ON CONSONANT RELEASES IN IMDLAWN TASHLHIYT BERBER

This article deals with the distribution of consonant releases in Imdl awn Tashlhiyt Berber (henceforth ITB), a language with a contrast betw een long and short consonants and with unusually long consonant cluste rs. In ITB the location of stop releases may be the only distinguishin g feature between two contrasting utterances, and yet releases are not indicated as such in the terminal representations of the phonology. T he distribution of consonant releases simply mirrors that of the artic ulator nodes in the output of the phonological component. The blocking of various phonological rules and certain aspects of the distribution of consonant releases in ITB suggest a universal constraint on repres entations that contain primary articulations spanning more than two ti ming units.