UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles A System for Morphophonological Learning and its Consequences for Language Change A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics by Dustin Andrew Bowers 2015 © Copyright by Dustin Andrew Bowers 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION A System for Morphophonological Learning and its Consequences for Language Change by Dustin Andrew Bowers Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor Bruce Hayes, Co-Chair Professor Kie Ross Zuraw, Co-Chair A major focus of linguistic research is characterizing adult knowledge of language and detailing how it is acquired. Language change, to the extent that it is driven by learners in response to observed adult data, is a valuable source of data for pursuing this topic. The shift from one language to another is only possible if the analytic preferences of language learners lead them to adopt a different analysis than that of their parents. A particularly noteworthy type of change is paradigm levelling, where some allomorphs of a morpheme are replaced by another allomorph. This dissertation proposes a learning algorithm that replicates historically attested paradigm levellings. Previous attempts have restricted the inputs of phonological computation to be identical to a surface allomorph, so that paradigm levelling is triggered whenever a derived allomorph is not predictable from the base allomorph. Such a restriction is unnecessary. In the system proposed here, the absence of a grammar to explain the observed language is the trigger for levelling. In this case, the learner privileges the generation of a subset of a paradigm, and selects inputs that are appropriate to that task. The observed replacement of an allomorph by another in paradigm levelling is achieved by using an input that the grammar maps to the replacing allomorph, but which cannot be mapped to the replaced allomorph. The learning algorithm proposed here makes accurate predictions for language change. Lan- guages that are straightforwardly described in the assumed grammatical framework (parallel OT), ii are diachronically stable. This stands in contrast to previous theories of levelling, which predicted diachronic instability for some paradigms in Russian. Furthermore, other languages are correctly predicted to undergo levelling, including a particularly dramatic case from Odawa. Ultimately, this helps substantiate the link between learning theory and language change. iii The dissertation of Dustin Andrew Bowers is approved. Donka Minkova Ed Stabler Kie Ross Zuraw, Committee Co-Chair Bruce Hayes, Committee Co-Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2015 iv To my family, who taught me fairness, happiness and love and to Aaron, who left the world too soon v TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 1 2 OT Learning :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 4 2.1 Basic Gold Learning ................................. 5 2.1.1 Alternations as a Window on URs ...................... 7 2.1.2 Paradigmatically Labeled Data ........................ 9 2.1.3 Sophistication of Assumed Analysis ..................... 10 2.1.4 Limits of Alternations ............................ 11 2.2 Logic of OT Ranking ................................. 12 2.2.1 Elementary Ranking Conditions ....................... 12 2.2.2 Inconsistency and Fusion ........................... 13 2.3 Dominated Markedness ................................ 16 2.3.1 Utility of Identity URs ............................ 17 2.3.2 Worked Example ............................... 19 2.3.3 Beyond the Basic Case ............................ 22 2.4 Dominated Faithfulness ................................ 27 2.5 Composite URs .................................... 31 2.5.1 Phonotactics in Extended Language ..................... 34 2.5.2 Morphophonology in the Extended Language ................ 35 2.6 Algorithm Pseudocode ................................ 39 2.6.1 Algorithm 1 Lines 1-3: Initialization ..................... 40 2.6.2 Algorithm 1 Lines 4-5: Phonotactic Loop .................. 40 2.6.3 Algorithm 1 Lines 6-24: Morphophonological Loop ............ 40 vi 2.6.4 Algorithm 2: Identification .......................... 42 2.6.5 Algorithm 2 Lines 1-2: Initialization ..................... 42 2.6.6 Algorithm 2 Lines 3-13: Main Loop ..................... 43 2.7 Local Summary .................................... 44 3 Russian: A Case Study of Composite Underlying Representations ::::::::: 46 3.1 Word-Final Devoicing ................................ 48 3.2 Vowel Reduction ................................... 49 3.2.1 Stress Alternations .............................. 52 3.2.2 Low [e, o] Counts .............................. 54 3.3 Devoicing and Reduction ............................... 58 4 Imperfect Learning ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 67 4.1 Learning and Language Change ........................... 67 4.1.1 Change by Design .............................. 69 4.2 Detecting Non-OT Languages ............................ 70 4.3 Alternations (Partly) Cause Inconsistency ...................... 72 4.3.1 Opacity and OT ................................ 74 4.4 Responding to Inconsistency ............................. 75 4.4.1 Why not Sacrifice Phonotactics? ....................... 76 4.4.2 Levelling Introduced ............................. 76 4.5 Schematized Impossibility .............................. 77 4.5.1 Elaboration of Rankings Post-Inconsistency ................. 80 4.6 The Single Surface Base Hypothesis ......................... 82 4.7 Reinterpreting The Single Surface Base ....................... 84 4.8 Yiddish Levelling ................................... 85 vii 4.8.1 Precursor to Levelling ............................ 87 4.8.2 Aftermath of Opacity ............................. 88 4.8.3 Actuating Yiddish Levelling ......................... 89 4.9 Local Summary .................................... 91 5 Odawa: Composite URs and Levelling :::::::::::::::::::::::: 92 5.1 Introduction ...................................... 92 5.1.1 Preliminaries ................................. 94 5.2 Old Odawa Description ................................ 98 5.2.1 Old Odawa Stress and Reduction ...................... 98 5.2.2 Old Odawa Hiatus Resolution ........................ 101 5.2.3 Old Odawa Apocope ............................. 102 5.2.4 [U] Lengthening ............................... 103 5.3 Levelling and Recutting in New Odawa ....................... 104 5.3.1 Loss of Stem Alternations .......................... 104 5.3.2 Prefix Recutting ............................... 106 5.3.3 New Odawa Prosody ............................. 111 5.3.4 The Time Course of Restructuring ...................... 111 5.4 New Odawa Grammar ................................ 112 5.4.1 New Odawa Syncope Description ...................... 113 5.4.2 New Odawa Apocope ............................ 115 5.4.3 A Parallel OT Analysis ............................ 115 5.4.4 No Rhythmic Syncope in New Odawa .................... 124 5.5 Cross-Linguistic Responses to Rhythmic Syncope .................. 125 5.5.1 Old Irish ................................... 125 viii 5.5.2 Old Russian .................................. 127 5.5.3 Other Languages ............................... 128 5.6 Old Odawa in Constraints ............................... 129 5.6.1 Conjectured Adult Old Odawa ........................ 130 5.6.2 Parallelism and Ostensible Old Odawa .................... 132 5.7 Actuating Change ................................... 134 5.7.1 Prelude to Change: Detecting Inconsistency ................. 135 5.7.2 Effecting Change ............................... 138 5.7.3 Composite URs in New Odawa ....................... 141 5.8 Local Summary .................................... 147 6 Conclusion ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 148 ix LIST OF FIGURES 2.1 Hasse diagram of composite and concrete URs for the paradigm containing ´Ok and 2g-´2. The composite URs that can support the observed alternations are bolded. .. 33 3.1 Prevalence of alternation versus non-alternation by voicing pair in nouns from Zal- iznjak (1977). Alternation is better attested relative to non-alternation at labial and alveolar places of articulation and in fricatives. The counts from Zaliznjak (1977) for [p, b] are 261 and 158, respectively. The sibilant pairs [s, z] and [S, Z] have very similar rates of alternation versus non-alternation, and so were collapsed. ..... 50 3.2 Russian Stressed Vowel Inventory .......................... 51 3.3 Russian Unstressed Post-Velarized Vowel Inventory ................. 52 3.4 Prevalence of alternation versus non-alternation by vowel pair and preceding con- sonantal context in nouns from Zaliznjak (1977). The value for [i] in the /a/ versus /i/ and /o/ versus /i/ comparison represents instances of /i/ in post-palatal environ- ment, while the /e/ versus /i/ comparison includes all contextual variants of [i]. Alternation is best attested between [a] and [o], followed by [i] and [e]. If all con- textual variants of [i] are pooled, then nearly half of all types of unstressed [i] are mapped to one of [e], [o] or [a]. ............................ 55 3.5 Individual vowels as percentages of the total number of stressed vowels in mobile and columnar stress paradigms. In mobile paradigms [e] and [o] are less robustly attested than in columnar stress paradigms, while [a], [i] and [u] are more robustly attested in mobile stress paradigms than in columnar stress paradigms.