Hostname: page-component-77c78cf97d-d2fvj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-24T15:48:54.441Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

All dissimilation is computationally subsequential

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Amanda Payne
Amanda Payne*
Affiliation:
University of Delaware
*
[amandapa@udel.edu]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article presents a computational analysis of the 185 dissimilation patterns in the typological surveys by Suzuki (1998) and Bennett (2013), and shows that dissimilation is computationally less complex than has been previously shown. Dissimilation patterns are grouped into three general types (basic, blocking, and polarity), each of which can be modeled with a subsequential finite-state transducer. This lends support to the claim that phonological patterns are not only regular, but in fact subsequential, which is a more restrictive class of patterns computationally and provides a stronger bound on the types of processes expected in natural language phonology.

Keywords

dissimilationChomsky hierarchycomplexitysubsequentialitysubregular hypothesis

Information

Type
Phonological Analysis
Information
Language , Volume 93 , Issue 4 , December 2017 , pp. e353 - e371
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Alderete, John. 1997. Dissimilation as local conjunction. North East Linguistic Society (NELS) 27. 17–32.Google Scholar
Beckman, Jill N. 1993. Feature organization and the strong domain hypothesis in Zulu [labial] phonology. Phonological representations (University of Massachusetts occasional papers in linguistics 16), ed. by Sherer, T., 1–26. Amherst, MA: GLSA Publications.Google Scholar
Beesley, Kenneth R., and Kartunnen, Lauri. 2003. Finite state morphology. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Bennett, William G. 2013. Dissimilation, consonant harmony, and surface correspondence. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University dissertation.Google Scholar
Bessell, N. J., and Czaykowska-Higgins, Ewa. 1993. The phonetics and phonology of postvelar consonants in Moses-Columbia Salish (Nxaamxcín). Technical report.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandlee, Jane. 2014. Strictly local phonological processes. Newark: University of Delaware dissertation.Google Scholar
Chandlee, Jane, Athanasopoulou, Angeliki; and Heinz, Jeffrey. 2012. Evidence for classifying metathesis patterns as subsequential. West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL) 29. 303–9. Online: http://www.lingref.com/cpp/wccfl/29/paper2715.pdf.Google Scholar
Chandlee, Jane, Eyraud, Rémi; and Heinz, Jeffrey. 2014. Learning strictly local subsequential functions. Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics 2. 491–503. Online: https://transacl.org/ojs/index.php/tacl/article/view/429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandlee, Jane, and Heinz, Jeffrey. 2012. Bounded copying is subsequential: Implications for metathesis and reduplication. Proceedings of the 12th meeting of the ACL Special Interest Group on Computational Morphology and Phonology, 42–51. Online: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2390936.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1956. Three models for the description of language. IRE Transactions on Information Theory 2. 113–24. DOI: 10.1109/TIT.1956.1056813.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam, and Halle, Morris. 1968. The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Crowhurst, Megan, and Hewitt, Mark. 1995. Prosodic overlay and headless feet in Yidip. Phonology 12. 39–84. DOI: 10.1017/S0952675700002384.Google Scholar
Cser, András. 2010. The -alis/-aris allomorphy revisited. Variation and change in morphology: Selected papers from the 13th International Morphology Meeting, Vienna, ed. by Rainer, Franz, Dressier, Wolfgang U., Kastovsky, Dieter, and Luschützky, Hans Christian, 33–51. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/cilt.310.02cseCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, P. W. 1970. A classification of the dissimilative jakané dialects of Russian. Orbis 19 (2). 360–76.Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. 1977. A grammar of Yidiñ. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, Robert, and Satta, Giorgio. 1998. Optimality theory and the generative complexity of constraint violability. Computational Linguistics 24 (2). 307–15. Online: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=972739.Google Scholar
Frisch, Stefan a., Pierrehumbert, Janet B.; and Broe, Michael B.. 2004. Similarity avoidance and the OCP. Natural Language and Language Theory 22. 179–228. DOI: 10.1023/B:NALA.0000005557.78535.3c.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gainor, Brian, Lai, Regine; and Heinz, Jeffrey. 2012. Computational characterizations of vowel harmony patterns and pathologies. West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL) 29. 63–71. Online: http://www.lingref.com/cpp/wccfl/29/paper2688.pdf.Google Scholar
Gildea, Daniel, and Jurafsky, Dan. 1996. Learning bias and phonological-rule induction. Computational Linguistics 22 (4). 497–530. Online: https://dLacm.org/citation.cfo7id=256329.256335.Google Scholar
Gold, E. Mark. 1967. Language identification in the limit. Information and Control 10. 447–74. DOI: 10.1016/S0019-9958(67)91165-5.10.1016/S0019-9958(67)91165-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, Beverly D. 1995. Features in Ponapean phonology. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University dissertation.Google Scholar
Gragg, Gene. 1976. Oromo of Wellegga. The non-Semitic languages of Ethiopia, ed. by Bender, M. Lionel, 166–95. East Lansing: Michigan State University, African Studies Center.Google Scholar
Heinz, Jeffrey, de, Colin Higuera, la; and Zaanen, Menno van. 2015. Grammatical inference for computational linguistics. Synthesis Lectures on Human Language Technologies 8. 1–139. DOI: 10.2200/S00643ED1V01Y201504HLT028.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heinz, Jeffrey, and Lai, Regine. 2013. Vowel harmony and subsequentiality. Proceedings of the 13th Meeting on Mathematics of Language, 52–63. Online: https://aclanthology.info/pdf/W/W13/W13-3006.pdf.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Carl. 1963. A grammar of the Margi language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hong, Sung-Hoon. 1990. OCP-triggered rules in Dakota and their interaction with morphology. Tucson: University of Arizona, ms.Google Scholar
Itô, Junko, and Mester, Armin. 1998. Markedness and word structure: OCP effects in Japanese. Santa Cruz: University of California, Santa Cruz, ms. Online: http://roa.rutgers.edu/article/view/265.Google Scholar
Jardine, Adam. 2016. Computationally, tone is different. Phonology 33. 247–83. DOI: 10.1017/S0952675716000129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jebbour, Abdelkrim. 1985. La labio-vélarization en Berbère dialecte Tachelhit (parler de tiznit). Memoire de phonologie. Rabat: Université Mohammed V.Google Scholar
Johnson, C. Douglas. 1972. Formal aspects of phonological description. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, Ronald M., and Kay, Martin. 1994. Regular models of phonological rules systems. Computational Linguistics 20. 331–78. Online: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=204917.Google Scholar
Kenstowicz, Michael, and Kisseberth, Charles. 1979. Generative phonology: Description and theory. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Krause, Scott Russell. 1979. Topics in Chukchee phonology and morphology. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois dissertation.Google Scholar
Lai, Regine. 2015. Learnable vs. unlearnable harmony patterns. Linguistic Inquiry 46 (3). 425–51. DOI: 10.1162/LING_a_00188.10.1162/LING_a_00188CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, John J., and Prince, Alan. 1995. Faithfulness and reduplicative identity. Papers in optimality theory (University of Massachusetts occasional papers in linguistics 18), ed. by Beckman, Jill N., Dickey, Laura Walsh, and Urbanczyk, Suzanne, 249–384. Amherst, MA: GLSA Publications.Google Scholar
Mohri, Mehryar. 1997. Finite-state transducers in language and speech processing. Computational Linguistics 23. 269–311. Online: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=972698.Google Scholar
Odden, David. 1994. Adjacency parameters in phonology. Language 70. 289–330. DOI: 10.2307/415830.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ohala, John J. 1981. The listener as a source of sound change. Chicago Linguistic Society (Parasession on language and behavior) 17 (2). 178–203.Google Scholar
Oncina, J., Garcia, P.; and Vidal, E.. 1993. Learning subsequential transducers for pattern recognition interpretation tasks. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence 15 (5). 448–58. DOI: 10.1109/34.211465.10.1109/34.211465CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Padgett, Jaye E. 1991. Stricture in feature geometry. Amherst: University of Massachusetts, Amherst dissertation.Google Scholar
Partee, Barbara, Meulen, Alice ter; and Wall, R.. 1990. Mathematical methods in linguistics. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Prince, Alan, and Smolensky, Paul. 1993. Optimality theory: Constraint interaction in generative grammar. Technical report 2. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science.Google Scholar
Prince, Alan, and Smolensky, Paul. 2004. Optimality theory: Constraint interaction in generative grammar. Malden, MA: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riggle, Jason. 2004. Generation, recognition, and learning in finite state optimality theory. Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles dissertation.Google Scholar
Rogers, James, Heinz, Jeffrey, Bailey, Gil, Edlefsen, Matt, Visscher, Molly, Wellcome, David; and Wibel, Sean. 2010. On languages piecewise testable in the strict sense. The mathematics of language, ed. by Ebert, Christian, Jäger, Gerhard, and Michaelis, Jens, 255–65. Berlin: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-14322-9_19.Google Scholar
Steriade, Donca. 1987. Redundant values. Chicago Linguistic Society 23 (2). 339–62.Google Scholar
Suzuki, Keiichiro. 1998. A typological investigation of dissimilation. Tucson: University of Arizona dissertation. Online: http://hdl.handle.net/10150/288816.Google Scholar
Yip, Moira. 1989. Feature geometry and cooccurrence restrictions. Phonology 6 (2). 349–74. DOI: 10.1017/S0952675700001068.10.1017/S0952675700001068CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yip, Moira. 2002. Tone. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Payne supplementary material

Payne supplementary material
Download Payne supplementary material(File)
File 306.5 KB