Procedural First

Many phonological phenomena are conditioned by extra-phonological, especially morpho-syntactic information. The goal of this talk is to suggest that whenever there are concurrent representational and procedural solutions for the transmission of morpho-syntactic information , advantage is to be given to the latter. Indeed, we argue that procedural analyses allow for a control outside of the phonology since they make predictions on the morpho-syntactic side, while representational analyses by definition never engage any morpho-syntactic property. In short, thus, we propose that the most convincing argument for or against an analysis that involves phonological interface phenomena will be extra-phonological. Since SPE and in all subsequent interface theories, morpho-syntax may use two means of talking to the phonology: representational (boundaries such as "#" in SPE, the Prosodic Hierarchy later on) and procedural (the transformational cycle in SPE, today known as phase theory , Chomsky 2001). Is there a way to determine exactly which phenomenon can/must be handled procedurally or representationally? As far as we can see, this question has never been addressed, probably because the minimal tool required is not available: an exhaustive classification of interface phenomena. On the basis of Kenstowicz & Kisseberth (1977:83ss), we build such a typology: given two morphemes M1 and M2, their concatenation may either block or trigger a process that would apply if the morpho-syntactic division were not there. Classical cases such as English nasal assimilation (iMpossible vs. uNpredictable) fall into the former (blocking, which we call type A), others such as English angma (sing, singer [ŋ] vs. finger, longer [ŋg]) fall into the latter (triggering, type B). Both govern the applicability of a phonological process (which does or does not go into effect). Another class, typically involving stress (párent, parént-al vs. párent-hood), has a morpho-syntactic conditioning that determines how the process applies (rather than whether it applies): stress is always placed, but differently according to extra-phonological information (type C process). This typology addresses a class of phonological processes that has traditionally given rise to procedural treatments: so-called stratal phenomena (i.e involving different affix classes). Importantly , all stratal phenomena fall into either of the three classes. From a more general perspective , however, there are also phonological processes that are sensitive to extra-phonological information which lie outside of the stratal realm. All processes that make reference to edges fall into this category (i.e. final devoicing, restrictions on word-initial clusters etc.). These non-stratal phenomena are handled representationally: …