Some functionally motivated rules in Tunisian phonology

This paper attempts to account for the existence of two phonological rules (consonant gemination and a type of metathesis) and for the suspension of a third (truncation), all of which occur in very limited grammatical environments. A close examination of these three cases suggests that we must recognize the possibility of phonetically unmotivated morphophonological rules, which can perhaps be explained in functionalist terms: the rules examined here appear to be designed essentially to preserve the canonical forms of sets of morphemes which would otherwise be in danger of clashing with other sets of morphemes in the language. These findings lead us to elaborate on Hooper's (1976) notion of MP-rules (rules which require grammatical information to be given in their structural description), and to question her hypothesis concerning the origins of such rules.