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A Tale of Two Morphologies A Tale of Two Morphologies Verb structure and argument alternations in Maltese Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doktors der Philosophie vorgelegt von Spagnol, Michael an der Geisteswissenschaftliche Sektion Sprachwissenschaft 1. Referent: Prof. Dr. Frans Plank 2. Referent: Prof. Dr. Christoph Schwarze 3. Referent: Prof. Dr. Albert Borg To my late Nannu Kieli, a great story teller Contents Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................................. iii Notational conventions .................................................................................................................... v Abstract ............................................................................................................................................... viii Ch. 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 1.1. A tale to be told ............................................................................................................................................. 2 1.2 Three sides to every tale ........................................................................................................................... 4 Ch. 2. Setting the stage ...................................................................................................................... 9 2.1. No language is an island ........................................................................................................................ 10 2.2. Root-and-pattern morphology .......................................................................................................... 13 2.3. Concatenative morphology ................................................................................................................. 41 2.4 Summary ........................................................................................................................................................ 47 Ch. 3. The protagonists: roots and patterns ......................................................................... 52 3.1. The ingredients of roots ........................................................................................................................ 54 3.2. The functions of patterns ..................................................................................................................... 63 3.3. Root derivation and word derivation ............................................................................................ 71 Ch. 4. When patterns put down roots ...................................................................................... 87 4.1. Database of roots and patterns ......................................................................................................... 88 4.2. The routes patterns take .................................................................................................................... 103 4.3. A(n i)rregular binyan system .......................................................................................................... 125 Ch. 5. Towards a unified account ............................................................................................ 140 5.1. Getting to the root of the alternation .......................................................................................... 142 5.2. Maltese: between (anti)causative and labile verbs ............................................................. 152 5.3. Summary .................................................................................................................................................... 171 ii Ch. 6. Bringing down the curtain ............................................................................................ 175 6.1. Contrasting the two morphologies ............................................................................................... 175 6.2. Comparing the two morphologies ................................................................................................ 177 6.3. Tales in search of an author ............................................................................................................. 182 References ........................................................................................................................................ 184 Appendix I ......................................................................................................................................... 193 Appendix II ....................................................................................................................................... 283 iii Acknowledgments This study builds on a number of studies on the morphology and lexical semantics of Maltese verbs. It owes a great deal to three works in particular, Edmund Sutcliffe’s (1936) pioneering grammar, Albert Borg’s (1981, 1988) influential study on templatic verbs, and Manwel Mifsud’s (1995) detailed survey of loan verbs. It has greatly bene- fited from Arad’s (2005) illuminating study of the verbs in Hebrew, Frans Plank’s thought-provoking seminars on the direction of derivation, and Martin Haspelmath (1993) and Bernard Comrie’s (2006) typological work on the causative-inchoative al- ternation. If I argued against parts of their work, it was always out of deep admiration. Many people have helped me put this work together. I am particularly grateful to Frans Plank for having taught me to think outside the box and to rethink what is inside the box. I am also indebted to Albert Borg, Manwel Mifsud and Alexandra Vella for hav- ing instilled in me the passion for Maltese linguistics during my undergraduate studies. Another important person in that period was Alina Twist. Assisting her in her doctoral work on Maltese verbs was the spark that ignited a string of events which led to the completion of the present work. I would like to thank Josef Bayer, Albert Borg, Miriam Butt, Eleanor Coghill, Bariş Kabak, Paul Kiparsky, Chris Lucas, Fatemeh Nemati, Frans Plank, Christoph Schwarze, and Adam Ussishkin for having discussed many ideas with me and for their detailed comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. Ingrid Kauf- mann deserves special mention for her comments and suggestions, and for having translated the abstract. I am very grateful to Mark Amaira whose help with the appen- dices has been invaluable, and to Albert Gatt for his interest in my research and for his help at various stages of my work. A special thanks to my friends, Elif Bamyacı, Laura Bonelli, Maialen Iraola Azpiroz, Thomas Mayer, Roxanne Mifsud, Fatemeh Nemati, Florian Schönhuber, Laura Sghendo Loredana Theuma, Joeaby Vassallo, Jonathan Xuereb, for their constant support. I also would like to thank my family. You are all very special to me, in particular my niblings, Nolan, Martina, and little Kieran, who was born only a few hours before this work went to print. iv This project was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through the Sonderforschungsbereich 471, “Variation und Entwicklung im Lexikon”, by the Compu- tational Analysis of Linguistic Development, CALD Project, and by the Zukunftskolleg at the University of Konstanz. v Notational conventions 1. Phonetic symbols 1.1 Consonants Orthographic Phonetic b [b] ċ [tʃ] d [d] f [f] ġ [dʒ] g [g] ħ [ħ] j [j] k [k] l [l] m [m] n [n] p [p] q [ʔ] r [r] s [s] t [t] w [w] x [ʃ] ż [z] z [ts] vi 1.2 Vowels Orthographic Phonetic, short Phonetic, long a [ɐ] [ɐː] e [ɛ] [ɛː] i [ɪ] [iː] ie [ɪː] o [ɔ] [ɔː] u [ʊ] [uː, ʊː] Notes 1. In Maltese, there is a close correspondence between orthographic and phonological representation. For this reason, throughout this study examples in Maltese are generally given in standard orthography. Note that orthography does not usually represent such phonological processes as final consonant devoicing and voicing assimilation. However, it does represent other processes such as vowel syncope and epenthesis. 2. Word stress is not indicated in the orthography (other than a few cases where the final, vowel-ending syllable is stressed, e.g., verità ‘truth’), but in many cases it is predictable from the syllable structure. Word stress is very often on the penulti- mate syllable, unless there is a final superheavy syllable, which is always stressed. 3. There are two other orthographic symbols, għ and h, which have been described as virtual or ghost phonemes. Depending on the environment, they may have no pho- netic realization at all, e.g., għasfur ‘bird’ /ɐsˈfuːr/ and hawn ‘here’ /ɐwn/, or may mark an increase in duration of an adjacent vowel, e.g., għamel ‘do, make’ /ˈɐːmɛl/ and hemeż ‘attach’ /ˈɛːmɛz/. In definable morphophonemic contexts, they are real- ized as [ħ], usually in word final position, e.g., dmugħ ‘tears’ /dmʊːħ/ and ikrah ‘ugly’ /ˈɪkrɐħ/ or as [w], when occurring between two vowels, e.g., żagħżugħa ‘young girl’ /zɐˈzʊwɐ/and kruha ‘ugliness’ /ˈkrʊwɐ/.1 4. Vowel quantity is not indicated, except for ie. Where necessary, I represent long vowels with repeated sequences, such as aa for [ɐː]. 1 When għ occurs word finally and has no phonetic realization, it is orthographically rendered as an apos- trophe, e.g., sema’ ‘hear’. vii 2. Morphemic glossing 1 first person M masculine 2 second person PFV perfective 3 third person PL plural DEF definite PROG progressive F feminine PST past FUT future PTCP participle INCH inchoative REFL reflexive IPFV imperfective SG
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