Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Perhaps the major development in post- Sound Patterns of English generative phonology has been the emergence of a framework in which various aspects of phonological representation (similar to those called, in other frameworks, prosodies [Firth 1957] or long components [Harris 1944]) are factored out of individual segments and placed on independent tiers. Among the various tiers that have been proposed is a skeletal tier or timing tier , which, in its original incarnation, served a number of different functions: to mark off segments, to represent segment length, and to describe the shape of grammatical formatives. The elements on this tier were conceived of, in most theories, as part of lexical representation, serving as the units on which higher prosodic structure was built. More recently, however, the task of enumerating segments has largely been taken over by root nodes , which serve, in a theory that allows intrasegmental hierarchical structure, as anchors for the distinctive features which define a segment. Morphological templates, on the other hand, have been described in terms of higher prosodic units, including moras , which serve as indicators of syllable weight. And segment length has been described as a function of mapping either to two root nodes or to two prosodic nodes. The overlap between the functions of the skeletal, root, and moraic tiers leaves the precise ... log in or subscribe to read full text