dependency phonology (DP)

An approach to PHONOLOGY which makes use of the principles of DEPENDENCY GRAMMAR to set up a model of the internal relational STRUCTURE of SEGMENTS. The SYLLABLE is seen as a dependency structure, with a GOVERNOR (or HEAD) and dependents (or MODIFIERS). A syllabic ELEMENT (a VOWEL or a syllabic CONSONANT) is the minimal obligatory component of the syllable, other elements being marginal, governed by their syllabic. Degree of dependency is represented vertically in a dependency graph, the governor being ‘degree zero’, with other levels ‘degree one’, etc., as in the graph for cat:

Within the segment, all features are viewed as unary, and are generally referred to as ‘components’. The notion of dependency has also come to be used by some other NON-LINEAR PHONOLOGICAL models to denote any kind of relation which may be represented asymmetrically, especially with reference to segment-internal structure. For example, HEADedness may be seen in the relative PROMINENCE of sequences of strong and weak segments in METRICAL PHONOLOGY, or between SONOROUS and non-sonorous consonants, or between the elements of a consonant CLUSTER. In FEATURE GEOMETRY, the dependency relation holds between features on different TIERS (‘feature dependency’ or ‘dependent tier ordering’).