A previously prosed rule of absolute neutralization (merging underlying low vowels) is eliminated in an alternative analysis including instead a rule that "breaks" the feature matrix of certain low vowels and redistributes the features of each vowel as a sequence of vowel-like transition plus (a). (Author/RM)

When considering vowel alternations in English, it is possible to develop a less abstract vowel system than the one developed by Chomsky and Halle by using their laxing rule as the input for a restrictive vowel-shift rule which accounts for the relative height of alternating vowels in alternations such as divine-divinity, extreme-extremity,…

Research supported in part by a grant from the Office of Education of the U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare to the Pacific and Asian Linguistics Institute of the University of Hawaii. Revision of the first three chapters of the author's 1969 dissertation. (VM)

This paper addresses itself to the question of whether the high degree of abstractness in Chomsky's and Halle's analysis of English vowels is justified. Secondarily, two related topics are discussed: (1) limitations on the tongue-height features [+low] and [+high] and (2) the role of rule features in phonological rules. Numerous examples of a more…

This paper argues that Chomsky's and Halle's restriction on the features [+high, +low] are too severe; that this restriction is inconsistent with the generative treatment of affricates, laterally-released stops, and prenasalized stops; and that the restriction is inconsistent with the notion that linguistic descriptions are abstract theories about…

This paper proposes a set of underlying vowels, alternate to those of Chomsky and Halle, to account for vowel alternations. This phonetic representational system, which is to a degree an extension of Chomsky's and Halle's basic framework, is demonstrated in the Laxing Rule and the Vowel Alternation Rule for all vowel variables. An appendix…