Catalan vowel epenthesis as evidence for the free ride approach to morphophonemic learning

Abstract

Although the discovery of underlying representations (URs) is a complex task that may be conditioned by various factors (see, e.g., Albright 2002), it has traditionally been claimed to be quite straightforward when the UR is revealed by productive and transparent morphophonemic alternations and when there is a clear and regular phonological condition in the language that justifies the disparities between the presumed UR and the corresponding surface representation. Among other possible scenarios (see, e.g., Albright 2008, Kager 2008, Pater et al. 2012), uncertainty appears when these morphophonemic alternations do not exist, when they are not fully productive and transparent, or when more than one interpretation of the UR is possible. This is the case of the URs of words beginning with esC - in Catalan, which we discuss here. The purpose of this squib is twofold. On the empirical side, we provide new arguments for the epenthetic nature of the vowel in esC - words, arising from the interaction between potential word-initial vowel epenthesis and underapplication of vowel reduction (VR) in Majorcan Catalan. On the theoretical side, we show how Majorcan Catalan learners take a ''free ride'' (McCarthy 2005b) in the process of constructing the UR of nonalternating forms involving esC - initials by generalizing the pattern¿and the subsequent input-output mapping¿observed in cases with transparent morphophonemic alternations and a similar syllabification problem.