Phonological Aspects of Mutation Morphology

In mutation a morphological category is marked by changing specific segmental features of the base. This is often analyzed as featural affixation: An affix consisting of a floating feature (i.e. not linked to a specific segment) is realized as part of the base to achieve phonological visibility. In this course we address three areas which are apparently problematic for this approach:

Multiple-feature Mutation: mutation patterns, where a single morphological category seems to trigger more than one featural change in the same segment
Quirky Mutation: mutation patterns, where different segments undergo different featural changes
Polarity: mutation patterns where a specific feature is assigned the opposite value with respect to the base form (e.g. a voiced sound gets unvoiced, while an unvoiced sound gets voiced)

Multiple-feature mutation is problematic because one segmental change should be sufficient to guarantee expression of a specific affix. Quirky mutation and polarity are hard to reconcile with the idea of a phonological constant affix. We will have a detailed look at potential examples from all three areas, and discuss how they can be accommodated in a featural-affixation approach.

Readings

Intro	Wolf (2005), Akinlabi (1996)
Mutation and Morphology	Green (2003) Embick & Halle (2005)
Polarity	Trommer (2007)
Multiple-Feature Mutation	Wolf (2007), 11-18
Quirky Mutation	Gnanadesikan (1997), chapter 3

Slides

Intro	What this Course is all about The Typology of Mutation Additive Approaches to Mutation Amorphous Approaches to Mutation
Mutation as Morphology	Mutation as Suppletion Mutation as Readjustment in DM
Polarity	The Formal Typology of Polarity Polarity in Western Nilotic Umlaut & Schwa-Epenthesis in German
Multiple-Feature Mutation	Multiple-Feature Mutation & Realize Morpheme

Literature

General

Akinbiyi Akinlabi (1996) Featural Affixation. Journal of Linguistics 32 (1996), 239-289.

Paul de Lacy (2008). The absolutely neutralizing coalescence theory of mutation. Talk at the 2nd meeting of the Network on Core Mechanisms of Exponence. Leipzig, January 2008.

Lieber, Rochelle (1987). An Integrated Theory of Autosegmental Processes. Albany: SUNY Press.

Matthew Wolf (2005). An Autosegmental Theory of Quirky Mutations. Proceedings of WCCFL 24:370-378.

Matthew Wolf (2007). For an autosegmental theory of mutation. In Leah Bateman, Adam Werle, Michael O'Keefe, and Ehren Reilly (eds.), University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 32: Papers in Optimality Theory III. Amherst: GLSA.

Cheryl Zoll (1996) Parsing Below the Segment in a Constraint Based Framework. PhD Thesis, Berkeley.

Mutation and Morphology

Antony D. Green (2003) The Independence of Phonology and Morphology: The Celtic Mutations. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 32, 47-86.

Morris Halle & Alec Marantz, (1993) Distributed Morphology and the pieces of inflection. In Hale, K. and Keyser, S. J., editors, The View from Building 20, 111-176. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

David Embick & Morris Halle (2005) On the Status of Stems in Morphological Theory. In T. Geerts and H. Jacobs eds. Proceedings of Going Romance 2003, John Benjamins.

Marc van Oostendorp & Ben Hermans (2008). Umlaut is Phonological. Evidence from Ineffability. Talk at the Manchester Phonology Meeting.

Polarity

Patrik Bye (2006) Eliminating exchange rules from Dholuo. Ms.,University of Tromsoe, CASTL.

Kazutaka Kurisu (2001) The Phonology of Morpheme Realization. PhD Thesis, University of California Santa Cruz.

Neef, M. (1996). Wortdesign: Eine deklarative Analyse der deutschen Verbflexion. Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag.

Douglas Pulleyblank (2006) Minimizing UG: Constraints upon Constraints. Proceedings of WCCFL 25, 15-39.

Jochen Trommer (2007) Voicing and Polarity in Luo. Ms.,University of Leipzig.

Multiple-Feature Mutation

Quirky Mutation

Antony D. Green (2003) The Independence of Phonology and Morphology: The Celtic Mutations. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 32, 47-86.

Amalia Gnanadesikan (1997). Phonology With Ternary Scales

Tom Pullman (2004). The Morphophonology of Consonant Mutations in Irish. M.Phil. Thesis, University of Cambridge.

Specific Languages and Language Families

Sharon Rose (1997). Theoretical Issues in Comparative Ethio-Semitic Phonology and Morphology. PhD Thesis McGill University.

Carol Paradis (1992). Lexical phonology and morphology: the nominal classes in Fula. New York: Garland.

Markus Pöchtrager (2001). Finnish Consonant Gradation. MA thesis, University of Vienna.

Peter Svenonius (2006) Paradigm Generation and Northern Sami Stems. In: The Bases of Inflectional Identity, edited by Asaf Bachrach and Andrew Nevins. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Other References

Diana Apoussidou (2003). The Deformity of Anti-Faithfulness. Proceedings of the Stockholm Workshop on Variation within Optimality Theory:15-24.

Crazzolara, J.P. (1933) Outlines of a Nuer Grammar. Vienna: Verlag der Internationalen Zeitschrift Anthropos.

Karen Dudas (1976). The Phonology and Morphology of Modern Javanese PhD Thesis. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Caroline Féry (2002). Review of Morphologically governed accent in Optimality Theory. Glot International 6:72-78.

Archibald Tucker (1994). A Grammar of Kenya Luo (Dholuo). Köln: Köppe.

Marc van Oostendorp (2005). Expressing inflection tonally. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 4(1):107-127.

Contact

Jochen Trommer
Department of Linguistics
University of Leipzig

jtrommeruni-leipzig.de