The nouns that say -ni: Morpheme-specific phonology in Telugu

Abstract Outward-sensitive, phonologically conditioned suppletive allomorphy (OS-PCSA) has been argued not to occur (Bobaljik 2000; Paster 2006, 2009). Telugu (Dravidian) displays apparent OS-PCSA. Rather than loosen the root-out condition (Deal and Wolf 2017) or move Vocabulary Insertion into the phonology (Anderson 2011, Brodkin 2025), I present a purely phonological solution. The alternation is due to the interaction of an inherently stressed exponent with stress faithfulness and foot binarity constraints in Stratal OT (Kiparsky 2000). The analytical “moral of the story”: in at least one case, which looks on the surface like OS-PCSA, the pattern can instead be analyzed as pure phonology; what at first looks like a counterexample is instead the exception that proves the rule.