The phonology of being understood: further arguments against sonority

JOHN HARRIS


Phonotactic restrictions reflect preferences in the way the carrier signal in speech is modulated from one moment to the next. This effect is largely unaccounted for in sonority-based analyses of phonotactics. The phonetic specification of sonority remains in any case controversial. However, treating it as an independently phonological entity is not an appealing option. Unlike distinctive features, sonority makes no contribution to the core of phonological knowledge that enables listener-talkers to attach linguistic meaning to modulations of the speech signal. Modulations carry the linguistic message, while the carrier enables the message to be heard. The sonority proposal attempts to characterise how messages are heard and has little to say about how they are understood.

Keywords

Phonotactic restrictions; sonority; modulation theory

Lingua 116 (2006), pp. 1483-1494

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