German fricatives: coda devoicing or positional faithfulness?

236 Jill Beckman, Michael Jessen and Catherine Ringen
The constraint PW-R[sg] accounts not only for the failure of passive
voicing in the forms in (3a), but also for an interesting contrast in passive
voicing behaviour. We find no passive voicing in the prosodic word-final
velar stop of Ta[kH] (< /k/; cf. Ta[g]e ‘day PL’) in Tag und Nacht ‘day and
night’, when a word-final stop occurs between sonorants, but (variable)
passive voice does occur in die Bude [b] (< /p/ude) ‘the booth’ when a
word-initial stop is between sonorants (Künzel 1977).
The constraints assumed in Jessen & Ringen will account for the fact
that word-final fricatives are voiceless in German if the PW-R[sg] constraint
is generalised to cover all obstruents, as in (6).
(6) (Generalised) PW-R[sg]
A prosodic word-final obstruent is [sg].
(7) a.
b.
Gra/z/
i. Gra[ssg]
*[voi,sg] PW-R[sg] Ident[sg] *VoiObs
*
ii. Gra[z]
*!
*
iii. Gra[zsg] *!
* *
iv. Gra[s]
*!
Fu/s/
i. Fu[ssg]
ii. Fu[z]
iii. Fu[s]
*!
*!
*[sg]
*
*
* *
*
But this account does not explain the voicelessness of other coda fricatives
in German (illustrated in (8)). Nor does it connect with independent claims
about the [sg] status of German voiceless fricatives (Jessen 1989, 1996,
1998; cf. Vaux 1998).7
(8) a. Intervocalic
kurven [v]
verlosen [z]
reisen [z]
pressen
hassen
surfen
[s]
[s]
[f]
‘curve inf’
‘ra∏e inf’
‘travel inf’
‘press inf’
‘hate inf’
‘surf inf’
b. In coda
kurvte
verloste
reiste
presste
hasste
surfte
[f]
[s]
[s]
[s]
[s]
[f]
1/3sg past
1/3sg past
1/3sg past
1/3sg past
1/3sg past
1/3sg past
The voicelessness of fricatives in clusters preceding stops can be accounted
for by the interaction of the constraints assumed in Jessen &
7 Jessen (1989) argues that German fricatives are specified as [spread]. Jessen (1996,
1998) argues that they are specified as both [spread] (or [tense]) and [voice], and
Vaux (1998) argues that the unmarked value for fricatives is [spread].