Syllabically conditioned coalescence and deletion in Zoque: an optimality-theoretic approach

Abstract

This article analyzes consonant coalescence (e.g. |yp| → [p y ]) and consonant deletion in the Mixe-Zoque language Zoque spoken in southern Mexico. These processes will be argued to function as repair strategies necessary to convert underlying forms into syllabically well formed surface representations. Cast within optimality theory, the analysis accounts for the Zoque facts with the interaction of several universal faithfulness and markedness constraints, e.g. UNIFORMITY, which penalizes the merger of two separate segments into a single complex sound, and MAX-C, the faithfulness constraint that prevents deletion. The present treatment also provides examples of emergence of the unmarked because two constraints that are generally violated in Zoque are obeyed in a certain domain. The two constraints illustrating the emergence of the unmarked are NOCODA, which ensures that all syllables are open, and * H] σ , which bars [h] from occurring in syllable-final position.