Re: Math/Phonological formulae

Dirk wrote:
<<
Not much. It's pretty much been replaced by Optimality Theory.
 >>

Now, I wasn't at the LSA this year (ironic, because I was literally
moving into a place two and a half minutes away, in a city bordering
Anaheim the Infernal One called Stanton), but apparently at the
general session (excuse the term if it's wrong) on phonology,
attended by a lot of the old school folks (Halle among them), something
quite close to the following was said: "Clearly neither SPE rules
nor OT constraints are good enough to explain the phonological
phenomena seen in natural language.  We need something else."
This was told me by a friend of mine who was in attendance.  The
remarkable thing (to me, at least) is that apparently no one objected.
<rant>(Which would be great, because OT has REALLY side-tracked
phonology!  It's terrible!  Whatever good it has done for the field
of linguistics has already been achieved: let it go the way of RG!  It's
day has passed!)</rant>

Anyway...

Eric wrote:
<<
In this case, I meant the / right before +DOR, not the one before _V.
 >>

Oh, that was certainly not an official usage.  Here's the rule again:

C[+COR, +ant/+DOR] > [(+COR) -ant] /_V[-back, +ATR]

I meant a consonant that is either [+COR, +ant] *or* [+DOR], but
not both (as a consonant can't be [+COR] and [+DOR] in Sidaan).
Sorry for the mix-up.

Eric:
<<
I know laterals can be syllabic, but I'm a little confused as to
whether they can be considered vocalic or not.
 >>

If we're talking about phonology, why not?  I was only talking
about phonology--not about phonetics.  I was simply using those
handy little phonetic feature sets--bending them to my phonological
will, if you will.  ;)

-David
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