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1、Anevolutionaryperspectiveonstopinventories*JASONBROWN1.IntroductionEvolutionaryPhonologyattemptstoexplainthesoundpatternsthatarerecurrentintheworld’slanguages,includingthedistributionsofsoundswithinsegmentinventories.PerhapsoneofthestrongestargumentsmadebyEvolutionaryPhonologyconcern
2、sthenatureofexplanation.AsBlevins(thisvolume)pointsout:‘‘GenerativePhonologyandOptimalityTheorybothclaimtoruleoutcertainphonologicalsystemsandallowothersbyproposinginnateaspectsofphonologi-calknowledge.Butthislevelofexplanationisatoncetooweakandtoostrong.Itistooweak,becauseitfailstoa
3、ccountforthehighfrequencyofcertainsoundpat-ternsandtherarityofothers.Anditistoostrongbecauseitincorrectlyrulesoutattestedsoundpatterns,whichdiachronicapproachescorrectlyallow.’’(pg.131)InBlevins’contributiontothisvolume,thispointismadestronglywithdatarelatingtofinaldevoicingandvoicing
4、soundpatterns.Althoughfinaldevoicingisrecurrentandphoneticallymotivated,thereisnothingtoruleoutapatternoffinalvoicing,andinfact,assheshows,suchpat-terns,thoughrare,mayexist.Thesamecontrastinexplanatorypowerbe-tweenEvolutionaryPhonologyandtheoriesassuminginnatephonologi-calknowledgeisev
5、identinexaminationsofsegmentinventories.Underevolutionaryapproaches,recurrentpatternsacrosssegmentinventoriesareattributedtorecurrentphoneticallybasedsoundpatternsandthegen-eralnatureofsoundchange(Blevins2004:260–68).Incontrast,under*ThankstoJulietteBelevins,Je¤Mielke,andDouglasPulle
6、yblankforcommentingonanearlierdraft.Allerrorsaremyown.TheoreticalLinguistics32–2(2006),175–1840301–4428/06/0032–0175DOI10.1515/TL.2006.0116WalterdeGruyter176JasonBrowncurrentgenerativeassumptions,thereisasmallsetoflimitedconstraintsinUG,andtheseconstraintswillhaveane¤ectonthecomposit
7、ionofsegmentalinventoriesoflanguages.Itisexpectedthen,thattherewillbefairlyconsistentandpredictableregularitiesininventoriescross-linguistically.Thus,theadoptionofprinciplesofsymmetryorconstraintsonsegmentalmarkednesspredictsthattherecanbefewtonoexceptionsinthesegmentalinventoriesoft
8、heworld.Onth
