonology) • the onlyfunction of α,β,γ etc. is to makephonological expressions distinct • phonology has no idea of whatα,β,γ etc. eventually come out as in pronunciation • ==> phonologyisunable to tell a naturalfrom an unnatural computation or structure. henceconsequence #2a phonological computation canturnany item intoanyother item in anycontext and its reverse. p  r / __u is a perfectlywell-formedphonological computation. Its non-occurrence in naturallanguage has extra-phonologicalreasons.

15. excursus: what are these extra-phon. reasons? • sources of regularity • grammar [produced by a rule system] • the real world [result of physicalregularities] • properties • real world regularities: no exception, no compromise • grammar-basedregularities: "exceptions" are typical: lexical marking, morphological restrictions, ... • twokinds of universals • produced by grammar ex.: sonoritysequencing in br.onsets • produced by the real world • stressedvowels are longer • vowels before voiced consonants are longer than before voiceless consonants • k is more front before front vowels than before back vowels

16. excursus: what are these extra-phon. reasons?

17. excursus: what are these extra-phon. reasons?

18. no phonetics in phonology: consequences consequence #2b items below the skeleton are not underphonological (grammatical) control, but items above the skeleton are • melodyisphonologicallymeaningless • α,β,γ etc. have no phonologicalidentity • phonologycannotdistinguishtheirproperties (itonlyknowsthatthey are distinct) • onset, nucleus, foot, association lines, government etc. do have a phonologicalidentity • hence • thereis no melodicill-formedness • but thereissyllabic, stress-based etc. ill-formedness • seecrazyrules, which are onlyevermelodicallycrazy. • thereis no suchthing as closedsyllablelengthening, compensatoryshortening, stress the middle syllable etc.

19. no phonetics in phonology: consequences consequence #3 melodyis not given at birth • the childisgeneticallyendowedwith • the ability to categorize [domain-general (colours etc.)] • the ability to distinguishsound [domain-general: audition] • the childneeds to figure out • how many distinctive unitsthere are in the languageacquired • which basic building blocks they are made of • how these are pronounced (spell-out)

20. phonologyshrunk • #1 • reduce the set of alternations that are phonological in kind • maybe to no alternations at all • onlystaticdistributional patterns are in • computation (turning X into Y) onlyexists in level 1 morphology and (external) sandhi. • #2 • reduce the items that are phonological in kind • underphononlogical control: • items at and above the skeleton • computation of these items • not underphonological control • items below the skeleton as well as their computation • naturalness or plausibility: these have other sources.

21. that's all