The categorical deletion of unstressed vowels from iterative feet differentiates serial theories of phonology from parallel theories. Of at least equal importance is whether language learners acquire rhythmic syncope. A potentially illustrative case comes from the recent development of Nishnaabemwin (Algonquian), which extended unstressed vowel reduction until it approximated categorical rhythmic syncope. In response, an entire generational cohort reportedly carried out a dramatic restructuring by innovating a novel set of person prefixes and losing the surface alternations. However, the original reports are subject to some dispute. To shed further light on the status of rhythmic syncope in Modern Nishnaabemwin, this paper details three surveys of the first cohort of speakers born during the near-syncope period. The surveys indicate that, despite familiarity with the original system, the entire generational cohort uniformly adopted the innovative system.

This paper presents an analysis of exceptional prosodification effects, in which exceptional lexical items appear to follow a regular pattern that is found in a different prosodic context. These patterns have been analysed as cases of prosodic prespecification, where morphemes select a non-default prosodic representation. I argue that prespecification approaches should be reconsidered, and that such patterns are predicted without morpheme-specific prosody in Gradient Harmonic Grammar, a weighted constraint system with gradiently active symbols. Exceptional prosodification effects result from the interaction of two influences on constraint penalties: (i) scaling of constraint violations by prosodic context and (ii) contrastive activity values in underlying forms. This interaction is illustrated with the distribution of French nasal vowels and linking [n]. This approach reduces the amount of structure posited for URs, and provides new arguments for a more uniform syntax–prosody mapping.

Šmartno is a critically endangered dialect of Slovenian that exhibits three interacting processes: final devoicing, unstressed high vowel deletion and vowel–glide coalescence. Their interaction is opaque: final obstruents devoice, unless they become final due to vowel deletion; high vowels delete, but not when created by coalescence. These patterns constitute a synchronic chain shift that leads to two emergent contrasts: final obstruent voicing and vowel length (due to compensatory lengthening). The paper examines all nominal paradigms, and complements them with an acoustic analysis of vowel duration and obstruent voicing. This work presents one of the most thoroughly documented instances of counterfeeding opacity on environment.

This paper proposes that closed syllable laxing and open syllable tensing of non-low vowels are motivated by conflicting strategies of contrast enhancement in vowel–consonant sequences. Laxing enhances the distinctiveness of consonant contrasts by allowing for more distinct VC formant transitions, in particular in sequences involving a non-low vowel followed by an oral labial/coronal/velar consonant (e.g. [p t k]). Tensing enhances the distinctiveness of vowel contrasts by providing more distinct formant realisations for vowels. Linguistic variation results from different ways of resolving the tension between maximising vowel dispersion and maximising consonant dispersion. Laxing typically applies before coda consonants as a way to compensate for the absence of good perceptual cues to place of articulation. The hypothesis that laxing enhances the distinctiveness of postvocalic place contrasts is supported by a study of mid-vowel laxing in French, which corroborates the general claim that perceptual contrast plays a role in shaping phonotactic restrictions.

This article responds to Pater (2018) by arguing for a view of phonology that captures the computational properties of phonological processes. Jardine's (2016) statement that tone is formally more complex than segmental phonology is not a claim, as Pater characterises it, but an empirical observation. This article outlines how phonological theories can incorporate such observations, and integrate them with considerations of phonological substance. The conclusion is that, while computational characterisations are not necessarily alternatives to Optimality Theory, it is extremely diffcult to capture the computational nature of phonological processes in Optimality Theory, due to the expressive power of global optimisation.

Much recent work has studied phonological typology in terms of Formal Language Theory (e.g. the Chomsky hierarchy). This paper considers whether Optimality Theory grammars might be constrained to generate only regular languages, and also whether the tools of formal language theory might be used for constructing phonological theories similar to those within Optimality Theory. It offers reasons to be optimistic about the first possibility, and sceptical about the second.