Nonuniformity of coda weight in Kuuku-Yaʔu

Abstract

This paper discusses a language with nonuniformity of coda weight. In Kuuku-Yaʔu (Pama- Nyungan), the weight of CVC syllables is non-transparent. Closed syllables are generally light, as they fail to attract quantity-sensitive primary stress, which falls on the rightmost long vowel in the word (else on the initial syllable). However, CVC syllables are contextually heavy in initial position, as evidenced by a process of gemination that closes a light, open syllable bearing default primary stress in order to satisfy a constraint requiring stressed syllables to be heavy. Analyzing this pattern within traditional Moraic Theory (Hayes 1989), in which CVC is considered either uniformly heavy or light, creates a rule ordering paradox and generates opaque forms that are non-surface-true. It is shown that the context-dependency of coda weight in this language can be accounted for within Optimality Theory through simultaneous comparison of monomoraic and bimoraic parses of closed syllables for constraint evaluation.