Hiatus resolution in Persian: The case of [ɟ]-epenthesis

What is it about?

This paper analyses the case of hiatus resolution in the /e-i/ and /e-ɑ/ environments in tetrasyllabic words in Persian, within an Optimality-theoretic framework. Hiatus is avoided in Persian by the insertion of an epenthetic consonant which varies considerably depending on the morpho-phonemic environment in which hiatus occurs. It is argued that the insertion of [ɟ] as a hiatus-resolving consonant in Persian is historically driven. We follow Naderi and van Oostendorp (2011) in assuming that the hiatus-resolving [ɟ] is actually a latent segment at the end of bases ending in /e/ – in some words as a relic from the Middle (Pahlavi) Persian and in others as a matter of analogy – surfacing only in certain morpho-phonemic contexts. We argue that the two hiatus-resolving consonants realised in an /e-i/ environment in Persian – i.e., the phonetically-driven [ʔ] and the historically-driven [ɟ] – are in complementary distribution depending on the grammatical class of the output word. Within an OT framework, we aimed to achieve a unified explanation and a set order of constraints active for hiatus resolution in the /e-i/ and /e-ɑ/ environments.

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