scholarly journals Sets, rules and natural classes: [ ] vs. { }

Loquens ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. e065
Author(s):  
Alan Bale ◽  
Charles Reiss ◽  
David Ta-Chun Shen
Keyword(s):  
Structural Changes ◽  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Natural Class ◽  
Partial Operation ◽  
Single Feature ◽  
Compensatory Lengthening ◽  
Natural Classes

We discuss a set-theoretic treatment of segments as sets of valued features and of natural classes as intensionally defined sets of sets of valued features. In this system, the empty set { } corresponds to a completely underspecified segment, and the natural class [ ] corresponds to the set of all segments, making a feature ± Segment unnecessary. We use unification, a partial operation on sets, to implement feature-filling processes, and we combine unification with set subtraction to implement feature-changing processes. We show how unification creates the illusion of targeting only underspecified segments, and we explore the possibility that only unification rules whose structural changes involve a single feature are UG-compatible. We show that no such Singleton Set Restriction can work with rules based on set subtraction. The system is illustrated using toy vowel harmony systems and a treatment of compensatory lengthening as total assimilation.

Phonology and Phonetics

2020 ◽  
pp. 11-29
Author(s):  
Michael J. Kenstowicz
Keyword(s):  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Phonological Variation ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Hiatus Resolution ◽  
Compensatory Lengthening ◽  
Nasal Consonant

This chapter focuses on the contributions African languages have made to phonological theory. The first section reviews some of the highlights in the development of autosegmental representations, concentrating on the interface of sound segments with prosodic structure. It is shown how one–many and many–one relations between phonemes and syllable positions elucidate the behavior of geminate consonants and the compensatory lengthening that accompanies processes of devocalization and prenasalization. The sections that follow consider the African contribution to studies concerning the scope and limits of phonological variation. Typologies of vowel harmony, vowel hiatus resolution and nasal-consonant coalescence, syllabification, reduplication, and phonological phrasing are surveyed.

Preference Laws and Gradient Change: Selected Developments in Romance

1987 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Murray
Keyword(s):  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Focus Attention ◽  
Natural Class ◽  
Phonological Processes ◽  
High Vowels ◽  
Phonological Change ◽  
Natural Classes ◽  
Gradient Change

This paper has two purposes. The first is to focus attention on the gradient nature of sound change. This characteristic of sound change, although an important one, is often overlooked. King (1969: 122), for example, states: “Phonological changes tend to affect natural classes of sounds (p, t, k, high vowels, voiced stops) because rules that affect natural classes are simpler than rules that apply only to single segments.” This perspective obscures the generalization pattern of phonological processes, for a particular process typically affects a subsection of a natural class and then may (or may not) generalize to other members of the particular class or even to other classes. The second purpose of this paper is to account for selected cases of gradient phonological change in Italian and other Romance languages on the basis of a partial theory of syllable structure preferences.

scholarly journals Phonological processes in the noun class system of lama.

1989 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-178
Author(s):  
Meterwa A. Ourso
Keyword(s):  
Structural Changes ◽  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Phonological Processes ◽  
Class System ◽  
Noun Classes ◽  
Noun Class

The purpose of this paper is to account for the phonological processes taking place within noun classes and across noun classes in Lama, particularly when some class suffixes are attached to noun stems. This study is therefore an overview of the noun class phonology. After an introduction to the phonology and to the noun class system, we will examine specific phonological problems. It will be shown that when some root final sounds are in contact with some suffixes, they undergo structural changes, namely, assimilation, vowel truncation, and root controlled vowel harmony.

Discrimination of Polymorphous Stimulus Sets by Pigeons

1978 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 521-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. E. G. Lea ◽  
S. N. Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Visual Discrimination ◽  
Positive Test ◽  
Consistent Difference ◽  
Common Features ◽  
Speed Of Response ◽  
Single Feature ◽  
The Common ◽  
Natural Classes ◽  
Successive Method ◽  
Negative Stimuli

Pigeons were trained to perform a visual discrimination between stimulus sets in which the presence of any two of three positive features made a stimulus positive, while any two of three negative features made it negative (there were thus three different positive and three different negative stimuli). After training, the birds were exposed to test stimuli that contained either all three positive or all three negative features. In Experiment I three pigeons were successfully trained by a successive method, and subsequently responded to the test stimuli as though they were positive or negative respectively. In Experiment II four pigeons were trained by a simultaneous method. Three learned the discrimination and generalized appropriately to the test stimuli, but they showed no preference between positive test and positive training stimuli, nor any consistent difference in speed of response to them; and similar results were found for negative stimuli. It is argued from this that the pigeons learned to respond to the stimuli as patterns (configurations of features) rather than to the constituent features, but that they generalized to the test stimuli by using the common features. The experiments show that pigeons could in principle learn to discriminate natural polymorphous classes (such as “pigeon” or “person”) without using any single feature, but neither the present experiments nor earlier ones demonstrating discriminations of such natural classes establish that pigeons make use of polymorphous concepts in the same way as people.

Distinctive features and natural classes in phonological theory

1972 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max W. Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Empirical Validation ◽  
Natural Class ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Phonological Structure ◽  
Basic Set ◽  
Phonological Rule ◽  
Basic Hypothesis ◽  
Basic Features ◽  
Natural Classes

1. I want in this paper to draw attention again to the theoretical basis of the use of distinctive features in generative phonology, and with that in mind, to consider what improvements can be made. One function of distinctive features is to provide a formal means of expressing the notion of a NATURAL CLASS (cf. Harms, 1968: 26), such that a phonological rule which applies to a natural class of segments may be expressed in a simpler way than a rule applying to some other class of segments. Distinctive features, and notational devices and conventions, are intended to capture this notion of simplicity so that by examining a formalized rule one may discover, counting the symbols in it according to a set of values provided, at least whether the rule is simpler than a comparable rule, if not its simplicity in any absolute sense. It is also intended that the set of features should be a substantive universal of language, though, as Harms' examples (1968: 23–38), drawn from various people's analyses of various languages, show, it cannot yet be seen that there is a tendency towards agreement on which these might be, as Harms himself (38) is aware. He sees the problem, however, in these terms:The basic set of features can be viewed as a hypothesis about language, subject to empirical validation. Arguments for adding new features to the list or for altering the basic features must demonstrate the inadequacy of the basic hypothesis. Such arguments, however, cannot be based upon an appeal to the simplicity metric, for the features themselves are elements in the simplicity metric. Phonemic solutions that do not assume the same set of features cannot be compared in terms of simplicity. The claim must be that one solution provides a more reasonable hypothesis of the phonological structure of the language in question.

The Behavior of Noon Sakinah and Nunation in Quranic Recitation: An Optimality Account

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Albatool Mohammed Abalkheel
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Natural Class ◽  
Phonological Processes ◽  
Principal Source ◽  
Sound Patterns ◽  
Natural Classes

<p>“Natural classes” refer to the set of sound patterns that go together in phonological processes. This paper provides an analysis of the phonological behavior of noon sakinah and nunation /n/ in Quranic recitation based on natural class generalization within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT). In some instances, the OT account may be accurate than traditional analysis. It provides evidence that natural classes derive from the nature of the set of markedness constraints, and that gutturals must constitute a natural class. The principal source of evidence for these proposals is that gutturals, unlike other places of articulation, do not induce nasal assimilation. </p>

NATURAL CLASSES AND TORSION THEORIES

2003 ◽  
Vol 02 (01) ◽  
pp. 85-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN DAUNS
Keyword(s):  
Torsion Theory ◽  
Torsion Class ◽  
Direct Products ◽  
Natural Class ◽  
Hereditary Torsion Theory ◽  
Torsion Theories ◽  
Quotient Modules ◽  
Natural Classes ◽  
Torsion Free

Conditions under which a natural class of right R-modules is closed under quotient modules are determined. In this case the unique complementary natural class of c(Δ) is closed under direct products. Hence (Δ, c(Δ)) is a hereditary torsion theory with torsion class Δ. In general a natural class [Formula: see text] of right R-modules is not closed under direct products (or quotient modules), yet it has been shown by Y. Zhou that each natural class [Formula: see text] determines a unique hereditary torsion theory τ. The torsion and torsion free classes of this torsion theory τ are studied, and in particular, their dependence on the original natural class [Formula: see text]. As an application, the resulting torsion theories τ are used to define the class of τ-simple, i.e., τ-cocritical modules. Most of the above is done more generally for M-natural classes in the category σ[M].

scholarly journals Relative natural classes and relative injectivity

2005 ◽  
Vol 2005 (5) ◽  
pp. 671-678
Author(s):  
Septimiu Crivei
Keyword(s):  
Torsion Theory ◽  
Natural Class ◽  
Direct Sums ◽  
Hereditary Torsion Theory ◽  
Injective Hulls ◽  
Natural Classes

Letτbe a hereditary torsion theory on the categoryR-Mod of leftR-modules over an associative unitary ringR. We introduce the notion ofτ-natural class as a class of modules closed underτ-dense submodules, direct sums, andτ-injective hulls. We study connections between certain conditions involvingτ-(quasi-)injectivity in the context ofτ-natural classes, generalizing results established by S. S. Page and Y. Q. Zhou (1994) for natural classes.

Person-Number Interaction: Impoverishment and Natural Classes

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 469-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akira Watanabe
Keyword(s):  
Research Agenda ◽  
Natural Class ◽  
The Past ◽  
Person Features ◽  
Subject Agreement ◽  
Natural Classes ◽  
Feature System

From an analysis of Fula, this article provides straightforward evidence that the hearer feature is binary. The analysis counts on Local Dislocation to handle mixed placement of subject agreement markers. A novel aspect of the analysis is that a natural class made possible by impoverishment defines the environment in which Local Dislocation applies. Impoverishment has mainly been used to capture syncretism in the past, but the present study shows that it has further potential, especially in the area of mixed placement of agreement markers. The impoverishment operation used is motivated by cooccurrence restrictions that arise in the interaction of person features with number features, falling squarely within the research agenda that tries to ground impoverishment in the logical properties of the feature system.

Fine Structural Changes in the Microvasculature of the Mouse Pinna: Aging and Radiation Injury

1974 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 54-55
Author(s):  
S. Phyllis Steamer ◽  
Rosemarie L. Devine
Keyword(s):  
Structural Changes ◽  
Radiation Treatment ◽  
Arterial Stenosis ◽  
Ultrastructural Changes ◽  
Vascular Effects ◽  
Microvascular Changes ◽  
Surrounding Connective Tissue ◽  
Fission Neutrons ◽  
Total Body

The importance of radiation damage to the skin and its vasculature was recognized by the early radiologists. In more recent studies, vascular effects were shown to involve the endothelium as well as the surrounding connective tissue. Microvascular changes in the mouse pinna were studied in vivo and recorded photographically over a period of 12-18 months. Radiation treatment at 110 days of age was total body exposure to either 240 rad fission neutrons or 855 rad 60Co gamma rays. After in vivo observations in control and irradiated mice, animals were sacrificed for examination of changes in vascular fine structure. Vessels were selected from regions of specific interest that had been identified on photomicrographs. Prominent ultrastructural changes can be attributed to aging as well as to radiation treatment. Of principal concern were determinations of ultrastructural changes associated with venous dilatations, segmental arterial stenosis and tortuosities of both veins and arteries, effects that had been identified on the basis of light microscopic observations. Tortuosities and irregularly dilated vein segments were related to both aging and radiation changes but arterial stenosis was observed only in irradiated animals.

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