Dissertation - Michael Becker

that forbids clusters of alveolar stops, like [dt] and [dd], regular verbs resolve the clusterby epenthesis, and verbs that stay unchanged in the past resolve the cluster by deletionor fusion. Verbs that don’t end in [d] or [t] don’t violate the constraint on alveolar stopclusters, and thus have no reason to stay unchanged in the past.The tableau in (1) shows the derivation of the verb [gaId] (guide). The first candidatein (1) is the winner, with an epenthetic vowel and hence a violation of DEP. The secondcandidate is zero-marked (i.e. it sounds identical to the root) by virtue of deleting the affixal[d], thus violating MAX 2 . The final candidate is the faithful one, which violates a constrainton clusters of alveolar stops (*DD, see also Borowsky 1987), which is undominated inEnglish.(1)/gaId + d/ *DD MAX DEPa. ☞ gaIdId *b. gaId *!c. gaIdd *!The derivation of the zero-marked verb [sprEd] (spread) is shown in (2). In order tomake the zero-marked form the winner, DEP must dominate MAX, which is the oppositeof the ranking required by guide.2 Alternatively, zero-marked verbs avoid a violation of *DD by fusing the root [t] or [d] and the suffixal[d], violating UNIFORMITY.5