Word-final /i/ in English words like potency is synchronically derived from /j/.
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Linguistic discussions and references outline that generative phonological traditions, such as those originating from The Sound Pattern of English, propose that word-final /i/ in words like potency is synchronically derived from an underlying /j/.
AbstractThis chapter considers the major questions that arose as phonologists utilized and explored the ordered-rule methodology developed in The Sound Pattern of English. Can any limitations be placed on the disparity between the underlying and surface phonetic representations (abstractness, absolute neutralization)? Should phonological rules be distinguished in terms of phonetic vs. morphological function and motivation (natural processes)? Are there more or less natural interactions between the rules (feeding, bleeding, and opacity)? Do the rules aim at particular outputs either singly or in concert (conspiracies and derivational constraints)? Is the application of a rule determined solely by the immediately preceding step in the derivation or can remote structures also play a role (global rules)? The different answers to these questions that appeared in the decade following SPE are considered as well as their reverberations in later stages of development in the generative approach.
# What are current perspectives on analyzing word-final /i/ in English words like "potency" as synchronically derived from /j/?
Tags: phonology, morphology
- Score: 4
- Views: 268
- Answers: 1
- Answered: yes
- Asked by: brass tacks (19570 rep)
- Asked: 2017-11-10
- Edited: 2020-06-17
- Site: linguistics
## Question
I have encountered, I believe mostly in works from Generativist phonological traditions along the lines of Chomsky and Halle's The Sound Pattern of English, the idea that words like potency, latency, decency, presidency end at some level of morpho-phonology with the sound /j/ rather than some nuclear vowel sound like /i/.
I've realized I don't quite understand the point of this analysis; could anyone explain it to me and tell me if it is still considered to be correct by anyone, or by most people, or by only a few people?
Stress & vowel length
The main motivation that I think I understand is stress and vowel length: if we say that "potency" has only two syllables at the level of phonology where stress and vowel length rules are applied, this explains why it doesn't show "trisyllabic laxing"/"Luick's law" and has a long rather than a short vowel in the initial syllab
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