Abstract:
This paper presents an analysis of the patterns exhibited by Palenquero voiced stops, which reveals that there is a close connection between spirantization, prenasalization, flapping, and lateralization as they are articulatory maneuvers that a language may use to reduce the effort cost of implementing underlying voiced stops. Spirantization, prenasalization, and lateralization facilitate the production of voicing by allowing venting through one of the valves that separate the supraglottal cavity from the atmosphere. Flapping, on the other hand, yields this effect by reducing the temporal coordinates of the constriction target. The consequences that these articulatory adjustments have for the production of voicing are captured within the framework of Optimality Theory (Prince, Alan, Smolensky, Paul, 1993. Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Ms., Technical Report No.2 of the Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University) through a system of interacting constraints where Lazy, a principle that embodies the tendency to reduce articulatory effort (Kirchner, Robert, 1995. Contrastiveness is an epiphenomenonas of constraint ranking. Rutgers Optimality Archive, 51-0295; Kirchner, Robert, 1998. An Effort-based Approach to Consonant Lenition. Doctoral dissertation, Rutgers Optimality Archive, 246-0898), rivals with Ident (Feature), the drive to preserve underlying feature specifications [University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers, 18 (1995) 249]. Central to this analysis is also the view that the sound component of a language may comprise several co-phonologies (Inkelas, Sharon, Orhan Orgun, C., Zoll, Cheryl, 1996. Exceptions and static prohonological patterns: cophonologies vs. prespecification. Rutgers Optimality Archive 124-0496; Inkelas, Sharon, Orhan Orgun, C., Zoll, Cheryl, 1997. The implications of lexical exceptions for the nature of grammar. In: Roca, Iggy (Ed.), Derivations and Constraints in Phonology. Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 393–418), some of which are restricted to certain morphemes. This is used to account for the unpredictability and optionality exhibited by some of these processes.