This dissertation provides a coherent, synchronic, broad-coverage, generative phonology of Russian. I test the grammar empirically in a number of
ways to determine its goodness of fit to Russian. In taking this approach,
I aim to avoid making untested (or even incoherent) generalizations
based on only a handful of examples. In most cases, the tests show
that there are exceptions to the theory, but at least we know what
the exceptions are, a baseline is set against which future theories
can be measured, and in most cases the percentage of exceptional cases
is reduced to below 5%.
The principal theoretical outcomes of the work are as follows.
First, I show that all of the phonological or morphophonological
processes reviewed can be described by a grammar no more powerful
than context-free.
Secondly, I exploit probabilistic constraints in the syllable
structure grammar to explain why constraints on word-marginal onsets
and codas are weaker than on word-internal onsets and codas. I argue
that the features [+/- initial] and [+/- final], and extraprosodicity,
are unnecessary for this purpose.
Third, I claim that /v/ should be lexically unspecified for the
feature [+/- sonorant], and that the syllable structure grammar
should fill in the relevant specification based on its distribution.
This allows a neat explanation of the voicing assimilation properties
of /v/, driven by phonotactics.
Fourth, I argue that jers in Russian should be regarded as morphological
objects, not segments in the phonological inventory. Testing the
grammar suggests that while epenthesis cannot be regarded as a major
factor in explaining vowel-zero alternations, it might be used to
explain a significant minority of cases.
Fifth, I suggest that stress assignment in Russian is essentially
context-free, resulting from the intersection of morphological and
syllable structure constraints. I show that my account of stress
assignment is simpler than, but just as general as, the best of
the three existing theories tested.
Finally, this dissertation provides new insight into the nature
and structure of the Russian morphological lexicon. An appendix
of 1,094 morphemes and 1,509 allomorphs is provided, with accentual
and jer-related morphological information systematically included.
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