Lexical Category and Phonological Contrast

In a number of languages, nouns show phonologically privileged behavior compared to verbs. This difference is analyzed here as an instance of positional faithfulness: the category noun is a strong position, so the grammar includes noun-specific faithfulness constraints which, when high-ranking, allow nouns to be exempt from neutralization processes that target other words. Even a case of neutralization that targets nouns specifically is shown to be a type of neutralization process that characteristically affects strong positions, reinforcing the claim that the category noun has a special status in phonology.

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