Bugotu and Cheke Holo reduplication: in defence of the Emergence of the Unmarked

Abstract

This paper provides an analysis of the reduplicative systems of Bugotu, Cheke Holo, Tuvaluan and Hoava. In Bugotu and Cheke Holo, intervocalic consonants are not reflected in the reduplicative substring ; Tuvaluan reduplication creates initial geminate consonants, while Hoava reduplicants include coda consonants. Blevins (2003Blevins ( , 2005 argues that these languages pose a serious problem for the optimality-theoretic hypothesis of the Emergence of the Unmarked (McCarthy & Prince 1994), which predicts that reduplicated structures should not favour relatively marked outputs. I show that the data in fact are not problematic for the Emergence of the Unmarked hypothesis, because different, conflicting dimensions of markedness can arise in reduplicative phonology. In Bugotu and Cheke Holo, the tolerance of extrasyllabic segments combined with size-penalising constraints helps produce the consonant-deletion pattern. A similar defence of the Emergence of the Unmarked is offered for the reduplicative systems of Tuvaluan and Hoava.

Faded copies: Reduplication as distribution of activity

“…There are many more examples for reduction in the reduplicant cited in the literature (e.g. McCarthy & Prince 1994;Alderete et al 1999;Kennedy 2008;Becker & Flack Potts 2011;Haugen & Kennard 2011) which are -under the heading of Emergence of the Unmarked -one of the main empirical arguments for the correspondence-theoretic account of reduplication based on BR-faithfulness (McCarthy & Prince (1995) and subsequent work) where only the reduplicant is expected to undergo reduction that is unattested outside of reduplication contexts.…”

Variation through markedness suppression

“…Consequently, some theories produce variation by attributing multiple rankings to one language. Frameworks such as stochastic OT (Boersma & Hayes 2001) and multiple grammars or variable rankings (Reynolds 1994, Anttila 1997, 2006, 2007, Nagy & Reynolds 1997, Ringen & Heinämäki 1999, Kennedy 2008) might permit both *ə≫M ax and M ax ≫*ə. But these theories do not generate the full range of variation.…”

Base-dependence in reduplication

“…McCarthy and Prince 1994 and much subsequent work), other scholars have also recently called such effects into question (e.g. Blevins 2003Blevins , 2005; see Kennedy (2008) for a recent defense of the notion. Nevertheless, we recognize the importance of trying to account for the Tawala durative reduplication data in other ways, and one potential avenue that one might approach within MDT, given the Generalized Phonology Prediction, would be to try to account for the to.o.to.go reduplication cases by importing Hicks Kennard's *REPEAT r analysis into Co-phonology Z.…”