Edmund Gussmann

This book is the most complete phonology of contemporary Polish ever published. It is topic-oriented and presents the fundamental characteristics and problems associated with each topic, among them syllable structure, vowel-zero alternations, palatalizations, and other vowel and consonant changes. Professor Gussmann re-examines assumptions about phonological contrasts and alternations, and raises and addresses central questions in morphophonology. He takes morphophonology to be systematically separate from phonology. Palatalizations, he shows, are crucial to Polish, as both phonological and morphophonological phenomena: their detailed description leads him to a systematic presentation of vocalic alternations. The book develops a Government Phonology account of Polish, but is primarily a description of the language with the model subordinated to the organization of data. All the many examples used to illustrate the presentation are transcribed in standard IPA, and translated. This important book will interest all scholars and advanced students of Polish and Slavic phonology.

The Phonology of Polish

In the most complete phonology of Contemporary Standard Polish ever published Edmund Gussmann presents a wide range of data, much drawn from his own research and all presented in a clear, accessible manner. This important book will interest all scholars and advanced students of Polish and Slavic phonology.

The issue of abstractness is currently one of the central questions in the ongoing research into the theoretical foundations of modern phonology. Linguists are divided on the degree of abstractness admissible in phonological representation. While some would impose far-reaching restrictions on admissible abstractness, others have felt that such restrictions are unrealistic. This monograph offers extensive arguments for admitting a high degree of abstractness in phonology. The empirical material on which the monograph is based is the phonology of modern Polish. A substantial portion of the phonological rules of the language are studied and their theoretical implications are investigated in detail. Although there exists a rich literature on Polish phonology, very little of it has been written with clear theoretical issues in mind, and practically none of it is in English. The results obtained in the monograph, especially with regard to the vowel-zero alternations hold not only for Polish, but with some straightforward modifications can be shown to hold for all other Slavic languages as well. The book consists of four chapters. The first chapter examines critically and rejects the restrictions on abstractness in phonology that have been advanced by proponents of Natural Generative Phonology, in particular Hooper's &"true generalization condition.&" The second chapter considers the vowel-zero alternations in Polish and shows that the facts require an abstract analysis including the postulation of two abstract vowels that do not appear directly in phonetic forms of the language. The proposed vowel inventory is exploited in the third chapter which deals with one of the most complex problems of Polish phonology, the alternations of the nasal vowels. The proposed vowel inventory also plays a central role in the final chapter, which deals with the [o-u] alternations.

Studies in Abstract Phonology

Aidan Doyle

A Reverse Dictionary of Modern Irish

Gussmann Edmund

This textbook is an introduction to phonology for students which assumes no prior knowledge of this area of linguistics.

Edmund Gussmann

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