Phonological and Morphological Issues in the Distribution of Berber Schwa

1 Introduction The distribution of schwa is similar across most Northern Berber languages. The general pattern in all cases can be seen as the result of two restrictions on the surface forms of the language: one demanding that all consonants be adjacent to a vowel (or, more or less equivalently, that all consonants belong to a maximally CVC syllable), the other demanding that schwa not occur in open syllables. Certain facts, however, complicate this picture. In this thesis I propose an analysis of the pattern in Optimality Theory, concentrating on two issues, not necessarily related to one another. The first involves the treatment of geminates. Geminates in Berber are never broken up by epenthesis; C˘C clusters are possible on the surface, while CCC clusters are not. Geminate inseparability is common across languages, and various mechanisms have been devised to explain it both in Berber and generally (Guerssel 1977, 1978; Steriade 1982). An analysis of the problem in Optimality Theory faces a difficulty that does not arise in derivational analyses. Not only underlying geminates, but also geminates formed by assimilation, are impervious to epenthesis. In a derivational account, the explanation for both kinds of geminate inseparability can be the same: assimilation creates a structure which is identical to that of an underlying geminate; a subsequent epenthesis rule which is blocked