Exceptions in vowel harmony are local

This paper argues that while the domain of regular vowel harmony processes applies over the entire lexical item, exceptions to vowel harmony apply to a domain that is locally bound to the exceptional morpheme. This has important consequences for distinguishing between two competing theories of lexical exceptions in Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky, 1993/2004): lexically indexed constraints (e.g., Pater, 2000) and lexically indexed rankings (e.g., Anttila, 2002). Lexically indexed constraints are subject to a locality requirement in their locus of violation, forcing exceptions in harmony to have a local domain of application. Lexically indexed rankings do not naturally apply in a local fashion, and fail to account for locality of exceptions in vowel harmony.