Phonological alternations in homorganic nasal–stop sequences provide a continuing topic of investigation for phonologists and phoneticians alike. Surveys like Herbert (1986), Rosenthal (1989), Steriade (1993) and Hyman (2001) demonstrate that cross-linguistically the most common process is for the postnasal stop to become voiced, as captured by Pater’s (1999) markedness constraint *NT. However, as observed since Hyman (2001), *NT alone does not account for all postnasal patterns of laryngeal alternation. In this paper, we focus on three problematic patterns. First, in some languages with a two-way laryngeal contrast, voiceless stops are aspirated postnasally, i.e. the contrast between NT and ND is enhanced, not neutralized. Second, in some languages with a three-way laryngeal contrast, the voicing contrast is maintained postnasally, while the aspiration contrast neutralizes in favour of aspiration. Third, in other languages with a three-way laryngeal contrast we find the opposite postnasal aspiration neutralization: aspiration is lost. We argue that an analysis based on perceptual cues provides the best account for this range of alternations. It demonstrates the crucial role of perceptual cues and laryngeal contrasts in a particular language while fitting the range of patterns into an Optimality Theoretic factorial typology that covers a wider range of postnasal laryngeal alternations than previous analyses.

In this paper I discuss a source of reduplicative (non-)correspondence common to Bantu tone languages which has not received attention in the formal literature. In many Bantu languages, the entire RED+Base complex forms a single domain for realisation of the Base stem tone, leading to the occurrence of non-corresponding marked tone in both the RED and the Base. I propose that this pattern of tone realisation in reduplicated forms falls out if the reduplicative complex is a compound verb stem, as compounds are frequently treated as single domains for the realisation of prosodic properties. The length condition on tonal transfer in reduplication which has proven a challenge for previous work on this topic (Myers & Carlton 1996, Hyman & Mtenje 1999) is also shown to follow from the compound structure of the reduplicative complex. This analysis confirms that the morphological status of the reduplicative complex plays an important role in determining the realisation of reduplicative morphemes.

As Mutaka & Hyman (1990) and Mutaka (1994) show, the Kinande reduplication patterns in (1) present several analytical challenges (eri- is the infinitive prefix; the reduplicant is underlined):

Spongospora nasturtii is a plasmodiophorid pathogen of watercress (Rorippa nasturtium-aquaticum), causing crook root disease. In the past, some authors have considered the plasmodiophorids as protists, and others have considered them as true fungi. This study was performed with the aims of elucidating both the relationship of S. nasturtii to other plasmodiophorids, and also the placement of the plasmodiophorids as a group when compared to other organisms. Analysis of partial 18S ribosomal DNA sequences of a range of plasmodiophorids by phylogenetic techniques including parsimony, neighbour-joining, and principal co-ordinate analysis, indicated that there was a close relationship between S. nasturtii, S. subterranea and Plasmodiophora brassicae. However, analyses incorporating 1.2 kb of 18S rDNA sequence from S. subterranea cast doubt over the long-held view that S. subterranea and S. nasturtii are more closely related to each other than to other genera of plasmodiophorids. Consideration of the entire 18S rDNA of both S. nasturtii and P. brassicae showed that they are not closely related to a range of protists and true fungi examined.

The theory of reduplication developed in this book distinguishes itself from most recent work in reduplication in important ways. First of all, it adopts the Distributed Morphology framework (Halle & Marantz 1993, 1994, Noyer 1997) and a derivational, rule-based approach to reduplication (and to phonology in general). It explicitly argues against parallel, surface-based models of prosodic morphology, like Optimality Theory (McCarthy & Prince 1993, Prince & Smolensky 1993, etc.). Further, the analyses proposed in the book reject the proposal, current since McCarthy & Prince (1986), that the shape of reduplicative morphemes (like other fixed-shape morphemes) is constrained to be (roughly) equivalent to a prosodic constituent, syllable or foot. The book is organised as follows. After a brief introduction in Chapter 1 outlining the goals of the book, Chapter 2 introduces enough of the theory to show how backcopying in reduplication, argued since Wilbur (1973) to be impossible to account for without reference to reduplicative surface-identity effects, can be handled in a derivational framework. Chapter 3, the longest chapter, discusses the technical details of the theory in more detail and goes on to show how the fixed shape and unmarked featural and prosodic structure typical of reduplicative morphemes can be accounted for without reference to either prosodic structure or general markedness. The fourth and final chapter discusses in more detail theoretical issues raised in earlier chapters, like how this approach defines markedness of reduplication patterns and avoids reduplication-specific mechanisms. The review discusses each of these points in turn.