Cover not available
Part of
Morphological Metatheory
Edited by Daniel Siddiqi and Heidi Harley
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 229] 2016
► pp. 303–342

Readjustment: Rejected?

| Oberlin College

This paper raises the metatheoretical question of whether readjustment (i.e. the alteration of stem or affix phonology after lexical insertion) is needed for morphological theory. Domains investigated include: (i) the employment of readjustment rules as “secondary exponence” in Distributed Morphology; (ii) verb stem allomorphy in the Uto-Aztecan languages Hiaki (Yaqui) and Classical Nahuatl; and (iii) verb stem allomorphy concurrent with reduplication in the Oceanic language Sye (Erromangan). A cogent argument in favor of readjustment rules over stem-listing approaches invokes frequent phonological regularity of stem alternants (e.g., Harley and Tubino Blanco’s 2013 analysis of stem form alternations Hiaki). I adopt an alternative, “amphichronic” (Kiparsky 2006) approach whereby such regularities can be just as felicitously explained by appealing to historical linguistic processes.

Published online: 29 June 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.229.11hau
References
Aronoff, Mark
2012 Morphological stems: What William of Ockham really said. Word Structure 5(1): 28–51. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Arregi, Karlos & Nevins, Andrew
2012 Morphotactics: Basque Auxiliaries and the Structure of Spellout. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bermúdez-Otero, Ricardo
2012 The architecture of grammar and the division of labor in exponence. In The Morphology and Phonology of Exponence [Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics 41], Jochen Trommer (ed.), 8–83. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 The Spanish lexicon stores stems with theme vowels, not roots with inflectional class features. Probus 25(1): 3–103.Google Scholar
2014 Amphichronic explanation and the life cycle of phonological processes. In The Oxford Handbook of Historical Phonology, Patrick Honeybone & Joseph C. Salmons (eds), 374–399. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Bobaljik, Jonathan David
2012 Universals in Comparative Morphology: Suppletion, Superlatives, and the Structure of Words. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bye, Patrik & Svenonius, Peter
2012 Non-concatenative morphology as epiphenomenon. In The Morphology and Phonology of Exponence, Jochen Trommer (ed.), 427–95. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carochi, Horacio S.J
1645/2001 Grammar of the Mexican Language with an Explanation of Its Adverbs (James Lockhart (ed.) and trans.) [UCLA Latin American Series 89]. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam
1973 Conditions on transformations. In A Festschrift for Morris Halle, Stephen R. Anderson & Paul Kiparsky (eds), 232–86. New York NY: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam & Halle, Morris
1968 The Sound Pattern of English. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam & Lasnik, Howard
1977 Filters and control. Linguistic Inquiry 8: 425–504.Google Scholar
Crowley, Terry
1998 An Erromangan (Sye) Grammar [Oceanic Linguistics Special Publications 27]. Honolulu HI: University of Hawai’i Press.Google Scholar
Embick, David
2010 Localism versus Globalism in Morphology and Phonology [Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 60]. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012 On the targets of phonological realization. Talk given to the MSPI Workshop at Stanford University, 13 October 2012.
Halle, Morris. 2005. On the status of stems in morphological theory. In Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2003 [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 270], Twan Geerts, Ivo van Ginneken & Haike Jacobs (eds) 37 62 Amsterdam John Benjamins DOI logo
Frampton, John
2009 Distributed Reduplication [Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 52]. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Halle, Morris
1990 An approach to morphology. In Proceedings of NELS 20, 150–84. Amherst MA: GLSA.Google Scholar
Halle, Morris & Marantz, Alec
1993 Distributed morphology and the pieces of inflection. In The View from Building 20: Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger, Kenneth Hale & Samuel Jay Keyser (eds), 111–176. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Harley, Heidi
2014 On the identity of roots. Theoretical Linguistics 40(3–4): 225–276. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harley, Heidi & Noyer, Rolf
2000 Licensing in the non-lexicalist lexicon. In The Lexicon/Encyclopedia Interface, Bert Peeters (ed.), 349–374. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Harley, Heidi & Tubino Blanco, Mercedes
2013 Cycles, Vocabulary Items, and stem forms in Hiaki. In Distributed Morphology Today: Morphemes for Morris Halle, Ora Matushansky & Alex Marantz (eds), 117–134. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harley, Heidi, Tubino Blanco, Mercedes & Haugen, Jason D
2012 Locality conditions on suppletive verbs in Hiaki. Poster presented at the Workshop on the Morphosyntax-Phonology Interface (MSPI); Stanford University.
Harris, Alice C
2009 Exuberant exponence in Batsbi. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 27: 267–303. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haugen, Jason D
2011 Reduplication in Distributed Morphology. In Proceedings of the 4th Arizona Linguistics Circle Conference (ALC 4). Coyote Papers, Vol. 18. Tucson AZ: Department of Linguistics, University of Arizona. [URL]Google Scholar
Haugen, Jason D. & Siddiqi, Daniel
2013 Roots and the derivation. Linguistic Inquiry 44(3): 493–517. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Inkelas, Sharon & Zoll, Cheryl
2005 Reduplication: Doubling in Morphology. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Karttunen, Frances E
1992 An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl. Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul
2006 The amphichronic program vs. Evolutionary Phonology. Theoretical Linguistics 32(2): 217–36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Langendoen, D. Terence
1975 Finite-state parsing of phrase-structure languages and the status of readjustment rules in grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 6(4): 533–54.Google Scholar
Launey, Michel
2011 An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl (Christopher Mackay, Trans). Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Liberman, Mark
2011, December 12. Vocal fry: “creeping in” or “still here”? Language Log [URL]Google Scholar
Liberman, Mark & Prince, Alan
1977 On stress and linguistic rhythm. Linguistic Inquiry 8(2): 249–336.Google Scholar
Merchant, Jason
2015 How much context is enough? Two cases of span-conditioned stem allomorphy. Linguistic Inquiry 46(2): 273–303. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Noyer, Rolf
1997 Features, Positions, and Affixes in Autonomous Morphological Structure [Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics]. New York NY: Garland.Google Scholar
Pullum, Geoffrey K. & Zwicky, Arnold M
1992 A misconceived approach to morphology. In Proceedings of WCCFL 10, 387–98. Palo Alto CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Raimy, Eric
1999 The Phonology and Morphology of Reduplication [Studies in Generative Grammar 52]. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Rothenberg, Miriam & Haugen, Jason D
2014 Allomorphy in the Classical Nahuatl ‘nonactive’. Paper presented at the SSILA Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN. January 4.
Sapir, Edward
1913 Southern Paiute and Nahuatl: A study in Uto-Aztekan. Journal de la Société des Américanistes 10(2): 379–425. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Siddiqi, Daniel
2006 Minimize Exponence: Economy Effects on a Model of the Morphosyntactic Component of the Grammar. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arizona.
2009 Syntax within the Word: Economy, Allomorphy, and Argument Selection in Distributed Morphology [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 138]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stainton, Robert
2006 Words and Thoughts. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Svenonius, Peter
2012 Spanning. Ms, CASTL, University of Tromsø. [URL]Google Scholar
Travis, Lisa deMena
2003 Reduplication feeding syntactic movement. In Proceedings of the Canadian Linguistics Association (CLA), S. Somesfalean, (ed.), 236–47. Université du Québec à Montréal.Google Scholar
Zuraw, Kie Ross
2000 Exceptions and Regularities in Phonology. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
Cited by

Cited by 11 other publications

Alqarni, Muteb
2022. Word-formation and reduplication in standard Arabic: A new distributed morphology approach. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 58:3 ► pp. 381 ff. DOI logo
Bembridge, Gavin
2022. ASL negative incorporation as negative suppletion. Sign Language & Linguistics 25:2 ► pp. 135 ff. DOI logo
Bermúdez-Otero, Ricardo
2018. In defence of underlying representations: Latin rhotacism, French liaison, Romanian palatalization. Probus 30:2 ► pp. 171 ff. DOI logo
Dolatian, Hossep
2021. Cyclicity and prosodic misalignment in Armenian stems. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 39:3 ► pp. 843 ff. DOI logo
DOLATIAN, HOSSEP
2023. Fluctuations in allomorphy domains: Applying Stump 2010 to Armenian ordinal numerals. Journal of Linguistics ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Dolatian, Hossep
2023. Output-conditioned and non-local allomorphy in Armenian theme vowels. The Linguistic Review 40:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Ganenkov, Dmitry
2020. Missing Elsewhere: Domain Extension in Contextual Allomorphy. Linguistic Inquiry 51:4 ► pp. 785 ff. DOI logo
Kilbourn-Ceron, Oriana, Heather Newell, Máire B. Noonan & Lisa deMena Travis
2016. Phase domains at PF. In Morphological Metatheory [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 229], ► pp. 121 ff. DOI logo
Kiparsky, Paul
2021. Phonology to the rescue: Nez Perce morphology revisited. The Linguistic Review 38:3 ► pp. 391 ff. DOI logo
Revithiadou, Anthi, Giorgos Markopoulos & Vassilios Spyropoulos
2019. Changing shape according to strength: Evidence from root allomorphy in Greek. The Linguistic Review 36:3 ► pp. 553 ff. DOI logo
Sande, Hannah
2022. Is grammatical tone item-based or process-based?. Phonology 39:3 ► pp. 399 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 21 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.