EDGE-INTEGRITY and Epenthesis

This paper provides an optimality theoretic analysis of epenthesis patterns in Karam and Southeastern Pomo.

I show that the constituent internal epenthesis pattern in both languages, by which vowels are epenthesized following the initial consonant and preceding the final consonant, is closely tied with the distribution of marked syllable types, i.e. (V)σ and ((C)VC)σ at the edges of a morphological unit, the stem in Karam and MWd in Southeastern Pomo.

I propose that these properties are derived through the interaction of syllable structure constraints and faithfulness constraint, EDGE-INTEGRITY, which demands the edge segments of a morphological unit to appear at the edgemost positions invariantly in the input and the output.

It is argued that this is to satisfy EdgeDemarcation, a general function of phonology, which is to demarcate morphological constituency, by marking the beginning and the ending of the relevant morphological unit in phonology.