In Defense Of Concrete Explanations

Abstract

In recent years we have witnessed conflicting proposals in the field of phonology with regard to descriptive and explanatory power of various theories. Especially significant is the controversy involving abstract versus concrete representations. This paper is an attempt to view the abstractness controversy in the light of examples from linguistic borrowing. Examining certain Arabic loans into Turkish it is shown that phonetic explanations are overridingly more credible than abstract accounts that rely on the theory of markedness.