ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to remind linguists of the enduring contribution phonological rules have made and continue to make in framing and informing the discussion of cognitive processes involving human language sounds. It presents a prolegomenon to rule formalism, provides some conceptual antecedents necessary to better understand phonological rules, and situates rules within a broader theory of a generative grammar. Rules as algorithms or statements of behavior are central to traditional definitions of formal phonology. The chapter examines how contemporary phonological rules are operationalized and how they model cognitive processes involving human language sounds through the characterization of rules as independent functions of objects. The basis of rule formalism is grounded in literature beginning with Halle and crystalized in Chomsky and Halle's Sound Pattern of English (SPE). When evaluating the symbols of the rules for disjunctivity the rules are best stated in the alternate format, focusing on the Structural Description and Change of the rules.
