Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 November 2002
Developments in phonological theory have led to the recognition that phonological representations have a layered constituent structure. Many, perhaps all, of these constituents contain elements which can be identified as heads. Heads enter into various kinds of relations with their dependents. In this article, we identify a phenomenon which is quite pervasive in every part of phonology which has heads and dependents, namely, the existence of head–dependent asymmetries (henceforth HDAs). While various particular manifestations of these asymmetries are well known and have been much studied, this is the first attempt, to our knowledge, to unite a broad range of seemingly different phenomena under one heading. We identify various types of HDAs, and propose constraints on possible HDAs.
Most importantly, we distinguish between HDAs that involve complexity, and those that involve visibility. These have properties which potentially contradict each other. We propose that they apply in fundamentally different types of cases: unlike complexity HDAs, visibility HDAs are limited to mappings from one phonological plane to another, and so are related to the notion of projection (cf. Vergnaud 1977).
We also wish to show that an understanding of HDAs reveals general structural principles that play a role in diverse phenomena at various levels of the phonological hierarchy. For example, the fact noted in the Optimality Theory literature that certain positions tend to be more ‘faithful’ to underlying specifications (Beckman 1998) is a consequence of the fact that heads allow more complexity. These principles act as constraints on possible constraints, and on possible mappings from one plane to another.
To send this article to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Dropbox account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Google Drive account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.