Dan Everett: phonological arguments for late insertion? (reply to Martha McGinnis)

[Martha McGinnis]

Martha,

Probably not an argument against LP, no. My point, poorly worded, was not
that this is a strong argument against LP, merely that: (i) so far as I
can tell this is a sui generis case, so it would be interesting to see if
others can identify similar cases that might have been
overlooked; (ii) while LP does not, as you point out, rule such cases out,
they are not expected and go against the grain a bit. Why should a
post-lexical process depend on so-called lexical information? It seems to
me, though I might very well be mistaken, that LP has nothing to say about
these examples. If that is the case, then there is a problem because if
there is a theory that does account well for post-lexical structural
preservation, then it will likely account for so-called lexical structural
preservation as well, obviating the need for an LP account.

Martha, you referred to my work as a 'project', a term associated with the
notion of Research Programme introduced by Imre Lakatos. This is too
generous, however. The Suya research is not a 'project' - just some cool
facts being written up, discovered fortuitously in helping someone figure
out a previously undescribed Amazonian language. A fringe benefit of
fieldwork.

Best,

Dan