Driving Derived Environment Effects with Alignment Constraints

Abstract

This paper proposes an analysis in which morphologically-derived environment constraints are driven by Alignment--or rather, are triggered by misalignment. An analysis of Korean shows that both prefix-based and suffix-based derived environment effects ([n] insertion and palatalization) can be accounted for by using two Alignment constraints. Using Alignment to drive derived environment effects removes the need for sequence-specific Markedness constraints. This approach may be extended to account for a broader set of derived environment effects, including some that occur at compound or phrase boundaries.