Discontinuous nasal spread in Yaminahua

Rachel Walker's (1998) analysis of the universal characteristics of nasal spread provided a unified account of nasal spread that enabled the formulation of predictable spread patterns. The present analysis presents a new type of data not included in Walker's account: Yaminahua (Panoan) diverges significantly from hitherto identified patterns of nasal spread by allowing nasalization to skip over intervening nasalizable segments. By positing nasal autosegments this paper provides a rationale for the Yaminahua exceptions to Walker's universal pattern.