Suppletion in Global Perspective

Abstract

This paper documents and analyzes a system of suppletive alternations that are conditioned by top-down prosodic context. In Mandar (Austronesian), seven heads supplete at the right edge of the phonological phrase to satisfy an output constraint on foot structure. When phrase-external phonological context makes it possible to resolve this output constraint in a more optimal way, this suppletion is suspended. These effects suggest that the mechanism which regulates suppletion, vocabulary insertion, must be situated within a phonological calculus that can access global context and respond to output constraints.