Formal Parameters of Phonology - From Government Phonology to SPE

Inspired by the model-theoretic approach to phonology deployed by Kracht [25] and Potts and Pullum [32], I develop an extendable modal logic for the investigation of phonological theories operating on (richly annotated) string structures. In contrast to previous research in this vein [17, 31, 37], I ultimately strive to study the entire class of such theories rather than merely one particular incarnation thereof. To this end, I first provide a formalization of classic Government Phonology in a restricted variant of temporal logic, whose generative capacity is then subsequently increased by the addition of further operators, thereby pushing it up the subregular hierarchy until one reaches the level of the regular stringsets. I identify several other axes along which Government Phonology might be generalized, moving us towards a parametric metatheory of phonology. Like any other subfield of linguistics, phonology is home to a multitude of competing theories that differ vastly in their conceptual and technical assumptions. Contentious issues are, among others, the relation between phonology and phonetics (and if it is an interesting research question to begin with), if features are privative, binary or attribute valued, if phonological structures are strings, trees or complex matrices, if features can move from one position to another (i.e. if they are autosegments), and what role optimality requirements play in determining well-formedness. Meticulous empirical comparisons carried out by linguists have so far failed to yield conclusive results; it seems that for every phenomenon that lends support to a certain set of assumptions, there is another one that refutes it. The lack of a theoretical consensus should not be taken to indicate that the way phonologists go about their research is flawed. Unless one subscribes to the view that scientific theories can faithfully reflect reality rather than merely approximate it, it is to be expected that one theory may fail where another one succeeds, and vice versa. A similar situation arises in physics, where depending ? This paper has benefited tremendously from the comments and suggestions of Bruce Hayes, Ed Keenan, Marcus Kracht, Ed Stabler, Kie Zuraw, the members of the UCLA phonology seminar (winter quarter 2009), and two anonymous reviewers.