First published in 1998. Part of the Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics series, this work looks at the analysis of elision directionaility and the correlation between the active value of (ATR) in a language and the language's vowel inventory. The paper develops the idea of ATR Predictability.

First published in 1998. Part of the Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics series, this work looks at the analysis of elision directionailityandthe correlation between the active value of (ATR) in a language and the language's vowel inventory. The paper develops the idea of ATR Predictability.

First published in 1992, A Grammar of Old English, Volume 1: Phonology was a landmark publication that in the intervening years has not been surpassed in its depth of scholarship and usefulness to the field. With the 2011 posthumous publication of Richard M. Hogg’s Volume 2: Morphology, Volume 1 is again in print, now in paperback, so that scholars can own this complete work. Takes account of major developments both in the field of Old English studies and in linguistic theory Takes full advantage of the Dictionary of Old English project at Toronto, and includes full cross-references to the DOE data Fully utilizes work in phonemic and generative theory and related topics Provides material crucial for future research both in diachronic and synchronic phonology and in historical sociolinguistics

This book documents the interrogative system of Ikpana, an endangered indigenous Ghana-Togo Mountain language of eastern Ghana also known as Logba. The system is notable in several respects. It exhibits features that buck certain typological trends, act as counterexamples to some claims about language universals, and exemplify fascinating patterns that are either rare or unfamiliar in interrogative systems cross-linguistically. Drawing on original fieldwork and a combination of formal/theoretical, experimental, and comparative methodologies, the book provides a theoretically-informed description and analysis of Ikpana interrogative grammar, encompassing both syntactic and phonological aspects of question formation in the language. The chapters explore a range of phenomena including polar question formation, wh- movement, wh- in-situ, interrogative intonation, and prosody, among others. The authors demonstrate that theoretically-guided language documentation does not only contribute to language description, but can also increase understanding of the human Language Faculty and expand the empirical base of language typologies: bringing formal and theoretical concerns to the fore facilitates richer descriptions of the grammar than purely descriptive approaches allow.

This book provides an overview of phonological typology: the study of how sounds are distributed across the languages of the world and why they display these distributions and patterns. Matthew Gordon analyses cross-linguistic data from a range of sources to gain insight into the driving forces behind a variety of phonological phenomena.

This monograph is concerned with the question of why some English words have more than one stress pattern. E.g., 'overt vs. o'vert, 'pulsate vs. pul'sate, etc. It is argued that cases such as these are due to the fact that the morphological structure of one and the same English word can sometimes be analyzed in more than one way. Thus, 'overt is the stress pattern of the suffixation analysis over + -t, whereas o'vert is due to the prefixation analysis o- + -vert (cf. covert). Similarly, pulsate is simultaneously pulse + -ate (i.e., a suffixed derivative) and a back-derivative from pul'satance. "Tokar's approach in the use of both dictionary (OED) and corpus data (YouTube) holds promise of a scholarly breakthrough on the vital linguistic prosodic topic of English stress assignment of doublets and of stress assignment in general." (Irmengard Rauch, Professor of Germanic Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley)

The syllable has always been a key concept in generative linguistics: the rules, representations, parameters, or constraints posited in diverse frameworks of theoretical phonology and morphology all make reference to this fundamental unit of prosodic structure. No less central to the field is Optimality Theory, an approach developed within (morpho-)phonology in the early 1990s. This 2003 book combines two themes of central importance to linguists and their mutual relevance in recent research. It provides an overview of the role of the syllable in OT and ways in which problems that relate to the analysis of syllable structure can be solved in OT. The contributions to the book not only show that the syllable sheds light on certain properties of OT itself, they also demonstrate that OT is capable of describing and adequately analyzing many issues that are problematic in other theories. The analyses are based on a wealth of languages.