Morpheme-specific Phonology in Reduplication

This paper examines two case studies of morpheme-specific reduplication that copy from a syntactic domain larger than a root but smaller than a word, providing an analysis in Cophonologies by Phase (CBP) of both morpheme-specific phonotactic requirements in different reduplication processes and of the amount of structure copied in reduplication. The first case study comes from Guébie (Kru, Ivory Coast), where reduplication marks both nominalization and reciprocals (among others). In both morphosyntactic environments, reduplication copies the verb plus valency-changing affixes, but the reduplicants are subject to different sets of phonotactic restrictions. The second case study comes from Kinande (Bantu, Democratic Republic of Congo) where there is reduplication of nouns as well as verbs. Nominal and verbal reduplication both involve a two-syllable reduplicant that copies from the root plus some--but not all--affixes, and both are subject to a morpheme integrity constraint. However, the two reduplication processes differ in whether they are prefixing or suffixing, whether they copy from right-to-left or left-to-right, and in which repair to the morpheme integrity constraint is preferred.While other frameworks such as traditional Cophonology Theory, Stratal OT, or Indexed Constraints could also account for the morpheme-specific phonological behavior of reduplicants, CBP has the added benefit of straightforwardly accounting for the amount of structure that serves as the base of reduplication in each case. This paper contributes to the growing literature on morphophonological interactions that can be accounted for within CBP.

Modeling the Acquisition of Phonological Interactions: Biases and Generalization

In this paper we computationally implement four different theories for representing opaque and transparent phonological interactions: Harmonic Serialism, Stratal OT, Two-Level Constraints, and Indexed Constraints. We then show that these theories make unique predictions on two tasks: (1) a learning-bias task, based on previous experimental work with humans and (2) a novel generalization task that no human data exists for. Our results in (1) show that serial models predict that transparent languages should be easier to acquire, while parallel models do not. Furthermore, the results for (2) show that all four of the theories we test make unique predictions for how humans should generalize to novel phonological interaction types.

Post-nasal voicing in Japanese classifiers as exceptional triggering: implications for Indexed Constraint Theory

Indexed constraints are often used in constraint-based phonological frameworks to account for exceptions to generalizations. A point of contention in the literature on constraint indexation revolves around indexed markedness constraints. While some researchers argue that only faithfulness constraints should be indexed, others argue that markedness constraints should be eligible for indexation as well. This article presents data from Japanese for which a complete synchronic analysis requires indexed markedness constraints but argues that such constraints are only necessary in cases where a phonological repair applies across a morpheme boundary. We then demonstrate that algorithms for learning grammars with indexed constraints can be augmented with a bias towards faithfulness indexation and discuss the advantages of incorporating such a bias, as well as its implications for the debate over the permissibility of indexed markedness constraints.

Bedouin Arabic multiple opacity with indexed constraints in Parallel OT

Opaque interactions between phonological processes (Kiparsky 1973) can be a significant challenge to Optimality Theoretical accounts of phonology (Idsardi 2000, Bakovic 2011). McCarthy (2007) presents the case of multiple opacity in Bedouin Arabic that seems to require extrinsic process ordering (as provided by OT-CC, McCarthy 2007, and Serial Markedness Reduction, Jarosz 2014). It is a counterexample to the Stratal OT approach: one of the opaque processes in the interaction applies across words, which implies that it applies at the phrase level, and should be transparent according to Stratal OT. At the same time, McCarthy points out multiple opacity as a challenge to non-derivational approaches like Turbidity Theory (Goldrick 2001) or Coloured Containment (van Oostendorp 2008).I offer an account of this complex interaction in terms of a modified version of indexed constraint theory (Pater 2000): constraints are indexed to binary non-phonetic features on individual segments (Nazarov 2019, see also Becker 2009 and Round 2017). This account is compatible with Parallel OT and requires no extrinsic ordering between processes: the processes interact opaquely because of indexation. A restrictive (Richness-of-the-Base-proof) account of the opaque interaction is achieved by restricting how segments with particular indices may be realized.

Gradient categories in lexically-conditioned phonology: An example from sound symbolism

There are many approaches to modeling lexically-conditioned phonology in current formal theories, including lexically-indexed constraints and cophonologies. Nearly all of these existing approaches assume categorical membership in the lexical classes that condition differential phonotactics or phonological behaviours: for example, a lexical item is either a noun or a verb, or of one gender class or another. This paper proposes an implementation of Maximum Entropy Harmonic Grammar with lexically-indexed constraints and gradient symbolic activations over classes that allows us to model differences in phonological patterns over both discrete and gradient class membership. This theoretical implementation is a natural extension of the scales and gradient activations that have been shown to be necessary in recent phonological theory: sound symbolic evidence highlights the necessity for such increased explanatory power in our phonological models. Crucially, we find gradient lexically-conditioned patterns not only in sound symbolism—where they are often most obvious—but also in what is considered “core” language (e.g., morphosyntactic classes), and allowing gradient class structures in our phonological models may ultimately make for cleaner interfaces with other parts of grammar such as morphosyntax.

Formalizing the connection between opaque and exceptionful generalizations

This paper proposes an account of an opaque generalization (Canadian Raising; Chambers 1973) in terms of indexed constraints in OT (Pater 2000, 2010). This approach formalizes the idea, championed in previous work on Canadian Raising (Mielke et al. 2003; Pater 2014) and opacity more broadly (Lubowicz 2003; Sanders 2003, 2006), that opaque generalizations have a stronger connection to the lexicon and/or exceptionality than to the grammar proper. These previous approaches tend to yield non-restrictive accounts of opaque generalizations (ones that do not easily extend the pattern to novel items), which I show also holds for an account of opaque Canadian Raising in terms of constraints indexed to whole morphemes (Pater 2000, 2010). To counter this, I propose so-called extended indexation: a blend of segmentally local indexation (Temkin-Martínez 2010; Rubach 2013, 2016; Round 2017) and binary indexation (Becker 2009) that goes back to the account for exceptions from Chomsky and Halle (1968). I show that this kind of indexation offers a restrictive account of opaque Canadian Raising, compatible with the fact that Raising is productive (Idsardi 2006).

Evidence for Gradient Input Features from Sino-Japanese Compound Accent

This paper argues that pitch accent patterns of two-member Sino-Japanese compounds, hitherto considered unpredictable, can be strongly predicted by positing gradiently-valued accent features in the input, in the framework of Gradient Symbolic Computation "GSC", (Smolensky and Goldrick 2016). A simple machine-learning algorithm finds accent-affecting propensities = activations that collectively work for a set of compounds with frequently-occurring morphemes from the NHK corpus. I show that gradient input representations are needed to explain these kinds of phenomena. Examining a set of examples in which switches of morpheme order can change the accent pattern in ways that prosody cannot account for, I show that such phenomena can be explained by GSC but not by systems that have discrete-valued inputs and weighted, lexically-indexed constraints, thus providing evidence in favour of the GSC framework.

The disambiguating effects of phonological exceptions in grammar

This paper explores the analytical and typological consequences of lexically-indexed constraints in Optimality Theory; namely, that the introduction of an indexed constraint by an exception can force the determination of otherwise unspecified rankings in the grammar. This “disambiguating” effect makes two important predictions. First, the typology of exceptional blocking is more complex than has been traditionally assumed: in addition to typical non-undergoing (=faithfulness-obeying) exceptions, exceptions that block a regular repair but undergo an alternative instead (referred to here as “walljumping” exceptions) are also predicted to exist. Second, the forced determination effect means that the existence of an exception determines the possibility or impossibility of other exceptional and regular patterns in the grammar. Using two exceptions to the hiatus resolution conspiracy in Mushunguli (Somali Chizigula, ISO [xma]) as a test case, I show that these predictions hold true, and demonstrate that indexed constraints allow for a unified analysis of hiatus resolution in the language. This result builds upon and strengthens prior observations made by Ito & Mester (1995) regarding the behavior of stratal faithfulness constraints, and supports a view of exceptions as clarifying and reifying agents within the grammar.

Lenition and morphology in Finnish

This paper investigates an interaction between consonant lenition and morphology in Finnish. The language has a process of consonant lenition whereby underlying geminate consonants at syllable boundaries lenite (degeminate) when the addition of an affix makes the post-geminate rime bimoraic. A small class of possessor agreement affixes do not condition lenition, even if they create the appropriate phonological environment. A puzzling interaction emerges when possessor agreement affixes are stacked on top of certain lenition-conditioning affixes. I account for this interaction in a way that improves on Kiparsky’s (2003) analysis. In doing so, I extend Pater’s (2010) method for modeling exceptional phonology via lexically-indexed constraints.

Indexation to stems and words

This paper presents an extension of indexed constraints, such that they can apply not only to individual morphemes, but also to potentially complex constituents such as the stem. This modification allows us to capture a class of long-distance morphologically derived environment effects (MDEEs) that have been previously unexplained. MDEEs typically involve an exceptional phonological pattern that is lost under affixation. Formally, MDEEs are predicted if complex constituents such as stems are treated as lexically exceptional only when every morpheme contained within them is independently exceptional. This approach further predicts asymmetries between bare roots and affixed words, between roots and affixes, and between inflected and derived words. All other things being equal, the first of each pair is more likely to be exceptional in more contexts.