The Micronesian
language Ponapean replaces certain consonants in clusters with a corresponding
nasal. The occurrence of this phenomenon with coronals is restricted in
two ways not seen with non-coronals: a limitation on the context to reduplication,
and an identity requirement on the consonants of the cluster. Both of these
restrictions are explained as the interaction of coronal unmarkedness with
the Emergence of the Unmarked constraint ranking schema.
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