16.1597, Review: Phonology: Scheer (2004)

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Subject: 16.1597, Review: Phonology: Scheer (2004)

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1)
Date: 17-May-2005
From: Katalin Balogné Bérces < bbkati at yahoo.com >
Subject: A Lateral Theory of Phonology 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 22:01:24
From: Katalin Balogné Bérces < bbkati at yahoo.com >
Subject: A Lateral Theory of Phonology 
 

AUTHOR: Scheer, Tobias
TITLE: A Lateral Theory of Phonology
SUBTITLE: What is CVCV, and why should it be?
SERIES: Studies in Generative Grammar 68.1
PUBLISHER: Mouton de Gruyter
YEAR: 2004
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-3348.html


Katalin Balogné Bérces, Department of English Language and Literature, 
Pázmány Péter Catholic University (PPKE), Piliscsaba, Hungary

This is the first volume of a gigantic project aiming to introduce a 
radical offspring of Government Phonology (henceforth GP) to the general 
public: Strict CV Phonology, or, as Scheer refers to it, CVCV. This 
framework, as its name suggests, claims that suprasegmental structure 
universally reduces to strictly alternating consonantal ("C") and vocalic 
("V") positions; surface sequences of identical segments (i.e., consonant 
clusters, geminates, long vowels, diphthongs, hiatuses) enclose empty 
skeletal slots. This general introduction is planned to be soon followed 
by a second volume, entitled "A lateral theory of phonology. Vol 2: On 
Locality, Morphology and Phonology in Phonology."

On the one hand, this first volume is a comprehensive summary of the 
fundamentals of both Standard GP and mainstream CVCV, on the other, it 
complements the discussion with Scheer's own innovations and amendments, 
cleverly and wittily presented and amply supported by arguments and 
evidence from a wide array of languages, from French and German through 
Czech to Arabic, into all of which Scheer exhibits amazingly reliable 
insights. At the same time, the book confronts Standard GP with CVCV as 
well as with its own failures. It is meant as a reference rather than a 
textbook, as explained in the "How to use this book" section (pp. li-lii); 
its intended "look-up function" is supported by the detailed indices at 
the end as well as by extensive referencing and cross-referencing to 
chapter numbers and the running numbers in the page margins indicating 
sections and subsections.

Part One (subtitled "What is CVCV?") is made up of 10 chapters providing a 
detailed account of the basics of CVCV.

Chapter 1 ("Introduction") introduces CVCV briefly along with the major 
tenets of Standard GP (separately summarized in Appendix 4). Throughout 
the chapter Scheer attempts to show how the principles and representations 
of Standard GP (KLV 1985, KLV 1990, Charette 1992, Harris 1994, etc.), if 
carried to their natural consequences, necessarily result in CVCV 
(Lowenstamm 1996, 1999, Scheer 1996, among others). First, Standard GP's 
claim that lateral relations (namely, government and licensing -- see 
below) exist among segments, which derive syllabic structure (roughly, 
head-initial government circumscribes branching constituents; head-final 
government characterizes cross-constituent situations) makes syllabic 
arborescence redundant, says Scheer. A maximally constrained phonological 
theory only needs reference to the lateral relations, and suprasegmental 
structure has but two functions left: timing, and the encoding 
of "syllabicity" or consonantalness/vocalicness. That is, the 
lateralization of prosodic structure inevitably leads to a skeleton-only 
model with strictly alternating C and V positions.

Second, Standard GP introduces the phonological equivalents of empty 
categories, and with them that of the Empty Category Principle (henceforth 
ECP), familiar from syntax. GP claims, based on Kaye's (1990) Coda 
Licensing Principle (roughly, a coda must be licensed by a following 
onset, that is, codas only exist morpheme-internally), that all words end 
in nuclei, and domain-final consonants are onsets licensed by a following 
empty nucleus (Final Empty Nucleus -- henceforth FEN). Standard GP also 
posits empty nuclei at the left edge of words starting with those 
mysterious sC-clusters ("Magic" Licensing -- Kaye 1992) and at vowel-zero 
alternation sites. Therefore, CVCV only concludes what was started by 
Standard GP when it assumes the presence of an empty V position 
(henceforth indicated by a lower-case v) sandwiched between any two 
surface consonants, and an empty C position (henceforth c) between any two 
surface vowels. All consonant clusters, including geminates, then, are CvC 
sequences, while long vowels and hiatuses are VcV strings. There are two 
types of consonant sequences: one whose members exhibit selectional 
restrictions since they enter into a dependency relationship (called 
government), and fake or "bogus" clusters, which do not show such 
characteristics. Similarly, the V's in long vowels and diphthongs contract 
some kind of relation, while the two terms of a hiatus do not communicate 
with each other.

Chapter 2 ("Open versus closed syllables in CVCV") introduces the 
Projection Principle, which states that governing relations are 
established at the level of lexical representation and remain unchanged 
throughout the derivation. In light of this, vowel-zero alternations 
cannot be analysed as instances of either deletion or insertion, both of 
which would modify the governing relations constituting syllable 
structure. Instead, Standard GP resorts to underlying empty nuclei, which 
vocalize if not affected by any external force, but remain silent if they 
enter into an internuclear relation, called Proper Government (PG), with a 
following phonetically expressed vowel. Crucially, phonetically 
unexpressed nuclei are unable to properly govern. Another major condition 
on PG in Standard GP is that no governing domains may intervene between 
the governor and the governee, that is, alternating vowels are pronounced 
when immediately followed by a consonant cluster, blocking the application 
of PG. Scheer, however, claims that CVCV does not need this latter 
subclause in the formulation of PG, as the blocking effect of clusters 
falls out naturally from the structure of the skeleton: since all 
consonants in clusters are separated by an empty nucleus, which is unable 
to govern, a governor is never available to pre-cluster (potential) 
alternation sites.

Next, Scheer turns to the distinction between open and closed syllables in 
CVCV, more specifically, between rising- and falling-sonority clusters. 
The former, traditionally analysed as branching onsets, leave preceding 
syllables open, while the latter, traditional coda-onset sequences, make 
the syllable to the left closed. Apparently, CVCV represents both alike: 
as CvC sequences. Scheer uses the example of Czech prefixes exhibiting 
vowel-zero alternation (e.g. "pod-" 'under' surfacing as "pode-" before 
syncope sites, i.e., before unpronounced empty nuclei, which indicates 
that the prefixal alternation is driven by PG) to point out that 
unvocalized prefixes occur only before (tautomorphemic) branching onsets 
(e.g. "pod-bradek" 'double chin'). He concludes that governing domains do 
not always block PG, and introduces a new governing relation, which he 
calls Infrasegmental Government (IG), along with the melodic and 
phonotactic conditions on consonants entering into IG. At this point, he 
needs to discuss the internal structure of consonants, which is modelled 
in GP with unary elements, i.e., with primes which are either present or 
absent in melodic expressions. As a consequence, the segmental 
representation of sounds differs in complexity: certain classes (e.g. 
obstruents in Standard GP) contain more elements and are thus more complex 
than others (e.g. sonorants in Standard GP). (Notice that sonority in GP 
is a derived category, following from complexity.) As expressed in Harris 
(1990), complexity plays a pivotal role in government since only segments 
of higher or equal complexity can govern others (i.e., obstruents are good 
governors, sonorants are typical governees). As opposed to this, Scheer 
here claims that the sonorant is the head of IG, and supports this with an 
investigation of segmental alternations (whose details will now be omitted 
for reasons of space). Finally, he concludes that (i) sonorants are 
considerably more complex than obstruents, in fact, they are "too complex 
to be governees" (p.58, title of Section 4.3.6.3), and (ii) complexity 
counts place elements only. Then he formalizes the final version of the 
definition of IG (p.64): (i) a consonant A may contract a governing 
relation with its neighbour B iff there is a place-defining autosegmental 
line where A possesses a prime, while the corresponding slot in the 
internal structure of B is empty. In this situation, the prime belonging 
to A governs the empty position of B; (ii) the empty nucleus that is 
enclosed within such a domain of IG is circumscribed. Its ECP is satisfied.

The melodic condition on IG is, then, based on complexity. The other main 
condition is phonotactic: Charette's (1990, 1991) Government Licensing is 
adapted to constrain IG, namely, a domain of IG may only be established if 
the head of the domain is licensed to act as a governor by its own 
nucleus. (p.65) As a result, the directionality of IG (right-to-left) is 
not stipulated but derived: in a CvC sequence, only the C on the right can 
ever be followed by a potentially licensing nonempty nucleus. In addition, 
the second subclause of the definition reveals that IG is one of the 
factors in the phonological ECP, whose final version runs as follows 
(p.67). A nucleus may remain phonetically unexpressed iff it is: (a) 
properly governed; or (b) enclosed within a domain of IG; or (c) domain-
final. Already in Standard GP, domain-final empty nuclei (FENs) are 
parametrically licensed to remain empty: if the parameter is set ON, the 
language will exhibit consonant-final words (e.g. English), but in the 
case of its negative setting, all words in the language will end in a 
vowel (e.g. Italian). Scheer also points out that in fact, CVCV predicts 
that the right edge of domains is special and irregular. Since all lateral 
relations (viz., PG and IG) are right-headed, an element lacking a 
following neighbour is necessarily problematic and requires special 
treatment. The chapter closes with a preliminary definition of open vs. 
closed syllables in CVCV (p.78) (the final definition is to come in 
Chapter 7): a vowel stands in an open syllable iff it is the target of a 
lateral relation; a vowel stands in a closed syllable iff it is the target 
of no lateral relation. In addition, the traditional concept of coda is 
reinterpreted in CVCV (p.80, repeated on p.164) as a consonant that occurs 
before a governed empty nucleus.

Chapter 3 ("A unified theory of vowel-zero alternations") takes vowel-zero 
alternations under scrutiny again. Recall that in Standard GP alternation 
sites are vocalized if they are followed by (i) an empty nucleus unable to 
govern, or (ii) a governing domain, which blocks PG. As it has been 
pointed out above, this description involves disjunctivity. In CVCV, 
however, all vocalizations have the same cause, namely, the absence of PG, 
therefore it offers a unified analysis. PG is only restricted by two 
language-specific parameters: whether the alternation is obligatory (e.g. 
Slavic) or optional (e.g. French), and what vowels take part in the 
alternation.

Chapter 4 ("Alternating vowels are present in the lexicon") discusses the 
status of empty nuclei in Standard GP, where it is generally accepted that 
they are indeed devoid of any melody, and the language-specific 
differences in the quality of alternating vowels are due to the fact that 
in the course of phonetic interpretation, "ambient" elements are inserted 
through language-specific epenthesis. Scheer argues against this analysis 
by bringing examples from Slavic again. He points out that in Slavic 
languages the quality of the alternating vowels is not always predictable 
since quite often there is more than one vowel participating in the 
alternation. He proposes to assume the presence of some floating melody as 
well as a mechanism deleting unassociated segmental material in these 
cases, and then he goes on to generalize the deletion analysis to all 
cases of vowel-zero alternation. He claims that this choice is also 
enforced by the need to distinguish alternating empty nuclei from non-
alternating ones. Ultimately, then, the system derives three types of 
nuclei: (i) non-alternating nonempty ones with associated melody, (ii) 
alternating ones with floating melody, and (iii) non-alternating empty 
ones with no melody at all.

Chapter 5 ("The beginning of the word: "#"=CV") addresses the issue of the 
phonology-morphosyntax interface. Scheer assumes that phonology can only 
handle phonological objects and not morphological or syntactic ones, 
therefore any morphosyntactic information which affects phonological rule 
application must be first translated into "the language of phonology". 
Following Lowenstamm (1999), he identifies the beginning of the word as an 
empty cv-span that is treated by the phonology in the same way as any 
empty category; more specifically, the empty v position in this boundary-
marker (which is then the phonological embodiment of #) needs to be 
silenced by PG to avoid the violation of the ECP. Scheer also looks into 
why # triggers the same effects cross-linguistically (i.e., "Why do pink 
panthers always do the same things?" -- title of Section 2.1, p.97), 
namely: (i) in a number of languages, there exist heavy restrictions on 
what sequences can constitute initial consonant clusters; (ii) the first 
vowel of words is cross-linguistically stable, that is, it resists 
syncope; (iii) word-initial consonants occupy a strong phonological 
position. He repeats the Czech data dealt with above (recall "pod-
bradek" 'double chin'), where an empty nucleus was shown to exist to the 
left of a rising-sonority cluster, and based on the observation that word-
initial clusters behave in the same fashion, he concludes that they are 
also preceded by an empty nucleus. Since V positions in CVCV always follow 
C positions, this means that all words (in the relevant languages) start 
with an empty cv boundary-marker. In a cvCvCV sequence, there are two 
empty nuclei which require special treatment. If the two melodically 
filled consonants enter into IG, which satisfies the ECP of the sandwiched 
v, then the PG of the filled nucleus can hit the v of the boundary marker. 
However, no cases of falling-sonority clusters can arise in that position, 
since the obstruent cannot govern the sonorant (due to its smaller 
complexity), the sonorant is not licensed to govern (due to the absence of 
a following nonempty nucleus), so no IG is possible, and as a result there 
remain two empty nuclei waiting to be silenced by a single filled one. The 
ECP of one or the other empty v will be left unsatisfied. The presence of 
the boundary-marker, says Scheer, is determined by the setting of a 
parameter. If it is not sent down to phonology, initial consonant clusters 
are unrestricted (as in Moroccan Arabic, Slavic, or Greek); if it is 
present, only rising-sonority clusters are possible (as in English). 
Scheer also points out the circularity of the sonority approach to initial 
clusters, and stresses that his analysis is based on restrictions which 
follow from principles and mechanisms independently justified (the ECP, 
Government-Licensing, IG). Finally, he contrasts IG with Standard GP's 
Interonset Government, and concludes that in CVCV it is not Interonset 
Government that is responsible for word-initial clusters.

Chapter 6 ("The Coda Mirror") investigates into phonologically strong 
positions, that is, the word-initial and post-coda environments (i.e., 
AFTER the notorious disjunction {#, C}), which systematically resist 
lenition or even trigger fortition. Scheer brings empirical evidence from 
the evolution of French, allophonic variation in Somali, syncope in 
various languages, and Sievers' Law in Gothic, and dubs the position in 
question The Coda Mirror. In CVCV, the two subcases have something in 
common: the consonant is after a governed empty v. He argues that the 
consonant in a vCV sequence is in a strong position because the empty 
nucleus distracts the PG of the filled V from it, and consequently it is 
licensed by the following vowel but not governed by it. He gives proper 
definitions of government and licensing ("government inhibits, licensing 
enhances the segmental expression of the target" -- title of Section 6 on 
p.134; "a good guy and a bad guy" -- title of Section 6.4 on p.138), and 
highlights the fact that this theory achieves explanatory adequacy: it is 
able to account for why precisely those two positions are strong. Other 
consonants, e.g. the ones appearing intervocalically (i.e., VCV) are both 
governed and licensed, while "coda" consonants (i.e., VCv) are ungoverned 
and unlicensed, therefore these two are weak phonological positions, which 
support lenition. At the end of the discussion, Scheer remarks that OT's 
Positional Faithfulness is inadequate since it fails to notice the 
disjunction -- it is not only the beginning of the word that is strong, 
but the post-coda position, too.

Chapter 7 ("Consequences of the Coda Mirror: no confusion between 
Government and Licensing anymore") surveys Standard GP's confusing (and 
confused) usage of the two terms. As it has already been demonstrated in 
the previous chapter, no such confusion is apparent in CVCV, where 
government and licensing are defined as two antagonistic forces (although, 
as Scheer himself realizes, IG is peculiar since it has no segmental 
effects, it can satisfy the ECP of empty nuclei without targeting them, 
and it is directly determined by the melodic make-up of the participants). 
Here Scheer turns to Internuclear Licensing, one possibility not 
considered up to this point. He examines vowel shortening phenomena before 
an empty nucleus ("closed-syllable shortening") along with vowel length 
alternations, e.g. Italian Tonic Lengthening, and concludes that long 
vowels are underlying Vcv sequences, and the melody of the first term 
spreads onto the empty v during the derivation. As the conditions on the 
occurrence of long vowels indicate, the target of spreading must be 
licensed, that is, the empty v must be followed by a nonempty one in the 
next CV-unit, which licenses it. Thus we arrive at the final typology of 
lateral relations. All of V-to-V government (effecting vowel-zero 
alternations), V-to-V licensing (alternations in vowel length), V-to-C 
government (intervocalic lenition), V-to-C licensing (strong position, 
*#RT), C-to-C government (or licensing? -- the reader is referred to the 
second volume) (IG) are attested. C-to-V relations are impossible since it 
is a phonological commonplace that vowels (nuclei) dominate consonants. 
And the final definition of open vs. closed syllables in CVCV is as 
follows (p.177): (a) a vowel stands in an open syllable iff it is the 
target of either government or licensing; (b) a vowel stands in a closed 
syllable iff it is the target of neither government nor licensing.

Chapter 8 ("A syntax of phonology") surveys the lateralization of 
structure and causality in Standard GP, where some vertical structure and 
causality are still present (e.g. syllable structure, coda effects, the 
Binary Theorem, arboreal structure in Harris' Licensing Inheritance). In 
CVCV, however, the total lateralization of both structure and causality is 
in effect. Scheer does not only claim that syllable structure is redundant 
but he also argues that it is redundant to distinguish coda-onset clusters 
(falling-sonority clusters exhibiting cooccurrence restrictions) and bogus 
clusters (syncope-created clusters and consonant sequences only attested 
word-medially, e.g. /tl/, /tk/). He introduces the distinction between 
what he calls HIGH and LOW: the territories above and below the skeleton, 
respectively. In the HIGH sphere, no melodic conditioning on processes is 
possible (this is where government and licensing are contracted, and 
position-triggered processes like lenition/fortition take place), while 
the LOW area is heavily affected by the melodic make-up of segments (as in 
e.g. IG, and adjacency-triggered processes like assimilation). Scheer 
points up a side-effect of CVCV, too: all lateral relations are head-final.

Chapter 9 ("Lateral relations are head-final: length in phonology") 
discusses issues related to segment length. First, the difference between 
systems with alternating vs. inalterable vowel length is under scrutiny. 
Three traditional labels (closed-syllable shortening, open syllable 
lengthening, tonic lengthening) are shown to actually stand for one single 
phenomenon: as argued in Chapter 7, alternating vowels are only partially 
associated lexically to a skeletal position, and they are long when the 
complement is licensed, but short when it is not. In the case of 
Compensatory Lengthening, spreading to both directions is on record, but 
the loss of a consonant universally triggers the left-to-right spreading 
of a preceding vowel, whereas right-to-left spreading only seems possible 
in cases when the first member of a vocalic sequence is elided. Notice 
that in both cases the target of spreading is licensed by a following 
nonempty nucleus, therefore Scheer concludes that all long vowels obey the 
same requirement, and he also proposes that non-alternating vowels are 
head-final. In CVCV, geminate consonants can also be either head-initial 
or head-final, depending on the direction of spreading, but in both cases 
the sandwiched empty v needs to be properly governed by a following 
nonempty V, which correctly predicts that geminates cannot be preceded or 
followed by consonants.

In Chapter 10 ("Syllabic and trapped consonants in CVCV"), Scheer develops 
his view that glides are underlying vowels spreading into c positions, 
while syllabic consonants are underlying consonants spreading into v 
positions. Based on the synchronic and diachronic distribution of syllabic 
consonants, he concludes that they are left-branching, while Polish 
trapped consonants are right-branching. The emergence of both is due to 
the ECP, since a consonant spreads into an empty v to prevent it from 
remaining empty. Later, he modifies this representation and claims that 
syllabic consonants are ternary branching (VCV) sequences, since they 
exhibit the properties of both CVRC and CRVC strings, although he himself 
notices the dubious identity of such a structure. Finally, he makes the 
surprising (and yet unexplained) observation that trapped sonorants take 
part in voicing alternations as if they were obstruents, and then he turns 
to the evolution of syllabic and trapped consonants in the Slavic 
languages.

Part Two ("Why CVCV?") lists ten good reasons why CVCV is worth 
considering seriously. After a brief introduction and tabular overview 
(Chapter 1 - "Introduction"), Chapters 2-5 (pp.369-457) introduce the 
basic principles of argumentation and reasoning used in the discussion of 
the ten arguments in favour of CVCV: (i) disjunctive contexts should be 
eliminated from phonological theory; (ii) the function of (autosegmental) 
representations, serving as "overgeneration-killers" (p.371), is stressed, 
and their explanatory power underlined, in fact, Scheer here attacks OT 
for failing to put emphasis on representations (it "has turned back the 
wheel to the times of wild overgeneration" - p.371); (iii) the generality 
of phonological processes is crucial for the analysis, and a theory that 
can account for a wider range of phenomena using the same mechanism is 
superior; (iv) extrasyllabicity as the consequence of syllabification 
algorithms and serialism is only real as an observation but not as an 
analysis or explanation of observations. He surveys the reasons for 
positing extrasyllabicity in generative phonological theory and expresses 
the need for a theory of margins. He pinpoints that in CVCV 
extrasyllabicity is not available, instead, the special status of the 
beginning and end of the word is expressed by the special edge-marking 
elements introduced earlier: the boundary-marker and the FEN.
And here come the arguments.

In Chapter 6 ("Argument One: Languages without initial restrictions") the 
sonority sequencing generalization is examined, and Scheer finds that it 
is based on data from IE languages only. It leaves others like Moroccan 
Arabic unexplained, since they impose no restrictions on initial clusters 
(and consequently Scheer dubs them "anything-goes languages"), therefore 
even falling-sonority sequences occur. In CVCV, however, all consonant 
sequences are separated by an empty nucleus, that is, all languages are 
analysed as fitting the Moroccan Arabic pattern.

Chapter 7 ("Argument Two: What you get is NOT what you see: Tina Turner 
was wrong") argues for the existence of empty nuclei. Empty onsets are 
quite generally accepted both word-initially and in hiatus, and floating 
consonantal melody is frequently employed in analyses, e.g. to account for 
liaison. That is, for consonants it is commonplace that what you see is 
not necessarily what you get -- there are latent consonantal positions and 
melodies. The same is not true, however, for vowels: neither empty 
skeletal positions nor floating melodies are traditionally used for 
nuclei. In contrast, CVCV makes the treatment of empty categories uniform.

Chapter 8 ("Argument Three: Description vs. explanation of restrictions on 
word-initial consonant clusters") takes another look at initial clusters, 
and accuses the sonority approach of circularity. It is claimed that an 
initial cluster is well-formed if it contains a rise in sonority, because 
the observation is that in initial clusters sonority usually rises. In 
fact, constraints are inherently circular, says Scheer. In CVCV, however, 
complexity and lateral relations derive the attested pattern. There are no 
initial falling-sonority clusters in typical IE languages, since the 
potential governor (the sonorant) is followed by an empty nucleus and 
therefore remains unlicensed. Consequently, no IG is contracted, and the 
ECP of the said empty nucleus is not satisfied. As the insertion of the 
boundary-marker is parameterized, it is not sent down by morphology in 
anything-goes languages. As a result, the ECP of the empty v between the 
initial consonants can always be satisfied by the government emanating 
from the first pronounced vowel, irrespective of the quality of the 
flanking consonants. CVCV is also able to make correct predictions: (i) 
there are no languages in which only falling-sonority onsets are legal 
since the boundary-marker is either present (in which case only sequences 
exhibiting a rising sonority profile are well-formed initially), or it is 
absent (in which case anything goes); (ii) there can only be at most one 
extrasyllabic consonant. These facts remain unaccounted for in traditional 
frameworks.

Chapter 9 ("Argument Four: Lower: empty Nuclei and regressive internuclear 
relations have been used for over 30 years in the analysis of Slavic vowel-
zero alternations") presents traditional analyses of the Slavic yers, and 
discovers that "empty Nuclei and lateral relations are an established tool 
in the phonological analysis of Slavic for over 30 years; for some reason, 
nobody has equated yers with empty Nuclei, and Lower with Government" 
(p.495).

Chapter 10 ("Argument Five: The life of "yers" outside of Slavic and in 
locations where vowels do not alternate with zero") surveys occurrences of 
the familiar yer context other than vowel-zero alternations. Czech vowel 
length alternations, vowel quality alternations in Czech and Polish, and 
the ATR value of French mid vowels and alternations involving schwa are 
examined, and several previous (pre-GP) analyses of schwa and yers (incl. 
Anderson (1982) and Hall (1992) for schwa in French and German, resp., and 
Spencer (1986) for Polish yers) are described. Scheer points out that a 
unified analysis of processes in the yer context is only available if the 
assumption is made that all coda-onset sequences are broken up by an empty 
nucleus. He sets up new parameters governing language-specific variation 
in the lateral ability of schwa and the FEN, for government and licensing 
separately.

Chapter 11 ("Argument Six: Unified representations for the syllable and 
stress") presents joint work with Péter Szigetvári. It claims that stress 
is a property of nuclei rather than syllables, and in weight-sensitive 
stress systems, like Latin, stress rules count nuclei other than 
ungoverned empty ones. It naturally follows that onsets never count 
separately because their nuclei are always filled, whereas codas do add 
to "syllable weight" since they are followed by governed empty nuclei. 
Onset clusters do not add to weight either since their enclosed nucleus is 
ungoverned and therefore disregarded by the algorithm. An explanation is 
also available for why ungoverned empty nuclei are ignored: they are 
invisible from ABOVE because they are silenced by a LOWER mechanism, viz., 
IG. Therefore, in CVCV syllabic and prosodic generalizations are accounted 
for by the same structure; the weight-by-position parameter is in fact a 
parameter determining the visibility of governed empty nuclei. One of the 
most significant features of the analysis is that it offers an explanation 
of why onsets do not count -- a mere stipulation in traditional approaches.

Chapter 12 ("Argument Seven: Licensing power of final empty Nuclei 
parameterised: paired vs. impaired behaviour of internal and final Codas") 
surveys cases where internal codas have different effects from final 
codas, and cases where the two behave in the same way. Scheer concludes 
that the facts call for a parametric explanation. Standard GP's Coda 
Licensing, however, cannot be parameterized, but the ability to contract 
lateral relations can. He then claims that word-final consonant clusters 
only exist in languages where the FEN can govern. If the FEN cannot 
license, word-final consonants are in weak position. Final consonants and 
internal codas behave alike if the FEN can neither govern nor license. 
CVCV explains, while the extrasyllabicity approach doesn't explain, why 
there are no extrasyllabic vowels, and why extrasyllabicity is not 
selective (no cases are on record in which a consonant is extrasyllabic 
for one rule but not for another, although this is theoretically possible 
in traditional frameworks). Finally, the lateral abilities of schwa are 
also parameterized.

Chapter 13 ("Argument Eight: The Coda Mirror") shows that the Coda Mirror 
context introduced in Part One, Chapter 6 above, i.e., the word-initial 
and post-coda positions, can only be grasped as a natural class only in 
CVCV, along with the account of why it witnesses fortition and the absence 
of lenition.

Chapter 14 ("Argument Nine: News from the yer context: what happens in 
Codas and before an unpronounced alternating vowel") describes processes 
affecting a sonorant in the same way in tautomorphemic clusters and before 
unvocalized vowel-zero alternation sites, and states that in CVCV these 
environments can be subsumed under a single structural configuration: 
before governed empty nuclei.

Chapter 15 ("Argument Ten: What sonorants do in Codas: a unified theory of 
melodic reaction on positional plight") aims to shed light on "the world 
of sonorants through the prism of CVCV" (p.707) by comparing apparently 
unrelated processes. First, in the well-known cases of nasal place 
assimilation, Scheer claims that the nasal is active rather than the 
following obstruent, and traditional analyses are misled by "the mirage of 
assimilation" (p.708). Since the nasal is followed by an empty v, it is 
ungoverned unlicensed, which results in its instability -- it is "in 
positional plight", as Scheer puts it. Nasals then assimilate to 
obstruents in search of support. Second, nasals in final codas are under 
scrutiny: nasal place is neutralized in alveolar in Somali and in velar in 
Southern French (Midi French), and in a nasalized velar glide in Polish. 
Scheer seeks for a uniform interpretation of internal homorganicity and 
final loss of place, which is available in CVCV: in both cases, the nasal 
is in positional plight. The same explanation is given for the emergence 
of nasal vowels in French, Portuguese, and Slavic. Also, Scheer looks into 
German homorganic CN-clusters arising after schwa-deletion and syllabic 
sonorant formation in final syllables (as in "haben"), and finds that the 
nasal is again in positional plight and prevents the schwa from being 
pronounced by occupying its position. Although the direction of spreading 
in nasal place assimilation is usually predicted in traditional theories, 
it isn't in CVCV: the nasal either docks to the left (in the "haben" 
pattern) or to the right (in NC sequences). Notice that the same 
explanation is offered for syllabic consonant formation in Germanic and 
Polish trapped consonants. At the end of the chapter, the analysis is 
extended to all sonorants, to cover all instances of sonorant 
syllabification and lenition.

In the "General conclusion", Scheer repeats the two major claims of the 
book: on the one hand, CVCV takes the GP research programme to its logical 
end (that is, it carries out the ultimate lateralization of structure and 
causality); on the other hand, its flat phonological structure correctly 
predicts the absence of recursion in phonology. He makes a final remark 
concerning the scarcity of evidence provided in the book for the empty 
position straddled by the members of onset clusters and branching nuclei. 
He explains it by admitting that the collection of arguments presented in 
the book strongly reflects his personal choice, and by claiming that the 
ample evidence for the empty v within coda-onset sequences constitutes a 
fatal attack on branching structure altogether anyway. Scheer repeats the 
major goals of the book, too: to introduce CVCV and argue for its 
superiority to either its predecessor, Standard GP, and its most serious 
competitor, OT.

The book contains useful appendices in the back: a list of the parameters 
introduced above, a detailed description of closed syllable shortening vs. 
diminutive lengthening in Czech referred to at various points in the book, 
an exhaustive list of Polish tautomorphemic two-member word-initial 
clusters, and finally, a short guide to Standard GP (incl. melodic and 
prosodic representations, basic principles, and its conception of 
derivation).

Despite its "rather scary size" (p. lii) (854 pages in all), the book is 
surprisingly reader-friendly. Given Scheer's long section titles, the 
overview of the table of contents at the beginning is very practical. In 
addition, there are several "roadmaps" intertwined with the running text, 
e.g. at the beginning of Chapter 2 (pp.366-368). The book also applies 
section numbering to help orientation. This is supplemented by Scheer's 
witty style (mentioning Tina Turner, pink panthers, etc.), which lightens 
the otherwise strict argumentative atmosphere. Throughout the book, an 
extensive survey of the relevant literature is offered, which is proven by 
the references section, which is more than 40 pages long (pp.779-823).

Another general remark is in order here, although it concerns the 
publisher rather than the author. The book contains an unfortunate number 
of typos and other errors, most probably owing to the lack of proper proof-
reading.

As to the contents and mode of presentation, the book is comprehensive, 
self-contained, and the argumentations are clear and presented in an easy-
to-follow fashion. A possible objection might be that the book is perhaps 
too bulky to popularize a relatively new, radical theory of the minority. 
In this OT-dominated world, informing the open-minded about alternative 
theories may be one of the main goals of publication -- and discouraging 
your audience by the profusion of information is not necessarily the best 
strategy.

Also, although the alternative CVCV treatments of the phenomena discussed 
in the book are mentioned and referenced, they are not described or 
introduced in more detail, which creates the false impression that what is 
included in the book constitutes the mainstream of Strict CV Phonology 
(rather than Scheer's own views, some of which are not shared by other 
proponents of CVCV). Of course this is not a major defect, all the less so 
since Scheer does warn the reader at the very beginning (p. xlviii). 
Still, it diminishes the intended "look-up function" of the book -- 
a "dictionary-like" reference book is expected perhaps to be a bit less 
biassed. Therefore, Scheer's suggestion as to its usage: "you want to know 
what CVCV says about X, so you look it up" (p.li), is in fact best 
interpreted as "you want to know what Scheer says about X, so you look it 
up". (Take it from me, the book serves that function brilliantly!)

It has been mentioned above that the General conclusion admits the book's 
failure to bring arguments for the existence of empty slots within 
branching onsets and nuclei, and Scheer explains this by referring to the 
personalness of the choice of data and topics covered. Again, if the book 
is not meant to be exhaustive, its look-up function may not be totally 
fulfilled.

In spite of these minor weaknesses, the book is a comprehensive summary of 
major work done in CVCV, and even if in time it turns out to best serve 
its intended look-up function for CV-ers and GP phonologists, and not be 
as instructive for non-GP-ers as the author planned when he set out to 
write it, it is such a useful collection of linguistic data from a wide 
range of languages and phenomena (faithfully reflected by the impressive 
size of the indices at the end -- the subject index (pp.825-839) is 14 
pages long, the language index (pp.842-854) lists more than 80 languages 
and their (diachronic or synchronic-regional) varieties, along with their 
nearly 200 processes and phenomena) that any analyst of any theoretical 
taste can resort to it for raw material and inspiration.

REFERENCES

Anderson, Stephen R. (1982) The analysis of French shwa: or, how to get 
something for nothing. Language 58.3: 534-573.

Charette, Monik (1990) Licence to govern. Phonology 7: 233-253.

Charette, Monik (1991) Conditions on Phonological Government. Cambridge: 
CUP.

Charette, Monik (1992) Mongolian and Polish meet Government Licensing. 
SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics 2: 275-292.

Hall, Tracy (1992) Syllable structure and syllable-related processes in 
German. Tübingen: Niemeyer.

Harris, John (1990) Segmental complexity and phonological government. 
Phonology 7: 255-300.

Harris, John (1994) English Sound Structure. Cambridge, Mass. and Oxford: 
Blackwell.

Kaye, Jonathan (1990) 'Coda' licensing. Phonology 7: 301-330.

Kaye, Jonathan (1992) Do you believe in magic? The story of s+C sequences. 
SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics 2: 293-313.

KLV (1985) = Kaye, Jonathan, Jean Lowenstamm and Jean-Roger Vergnaud 
(1985) The internal structure of phonological representations: a theory of 
charm and government. Phonology Yearbook 2: 305-328.

KLV (1990) = Kaye, Jonathan, Jean Lowenstamm and Jean-Roger Vergnaud 
(1990) Constituent structure and government in phonology. Phonology 7: 193-
231.

Lowenstamm, Jean (1996) CV as the only syllable type. In Jacques Durand 
and Bernard Laks (eds.) Current Trends in Phonology: Models and Methods. 
European Studies Research Institute, University of Salford Publications: 
419-442.

Lowenstamm, Jean (1999) The beginning of the word. In John Rennison and 
Klaus Kühnhammer (eds.) Phonologica 1996. Syllables!? The Hague: Holland 
Academic Graphics: 153-166.

Scheer, Tobias (1996) Une théorie de l'interaction directe entre 
consonnes. PhD dissertation, Université Paris 7.

Spencer, Andrew (1986) A non-linear analysis of vowel-zero alternations in 
Polish. Journal of Linguistics 22: 249-280. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Katalin Balogné Bérces took her M.A. in English Language and Literature 
from the Faculty of Humanities, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest 
in 1998, and started her research as a doctoral student in the English 
Linguistics PhD Programme of ELTE in the same year. Her field of research 
is the phonology, more specifically the syllable structure, of English. 
She completed her PhD dissertation (entitled "Strict CV Phonology and the 
English Cross-word Puzzle") in February 2005, and is expecting to defend 
it in September 2005. She works as a full-time assistant lecturer in the 
Department of English Language and Literature, PPKE, and teaches various 
courses on English linguistics, phonology, syntax, and dialectology.





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