It is shown how the theory of PDM accounts for instances of subtractive MLM—the empirical phenomenon that is notoriously challenging for the claim that morphology is additive. Two general mechanisms inside PDM can predict subtractive MLM: usurpation of moras and the defective integration of morphemic prosodic nodes. Usurpation can arise if a segment underlyingly lacks a mora and ‘usurps’ it from a neighbouring segment that is hence deprived of it. In the second scenario, a prosodic node that is underlyingly not integrated into the higher/lower prosodic structure is affixed to a base and remains defectively integrated in the output. Given the standard assumption that only elements properly integrated under the highest prosodic node of the prosodic hierarchy are visible for the phonetics, this affix node and everything it dominates remain phonetically uninterpreted. It is shown how all attested types of subtractive MLM in the representative data set fall out from these two basic mechanisms.
Generalization Bounds via Information Density and Conditional Information Density