Underlying Representations (Key Topics in Phonology) - Softcover

Krämer, Martin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521180031 ISBN 13: 9780521180030

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2012

Synopsis

At the heart of generative phonology lies the assumption that the sounds of every language have abstract underlying representations, which undergo various changes in order to generate the 'surface' representations; that is, the sounds we actually pronounce. The existence, status and form of underlying representations have been hotly debated in phonological research since the introduction of the phoneme in the nineteenth century. This book provides a comprehensive overview of theories of the mental representation of the sounds of language. How does the mind store and process phonological representations? Krämer surveys the development of the concept of underlying representation over the last 100 years or so within the field of generative phonology. He considers phonological patterns, psycholinguistic experiments, statistical generalisations over data corpora and phenomena such as hypercorrection. The book offers a new understanding of contrastive features and proposes a modification of the optimality-theoretic approach to the generation of underlying representations.

About this title

Book Description:

Looks at the fascinating ways in which language provides insight into the workings of the human mind. By looking at the way in which the sounds of words are stored in the phonological lexicon, we learn about how the human mind analyses a blurry and distorted signal into abstract representations.

About the Author:

Martin Krämer is Associate Professor in Linguistics in the Department of Language and Linguistics at the University of Tromsø.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0521180031
• ISBN 13: 9780521180030
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 276