Subject: review : scobbie : autosegmental representation

scobbie , james m . ( 1997 ) autosegmental representation in a declarative constraint - based framework , garland press , new york . [ revision of 1991 phd dissertation , university of edinburgh ] [ * ] michael hammond university of arizona jim scobbie 's dissertation , recently published in the outstanding dissertations in linguistics series through garland press , is an excellent example of a pre - optimality - theory attempt at a constraint-based phonology that has received insufficient attention in the phonological community . this is extremely unfortunate , as the thesis makes a number of interesting proposals that are well worth considering today . the dissertation is not in the usual vein of american phonology theses . it 's not an in-depth analysis of some particular array of data . rather , it appears to fit a much more european template , with more attention paid to placing the author 's proposal in the context of previous ideas . despite this very different approach , there is much to recommend it . the general hypothesis pursued is that phonological generalizations and representations are best cast as attribute-value structures . these formal devices are drawn from the hpsg ( head - driven phrase - structure grammar ) literature ( pollard & sag , 1987 ) . the basic idea is that dominance is expressed as something roughly equivalent to a featural distinction . for example , in a standard phonological representation the fact that a vowel might be high is expressed by assigning the vowel a ' + ' for a feature [ high ] , e . g . [ + high ] . expressed in attribute-value formalism , the attribute [ high ] has the value ' + ' . hpsg goes one step further and encodes dominance in the same fashion . thus , the fact that a syllable has a [ + high ] nucleus is expressed by positing a nucleus attribute for a syllable element and then allowing the nucleus attribute to itself have [ + high ] as an attribute-value pair . ( 1 ) the formal object above denotes a syllable with a [ + high ] nucleus . ( i ' ve indicated irrelevant information with ellipses . ) in the context of these representations , scobbie 's central claim is that autosegmental association can be formalized as dominance in an attribute-value structure . phonological representations also encode linear order , but in scobbie 's theory , linear order is formalized only for root nodes ( and is indicated with indices ) . a string of segments would then be represented as a set of indexed root matrices , essentially of the following sort . ( 2 ) indices are ordered by the relation immediate precedence ' ' . [ 1 ] with these structures , scobbie goes further and suggests that phonological rules should be traded in for constraints . these constraints , he suggests , are formally indistinct from the representations they apply to . ( a rather similar position has been advanced in ot . see russell , 1995 and hammond , to appear . ) for example , a generalization excluding mid nasal vowels would be expressed as follows . ( 3 ) such an expression rules out an element which is simultaneously specified [ - low ] , [ - high ] , and [ + nasal ] . constraints do n't actually " apply " to representations . rather , scobbie proposes , constraints are unified with representations . unification allows to representations to meld , just so long as they do n't conflict . for example , a representation consisting solely of ifferent elements . for example , the index variables below indicate that the two matrices share the token value for a , but merely share the type value for b . ( 6 ) scobbie develops this formalism in a number of ways . first , he argues that representations like the one above are subject to what he calls the sharing constraint ( p . 93 ) . ( 7 ) sharing constraint if a structure is dominated by two paths of type p with indices i and j , where , then for every index n where there is a path dominating m . the immediate effect of this is to rule out cases where noncontiguous root elements share a token value . scobbie argues that the evidence for such cases is weak . ( cf . a very similar proposal in archangeli & pulleyblank , 1994 . ) a more interesting consequence is that scobbie uses this constraint in an attempt to derive the no - crossing constraint ( ncc ) , part of goldsmith 's ( 1976 ) more general well - formedness condition on autosegmental representations . this is the constraint that rules out crossing autosegmental association lines . sagey ( 1986 ; 1988 ) first proposes to derive the ncc from a treatment of autosegmental association as overlap . however , hammond ( 1988 ) argues that this notion is formally problematic proposing a different characterization of association as a transitive , irreflexive , and asymmetric relation . hammond 's approach , however , does not derive the ncc without stipulation . scobbie 's approach also involves an asymmetric characterization of association ( as dominance ) , but does derive the ncc . scobbie 's derivation of the ncc is based on the assumption that there are no contour values . that is , while two different root nodes might share a value token as in the second picture below , one root node cannot bear two different values , as in the first picture below ( where " s " indicates a segment or root node and " t " indicates a tone or value token ) . ( 8 ) this is a necessary position given his formalization of sequencing : only root nodes bear an index for linear position ; nonroot tokens are unsequenced . ( a similar position is developed in heiberg , in prep . ) were contour values to be allowed , there would be no way to distinguish their ordering . on the other hand , when two root nodes share a value , their ordering is distinguished in terms of indices , as in ( 6 ) . the upshot of the prohibition on contours is that violations of the ncc can only arise when there is an independent sharing violation . that is , ncc violations look like ( 9 ) , and ( 9 ) necessarily includes a sharing violation . ( 9 ) this is a very nice result , but comes at the cost of i ) ruling out discontinuous association , and ii ) excluding contour values . scobbie also argues that his approach allows him to derive the phenomenon of geminate integrity ( hayes , 1986 ; schein & steriade , 1986 ) . the basic idea of geminate integrity is that geminates resist epenthesis . ( see guerssel , 1977 ; 1978 for an early treatment and suh , 1997 for a recent proposal . ) the standard account of this is that geminates resist epenthesis because the result would entail crossing association lines , and a violation of the ncc , as in ( 9 ) above . the problem with this , as noted by scobbie and others as well , is that if the epenthetic vowel is featureless ( 10 ) or inserted on another tier ( 11 ) , then no violation of the ncc occurs . ( 10 ) ( 11 ) scobbie 's own proposal is simple and direct . epenthesis into a geminate structure results in a violation of sharing , regardless whether the epenthetic vowel has features or whether its features might appear on some other tier . scobbie goes on to consider the possibility that geminate inalterability might also follow from the sharing constraint , but here his proposal is a lot more speculative . the basic idea pursued is that geminate inalterability results from default rules . the problem is that scobbie does n't really offer a clear proposal on the nature of default rules . on the face of it , they would seem to be a glaring problem for the monotonic theory he proposes . in his final substantive chapter , scobbie treats the problem of long-distance association , as in , e . g . arabic verbal morphology . he offers some well-taken criticisms of the traditional autosegmental approach , but does not really offer an explicit declarative counterproposal . in sum , this book is well worth reading . it offers a very interesting alternative constraint-based view of phonology with much to recommend it . on the other hand , there are a number of unresolved questions . what about floating segments ? scobbie speculates on this , but offers no satisfying solution . as noted above , contour segments are also ruled out , though the evidence for these in the tonal domain is unimpeachable . [ 3 ] references archangeli , d . & d . pulleyblank ( 1994 ) grounded phonology , mit press , cambridge . bird , s . ( 1995 ) computational phonology , cambridge university press , cambridge . goldsmith , j . ( 1976 ) autosegmental phonology , doctoral dissertation , mit . guerssel , m . ( 1977 ) " constraints on phonological rules " , linguistic analysis 3 , 267-181 . guerssel , m . ( 1978 ) " a condition on assimilation rules " , linguistic analysis 4 , 225-254 . hammond , m . ( 1988 ) " on deriving the well - formedness condition " , li 19 , 319-325 . hammond , m . ( to appear ) " there is no lexicon ! " , coyote papers . hayes , b . ( 1986 ) " inalterability in cv phonology " , language 62 , 321-351 . heiberg , a . ( in prep ) doctoral dissertation , u . of arizona . pollard , c . & i . sag ( 1987 ) information - based syntax and phonology , volume 1 , csli 13 . russell , k . ( 1995 ) " morphemes and candidates in optimality theory " , ms . , u . of manitoba , roa . sagey , e . ( 1986 ) the representation of features and relations in non - linear phonology , doctoral dissertation , mit . sagey , e . ( 1988 ) " on the ill-formedness of crossing association lines " , li 19 , 109-118 . schein , b . & d . steriade ( 1986 ) " on geminates " , li 17 , 691-744 . suh , c . - k . ( 1997 ) consonant geminates : towards a theory of integrity and inalterability , doctoral dissertation , u . of arizona . [ * ] thanks to jim scobbie for useful discussion . any misinterpretations , lapses , or other errors are my own . [ 1 ] though as scobbie ( p . c . ) points out , ordering these with precedence instead will allow for a treatment of epenthesis , morphological intercalation , and the like . [ 2 ] my expository characterization is procedural , but of course , unification is not formally so . [ 3 ] a number of similar ideas are developed in bird ( 1995 ) .
