Palatalization in Biscayan Basque and Feature Geometry

Abstract

Archangeli (1987) has pointed out that the hierarchical model of feature representation combined with the statement of phonological rules in terms of conditions and parameters offers the advantage that it allows the expression as a single rule of unitary processes that must be stated as multiple operations within other frameworks. In this paper I will offer an example of this (cf. Hualde, 1987 for another example). I will show that a seemingly complex process of palatalization that must be stated as two related but different operations within a linear model, can be straightforwardly captured in the hierarchical /parametrical approach by taking into account the geometrical structures on which the palatalization rule applies; in particular, the branching structures created by a rule of place assimilation. I will assume that assimilatory processes have the effect of creating complex structures where features or nodes are shared by several segments. From this assumption we can make predictions about how other rules may apply to the output of a process of assimilation. These predictions are very different in some cases from what one would expect from a formulation of the rules in a linear, feature -changing framework. In the case to be examined here, the predictions made by taking into account derived geometrical structures receive very strong confirmation. I will consider a rule of palatalization in two Basque dialects. In one of them, the process of palatalization can be captured quite simply by a linear rule. In the other dialect, the facts appear as more complex and requiring several operations within a linear framework, but are actually simpler to state within a geometrical /parametrical framework. Only within such a theory can we capture the fact that the more pervasive palatalization observed in this second dialect arose from a simplification in the rule that other dialects possess.