Analyzing Sound Patterns An Introduction to Phonology

Introduction

In Chapter 21, we presented an optimal-theoretic analysis, which reveals that Swati reduplication, though a morphological process, is governed by principles of phonology, specifically, conditions on foot structures such as Ft-Bin, Par-Syl, and All-Ft-L. This chapter continues the exploration of the interface between phonology and morphology. We focus on two seemingly unrelated phenomena: LuGanda glide epenthesis and Swati infixal reduplication. In LuGanda, the first person singular prefix /N-/ triggers the insertion of a palatal glide y in v(owel)-initial stems, stems with an initial onsetless syllable. This phonological process is juxtaposed with reduplication, a morphological process. In Swati, v-initial stems with three or more syllables display what appears to be infixal reduplication, with the reduplicant placed after the initial onsetless syllable; otherwise, reduplication is prefixal. On the surface, epenthesis and infixal reduplication appear to be as unrelated as two problems can be. But as we show here, there is a connection, which is tied to onsetless syllables. Glide epenthesis and infixal reduplication both happen only in stems with an initial onsetless syllable. We show that syllables without an onset cause misalignment and trigger compensatory strategies like insertion in LuGanda or infixing reduplication in Swati. This chapter highlights another relation between phonology and morphology: how conditions on syllable affect morphology.

This chapter serves three objectives. First, it underscores the interconnectedness of phonology and morphology. We show how Onset, a phonological condition on syllable, affects the outcomes of prefixation and reduplication. Second, we introduce the Theory of Prosodic Alignment developed in Downing (1998a, 1998b, 2000), which seeks a unified treatment of problems like glide epenthesis and infixal reduplication. We show that morpheme concatenation can be subject to alignment constraints, which specify the location of affixation and reduplication. Furthermore, we show that in addition to input–output and base–reduplicant constraints, there is a third type of correspondence condition that controls relations between morphological and prosodic units. Downing’s proposal extends the concepts of alignment and correspondence, first developed in Prince and Smolensky (1993) and McCarthy and Prince (1993, 1995b, 1999). Third, this chapter develops your ability to identify and capture the relations between patterns by showing how two problems that seem unrelated in one analysis receive a unified treatment in another.