This article describes in detail several explicit computational methods for approaching such questions in phonology as the vowel/consonant distinction, the nature of vowel harmony systems, and syllable structure, appealing solely to distributional information. Beginning with the vowel/consonant distinction, we consider a method for its discovery…

Although coarticulatory variation is largely systematic, and serves as useful information for listeners, such variation is nonetheless linked to sound change. This article explores the articulatory and perceptual interactions between a coarticulatory source and its effects, and how these interactions likely contribute to change. The focus is on…

Phonological constraints can, in principle, be classified according to whether they are natural (founded in principles of universal grammar (UG)) or unnatural (arbitrary, learned inductively from the language data). Recent work has used this distinction as the basis for arguments about the role of UG in learning. Some languages have phonological…

Demonstrates that the substitution of a foreign segment in the borrowing of a database, which includes 14,350 segmental malformations from French and English loanwords in eight distinct languages, involves its replacement by a single native placement. This tendency is without exception, other than in cases where nasal vowels are concerned.…

The "Elsewhere Condition" has been proposed by P. Kiparsky as an alternative to a treatment of disjuncive ordering. This article evaluates the Elsewhere condition and concludes there is little evidence to warrant its incorporation into linguistic theory. (CK)

Rejoinder to arguments against abstract phonology in Robert T. Harms' How Abstract Is Nupe?'', FL 504 726. (RS)

Challenges the arguments for abstract phonology based on the treatment of the Nupe vowels in Larry M. Hyman's How Concrete Is Phonology?'' Language, v46 p58-76 1970. (RS)

Argues against the theory that metathesis is less natural phonetically than other processes and distinguished by greater phonological motivation. Cases of consonant-vowel (CV) metathesis (synchronic and diachronic) are surveyed to explain how metathesis sound changes arise. Two types of CV metathesis with distinct synchronic properties and…

A more highly constrained and more explanatory theory of phonology is produced if abbreviatory and essential variables are restricted. (CK)

Research supported through three National Science Foundation grants. (VM)

Expanded version of a paper presented at the 3rd Regional Meeting of the Northeast Linguistic Society, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, October 21-22, 1972. (DD)

Argues that there is phonological gemination in English based on distribution of vowel qualities in medial and final syllables. The analysis, cast in terms of optimality theory, has implications in several domains: (1) ambisyllabicity is not the right way to capture aspiration and flapping; (2) languages in which stress depends on vowel quality…