R diphthongs in French lexifier creoles: Evidence from Haitian

This paper argues that post-vocalic /R/ must be posited in the underlying representation of certain lexical items in Haitian, even though it is absent from surface forms. Furthermore, post-vocalic /R/ is syllabified with the preceding vowel to form what we call an R diphthong, i.e. a two-root node segment in which both the vowel and /R/ are linked to the same nuclear position. This analysis accounts for a wide range of otherwise unexplained phenomena such as the blocking of automatic regressive nasalization ([k_n], but not *[k__n], as opposed to [zami] or [zãmi] "friend"); the presence of productive alternations between morphologically related forms which cannot be accounted for without postulating underlying Rs and other floating segments ([buk] "buckle" and [bukle] "to buckle up"), the tense /lax distribution of [e]/[_] and [o]/[__] and the co-occurrence restriction between nasal vowels and post-vocalic /R/s which are mutually exclusive in Haitian lexical words