The Prosodic Conspiracy of English CiV Tensing
I claim that conditions on syllable and foot structure conspire to induce a complex chain reaction between the three vowels in the VCiV environ­ ment. I propose a principled analysis of CiV Tensing, adopting the con­ straint-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 pro­ hibited in the surface representation of English level 1 phonology. The Onset constraint is satisfied in surface form by the insertion of a conso­ nantal position, which is filled by spreading of the IV melodeme, yielding V.CL@ V. This structure incurs fewer violations of Dep than a competing candidate with full C epenthesis; V.Ci. [9 V. Glide formation, which recruits IV into Onset position, confers the fea­ ture [Tense] to the melodeme IV, and that the [Tense] feature is realized in both the nucleus and onset positions which IV occupies. The realization of tense nuclear IV has immediate consequences for foot structure. The optimal parse of ... 0',,0',,0',,# in English is (0',,0',..)0',..#, as in (ca.me.)ra. But in the CiV tensing examples, that parse would yield the unbalanced trochee, ( ... V. Ci). in which the strong syllable contains a lax vowel nucleus and the weak syllable contains a tense vowel nucleus. The unbalanced foot is resolved by increasing the prominence of the foot head in (V. Ci). Thus, CiV Tensing involves the insertion of [Tense] on the stressed syllable, and the consequent lengthening of that vowel, in order to maintain the prominence profile of the optimal trochee, HL. The implications of the proposed account are (i) that an apparently En­ glish-specific phenomenon turns out to be explainable in terms of univer­ sal well-formedness constraints, (ii) that the feature [Tense] affects sylla­ ble prominence, and (iii) that OT is suitable for the account of a complex chain reaction initiated by phonological conspiracy.