Exceptionality in Optimality Theory and final consonants in French

Exceptionality in Optimality Theory and final consonants in French Bernard Tranel University of California, Irvine ([email protected]) 0. Introduction My goal in this paper is to provide a principled treatment for a few schizophrenic French words exhibiting an apparent confusion regarding the status of their final consonants. By 'principled treatment', I mean a grammarinternal explanation as to why these words behave the way they do, and why their exceptional behavior is basically the only one possible. The words in question include, with variations due to dialectal differences, the numbers given in (1a), and perhaps also the words in (1b). (1) a. cinq "five", six "six", sept "seven", huit "eight", dix "ten" b. plus "more", tous "all" Set C in (2) illustrates with huit the split personality of these words (In the examples in (2), relevant syllable boundaries are marked by a period; relevant consonants are underlined when pronounced and angle-bracketed when silent). In liaison contexts, the final /t/ of huit behaves like a standard latent consonant, showing up before a vowel, but not before a consonant, in parallel with Set A words like petit and in contrast with Set B words like net. Elsewhere, the final /t/ of huit behaves like a standard fixed consonant, in parallel with Set B words like net and in contrast with Set A words like petit. (2) liaison contexts before V before C elsewhe re (pause) type of finalC behavior