An OT Account of Laryngealization in Cuzco Quechua

Abstract

Classical phonemic accounts of Cuzco Quechua posit three distinct series of stops: plain, aspirated, and glottalized. Parker and Weber 1996 argue instead for a root-level feature of laryngealization governed by a small number of formal mechanisms. In this paper, the analysis is taken one step farther and it is shown that even greater explanatory power may be achieved by appealing to the model of Optimality Theory.