<html>
<font size=3>At 12:09 PM 12/10/1999 -0700, Dianne K. Patterson
wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite cite>On Fri, 10 Dec 1999, Noel Rude wrote:<br>
<br>
> Folks!<br>
><br>
> Have been away from
the lit for quite a spell now and can't say I know<br>
> anything about acronymic linguistics (nor much of anything, for
that<br>
> matter).<br>
><br>
> What bothers me
about letting linguistics degenerate into phonology is<br>
> that this is what happens when we insist on grounding everything
in<br>
> neurology and physiology.<br>
<br>
Perhaps I am missing something...but the standard position is that we
do<br>
not want to confuse phonetics (which is mechanistic and mechanical)
with<br>
phonology (which is a rule governed system and usually included as part
of<br>
the grammar)...now people may wish to say phonology is not on the
right<br>
track and should in fact be grounded in biology (e.g., John Ohala...and
I<br>
have my own leanings in this direction)...but such views are outside
the<br>
standard accepted views.<br>
</blockquote><br>
<br>
</font>Alas, the 'standard position' has become greatly confused.
Many phonetician/phonologists now believe that there are
language-specific (and thus not mechanistic and mechanical) phonetic
implementation rules that are distinct from phonological rules, although
perhaps both need to be grounded. These rules include the
implementation of the feature [+voice] (which is voiceless in onset
position in English, but voiced in French) and similar cases. Pat
Keating has written on this issue, for example.<br>
And it should be made clear that Natural Phonology, for instance (and I
think OT would agree with this way of expressing things) argued that
while phonological constraints have physiological explanations, they are
not mechanical in and of themselves, precisely because they are
violable. To put things in a way that Hale and Reiss object to,
it's <i>easier</i> to voice obstruents intervocalically, (for
physiological reasons) and some languages give in to the temptation while
others don't (i.e. suppress the process, as NP would say it, or rank
Faithfulness higher, as OT would say it).<br>
Stampe always argued that processes are substitutions made <i>on behalf
of</i> the vocal tract, not by it, and arguing that certain
phonetically-motivated constraints are outranked by faithfulness
constraints is saying the same thing.<br>
<br>
Geoff<br>
<br>
P.S. Nobody is arguing that all grammar is reduceable to physiology, but
only that <i>phonological </i>processes (however interpreted these days)
have physical explanations. Grammatical processes, according to
Cognitive Grammar, at least, have extragrammatical <i>cognitive</i>
explanations.<br>
<br>
GN<br>
<font size=3><div align="center">
Geoffrey S. Nathan <br>
Department of Linguistics<br>
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale <br>
Carbondale, IL, 62901-4517 <br>
Phone: (618) 453-3421 (Office) / FAX (618) 453-6527<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>(618)
549-0106 (Home) <br>
</div>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>geoffn@siu.edu</font></html>