Abstract
The aim of this paper is to account for the phonological characteristics and prosodic function of a word-final moraic obstruent, namely the obstruent suffix /-Q/, in Japanese mimetics. Though phonological structure containing a word-final moraic obstruent is banned in the general vocabulary of Japanese, mimetics allow a moraic obstruent to appear in word-final position. More than 90% of disyllabic mimetic stems can take /-Q/ as a word-final element. This extraordinary frequency shows that word-final /-Q/ behaves as an unmarked default, which repairs ill-formed structures to satisfy certain prosodic requirements in mimetic phonology. /-Q/ plays a key role in constructing head-final prosodic structure, in which an accented trochaic foot appears in word-final position. The optimality-theoretic account in this paper shows that the head-final pattern is widely observed in and strongly required for well-formed prosody in Japanese mimetics.
