Alternative analysis

Now that we have one analysis of the data, we need to consider alternatives, to determine if our analysis is the best one. Our basis for evaluating alternatives will be how they mesh into an integrated system – the individual rules themselves are not significantly different in terms of their simplicity. In constructing an alternative to be compared with our hypothesized account, we must construct the best analysis that we can.

One alternative to consider is that the 3sg suffix is underlyingly /kwa/, not /wa/, an assumption which would mean a rule of k-deletion rather than insertion. There is a fundamental incompatibility between this proposed underlying form and the theory that there is a stop-voicing rule applying to the affixes /te, ka/, since deletion of root-final stops applies in the latter case (/awn-ka/ ! [aw-ka] ‘your liver’) but not the former (/awn-kwa/ ! [awn-kwa] ‘his/her liver’). Under the theory that there is a k-deletion rule, we must assume the underlying suffixes /ga, re/, meaning that there is a devoicing rule, and Stop Deletion must be suitably reformulated so that only /ga, re/ trigger the rule, and /ne (te), kwa/ do not.

The hypothesized consonants that trigger Stop Deletion would be /g, r/, which can be distinguished from the consonants that do not trigger the rule in being [+voice, -nasal]. The added complication of specifying that the triggering consonant is [-nasal] is necessary only under the assumption that the 1sg suffix is /ne/; we can avoid that complication by assuming that the suffix is /te/, in which case the following alternative statement of stop deletion is necessitated by the alternative assumptions about underlying forms (/te, ga, kwa, re/).

Given these alternative underlying forms, the variant [ne] of the 1sg suffix found in [aw-ne] ‘my eye’ and [awʔ-ne] ‘my skin’ (but not [awn-te] ‘my liver’) can be accounted for by the following nasalization rule.

The reason for specifying that a following vowel is required is so that the suffix /kwa/ does not undergo the rule.

To summarize the alternative analysis, we might instead assume the suffixes /te, ga, kwa, re/, and the following rules.

There is a fatal flaw in the alternative analysis, centering around the interaction of Devoicing and Stop Deletion. The suffixes which condition Stop Deletion are underlyingly [+voice], but that consonant is also subject to Devoicing – by the stop which is deleted. If Stop Devoicing applies first, then /awn-ga/ becomes awnka, and Stop Deletion cannot apply since only voiced consonants trigger the rule – *[awnka] rather than [awka] would result. On the other hand if Stop Deletion applies first, then /awn-ga/ does undergo Stop Deletion to become awga, but then the consonant needed to trigger Devoicing no longer exists, and *[awga] results. Thus the hypothesized rules cannot be ordered in a manner that gives the correct output, meaning that the rules are wrong. On those grounds, the alternative analysis must be rejected.