ABSTRACT
Stratal Phonology is a theory of how phonology interacts with other components of grammar. Stratal Phonology rejects the claims of Strict Cyclicity and Structure Preservation, which sought to constrain the application of rewrite rules at the stem level. Like all cyclic approaches to the morphology–phonology interface, Stratal Phonology currently meets its most serious challenge in the theory of output–output (OO)-correspondence. Steriade challenges Cyclic Containment with observations from English dual-level affixes like adjectival -able. The chapter argues that Stratal Phonology permits a graceful integration with morphology: it can derive the relative ordering of phonological strata without recourse to the Affix Ordering Generalization, it can handle bracketing paradoxes without recourse to rebracketing operations, and it favours restrictive approaches to apparently nonconcatenative exponence. The bracketing paradox is considerably vague and denotes a disparate collection of phenomena. The chapter also considers one type of paradox exemplified by the English word ungrammaticality, which is widely believed to raise particular difficulties for Stratal Phonology.
