A Theory of Subfeatural Representations: The Case of Rounding Harmony in Laal

International audience This paper introduces subfeatural representations to capture subphonemic distinctions below the featural level, on the basis of partial effects found in a type of multiple-trigger process: "phonological teamwork". The unusual case of Laal is presented, in which rounding harmony requires two triggers: a round vowel, and a labial consonant. The coarticulatory effect of the labial consonant is shown, on the basis of instrumental evidence, to incur a distinctive, but non-contrastive, intermediate level of rounding on the target vowel, which is analyzed as being featurally [-round], but subfeaturally [[x round]] (0