Prosodic Smothering in Macedonian and Kaqchikel

This article deals with a so-far unnoticed phenomenon in prosodic phonology, which we dub prosodic smothering. Prosodic smotheringarises when the prosodic status of a cliticor affixvaries with the presence or absence of some outer morpheme. We first illustrate prosodic smotheringwith novel data from two genetically unrelated languages, Macedonian(Slavic) and Kaqchikel (Mayan). We then provide a unified account of prosodic smotheringbased on a principled extension of the theory of prosodic subcategorization(e.g., Inkelas 1990, Peperkamp 1997, Chung 2003, Yu 2003, Paster 2006, Bye 2007). Prosodic subcategorizationtypically involves requirements placed on items to the left or the right of the selecting morpheme. We show that prosodic smotheringnaturally emerges in a theory that also allows for subcategorizationin the vertical dimension, such that morphemesmay select for the prosodic category that immediately dominates them in surface prosodic structure. This extension successfully reduces two appa...