Phonological events

Abstract

One of the major innovations within post-SPE generative phonology has been the development of frameworks where phonological units are organized in a non-linear fashion. Taking autosegmental phonology (Goldsmith, 1976) as our main exemplar of such frameworks, we wish to address the following question: What is the appropriate interpretation of autosegmental representations? There is, of course, a further question about what we mean by INTERPRETATION: formal, phonetic or computational interpretation? Although we will concentrate on the first of these, we believe that all three aspects should be regarded as closely inter-connected and mutually constraining. The question of interpreting autosegmental representation has in fact been recently posed by Sagey (1988), and we shall take her proposal as our starting point. While it is uncontroversial to suppose that the relationship between units on a given autosegmental tier is one of temporal precedence, Sagey claims that it is more problematic to pin down what is meant by association between tiers. She argues, cogently we believe, that if association is taken to be a relationship of simultaneity between durationless units, then standard analyses of complex segments and gemination lead to logical inconsistency. Instead, association should be taken as temporal OVERLAP between units with duration.