16.2501, Review: Phonology/Textbooks: Gussenhoven&Jacobs (2005)

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-16-2501. Mon Aug 29 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.2501, Review: Phonology/Textbooks: Gussenhoven&Jacobs (2005)

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1)
Date: 29-Aug-2005
From: Katalin Balogné Bérces < bbkati at yahoo.com >
Subject: Understanding Phonology, Second edition 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 21:15:01
From: Katalin Balogné Bérces < bbkati at yahoo.com >
Subject: Understanding Phonology, Second edition 
 

AUTHORS: Gussenhoven, Carlos; Jacobs, Haike
TITLE: Understanding Phonology
SUBTITLE: Second edition
SERIES: The Understanding Language Series
PUBLISHER: Hodder Arnold
YEAR: 2005
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-266.html 

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

The book reviewed here was published in The Understanding Language Series, 
which aims to present the basics of major topics in linguistics to 
students with little or no previous knowledge. After introducing the 
fundamentals of speech production and the IPA notational system (Chapter 
1), the book turns to the discussion of phonological theory. We are 
provided with the necessary background gradually, from the unavoidable 
morphological and syntactic terminology, through universals and 
(parametric) variation (how "phonologies of different languages are 
variations on the same theme" -- p.32) (Chapter 2), to phonological 
adjustments as seen in the light of loanword adaptation (Chapter 3). 
Meanwhile, the basics of Optimality Theory (henceforth OT) are also 
introduced. Then, in Chapter 4 the need for the recognition of an 
underlying phonological representation is argued for, with allophonic, 
phonemic, and stylistic differences clearly distinguished. Other key terms 
like neutralization are also explained. Chapter 5 motivates the existence 
of distinctive features and presents a slightly modified version of the 
SPE set of binary features. The discussion of the transformational rule 
format and rule ordering (Chapter 6) is followed by a case study of the 
diminutive suffix in Dutch (Chapter 7) and the introduction of Lexical 
Phonology (Chapter 8). In the rest of the book, nonlinear solutions are 
offered for the representation of tone (Chapter 9), syllable- and skeleton-
based processes (Chapter 10), subsegmental structure (Chapters 11 and 12), 
and stress (Chapters 13 and 14). Finally, the hierarchy of prosodic 
constituents is described (Chapter 15). Each chapter (except Chapter 1) 
contains questions and exercises embedded in the running text, the key to 
which is found at the back of the book. The key is followed by a 
comprehensive References section, a detailed language index (providing 
information on the language family to which each language referred to in 
the book belongs, as well as on the geographical area where the language 
is spoken), and a subject index.

This second edition is a moderately re-structured version of the first, 
with a few of the original sections fused, others split, and a number of 
new themes added, among which are opacity (Chapter 6.7), the feature 
analysis of affricates (Chapters 5 and 11), and various topics in prosodic 
phonology including the Strict Layer Hypothesis (Chapters 15.2-4). Also, a 
number of new exercises supplement the old text.

On the whole, the book introduces the basic terminology properly, treats 
all the fundamental issues of phonetics and (generative) phonology in 
detail, although it is silent about a few topics (e.g., acoustic 
phonetics, phonological evolution) which might have received some 
attention, but at the same time it elaborates upon others (e.g., loanword 
adaptation and prosodic phonology) not usually covered at such length in 
coursebooks. Obviously, selecting subjects from a manifold area like 
phonology is not easy, and to be able to treat previously neglected issues 
one needs to sacrifice some of the canon, and make forced choices as to 
the linguistic data analysed (biassed a little bit toward Dutch this 
time). As an unfortunate result, the book fails to be fully self-
contained, it is hardly sufficient for the self-study student, and needs 
complementing from other sources for a full picture. Nevertheless, the 
style is quite successfully kept throughout the whole book to the main 
objective outlined at the very beginning, therefore it is quite capable of 
informing readers with little or no background in linguistics. It uses 
illuminating examples and argumentation, and among the particularly well-
written and comprehensive chapters are the ones on feature geometry 
(Chapters 11 and 12) and stress (Chapters 13 and 14). Unlike many other 
textbooks, it contains questions and exercises accompanying the topics -- 
thought-provoking, to-the-point exercises, each of which is supplied with 
a key. Another innovation compared to other textbooks lies in the usage of 
phonetic symbols: the authors decide to use IPA consistently, being ready 
to adapt the non-IPA transcriptions of their sources to the IPA notation 
(however, already on p.8 in Chapter 1 they admit that "deviating from IPA 
conventions, authors normally use the symbol [a] to represent a central or 
central to back open unrounded vowel", and they seem to repeat this 
deviation from IPA there and elsewhere, e.g. p.12, p.70). Also, the detail 
of the language index described above is worth another mention.

Unfortunately, the book suffers from a few minor defects. Besides the ones 
already pointed out, the reader looks in vain for questions or exercises 
in Chapter 1 ("The production of speech") -- there are none, because, as 
the authors explain, it is "a background introductory chapter". In my 
view, since phonetics serves as the very background without which most of 
the rest of the book is hard to digest (especially, subsegmental structure 
and phonetically motivated processes), it is of utmost significance to 
make sure the student has mastered its basics. (In addition, quite sadly, 
other branches of phonetics (esp. acoustics) are not even mentioned in the 
chapter.)

Chapter 3 ("Making the form fit"), on loanword adaptation, uses the 
discussion of adjustment processes to introduce phonological rules and 
constraints. Although I find this a particularly enlightening and 
revealing way to illustrate phonology at work and pave the way for the 
introduction of two levels of representation within one and the same 
language, ultimately the text is too theoretical, bringing in terms 
like "the Perceptual Level" and "the Operative Level", before even 
mentioning more fundamental concepts like phonemes or allophones. It also 
discusses the difference between rule-based models and OT's constraint-
based approach, which I judge to be too early, considering the fact that 
the detailed explanation of rules and rule ordering is postponed to as 
late as Chapter 6. In general, I find the use of OT tableaux at such an 
early point to be premature, even before dealing with underlying vs. 
surface representations. Perhaps the authors themselves suspect this, too: 
in the Epilogue, they make an attempt at justifying their choice "to 
deviate from a strict chronological treatment of theories" (p.233), and 
they sketch out the main developments in the history of Generative 
Phonology -- fitting together the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle at the very 
end of the book only.

A few minor remarks are in order here. Chapter 10 ("Between the segment 
and the syllable") argues for the existence of the skeleton in 
phonological representations, and while both the CV-tier and morae are 
introduced, the X-tier goes unspoken of. Throughout the book, when giving 
data or examples, the spelt forms of words are frequently omitted even for 
languages (like Dutch, French, or German) with traditional orthographies, 
which is an unusual practice and leaves readers without a good command of 
these languages having doubts. Finally, I think the book may be made more 
effective in its objectives by adding follow-up questions and/or exercises 
at the end of the chapters, and by providing the subject index with page 
numbers besides, or instead of, the present edition's section numbers to 
facilitate finding definitions and/or first mentions in the text.

On the whole, the book succeeds in serving as another introductory 
coursebook in phonology, properly introducing what needs to be introduced, 
containing no revolutionary innovations to the genre, causing no real 
surprise to the instructor (or the student) using it. Although it is 
characterized by a strong theoretical bias towards OT, with even some of 
the latest developments (e.g. sympathy theory) briefly sketched out, other 
(not outdated) approaches and proposals are also mentioned (e.g., unary 
feature models for subsegmental structure in Chapter 5.3, implicit hints 
at the Principles and Parameters model of language acquisition in, e.g., 
Chapter 2.6). This book qualifies as a progressive coursebook on 
phonological theory as required by the standards of the early 2000s. 

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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