Diminutive Bare-Consonant Reduplication in Stl'atl'imcets

Abstract

Stl'atl'imcets, otherwise known as Lillooet, is a Salish language spoken in British Columbia, Canada. Stl' atl' imcets exhibits 4 different patterns of reduplication, plus combinations 1• In this paper I explore one of these patterns: the diminutive bare-consonant reduplication. The goal is threefold: 1) propose and Optimality Theory (OT) account of the diminutive bare-consonant reduplication in Stl'atl'imcets, 2) discuss the role of prosodic templates in reduplication, and 3) explore the use of morphologically defined constraints. The organization of the paper is as follows: first I present the basic facts of reduplication and account for them using the interaction between two constraints, REALIZEMORPHEME and CONTIGUITY. I show that together, these constraints avoid having to posit prosodic templates associated with the reduplicant and the base. Not only is it unnecessary to refer to prosodic templates, but doing so in fact achieves the wrong results. Second, I discuss cases where reduplication requires vowel epenthesis and propose that CONTIGUITY is morphologically defined, such that schwa-epenthesis does not violate it. Third, I look at reduplication involving consonant clusters, and show that the reduplicant must align to a stressed mora, rather than a stressed syllable. Finally, I conclude by discussing the implications of the proposed account, with respect to the need for prosodic templates (or lack thereof) and for morphologically defined constraints.