Abstract:The article illustrates some of the salient features of Government Phonology (GP) 2.0 by axiomatising (a subclass of) the set of possible Putonghua forms.We show that a phonological theory can profit by assuming that phonological representations are hierarchical, just like syntactic representations. A structural relation of c++command, a relative of the well-known c-command, is used heavily. The similarity with syntax is further underlined by the introduction of a phonological Binding Theory: illicit representations are prohibited by the LUxI Principles, the phonological counterpart of Principles A, B and C.

This article argues that vowel reduction can be insightfully understood by reinterpreting openness as structural instead of melodic (i.e., mediated by an element). This allows for a unified account of various reduction phenomena in different languages and also extends to lenition in consonants. The proposal made here is couched within Government Phonology 2.0, a further development of Government Phonology.

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Infl ectional classes are a property of the ideal infl ecting-fusional language type. Thus strongly infl ecting languages have the most complex vertical and horizontal stratifi cation of hierarchical tree structures. Weakly infl ecting languages which also approach the ideal isolating type or languages which also approach the agglutinating type have much shallower structures. Such properties follow from principles of Natural Morphology and from the distinction of the descendent hierarchy of macroclasses, classes, subclasses, subsubclasses etc. and homogeneous microclasses. The main languages of illustration are Latin, Lithuanian, Russian, German, French, Finnish, Hungarian and Turkish.