Government-Phonological Segmental Theory Revisited:Its Compatibility With The Tonal Theory

This thesis will revisit the segmental theory within the framework of Government Phonology (GP), focusing on its compatibility with the tonal theory.Government Phonology (GP), which was proposed by Kaye, Lowenstamn and Vergnaud, is considered one of the major theories of generative phonology. It is based on limited principles, parameters and constraints rather than rules or features. After30years of development, it has now been well established with relatively mature segmental theory and tonal theory.Goh was the pioneer who applied GP to the analysis of the phonological system of Beijing Mandarin (henceforth BM), and provided the first treatment of BM segmental phonology. Kaye expanded the application of GP to the analysis of tone systems and put forward the tonal theory within the framework of GP. However, although both the segmental theory and tonal theory were proposed within the same framework, all sharing some basic concepts and principles, there is certain inconformity between them due to the different time they were proposed.Goh holds that BM is a template language and each template must be composed of two onset-nuclear pairs, i.e. O1N1O2N2. The glides ([i][u]) and word-final nasals ([n][η]) should be attached to the O2position. However, according to the tonal theory raised by Kaye, tones can only be realized in a phonological domain and two nuclei are needed to carry tone in BM. Therefore, it is more reasonable to put the glides, especially the off-glides, and word-final nasals in the N2position so that they can carry tones. The incompatibility between these two theories lies in the different treatments of off-glides and word-final nasals in the template.The thesis aims at exploring the compatibility of the segmental theory with the tonal theory within the framework of GP based on Goh’s and Kaye’s analysis of the segment and tone systems of BM, and revising the segmental theory on the basis of the comparison between these two theories.