Laryngeal markedness and aspiration* Bert Vaux University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Bridget Samuels Harvard University We argue that the common phonological assumptions that (i) plain voiceless consonants are less marked than voiceless aspirates and (ii) the unmarked two- way stop system opposes unaspirated voiced and voiceless members are incorrect. A wide range of phonetic and internal and external phonological evidence sug- gests instead that (i) the maximally unmarked single-series stop is unspecified for laryngeal features and (ii) the unmarked two-way stop system opposes aspirated and unaspirated stops, and the aspirated series may be the unmarked member of this set. 1 Introduction Phonologists generally assume that plain voiceless consonants (hence- forth T) are less marked than voiceless aspirates (Tj) (Jakobson & Halle 1956, Greenberg 1966, Chomsky & Halle 1968, Maddieson 1984, Lombardi 1991, 1995, Barna 1998 and other works in Government Phonology, Silverman 1998, Burzio 2000, Iverson & Ahn 2001, etc.), and that the unmarked two-way stop system contrasts unaspirated voiced (D) and voiceless (T) members, as in Spanish. Systems containing a Tj series, as in English, Armenian and Turkish, are claimed to be marked in com- parison (Maddieson 1984: 28; cf. Keating 1984, who proposes that all conventional two-series stop systems underlyingly oppose a voiced and a voiceless series). We suggest that these generalisations concerning markedness are incorrect. Following Rice (1999), Clements (2005) and Flemming (2005), there are many dimensions of markedness, which do not necessarily converge on a single target cross-linguistically in the way outlined above, and phonological patterning and feature inventories must * An earlier version of this paper was presented by the first author as ‘Systemic vs. feature-based markedness in laryngeal contrasts ’ at the LSA Annual Meeting in San Francisco in January 2002. Thank you to Fred Eckman, Morris Halle, Greg Iverson, Alec Marantz, Mickey Noonan, Keren Rice, Catherine Ringen and Joe Salmons for helpful comments. Phonology 22 (2005) 395–436. f 2005 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0952675705000667 Printed in the United Kingdom 395