The concept of 'markedness' has been influential in phonology for almost a century. Theoretical phonology used it to describe some segments as more 'marked' than others, referring to a cluster of language-internal and language-external properties (Jakobson, 1968; Haspelmalh, 2006). We argue, using a simple mathematical model based on Evolutionary Phonology (EP; Blevins, 2004), that markedness is an epiphenomenon of phonetically grounded sound change.
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