German fricatives: coda devoicing or positional faithfulness?

(28)
a.
German fricatives: coda devoicing or positional faithfulness? 257
[—voice, +sg] input
pre/s— v, + sg/en *[voi, *Voi Fric[sg] Id[voi] Id[sg]
sg] Coda
i. pre[s— v, + sg]en
ii. pre[z+ v, — sg]en
*! * *
iii. pre[s— v, — sg]en
*!
*
iv. pre[z+ v, + sg]en
b. [—voice, —sg] input
*!
*
*Voi
Obs
*
*
*[sg]
*
*
pre/s— v, — sg/en
i. pre[s— v, + sg]en
ii. pre[z+ v, — sg]en
iii. pre[s— v, — sg]en
iv. pre[z+ v, + sg]en
*[voi,
sg]
*!
*Voi
Coda
Fric[sg] Id[voi] Id[sg]
*!
*!
*
*
*
*
*Voi
Obs
*
*
*[sg]
*
*
Any voiceless input will correctly emerge from this grammar with a
[lvoice, +sg] specification, thereby blocking the application of passive
voicing in the phonetics. But, as (29) shows, the addition of FRIC[sg]
produces undesirable results in the case of a voiced input fricative.
(29)
[+voice, —sg] input
gru/z+ v, — sg/l+ig
a. gru[s— v, — sg].lig
b. gru[z+ v, — sg].lig
c. gru[s— v, + sg].lig
d. gru[z+ v, + sg].lig
*[voi,
sg]
*!
*Voi
Coda
*!
*
Fric[sg] Id[voi] Id[sg]
*!
*
*
*
*
*
*Voi
Obs
*
*
*[sg]
*
*
FRIC[sg] forces all [lvoice] output fricatives to bear [+sg] specifications,
including those derived from coda devoicing. Thus, this binary feature
analysis provides no principled way of distinguishing between those fricatives
which undergo variable phonetic re-voicing, and those which systematically
resist re-voicing – the same problem found in the privative
feature coda-devoicing account discussed above.25
25 Here we do not consider more radical binary feature coda-devoicing analyses which
accomplish coda devoicing by either (a) complete removal of [Svoice] in coda
position, or (b) complete removal of all laryngeal specifications in coda position.
Neither of these alternatives is more successful at providing the necessary distinction
between fricatives that exhibit variable voicing (gruslig, etc.) and those that
never voice (wässrig, etc.) than the one just sketched.