Identity effects in Uruguayan Spanish

This paper describes a case of paradigm leveling recently attested in the present subjunctive of a Spanish dialect spoken in Uruguay. With the aim of shedding some light on the type/nature of identity effects in inflectional paradigms, the paper explores the phonological representations and properties found in the leveled paradigm. Additionally, it reviews some of the shortcomings of models that place most of the burden of explanation for analogical changes on the phonological grammar. In contrast to such models, this paper suggests that the difference between the innovative dialect and standard dialects without leveling does not rely on their phonology, but rather in the choice of a morphological exponent.