This volume of new work by prominent phonologists goes to the heart of current debates in phonological and linguistic theory: should the explanation of phonological variety be constraint or rule-based and, in the light of the resolution of this question, how in the mind does phonology interface with other components of the grammar. The book includes contributions from leading proponents of both sides of the argument and an extensive introduction setting out the history, nature, and more general linguistic implications of current phonological theory.

This volume is the first to provide an up-to-date and comprehensive history of phonology from the earliest known examples of phonological thinking, through the rise of phonology as a field in the twentieth century, and up to the most recent advances. The volume is divided into five parts. Part I offers an account of writing systems along with chapters exploring the great ancient and medieval intellectual traditions of phonological thought that form the foundation of later thinking and continue to enrich phonological theory. Chapters in Part II describe the important schools and individuals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who shaped phonology as an organized scientific field. Part III examines mid-twentieth century developments in phonology in the Soviet Union, Northern and Western Europe, and North America; it continues with precursors to generative grammar, and culminates in a chapter on Chomsky and Halle's The Sound Pattern of English (SPE). Part IV then shows how phonological theorists responded to SPE with respect to derivations, representations, and phonology-morphology interaction. Theories discussed include Dependency Phonology, Government Phonology, Constraint-and-Repair theories, and Optimality Theory. The part ends with a chapter on the study of variation. Finally, chapters in Part V look at new methods and approaches, covering phonetic explanation, corpora and phonological analysis, probabilistic phonology, computational modelling, models of phonological learning, and the evolution of phonology. This in-depth exploration of the history of phonology provides new perspectives on where phonology has been and sheds light on where it could go next.

Over the past three decades, phonological theory has advanced in many areas, but it has changed little in its foundational assumptions about how computational processes can serve as a basis for the theory. This volume suggests that it may be worthwhile to reconsider some of those assumptions. Is there an order to the rules in a phonological derivation? What kinds of links other than derivations are possible between the level of mental representation and the level of speech sounds? Since phonological representations are so much more sophisticated today than they were a few decads ago, do we need any phonological rules at all? In this provocative book, leading linguists and computer scientists consider the challenges that computational innovations pose to current rule-based phonological theories and speculate about the advantages of phonological models based on artificial neural networks and other computer designs. The authors offer new conceptions of phonological theory for the 1990s, the most radical of which proposes that phonological processes cannot be characterized by rules at all, but arise from the dynamics of a system of phonological representations in a high-dimensional vector space of the sort that a neural network embodies. This new view of phonology is becoming increasingly attractive to linguists and others in the cognitive sciences because it answers some difficult questions about learning while drawing on recent results in philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience. The contributors are John A. Goldsmith, Larry M. Hyman, George Lakoff, K. P. Mohanan, David S. Touretzky, and Deirdre W. Wheeler.

Phonology - the study of how the sounds of speech are represented in our minds - is one of the core areas of linguistic theory, and is central to the study of human language. This handbook brings together the world's leading experts in phonology to present the most comprehensive and detailed overview of the field. Focusing on research and the most influential theories, the authors discuss each of the central issues in phonological theory, explore a variety of empirical phenomena, and show how phonology interacts with other aspects of language such as syntax, morphology, phonetics, and language acquisition. Providing a one-stop guide to every aspect of this important field, The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology will serve as an invaluable source of readings for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, an informative overview for linguists and a useful starting point for anyone beginning phonological research.

Available online or as a five-volume print set, The Blackwell Companion to Phonology is a major reference work drawing together 124 new contributions from leading international scholars in the field. It will be indispensable to students and researchers in the field for years to come. Key Features: Full explorations of all the most important ideas and key developments in the field Documents major insights into human language gathered by phonologists in past decades; highlights interdisciplinary connections, such as the social and computational sciences; and examines statistical and experimental techniques Offers an overview of theoretical positions and ongoing debates within phonology at the beginning of the twenty-first century An extensive reference work based on the best and most recent scholarly research – ideal for advanced undergraduates through to faculty and researchers Publishing simultaneously in print and online; visit www.companiontophonology.com for full details Additional features of the online edition (ISBN: 978-1-4443-3526-2): Powerful searching, browsing, and cross-referencing capabilities, including Open URL linking, with all entries classified by key topic, subject, place, people, and period For those institutions already subscribing to Blackwell Reference Online, it offers fully integrated and searchable content with the comprehensive Handbooks in Linguistics series

The Handbook of Phonological Theory, second edition offers an innovative and detailed examination of recent developments in phonology, and the implications of these within linguistic theory and related disciplines. Revised from the ground-up for the second edition, the book is comprised almost entirely of newly-written and previously unpublished chapters Addresses the important questions in the field including learnability, phonological interfaces, tone, and variation, and assesses the findings and accomplishments in these domains Brings together a renowned and international contributor team Offers new and unique reflections on the advances in phonological theory since publication of the first edition in 1995 Along with the first edition, still in publication, it forms the most complete and current overview of the subject in print