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Inalterability in CV Phonology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Bruce Hayes
Bruce Hayes*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Abstract

Geminate consonants and long vowels frequently resist the application of rules that would a-priori be expected to apply to them; i.e., they are frequently ‘inalterable’. This article argues that, by invoking the theory of CV Phonology, it is often possible to predict which phonological rules are unable to affect long segments. The prediction follows from rather minimal assumptions about how rules apply to forms.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 62 , Issue 2 , June 1986 , pp. 321 - 351
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 by Linguistic Society of America

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Footnotes

* I would like to thank Diana Archangeli, G.N. Clements, B. Elan Dresher, Wilson Gray, Morris Halle, Patricia Keating, Phil LeSourd, Joseph Malone, John McCarthy, Brian McHugh, David Odden, Russell Schuh, Donca Steriade, and Charles Ulrich, among others, for their very helpful advice and comments on the research reported here. None of them should be held responsible for shortcomings.

An early version of this article was presented as Hayes 1984.

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