Avoidance of adjacent consonants that are ‘sufficiently identical’ – that is, identical except for possible differences in a small subset of specific features – is argued to result from joint satisfaction of a constraint against geminates (identical adjacent consonants) and other active constraints that independently require assimilation with respect to those features ignored in the determination of identity. The crux of the proposal is the dependence of antigemination on independent assimilation processes, a prediction that is independently verified in case studies from English and Lithuanian. The factorial typology of constraints at the core of the proposal is demonstrated to closely fit a significant range of observed cases.

A number of languages have independently developed a pattern of vowel-length neutralisation according to which a vowel after a vocoid must be long. It is proposed that this pattern arises from the inherent acoustic ambiguity of such sequences, which are realised with a diphthongal transition from one formant pattern to the next, with no clear boundary between the two. Neutralisation in vocoid sequences originates from listeners' difficulties in determining the duration of vowels in this context. Lengthening of the second vocoid arises when listeners attribute some of the transition duration to that segment. The phonetic bases of this account are supported by three experiments with Finnish speakers. A production study shows that speakers treat the transition as belonging in part to the realisation of the postvocoid vowel. Two perception studies show that increasing the duration of the transition increases the probability of such a vowel being identified as long.

This paper advances a novel analysis of Spanish non-verb stress couched in the metrical model of Halle & Idsardi (1995), minimally augmented with an Edge Marking domain parameter. All relevant data are surveyed, and the patterns are classified on empirical grounds into unmarked, marked and supermarked. The unmarked pattern, assigned by default, has the stem-final syllable stressed, while the marked pattern involves a binary trochee, also on the right edge of the stem, and supermarked stress a non-final binary trochee or a word Edge Marking domain. All and only these patterns are generated, in both singulars and plurals, through permutations in the settings of three of the four Edge Marking components (domain included), checked by an avoidance constraint barring stress from the desinence. The ‘three-syllable window’ directly falls out from this machinery, both in the established Spanish vocabulary and in incoming borrowings, blind mimicry of the source form thus being obviated, indeed contradicted.

We argue that the common phonological assumptions that (i) plain voiceless consonants are less marked than voiceless aspirates and (ii) the unmarked two-way stop system opposes unaspirated voiced and voiceless members are incorrect. A wide range of phonetic and internal and external phonological evidence suggests instead that (i) the maximally unmarked single-series stop is unspecified for laryngeal features and (ii) the unmarked two-way stop system opposes aspirated and unaspirated stops, and the aspirated series may be the unmarked member of this set.

Plural internal reduplication in Washo has generated much interest in the phonological literature. This study presents a novel analysis that unifies the treatment of a set of seemingly disparate aspects of this plural reduplication pattern (e.g. variation in the placement and size of the reduplicant, contrastive vowel length in stressed syllables, post-tonic gemination, and vowel-length inheritance in reduplication), relying on the interaction between constraints on weight assignment, affix anchoring and stress assignment. In particular, the odd placement of the plural reduplicant in roots with internal consonant sequences and the restricted distribution of long vowels in Washo can be attributed to a previously unnoticed emerging preference for heavy stressed syllables on the surface. The results of this study have implications for theories of reduplication and theories of weight phenomena in general.