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Dominance effects as transderivational anti-faithfulness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2002

John D. Alderete
John D. Alderete
Affiliation:
Rutgers University
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Abstract

This paper presents a theory of morphophonology based on a development in the theory of faithfulness in Optimality Theory. A new constraint type, anti-faithfulness, is proposed that evaluates a pair of related words and requires an alternation in the shared stem. This constraint type is motivated initially by a set of problems, e.g. morphological deletions, segmental exchanges and non-structure preserving processes, which show that morphophonology must encompass more than markedness–faithfulness interactions. The anti-faithfulness thesis is then applied to accentual processes in which affixes idiosyncratically cause deletion of accent in a neighbouring morpheme. It is argued that anti-faithfulness both motivates the observed deletion and accounts for its properties with principles that are generally available in phonological theory. Anti-faithfulness is then shown to extend naturally to the analysis of other affix-induced alternations, including accent insertions, shifts, and retractions of stress and tone, a result which distinguishes this theory from plausible alternatives.

Type
Research Article
Information
Phonology , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , August 2001 , pp. 201 - 253
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

This paper has benefited greatly from the comments and questions of John McCarthy, Sun-Hoi Kim, Douglas Pulleyblank, Suzanne Urbanczyk, Rachel Walker and Moira Yip, as well as three anonymous Phonology reviewers and members of the audiences at NELS 30 held at Rutgers University and colloquia at Johns Hopkins University, University of Alberta, University of Calgary, University of California at San Diego and University of Wisconsin at Madison. Special thanks is due to Ben Hermans, who provided expert advice on the analysis of Limburg Dutch as well as very stimulating discussion concerning the primary thesis developed here. If any errors remain, despite this help, I alone am responsible for them. This work is supported in part by grant SBE-9904360 from the National Science Foundation.