25.5208, Review: Phonetics; Phonology: Carr, Montreuil (2013)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-25-5208. Fri Dec 19 2014. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 25.5208, Review: Phonetics; Phonology: Carr, Montreuil (2013)

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Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 17:25:05
From: Ian Clayton [iclayton at unr.edu]
Subject: Phonology

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/24/24-4768.html

AUTHOR: Philip  Carr
AUTHOR: Jean-Pierre Y. Montreuil
TITLE: Phonology
SERIES TITLE: Palgrave Modern Linguistics
PUBLISHER: Palgrave Macmillan
YEAR: 2013

REVIEWER: Ian D Clayton, University of Nevada at Reno

Review's Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY 

The second edition of Philip Carr’s introductory textbook Phonology, now
co-authored with Jean-Pierre Montreuil, is part of the Palgrave-Macmillan
Modern Linguistics series, which aims to provide an accessible introduction to
each topic for students with no previous experience of it. Phonology, 2nd
edn., provides in its opening segment a concise but thorough review of
articulatory phonetics and the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The book
then introduces the fundamentals of phonological theory, thereafter expanding
briskly to offer a wide-ranging survey of the principles of generative
phonology, up to and including Optimality Theory. Chapter 1 introduces the
phonemic principle, basic phonological terminology, rules, and phonemic
transcription. In Chapter 2, the authors discuss morphophonemic alternation,
deletion, insertion, and rule ordering. Chapter 3 introduces feature-based
analysis, motivating each feature as it is introduced by relevant data, and
offering a cogent introduction to the use of features in rules. Chapter 4
presents challenges to the phonemic principle as it was introduced in Chapter
1, in particular those posed by morphophonological alternations, for instance
by nasal vowels in French. Chapter 5 considers the modular nature of standard
generative models, examining in turn views of the lexicon, morphology, and the
phonological component, with Sound Pattern of English (SPE) (Chomsky and Halle
1968) as a point of departure. Abstraction in generative models and their
degree of relation to phonetic substance are considered in Chapter 6, as is
order of operations. Chapter 7 revisits the nature and role of the lexicon in
greater detail, considering theoretical approaches such as Lexical Phonology
and underspecification theory. In Chapter 8, the discussion moves beyond the
segment to syllable structure, metrical theory, and the syntax/phonology
interface. Chapter 9 turns to autosegmental phonology and feature geometry.
Newly in this second edition, weight, length, and stress are examined in
Chapter 10. Also new for this edition is the discussion of constraint-based
models of generative phonology. Chapter 11 provides a compact summary of the
crucial components of classic Optimality Theory (OT), while Chapter 12
introduces certain problems with classic OT, opacity in particular, as well as
a number of proposed solutions including local conjunction, enriched outputs,
and Stratal OT.  

EVALUATION

This textbook exhibits numerous strengths. The prose style is accessible and
friendly but not verbose. A broad range of essential topics is represented in
its 321 pages, and though the first edition of the text was designed for use
in a ten-week course, the contents of the second edition are more than
sufficient for a longer term of, say, fifteen weeks. Ample problem sets are
provided throughout the text, both within the discussion to illustrate crucial
points and within the exercises which conclude each chapter. Examples and
datasets are aptly selected to illustrate the concepts and issues presented in
each chapter, and are drawn from a rich variety of languages and language
families, ranging from Scots to Normandy French to Tamil to the Bantu language
Lumasaaba. Solutions to select exercises are provided at the end of the book. 

An important facet of this textbook is its historical perspective. At numerous
junctures, the text delves into the development of important theoretical
viewpoints and frameworks, describing contributions made by landmark
publications, and exploring the topic to a depth rarely seen in an
introductory textbook. For instance, Chapter 9 introduces autosegmental
phonology first by describing in detail the challenges posed by nasal
spreading, vowel harmony, and tone for SPE-style linear analyses; and then by
illustrating the advantages of autosegmental analyses of such phenomena, like
those proposed by Goldsmith (1979) and Hyman (1982). The chapter then moves on
to an in-depth discussion of the development of feature geometry, referring in
particular to the proposals in Clements (1985), Sagey (1986), and Paradis and
Prunet (1989). Similar discussions are to be found throughout the text, a
strategy that allows Phonology to offer the reader a chronological perspective
on the discipline’s history and scholarship to a degree seldom seen in
introductory texts.

The notes concluding each chapter are often extensive and always informative,
in many cases gently reminding the reader that certain points presented with
little comment in the main text ought not to be viewed as settled issues. As a
brief example, the notes for Chapter 3 (which introduces phonological
features) point out that the feature [tense] remains without a fully
satisfactory definition, and though the feature [ATR] is often used
interchangeably with [tense], the two are not precisely equivalent. Each
chapter also concludes with well-chosen suggestions for further reading which
augment the historical viewpoint of the text. Reading suggestions often point
to seminal or groundbreaking works illustrating the various sides of
theoretical debates, as in Chapter 6, which recommends on the one hand a
selection of works arguing for a causative link between phonological patterns
and phonetic substance (such as Ohala 1974), and on the other hand works like
Anderson (1981) which take the view that the essential properties of language
(including phonology) cannot depend solely on extralinguistic facts.

There are certain features of the book which might be construed as drawbacks,
though none of these are severe. The opening review of articulatory phonetics
and the IPA is quite thorough, for instance in the care it takes to explain
the use of diacritics. However, no exercises are provided to help students
through this review, obliging the instructor to provide them from other
sources. Another consideration is that while IPA conventions are in general
used consistently, there are unexplained departures. For instance, the authors
declare their intent to use the IPA symbols [t͡ʃ] and [d͡ʒ] to represent
post-alveolar affricates on page 4, yet the symbols [č] and [ǰ] are regularly
encountered in the text instead, as in the Polish data on pp. 18-19, or the
Tamil data pp. 23-24. Of similar scale is the book’s treatment of the
labiodentals [f v] and the interdental [θ] as [+strident] without comment,
which while consistent with proposals in SPE is at variance with some
contemporary analyses which consider [strident] to be a coronal feature only.
These considerations should cause no problems for alert students, but the
instructor may find explanations to be in order--or viewed from another
perspective, these details may offer opportunities for discussion. A final
problem is the distressingly large number of typographical errors to be found
in both the discussion and the problem sets. While a few such errors are to be
expected in any textbook, they are so abundant in this text that the
instructor is advised to proofread all datasets, feature matrices, and rules
with great care before assigning them to students. Perhaps this problem will
be rectified in future printings. 

A somewhat more significant consideration is that the depth of discussion
distinguishing this text may also make parts of it rather challenging for use
in an undergraduate course with a large proportion of non-linguistics majors.
On the other hand, that very depth of discussion and strong historical focus
are likely to make these components of the book particularly suitable for an
advanced undergraduate course in phonology, or for an introductory graduate
course. By the same token, while some instructors might like to see a chapter
dealing with diachronic phonology, the absence of such a chapter in this
textbook is a relatively small deficit in a book with an otherwise rich range
of topics.

Finally, those instructors hoping to find a discussion of non-generative
models will need to look elsewhere. Theoretical perspectives like Evolutionary
Phonology (Blevins 2004), emergent grammar (e.g. Hopper 1987), or exemplar
theory (e.g. Johnson 1997) receive little or no attention. While this absence
is not unexpected in a textbook devoted to a generative viewpoint, as
Phonology (2nd Edn.) is, it does prevent the textbook from fully situating
generative phonology within a larger theoretical context. 

In sum, Philip Carr and Jean-Pierre Montreuil’s second edition of Phonology is
a strong contribution to a field of contemporary phonology textbooks already
populated by several excellent competitors. The text covers both the
essentials of generative phonology and a number of more advanced topics in a
clear, user-friendly manner, while regularly prompting the reader to consider
important challenges to each theoretical framework as it is presented. A
number of useful and well-executed instructional aids are provided, especially
the strong selection of exercises, as well as chapter notes and suggested
readings. In short, this second edition of Phonology is worth careful
consideration by any phonology instructor in search of an effective textbook. 

REFERENCES

Anderson, Stephen R. 1981. Why phonology isn’t “natural”. Linguistic Inquiry
12(4). 493-539. 

Blevins, Juliette. 2004. Evolutionary phonology: The emergence of sound
patterns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Chomsky, Noam, and Morris Halle. 1968. The sound pattern of English. New York:
Harper and Row.

Clements, George N. 1985. The geometry of phonological features. Phonology
Yearbook 2. 225-253.

Goldsmith, John. 1979. Autosegmental phonology. New York: Garland. 

Hopper, Paul. 1987. Emergent grammar. Papers of the 13th annual meeting,
Berkeley Linguistic Society (BLS). Berkeley, California: Berkeley Linguistic
Society. 139-147. 

Hyman, Larry. 1982. The representation of nasality in Gokana. In Harry van der
Hulst and Norval Smith (eds.), The structure of phonological representations,
Pt I (2 vols), 111-130. Dordrecht: Foris.

Hyman, Larry. 1975. Phonology: Theory and analysis. New York: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston. 

Johnson, Keith. 1997. Speech perception without speaker normalization: An
exemplar model. In Keith Johnson and John Mullenix (eds.), Talker variability
in speech processing, 145-166. Academic Press.

Lass, Roger. 1984. Phonology: An introduction to basic concepts. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. 

Ohala, John J. 1974. Phonetic explanation in phonology. In Anthony Bruck,
Robert A. Fox, and Michael W. La Galy (eds.), Papers from the parasession on
natural phonology, 251-274. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. 

Paradis, Carole and Jean-François Prunet. 1989. On coronal transparency.
Phonology 6(2). 317-348.

Sagey, Elizabeth. 1986. The representation of features and relations in
non-linear phonology. Boston, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
dissertation.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Ian Clayton is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of Nevada,
Reno. His research interests lie in the areas of laboratory phonology and
sociophonetics, especially with respect to Scottish Gaelic and Scottish
English. Ian is also interested in matters of language preservation and
documentation and the consequences of of language contact.








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