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EMPTINESS IN PHONOLOGY

KATALIN BALOGNÉ BÉRCES

1. Introduction: emptiness and abstraction1

The present paper is meant to provide a brief, only moderately theoretical

overview of possible interpretations of emptiness in phonology, i.e., in (the

study of) the sound pattern of language. While most examples and

illustrations of the phenomena discussed will come from English, the

claims are supposed to hold universally, as is suggested by the diversity of

the languages alluded to in similar contexts in the sources used (and

referred to, accordingly, below).

One might think that talking about emptiness in the sound system of

languages is at best contradictory. How could, after all, invisible and mute

objects exist in the system of our vocalizations? However, we should bear

in mind that (current) phonological theory is primarily concerned with the

formal modelling of the cognitive processes that are manifested by those

vocalizations, rather than the physical manifestation itself. This latter area

is tackled by what is called phonetics—the study of speech sounds as

physical (articulatory, acoustic or auditory) objects. Indeed, in phonetics

emptiness is synonymous with real silence, i.e., the absence of verbal

activity, and as such it may be referred to as a “pause”, which corresponds

in phonological descriptions to the edge of the so-called “utterance” (the

stretch of language said at one go, both preceded and followed by a

pause). Phonology, however, deals with how what happens in the physical

world of utterances can be represented in a mental model, in such a way

that the model provides explanations to why what happens could not

happen differently, and it also makes predictions which may or may not be

supported by a new set of data.

Therefore, phonology may sometimes be forced to conclude that the

observed phenomena or processes can (only) be modelled with recourse to

1 The paper, as well as the author, has immensely benefited from the work, in both

research and teaching, of John A. Goldsmith, Jonathan Kaye, Jean Lowenstamm,

Jean-Roger Vergnaud, John Harris, Stephen R. Anderson, Monik Charette,

Michael Kenstowicz, Miklós Törkenczy, and Péter Szigetvári, among others, some

of whom the author is honoured to know, and to have been taught by, in person.

All the errors and misinterpretations are hers.

Katalin Balogné Bérces

a theoretical tool which has little or no physical reality. Take the very

simple case of the syllable as an example. There is massive speaker

intuition that an element of phonological organization grouping sound

segments into units, popularly dubbed “syllable”, exists beyond doubt.

Moreover, there is a long tradition in phonological descriptions to treat

certain regularities as governed by syllable structure.2 And yet, no

phonetic study has succeeded in specifying either the articulatory or the

acoustic correlate(s) of the syllable—apparently, it is more of a

psychological construct than a truly physical object.

Modelling, that is, describing and explaining physical reality, then,

may involve a great degree of abstraction. In chemistry, water, one of the

most ordinary and basic substances, is modelled as H2O. In physics, the

fact that free objects fall downwards on the surface of the Earth (rather

than float in the air like astronauts in space) is due to gravity, i.e., an

invisible force of attraction determined by the mass of the two objects in

relation. What is more, the same force is said to be responsible for the fact

that the Earth goes round the Sun (and not the other way round, as

previously thought)—a claim that obviously goes against our everyday

observations. Science is very often far removed from what is simply

observable or perceptible.

In a similar vein, phonology will be shown below to frequently

manipulate entities not necessarily rooted in physical representations. In

particular, we will argue that emptiness, i.e., categories not present in the

phonetic signal, are detectable at all levels of phonological structure. As

Honeybone (2010: 5) explains:

(1) If phonology is seen as a cognitive entity (or even if it is conceived of as a

purely theoretical instrument), it should be clear that, while phonetics can

be seen to have an influence on phonology, there could be purely

phonological entities which are not founded on phonetics; these could

only be discovered by reasoning and analysis—not by phonetic

investigation; and there may even be phonological entities which have

only an indirect influence on speech.

It will be argued below that, similarly to the other components of linguistic

knowledge and their respective studies, especially syntax and morphology,

phonology also has to assume emptiness (“embodying” the absence of

2 In modern, generative phonological theory, this view goes back at least to Kahn

(1976), the symbolical break with the linear, segment-based representations of

Chomsky & Halle (1968) (SPE).

Emptiness in Phonology

information) whenever a property appears to be inert; empty/zero/“covert”

categories are posited whenever an entity with no apparent physical body

exhibits some systematic behaviour, that is, manifests itself. In a sense,

then, empty phonological objects are very much like ghosts (or, more

precisely, poltergeists): what we observe as taking place in sound structure

in a given situation gets an adequate explanation (only) with recourse to a

hidden agent.

The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 deals with emptiness in

linguistic structure, in syntax (2.1) and morphology (2.2). Section 3, as the

main body of the paper, argues for assuming empty categories in

phonology, too. First, autosegmentalism, the separation of the dimensions

of phonological representation is introduced (3.0), and the claim is made

that autosegmental representations do not only facilitate the expression of

emptiness but they directly lead to its necessary assumption. Then, Section

3.1 considers empty categories in suprasegmental phonology: empty

consonantal positions as they arise in the analysis of liaison (3.1.1) and

hiatus-filling (3.1.2); and empty vocalic positions word-finally (3.1.3) as

well as in other word positions (3.1.4). Finally, Section 3.2 states that

emptiness is present in subsegmental structure, too, in the form of, e.g.,

underspecification, and Section 4 concludes.

2. Evidence for empty categories in linguistic structure

This section presents a brief sketch of empty categories as they are used in

current syntactic and morphological theory. Rather than give an exhaustive

survey, it aims to highlight, with the help of just a few, well-known,

classical textbook examples, that zero elements are an integral part of both

syntactic and morphological descriptions. For more detail, the reader is

referred to the sources indicated.

2.1 Syntax

One of the distinctive features of transformational grammar, the most

popular of present-day syntactic theories, is the abundance of empty

categories. Moreover, it is also claimed that non-overt elements have to be

classified into subtypes, e.g., a whole typology of empty pronouns (PRO,

pro) and traces of moved elements has been set up (cf., e.g., Haegeman &

Guéron 1999: 383–405). There are arguments of all sorts (syntactic,

morphological, phonological, semantic—see Radford 1988: 466–479) for


the analysis of transformations (such as passivization or the formation of

direct wh-interrogatives and relative clauses) as resulting in so-called

“chains” of moved categories and their traces, of which I will choose only

one, wanna-contraction. The point illustrated here is that the trace left

behind by the movement of a wh-phrase from its extraction site to its

position in surface structure forms a kind of invisible barrier, which is able

to prevent the phonological contraction of two, apparently adjacent

elements, for example the verb want and the following infinitival to

introducing its complement. The examples (in (2)–(4) below) are

reproduced from Radford (1988: 475–476).

The story is the following. In colloquial English, want can contract to

wanna, as shown in (2).

(2)

a. I want to win

b. I wanna win

Wanna-contraction is also possible in sentences like the one in (3), where

a wh-phrase (who) has moved from the object position after beat to the

front. Notice that who, ensuring the interrogative force of the sentence by

taking the initial position, also serves the role of object at the same time,

since (i) it can be replaced by the accusative form whom, (ii) it appears in

the object position when it stays in situ in, e.g., so-called echo-questions

like You want to beat who(m)?, and (iii) the same position is taken by the

phrase representing the missing piece of information in responses, e.g., I

want to beat Jim. Empty categories, like the trace of who in (3c), will

henceforth be denoted by a boldfaced zero.

(3)

a. Who do you want to beat?

b. Who do you wanna beat?

c. Who do you wanna beat Ø?

As shown in (4), however, wanna-contraction cannot take place (indicated

by the asterisk in front of (4b)) when who originates from between want

and to, that is, when it is subject in a subclause complementing want.

Consequently, in such cases (i) it cannot be replaced by whom (cf. *Whom

do you want to win?), (ii) it appears in the embedded subject position

when it stays in situ, e.g., You want who to win?, and (iii) want and win are

separated in the same way in responses, e.g., I want Jim to win.


(4)

a. Who do you want to win?

b. *Who do you wanna win?

c. Who do you want Ø to win?

Notice that the most evident explanation to why contraction is acceptable

in (3) but blocked in (4) is that the non-overt element, this abstract entity

with no physical body, serves as a barrier between the two words

preventing them from contracting. That is, want and to are not adjacent in

(4). The boldfaced zero, our syntactic ghost, only has mental reality

(existing in the cognitive system constituting the speakers’ linguistic

capacity) but no physical reality; still, it is able to exhibit systematic

behaviour.

2.2 Morphology

Zero morphs have an even longer history. Back in the 1940s and 1950s,

scholars posited empty inflectional affixes in examples like plural men or

past participle come corresponding to the -s in boys and -ed in sailed,

respectively, with no unanimous support from fellow researchers (cf.

Matthews 1991: 123–125). Certain cases, however, are less debatable,

such as the zero plural of nouns in English. As you can see in (5), the

plural of reindeer is not marked phonologically, that is, it is only marked

by a non-overt, abstract allomorph.3

(5)

a. All of the other boy-s used to laugh and call him names

b. All of the other reindeer-Ø used to laugh and call him names

It is important to see that one cannot analyze reindeer as having no plural

form since it is clearly different from words like information, which do

exemplify that case. While five reindeer, that is, five reindeer-Ø (zero

plural form), is analogous to five boys, neither *five informations nor *five

information is acceptable, i.e., the construct *five information-Ø is non-

existent, and the contrast between reindeer and information is expressed

by the reference to a non-overt, ghostly element acting as the plural

marker in the former example.

3 For a discussion of the principle constraining the use of zero allomorphs in

morphological theory, see Aronoff & Fudeman (2005: 16–17).


The other area where zero categories are posited in English

morphology is derivation, where a word-formational operation having no

visible reflex in the derivative, traditionally referred to as conversion,

illustrates the point. It changes the lexical category of a word without

changing its phonological shape, and appears to be highly productive in

English.4 A noun like text, for instance, can be converted into a verb

meaning ‘send a text message’ without any affixes attached to it, as in He

is texting, and as such the word can serve as the base for further derivation

as in He is the fastest texter in the world. We need to posit the non-overt

derivational affix in such cases (i.e., text-Ø), since there is no visible

element which could be held responsible for the evident semantic and

morpho-syntactic change, apparent in other examples like courage ~

encourage or idol ~ idolize. In addition, in languages like Hungarian,

where noun-to-verb conversion is not an option, this transformation from

one word class to the other is always overtly marked. Therefore,

Hungarian SMS ‘text message’ expands into SMS-ez-(ik) ‘send a text

message’ with the denominal verb-forming suffix -ez- (plus person and

number inflection) added. English (s/he) text(s) will therefore receive a

perfectly parallel treatment, text-Ø-(s), where a covert morpheme

functions to encode crucial semantic and morpho-syntactic information.

3. Empty categories in phonology

I hope to have shown above that in both syntactic and morphological

descriptions, assuming empty categories is not only inevitable but is also

fairly accepted as part of the theoretical machinery, at least in mainstream

frameworks. Very often, we observe phenomena (e.g., the constraints on

wanna-contraction or the well-formedness of five reindeer) which only

receive proper explanation once we resort to this extremely abstract

device: an invisible agent can be shown to exhibit systematic behaviour.

And the behaviour of an entity is evidence of the existence of the entity.

In this section, which constitutes the major part of the paper, I will

argue that empty categories play a similar role in phonological theory.

4 For more detail, see, e.g., Aronoff & Fudeman (2005: 109–110, 133–137), Bauer

(1983: 32–33, 226–230) and Spencer (1991: 19–20), as well as the references

therein.


3.0 A detour: autosegmentalism

Before we can embark on the discussion of emptiness in phonology, we

need to take a brief detour and introduce autosegmentalism.

Autosegmental phonology (Goldsmith 1976) claims that phonological

representations are multidimensional, i.e., their components are arranged

on separate, autonomous dimensions or levels called tiers (hence the

name). A major observation, to be illustrated below, is that phonological

rules can apply independently to the (component parts of) segments at

these autonomous levels. A rough sketch of such a model is given in (6),

consisting of a syllabic tier (encoding the number of syllables, traditionally

abbreviated to σ), a skeletal (or timing) tier (for sheer quantity), and a

segmental (or melodic) tier (for phonetic substance). Please note that this

representation is only an illustration, an oversimplified sample to suit our

present purposes; however, both the syllabic and the melodic tier are in

current phonological theory conceived of as decomposable into sub-levels.

(6)

syllable σ σ σ ef ho 2 2 skeleton x x x x x x x x g g yt g g g g melody t r i l e t

tree letter

A crucial feature of the model is the representation of long segments, e.g.,

the /i:/ in tree, which contain a single melodic element pronounced long,

i.e., taking up roughly twice as much space in an utterance as their short

counterparts. This is indicated in (6) by the single melody /i/ being

associated to two timing slots denoted by x’s, rather than one x,

characteristic of short segments (cf. all the others in (6)). The skeleton,

then, encodes length/quantity, separated from melody/quality. In addition,

it serves as an anchor for the rest of the autosegmental dimensions,

similarly to the spiral binding keeping together the pages of a notebook.

One of the most persuading pieces of evidence for tier autonomy

comes from a process called compensatory lengthening, whereby, as a

reaction to the deletion of a segment, a neighbouring segment lengthens to

compensate for the loss of the one deleted. Consider the data in (7) below.

It shows the way vowel length is affected by the presence vs. absence of

R-deletion (traditionally referred to as R-dropping) in non-rhotic vs. rhotic


English, respectively, in the relevant environments, i.e., when the

orthographical R is either word-final (e.g., car) or pre-consonantal (e.g.,

harsh). Being a rhotic accent, standard American English pronunciation

called General American (GA) represents the pre-R-dropping situation

(historically), while Received Pronunciation (RP, the standard Southern

British accent) is non-rhotic and exhibits the effects of R-deletion.

(7)

GA RP

car more sir harsh fork

bird

A consequence of R-dropping in the RP pronunciations is that the vowels

preceding the deletion site systematically lengthen: in GA, there are short

vowels followed by pronounced R’s, whereas in RP, there are long vowels

(and no R’s, of course). In autosegmental terms, the long vowels of RP are

worth two short segments, i.e., two x’s—exactly the same as the short

vowel+R sequences of GA. This explains why the vowels lengthen in RP

after R-dropping: the quantity of segments within the syllable should

remain stable. This is shown for car in (8).

(8)

a. b. c.

syllable σ σ σ egi egi egi skeleton x x x x x x x x x

g g g g g g yt

melody k r k k

As you can see, the relevant portion of the pronunciation of car, -ar,

occupies the same number of skeletal slots, two, in both the R-ful (8a) and

the R-less (8c) pronunciations. The whole process may be modelled,

therefore, as R-dropping deleting the melody of the R only and leaving the

rest of the structure intact; this results in an empty x slot in the syllable (cf.

(8b)), which gets subsequently occupied by the melody of the vowel


spreading from the left, to compensate for the loss of the R. That explains

the name compensatory lengthening. Most importantly, we only arrive at

this analysis if we assume the autonomy of the autosegmental tiers,

allowing R-dropping to manipulate melody only.

Below, I will argue that empty categories are a direct consequence of

autosegmentalism. A model that adopts the latter will automatically get

endowed with the former. This also follows from a fundamental property

of autosegmental representations: the fact that the skeleton–melody

relationship is not necessarily one-to-one. While it is in the case of

simplex short segments (9a), it is not in the other logically possible

combinations, all of which correspond to attested structures in languages.

Many-to-one correspondence is exemplified by so-called contour

segments (affricates like /t/ as in chin, or the short diphthongs of

French—(9b)); one-to-many correspondence, on the other hand, is

illustrated by long segments (9c), as we have already seen.5 But then the

question arises why we could not as well assume zero-to-one and one-to-

zero correspondences, zero being just like any other number. This means

that we assume the possibility of empty skeletal slots (9d) on the one hand,

and of unassociated, “floating” segmental melodies (9e) on the other.6

(9)

a. b. c. d. e.

skeleton x x x x x g 2 yt melody i t i r

As we will see below, classical syllabic theory, conforming to

autosegmentalism by definition, has managed to integrate this view into its

model to a certain extent. It recognizes the existence of certain empty

categories in certain phonological positions. However, it fails to bring the

logic of its own principles to its necessary conclusions and find that,

similarly to syntax, there exists a whole typology of phonological empty

categories, and all the types may, under limited circumstances, occur in all

phonological positions.

5 The issue of multiple branching, e.g., overlong segments, will be left aside here. 6 In fact, we have seen an empty timing slot in (8b), as part of the intermediate

stage in the derivation of compensatory lengthening.


3.1 Emptiness above the segment

In this section we look at structure above segmental melody, i.e., we

concentrate on empty skeletal/syllabic positions7 and their subtypes, as

alluded to above. Some of the ideas presented below originate from (early)

Government Phonology (GP—Kaye et al. 1985, Kaye et al. 1990, Kaye

1990, Charette 1991, Harris 1994, Kaye 1995, etc.), but, as also mentioned

in the previous section, most of them are not advocated in mainstream

phonological theory.

We will start with rather standard autosegmental accounts of two types

of phenomena, liaison and hiatus filling.

3.1.1 Liaison

The term liaison refers to cases when a linking consonant is appended to

certain vowel-final words when a vowel-initial morpheme follows. What

may serve as a base for the epenthesis of this consonant may be

circumscribed lexically (as in French, for example—see (10)) or

phonologically (as generally assumed for English R-liaison—see (11)). In

French, a lexical property of certain vowel-final stems (e.g., les ‘the, Pl.’,

grand ‘great’, tout ‘every’, faux ‘false’) is their ability to “regain” their

final consonants, lost historically but still preserved by spelling, in the

situation in question.

(10) les les /z/ amis ‘the friends’

les /z/ enfants ‘the children’

grand grand /t/ homme ‘great man’

tout tout /t/ homme ‘every man’

faux faux /z/ amis ‘false friends’

Since the quality of the intruding consonants varies from stem to stem and

is therefore unpredictable8, their analysis as floating consonants lends

itself as an obvious theoretical choice. These final consonants, then, are

part of the lexical representation of the stems but not of their

7 The difference between empty skeletal positions and empty syllabic constituents

(with no skeletal slots) will not be discussed here. See Charette (1991). 8 Spelling is not considered to be a factor capable of influencing phonology. This is

further supported by non-historical intrusive consonants like Intrusive-R in certain

accents of English, in examples like vanilla /r/ ice or Gloria /r/ Estefan.


suprasegmental structure, and are thus unpronounceable unless they can

spread forward to become the first consonant of a following morpheme.

The case of R-liaison in (most) non-rhotic accents of English is similar,

though there has been a long theoretical debate over its being either

lexically (the R is underlying) or phonologically (the R is inserted as a

reaction to certain specific vowel qualities to the left of its site)

conditioned. In either case, in a non-rhotic accent like RP morpheme-final

R’s are dropped when followed by a consonant or a pause in speech but

pronounced when a vowel-initial morpheme follows (cf. (11)). This latter

instance of the R is called Linking-R.

(11)

RP

car car is

more more ice

sir Sir Allen

If we opt for the analytical solution with the R stored in the lexical

representations of the stems, the process can be modelled analogously to

French liaison: the R is a floating consonant (cf. car is in (12a)), which is

only interpreted (= pronounced) when a target skeletal slot is available, to

which it spreads to become incorporated into phonological structure (12b).

(12)

a.

syllable σ σ egi egi skeleton x x x x x x g yt g g

melody k r z

b.


melody k r z


Note, however, that such an analysis does not only support

autosegmentalism, but it also crucially hinges on the theoretical

recognition of both floating melodies and, even more importantly, empty

skeletal slots, that is, phonological boldfaced zeros, as added to our

representation in (13).

(13)


melody k r Ø z

Since liaison applies in the same way with all vowel-initial words

irrespective of the quality of the initial vowel, the morphosyntactic

properties or the meaning of the words, etc., we are led to conclude that all

surface vowel-initial words in fact start with an empty consonantal

position. Moreover, languages abound in similar linking phenomena, so

the observation seems to be rather universal. This means, then, that in all

languages, all words have to start with a consonantal (henceforth C)

position, which may or may not be lexically occupied by melodic material.

Crucially, this condition is automatically satisfied by lexically filled initial

C’s and no empty slots are allowed in such cases (e.g., *Øfz fizz). As a

consequence, the model predicts that linking is only possible with surface

vowel-initial words as only then do floaters find empty slots to dock

onto—a prediction born out by the facts. Therefore, our description of the

process provides an explanation to why the way it happens is the only way

it can happen.

3.1.2 Hiatus-filling

Hiatus is the name given to the sequence of two vocalic segments9. As the

name (Latin for ‘gap’) suggests, the universal (human) intuition is that

there is a yawning gap between the two vowels, since in the normal,

unmarked sequence of segments a consonant is sandwiched between them.

Therefore, various “repair strategies” exist in languages to avoid it,

9 They are situated in two separate syllables. When two vocalic elements are found

in the same syllable, they form a diphthong.


including hiatus-filling, whereby a consonant or consonant-like element is

inserted between the vowels. Very frequently, the segments appearing in

place of the hiatus are glides (or semivowels—called so exactly because

phonetically they are intermediate between consonants and vowels), like in

English, where it applies in such a way that /j/ is used if the first of the two

vowels is high and front, while /w/ is inserted if the first vowel straddling

the hiatus is high and back. A few examples are given in (14), where the

underscores ( _ ) mark the potential insertion sites.10

(14) (a) hiatus potentially

filled by /j/(b) hiatus potentially

filled by /w/

ski_ing

play_a tune

fly_ing

boy_ish

my_idea

Woody_ Allen

so_exciting

allow_ing

Jew_ish

too_old

go_away

New_ England

The most straightforward explanation why hiatus-filling is not only

possible but cross-linguistically common assumes that there is an empty

consonantal slot between the two vowels, that is, the second syllable starts

with an empty C, e.g., ski-Ø-ing. Hiatus-filling, then, is possible because

the position is lexically present—all that happens is the phonetic

interpretation thereof. In addition, this interpretation is a frequent process

in languages because it is a simple way to resolve hiatuses, which are

cross-linguistically dispreferred and tend to be avoided exactly because

empty C’s are dispreferred—emptiness is unnatural and marked in

phonology. Therefore, we, again, do not only find a possible analysis but a

possible explanation, too. And the hiatus really is a hiatus: a gap, an empty

prosodic position.

Notice that this description of hiatus-filling, at least in cross-word

examples like Woody Allen, logically follows from the way we analysed

liaison in the previous section. If surface vowel-initial words like Allen

start with empty C’s phonologically (cf. the Linking-R in, e.g., Mister

Allen), then that empty C will get sandwiched between two vowels when

the preceding word ends in one. But from our analyses of liaison and

hiatus it also follows that all surface vowel-initial syllables start with an

empty C, whether they are word-initial (e.g., Allen) or word-internal (e.g.,

hiatus). A further consequence is that in our model, all syllables start with

a C, which may or may not be filled lexically. In the former case, we get

10 For more examples and a detailed discussion, see Balogné Bérces (2011).


surface consonant-initial syllables, whereas the latter construction

generates surface vowel-initial syllables.

The claims above find additional support in cross-linguistic

observations. For instance, it is well-known that there are two types of

languages, (i) where syllables and/or words have to start with a consonant,

and (ii) where syllables and/or words can start with a vowel.11

In our terms

this means that type (i) does not tolerate empty C’s, whereas type (ii)

does—another explanation to the facts. Furthermore, this model also

predicts that there can not be a language where words have to start with a

vowel (recall, emptiness is unnatural and marked), which is borne out by

the data.

3.1.3 Are there any empty vocalic positions?

Once we introduce emptiness into our model in the form of empty

consonantal positions, the question arises whether their vocalic

counterparts also exist. For the system to be symmetrical and as general as

possible, it is in fact desirable that they do. This section and the next argue

for the theoretical advantages of positing empty V’s word-finally and

word-medially, respectively.

Let us first assume that the phonological patterning of any given

segment derives from its intrinsic nature (determined by, e.g., its internal

structure12

), therefore the same phonological object within the same

system always receives the same treatment. This means that whenever two

segments are combined in the same order, they always enter into the same

relationship. So whatever representation we render to, e.g., the /tr/

sequence in tram, it will be the same in betray. Crucially and non-trivially,

syllable structure depends on the melodic make-up of segments, and

seemingly minor differences, like that between the two liquids /l/ and /r/,

may lead to fundamentally different parsings to the consonant clusters they

produce. When they combine with a preceding /t/, for example, the

sequence with the /l/ is always heterosyllabic (e.g., Atlantic, which

syllabifies into At-lan-tic), while the one with the /r/ is always

11 Word-initial and medial onsetless syllables are separately evaluated. This in fact

generates four logical possibilities for language types, each of which is attested—

cf. Balogné Bérces (2006) and (2008: Ch.7). 12 The subsegmental property in charge is charm in early GP (cf. Kaye et al. 1985)

and complexity in later versions (e.g., Harris 1994).


tautosyllabic (e.g., betray, giving be-tray)13

. That these two consonant

clusters differ in structure will also account for why their distributions do

not coincide, either: /tl/ is only found word-medially (there are no English

words starting or ending with it), whereas /tr/ is found word-initially, too

(cf. tram and betray above).

Consider now the syllabic affiliation of the consonants in the /nd/

sequence in abandon. However uncontroversial the example may look,

with a-ban-don as the result, other words like band will cause a theoretical

problem. Namely, if we stick to our principle above, then the /nd/ should

receive the same, heterosyllabic analysis in both abandon and band: if the

/n/ is syllable-final and the /d/ is syllable-initial in abandon, so are they in

band: ban-d. Here, however, the /d/ can only be conceived of as an onset

to a degenerate syllable, with no overt vocalic element, traditionally

considered as the obligatory centre or nucleus of syllables. We conclude,

therefore, that band ends in an empty vowel: ban-dØ, which is referred to

in GP as a final empty nucleus (FEN).

The case of band, however, is neither idiosyncratic nor exceptional. In

fact, all the final two-member consonant clusters of English are also found

word-internally, where—with the exception of sp, st, sk, cf. lisp, fist,

risk14

—they are always unambiguously heterosyllabic. This means that

whenever a word ends in two consonants, the same argumentation leads us

to positing a FEN. Moreover, notice that single consonants do not pattern

differently: the word-final ones (e.g., abandon) are also found in internal

intervocalic environment (e.g., money)15

, where they are usually treated as

belonging to the following syllable.16

This in turn entails that words

ending in a single consonant on the surface also end in a FEN

13 Certain authors (e.g., Kahn 1976) have suggested that the /t/ in words like petrol

is ambisyllabic, that is, it simultaneously belongs to the first and second syllables.

We will not consider that option here. 14 Clusters composed of /s/ plus a voiceless plosive have problematic phonotactics

since they seem to be unconstrained: they are found in all possible positions, word-

initially (cf. sport, stick, skirt), word-internally (cf. Aspen, foster, muscat) and

word-finally (cf. lisp, etc.) as well. None of the other consonant sequences are so

free in their distribution, that is why this kind of phonotactic liberty is usually

considered abnormal, and as a consequence, s+C clusters will be ignored in the

present discussion. 15 Not necessarily also the other way round, though. Typically, word-final

possibilities are more restricted and form a subset of intervocalic ones. 16 Certain authors (e.g., Kahn 1976) have suggested that the /n/ in words like

money is ambisyllabic, that is, it simultaneously belongs to the first and second

syllables. As with the petrol case above, we will not consider that option here.


phonologically (e.g., abandonØ). It follows, then, that there are no

phonological consonant-final words—whenever such a word is

pronounced, our model posits a FEN in the representation.

But up to this point, we have only seen one kind of argument,

consonant distribution, for the existence of FENs, and the question arises

if there is anything else that they can buy us. There are two sorts of further

support for FENs, coming from the behaviour of final consonants on the

one hand, and from language typology on the other.

First, FENs can explain a long-observed peculiarity of final

consonants, traditionally referred to as extrasyllabicity. This means that

word-final consonants tend to act as if they were invisible to phonology,

that is, as if they were not part of the syllable that they apparently belong

to (hence the name). For example, while in English there are no long

vowels before a tautosyllabic consonant17

(e.g., words like raptor, with a

short vowel before the /p/ closing the syllable, abound, but a word like

*rayptor would be ill-formed18

), there are numerous examples when a

long vowel appears before a seemingly tautosyllabic consonant word-

finally, cf. gape, keep, rote, right, etc. Is the final consonant an exception

to the regularity? Is it extrasyllabic, that is, not part of the syllable

(ga<pe>, kee<p>, ro<te>, ri<ght>, etc)? Note that extrasyllabicity is just

a label and the angled brackets do no more than formalize an observation.

If we assume the FEN, however, i.e., kee-pØ, then it becomes evident that

the consonant in question is not at all tautosyllabic to the vowel in

question, so our expectation that they should interact is ungrounded. Note

that while in kee-pØ the /p/ is not a syllable-final consonant, it is one in

kep-tØ, which makes this latter example totally analogous to raptor.

Another area where consonant extrasyllabicity manifests itself is word

stress assignment. In English, stress rules scan the syllables of the word

from right to left, starting with the last syllable and moving step by step

towards the first one. They are quantity-sensitive, which means that they

prefer to assign (primary) stress on syllables that contain at least a long

vowel, or a short vowel plus a consonant – crucially, syllables ending in a

short vowel are subminimal and tend to be unstressed. The stress patterns

of cá-rry and de-ný differ (the accents denote stress) due to the difference

in the underlined final syllable, which is too “light” in carry but has a long

vowel (a diphthong) and is therefore optimal in deny. Now, if we look at

words ending in a single consonant, such as abandon or astonish, we will

17 This regularity is sometimes referred to as closed-syllable shortening. 18 There is only a handful of exceptions with a well-defined set of consonant

sequences, e.g., angel, chamber, RP master.


notice that they are systematically stressed on the second-last syllable (like

carry) as if the final consonant was not there: a-bán-do<n>, a-stó-ni<sh>.

It is not true that final syllables cannot be stressed (cf. dený), neither is it

the case that consonant-final last syllables are never stressed: they are, as

long as they weigh enough even without the final consonant, cf. u-ní<te>,

a-chíe<ve>; tor-mén<t>, e-léc<t>. It is again the word-final consonant

that is “invisible”, i.e., extrametrical in traditional terminology. If we

assume FENs, however, the word-final consonant is not at all contained

within the syllable in question; our syllabification is a-ban-do-nØ, where

the first stressable syllable really is -ban-.

In the model with FENs at the end of all surface consonant-final words

we can make the generalization that all words end in a vocalic position,

which may or may not be empty. It also follows that word-final

consonants are never syllable-final, but they are initial to syllables headed

by FENs (cf. kee-pØ, a-ban-do-nØ); you can only find consonant-final

syllables word-internally, where they are always followed by another

consonant (cf. kep-tØ, rap-tor, a-ban-do-nØ). A significant consequence

is that syllable-final and word-final consonants are two distinct objects,

which has to mean that they pattern in languages independently of each

other. This prediction is borne out by the data of language typology:

according to whether they allow for syllable-final and word-final

consonants, languages exemplify all the four logical possibilities (see

Kaye 1990). In addition, in languages without word-final consonants (i.e.,

without FENs), originally consonant-final loanwords are typically

“augmented” with a vowel at the end—that is, the original FEN gets

phonetically interpreted. In Italian, for instance, where syllable-final

consonants are, but word-final ones are not licit, monosyllables of English

origin with a single final consonant tend to get adapted with an extra

schwa at the end (plus a geminated consonant), e.g., /ikkə/ ‘chic’, /tattə/

‘chat’ (Morandini 2007: 19).19

3.1.4 Are there any empty vocalic positions word-internally?

Let us make the hypothesis that rules (= processes, changes) do not

(normally) delete or insert material, but they involve (a) the movement of

an element already present in the representation to another position already

present in the representation, or (b) the reinterpretation of an entity already

19 For a recent well-presented argument for final empty nuclei, see Cyran (2008).


present in the representation.20

For example, the adjective separate has

two alternative pronunciations, one is schwa-ful, the other is schwa-less in

the second syllable. In traditional analyses this is accounted for with

recourse to schwa-deletion: the schwa-ful, three-syllable pronunciation is

the basic form of the word, which may lose the second vowel and become

disyllabic (sep’rate). This, however, violates our hypothesis. Moreover,

schwa-ful and schwa-less pronunciations frequently alternate in English,

and it is not always straightforward which of the two should be considered

basic: every, for example, is trisyllabic historically, disyllabic in present-

day speech, but may be trisyllabic again in singing or verse. Words like

umbrella and lovely have consonant sequences /br/ and /vl/ in most

varieties of English which are broken up by a schwa in Cockney (cf. the

famous song Loverly in the musical My Fair Lady). Do we assume

deletion in separate to produce /pr/ but insertion in the /br/ of umbrella? Is

historical deletion in every reversed to insertion in present-day singing? Is

there a difference between the /vr/ of every and the /vl/ of lovely? The

intuition is that all of these cases are simply vowel–zero alternations,

taking place in basically the same environment, and the direction (deletion

vs. insertion) is not of primary importance. Consequently, we will opt for

an analysis in which a vocalic position is posited between these

consonants, and the (non)pronunciation of the vowel is a simple matter of

interpretation.21

It is a word-medial empty nucleus that is either interpreted

(as a schwa) or remains uninterpreted.22

We arrive at representations like

se-pØ-ra-tØ and lo-vØ-ly, and the above hypothesis holds, inasmuch as

nothing is added or deleted; neither pronunciation is derived from the

other, but both are derived from the same abstract form.

Sometimes we find phenomena where neither the deletion nor the

insertion analysis is adequate and the only possible account is the one

20 Similar principles in Government and Binding syntax are called Structure

Preservation (Radford 1988: 538ff) and Projection Principle (Radford ibid: 548ff),

introduced to constrain derivations. 21 This way of describing vowel–zero alternation goes back to Anderson (1982)’s

analysis of French schwa. 22 Both, esp. the latter, happen under strictly defined conditions, cf. separate (v),

where the conditions on non-interpretation are not met and the disyllabic

pronunciation is not an option. In fact, empty vowels in general do not come

unrestrained—see GP literature, esp. Charette (1991), Kaye (1990), Kaye et al.

(1990).


referring to empty vowel slots. An example comes from Hungarian.

Consider the data in (15).23

(15) torony ‘tower’ tornyok ‘towers’

What we see here is two forms of the word (more precisely, morpheme)

meaning ‘tower’, the singular with two o’s, and the plural ending in -rny

(torny-ok). The question is, which is the base form? We may be tempted to

say that it is the singular, and in the plural the second o (boldfaced in (15))

is deleted from between the r and the ny. The problem such an analysis has

to face is that there are other morphemes with exactly the same vowel and

consonants in which the o does not alternate, see (16).

(16) szurony ‘bayonet’ szuronyok ‘bayonets’

A way out would be to posit the plural (torny- and szurony-) as the basic

form of Hungarian nouns, and assume a rule that inserts an o between the

consonants in torny- in singular, when the -rny sequence would otherwise

be final. But then, how do we distinguish torony from words like szárny

(in (17)), where the same -rny sequence is final but unbroken?

(17) szárny ‘wing’ szárnyak ‘wings’

Whatever strategy we choose, stems of the torony type need to be marked

for their alternating vowel, or else they collapse either with szurony-type

nonalternating stems or with szárny-type stems with a final consonant

cluster. The most logical way of marking, then, is simply designate the

position of the alternating vowel, in the form of an empty nucleus—in the

same way as we did for separate and company above. Consequently, the

two consonants will not be adjacent in torØny and szurony, unlike szárny.

The conclusion of the above discussion of empty nuclei is the

following: all words end in a vocalic slot (which may or may not be

empty; if it is, it is called a FEN); in addition, certain words also have

empty vowels in medial position. The obvious question arises if there are

any empty vowels in the third possible position, word-initially. In fact, it

has been suggested (by Kaye 1992, and then by Gussmann 2002: 114–

115) that certain languages that do not tolerate word-initial /s/ plus

23 Most of the letters in Hungarian orthography (roughly) correspond to the IPA

symbols of the sounds they represent. The other graphemes in our examples: <ny>

= //, <sz> = /s/, <s> = //. Accents denote vowel length.


voiceless plosive clusters (cf. footnote 14) insert a vowel to their left

exactly because such clusters are always heterosyllabic, even at the

beginning of the word, and the /s/ is final to a syllable headed by an empty

nucleus. It is that empty nucleus that is somehow permitted24

in languages

like English or present-day Hungarian, but has to get phonetically

interpreted in Spanish, (Old) French, or in the Slavic loanwords of Old

Hungarian. Cf. (18).

(18)

a. Spanish and (Old) French

Lat. status Sp. estado, Fr. état ‘state’, etc.

Sp. España (cf. Eng. Spain), etc.

b. Hungarian

iskola ‘school’ (cf. Ru. школа ‘ibid.’)

István ‘Steven’

asztal ‘table’ (cf. Ru. стол ‘ibid.’), etc.

Accordingly, it is possible to assume initial empty nuclei in words like

Latin Østatus or English Østate, ØSpain, Øschool, ØStephen, etc. We

conclude, then, that the existence of empty vocalic positions seems to be

justified in all possible word positions: final, medial, and initial.25

3.2 Emptiness below the segment

This section deals with the possibility of having empty components in

subsegmental, that is, melodic structure (cf. the definition of the melodic

tier in Section 3.0 above). It is a phonological commonplace that segments

are not atomic, but rather they are composed of so-called features or

primes. The classical view is that these primes are binary (= two-valued),

i.e., segments may be specified either as having (indicated by +) or lacking

(indicated by –) a given phonetic property. Nasal articulation, for example,

is expressed with reference to the feature [nasal], in such a way that nasal

sounds like n are [+nasal], while oral sounds like d are [–nasal]. In the

24 Kaye (1992) dubs it “magical licensing”. 25 For the claim that all surface consonant clusters contain an empty V and all

surface vocalic sequences (including long vowels) contain an empty C, see

Lowenstamm (1996), Scheer (2004), etc. For the claim that all words (may) start

with an empty CV-unit, see Lowenstamm (1999), while Szigetvári (1999) claims

that all words begin with an (empty or nonempty) vocalic position.


same vein, vocal cord activity (voicing) will have two basic states, sounds

like d are specified as [+voice], whereas sounds like t are [–voice].

There is a third option26

, though, and that is when a given segment is

neither + nor – for a given category. This means that the sound remains

unspecified for the feature: it is missing from its internal structure because

it is a feature that is associated with a kind of phonological patterning

which is irrelevant for the given segment. This state of affairs is well-

known in mainstream phonological theory and is referred to as

underspecification27

: the sound segment remains underspecified during

phonological computation, and the missing values are only adduced by a

late phonetic spell-out component.

We will bring a very simple example from Hungarian voicing

assimilation. Ignoring a few complications, we can say that in Hungarian

all sequences of obstruents (plosives like /t/, fricatives like /s/, and

affricates like /ts/) must agree in voicing. Should feature values clash,

upon morphological concatenation for instance, the consonant on the left

assimilates in voicing to the one on the right, that is, so-called regressive

voicing assimilation takes place. As is shown in (19a–b), stem-final /s/

becomes /z/ before /b/, while /z/ merges with /s/ before /t/.

(19)

a. mész ‘whitewash’ /-s/; méz ‘honey’ /-z/

b. -ben ‘in’: mészben = mézben /-zb-/

-től ‘from’: mésztől = méztől /-st-/

c. -nél ‘by’: mésznél /-sn-/ ≠ méznél /-zn-/

Certain consonants like nasal /n/, as well as all vowels, (i.e., the so-called

sonorants), however, are unspecified for [voice]: nothing happens in (19c),

the /n/ is unable to transfer its voicing onto the preceding consonant, and

as a result the contrast between /s/ and /z/ is maintained. That is, [voice]

for such sounds is phonologically inactive or inert. The standard

explanation for this is that they are unspecified for that feature: sonorants

are neither [+voice] nor [–voice] phonologically, therefore they are unable

to participate in voicing assimilation, and the vocal cord vibration which

accompanies their articulation, “spontaneous voicing” as it is commonly

referred to, only arises late, out of phonetic necessity (since the vocal

cords do need some kind of instruction during phonetic implementation

26 The fourth combination, when a segment is both + and –, is ruled out by the

physical impossibility of simultaneously having and lacking the same property. 27 See Steriade (1995) for an overview.


after all, and what seems compatible with the relatively unobstructed

airstream mechanism of sonorants is vocal cord vibration). Therefore, as

shown in (20), besides the + and – feature specifications we can assume

the boldfaced zero as a third option.

(20)

sz (/s/) z b t n ...

[voice] – + + – Ø

...

4. Conclusion

In this paper I hope to have provided an overview of (some of) the

possible interpretations of emptiness in phonology, tackling the issue of

the real sounds of silence, the real silence of sounds. The major conclusion

is intended to be the claim that phonology is abstract enough to be able to

accommodate entities with no phonetic embodiment, and empty categories

are present in phonology, similarly to morphology and syntax, in all forms

(vocalic or consonantal) at all levels (subsegmental or suprasegmental).

We have to accept that phonetic/physical reality may diverge from

phonological/mental/analytical reality: what you see may not be what you

get in linguistics, just as in natural science. Most specifically, like in e.g.

syntax, where surface and underlying sentence boundaries do not

necessarily coincide (cf. Who do you want to beat Ø), we have seen that

syllable and word edges do not necessarily coincide, either (cf. Øs.te.pØ

for step). While classical syllabic theory has managed to integrate this

view into its model to a certain extent and recognizes the existence of

certain empty categories in certain phonological positions (esp. empty

syllable onsets and floating consonantal melodies), and underspecification

has been around for half a century, some of the empty categories presented

above (esp. empty nuclei) remain in the toolbox of non-mainstream

theories like Government Phonology.

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