Phonological opacity in Slovenian

One of the key insights of classical generative phonology is that generalizations about sound patterns in the world’s languages are not always surface-based. Rule-based approaches dis­tinguish at least four types of rule interactions, two of which are transparent (and thus excep­tionless on the surface) while the other two are opaque. This paper focuses on the opaque interactions, where a particular rule seems to apply in unexpected environments or fails to apply in expected environments. I document eight cases of opacity in Slovenian.