Recursive and non-recursive tone sandhi domains in Laoling trisyllabic sequences

In previous studies, variations of tone sandhi domains of tri-tonal sequences are either recursive or non-recursive domains, differing only in prosodic branching. In Laoling, however, both recursive, e.g., (σ(σσ)), ((σσ)σ), and non-recursive variant domains, e.g., (σ)(σσ), (σσ)(σ), are observed. In traditional Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993), such variations cannot be predicted. In this study, we combine Coetzee’s (2006) Rank-Ordering model of Eval with McCarthy’s (2010) Harmonic Serialism and demonstrate how both recursive and non-recursive domains and their varying frequencies can be predicted.