Constraint Universality and Prosodic Phrasing in Māori

This paper explores the notion that all constraints are present in all grammars (‘Universality’). For any pair of constraints, Universality is shown to produce four types of system, differing in terms of the constraints’ activity (i.e. visible effect). Conditions on the typological predictions are identified. Building on Samek-Lodovici (1996, 1998a,b), one of the more surprising results – that two constraints may both be active in a language even if they conflict – is explored for the syntax-phonology interface. The empirical focus is the Polynesian language Māori, where it is argued that both left and right edges of lexical syntactic phrases align with the left and right edges of Phonological Phrases respectively.

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