Travel and accommodation

How has phonological theory developed? What are the key driving forces in its history? What are the mechanisms whereby theoretical models succeed each other in phonology? To what extent is there progress in phonological theory and in our understanding of the interfaces between phonology, phonetics, and morphosyntax? Can we draw normative lessons for the practice of phonological research from a historical study of past developments in the field? These questions have come to the fore recently as a result of rapid shifts in scholarly opinion on a number of phonological issues. One important factor driving this has been the life cycle of research in Optimality Theory, which has gradually shifted from exploiting the advantages of the model to struggling with its shortcomings. Thus, in contrast with early forecasts that representations would be accorded a reduced rôle, several recent publications stress the fact that factorial typologies can only be computed against a background of crucial assumptions about representations. Similarly, many practitioners now advocate a retreat from the strict parallelism of the classical model, admitting instead different brands of serialism. These oscillations, however, are not new: the alternation between an emphasis on representations and an emphasis on derivations, for example, is well documented in Anderson’s (1985) survey of the history of 20th-century phonology. Similar rises and falls occur in other areas: the accent alternates between internal and external explanation (as illustrated by the rise of Evolutionary Phonology), and between parsimonious models which sacrifice empirical coverage in the interest of explanatory depth and rich models which reverse these priorities.

Faced with such swings in phonological opinion, we may legitimately wonder to what extent the history of phonology exhibits the developmental pattern known as 'progress'. According to a popular view, a science progresses if, in the course of its development, each new theory subsumes all of the corroborated empirical content of its predecessors whilst making new valid predictions. Phonology does not appear to progress in this way, since all too often new phonological models define themselves by the rejection of the putative results of previous work. For example, many usage-based phonologists do not attempt to derive neogrammarian change as a mode of change implementation, but rather deny that phonological change is ever implemented in the neogrammarian fashion. Similarly, many advocates of output-output correspondence do not seek to recapture the morphological locality restrictions imposed by the cycle, but deny their validity altogether. But, if phonology does not progress linearly, how are we to interpret its toings and froings? Do they form a virtuous spiral that approximates its target as it goes round and round? If we abstract away from the accidents of sociology and fashion, is it possible to give a rational reconstruction of the historical evolution of the discipline?
   
The participants in this special session will cast light on these fundamental questions by looking at various aspects of the history of phonological theory.