French Phrasal Phonology in a Derivational Model of PF

This paper investigates the relationship between two phonological rules—liaison and phrasal accent—that apply across words in French. Although both rules have been associated with a phrase-level constituent of the prosodic hierarchy (§1), we show that domains for liaison are sometimes larger and sometimes smaller than domains for phrasal accent, in violation of the core well-formedness principles of prosodic hierarchy theory (§2). We suggest that this apparent conflict comes about because liaison and phrasal accent are fundamentally different kinds of rules, applying at different stages in an articulated model of PF (§3). An advantage of this alternative treatment is that it provides an explanation for why some phonological rules are rate-sensitive while others are not.