Phonological Analysis of the Inflectional ‐ s in English

ABSTRACT This article investigates the phonological behavior of the English inflectional ending ‐ s , which is found in regular plural forms and in the Saxon Genitive. The analyses of the plural form are conducted assuming a single morpheme for the plural ending ‐s and are couched in the framework of Optimality Theory. The article makes two novel contributions to phonological theory. First, it argues that the family of Identity constraints should be expanded to include a constraint that requires faithfulness to a Derived Stem. Furthermore, the analysis of the Saxon Genitive ending shows that the suffix exhibits disparate effects of epenthesis and deletion, which prove insurmountable for Standard Optimality Theory and require level distinction. The second novel claim, therefore, is the treatment of the Saxon Genitive ending within Derivational Optimality Theory. I argue that the Saxon Genitive comprises, in fact, two allomorphs that occupy different levels of the evaluation. The serial‐based approach is challenged by alternative analyses of the effects related to the English inflectional ‐ s as the evaluations are recast assuming morpheme‐bound constraints and underlying allomorphy. However, the results of the fully parallel analyses are unsatisfactory and only strengthen the predictions made by Derivational Optimality Theory.