COMMENTS on Cook

Abstract

Professor Cook proposes to treat phonologically irregular morphemes (the so-called p-anomalous and t-anomalous predicates) like tep- 'be hot', ket- 'to walk', etc., not as tep- plus a morphological feature stating that the stem final p changes to w before a vowel (traditional morphological treatment) , nor as tew- plus an already existent phonological rule, i. e., the unrelease or implosion rule, that changes w to p in front of a consonant (more recent phonoplogical treatment), but as tewp- which is then realized either as tep- by consonant cluster simplicication rule) or as tew- (via a rule that Prof. Cook fails to mention in his paper) _ Professor Cook claims that the underlying representation of the form tewp- 'be hot', kowp- 'be pretty', etc. is more ex planatory than the traditional or more recent treatments because ( l) it explains the source of the vowel length in the fin al vowel of the stems of p-irregular predicates, and (2) it explains optional pronunciation of lhe form [ t~up-] ( i. e., w vocalizes to [u]) . Prof. Cook's observation that the final slem vowel of j)-irregular predicates is long is quite instructive and worth examining further.