Labialization and palatalization in Judeo-Spanish phonology
Judeo-Spanish (JS) presents a number of phonological processes involving secondary articulations. This paper establishes novel descriptive generalizations based on labialization and palatalization phenomena across different JS dialects. I show how these generalizations are part of a broader cross-linguistic typology of secondary articulation patterns, which would remain incomplete on the basis of non-Sephardic Spanish alone. I propose an analysis in Optimality Theory (OT) that accounts for this variation using the same universal constraints that are active in languages beyond Ibero-Romance. This paper demonstrates the utility of OT as an analytical framework for doing JS phonology and in turn highlights the importance of JS to phonological theory by bringing new generalizations and data to bear on the analysis of secondary articulations.