Consonant lenition in Danish

Abstract

In this thesis, I will account for coda lenition processes in Danish using local conjunction within optimality theory. These processes include deaspiration, stops becoming approximant and vocalization in syllable-final position. No such process occurs syllable-initially or intervocalically, nor does the following onset have any effect. I will show that these coda conditions, as well as lenition-caused sonority sequencing repairs, are best accounted for using a theory of positional markedness, restricting marked features from coda position. Positional markedness allows for a number of repair solutions, such as neutralization, epenthesis, deletion, etc. and I will show that this theory does not predict too many solutions but in fact predicts those repairs found in languages cross-linguistically.