In Lezgian, a Nakh-Daghestanian language, final and preconsonantal ejectives and voiceless unaspirated obstruents are voiced in certain monosyllabic nouns. This article offers acoustic evidence confirming that the two coda-voicing series are indeed voiced in final position. Based on comparative evidence, it is demonstrated that this phonetically aberrant neutralization pattern is the result of a series of phonetically natural sound changes. Such ‘crazy rules’ (Bach & Harms 1972) undermine any direct phonetic licensing approach to phonology, such as LICENSING BY CUE (Steriade 1997).

Syntactic features like case, person, and gender are often assumed to have simple atomic values that are checked for consistency by the standard predicate of equality. The case feature has values such as nom or acc, and values like masc and fem are assumed for the feature gender. But such a view does not square with some of the complex behavior these features exhibit. It allows no obvious account of feature indeterminacy (how a particular form can satisfy conflicting requirements on a feature like case), nor does it give an obvious account of feature resolution (how person and gender features of a coordinate noun phrase are determined on the basis of the conjuncts). We present a theory of feature representation and feature checking that solves these two problems, providing a straightforward characterization of feature indeterminacy and feature resolution while sticking to structures and standard interpretations that have independent motivation. Our theory of features is formulated within the LFG framework, but we believe that similar solutions can be developed within other syntactic approaches.

Locative inversion in English (under the bridge lived a troll) is ungrammatical in all of the contexts where Jo-support applies: subject-auxiliary inversion, sentential negation, emphasis or verum focus, VP ellipsis, and VP displacement. Importantly, it is ungrammatical in these contexts whether do-support applies or not: it is ungrammatical with other auxiliaries, and it is also ungrammatical in nonfinite clauses of these types, where do-support never actually applies. This indicates that all of these contexts have something in common, and that cannot be disruption of adjacency between tense/agreement and the verb because there is no such disruption with other auxiliaries or in nonfinite contexts. These facts therefore argue against the standard last-resort theory of do-support, which holds that it is inserted to save a stranded tense/agreement affix, and for a theory like that of Baker 1991. In this theory, VPs have corresponding SPECIAL PURPOSE ([SP]) VPs, and do heads a [SP] VP. All of the contexts for do-support have in common the featural specification [SP]. Locative inversion involves a null expletive subject, the licensing of which is blocked by a non-[SP] context. All of this argues for a view of syntax with language-particular licensing constraints, features, and rules, within a range of variation proscribed by universal grammar.