Generative Phonology Concepts

Generative Phonology

• Moved away from traditional phonemic analysis, introducing phonological rules that code underlying representations onto surface pronunciations
• Phonemic descriptions depend on information from other linguistic levels: semantic and syntactic.

Generative Phonology Rules

• Example of a rule: "Vowels are realized as nasal in the context of nasal consonants."
• Components of a rule: Segments to the left of the arrow conform to the rule; the arrow means "realized as" or "produced as"; the slash or diagonal indicates "in the context of"; to the right of the arrow are the contexts under which the rule for the segment works.

Generative Phonology Rules - Distinctive Features

• Phonemes are analyzed based on distinctive features (DFs)
• Phonological rules describe how phonemes combine and vary in speech
• This theory relates child production to adult production.

Criticisms of Generative Phonology

• The assumption that a child's underlying representation of sounds is the same as an adult's
• It is unclear whether we apply "rules" in our heads when we comprehend and produce speech.

Application to SLP Practice

• Not widely practiced in clinical settings
• Served as a foundation for other theories like natural phonology and phonologically based clinical analysis.

Naturalness and Markedness in Phonology

• Some sounds, syllable shapes, and phonological processes are more natural than others
• Natural elements occur more frequently, are widespread in languages, are acquired earlier by children, and less likely to be lost historically.
• Unmarked features are part of Universal Grammar and do not require learning
• Marked features are more unusual in a language and require positive evidence from the input language.

Characteristics of Unmarked Members

• Requires less articulatory effort
• Less acoustically complex
• Less perceptually ambiguous
• Acquired developmentally earlier
• Occurs more often in languages of the world.

Implicational Law

• The presence of a marked pair in a language implies the presence of the unmarked pair.

Observations about Naturalness

• Voiced obstruents are more marked than voiceless
• Obstruents are less marked than sonorants
• Stops are more natural than fricatives
• Fricatives are more natural than affricates
• /n/ is the most natural nasal
• /s/ and /h/ are the most natural fricatives
• Low front vowels are the most natural vowels
• CV syllable is the least marked, followed by CVC

Natural Phonology

• Phonological development involves innate processes (natural processes)
• These processes simplify adult target words.
• Children use these processes until they learn to suppress them.
• These processes are motivated by motor and mental constraints consistent with a young child's psycho-physical limitations.
• A child progressively acquires adult pronunciations by revising infantile processes.
• The theory assumes that a child's phonological representations are as deep as the adult's.
• Surface structure differences are explained by the operation of natural processes.

Natural Phonology - General Principles

• Natural phonology rules are universal
• Speech acquisition is a progression from innate speech patterns to the pronunciation systems of the target language.

Critiques of Natural Phonology

• The assumption that phonological processes are related to mental operations that children use
• It is better to be descriptive and use phonological patterns instead of processes.
• Some children manifest phonological patterns that are atypical/non-natural and not seen in typical development.
• Not all simplification patterns produced by children can be classified as natural processes.
• The concept of "negative progression," where processes must be suppressed, is not always accurate.

Application of Natural Phonology to SLP Practice

• Provides developmental data
• Used to develop assessment models
• Intervention procedures are widely used.

Common Phonological Processes/Patterns

• A phonological process/pattern is a systematic sound change that affects a class of sounds or a sound sequence.
• These processes provide a means to describe error patterns in young children's speech.
• Provide examples of Processes - Final Consonant Deletion (FCD), Cluster Reduction (CR), Fronting.

Nonlinear Phonology

• Derived from a group of phonological theories: autosegmental, metrical, and prosodic phonologies.
• Based on the notion that complex linguistic dimensions (stress, intonation, metrical and rhythmical factors) control segmental conditions.
• A hierarchy of factors affects segmental units.
• Speech production is more than just a sequence of phonemes.
• There is a relationship between segments and other aspects of speech production.
• This relationship has a hierarchical organization.
• Hierarchical levels of representation (tiers) are described for both prosodic and segmental units.

The Prosodic Tier

• Focuses on words and the structure of words
• Includes levels/tiers: word, foot, syllable, onset-rime, skeletal, segmental

The Segmental Tier

• Focuses on the production of segments (phonemes) and the features that make up those sounds.

Terminology

• Tier: A level of representation in nonlinear phonology.

Nonlinear Phonology - Application to Typically Developing Children

• Interaction seen between segmental and prosodic tiers
• Development is progressive and considers maturational factors.

Nonlinear Phonology - Application to SLP Practice

• Principles are applied to goal setting and intervention for children with speech sound disorders.
• Examples: Using established sounds in new syllable shapes or developing new sounds in established syllable shapes.

Optimality Theory

• Theory originally developed to describe adult languages.
• Basic unit of representation are “CONSTRAINTS" (not rules)
• Constraints are universal and part of Universal Grammar (UG)
• Variation across languages and in development is accounted for in terms of the relative ranking of constraints.
• Two types of representation: Input representation (IR) and Output representation (OR).

Two Basic Types of Antagonistic Constraints:

• Markedness Constraints: Require output forms to be unmarked in structure
• Faithfulness Constraints: Require OR to resemble IR. Capture features to be "preserved," prohibiting addition or deletion that violates the ambient language.

Optimality Theory - Example: Little Julia's Rules (Constraints)

• All σs require singleton onsets, but not all target σs have onsets.
  • How might she produce /preɪ.ɪŋ/?
  • How might she produce /εl.ə/?
• Child has syllable structure limitations; no consonant sequences are permitted. But there are too many consonants in the target words.
  • How might she produce /pleɪ/?
  • How might she produce /spaɪ/?
• Every foot must be Sw, but there are too few or too many σs in a foot.
  • How might she produce /eɪt/?
  • How might she produce /də.lɪʃ.əs/?

Constraints and Repair Processes in Syllables

• All σs require an onset:
  • Too few C's - onsetless σ
    • Repair: Insert C or delete V
• Only one C in an onset:
  • Too many C's - a C not in a σ
    • Repair: Delete a C or Insert a V

Constraints and Repair Processes in Stress Patterns

• Every foot must be Sw.
  • Too few S's for a foot - a foot with a single S
    • Repair: Insert V-up or Reduplicate
  • Too many S's for a foot - a S not in a foot
    • Repair: Delete S, or make a weak S strong.