The primary purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the essence of the intervoiced voicing prevalent in natural languages can be captured by the function approach of Dispersion Theory in collaboration with Optimality Theory. For the purpose we try to reveal the inappropriateness of formal approaches like feature spreading or deletion and show that the triplet constraints cooperate to give rise to an optimal output: maximum number of contrasts; maximum degree of contrasts; minimum efforts. This type of analysis casts a serious implication on second language acquisition, i.e., L1 contributes the constraint ranking to the interlanguage, while L2 affects the interlanguage as input to the formation.
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Basics with Intervoiced Voicing
3. An Analysis Based on Dispersion Theory
4. Implications for Interlanguage Phonology
5. Concluding Remarks
References
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