Neutralization and Reduplication Interactions in Wambaya: An OT Analysis

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Caitlin Dillon

Abstract

Wambaya is a non-Pama-Nyungan Australian language. The input form of some words in Wambaya appears to be indeterminate due to the positional neutralization of phonemic contrasts. That is, the input is not surface-apparent, because it is occulted by the neutralization of phonemic contrasts. However, the underlying forms for some of these words are revealed through a certain pattern of reduplication. There are two separate neutralization phenomena, Anteriority and Strengthening, which interact with reduplication in this way. This paper is an optimality theoretic account of these phenomena. The interaction of one of the neutralization phenomena with reduplication is theoretically interesting in that it reveals the underlying marked form of some words, and is therefore a case of ‘emergence of the marked’.

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