University of Connecticut OpenCommons@UConn Doctoral Dissertations University of Connecticut Graduate School 8-24-2015 Domains on the Border: Between Morphology and Phonology Beata A. Moskal University of Connecticut - Storrs, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations Recommended Citation Moskal, Beata A., "Domains on the Border: Between Morphology and Phonology" (2015). Doctoral Dissertations. 892. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/892 Domains on the Border: Between Morphology and Phonology Beata Moskal, PhD University of Connecticut, 2015 In this dissertation, I show that a difference in structure between functional and lexical items has a restricting effect on both the morphology and the phonology. Morphologically, we observe two asymmetries: (i) in lexical nouns, number-driven root-suppletion is com- mon whilst case-driven root-suppletion is virtually unattested; (ii) in contrast, pronouns commonly supplete for both number and case. By and large, we see the same pattern in verbs, observing a contrast between lexical verbs and auxiliaries with regard to suppletion for aspect and tense. In order to account for these asymmetries, I appeal to structural differ- ences between lexical and functional material, combined with locality effects as proposed in Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993). Crucially, lexical material contains a category-defining node which has a delimiting effect that causes case/tense to be insuffi- ciently local to the root to condition its suppletion. In contrast, functional material lacks category-defining nodes and thus no delimiting effect is observed and case/tense are free to condition suppletion of the functional base. Phonologically, we see a correlation between the presence of a category-defining node and the absence of dominant prefixes in vowel harmony and lexical accent, whilst in the absence of a category-defining node dominant prefixes are attested. Thus, I argue for universal limitations on suppletion patterns and dominant prefixes, which crucially derive from a difference in morpho-syntactic structure between lexical and functional material. Domains on the Border: Between Morphology and Phonology Beata Alexandra Moskal B.A., Leiden University, 2006 M.A., Leiden University, 2009 M.A., University of Connecticut, 2013 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut 2015 i . Copyright by Beata Alexandra Moskal 2015 ii APPROVAL! PAGE Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation ! Domains on the Border: Between Morphology and Phonology ! ! ! Presented by Beata Alexandra Moskal, B.A., M.A. ! Major Advisor ___________________________________________________________________ Jonathan Bobaljik ! Major Advisor ___________________________________________________________________ Harry van der Hulst ! Associate Advisor ___________________________________________________________________ Andrea Calabrese ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! University of Connecticut 2015 iii . ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . Over the years, so many versions of the acknowledgments have flitted through my mind. Some, if I would have actually written them down, would have taken up ten pages. Or more. Some are shorter: “The less said the better.” Turns out I settled on a slightly extended version of the latter. The only reason you are reading this dissertation is Pete, my husband. Just like the summer was not done by you for you but by us for us, this dissertation was not done by me for me but for us by us. I love you. The other people most involved in creating this monster were my committee members. Jonathan, spasibo bolshoe1 - mostly for being willing to advise me, despite all the frus- tration I must have caused you - but also for making me the academic I am today. Harry, thank you for always believing in me, and our elemental discussions. Andrea, thank you for always raising unexpected questions. Also, I would very much like to thank Norbert Corver and Caroline Fery´ for offering me a future after graduating. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my friends, most notably Tessa (maid of honour and partner in crime) and Leah (my “local” (Canadian!) friend); also my closest friends at the Linguistics department: Jungmin (need I say more than LF?) and Neda (our year is a special one, no two ways about it). And a thank you to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for having a webcam of their sea otters. 1Apologies if the Russian transliteration is wrong - I could not decide between bolshoe and bolsoeˇ .I have the suspicion it is the latter. The rest of the dissertation should be fine, though. iv Thanks also to my siblings. Ju, thanks for always being there for me (and making sure Mum and Dad got to the wedding alright). Tamara and Edwin (and Stimpie, Chuli and Lindi): your tropical island was the best possible place to figure out what we want out of our future. Finally, this dissertation is dedicated to my parents: zonder jullie was ik nooit de per- soon die ik nu ben, met mijn eigen(aardige) karakter en al; daar ben ik eeuwig dankbaar voor. Dzie¸kuje¸. v . I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. - Douglas Adams vi Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Locality . 5 1.2 Overview . 11 2 Limits in the nominal domain 14 2.1 Suppletion in lexical nouns . 20 2.1.1 Case-driven root-suppletion . 24 2.1.2 Interlude: Non-suppletion . 38 2.1.3 Diminutive blocking . 41 2.2 Suppletion in pronouns . 47 2.2.1 Decomposing case . 51 2.3 Locality . 61 2.4 Portmanteaux part one . 66 2.5 Adjacency . 71 2.5.1 Adjacency blocking effects . 75 2.5.2 Against adjacency . 91 2.5.3 Towards a theory without adjacency . 99 2.6 Summary of this chapter . 107 3 Limits in the verbal domain 109 3.1 Aspect-driven suppletion . 114 3.2 Tense-driven suppletion . 118 3.2.1 Auxiliaries . 118 3.2.2 Non-suppletion . 144 3.2.3 Interim summary . 153 3.2.4 Root-v-T-Asp . 153 3.2.5 Weak hypothesis . 160 3.2.6 Potentially problematic cases . 165 3.2.7 Summary of T-driven suppletion . 189 vii 3.3 Mood-driven suppletion . 191 3.4 Portmanteaux part two . 192 3.4.1 Root portmanteaux . 196 3.4.1.1 Domain Suspension . 196 3.4.1.2 123 is easier than ABC . 199 3.5 Summary of this chapter . 209 4 A Modest Proposal 211 4.1 Introduction . 211 4.2 Vowel harmony . 214 4.2.1 Dominant prefixes . 219 4.2.2 No Dominant Prefix Hypothesis . 235 4.2.2.1 Dominancy . 245 4.2.3 Compounds . 255 4.2.4 Conclusion . 259 4.3 Lexical accent . 262 4.3.1 Dominant prefixes . 264 4.3.1.1 Deletive accent resolution . 265 4.3.1.2 Additive accent resolution . 275 4.3.1.3 Functional material . 290 4.3.2 Compounds . 294 4.3.2.1 Root compounds . 297 4.3.2.2 Stem compounds . 310 4.3.3 Conclusion . 314 4.4 Discussion . 316 4.4.1 (In)direct reference . 317 4.4.2 Cyclicity and phases . 323 4.4.3 The boundary . 327 4.5 Summary of this chapter . 335 5 Conclusion 337 5.1 Summary . 337 5.2 Implications for linguistics . 339 5.3 Future directions . 341 Bibliography 346 viii Chapter 1 Introduction This dissertation constitutes an exploration into a range of morphological and morpho- phonological asymmetries between lexical and functional items. This leads to a proposal that at the heart of the asymmetries identified here is that there is more structure in lexical items than in functional items, which has a delimiting effect on the former but not the latter. Morphologically, I identify universal restrictions on patterns of suppletion (the phe- nomenon where a single lexical item is associated with two phonologically unrelated forms) in nominals and verbs. Specifically, we observe the following asymmetries in nominals: (1) In lexical nouns number-driven root-suppletion is common while case-driven root- suppletion seems unattested, bar a few counterexamples discussed later. (2) In contrast to lexical nouns, pronouns commonly supplete for both number and case. 1 Introduction 2 This is exemplified by the following contrasts in lexical nouns where we see suppletion in the context of the plural in Ket (3), and pronouns where we see suppletion in the context of number and case in German first person pronouns (4): (3) SINGULAR PLURAL gloss o;ks’ aPq ‘tree’ d1;l’ k2Pt ‘child’ kEPtdEP-N ‘man’ (4) SINGULAR PLURAL NOM ich wir DAT mir uns ACC mich uns In the verbal domain, we, by and large, observe a similar pattern: (5) In lexical verbs aspect-driven root-suppletion is attested while tense-driven root- suppletion seems unattested, bar a handful of counterexamples discussed later. (6) In contrast to lexical verbs, auxiliaries commonly supplete for tense. This is exemplified by the following pairs, where (7) is a lexical verb and (8) is a functional verb in Lezgian: (7) t’u-na¨ eat-AOR ne-z eat-IPFV (8) ja be.PRESENT tir be.PAST Introduction 3 We see that the lexical verb eat suppletes for aspect, the aorist-imperfective contrast, whilst the functional verb be suppletes for tense, present vs. past. Crucially, what we see based on the suppletion patterns in nominal and verbal material is that lexical items are more restrictive than functional items. In the following, I will argue that this discrepancy is categorical in nature and is not explained by exclusively appealing to frequency effects. In a similar vein, we observe an asymmetry in the morpho-phonological process of vowel harmony: in lexical material a root cannot be influenced by a prefix, but in functional material the prefix is free to interact. In (9), we see that in Tunen the lexical item and ‘roof’ is unaffected by the [+ATR] class 3 prefix mu- and surfaces as disharmonic [-ATR] and; in contrast, in (10), the functional item tana ‘this’ is realised as [+ATR] t@n@ in the context of the same [+ATR] class 3 prefix mu-, even though otherwise it surfaces as [-ATR], as in ba-tana ‘cl.2-this!’.