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Geminate Inalterability and Lenition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Robert Kirchner
Robert Kirchner*
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
*
Linguistics Dept. 4-20 Assinobia Hall University of Alberta Edmonton AB T6G 2E7 [kirchner@ualberta.ca]
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Abstract

It is a familiar observation that phonological processes frequently fail to apply to geminates. A number of previous proposals attempted to account for these geminate inalterability effects in terms of a distinction between singly and multiply linked autosegments. Subsequent research, however, has observed that geminate inalterability is inviolable only in the domain of lenition processes. In this article, an account of this generalization is couched within a general optimality theoretic treatment of lenition, in which a scalar effort minimization constraint interacts with a set of lenition-blocking constraints. The geminate inalterability generalization follows from this effort-based approach to lenition, coupled with certain assumptions concerning the effort involved in geminates and their lenited counterparts.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 76 , Issue 3 , September 2000 , pp. 509 - 545
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 Linguistic Society of America

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