'Markedness' is an epiphenomenon of random phonetically grounded sound change

Abstract

The concept of 'markedness' has been influential in phonology for almost a century, but a recent movement in the field has argued that phonological theories do not need to make reference to the concept; instead, if it is meaningful at all, markedness should be thought of as emergent. In this paper, we propose a simple mathematical model based on the principles of Evolutionary Phonology (EP; Blevins 2004) to explore how a theory without markedness can replicate some of the insights of the markedness-based worldview. We see that markedness can be treated as an epiphenomenon of random, phonetically grounded sound change.