Part of
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2006: Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’, Amsterdam, 7–9 December 2006Edited by Danièle Torck and W. Leo Wetzels
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 303] 2009
► pp. 111–126
This paper proposes an OT account of diachronic and synchronic Romance lenition based on the theory of Comparative Markedness. The analysis, contrary to previous analyses, allows for a straightforward description of synchronic allophonic lenition processes where voicing and spirantization take place simultaneously without loss of contrast. The comparative markedness analysis of lenition not only allows for a parallel OT description of counter-feeding opacity in synchronic Gran Canarian, Corsican and Sardinian lenition, but moreover makes understandable why sound change should start out in a counter-feeding fashion.