Cover not available
Part of
Morphological Complexity within and across Boundaries: In honour of Aslı Göksel
Edited by Aslı Gürer, Dilek Uygun-Gökmen and Balkız Öztürk
[Studies in Language Companion Series 215] 2020
► pp. 263–284

Same exponent, different strength

A Gradient Harmonic account of allomorphy in Greek

| Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

In this article we discuss two vowel-deletion processes in Greek that show variation, even within the same prosodic domain, namely deletion of the compound theme vowel /-o-/ and deletion of /e/ in the pl imperative inflection /-ete/. We attribute variation to the underlying activity of the segments that are part of their phonological representation (Inkelas 2015; Smolensky & Goldrick 2016). More specifically, we argue that there exist allomorphs that differ only in the contrastive activation of their underlying segments. From the perspective of Gradient Harmonic Grammar (Smolensky & Goldrick 2016), gradient activity and constraint weight contribute jointly to the harmony of candidate outputs, determining the winner. As a result, exponents in which the relevant vowels (i.e. /-o-/ and /e/) have different input activities yield variation when computed by the same grammar.

Keywords: Gradient Harmonic Grammar, Gradient Symbolic Representations, activity, phonological variation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Variation in the realization of vocalic elements
    • 2.1Deletion of /-o-/ in compounds
    • 2.2Deletion of /e/ in imperatives
  • 3.Exponents with gradiently active symbols
  • 4.A GHG analysis of gradiently active vowels
    • 4.1Deletion of the compound theme vowel /-o-/
    • 4.2Deletion of /e/ in 2pl imperative verb forms, and optionality
  • 5.Exploring an alternative analysis
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 July 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.215.10rev
References
Bağrıaçık, Metin, Göksel, Aslı & Ralli, Angela
2017 Copying compound structures: The case of Pharasiot Greek. In Further Investigations into the Nature of Phrasal Compounding, Carola Trips & Jaklin Kornfilt (eds), 185–231. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coetzee, Andries W. & Kawahara, Shigeto
2013 Frequency biases in phonological variation. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 31(1): 47–89. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coetzee, Andries W. & Pater, Joe
2011 The place of variation in phonological theory. In The Handbook of Phonological Theory, John Goldsmith, Jason Riggle & Alan Yu (eds), 401–431. Malden MA: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Embick, David & Noyer, Rolf
2007 Distributed morphology and the syntax-morphology interface. In The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Interfaces, Gillian Ramchand & Charles Reiss (eds), 289–324. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Faust, Noam & Smolensky, Paul
2017a Activity as an alternative to autosegmental association. Paper presented at the MFM 25, Manchester, 25–27 May.
2017b Activity as an alternative to autosegmental association. Ms, Université Paris 8 & Johns Hopkins University.Google Scholar
Flemming, Edward
2001 Scalar and categorical phenomena in a unified model of phonetics and phonology. Phonology 18(1): 7–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frisch, Stefan A., Michael B. Broe & Janet B. Pierrehumbert
1997 Similarity and phonotactics in Arabic. [URL] (12 November 2019).
Frisch, Stefan A., Pierrehumbert, Janet B. & Broe, Michael B.
2004 Similarity avoidance and the OCP. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 22: 179–228. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldsmith, John
1993a Harmonic phonology. In The Last Phonological Rule, John Goldsmith (ed.), 21–60. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
1993b The Last Phonological Rule: Reflections on Constraints and Derivations. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Goldwater, Sharon & Johnson, Mark
2003 Learning OT constraint rankings using a maximum entropy model. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Variation within Optimality Theory, Jennifer Spenader, Anders Eriksson & Östen Dahl (eds), 111–120. Stockholm: Stockholm University.Google Scholar
Gouskova, Maria & Linzen, Tal
2015 Morphological conditioning of phonological regularization. The Linguistic Review 32(3): 427–473. DOI logoGoogle 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
Hayes, Bruce
2017 Varieties of Noisy Harmonic Grammar. In Proceedings of the 2016 Annual Meeting on Phonology, Karen Jesney, Charlie O’Hara, Caitlin Smith, Rachel Walker (eds). Washington DC: Linguistic Society of America. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hayes, Bruce & Wilson, Colin
2008 A maximum entropy model of phonotactics and phonotactic learning. Linguistic Inquiry 39(3): 379–440. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holton, David, Mackridge, Peter, Philippaki-Warburton, Irene, and Spyropoulos, Vassilios
2012 Greek: A Comprehensive Grammar, 2nd rev. edn. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hsu, Brian
2019 Exceptional prosodification effects revisited in Gradient Harmonic Grammar. Phonology 36(2): 225–263. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Hsu, Brian & Jesney, Karen
2016 Scalar positional markedness and faithfulness in Harmonic Grammar. In CLS 51, 2015, Proceedings of the Fifty-first Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society, Ksenia Ershova, Joshua Falk & Jeffrey Geiger (eds), 241–255. Chicago IL: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Inkelas, Sharon
2015 Confidence scales: A new approach to derived environment effects. In Capturing Phonological Shades within and across Languages, Yuchau E. Hsiao & Lian-Hee Wee (eds), 45–75. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Itô, Junko & Mester, Armin
2007 Prosodic adjunction in Japanese compounds. In The Proceedings of Formal Approaches to Japanese Linguistics 4, Yoichi Miyamoto & Masao Ochi (eds), 97–112. Cambridge MA: MITWPL 55.Google Scholar
2009 The extended prosodic word. In Phonological Domains: Universals and Derivations, Baris Kabak & Janet Grijzenhout (eds), 135–194. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jäger, Gerhard
2007 Maximum entropy models and stochastic Optimality Theory. Architectures, rules, and preferences. In Variations on Themes by Joan W. Bresnan, Annie Zaenen, Jane Simpson, Tracy Holloway King, Jane Grimshaw, Joan Maling & Chris Manning (eds), 467–479. Stanford CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Kimper, Wendell
2011 Competing Triggers: Transparency and Opacity in Vowel Harmony. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA.
Legendre, Géraldine, Miyata, Yoshiro & Smolensky, Paul
1990 Can connectionism contribute to syntax? Harmonic Grammar, with an application. In Proceedings of the 26th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Michael Ziolkowski, Manuela Noske & Karen Deaton (eds), 237–252. Chicago IL: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Markopoulos, Giorgos
2018 Phonological Realization of Morphosyntactic Features. PhD dissertation, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
McCarthy, John J. & Prince, Alan S.
1993a Prosodic Morphology: Constraint Interaction and Satisfaction [Linguistics Department Faculty Publication Series 14]. [URL] (3 January 2020).
1993b Generalized alignment. In Yearbook of Morphology 1993, Geert Booij & Jaap Van Marle (eds), 79–153. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1995 Faithfulness and reduplicative identity. In Papers in Optimality Theory [University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers 18], Jill Beckman, Laura Walsh Dickey & Suzanne Urbanczyk (eds), 249–384. Amherst MA: GLSA. [URL] (12 November 2019).Google Scholar
McPherson, Laura & Hayes, Bruce
2016 Relating application frequency to morphological structure: The case of Tommo So vowel harmony. Phonology 33(1): 125–167. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nespor, Marina & Ralli, Angela
1996 Morphology–phonology interface: Phonological domains in Greek compounds. The Linguistic Review 13(3–4): 357–382. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Nikolou, Kalomoira
2008 The Phonological Word in Greek and its Comparison with Arabic. PhD dissertation, University of the Aegean.
Pater, Joe
2012 Serial Harmonic Grammar and Berber syllabification. In Prosody Matters: Essays in Honor of Elisabeth O. Selkirk, Toni Borowsky, Shigeto Kawahara, Takahito Shinya & Mariko Sugahara (eds), 43–72. London: Equinox Press.Google Scholar
2016 Universal Grammar with weighted constraints. In Harmonic Grammar and Harmonic Serialism, John J. McCarthy & Joe Pater (eds), 1–46. London: Equinox Press.Google Scholar
Prince, Alan S. & Smolensky, Paul
2004[/1993] Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Malden MA: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ralli, Angela
2013 Compounding in Modern Greek [Studies in Morphology 2]. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Revithiadou, Anthi
1997 Prosodic domains in Greek compounding. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Greek Linguistics 1, Gaberell Drachman, Angeliki Malikouti-Drachman, Jannis Fykias & Klidi, Sila (eds), 107–116. Salzburg: W. Neugebauer.Google Scholar
1999 Headmost Accent Wins: Head Dominance and Ideal Prosodic Form in Lexical Accent Systems [LOT Dissertation Series 15, (HIL/Leiden Universiteit)]. The Hague: HAG.
Revithiadou, Anthi & Markopoulos, Giorgos
2019 Misbehaved ω’s: A Harmonic Grammar account of gradient sandhi in Greek. Paper presented at SPIPS – Segmental Processes in Interaction with Prosodic Structure, University of Tromsø, 19–20 September.
Revithiadou, Anthi, Markopoulos, Giorgos & Spyropoulos, Vassilios
2019 Changing shape according to strength: Evidence from root allomorphy in Greek. The Linguistic Review 36(3): 553–574. [URL] (30 May 2019). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rosen, Eric
2016 Predicting the unpredictable: Capturing the apparent semi-regularity of rendaku voicing in Japanese through Harmonic Grammar. In Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Emily Clem, Geoff Bacon, Andrew Chang, Virginia Dawson, Erik Hans Maier, Alice Shen & Amalia Horan Skilton (eds), 235–250. Berkeley CA: BLS.Google Scholar
Shih, Stephanie S. & Inkelas, Sharon
2016 Morphologically-conditioned tonotactics in multilevel maximum entropy grammar. In Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Meeting on Phonology, Gunnar Ólafur Hansson, Ashley Farris-Trimble, Kevin McMullin & Douglas Pulleyblank (eds). Washington DC: LSA. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smolensky, Paul
1986 Information processing in dynamical systems: foundations of Harmony Theory. In Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition, David E. Rumelhart, James L. McClelland & the CORPORATE PDP Research Group, Vol. 1, 194–281. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press/Bradford Books.Google Scholar
Smolensky, Paul & Goldrick, Matthew
2016 Gradient symbolic representations in grammar: The case of French liaison. [URL] (12 November 2019).
Smolensky, Paul & Legendre, Géraldine
2006 The Harmonic Mind: From Neural Computation to Optimality-Theoretic Grammar. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Colin
2006 Learning phonology with substantive bias: An experimental and computational investigation of velar palatalization. Cognitive Science 30(5): 945–982. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Zimmermann, Eva
2018 Gradient symbolic representations in the output: A typology of lexical exceptions. In NELS 48: Proceedings of the Forty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society, Sherry Hucklebridge & Max Nelson (eds), 275–284. Amherst MA: GLSA.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Hsu, Brian
2022. Gradient symbolic representations in Harmonic Grammar. Language and Linguistics Compass 16:9 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 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.