Prosodically-driven morpheme non-realization. Evidence from Catalan and other languages (original) (raw)

Prosodically-driven morpheme non-realization in the Minorcan Catalan DP

Pons-Moll, Clàudia, Torres-Tamarit, Francesc and Mascaró, Ignasi. "Prosodically-driven morpheme non-realization in the Minorcan Catalan DP" Linguistics, 2023 (April), 2023

This article focuses on a case of prosodically-driven morpheme nonrealization found in the Minorcan Catalan DP that has not been documented or accounted for in the previous literature. In this variety of Catalan, kinship restrictive appositive phrases show the realization of the masculine personal article if the following personal name starts with a consonant (es conco en Toni, the-DEF.ART.M uncle the-PERS.ART.M Toni 'uncle Toni'), but not if it starts with a vowel (es conco Àngel, the-DEF.ART.M uncle Àngel 'uncle Àngel'). This asymmetrical pattern is entirely unexpected since a preconsonantal coda is generated in the former cases (cf. es conco en Toni [əs.kòŋ.kun.tɔ.ni]) and an onsetless syllable and a hiatus are generated in the latter (cf. es conco Àngel [əs.kòŋ.ku.án.ʒəl]). The structures obtained are indeed non-optimizing from a strictly syllabic point of view and stand as a clear case of antimarkedness. We argue that this asymmetric behavior is prosodic in nature, and is mainly driven by the need to keep the left edge of the prosodic word free of clitic material, without challenging basic syllabification constraints active in Catalan. We further justify how the cases under scrutiny shed new light on the typology of alignment constraints referred to the alignment between prosodic and lexical categories, on the nature of morpheme realization constraints, and on the morphosyntax-phonology interface.

The influence of phonology on inflection: the interplay between syllabification and lexical insertion in Pallarese Catalan (PhD thesis)

This dissertation deals with the constraints that phonology imposes on the exponence of gender. In particular, it explores the interaction between epenthesis and nominal inflection in Pallarese Catalan clitics. Since inflection is located word-finally in Pallarese, I argue that right-edge epenthesis is avoided in order to maintain a strict correspondence between morphological and phonological structure. Inflectional vowels may be used for syllabification purposes in word-final position instead. It is assumed in this thesis that every syntactic functional head projects a postsyntactic theme position (Oltra-Massuet, 1999) where gender is realized. A key aspect of the proposal is the idea that the exponents of gender are floating features, and thus inflection proceeds in two steps. First, the theme position is spelled out with an underspecified vowel (i.e., Th ↔ V) and, subsequently, the floating features associated with gender ([+fem] ↔ [+low], i.e., -[a]; [–fem] ↔ [+labial,–high], i.e., -[o]) are attached to the V-slot of the theme position. Couched within Optimality Theory, I argue that the constraint ranking determines whether the featural gender exponents surface or not. The feminine is always realized due to a constraint that favors parsing [+low] (which implies adding association lines that are absent in the input), whereas in the masculine the insertion of new association lines in the output is dispreferred and the features associated with [–fem] are not parsed, which accounts for default masculine -[Ø] exponence. If gender is part of the morphosyntatic composition of a clitic, as in the 3rd person singular masculine accusative clitic, these floating features can nevertheless be attached to the V-slot of the theme position to improve syllabic structure under certain phonotactic conditions. This ‘morphological solution’ is less costly than (regular) word-initial epenthesis because it does not need to create a new skeletal position or insert new features. Impoverishment (Bonet, 1991) deletes gender features in the 3rd person plural accusative clitic, and thus the corresponding phonological features associated with gender cannot be used for syllabification purposes. The theme position with the V-slot is maintained, though, and the default epenthetic features of Pallarese are inserted when required by phonotactics, which forces a thematic interpretation of this vowel. This solution is preferred over word-initial epenthesis because the theme position already provides a skeletal slot. The same procedure applies to other clitics that do not bear gender features either. Even though Pallarese shows a complex morphophonological intertwining regarding gender exponence, the OT analysis presented in this dissertation makes exclusive reference to phonological objects. The morphosyntactic structure of the nominal system constrains epenthesis, but strict modularity can be maintained. Furthermore, the use of floating features in the input can dispense with gender allomorphy (cf. Bonet et al. 2007). As for nouns and adjectives, the general process that spells out an underspecified vowel in the theme position, on the one hand, and floating place features for gender values, on the other, is only valid for default endings. That is, vowels other than -a (feminine) and -o (masculine) —when it surfaces— cannot be considered gender markers and need to be fully specified in the theme position of lexical entries instead. Therefore, nouns with non-regular endings are stored as complex representations and phonologically realized in one single step. This supports theories that assume that one exponent (or set of exponents) can spell out whole morphosyntactic structures (e.g., Siddiqi 2009, Caha 2009 or Bermúdez-Otero 2012).

Contiguity in prosodic words Evidence from Spanish

Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics , 2018

Spanish dialects show substantial variation in coda s weakening. Yet, to provide a comprehensive treatment of this phenomenon, a bigger prosodic constituent than just the co-da position should be analysed. Crucially, two aspirating varieties of Spanish are considered. The Granada dialect weakens s to [h] inside words, at word edges and at prefix edges. The process may be either transparent (esto [éh.to] 'this', des-calzar [deh.kal.sáɾ] 'to unshoe', las cosas [lah.kó.sah] 'the things') or opaque (des-hecho [de.hé.tʃo] 'un-done', las aguas [la.há.ɣwah] 'the waters'). Chilean Spanish, on the other hand, presents transparent (esto [éh.to] 'this', des-calzar [deh.kal.sáɾ] 'to unshoe') and opaque (las aguas [la.há.ɣwa] 'the waters') aspiration, as well as deletion (las cosas [la.kó.sa] 'the things'), and no aspiration across a prefix boundary (des-hecho [de.sé.tʃo] 'undone'). The reported variable behaviour calls for an integrated approach to segmental weakening across all prosodic constituents, and for a revision of the present understanding of conti-guity. The boundary between the prefix and the stem is protected by the grammar despite the weak coda position of the prefix-final s, therefore the domain of application of the CONTIGUITY constraint should be extended to the supramorphemic level.

Prosodic Constraints in Morphosyntactic Domains

Clitics are a famous topic challenging the modularity in grammatical organisation inasmuch as they cannot be adequately interpreted as exclusively belonging to one particular level of linguistic description. Various phenomena related to cliticisation, which are observable across languages, suggest that any description of clitic placement should take into consideration the interaction between (prosodic) phonology and (morpho)syntax.

The Catalan definitive article as lexical sharing

2010

This paper argues for the claim that the definite article (d-article) in Catalan is a bound morpheme that adds its information about grammatical category to that of the host it forms a compound with. In this way, the derived compound satisfies two X 0 categories in the c-structure, in an instance of lexical sharing (Wescoat 2002). The present proposal is shown to be superior to alternatives that, while assuming bound morpheme status for the d-article, assume a single category for the word that contains the darticle (as in Miller 1992 for French). The crucial evidence is provided by potentially boundless sequences in which the d-article and weak prepositions are adjacent to each other. Only a theory that recognizes the status of these elements as bound morphemes that add a grammatical category to the word they are part of correctly accounts for the relevant evidence.

The role of the prosodic word in phonotactic generalizations

1999

In traditional generative phonology, phonotactic generalisations were expressed by conditions on underlying forms of morphemes (morpheme structure conditions), in combination with the set of phonological rules (cf. Postal 1968). It is the claim of this paper to show that the phonotactics of morphemes should be accounted for primarily in terms of properties of prosodie constituents such as the syllable, the foot, and the prosodie word, three uncontroversial categories of the prosodie hierarchy. I will focus on the role of the prosodie word because the phonotactic role of that prosodie constituent has been somewhat neglected compared to that of, in particular, the syllable. A second claim, intimately connected to the previous one, is that the relevant constraints pertain to the surface level, i.e. they are output constraints. In other words, they do not function as constraints on underlying forms.

Clàudia Pons-Moll (2012). "Loanword Phonology, Lexical Exceptions, Morphologically Driven Underapplication, and the Nature of Positionally Biased Constraints"

In: Michael Kenstowicz, Teresa Cabré (ed.), Catalan Journal of Linguistics. On loanword phonology, vol. 11. Bellaterra: Publicacions de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; Institut Interuniversitari de Filologia Valenciana. pàg. 127-166.

In this paper we provide a formal account for underapplication of vowel reduction to schwa in Majorcan Catalan loanwords and learned words. On the basis of the comparison of these data with those concerning productive derivation and verbal inflection, which show analogous patterns, in this paper we also explore the existing -and not yet acknowledged-correlation between those processes that exhibit a particular behaviour in the loanword phonology with respect to the native phonology of the language, those processes that show lexical exceptions and those processes that underapply due to morphological reasons. In light of the analysis of the very same data and taking into account the aforementioned correlation, we show how there might exist a natural diachronic relation between two kinds of Optimality Theory constraints which are commonly used but, in principle, mutually exclusive: positional faithfulness and contextual markedness constraints. Overall, phonological productivity is proven to be crucial in three respects: first, as a context of the grammar, given that «underapplication» is systematically found in what we call the productive phonology of the dialect (including loanwords, learned words, productive derivation and verbal inflection); second, as a trigger or blocker of processes, in that the productivity or the lack of productivity of a specific process or constraint in the language is what explains whether it is challenged or not in any of the depicted situations, and, third, as a guiding principle which can explain the transition from the historical to the synchronic phonology of a linguistic variety.