Extensions of Faithfulness: Rotuman Revisited



John McCarthy

UMass-Amherst



   This article examines some extensions of the Optimality-Theoretic notion of 'faithfulness' (Prince & Smolensky 1993) that arise under Correspondence Theory (McCarthy & Prince 1995). Focusing on empirical material from Rotuman, the article discusses the following principal issues:
      -The extension of faithfulness constraints to alternations involving phonological metathesis and coalescence, which have not been considered in most previous OT work.
 

    -The extension of faithfulness constraints to the preservation of prosodic structure, subsuming both familiar faithfulness effects and phenomena previously attributed to prosodic circumscription.
 

    -The extension of faithfulness constraints to relations other than the one between lexical and surface forms, pursuing proposals about reduplicative correspondence in McCarthy & Prince (1993, 1995) and about stem-stem correspondence in Benua (1995).
 



    Additionally, the article touches on several other matters of potential interest. Questions of substantive versus formal restrictions on linguistic expressions are examined when the matter of C/V tier segregation in Rotuman is addressed. The theory of templates in prosodic morphology arises in connection with the proper characterization of the Rotuman 'incomplete phase'. Also within prosodic morphology, a general proposal about positive prosodic circumscription is offered. Throughout the article, the OT conception of parallel evaluation of competing forms by ranked constraints finds support over derivational and operational approaches.