[dja:], [dia], [dɪɛ], ‘deer’

Abstract This paper examines the realization of stop-glide-vowel sequences in Belize Kriol (BK), focusing on basilectal forms such as byaa [bja:] ‘bear’ and dyaa [dja:] ‘deer’, which have structures corresponding to front vowels [ɛ] and [ɪ] in English. I argue that the BK forms derive from an underlying diphthong /ia/, shared across the creole continuum, lacking the loss of coda [ɹ]. In the basilect, /i/ surfaces as non-moraic [j] in the onset, triggering compensatory lengthening of the following [a:]. In the mesolect, the same underlying /ia/ surfaces as a diphthong or front monophthong in the nucleus, yielding forms closer to English. Using Optimality Theory, in particular the framework of Output-to-output correspondence, the analysis models lectal variation as the result of different constraint rankings rather than distinct underlying representations. This approach begins to account for systematic variation in creole continua and inter- and intra-speaker variation.