Publication Date
2007
Journal or Book Title
University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 32: Papers in Optimality Theory III
Abstract
Morphemes often behave differently phonologically in ways that cannot be explained purely phonologically: one morpheme undergoes or triggers a process while another morpheme fails to undergo or trigger that process, even though the two are in all relevant respects indistinguishable. Piro syncope (Matteson 1965, Kisseberth 1970, Lin 1997) provides an example of such morpheme-specific phonology. Morphemes differ in whether they cause the preceding vowel to delete (/heta+nu/ [hetanu] Ogoing to seeP vs. /heta+lu/ [hetlu] Osee itP), and in whether they undergo deletion themselves (/meyi+wa+lu/ [meyiwlu] OcelebrationP vs. /heta+wa+lu/ [hetawalu] Ogoing to see him yetP). As the behavior of the homophonous pair of /-wa/ morphemes illustrates, morphemes that fail to condition syncope can differ in whether they undergo the process.
Pages
259-296
Recommended Citation
Pater, Joe, "The Locus of Exceptionality: Morpheme-Specific Phonology as Constraint Indexation" (2007). University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 32: Papers in Optimality Theory III. 172.
Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/linguist_faculty_pubs/172
