Evidence for Morphoprosodic Alignment in Reduplication

Abstract

Morphoprosodic Alignment (MPA) is a nontemplatic model of reduplication designed to account for languages with multiple reduplicative subpatterns. The premise of MPA is that reduplicative morphemes can be stem-internal or stem-external and that this distinction is visible to the phonological component through general constraints on the association of stem-internal and stem-external morphemes to prosodic categories. I illustrate the model with Moronene, Klamath, and Gooniyandi, each of which has several reduplicative morphemes. MPA meets the challenge for an optimality-theoretic model to account for such systems without resorting to morpheme-specific indexed constraints or cophonological constraint hierarchies.One of the most fruitful aspects of the study of reduplication has been the analysis of phonological alternation in reduplicative forms-that is, systems in which the reduplicative substring may alternate in size or segmental content as a function of the phonological form of the root. Where alternation in reduplicative systems is strictly phonological, all reduplicative substrings are subject to the same set of phonological generalizations.Alternation in reduplication can also be morphological: the reduplicative morpheme may alternate in size or segmental content as a reflex of something other than the phonological form of the root. Such morphological alternation displays two types of form-function mapping: isomorphic, in which multiple reduplicative morphemes map to distinct sets of phonological generalizations, and allomorphic, in which a single reduplicative morpheme maps to multiple phonological generalizations, and in which the choice of generalization is determined by the root. For example, Hawaiian has three sets of generalizations over reduplicative substrings: a syllable-sized prefix, a foot-sized prefix, and a foot-sized suffix. There is no systematic functional contrast among these formational patterns, and the choice of affix is root-controlled.Both isomorphic and allomorphic alternation pose a challenge for modeling reduplicative systems. A second challenge is one of overgeneration: languages that have multiple reduplicative generalizations nevertheless respect an upper limit on the number of phonological patterns available at either side of a root. Despite the range of prosodic categories plausible as targets of reduplication, languages appear not to use more than two at either side of a word, except where fixed segments or multiple exponence is used.

Irregular Behaviours of Coda /M/ in Tamil Reduplications

“…The situation at hand differs from other languages such as Kosraean, a Micronesian the language spoken on the island of Kosrae, in the Eastern Caroline Islands (Kennedy, 2008). The language prefix VC element in reduplication involving polysyllabic vowel-initial roots, which is described as syllabified by itself (Kennedy, 2008). Intervocalic environments emerge as a result of the formation is unhindered.…”

“…Surprisingly, the vowels within the polysyllabic vowelinitial roots are syllabified independently without, defying the norms of the universal preferencesto maximise the vowel as the onset. (Kennedy, 2008) Kosraean seemed to be flexible with word-medial vowel syllable in reduplications, but Tamil prefers otherwise. It adopts the universal preferences, where all syllable must begin with consonant word-medially.…”

Chengdu Reduplication: An Optimality Theoretic Analysis

“…It is also observed in dialects such as Beijing Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Dongshi Hakka, as illustrated in (25), where highlights realization of an input floating tone in the output. 8 Interested readers are referred to Yip (1990) for a floating tone analysis regarding adjective reduplication in Beijing Mandarin, to Cheng (1973) and Zhang & Lai (2007, 2008 for a floating tone analysis pertaining to double reduplication in Taiwanese monosyllabic adjectives, and to Lin (2011) for a floating tone analysis within Dongshi Hakka special reduplication. 25Consider now the second characteristic of special tone sandhi.…”

“…As mentioned above, because there is no systematic semantic functional distinction among the four reduplication patterns the reduplicative morphemes in the four patterns are considered as root controlled and the alternations in the size and placement of the reduplicants are allomorphic. The allomorphic alternations in size and placement of Chengdu reduplication can be accounted for by the morphoprosodic alignment (MPA) model, which was proposed by Kennedy (2008) to account for morphological alternations. According to MPA, reduplicative affixes may be stem-internal or stem-external; stem-internal affixes are separated from the base by a + boundary (i.e.…”

The Kid’s Kid(’s) Bed: Generic or Possessive? A Mandarin Insight

“…In other words, the syntactic and semantic representations do not develop in parallel with the mapping between them (Muskens, 2001). Another finding is that the acquisition age of recursive structures across languages differs, which is explained by parametrical factors such as the overtness of morphosyntactic markers (Di Sciullo, 2015;Sevcenco et al, 2017) and by language-general factors such as the interface of different levels of linguistic representations (Kennedy, 2008;Roeper & Diego, 2020, in preparation;Yang et al, 2021). Unlike possessives, generics are used to express the mapping of form-referent qualities that are relatively essential, enduring, and timeless (Lyons, 1977).…”