Nested derivedness in Ponapean morphophonology

Abstract This paper develops a comprehensive analysis of prefixal CVC durative reduplication, affixal phonology, and tautomorphemic consonantal agreement effects in Ponapean. I argue that the notion of derivedness plays an essential role. The importance of derivedness comes in two varieties. First, reduplicant-internal OCP violation is permitted only to a limited extent, but rampant OCP violation is attested in reduplicative bases. Second, OCP violation is tolerated in a reduplicant only when the violation is not inherited from the base. Reduplicants may not contain any OCP violation imported from the base. These two observations are explained with the schema of emergence of the unmarked and Comparative Markedness Theory: Faith-IO » OCP(old) » Faith-BR. This schema of emergence of the unmarked is reinforced by the phonological behavior of affixes and consonantal agreement effects. In these two phenomena, input–output mapping is involved and OCP violations are permitted or even encouraged. My analysis not only explains a wide range of data as interrelated phenomena but also highlights the importance of the OCP and derivedness in Ponapean phonology. On the theoretical side, this study supports two theoretical proposals: Comparative Markedness Theory and the formulation of the OCP that it is violated by identical consonants across a vowel.