Phrase-level obstruent voicing in Polish: a Derivational OT account

This paper discusses the dialectal differences in phrase-level obstruent voicing in Polish. The language distinguishes between two regional varieties, one of which apparently involves presonorant assimilation across word boundaries. Although both Warsaw and Cracow/Poznań dialects present voice assimilation, only the latter admits voicing before sonorants at word edges. Traditional pre-OT accounts of these phenomena rely on autosegmental delinking cum spreading which requires that word-final obstruents be distinguished from word-medial ones by the prior application of final devoicing. However, this is incompatible with the results of the latest phonetic studies on voicing. Taking into account the phonetic evidence that points to the variability and non-categoricity of presonorant voicing in the Cracow/Poznań dialect, I assume that neutralization is incomplete in this variety, and passive voicing is responsible for the resultant voiced obstruents in presonorant positions across word boundaries. At the same time, final devoicing can be attributed to the lack of a voicing target on the right of a delaryngealised segment. The contrast between Cracow/Poznań and Warsaw Polish can be interpreted as a difference in the domain of application of final devoicing, which ascends to the word-level in Warsaw. This is rightly captured by the Derivational OT framework.