KEY TERMS

1. alternation

2. neutralization

3. predictability

PREVIEW

This chapter looks deeper into the nature of underlying forms by

• introducing contrast-neutralizing rules

• seeing how unpredictable information must be part of the underlying form

• learning what factors are most important in establishing an underlying representation

• understanding how underlying forms are different from actually pronounced words

A fundamental characteristic of the rules discussed up to this point is that they have been totally predictable allophonic processes, such as aspiration in English or vowel nasalization in Sundanese. For such rules, the question of the exact underlying form of a word has not been so crucial, and in some cases a clear decision could not be made. We saw that in Sundanese every vowel becomes nasalized after a nasal sound, and every phonetic nasal vowel appears after a nasal. Nasality of vowels can always be predicted by a rule in this language: all nasal vowels appear in one predictable context, and all vowels are predictably nasal in that context. It was therefore not crucial to indicate whether a given vowel is underlyingly nasal or underlyingly oral. If you assume that vowels are underlyingly oral you can write a rule to derive all of the nasal vowels, and if you contrarily assume that vowels are all underlyingly nasal you could write a rule to derive all of the oral vowels.