Noun Faithfulness and Word Stress in Tuyuca

Recent research within the Optimality Theory (OT) framework (Prince & Smolensky 1993; McCarthy & Prince 1993, 1995) has suggested that domain-specific, or positional, faithfulness constraints play an important role in the grammar (e.g., Alderete 1995; Beckman 1995, 1998; Lombardi 1996; McCarthy & Prince 1995; Padgett 1995). This paper proposes that among the salient domains that have specific faithfulness constraints is the lexical category noun. Suffix-dominance effects related to word stress in Tuyuca, a Tucanoan language spoken in Colombia and Brazil (Barnes 1996; Barnes & Takagi de Silzer 1976), are given a principled account under a noun-faithfulness analysis. In Tuyuca, one stress is assigned to every prosodic word (PWd), which may contain a number of suffixes in addition to at least one stem. The general tendency is for stems, not suffixes, to receive word stress. However, monosyllabic nominalizers show dominant behavior when attached to a verb stem with final accent. In this configuration, it is the nominalizing suffix that receives the stress, not the verb stem. The dominant behavior of monosyllabic nominalizers in Tuyuca is shown here to be a noun-faithfulness effect. The grammar of Tuyuca contains a nounspecific version of MAX(ACCENT), the constraint against deletion of input accents. When accent clash forces the deletion of an accent, the accent of the nominalizing suffix (of category N) is therefore retained at the expense of that of the stem (of category V). Tuyuca thus becomes another case motivating the inclusion of nounfaithfulness constraints in the grammar (see also Smith 1997ab). This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 provides background discussion on domain-specific faithfulness in general and noun faithfulness in particular. Section 3 develops a noun-faithfulness-based analysis of Tuyuca stress assignment. Finally, Section 4 draws conclusions and considers implications of the analysis.