‘Upside-down’ phonology

Abstract

We here propose and defend a system in which lexical representations of words are expressed in their surface-phonetic isolation forms, and in which phonological rules permit lexical pronunciations to be ‘undone’ in various ways that relate segments to other segments. To the extent that the phonological component is descriptively adequate, it permits morphological rules (which apply after each ‘undoing’ of a phonological rule) to parse lexical representations correctly; this accounts for speakers' knowledge that, e.g., baron and baronial are related, though they have not been given this information explicitly. We argue that this represents a significant advance over other phonological theories: it automatically captures certain alternations that require exception features or exceptional rules in other accounts, it provides a principled basis for constraining phonology in ways that are commonly thought desirable, and it explains why so much linguistic innovation takes place at the ‘bottom’ of the grammar.