Serial Reduplication Is Empirically Adequate and Typologically Restrictive

Abstract

Wei and Walker (2020) and Zymet (2018) claim that derivational lookahead effects are attested in the interactions between reduplication and other phonological processes in Mbe and Logoori, respectively. On the basis of this evidence, they argue that reduplication in these languages cannot be modeled by Serial Template Satisfaction (McCarthy, Kimper, and Mullin 2012), a theory of reduplication set in Harmonic Serialism. This article refutes these claims and provides serial analyses for both languages. It further identifies a novel prediction of Base-Reduplicant Correspondence Theory (McCarthy and Prince 1994, 1995, 1999), a parallel theory of reduplication, that reduplicants may surface with marked structures unattested elsewhere in the language, and it demonstrates that these patterns are not replicated in serial.