Perspectives on Polish Palatalization

Jerzy Rubach

This article reviews the treatment of Polish palatalization in various theoretical frameworks that have developed from the standard model of generative phonology codified in The Sound Pattern of English (Chomsky & Halle 1968 - SPE, henceforth) & known as SPE phonology. Attention is focused on changes in research methodology that have led to progress in the analysis of Polish palatalization since the time when SPE phonology was the default framework. Analysis of palatalization is a matter of how theories of representations interact with theories governing the organization of generalizations. Perspectives change radically when we move from the SPE type of representations to autosegmental representations. The most significant aspect of the latter is the claim that features are organized in a hierarchical fashion, which leads to the tenet of inherent underspecification. Equally significant is the tenet that phonological operations are limited to spreading & delinking, which has the consequence of bringing naturalness to the statement of generalizations regarding palatalization. Theories concerned with the organization of phonological generalizations address the basic question of whether the interaction between generalizations should or should not be expressed by invoking derivation. If derivation is admitted, the further question is how many derivational steps should be allowed & how generalizations interact at different steps of derivation. This article is organized as follows. Section 1 states informally the basic descriptive generalizations that govern the fragment of Polish phonology considered here. Section 2 shows how these generalizations are expressed in terms of SPE phonology. Section 3 offers a revision of the analysis in the framework of Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993; McCarthy & Prince 1995 - OT, henceforth). The most important conclusions are summarized in section 5. References. Adapted from the source document

Perspectives on Polish Palatalization

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