The sub-theory of GP modelling the internal structure of segments is called Element Theory (ET).
They are assumed, depending on the version of ET,[2] to correspond to either characteristic acoustic signatures in the signal,[3] or articulatory gestures (or hot features, as previously referred to).
ET has a number of versions and has since KLV 1985[5] been reformed in various ways with the aim of reducing the element inventory, to avoid overgeneration (being able to generate more structures than attested cross-linguistically).
In its most widespread version, there are 6 elements believed to be existent across all languages: (A), (I), (U), (ʔ), (L) and (H), representing openness/coronality, frontness/palatality, roundness/labiality, stopness, voicing/nasality and frication/aspiration, respectively.
[6] In complex phonological expressions, the phonetic properties mix in proportion to the head/operator status: the (A, I) expression is both open (non-high) and front, but it is more probably interpreted as [e] when the head is (I), and as [ɛ] or [æ] when the head is (A).
In its classical form (sometimes referred to as GP 1.0), developed in KLV 1990,[7] prosodic structure is modelled as a sequence of Onset-Rhyme (O-R) pairs, where the syllable rhyme obligatorily contains a nucleus (N).
The coda is shown to be unable to branch universally, which is in GP explained by assuming no coda node in the representation (and only positing what is dubbed "post-nuclear rhymal complement");[8] the syllable (hypothetically, a higher-order constituent dominating each O-R pair) does not qualify as an intraconstituent governing domain since its head (the R) follows its complement (the O) rather than preceding it, as observed in all other cases of branching constituents.
[9][10] As in mainstream Autosegmental Phonology, GP claims that the O may be empty in certain languages, either word-initially (producing surface vowel-initial words) or word-internally (producing sequences of heterosyllabic vowels, that is, hiatuses), or both.
Crucially, all surface word-final consonants are Onsets followed by an empty Nucleus (called domain-final empty nucleus, or FEN), which is licensed by parameter: languages in which the parameter is switched on allow for (surface) consonant-final words (like English), whereas languages in which the parameter is off have all their (content) words ending in a vowel as well as various repair strategies modifying foreign words and loanwords so that they satisfy the constraint (e.g., Italian, Japanese).
[11] Another special case is word-initial /sC/ clusters (as in English sport, stop, school), which are analysed in Kaye (1992)[12] as surface manifestations of underlying sequences of an empty N plus rhyme-final /s/ plus O, where the initial empty N is parametrically licensed ("magically", as Kaye puts it) - this effect has been known as "Magic Licensing".
In 1996, Lowenstamm proposed that syllable structure should be further reduced to strictly alternating onsets (symbolised by "C") and nuclei ("V") - all surface clusters sandwich empty categories, which conform to the ECP (see above).
Unlike CVCV Phonology's flat prosodic structure, configurations within GP 2.0 remain hierarchical and involve multiple layers, with the nodes entering into governing and m-commanding relations, very much as in X-bar theory syntax.
[25] GP-ists and related researchers regularly meet at the Government Phonology Round Table (GPRT), a semi-informal meeting originally (starting in 1997) organised by teams of scholars at universities in Budapest, Hungary and Vienna, Austria.
In Forme Sonore du Langage, François Dell, Daniel Hirst and Jean-Roger Vergnaud (eds.
Kaye, Jonathan, Jean Lowenstamm, and Jean-Roger Vergnaud (1990) Constituent Structure and Government in Phonology.
Scheer, Tobias and Péter Szigetvári (2005) Unified representations for stress and the syllable.
In Continuum Companion to Phonology, Bert Botma, Nancy C. Kula and Kuniya Nasukawa (eds.