Giegerich Heinz J.

In Lexical Strata in English, Heinz Giegerich investigates the way in which alternations in the sound patterns of words interact with the morphological processes of the language. Drawing examples from English and German, he uncovers and spells out in detail the principles of 'lexical morphology and phonology', a theory that has in recent years become increasingly influential in linguistics. Giegerich queries many of the assumptions made in that theory, overturning some and putting others on a principled footing. What emerges is a formally coherent and highly constrained theory of the lexicon - the theory of 'base-driven' stratification - which predicts the number of lexical strata from the number of base-category distinctions recognized in the morphology of the language. Finally, he offers accounts of some central phenomena in the phonology of English (including vowel 'reduction', [r]-sandhi and syllabification), which both support and are uniquely facilitated by this new theory.

This is an introduction to the phonology of present-day English. It deals principally with three varieties of English: ‘General American’, Southern British ‘Received Pronunciation’ and ‘Scottish Standard English’. It offers a systematic and detailed discussion of the features shared by these major accents, and explains some major differences. Other varieties of English - Australian and New Zealand English, South African English and Hiberno-English - are also discussed briefly. Without focusing on current phonological theory and its evolution, the author demonstrates the importance of ‘theory’, in whatever shape or form, in phonological argumentation. The book also includes a helpful introductory section on speech sounds and their production, and detailed suggestions for further reading follow each chapter. This clear and helpful textbook will be welcomed by all students of English language and linguistics.

In this monograph, the first to be exclusively concerned with a model of phonological structure that is becoming increasingly influential, Heinz Giegerich pursues two major aims. First, he explores the theoretical foundations of 'metrical phonology' and in so doing suggests that the current model should be significantly simplified: auxiliary devices such as 'prosodic categories', ' metrical grids' and segmental stress features are shown to be unnecessary in this study. Secondly, he applies the model to a wide range of German and English data and in particular provides a detailed account of the stress patterns of German words - native and nonnative, morphologically simple and complex. The many similarities between German and English phonological structure are thereby strikingly illustrated. The book's clarity of exposition will enable readers not wholly familiar with metrical phonology to appreciate fully the elegance of this model in, arguably, its most basic form.