Derived Environment Effects in Colloquial Helsinki Finnish

Abstract

Abstract One of the longstanding puzzles in generative phonology is the so-called Nonderived Environment Blocking (NDEB), proposed by Paul Kiparsky. Based on NDEB, some phonological rules apply only in derived environments—that is, across a morpheme boundary or if fed by an earlier phonological rule—but are blocked in other cases. According to Kiparsky, rules that are both cyclic and lexical apply in nonderived environments. This is supported by the optional rule of Vowel Coalescence in Colloquial Helsinki Finnish. This chapter examines the Finnish evidence based on a corpus of spoken Helsinki Finnish encompassing 126 speakers and approximately 500,000 word forms. It argues that there is no relation between derived environment behavior and any kind of phonological rules, analyzes the Finnish evidence in terms of Optimality Theory, and suggests that NDEB arises from root faithfulness relativized to markedness.