The Prosodic Conspiracy of English CiV Tensing

Abstract

I claim that conditions on syllable and foot structure conspire to induce a complex chain reaction between the three vowels in the VCiV environment. I propose a principled analysis of CiV Tensing, adopting the constraint- based model of Optimality Theory framework (Prince and Smolensky 1993), in which tensing results from the interaction between the Onset constraint and the Foot-Form constraint. The underlying representation VCiV presents vowel hiatus, which is prohibited in the surface representation of English level 1 phonology. The Onset constraint is satisfied in surface form by the insertion of a consonantal position, which is filled by spreading of the IV melodeme, yielding V.CL.y V. This structure incurs fewer violations of Dep than a competing candidate with full C epenthesis; V.Ci. C V.