ON THE FORM OF SEGMENT DELETION AND INSERTION RULES

In this paper I propose a modification of the Operation of certain phonological processes in the direction of allowing free, optional application of phonological rules of a very general sort, in some sense in a form similar to the one they have in other components. This mode of application leads to an overgeneration of structures which must then be corrected by enriching the representational structure and the set of principles that control these structures. Thus instead of having an obligatory rule with the form (l a), which leads to the derivation in (lb,c,d), we would have an optional rule of the form (2a) and correct by some filtering mechanism with the effect of (2a') the overgeneration. Given the same initial structures (Ib), (2b), optional application of (2a) will give in the second case (2c), namely [B, +F] and [B, -F] by application of the rule, and [A, +F], [A, -F] by no application. These structures will then be affected by (2a') giving (2d). The final Output will be (2e), which is identical to (ld), the result of the application of the obligatory rule.