Laryngeal Representation in English

Abstract

This paper reanalyzes the laryngeal specification of stops in English, based on the aspiration account (Iverson & SaIrnons 1995, Avery & Idsardi 2000, Iverson & Ahn 2007, etc.). As has been shown in the earlier works, postulation of [spread] rather than [voice] as the marked laryngeal feature for English as well as many other Germanic languages leads to deeper understanding of the distribution of aspiration and to a more satisfying analysis of other related issues, such as word-final laryngeal neutralization, compensatory vowel lengthening, and passive voicing, etc. In this paper, I show how this new account demonstrates the optimal description of English stops. I then show that the parallelism of the "classic" Optimality Theory (McCarthy & Prince 1995, Benua 1997) or the recent theory of OT-CC (McCarthy 2006, 2007) cannot account for the allophonic variation of aspiration and vowel lengthening in English. Regarding this problem, I propose to incorporate the concept of (full) "serialism" and the cyclic application of constraints in Optimality Theory.