Biolinguistics in Phonology : A Prospectus
摘要
The purpose of the present work is to advocate for a biolinguistic approach to phonology, and to illustrate some of the consequences and potential advantages of such an approach. I present a sketch of the cognitive abilities that are required to sustain phonological operations and representations, then discuss whether it is possible to apply principles of biological evolution to sound change. I argue that teleological principles (i.e., markedness) should be subtracted from synchronic phonological theory. This allows phonological theory to be reduced to a system of abstract symbol manipulation. I lay out one way of doing so, first giving evidence for phonetic categories in other species and then showing how simple phonological operations can be formalized. I demonstrate how these simple search and copy operations can be used to analyze vowel harmony alternations. Finally, I discuss the role of underspecification in such a system and conclude with a look to the future.