Shift is derived

Abstract

Shift is an input–output mapping where a feature or autosegment loses its underlying associations and surfaces with different associations. In Harmonic Serialism, shift can either be analyzed as a multi-step process or a single-step process. While Gietz et al. (2023) argue for the latter, this paper refutes their arguments and provides evidence supporting a multi-step analysis of shift. Specifically, it demonstrates that shift in Kibondei and Halkomelem, the languages analyzed by Gietz et al. (2023), does not require a single-step shift operation and that the analyses they present are empirically inadequate. Typological modeling not only reinforces the result that a single-step shift operation is superfluous but demonstrates that grammars with such an operation undergenerate with respect to the attested typology.