Rethinking the ‘duplication problem’

This paper reviews arguments regarding the ‘duplication problem’ (DP) in phonology, which is the observation that in many languages a productive alternation coexists with a related static generalization about underlying forms. The DP has been of particular relevance to phonological theory in the era of Optimality Theory (OT) because it has been claimed that derivational models of phonology suffer from the DP while OT with Richness of the Base (OT-ROTB) does not. In this paper, it is argued that there is no DP. An understanding of the diachronic origins of alternations and lexical patterns explains the frequent cooccurrence of the two types of patterns, such that the relation between the two does not necessarily have to be formally captured in the synchronic grammar. A model in which alternations and generalizations about roots are not driven by a single constraint in the grammar is argued to make more accurate empirical predictions than OT-ROTB.

► The existence of the ‘duplication problem’ in phonology depends on theoretical assumptions.
► Co-occurrence of alternations and Morpheme Structure Constraints is explained diachronically.
► There is no ‘duplication problem’.