Latin liquid dissimilation and the relevance of phonological structure

Abstract This paper reconsiders Latin liquid dissimilation, which since Steriade, Donca. 1987. Redundant values. In Papers from the 23rd regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society , 339–362. Chicago: Chicago Linguistics Society, has been understood as the change of the suffix – alis into – aris when there is an [l] in the base a process that is blocked by an intervening [r], but not by other consonants. Cser (2010/2020) observes that intervening noncoronal consonants also block dissimilation, for which Roberts, Philip. 2011. A proposed Latin rule insertion revisited in OT. Paper presented at the 85th annual meeting of the 85th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America , 6–9. Pittsburgh: Linguistic Society of America, proposes an OT account. We critically discuss Cser’s empirical claims and Roberts’s theoretical account and show how the blocking of Latin liquid dissimilation by dorsal consonants, but not by labial ones, can be made to follow straightforwardly from phonological structure.