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It is often assumed in work on the phonological underspecification of segments that while representations may at first be underspecified, they end up fully specified. Various kinds of rules are posited to ensure that in output forms all features have values for all segments. In this paper I will consider an alternative view: that underspecification may persist into phonetic representations. I begin by reviewing some of the relevant phonological phenomena and mechanisms, and some of the history of underspecification in phonetic studies. I then show how phonetic data may be taken to reflect the presence or absence of feature values in surface forms. Finally, the extent to which surface specification depends on segmental contrasts is examined. The aim of this paper is to present some phonetic phenomena that are potentially relevant to any theory of underspecification.
Patricia Keating (Mon,) studied this question.