No Additional Strata, No Loop! A Reanalysis of Malayalam Compound Morphophonology

Abstract Mohanan (1986) claims that different compound types in Malayalam are associated with distinct strata with systematic phonological differences. However, compound embedding indicates that these strata must interact bidirectionally, necessitating a stratal loop. The loop abolishes strict ordering of strata, which results in a less restrictive architecture of stratal phonology. Contrary to Mohanan (1986), we show that the loop is unwarranted once all compounding takes place in a single stratum. We replace the stratal distinction by a prosodic distinction. Crucially, our analysis extends naturally to two cases of opaque phonology that Mohanan (1996) claims provide irrefutable evidence for the stratal distinction of compounds.