Sawing off the branch you are sitting on

Abstract

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.

Towards a non-arbitrary account of affricates and affrication

“…But none of those authors assume internal structure in the sense that [e] could be a substructure of [ɛ] etc. The same applies toClements (1991) and his splitting up of [open] into [open 1 ], [open 2 ] etc.38 This deviates minimally from the original proposal inPöchtrager (2018), but is more in line with the findings inPöchtrager (2017;2020) and with the argumentation developed here. Vowel reduction is of course more complex and varied than given here, cf Pöchtrager (2018).…”

“…elements) has been replaced by structure. As a result, many cases of lenition, both for consonants (Pöchtrager 2016) and vowels (Pöchtrager 2018), have been reinterpreted as structural as well. This can mean one of two things, as given in ( 22).…”

“…Pöchtrager (2016) expressed the hope that all cases of lenition might be covered by (22a), which is clearly too ambitious a goal, since it would not only exclude affrication as a lenition process, but also fortis leniting to lenis. (22) presents a unified account of lenition to the extent that both parts refer to operations taking place within a tree structure, but do not directly affect melody Pöchtrager (2018),. looking at vowel reduction, discusses how melody can be lost as a side-effect when the position housing that element is lost.…”

Faroese Preaspiration: A Nucleus/Onset Interaction Analysis

“…30 Schane (1984) also pointed out that the prime |A| is different, in the sense that it is the only one that can be reduplicated within a segmental expression. 31 Similarly, Pöchtrager (2018) discusses the legitimacy of |A| in the element inventory and proposes to analyze it-like aspiration-as a structural configuration. More precisely, the property encapsulated by |A|-openness-could be represented with (an) empty 30 Backley (2011) analyzes phenomena such as r-linking and pharyngealization as |A| spreading, which supports the primitive status of |A|.…”

“…In GP2, reduction consists of the loss of the highest layer of /e/. The remaining part, the level containing xN|I| and x1, is equivalent to the vowel [i] (Pöchtrager 2018). ( 23 Note that when mid vowels are long (as in 22a, 23a, and 24a), two potential targets can be m-commanded by the head to express length: x1 or x2.…”