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Towards a lexical analysis of sound change in progress1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

John Harris
John Harris
Affiliation:
Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London
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Extract

Lexical Phonologists have made a number of claims that are directly relevant to the study of sound change in progress, two of which I wish to examine here. First, phonetically gradient patterns of variation are alleged to be controlled by rules which operate outside the lexicon. Second, phonological rules applying within the lexicon may only refer to feature values that are already marked in underlying representations. This paper sets out to test these claims against empirical data of the sort that have been reported in the sociolinguistic literature. While the first claim appears to be in tune with some informal analyses already offered by sociolinguists, the second is contradicted by at least some of the evidence.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , March 1989 , pp. 35 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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