German fricatives: coda devoicing or positional faithfulness?

254 Jill Beckman, Michael Jessen and Catherine Ringen
devoicing the alveolar fricatives in both words would be left without a
[voice] specification.
For example, as illustrated in (21), in the case of gruslig, the codadevoicing
account produces a voiceless non-[sg] coda fricative which
could reasonably be subject to phonetic passive voicing.
(21)
Coda devoicing; voiced input
gru/z/l+ig *[voi,sg] *VoiCoda Ident[voi] *VoiObs
a. gru[ssg].lig
*
b. gru[z].lig
*!
*
c. gru[zsg].lig *! *
*
d. gru[s].lig
*
*[sg]
*!
(In the phonetics, PassiveVoice yields gru[z]lig, with variable voicing.)
But with a voiceless input, if the input fricative has no laryngeal specification,
the output would be expected to undergo passive voicing, as illustrated
in (22).
(22)
Coda devoicing; unspecified input
pre/s/en
a. pre[ssg]en
b. pre[z]en
c. pre[zsg]en
d. pre[s]en
*[voi,sg] *VoiCoda Ident[voi] *VoiObs
*!
(In the phonetics, PassiveVoice yields *pre[z]en, with variable voicing.)
*!
*
*
*
*
*[sg]
*!
The result is exactly parallel to that obtained in (21): an unspecified
fricative which can be the target of phonetic passive voicing in intersonorant
position. But there are no underlyingly voiceless fricatives which
undergo variable voicing in intervocalic position.24
As illustrated in (23) and (24), the coda-devoicing analysis cannot be
salvaged by assuming FRIC[sg].
(23)
Coda devoicing, assuming Fric[sg]; unspecified input
pre/s/en
a. pre[ssg]en
b. pre[z]en
c. pre[zsg]en
d. pre[s]en
*[voi,sg] *VoiCoda Fric[sg] Id[voi]
*!
*!
*!
*
*
Id[sg]
*
*
*
*VoiObs
*
*
*[sg]
*
*
24 Voicing of underlying voiceless fricatives is an option in fast/casual speech, but it is
extremely unusual (or dialectally marked) in careful speech.