What have representations ever done for us?

Welcome to the website for the Eastern Generative Grammar 2022 Brno class on phonological representations! This is a more advanced class aimed at those with some familiarity with phonological analysis (or willing to learn quickly). The main question that we will consider is this: why would we want to adopt a representational solution to a phonological problem? To do this, we need to understand three things:

• What kind of problems can phonological representations solve? We will consider issues like phonological class membership, markedness, and locality, which are frequently used to motivate representational devices like privativity or subsegmental geometry;
• What is the case for representations? That is to say, in what way are representational solutions particularly well adapted to solving these issues?
• Are representations necessary? The fact that representational solutions are available does not automatically mean that we should adopt them. Are other approaches compatible with the data, too? And do we always have a correct view of the data? We will explore the complexity beyond the neat phonological analyses in the literature.

Each class will focus on one or two data sets, both those of a ‘sanitized’ kind common in phonology teaching (and literature) and those highlighting the complexity of the phenomena and the potential of alternative accounts that do not involve representations, or are not even phonological. The puzzles aim to help you not just engage with the generalizations that have already been made for you but to hone your skills in extracting the substance of the phonological pattern from the raw data.