Positional faithfulness and nasal assimilation in English

Abstract

This article analyzes the process of Nasal Assimilation in English.1 The approach to Nasal Assimilation in a standard rule-based framework can be conducted in two ways: by assuming an underlying alveolar nasal or by employing underspecification. The article contributes to the ongoing debate regarding underspecification in phonology and focuses on employing underspecified representations in Optimality Theory. First, it is argued that in such words as, for instance, somber, Nasal Assimilation is best analyzed in terms of positional faithfulness in the form of prevocalic faithfulness. Second, as the analyses show, positional faithfulness does not provide a workable scenario for all the data, and it is necessary to use underspecification to satisfactorily analyze English words which lack the context for positional faithfulness, for example, swamp. Nevertheless, subsequent evaluations demonstrate that in certain phrases, for instance, sing boys, employing underspecification is not sufficient either, and level distinction is necessary. Therefore, the article also offers an argument in favour of levels in Optimality Theory.