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Part of
Beyond Markedness in Formal Phonology
Edited by Bridget D. Samuels
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 241] 2017
► pp. 101–120

Chapter 5
On silent markedness

| Meertens Instituut
| Meertens Instituut, Amsterdam

Empty categories – positions in phonological representations that have no direct phonetic counterpart – are (still) controversial in phonological theory. In this paper we give the main arguments for assuming such positions and we furthermore establish a markedness hierarchy for empty positions: some of them are stronger (‘more marked’) than others, and we can derive this from a combination of Element Theory and Turbidity Theory. We illustrate our point with Italian and Dutch dialects, and point out that the phonological hierarchy of empty positions may correspond to a hierarchy of syntactic positions.

Keywords: emptiness, Turbidity Theory, Element Theory, Dutch dialects, Italian dialects, morphosyntax-phonology interface, phonology-phonetics interface
Article outline
  • 1.Empty positions in syntax
    • 1.1How to argue for silent syntactic elements
    • 1.2Taxonomies of empty elements in syntax
  • 2.Empty positions in phonology
    • 2.1Empty nuclei as limited licensers
    • 2.2Schwa as almost empty
    • 2.3The relation between emptiness on different levels
  • 3.Empirical tests
    • 3.1Silent markedness and simplex onsets
    • 3.2Silent markedness, RT and TR
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 November 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.241.05van
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