Structure Conditions for Initial Position in Standard Dutch

Abstract

Within the framework of generative phonology, a variety of rather different approaches have been proposed through the years for specifying the underlying phonological structures permitted in a language. The best known include Morpheme Structure Rules (Halle, 1959), Morpheme Structure Conditions (Stanley, 1967) and marking conventions (Chomsky and Halle, 1968). Of these, Stanley’s Morpheme Structure Conditions have received the greatest degree of general acceptance, but have nevertheless not been widely employed for a variety of reasons, the most recent one being an increasing doubt among many linguists about the linguistic significance of the morpheme structure concept itself. The objection to traditional generative interest in the structure of morphemes derives from a belief in the greater significance of other structural domains: words and/or syllables.^p1 As a result, a number of descriptive procedures have been developed outside of the traditional generative framework for describing such structures, including the phonological base (Sampson, 1970), Surface Structure Constraints (Shibatani, 1973) and Syllable Structure Conditions (Hooper, 1976).²