Problems created by a unified prime encoding voicing and nasality, and a solution.

What is it about?

Many researchers believe that both voicing and nasality are cognitively encoded by the same feature: as a head it encodes voicing, as a dependent nasality. This is incompatible with general assumptions about headhood (heads are acoustically salient and phonologically strong). I show that reversing the original proposal is a feasible solution.

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Why is it important?

It is important to ensure consistency in our theoretical assumptions both about what it means to be a melodic head and how voicing/nasality are encoded.