Representation vs Derivation
Joaquim Brandão de Carvalho
(reviewers: Heather Newell, Tobias Scheer & Marc Van Oostendorp)
Abstract: Plurilinear representations and constraint-based derivation have been the main tools used in the last 40 years by autosegmental approaches and OT respectively. It is argued here that the border between representation and derivation depends on another key division in phonological theory: in phonology proper, there are no such things as processes involving feature propagation or delinking; only by virtue of morphophonological alternations, that is of phonology/morphosyntax interaction, may an object be said to change into another one. Thus, representational theories better describe core phonology, seen as an autonomous module of grammar, while constraint-based models are necessary to deal with computation associated with phonology’s upper interfaces.
Carvalho, Joaquim (Brandão de). 2021. “Representation vs Derivation: The Case for a modular view of phonology”. Radical: A Journal of Phonology, 1, 292-327.