Li6 Phonology and Morphology

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Li6 Phonology and Morphology

• Representation of segments

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Todays topics

• feature geometry
• autosegments
• the skeleton

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Fundamental points about FG

• All features are not created equal certain sets
  of features pattern together, certain features
  never interact, and so on.
• Not all rule types allowed by the formal
  machinery of traditional linear phonology are
  attested/possible.
• Our hypothesis to account for these
  generalizations
• features are organized in an invariant
  hierarchical tree structure provided by UG.

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Traditional feature theory
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Traditional segmental representation

• coronal
• -voice
• -cont /t/
• ant
• dist

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Formal elegance

• Consider the widespread phenomenon of nasal place
  assimilation.
• inept, impossible, incomplete
• How does a traditional linear model (i.e.
  pre-1976) account for this process?
• Rules of this type (and in fact assimilation
  rules in general) have no special status in a
  linear model of phonology.

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A stronger hypothesis

• Phonol. has only two basic operations at its
  disposal
• spreading
• delinking
• Phonol. has only two basic constraints at its
  disposal
• the Line-Crossing Constraint
• the OCP (Obligatory Contour Principle)
• Desiderata/postulates
• common rule types involve simple machinery
• phonological rules perform single operations only
• feature organization is universally determined

X X F
X F
X X X F F
X X F F
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The Place Node

• Assume that assimilation and dissimilation/OCP,
  which are extremely common, operate only on
  single elements.
• If this is true, then natural classes (sets of
  sounds that pattern together with respect to
  phonological rules) should be reflected in
  representations.
• What implication does nasal place assimilation
  have for our representation of segments, then?
• It suggests that the places of articulation are
  grouped under a common node within the tree
  structure that makes up a segment.
• We call this particular node the Place node.

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The feature tree
back to laryngeal neutralisation
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Evidence for the Place node

• English nasal assimilation
• Sanskrit s-assimilation

UR SR gloss
indras Suras indraS Suras Indra the hero
tas ?a? ta? ?a? those six
divas putras diva? putrah son of the goddess
nalas kamam nalax kamam at will
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How do we represent Place assim?

• The Sanskrit case
• X X
• cons cons
• cont
• Place

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Laryngeal spreading

• Sanskrit coda neutralization (cf. Korean)
• nominative accusative gloss
• marut marutam wind god
• suhrt suhrdam friend
• agnimat agnimatham near the fire
• kakup kakubham region

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Laryngeal delinkingNew Julfa future marker

• a. kERtHAm I will go
• k?tAm I will give
• k?kiEnAm I will exist
• b. g?b?z?Am I will buzz
• g?lAm I will cry
• g?z?rAm I will bray
• c. kH?tHo?niEm I will allow
• kH?tSHApHiEm I will measure
• kH?X?ndAm I will laugh
• kH?sAvoRiEm I will grow accustomed to
• d. gH?bHiERiEm I will carry
• gH?gHom I will come
• gH?dH?niEm I will put
• gH?dzHiEviEm I will form

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Autosegments

• phonemes are not simply lists of feature
  specifications
• features and segments are not necessarily in a
  one-to-one relationship (the relationship is
  nonlinear)
• individual features enjoy a certain amount of
  autonomy with respect to other features
  characterizing the segments to which they are
  associated (they behave as autosegments)
• Today well focus on tone vowel harmony in
  lecture 8 (round, back, and ATR as autosegments)

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Typology of autosegmental relationships

• a. one to one X X
• F F
• b. one to many X X
• F
• c. many to one X
• F F
• d. bare anchor X
• e. floating feature F

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11 and many1

• Margi (Kenstowicz 1994312)
• base form definite gloss
• a. sál sál-árì man
• kùm kùm-árì meat
• b. ?ímí ?ímy-árì water
• kú kw-árì goat
• tágú tágw-árì horse
• c. tì ty-arì morning
• hù hw-arì grave
• ú?ù ú?w-arì fire

H L ˆ HL ( falling) ? LH (rising)
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More Margi

• a. à sá gU? you go astray
• à tsú gU? you beat
• b. á wì gU? you run
• á dlà gU? you fall
• c. á v??l gU? you fly

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1many

• Margi (Kenstowicz 1994319)
• a. tSU speak tSí-bá tell
• ghà reach ghà-bá reach
• f ?? swell f ì-bá make swell
• b. sá go astray sá-ná lead astray
• dlà fall dlà-nà overthrow
• bdlU? forge bdl??-ná forge

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Universal Association Convention

• Match tones and tone-bearing units one-to-one,
  L?R or R?L.

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R?L mapping Kikuyu

• subject marker object marker root tense suffix
• tò we mò him ròr look at íré
• má they má them tóm send
• tò ròr ìré má rór ìré
• tò mò ròr ìré má mó ròr ìré
• tò mà rór ìré má má rór ìré
• tò tòm íré má tóm íré
• tò mò tòm íré má mó tòm íré
• tò mà tóm íré má má tóm íré
• How do these forms illustrate the following?
• R?L mapping
• one-to-many association
• The OCP

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Floating features

• Japanese mimetic palatalization
• palatalization targets the rightmost non-r
  coronal consonant
• If there are none, the palatalizing feature links
  to the leftmost segment

UR mimetic gloss
a. /dosa/ doša-doša in large amounts
b. /toko/ trotting coko-coko childish small steps
c. /poko/ up and down movement pyoko-pyoko (pokyo) flip-flop, jumping around imprudently
d. /koro/ kyoro-kyoro look around indeterminately
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1many pt 2 the skeleton

• Bakwiri syllable reversing language game (Hombert
  1986)
• kwélì falling ? líkwè

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Geminates

• Patient LBs errors when spelling geminates
  (Caramazza and Miceli 1990)

Stimulus Response
pezzo zeppo
cellula leccula
blocco bcollo
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Conclusions

• Nonlinear, autosegmental representation of
  segmental material enables us to account
  satisfyingly for a wide range of phenomena that
  would be difficult or impossible to account for
  with non-autonomous linear representations.