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The Intramorphological Meanings of Thematic Vowels in Italian Verbs

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The Intramorphological Meanings of Thematic Vowels in Italian Verbs Sede Amministrativa: Università degli Studi di Padova Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Letterari SCUOLA DI DOTTORATO DI RICERCA IN: Scienze Linguistiche, Filologiche e Letterarie INDIRIZZO: Linguistica CICLO: XXIV The Intramorphological Meanings of Thematic Vowels in Italian Verbs Direttore della Scuola: Ch.ma Prof. Rosanna Benacchio Coordinatore d’indirizzo: Ch.mo Prof. Gianluigi Borgato Supervisore: Ch.ma Prof. Laura Vanelli Dottoranda: Martina Da Tos Abstract Italian verbs are traditionally classified into three major classes called ‗conjugations‘. Membership of a verb in one of the conjugations rests on the phonological content of the vowel occurring after the verbal root in some (but not all) word forms of the paradigm. This vowel is called ‗thematic vowel‘. The main feature that has been attributed to thematic vowels throughout morphological literature is that they do not behave as classical Saussurean signs in that lack any meaning whatsoever. This work develops the claim that the thematic vowels of Italian verbs are, in fact, Saussurean signs in that they can be attributed a ‗meaning‘ (‗signatum‘), or even more than one (‗signata‘). But the meanings that will be appealed to are somehow different from those which have traditionally been attributed to other morphological units, be they stems or endings: in particular, these meanings would not be relevant to the interpretation of a word form; rather, they would be relevant at the ‗purely morphological‘ (‗morphomic‘, in Aronoff‘s (1994) terms) level of linguistic analysis. They are thus labelled ‗intramorphological‘, remarking that they serve nothing but the morphological machinery of the language. The recognition of ‗intramorphological signata‘ for linguistic signs strongly supports the claim about the autonomy of morphology within the grammar. If my analysis is correct, the thematic vowels of Italian verbs should be seen as the dedicated loci for such signata. Presentazione I verbi italiani sono tradizionalmente classificati in tre principali classi di flessione dette ‗coniugazioni‘. L‘assegnazione di un verbo ad una delle tre coniugazioni dipende dal contenuto fonologico della vocale che segue la radice verbale in alcune forme flesse del paradigma. Questa vocale è detta ‗vocale tematica‘. In letteratura, la principale caratteristica delle vocali tematiche è la loro mancanza di significato: per questa ragione, le vocali tematiche non possono essere considerate dei ‗segni‘ nell‘accezione saussuriana del termine. Nel presente lavoro si rivendica che le vocali tematiche dei verbi italiani sono, di fatto, dei ‗segni‘ di tipo saussuriano, in quanto è possibile assegnar loro un significato (‗signatum‘), o persino più di uno (‗signata‘). I significati a cui si farà riferimento, tuttavia, sono diversi da quelli tradizionalmente attribuiti ad altre unità morfologiche, come le radici o le terminazioni: in particolare, tali significati non avrebbero rilevanza per l‘interpretazione di una forma flessa, ma sarebbero decodificati ad un livello di analisi puramente morfologico (‗morfomico‘, secondo la terminologia di Aronoff (1994)). Essi sono perciò definiti ‗intramorfologici‘, a sottolineare che la loro utilità è riservata al componente morfologico della lingua. L‘idea che dei segni linguistici possano avere dei significati intramorfologici è un argomento forte a favore dell‘autonomia del componente morfologico all‘interno della grammatica di una lingua. Se l‘analisi proposta in questo lavoro è corretta, le vocali tematiche dei verbi italiani dovrebbero rappresentare le unità formali dedicate all‘espressione di tali significati. iii iii Contents Chapter.1 Introduction: Thematic Vowels in Italian Verbs p. 1 1.1 The paradigmatic strategy 1 1.1.1 Lexical Paradigm 2 1.1.2 Morphosyntactic (or ‗grammatical‘) paradigm 2 1.2 Heuristic comparison 5 1.3 Plan and Purposes 8 Chapter.2 Classical Problems with Thematic Vowels p. 13 2.0 Introduction 13 2.1 American Structuralism 13 2.1.1 The Bloomfieldian morpheme 14 2.1.2 Thematic vowels as ‗empty morphs‘: Hockett (1947) 16 2.2 Generative Morphology 18 2.2.1 Towards a new definition of the morpheme 18 2.2.2 The transformational approach to the paradigm 19 2.2.2.1 Thematic vowels in the underlying stem: Scalise (1984, 1994) 21 2.2.2.2 Thematic vowels as inserted (wherever they are phonologically functional): Wanner (1972) 25 2.2.2.3 The double base hypothesis: Dressler and Thornton (1991) 29 2.3 Discussion: the constructive approach to morphology (and again on the meaning issue) 32 Chapter.3 The Thematic Vowel Identification Hypothesis p. 35 3.1 The abstractive perspective 35 3.2 The recognition of the thematic vowel 40 3.2.1 The Thematic Vowel Identification Hypothesis 40 v 3.2.1.1 Stems in Italian verbal morphology: some preliminary observations p. 43 3.2.2 The identification of the thematic vowel in the Italian word-forms 50 3.3 Putting some order into the previously problematic forms 53 3.3.1. Finite forms 54 3.3.1.1 3rd person singular of the Present Indicative 54 3.3.1.2 3rd person plural of the Present Indicative 57 3.3.1.3 3rd person singular of the Perfetto Semplice 57 3.3.1.4 The forms of Future and Conditional 58 3.3.1.5 1st person plural of Present Indicative, 1st and 2nd persons plural of Present Subjunctive 59 3.3.1.6 1st and 2nd persons plural of the Imperfect Indicative 60 3.3.2 Non finite forms 63 3.3.2.1 Infinitive 64 3.3.2.2 Gerund 65 3.3.2.3 Past Participle 66 3.4 Again on the morphological structure of word-forms 68 3.5 Conclusion 76 Chapter.4 The Conjugations of Italian p. 79 4.1 Desinential Allomorphy and Inflectional Classes 79 4.1.2 Inflectional Classes: Underlying Principles and Definitions 81 4.1.3 A three-classes system: the role of thematic vowels 85 4.2 Conjugations: the ―morphology per se of inflection‖ 93 4.3 Stem Allomorphy and Conjugations 97 4.3.1 Synchronic Overview 98 4.3.1.1 First Conjugation 98 4.3.1.2 Second Conjugation 99 vi 4.3.1.3 Third Conjugation 101 4.3.2 Stem Allomorphy and Conjugations: some diachronic evidence 103 4.4 Conclusion 106 Chapter.5 The Intramorphological Signata of Thematic Vowels p. 107 5.1 Introduction 107 5.2 On realisational meaning; the notions of ‗signans‘ and ‗signatum 107 5.2.1 An example: the signata of the stems and inflectional affixes of the Italian verbs 110 5.2.2 On the level of interpretation of the signatum: lexical and morphosyntactic meanings 113 5.3 Problems with directly competing inflectional affixes 114 5.3.1 The Italian verbal system and the ‗Uniformity of Encoding‘ 114 5.3.2 The Italian verbal system and the ‗Principle of Contrast‘ 117 5.4 What kind of signatum is ‗inflection class X‘? On the properties and interpretation of a rather unusual ―meaning‖. 120 5.4.1. The intramorphological signatum of the thematic vowel on the paradigmatic dimension 125 5.4.1.2 A glance at the literature (with hindsight) 128 5.4.2 The intramorphological signatum of the thematic vowel on the syntagmatic dimension 130 5.4.2.1 Theoretical premise on the syntagmatic sign-relationship 130 5.4.2.2 A Polish phenomenon (Cameron- Faulkner & Carstairs-McCarthy 2000) 131 5.4.2.3 A sintagmatic signatum for some inflectional endings of Italian (Maiden 2000) 133 5.4.2.4 The syntagmatic intramorphological signatum of the thematic vowel 136 5.4.2.5 ‗Default Stem‘ is not the same as ‗stem- default‘ 138 5.4.3 The cumulation of intramorphological signata in the thematic vowel 139 vii 5.4.3.1 Aronoff (1994): the thematic vowel as a property of a stem p. 140 5.5 Summary and conclusion 141 Chapter 6 A Case of Exaptation in the Evolution of the Italian Verbal System p. 147 6.1 Introduction 147 6.2 The N-pattern 147 6.3 The Italian word forms with –isc-: synchronic analysis 151 6.4 The evolution of the suffix –SC- in the Latin verbal system 153 6.5 On the subsequent adaptation of –esc- 159 6.5.1 A blending process 159 6.5.2 The reanalysis of the vowel before –sc- 162 6.6 On the advantages of the FINIRE-type 165 6.7 Conclusion 168 Conclusion p. 169 Bibliography p. 173 Appendix 1 p. 181 Appendix 2 182 Appendix 3 183 Appendix 4 184 viii Chapter 1 Introduction: Thematic Vowels in Italian Verbs 1.1 The paradigmatic strategy The internal structure of words can be accounted for by either of two strategies, traditionally referred to as ‗syntagmatic‘ and ‗paradigmatic‘.1 The key point in the paradigmatic strategy is the comparison of similar words in a language. In the words of Haspelmath (1995: 1), ―it is generalizations about sets of similar words and their mutual relations that form the basis of morphological analysis‖.2 In a language like Italian, the notion of ‗sets of similar words‘ clearly appeals to the well-known notion of ‗paradigm‘. Also, the fact that the inflected forms of Italian verbs are organised into paradigms is certainly not new, as much as it is intuitively recognised that the forms included in a paradigm are ‗morphologically related‘. Broadly speaking, the notion of ‗paradigm‘ has been approached in many different ways by the morphological literature: in some frameworks this is regarded as a central notion,3 in others it is simply ignored, or even explicitly denied.4 This section is not intended to support either position: as is often the case, my own position in this regard will become clear in the course of this work. Here I would rather point out that the term ‗paradigm‘ is used by most scholars ambiguously, in that it has at least two meanings, whose distinction will turn out to be of crucial relevance for the present work.
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