In the present paper we address ourselves to two fundamental questions regarding sound change: (1) HOW does a sound change implement itself? and (2) WHY does a phonological process assume a particular form, and follow a particular pattern or schedule? In answer to the question of implementation, we propose the concept of LEXICAL DIFFUSION. We have amassed a sizable amount of evidence drawn from the history of Chinese, English, and Swedish, as well as from language acquisition, to substantiate the claim that a phonological change propagates itself gradually across the lexicon, from morpheme to morpheme. In partial answer to the second question, concerning the actuation of phonological processes, we propose that the principal determinants of sound change are to be sought in the inherent constraints of the physiological and perceptual apparatus of the language user. To illustrate the point, we have investigated the attrition of the consonantal endings in a large number of Chinese dialects, and have found significant parallels in the development of well-known Indo-European languages. We argue that the cross-linguistically prevalent pattern and schedule of the related processes are traceable to their PHONETIC ACTUATION. Experimental evidence, both perceptual and physiological, is produced in support.

This paper is concerned with plotting the 13th and 14th century distribution of the retracted sibilants [S Z] in the languages of continental western and central Europe, as. well as Finland and parts of Greece. The investigation, based on both dialectological and philological evidence, shows the kind of detailed phonetic knowledge that is sometimes reconstructable when these two types of data are used in conjunction.

This paper is concerned with two common assumptions about the nature of symmetry at the underlying level in phonology. The validity of these assumptions is examined and questioned in the light of evidence from Contemporary Standard Macedonian.

Traditional analyses of open-syllable tensing in Middle English exhibit two anomalies. First, high vowels appear to lower as well as tense, whereas other vowels appear only to tense. Second, a large number of exceptions, both native forms and Norman French borrowings, appear to compromise the productivity of open-syllable tensing, and typically are left unanalysed. But the first anomaly disappears when it is observed that all vowels lower when tensed; and the second disappears when the environment for open-syllable tensing is properly stated, rendering it sensitive to the operation of independently required syllable-boundary insertion rules and an independently motivated sonorant gemination rule. Additional Norman French borrowings which are not tensed are analysed as analogous to phonologically similar native forms which are morphologically complex, and therefore predictably exempt from tensing resulting from the operation of syllable-boundary insertion.

Wichita phonology is unusual in several ways. The system contains no labials, no nasals, only front vowels, and a three-way length contrast in vowels. Examination of the system and of the morphophonemic rules leads to these observations, among others: coalescence is not deletion, and the rules should not imply that it is; the feature [delayed release] is incorrect (here) for distinguishing affricate /c/ from stop /t/; /t/ is palatalized but /k/ is not; Kiparsky's ‘elsewhere’ principle must be invoked; and the Chomsky–Halle phonetic features and marking conventions for glides are wrong, but a feature hierarchy [round, back, high, low] can be established. Finally, we discuss the psychology of speaking a language in which one perceptual/articulatory event frequently has a multitude of underlying phonological representations.

The use of the transformational cycle in phonology was first proposed by Halle 1963 in his treatment of Transitive softening in Russian conjugation. In this paper, we provide an analysis of transitive softening that does not require such a powerful device as the transformational cycle. In addition, the analysis proposed here appropriately characterizes productive and non-productive verb classes in Russian.

It is argued here that the syntactic relations between active, passive, and ‘middle’ sentences in Russian cannot be stated in their most general form as long as the grammar of Russian contains a Passive transformation. We propose a theory that defines Voice as the relationship between a verb's subcategorization feature and the surface form of the sentence in which it occurs. This relationship may be optionally expressed by a Voice morpheme on the verb. Languages differ in the number and function of the Voice morphemes they employ: but Russian, we argue, contains only one such morpheme, and its occurrence signals a marked realization of a verb's subcategorization feature.

Several syntactic rules in English are sensitive to the difference between pronouns and full NP's, and they sometimes must apply before anaphora relations can be determined. If anaphoric pronouns and their antecedents are derived from identical underlying forms (such as variables), then these rules cannot apply correctly, because they will be unable to distinguish between anaphors and antecedents. This argument does not depend crucially on the usual ordering assumptions. No such argument applies, however, to a theory in which pronouns are present in deep structure and are associated with antecedents by means of an interpretive rule.

In current transformational theory, the active–passive relation is not accounted for by the Passive transformation. Furthermore, transformational accounts of passive sentences run into serious problems with respect to the derivation of truncated passives. It is demonstrated here that the active–passive relation can be captured in the lexicon without a Passive transformation, and that such a solution does not involve the problems created by a transformational account. An interpretive rule for handling the synonymy of actives and passives—necessary whether or not passives are transformationally derived—is proposed. Lastly, it is shown how passives may be directly generated by the phrase-structure rules; this analysis is not susceptible to the criticisms given by Chomsky 1957 for a phrase-structure account of passives.

Different kinds of predicate—nominal, adjectival, verbal etc.—may behave differently under predicate agreement when there is a difference between underlying and superficial subject. Data from a number of languages (Slavic, Romance, Modern Greek) concerning predicate agreement with the polite plural (semantically singular, but plural in surface structure) suggest that more verb-like predicates tend to agree with features of the surface subject, while more noun-like predicates tend to agree with the underlying subject. The pattern that emerges across languages is of a continuum from VERB to NOUN, with individual languages having different specific categories along this continuum. Other possible solutions, more traditional within transformational theory, are examined—the view that adjectives are verbs; feature analysis of major categories; rule-ordering—but these prove unable to characterize adequately the kind of data under discussion.

Development of initial-consonant production in relation to the acquisition of words is investigated. Longitudinal data of three children are analysed from about age 1; 0 until the total recorded lexicon reaches 50 or more words. Using the word as the basis of analysis, PHONE CLASSES are set up for each child and are followed through time in PHONE TREES. As in historical sound change, both lexical and phonetic parameters are involved. Phonological idioms, saliency rules, universal order hypotheses, and acquisition strategies are discussed. Tentative suggestions are made toward a model of phonology.