Abstract

this paper, we will argue that this distinction is untenable. We will see that coarticulation can affect the distribution of contrasts, and therefore must be specified in the phonology. This opens up the possibility of giving a unified analysis of assimilation and coarticulation. Analyzing coarticulation as phonological implies that phonological representations contain far more phonetic detail than is usually assumed to be the case. Vowel-to-vowel coarticulation involves fine degrees of partial assimilation in that vowels assimilate only partially in quality, and the effects may extend through only part of the duration of a segment (e.g hman 1966). This conclusion thus flies in the face of the standard assumption that the richness of phonological representations should be severely restricted in order to avoid over-predicting the range of possible phonological contrasts. So before we turn to evidence that coarticulation is phonological, we will lay the groundwork by examining the arguments for limiting the detail in phonological representations and show that they are based on very questionable assumptions.

Citations