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In:Perspectives on Phonological Theory and Development: In honor of Daniel A. Dinnsen
Edited by Ashley W. Farris-Trimble and Jessica A. Barlow
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 56] 2014
► pp. 199–222

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A faithfulness conspiracy

The selection of unfaithful mappings in Amahl’s grammar

 | Simon Fraser University
Published online: 29 April 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.56.16far
Children frequently reduce marked target structures to unmarked outputs. However, multiple reduction strategies are often available, and pinpointing a principle that unifies them can be difficult. This paper examines several markedness-reducing processes in Amahl’s developing phonology (Smith 1973), showing that seemingly unrelated repairs actually had a coherent objective: to avoid the accumulation of multiple repairs. This finding is significant on two levels: first, the pattern challenges analyses that rely on ranked constraints, in which violations cannot accumulate across constraints; second, it appears that multiple phonological processes (unfaithful by definition) conspire to preserve faithfulness. This pattern is defined as a faithfulness conspiracy, and the concept is fleshed out with other examples from Amahl’s development as well as cases from fully-developed languages.
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