Phantom structure: A representational account of floating tone association

Abstract

This paper focuses on the association of floating tones. One type we call "phonological association", where the tone-bearing unit (TBU) the floating tone associates to is determined by the phonological grammar, e.g. to a default position like a stressed syllable or domain edge. We contrast this with another type we call "targeted association", whereby the floating tone targets a numerical position , e.g. a floating H associates to the fourth TBU of the stem. Targeted association is idiosyncratic to the sponsoring morpheme, and does not necessarily target a default position. Such data have been taken as evidence for counting in grammar. Instead, we propose a novel representation we call "phantom structure", without counting. Phantom structure formalizes the observation that certain morphemes require structure to be present in order for their floating tone to be realized, but cannot provide this structure themselves. Under the targeted association type, the floating tone is pre-associated to a specific position in the phantom structure. We show that a simple grammar with two partially overlapping correspondence relations - substantive input and output structure (SubO-CORR) and phantom and output structure (PhO-CORR) - derives the association of the floating tone to the equivalent numerical position in the output as in the phantom plane input.

Is grammatical tone item-based or process-based?

“…However, there are also item-based analyses of the Kuria tense/aspect-dependent high-tone placement. One such analysis, proposed by Rolle & Lionnet (2020), involves a novel type of underlying representation, phantom planes of prosodic structure. In their approach, an underlying item can be associated with so-called phantom structure, which is then mapped onto surface structure, perhaps the root or stem.…”

The stratal structure of Kuria morphological tone

“…Note that the differentiation of H-spreading in instances of Melody-Final Spreading and Plateauing also obviates a variant of the spreading argument against a tone-melody analysis of Kuria, raised by Rolle & Lionnet (2020). Rolle & Lionnet acknowledge the existence of morphological Ls, and argue that this is what blocks spreading in forms like the hortatory imperative (as in the analysis provided here).…”

“…*SPRL (*SPREADLEFT, (27c)) ensures that the left, not the right H spreads as in (37d). Since * τ τ is ranked above MAX | and MAX τ, the delinked tones are deleted and not maintained afloat as in (37b) (in contrast to phrasefinal floating tones, which do not violate * τ τ): Note that the differentiation of Hspreading in instances of MelodyFinal Spreading and Plateauing also obviates a variant of the spreading argument against a tonemelody analysis of Kuria, raised by Rolle & Lionnet (2020). Rolle & Lionnet acknowledge the existence of morphological Ls, and argue that this is what blocks spreading in forms like the hortatory imperative 1 (as in the analysis provided here).…”

“…Rolle & Lionnet (2020) therefore suggest a new theoretical construct, ‘phantom structure’: templatic strings of input moras associated to morphological tone (e.g., for the inceptive) imposing linearization on tones through a special version of output–output correspondence even if the moras themselves do not surface because they are located on a ‘phantom’ tier. However, from Rolle & Lionnet’s discussion, it remains unclear if this approach could provide a solution to the fact that not all morphological H tones spread (see §3.2) or to the Cyclic Locality problem posed by the Kuria data in a lexicalist stratal architecture.…”

Theoretical approaches to grammatical tone

“…Furthermore, one recent case of grammatical tone circulated widely in the literature comes from another Bantu language Kuria (kuj; Odden 1987; Cammenga 1994, 2004; Mwita 2008; Marlo et al 2014, 2015; Rolle & Lionnet 2020; Sande et al 2020; Trommer in press), and has caused phonologists to reassess the received wisdom that ‘grammars don’t count’ (on counting effects: McCarthy & Prince 1986; Kenstowicz 1994: 372; Hayes 1995: 307; Smith & Tsimpli 1995: 312; Isac & Reiss 2008: 65; Graf 2017; Paster 2019; Kawahara & Kumagai 2023; see these last two works for extensive references). In Kuria, a high GT is assigned to the first, second, third or fourth mora of the prosodic stem depending on the grammatical context.…”