Vowel Harmony and Correspondence Theory

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Vowel Harmony and Correspondence Theory

≥

Studies in Generative Grammar 66

Editors

Harry van der Hulst Jan Koster Henk van Riemsdijk

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Vowel Harmony and Correspondence Theory

by

Martin Krämer

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

2003

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin.

The series Studies in Generative Grammar was formerly published by Foris Publications Holland.

앝 Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines 앪 of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Krämer, Martin, 1969⫺ Vowel harmony and correspondence theory / by Martin Krämer. p. cm. ⫺ (Studies in generative grammar ; 66) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 3-11-017948-2 (alk. paper) 1. Grammar, Comparative and general ⫺ Vowel harmony. I. Title. II. Series P234.K73 2003 415⫺dc22 2003018529

ISBN 3-11-017948-2 Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at ⬍http://dnb.ddb.de⬎.

쑔 Copyright 2003 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover design: Christopher Schneider, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

Contents

Abstract Acknowledgements Abbreviations

ix xi xii

Part I: The phenomenon and the theoretical background Chapter 1 An introduction to vowel harmony 1.1 1.1.1 1.1.2 1.1.3 1.1.4 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.4.1 1.4.2 1.4.3 1.5 1.6

Harmonic features Single feature harmonies Multiple feature harmonies Restricted harmonies Summary and discussion The role of consonants in vowel harmony The domain of harmony Opacity and transparency Opaque vowels Transparent vowels Trojans and Hybrids Dominance, morphological control, and Umlaut Setting the scene

Chapter 2 Optimality Theory and the formalisation of harmony 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.4.1 2.4.2 2.4.3

Violability and conflict Markedness and faithfulness Positional faithfulness Be faithful to your neighbour – assimilation in Correspondence Theory Feature alignment Positional faithfulness – externally motivated harmony Assimilation as correspondence

3 5 6 9 15 16 21 24 26 27 28 33 35 43 49 49 54 59 61 62 66 69

vi

2.5

Vowel harmony and correspondence theory

Constraint coordination

Chapter 3 Cyclicity and phonological opacity as constraint coordination and positional faithfulness 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6

Morphological control as a matter of integrity Asymmetries and anchoring Vowel transparency as local conjunction Trojan vowels and local conjunction Parasitic harmony Summary

77

89 90 96 104 107 108 109

Part II: Case studies Chapter 4 Edge effects and positional integrity

113

4.1 4.2 4.2.1 4.2.2 4.2.3 4.3 4.3.1 4.3.2 4.3.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.6.1 4.6.2 4.6.3 4.7 4.7.1 4.7.2 4.7.3 4.8

113 115 116 117 119 120 121 123 126 133 135 137 137 140 145 147 147 148 149 152

Introduction Yoruba and anchoring Harmony and the right word edge in Yoruba An anchoring analysis of the asymmetry in roots Harmony, anchoring, and affixation Turkish anchoring and integrity Left-anchoring Root control and integrity The exceptions Dҽgҽma and integrity Diola Fogni dominance as local conjunction Pulaar affix control as positional faithfulness The data An analysis as affix control Possible alternatives to affix control Recent accounts The alignment approach to harmony First syllable faithfulness The SAF approach to root control Conclusion

Contents

vii

Chapter 5 Vowel transparency as balance

157

5.1 5.1.1 5.1.2 5.1.3 5.1.4 5.2 5.2.1 5.2.2 5.2.3 5.3 5.3.1 5.3.2 5.4

158 158 160 161 163 172 173 174 180 182 182 183 186

The case of Finnish – a grammar of balance The Finnish harmony pattern Finnish feet and balanced vowels The basic constraint set-up The conjunction of balance in the Finnish grammar Wolof ATR harmony and balanced vowels The Wolof harmony pattern ATR balance in Wolof harmony The opaque vowel Previous analyses Transparency as neutrality Targeted constraints and sympathy Conclusion

Chapter 6 Trojan vowels and phonological opacity 6.1 6.1.1 6.1.2 6.1.3 6.1.4 6.2 6.2.1 6.2.2 6.3 6.4 6.4.1 6.4.2 6.4.3 6.4.4

Hungarian – Trojan vowels in backness harmony A preliminary harmony grammar for Hungarian Hungarian Trojan vowels Hungarian balanced vowels reconsidered from the learning perspective Summary Yoruba high vowels – Trojan vowels and root controlled ATR harmony High vowels and mid vowels A Trojan grammar for Yoruba Nez Perce – a Trojan vowel in dominant-recessive ATR harmony Yawelmani opacity The basic harmony pattern and the Yawelmani inventory Yawelmani uniformity and opacity as constraint interaction Yawelmani epenthesis and shortening Previous approaches to Yawelmani opacity

187 188 189 191 194 200 200 200 201 209 215 217 219 232 237

viii


6.5 6.6

Previous analyses of Trojan vowels Conclusion

242 244

Chapter 7 General conclusion

247

7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5

247 250 254 256 259

Overall summary The ghosts of serialism Underspecification and Lexicon Optimization Factorial typology and constraint coordination Outlook

Notes Appendix I: Constraints Appendix II: Languages References Index

263 271 277 283 299

Abstract The aim of this book is twofold. One goal is to give a broad overview of the patterns of vowel harmony that can be found in the world's languages. The second and central goal is to give a unified account of these patterns within Optimality Theory (henceforth OT, Prince and Smolensky 1993) and its extension to Correspondence Theory (McCarthy and Prince 1995). With respect to the second aim the question is justified why this should be necessary, given the large amount of research that has been done on vowel harmony within the framework of OT in recent years. In optimalitytheoretic accounts of vowel harmony a rich inventory of theoretical devices has been applied and developed to explain various aspects of vowel harmony like vowel transparency, cyclicity and phonological opacity, relating to the question whether OT can be maintained as a non-derivational parallelist framework. I claim that this theoretical wealth is unnecessary and propose an account of the relevant patterns in terms of local constraint coordination (Crowhurst and Hewitt 1997, Itô and Mester 1998, àubowicz 1999, Smolensky 1993, and others) and positional faithfulness (McCarthy and Prince 1995, Beckman 1995, 1997, 1998). The phenomenon of vowel harmony proves an especially fruitful field for the application and further development of the theory of local constraint coordination, since it reveals some of the limits of constraint interaction and how these interactions and their restrictions can be motivated on external grounds. Moreover, this book gives additional arguments for the treatment of assimilation as syntagmatic correspondence (Krämer 1998, 1999, 2001). The book is divided in two large parts. First, I will give an overview of vowel harmony patterns (chapter 1), showing in particular that we have to add the pattern of affix controlled harmony to the typology of vowel harmony. After this I will introduce the fundamentals of Optimality and Correspondence Theory (chapter 2). The introductory section is completed by the basic outline of my own proposal (chapter 3). In the second part I will apply the proposed theory to a range of languages. Each case study is intended to contribute a specific piece to the puzzle. Yoruba, Turkish, and Dҽgҽma show us how root control works in languages with prefixation, suffixation, and both types of affixation, respectively. They provide insights into the intertwining of phonological faithfulness and morphological organisation. In Diola Fogni, this morpho-phonological interaction is broadly ignored by the phonology itself. Futankoore Pulaar is an illustration for the existence of the mirror image of root control, affix controlled

x


harmony, which was considered as unattested in the literature. To account for this pattern we have to assume that a faithful realisation of affixes is more important than faithful realisation of roots in the grammar of Pulaar, a situation which was assumed to be non-existent by McCarthy and Prince (1995). Finnish and Wolof are two well-known cases of vowel transparency, one displaying backness harmony, the other tongue root harmony. Transparency is analysed as an effect of a local constraint conjunction of OCP and harmony constraints. Finally, Hungarian, Yoruba, Nez Perce, and Yawelmani all contribute a different aspect of phonological opacity to the multifarious picture. In all these languages the underlying form of vowels, though deviant from their surface form has an impact on the surface representation of their environment.

Acknowledgements This book grew out of my work in Janet Grijzenhout's research project on lexical phonology and constraint-based phonology at the Heinrich-HeineUniversität Düsseldorf. An earlier version was submitted as my PhD thesis to the faculty of philosophy at the Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf. This book would have been much poorer without the help of many, many people. Bits and pieces of this work were presented at the Manchester Phonology Meeting, GLOW 2001 in Braga, Portugal, the 'Jordanstown Linguistics Day' 2001, the SFB conference 'The Lexicon in Linguistic Theory' in Düsseldorf, 2001, various SFB colloquia in Düsseldorf and Wuppertal, and at the 19th SCL in Tromsø, Norway, 2002 and improved through the critical comments of the audiences. I would like to thank the organisers and the participants of these conferences on this occasion. The participants of the Forschungsseminar and the Phonologie-Zirkel at the Heinrich-HeineUniversität Düsseldorf had to endure various presentations of earlier versions of the ideas and analyses in this book. In particular I would like to thank Diana Apoussidou, Heather Goad, Dafna Graf, Wolfgang Kehrein, Paul Kiparsky, Sebastian Löbner, Albert Ortmann, Alexandra Popescu, Carsten Steins, Barbara Stiebels, Jeroen van de Weijer, Richard Wiese and Dieter Wunderlich for all their appalling and encouraging comments, suggestions and questions. More than anybody else I have to thank Janet Grijzenhout for her support and guidance, who read various versions of every chapter and never gave up. Thanks go also to Orla Lowry and Alison Henry for reading and correcting the pre-final version. Tünde Vallyon, her husband Miklos, Andrea Velich, Chris Piñon, and Tuulikki Virta kindly helped me with the Hungarian and Finnish data. The Sonderforschungsbereich 282 "Theorie des Lexikons" and the University of Ulster supported the research reported in this work. Finally, a big hug for my family and friends, and particularly for Emanuela and Alessio for their encouragement, support, and inspiration. Of course, nobody of all these people is to blame for any errors or misconceptions in this book. The responsibility lies with the author.

Abbreviations Abbreviations of optimality theoretic constraints are listed with the definitions of constraints in appendix I. AC AG.NOM ATR bk C Cx CG CLASS CON CT dat. DIM DIM.PL EVAL F GCat GEN hi imp. ind. IPA L LC LCC LCD lo LPM-OT m. MCAT neg. NOM OCP ODT OT

Association Convention agentive nominaliser Advanced Tongue Root back Consonant Constraint Clitic Group noun class marker constraint set Correspondence Theory dative diminutive diminutive plural Evaluation function in OT feature Grammatical category Generator function in OT high imperfective aspect indicative International Phonetic Alphabet left Local constraint conjunction Local constraint conjunction Local constraint disjunction low Lexical Phonology/Morphology- OT masculine morphological category negation nominative Obligatory Contour Principle Optimal Domains Theory Optimality Theory

Abbreviations

PCat pl. pres. Pwd R rd RTR SAF seg. sg. SPE V

Phonological category plural present tense Prosodic/phonological word right round Retracted Tongue Root Stem-Affixed-Form Faithfulness segment singular Sound Patterns of English Vowel

xiii

Part I: The phenomenon and the theoretical background

Chapter 1 An introduction to vowel harmony The first issue to be addressed in this work is, of course, identifying the phenomenon of vowel harmony. Even though vowel harmony is one of the standard examples of phonological feature interaction in almost every introductory textbook on linguistics, whatever its theoretical orientation, there is little consensus on which phenomena exactly may be labelled 'vowel harmony' and which ones do not deserve this name, or which characteristic property sets vowel harmony apart from other types of phonological assimilation. On this issue, see for instance the discussion in Clements (1976) and Anderson (1980). For the current purpose, a rather rough statement will be fully sufficient. I regard vowel harmony as the phenomenon where potentially all vowels in adjacent moras or syllables within a domain like the phonological or morphological word (or a smaller morphological domain) systematically agree with each other with regard to one or more articulatory features. The presence of a certain feature specification (either underlyingly or in the surface form) on a vowel triggers a systematic alternation in vowels which are in direct neighbourhood on the syllabic or moraic level of representation with the result that the involved vowels look alike with respect to the active feature. (1) Vowel harmony a. disharmony1 σ σ V

V

[+F] [-F]

σ

b. harmony2 σ

V

V

[+F]

[+F]

σ

σ

V

V [+F]

This description even though very vague excludes many types of Umlaut, where (as in German) a neutral affix vowel imposes fronting on the preceding root vowel. Consequently, I will have nothing to say about umlaut in this work.

4

An introduction to vowel harmony

The generalisation that adjacent vowels agree with respect to a certain feature is often overshadowed by other conflicting phonological wellformedness conditions in a given language. For one or the other reason certain vowels may be excluded from harmony. They behave as neutral in that they either do not undergo harmony, or do not trigger harmony in the neighbouring vowels, or reject both the role as trigger as well as that as a target of harmony. One of the most discussed examples of an obscured harmony pattern is the vowel harmony found in Yawelmani (Archangeli 1985, Archangeli and Suzuki 1997, Cole and Kisseberth 1995, Dell 1973, Goldsmith 1993, Hockett 1973, Kenstowicz and Kisseberth 1977, 1979, Kisseberth 1969, Kuroda 1967, Lakoff 1993, McCarthy 1999, Newman 1944, Noske 1984, Prince 1987, Steriade 1986, Wheeler and Touretzky 1993) in which the harmony requirement is obscured by the additional restriction that only vowels of the same height have to agree in backness. A further complication results from the interaction of harmony with a pattern of vowel lowering. Lowered vowels behave as if they were high vowels with regard to harmony. As root vowels, they trigger agreement in high affix vowels but not in low ones, which results in a surface violation of the height restriction. I will go into the details of these patterns later. The view of vowel harmony as given above still covers a large range of phenomena attested in diverse languages scattered on all continents of the earth. In the following I will briefly discuss which types of vowel harmony occur with regard to the features that are affected (section 1.1.1), with regard to the attested combinations of features (section 1.1.2), featural interaction with consonants (section 1.2), the question within which domain the process is found to apply (section 1.3), as well as other typological possibilities of distinguishing harmony systems, like the distinction between systems containing opaque vowels (section 1.4.1) and those having transparent vowels (section 1.4.2), as well as the difference between root control (or morphological control) and dominance (section 1.5). I hope to give the reader an impression of the wide range of topics which relate to vowel harmony. I will first discuss those aspects of harmony which I will have nothing or little to say about in the remainder of this work, and afterwards I will deal with those phenomena which are the central subjects of this study.

Harmonic features

1.1

5

Harmonic features

In this section, I will give a brief overview on which phonological features can be active in harmony systems. The features which will be referred to in the following are articulatorily based, as proposed by Chomsky and Halle (1968).3 They denote the relative placement of the articulator in comparison to its neutral position: [±back], [±high/±low] refer to the relative placement of the back of the tongue in the oral cavity, [±ATR] specifies the position of the tongue root (whether it is advanced or retracted), and [±round], specifies whether the lips are rounded during the articulation of a vowel or not. This classification differs only slightly from that made in the International Phonetic Alphabet (revised to 1993, updated 1996), where the height dimension is conceived of as the degree of opening of the articulatory apparatus, with the high vowels being 'close' and the low vowels being 'open' at the ends of the continuum.4 (2) The IPA vowel chart

There are, however, other possibilities to express the differences and similarities among vowels, such as, for instance, the Jakobsonian (1951) feature inventory, which reduces all properties of vowels as well as consonants to the three features 'gravity', 'compactness', and 'diffuseness'. These features are based on acoustic criteria. Another possibility is the reference to the involved articulator or place of articulation as proposed by Clements

6


and Hume (1995). In utilising feature labels like 'labial', 'palatal', 'coronal', and 'dorsal', again an attempt is made to unify vocalic and consonantal features, acknowledging the various ways of interaction among both segment types. Yet another possibility is an analysis in terms of abstract primitives or radicals which eventually combine to more complex vowels, as proposed in work by Kaye, Lowenstamm and Vergnaud (e.g., 1985). They assume the three radicals I, U, and A to be the basic abstract components to derive all other vowels. There are two reasons for not using the latter three choices here. The first is mere convenience, driven by the fact that the SPE/IPA-style features are used in most of the literature. The second reason is that I do not intend to contribute any argument in favour of one or the other approach, even though the feature geometric approach to unified consonantal and vocalic features as well as privative feature theory will be touched upon, where they are relevant for the current discussion (see in particular sections 1.2 and 1.6, respectively). Similarly, I will only briefly enter the discussion whether features are organised hierarchically as in feature geometry (Clements 1985, see in particular Odden 1991 on vocalic feature geometry) or not (as in the unstructured matrices in Chomsky and Halle 1968). Instead, I will work on the hypothesis that vocalic features may be anchored prosodically, rather than in any root nodes or segments, but even this statement serves as a working hypothesis only. After these clarifying remarks on the nature of assumed features I will advance to the actual topic of this section, an overview of attested harmony patterns in terms of the affected features. 1.1.1 Single feature harmonies One type of harmony affects the dimension of backness or palatality. This type of harmony can be found in the Finno-Ugric languages (Kiparsky 2000a), as well in Turkic languages, Caucasian languages, in the NorthAmerican language Yawelmani (or Yowlumne)5, in Chamorro (van der Hulst and van de Weijer 1995 and references cited there), and in many other languages. In the example below some Finnish words are listed which contain exclusively front vowels (3a) or exclusively back vowels (3b).

Harmonic features

(3) Backness (or palatal) harmony in Finnish a. Front vowel words väkkärä 'pinwheel' käyrä pöytä 'table' tyhmä

7

'curve' 'stupid'

b. Back vowel words makkara 'sausage' kaura 'oats' pouta 'fine weather' tuhma 'naughty' (Ringen 1975, Kiparsky 1981, van der Hulst and van de Weijer 1995: 498) Roundness (or labial) harmony is attested in Southern-Payute, KhalkhaMongolian and many Turkic languages (Kaun 1995a,b). Below I give an example from Turkish. The vowel in the suffix alternates in accordance with the root vowel in backness and roundness, but not height. (4) Roundness harmony in Turkish (combined with backness harmony) a. Unrounded words b. Rounded words kilim-im 'my carpet' gül-üm 'my rose' ev-im 'my house' köy-üm 'my village' kiz-im 'my girl' kuV-um 'my bird' 'my goose' koz-um 'my walnut' kaz-im (Kaun 1995: 79) Languages displaying solely labial harmony seem to be quite rare or nonexistent (van der Hulst and van de Weijer 1995: 523). Usually labial harmony occurs together with another type of harmony or is restricted to vowels which accidentally agree with respect to a second feature like height or backness. Height harmonies are found predominantly among African languages. The dimension of height is directly affected in Bantu languages like Shona or Kikuyu. An example from Shona is given below. In the leftmost column the first vowel of the affix is preceded by a nonhigh vowel (i.e., e or o) and surfaces as e, while it surfaces as i in the other column where the affix vowel is preceded by a high vowel (i.e., i or u).

8


(5) Shona height harmony a. Nonhigh vowels per-era 'end in' son-era 'sew for' vere1g-eka 'be numerable' b. High vowels ip-ira 'be evil for' bvis-ika 'be easily removed'

tond-esa om-esa sek-erera

'make to face' 'cause to get dry' 'laugh on and on'

bvum-isa pind-irira

'make agree' 'to pass right through' (Beckman 1997: 1)

The position of the tongue root, with an advanced tongue root (ATR), as, e.g., in the vowel [o], in opposition to a retracted tongue root (RTR), as in the vowel [o], is the active feature in Niger-Congo languages (e.g. Yoruba, Wolof, Fula, Diola Fogni) and many Nilo-Saharan languages (Kalenjin, Päkot, Maasai, Luo). Below are listed some Yoruba words, which have only mid vowels. In such words, all vowels have to have the same ATR specification. Forms like *CeCo or *C(Co (with 'C' standing for any consonant) are not attested in Yoruba. They violate the harmony requirement on the ATR specification of vowels in a word. With words containing high or low vowels as well the Yoruba pattern is more complex as will be discussed in chapters 4 and 6. (6) Yoruba ATR harmony among mid vowels a. ATR words b. RTR words ebè 'heap for yams' (s(¼ 'foot' epo 'oil' (¼ko 'pap' olè 'thief' ob(¼ 'soup' owó 'money' oko 'vehicle' (Archangeli and Pulleyblank 1989: 177) Geographically isolated occurrences of tongue root harmony – henceforth 'ATR harmony' – can be found for example in Nez Perce, a native North American language, as well as in the two Afro-Asiatic languages Somali (Cushitic) and Tangale (Chadic) (see Hall et al 1973 for an overview of ATR harmony systems in African languages, and Hall and Hall 1980 and Anderson and Durand 1988 on Nez Perce). Additionally, there are several types of harmony which involve other features than vocalic place features. In particular we find nasal harmony

Harmonic features

9

and retroflex harmony (see van der Hulst and van de Weijer 1995: 525). For reasons of thematic and theoretical restriction, I will not go into the details of these phenomena. For work on nasal harmony the reader may consult Cole and Kisseberth (1994), Walker (1996, 1998), and much of the work of Glyne Piggott (1992, 1996 and elsewhere). 1.1.2 Multiple feature harmonies Besides the types of harmony which involve only one feature, there are some combinations of features attested. In multiple feature harmony, agreement between vowels is not only required for feature x in a language but also for feature y. This pattern must be distinguished from cases where a vowel changes two features to be opportune to a harmony requirement on only one of the two features because the vowel system lacks the respective allophonic vowel which differs only with regard to the active feature. Warlpiri and Yawelmani are such cases. Warlpiri (Nash, 1979, 1986, van der Hulst and Smith, 1985, Sagey, 1990, Cole 1991, Inkelas, 1994, Berry, 1998) has only the three vowels i, u and a (Nash, 1986: 65). In Warlpiri, suffixes agree with their lexical host in terms of roundness and backness, as shown in (324a,b). (7) Warlpiri harmony a. kurdu-kurlu-rlu-lku-ju-lu 'child-Prop-Erg-then-me-they' 'as for the children, they are with me' b. maliki-kirli-rli-lki-ji-li 'dog-Prop-Erg-then-me-they' 'as for the dogs, they are with me' c. minija-kurlu-rlu-lku-ju-lu 'cat-Prop-Erg-then-me-they' 'as for the cats, they are with me' (Nash 1986: 86 cit. op. Inkelas 1994: 291, Berry 1998: 139) However, if we consider (324c) as well it emerges that the harmonic feature has to be backness, since with the root-final vowel a, the harmonic suffixes turn out with a back vowel, which is disharmonic with the root vowel in

10


roundness. The conclusion is that roundness harmony is just a by-product of backness harmony, triggered by the limits of the vowel inventory. Warlpiri has neither a back unrounded high vowel nor a front rounded vowel. If a nonlow vowel changes its backness specification in agreement with a neighbouring vowel, it has to change its roundness specification as well, because the system lacks a front rounded vowel as an allophone for the back vowel and a back unrounded vowel as an allophone for the front unrounded vowel likewise. In languages like Warlpiri, roundness harmony is triggered by the restricted vowel inventory, rather than by a harmony rule or a harmony constraint.6 In contrast to this a mixed harmony system is one in which agreement of more than one feature is not a consequence of an impoverished vowel inventory. Among such multiple harmonies we can further distinguish those in which separate rules or constraints require agreement of two or more features from systems in which one rule or constraint operates on a set of features. The most well-known case of vowel harmony affecting two features may be the combination of backness with roundness harmony in Turkish and other Turkic languages (see 4, on p. 7). All vowels in a Turkish word have to agree in backness, while agreement on the feature roundness is restricted to high vowels only. Low vowels in affixes are never rounded even if the preceding root vowel is rounded.7 This is illustrated with the plural affix -ler/-lar below. In (8c,d,g,h), the suffix vowel in column 3 is preceded by a round root vowel. Though it agrees with the root vowel in backness, it does not with respect to roundness. The genitive suffix in the next column has a high vowel which agrees with respect to both features. (8) Turkish backness and roundness harmony nom.sg. nom.pl. gen.sg. gen.pl. a. ‘rope’ ip ip-ljer ip-in ip-ljer-in b. ‘girl’ kÕz kÕz-lar kÕz-Õn kÕz-lar-Õn c. ‘face’ yüz yüz-ljer yüz-ün yüz-ljer-in d. ‘stamp’ pul pul-lar pul-un pul-lar-Õn e. ‘hand’ elj elj-ljer elj-in elj-ljer-in f. ‘stalk’ sap sap-lar sap-Õn sap-lar-Õn kjöy-ljer kjöy-ün kjöy-ljer-in g. ‘village’ kjöy h. ‘end’ son son-lar son-un son-lar-Õn (Clements and Sezer 1982: 216)

Harmonic features

11

In this case, roundness harmony is not triggered by the limits of the vowel inventory, since Turkish has the rounded and unrounded variants of both the high front vowels as well as those of the high back vowels. That in Turkish backness harmony can occur without roundness harmony is an indicator that here two rules or constraints are operative. Odden (1991) discusses Eastern Cheremis and Tunica in which both features can be analysed as being subject to one rule or constraint only. I am not aware of languages where roundness harmony and height harmony co-occur. In Yawelmani (Kuroda 1967), only those vowels harmonise which are of the same height. The restricted vowel inventory does not allow a decision on whether roundness or backness is the harmonic feature. If Yawelmani turns out to be a case of rounding harmony (which I doubt), then this instance of harmony is at least tied to height harmony. Height harmony is no active process in this language, but if vowels agree in height, then this agreement triggers rounding harmony. Labial harmony may co-occur with ATR harmony, as attested in the Niger-Congo language Dagaare (Bodomo 1997) or in Chumburung and Igbo (see van der Hulst and van de Weijer 1995, p. 523 and references cited there). However, the few instances of roundness harmony combined with ATR harmony are quite dubious in that the second harmonising feature could also be backness instead of roundness. Compare in this respect the examples from Dagaare, cited from Bodomo (1997: 24). In Dagaare, the imperfective suffix -ro/ -ro/ -re/ -r(/ -ra alternates not only with respect to ATR but also with respect to roundness according to Bodomo. In (9a) we find words with round vowels only, while the vowels in the words in (9b) are all nonround. At the same time, the suffix vowels alternate in backness. One of both alternations, i.e. either backness or roundness alternation, is triggered by the asymmetry of the vowel system, which has only front unrounded and back rounded vowels, and lacks front rounded as well as back unrounded vowels (with the exception of the vowel D). Since the suffix vowel is forced to change always both feature specifications (i.e., backness and roundness), in order to harmonise with the preceding vowel with respect to one of the two features, it cannot be determined whether the active feature is backness or roundness. The usual case is that roundness harmony occurs only in systems with a phonemic rounding contrast among both front as well as back vowels. The same holds for ATR harmony. Systems which do not distinguish phonemically between ATR and RTR vowels are unlikely to display ATR harmony. Dagaare lacks the rounding contrast, but, nevertheless, has a

12


contrast in the dimension of backness. So the active feature might also be [±back]. (9) Dagaare multiple feature vowel harmony verb root imperfective form a. do 'to climb' duoro 'climbing' tu 'to dig' tuuro 'digging' ko to get dry' koro 'getting dry' bo mo b8

'to look for' 'to wrestle' 'to discuss/plan'

b8oro m8oro b88ro

'looking for' 'wrestling' 'discussing/planning'

'to rain 'to discover' 'to grind roughly'

miire piire gbiere

'raining' 'discovering' 'grinding roughly'

s,,r, 1m( kp(

'to touch' 'to beat' 'to enter'

s,,r( 1m,(r( kp,(r(

'touching' 'beating' 'entering'

c. kpa la mar,

'to boil' 'to laugh' 'to paste'

kpaara laara mara

'boiling' 'laughing' 'pasting'

b. mi piiri gbe

The data in (9c) suggest that the feature height or lowness plays an active role here as well, since the affix vowel surfaces as nonlow with nonlow root vowels and as low with a low root vowel. According to Akinlabi (1997), the language Kalabari (Niger-Congo) displays an instance of restricted backness harmony combined with ATR harmony. This language has no phonemic rounding contrast either. Kalabari, however, shows evidence that the second harmonising feature (besides ATR) is backness, not roundness. The low vowel a combines with high vowels of either backness value, but it is not found with instances of e in adjacent syllables within a word. Since a can hardly be described as being rounded Akinlabi concludes that the harmonically active feature has to be backness. A more straightforward example of a combination of height harmony with ATR harmony can be found in the Bantu language Kimatuumbi

Harmonic features

13

(Odden 1991, 1996). Van der Hulst and van de Weijer (1995: 520, and references cited there) mention Klao and Togo-remnant languages in this respect as well. According to Odden, Kimatuumbi has a set of super high vowels L and X, and a set of high vowels i and u, which are roughly equivalent to the sets i and u versus , and 8, which differ in their ATR specification (Odden 1991: 281, 1996: 5). The mid vowels e and o are lax, i.e. RTR, and the low vowel D is retracted as well. Within a word, all vowels have to agree with respect to ATR and height. The vowel D does not participate in this pattern. It occurs freely with all sorts of vowels. The pattern can best be observed with the causative suffix -iy which surfaces as -iy, -,y, or -(y, depending on the quality of the preceding root vowel in (10). (10) Height and ATR harmony in Kimatuumbi a. Root plus low affix vowel b. Root plus nonlow affix vowel út-a 'to pull' út-iy-a 'to make pull' yíb-a 'to steal' yíb-iy-a 'to make steal' y8ºy88t-a 'to whisper' y8ºy88t-,y-a 'to make whisper' b,º,k-a 'to put' b,º,k-,y-a 'to make put' goºonj-a 'to sleep' goºonj-(y-a 'to make sleep' ch(º(ng-a 'to build' ch(º(ng-(y-a 'to make build' káat-a 'to cut' káat-iy-a 'to make cut' (Odden 1991: 281) Hyman (2002), citing data from Paulian (1986a,b, 2001), describes a harmony pattern involving three features. Kàlo¼1, a Bantu language spoken in southern Cameroon, displays a combination of ATR harmony with front/backness harmony and rounding harmony. In the examples in (11), the last vowel of the word alternates according to the ATR, backness and roundness specification of the preceding vowel. Underlying /a/ can be realised as either a, e, (, o or o depending on the context. (Note that the vowel u in the prefix in all these words has no possible more harmonic alternants, i.e., the vowels 8, y, > *C >> FAITH For the purpose of illustration let us now consider the phenomenon of final devoicing, as it is found in German for instance. Following Lombardi's (1999) work on laryngeal features, I will assume for the moment that syllable-final devoicing is a positional faithfulness effect. For another

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proposal to deal with this phenomenon, see Itô and Mester (1999b) or here section 2.5 on local constraint conjunction. In German, obstruents are systematically devoiced when they are syllabified in coda position, as can be seen in the singular forms in (51a). Their underlying voicing specification can be detected by their behaviour with vowel-initial affixes (as in the plural forms in 51a) in comparison to the behaviour of underlyingly voiceless obstruents in singular and plural forms (51b), which show no voicing when brought into intervocalic position. (51) German final devoicing singular plural a. Schla[k] Schlä[g]e Die[p] Die[b]e Han[t] Hän[d]e b. Blo[k] Strum[pf] Hu[t]

Blö[k]e Strüm[pf]e Hü[t]e

'beat' 'thief' 'hand' 'block' 'stocking' 'hat'

That German displays a voicing contrast at all is the effect of the ranking of faithfulness to voice above the markedness constraint against voiced obstruents. (52) Constraints on voice: a. IO-IDENT(voice): Correspondent segments in the input and the output have the same specification of the feature [±voice]. b. *[+voice]: Obstruents are voiceless. (53) Rankings a. Contrast: IO-IDENT(voice) >> *[+voice] b. Neutralisation: *[+voice] >> IO-IDENT(voice) The ranking in (53a) is required to describe the voicing contrast in onsets between minimal pairs such as Tier [ti:n] 'animal' and dir [di:n] 'youSG.DATIVE'. Unfortunately, the incompatible ranking in (53b) is required to account for the neutralisation behaviour of obstruents in German coda positions. The dilemma is solved if we simply assume a second faithfulness constraint referring to syllable onsets only.

Positional faithfulness

61

(54) IO-IDENTONSET(voice): Correspondent segments in the input and in onset position in the output have the same specification of the feature [±voice]. With this additional constraint we can establish the ranking of positional faithfulness above markedness, and markedness above general faithfulness, which perfectly accounts for the German data under consideration. (55) Final Devoicing in German as a Positional Faithfulness effect IO-IDENTONSET(voice) *[+voice] IO-IDENT(voice) /dib/ a. dib **! b. tib *! * * c. tip *! ** ) d. dip * * The question is now, in how far is all this relevant for the phenomenon of vowel harmony? Vowel harmony is in most cases triggered by the last root or stem vowel preceding the first affix vowel. If harmony applies to roots as well, it is usually the first syllable of the root which is the trigger of harmony while all following vowels are neutralised. In her analysis of Shona height harmony, Beckman assumes therefore a positional faithfulness constraint IDENT-σ1, which demands particular faithfulness to those underlying segments which are parsed in the first syllable of a root in the output. I will come back to her analysis in 2.4.2 in the comparison of different approaches to harmony, since Beckman proposes that harmony can be analysed by reference to such a positional constraint in interaction with markedness constraints and without reference to a specific constraint demanding harmony. Whether this is feasible or not will be discussed later on, what is more important is the finding that the direction of assimilatory processes (or better patterns) is driven by asymmetries in faithfulness to the participating elements. Assimilation between consonants is preferably regressive, because faithfulness to onsets (the second part of a consonant cluster) is stronger than faithfulness to coda consonants (usually the first part of a consonant cluster) (see, e.g., Lombardi's work on voicing assimilation). Root controlled vowel harmony is possibly determined by stronger input-output faithfulness of stem or root vowels than of affix vowels. In the next subsection, I will first discuss advantages and problems of current proposals for the analysis of assimilation and then introduce the correspondence approach to assimilation.

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Optimality Theory

2.4

Be faithful to your neighbour – assimilation in Correspondence Theory

Within OT there are three main streams with regard to the analysis of vowel harmony: the alignment approach (Kirchner 1993, Smolensky 1993, Cole and Kisseberth 1994, Pulleyblank et al 1995, Ringen and Vago 1995, Padgett 1995, Pulleyblank 1996 and many others), the positional faithfulness approach (Beckman 1997, 1998), and the view that vowel harmony is best analysed as an instance of agreement (Bakoviü 2000) or correspondence (Krämer 1998, 1999, 2001). In this section I will discuss them all in turn and argue why the latter should be favoured. I will not discuss shorthand constraints like HARMONY (Inkelas 1994), SPREAD[feature] (Kaun 1995), which certainly are meant only as place holders for more elaborated technical devices. Otherwise they would inflate the system of constraint families, and for the sake of theoretical economy such an enrichment of theoretic tools should be avoided if possible. 2.4.1 Feature alignment The most widespread approach to vowel harmony in OT is the alignment approach. In this account, it is assumed that certain constraints of the Alignment family (McCarthy and Prince 1993) demand that the edges of certain features coincide with the edges of other phonological or morphological categories like 'word' or 'stem'. (56) Featural Alignment (Kirchner 1993) ALIGN (F, L/R, MCat): For any parsed feature F in morphological category MCat (= Root, Word), F is associated to the leftmost/rightmost syllable in MCat (violations assessed scalarly). The ALIGNRight constraint demands that the right edge of a designated articulatory span coincide with the right edge of a morphological or phonological category and is therefore responsible for rightward spreading (57a). If the target of assimilation is situated to the left of the trigger, this requires the formulation of the mirror-image constraint, ALIGNLeft (57b). If in a language assimilation is bi-directional, both constraints are assumed to play a role (57c).

Assimilation in Correspondence Theory

63

(57) Spreading under Alignment (Kirchner 1993) a. Spreading under ALIGN (F,R) [CV CV CV CV CV] → [CV CV CV CV CV] F

F

b. Spreading under ALIGN (F,L) [CV CV CV CV CV] → [CV CV CV CV CV] F

F

c. Spreading under ALIGN (F,L) and ALIGN (F,R) [CV CV CV CV CV] → [CV CV CV CV CV] F

F

The major problems of an alignment approach are of theoretical nature: The reference to the direction in the constraints is not necessarily justified and unnecessarily bloats the constraint inventory. Directionality effects of assimilation have been shown to emerge from asymmetries in faithfulness to different positions (Lombardi 1996, 1999, Grijzenhout and Krämer 2001, Beckman 1995, 1997, 1998). Furthermore, the alignment constraints are problematic for the formalisation of consonantal assimilation (as will be discussed below), which means we have to rely on two separate means to formalise vocalic and consonantal assimilation. This treats both types of assimilation as two basically different phenomena. Unless this is proven on independent grounds such an assumption should be avoided both for empirical reasons and for the reason of theoretical economy. If we can trace back vowel harmony to the same source as other kinds of assimilation, i.e., the same sort of constraint being active, this results in a more general and parsimonious account. I will discuss each objection in turn. Traditionally, phonological rules have a directionality parameter incorporated via the definition of the triggering environment. This is indirectly taken over into OT by the reference to right and left edges of designated representations in the alignment constraints. So why should we now dispense with this? For assimilation rules it was already noted several times that they need a mirror image counterpart. Take for instance Clements and Sezer's (1982) analysis of Turkish vowel harmony. In Turkish, vowels in affixes usually agree with the last root vowel in rounding and backness (see

64

Optimality Theory

above, chapter 1). This means that harmony proceeds from left to right. An additional observation is that Turkish lacks prefixes. So if roots are phonologically dominant, there can be no leftward spreading/assimilation, since there are no potential targets to the left of the potential triggers (the root vowels). Clements and Sezer (1982) discuss cases of epenthesis at the left edge of loan words. In such words, an epenthetic vowel has to be inserted at the left edge of the root in order to break up a consonant cluster. The epenthetic vowel to the left of the first root vowel is a high vowel which usually agrees with the first root vowel in backness and roundness. (58) Turkish epenthesis: a. grup b. gurup 'group' kral kÕral 'king' prens pirens 'prince' smok'in sÕmok'in ∼ simok'in 'dinner jacket' kreV kÕreV 'creche' (Clements and Sezer 1982: 247) The forms in column (a) in (58) are pronounced in careful speech, while the forms in (58b) are judged as colloquial. This data shows that Turkish vowel harmony is conceived of as going from left to right only because in the majority of cases there are no adequate targets to the left of the triggering vowels in this language. In languages which allow affixation to both sides of the root, such as Dҽgҽma, harmony applies bi-directionally or directionless from the root outward. The same is observed in languages with dominant-recessive harmony. The process as such has no directional preference. Another example might come from voicing assimilation. Usually voicing assimilation operates from the right to the left within consonant clusters (as noted above already). However, there are exceptions to this, as in Dutch for instance where devoicing is progressive if the rightmost member of the consonant cluster is a fricative. Thus, it must be concluded that directionality of assimilatory processes is not a property of the process itself such that it has to be incorporated into the formulation of the respective rule or constraint, but rather determined by the nature of target and trigger, as well as by independent factors such as morphological preferences. In the case of voicing assimilation it is a generally held view in the literature now that regressivity emerges due to the relatively stronger faithfulness of onset consonants in comparison to the weaker faithfulness of coda consonants (cf. Lombardi in various places, Grijzenhout and Krämer


65

2000, and others). Additional arguments and evidence for the claim that phonological assimilation is directionless by nature can be found in Beckman (1995, 1997, 1998), Lombardi (1996, 1999), and Bakoviü (2000). To summarise this, if assimilation is not inherently directional we should not formalise it as such. This also diminishes the number of constraints, since two constraints are necessary when the assimilation constraint refers to edges or directions while otherwise we need only one device like a constraint which says 'adjacent X-s agree in feature [F].' There are, however, two more arguments against an analysis of assimilation as alignment, both related to consonantal assimilation. First, alignment constraints are not capable of covering consonantal assimilation. In consonantal assimilation (for instance, place or voice), it is usually the left member of a cluster that changes its feature specification in agreement with its neighbour to the right. Here, the alignment cannot refer to morphological edges like those of roots or phonological edges like those of prosodic words, feet, syllables or so. An alignment constraint demanding the mapping of the left edge of a voicing span with the left edge of a syllable would have no impact on the preceding coda consonant, for instance. Thus, the preceding coda consonant would not assimilate to the following onset consonant in voicing. The assumption of alignment constraints referring to higher prosodic or morphological structure and consonantal features would a) lead to nonlocal consonantal assimilation (the next argument, see below), or b) lead to nothing, because the two involved consonants are usually not even in the same syllable. The only solution would be to refer to a category like 'consonant cluster' in the formulation of the alignment constraint, e.g. 'align the left edge of the feature c-place with the left edge of the consonant cluster'. The concept 'consonant cluster' is not required elsewhere and thus it lacks any motivation of its role as a linguistic entity. The second argument against featural alignment comes from the observed local restrictions on consonantal assimilation (see, e.g. Odden 1994). There is no intrinsic ban against long distance consonantal feature assimilation in the alignment approach, even though this is not attested in adult language. Consonant harmony affecting the place feature is observed in child language only. Goad (1996, 1997) presents an alignment analysis of consonantal place harmony in child language. In her conclusion, Goad addresses the question why long distance consonant harmony is not found in adult speech, but she has to leave this issue open.22 The only possible explanation would be to assume a universal ranking for adult grammars of LOCALITY or NOGAP (Padgett 1995, Itô, Mester and Padgett 1995, Pulley-

66

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blank 1996) higher than ALIGNL/R(feature, P-Cat) ('the left/right edge of every feature span F coincides with the left/right edge of a phonological category P'). However, long distance phenomena among consonants almost always involve complete copying of all features of a segment in adult language. This lead Gafos (1998) to a convincing analysis in terms of reduplication for consonantal copying. Arguments against an Alignment analysis of vowel harmony in Shona can be found in Beckman (1997). She proposes alternatively to capture vowel harmony solely by positional faithfulness and markedness constraints. This approach has its own benefits and disadvantages as is discussed in the next subsection. 2.4.2 Positional faithfulness – externally motivated harmony Beckman (1997) argues that no specific constraints are needed to account for vowel harmony and proposes to analyse the phenomenon as an effect of the interaction of positional faithfulness with markedness. Positional faithfulness guarantees that the underlying specification of a vowel in prominent position triggers harmony (for instance, the one in the first syllable of a root). Markedness militates against the realisation of feature specifications in other, non-prominent positions. The account is rather appealing since a) it implies a typology of vowel harmony, because harmony effects are directly related to the markedness hierarchy, and b) it describes harmony as an effect of the interaction of independently motivated constraints, without reliance to a specific harmony constraint. To get an impression of how the account works let us briefly consider Shona height harmony. Non-initial nonlow vowels agree in height with the first vowel of the word.23 The low vowel D never alternates. (59) Height-harmonic Shona verbs a. pera 'end' per-era sona 'sew' son-era vere1ga 'count' vere1g-eka tonda 'face' tond-esa oma 'be dry' om-esa seka 'laugh' sek-erera

'end in' 'sew for' 'be numerable' 'make to face' 'cause to get dry' 'laugh on and on'


b. ipa bvisa bvuma pinda

'be evil' 'remove' 'agree' 'pass'

67

ip-ira 'be evil for' bvis-ika 'be easily removed' bvum-isa 'make agree' pind-irira 'to pass right through' (Fortune 1955, cit. op. Beckman 1997:1)

The nonlow vowel in the affix is either nonhigh (59a) or high (59b), according to the height of the preceding root vowel. Beckman's idea is that multiple linking of a single feature node to several vowels is less marked than a feature node for each vowel. In optimality-theoretic terms this means that the respective markedness constraints have less violations in candidates with feature nodes linked to several vowels than in candidates where each vowel has its own feature node. (60) Shona harmony as faithfulness and markedness (Beckman 1997: 18) IDENT-σ1(hi) *MID *HIGH IDENT(hi) /CeCiC/ C e C i C a. * *! [-lo] [-hi] [-lo] [+hi] C e C e C * * ) b. Aperture C

[-lo] [-hi] e C e

C

c.

*

**! [-lo] [-hi] [-lo] [-hi] C i C i C *!

d.

*

*

Aperture [-lo] [+hi]

In tableau (60), the optimal output candidate is evaluated for an underlying form containing a mid vowel in the first syllable and a high vowel in the second. If the first vowel shared the aperture feature of the second vowel, this would incur a violation of IDENT-σ1(hi), which guards faithfulness to height in the first syllable. This violation of a high ranking constraint renders the candidate sub-optimal in comparison to others. The same holds

68

Optimality Theory

if the first vowel is a high vowel underlyingly and the second a mid vowel. However, Beckman has to assume that the affected affix vowels are underlyingly specified for [-low] in order to prevent assimilation of a vowel in the second or third or further syllable to a following low vowel. The assumption that harmonic behaviour is solely determined by markedness is further weakened if we regard the behaviour of high vowels in Turkish. Recall from the introduction to vowel harmony in chapter 1 that all Turkish vowels have to agree in backness within a word. Furthermore high vowels agree with their neighbour to the left in roundness. Low vowels are opaque to rounding harmony. In a word where a high vowel is situated between a high front rounded root vowel and a low unrounded vowel, the medial vowel agrees with the preceding root vowel in backness as well as roundness, as in (61c). This yields a front rounded vowel in this case. (61) Turkish medial vowels with conditional suffix a. gel-dir-sej-di 'come (caus-cond-past)' b. dur-dur-saj-d

'stand (caus-cond-past)'

c. gyl-dyr-sej-di

'laugh (caus-cond-past)'

d. at6-dr-saj-d

'open (caus-cond-past)'

*gyl-dir-sej-di (Bakoviü 2000: 81)

However, it is generally assumed that front rounded vowels are more marked than front unrounded vowels, since most of the world's languages avoid front rounded vowels (as well as back unrounded ones). Under Beckman's account the medial vowel has the choice to share backness and roundness with the following vowel as well. This would result in a less marked structure. Hence, the positional faithfulness/markedness account would predict the wrong output form *gyl-dir-sej-di. At first glance, one could take this pattern as an argument for a directional rule or constraint on harmony, but as was mentioned already earlier even in Turkish, harmony also applies regressively to epenthesised vowels in loan words at the left word margin (see 58b). Thus, we can neither dispense with a constraint on harmony nor relie on the directional device of feature alignment. A similar criticism applies to autosegmental analyses with bidirectional spreading and privative features (e.g., van der Hulst and Smith 1986). A privative rounding feature would assume roundness to be the present


69

feature and spreading of the lips absence of this feature. If roundness is present on an opaque affix vowel and spreads to the right it should also spread to its left. This would result of regressive harmony in the case of the Turkish data in (61). On the basis of data from Yucatec Maya Krämer (2001) shows that the positional faithfulness account to harmony has also problems to account for the behaviour of clitics. In some languages clitics participate in vowel harmony as undergoers (as in Turkish), in others they don't, and in Yucatec Maya, clitics constitute a separate harmonic domain. The positional faithfulness/markedness account would predict that either clitics undergo harmony, since their vowels are less prominent than the vowel in the root or the first syllable of the root, or it would have to say that clitics are added in a later step of derivation, yielding them entirely immune to harmony. If proclitics or prefixes are regarded as part of the word for some prosodic reason (i.e., syllabification), they should be able to trigger harmony, for the first syllable of the word is occupied by a vowel belonging to a prefix or proclitic. The latter is no attested pattern. Even in dominant-recessive harmony systems, where the triggering vowel can be situated in almost any morpheme, it is never found in a prefix or proclitic.24 However, such a wrong prediction is circumvented by restricting first syllable faithfulness to the first syllable of roots only, as done in Beckman (1998: 52). Thus, I conclude that neither the alignment approach nor the faithfulness/markedness account are adequate analyses of assimilation. Alternatively, I will show that harmony emerges in satisfaction of a symmetric identity constraint on different elements within the same surface representation, which was labelled as AGREE by Lombardi (1999), Bakoviü (2000), and Surface or Syntagmatic Identity by Krämer (1998, 2001). This proposal will be discussed and further motivated in the next paragraphs. 2.4.3 Assimilation as correspondence What happens in harmony or any kind of assimilation is intuitively the same as what is encoded in one of the basic faithfulness constraint families of OT: IDENTITY(feature) says that segments in one representation (usually the input) should agree in feature specifications with the respective segments in another representation (usually the output), i.e. they should look alike:

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Optimality Theory

(62) The IDENT(F) Constraint Family McCarthy and Prince (1995:264) Corresponding segments are identical in feature F. Accordingly, assimilation can be formalised by reference to this type of constraint. The crucial difference being that Identity constraints in the sense of McCarthy and Prince refer to the identity of input and output or that of base and reduplicant, while an identity constraint preferring candidates which display assimilation should refer to adjacent entities within one and the same representation. Thus, input-output correspondence and surface or syntagmatic correspondence differ in the dimensions of the respective correspondence relation. In IO-faithfulness relations, the corresponding elements are in different representations. In contrast, syntagmatic correspondence relations hold between two distinct elements within one representation, i.e. the output. Another difference is the functional motivation of the types of correspondence. IO-faithfulness constraints optimise the chances of an accurate interpretation of an utterance, while assimilatory correspondence optimises articulation. That is, IO-faithfulness is driven by the desire of the speaker to be understood, whereas assimilation is driven by the speaker's wish to minimise the articulatory effort. A further motivation for the syntagmatic correspondence relation may be the optimisation of utterance chunking. Harmony domains help the hearer to reconstruct an utterance into words.25 In this respect, both kinds of correspondence share a function: optimisation of interpretation. Pulleyblank (1997) proposes to analyse consonantal assimilation as an effect of Syntagmatic Constraints, as opposed to Input-Output constraints.26 Lombardi (1999: 272 and earlier papers) and Gnanadesikan (1997) present similar constraints to handle laryngeal assimilation (Lombardi assuming privative voice, Gnanadesikan a ternary voicing scale). (63) Pulleyblank (1997:64): IDENTICAL CLUSTER CONSTRAINTS: A sequence of consonants must be identical in voicing / place of articulation / continuancy / nasality. (64) Lombardi (1999:272): AGREE: Obstruent clusters should agree in voicing.


71

(65) Gnanadesikan (1997:23): ASSIM: The output {scale} value of adjacent segments must be identical. Such constraints can be incorporated into the correspondence constraint family. The first task is to define the correspondence relation as a relation between distinct elements of the same type within one representation instead of referring to two representations. By this move, the core statement of the above-mentioned assimilation constraints can be formulated more generally, resulting in a uniform formalism for feature assimilation in general, covering vocalic as well as consonantal assimilation, as I propose in (66). (66) SYNTAGMATIC IDENTITY(F) (S-IDENT, preliminary, Krämer 2001):27 Let x be a segment in representation R and y be any adjacent segment in representation R, if x is [αF] then y is [αF]. (A segment has to have the same value for a feature F as the adjacent segment in the string.) Under the assumption of flat segmental structure, i.e., CVCVC, such a constraint would rule out any kind of vowel harmony, since between each vowel there is a consonant. This is one of the reasons why Pulleyblank (1997), for instance, analyses consonantal assimilation as an identity relation while he treats vowel harmony as an instance of featural alignment in the same article. Consonantal assimilation such as place assimilation of nasals to obstruents or voicing assimilation is local on the segmental level in the overwhelming majority of cases, while vowel harmony is not strictly local on the segmental tier (see Odden 1994 for a discussion of the locality issue within feature geometry).28 The correspondence constraint in (66) is only capable of capturing assimilatory patterns between adjacent segments. Vowel harmony is excluded. Two solutions are possible: Either vocalic features are coproduced on consonants, while consonantal features cannot be co-produced on vowels (as proposed by Ní Chiosáin and Padgett 1997), or the 'segment' referred to in the definition of the constraint is only one possible variable of Syntagmatic Identity. This means that the interaction of vocalic features or nasality for example does not take place on the segmental level, but rather on prosodic categories. In the following, I will first explore the latter possibility, drawing on and extending a proposal made in Grounded Phonology (Archangeli and Pulleyblank 1994).

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Optimality Theory

In the literature, it has often been assumed that vocalic assimilation processes apply from mora to mora, syllable to syllable (see e.g. Archangeli and Pulleyblank 1994), syllable head to syllable head, (see Humbert 1995, van der Hulst and Piggott 1995, or the discussion in van der Hulst and van de Weijer 1995), or foot to foot (Piggott 1996). According to Archangeli and Pulleyblank (1994), Piggott (1996), Golston (1999, 2000) and others, different features are associated with different prosodic entities or tiers. Piggott (1996) argued that in Lamba, nasal harmony applies from syllable to syllable, while in Kikongo, it goes from foot to foot. Piggott (1996:150) gives the following typology of harmony (67). (67) A typology of harmony a. Segment harmony (= segment-to-segment relation) b. Syllable harmony

(= syllable-to-syllable relation)

c. Foot harmony

(= foot-to-foot relation)

Archangeli and Pulleyblank (1994) propose segments, moras and syllables or syllable heads as anchors for features, ignoring the foot. To capture harmony formally, Piggott assumes the constituent concord constraints in (68). (68) Constituent Concord Right/Left (CONCORD-R/L) (Piggott 1996: 150) If constituent α is specified for Nasal in an input, then constituent β to the right/left of the correspondent of α in an output is also specified for Nasal, if α and β are in the same domain. The problem with this definition is that it is asymmetric in two ways: (i.) we have a right/left parametrisation as is the case with the Alignment approach as well (see above, section 2.4.1). (ii.) what is described here is a harmonic relation between an input and the element following this in an output. Technically the possibility arises that in a string of underlying nasal-vowel-liquid sequences, e.g. NVR1VR2V, the initial nasal N triggers assimilation of the following liquid R1, but the second liquid R2 remains unnasalised, even though it is in the same harmonic domain in the output. This is because the constituent concord CONCORD-R holds only with the underlying specification of its neighbour to the left, not with its surface specification, as illustrated below.


(69)

Harmony as Constituent Concord: Input: /N V Output:

n

V

R1

V

R2

V/

n

V

l

V

73

If this were the right way to analyse harmony, vowel harmonic systems should look like this: In a language with CONCORD-R, the first two vowels of a word should look alike with regard to the crucial feature, but the third vowel has to look like the underlying form of its neighbour on the left, potentially resulting in a disharmonic surface form. The same holds for all following vowels. The fact is, however: harmonic languages don't look like this.29 For this reason, I will prefer the symmetric transitive correspondence relation within surface strings proposed in (66). On the basis of the fact that harmony is also a relation between prosodic categories, Syntagmatic Identity can be reformulated as in (70). (70) SYNTAGMATIC IDENTITY (S-IDENT(F)): Let x be an entity of type T in representation R and y be any adjacent entity of type T in representation R, if x is [αF] then y is [αF]. Where T is a segment, mora, syllable, or foot. (A segment, mora, syllable or foot has to have the same value for a feature F as the adjacent segment, mora, syllable or foot in the string.) The definition in (70) crucially refers to prosodic domains as feature bearers. Under the assumption that only vocalic features can be associated to the prosodic categories of the syllable and the mora, the locality problem with vowel harmony is solved. Such a problem emerges when assimilation is regarded as applying locally on the segmental tier of representation. On the syllabic level, vowel features are adjacent to each other. Under the assumptions made so far, dispensing with traditional planar segregation (i.e. different consonantal and vocalic tiers in the autosegmental sense), vowel harmony automatically skips consonants because it goes from mora to mora or syllable to syllable, while consonantal harmony cannot permeate through vowels, which by their vocalic nature do not bear consonantal features. Furthermore, consonants separated by a vowel cannot be regarded as adjacent on any level of representation if the only admitted structures are a string of segments dominated by prosodic structure.

74

Optimality Theory

Moreover, an Identity relation can only be established between features that are already present. Consonantal features are not salient on vowels, so corresponding consonantal features in a CVCV string would violate the adjacency requirement. With such a theory of assimilation, it is not necessary to assume something like a "bottleneck effect" (Ní Chiosáin and Padgett 1997). However, consonantal place features reduce the sonority degree of the feature bearer, or, as Ní Chiosáin and Padgett (1997) put it, they are related to the degree of closure. This makes vowels bad landing sites for consonantal features per se, but does not exclude the presence of vocalic features on consonants. The mora rarely acts as a feature bearer, though it is relevant in the blocking of vowel harmony by consonant clusters in Yucatec Maya for instance (Krämer 2001). An important question concerning the connection of segmental features with prosodic domains is why certain features have access to higher domains while others have not. A preliminary answer may be that only features which are typical for segments with high sonority, i.e., features of segments that can constitute a syllabic peak, can have access to higher prosodic domains. For instance, nasality can be in nucleus position in many languages, either as nasalisation of a nucleic vowel or when following a vowel. Nasality is a feature which can easily be articulated on real nuclei, i.e., on vowels, because it does not entail closure of the oral tract, which is not the case with features like frication or consonantal place, which involve approximated or complete closure. According to Ní Chiosáin and Padgett, these features would simply convert the vowel into a consonant, which has bad effects on syllabification. The reason for this might lie in the sonority reduction which necessarily accompanies closure and frication. Since nasality does not reduce the sonority level of a segment to such a radical extend, it can be connected to a higher level of sonority than closure. Therefore, nasality should be allowed to have harmony relations over longer distances than a feature like [±continuant], which never crosses segments, while nasal harmony can go from syllable to syllable, eventually ignoring intervening segments that are not allowed to be nasal. Thus, we can divide the feature inventory into prosodically compatible articulatory features and purely segmental features and get the sonority-based generalisation in (71).


75

(71) Features, sonority, prosody, and harmony prosody-sensitive nasality, vowel place 'long-distance' harmony features: segmental features: c-place, manner, voice segmentally adjacent assim. Of course this is a rather rough statement and needs further refinement. However, the most important aspect of this exercise is to maintain the generalisation that all phonological feature interaction is local in a certain sense without having to refer to a rankable Locality constraint as was proposed in parts of the literature such as Cole and Kisseberth (1994), Padgett (1995), Itô, Mester and Padgett (1995). Such a locality constraint bans gapped featural configurations of any kind as schematised in (72). (72) No Gap / Locality30:

* A

F B

C

Without reference to locality or adjacency of the affected categories in the syntagmatic identity constraint, and with an independent locality constraint instead, the theory is able to build grammars which allow all kinds of unattested long-distance assimilations. Furthermore, the violations of syntagmatic identity constraints approach incalculability. In case adjacency is not a restriction on corresponding elements we have to calculate all identity violations between all elements bearing the same features in a word. For instance in the wonderful Turkish word tandklarmzdán 'from our acquaintances' (Kabak and Vogel 2000:1), every vowel's faithfulness to every other vowel would have to be assessed. This makes 21 possible SIdentity violations for each vocalic feature in such a seven-syllable-word. In the diagram in (73), every correspondence relation is indicated by a black line. (73) Nonlocal syntagmatic correspondence relations

σ ta

σ n

σ d

σ kla

σ r

σ mz

σ dán

76

Optimality Theory

Violation assessment for correspondence relations between adjacent elements is a comparably simple task, yielding six possible violations. (74) Local syntagmatic correspondence relations σ ta

σ n

σ d

σ kla

σ r

σ mz

σ dán

For reasons of empirical adequacy and ease of computability, I will opt for simplicity here, i.e. for the locally restricted view of syntagmatic correspondence. This, however, excludes the possibility to explain the feature specification of a vowel following a transparent vowel by its relation to the preceding non-transparent vowel in the treatment of vowel harmony. How transparent vowels can be treated without sacrificing locality will be explained in greater detail in section 3.3. The transparent vowels show that the assumption of prosodic entities entering into correspondence relations on articulatory features is not the best choice, and that it might be better to assume correspondence relations between adjacent stretches of articulatory feature spans. In most cases, sequences of transparent vowels behave like one transparent vowel. For reasons of understandability I will postpone this discussion to the analysis of Finnish transparent vowels in part two of this book, and subscribe so long to the prosodic view of harmony developed above following Krämer (1998, 2001). There is one last remark with respect to the locality issue necessary here. Odden (1994) develops a theory of locality within feature geometry to cover the topological restrictions on assimilatory patterns. According to Odden (1994: 290) "all phonological relations (rules or constraints) are subject to the Locality Condition, which requires elements mentioned in a rule to be local within a plane. Relations may also be constrained by adjacency conditions which limit the distance between the target and trigger segments, by requiring segments to be adjacent at the level of the syllable or at the level of the root node." Even though Odden writes about relations here, he is far from conceptualising assimilation as correspondence relations. However, the locality to which assimilation rules have to obey is incorporated in correspondence theory in the adjacency requirement for correspondence relations. The basic input-output correspondence relation shares this obedience to locality in


77

that the corresponding representations have to be adjacent in the sense that there is no intermediate representation between input and output. Even in a model where such intermediate representations are allowed, i.e. in Kiparsky's (2000b) LPM-OT, correspondence relations exist only between adjacent representations. For the sake of simplicity, assume that we have an input, taken from the lexicon for which an output is evaluated for the stem level. The output of the stem level serves as the input for the word level, and the output of the word level serves as the input for the last, the sentence level, in which the final output form is evaluated. In this model, correspondence relations are assumed only between the lexical input and the first output (the input to the word level), and between the word level input and the output of this level. What Kiparsky avoids is correspondence relations across these levels, that is a direct relation between the input from the lexicon and the last output. Even though I do not believe that such levels are necessary or justified, they illustrate a fact which is not as apparent in two-level correspondence theory, namely that correspondence relations are locally restricted to adjacent representations, whatever the dimension of correspondence may be. I will leave the discussion at this point and come to another aspect of Optimality Theory which is central to my approach to phonological opacity in vowel harmony: constraint interaction by constraint combination. 2.5


As we have seen above one central idea of Optimality Theory is constraint interaction via ranking. Another way in which constraints can interact is the combination of two or more independent constraints to one complex constraint. As Crowhurst and Hewitt (1997) point out, formal logic provides us with three logical possibilities to coordinate simplex constraints to complex constraints, namely logical conjunction, disjunction and implication. These possibilities arise if we regard Optimality Theoretic constraints as propositions to which truth values may be assigned. In case the proposition implied by a constraint, i.e., 'syllables have no coda' is true, the constraint is satisfied, if it is judged as false for a given candidate under evaluation, the constraint counts as violated. Connecting constraints by Boolean operators results in complex constraints that are violated under differing conditions.

78

Optimality Theory

(75) Complex constraints a. Disjunction: A ∨ B

'A or B'

'Either A or B has to be satisfied. (Don't violate both!)'

b. Conjunction:

A∧B

'A and B'

'A and B have to be satisfied. (Violate none!)'

c. Implication: A B 'if A then B' 'If A is satisfied, B has to be satisfied as well. (If you violate A you can also violate B, but if you satisfy A you have to satisfy B as well)' I will first discuss and illustrate the type of constraint coordination in (75a), since this is the most used type. Under the constraint connection in (75a), a form that violates both constraints is regarded as worse than a form which violates only one of both. That is two otherwise lowly ranked constraints join forces to militate against their violation. Prince and Smolensky (1993:180) labelled this generalization pattern the "banning of the worst of the worst". Smolensky (1993, 1995) introduced the term 'local conjunction'. Let us now have a closer look at this form of constraint interaction, since it will play a crucial role in the explanation of derived environment/opacity effects in the analysis of vowel harmony patterns. Itô and Mester (1998:10) give a detailed definition of Local Constraint conjunction, which is cited in (76).31 (76) Local Conjunction of Constraints (LCC) a. Definition Local conjunction is an operation on the constraint set forming composite constraints: Let C1 and C2 be members of the constraint set CON. Then their local conjunction C1&lC2 is also a member of CON. b. Interpretation The local conjunction C1&lC2 is violated if and only if both *C1 and *C2 are violated in some domain δ. c. Ranking (universal) C1&lC2 >> C1 C1&lC2 >> C2


79

Among the infinite set of candidates for the output, the form which satisfies either C1 or C2, satisfies the local conjunction of C1 and C2 as well. To satisfy the local conjunction it is not necessary to conform to the requirements of both constraints. That C1 and C2 have to be violated at all is induced by one or more independent constraints, which conflict with C1 and C2, and which themselves are ranked higher than the latter two. For the local conjunction to have an effect at all, it must rank higher than those constraints which force violation of C1 and C2. In the example tableau in (77), C3 is antagonist to C1. Whenever one of both is satisfied, the other one is violated. The same conflict situation holds for constraints C4 and C2, respectively. (77) a. b. c. ) d.

/input/ cand1 cand2 cand3 cand4

C3

C4

C1

C2

*!

* *! *!

*!

* *

*

With the ranking of C3 and C4 above C1 and C2, the candidate which violates both C1 and C2 is the winner. The case becomes problematic if we have established the ranking on independent grounds, but candidate 1 or 2 is the actual output. Here the local conjunction of C1 and C2 plays the crucial role in candidate selection. If this complex constraint is inserted somewhere between or above C3 and C4 in the hierarchy, as in (78), we derive the desired result. The fatality of violating both constraints is accounted for. In (78) the choice of either candidate 1 or candidate 2 as optimal can depend either on the ranking relation between C3 and C4 or the ranking between C1 and C2, if C3 and C4 are unranked with respect to each other, or, of course, on the impact of another constraint. (78) ) a. ) b. c. 1 d.

/input/ cand1 cand2 cand3 cand4

C1&lC2

C3

C4

C1

* *!

*

* *! *!

C2

*

*

*

80

Optimality Theory

However, candidate 4 is doomed since it violates both lowly ranked constraints, and, by this also the highly ranked local conjunction of both. Candidates 1, 2 and 3 do not violate the local conjunction, because they satisfy at least one of the conjoints. The scope or domain of local conjunctions is assumed to be the segment by most authors (cf. àubowicz 1999, Bakoviü 2000). However, Alderete (1997) as well as Itô and Mester (1998) allow larger domains to account for various dissimilatory phenomena. I will explain the function of the local restriction on the local domain of the segment. If an output string has several segments αβχ, which it usually does for reasons of prosodification, a local conjunction of constraints C1 and C2 is violated only if both constraints are violated by one and the same segment. Suppose segment α violates C1 and segment χ violates C2. In this case, the local conjunction of C1 and C2 is satisfied by either segment, and by the candidate as a whole if there is not an additional segment which violates both constraints. This is because α satisfies C2, and χ satisfies C1. If segment β violates both C1 and C2 it violates also the local conjunction C1&lC2, because it satisfies neither conjoint. For the purpose of illustration let us now reconsider the phenomenon of final devoicing in German. Following Itô and Mester (1999b) I will assume this time that German final devoicing is an effect of the local conjunction of the two constraints *CODA and *VOIOBS, or *[+voice], the former prohibiting syllables ending in a consonant, the latter prohibiting voiced obstruents. For another proposal to deal with this phenomenon, see Lombardi (1996, 1999) or section 2.1.3. A comparison of both accounts can be found in Féry (1999), and additional evidence that both accounts are needed is given in Krämer (2000) on the grounds of data from Breton. The crucial forms which show syllable-final neutralisation of the voice distinction in German are repeated in (79). (79) German final devoicing a. Schla[k] Schlä[g]e Die[p] Die[b]e Han[t] Hän[d]e b. Blo[k] Strum[pf] Hu[t]

Blö[k]e Strüm[pf]e Hü[t]e

'beat' (sg./pl.) 'thief' (sg./pl.) 'hand' (sg./pl.) 'block' (sg./pl.) 'stocking' (sg./pl.) 'hat' (sg./pl.)


81

In (80), I have listed the two crucial markedness constraints and their local conjunction. The local conjunction is always violated when both constraints are violated by the same segment, i.e. when a voiced obstruent is in coda position. (80) Final devoicing as local conjunction a. NOCODA: Syllables do not end in a consonant. b. *[+voice]: Obstruents are voiceless. c. Local Constraint Conjunction FINDEV: NOCODA&l*[+voice] These constraints now interact with a variety of faithfulness constraints. MAX-IO and DEP-IO, the constraints against deletion and insertion, respectively, have to rank higher than NOCODA, because German allows for closed syllables. They also have to rank higher than the local conjunction FINDEV, to account for the fact that neither insertion nor deletion is an option to avoid violation of FINDEV. This is illustrated in tableau (81). (81) German final devoicing I MAX-IO DEP-IO /dib/ a. dib b. di.b *! c. di *! / d. dip ) e. tip

FINDEV

NOCODA

*[+voice]

*!

*

** ** * *!

* *

In this grammar, the obstruent in coda position is neither deleted nor is the form augmented to avoid a violation of NOCODA. Instead, the winning form satisfies the high ranking local conjunction by satisfaction of the constraint against voiced obstruents, in that it has a voiceless coda. This grammar is still not suitable for German, since the optimal output also has a voiceless onset. This form performs even better on *[+voice] than the one which has a voiceless coda only. However, German allows the voiced/voiceless contrast in onsets. Therefore we have to consider one more constraint. IO-IDENT(voice) demands that segments in the output and in the input have the same specification for the feature [±voice]. To account for the voicing contrast in onsets and neutralisation in codas likewise, the constraint has to be inserted in the hierarchy below FINDEV and above *[+voice]. The evaluation of the

82

Optimality Theory

German word Dieb 'thief' is shown once more with the complete grammar at work in (82). The completely neutralised form is doomed for its violation of IO-IDENT(voice) in the onset. The other violation of IO-IDENT(voice) cannot be avoided. This would result in a violation of the higher ranked local conjunction FINDEV, which is fatal (see candidate a). (82) German final devoicing II /dib/ MAX-IO DEP-IO FINDEV NOCODA IO-ID(vce) *[+voice] a. dib *! * ** b. di.b *! ** c. di *! * - d. dip * * * 1 e. tip * **! What would happen now if the local conjunction of NOCODA and *[+voice] were not restricted to the domain of the segment? In this case any two violations of both constraints within a candidate would count as a violation of the conjunction. (83) German final devoicing and "global constraint conjunction" /dib/ MAX-IO DEP-IO FINDEV NOCODA IO-ID(vce) *[+voice] a. dib *! * ** b. di.b *! ** c. di *! * / d. dip *! * * * ) e. tip * ** The favourite German form, candidate (83d) has now a fatal violation of FINDEV, because one consonant of the form violates NOCODA and another violates *[+voice]. This minimal analysis of German final devoicing illustrates the basic idea of local constraint conjunction. The approach was extended from the mere conjunction of markedness constraints to the conjunction of markedness with faithfulness constraints by àubowicz (1999). She attempts a solution to the problem of analysing derived environment effects in OT without reliance on cyclic constraint evaluation. The conjunction of a markedness constraint with a faithfulness constraint activates the markedness constraint when the faithfulness constraint is violated.


83

(84) Derived environment effects = Faithfulness&lMarkedness One example in àubowicz' study is palatalisation in Polish, which I will briefly reproduce here to illustrate her idea. Palatalisation applies only to stem-final consonants when an affix with a front vowel is attached. Since palatalisation is not broadly active in Polish, àubowicz establishes the ranking of the relevant faithfulness constraint IDENT(coronal) above the markedness constraint demanding palatalisation of consonants before front vowels, PAL. This, however, generally bans palatalisation from surfacing. àubowicz's solution to the ranking paradoxon lies in the local conjunction of the constraint which is always violated in affixation with the markedness constraint against nonpalatal consonants preceding palatal vowels. A constraint which is notoriously violated by morphologically complex words is the Anchoring constraint demanding edge mapping of stem and a syllable. The constraint R-ANCHOR(Stem, σ), is violated whenever a vowel-initial suffix attaches to a stem and causes resyllabification of the last consonant of that stem. In order for the analysis to cover as well palatalisation between affixes, àubowicz has to assume the stem to be a recursive category, establishing a stem boundary between every affix and the next more internal affix in the word. Violation of Stem/syllable anchoring is illustrated in (85). In addition to àubowicz' illustration I indicated the right stem boundary by #, and the crucial syllable boundary by a dot. (85) Stem/syllable misalignment in Polish stem affix affix σ s ¨ u x#

+e

+ü

→

sÿ.

σ š# e ü

'to hear' (àubowicz 1998)

The high ranking local conjunction of the R-ANCHOR constraint with the constraint demanding palatalisation activates the palatalisation constraint in the environment where R-ANCHOR is violated. The grammar is shown at work in (86). Candidate (a) violates the RANCHOR constraint by its syllabification which is not coherent with the right stem edge. This syllabification is optimal because of higher ranking constraints like ONSET, which are omitted from the tableau. In addition to this, the rightmost segment of the stem violates the markedness constraint PAL, because it is followed by a front vowel and is not palatal itself. These

84

Optimality Theory

two violations count as a violation of the local conjunction of the two constraints. The competing candidate satisfies PAL on the cost of IOIDENT(coronal). Satisfaction of this markedness constraint is sufficient to avoid the violation of the local conjunction. (86) Polish palatalisation as local conjunction /süx# +e +ü/

PAL&lR-ANCHOR (Stem, σ)

a. sÿ. x#eü ) b. sÿ. š#eü

IO-IDENT (cor)

*!

R-ANCHOR (Stem, σ)

PAL

*

* *

*

I will follow àubowicz' line of thought and analyse phonological opacity in vowel harmony as an effect of local conjunctions of markedness constraints with faithfulness constraints. Recall from the beginning of this subsection that there are still two other ways in which constraints can be coordinated (see figure 75). I will briefly touch upon these possibilities, because edge effects in vowel harmony will be found to be an effect of a logical conjunction of constraints. This type of constraint conjunction was proposed by Crowhurst and Hewitt (1997). A logical conjunction of constraints is violated whenever one of the two or more conjoined constraints is violated. This does not entirely equal joint constraint promotion, but has, as Crowhurst and Hewitt point out, also a compression effect. Constraints are compressed by logical conjunctions in that single constraint violations are not assessed scalarly anymore. Whether a candidate violates only one of the conjoint constraints or both makes no difference anymore since in both cases only one violation of the conjunct is counted. There is also no difference in violating either the first or second constraint. The triggering effect observed with the local conjunction (i.e., logical disjunction) of constraints is not given. This means that actually the single constraint loses importance here. Both constraints are co-relevant. (87) Violations assessed by logical conjunctions A ∧x B

) cand1 cand2 cand3 cand4

C

A

B

* *! *! *!

* *

* *


85

The little uppercase x to the right of the Boolean conjunctive operator in the tableau indicates the scope of the constraint coordination. Locality of coordinated constraints is defined by Crowhurst and Hewitt (1997) as argument sharing. (88) The shared argument criterion (Crowhurst and Hewitt 1997: 12): Only constraints whose statements specify a common argument may be conjoined. Constraints have a primary argument which is the entity they quantify universally over, as well as a secondary argument, which is the entity they quantify existentially over. For instance, the constraint NOCODA (Roughly: 'For no syllable σ there exists a consonant/obstruent at the right edge of σ') makes a claim on all syllables but only on some consonants/obstruents. Thus, the syllable is the primary argument and any consonant/obstruent is the secondary argument of NOCODA. The markedness constraint *[+voice] makes a claim on all obstruents, namely that for all obstruents there exists a voicing specification which is minus-valued.32 Crowhurst and Hewitt do not go into the question whether the argument that is shared by two conjoined constraints has to have the same status in both constraints. Thus, NOCODA and *[+voice] could be logically conjoined because they both have obstruents as one of their arguments. The result should be a language in which for obstruents being in a coda is as bad as being voiced. I will not discuss this type of constraint further here, since it will be explored in greater detail in the treatment of the co-pattern of particular left/right-edge faithfulness with leftward/rightward affixation in section 3.2 and chapter 4. However, it is worthwhile to rest a short moment on the last form of constraint coordination proposed by Crowhurst and Hewitt (1997). Unfortunately they do not discuss the implicational coordination any further. An implicational coordination of constraint A and constraint B says basically that when you satisfy constraint A you should also do that for constraint B, but if you violate constraint A anyway or constraint A is vacuous you don't have to care about constraint B either. Tableau (89) serves to illustrate that only where constraint A is nonvacuously satisfied constraint violations of B become crucial for the implicational constraint. If both constraints share an argument then constraint A might further specify the environment in which a violation of constraint B is particularly bad, or satisfaction of B is particularly important.

86

Optimality Theory

(89) The violation and satisfaction of a logical implication A x B

) cand1 cand2 cand3 cand4 cand5

A

B

* * *! (vac)

* * *

(vac)

For illustrative purposes let us regard once more the constraint ONSET, which might be formulated as 'every syllable has a consonantal/obstruent onset'. This constraint can be combined via implicational relation with the faithfulness constraint on obstruent voicing IO-IDENT(voice). What we get by this move is exactly the positional faithfulness constraint on onsets discussed earlier, IO-IDENTONSET(voice) (see 54). Whenever a syllable satisfies the constraint ONSET, the entity that satisfies this constraint, i.e., the consonant in onset position, has to satisfy IDENT(voice) as well. Returning to our example of final devoicing in German, one might now be tempted to assume that such phenomena, i.e., positional faithfulness effects, can be broken down to constraint coordination as well.33 (90) Final devoicing as logical implication /dib/ a. b. c. ) d.

dib tip tib dip

ONSET C IO-IDENT(voice)

*[+voice]

ONSET

IO-IDENT (voice)

**! *! *!

* *

** * *

However, this treatment of positional faithfulness reveals a further restriction on the focus of coordinated constraints. In the tableau in (90) it was assumed that the consonant in coda position is not assessed by the implicational coordination, because it neither violates nor satisfies ONSET. That is, both constraints do not only have to share an argument, they also have to be assessible with regard to the argument, that is the argument has to be in the focus of both constraints. In our particular case this means that only the consonant which satisfies onset by being an onset is also in the focus of the implicational coordination.


87

The assumption of local conjunctions alone is exposed to the criticism already that any constraint might be conjoined with any other constraint, since this calls into being an enormous number of undesired, even purposeless complex constraints. This situation gets worse if we adopt the assumption that there are several different ways in which constraints can be coordinated. The situation becomes less chaotic under the shared argument criterion, and the further assumption of the most possibly restricted argument focus. These restrictions are similar in spirit to the proposal by àubowicz (1999), who posits a restriction to the smallest possible domain, and to the restriction of co-relevance by Bakoviü (2000), which states that coordinated constraints have to be corelevant (i.e., share an argument). Another proposal made by Bakoviü is the numerical limit of constraints within one coordination. He proposes that the maximally complex constraint consists of two simplex constraints. However, we will see in the analysis of transparent vowels that unfortunately this last restriction is not tenable unless we pay for this strictness by using additional more complex theoretical devices. Having the basics of the theory introduced now it is time to see how the complex patterns of vowel harmony can be addressed with this device.

Chapter 3 Cyclicity and phonological opacity as constraint coordination and positional faithfulness Within Optimality Theory alone there have been numerous proposals on how to deal with the peculiarities of vowel harmony. In this book, I attempt to give an account of the central issues of vowel harmony, which are related to the discussion on derivationalism, with a maximally reduced theoretical inventory, and, nonetheless try to extrapolate generalisations which were not possible under previous accounts. For this reason, and reasons connected with the respective proposals in the literature I will avoid the following theoretical assumptions: – Vocalic assimilation as an extension of the alignment scheme (Smolensky 1993, Kirchner 1993, Pulleyblank 1996 and many others). – Crucial underspecification in output structure to account for transparent vowels (as proposed by Ringen and Vago 1998 for Hungarian); – Floating features to account for Trojan vowels (as proposed by Ringen and Vago 1998 for Hungarian); – Unexpressed feature domains in surface structure, i.e., non-surface true analyses of output forms to account for Trojan vowels (as proposed by Cole and Kisseberth 1995 for Yawelmani phonological opacity); – Sympathy Theory to account for phonological opacity (transparent, Trojan vowels, McCarthy 1999, Bakoviü 2000);

90

Cyclicity and phonological opacity

– Stem-Affixed-Form-Faithfulness or any other variant of Base/Output-Output Correspondence to account for cyclicity (proposed by Bakoviü 2000 to account for root control); – Serialist evaluations, or any kind of serialism at all; – Targeted constraints and cumulative candidate evaluation (as proposed by Bakoviü 2000, Bakoviü and Wilson 2000 to account for transparent vowels). The proposals listed here will be subject to a more detailed discussion in the respective sections where single languages are examined with respect to their individual vowel harmonic patterns. The choice on the formalisation of assimilation was discussed already in the introductory section on the treatment of assimilation in general in Optimality Theory. I will now move on to schematically explain the techniques I will use in the second part of this book to analyse the characteristics of vowel harmony at stake. First I will explain how positional faithfulness can model root control. The behaviour of opaque vowels falls out automatically from this. The second issue to be addressed is the explanation of asymmetries in the distribution of vowels within the word in terms of an extended interpretation of anchoring constraints, which in essence again boils down to an extension of positional faithfulness, exploring the device of logical conjunction of constraints made by Crowhurst and Hewitt (1997). After this I will consider transparent vowels as the effect of a local conjunction of harmony constraints with dissimilatory constraints and with markedness constraints. Then, the constraint conjunction approach is extended to the explanation of Trojan vowels. 3.1

Morphological control as a matter of integrity

The most common type of vowel harmony found in the world is that where feature specifications of roots are extended on affixes, and opaque affixal feature specifications are extended onto more peripheral affix vowels, but never on root vowels. Furthermore, a vowel, which is inbetween a potentially triggering root vowel and an opaque affix vowel always surfaces with the feature specifi-

Morphological control as integrity

91

cation of the adjacent root vowel, never with that of the affix vowel to the other side. The chart in (91) illustrates this observation. Form (b) where the medial vowel between a trigger in the root and another trigger in an affix agrees with the affix is no attested form in languages displaying root control. In root controlled systems we always find the pattern in (c). The target in the middle agrees with the root. Form (d) is possible in dominant systems. In this type of harmony it does not matter in which type of morpheme the vowel bearing the triggering feature specification is found. If the dominant feature is found in the root, it colours the whole word (except resistent vowels, i.e., opaque and transparent vowels), if it is in an affix it does so as well. (91) The medial vowel between root and opaque vowel /root+af+Ef+af/ a. rootafEfaf no harmony b. rootefEfef illicit in root control, possible under dominance c. rootofEfef root control d. reetefEfef dominance e. reetefEfaf affix control The only configuration in which pattern (91b) can emerge is in a dominant system with an opaque vowel with the recessive feature in the stem. The form in (91e) is the expected form under affix control. The righmost affix vowel withstands harmony and the opaque affix vowel determines the fate of the rest of the vowels in the word. Under the positional faithfulness account, special emphasis was given to IO-Identity constraints. With the distinction of IO-Identity for roots versus general Identity constraints many phenomena can be explained, but, as Bakoviü (2000) argues convincingly, not the asymmetry between stem and affix vowels in root controlled vowel harmony. (92) Positional Faithfulness:

IO-IDENTRoot >> IO-IDENT

How positional Identity constraints fail to account for root control in vowel harmony is illustrated by the hypothetical case in tableau (93) once more (but see also the discussion of Beckman's account in the preceding section). The crucial point is the fate of the vowel in the first affix. Positional identity constraints make no decision on the quality of this vowel. It may

92


surface in agreement with the root vowel (candidate e) as well as in agreement with the opaque vowel of the affix to its right (candidate d). Candidate (d) is the one which has to be generally excluded as a possible output. Note that the harmony constraint S-IDENT(F) makes no decision either, since, in contrast to the abandoned feature alignment constraints, it says nothing about the preferred direction of assimilation. (93) Positional faithfulness and the medial vowel MARKEDNESS IDENTroot root+af+Ef+af a. rootofOfof *! b. reetefEfef *! c. rootafOfof 0 ) d. rootefEfef / ) e. rootofEfef

S-IDENT

IDENT

**! * *

*** *** * ** **

Faithfulness is not limited to the family of Identity constraints, however. McCarthy and Prince (1995:372) propose the faithfulness constraint INTEGRITY to exclude an input from mapping to several outputs (as in gemination, diphthongisation or reduplication), as cited in (94). (94) INTEGRITY — "No Breaking" No element of S1 has multiple correspondents in S2. For x ∈ S1 and w, z ∈ S2, if x ℜw and x ℜz, then w = z. The same concept finds its expression in Lamontagne and Rice's (1995: 218) *MC constraint, given in (95). (95) *Multiple Correspondence (*MC) Elements of the input and the output stand in a one-to-one correspondence relationship with each other. A basic defining element of both constraints is the notion "element". What is meant by "element" by McCarthy and Prince is in fact the "segment", but an element may also be a feature. Lamontagne and Rice (1995) interpret the integrity constraint or *MC as being violated by the redistribution of features to more than one segment as well. "This constraint [*MC] maintains the integrity of a segment by requiring that the Root nodes of the input and output correspond. This in turn prevents the redistribution of input features to other root nodes..." (Lamontagne and Rice 1995: 218). Being basically


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concerned with the analysis of coalescence they refer to the root node providing that either all features are redistributed or none. However, they also consider *MC to be violated in case only one feature is redistributed on two or more segments in the output. To capture this *MC or INTEGRITY can in principle be extended to INTEGRITY(feature), as proposed in Krämer (2001). (96) INTEGRITY(F) — "No assimilation" No feature of S1 has multiple correspondents in S2. Under the premise that assimilation is a syntagmatic correspondence effect, all assimilated feature bearers are at least in indirect correspondence with the underlying feature specification of the triggering element. (97) Indirect correspondence of [+F]1 and [+F]2' over [+F]1': Output: V[+F]1' V[+F]2' Input:

V[+F]1

V[-F]2

V[+F]3' V[-F]3

If the indirect correspondents are counted as well, INTEGRITY(F) is violated by an output such as that in (97), because the constraint says each feature should have maximally one correspondent. Underlying [+F]1 has three surface correspondents in (97). If [+F]1 stands in correspondence with [+F]1', and [+F]1' corresponds with [+F]2', then [+F]2' is a correspondent of [+F]1 as well. The same holds for [+F]3' with respect to [+F]1. The effect of such a constraint is that assimilated candidates are generally judged as worse than candidates which lack assimilation. INTEGRITY(F) stands in direct conflict with S-IDENTITY(F). Now we could simply assume that INTEGRITY(F) has a positional variant INTEGRITY(F)root, but this would not properly describe the real situation since this predicts that roots are less prone to trigger assimilation than are functional elements. The reality is the inversed situation as we know from the behaviour of the vowel between two triggering vowels of which one is an affix vowel and the other a root vowel. From the perspective of the trigger, assimilation is a prominence increasing operation. The trigger extends its characteristics to other elements which are connected to it. The prominence of the target on the other hand is reduced in that its genuine feature profile is altered. Positional faithfulness is motivated by the assumption that it is somehow prominent elements or elements in promi-

94


nent (prosodic) positions which are protected by positional faithfulness which increases their perceptibility. This makes sense for the special status of stems, since in an utterance where a hearer can identify all the affixes properly but the identity of the root is uncertain an interpretation is impossible or at least difficult. An utterance might be understandable if the functional elements are left out, but not if there are no lexical elements, to tell which event the speaker refers to and who is involved in the event etc. The INTEGRITY(F) constraint is a constraint against prominence augmentation. Therefore, in this special case the relation lexical ~ functional element has to be inversed to make sure that the prominence of stems can increase in output forms. (98) Positional Integrity: a. INTEGRITY(F)Affix No feature of an affix in an input has multiple correspondents in the output. b. INTEGRITY(F)Root No feature of a root in an input has multiple correspondents in the output. c. Universally preferred ranking: INTEGRITY(F)Affix >> INTEGRITY(F)Root The distinction of INTEGRITY(F) into affix integrity and lexical integrity covers the above observation with regard to vowel harmony: Among the languages of the world languages where affixes systematically control harmony are extremely rare, while root control is the rule. In most cases harmony is either controlled by a dominant feature or by the root. Nevertheless, the ranking of S-IDENT above INTEGRITY(F)Affix, which is automatically ranked above INTEGRITY(F)Root for conceptual reasons, naturally allows active participation of affixes as well as root control in harmonic systems.34 However, affixes are usually not referred to in positional faithfulness constraints. Of the two categories it is the stem which is prominent, not the affix. This prominence relation (i.e. root > affix) is captured in this special instantiation of positional faithfulness (i.e. INTEGRITY) by reference to the affix (or functional element) as well. It is the less prominent element to which the usually higher ranked prominence decreas-


95

ing constraint refers, while non-affixes may be allowed more easily to increase their prominence in violation of lower ranking INTEGRITYroot.

INTEGRITY Root

IDENT

S-

IO-ID Root

IO-IDENT

rootofOfof reetefEfef rootafOfof rootefEfef rootofEfef rootafafaf

INTEGRITY Affix

a. b. c. d. ) e. f.

NESS

root+af+Ef+af

MARKED-

(99) Root control as a matter of integrity

*** * **! * **!

*** *** * ** ** *

*** *** * ** *

*! *! **! * * *

If IO-Identity were the decisive constraint, harmony could not change a majority of identical feature specifications to that of a minority. It is often specification of only one vowel which overwrites those of all others. A proposal to avoid that the majority shapes an output is made by Lombardi (1999) in that Identity violations may not be counted individually but rather generically. Another proposal is that of Bakoviü (2000) who attributes the absence of majority rule cases to a universally present constraint conjunction of markedness with faithfulness. Another nontrivial question is why the structural equivalents of candidate (99d) lose in all attested languages, as the medial vowel always assimilates to the root vowel in root controlled systems. In Bakoviü's proposal this is due to additional base-output faithfulness of the root plus the inner affix. Since I reject base-output faithfulness, in my view the fate of the medial vowel is determined by the ranking of Integrity constraints in (100b), which is a determining part of root controlled harmony systems. (100) Favoured Faithfulness relations a. IO-IDENTRoot >> IO-IDENT b. INTEGRITYAffix >> INTEGRITYRoot One advantage of this analysis is that superficially unrelated phenomena like coalescence, gemination, and harmony can be shown to be influenced

96


by one uniting factor, the Integrity constraint (or *MC in Lamontagne and Rice's terminology). Another peculiarity which becomes obvious from tableau (99) is that if root identity is ranked below S-Identity, the (here unspecified) markedness constraint triggers dominant harmony. I will follow Bakoviü (2000) here in assuming that dominance is triggered by the local conjunction of a markedness constraint on a particular feature specification with the IO-Identity constraint for that feature. (101) Dominance as local conjunction a. *[+F]&lIO-IDENT(F) b. *[+F]&lIO-IDENT(F) >> S-IDENT(F) These general considerations regarding morphological control and dominance should suffice for the moment. The issue will be discussed further in the sections on Turkish, Dҽgҽma, Diola Fogni, and Pulaar. 3.2

Asymmetries and anchoring

Many languages with root controlled harmony additionally show asymmetric cooccurrence patterns within words which cannot be derived from the Integrity meta-ranking developed above. There is furthermore a close relation between vowel co-occurrence patterns and the direction of affixation. The vowel which triggers harmony is usually situated at the opposite side of the root than that of affixation. If we have rightward affixation, the trigger is at the left edge of the root, if affixation goes to the left, the trigger is usually at the right edge of the root. Moreover, in many languages, a greater variety of vowels is permitted at the side of the root, where no affixes are attached. Beckman (1998) lists a number of such edge faithfulness effects for the leftmost syllable. Turkic languages show a tendency to have low rounded vowels preferably in the first syllable. In all other syllables low vowels are unrounded. Stems with low rounded vowels in the second or third syllable are usually loan words. Hungarian has mid front rounded vowels in noninitial syllables only as an effect of harmony. Tamil has no mid vowels and no round vowels in non-initial syllables, while these are readily allowed in initial syllables. Shona has mid vowels in non-initial syllables only as an effect of harmony. All these languages are suffixing languages.


97

In Yoruba, which is a prefixing language, and which has ATR harmony, mid vowels in non-final syllables always have their ATR specification from the vowel in the final syllable. The low vowel is opaque. Mid vowels to the left of that vowel have to agree with the low vowel in ATR. Those mid vowels which are in the last syllable of the root can be disharmonic with the preceding low or high vowel with regard to ATR. On the basis of phonological as well as psycholinguistic data, Beckman argues for a particular faithfulness constraint IO-IDENTσ1. This constraint guards featural faithfulness of the first syllable in a root to its underlying material. I will base my analysis of asymmetries on that account, but will slightly modify her view of positional faithfulness in claiming that it is right or left edge faithfulness which does not only shape these asymmetries but also accounts for the connection of such asymmetries with the direction of affixation. The chart in (102), in particular (e,f) illustrate hypothetical forms with ATR harmony that one would not expect to find. The trigger of assimilation is in the middle of the word under root control here.35 An opaque vowel may cause disharmony to one side of it (102d), but neither cause the initial element of the word in a suffixing language to assimilate (102e), nor trigger assimilation in the root final element in a prefixing language (102f). That is, the direction of assimilation is connected to the direction of affixation somehow. This connection is exactly what the positional faithfulness/markedness approach (Beckman 1995, 1997, 1998) and alignment approaches to harmony lack, and which I will account for in this book. (102) Hypothetical cases of root control: /Ab(+ opaS/ a. → o p n -be strictly left-to-right (e.g. Wolof) b. → b(- op a strictly right-to-left (e.g. Yoruba) c. → o p a-b( left-to-right with opaque vowel d. → be- o p a disharmonic root, affix harmony e. → *op a -b( unattested in root-controlled system f. → *b H- o p n unattested in root-controlled system Both parameters (directionality of affixation and of harmony) can be derived if one assumes the elements at the root edge to which no affixes are attached to be subject to particularly strong faithfulness constraints. In the following I will explain the technical details of a unified morphophonological analysis of the interdependence of vowel harmony and affixation in

98


languages with root controlled harmony. This analysis crucially relies on the Anchoring constraint family, which was introduced in section 2.2 (see the definition in 49). To date, this constraint family has been interpreted in terms of segments. If a segment is for example at the left edge of a root in the underlying form, it should also be at the left edge of the word in the surface form. Otherwise Left-ANCHOR would be violated. If this constraint is ranked high, while Right-ANCHOR is ranked lower, the result is strict suffixation in the language with this ranking. Anchoring constraints are a combination of Alignment with faithfulness constraints, because it is not only important that the designated edges are matched, as with Alignment constraints, but also that the element referred to is mapped to the surface representation. If the crucial element is simply skipped in one representation, ANCHOR is violated likewise, which is a faithfulness effect. A crucial question for the analysis is now whether the faithfulness requirement referred to in Anchoring constraints covers the dimension of featural identity too. In my opinion it should. One technical variant to achieve this is to incorporate Identity into the Anchoring correspondence relation, via "local disjunction" or logical conjunction of ANCHOR and IDENTITY(F). Logically seen this is a conjunction, since both sentences have to be true to make the whole statement be true. Note that local conjunctions in the sence of Prince and Smolensky (1993), Smolensky (1993, 1995), and àubowicz (1999) are interpreted in the following way: Of the two generalisations expressed by constraint 1 and constraint 2, at least one has to be true, i.e., one constraint has to be satisfied to satisfy the coordination of constraint 1 and constraint 2. Logically seen this is a disjunction of two sentences. As outlined in the preceding chapter, it is however possible to combine two constraints in the form that both have to be satisfied in order to satisfy the complex constraint within a local domain (see Wunderlich and Lakämper 2001 for an application of this idea to case marking). (103) Local constraint disjunction or logical conjunction (LCD) a. Definition Local disjunction is an operation on the constraint set forming composite constraints: Let C1 and C2 be members of the constraint set CON. Then their local disjunction (logical conjunction) C1∧lC2 is also a member of CON.


99

b. Condition on arguments Both constraints share their argument(s). c. Interpretation The local disjunction C1∧lC2 is violated iff either C1 or C2 or both are violated in some domain δ, to which both constraints apply (in the sense of b). It is crucial, however, that both constraints apply within the specified domain. Consider in this respect anchoring constraints. These constraints crucially refer to the edges of given structures in the input and the output. If we combine an anchoring constraint with an Identity constraint, we get the following: (104) Positional faithfulness as LCD a. L-ANCHOR(root, pwd): The left edge of the root corresponds to the left edge of the prosodic word. b. IO-IDENT(voice): Consonants have identical specifications in input and output. c. L-ANCHOR∧lIO-IDENT(voice): The left edge of the root corresponds to the left edge of the prosodic word, and the left edge of the root has the same specification of the feature [voice] as the left edge of the prosodic word. If the LCD in (104c) is important in a language, we have a language which probably has a voicing contrast in the first segment of the root only, and which is strictly suffixing. The L-ANCHOR constraint is violated whenever a candidate has some structure at the left edge of the prosodic word which is not at the left edge of the root, for instance affixes or epenthetic elements. The Identity constraint is violated when the correspondent of the root at the left edge of the prosodic word is not identical with its input in voicing. The LCD is satisfied only if a segment that corresponds to the criteria of being at the left edge of the root in the input meets the requirements of both constraints. For the interpretation of the LCD, argument sharing is indispensable. Otherwise, the constraint combination would result in simple promotion of both constraints, which might be undesirable in a grammar for independent reasons. For illustration let us consider a hypothetical case

100


of a language where all intervocalic consonants are voiced and word-final consonants are devoiced, while the voicing contrast is maintained only word-initially. Consider the hypothetical input /bat + -eg/. (105) A hypothetical language /bat + eg/ L-A∧lIO-ID a. bateg b. patek *! ) c. badek d. padek *! e. egbat *! f. ekpat *!

*VC[-voi]V

*[+voi]

*! *

** ** * **

IO-ID(voi)

** ** *** **

The LCD of L-ANCHOR and IO-Identity rules out all candidates with prefixation (e,f), because in these forms the left edge of the root and the word do not coincide. Candidates (b, d) are suboptimal because they violate the high ranking LCD by their unfaithfulness to the underlying voicing specification of the segment targeted by the LCD. We can extend this LCD as a constraint scheme now, since the features referred to are interchangeable or even all features. As a general constraint, we can attribute a language's choice between predominating suffixation and prefixation as an effect of extended Left-Anchoring or extended R-Anchoring, respectively. (106) Affixation as RIGHT/LEFT-ANCHORING: R/L-ANCHOR(root, pwd): Any element at the right/left edge of the root has a correspondent at the right/left edge of the prosodic word. (107) {R/L-ANCHOR ∧ IO-IDENT(F)}: Complex constraint is violated if minimally one of the two constraints is violated by an element, which is subject to both constraints, i.e. in the local domain. If two constraints are locally 'disjoined' this means that any local domain must satisfy both constraints. This combination is different from ranking both disjoint constraints highly in that only those double constraint violations are counted which are incurred within the same domain. Traditionally this domain has been the segment. In the account developed here I will treat the mapping of segments to edges not strictly in order to be able to refer to the first/last vowel in a root as well. Thus, I will refer to the edge-


101

most syllable here, like Beckman (1998) does for the IO-IDENT-σ1 constraint. In case of disjunction of L/R-ANCHOR with any other constraint it is of course only those consonants/vowels which are affected by the ANCHOR constraint as well as the other constraint that are subject to the local disjunction. Any material in a (potential) syllable which is not at the designated periphery mentioned in the Anchoring constraint in S1 is excluded. In the case of R-ANCHOR(root, pwd) all consonants/ vowels vacuously satisfy the local disjunction which are not at the right root edge in their underlying form. Whether we have to treat this affixation parameter as a local disjunction or as a simplex constraint may be subject to further research. For the current purposes I will refer to this strong edge faithfulness as given in (108) and (109). (108) Suffixation as LEFT-ANCHORING (i.e. Local disjunction): LEFT-ANCHOR(root, pwd): The leftmost consonant/vowel of the root has an identical correspondent in the leftmost consonant/vowel of the prosodic word. (109) Prefixation as RIGHT-ANCHORING (i.e. Local disjunction): RIGHT-ANCHOR(root, pwd): Any consonant/vowel at the right edge of the root has an identical correspondent in the rightmost consonant/vowel of the prosodic word. In tableau (110) the possibilities to violate Left-ANCHOR are summarised. The mirror image holds for Right-ANCHOR. (110) Violation and satisfaction of R/L-ANCHOR: /CV1CV2Croot +VC +VCV/ L-ANCHOR a. VCV-CV1CV2C-VC * (left root edge is not aligned with left word edge) b. CV3CV2C-VC-VCV * (leftmost root vowel is not identical to leftmost vowel of the word) c. CV2C-VC-VCV * (leftmost part of root is not mapped to surface form) d. CV1CV2C-VC-VCV 9 (perfect anchoring and identity at left root/word edge) (RIGHT-ANCHOR mutatis mutandis)

102


Strong faithfulness to a particular morphological edge now provides us with an explanation for the triggering capacity of the leftmost vowel in suffixing languages (like Shona, Beckman 1995) and that of the rightmost root vowel in prefixing languages (like Yoruba, see below). A ranking of L/R-ANCHOR above the relevant markedness constraints, which in turn outrank general faithfulness yields the licensing asymmetries observed by Beckman and others. (111) Left edge asymmetry ranking: L-ANCHOR >> MARKEDNESS >> FAITHFULNESS A language with prefixation and asymmetries in vowel cooccurrence patterns is characterised by the ranking in (112). (112) Right edge asymmetries: R-ANCHOR >> MARKEDNESS >> FAITHFULNESS Beckman (1998) assumes that such a constraint inventory, consisting of positional faithfulness, general faithfulness and markedness constraints is sufficient to account for vowel harmonies like that of Shona. In the next section, dealing with vowel transparency, we will see one more reason why additional harmony constraints are needed. Beckman introduces and motivates a positional faithfulness constraint on the left edge of roots, IO-IDENTσ1. Given Clements' (2000) and Bakoviü's (2000) observation that prefix vowels never act as triggers in vowel harmony this restriction of positional faithfulness on roots seems warranted.36 Above we have reformulated the same in a more general way to be able to include prefixing languages as well. However, in the discussion of affix control (chapter 4.6) I will argue that a faithfulness constraint on the right word edge which does not necessarily refer to a morphological category has to exist, while it turns out from the behaviour of prefixes in dominant systems that a morphologically neutral first syllable faithfulness constraint as such is inexistent in Universal Grammar. In most languages, one of these edge anchoring constraints may be ranked highly. The opposite constraint is usually suppressed in the hierarchy. This ranking preference is motivated by its function: increasing the prominence of one word edge. This improves the chances of the hearer to structure an utterance or phrase into words. Ranking both constraints high results in a language without affixation.


103

An additional argument in favour of right edge faithfulness and a refinement are necessary. Such a constraint is motivated empirically also by other phenomena than vowel harmony. In Yapese (Jensen 1977, cit. op Piggott 1999), all word-internal syllables are open. At the right word edge, coda consonants are allowed. Eastern Ojibwa (Bloomfield 1957, cit. op Piggott 1999), for instance, allows only fricatives and nasals in wordinternal codas, but the full consonant inventory is allowed word-finally. Similar patterns can be found in many other languages as well. Such inconsequent patterns of coda neutralisation can be accounted for in a variety of ways (see Piggott 1999). One quite simple account would be to assume positional faithfulness constraints on onsets and on the right word edge, which outrank markedness, which in turn outranks simple faithfulness. (113) Word-internal coda neutralisation: OnsetFAITH, Right-edgeFAITH >> MARKEDNESS/CODACOND >> FAITHFULNESS The result of such a grammar is neutralisation of all codas except those at the right word margin. I will not go into the details of this issue here since it only served to give an idea of possible effects of edge faithfulness. However, elements at the right edge which do not obey otherwise regular markedness restrictions can be either morphologically affiliated with affixes or roots (compare Yoruba and Futankoore Pulaar below). Therefore I propose the following general right edge faithfulness constraint. (114) IO-IDENTRight: Elements at the right edge of a word are identical to their underlying form. After this discussion, I owe the reader an explanation of the claim that the parallel left edge faithfulness constraint IO-IDENTLeft does not exist. Leftedge faithfulness effects are found only in suffixing languages. Furthermore, as noted above, harmony triggered by prefixes is unattested so far. If the constraint IO-IDENTLeft where present in Universal Grammar we would expect to find dominant prefixes. Tableau (115) shows this. In this hypothetical grammar, left edge identity outranks the harmony constraint. Of the three candidates which satisfy the harmony requirement the one is chosen which does so without violating faithfulness to the left edge of the word, which is a prefix in this case. The result is the unattested pattern of prefix-controlled harmony.

104


(115) A potential prefixed trigger (unattested) IO-IDENTLeft S-IDENT /pi1- #pa2# -po3/ a. pi1pa2po3 *!* 0 b. pi1pi2pi3 c. pa1pa2pa3 * d. po1po2po3 *

IO-IDENTroot

* * *

Attributing left-edge faithfulness effects to a logical conjunction of the Left-ANCHOR constraint on roots with a simplex Identity constraint gives us exactly the desired result: Only root material can show strong faithfulness effects at the left edge of the word. Prefixes are excluded from this privilege, because every prefix intervenes between the left root edge and the left word edge. Without a constraint IDENTLeft there is no constraint preferring output forms with prefixes or even proclitics as triggers of harmony. These issues will be discussed in more detail in chapter 4. In the next section, I will outline my proposal of how to account for vowel transparency. 3.3

Vowel transparency as local conjunction

Vowel transparency emerges (but not necessarily) where a potentially harmonic vowel has no alternant, because the particular vowel which would surface in this case is not allowed in the respective language.37 In Finnish, for instance, the nonlow vowels i and e behave as transparent. Would they participate in backness harmony as undergoers as well, they would have to surface as and ), respectively, in words with back vowels only, or they would have to change their height or roundness specification. The vowels and ) never surface in Finnish, neither as independent phonemes nor as the result of phonological processes (a phenomenon known as structure preservation). The same holds for the [-ATR] counterparts of [+ATR] high vowels in languages with ATR harmony and transparent vowels. These vowels cause an imbalance in the phonemic inventory of the language. Where all other vowels of different rounding and height may contrast in backness/ATR, they do not. On the other side, these transparent vowels behave as balanced with respect to their neighbours. The observation is the following: A transparent vowel is always either harmonic with respect to both its non-transparent neighbours or it is disharmonic with respect to both.

Vowel transparency as local conjunction

105

(116) Vowels and their neighbours i. Balance (transparency) a. harmony b. disharmony V ↔ VB ↔ V V ↔ VB ↔ V [αF] [αF] [αF] [αF] [-αF] [αF] ii. Imbalance (opacity) a. harmony V ↔ VI ↔ V [αF] [αF] [αF]

b. disharmony V ↔ VI ↔ V [αF] [-αF] [-αF]

As an alternative to the proposal that harmony permeates through the neutral vowel, one could likewise say that the vowel harmonises with its neighbour to one side if it is harmonic with its neighbour to the other. Disharmony to one side of the neutral vowel is triggered by disharmony to the other side, which is a kind of hidden effect of the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP, Leben 1973, Goldsmith 1976, McCarthy 1986). In the following I will develop the technical aspects of such a generalisation, and explain the role of the OCP in this pattern. The first thing needed for such an account is an OCP constraint which demands dissimilation of two (syllabically or moraically) adjacent vowels. Such a constraint can be found at work in languages like Ainu or Yucatec Maya for instance (Itô 1984, Krämer 1998, 1999, 2001). In these languages, certain vowels dissimilate in backness with their neighbours. In Yucatec, we find an additional morphologically restricted pattern of height dissimilation. The responsible constraints can be formalised as negations of the respective harmony constraints. (117) OCP: *S-IDENTITY(F) (Krämer 2001):38 Let x be a feature bearing unit in representation R and y be any adjacent feature bearing unit in representation R, if x is [αF] then y is not [αF]. A local conjunction of this constraint with the respective harmony constraint is violated by a vowel which is inbetween two other vowels whenever the medial vowel agrees with only one of its neighbours or disagrees with only one of its neighbours.

106


(118) Local conjunction of BALANCE (first version): S-IDENT(F)&l*SIDENT(F): A vowel may exclusively agree with its neighbours or exclusively disagree with its neighbours with respect to feature F. (119) Violation of LC BALANCE I: BALANCE: S-ID(F)&l*S-ID(F)

a. harmonic V[+F] V[+F] V[+F] b. transparent V[+F] V[-F] V[+F] c. opaque V[-F] V[+F] V[+F]

9 9 *

S-ID *S(F) ID(F)

9 ** *

** 9 *

At first sight, such a constraint inventory prefers harmony in languages where S-ID(F) is ranked above its negation *S-ID(F), which should be the usual case in languages displaying vowel harmony. If the identity of an element disharmonically preceding the balanced vowel is furthermore protected by an ANCHOR constraint or root identity, the result is dissimilation also to the other side, which is exactly the pattern which is traditionally understood as transparency. In the account proposed here, the balanced vowel is anything but neutral or transparent. It is particularly active. This activity becomes even more specific in languages which have transparent high vowels and opaque low vowels. For such languages the BALANCE LC is further restricted in that the markedness constraint violated by the transparent vowel, i.e., *[+high] or *[-low] is additionally integrated in the LC as the element triggering the activity of BALANCE. (120) BALANCE: *[-low / +high]&lS-ID(F)&l*S-ID(F) Bakoviü and Wilson (2000) argue that the markedness constraint on high vowels, banning high vowels with retracted tongue root position from surfacing, deserve a special status. According to them the distinction of [+ATR] and [-ATR] in high vowels is perceptually weak. Furthermore, the [-ATR] high vowels are acoustically quite similar to [+ATR] mid vowels, which is why they fuse in many languages and the ATR contrast is eliminated in high vowels. A similar explanation might be suitable for the backness dimension. Back nonlow unrounded vowels, those which a backness harmonic system with transparent vowels lacks, are acoustically not particularly easy to discriminate from their rounded counterparts and from other lower or more centralised vowels.

Trojan vowels and local conjunction

107

The observation to be kept is not simply that high vowels are particularly prone to behave as transparent or balanced, no matter what the harmonising feature is. Low vowels may behave as balanced as well, in case they cause an asymmetry to the vowel inventory with regard to the harmonising feature (as observed in Kinande by Schlindwein 1987). Therefore, it is not the markedness constraint against high vowels with retracted tongue root position which deserves a special status, it is the markedness constraint on vowels which do not have a counterpart with exactly the same feature profile except the specification of the harmonically active feature. The pattern exhibited by Trojan vowels is a peculiarity of surface asymmetric vowels as well. 3.4

Trojan vowels and local conjunction

Trojan vowels are those vowels which exceptionally trigger disharmony in an adjacent potential target of harmony. In many if not most approaches, such vowels are analysed as bearing underlyingly the opposite feature specification than in the surface realisation. The feature change from underlying form to surface form is triggered by restrictions on the vowel inventory. In Hungarian, for instance, back nonlow unrounded vowels are not allowed in surface forms, but they are present underlyingly. As mentioned already in the discussion in the introduction to vowel harmony, the behaviour of such vowels has led to a variety of analyses. I will add one which runs conform with the general account to be presented here. Surface disharmony in my view is triggered whenever a vowel is not faithful to its underlying feature specification. Such an active disharmony is usually conceived of as dissimilation. Dissimilation has been formalised above as the negation of syntagmatic correspondence. In terms of local conjunction we can combine the triggering condition, i.e. IO-IDENT(F) with the constraint responsible for the triggered pattern, i.e. *S-IDENT(F). The constraint IO-IDENT(F) can be said to have a triggering status, because this constraint is always and inevitably violated by vowels which underlyingly bear a feature profile which is generally banned from surfacing in a given language.

108


(121) Local conjunction TROY(F) (first version): IO-IDENT(F)&l*S-IDENT(F) This alone does not suffice since such a local conjunction, if ranked high would cause dissimilation throughout the language. Thus, we have to add a second triggering condition, the markedness constraint which is violated by the unfaithful vowel, *[-low / + high]. (122) Local conjunction TROY(F): *[-low / +high]&lIO-IDENT(F)&l*S-IDENT(F) By this extension, the local conjunction is activated only for those vowels which render the vowel system asymmetric with regard to backness or ATR on the surface, the high vowels in the cases of Hungarian and Yoruba. This makes sense insofar as this local conjunction has a function: It serves to maintain a contrast and a symmetry of the system in underlying forms, which it lacks on the surface. 3.5

Parasitic harmony

Parasitic harmony is for instance height-uniform harmony as found in Yawelmani (see chapter 6.4) or Phuthi (Donnelly 2000). In such a pattern only those vowels agree with regard to a particular feature, which already agree (in most cases lexically) in another feature dimension. Kaun (1994) introduces the constraint UNI[RD] to account for this pattern in height-uniform rounding harmony, which militates against autosegments which do not have a uniform execution mechanism during their articulation span. The constraint looks like the following: (123) UNI[RD]:

a.

[RD]

b.

*[RD]

V

V

V

V

[αH]

[αH]

[αH]

[-αH]

In the approach developed here, reference to autosegmental structures like those above is not necessary. Furthermore, it is not necessary to assume a new constraint to account for uniformity conditions on harmony. Such

Summary

109

patterns can be accounted for by almost the same local conjunction as in the initial proposal for transparent vowels above, the harmony constraint is conjoined with a disharmony constraint. Only the features have to be different in both constraints. If the harmony constraint refers to the feature rounding while the disharmony constraint refers to the feature height, and furthermore IO-Identity on height is assumed to be more important than IOIdentity of rounding, we get the desired result. (124) Local conjunction of UNIFORMVH: S-IDENT(F1)&l*S-IDENT(F2) In the local conjunction on BALANCE, two conflicting constraints on the same feature attracted each other. In this case it is two conflicting constraints on different dimensions of the feature matrix, which are conjoined. I will use this LC lateron in the analysis of Yawelmani harmony. Further research will have to show why it is the height features which are involved as the uniformity condition so often, and which other features can take on this role as well. 3.6

Summary

In this section I have laid out the technical aspects of the theory which I propose to analyse vowel harmony. Three points should have become obvious already: Vowel harmony is a prosodically governed phenomenon in the sense that the elements which stand in correspondence are the prosodic units of the mora or that of the syllable. Vowel harmony is also strictly tied to morphology, as can be seen from the connection between asymmetries in vocalic patterns within words and the parametrisation of affixation, which is determined by a positional faithfulness constraint on phonological structure. The third point to be made is that the variation attested in the world's languages regarding the aspects of vowel harmony under discussion can be theoretically accounted for solely by reliance on positional faithfulness and local constraint coordination within Optimality Theory. Of course one could object that the use of the powerful means of constraint coordination opens the doors to arbitrariness. Arbitrariness is avoided here from two angles: the possibilities of constraint coordination are reduced by the shared argument condition (Crowhurst and Hewitt) on the one side and by functional motivation on the other. The latter means that an instance of constraint coordination has to serve a certain higher

110


purpose. Constraint coordination is used in the languages to achieve a higher degree of interpretability, or to compensate an asymmetry of the system by symmetry in another dimension (i.e. for the purpose of elegance) or to maintain a phonemic contrast which would get lost otherwise. The second part of this book will be devoted to the detailed analysis of individual languages of which each serves to illustrate different aspects of vowel harmony.

Part II: Case Studies

Chapter 4 Edge effects and positional integrity 4.1

Introduction

Many languages displaying vowel harmony with root control have affixation only in one direction. The direction of harmony is the same as that of affixation in almost all of these languages (compare the examples of Finnish, Hungarian, Shona, Turkish, Yoruba). Usually the directionality of both processes is not tied to one and the same source in analyses thereof. In this chapter, I attempt to show that there is a reason for this strong correlation, but that the connection of both processes can also be disrupted, as is the case in Futankoore Pulaar, a dialect of Fula. Therefore, the grammatical mechanisms shaping the connection between vowel harmony and morphology must be compositional in nature, as is suggested here by the fusion/coordination of anchoring and identity constraints. The point will be illustrated with the examples of Yoruba, Turkish, Dҽgҽma, Diola Fogni and Futankoore Pulaar. Almost all these languages display root control, while Futankoore Pulaar has affix controlled harmony. The example of Diola Fogni serves to apply the analysis to a case of dominant-recessive harmony. Yoruba has leftward affixation (i.e., prefixation) only, and ATR harmony proceeds from right to left. Disharmony within stems occurs only when a potential target of harmony is situated to the right of an opaque vowel, one which resists harmony. In that case the vowel at the right edge of the word may disagree with the opaque vowel to its left in its ATR specification (see (129b), p. 117). If the same vowel is situated to the left of such an opaque vowel it has to agree with the latter in the feature ATR. Turkish has backness and roundness harmony and rightward affixation (i.e., suffixation) only. In native roots and affixes, the occurrence of nonhigh round vowels is restricted to the leftmost syllable in a word. All following low vowels have to be unround. This is in most respects the mirror image of the Yoruba pattern. Both cases will be explained as the effect of an Anchoring constraint combined with a faithfulness constraint.

114

Edge effects and positional integrity

This analysis has the advantage that it excludes languages with root controlled harmony where harmony is triggered by the vowel which is situated in the root at the side where affixation takes place. The analysis explains furthermore why in strictly suffixing languages regularisation of loanwords is triggered by the vowel in the first syllable in most cases and by the vowel in the last stem syllable in prefixing languages. The Turkish data as well as the Futankoore Pulaar data will also serve to explain "the fate of the medial vowel". Suppose we have a word with a stem containing several vowels and with two or more affixes with a vowel each. If the most peripheral affix has an opaque vowel, one which opens up its own harmony domain, the question arises what happens to the affix vowel between stem and opaque affix vowel. In all languages with root control the medial vowel agrees with the next stem vowel. Under an analysis which does not assume directionality to be a parameter of the harmony constraint itself the medial vowel could also assimilate to the more peripheral opaque affix vowel. The answer to this question lies in the observation that assimilation maximises the perceptual prominence of the morpheme which contains the trigger of assimilation, while it reduces the prominence of the morpheme containing the target of assimilation. Conceptually roots are more important than affixes, which means that they also deserve greater phonological prominence. Technically, the prominence asymmetry between roots and affixes can be described as an effect of positional variants of the constraint against assimilation. McCarthy and Prince (1995) introduced the constraint INTEGRITY, which was defined as a constraint against gemination by disallowing the mapping of one input structure onto more than one output correspondent. If the definition of this constraint is extended to the featural level of structure, it is violated by assimilation, since assimilation is correspondence with the neighbour in the framework developed here, and as such an indirect correspondence relation with the underlying feature of the neighbour which is the trigger of harmony. As a faithfulness constraint, INTEGRITY has a positional variant, which determines the fate of the medial vowel in vowel harmony. The example of Dҽgҽma, which is a language with root controlled ATR harmony and affixation to both sides of the root, serves to show how root control is regulated by positional INTEGRITY in a language where both LeftANCHOR and Right-ANCHOR are ranked very low in the hierarchy.

Yoruba and anchoring

115

Diola Fogni is similar to Dҽgҽma in most respects except that the language displays the dominant-recessive type of harmony instead of root control. This example serves to illustrate how the root control grammar developed before can be neutralised by a local conjunction of markedness with faithfulness (as proposed by Bakoviü 2000) such that ATR dominance results. The last case study shows how in an unorthodox reranking of positional constraints affix control can arise. Before I come to the details of this approach I will show that asymmetries in the cooccurrence patterns of Yoruba vowels are effects of the Anchoring constraint that is also the source of the direction of affixation. 4.2


Yoruba is a language which has only prefixation and displays root-controlled ATR harmony. The Yoruba vowel inventory is given in (125). (125) Yoruba vowel inventory (Pulleyblank 1996: 297) front advanced i high retracted advanced e mid retracted ( advanced low retracted a

back u o o

The system is asymmetric with regard to the harmonic feature ATR, in that the ATR high vowels do not have retracted counterparts. These vowels never alternate with regard to ATR. They don't even alternate with regard to height to make a word more harmonic. High vowels are specific in that they display patterns which are seen as results of derivational opacity in the literature. The second asymmetry is caused by the low vowel, which is retracted and has no counterpart in the system which is [+ATR]. I will postpone the discussion of high vowels to the chapter on Trojan vowels. In this section, I will concentrate on the patterns found with the mid vowels and the low vowel.

116


4.2.1 Harmony and the right word edge in Yoruba If a prefix containing a mid vowel is attached to a root the prefix vowel agrees with the root vowel with regard to ATR, as in (126). In (126a), all root vowels are [+ATR] and the affix vowel o surfaces as [+ATR] too. In (126b), all root vowels are [-ATR] and the same affix vowel now surfaces as retracted as well. (126) Harmony with prefixes a. [o6ewe] 'publisher' [oÎowu] 'jealous person' b. [okos(]

ò/o + /6èwé/ ò/o + /jowú/

'publish a book' 'be jealous'

'person who refuses to ò/o + /ko/ /i6(/ 'refuse' 'message' run errands' (Pulleyblank 1996: 306)

The language has enclitics to the right side of stems. These clitics do not undergo harmony. (127) No harmony with enclitics a. gbàgbé r( 'forget it' b. pè o 'call you'

(Pulleyblank 1996: footnote 7)

In roots containing only mid vowels all vowels agree with regard to ATR. (128) Yoruba words containing only mid vowels a. ATR words b. RTR words ebè 'heap for yams' (s(¼ 'foot' epo 'oil' (¼ko 'pap' olè 'thief' ob(¼ 'soup' owó 'money' oko 'vehicle' (Archangeli and Pulleyblank 1989: 177) With words which contain a low vowel and mid vowels, the situation is more complicated. In words with D in the rightmost syllable, only retracted mid vowels occur (129a). If D is in the first syllable, the mid vowel to the right can be either advanced (129b) or retracted (129c). In the roots with the low retracted vowel followed by an advanced mid vowel, the ATR harmony requirement is ignored.


117

(129) Yoruba roots and positional prominence a. [(ED@ 'food made from gàrí' *[eba] [(gba@ 'whip' *[egba] b. [afe] [awo] [adi]

'Spotted Grass-mouse' 'plate' 'palm-nut oil'

c. [aÎ(@ 'witch' [ab(r(@ 'needle' [a6o] 'cloth' (Pulleyblank 1996: 306)

This pattern has led Archangeli and Pulleyblank (1989) and Pulleyblank (1996) to assume that Yoruba vowel harmony is a directional process applying from the right to the left in a word or satisfying a Left-Alignment constraint, respectively. If harmony operates bidirectionally in other languages (see the discussion of Turkish and Dҽgҽma below), why should it be directional in Yoruba? Furthermore, the alignment approach has been rejected on general grounds above. An argument for a unified analysis of affixation and directionality effects of vowel harmony is the observation that there are no languages in which harmony is systematically triggered by the root vowel at the edge of the root to which no affixes attach (as schematised in chapter 3). 4.2.2 An anchoring analysis of the asymmetry in roots Both parameters (directionality of affixation and of harmony) can be derived if one assumes the elements at the root or stem edge to which no affixes are attached to be subject to particularly strong faithfulness constraints. In Yoruba, prefixation and the harmony pattern are shaped by the constraint in (109), which is a combination of an Anchoring constraint and a featural Identity constraint. The general pattern of this constraint was motivated in section 3.2. (130) Prefixation as RIGHT-ANCHORING (i.e., LCD): RIGHT-ANCHOR(root, pwd): Any syllable at the right edge of the root has an identical correspondent at the right edge of the prosodic word. In Yoruba, as we have seen, retracted as well as advanced mid vowels can stand at the right edge of a word, whether a low (invariably retracted) vowel precedes them or not. To account for this the constraint R-ANCHOR

118


has to rank above the constraint demanding ATR harmony, i.e. SIDENT(ATR). (131) Syntagmatic Identity S-IDENT(ATR): Adjacent syllables are identical in their specification of [±ATR]. Satisfaction of the harmony constraint must be more important in Yoruba than faithfulness to underlying ATR specifications. Otherwise we would observe no harmony at all. This is accounted for by the ranking of SIDENT(ATR) above IO-IDENT(ATR). The invariability of D with regard to ATR is an effect of an undominated markedness constraint against the feature combination [+low, +ATR]. (132) *[+low, +ATR]: Low vowels are not advanced. This markedness constraint has to rank even higher than the Anchoring constraint. The latter is a faithfulness constraint and would eventually cause low advanced vowels to surface at the right edge of words if it were more important than the markedness constraint. Bringing all these assumptions together we arrive at the ranking below. (133) Yoruba ranking: *[+low, +ATR] >> R-ANCHOR >> S-ID(ATR) >> IO-ID(ATR) ... >> L-ANCHOR In tableau (134), the correct output from the underlyingly disharmonic stem afe 'Spotted Grass-mouse' is evaluated against the Yoruba constraint hierarchy. (134) Stem-internal disharmony [afe] 'spotted grass-mouse' /afe/ *[+lo, +ATR] R-ANCHOR S-ID(ATR) IO-ID(ATR) a. af( *! * b. nIH *! * ) c. afe * The most harmonic candidate (a) violates R-ANCHOR, because even though the rightmost vowel of the root is also the rightmost vowel of the word it is unfaithful to its underlying ATR specification. The second candidate is suboptimal in that it violates *[+lo, +ATR]. The only candidate left is


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candidate (c) which is disharmonic but satisfies the highest ranked constraints. Mid vowels to the left of a low vowel have another fate. They are not subject to the R-ANCHOR constraint. For this reason inputs like the one in tableau (135), with a hypothetical advanced mid vowel surface harmonically. The most faithful candidate (a) loses due to its violation of S-IDENT. The next candidate (b) has a low advanced vowel instead of the underlying retracted one. This satisfies S-IDENT, but violates both the markedness constraint against low advanced vowels and R-ANCHOR. (135) Stem-internal harmony from potential disharmonic /egba/ /egba/ *[+lo, +ATR] R-ANCHOR S-ID(ATR) IO-ID(ATR) a. egba *! b. egbn *! * * ) c. (gba * This grammar, which neutralises the ATR contrast in mid vowels before the low vowel, determines the optimal underlying forms of such words. Since the contrast can never surface in this environment, language learners will choose an underlying representation which is as close as possible to the surface form, i.e. /(gba/ is preferred to /egba/. 4.2.3 Harmony, anchoring, and affixation The last pattern to be evaluated is a root plus an affix, to show that this grammar regulates both affixation as well as root or root control quite naturally. For the sake of explanation I posited the input /o + 6(wé/ for the output [ò-6èwé] 'publisher' in tableau (136). In the absence of low vowels the markedness constraint *[+lo, +ATR] is satisfied vacuously by all candidates. Candidates (d-g) fare better on R-ANCHOR than their competitors (a, b, and c). Candidates (a, b) have not matched the right root edge with the right word edge by suffixing the nominalising affix. In candidate (c), the rightmost root vowel is the rightmost vowel of the word, but it is not faithful to the underlying ATR value of this vowel, which makes it odd with regard to R-ANCHOR. The remaining competing forms are candidates (d-g) now. Out of these the one is chosen which satisfies best the harmony constraint S-IDENT.

120


(136) Harmony and affixation [ò-6èwé] 'publisher' *[+lo, +ATR] R-ANCHOR S-ID(ATR) /o + 6(wé/ a. 6èwéo *! * b. 6èwéo *! c. o6(w( *! d. ò6(wé *!* e. o6(wé *! f. o6èwé *! ) g. ò6èwé

IO-ID(ATR)

* ** *

* **

In interaction with the harmony constraint, the constraint R-ANCHOR has regulated affixation and induced root control on the harmony pattern. As was said above I will come back to Yoruba in chapter 6.2. The discussion of previous approaches to Yoruba is postponed until after the analysis of Turkish. The next issue to be pursued is to show the mirror image pattern of root control and prefixation, i.e., a language in which the high ranking of LeftANCHOR has an impact on the surface forms of words. The language under examination is Turkish. With this language I will encounter another problematic issue, which is the right outcome of vowels in the middle of a word which find themselves between a root vowel and an opaque vowel. 4.3

Turkish anchoring and integrity

Turkish has the vowel system given in (137). The system is completely symmetric in that every vowel has a counterpart with the opposite backness or roundness specification. This richness is explored in the Turkish vowel harmony, which covers the features backness and roundness. (137) Turkish vowels high low

round round

front i ü [y] e ö [2]

back Õ [] u a [$] o


121

Even though phonetically the low vowels are not all of the same height, the system is assumed to have only a twofold height distinction by most authors (see van der Hulst and van de Weijer 1991: 12). 4.3.1 Left-anchoring Roundness harmony is restricted in that it is fully operative only among high vowels. This restriction has been described by Kirchner (1993) as an effect of a Markedness constraint which prohibits roundness on nonhigh vowels *[-high, +round]. Since the epenthetic vowel in Turkish is high and the language has only two levels in the height dimension, I would favour the assumption that the marked height is low, and the whole height distinction is encoded by the phonological feature [±low]. So the active markedness constraint should be *LORO / *[+low, +round]. In most Turkish roots, the two vowels o and ö are allowed only in the first syllable. All affixes containing nonhigh vowels have unrounded vowels. The only exception is the progressive marker –yor which I will discuss in 4.3.3. In the current approach, the fact that Turkish is a suffixing language is explained by high ranking of the constraint L-ANCHOR. This results also in particularly strong faithfulness to the vowel at the left edge of roots. (138) Suffixation as LEFT-ANCHORING (i.e., LCD): LEFT-ANCHOR(root, pwd): Any syllable at the left edge of the root has an identical correspondent at the left edge of the prosodic word. If we rank L-ANCHOR above the markedness constraint against low rounded vowels, which in turn is ranked above general IO-Faithfulness, we describe exactly the Turkish pattern: The vowels o and ö emerge in the first syllable only. (139)

L-ANCHOR >> *LORO >> IO-IDENT(round) ... >> R-ANCHOR

The data in (140) show the basic harmony pattern. Affixes containing a low vowel (like the plural marker –ler/lar) agree with the root vowel in backness. Roundness harmony does not take place with these affix vowels as is shown by the nominative plural forms in (140c,d,g,h). High affix vowels agree in backness and roundness with the preceding vowel, regardless

122


whether this is an affix vowel or a root vowel. Compare the genitive singular forms with the genitive plural forms in (140). (140) a. ‘rope’ b. ‘girl’ c. ‘face’ d. ‘stamp’ e. ‘hand’ f. ‘stalk’ g. ‘village’ h. ‘end’

nom.sg. ip kÕz yüz pul elj sap kjöy son

nom.pl. ip-ljer kÕz-lar yüz-ljer pul-lar elj-ljer sap-lar kjöy-ljer son-lar

gen.sg. gen.pl. ip-in ip-ljer-in kÕz-Õn kÕz-lar-Õn yüz-ün yüz-ljer-in pul-un pul-lar-Õn elj-in elj-ljer-in sap-Õn sap-lar-Õn j k öy-ün kjöy-ljer-in son-un son-lar-Õn (Clements and Sezer 1982: 216)

Tableau (141) shows the Turkish harmony grammar at work and illustrates what would happen to a hypothetical underlyingly rounded low vowel in an affix. (141) Turkish kjöy-ljer 'villages' from hypothetical underlying /kjöy-lor/ IO-ID(rd) /kjöy -ljor/ L-ANCHOR *LORO S-ID(bk,rd) a. kjöyljor **! *(bk) b. kjöyljör **! * c. kjeyljer *! *** ) d. kjöyljer * *(rd) ** The high ranking markedness constraint *LORO sorts out all forms containing low rounded vowels (a,b) except one (d). Candidate (d) violates *LORO by the rounded low vowel in the first syllable, but it fares better with regard to Left-ANCHOR than its competitor (c). Candidate (c) has an unrounded first vowel in satisfaction of *LORO, but this first root vowel is subject to Left-ANCHOR. Unfaithfulness to roundness in the leftmost syllable of the root violates this constraint. All other underlyingly rounded low vowels trivially satisfy Left-ANCHOR, because they are not at the left root edge underlyingly. Their input-output mapping is therefore determined by *LORO. Since *LORO is more important than S-IDENT(rd), disharmony with regard to roundness is readily accepted by the output mapping from a potential harmonic input like /kjöy-lor/. Assuming an input like /-lor/ for the affix demonstrates that the shape of the vowel in question is completely determined by the grammar, except for


123

its height. The underlying roundness specification of suffix vowels is in fact irrelevant to the output. For reasons of lexical economy such vowels might end up as being stored underspecified with respect to roundness and backness in the lexicon. Underspecification in non-initial syllables, however, cannot be regarded as the reason for the pattern under the 'richness of the base' hypothesis (Prince and Smolensky 1993), but rather as a side effect. We have now seen why Turkish low vowels are opaque to rounding harmony. A question that arises is what happens to a potentially harmonic vowel if it is inbetween a round root vowel and an opaque unrounded vowel. 4.3.2 Root control and Integrity In root controlled systems the outcome is always the same: The fate of the medial vowel is determined by the stem vowel, never by the affix vowel. This is illustrated for Turkish by the data in (142). The high vowel of the causative suffix is embedded between rounded as well as unrounded root vowels to its left and the unrounded opaque low vowel in the affix to its right. The low affix vowel is opaque to rounding harmony only. The interesting cases are (142b,c), where the potential undergoer of rounding harmony has a rounded vowel to the left and an unrounded vowel to the right. The medial vowel surfaces with the roundness specification of the vowel to its left, that of the root vowel. The opaque low affix vowel determines only the rounding quality of its neighbour to the right. (142) Turkish medial vowels with conditional suffix a. gel-dir-sej-di 'come (caus-cond-past)' b. dur-dur-saj-d 'stand (caus-cond-past)'

*dur-dr-saj-d

c. gyl-dyr-sej-di

*gyl-dir-sej-di

'laugh (caus-cond-past)'

d. at6-dr-saj-d 'open (caus-cond-past)'

(Bakoviü 2000: 81)

The harmony grammar developed so far, relying on L-Anchoring, IOfaithfulness, and a directionless harmony constraint theoretically allows for both, assimilation to the root vowel or to the affix vowel. With the input

124


structures assumed in (143), the lowly ranked faithfulness constraints choose the wrong output among the two most harmonic candidates (c,d), which do not violate L-ANCHOR (as done by candidate e). (143) Turkish durRoot-durAffix-sajAffix-dAffix 'stand (caus-cond-past)' L-ANCHOR S-ID(bk, rd) IO-ID(rd) IO-ID(bk) /dur -dir -sej -du/ a. durdirsejdu **! ** b. durdirsejdi **! * * ) c. durdrsajd *(rd) * ** / d. durdursajd *(rd) **! ** e. dirdirsejdi *! ** ** In the case we assume fully specified underlying representations in the way it was done in (143), IO-Identity decides for the wrong candidate. Of course one could simply stipulate different underlying representations, but this does not save the analysis either. If it is assumed that the alternating vowels are underspecified for the alternating feature, the decision is passed down to markedness. The involved markedness constraint again chooses the wrong candidate, as is shown in the following tableau. (144) Turkish durRoot-durAffix-sajAffix-dAffix /dur -dIr -sAj -dI/ S-ID(bk, rd) IO-ID(bk, rd) ) a. durdrsajd * / b. durdursajd *

...

*[+rd]

* **!

One solution to this dilemma has been seen in the assumption that affixes are not attached simultaneously to a stem but serially. In OT terms this means that we first evaluate a form of a stem plus one affix. This output (whether it exists or not) is the input for affixation with the next morpheme, the opaque one in this case. This has been formalised as Stem-AffixedForm-Faithfulness by Bakoviü (2000). The disadvantage of this solution is that it crucially relies on multiple base-output correspondence. And it is anything but clear whether all postulated bases in languages with rootcontrolled harmonies are actually occurring independent output forms. The second disadvantage is that serialism creeps back into the theory through the backdoor. The proposal I want to make here relies on the division of faithfulness into positional and general faithfulness. McCarthy and Prince (1995) dis-


125

tinguished root faithfulness from affix faithfulness, where root material is more faithful to underlying forms than affix material to increase perceptual prominence of this kind of material. The proposal made here works as follows: Assimilation is a type of prominence maximisation. Prominence maximisation makes sense only for items which deserve that prominence, i.e. stem-like entities. The INTEGRITY constraint by McCarthy and Prince is extended to featural INTEGRITY in Krämer's (2001) proposal and reads as in (96, p.93). Featural INTEGRITY constraints are constraints against assimilation. They prohibit the mapping of an underlying feature specification to more positions in a surface representation than it was associated with underlyingly. A prerequisite to this analysis is that harmony as correspondence is a kind of (indirect) correspondence of an underlying feature with more than one surface anchor. In satisfaction of a harmony constraint, several vowels within one representation stand in correspondence with each other regarding the identity of the specification of a feature [±F]. One of these feature specifications, the one that determines the shape of the others, is usually linked via a faithfulness relation to its underlying correspondent, while the others are unfaithful to their underlying forms. As proposed above, the asymmetry between roots and affixes with regard to their triggering capacity is the result of the two positional variants of INTEGRITY constraints, one demanding integrity of root elements and one demanding integrity of affix elements, and their favoured ranking (98, p.94). The ranking is motivated on conceptual/perceptual grounds. To determine the fate of Turkish medial vowels INTEGRITYAffix has to rank below S-IDENT to allow affix vowels to trigger harmony and it has to rank above IO-IDENTITY. The latter prevents the grammar from a majority rule decision. If INTEGRITY were allowed to rank below IO-IDENTITY, the number of faithfulness violations would decide once more on the optimal output and choose the wrong candidate again. In tableau (145), violations of INTEGRITYRoot are counted whenever the faithful surface correspondent of an underlying root feature specification is adopted by another vowel in satisfaction of S-IDENTITY. INTEGRITYAffix violations are tolerated by this grammar as long as they contribute to optimisation of the candidate with respect to S-IDENTITY. Of the two candidates (b,c) which tie on S-IDENTITY, and do not violate higher ranked constraints the one is preferred which has optimised performance on S-IDENT on the cost of lower ranking

126


INTEGRITYRoot. The one with the violations of INTEGRITYAffix is doomed at this point of the evaluation. (145) Turkish durRoot-durAffix-sajAffix-dAffix as a question of integrity /dur -dir -sej -di/ a. 1 b. )- c. d.

durdirsejdi durdrsajd durdursajd dirdirsejdi

LS-ID ANCHOR (bk, rd)

**! * * *!

INTEGRITY Affix

*!* **

IO-ID INTEGRITY (bk, rd) Root

*** **** **

*** ****

4.3.3 The exceptions As mentioned above, there are some exceptions to the generalisation that o and ö occur in the first syllable only in Turkish. We find non-initial o's and ö's in a number of stems and in the progressive affix -yor. Let us first have a look at the affix. The suffix –yor invariably surfaces with a rounded low vowel, regardless of the quality of the preceding vowel. Compare in this respect the forms (146a,b), which are harmonic with regard to rounding, with the forms (146c,d), in which the o in the progressive marker causes disharmony. In (146b,c), the o of the progressive also causes disharmony with regard to backness. In all forms the vowel to the right of -yor agrees with the vowel of this affix in backness and roundness, regardless of the quality of the vowel preceding -yor. (146) The Turkish progressive affix a. /koš-I-yor-Im/ → košuyorum 'run (progressive-1sg)' b. /gül-I-yor-Im/ → gülüyorum 'laugh (progressive-1sg)'

/ *gülüyörüm

c. /gel-I-yor-Im/ → geliyorum 'come (progressive-1sg)'

/ *geliyerim

d. /bak-I-yor-Im/ → bakiyorum 'look (progressive-1sg)'

/ *bakiyarim (Clements and Sezer 1982: 231)


127

This affix is idiosyncratic in another respect as well. Stress falls on the syllable preceeding -yor (Lewis 1967: 109). The same generalisation holds for clitics. Usually stress falls on the last syllable of the word in Turkish, no matter how many affixes follow a root (see e.g., van der Hulst and van de Weijer 1991). This is shown in (147). (147) Turkish stress tanº 'know' tan-dºk 'acquaintance' tan-dk-lár 'acquaintances' tan-dk-lar-ºm 'my acquaintances' tan-dk-lar-m-ºz 'our acquaintances' tan-dk-lar-m-z-dán 'from our acquaintances' (van der Hulst and van de Weijer 1991: 15; Kabak and Vogel 2000: 1) The regular stress pattern and the behaviour of -yor with regard to stress give rise to the suspicion that the progressive marker does not belong to the same prosodic word as the root it is attached to. Another indication for this is the fact that the progressive affix historically derives from the full verb yorÕr, the aorist form of ancient yorÕmak (Lewis 1967: 108). All three facts, the occurrence of o, the irregular stress pattern, and the historic origin of the affix lead to the conclusion that verbs containing this affix are structured like compounds. In Turkish compounds, each stem constitutes an autonomous domain of vowel harmony. Stress is assigned to the rightmost syllable of the leftmost member of the compound. Prominence of any other stressed syllable is reduced (van der Hulst and van de Weijer 1991, Kabak and Vogel 2000). The examples in (148) illustrate the stress pattern as well as the observation that each compound member constitutes a single domain of harmony (148b,c). (148) Turkish compound stress a. bá6 + bakán head minister b. at6º angle

+

ölt6-ér measure + Aorist

→ bá6 bakan

'prime minister'

→ at6ºölt6er

'protractor'

128


c. kará black

+

deníz sea

→ karádeniz 'The Black Sea' (Kabak and Vogel 2000: 8)

In the current analysis, the autonomous behaviour of compound members with respect to harmony can be attributed to the high ranking Left-ANCHOR constraint. In (149) the disharmonic compound karádeniz 'the Black Sea' is evaluated. (149) Turkish disharmonic compounds /kara/ + /deniz/ L-ANCHOR a. (karadanz) *! b. (karadeniz) *! c. (kara)(danz) *! ) d. (kara)(deniz)

S-ID(bk, rd)

* *

In candidates (a,b) the Left-ANCHOR constraint is violated because the left edge of the root /deniz/ is not mapped to a prosodic word edge. Candidate (a) commits the additional affront of disagreeing in backness with the underlying form of the second compound member. Candidate (c) has mapped the left edge of each underlying root to the left edge of a prosodic word, but fails as well on L-ANCHOR for its unfaithfulness to the backness of the first vowel in the second root. Here we see that the Left-ANCHOR constraint does not only determine the direction of harmony and affixation and the asymmetry of the distribution of low rounded vowels, but it determines as well the domain in which vowel harmony applies. After this short excursion I come back to the connection between compounds and the progressive marker. I will not go into the particularities of compound stress in Turkish here (see van der Hulst and van de Weijer 1991 or Kabak and Vogel 2000 on this matter), but from this short look at Turkish compounds and their behaviour with respect to stress and harmony it seems obvious that words containing the progressive marker behave like compounds. This results in the structure given in (150). (150) Prosodic structure of geliyorum: [analogous to compounds]

pwd(gelí) pwd(yorum)

If the prosodic structure of Turkish progressives is that in (150), it is no wonder that the grammar allows this affix 'exceptionally' to have an o in non-initial position in a word. The structure in (150) can be derived by the


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regular grammar if we assume that the affix still has the status of a root in its underlying form, even though its semantics is erased so much that it cannot be used independently anymore. Such an assumption is not that exotic. Similar affixes can be found in many other languages. See for instance the analysis of Dutch suffix classes in Grijzenhout and Krämer (2000). Given root status for -yor, the underlying o is protected against neutralisation in satisfaction of *LORO by the high ranking faithfulness constraint L-ANCHOR. By definition this constraint demands that every left root edge coincide with the left edge of a prosodic word. This includes the left edge of -yor as well. Furthermore this constraint demands featural identity of the underlying material with the surface realisation of the leftmost syllable of every root, again including the root-like affix. The second requirement, i.e., identity, does not only explain the exceptional occurrence of o in an affix, but also its capacity of triggering harmony in following affixes. In tableau (151) below, all efforts to incorporate -yor in the prosodic word of the verb root fail because they result in violations of L-ANCHOR (candidates a-c). Since -yor is a root, its left edge, indicated by # in the candidates, has to coincide with the left edge of a prosodic word, indicated by an opening round bracket. Even reversal of the precedence of verb root and affixal root, as in candidate (c) cannot improve performance on the anchoring constraint, since this time it is the left edge of the verb root which is not properly matched with the left word edge. Thus, one prosodic word is not enough for the affix and its host. Even though provided with two prosodic words of which the left edges align with the two crucial root edges, candidate (d) still fails on L-ANCHOR. This is an instance of violation because the o of -yor is neutralised to e, violating the Identity requirement of L-ANCHOR. (151) A Turkish exceptional affix L-ANCHOR *LORO /#gel# +y #jor# +im/ a. (#gely#jorim) *! * b. (#geli#jerim) *! c. (#jor#geliim) *! d. (#geli)(#jerim) *! e. (#geli)(#jorim) * f. (#gelu)(#jorum) *! * ) g. (#geli)(#jorum) * # = root edge; ( ) = prosodic word edges

S-ID(bk, rd)

**** ** ***!* ** **

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Among the last remaining candidates suboptimal form (f) is particularly interesting. In this tableau I calculated constraint violations under the following two assumptions. Syntagmatic correspondence relations are checked over the whole surface string rather than within single prosodic words only (this is why candidate (e) has so many violations of S-Identity). The other assumption is that if the leftmost element of a root has a surface reflex to the left of the prosodic word boundary under which it is parsed this violates L-ANCHOR. In such a case the mapping of leftmost root element and left prosodic word edge is imperfect. In case of harmony between the last vowel of the left prosodic word and the leftmost vowel of the prosodic word on the right exactly this situation is encountered (as in candidate f). The last vowel in the first prosodic word corresponds with the first vowel of the second prosodic word. This means that this latter root vowel though segmentally aligned with the left word edge has a featural correspondent in the preceding word. This renders the root-prosodic word mapping imperfect. With respect to backness and roundness the left edge of the second root does not align with the left edge of the second prosodic word. For this reason candidate (f) incurs a violation of L-ANCHOR, which leaves candidates (e) and (g) as the preferable forms. The choice between these two is left to the harmony constraint. Under this proposal the harmonic behaviour of clitics is accounted for with no further assumptions. Harmony is not restricted to a particular domain in Turkish but rather all vowels agree with the vowel to their left apart from vowels which are root-initial. This satisfaction of S-IDENT includes vowels of postclitics as well. An alternative to the above explanation of the limits of the domain of harmony in a language like Turkish would be to limit the harmony constraint to elements within a specified phonological domain. However, as Kabak and Vogel (in press) point out it is by no means clear which domain this could be. Another issue relevant to the present analysis of Turkish vowel harmony is disharmonic stems. A large number of stems in Turkish do not conform to the harmony requirements. Even worse, some of them violate the generalisation that o/ö occur in the first syllable only. When loans are introduced to Turkish the stems usually remain disharmonic if they are like this in the source language. (152) Turkish disharmonic stems hamsi 'anchovies' fiat anne 'mother' mezat

'price' 'auction'


bobin rozet billur kudret

'spool' 'collar pin' 'crystal' 'power'

sifon peron muzip nemrut

131

'toilet flush' 'railway platform' 'mischievous' 'unsociable' (Kirchner 1993: 2)

Affixes attached to these roots harmonise with the last root vowel. This can be accounted for by simply ranking IO-Identity for roots (IO-IDENTroot) above the harmony constraint S-IDENT and above the markedness constraint against low rounded vowels. (153) Ranking L-ANCHOR, IO-IDENTroot >> *LORO >> S-IDENT(bk), S-IDENT(rd) >> IO-IDENT This grammar predicts unlimited combinations of vowels in roots and the lack of low rounded vowels in affixes. From a synchronic point of view this grammar allows unrestricted combinations of vowels in native roots too. Thus I conclude that the high ranking of IO-IDENTroot is historically an innovation. The constraint must have been subject to promotion with the introduction of a huge number of loan words into the language. This then explains why in older stems vowel combinations are much more restricted. In a historically earlier stage all roots have been subject to the restrictions of the harmony grammar. Since roots do not alternate they have been stored in underlying representations as they occur in surface representations. At the point where IO-IDENTstem became important the native lexicon contained harmonic stems only. At this point we can come back to the issue of disharmonic affixes. Not all disharmonic affixes are prestressing and therefore compound-like. This analysis explains also the behaviour of disharmonic affixes such as the semi-productive Persian borrowing -var ('X-like') which has no alternant *-veri 39 and the other affixes in (154). (154) More Turkish irregular affixes a. ùekspir-vari 'Shakespearian' 'Churchillian' Çörcil-vari James Bond-vari bir casus-luk 'a James-Bond-like case of espionage'

132


b. sekiz-gen-ler þok-gen-ler

'octagonals' 'polygonals'

c. ermen-istan-i mool-istan-i

'Armenia' 'Mongolia'

d. mest-ane dost-ane

'drunkenly' 'friendly'

(Lewis 1967: 66f.)

Polgárdi (1999) analyses those affixes which do not have an irregular stress pattern but are disharmonic nevertheless as forming one synthetic unit with the root. She adopts Kaye's (1995) notion of analytic versus non-analytic morphology. Non-analytic forms behave like underived lexical items while analytic forms can be of two types. Either two concatenated morphemes are assigned one government domain each and both these domains are subsumed under one outer domain or only the first morpheme constitutes a separate domain. The former are compound-like structures while the latter are regularly affixed (inflected) word forms. If we have a closer look at disharmonic affixes one striking feature emerges. They are all derivational affixes. They transfer roots from one lexical category into another. For instance, the affixes -istan and -gen are noun-forming morphemes and -ane forms adverbs. Under the assumption that derivational affixes form a stem together with their host while inflectional affixes are not incorporated into the morphological domain of the stem we arrive at a principled account of irregular affixes. On the basis of this observation the positional Identity constraint can be redefined as referring to stems rather than roots. The vowels in these derivational affixes are subject to IO-IDENTstem and therefore harmony cannot apply to them. (155) /þok -gen -lar/ a. þokganlar b. þokgenlar ) c. þokgenler

IO-IDENTstem

S-IDENT

*!

IO-IDENT

* **! *

*

Under the assumption that disharmonic affixes are treated like stems or stem-forming and constructions with the former affixes are structurally compounds, their disharmonic behaviour is expected. It remains to be

D́ǵma and integrity

133

explored in greater detail whether exactly the same argument holds for all exceptional affixes. In the next section I will show how the INTEGRITY proposal alone accounts for root control in a language with affixation to both sides. 4.4

Dҽgҽma and integrity

Dҽgҽma is a West African language with root controlled ATR harmony. The vowel inventory of Dҽgҽma is completely symmetric, as shown in (156). Every RTR vowel has an ATR counterpart. (156) Dҽgҽma vowel inventory advanced retracted advanced mid retracted advanced low retracted

high

front i , e (

back u 8 o o a

Dҽgҽma allows for affixes to both sides of the root. All affixes agree with the root vowel with regard to ATR. (157) Dҽgҽma vowel harmony Advanced high ù-hír-!ºm 'surrounding' ù-súw-!ºm 'ironing'

Retracted 8¼-,º o¼-8¼

'leaf' 'doctor' 'descending' 'jumping'

mid

è-sén ù-vóy-!ºm

'fish' 'fetching'

8¼-t(ºv-!ám 8¼-soºl-!ám

low

é-d¼

'river'

(¼-nám

'animal, meat' (Pulleyblank et al 1995: 2)

It seems obvious that any Right/Left-ANCHOR constraint on roots plays no role in Dҽgҽma morphophonology. However, root-affix asymmetries like these must not necessarily be attributed to Anchoring. They are fully accounted for by positional INTEGRITY. With a ranking of the harmony

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constraint above the two INTEGRITY constraints, and R/L-ANCHOR(root, pwd) somewhere deep down in the hierarchy, doomed to irrelevance (or not logically conjoined with Identity) the Dҽgҽma pattern is exhaustively described. (158) Dҽgҽma ranking S-IDENT(ATR) >> INTEGRITYAffix >> INTEGRITYRoot, IO-IDENTITY >> ... >> R/L-ANCHOR(root, pwd) The analysis is illustrated by tableau (159), where a hypothetical input form containing a root with a retracted vowel and two affixes with advanced vowels each is evaluated against the crucial Identity and Integrity constraints. (159) Dҽgҽma root control with a hypothetical RTR root plus ATR affixes /ù- t(ºv -!ºm/

S-ID(ATR)

a. ùt(ºv!ºm b. ùtév!ºm ) c. 8¼t(ºv!ám

*!*

INTEGRITY Affix

*!

IO-ID

INTEGRITY Root

* **

* **

In tableau (159), the faithful but disharmonic candidate (a) is ruled out because it violates high ranking S-IDENT(ATR) twice. Candidate (b) is the majority candidate in the sense that it is completely harmonic on the cost of the least number of IO-IDENT(ATR) violations. It has less violations of IOIDENT(ATR) than its competitor (c), but fails on INTEGRITYAffix, in that the medial vowel has acquired the ATR specification of one of the adjacent affix vowels. In this respect candidate (c) is more harmonic. It satisfies INTEGRITYAffix which makes it optimal in comparison with candidate (b). Dҽgҽma is a symmetric system in three respects. The vowel inventory is completely symmetric in underlying representations and on the surface. Every vowel in any dimension of height and backness is present as advanced and as retracted. (Compare in this respect Yoruba, where the high vowels lack a retracted counterpart and the low vowel lacks an advanced counterpart.) Furthermore, R/L-Anchoring constraints play no decisive role in the harmony grammar. Therefore we observe no edge asymmetries. The language is also symmetric with regard to the possible specifications of ATR. Neither [+ATR] nor [-ATR] is the preferred trigger of harmony, which means we find no dominance effect. The only asymmetry in the

Diola Fogni dominance as local conjunction

135

Dҽgҽma pattern is caused by the positional INTEGRITY constraint, which has the effect of a root~affix asymmetry. Harmony is determined by root vowels only. In Bakoviü's analysis of vowel harmony, dominance of one feature specification is brought into the grammar by the local conjunction of the respective markedness constraint with the IO-IDENTITY constraint referring to the same feature. This constraint conjunction would neutralise the effect of INTEGRITYAffix, given its ranking above INTEGRITYAffix. Such a pattern is found in languages like Kalenjin or Diola Fogni. 4.5

Diola Fogni dominance as local conjunction

In the following I will show briefly what happens if the local conjunction *[-ATR]&IO-IDENT(ATR) plays a role in a grammar, as proposed by Bakoviü 2000, drawing on the example of Diola Fogni. Diola Fogni is similar to Dҽgҽma in two respects. It has a completely symmetric vowel system (see 160), and it has affixation to both sides of the root (161). (160) Diola Fogni vowel inventory (Bakoviü 2000: 52) front back advanced i u high retracted , 8 advanced e o mid retracted ( o advanced ) low retracted $ All vowels in a word agree with respect to ATR. If all vowels are RTR underlyingly as in (161a), this is not particularly spectacular. But look at the examples in (161b,c). If only one vowel is ATR underlyingly it determines the ATR quality of all other vowels, regardless of whether the trigger is a root vowel (161b) or an affix vowel (161c). (161) Diola Fogni ATR harmony a. n,- E$M -(n -8 1SG have CAUS 2PL

→ [n,E$M(Q8] 'I have caused you to have'

136


b. n,1SG

jitum -(n -8 lead away CAUS 2PL

→ [nijitumenu] 'I have caused you to be lead away'

c. n,1SG

b$j have

→ [nib)julu] 'I have from you' (Bakoviü 2000: 52)

-ul from

-8 2PL

Such an effect can be described if we insert the local conjunction *[-ATR]&IO-IDENT(ATR) in the basic grammar developed for the case of Dҽgҽma just above INTEGRITYAffix. (162) Diola Fogni ranking: S-IDENT(ATR), *[-ATR]&IO-IDENT(ATR) >> INTEGRITYAffix >> INTEGRITYRoot, IO-IDENTITY In tableau (163), the grammar is shown at work evaluating the crucial case where an affix forces its ATR specification onto the whole word. (163) Diola Fogni dominance /n,- b$j -ul -8/ a. n,b$jul8 b. n,b$j8l8 ) c. nib)julu

SID(ATR)

*[-ATR]& IO-ID(ATR)

INTEGRITY Affix

IO-ID

INTEGRITY Root

* ***

* ***

*!* *! ***

The most faithful candidate does not display full harmony and is therefore sub-optimal in comparison with candidates (b,c). The choice between the root-controlled candidate and the candidate with dominant ATR is made by the local conjunction. Candidate (b) is unfaithful to its underlying specification [+ATR] of the affix vowel /-ul/ in order to be harmonic with the root, which violates IO-IDENT(ATR). Now that this vowel has become [-ATR] in the surface representation it additionally violates the markedness constraint *[-ATR]. Since the same vowel violates both the faithfulness constraint and the markedness constraint, it also violates the local conjunction of both. A single violation of this local conjunction weighs more than three violations of INTEGRITYAffix due to the ranking of both constraints. For this reason, candidate (c) which has no violation of the local conjunction is chosen as optimal, even though harmony is determined by the affix vowel here.

Pulaar affix control as positional faithfulness

137

A case where harmony appears as being entirely affix-driven can be found in Futankoore Pulaar, a dialect of Fula. 4.6


In this section, I will discuss the vowel harmony pattern of Futankoore Pulaar as reported by Paradis (1992). I will argue in particular that this pattern can be accounted for by the above made assumption of one INTEGRITY constraint on affixes or functional elements, and one on roots or lexical elements. To get an understanding of the problem contributed by Pulaar phonology let us first have a closer look at the data. 4.6.1 The data Pulaar has a surface vowel inventory which is exactly the same as that of Yoruba discussed above. (164) Pulaar vowel inventory high mid low

advanced retracted advanced retracted advanced retracted

front i

back u

e (

o o a

Even though we find a seven vowel system at the surface, Paradis proposes to analyse Pulaar as a language having only five vowel phonemes (disregarding length distinctions). The vowels she assumes as underlying are i, u, (, o, and D. With such an inventory, the ATR specification of each vowel should be predictable, which it actually is. High vowels are invariably advanced and the low vowel is invariably retracted. Mid root vowels always surface with the ATR specification contributed by the following affix vowel, as illustrated in (165). In (165a), the affix vowel is advanced and such is the root vowel, while the affix vowel is retracted in the forms in (165b), triggering retraction in the preceding root vowel.

138


(165) Pulaar mid root vowels and harmony40 a. ATR forms b. RTR forms gloss sof-ru cof-on 'chick-SG/-DIM.PL' ser-du s(r-on 'rifle butt-SG/-DIM.PL' m m beel-u b((l-on 'shadow-SG/-DIM.PL' peec-i p((c-on 'slits-CLASS/-DIM.PL' beel-i b((l-on 'puddles-CLASS/-DIM.PL' dog-oo-ru dog-o-w-on 'runner-AG.NOM-CLASS/-AG.NOMDIM.PL' lot-oo-ru lot-o-w-on 'washer-AG.NOM-CLASS/-AG.NOMDIM.PL' (Paradis 1992: 87) (166) Pulaar dominant e and o a. ATR forms b. RTR forms lef-ol lef-el l(f-on keer-ol keer-el k((r-on paÊ-el paÊ-on

'ribbon-CLASS' 'ribbon-DIM.SG / -DIM.PL' 'boundary-CLASS' 'boundary-DIM.SG / -DIM.PL' 'shoe -DIM.SG / -DIM.PL' (Paradis 1992: 1,90)

In (166a), the mid affix vowels have an advanced tongue root, and not even the low root vowel in the last example can change this. In fact, we see now that the tongue root position is predictable for mid vowels everywhere except in the last syllable of the word. In this position it makes a difference whether a mid vowel is underlyingly specified for [-ATR] or [+ATR]. Also high root vowels do not change the ATR specification in retracted mid affix vowels as can be seen in (167), where the mid affix vowels are retracted even in the presence of a high, i.e., advanced root vowel. (167) Pulaar high root vowels and harmony dill-(r( 'riot' *dillere fuy-(r( 'pimple' *fuyere n 'writer' *binndoowo bin d-oo-wo 'small calabashes' *tummbukon tummbu-kon (Paradis 1992: 1, 87) High vowels in affixes trigger tongue root advancement in mid root vowels,


139

but not in mid affix vowels to their right. In sequences of a mid root vowel followed by a high vowel, followed by a mid retracted affix vowel, the high vowel thus behaves as opaque. The retraction of the mid affix vowel cannot pass through the high vowel to the mid root vowel. (168) Pulaar high vowels in affixes a. ATR forms et-ir-d( 'to weigh with' hel-ir-d( 'to break with' Êokk-iÊ-d( 'to become one-eyed' feyy-u-d( 'to fell' b. RTR forms (t-d( h(l-d( Êokk-o f(yy-a

'to weigh' 'to break' 'one-eyed person' 'to fell (imperfective)' (Paradis 1992: 87)

The low vowel determines the ATR specification at least in mid root vowels. Thus, it behaves as opaque as well. (169) The low vowel in Pulaar boot-aa-ri 'lunch' poof-aa-li 'breaths' nodd-aa-li 'call' 1 gor-aa-gu 'courage'

*bootaari *poofaali *noddaali *1goraagu

(Paradis 1992: 88)

The observation to be made in Pulaar is quite obvious: This is neither a system with dominant ATR or RTR, nor is it a root controlled system. Furthermore, the last syllable of the word is resistent to harmony, even though it is usually an affix. In Pulaar, the distinction among ATR and RTR mid vowels is neutralised everywhere except in the last syllable of the word, which usually is part of an affix. By and large, it is the affix vowels which shape the root vowels, not vice versa. This pattern cannot be described as a case of Umlaut, since it is affix vowels of all qualities which trigger alternation, and the alternation affects more than one vowel, preferably the whole word, if no opaque vowels intervene.

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4.6.2 An analysis as affix control As a prerequisite to the analysis, we have to establish a grammar in which the high vowels and the low vowels have a fixed ATR specification. This is accounted for by a grammar in which the markedness constraints *[+hi, -ATR] and *[+lo, +ATR] are ranked above the harmony constraint. (170) Pulaar ranking I: *[+hi, -ATR], *[+lo, +ATR] >> S-IDENT(ATR) The next question is why the rightmost vowel of the word is either resistent to harmony or the trigger. Resistance can be analysed as an effect of a highly ranked IO-Identity constraint on the last vowel, i.e., IOIDENTRight(ATR).41 This constraint has to be dominated by the two markedness constraints, which prohibit a phonemic difference in the ATR specification of high and low vowels to surface. Otherwise the grammar would wrongly predict the occurrence of retracted high vowels and advanced low vowels at the right edge of the word. (171) Pulaar ranking II: *[+hi, -ATR], *[+lo, +ATR] >> IO-IDENTRight(ATR) >> S-IDENT(ATR) >> IO-IDENT(ATR) The high ranking of the Identity constraint on the right edge of the word is unexpected since we would, in such a case, expect prefixation instead of suffixation. Here we find a mismatch between Anchoring and positional faithfulness. (172) Edge mismatch of Anchoring and positional faithfulness: L-ANCHOR(root, pwd), IO-IDENTRight(F) >> ... >> R-ANCHOR(root, pwd), IO-IDENT(F) Since harmony affects the first root syllable as well, I have to conclude that Pulaar has not coordinated the LeftANCHOR constraint and IO-Identity, or that this coordination (if present) is at least lower ranked than the harmony constraint. Left-anchoring plays a role nevertheless, since Pulaar has only suffixes. Hence, the constraint L-ANCHOR, whether coordinated with IOIdentity or not, ranges higher in the hierarchy than the constraint RANCHOR; but both constraints have to be dominated by the other constraints shaping the harmony pattern. Here we find one argument for


141

treating the word edge effects observed in other languages such as Yoruba on the one hand, and Turkish or Finnish (see chapter 5) on the other, as epiphenomena of two coordinated constraints rather than as an effect of one atomar constraint. In Pulaar, the left edge of the root is mapped to the left edge of the word, regardless of Identity violations in the leftmost root syllable. (173) Pulaar ranking III: *[+hi, -ATR], *[+lo, +ATR] >> IO-IDENTRight(ATR) >> S-IDENT(ATR) >> IO-IDENT(ATR), L-ANCHOR >> PARSE(seg, pwd) >> R-ANCHOR The additional ranking of L-ANCHOR above PARSE(seg, pwd), a constraint demanding that segments are incorporated in higher prosodic structure such as the prosodic word, which in turn is more important than R-ANCHOR accounts for the fact that affixes are attached to the right side of the root in Pulaar. This ranking excludes prefixation as well as cliticisation of the grammatical morphemes. This is illustrated in tableau (174). (174) Affixation in Pulaar /sof -ru/ a. b. c. ) d.

(rusof) ru(sof) (sof)ru (sofru)

L-ANCHOR (root, pwd)

PARSE (seg, pwd)

R-ANCHOR (root, pwd)

*! **! **! *

With the above grammar, the basic harmony pattern can be accounted for. In the following I will disregard the lowly ranked constraints considered in tableau (174), since they have no impact on the relevant output candidates whatsoever. In the combination of a mid root vowel with a high affix vowel we cannot determine the underlying ATR specifications of the respective vowels because the outcome is completely determined by the constraints and their ranking. Lexicon Optimization as proposed by Inkelas (1994) would predict that the vowel in the trigger is fully specified underlyingly, since every occurrence of it would violate anti-insertion constraints. Thus, the grammar is more harmonic with a fully specified vowel in the trigger. The root vowel would be underspecified according to the same argument, because it alternates according to the environment (the affix vowel to the

142


right). In Inkelas' reasoning, underlying underspecification saves the alternating output candidates from IO-Identity violations. However, if we assume that IO-Identity is violated by any deviation from underlying configurations (as orginally proposed by McCarthy and Prince 1995), IOIdentity would be violated by output candidates matched to underspecified inputs as well. Furthermore, underspecification would be a side effect of alternation here. Thus, the grammar has to determine the Pulaar pattern regardless of the underlying form of the target vowels. (175) Pulaar mid root vowel plus high affix vowel i. Underspecified vowels in the input /sOf-rU/ a. sofr8 b. sofru ) c. sofru

*[+hi, -ATR]

*[+lo, +ATR]

IO-IDRight (ATR)

S-IDENT (ATR)

IO-ID (ATR)

*!

(**) (**) (**)

IO-IDRight (ATR)

S-IDENT (ATR)

IO-ID (ATR)

* *

*!

* **

*!

ii. Arbitrarily specified target vowels in the input /sof-r8/ a. sofr8 b. sofru ) c. sofru

*[+hi, -ATR]

*[+lo, +ATR]

*!

iii. Less arbitrarily specified target vowels in the input /sof-ru/ a. sofr8 b. sofru ) c. sofru

*[+hi, -ATR]

*!

*[+lo, +ATR]

IO-IDRight (ATR)

S-IDENT (ATR)

IO-ID (ATR)

* *! *

What ever the underlying specification of the vowels in (175) may be, in this case the markedness constraint against high retracted vowels causes assimilation of the mid root vowel to the high affix vowel. In the tableaux (176) and (177) I evaluate forms containing mid vowels only. The difference in the two tableaux lies in the underlying specification of the last vowel. The affix vowel is [-ATR] underlyingly in the affix -on, while it is [+ATR] underlyingly in the affix -el. The ultimate position in the word


143

makes both vowels subject to special faithfulness requirements. In the comparison of the two tableaux we see how the right-edge faithfulness constraint determines the output of the harmony grammar. The underlying ATR quality of the root vowel is again undeterminable. Since class markers are obligatory on Pulaar nouns, there are no isolated surface forms of such roots to give evidence for the underlying specification of their vowel. (176) Pulaar mid vowels and harmony I /lEf-on/

*[+hi, -ATR]

*[+lo, +ATR]

a. lefon b. lefon ) c. l(fon

IO-IDRight (ATR)

S-IDENT (ATR)

*! *!

(177) Pulaar mid vowels and harmony II /lEf-el/

*[+hi, -ATR]

*[+lo, +ATR]

a. l(f(l b. l(fel ) c. lefel

IO-IDRight (ATR)

S-IDENT (ATR)

*! *!

The next pattern to be considered is the combination of a root containing a mid vowel, a low affix vowel and a high affix vowel. In the resulting structure, the root vowel goes conform with the ATR specification of the low affix vowel to its right. Low affix vowel and high affix vowel disagree in ATR. (178) Pulaar mid root vowel plus low vowel plus high vowel /boot-aa-ri/ a. b. c. ) d.

bootaar, boot44ri bootaari bootaari

*[+hi, -ATR]

*[+lo, +ATR]

*!

IO-IDRight (ATR)

S-IDENT (ATR)

* *! **! *

The combination of a low or high root vowel plus a mid affix vowel followed by another affix vowel with the opposite ATR specification than that of the root vowel shows why the almost universal ranking of

144


INTEGRITYAffix over INTEGRITYRoot has to be reversed in Pulaar. Consider in this respect the evaluation of binnd-oo-wo in (179).

a. b. 0 c. / d.

b,nnd-oo-wo binnd-oo-wo binnd-oo-wo binnd-oo-wo

*!

INTEGRITY Root

INTEGRITY Affix

S-ID(ATR)

IO-IDRight (ATR)

*[+hi, -ATR]

/binnd-oo-wo/

*[+lo, +ATR]

(179) The medial vowel in Pulaar I

** *! * *

* *!

The grammar in (178) does not decide over candidates (c) and (d). Thus we have to consider less important constraints. The usual ranking of INTEGRITYAffix over INTEGRITYRoot denotes the wrong candidate (c) as the optimal output in (179). Thus, I assume that in Pulaar, these two constraints are ranked inversely, as indicated in (180).

a. b. 1 c. - d.

b,nnd-oo-wo binnd-oo-wo binnd-oo-wo binnd-oo-wo

*!

INTEGRITY Affix

INTEGRITY Root

S-ID (ATR)

IO-IDRight (ATR)

*[+lo, +ATR]

/binnd-oo-wo/

*[+hi, -ATR]

(180) The medial vowel in Pulaar II

** *! * *

*! *

Candidate (c) violates INTEGRITYRoot by agreement of the word-medial vowel with the root vowel with respect to ATR. Candidate (d) avoids this violation on the cost of the lower ranked INTEGRITYAffix. In this candidate, the word-medial vowel corresponds with the final affix vowel with respect to ATR. This completes the analysis of affix controlled harmony in Pulaar. In the following section I discuss alternative analyses of this pattern.


145

4.6.3 Possible alternatives to affix control Paradis (1992) proposes an account in which she assumes that the functional items with mid vowels which invariably have advanced tongue root position have an additional high vocalic element underlyingly which has no adequate landing site on the skeletal tier and has therefore no segmental reflex in output structures. The only surface reflex of the underlying high vowel is the advanced tongue root position of the mid vowel. She exemplifies her analysis on the basis of the quantifier fof. In one neighbouring dialect, the same quantifier is pronounced as fuf, in another one as fof. Paradis assumes that in Futankoore Pulaar, either the two neighbouring forms have merged to /fouf/, or the historically older form is /fouf/ which has become fof in one dialect, fuf in the other and fof in the dialect under discussion here. However, the last variety still has the old form /fouf/ underlying and the two vowels merge to one on the surface. The advantage of this analysis is that Paradis can describe the phonemic vowel system without the feature ATR. However, it seems somewhat odd to have a system in which a feature plays no role except for harmony. Furthermore, the mid vowels with advanced tongue root may have emerged as the result of dediphthongisation, but if the analysis of a speaker is supposed to be as surface true as possible s/he should store the historical former diphthong as what it is, a tense mid vowel. This is also the tenor of Breedveld (1995). In her investigation of Maasinankoore Fula, she gives a longer list of advanced mid vowels which trigger harmony if in ultimate position. As she claims there is no evidence for an underlying advanced high vowel in these forms (Breedveld 1995: 58). Additionally, Paradis' account lacks an explanation of the fact that vowels with floating features occur only in the rightmost position of the word. She also cannot explain why high vowels for instance do not have an underlying floating [-ATR] feature associated in some cases. The alternative to the analysis above would be to abandon the concept of assimilation as a nondirectional phenomenon, and to abandon the interconnection of affixation and harmony direction as well by assuming one group of alignment constraints responsible for harmony and another alignment constraint determining the direction of affixation. This could then result in grammars where affixation goes to the left while harmony applies rightward and vice versa. However, the formalisation of harmony as alignment was rejected above and elsewhere in the literature on independent grounds.

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Archangeli (2000) argues on the base of Klamath reduplication and Pulaar harmony that constraint pairs such as FAITHRoot and FAITHAffix do not exist, but rather only subset relations such as FAITHRoot and general FAITH. Formalising Pulaar harmony as the effect of a Left-Alignment constraint on the ATR feature, she misses the generalisation that harmony is affixdriven in Pulaar. Furthermore, she is not aware of the ATR/RTR distinction in mid vowels at the right word edge. "[T]he only advanced mid vowels are those with an advanced vowel to the right and the only necessarily advanced vowels are the [+high] vowels. (...) there are languages with tongue root harmony and with contrastive tongue root values on mid vowels. However, Pulaar is not one of these languages." (Archangeli 2000: 227) The data in (166) and (168), repeated here as (181) and (182) for convenience, proove this claim wrong. Especially (181) shows that there are advanced mid vowels in the rightmost syllable of the word, which trigger tongue root advancement in the neighbouring vowel(s). These affix vowels must be underlyingly specified for [+ATR]. The mid vowels with retracted tongue root preceeded by an advanced vowel in (182), on the other hand must be underlyingly specified as [-ATR]. (181) Pulaar dominant e and o a. ATR forms b. RTR forms lef-ol lef-el l(f-on keer-ol keer-el k((r-on paÊ-el paÊ-on

'ribbon-CLASS' 'ribbon-DIM.SG / -DIM.PL' 'boundary-CLASS' 'boundary-DIM.SG / -DIM.PL' 'shoe -DIM.SG / -DIM.PL' (Paradis 1992: 1, 90)

(182) Pulaar disharmonic mid vowels at the right word edge et-ir-d( 'to weigh with' hel-ir-d( 'to break with' Êokk-iÊ-d( 'to become one-eyed' feyy-u-d( 'to fell' (Paradis 1992: 87) Archangeli's conception of harmony is worth a closer look. Under her account of tongue root position as a pair of the privative features ATR and RTR, she has to assume two Alignment constraints to cover the Pulaar data she analyses. One Alignment constraint aligns the left edge of every ATR

Recent accounts

147

span with the left word edge, while the other aligns the left edge of every RTR span with the left edge of the word. That is, she does not only need a constraint for each direction (L/R) but also one for each feature specification, both independently rankable. Furthermore, Archangeli analyses featural faithfulness as MAX and DEP constraints referring to individual features, which she assumes to be assessed independently from their segmental or moraic (or syllabic) association. This implies that the grammar contains an additional set of faithfulness constraints, MAXPATH(feature) and DEPPATH(feature), as proposed by Pulleyblank (1996 and elsewhere). These constraints make sure that features are also associated to the anchor (segment or mora) they are associated to underlyingly. Furthermore, her conception of tongue root position as two privative features implies the existence of MAX and DEP constraints for each of these two features. Having blown up the constraint inventory by these assumptions, Archangeli feels in no way tempted to abandon the alternative IO-IDENT(F) constraint family. Now just imagine that all these faithfulness constraints are freely rankable with respect to each other and with respect to all other constraints in the grammar. This enriches the possible typology to an extent which outnumbers actual linguistic diversity. Furthermore, a ranking of MAX(F) constraints constitutes a hierarchy of markedness. Such a hierarchy is provided as well by the ranking of DEP(F) constraints, by the ranking of IO-Identity(F) constraints, and, of course, by the ranking of markedness constraints referring to features and their combinations. Where the IOIdentity/Markedness approach followed in this work is already redundant with respect to markedness, Archangeli's and Pulleyblank's conception of featural faithfulness exhibits an inflationary redundance with its reference to nine different faithfulness constraints42 as well as markedness constraints. 4.7

Recent accounts

4.7.1 The alignment approach to harmony The alignment approach to harmony has been shown to be inadequate on grounds regarding the nature of assimilation in general. However, the debate whether alignment or correspondence is the more adequate formalisation of harmony is not finished yet (see Harrison 2001). Regarding the

148


attested patterns of vowel harmony in connection with morphological patterns in the world, the alignment approach seems less appropriate since here eventual directionality tendencies of the phenomenon come from direct reference to right or left edges in the harmony constraint, rather than that they pop up as effects of morphophonological faithfulness asymmetries (as discussed already in connection with Archangeli's (2000) alignment analysis of Pulaar harmony). Since most linguists working with the alignment account also assume positional faithfulness as a part of grammar, the reference to directionality in the harmony process becomes obsolete. Furthermore, left-to-right assimilation in prefixing languages and rightto-left assimilation in suffixing languages seems quite natural in an alignment account. This is not confirmed by the numerical distribution of root control and affix control in the world's languages, where affix control is a marginal phenomenon, while root control is quite widespread. 4.7.2 First syllable faithfulness In her account of Shona height harmony, Beckman (1995, 1997, 1998) assumes that the Shona harmony process is shaped by a high ranking faithfulness constraint guarding input-output identity of the first syllable in the root. As has been shown above such a conception of positional faithfulness is not sufficient since, as it has been demonstrated for Yoruba and Pulaar, a language might also choose the last syllable of a word to be the trigger of harmony, regardless of its morphological status. A mirror image constraint to IDENT-σ1, i.e. IDENT-lastσ, alone is not sufficient to account for suffix controlled vowel harmony. Thus, the positional faithfulness approach must be extended to a more sophisticated understanding of positional faithfulness constraints, as is done in this chapter by basically three modifications to the theory of positional faithfulness. First, a simplex faithfulness constraint on the first syllable of words does not exist. Second, prominence of the left word edge is an effect of the coordination of an anchoring constraint with an Identity constraint. The same holds for the right word edge in languages with exclusive prefixation. Third, positional variants exist also of the Integrity or *MC constraints, which militate against featural spreading among other things. These latter constraints have a cross-linguistically preferred ranking which assures prominence of lexical material over functional material.

Recent accounts

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4.7.3 The SAF approach to root control In his survey on vowel harmony, Bakoviü (2000) proposes to analyse root control as an instance of base-output faithfulness. The idea of StemAffixed-Form-Faithfulness (SAF) relies on the theory of transderivational faithfulness by Benua (1995, 1997). Morphologically related forms stand in an asymmetric correspondence relation. Affixed forms and compound forms depend on the simplex forms. In Bakoviü's account every form of a root plus x affixes has to be faithful to this root plus x-1 affixes, this stem form plus x-2 affixes and so forth untill we arrive at the form stem plus x-x affixes which is the root alone. This multiple transderivational faithfulness is schematised in (183). (183) Transderivational correspondence Inputs: /stem/ /stem + affix/ IO-correspondence Outputs: [stem] OO-correspondence

[stem + affix]

In a form of a stem plus one affix to be evaluated in a language displaying vowel harmony, the grammar now prefers the candidate which is faithful to its underlying stem. The candidate in which the vowel of the stem alternates to agree with the affix vowel is suboptimal. To determine the fate of the medial vowel under root control, the vowel between a potential trigger in the stem and an opaque vowel in the next affix, Bakoviü assumes that affixed forms not only depend on the simplex form but also on the less complex affixed forms. This means, as said above, that a form containing a stem plus two affixes depends on the simplex stem in the first instance but also on the form of the same stem plus the first of the two affixes. This is illustrated in the tableau in (184) for the evaluation of the Turkish word durdursajd 'stand (caus-cond-past)' which was discussed already earlier in this context. SA-IDENT denotes the faithfulness constraint responsible for maximal identity between the complex form and its less complex base. The output form to be evaluated in (184) has to be matched against all the bases listed at the bottom of the tableau in order to assess violations of the Stem-Affixed-Form (SAF) Identity constraint SA-IDENT on top of the hierarchy. Every deviation from one of the base vowels counts as a violation. Note that the presence of additional material which was not present

150


in one of the bases is not counted as a violation, that is in Bakoviü's account Identity constraints check the feature specification only, not presence or absence (see the discussion in Noske 2001, and here in chapter 2.2). However, the sole candidate which has to be excluded by this procedure, candidate (b), is successfully eliminated in favour of candidate (c). (184) SAF at work SA-IDENT /dur -dir -sej -di/ a. durdirsejdi *!* b. durdrsajd *! ) c. durdursajd d. dirdirsejdi *!** bases: dur, durdur, durdursaj

S-ID(bk, rd)

** * *

IO-ID(bk, rd)

*** **** **

The mirror image pattern to root control, i.e., affix control, as found in Futankoore Pulaar poses a serious problem to the SAF account since this account was designed to exclude exactly this pattern. The theory of SAF implies several things: Simplex stems must be real occurring outputs, and the affixed forms minus one affix must be accessible for output-output correspondence as well. There are, however, languages, such as many African ones, in which for instance nouns always have to be accompanied by a classifier. For these languages access to the simplex form in order to establish a correspondence relation is quite problematic. Furthermore, it is not warranted that the intermediate forms with x affixes minus 1 and so forth exist, since some derivational affixes for instance might require inflectional affixes to follow in a given language. Another argument has to do with Yoruba which is Bakoviü's test case for his account of root control. All bi-syllabic roots have to be analysed as bi-morphemic in Bakoviü's approach to account for the right-to-left asymmetry within roots discussed above. There is no other reason to assume morphological complexity for these forms than Bakoviü's account of root control. To put it the other way around, the SAF account has nothing to say about the asymmetries observed within single morphemes. There is one additional argument against this account. In classical cyclic rule-based derivation (Chomsky and Halle 1968) we find the following procedure: a stem is chosen, all rules like assimilation rules, feature insertion and others are applied. Then the first affix or class of affixes is attached, brackets are erased and all rules apply again; now the next group of affixes is attached, brackets are erased and all rules apply once more, and so forth.

Recent accounts

151

The SAF account assumes the same procedure even though it is claimed not to be chronologically ordered but processing in parallel. The simplex stem is evaluated, the minimally more complex forms are evaluated, each depending on the minimally less complex form and the final form depends on all these intermediate forms, as would a cyclically derived one. These forms, however, do not necessarily have actual realisations, as stated above, and they have a doubtful psycholinguistic status. Therefore, I opt in favour of an analysis which does not need to assume these abstract constructs. The argument against the SAF account which is empirically testable concerns the morphological analysis of bisyllabic or longer words. Words which consist of two vowels of which the first one is either high or low and the last one is a mid vowel with an ATR specification that is disharmonic to that of the first vowel (as those in 185) have to be analysed as bimorphemic in the SAF approach. This is because the theory has nothing to say about morpheme-internal faithfulness asymmetries. (185) Yoruba disharmonic roots id( 'brass' iko 'cough' al(º 'night' ako 'male'

(Bakoviü 2000: 140)

If they were analysed as simplex roots, the harmony constraint would favour output candidates with an ATR specification of the mid vowel which is in correspondence to that of the preceding high or low vowel, respectively. The only choice in Bakoviü's analysis would be to place stem faithfulness higher in the constraint hierarchy than the harmony constraint. Allowing for disharmonic stems through the board. This might be a solution for stems containing high and mid vowels only. The lack of advanced mid vowels to the left of the low vowel is not accounted for in this grammar. (186) More Yoruba asymmetric roots a. (¼bi 'guilt' ebi o¼rǊ 'heaven' òrí b. (ja c. *eCa

'fish'

o¼dá *oCa

'hunger' 'shea-butter' 'drought' (Bakoviü 2000: 140)

152


However, there is no other reason to assume morphemic complexity for these words. The disharmonic behaviour of mid vowels preceding high vowels (186a) has to be analysed anyway as the effect of underlyingly retracted high vowels in these words by Bakoviü, as will be discussed in chapter 6.2. 4.8

Conclusion

The pattern of root control as examined here for Yoruba, Turkish, and Dҽgҽma naturally falls out from the universally preferred ranking of INTEGRITYAffix above INTEGRITYRoot, the two constraints against assimilation. The former expresses the markedness of affix-induced assimilation. This general pattern can be obscured by a variety of factors. Local conjunction of IO-Identity(F) with a markedness constraint on the same feature yields dominant-recessive harmony (as proposed by Bakoviü 2000), as demonstrated for Diola Fogni here. Of course it would be even more appealing if one could assume a positional Integrity constraint (on affixes) and a general Integrity constraint only, but to date this is not justified since with the theoretical devices at hand this would exclude Futankoore Pulaar with its affix controlled harmony pattern from being regarded as a human language. Morpheme-internal assymmetries in vowel cooccurrence patterns (as observed in Yoruba and many other languages) are mechanically linked to the morphology in this account by assuming an extended interpretation of Anchoring constraints, covering also the faithfulness dimension of featural identity. With these theoretical tools provided it is not necessary to assume additional theoretical constructs like base-output correspondence, cyclic rule application or its equivalent in serial candidate evaluations. With the constraints assumed above we can derive a factorial typology which gives us the observed patterns. In (187), I have listed the schematic possibilities, leaving minor peculiarities aside. The first two rankings are included since the ranking of the anchoring constraints in the hierarchy does not account for affixation if we rank these constraints with regard to the constraints directly involved in triggering and blocking harmony (i.e., S-IDENT, IO-IDENT and INTEGRITY constraints) but rather in interaction with a general PARSE constraint, which demands that every segmental structure is parsed into higher prosodic structure, such as the prosodic word. In the following rankings all lowly ranked constraints are omitted. If

Conclusion

153

an ANCHOR constraint is indicated as highly ranked in a hierarchy this means that this constraint outranks the PARSE constraint as well as the opposite Anchoring constraint. (187) A typology a. PARSE >> L/R-ANCHOR (all affixes parsed in prosodic word) b. L/R-ANCHOR >> PARSE (no affixation) c. R-ANCHOR >> S-IDENT >> INTEGRITYAffix >> INTEGRITYRoot (right edge triggering, leftward affixation, root control; e.g., Yoruba) d. L-ANCHOR >> S-IDENT >> INTEGRITYAffix >> INTEGRITYRoot (left edge triggering, rightward affixation, root control; e.g., Turkish) e. S-IDENT >> INTEGRITYAffix >> INTEGRITYRoot >> {ranking a} (Affixation to both sides, root control; e.g., Dҽgҽma) f. MARKEDNESS&IO-IDENT, S-IDENT >> IO-IDENT (Dominance; e.g., Diola Fogni) g. IO-IDENTRight >> S-IDENT >> INTEGRITYRoot >> L-ANCHOR >> INTEGRITYAffix (Right edge triggering, affix control; i.e., Pulaar) h. L-ANCHOR >> IO-IDENTRight >> S-IDENT >> INTEGRITYRoot >> INTEGRITYAffix (two-domain words only ('pathological ranking') unattested) Rankings (c – e) schematise the rankings which account for the three variants of root control discussed above. In ranking (f) no positional constraint plays a role, but instead, the local conjunction of markedness and faithfulness favours one feature specification as the trigger of harmony. Ranking (g) accounts for the pattern of affix control observed in Futankoore Pulaar. The ranking in (h) is added as a place holder for those rankings which lead to inconsistent patterns in the sense that the ranking enforces the emergence of words with more than one harmonic domain. With such a ranking the grammar systematically divides every word into two harmony domains. One vowel resists harmony and acts as a trigger at the left word

154


edge, while another vowel is immune to assimilation and serves as a potential trigger at the right word edge. This ranking contradicts both functional motivations for harmony. With regard to interpretive parsing harmony cannot serve as an aide in the identification of morphological or prosodic domains in such a language, since potentially every word is divided into two harmonic sets. The other disadvantage arises from the perspective of production oriented parsing. This division into two harmonic spans acts counter to the purpose of ease of articulation. The outcomes of such a ranking only serve confusion in the interpretation of utterances. The vowel potentially standing alone in disharmony with the rest of the word at one edge may have accidentally the same feature specification as the vowels in the neighbouring word and be identified with this domain. This then disturbs the interpretive task of the listener. Furthermore, such a ranking can show a stable effect only in languages which allow long words. If long words are rare in a language, the learner might mistake this type of ranking for one in which harmony plays no role at all. I assume that such rankings are banned from occurrence as anti-functional and counter-productive. McCarthy and Prince (1995) coined the term 'pathological ranking' for those rankings which should never occur in violation of their proposed meta constraint on the ranking of faithfulness for roots above faithfulness for affixes. We have seen in the previous sections that such a meta ranking is in fact a mere almost universal tendency. For the phenomenon of vowel harmony this ranking is reversed in the most common cases, root or root controlled harmony, with respect to the integrity constraint. However, this ranking reversal serves the functional purpose that lies behind it, the maximisation of prominence of lexical items. Pulaar conforms to McCarthy's meta ranking, but pays this conformity with a decrease of prominence of lexical entities. However, the Pulaar ranking of the two positional Integrity constraints still has a positive effect. Generally, words consistently have the ATR specification of the rightmost affix vowel. This word identification aide is disturbed only by the behaviour of opaque vowels. However, the behaviour of opaque vowels, as the behaviour of transparent vowels, has a different source, namely the restriction of the inventory by higher ranked constraints on the system, serving its optimisation. The term 'pathological ranking', or, 'counter-productive

Conclusion

155

ranking', however, is adequate in my view for all those rankings which obscure output structures more than they help facilitate either interpretation or articulation. (188) The Bad Ranking Hypothesis: A constraint ranking is counter-productive if it neither facilitates articulation nor interpretation. Such grammars are avoided. Grammar itself is a neutral device of encoding language. As such, grammar is usually used to help the speaker or the listener in the task of communication. However, like nuclear fission can be used to produce electricity to provide light and heating but as well for the production of atom bombs, the possibilities of Universal Grammar may be larger than they are explored in human languages. In the next chapter, I will show how transparent vowels can readily be accounted for under the local conjunction account, illustrating this with the examples of Finnish and Wolof. Furthermore we will see that the behaviour of transparent vowels serves an additional purpose which justifies the disruption to vowel harmony that these vowels cause.

Chapter 5 Vowel transparency as balance In the phonological literature, transparency is usually thought of as the skipping of a vowel by the harmony process. That is vowel harmony comes from one direction, jumps over the inalterable vowel and goes on after that vowel. In backness harmonies like that of Finnish or Hungarian usually front nonlow unrounded vowels (i and e) behave as transparent. These vowels have no back, high, unrounded counterpart (i.e., , )) in the system and therefore they are excluded from alternation when preceded by a back vowel. Nevertheless, the following vowel(s) change to backness in such a constellation. In ATR harmonies, often the high vowels resist retraction of the tongue root, even though surrounded by retracted nonhigh vowels. In generative approaches, there is a great dissent on how to explain this phenomenon. Most approaches maintain strict locality by assuming stepwise derivation, some kind of sympathy or cumulativity, or surface underspecification of the crucial feature in the transparent vowel. In derivational approaches, it is assumed that at the lexical level the transparent vowel takes on the backness or ATR specification contributed by its neighbour. Vowel harmony applies to the next vowel in the chain now. On a later level the backness or ATR value of the transparent vowel is changed again to its former state. The result is surface transparency or what is labelled 'derivational opacity'. In a Sympathy based approach the winning candidate has an additional (sympathetic) correspondence relation with one of the failed candidates, i.e. that one which is most harmonic with regard to the active feature. This sympathy relation is less important than the markedness constraint banning the [+back] or [-ATR] counterpart of the transparent vowel. These accounts of transparency will be discussed after the application of the theory of balance to transparency in Finnish and Wolof. In this proposal, transparency is not thought of as a kind of inactivity of the transparent vowel or skipping of that vowel by harmony, but rather transparency is regarded as a result of balancing, or the desire for symmetry. The observation is the following: if a transparent vowel is in a medial position, i.e. between two other vowels, the relationship with the

158

Vowel transparency as balance

neighbour to the right should be the same as the relationship with the neighbour to the left. That is, if disharmony is the relation to the left vowel, the transparent vowel would have an unbalanced relation to its neighbours if harmony were the case at its right side. Balance is achieved by being either disharmonic or harmonic with both neighbours. In the following I will first apply the analysis introduced in chapter 3.3 to Finnish, which displays backness harmony and where the front nonlow vowels e and i are transparent. After this I will extend the analysis for transparent vowels in a language displaying ATR harmony, which is Wolof in this case. 5.1

The case of Finnish – a grammar of balance

Finnish has the vowel system given in (189). It has the five front vowels on the left and the three back vowels to the right in the chart. The two vowels in the diagonally shaded cells are the neutral ones. It is exactly these two vowels to which there exist no counterparts which differ only in backness. This is indicated by the shaded empty cells on the right in (189). This lack of back high unrounded vowels makes the whole system asymmetric or imbalanced. Five front vowels stand in opposition to three back vowels only. (189) Finnish vowels front unrounded rounded high i y mid e ö [2] low ä [4]

back unrounded rounded u o a

5.1.1 The Finnish harmony pattern Suffix vowels harmonise in backness with the last non-neutral vowel of the stem in Finnish words. This is illustrated in (190) for a low affix vowel. (190) Finnish palatal harmony a. §pöytä-nä 'table' b. §pouta-na 'fine weather' c. §hämä¦rä-nä 'dusk'

essive essive essive

The case of Finnish

d. e. f. g.

§kesy-llä §vero-lla §käde-llä §koti-na

'tame' 'tax' 'hand' 'home'

159

adess adess adess essive (Ringen and Heinämäki 1999: 305)

The words in (190f,g) have an e and i, respectively, as the last vowel of the stem. The affix vowel surfaces in these words with the same backness specification as the stem vowel preceding the neutral vowel. With stems containing only neutral vowels affix vowels are always front. This indicates that the notion 'neutral' is a misnomer. If these vowels were indeed neutral we would expect greater variation in the quality of the suffix vowels with such stems, because only in the environment of a stem containing only neutral vowels, the underlying specification of the suffix vowels would have a chance to surface. (191) Finnish stems with neutral vowels only a. §velje-llä 'brother' adess. b. §tie-llä

'road'

adess.

(Ringen and Heinämäki 1999: 306)

Transparent vowels in second position in a word behave as shown by the data in (192). If the transparent vowel is preceded by a front vowel, all vowels are front (192a). If the transparent vowel is preceded by a back vowel, following affix vowels are back too (192b). (192) Finnish neutral vowels in medial position43 a. näke-vät 'see-3pl' b. tunte-vat tsaari-na

'feel-3pl' 'car-essive'

The problem is the following: How can harmony skip a neutral vowel as in (192b)? The strict locality hypothesis assumes that harmony proceeds from segment to segment. Even under the approach advocated here, where harmony affects adjacent syllables, adjacency is not maintained in such a case.

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5.1.2 Finnish feet and balanced vowels The assumption of foot-to-foot harmony (as proposed by Piggott 1996 to account for transparent segments in nasal harmony) cannot solve the locality problem either, since there are cases where the last vowel of a word is preceded by lots of neutral vowels which constitute several feet. The nonneutral affix vowel harmonises with a nonneutral stem vowel preceding it, regardless how many feet are in between. (193) Finnish neutral vowels between trigger and target a. ui-da b. ui-ske-nt-ele-mi-se-ni-ko 'to swim' 'my swimming around?' syö-dä 'to eat'

syö-ske-nt-ele-mi-se-ni-kö 'my constant eating?'

teh-dä 'to do'

tee-ske-nt-ele-mi-se-ni-kö 'my pretending?' (Kiparsky 2000a: 2)

Finnish has primary stress on the first and secondary stress on the third syllable (e.g., Karvonen 2000). This gives us the foot structure in (194). (194) Finnish footing: pwd{ft(§CV.CV).ft(¦CV.CV).(...)}pwd With more than one adjacent neutral vowel within a word, there is at least one foot intervening between the trigger and target of harmony. Additionally, in a word with an uneven number of syllables, the last vowel is not footed, it has no secondary or tertiary stress. It is, thus, no potential target of harmony. On these grounds an analysis based on foot-to-foot harmony has to be dismissed. The idea to account for the transparency problem works as follows: Note that both neutral vowels are front. Furthermore, if the medial neutral vowel agrees in backness with the preceding potentially harmony triggering vowel, it also agrees in backness with the following vowel. In case of disagreement with the preceding vowel, the neutral vowel also disagrees in backness with the following vowel. The observation is that the neutral vowel prefers a situation where the same state of affairs prevails at both its edges. It is, so to say, in a balanced relation with its environment. Before

The case of Finnish

161

formally analysing this observation, we have to develop the basic set-up for an analysis of Finnish harmony. 5.1.3 The basic constraint set-up Finnish is an entirely suffixing language with root controlled harmony. This is accounted for by high ranking of L-ANCHOR and low ranking of RANCHOR, the combined alignment/faithfulness constraints. Backness harmony as is found in Finnish is the result of a ranking where IO-Identity constraints on height and roundness outrank the harmony constraints, i.e. SIDENT. S-IDENT in turn is ranked above IO-Identity of backness. (195) A first ranking for Finnish L-ANCHOR, IO-IDENT(hi,lo,rd) >> S-IDENT >> IO-IDENT(bk) >> ... >> R-ANCHOR In the tableau in (196) a word containing only non-neutral vowels is evaluated to show the basic mechanism of Finnish vowel harmony. (196) Unimpeded harmony in Finnish /póutä-nä/ L-ANCHOR a. pöytänä *! b. póutänä ) c. póutana

S-IDENT(bk)

IO-IDENT(bk)

** *! **

The grammar in (195) describes a system with backness harmony affecting all vowels, as is found in languages with a symmetric distribution of front and back vowels such as Turkish for instance. To analyse the Finnish system, reasons for neutrality must be incorporated into the grammar. The two neutral vowels are both [-bk] and [-lo]. Furthermore both do not have a [+bk] counterpart in the system which is identical to them in height as well as roundness. The vowels and ) neither exist as phonemes nor as allophones. Thus, markedness constraints against these vowels must be undominated. I will abbreviate such constraints as *ALIEN here. (197) *ALIEN: *[, )] or *[-lo, -rd, +bk]. 'Nonlow, back vowels have to be rounded.'

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With this constraint on top of the hierarchy, no back high unrounded vowels can ever surface even if they were present underlyingly. All potential underlying back high unrounded vowels surface as front vowels. (198) Potential underlying back high unrounded vowels in Finnish *ALIEN IO-IDENT(hi) IO-IDENT(rd) IO-IDENT(bk) // a. *! b. a *! c. u *! ) d. i * In a language where IO-Identity on height and roundness are ranked above S-IDENT, i and e can neither be changed to * or *), respectively, in a context where they are preceded by a back vowel, nor can any repairing with u and o, respectively, or with a take place, which would change roundness or height specifications of i and e in violation of the high ranking IOIdentity constraints on these features. (199) Blocking of harmony by structure preservation *ALIEN L-ANCHOR IO-ID(hi,lo,rd) S-ID(bk) IO-ID(bk) /a-i/ a. a- *! * b. a-u *! * c. a-a *!* * d. 4-i *! ) e. a-i * This grammar perfectly accounts for a backness harmonic system with opaque vowels, that is with this grammar, the vowels i, e would start a new harmonic domain. This pattern can be found in Ostyak (Kiparsky 2000a) for example, but not in Finnish. This is illustrated with a Finnish example by the tableau below. If a nonneutral vowel follows a neutral vowel both have to agree. Alternation of the neutral vowel is blocked by high ranking *ALIEN. S-IDENT prefers the candidate with a suffix vowel which is identical to the preceding neutral vowel (i.e. candidate d). This candidate has one violation less than the transparent candidate (e) which is the actual output in Finnish.

The case of Finnish

163

(200) An opacity grammar *ALIEN L-ANCHOR IO-ID(hi,lo,rd) S-ID(bk) IO-ID(bk) / kóti-n4/ a. kótna *! ** b. kötin4 *! ** c. kótuna *! ** ) d. kótin4 * / e. kótina **! * With this basic grammar I return to the above made observation on neutral vowels in Finnish. 5.1.4 The conjunction of balance in the Finnish grammar The observation was that a neutral vowel agrees in backness with both the vowels by which it is flanked or it disagrees with both vowels to its sides. What is excluded is agreement with one and disagreement with the other vowel. This can be formalised as a local conjunction of the harmony constraint S-IDENT with an OCP constraint on the same feature. Under the definition given in (201), the OCP militates against two identical vowels in a row. This is exactly the opposite of what the corresponding harmony constraint demands. (201) *S-IDENT(bk): Adjacent syllables are not identical with respect to the specification of [±back]. A local conjunction of the two constraints (i.e., S-IDENT(bk) &l *SIDENT(bk)) is violated if both conjoints are violated by the same element. Note that this potential situation only occurs in the case where one element is surrounded by two other elements. The local conjunction is satisfied if at least one of the constraints is satisfied, no matter which one. The effect is that whenever a vowel has a vowel to its left or right with which it does not agree in violation of S-IDENT it seeks to avoid violating *S-IDENT to escape violation of the local conjunction. This results in dissimilation with the vowel on the other side. In case of agreement with the preceding vowel, no reason emerges to satisfy *S-IDENT, because this would not improve the sequence's performance on the local conjunction, which is satisfied anyway. The effect is either agreement to both sides or disagreement to both sides of a medial vowel.

164


This local conjunction is restricted to the two neutral vowels; otherwise it would have a potential dissimilating effect on whole strings of n vowels. Data like (190e) véro-lla 'tax-adessive' should otherwise surface as *vérollä in satisfaction of the local conjunction of S-IDENT(bk) and *SIDENT(bk). The restriction is achieved by locally conjoining the first local conjunction with the markedness constraint which is violated whenever an e or i occurs, *[-lo, -rd, -bk], yielding a second more complex local conjunction. Note that it makes no difference for Finnish whether this local conjunction is structured internally as a local conjunction of three simplex constraints or as a conjunction of one simplex constraint with a local conjunction of two constraints, but nevertheless I will come back to this issue later in this section. (202) Local conjunction BALANCE(bk): *[-lo, -rd, -bk] &l S-IDENT(bk) &l *S-IDENT(bk) 'A vowel is not specified as nonlow unrounded and front or it is identical in backness with its neighbour(s) or it is not identical in backness with its neighbour(s).' This complex constraint has to be incorporated into the established ranking of constraints in the Finnish grammar. Transparent vowels never satisfy the markedness constraint to escape violation of the local conjunction. The vowels i and e do not change feature specifications. Thus, the local conjunction has to rank below IO-IDENT(hi,lo,rd). In order to have a dissimilating effect at all, the local conjunction has to outrank S-IDENT. This determines the exact ranking of the local conjunction, since IO-IDENT(hi,lo,rd) and S-IDENT are also ranked with regard to each other. (203) Finnish balance grammar *ALIEN, IO-IDENT(hi,lo,rd) >> L-ANCHOR >> BALANCE(bk) >> S-IDENT(bk) >> IO-IDENT(bk) In the following tableaux, we see how the constraint on BALANCE, inserted in the grammar in the appropriate place, excludes the undesired winner of tableau (200). Candidate (c) in tableau (i) violates BALANCE(bk) because it violates all three single conjoints. It violates the markedness constraint by having a high front unrounded vowel i. This vowel causes a violation of SIDENT for disagreeing in backness with the neighbouring vowel to the left. Finally it violates *S-IDENT by agreeing with the vowel to its right. In

The case of Finnish

165

summary, candidate (c), the opaque form, is ruled out for its neutral vowel's imbalanced or asymmetric relation to the two adjacent vowels. The neutral vowel in candidate (d), in contrast, is completely balanced with respect to the adjacent vowels. It is in discorrespondence with both. This violates SIDENT twice, but this doesn't matter at all, because by its disharmonic relation to the neighbours the i completely satisfies low ranking *S-IDENT(bk). And satisfying only one member of the constraint conjunction of BALANCE leaves the whole conjunction as satisfied.

IO-ID(bk)

S-ID(bk)

L-ANCHOR

IO-ID (hi,lo,rd)

BALANCE (bk)

* **

* IO-ID(bk)

a. k4d)ll4 b. k4della ) c. k4dell4

** *

*!

S-ID(bk)

/k4de-ll4/

*!

BALANCE (bk)

ii.

kót-na k2ti-n4 kóti-n4 kóti-na

*!

L-ANCHOR

a. b. 1 c. ) d.

IO-ID (hi,lo,rd)

/kóti-n4/

*ALIEN

i.

*ALIEN

(204) Transparency in Finnish

*!

** *

* *

*!

Tableau (204ii) shows a balanced vowel in complete harmony with its environment. For such an underlying form there is no reason to parse a candidate with a changed backness value as in candidates (a, b). The grammar correctly disprefers these candidates to the optimal candidate (c). A question is now what happens if two or more balanced vowels follow each other, flanked by a back root vowel and a potentially harmonising suffix vowel. According to the data provided by Campbell (1980), harmony skips only one balanced vowel. If two or more balanced vowels occur, a following suffix vowel always surfaces as front, regardless of the quality of the vowel(s) preceding the balanced vowels. The relevant data are given in (205).

166


(205) Finnish asymmetric or opaque sequences of balanced vowels adjektiivejä 'adjectives (partitive pl.)' partikkel-eistä 'particles (elative pl.)' keskuhittistä '? (elative pl.)' (Campbell 1980: 252) This is perfectly accounted for in this approach. In a sequence with more than one balanced vowel the vowel preceding the last balanced vowel agrees in backness with this one. Therefore, also the following nonbalanced vowels have to agree with the last e or i. The issue of chains of balanced vowels, however, is not settled with this observation since Campbell's generalisation is contradicted by the facts reported in Kiparsky (2000a), Ringen and Heinämäki (1999), as well as Välimaa-Blum (1999). In fact, Finnish speakers are somewhat ambivalent. According to Kiparsky (2000a) even longer chains of balanced vowels can have a back vowel at the end when another back vowel is somewhere at the other side of the word. This was illustrated with Kiparsky's data in (193) which is repeated here as (206). (206) Finnish symmetric sequences of balanced vowels a. ui-da ui-ske-nt-ele-mi-se-ni-ko 'to swim' 'my swimming around?' b. syö-dä 'to eat'

syö-ske-nt-ele-mi-se-ni-kö 'my constant eating?'

c. teh-dä 'to do'

tee-ske-nt-ele-mi-se-ni-kö 'my pretending?'

Ringen and Heinämäki (1999) found that there is even speaker-internal variation with regard to such forms. That is, sometimes longer sequences of balanced vowels behave as transparent or symmetric and sometimes the neutral sequences in the same words behave as opaque or asymmetric. In the current approach this variation can be captured by the simple assumption that the domain of the local constraint conjunction which is responsible for symmetry / transparency in Finnish (i.e., BALANCE) is not fixed. The domain varies from that of the syllable to that of the entire neutral feature span.

The case of Finnish

167

(207) BALANCE(bk): *[-lo, -rd, -bk] &l S-IDENT(bk) &l *S-IDENT(bk) 'A feature bearing domain is not specified as nonlow unrounded and front or it is identical in backness with its neighbour(s) or it is not identical in backness with its neighbour(s).' Domain = a) syllable; b) designated maximally homorganic feature span (i.e., a [-lo, -rd, -bk] span) In case of domain a), the syllable, a sequence of at least two neutral vowels is preferred which is harmonic with the following potential target of harmony. Syllable-wise evaluation of the BALANCE constraint yields that the first neutral vowel violates BALANCE anyway when it is preceded by a back vowel. The first neutral vowel is then disharmonic with regard to the preceding back vowel, and harmonic with regard to the following neutral vowel. The second (or last) neutral vowel is harmonic with regard to the preceding neutral vowel. BALANCE would be violated once more if this last neutral vowel would disagree with the following vowel. This explains transparency or symmetry of single neutral vowels and opacity of sequences of neutral vowels which contain more than one vowel. In case of domain b), BALANCE is evaluated over the whole span of neutral vowels, that is the sequence of balanced vowels is regarded as one holistic entity by the speaker. If this span is disharmonic to its preceding neighbour, it should also be disharmonic with regard to the vowel following the neutral span. Both possibilities are schematised in (208). (208) Syllabic versus holistic balance a. Syllabic balance b. Articulatorily holistic balance [±bk] [±bk] [±bk] [±bk] [±bk] σ

σ

σ

σ

[...]

V

i

e

V

V

[-bk, -lo, -rd] i

e

[...] V

Another solution to the discrepancy revealed by the data in (205) and (206) might be the observation that the transparent vowels in (206) are affix vowels, while those in (205) are stem vowels. That neutral affix vowels do not trigger harmony in a following non-neutral vowel could then be an effect of INTEGRITYAffix in conjunction with the relevant markedness constraint *[-lo, -rd, -bk]. However, this account would have nothing to say about the large degree of variation observed with Finnish neutral vowels.

168


There remains one technical question regarding the local conjunction of BALANCE. This complex constraint consists of three simplex constraints, and therefore the question arises whether it has an internal hierarchical structure or not. Is BALANCE unstructured, i.e., a conjunction of three simplex constraints? Is it a conjoint of a markedness constraint and a harmony constraint which is further conjoined with the OCP, or the conjunction of a markedness constraint with a conjunction which consists of the harmony constraint and the OCP constraint, or is it a conjoint of the OCP and markedness which is combined with the harmony constraint? The four structural possibilities are given below. (209) Possibilities of multiple constraint conjunction a. BALANCE

MARKEDNESS

HARMONY

b.

OCP

BALANCE LC' MARKEDNESS

c.

HARMONY

OCP

BALANCE LC' MARKEDNESS

d.

HARMONY

OCP

BALANCE LC' HARMONY

MARKEDNESS

OCP

At first sight the whole issue seems somewhat odd since a decision between the different structures in (209) does not change the interpretation of the whole construction. However, if one of the structures in (209b,c,d) were the

The case of Finnish

169

actual architecture of the BALANCE constraint, we would have to assume that the partial conjunction LC' were a part of the grammar as well. Its ranking with regard to the other constraints would be somewhere between the complete conjunction and the highest ranked of the two simplex constraints in LC'. As such the partial conjunctions LC' in (209b,d) would have an impact on balanced vowels, which have only one neighbour. These vowels should agree with their only neighbour in case of the existence of LC' (209b), which is trivial, because they should do that anyway independently of LC' (209b). (210) Hypothetical splitting of LC I (209b): /vélje-llä/

BALANCE (bk)

*[-lo, -rd, -bk]&l S-ID(bk)

- ) a. véljellä b. véljella

*

S-ID (bk)

IO-ID (bk)

*!

** *

The structure in (209c) potentially affects triplets of harmonic vowels; but in a grammar where the harmony constraint is the next constraint below LC' in the hierarchy, this constraint should filter out all systematically dissimilated forms like *poutäna. (211) Hypothetical splitting of LC III (209c): /póutä-nä/ a. b. - c. d. e. f.

pöytänä póutänä póutana poutäna pöytanä pöytana

LANCHOR

BALANCE (bk)

S-ID(bk)&l *S-ID(bk)

S-ID (bk)

*!

** *

*! *!

IO-ID (bk)

*! *!* **

*

** * *** ****

If disharmonic stems are involved, such as in the form verolla 'taxadessive', the interim conjunction (209c) causes disharmony between the last harmony triggering stem vowel and the affix vowel. See in this respect tableau (212).44

170


(212) Hypothetical splitting of LC III (209c) and a disharmonic stem: /véro-llä/

LANCHOR

BALANCE (bk)

S-ID(bk)&l *S-ID(bk)

S-ID (bk)

IO-ID (bk)

*!

* **

*

/ a. vérolla 0 b. vérollä

As long as such a pattern is unattested this structure has to be rejected as the correct decomposition of the BALANCE constraint. The last possibility, LC' (209d) predicts that the balanced vowels disagree with their only neighbour in short forms. In case there is no potential trigger preceding the balanced vowel, a following alternating affix vowel should surface as its back variant. This is shown by tableau (213). (213) Hypothetical splitting of LC II (209d): /vélje-llä/ / a. véljellä 0 b. véljella

BALANCE (bk)

*[-lo, -rd, -bk]&l *S-ID(bk)

S-ID (bk)

IO-ID (bk)

*

** *

*!

Finnish monosyllabic stems with balanced vowels do not behave in this way, as can be seen from the data in (191). This means either that the analysis in (209d) is wrong or that this partial constraint conjunction is ranked below the harmony constraint, where it is effectless. However there are languages which show a pattern like that in tableau (213). Kiparsky (2000a) cites Uyghur as a language behaving exactly like this: Uyghur has backness harmony like Finnish. Situated between two vowels, neutral vowels behave like the Finnish ones, they either agree or disagree with both neighbours. Isolated balanced vowels do not trigger assimilation in attached suffix vowels, they cause dissimilation. Enarve Vepsian 'neutral' vowels behave even worse (Kiparsky 2000a): They are completely insensitive to the preceding vowel, and always disagree in backness with the following vowel. From these observations I conclude that Finnish only has the BALANCE conjunction, lacking the partial conjunctions, or it has the latter ranked below the harmony constraint S-IDENT. Uyghur has the BALANCE conjunction and the conjunction of markedness and OCP (209d) ranked higher in the constraint hierarchy than in Finnish, while Enarve Vepsian has only the latter conjunction.

The case of Finnish

171

(214) Cross-linguistic rankings and conjunctions a. Finnish: BALANCE >> S-IDENT(bk) >> *[-lo, -rd, -bk]&*S-IDENT(bk) b. Uyghur: BALANCE >> *[-lo, -rd, -bk]&*S-IDENT(bk) >> S-IDENT(bk) c. Enarve Vepsian: *[-lo, -rd, -bk]&*S-IDENT(bk) >> S-IDENT(bk) The following tableaux schematically illustrate how these grammars determine the different outputs for the relevant forms in the latter two languages as discussed above. (215) i. Uyghur ) a. b. c. ) d. ) e. f.

/CaCiC-aC/ ~ CaCiC-aC /CaCiC-aC/ ~ CaCiC-4C /C4CiC-aC/ ~ C4CiC-aC /C4CiC-aC/ ~ C4CiC-4C /CiC-aC/ ~ CiC-aC /CiC-aC/ ~ CiC-4C

ii. ) a. b. ) c. d. ) e. f.

Enarve Vepsian /CaCiC-aC/ ~ CaCiC-aC /CaCiC-aC/ ~ CaCiC-4C /C4CiC-aC/ ~ C4CiC-aC /C4CiC-aC/ ~ C4CiC-4C /CiC-aC/ ~ CiC-aC /CiC-aC/ ~ CiC-4C

BALANCE

*[-lo, -rd, -bk]& *S-ID(bk)

S-ID (bk)

* * **

** * * * *

*! *!

*! *[-lo, -rd, -bk]& *S-ID(bk)

*! * **!

S-ID(bk)

** * * *

*!

For the reason that a partial conjunction should have an audible effect, I will assume that the conjunction of more than two constraints does not necessarily happen serially but in parallel. All constraints of a conjunction are combined at once, which means that the structure of a ternary constraint conjunction such as BALANCE is flat, like that in (209a) in languages like

172


Finnish. Why should a speaker load her/his grammar with complex constraints which have no observable effect? This assumption does not exclude the Uyghur variant per se, that is instantiating a partial conjunction as well. There is one more reason to assume that the partial conjunction of markedness with the OCP is the basic constraint combination on which balance is built. The same constraint combination in conjunction with an IO-faithfulness constraint explains the patterns of Trojan vowels. A detailed discussion of this pattern will be delivered in chapter 6. Independent evidence for the local conjunction of the harmony constraint with the OCP (209c) comes from the height-uniform pattern in Yawelmani, even though it is different features here which both constraints refer to. In the following section, I will show that the analysis developed for balanced vowels in backness harmony can be straightforwardly extended to balanced vowels in ATR harmony systems. 5.2

Wolof ATR harmony and balanced vowels

The pattern of balanced vowels which will be analysed in this section gives an additional insight into how violations of the BALANCE conjunction are assessed in cases where more than one balanced vowel is found in a word, each surrounded by non-balanced vowels. Furthermore, the patterns found in Wolof confirm the prediction of the present analysis of Balance that a language may have balanced as well as opaque vowels. Wolof is a suffixing Niger Congo language with root-controlled ATR harmony. According to Pulleyblank (1996: 314), the Wolof vowel inventory contains the vowels given in (216). (216) Wolof vowel inventory: high mid low


front i

back u

e (

o o a

Wolof ATR harmony

173

5.2.1 The Wolof harmony pattern The low vowel D alternates with in ATR harmony. Mid e and o alternate with ( and o, respectively. The only vowels which do not have a counterpart with the opposite ATR value are the high vowels i and u. Accordingly the latter two vowels behave differently to all other vowels. They are balanced with respect to their neighbours. Instances of one of the two high advanced vowels are always flanked by either only [+ATR] vowels or only [-ATR] vowels. The behaviour of nonhigh affix vowels is shown in (217). (217) Harmony of nonhigh vowels in Wolof a. gn-e 'be better in' b. sofoØr-m xam-( 'know in' toØl-am reØr-e 'be lost in' tcc-t d(m-( 'go with' maØtt-at doØr-e 'hit with' doØr-nte xoØl-( 'look with' xoØl-ant(

'his/her driver' 'his/her field' 'to smash' 'to bite continuously' 'to hit each other' 'to look at each other' (Pulleyblank 1996: 314f.)

All nonhigh affix vowels in (217) agree with the preceding nonhigh vowels with regard to ATR. In (218a) all affix vowels are [+ATR] in correspondence with the preceding high vowels, while the affix vowels in (218b) surface with the ATR value of the nonhigh vowel preceding the high vowel(s) in each word (as shown most clearly in the pair toxi-leØn versus t(kki-l(Øn). (218c) serves to show that high affix vowels, such as the u in -boØbule / -boØbul( behave like high stem vowels. They are balanced. (218) Harmony of high vowels in Wolof a. gis-e 'to see in' b. toxi-leØn suØl-e 'to bury with' soppiwu-l(Øn nir-oØ 'to look alike' triji-leØn jiØt-le 'to help with' t(kki-l(Øn c. kriQ -m-boØbule xarit-am-boØbul(

'go and smoke!' 'you have not changed' 'go sleep!' 'untie!'

'that coal of his/hers just mentioned' 'that friend of his/hers just mentioned' (Pulleyblank 1996: 320f.)

174


5.2.2 ATR balance in Wolof harmony Again, those vowels behave as balanced which cause an imbalance in the vowel inventory. In the case of Wolof, the system is imbalanced with regard to the feature ATR among high vowels because there are only [+ATR] high vowels. This asymmetry is caused by an undominated constraint against high retracted vowels, *[+hi, -ATR]. This constraint favours high vowels with advanced tongue root to high vowels with retracted tongue root in surface representations even if these vowels stand in correspondence with underlyingly retracted high vowels. The relevant local conjunction is essentially the same as in Finnish, except that the relevant features are different. (219) BALANCE(ATR): *[+hi] &l S-IDENT(ATR) & l *S-IDENT(ATR) With this ingredient the analysis of Wolof goes as follows. S-IDENT(ATR) is ranked rather high, at least above IO-IDENT(ATR), but below IOIDENT(hi) and below *[+hi, -ATR] which is undominated. This results in high vowels being immune as targets of harmony. The BALANCE(ATR) constraint is ranked above S-IDENT(ATR), and below IO-IDENT(hi). This accounts for transparency. Of course, L-ANCHOR is an important constraint in Wolof as well, because it regulates suffixation. Furthermore, L-ANCHOR prevents the D in xDrit-am-boØbul( 'that friend of his/hers just mentioned' (218c) from assimilating to the following i with regard to ATR. As in Finnish, L-ANCHOR is outranked by the markedness constraint delimiting the inventory. Otherwise we would observe instances of retracted high vowels in the first syllable. (220) Wolof ranking *[+hi, -ATR] >> L-ANCHOR, IO-IDENT(hi) >> BALANCE(ATR) >> S-IDENT(ATR) >> IO-IDENT(ATR) >> *[+ATR] In tableau (221), agreement of ATR among nonhigh vowels is evaluated. I skipped the constraints relevant for transparency, because they would be satisfied vacuously by all candidates, since none of them has a high vowel and none has any height specification differing from those in the underlying form. L-ANCHOR rules out the candidate which has the least marked configuration of ATR features and is fully harmonic, that is the one showing dominant harmony. This candidate has to change the ATR

Wolof ATR harmony

175

specification of the leftmost stem vowel in comparison to the underlying form, which is strictly prohibited under high-ranking L-ANCHOR. Candidate (a) is the most faithful candidate, but it violates the harmony constraint S-IDENT by having differing ATR specifications in its two vowels. The only form left is candidate (c), which neither violates L-ANCHOR nor SIDENT. (221) Unimpeded harmony among nonhigh vowels in Wolof L-ANCHOR S-ID(ATR) IO-ID(ATR) *[+ATR] /gn-(/ a. gn( *! * b. gan( *! * ) c. gne * ** High vowels are not excluded from the harmony pattern. If they are the only possible trigger in a word they urge their neighbours to become [+ATR], as shown in (218). The form gise 'to see in' from (218a) is evaluated in tableau (222). The most faithful candidate (a) violates S-IDENT because the two vowels in the word differ in ATR specifications. Candidate (b) has a [-ATR] ,, which violates high ranking L-ANCHOR as well as the high ranking markedness constraint against high retracted vowels. Avoiding the constraint violations of candidates (a) and (b), candidate (c) is the optimal one.

a. gis( b. g,s( ) c. gise

*!

*[+ATR]

IO-ID(ATR)

S-ID(ATR)

*!

BALANCE (ATR)

*

IO-ID(hi)

L-ANCHOR

/gis-(/

*[+hi, -ATR]

(222) Wolof high vowels and harmony

* * *

**

Now consider tableau (223), where a form is evaluated which has a nonhigh retracted vowel preceding the high vowel. Changing the underlyingly retracted leftmost vowel to advanced tongue root incurs a L-ANCHOR violation, as in candidate (e). Candidates (b) and (c) change the ATR specification and the height specification, respectively, of the underlyingly high

176


advanced vowel in order to optimise ATR harmony. This violates the markedness constraint *[+high, -ATR] and the faithfulness constraint IOIDENT(hi), respectively. Candidate (d) displays opacity. The high vowel starts a new harmony domain. In this case, the high vowel is disharmonic in ATR with its neighbour to the left and harmonic with its neighbour to the right, which constitutes an imbalanced relation with its neighbourhood as a whole. This imbalance violates the local conjunction BALANCE(ATR). Therefore, the candidate which is least optimal with regard to ATR harmony, candidate (a) is preferred.

) a. b. c. d. e.

t(kkil(Øn t(kk,l(Øn t(kk(l(Øn t(kkileØn tekkileØn

** *! *! *! *!

*[+ATR]

IO-ID(ATR)

S-ID(ATR)

BALANCE (ATR)

IO-ID(hi)

L-ANCHOR

/t(kki-l(Øn/

*[+hi, ATR]

(223) Wolof transparency

* * * * **

* ***

From this standard case of balance we now proceed to a more complex one in which two balanced vowels are surrounded by other vowels and separated by other vowels as well and encounter a surprising complication. In example (218c) exactly this configuration is displayed. Tableau (224) shows that the language chooses the worst candidate with respect to harmony and it shows as well that the concept of balance alone does not exclude a decision based on the harmony constraint. (224) Wolof extreme disharmony /xarit-m-boØbule/ a. b. c. d. 0 e. / f.

xar,tamboØb8l( xritmboØbule xar(tamboØbol( xaritmboØbule xaritamboØbule xaritamboØbul(

*[+hi, -ATR]

LANCHOR

IO-ID (hi)

BALANCE (ATR)

S-ID (ATR)

*!(a-i-)

* *** ****!

*!* *! *!*

Wolof ATR harmony

177

The problem here lies in the fact that the grammar in its current form prefers a more harmonic form than the language actually does. I will consider in detail what this evaluation reveals for the analysis. First of all, the grammar developed so far excludes the candidate with unimpeded root control, candidate (a), because this root controlled harmony maximisation is achieved by a double violation of the markedness constraint against high retracted vowels. Both high vowels, i and u, are retracted in this form. The candidate displaying dominance of the feature [+ATR] is as bad as candidate (a), because this candidate (b) has altered the ATR specification of the leftmost root vowel. This constitutes a violation of high ranking LANCHOR. The last candidate with complete ATR harmony has circumvented violation of both constraints by lowering of the high vowels. Once lowered, they can also have a negative ATR specification without violating *[+hi, -ATR]. Lowering, however, violates the IO-Identity constraint on height. This constraint is ranked topmost as well. The result is ungrammaticality of candidate (c). In candidate (d) the first balanced vowel behaves as opaque. This form is almost completely harmonic with regard to ATR, but the opaque behaviour of i violates the local conjunction of BALANCE. The vowel i is disharmonic with its neighbour to the left and harmonic with its neighbour to the right. The candidate is judged as sub-optimal for this fauxpas. The interesting point is the decision between the last two candidates. Both candidates avoid all violations of the top-ranking constraints, including the BALANCE conjunction. The decision on the output is passed down to the next constraint in the hierarchy, which is the harmony constraint SIDENT(ATR). Candidate (f) displays the same configuration in the environment of the two balanced vowels. They are both disharmonic with every neighbour. This sums up to four violations of S-IDENT(ATR). Candidate (e) has a comparatively better performance on the harmony constraint in that the second balanced vowel has harmonic neighbouring vowels. A side effect of this is disharmony between the two vowels in the middle of the word, D and o. All in all, candidate (e) has one harmony violation less than candidate (f). This reveals that the language prefers a parallel relation of separated balanced vowels with their environment to a pattern where one balanced vowel is disharmonic with its environment and the other is in harmony with its neighbours. This pattern of an analogous behaviour of both vowels emerges even on the cost of having a higher degree of disharmony in the word.

178


It is no accident that the Wolof grammar prefers forms in which both balanced vowels stand in the same relationship with their environment. In the form xaritamboØbul( 'that friend of his/hers just mentioned' both balanced vowels are in disharmony with their neighbourhood, while in the form kriQ mboØbule 'that coal of his/hers just mentioned' (218c) both balanced vowels live in harmony with their environment. To account for this phenomenon I propose an interpretation of the BALANCE conjunction in which the pattern in candidate (224e) counts as a violation because this form has one high vowel which violates the harmony constraint as well as one high vowel which violates the OCP constraint in the BALANCE conjunction. This interpretation might prove problematic because it does not acknowledge the status of each high vowel as an independent entity. The notion of locality as it is generally assumed for local constraint coordination is to be broadened here. However, locality would not be replaced by arbitrariness in this view. It is not the case that one vowel violates the markedness constraint *[+hi], a second vowel violates the harmony constraint S-IDENT(ATR), while a third one violates the OCP constraint *S-IDENT(ATR) and all these unrelated events are mashed together to a violation of BALANCE(ATR). There are two vowels in the word which violate the markedness constraint on high vowels. One of these two vowels is harmonic with both neighbours, resulting in a double violation of *S-IDENT(ATR), while the other of the two is disharmonic with all its direct neighbours, which yields two violations of S-IDENT(ATR). Mere addition shows that we have enough violations of the involved constraints to assign two violation marks on BALANCE(ATR). Seen in isolation, each of the two vowels passes the BALANCE constraint, since each vowel fares well on one of the involved constraints. If they are assessed as a group, their bad performance accumulates to a violation. Hence, BALANCE(ATR) is not assessed individually but rather collectively or cumulatively. The set of entities which are assessed together on their performance on the Balance conjunction is defined by violation of the first conjoint of this conjunction, i.e., the markedness constraint on high vowels. I will refer to this constraint as the triggering constraint below, because it is the unavoidable violation of this constraint that triggers activation of the conjunction. In tableau (225), each candidate violates the markedness constraint *[+hi] twice since every candidate has two hig vowels, i and u.

Wolof ATR harmony

179

*[+hi]

xaritamboØbule xaritamboØbul( kriQ mboØbul( kriQ mboØbule

*SID(ATR)

/kriQ -Am-bOØbulE/

1 a. - b. 1 c. - d.

S-ID(ATR)

/xarit-Am-bOØbulE/

BALANCE (ATR)

(225) A collective interpretation of BALANCE

*!

*** **** ***

** * ** *****

** ** ** **

*!

Candidate (a) has one high vowel violating the harmony constraint (the vowel i). Additionally, the candidate has a high vowel u which is harmonic with its environment in violaton of the dissimilation constraint *SIDENT(ATR). Collective assessment of violations then takes into account all violations incurred by all elements which violate the triggering constraint of the local conjunction of BALANCE(ATR). Even though each high vowel individually satisfies the local conjunction, as a group they perform bad on this complex constraint. The result is the assignment of a violation mark on that constraint since the high vowels violate all involved constraints. In candidate (b), however, both high vowels violate the harmony constraint maximally, but, by this maximal disharmony with their environment, completely satisfy the dissimilation constraint *S-IDENT(ATR). Each member of the set of vowels violating the triggering constraint passes *SIDENT(ATR). This renders the whole conjunction of BALANCE satisfied. The same evaluation applies to candidates (225c) and (225d), with the slight difference that the winning candidate (d) passes the BALANCE conjunction for the good performance of its high vowels on the harmony constraint, which outweighs the multiple violations of the dissimilation constraint and the markedness constraint. With this new insight into the assessment of the violations of local conjunctions we can reconsider tableau (224), here given as (226). The collective or cumulative interpretation of BALANCE explains why in this special case, i.e., words such as xaritamboØbul(, the Wolof grammar chooses a candidate as optimal which is less harmonic with regard to ATR than most of its competitors. Furthermore, if the meta-balance effect is caused by the evaluation metric for local conjunctions, this predicts that other languages with balanced vowels are likely to display the same effect

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as well if phonotactic restrictions and the morphology allow for such long words.45 (226) Wolof extreme disharmony reconsidered /xarit-m-boØbule/ a. b. c. d. 1 e. - f.

xar,tamboØb8l( xritmboØbule xar(tamboØbol( xaritmboØbule xaritamboØbule xaritamboØbul(

*[+hi, -ATR]

LIO-ID ANCHOR (hi)

BALANCE S-ID (ATR) (ATR)

*!* *! *!* *!(a-i-) *!

* *** ****

In addition to the high balanced vowels, Wolof has a low vowel which behaves as opaque. The whole analysis of balanced vowels does not affect the behaviour of the low long vowel as will be illustrated in the next section. 5.2.3 The opaque vowel A particularity of Wolof is the invariability of the long low vowel. It is invariably retracted and behaves opaque to harmony. (227c) shows that the long low vowel initiates a new harmonic domain also when preceded by an advanced vowel. Balanced vowels would prefer disharmonic ATR specifications to both sides (see 218b,c). (227) The Wolof low long vowel a. xaØr-( 'to wait in' jaØy-l( 'to help sell' b. yab-aØt-( 'to lack respect for' woØw-aØl( 'to call also'

c. doØr-aØt-( genn-aØl(

'to hit usually' 'to go out also'

(Pulleyblank 1996: 316)

Pulleyblank (1996: 316) proposes a Lo/RTR condition on bimoraic vowels. This is translated into a markedness constraint in (228). This constraint is ranked topmost in the Wolof hierarchy. (228) *[+low, +long, +ATR]

Wolof ATR harmony

181

Note that balancing is restricted to high vowels according to the definition of the local conjunction on balance in (219) by reference to the markedness constraint *[+high]. A natural result of this analysis is then that the low vowel behaves as opaque. BALANCE(ATR) is satisfied vacuously because the low vowel always satisfies the markedness constraint *[+high] which is an integral part of the BALANCE(ATR) constraint.

) a. b. c. d.

gennaØl( gennaØle gennØle g(nnaØl(

* **! *! *!

IO-ID(ATR)

S-ID(ATR)

BALANCE (ATR)

IO-IDENT(hi)

L-ANCHOR

*[+low, +long, +ATR]

/genn-aØl(/

*[+hi, -ATR]

(229) Opacity of the long low vowel in Wolof

* ** *

In tableau (229), candidate (c) which shows alternation of the low vowel in order to optimise performance with regard to the harmony constraint is ruled out by the highly ranking markedness constraint *[+low, +long, +ATR]. Shortening, combined with ATR alternation, a strategy which is not included in the tableau is no choice either due to an obviously highly ranked faithfulness constraint on underlying length or moraic structure (MAXµ). Candidate (d) is no alternative to candidates (a) and (b) because in contrast to the latter it violates the important L-ANCHOR constraint. If the BALANCE(ATR) constraint does not contribute to the choice of the optimal candidate among the balanced and the imbalanced (i.e. opaque) candidates (a) and (b) it must be a lower constraint which decides the matter. The next lower constraint in which both candidates fare differently is SIDENT(ATR). This constraint of course prefers the more harmonic imbalanced candidate. This section has shown that balance in ATR harmony systems is guided by the same principles and constraints as in backness harmony systems.

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5.3

Previous analyses

In the discussion of other approaches I will restrict myself to the most recent accounts of transparent vowels within Optimality Theory. The first two accounts crucially rely on the conception of harmony as the effect of an alignment constraint (Ní Chiosáin and Padgett 1997 and Ringen and Heinämäki 1999), while in the second two analyses harmony is conceived of as agreement or correspondence (Bakoviü 2000, Bakoviü and Wilson 2000). 5.3.1 Transparency as neutrality One analysis in which the term neutrality is taken literally is that in which the neutral or transparent vowel is assumed to be underspecified for the harmonic feature. Proposals in this direction are those of Ní Chiosáin and Padgett (1997) and Ringen and Heinämäki (1999). In Ní Chiosáin and Padgett's approach, where assimilation is assumed to apply locally from segment to segment, the harmonic feature span is extended over the whole harmonic domain. The markedness constraint against the banned feature specification on the transparent vowel (CONTRAST(Lax) for the harmony pattern in Pasiego MontanҔes, which they examine) becomes active in a second step of evaluation. In their view transparency is a kind of constraint opacity, and strict locality is maintained at least in the intermediate step of derivation, where the transparent vowel bears the harmonic feature. Ringen and Heinämäki (1999) base their analysis of Finnish transparency on Ringen and Vago's (1998) assumptions for Hungarian. The vowels e and i do not have the backness contrast phonemically. That is they are underspecified. With an underspecified vowel in between back harmonic vowels, there is no locality problem anymore. Pronunciation as a front vowel is then a decision made in the phonetic component. (230) Finnish kóti-na in Ringen and Heinämäki's analysis a. [+back] b. [+back] [-back] ko

tI

na

*

ko

ti

na

Previous analyses

c. [+back] *

ko

[-back]

[+back]

ti

na

183

With a representation like that in (230a), the alignment constraint is satisfied which says that the right edge of the backness feature has to coincide with the right edge of the word. The I becomes front in the phonetic component. (230b) is suboptimal for its crossing association lines (i.e., locality violation), and (230c) fares less good with respect to the alignment constraint than structure (230a). In this account, the transparent vowel is literally neutral, in that it does not even have the active feature at all. Pulleyblank (1996) shows that the high vowels in Wolof can also be seen as neutral from another perspective. In his account the Alignment constraints which trigger harmony refer to the feature Retracted Tongue Root only. Retracted Tongue Root and Advanced Tongue Root are two antagonistic privative features in Pulleyblank's view. Thus, in his account the harmony constraints are neutral with regard to the high vowels in that they do not have their tongue root feature as an argument. As in the account developed here, the surface ATR specification is solely determined by the markedness constraint on the features high and ATR. Since Pulleyblank provides a comparative study of Wolof and Yoruba, I will come back to his account in chapter 6. What the first two accounts have in common is their serialist conception of candidate evaluation. We will see below that the accounts which were designed to avoid serialism of any kind also share an important feature with serialist derivations, that is reference to an intermediate abstract representation. 5.3.2 Targeted constraints and sympathy Bakoviü (2000) and Bakoviü and Wilson (2000) propose an analysis of Wolof transparent vowels which relies on a form of candidate evaluation which elementarily differs from the usual procedure. Optimality is determined by reference to a constraint which is labelled as 'targeted'. The basic idea of targeted constraints is that the candidate is chosen which is maximally identical to the one which would be optimal if the targeted constraint were not present in the grammar. The actually chosen candidate differs from the otherwise optimal candidate only in that it avoids violation of the

184


targeted constraint. As a targeted constraint, the markedness constraint *[+high, -ATR] is the last instance in a pairwise evaluation of candidates, constraint by constraint. Bakoviü and Wilson focus on the harmony constraint and compare an opaque candidate with a fully assimilated candidate. In this competition it is of course the fully assimilated candidate that wins. In the next step of cumulative candidate evaluation the fully assimilated candidate is compared with one which differs only with regard to the specification of the feature combination of height and ATR. For a word like t((ruwoon 'welcomed' the cumulative evaluation looks as follows: The candidate *t((r8woon fares better with respect to the harmony constraint than its opaque competitor *t((ruwoon. With respect to the higher ranking and targeted constraint *[+high, -ATR] (i.e., the constraint crucial for this cumulative evaluation), the candidate *t((r8woon is outperformed by the candidate t((ruwoon because this one is exactly like the fully harmonic form except that it does not violate the targeted markedness constraint. (231) Pairwise candidate choice46 S-ID(ATR)

Æ a. t((r8woon b. t((ruwoon

*[+hi, -ATR]

Ö *

Æ a. t((ruwoon b. t((r8woon

*

The constraint S-IDENT(ATR) compares the fully harmonic candidate with the opaque candidate and decides that the fully harmonic candidate is better. Then the fully harmonic candidate is compared with the candidate containing a transparent vowel in the light of the markedness constraint, and this constraint decides that the candidate with the transparent vowel pattern is better. The latter is better because it looks exactly like the fully harmonic form despite that it does not incur a violation of the targeted constraint, i.e., it has no retracted high vowel. An objection against this evaluation procedure arises in that the transparency candidate must have been cancelled before by the harmony constraint since it is worse than the fully harmonic candidate and as well worse than the opaque candidate. A reason that the transparency candidate is not considered at this point might lie in a possible restriction that only the best two candidates are to be considered by a constraint. But at this point the question arises why the fully harmonic candidate with retracted vowels only is not considered at all by the markedness constraint. The two best candidates to compare for this constraint would be the two forms t((ruwoon and *teeruwoon. The latter is out for independent reasons (Wolof has root

Previous analyses

185

control, not dominance), but not for its performance on either the targeted markedness constraint nor the harmony constraint, thus it should be considered under the targeted constraint analysis. Maybe I missed a crucial point and Bakoviü and Wilson have good reasons for not considering the latter candidate, but if not this would be a nontrivial disadvantage of their analysis. Of course the basic idea behind this analysis is that the candidate with a transparent vowel looks more like the fully harmonic candidate than the candidate with an opaque vowel. According to Bakoviü and Wilson, fully harmonic words are what the language strives for (p. 45). Thus, in its spirit this is exactly what a Sympathy based approach would do. In Sympathy Theory (McCarthy 1999) an output form stands not only in correspondence with its input, it also has to be faithful to specifically defined failed candidates. To facilitate comparison I will line out the basics of a potential analysis of transparency in Sympathy Theory:47 The actual output is chosen because it looks more like the fully harmonic form than any other candidate, and it looks better than the fully harmonic form in that it has no retracted high vowel. In such an analysis the harmony constraint would be the selector. The selector constraint is marked by in the following. This constraint selects the sympathetic candidate (which is marked with a flower in tableau 232), the one which is suboptimal because it violates a higher ranked constraint, but which is the best candidate with respect to S-IDENT. The optimal output is then chosen by the intercandidate faithfulness constraint, which in this case would be UIO-IDENT(ATR). The candidate with the transparent vowel violates UIDENT(ATR) less than that with an opaque vowel. The analysis is illustrated in tableau (232). (232) Transparency as Sympathy t((ruwoon fully harmonic opaque V transparent V

U a. t((r8woon b. t((ruwoon ) c. t((ruwoon

*[+hi, -ATR]

UID (ATR)

S-ID (ATR)

IO-ID (ATR)

**!* *

9 * **

? ? ?

*!

One handicap for the stipulated Sympathy analysis is that McCarthy tries to restrict Sympathy Theory by stipulating that selector constraints can only be recruited of the set of IO-faithfulness constraints. The selector in (232) is a syntagmatic correspondence constraint in turn. Either Sympathy Theory

186


has to be modified here or the approach is not capable to handle a classical case of phonological opacity like vowel transparency. The targeted constraints analysis and the Sympathy approach, however, differ from many traditional accounts in that they do not view transparency as the skipping of a segment in the assimilation process. Instead they establish relations to other abstract forms, i.e., failed candidates. This is what they have in common with a derivational approach: crucial reference to forms which are never articulated. And in this particular case, the form which is referred to is exactly the same as in a rule based account. An analysis which does not make use of additional abstract forms has to be favoured until the existence of such forms has been proven on independent grounds. 5.4

Conclusion

Whether a vowel is balanced or not is a question of elegance and 'fairness'. If the simple harmony requirement is more important, then this results in imbalanced vowels (i.e., opaque vowels), due to the locality of the syntagmatic correspondence relation. The general insight of balance can be implemented in the current theory of harmony as a local conjunction of the Syntagmatic Identity constraint and its negation, *S-IDENT. Of course it would cause only confusion to apply this complex constraint to all vowels in a language. Limitation of the balance constraint to exactly those vowels which cause an imbalance to the vowel system as a whole is achieved by including the relevant markedness constraint into the local conjunction on balance. This frees the analysis from more complex theoretical devices, as well as from the assumption that phonetically front / ATR vowels have to be regarded as underspecified for the harmonic feature as proposed by Ringen and Heinämäki. A third advantage of this analysis lies in the fact that it can be extended to two other quirky sub-phenomena of vowel harmony, derivational opacity and parasitic or uniform harmony. Trojan vowels cause the emergence of a feature specification in an adjacent vowel which the trigger itself does not bear on the surface. Thus, it is commonly assumed that this pattern results from opaque rule interaction. In uniform harmony, assimilation of a certain feature applies only if adjacent vowels agree already with regard to a second feature. These patterns will also be subject to a detailed analysis in the next chapter.

Chapter 6 Trojan vowels and phonological opacity In some vowel harmony systems there are certain vowels (usually high vowels), which behave as neutral (i.e. transparent or recessive) in some morphemes, but as active (or dominant) in other morphemes. That is, some instances of such vowels cause their environment to harmonise, while others don't. For instance in Hungarian, two instances of i are observed, which phonetically seem to be the same. But in the phonology, one of these behaves like a transparent vowel, while the other triggers backness in a following affix vowel. Under the assumption that the last one is underlyingly [+back], but changes to [-back] due to a markedness constraint on the surface representation, it is in a certain sense similar to the Trojan horse, which looked like a gift (i.e., looked peacefully), but in fact contained the troops of the agressor.48 Similar cases are found also affecting other dimensions of the vocalic feature inventory. In Yoruba, we observe the same phenomenon regarding the feature ATR. Some advanced high vowels cause their neighbours to become [+ATR] while others cause a [-ATR] specification of their neighbour at the surface. Yawelmani has height-uniform backness harmony. Some nonhigh vowels trigger backness assimilation in a following affix vowel even though the latter is a high vowel. An analysis based on the assumption of Trojan vowels, which have an effect on surface structures via a local conjunction of markedness with IOfaithfulness and harmony constraints has the advantage of unifying the treatment of all these superficially different phenomena. In the generative literature such cases have been subject to a variety of approaches going from step-wise derivational analyses over assumptions of floating features, the stipulation of phonetically unrealised phonologically present features in surface representations to Sympathy. In this chapter, I will first apply the constraint coordination approach to the example of Hungarian, and then extend the analysis to Yoruba, Nez Perce, and Yawelmani. The discussion of previous approaches to the res-

188

Trojan vowels and phonological opacity

pective languages is postponed to the end of the chapter to make a general comparison possible. The analyses of Yawelmani developed in the recent literature exhibit such a high degree of complexity that I will discuss these directly in the respective section for the sake of comprehensibility. 6.1

Hungarian – Trojan vowels in backness harmony

Hungarian has a rich vowel system, which is displayed in (233). The vowel ë [e] is placed in brackets because not all dialects have this vowel. In some it has merged with (. (233) Hungarian vowel inventory (Ringen and Vago 1998: 394) front back [-round] [+round] [-round] [+round] short long short long short long short long high i [i] í [iØ] ü [ü] Ħ [üØ] u [u] ú [uØ] ö [ö] Ę [öØ] o [o] ó [oØ] mid (ë [e]) é [eØ] low e [(] á [aØ] a [o] Harmony affects the feature backness in Hungarian. The system lacks a back counterpart of the high unrounded vowel i in surface structures. The vowel is missing in the surface system. The other front unrounded vowel e has a back counterpart in that it patterns with a [aØ, o] in some instances. In some it does not. Changing the roundness specification of i is no choice in Hungarian, therefore i does not undergo backness harmony when preceded by a back vowel. This largely reminds of Finnish. What is so interesting about Hungarian in comparison to Finnish is that some instances of i are followed by a front vowel, while others are followed by a back vowel, as can be seen in (234d,e). (234) Hungarian basic harmony a. b. c. d. e.

ház tök radír víz híd

'house' 'pumpkin' 'eraser' 'water' 'bridge'

Dative ház-nak tök-nek radír-nak víz-nek híd-nak

Adessive ház-nál tök-nél radír-nál víz-nél híd-nál

Hungarian - Trojan vowels in backness harmony

f. nüansz g. sofĘr

'nuance' 'chauffeur'

nüansz-nak sofĘr-nek

189

nüansz-nál sofĘr-nél

In Ringen and Vago's (1998) analysis, words of the two types (234d,e) are distinguished by an assumed floating feature [+back] in the lexical representation of those words which are accompanied by back vowels in suffixes. Hence, under their analysis, a root like hid 'bridge' is specified as /hid[+back]/. A faithfulness constraint MAXsubsegment/root then chooses the candidate which assigns the floating feature to the affix vowels. The question arises why they do not simply assume that the instance of i which causes backness in following affix vowels is underlyingly back. This would free the analysis from the notion of floating features. Moreover, this would bring the Hungarian data in line with other languages, i.e. Yoruba and Nez Perce for which an analysis along this line of thought has been proposed as well (see Hall and Hall 1980 on Nez Perce, and Bakoviü 2000 on both languages). Except for the assumption of an underlying // for i's like the one in híd 'bridge', I will depart in most respects from the proposals by Hall and Hall as well as Bakoviü. To minimise confusion, I will first outline my analysis for Hungarian, then apply it to the other three languages as well, and then discuss the other approaches. 6.1.1 A preliminary harmony grammar for Hungarian Now let's have a look at the basic harmony pattern in Hungarian. Hungarian vowels agree in backness but do not alternate in height or roundness to optimise performance with regard to S-IDENT(bk). The only exception is short e, which becomes round when back. Thus, we can say that IO-IDENT(hi) is ranked above S-IDENT(bk). That i does not undergo a repairing with u can be attributed to a local conjunction of *[+hi] and IOIDENT(rd), which seems to be ranked at least above S-IDENT(bk). (235) First ranking for Hungarian IDENT[hi], *[+hi]&lIO-IDENT(rd) >> S-IDENT(bk) >> IO-IDENT(rd) This accounts for the basic backness harmony pattern. The fact that i is transparent can be analysed analogous to Finnish by the slightly different local conjunction of *[+hi, -bk]&l*S-IDENT(bk)&lS-IDENT(bk), the 'con-

190


junction of BALANCE', which demands that when a vowel (here a front unrounded vowel; or a sequence of such vowels), is (dis)harmonic with its neighbour to one side, it should be in the same relation with its neighbour to the other. That underlying back high unrounded vowels surface as front is an effect of the vowel inventory constraint which was seen to be active in Finnish as well, i.e. *[-lo, +bk, -rd], abbreviated as *ALIEN (see section 5.1.3). This one interacts with identity constraints. In tableau (236), we see how these constraints determine the surface representation of the underlying high back unrounded vowel. (236) Possible Hungarian underlying back high unrounded vowel IO-ID(bk) // *ALIEN IO-ID(hi) *[+hi]&lIO-ID(rd) ... a. *! b. $ *! c. u *! ) d. i * The tableau in (237) illustrates how the inventory constraint *ALIEN in alliance with the anti-repair constraint *[+hi]&lIO-IDENT(rd) and Identity on height choose a maximally faithful but also disharmonic candidate from an underlyingly backness harmonic form. (237) Disharmonic surface reflex of an underlyingly harmonic sequence /u C / a. b. c. ) d.

uC uCu u C aa uCi

*ALIEN

IOID(hi)

*[+hi]&l IO-ID(rd)

SID(bk)

IOID(rd)

IOID(bk)

*! *!

*

*! *

The inalterability of the first vowel in the sequence, which could also alternate with ü to optimise harmony, is an effect of the highly ranking LeftANCHOR constraint in coordination with IO-Identity, as in the analyses of Turkish and Finnish as well. In the following tableau, the BALANCE constraint (the local conjunction of markedness, harmony and OCP) is added to the grammar.


191

(238) Local conjunction BALANCE(bk): *[-lo, -rd, -bk]&lS-ID(bk)&l*S-ID(bk) 'An element must either not be [-lo, -rd, -bk] or it must agree with all its neighbours in backness or it must disagree with all its neighbours with regard to [±back].' Tableau (239) illustrates how underlyingly front i's pattern as balanced vowels when preceded by a disharmonic (i.e., back) vowel. As shown above, markedness and faithfulness constraints conspire against the harmony constraint and rule out candidates satisfying the latter in case of underlying i. The BALANCE constraint rules out the opaque candidate (a). The vowel i violates the markedness constraint *[+hi, -bk]. In addition, it is disharmonic in backness with the preceding back vowel o, incurring a violation mark for S-ID(bk). Backness harmony with the following vowel violates the OCP constraint *S-ID(bk). All three violations add up to one of BALANCE, which consists of just these constraints. (239) Hungarian balanced /i/ /radiØr-nek/ a. b. c. ) d.

rodiØrnek rodØrnok roduØrnok rodiØrnok

*ALIEN IO-ID (hi)

*[+hi]&l IO-ID(rd)

BALANCE (bk)

S-ID (bk)

*!

*

IO-ID (rd)

*! *!

* **

This analysis of balancing in Hungarian has to be regarded as provisional. I will first skip the relevant constraint for the sake of simplicity in the following treatment of Trojan vowels. In 6.1.3 it will be shown on the grounds of the analysis for Trojan vowels that there are no balanced vowels in Hungarian at all. 6.1.2 Hungarian Trojan vowels The contrast between balanced vowels and Trojan vowels is illustrated in (240). The front root vowels in (a) are followed by front suffix vowels, while the front root vowels in (b) are followed by back affix vowels even though no trigger of backness harmony can be found in the surface representation.

192


(240) Hungarian transparent versus Trojan vowels stem gloss adess. UR a. kéz 'hand' kéznél s.l. film 'film' filmnél s.l. b. híd cél

'bridge' 'aim; target'

ablative hídtól céltól

/h:d/ /ts):l/

(Olsson 1992: 79)

In line with Vago (1973) and many others I will assume that the vowels in (240b) are underlyingly specified as [+back]. They surface as [-back] in satisfaction of *ALIEN, the inventory constraint against back nonlow unrounded vowels. The problem in dealing with the Trojan vowel is now how to modify the grammar in such a way that the underlying backness feature of this vowel is mapped onto the following vowel when one is available, without affecting the entire harmony pattern. Dissimilation occurs only when the underlying backness specification is not realised faithfully on the surface, which is a violation of IOIDENT(bk). Dissimilation in backness is an effect of the constraint *SIDENT(bk). The generalisation is covered formally by the local conjunction of both constraints. The local conjunction of these two constraints alone brings the grammar in a dilemma: All vowels which do not map their underlying backness specification to the surface should be eager to disagree with their neighbours to perform better on that local conjunction. The dissimilation pattern is restricted to vowel combinations in which a nonlow front unrounded vowel is found. Nonlow front unrounded vowels violate the markedness constraint *[-lo, -rd, -bk]. Exactly these vowels make the whole inventory asymmetric since they do not have a back high and unrounded counterpart in the surface inventory. The solution to the dilemma above is to include the markedness constraint *[-lo, -bk, -rd] in the local conjunction as was the case already for the local conjunction of BALANCE. (241) The constraint on Trojan vowels in Hungarian TROY(bk): *[-lo, -rd, -bk]&lIO-IDENT(bk)&l*S-IDENT(bk) The analysis of the Trojan vowel in Hungarian is illustrated in tableau (242).


193

(242) The Trojan vowel in Hungarian /hØd-nek/ a. hØd-nok b. hiØd-nek ) c. hiØd-nok

*ALIEN

IOID(hi)

*[+hi]& IO-ID(rd)

TROY (bk)

SID(bk)

*! *! *

The backness harmonic candidate which is faithful to the underlying backness specification of the stem vowel (candidate a) is trivially ruled out by violation of *ALIEN. Candidates (b) and (c) do not violate the inventory constraint. The price they pay is unfaithfulness to the backness specification of the stem vowel. The relevant constraint IO-IDENT(bk) is ranked below the harmony constraint. It plays no decisive role anyway since both candidates tie on this constraint with regard to the stem vowel. In the decision between candidate (b) and candidate (c), the constraint TROY plays the crucial part. Candidate (b) violates all three conjuncts of TROY. It violates *[-lo, -rd, -bk] in containing the vowel i. This vowel is unfaithful to its underlying form, violating IO-IDENT(bk). Both violations together trigger activity of the backness OCP constraint on adjacent vowels *SIDENT(bk), which is violated as well, because the two vowels of the word have the same backness specification. Candidate (c) fulfils the prerequisites for activation of *S-IDENT(bk) too, and this candidate satisfies the OCP – on the cost of S-IDENT(bk), of course. Since the constraint TROY is more important than backness harmony, the grammar judges candidate (c) as superior to candidate (b). The addition of the local conjunction TROY(bk) to the grammar of Hungarian has no impact on underlyingly front high vowels. In tableau (243), a stem containing an underlyingly front high vowel with a harmonic affix is evaluated. All candidates with an unfaithful stem vowel violate high ranking constraints. Since none of them violates the markedness constraint against front high unrounded vowels, they all satisfy the conjunction TROY(bk). The remaining candidates (d,e), which are faithful with regard to their stem vowel incurr no violation of TROY as well, just because of their faithfulness. Satisfaction of TROY(bk) is achieved by these two candidates by satisfaction of IO-Identity. Thus, the TROY(bk) macro-constraint is vacuous with respect to underlyingly front high vowels.

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(243) The balanced vowel in Hungarian revisited /viØz-nek/ a. b. c. ) d. e.

vØz-nok vaØznok vuØznok viØz-nek viØz-nok

*ALIEN

IOID(hi)

*[+hi]&l IO-ID(rd)

TROY (bk)

S-ID (bk)

*! *! *! *!

This grammar supports balance of the Hungarian system in underlying representations in that the high unrounded back vowel is present in lexical representations. And the grammar provides a strategy to make this underlying contrast visible on the surface without violating the inventory structure constraint which causes surface imbalance of the system. In the next section we will see that such a grammar has even more influence on the shape of lexical representations. It will be shown in particular that with such a grammar, stems containing both balanced/Trojan vowels as well as 'normal' vowels are predicted to be harmonic with regard to backness in their underlying forms. This result contradicts the 'richness of the base hypothesis' (Prince and Smolensky 1993), which basically claims that a grammar has to cope with any input, and that languages differ only in their surface forms, which are determined by the languageparticular grammar. Hungarian shows a) that the grammar determines the inputs or underlying representations, and b) that the shape of the input has an effect on its surface reflex in that a phonemic distinction banned from the surface vowel inventory might be maintained underlyingly, showing only an indirect reflex at the surface. 6.1.3 Hungarian balanced vowels reconsidered from the learning perspective On the background of the analysis of Trojan vowels it is worth reconsidering the Hungarian balanced vowels from the perspective of a language learner. In Optimality Theory, learning a first language means to find the exact language-particular ranking of the constraints on outputs as well as to find the optimal underlying representations for morphemes (Gnanadesikan 1995, Grijzenhout and Joppen 1998, Tesar and Smolensky


195

1998, 2000). Just suppose a child which is learning Hungarian has adjusted its constraint ranking accordingly after being confronted with stems containing Trojan vowels. From this point the child may also conclude that the balanced vowels are not balanced like those in Finnish, a part of them could likewise be Trojan stems. When a learner postulates /rodr/ as the underlying form of the stem [rodir] there is no evidence for the local conjunction of BALANCE anymore, as is illustrated in tableau (244).

S-ID(bk)

IO-ID(rd)

*[+hi]&l IO-ID(rd)

BALANCE (bk)

rodírn(k rod rnok rodurnok rodírnok

TROY(bk)

a. b. c. ) d.

IO-ID(hi)

/rodr-nok/

*ALIEN

(244) Possible /rodr-nok/

*!

*

*

*

*! *!

* **

The learner will simplify the grammar by not conjoining these constraints and leave the potential conjoints where they are, at the bottom of the Hungarian hierarchy. This leaves us with the simplified grammar in (245). (245) Hungarian final ranking *ALIEN, IO-ID(hi), *[+hi]&lIO-ID(rd), TROY >> S-ID(bk) >> IO-ID(rd), IOID(bk) If a learner of Hungarian has arrived at this grammar s/he has made a decision about the optimal underlying representations of stems like those in (246). The crucial front vowels in second position in these stems behave as balanced, agreeing with both their neighbours or disagreeing with both their neighbours with regard to backness. (246) Some neutral vowels in Hungarian stem gloss adessive a. tövis 'thorn' tövisnél tündér 'fairy' tündérnél

196


b. muri radír kávé

'party, spree; rebellion' 'eraser' 'coffee'

murinál radírnál kávénál

(Olsson 1992: 78)

In the case of stems containing a 'normal' vowel followed by an e or i the learner has the following two possibilities: Surface harmonic stems with a front vowel followed by a balanced one (246a) are stored as they are, while surface disharmonic stems with a back vowel followed by a balanced front vowel which show up with the back alternants of suffix vowels (246b) are stored as harmonic containing only back vowels underlyingly. This is illustrated for the 'neutral' vowels from (246a,b) in the tableaux (247) and (248). In these tableaux, I have taken the grammar developed so far and evaluated the surface form of the crucial words in relation to two possible underlying forms (247a,b/248a,b). Tableaux (247a,b) evaluate the optimal input-output pairing for those 'neutral' vowels which are harmonic with both adjacent vowels. Tableau (247a) operates on the assumption of an underlying front high unrounded vowel in the stem. With this input the grammar chooses the right output. If, as in (247b), a back high unrounded vowel is assumed as basic, the desired output candidate is suboptimal because it violates the constraint TROY, since [i] violates the markedness constraint *[-lo, -rd, -bk], the mapping from // to [i] violates IOIDENT(bk) and the harmonic relation between surface i and its neighbours violates the last conjoint of TROY, namely *S-IDENT(bk). The candidate which is no attested output form fares better with this input. Thus, the input in (247a), which is also maximally surface-true has to be chosen as the optimal one by the learner. This is indicated by &.

t2visnaØl - t2visneØl

IO-ID(bk)

IO-ID(rd)

S-ID(bk)

TROY(bk)

*[-lo]&l IO-ID(rd)

IO-ID(hi)

& a. /t2vis + naØl/

*ALIEN

(247) Choosing the optimal input for [t2visneØl] 'thorn,ADESS'

*! *

t2visnaØl / t2visneØl

IO-ID(bk)

197

IO-ID(rd)

S-ID(bk)

TROY(bk)

*[-lo]&l IO-ID(rd)

IO-ID(hi)

' b. /t2vs + naØl/

*ALIEN


* *

*!

With 'neutral' vowels which are disharmonic with regard to their neighbourhood the situation looks different. In (248a), where an underlyingly disharmonic stem is chosen as input the desired output loses by violating SIDENT(bk), while this candidate becomes optimal when an underlying back vowel is assumed as in (248b).

/ murinaØl murineØl

- murinaØl murineØl

IO-ID(bk)

IO-ID(rd)

*!

IO-ID(bk)

IO-ID(rd)

S-ID(bk)

TROY(bk)

*[-lo]& IO-ID(rd)

IO-ID(hi)

* *ALIEN

& b. /mur + naØl/

S-ID(bk)

TROY(bk)

*[-lo]& IO-ID(rd)

IO-ID(hi)

' a. /muri + naØl/

*ALIEN

(248) The optimal input for [muri-naØl] 'party, spree; rebellion, ADESS'

* *!

*

An interesting side effect of this analysis is that it predicts underlyingly harmonic forms for both types of stems. A stem like tövis 'thorn' is underlyingly /t2vis/, while surface disharmonic stems like muri 'party, spree; rebellion' or radír 'eraser' must be underlyingly harmonic /mur/ and /rodØr/, respectively. With the observation that stems containing i or e as the second vowel are all harmonic underlyingly, with that harmony forced upon them by the grammar, we can explain the lack of a class of stems which contain a front harmonic vowel followed by a back nonlow unrounded vowel.

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(249) Hungarian unattested pattern i e.g. *tivisnal e *tevisnal */C C/ ö *tövisnal ü *tüvisnal In the historic stage of Hungarian, where back unrounded vowels were still allowed these must have been subject to harmony and must have undergone assimilation to the preceding front vowel regularly. The pattern front harmonic vowel followed by back high unrounded vowel ( or )) was excluded at any time by the harmony grammar. Thus, it never had a chance to be stored as a lexical representation and be kept as such. When formerly balanced vowels are analysed as Trojan vowels now this predicts that loans, which are newly introduced to the language pattern as opaque because the BALANCE constraint plays no role anymore. And this is what actually happens with loans as shown in (250). (250) Hungarian opaque front vowels gloss delative koncert 'concert' koncertrĘl bronchitisz 'bronchitis' bronchitisrĘl

adessive koncertnél bronchitisnél (Olsson 1992: 78)

The nonlow front vowels in (250) behave as opaque. Given that Hungarian speakers posit surface-true disharmonic underlying forms for such words the last front nonlow vowel induces harmony on the following vowels in satisfaction of the harmony constraint.49 (251) Evaluation of Hungarian opaque vowels /koncert-rĘl/ ) a. koncert-rĘl b. koncert-ról

*ALIEN

IO-ID (hi)

*[+hi]& IO-ID(rd)

TROY (bk)

S-ID (bk)

IO-ID (rd)

*!

*

Candidate (b), which shows the balanced pattern is sub-optimal because the alternative candidate is more harmonic with regard to backness. The constraint TROY would choose the disharmonic candidate, but this constraint is satisfied vacuously since the front nonlow vowel in koncert does not violate IO-Identity on backness.


199

Just let us consider briefly what would happen with such loans if Hungarian had not abandoned the BALANCE constraint in favour of the TROY constraint.

IO-ID(rd)

TROY(bk)

BALANCE (bk)

*[+hi]& IO-ID(rd)

S-ID(bk)

/ a. koncert-rĘl 0 b. koncert-ról

IO-ID(hi)

/koncert-rĘl/

*ALIEN

(252) Hypothetical Balance and loan words in Hungarian

*

*

*!

The grammar would predict the balanced pattern for disharmonic loans. The e or i in medial position violates the markedness constraint in the BALANCE conjunction as well as the harmony constraint. To escape from violation of the whole conjunction, the candidate would be chosen which at least satisfies the OCP constraint. Since this grammar evaluates not the same output as Hungarians prefer, the grammar without the BALANCE constraint seems to be more appropriate. There are some words in Hungarian which show free variation in the choice of the suffix vowel. These have been termed 'vacillating stems' in the literature. (253) Hungarian hybrid front vowels / 'vacillating stems' gloss delative adessive pozitív 'positive' pozitívról / pozitívnál / pozitívrĘl pozitívnél balëk 'fool, greenhorn' balëkról / balëknál / balëkrĘl balëknél (Olsson 1992: 79) These words must have been introduced to the language at a stage where the decision whether the language has balanced or Trojan vowels was still an open issue. The solution of the language learner is to posit two competing underlying forms for these stems, one containing a back vowel, one containing a front vowel. The choice among these two stems is arbitrary. The result is free variation in the suffix vowels depending on the free variation in the choice of the underlying form.

200


6.1.4 Summary To summarise the findings, it was observed in this section that even though Hungarian has a number of vowels which pattern like balanced vowels (as in Finnish), the language has only Troyan and imbalanced or opaque vowels. The latter are imbalanced in the sense that the harmonic domain (i.e., backness) stops before them, and they start a new domain (i.e., frontness) with the following vowels. The result is disharmony to their left and harmony to their right, as is observed with the low unrounded vowels in Turkish for instance. Balance plays no active part in the Hungarian grammar. What is crucial for the Hungarian surface pattern and for the shape of many underlying forms is the complex constraint, which I labelled TROY, a combination of markedness and faithfulness constraints which together trigger activation of an OCP constraint. The purpose or effect of this complex constraint is twofold. The major function is to maintain a phonemic contrast in the language which has no direct surface reflex anymore due to other forces operative in the Hungarian grammar. The second effect is that this constraint, together with the rest of the Hungarian grammar forces backness harmony also on most underlying representations. We will see in the following that exactly this mechanism applies in languages unrelated to Hungarian. The effects of this grammatic constellation have formerly been described as derivational opacity. 6.2

Yoruba high vowels – Trojan vowels and root controlled ATR harmony

The basic issues of Yoruba vowel harmony have already been examined in chapter 4.2. In that section, I excluded high vowels from most of the discussion, because they exhibit a different pattern than the opaque or imbalanced low vowel a. 6.2.1 High vowels and mid vowels The patterns found with high vowels are illustrated in (254). Recall from section 4.2 that the harmonising feature is [±ATR] in Yoruba, and that mid vowels are regularly subject to this harmony requirement under root

Yoruba high vowels

201

control. The low vowel a allowed [+ATR] as well as [-ATR] mid vowels to its right, but only [-ATR] vowels to its left. (254) Yoruba high vowels a. ilé 'house' iJeEó id( 'brass' ikoº ebi 'hunger' òrí (¼bi 'guilt' otí b. ilá àfi igi aja

'forest, wood' 'cough' 'shea-butter' 'wine/beer'

'okra' 'except' 'tree' 'dog'

eku (tu

'rat' 'deer'

òwú 'cotton' o¼rX 'heaven'

atú ikú

'type of dress' 'death' (Bakoviü 2000: 140)

Two observations are to be made with regard to the behaviour of Yoruba high vowels. First, there is no high vowel which is [-ATR]. Second, to both sides of high vowels either [+ATR] or [-ATR] mid vowels occur. 6.2.2 A Trojan grammar for Yoruba The question why there is no high vowel which is [-ATR] in Yoruba is trivial. Articulatorily it is more natural for high vowels to be [+ATR]. This justifies a markedness constraint like *[+hi, -ATR], as discussed in the section on Wolof transparent vowels in the preceding chapter already. Highly ranking such a constraint eliminates the [-ATR] high vowels 8 and , from the inventory. The ranking in (255) explains the first observation on the Yoruba surface inventory made above. (255) Yoruba first ranking: IO-IDENT(hi), *[+hi, -ATR] >> IO-IDENT(ATR) The assumption of a high ranking R-ANCHOR, which was one of the basic points of chapter 4.2, neatly explains why mid vowels occur as [-ATR] as well as [+ATR] to the right of the two high vowels.

202


(256) Yoruba disharmonic id( 'brass' *[+hi, -ATR]

/,d(/ a. b. c. ) d.

,d( (d( ide id(

IO-ID (hi)

RANCHOR

S-ID (ATR)

IO-ID (ATR)

*

** *

*! *! *!

This is analogous to the behaviour of mid vowels in the neighbourhood of the low vowel a. The remaining problem is why the mid vowels to the left of i and u also do not have to agree with the latter with regard to ATR. Remind from section 4.2 that the mid vowels to the left of the low retracted vowel always surface as retracted. Thus, the high vowels are different from the low vowel in this respect. Are they neutral vowels in the literal sense, neither triggering nor undergoing ATR harmony? Some of the Yoruba high vowels are what I labelled Trojan vowels. They are underlyingly [-ATR], but change to [+ATR] in surface representations due to high ranking *[+hi, -ATR]. The assumption of underlying high retracted vowels is in line with Bakoviü's analysis of these data. In Bakoviü's view, then, surface disharmony is a result of Sympathy, i.e., cyclicity. In what follows I will show that this move is not necessary, since the Yoruba high vowels can be accounted for with the same assumptions as the Hungarian Trojan vowel. First, I will show where Yoruba has Trojan vowels. For this purpose we now have a look at words consisting of monosyllabic roots containing a high vowel plus a prefixed mid vowel, the nominalising prefixes -o/o and -e/(. (257) Yoruba Trojan vowels and affixes a. e+rú → erú NOM + 'to disrupt' 'dishonesty' e+rú → (¼rú NOM + 'to haft' 'the haft' b. o + mu NOM + 'to drink' o + kú NOM + 'to die'

→ →

o¼mu 'drinker' òkú 'corpse'

Yoruba high vowels

c. e + rí NOM

→

+ 'to see'

(¼rí 'evidence'

203

(Bakoviü 2000: 152)

The nominalising prefixes in (257) surface with different ATR specifications, when attached to different roots even though all these roots contain nothing but an advanced high vowel. In chapter 4.2 we have seen evidence that this cannot be a property of the affix vowel, because it is exceptionlessly harmonic with all nonhigh vowels. I assume that this alternation is triggered by the same facts as in Hungarian. There are underlyingly [-ATR] high vowels whose existence is supported by a Trojan constraint coordination. If a mid vowel is available the underlying feature is realised on this mid vowel rather than on the one it belongs to lexically. The latter is banned by the high ranking markedness constraint against [+hi, -ATR] vowels. The constraint which is responsible for the surface appearance of the underlying [-ATR] specification is activated only when a vowel which causes the inventory to be imbalanced is present, i.e., a high vowel. This is formalised by the local conjunction in (258). (258) The constraint on Yoruba Trojan vowels – first version: TROY(ATR) = *[+hi]&lIO-ID(ATR)&l*S-ID(ATR) Violation of markedness, faithfulness and the OCP by the same vowel is prohibited. This constraint resides in the top stratum of the Yoruba constraint hierarchy. Tableau (259) shows the Yoruba grammar in action. (259) Yoruba disharmonic (¼-rí 'evidence' /e + r,/ a. b. c. d. e. ) f.

er, (r, (r( iri eri (ri

*[+hi, -ATR]

IO-ID (hi)

TROY (ATR)

*! *!

S-ID (ATR)

IO-ID (ATR)

* *! *!

* *! *

* * * * **

In the above tableau, all forms which faithfully contain a retracted high vowel (candidates a and b) fatally violate the markedness constraint *[+hi, -ATR]. Candidate (c) which mapps the underlying ATR specification of the

204


high vowel faithfully to the surface violates high ranking IO-IDENT(hi) instead. Candidate (d) is odd for violation of the same constraint. This time the affix vowel has a height specification that diverges from the underlying form. Of the two remaining candidates, candidate (f), the ATR-disharmonic one fares better, because it satisfies the local conjunction TROY. The vowel i in candidate (e) violates the markedness constraint *[+hi] as well as IOIdentity on ATR. The latter violation arises because the vowel is retracted underlyingly but advanced in candidate (e). Finally the vowel i in candidate (e) violates the OCP constraint on ATR by being harmonic with the neighbouring vowel e. in satisfaction of the harmony constraint. This altogether adds up to a violation of the crucial local conjunction TROY and rules out the ATR-harmonic candidate. The mechanism at work is essentially the same as applied already in Hungarian above, except that the active feature is different. This analysis straightforwardly explains the emergence of retracted as well as advanced mid vowels in the neighbourhood of high vowels in the Yoruba mono-morphemic forms in (254). To illustrate this the word (tu 'deer' is evaluated in (260). (260) Yoruba disharmonic mono-morphemic nouns /(t8/ a. b. c. ) d.

(t8 (to etu (tu

*[+hi, -ATR]

IO-ID (hi)

TROY (ATR)

S-ID (ATR)

IO-ID (ATR)

*

* *

*! *! *!

As in the preceding tableau, the most faithful form is judged sub-optimal for the retracted high vowel it contains. Lowering is no choice as well to maintain faithfulness to underlying ATR specifications. The completely ATR harmonic form is ruled out, since being harmonic with the neighbourhood adds the third constraint violation to those necessary to fail on the TROY(ATR) conjunction. The high vowel in that candidate violates as well the markedness constraint *[+hi] and the IO-Identity constraint on ATR. Thus, all attempts to be harmonic or to be faithful with regard to the feature ATR are doomed in this grammar with such an input. Actually, if disharmonic forms would only be mono-morphemic ones, such as (tu the same disharmony effect could be explained by high ranking positional faithfulness on stems or roots, as was the case with Turkish loans

Yoruba high vowels

205

in 4.3. The evidence for the treatment of high vowels as underlyingly retracted comes from the morphologically complex forms, such as (-ri for which no reasonable domain for a positional faithfulness constraint can be found, as well as from the asymmetric behaviour of mid vowels in the neighbourhood of the low vowel. The latter showed that to the left of the rightmost vowel in a word there is no phonemic ATR contrast possible in Yoruba. A challenge to the account in which the irregularities in the ATR harmony pattern result from underlying [-ATR] high vowels is what Archangeli and Pulleyblank (1989) labelled the two-domain pattern. In monomorphemic forms with three vowels of which the medial one is high and both others are mid, the only [-ATR] vowel can be the one to the right. (261) The two domain pattern in Yoruba a. èlùboº 'yam flour' e. erùp(¼ 'earth' b. òwúro¼ 'morning' f. ewùr(º 'goat' c. òkùroº 'palm kernel' g. odíd( 'Grey Parrot' d. orúko 'name' (Archangeli and Pulleyblank 1989: 184) h. *C(CiC( This generalisation is further illustrated in (262) with harmonic forms. No retracted mid vowel is tolerated to the left of a high vowel in word-medial position. (262) Word-medial high vowels and mid surrounding vowels in Yoruba a. òyìbó 'any European' b. orúpò 'mud-bench serving as bed' c. Òyìngbò 'place in Lagos' d. èsúró 'Redflanked Duiker' e. erìko 'midrib of igi ò. gò. rò. stripped of its leaves' (Archangeli and Pulleyblank 1989: 207) f. *C(CiCo Moreover, retracted mid vowels are tolerated to the left of word-final sequences of two high vowels. (263) Free occurrence of ATR/RTR mid vowels at the left edge in Yoruba a. èrìgì 'molar tooth' b. (tiri 'difficult' (Pulleyblank 1996: 305)

206


c. (¼bùrú

'shortcut'

(Archangeli and Pulleyblank 1989: 184)

If there are underlying [-ATR] high vowels in Yoruba with a surface effect, why are there none in three-syllable roots such as those in (261) and (262)? The situation is even worse. If sequences like *(lubo or *(lubo are out, why are forms like (263b,c) with a [-ATR] mid vowel followed by two high vowels allowed? A possible solution to the problem might lie in the exact formulation of the TROY constraint. If we replace the IO-Identity constraint in this conjunction by the R-ANCHOR constraint, which was already crucial in the analysis of the edge asymmetry with regard to nonhigh vowels, and furthermore define the domain of the local conjunction over the designated feature span instead of that of the segment or syllable, the phenomenon can be explained. Let me first dwell on the former modification. If the local conjunction refers to R-ANCHOR, then potential underlyingly high retracted vowels in the penultimate syllable are advanced in surface representations, and they do not have any retracting influence on their neighbour. This is because R-ANCHOR, which is one of the constraints which conjoin to trigger retraction in the neighbour of an underlyingly retracted high vowel refers only to material that is underlyingly at the right edge of the stem. This constraint is vacuously satisfied by all vowels other than the one in rightmost position of the stem. In the absence of a surface reflex of an underlying RTR specification of high vowels in the penultimate or antepenultimate syllable, these vowels must be stored as advanced. That is, all i's and u's in penultimate position must be i's and u's underlyingly, not /,/ or /8/, respectively. In this way the grammar eliminates all high retracted vowels in penultimate position from underlying forms. The definition of the R-ANCHOR constraint is repeated in (264). The new version of the local conjunction on Trojan vowels, where IO-Identity(ATR) is replaced by R-ANCHOR is given in (265). (264) RIGHT-Anchoring: RIGHT-ANCHOR(root, pwd): Any syllable at the right edge of the root (i.e., the input) has an identical correspondent at the right edge of the prosodic word (i.e., the output).

Yoruba high vowels

207

(265) TROY(ATR) redefined: TROY(ATR) or *[+hi]&lR-ANCHOR&l*S-ID(ATR): 'High vowels in the rightmost syllable which cannot map their underlying ATR specification to the surface disagree in ATR with their neighbour.' This version of TROY is vacuous for all vowels which are not in the rightmost syllable of a root underlyingly, since the faithfulness constraint R-ANCHOR refers exclusively to the ultimate root vowel. (266) Yoruba potential /el8bo/ /el8bo/ a. b. c. d. ) e. f.

el8bo (l8bo elubo (lubo elubo (l(bo

*[+hi, -ATR]

IO-ID (hi)

TROY (ATR)

RANCHOR

*! *!

S-ID (ATR)

IO-ID (ATR)

* *! **! * *!

* ** * * *

(267) *orúpò (cf. orúpò 'mud-bench serving as bed') /or8pò/ a. b. c. d. ) e. f.

or8pò or8po orúpò or8po orúpò oropo

*[+hi, IO-ID TROY -ATR] (hi) (ATR)

*! *!

RANCHOR

S-ID (ATR)

IO-ID (ATR)

** *

*!

* *!

*

*! *

** ** * * **

Now we have explained why the occurrence of Trojan vowels is restricted to the rightmost syllable in Yoruba, that is we know now why there are no forms like *(lubo or *(lubo, while elubo and elubo are attested patterns. The faithfulness constraint involved in the local conjunction which is responsible for the surface effect of Trojan vowels is restricted to the rightmost syllable. In tableaux (266 and 267), the hypothetical underlying /8/ can have no effect on the preceding vowel, since the surface reflex u of /8/ does not violate R-ANCHOR, because it is not in the rightmost position in the root.

208


From this point it appears strange that when two high vowels are at the right side of a word, retracted mid vowels are allowed to their left. Why do forms like (¼bùrú 'shortcut' exist? In this context the scope of the local conjunction TROY(ATR) in Yoruba becomes crucial. If it were the segment or syllable this pattern could not occur. With the domain specified as the [αhigh] feature span this pattern emerges as a consequence of an underlyingly retracted high vowel in rightmost position. (268) TROY(ATR) redefined again: TROY(ATR) or *[+hi]&lR-ANCHOR&l*S-ID(ATR): 'High Vowels in the rightmost syllable either map their underlying ATR specification to the surface or disagree in ATR with their neighbour.' Domain: [αhi] span. We have seen already in the analysis of Finnish that the domain of a local conjunction can either be the syllable or a feature span, which may also extend over two or more syllables. Yoruba is another instance where the domain of a local conjunction is an articulatory domain. The newly defined constraint TROY(ATR) can be seen at work in tableau (269). (269) Yoruba (¼bùrú 'shortcut' from /ebur8/ /ebur8/ a. b. c. d. ) e.

ebur8 (b(r( eburu (b8ru (buru

*[+hi, -ATR]

IO-ID (hi)

TROY (ATR)

RANCHOR

*!

S-ID (ATR)

IO-ID (ATR)

* *!* *!

*! 9

* * * *

* *

** * *** **

With the form (¼bùrú the question arises whether Trojan vowels are permitted in the penultimate syllable when followed by another high vowel or if not how the Trojan vowel in the rightmost syllable can disagree with the antepenultimate mid vowel through another high, ATR vowel. The complete harmonic form where this does not happen (candidate c) violates the TROY constraint. The two adjacent u's are analysed as one [+high] feature span, and such a feature span is the domain of the local conjunction TROY. The whole feature span violates the markedness constraint *[+hi] by being exactly this. The constraint R-ANCHOR is violated by the rightmost part of the feature span in that this vowel is not identical with its underlying form

Nez Perce

209

in its ATR specification. Since the domain of the local conjunction is the whole feature span, violation of the third part of the conjoint has to be assessed over this domain as well. *S-IDENT is violated here when the local domain agrees with its neighbour with regard to ATR. Exactly this is the case with candidate (c). By violating all three conjoint constraints the whole local conjunction is violated. Candidate (e) avoids violation of *SIDENT in the same context. It has an unfaithful retracted mid vowel. By this characteristic the candidate also avoids violation of TROY(ATR). Since this is the only candidate which fares better than candidate (c), it is chosen as the optimal output for the Trojan input given in tableau (269). Another possibility would be that roots containing two high vowels at their right edge, such as (¼bùrú 'shortcut' are underlyingly consonant-final (i.e., /(¼b8r/). The rightmost vowel is always an identical copy of the underlying vowel, provided only to avoid a consonant-final syllable. Under such an analysis, the R-ANCHOR constraint would probably be always violated by such words. A form like èrìgì 'molar tooth' should then not be consonant-final underlyingly, since the prosodically driven reduplication would trigger ATR dissimilation in the first vowel. Under the latter analysis the syllable could be maintained as the scope of the local conjunction. However, in this scenario the underlying ATR specification of the probably consonant-final roots becomes irrelevant again. A choice between both alternatives requires a more in-depth investigation of Yoruba prosodic phonology. 6.3

Nez Perce – a Trojan vowel in dominant-recessive ATR harmony

Nez Perce is a native American language which is spoken in Idaho. The name is a misnomer, going back to the French translation as 'pierced noses', even though the Nez Perce did not have pierced noses when they first met the Europeans. The Nez Perce call themselves Nee-Mee-Poo 'the people'.50 Nez Perce displays the dominant-recessive type of vowel harmony, affecting the feature [±ATR] according to Hall and Hall (1980). This language is particularly interesting for several reasons. First it has a quite impoverished vowel inventory, which makes it a challenge to find out which feature drives the vowel alternations. Second this impoverished surface vowel inventory is used to encode a larger underlying inventory which makes it even more complicated, and which tempted linguists to propose analyses in terms of derivational rule interaction to explain the Nez Perce

210


vowel alternations. Third the harmony type is dominant-recessive, a type of harmony which is found elsewhere predominantly among African languages. A non-derivational approach is given by Bakoviü (2000) who has to explore quite complicated theoretical mechanisms to account for the Nez Perce data (see section 6.5 below). In this subsection, I attempt to show that Nez Perce, although so dramatically different from Yoruba and Hungarian and geographically far away can be analysed by exactly the same theoretical assumptions as used in the preceding sections for these languages. The language has the vowel inventory given in (270). (270) Nez Perce vowel inventory (Hall and Hall 1980: 201) [i], [4], [a], [o], [] ~ [u] These vowels divide into two sets of harmonic vowels, as indicated in (271). (271) Nez Perce harmony series (Hall and Hall 1980: 202) Dominant [-ATR] Recessive [+ATR] i i ~u o a 4 If a member of the dominant series appears in a morpheme, it causes all other vowels in the word to shift from the recessive series to the dominant counterpart, as illustrated in (272). (272) Nez Perce vowel harmony a. n4- + m4q → n4m4x all recessive 1POSS + paternal uncle 'my paternal uncle' m4q + -4 → m4q4 paternal uncle + VOCATIVE 'paternal uncle!' b. n4- + to.t 1POSS + father to.t + -4 father + VOCATIVE

→ nato.t 'my father' → to.ta 'father!'

all recessive dominant root

Nez Perce

c. c4q4.t + -ayn raspberry + for

211

→ caqa.tayn dominant affix 'for a raspberry' (Hall and Hall 1980: 202f.)

The vowel i belongs to both series. This is so, because there are instances of i which behave as dominant and those which behave as recessive. In (273a), the i in the Nez Perce word for 'mother' does not trigger an alternation in the possessive and vocative suffixes, they surface as [+ATR], while the i in the word for 'paternal aunt' does. The possessive and the vocative surface as retracted disagreeing with i in that respect. (273) The behaviour of Nez Perce [i] a. n4- + i.c → 1POSS + 'mother' → i.c + -4 'mother' + VOCATIVE b. n4- + ci.c 1POSS + paternal aunt ci.c + -4 paternal aunt + VOCATIVE

→ →

n4i.c 'my mother' i.c4 'mother!'

recessive i

naci.c dominant i 'my paternal aunt' ci.ca 'paternal aunt!' (Hall and Hall 1980: 203)

There have been numerous proposals in the literature to account for this different behaviour of two vowels which are phonetically the same (Aoki 1966, 1970, Rigsby 1965, Jacobsen 1968, Rigsby and Silverstein 1969, Chomsky and Halle 1968, Kiparsky 1968, Zwicky 1971, Kim 1978, Hall and Hall 1980, Bakoviü 2000). The pattern can be explained by different underlying representations for both instances of i, as was exercised here already for Hungarian i and high vowels in Yoruba. Hall and Hall as well as Bakoviü treat Nez Perce harmony as dominantrecessive advanced tongue root (ATR) harmony, with the dominant set being [-ATR]. In the proposal by Hall and Hall, an i with the underlying specification [-ATR] causes the vowels in the other morphemes in (273b) to become [-ATR] too. In a later step of derivation, retracted i then is subject to phonetic readjustment rules and is thus changed to advanced i. In a declarative output-oriented framework, which does not assume stepwise derivation, the analysis is somewhat more complicated. Bakoviü (2000) proposes an analysis which relies on targeted constraints and cumu-

212


lative ordering of candidates. In what follows I will give an analysis which does not need these theoretically expensive assumptions, and which instead relies on the same mechanisms that were at work in Hungarian. Nez Perce has only one vowel which is really symmetric with regard to [ATR]. It has a [+ATR] and a [-ATR] low vowel, i.e. a and 4. In order to alternate in ATR, u tolerates height unfaithfulness in alternation with o. The first step in developing an analysis for Nez Perce is of course to describe a grammar that accounts for the regular cases of [-ATR] dominance in (272). In the proposal made by Bakoviü to cover dominant systems, the markedness constraint *[+ATR] is conjoined with the faithfulness constraint IO-IDENT(ATR), which prevents candidates in which vowels with a [+ATR] specification have triggered assimilation in the neighbourhood. Combining Bakoviü's proposal with the INTEGRITY account of assimilation developed here, the local conjunction has to be more important in the Nez Perce hierarchy than INTEGRITYAffix. We get the ranking below. (274) Nez Perce basic ranking *[+ATR]&lIO-ID(ATR) >> S-ID(ATR) >> INTEGRITYAffix, IO-ID(ATR) (275) Nez Perce caqa.tayn 'for a raspberry' S-ID *[+ATR]&l /c4q4.t + -ayn/ raspberry + for (ATR) IO-ID(ATR) a. c4q4.tayn *! b. c4q4.t4yn *! . ) c. caqa t ayn

INTEGRITY Affix

IO-ID (ATR)

*

* **

To cover the repair strategies, that u alternates with o, while i does not alternate at all, Bakoviü proposes a range of markedness and faithfulness constraints and their respective ranking. The result is a grammar that allows for a symmetric underlying system which is mapped on an impoverished surface system. For the current purpose it is sufficient to know that Nez Perce can be described as a language with an underlyingly symmetric vowel inventory.

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213

(276) Nez Perce potential underlying and surface vowels Underlyingly surface form Underlyingly surface form [+ATR] [-ATR] /i/ [i] /,/ [i] /u/ [u] /8/ [o] /4/ [4] /a/ [a] Abstracting away from issues of featural repairing and structure preservation, the question has to be answered why underlyingly advanced vowels surface as retracted in the neighbourhood of some instances of i, while they are realised faithfully in combination with other instances of i. With the grammar construed so far there is no need for further assumptions to capture the cases of recessive i in (273a). The neighbours of i are underlyingly advanced like recessive i itself. Those words in which the i causes retraction in the neighbourhood are the problematic cases. Like Bakoviü and others, I assume that these instances of i are underlyingly retracted /,/. The vowel i is the only one which is excluded from repairing (compare in this respect u which is repaired to o when realisation of [-ATR] is at stake). Thus, underlying /,/ always surfaces as advanced i. That underlying retracted high front vowels have a visible (or better audible) effect in surface representations at all under such bad circumstances is warranted by constraint interaction, namely by a Trojan constraint conjunction. Whenever an underlyingly retracted high front vowel surfaces unfaithful as advanced i, it causes dissimilation in the adjacent vowels. Restriction of the triggering of dissimilation to the high front vowel is accounted for by including the markedness constraint *[+hi] in the local conjunction which is responsible for the promotion of the otherwise lowly ranked dissimilation constraint *S-IDENT(ATR). A further restriction on dissimilation is that it occurs only with the surface reflexes of the underlyingly retracted i. These occurrences all violate IO-IDENT(ATR) in satisfaction of the highly ranked markedness constraint *[+hi, -ATR]. Including the last characteristics via a violated constraint into the local conjunction yields the complex constraint in (277), which is completely parallel to the local conjunction found in Hungarian except that the active feature [±bk] is substituted by [±ATR]. (277) Nez Perce local conjunction TROY(ATR): *[+hi]&lIO-ID(ATR)& l*S-ID(ATR)

214


Given the high ranking of constraints which prohibit repairing of /,/ with other vowels differing in height, this constraint triggers ATR dissimilation, which is in direct conflict with the harmony constraint S-IDENT(ATR). Thus the local conjunction has to be ranked above the latter to show any effect on the choice of output forms. (278) Nez Perce Trojan grammar TROY(ATR), *[+ATR]&lIO-ID(ATR) >> S-ID(ATR) >> INTEGRITYAffix >> IO-ID(ATR) With this grammar we can corretly evaluate input-output mappings of forms which have underlying vowels which are not allowed to surface in Nez Perce. (279) The emergence of the Trojan vowel in Nez Perce /c,.c + -4/ a. b. c. d. ) e.

c,.c4 c,.ca c4.c4 ci.c4 ci.ca

*[+hi, -ATR]

*[-hi, -bk]&l IO-ID(hi)

TROY (ATR)

*[+ATR]&l IO-ID(ATR)

*! *!

S-ID (ATR)

* *! *!

* *

*

In tableau (279), a form is evaluated which is assumed to have a retracted high front vowel and a low advanced vowel underlyingly. Candidates (a,b) have mapped this vowel faithfully to the surface and violate the markedness constraint against high retracted vowels *[+hi, -ATR]. Candidate (c) has lowered the underlyingly high retracted vowel in order to preserve the ATR specification on the cost of IO-IDENT(hi), which makes the candidate suboptimal in comparison with the remaining candidates (d,e). Candidate (d) is perfectly harmonic with regard to the ATR specification of the present vowels. This is exactly what makes it sub-optimal: The underlying /,/ is mapped to i in this candidate, violating the markedness constraint *[+hi] and the faithfulness constraint IO-IDENT(ATR). By being ATR harmonic with its neighbour the vowel additionally violates *S-IDENT(ATR) which demands differing specifications of ATR in adjacent vowels. In other cases this would have no consequences since *S-IDENT(ATR) is somewhere deep down in the hierarchy of Nez Perce, but in this case this violation adds up with the violations of the other two constraints incurred by i to a violation

Yawelmani opacity

215

of TROY(ATR). The remaining candidate (e) circumvents this violation by disagreement of both vowels with regard to ATR. Thus, *S-IDENT(ATR) is satisfied by this candidate and with this the whole conjunction TROY(ATR), which makes the candidate preferable to the last competitor at this stage, candidate (d). By exploring the possibilities of constraint interaction, Nez Perce maintains a completely symmetric vowel system underlyingly even though this is excluded from direct surface realisation. (280) Nez Perce 3x3 vowel inventory Advanced series /i/ [i] /u/ [u] /4/ [4]

Retracted series /,/ [i] /8/ [o] /a/ [a]

If historically there have been any other underlying contrasts in the Nez Perce inventory, i.e., distinctive mid vowels, these have been erased from the underlying inventory by the rigid markedness restrictions on surface forms. Any underlying e, (, o, o must be repaired with other vowels or look like the repaired underlyingly retracted high back vowel (/8/ → [o]) and hence the contrasts collapse as shown by Bakoviü. In comparison to Bakoviü's account this approach to Nez Perce avoids the use of a second kind of candidate evaluation like cumulative candidate ordering by targeted constraints. From the viewpoint of learnability the local conjunction approach should be preferred. Nevertheless, I will come back to the targeted constraints analysis in section 6.5, where previous accounts of Trojan vowels are reviewed. 6.4

Yawelmani opacity

Yawelmani, or Yowlumne, a dialect of the Californian language Yokuts, is the parade example for derivationally opaque phonological process interactions. In the traditional analyses, it is assumed that Yawelmani vowels are altered in stepwise derivations resulting in derivationally opaque surface structures.51 Yawelmani has backness and roundness harmony of height-uniform vowels. Height uniformity is violated by some low vowels. These are assumed to be underlyingly high long vowels. In derivational terms these vowels trigger assimilation in following high affix vowels in a first step.

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The second rule lowers these vowels. Afterwards long vowels are shortened within a closed syllable. Underlyingly short high vowels always surface as such and harmonise only with other high vowels. If an underlyingly long high vowel precedes a suffix containing a low vowel, the triggering factor for hamony (i.e., height uniformity) is missing at the point of derivation where harmony applies. After non-application of harmony the whole lowering and shortening apparatus does its work. The result is two height-uniform low vowels which do not harmonise. Additionally the harmony grammar interacts with epenthesis and shortening, the latter applies to the lowered vowels and obscures the harmony pattern even more. The whole phenomenon is schematised in a serialist fashion in (281). (281) Yawelmani in serialist terms Input È Epenthesis È Height-uniform harmony È Long vowel lowering È Long vowel shortening in closed syllables È Output Within levelless Optimality Theory there are two proposals to deal with the problem of harmonic vowels which do not obey the height uniformity requirement and with those disharmonic vowels which superficially meet this requirement. McCarthy (1999) assumes a Sympathy relation of the actual output form with certain failed candidates, while Cole and Kisseberth (1995) deal with this type of opacity by unexpressed feature domains in surface representations. They neglect the theoretical claim of surface truth. Both accounts will be discussed in more detail below, but before this I will introduce the Yawelmani vowel patterns and develop my own account on the premises set so far in the analyses of Hungarian, Yoruba, and Nez Perce.

Yawelmani opacity

217

6.4.1 The basic harmony pattern and the Yawelmani inventory In Yawelmani, affix vowels agree in roundness and backness with the preceding root vowel if both vowels share the same height. High affix vowels agree with high root vowels (282a) and low affix vowels agree with low root vowels (282b). If an affix containing a high vowel is attached to a root ending in a low vowel, no harmony is observed. The affix vowel surfaces always with the same feature specifications, regardless of the roundness and backness specification of the root vowel (282c). The same holds for low affix vowels in combination with high root vowels (282d). (282) Yawelmani height uniform harmony a. xil-hin 'tangles, non-future' dub-hun 'leads by the hand, non-future' b. xat-al bok'-ol

'might eat' 'might find'

c. xat-hin bok'-hin

'eats, non-future' 'finds, non-future'

d. xil-al dub-al

'might tangle' might lead by the hand'

e. bok'-k'o bok'-sit-k'a

'find (it)!' 'find (it) for (him)!' (Cole and Kisseberth, 1995: 1f)

The data in (283) show that the language distinguishes two types of nonhigh back rounded vowels. One group, to which belongs oØW¡§ 'steal', causes a following high affix vowel to harmonise in backness and roundness. These instances of o do not trigger harmony in following nonhigh affix vowels. These nonhigh root vowels violate the height uniformity restriction on Yawelmani vowel harmony. The second group of o's behaves exactly the other way around (see /gop/ 'take care of an infant' in 283a,b). These instances of o trigger harmony in following low vowels, but not in following high vowels, just as expected.

218


(283) Yawelmani opaque vowels a. Mediopassive dubitative mek'-n-al 'swallow' oW¡§-n-al 'steal' gop-n-ol 'take care of an infant' xat-n-al 'eat'

(Kuroda 1967: 21)

b. Passive aorist meØk'-it 'swallow' oØW¡§-ut 'steal' gop-it 'take care of an infant' xat-it 'eat'

(Kuroda 1967: 10)

In the literature (i.e., Goldsmith 1993, Cole and Kisseberth 1995, and many others) it is generally assumed that the former nonhigh vowels are underlyingly high, and that the described irregularities are the result of opaque rule interaction. (Cole and Kisseberth 1995 propose a different analysis in terms of constraint interaction; but see below.) High long vowels are not allowed in Yawelmani. Therefore it is assumed that underlying high long vowels (uØ, iØ) are lowered to oØ and eØ, respectively. The examples in (283) show evidence for an additional process: Whenever the underlyingly high long vowel is at risk of creating a superheavy syllable together with a following consonant, it is not only lowered but also shortened. In (283b) the consonant following the vowel of /meØk, oØW¡§/ is syllabified as the onset of the following syllable, and the root vowel is long, while in the forms in (283a) the vowel is followed by two consonants, a coda and an onset. In these cases the vowel is short. Harmony applies before lowering takes place. The result is a surface violation of height uniformity. This is the classical case of phonological opacity (Kiparsky 1971, 1973), which is analysed in OT by Sympathy Theory (McCarthy 1999). In what follows I will give an account of the Yawelmani data which entirely relies on the means already introduced in the analysis of transparent vowels and Trojan vowels. The analysis crucially rests on the local conjunction of faithfulness and OCP constraints. This shows that these data are anything else but supporting evidence for theoretical devices like Sympathy or levels of derivation. Before turning to a novel analysis of the harmony data, we have to determine which feature harmonises. First, there are no front rounded

Yawelmani opacity

219

vowels in Yawelmani. Alternation in roundness is always accompanied by an alternation in backness. This supports the hypothesis that roundness is no active feature in Yawelmani. Furthermore, there are almost no instances of short e. The few instances of short e can all be analysed as the result of shortening of long e in otherwise too heavy syllables (see below). Long eØ is probably an instance of lowered long /iØ/. However, long e does not cause D to harmonise. This may be an indication that either D is [-back] or that the only active feature is roundness. Analysing D as a front vowel yields a completely symmetric system, except for the dimension of roundness. If D is front, the sole harmonic feature may be backness and roundness alternation occurs as a by-product, caused by the restrictions on the system. (284) The Yawelmani vowel system [-back] [-low] i, iØ(eØ) (mid) (e) [+low] a, aØ

[+back] u, uØ(oØ) o, oØ

Since the occurrence of e is rather restricted (a result of lowering long i), and the default (epenthetic) vowel is high, the system can be described most economically as covering only the dimensions of height and backness by the features [±back] and [±low]. Roundness plays no role as a distinctive feature. Thus, it is highly plausible that it is also not the harmonising feature. Roundness harmony occurs preferably in languages where roundness is distinctive, i.e., languages with a large vowel inventory (see Kaun 1995a, 1995b for a typology of rounding harmony). If this is the case and backness is the active feature, D must be front in Yawelmani. The D/o alternation is then a front/back alternation. The change in roundness accompanying backness harmony is a repairing strategy, the effect of an undominated feature co-occurrence constraint, i.e. ROBA (*[αround, -αback]), which shapes the whole system. With this background we can now turn to the analysis of height uniformity and opacity. 6.4.2 Yawelmani uniformity and opacity as constraint interaction Uniformity of harmony with regard to one dimension of the feature matrix is a result of the interaction of an OCP constraint on the uniformity feature

220


with the constraint demanding harmony. Formulated as a local conjunction, the resulting complex constraint says that if a vowel violates the height OCP, it should not additionally violate backness harmony or vice versa. The other way around one could describe this as a kind of harmony maximisation: if vowels are already harmonic in one dimension of the system they should also be harmonic in the other dimension to maximise harmony. Both constraints as well as their local conjunction are given below. (285) Syntagmatic Identity constraints relevant in Yawelmani a. *S-IDENT(lo): Adjacent syllables are not identical in the specification of the feature [±low]. b. S-IDENT(bk): Adjacent syllables are identical in the specification of the feature [±back]. c. LC of (a) & (b) UNIFORMVH: *S-IDENT(lo)&lS-IDENT(bk) As indicated above the same generalisation can also be formalised as a logical implication, following the schema in (75c, p.78). Iff the harmony constraint on height is satisfied the implication demands additional satisfaction of the harmony constraint on backness. Since the mechanism parallels the analysis of transparency when conceived of as a local conjunction as in (285), I opt for this solution here. Though nothing crucial hinges on this choice. As usual, these constraints interact with IO-faithfulness constraints via ranking. It is more important to preserve underlying height feature specifications in output structures than faithfulness to underlying backness specifications. Otherwise we would observe height dissimilation, which is not the case. Furthermore, both faithfulness constraints must be higher in the hierarchy than simple S-IDENT(bk) and *S-IDENT(lo) to account for the lack of harmony among vowels which differ in height as well as the lack of height dissimilation throughout. The additional IO-faithfulness constraints and the ranking motivated so far are given in (286) and (287). (286) a. IO-IDENT(bk): Specifications of [±back] on correspondent segments in input and output are identical.

Yawelmani opacity

221

b. IO-IDENT(lo): Specifications of [±low] on correspondent segments in input and output are identical. (287) A first ranking for Yawelmani: UNIFORMVH, IO-IDENT(lo) >> IO-IDENT(bk) >> *S-IDENT(lo), S-IDENT(bk) Tableau (288) shows this grammar at work, evaluating a form containing a low back root vowel and a low front affix vowel underlyingly. The most faithful form (a) is sub-optimal because it violates the constraint UNIFORMVH in that it contains two vowels which agree in height (violating *S-IDENT(lo)) and do not agree in backness (violating S-IDENT(bk)). Those candidates which avoid a violation of UNIFORMVH by dissimilation of the two vowels in the height dimension (i.e. satisfaction of the conjoint *SIDENT(lo)), fatally violate high ranking IO-IDENT(lo). Since IO-IDENT(bk) is ranked below both UNIFORMVH and IO-IDENT(lo), the candidate which escapes a violation of UNIFORMVH by assimilation of the vowels in backness (i.e. satisfaction of the conjoint S-IDENT(bk) and violation of IOIDENT(bk)) is optimal. (288) Harmony of height uniform vowels in Yawelmani /bok'+al/ a. b. c. d. ) e.

bok'al buk'al bok'il bok'l bok'ol

ROBA

IO-ID (lo)

UNIFORM VH

IO-ID (bk)

*!

*S-ID (lo)

S-ID (bk)

*

*

* *

*

*! *! *!

* *

If two vowels come together which underlyingly disagree in height, as in tableau (289), the low ranking constraint *S-IDENT(lo) is satisfied by the most faithful candidate. If one conjoint of the local conjunction is satisfied by a form there is no pressure to satisfy the other conjunct constraint SIDENT(bk) as well, since the LC UNIFORMVH is satisfied already and simple S-IDENT(bk) is rather low in the hierarchy, damned to irrelevance in such a case. If S-IDENT(bk) were ranked above IO-IDENT(bk) instead of UNIFORMVH, height neutral backness harmony would emerge, predicting candidate (e) wrongly as the optimal output.

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(289) Height heterogeneous vowels in Yawelmani /bok'+hin/ ) a. b. c. d. e. f.

bok'hin bok'hon bk'hin bak'hin bok'hun bok'hn

ROBA

IO-ID (lo)

UNIFORM VH

IO-ID (bk)

*S-ID (lo)

S-ID (bk)

* *!

* *

*! *! *! *!

Before turning to the central question of opacity, it is time to explain why lowering and shortening take place. High long vowels are completely absent from the surface inventory. Instead we find the irregularities among low vowels which were described above. Like most other authors I assume that these irregularities are a result of lowering underlyingly high long vowels. High long vowels are excluded from surface realisation by a high ranking constraint on exactly that feature combination, *[hi, long]. There are two ways to satisfy this constraint, either by shortening vowels with that feature profile or by lowering them. The former violates the faithfulness constraint MAXµ, the latter violates IO-IDENT(lo). (290) Constraints relevant for lowering a. *[hi,long]: High long vowels are prohibited. b. MAXµ : A mora in S1 has to have a correspondent in S2. c. Ranking: *[hi,long], MAXµ >> IO-ID(lo) The tableau in (291) shows how this ranking chooses a surface form for a high long vowel. (291) Surface mapping of a high long vowel in Yawelmani *[hi,long] MAXµ IO-ID(lo) /uØ/ a. uØ *! b. u *! ) c. oØ *

Yawelmani opacity

223

The next question is why underlyingly high long vowels are lowered and shortened to avoid superheavy syllables. Shortening alone would be absolutely sufficient, because in this case a trimoraic syllable is avoided and the high vowel is not long anymore, i.e. *[hi,long] is satisfied. Vowel shortening occurs to avoid syllables with more than two moras. (292) Yawelmani shortening Aorist Passive aorist a. /hoyoØ/ hoyoØhin hoyot 'name' b. /panaØ/ panaØhin

panat

'arrive'

c. /uØW¡§/

oØW¡§ut

'steal'

oW¡§hun

(Kuroda 1967: 10)

If the vowel is shortened anyway, why does lowering take place then in (292c)? This suggests an account relying on serially ordered rules or constraints, with lowering preceding shortening (see Goldsmith 1993). In the account proposed here, this overapplication of lowering is attributed to a local conjunction of UNIFORMITY, the constraint against coalescence, and *[-lo]. If you do not parse all moras of a segment you should not do this to a surface high vowel. Before illustrating this idea, simple shortening must be analysed. McCarthy (1999) attributes Yawelmani shortening to a markedness constraint against superheavy syllables *[µµµ]σ. Mora assignment to coda consonants satisfies an undominated constraint on coda moraicity. I follow McCarthy in these aspects of the analysis. The constraint against superheavy syllables is ranked above the faithfulness constraint on length, MAXµ. One may suspect now why in the case of consonant clusters, vowels are epenthesised, but in connection with potentially too heavy syllables not. In particular, an epenthesised vowel could split the material of one too heavy syllable on two less heavy syllables, taking the potential coda of the first as the onset of the second. This asymmetry in epenthesis could be an effect of a different ranking of faithfulness of vowels and consonants, with faithfulness to consonants ranking higher than faithfulness to vowels, and the latter ranked below the anti epenthesis constraint DEP-IO. It might likewise be an effect of high ranking general MAX-IO and low ranking of UNIFORMITY. Otherwise we would observe consonant deletion in the context of too heavy syllables.

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(293) UNIFORMITY — "No Coalescence" (McCarthy and Prince 1995: 371) No element of S2 has multiple correspondents in S1. (294) Yawelmani shortening µ µµ *[µµµ]σ /hoyoØ + t/ a. µ µµµ *! ho yoØ t b. µ µµ µ ho yoØ ti c. µ µµ ho yoØ ) d. µ µµ ho yot

MAXµ

MAX-IO

DEP UNIFORMITY

*! *! *

The choice between candidates (c) and (d) in tableau (294) is either made by the segmental faithfulness constraint MAX-IO or by a morphological constraint demanding the expression of the morphological information added by the affix (for discussion of such constraints see Canclini 1999, Popescu 2000, Krämer 2001, among others). Shortening does not incur a MAXµ violation since the second mora present on the long vowel in the underlying representation fuses with the consonant t in the surface representation (d). This, in turn, constitutes a violation of UNIFORMITY. If an underlyingly high long vowel is shortened it can not be high in the surface form, it is lowered as well. This observation is covered by the local conjunction of the markedness constraint against high vowels *[-lo] with the relevant faithfulness constraint, UNIFORMITY. (295) Local conjunction: *[-lo]&lUNIFORMITY. 'Do not violate *[-lo] and UNIFORMITY in the same instance.' For an exemplification, let's have a look at the evaluation of a form like meknDl 'swallow-MEDIOPASS.DUBITATIVE' (first given in 283a) with the proposed constraints (tableau 296). The candidate under discussion, (296c), the one that has shortening only to escape violation of the constraint against too heavy syllables as well as violation of the IO-Identity constraint on vowel height pays maintenance of faithfulness by a violation of the local

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225

conjunction and is therefore judged as sub-optimal in comparison with the candidates (d,e,f) in tableau (296). Candidate (d) fails to parse the underlying consonant k. This results in a MAXIO violation which is judged as more severe than a violation of featural Identity. The only remaining candidates are (e) and (f) now. Candidate (f) is superior to candidate (e) because it resolves the constraint conflict without a violation of DEP, the constraint against epenthesis.

a. b. c. d. e. ) f.

miØk.nal meØk.nal mik.nal meØ.nal meØ.ki.nal mek.nal

UNIFORMITY

DEP

IO-ID(lo)

MAXµ

*!

MAX-IO

*! *!

*[-lo]&lUNIF

*[hi, long]

/miØk + n + al/

*[µµµ]σ

(296) Yawelmani shortening and lowering

* *!

* *!

* * *

*! *

However, vowel epenthesis is a choice in Yawelmani to avoid consonant clusters in onsets/codas. I will now first go into the analysis of opaque vowel harmony and its blocking and discuss the emergence of epenthesised vowels afterwards. In the following I will take the analysis of shortening and lowering for granted and leave the relevant constraints out of the tableau. Likewise, I will not consider candidates anymore which cannot emerge according to my analysis of lowering and shortening. Obviously, the underlying vowel repertoire of Yawelmani is optimally symmetric. The Markedness constraint against high long vowels in (290a) destroys this elegant system on the surface. Striving for elegance, the Yawelmani grammar has two possibilities: Either demote the markedness constraint, which is not very elegant, since high long vowels, which would then surface, are asymmetric in another way: By their length they are rather heavy, that is they constitute a strong syllabic peak, but their height makes them quite weak in terms of sonority. (High vowels are less sonorous than low ones, and syllabic nuclei are the most sonorous part of syllables.)52 Obviously, Yawelmani does not accept such a mismatch.

226


The only other possibility in favour of symmetry for the Yawelmani system is to utilize otherwise irrelevant constraints to maintain at least the underlying complete symmetry of the inventory. Such a symmetry can only be maintained if the underlying contrasts in question have a surface reflex. In the following I will give the technical details on how the Yawelmani grammar rescues the underlying contrast to the surface. To signal that a vowel is underlyingly high it harmonises with neighbouring high vowels on the surface despite the fact that the triggering vowel surfaces as low. A basic property of such a vowel is that it violates IO-IDENTITY(lo). For such a vowel the height restriction on harmony must be 'switched off'. This can be achieved by locally conjoining IO-ID(lo) with the simple backness harmony constraint S-ID(bk), and ranking of the complex constraint above the constraint UNIFORMVH. Additionally, the local conjunction must rank below the constraints which trigger lowering of the underlyingly long high vowel. (297) Local conjunction: IO-IDENT(lo)&lS-IDENT(bk) (298) Rankings: a. b.

IO-ID(lo)&lS-ID(bk) >> UNIFORMVH *[µµµ]σ, *[hi,long], *[-lo]&lUNIF>> MAX >> IO-ID(lo)&lS-ID(bk) >> IO-ID(lo)

The evaluation of a root containing an underlyingly high long back vowel with an affix containing a high vowel by the Yawelmani grammar is shown in tableau (299). In this tableau I left out the markedness constraint against high long vowels, as well as all candidates which do not conform to this constraint, taking this part of the analysis for granted. (299) Overapplication I (harmony of lowered root V with high affix V): IO-ID(lo)&lS-ID(bk) IO-ID(lo) UNIFORMVH /uØt+ut/ a. oØtit *! * ) b. oØtut * * This grammar neatly accounts for the fact that harmony takes place between two vowels of different height in cases where a lowered root vowel is involved. The disharmonic candidate (a), which goes conform to the harmony constraint UNIFORMVH is judged as less optimal than its

Yawelmani opacity

227

competitor, because in addition to violating IO faithfulness on height, it violates the simple harmony constraint S-IDENT(bk). Both violations together incurred by the same vowel, oØ, add up to a violation of the local conjunction of these two constraints. Candidate (b) avoids clashing on the local conjunction by adherence to the simplex harmony constraint. Unfortunately this grammar does not exclude harmony of a lowered vowel with a low affix vowel, as is shown in tableau (300). To avoid confusion I have not included those candidates which fail to shorten the closed syllable in the root. Please consult tableaux (294) and (296) in this respect. (300) Problem: disharmony of lowered root vowel with low affix vowel /uØt+n+al/ IO-ID(lo)&lS-ID(bk) IO-ID(lo) UNIFORMVH / a. otnal *! * * ) b. otnol * If a lowered vowel would trigger harmony with a low affix vowel this could be taken as evidence for a learner to store the lowered vowel as low in her/his lexicon. This would mean an erosion of the underlying systematic symmetry.53 In the following I will give an account of the lack of harmony in combinations of lowered root vowels with low affix vowels. The absence of harmony among a lowered root vowel and low affix vowels is favoured by the conjunction of the affected markedness constraint with the relevant OCP constraints. The affected markedness constraint is *[+lo, +bk]. This constraint is violated by all low back vowels. The pairing low back root vowel plus low affix vowel also violates the height OCP. In order for the affix vowel to surface as front in this combination one has to add the OCP constraint on backness to the conjoint. This tripartite conjunction is still not enough, since it overgenerates. The effect is observed with lowered root vowels only. Underlyingly low vowels perfectly trigger harmony in following low affix vowels. The only solution is to add the affected IO-Identity constraint on height to the conjunction as well. This results in the conjunction of four constraints in (301). (301) The Yawelmani four-party constraint conjunction: IO-ID(lo)&l*[+lo, +bk]&l*S-ID(lo)&l*S-ID(bk) 'Low back vowels should be faithful in height, or disagree in height with their neighbours or disagree in backness with their neighbours.'

228


In cooperation with the rest of the grammar the first three of the four constraints determine the context in which the last constraint is activated. Given the newly established conjunction, the form meknal is not threatened by potential dissimilation anymore and the form otnal is evaluated disharmonically as desired. (302) The emergence of the less marked low affix vowel i. /miØk+n+al/

IO-ID(lo)&l*[+lo, +bk] &l*S-ID(lo)&l*S-ID(bk)

- a. meknal ' b. meknol ii. /uØt+n+al/ - a. otnal ' b. otnol


*!

IO-ID(lo) &lS-ID(bk)

IO-ID (lo)

UNIFORM VH

*

*!

* *

IO-ID(lo)&l S-ID(bk)

IO-ID (lo)

UNIFORM VH

*

* *

*

The candidates in (302i) both satisfy the topmost local conjunction in the following way. The first vowel in these forms is not faithful to its underlying height, but it is also no low back vowel. Satisfaction of the second member of the local conjunction satisfies the whole conjunction. The second vowel is underlyingly low, so it satisfies the local conjunction via the faithfulness constraint. Therefore neither the height OCP nor the backness OCP is activated for these forms. The choice between them is then made by the next lower ranking constraint, the local conjunction of height faithfulness and the backness harmony constraint. The second candidate in (302ii) is correctly marked as sub-optimal in comparison to its competitor. The first vowel in candidate (b) is underlyingly high, but low in this form, which violates the height faithfulness constraint. It is furthermore a back low vowel, in offence of the involved markedness constraint. Moreover it is of the same height and backness as its neighbour, which completes the list of offences to the involved constraints. No constraint in the conjunction is satisfied by this vowel. The competing candidate (a) has a front vowel in the second syllable, satisfying the backness OCP in the local conjunction. The evaluation of lowered back vowels combined with high affix vowels is not affected by the newly proposed constraint conjunction, since this combination satisfies the conjoined constraint *S-ID(lo), which renders

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229

the whole conjunction IO-ID(lo)&l*[+lo, +bk]&l*S-ID(lo)&l*S-ID(bk) satisfied. Given this the next lower ranked constraint IO-ID(lo)&lS-ID(bk) decides the choice of the optimal output in these cases. (303) Lowered vowels cause harmony in high vowels /uØt+it/


IO-ID(lo) &lS-ID(bk)

IO-ID (lo)

UNIFORM VH

a. oØtit ) b. oØtut

9 9

*!

* *

*

The following tableau is added to illustrate how violations of the four-party local conjunction are assessed. Here only those constraints are displayed which participate in the conjunction. All other constraints are left out for the sake of demonstration. The candidates in part (i) of (304), both violate the markedness constraint by having a low back vowel. Furthermore, they both violate the IO-faithfulness constraint on height since the low root vowel is high underlyingly. Both candidates satisfy the OCP constraint against adjacent vowels of the same height *S-ID(lo). Finally, candidate (a) is better with regard to the OCP constraint on backness, because both vowels in candidate (a) have divergent backness specifications which is not the case with candidate (b). This is irrelevant, however, since both candidates pass the whole conjunction already due to their good performance on the height OCP. In this tableau, the - does not indicate the winning candidate but the one(s) which satisfy the local conjunction of the displayed constraints. (304) The assessment of violations of the four-way constraint coordination IO-ID(lo)&l*[+lo, +bk] &l*S-ID(lo)&l*S-ID(bk)

*[+lo, +bk]

IO-ID (lo)

*S-ID (lo)

*S-ID (bk)

- a. oØtit - b. oØtut

9 9

* *

* *

9 9

9 *

ii. /uØt+n+al/


*[+lo, +bk]

IO-ID (lo)

*S-ID (lo)

*S-ID (bk)

9 *!

* **

* *

* *

9 3*

i.

/uØt+it/

- a. otnal / b. otnol

230


In part (ii) of tableau (304), the same procedure is applied for an input containing a high root vowel and a low affix vowel. The two considered candidates fare equally bad on the markedness constraint and the IO faithfulness constraint for the same reasons as the candidates in part (i). They additionally fail to satisfy the height OCP in that both candidates contain two adjacent low vowels. Their performance on the last remaining constraint, the backness OCP, is crucial now for determining which one passes the local conjunction of all four constraints and which one fails. Candidate (a) has the back vowel o and front D. This diversity in backness specifications leaves the backness OCP satisfied. Having passed at least this constraint, candidate (a) is judged as fine with respect to the whole constraint conjunction. Candidate (b), however, has two back vowels. This does not conform to the OCP on backness. Since the candidate has failed to satisfy the other three constraints as well, the fourth violation is the last one needed for the conjunction to count as violated. This is not mere counting of violation marks since potentially a candidate could violate one of the involved constraints four or more times without an effect on the conjunction as long as it satisfies at least one of the other constraints. The general question arising in the context of this analysis is where the upper limit of constraint coordinations lies. What is the maximal number of conjoinable constraints? In the literature there have also been proposals to limit the number of coordinated constraints to two. Such a limitation has no justification at all, since the number of interacting constraints is not limited in the interaction by ranking as well. So why should constraint interaction obey different restrictions in these two dimensions? Moreover, the more constraints are coordinated to one macro- or complex constraint in a grammar the less likely it is that this constraint shows any effect at all. This is because it is fully sufficient to satisfy only one of the conjoined constraints to render the whole conjunction satisfied, i.e., irrelevant. With an increasing number of participating constraints also the probability of candidates to satisfy one of them increases. Furthermore, it should be noted that all conjoined constraints have to share an argument, and that the whole construction applies only to the narrowest defined local domain, which is the most well-defined of its shared arguments. To summarise these considerations, a huge number of conjoined constraints runs danger to be effectless and the grammar itself is likely to have problems in providing enough constraints which all refer to the same argu-

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231

ment and which can reasonably be combined. Another restriction might be imposed on the number of coordinated constraints from the viewpoint of learnability. The more constraints are coordinated the more difficult it is for the learner to figure out which constraints participate in a co-ordination. Therefore excessive constraint coordination (i.e., co-ordinations involving large numbers of constraints or even high numbers of coordinations) is not to be expected. With this background one can accept a four-party conjunction in my view. As noted earlier, the variety of Yawelmani analysed here is that spoken in the 1940's, as reported by Newman (1944). According to Hansson and Sprouse (1999), the variety of Yawelmani spoken today differs in some interesting aspects to the pre-1940 variety. With regard to high affix vowels 'Modern' Yawelmani has the same harmony alternations as displayed in pre-1940 Yawelmani. Low vowels show a modification in their pattern. When attached to roots containing a lowered vowel some affixes do not alternate at all, they always surface with the vowel D. With some low vowel affixes, such as dubitative -Dl, speakers optionally realise the back variant -ol as well as the front variant in the context of a lowered root vowel. A third group of affixes simply harmonise in backness with the preceding root vowel with height-uniformity sensitive to surface height. Since the conjunction of four constraints which accounts for the absence of harmony between lowered root vowels and low affix vowels is the most complicated part of the grammar proposed here, it is exactly in this pattern where I would expect a historical change. Yawelmani learners have problems in tracing the right grammatical configuration (a local conjunction of four constraints) behind the pattern and thus variation is the result. Hansson and Sprouse give an analysis within the framework of OT, that relies on enriched inputs (as proposed by Sprouse 1997, 1998), underspecification in underlying representation, as well as co-phonologies for different affixes. In a nutshell, the grammar proposed here has to be altered only minimally to account for the changes. First, IO-Identity(bk) is promoted above the harmony constraint. All high affix vowels are treated in analogy to epenthesised vowels (what they probably are). They are underspecified at least for backness. Low affix vowels, in turn, fall in two categories, those underspecified for backness and those which are specified as [-back] underlyingly. The last change has happened with regard to the local conjunction of IO-IDENT(lo), *[+lo, +bk], *S-IDENT(lo), and *S-IDENT(bk). Learners did not figure out anymore of which constraints this multiple con-

232


straint conjunction is composed. They simply end up with a grammar without this complex constraint. The effect is harmony of low affix vowels with lowered root vowels in apparent surface height sensitivity, as shown in tableau (300) above. Thus, the historical change that has occurred in Yawelmani during the last decades supports the analysis provided here for pre-1940 Yawelmani. An alternative analysis of height uniformity sensitive to underlying height is sketched in Hyman (to appear). Hyman examines the harmony pattern of Kàlo¼1, a Bantu language, which displays frontness and roundness harmony triggered by underlying height harmony. He proposes harmony constraints on frontness and rounding which check the input for height harmony and are vacuous in case the requirement is not met by the input ('αF[ront] (if input αO[pen])'). However, this proposal implies the existence of syntagmatic constraints on inputs or underlying forms. It remains an open question how inputs are evaluated against such constraints at all. Furthermore it is questionable whether such complex requirements referring to both, input and output, are primitives of grammar or complex constraints composed from several simplex ones. Moreover, the historical change manifest in Yawelmani could not be accounted for as straightforwardly as in the current proposal if Hyman's constraints were adopted for Yawelmani. So far we have seen how the interaction of lowering (and shortening) with height-uniform harmony can be explained with least theoretical effort. To complete the discussion of opacity in Yawelmani, we still have to deal with the interaction of epenthesis with shortening as well as with the rest of the grammar developed so far. Even though this issue is not directly linked to the discussion of Trojan vowels it is of central theoretical interest, because an analysis which claims to solve the Yawelmani puzzle without reference to intermediate or failed representations should be exhaustive. 6.4.3 Yawelmani epenthesis and shortening Epenthesis can be regarded as evidence for rule ordering in a derivational account. Since the epenthesised vowel is sensitive to harmony, insertion has to apply before the harmony rule. According to Cole and Kisseberth (1995), a high vowel is inserted whenever a consonant cluster would emerge in an onset or coda. The maximal syllable is CVC or CVØ. The epenthetic vowel agrees with other

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233

high vowels in backness and roundness. In the neighbourhood of low vowels, the epenthetic vowel is front. (305) Epenthesis and harmony in Yawelmani Aorist Passive Aorist a. paiW¡hin paW¡it 'fight' logiwhin logwit 'pulverize' ilikhin ilkit 'sing' hubushun hubsut 'choose' b. aØmilhin moØ6ilhin VeØniW¡'hin woØwulhun

amlit mo6lit VenW¡'it wowlut

'help' 'grow old' 'smell' 'stand up'

(Kuroda 1967: 10)

If a form has two low vowels underlyingly, and these two vowels are separated by the epenthesised high vowel in the surface representation, harmony is blocked, see forms (306c,d). (306) Blocking of harmony by epenthesis in Yawelmani precative gerundial a. ilik-as 'sings' b. utuy-as 'drinks' c. logiw-as 'pulverizes' d. pait-as 'fights' (Cole and Kisseberth 1995: 3) In the framework developed here this is not unexpected, since the two low vowels are in fact not adjacent. An account which assumes that harmony is an effect of constraints on surface forms correctly predicts that epenthetic vowels behave as opaque elements when height uniformity is not given with the neighbour to the left. In a serialist approach, the active behaviour of epenthetic vowels is astonishing if harmony is stipulated to take place at an early level of derivation (because of the subsequent lowering) where epenthesis is expected to have not yet taken place. I assume that epenthesis is triggered by a high ranking constraint against complex onsets and complex codas, which are both unattested in Yawelmani, i.e. *COMPLEX. (307) *COMPLEX: 'No complex onset, no complex coda!'

234


The quality of the epenthetic vowel is determined by the language-specific ranking of markedness constraints on vocalic features. The only crucial markedness constraint on height is *[+lo]. Accordingly, a high (i.e., nonlow) vowel is the optimal epenthetic element. *[+back] also plays a role since in cases where the height uniformity condition is not met and harmony does not take place, the epenthetic vowel surfaces as i. *[+lo] has to rank above the LC which demands harmony of height uniform vowels. Otherwise the possibility would arise that the epenthetic vowel surfaces with the opposite height specification of a neighbouring vowel in order to satisfy this LC (in satisfaction of the conjoint *S-ID[lo]). (308) Yawelmani vowel epenthesis and harmony with a high affix /logw-hin/ a. b. c. ) d.

IO-ID (lo)

logwhin logowhin loguwhun logiwhin

*COMPL

*[+lo]

*!

* **! * *

UNIFORM VH

IO-ID *[+bk] (bk)

* ** **!* *

(309) Yawelmani vowel epenthesis and harmony with low affix /logw-as/ a. b. c. ) d.

logwas logowas logiwos logiwas

IO-ID (lo)

*COMPL

*[+lo]

*!

** ***! ** **

UNIFORM VH

IO-ID (bk)

*[+bk]

* * **! *

Long e occurs in roots as a result of lowering underlyingly long i. Short e occurs as a result of lowering root-final long i and shortening of this in combination with an affix which creates a too-heavy syllable.

Yawelmani opacity

(310) Yawelmani lowering and coalescence UR future passive aorist passive a. /iliØ/ ileØnit ilet /cuyuØ/ cuyoØnut cuyot /hoyoØ/ hoyoØnit hoyot /panaØ/ panaØnit panat b. /ilk/ /logw/

iliknit logiwnit

dubitative ilel cuyol hoyol panal

235

gloss 'expose to wind' 'urinate' 'name' 'arrive'

ilkal 'sing' logwol 'pulverize' (Goldsmith 1993: 38f)

ilkit logwit

Vowel shortening occurs to avoid syllables with more than two moras, as was shown and analysed already above. In the forms woØwulhun and wowlut which are the aorist and passive aorist forms, respectively, of /wuØwl/ 'stand up' (305b), we observe epenthesis in the first and shortening in the second form. The ranking *[µµµ]σ, *COMPLEX >> MAX >> DEP, UNIFORMITY accounts for both, the appearance of epenthesis as well as deletion in the same grammar. (311) Yawelmani shortening and epenthesis i. /wuØwl+hn/ *[µµµ]σ *COMPL MAX a. woØwlhn *! * b. woØn *! *** c. won *** d. wolhun *! e. wowlhun *! ) f. woØwulhun ii. a. b. c. d. ) e. f.

/wuØwl+t/ woØwlt woØt wot woØlut wowlut woØwulut

*[µµµ]σ

*COMPL

*! *!

*

MAX

** *!* *!

DEP

UNIFORMITY

* * * ** DEP

UNIFORMITY

* * * **!

*

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In the tableaux in (311), the quality of the epenthesised vowel(s) is not accounted for, but this results automatically if we combine this part of the grammar with that developed for vowel harmony, as in tableau (312).

*

UNIFORMITY

*

DEP

IO-ID(lo)&lS-Id(bk)


*[-lo]&lUNIF

*[hi,long]

*

MAX

*!

UNIFORMVH

wuØwlt wuwlit wowlit wowlut

IO-ID(lo)

a. b. c. ) d.

*COMPLEX

/wuØwl+t/

*[µµµ]σ

(312) Yawelmani shortening, lowering, epenthesis and opaque harmony

* * *

* * *

* *! *!

The combination of a root-final high long vowel with an affix starting in a low vowel results in the mid vowel e as well. I regard this as an instance of merging both vowels in violation of UNIFORMITY. Tableau (313) illustrates this point. Any candidate preserving all underlying moras is sub-optimal since the maximal syllable is bimoraic in Yawelmani due to *[µµµ]σ. (313) Lowering and merging /iliØ+al/ a. b. c. d. e. f. ) g.

iliØal ilial ileØ Ø l ileØl ilal ilil ilel

*[hi, long]

*[µµµ]σ

*[-lo]&l UNIFORMITY

MAXµ

MAXUNIFORMITY IO

*! *! *! *! *!

* * *

*! *

* * *

This completes the analysis of Yawelmani vowel alternations. To summarise, the aspects of the Yawelmani grammar dealt with here are given in

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(314). I will not go into the details of the motivations for the constraint ranking anymore, since the ranking as such is not of major concern here. (314) Yawelmani ranking ROBA, *COMPLEX, *[hi, long], *[µµµ]σ >> MAXµ, MAX-IO, IO-ID(lo)&l*[+lo, +bk]&l*S-ID(lo)&l*S-ID(bk) >> IO-ID(lo)&S-ID(bk), *[-lo]&lUNIFORMITY >> IO-ID(lo) >> *[+lo] >> UNIFORMVH >> IO-ID(bk) >> *[+bk], S-ID(bk), *S-ID(lo), *S-ID(bk), DEP, UNIFORMITY The grammar which is proposed here is fairly complex, but this is no valid argument against this analysis since it is a basic assumption of OT that all constraints are present universally and that all these constraints interact with each other in the grammars of the world's languages. From this perspective, it is only expected that we find languages with rich constraint interaction effects. Extending the view on all relevant constraints gives rise to the insight that the whole assumption of derivational opacity, be it as derivational rule interaction or as sympathetic candidate evaluation is superfluous in the case of Yawelmani harmony, epenthesis, lowering, and shortening interaction. At least the analysis of Yawelmani shows no need to refer to psycho-linguistically questionable representations which never surface, be it as intermediate representations or as failed candidates in sympathetic correspondence. The only abstract, i.e., non-surface-true, representations which have to be referred to are the underlying representations. 6.4.4 Previous approaches to Yawelmani opacity In previous analyses, it was assumed that the active harmonic feature in Yawelmani is roundness, as for instance by Cole and Kisseberth (1995) or Goldsmith (1993). Usually, only features determine harmony which also play a role in the phonemic system of the respective language. Roundness harmony is observed in languages with front rounded vowels as well as back rounded vowels (see Kaun 1994 on roundness harmony). ATR harmony applies in languages in which this feature also provides a phonemic contrast (see for instance the general survey on African vowel harmony systems in Hall et al 1974). In Yawelmani, roundness is completely predictable, while backness is contrastive.

238


Therefore, it makes more sense to analyse Yawelmani harmony as involving a feature which is active anyway, i.e. backness, as is done in this approach. An analysis relying on backness fits better into the crosslinguistic featural typology of vowel harmony types than the assumption of an isolated occurrence of rounding harmony. I will now discuss the different approaches to the problem of derivational opacity. In Goldsmith's level based account, the Yawelmani data are used to support his hypothesis of level ordering, i.e. of three distinct levels of analysis. A level based analysis gives us no deeper insight into the functioning of language or the structure of grammar. If such data can be analysed in a different way, the only motivation for rule or level ordering, i.e., to give an account of the data, vanishes. In contrast to such analyses, the means applied here to solve the analytic problem posed by the Yawelmani data, are motivated independently. Local conjunction is a possibility which arises out of the architecture of OT. Constraint interaction in the sense of constraint conjunction as well as constraint ranking is used in the Yawelmani grammar for the purpose of systemic elegance: The grammar is used to maintain the symmetry of the vowel system. A further effect of this is the maintenance of a phonemic contrast which would vanish otherwise. This symmetry is, of course, obscured by the ban against high long vowels in surface structures. The grammar provides a way to maintain high long vowels at least underlyingly, in that certain constraints conspire so that these vowels, even though they cannot surface themselves, have an effect on surface structures. Cole and Kisseberth (1995) radically depart from the whole concept of derivational opacity and propose an analysis which relies on strict inputoutput mapping without any intermediate level of representation, and with only one instance of candidate evaluation. The effect of underlying height specifications on surface structures is modelled by Cole and Kisseberth (1995) in their Optimal Domains Theory of harmony (ODT, Cole and Kisseberth 1994) by the assumption of abstract feature domains (F-domains) which are not expressed articulatorily but phonologically present in surface structures. This is a weaker formulation of Containment, originally proposed in Prince and Smolensky (1993), and later abandoned with the introduction of correspondence theory. A further particularity of Cole and Kisseberth's (1995) analysis is that faithfulness constraints are split up once more to account for Yawelmani. This move is necessary to distinguish between phonologically present and phonetically expressed features. The input-output faithfulness constraint

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239

MAX-F is satisfied if an F-domain (i.e., a phonological feature) is present in surface structure. If a feature is present phonologically in a surface representation, this does not imply that it has a phonetic reflex. The actual articulation depends on the additional constraint EXPRESS-F, which is violated whenever a feature is not articulated on a potential feature bearer (i.e., a vowel) within the respective F-domain that is present in a surface representation. Universally, EXPRESS-F is ranked higher than MAX-F, which makes sure that every feature mapped to the surface has an audible reflex, while for Yawelmani, this ranking is reversed. (315) Faithfulness in ODT (Cole and Kisseberth 1995: 17) a. MAX-F, satisfied by the presence of an F-domain; b. DEP-F, satisfied by the absence of inserted F-domains; c. EXPRESS-F, satisfied by the realisation of [F] on elements within the F-domain. (316) The ranking of MAX-F and EXPRESS-F a. Universally: EXPRESS-F >> MAX-F (Underlying features have to be audible in the output.) b. Yawelmani: MAX-F >> EXPRESS-F (Underlying features must be present in the output but not necessarily audible.) The ranking in (316a) results in faithful parsing and articulation of underlying features, while the reversed ranking in (316b) accounts for the assumption that features are present in a surface form even though they are not spelled out. A form which is backness-harmonic even though not height-uniform looks like that in (317) in their approach. (317a) shows the mapping from input representation to the segmental string in the output. (317b) compares the input vowels of the form in (a) with the vowel representations in the surface structure with all F-domains assigned. (317) Yawelmani opaque harmony in ODT a. /uØW¡'-it/ → oØW¡'ut b. / uØ - I / → [({oØ}) – (u)] (Notation: { } = Low domain, ( ) = High domain, [ ] = Round domain)

240


According to the demands of Lowering, the underlying height domain ( ) occurs together with a low domain {} on the first underlyingly long high vowel. This low domain is articulatorily realised in satisfaction of lowering. The unexpressed High-domain ( ) triggers the harmony process with the neighbouring F-domain of the same kind. In such cases where a vowel is included in two contradictory domains, the grammar chooses the faithful domain over the inserted domain, i.e., the one which does not violate DEPF, to decide on the question whether height-uniformity is given or not. Since (abstract) height uniformity is given under these assumptions, the roundness domain (indicated by the square brackets) has to be extended over both vowels and expressed on both. To account for those forms in which an affix with a low vowel is added to a root with a lowered vowel, Cole and Kisseberth have to assume that the height uniformity condition on harmony is sensitive to whether a feature domain is a lexical one or an inserted one. In case of conflict, the uniformity condition chooses the lexical feature domain as relevant. This blocks application of harmony to two low vowels of which one is underlyingly high. All in all, the ODT analysis of Yawelmani departs from surface truth, that is features have to be assumed in surface representations which have nothing to do with the acoustic reality of a form. Furthermore, the theory of faithfulness has to be enriched in an unnecessary way, with the further drawback of a stipulated universal ranking that, moreover, has to be reversed for some rare cases, like that of Yawelmani. McCarthy (1999) goes a different way. He proposes Sympathy Theory as a means to deal with instances of the Duke-of-York-Gambit (Pullum 1976) and phonological opacity in general, as discussed here already in the chapter on balanced vowels. Yawelmani serves him as an illustration of non-surface-true opacity, non-surface-apparent opacity and multi-processinteraction. The Yawelmani pattern is a case of non-surface-apparent opacity in the sense that the triggering condition for vowel lowering is made invisible by vowel shortening (in serialist terms). Yawelmani displays non-surface-true opacity since the generalisation that height-uniform vowels are harmonic with regard to backness or roundness is contradicted by lowered root vowels followed by a low affix which is disharmonic with regard to backness, and by lowered root vowels followed by a backness-harmonic affix vowel. (Speaking 'serialistically': harmony applies before lowering happens.)

Yawelmani opacity

241

To deal with the Yawelmani interaction of lowering and shortening in Sympathy Theory, the actual output has to correspond in height to the candidate which best satisfies the lowly ranked selector constraint MAXµ and all other higher ranked constraints. Among these is the constraint against high long vowels. For the case of /iliØ-l/, this determines the form ileØl as the sympathetic candidate to which the actual output has to be faithful in height, satisfying the constraint UID(hi). In additional satisfaction of undominated *[µµµ], the candidate in which the last syllable is shortened, i.e., the form ilel is chosen as optimal instead of the transparent candidate *ilil, which would be the winner in McCarthy's grammar without sympathy. To cope with opaque height-uniform harmony a second sympathy relation is necessary. Here, ID(hi) is not the intercandidate faithfulness constraint, but the selector constraint, to indicate this notationally it is marked by . The inter-candidate faithfulness constraint is ID(col) (marked as such by U), the constraint that demands identity with regard to the vowel harmony feature colour (backness + roundness) of the actual output with the failed candidate chosen by ID(hi). To get from the input /uØt-hin/ to the desired output othun, which obeys lowering and shortening, and furthermore displays an over-application of vowel harmony, the sympathy analysis relies on sympathetic height faithfulness to the failed candidate *oØthin, and on a sympathetic correspondence [UID(col)] with the sub-optimal candidate *uthun, despite trivial input-output faithfulness. The transparent winner, i.e. the one that would be optimal in McCarthy's grammar without the sympathetic ingredients, would be *uthun in this case. As McCarthy himself points out at page 371, these forms differ from those referred to in a serialist derivational account (however, they do not differ in number). In such an account we could assume that first rounding harmony makes uØthun out of /uØt-hin/, then Lowering derives oØthun from uØthun, and finally Shortening applies, yielding the output [othun] from oØthun (cf. McCarthy, p.369, (41)). In the diagram in (318), the serialist and the sympathy account are summarised in terms of involved forms and rules or faithfulness relations.

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(318) Abstract Yawelmani forms referred to in serialist and sympathetic analyses Serialist derivation: Correspondence relations: /uØt-hin/ :Input: /uØt-hin/ [IO-Faith] Harmony uØthun *oØthin [UID(hi)MAX-µ] Lowering oØthun *uthun Shortening [UID(col)ID(hi)] [othun] :Output: [othun] Since both accounts refer to different intermediate/additional forms, one might wonder about the psychological reality of these forms. Observation of first language acquisition, speech disorders or speech errors could bring to light whether one of these forms ever surfaces, which I doubt. In the preceding paragraphs, however, we have seen that it is not necessary at all to refer to abstract forms which intervene between input and output in any dubious way. The same holds for abstract features in surface representations. Furthermore, it was shown in the chapter on balanced vowels that Sympathy Theory in the form proposed by McCarthy is not shaped to deal with transparent vowels, which can be regarded as an instance of phonological opacity in the traditional sense. Thus, contrary to McCarthy's claim, Sympathy Theory is no general account of phonological opacity, and the question arises whether there is any need or motivation for it at all. 6.5

Previous analyses of Trojan vowels

There is a huge number of accounts for Trojan vowels in the literature. It is interesting to see how many approaches in OT alone have been proposed. In my count we have at least three to date (not including the one developed here). Cole and Kisseberth (1995) account for the Trojan vowels of Yawelmani within their Optimal Domains Theory by assuming an unexpressed feature on the surface realisation of the relevant vowel. This inaudible feature then triggers harmony. To achieve this technically they have to make some non-trivial changes to the general architecture of Correspondence Theory, for instance they split up IO-Faithfulness into DEP-IO, MAXIO, and EXPRESS. In their view, MAX-IO is satisfied if a feature is mapped

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from the input to surface structure, whether it is audible or not, while REALISE demands that a feature be also audible. Furthermore they assume the universal ranking of REALISE above MAX-IO which is reversed for Yawelmani only. Ringen and Vago (1998) analyse the Trojan vowel in Hungarian by assuming a floating feature [+back] on the respective roots, which finds its only landing site on the following affix vowel in surface forms. Of course, floating features are a common assumption to explain for instance the morphophonological behaviour of certain verb classes in some languages (for instance Roman languages; see e.g. Canclini 1999 on Italian verb classes). In this particular case, there is not only no need for a floating feature, this assumption rather obscures the fact that in Hungarian, as in all languages where Trojan vowels are observed, these vowels are the ones which give imbalance to the surface vowel system. The Trojan vowels of Hungarian are the nonlow front unrounded vowels. The back counterpart of these vocoids is not allowed in Hungarian surface forms. All other vowels have back and front alternants. Another alignment-based analysis is Pulleyblank's (1996) account of Yoruba. Pulleyblank tries to capture the extraordinary behaviour of high vowels by assuming that the active feature referred to in the alignment constraints which effect harmony is privative RTR (retracted tongue root). This renders high vowels practically inactive as triggers of harmony. Whether there exist underlyingly retracted high vowels in Yoruba or not becomes irrelevant in Pulleyblank's analysis. He assumes that every root has (maximally) one tongue root specification underlyingly which is not necessarily linked to a particular vowel. The surface shape of most vowels is determined by markedness constraints, or, in his account, enhancement relations like LO/RTR ('if LOW then RTR.') and by the anti-insertion constraint DEPRTR. With respect to the lexical treatment of RTR specifications, the question arises why all other articulatory features are linked to particular vowels while only the feature RTR is linked to whole lexical items, such as roots. Furthermore, Pulleyblank has to assume two (L/R) Alignment constraints on RTR which refer to the domain of the root as well as two almost identical Alignment constraints referring to the domain of the word. The root alignment constraints are sensible only to lexical material. They do not require edge alignment of inserted features. The word alignment constraints in contrast are true surface constraints since they refer to all instances of RTR present in an output representation, lexical as well as inserted features.

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The former assumption would not be too problematic if the Alignment were simply treated as instances of Anchoring, i.e., as faithfulness constraints. This should then extend to the word alignment constraints as well, which is not feasible, since they refer to both lexical as well as inserted material. Inserted material does not correspond to underlying material and should therefore not be affected by these constraints. Apart from this inconsistency the assumption of four different directional harmony constraints alone proves quite expensive. The last analysis to be reviewed is that proposed by Bakoviü (2000) for the Trojan vowels of Yoruba. Bakoviü's account has already been shown to be insufficient in the analysis of Yoruba low and mid vowel patterns. However, to account for the fact that prefixes are consistently disharmonic with some roots containing a high vowel he assumes underlyingly retracted high vowels for these roots as well. Technically the analysis rests on a Sympathy relation among the actual output and a failed candidate. For a form like omu 'drinker' (/O-m8/ nom+drink), the scenario is the following: the output depends on the failed completely harmonic and root-faithful candidate *om8. This candidate has no chance to be chosen as the output because it contains the banned vowel *8. The candidate which resembles the failed candidate *om8 most is the one which differs only in that it satisfies the markedness constraint against 8. This candidate omu is chosen then in favour of harmonic *omu for its better faithfulness to the losing candidate *om8. The other losing candidate *omu has changed the ATR specification of both vowels with regard to sympathetic *om8. This analysis must be rejected on the same grounds as McCarthy's Sympathy account of Yawelmani opacity. 6.6

Conclusion

In this chapter, I gathered together aspects of phonological opacity in vowel harmony in the form of Trojan vowels from four languages (spoken in different corners of the world). Hungarian served to install the basic analysis of phonologically opaque vowel behaviour in backness harmony systems. With the case study on Yoruba high vowels I gave an illustration of the same pattern in a language with root-controlled ATR harmony. The Nez Perce data and analysis showed that this phenomenon is not restricted to root controlled harmony. Finally, Yawelmani served as a testing ground whether the proposed

Conclusion

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approach of constraint coordination can be extended to a wider range of phonological opacity phenomena. This language not only exhibits Trojan vowels, the harmony pattern moreover interacts remarkably with other phenomena triggered by prosodic constraints. On the technical side Yawelmani shows that a language may choose to make an extended use of constraint coordinations in the grammar. The purpose of this, or at least of parts of this, is to explore a richer phonemic system than the surface inventory allows. One critique to the constraint coordination approach could be that a language might coordinate lots of constraints and even use a range of complex coordinated constraints, and that this is rather unlikely. The unlikely case has just been demonstrated to be manifested in Yawelmani. Though, the grade of complexity of a grammar may be naturally restricted by the learnability factor. Too complex constraint coordinations are simply not learnable. In the case of local conjunction, for instance, every constraint added to a conjunction narrows the scope of this conjunction, which means that the surface effect of the conjunction becomes undetectable at a certain stage, and, thus unlearnable. The consequence is simply that a grammar won't make use of the device to such an extent. The question is simply how complex can constraint coordinations maximally be and still be analysable by a human mind. There have been proposals to limit the maximal constraint conjunction to a composition of two constraints. However, the maximally complex constraint coordination assumed in the discussion of Yawelmani above consisted of four constraints. As the historical perspective shows, a construction of four constraints into one already causes instability. This instability of surface patterns then leads to abandoning the too complex constraint. A potential critique to the constraint coordination approach would be that in principle the number of complex constraints is infinite. The same restrictive argument as for the number of constraints within one coordination holds for the number of coordinations used in a grammar. A too high number of coordinated constraints would probably result in an unlearnable grammar. Such a grammar must be assumed to be rejected by the speakers of natural languages. This yields it illicit. Furthermore, the combinatorics were limited by Crowhurst and Hewitt's assumption of the shared argument condition, which was by and large maintained in the preceding analyses. A much stricter limitation would be to assume that conjoined constraints on features even have to refer to the same feature (as proposed in Bakoviü 2000). This, however, would exclude

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to see the technical parallel between the behaviour of balanced vowels and height-uniform harmony. Recall that the analysis of balance crucially rests on the conjunction of *S-IDENT(F) with S-IDENT(F), while the height-uniform pattern is an effect of a conjunction of the same constraints, referring to different features, i.e., *S-IDENT(lo) and S-IDENT(bk). Any other proposal made so far did not bring these seemingly unrelated patterns together so closely.

Chapter 7 General conclusion 7.1

Overall summary

This book started with an overview of the phenomenon of vowel harmony in the world's languages. From this broad perspective the scope was narrowed down to two basic issues, the modelling of morphologically controlled harmony, and the analysis of phonological opacity. Harmony is regarded as morphologically controlled if it is either exclusively induced by the root of a word or exclusively determined by suffixes, but not by both in one language. This matter was captured by the assumption of distinct positional faithfulness constraints on roots and affixes. Constraints on the morphology/phonology interface which regulate the direction of affixation have been shown to have a severe impact on the directionality of the harmony pattern. This supports the view of harmony as a directionless correspondence relation among feature bearing units within one representation (Kaun 1994, Krämer 1998, 2001, Bakoviü 2000). The dominance of either the root or suffixes is seen as the effect of positional faithfulness constraints against feature spreading. The ranking of INTEGRITYAffix above INTEGRITYRoot in a language-particular constraint hierarchy results in the surface pattern of root control. The inversed ranking was demonstrated here to exist in Futankoore Pulaar, where harmony is determined by the rightmost affix vowel. (319) Morphological control Root control: INTEGRITYAffix >> INTEGRITYRoot Affix control: INTEGRITYRoot >> INTEGRITYAffix As discussed earlier already, McCarthy and Prince (1995) proposed the universal meta constraint ranking of root faithfulness above affix faithfulness. That this is a too strong restriction has already been shown by Ussishkin (2000). His analysis of Hebrew Binyanim crucially relies on the ranking of affix faithfulness above root faithfulness for vowels. The surprising

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result in connection with the analysis of vowel harmony derived here is that the 'pathological ranking' in the view of McCarthy and Prince, that of affix faithfulness (i.e., INTEGRITYAffix) above root faithfulness (i.e., INTEGRITYRoot), is rather the rule than the exception. Most of the languages displaying vowel harmony have root controlled harmony. Affix control must be seen as a rare exception. This faithfulness paradoxon was motivated in this book over the functional task of the root~affix asymmetry. Usually faithfulness serves the retrieval of lexical as well as grammatical information on the side of the listener. A language in which the information in affixes can easily be identified by listeners while the lexical information is undetectable is quite dysfunctional. It does not properly serve communication. Thus, faithfulness to lexical material has to be more important than faithfulness to functional elements. The INTEGRITY constraints, in contrast, militate against prominence maximisation. If a root extends its features over the whole word by assimilation, it maximises its prominence. The ranking of INTEGRITYAffix above INTEGRITYRoot, thus, more severely restricts prominence maximisation of affixes relative to prominence maximisation of roots. The apparent absence of harmony triggering prefixes from the languages of the world reported so far, is accounted for in the current proposal by an asymmetry of edge-faithfulness constraints. While suffixes might be subject to a right-word-edge faithfulness constraint demanding identity to the underlying form at that word margin, the mirror-image constraint, i.e., IOIDENTLeftmost, or IO-IDENT-σ1, seems to be absent from Universal Grammar. Dominant left-edge faithfulness effects, such as a greater wealth of allowed feature combinations and triggering of harmony by the vowel in the leftmost syllable, are observed only with root material in predominantly suffixing languages. This is attributable to a logical constraint conjunction of the Left-Anchoring constraint on roots and prosodic words with IOIdentity. The former demands the mapping of the left root edge with the left word edge and the latter enforces Input-Output faithfulness for the vowel in this position. The mirror image constraint coordination, i.e., that of RANCHOR and IO-Identity, accounts for the mirror image pattern, with prefixation only and stronger faithfulness at the right word edge than anywhere else. This was manifested in potential target vowels at the right word edge resisting assimilation to potential triggers preceding them in the prefixing language Yoruba.

Overall summary

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(320) Logical conjunction of Anchoring and faithfulness Left/Right-ANCHOR(root, pwd) ∧ IO-IDENT(F): The leftmost/ rightmost element of the root corresponds with the leftmost/rightmost element in the prosodic word AND the leftmost/rightmost element in the root is identical with the leftmost/rightmost element in the prosodic word in its specification for feature F. Phonological opacity arises in the context of harmony wherever we observe systematic disharmony. This is the case with balanced (or 'transparent') vowels. Such vowels are either harmonic or disharmonic with both their neighbours, but induce harmony on an adjacent affix vowel if they have only this neighbour. A further case of phonological opacity is the pattern in which a potential target vowel receives its surface feature specification in accordance with the underlying feature value of its neighbour (a Trojan vowel). Instead of the assumption of serialist derivation or cumulative or sympathetic candidate evaluation, these patterns were accounted for as effects of local constraint conjunctions. In these conjunctions markedness, OCP, and IO-Identity constraints were involved, serving the activation of harmony and OCP constraints. In particular, balance was derived as the surface effect of a conjunction of the markedness constraint violated by the balanced vowel with the harmony constraint on the harmonic feature and the constraint demanding dissimilation of the same feature in neighbouring vowels (321a). Trojan vowels are allowed to have an indirect reflex in surface structures by combination of the affected markedness constraint with the OCP constraint on the harmony feature and, as the third party in the conjunction, an Input-Output Identity constraint on that feature (321b). Height uniformity, which occurs in backness harmony as well as in ATR harmony, was seen here as triggered by almost the same constraint configuration as that on balance: a local conjunction of a harmony constraint and an OCP constraint on different features (321c). (321) a. Balance: b. Trojan vowels:

*[αF1]&lS-IDENT(F2)&l*S-IDENT(F2) *[αF1]&lIO-IDENT(F2)&l*S-IDENT(F2)

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General conclusion

c. Uniform Harmony:

*S-IDENT(F1)&lS-IDENT(F2)

In all these conjunctions, violation of the first, or the two first constraints functions as the triggering environment for the last constraint.54 By this logic balance (or vowel transparency; 321a) and the pattern of Trojan vowels (or phonological opacity in vowel harmony; 321b) can both be seen as conspiratory OCP effects. Height uniform harmony (321c) is different in that harmony is triggered by a violation of an OCP constraint. All in all, the controversial issues of cyclicity and phonological opacity in the context of vowel harmony are reduced to the interaction of only a handful of universal constraints via ranking and via constraint coordination. In the following I will first discuss the prevailing issue of phonological opacity and serialism in more detail and then change the perspective to touch upon topics which have found only a marginal place in this book. 7.2

The ghosts of serialism

The main part of this book was concerned with the question whether we need to incorporate a notion of cyclicity and phonological opacity in whatever form in the conception of generative grammar to analyse apparently cyclic and opaque aspects of vowel harmony patterns. In a nutshell, cyclicity is given when a rule reapplies several times within the course of derivation (if not conceived of naively as an iteratively applied directional rule, root-controlled harmony could be imagined as reapplication of a harmony rule after each level of affixation). Phonological opacity (Kiparsky 1971, 1973) is at stake when an element is obviously affected by a given rule but the triggering condition is not detectable anymore. In this case it is assumed that the trigger existed in an earlier stage of derivation, but was altered by a subsequent rule which applied to the trigger after it has served its triggering function for the other rule (as in vowel transparency). This type of opacity is schematised in (322a,c). (322) Phonological opacity a. Non-surface-apparent or counterbleeding opacity B → D/_C ABC → ADC# C → E/_# ADC → ADE#


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b. Non-surface-true or counterfeeding opacity B → D/_E ABC → ABC# C → E_# ABC → ABE# c. The Duke-of-York-Gambit or a variation on (a) B → D/A_ ABC → ADC C → E/D_ ADC → ADE D→B ADE → ABE The other way around phonological opacity might also be assumed where an element fails to undergo a certain change even though the triggering environment for the underapplied rule is given. In this scenario, which was labelled 'non-surface-true' or 'counterfeeding opacity' in the literature, the triggering environment is assumed to be created by a rule on a later level of derivation than that in which the first rule applied. The latter could, in some instances, also be judged as evidence for an underlying contrast among specified and underspecified items of a given type, with the relevant rule or constraint applying only to underspecified tokens.55 Yawelmani displays both types of opacity. In ignorance of the restriction that only vowels of the same height are allowed to enter a harmonic relation, the harmony process applies to a high affix vowel in the presence of a low(ered) root vowel in some words. The rule has applied even though the triggering environment is not present (anymore) in the surface form. This can be regarded as counterbleeding opacity (322a). The absence of vowel harmony where a low affix vowel is preceded by a low(ered) root vowel exemplifies nonapplication of a process/rule to a potential target in the triggering environment, i.e., counterfeeding opacity (322b). Optimality Theory by and large denies the existence of serial derivation of output forms, which is crucial to the above understanding of cyclicity and opacity.56 And, as McCarthy (1999) points out, from the declarative perspective of Optimality Theory, patterns like those schematised above are quite astonishing since constraints do not evaluate representations stepwise but rather in a parallelist fashion. This means that if a given triggering environment is missing the respective alternation is not expected and, vice versa, if a given triggering environment is present the alternation is supposed to have taken place. Otherwise, the responsible constraint against the respective surface configuration is violated and the respective candidate should be rejected in favour of a better one. The same holds for cyclicity in a certain respect. In this declarative framework, all affixes are assumed to

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be attached to a root at the same time. If harmony is assumed to be the surface effect of a directionless correspondence constraint, even the asymmetry between root and affixes in root-controlled harmony is astonishing. In OT, cyclicity effects have been approached via Base-Output-Correspondence (Benua 1995, 1997, McCarthy 1995, Kenstowicz 1996, Kager 1999, Bakoviü 2000, and many more). The basic idea has already been explained in sections 1.5 and 4.7.3 here, but I will nonetheless summarise it once more. Besides the input-output faithfulness relation, morphologically complex forms are assumed to stand in a correspondence relation with a simpler form. This is used as well to explain phenomena like paradigmatic uniformity (see, e.g., Kenstowicz 1996). Kager (1999: 282) gives a relatively precise definition of the properties of the base. A base has to be a free-standing output form – a word. Furthermore, the base contains a subset of the grammatical features of the derived form. This is, however, the strictest view of what can be a base and what can not. Besides the problem that in many analyses bases are assumed which are not independently occurring forms (as discussed above for the bases assumed in Bakoviü 2000 for Yoruba) and which may have grammatical features that are incompatible with those of the dependent form, the baseoutput relation has to be asymmetrical. The only form which is ever influenced by this correspondence relation is the more complex form. Effects of complex forms on bases have not been shown so far. This property renders B-O correspondence fundamentally different from IO correspondence which is a symmetric relation. The output, of course, has to look like the input, but on the other side, only those forms are chosen as inputs by Lexicon Optimization (Prince and Smolensky 1993) which cause the least severe constraint violations when outputs are evaluated. This symmetry, that each representation has an influence on the other, cannot be assumed for base-output relations. However, a further drawback to the kind of base-output correspondence at stake in the discussion of root-controlled vowel harmony is the fact that there have to exist relations of the output to all intermediate forms, each having one affix less than the form which is next to the output or the output itself. The effect is that the number of representations referred to is blown up from two (the input and the output) to as many as affixes can be attached to a given root in a given language. And in some agglutinative languages, such as Turkish for instance, this can be be quite a lot (remember, for instance, the Turkish word tan-dk-lar-m-z-dán 'from our acquaintances' from chapter 3). Finally we end up with more representations to be


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considered than in any serialist account. In an agglutinative language, all these forms might also be freely existing output forms, but, as argued already in section 4.7.3, in languages with obligatory class marking, as in Bantu languages for example, one would have to refer to bases which do not exist on their own. There are two empirical arguments against a treatment of root-control as Base-Output correspondence. First, the approach cannot explain why within single poly-syllabic morphemes, such as some roots in Turkish or Yoruba, often the vowel at one edge imposes its feature specification on the rest of the word. To explain this intra-morphemic asymmetry, one or the other version of positional faithfulness has to be employed anyway. The last objection against the Stem-Affixed-Form-Faithfulness approach or any other variety of Base-Output-Correspondence to root-control is the existence of affix-induced harmony in languages such as Fula or Turkana. If the whole process is symmetric in the sense that roots as well as affixes can be the dominant triggering category, then suspicion arises that something else but Base-Output correspondence is responsible for the overall pattern. Phonological opacity is modelled as Sympathy, i.e., inter-candidate faithfulness, as cumulative candidate evaluation as well as local constraint conjunction in the literature (McCarthy 1999, àubowicz 1999, and others). Kager (1999) points out that sympathy alone is not capable of dealing with some residual phenomena of opacity like chain-shifts, which can elegantly be accounted for by local constraint conjunction (Kirchner 1996). Similar to Kager àubowicz (1999) regards her constraint conjunction approach to derived environment effects as supplemental to Sympathy Theory. Sympathy Theory radically enlarges the set of possible faithfulness relations by drawing on the resource of the infinite set of failed candidates. If this approach alone cannot handle the phenomenon of phonological opacity, while the supplement to it, i.e. local conjunction, can be extended to cases which were analysed within Sympathy Theory previously, the question arises whether the former is tenable at all. Skeptics would raise the criticism that both tools are quite powerful devices, since the arising combinatoric possibilities of grammar approach incalculability. While we have seen that at least local conjunction is limited by restrictions on the arguments which might be addressed in combined constraints and by the limits of learnability (see the discussion in 5.6), sympathy theory might establish faithfulness relations among almost any arbitrary pair of candidates out of an infinite set. With regard to opacity

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General conclusion

within the phenomenon of vowel harmony the case studies in chapters 4 to 6 have shown that the local conjunction approach alone is well-fitted to handle a broad range of cases. Serialist derivation, Base-Output Correspondence as well as Sympathy Theory have one characteristic feature in common. They all refer to additional representations besides the input and the output. This would not be problematic if these were at least the same intermediate representations in all three cases, and furthermore if these representations had some independent motivation. However, if there were independent evidence for such representations this would be a testing ground as to which approach refers to existing forms and which does not. Since seemingly neither speech pathology, nor speech errors, nor language acquisition, nor language games or any other source provide us with the relevant data so far, approaches maximally reducing the number of assumed representations related to one form should be given preference. The burden of proof lies on those who wish to maintain either serialist derivations or simulated serialism. 7.3

Underspecification and Lexicon Optimization

Throughout this book almost all underlying forms were given as fully specified strings. Underspecification was assumed only where all diagnostics failed to detect the underlying feature specification and where it really did not matter. Inkelas (1994) surveys the consequences of Lexicon Optimization for underlying structures and comes to the conclusion that Lexicon Optimization favours underlying representations which are fully specified. The reasoning is that with respect to anti-insertion and other faithfulness constraints fully specified underlying forms produce less constraint violations than underspecified items would. The grammar is supposed to store items in the way which causes the least amount of friction, which means that constraint violations have to be minimised. With regard to the selection of optimal forms, the same principle holds for the choice of underlying forms as for surface forms: the most harmonic candidate wins. Alternating material, such as the suffix vowels in a language displaying root-controlled harmony, however, has to be stored as underspecified according to this reasoning. In case an alternating Turkish suffix like –di / –d / –dy / –du (PAST) were stored as, say, /di/ in the lexicon, every instance of the other three allomorphs would violate faithfulness. If

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the suffix is stored as /dV[-low]/, i.e., completely underspecified with regard to the alternating features, these violations are avoided. If harmony is furthermore assumed to be a structure-filling operation, violations of anti-insertion constraints are avoided as well.57 This yields the underspecified form as the optimal underlying representation. The effect on the Turkish lexicon would be that all alternating affixes are underspecified while all stems are fully specified underlyingly. In a circular argumentation one could say now, this is the source of root control: the asymmetry in underlying forms. Underspecification, however, is induced upon the forms by the grammar. That is, the reason for the alternation in suffixes but not in roots must be found there and not in the underlying representations; which is basically the content of the 'richness of the base' hypothesis (Prince and Smolensky 1993).58 Therefore, an assumed grammar for a given language has to predict the right patterns largely independent of underlying forms. For this reason, often quite quirky hypothetical underlying forms were stipulated in the preceding case studies. Moreover, Lexicon Optimization predicts full specification where earlier theories of underspecification, such as radical underspecification (Archangeli 1984), or contrastive underspecification (Steriade 1987, 1995) would have assumed underspecified underlying representations. In their survey of language games in the vowel harmony languages Finnish, Hungarian, Turkish, and Tuvan, Harrison and Kaun (2000) found challenging evidence against the assumption of underlyingly fully specified stems in these languages. I will illustrate this with Harrison and Kaun's example of Tuvan. Tuvan has roughly the same type of harmony as Turkish. The language exhibits a reduplicative pattern in which the whole stem is copied. The vowel in the first syllable changed to D or u in the reduplicant. The second stem vowel in the reduplicant harmonises with the first vowel of the reduplicant in case the stem itself contains harmonic vowels only (323a). If the stem is disharmonic, the second vowel in the reduplicant does not harmonise with the first vowel of the reduplicant (323b). (323) Tuvan reduplication and harmony a. Full reduplication of harmonic bases with re-harmonisation base reduplicated form odd form gloss idik idik-adik *idik-adik 'boot' fiidik fiidik-fadik *fiidik-fadik 'video cassette' teve teve-tava *teve-tave 'camel' teve-ler-im tevelerim-tavalarim *tevelerim-tavelerim 'camel-PL-1SG'

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b. Full reduplication of disharmonic bases without re-harmonisation ma6ina ma6ina- mu6ina *ma6ina- mu6ina/ mu6una 'car' ajbek ajbek-ujbek *ajbek-ujbak 'Aibek' =iguli =iguli-=aguli *=iguli-=aguli/=agulu 'Zhiguli' (Harrison and Kaun 2000) If the non-initial vowels of harmonic stems, which never alternate in the regular morpho-phonology, were fully specified underlyingly, they should behave like the non-initial vowels of disharmonic roots. They should resist reharmonisation. Harrison and Kaun (2000) propose that Lexicon Optimization should be pattern responsive. This means that if feature specifications are supplied by a certain pattern like vowel harmony, Lexicon Optimization should not ignore this as in the original proposal, but rather use patterns to optimise underlying representations. If grammar works like this we have detected an additional motivation for vowel harmony. The harmony pattern causes underspecification of the affected features in most vowels in all harmonic stems, serving lexical economy in reducing the burden of lexical storage. 7.4

Factorial typology and constraint coordination

A factorial typology consists of all possible rankings assumed in an analysis. In the ideal case, every ranking should conform to an actually attested pattern. In my view this conception of possible grammars is problematic since it reveals a major inconsistency in the treatment of constraints and their interaction. If constraints are postulated in an analysis, they have to be motivated somehow on independent grounds. The least convincing motivation is of course that the analysis of the data requires stipulation of a certain constraint. Constraints are better motivated on external grounds. For instance a markedness constraint such as *[+hi, -ATR] is motivated articulatorily. As said in the introductory part of this book, it is easier to move tongue body and tongue root in the same direction than in opposite directions. The feature [+hi] induces upward movement of the tongue body, while the feature [-ATR] is realised by downward movement of the tongue root. Both gestures are executed by the same body part. Thus, a movement of different zones of that body part in the same direction is more easily executed. Positional faithfulness constraints, for instance, have been motivated by

Factorial typology and constraint coordination

257

Beckman on the basis of general considerations of perceptibility, for which she also gives psycho-linguistic evidence. The motivation of general faithfulness constraints is self-evident. If single constraints or constraint families have to have an external basis, why should any unmotivated ranking of these constraints be considered at all? As was shown in the preceding chapters, we find motivations for constraint rankings and other constraint interactions, like constraint conjunction and constraint fusion as well. Thus factorial typology implies a rather naive view of constraint interaction. If we do not want to measure different parts of the same theory differently we should motivate constraint hierarchies as well, or we should at least give reasons for the exclusion of certain hierarchies. In the view advocated here, rankings, i.e., grammars, which serve no higher purpose or even run counter to general strategies of information structuring and facilitation of information retrieval should be banned from the typology (as is the case, for instance, with a null-parse grammar, a grammar which practically rejects all candidates with overt phonological structure). That is, the theory of factorial typology needs to be constrained as well, as there are restrictions on the formalisation of generalisations to constraints (in the strictest view only faithfulness and markedness constraints are allowed, which both have to follow certain patterns of formalisation with regard to their argument structure), as well as restrictions on the local conjunction of constraints. Nobody would reasonably assume that a grammar conjoins an indefinite set of constraints, even though the constraint inventory has a large combinatorial potential. As outlined already in sections 2.5 and 6.6, the possibilities of constraint coordination are severely limited by four criteria. First, only those constraints can be combined which refer to the same argument. Furthermore, the constraint with the most restricted argument determines the scope of the whole constraint complex. The second limitation of coordination is set by the limits of learnability. A complex constraint consisting of a large number of constraints proves impossible to be learnt at a certain stage of complexity, because the learner can not identify the single constraints anymore which play a role. This was illustrated here with the case of Yawelmani. The Yawelmani grammar included a coordination of four constraints. This coordination proved too complicated and the Yawelmani speakers are about to abandon this part of the grammar today.

258

General conclusion

Connected to this is the criterion of effectivity. The more constraints a grammar coordinates to one single entity the more restricted is the environment in which this complex constraint shows an effect. Thus, with an increasing number of participating constraints, a coordination becomes ineffective. Such a marginal effect is very likely to be overrun by the rest of the grammar. The fourth criterion might not prove that strict. The assumption is that grammars do not just produce constraint coordinations at random. Such complex interactions are done on purpose. The pursued goal usually is maximisation of interpretability. As we have seen in the present survey of vowel harmony, usually a markedness constraint bans a certain feature combination from surfacing. This affects the conflicting faithfulness constraints which serve to maintain a given phonemic contrast. In reaction to this, faithfulness constraints conspire with markedness constraints to circumvent the effect of the highly ranked markedness constraint. The result is economic in that an impoverished surface sound inventory can be used to maintain more underlying phonemic contrasts than are possible by only exploiting the surface inventory. The result is also increased elegance. An inventory can be imbalanced if markedness constraints rule, in the sense that not all phonemes display a pairwise contrast with regard to every feature. Such a kind of imbalance can be outbalanced either directly, by supplying the language at least underlyingly with the phonemic contrast that is missing on the surface or indirectly by imposing balance restrictions on surface vowel patterns to mark the imbalanced vowels as such. All these assumptions on the limits of constraint coordination also limit the possibilities of factorial typologies, since they reduce the number of rankable constraints. Probably, similar or the same criteria should be applied to the typology of constraint hierarchies. Such a restrictive theory of factorial typology would also shift the focus of many current analyses from the mere formalisation of a phenomenon to the question of the conceptual reasons or bases of a phenomenon, which could contribute to enrich the insights into language and communication as such. The aim of linguistic theory should not be simply to formally describe human language, but rather to gain insights into how human language works.

Outlook

7.5

259

Outlook

This book dealt only with a subset of the theoretical issues arising in the context of vowel harmony. If we broaden the scope again after it was narrowed down to the discussion of serialism a range of questions arises. One such question might be why only certain features harmonise in isolation. For instance, the feature roundness is not very prone to be a harmonic feature. Roundness harmony occurs only accompanying backness harmony. Warlpiri, an Australian language illustrates this. In Warlpiri, suffixes agree with their lexical host in terms of roundness and backness, as shown in (324a,b). (324) Warlpiri harmony a. kurdu-kurlu-rlu-lku-ju-lu

'child-Prop-Erg-then-me-they'

b. maliki-kirli-rli-lki-ji-li

'dog-Prop-Erg-then-me-they'

c. minija-kurlu-rlu-lku-ju-lu

'cat-Prop-Erg-then-me-they' (Nash 1986: 86; cit. op. Inkelas 1994: 291)

However, if we consider (324c) as well it emerges that the harmonic feature must be assumed to be backness, since with the stem vowel D, the harmonic suffixes turn out with a back vowel, which is disharmonic with the stem vowel in roundness. Again, roundness harmony is just a by-product of backness harmony, triggered by the limits of the vowel inventory. Warlpiri has neither a back unrounded high vowel nor a front rounded vowel. Therefore, backness harmonic nonlow vowels harmonise with regard to both features. Fronted vowels have to be unrounded, while backed vowels have to be rounded. The inactivity of roundness becomes visible when the only back unrounded vowel a triggers harmony in nonlow vowels. If harmony is allowed in the height and backness dimension, why is the feature roundness so reluctantly active in vowel harmony? There have been several investigations on the psycho-linguistic reality of patterns like vowel harmony. While working on Hungarian harmony, I carried out a survey on the treatment of loan words. As noted in the section on Hungarian, Hungarian speakers often do not know or at least hesitate as to which form to choose when confronted with inflected nonsense words containing possibly balanced or Trojan vowels. Such a behaviour challenges the assumption of harmony as an active phenomenon, while Harri-

260

General conclusion

son and Kaun's (2000) work on word games in harmony languages clearly shows that harmony is an active part of the grammar and not a lexicalised historical artefact. Possible functional motivations of vowel harmony go in four directions. Harmony might serve to facilitate the identification of word boundaries in speech. Another motivation might lie in ease of articulation. If vowels within a word resemble each other, the articulators do not have to be moved as much as when adjacent vowels maximally diverge from each other. The latter finds its precipitation in the assumption that harmony is in fact neutralisation and, in OT terms, reduces violations of markedness constraints, as in the proposal by Beckman (1995, 1997). The markedness/neutralisation approach, however, has no answer to the question why in most cases harmony is limited to the domain of the word. If vowel harmony serves a word-identifying function, this is in accordance with the assumption made here that disruptions of harmony, as with balanced and Trojan vowels, facilitate the maintenance and detection of phonemic contrasts. The fourth possible functional motivation for harmony may lie in the reduction of the complexity of stored items. If a contrast with respect to a certain feature is neutralised in most positions of the word, the non-contrastive vowels might bear any feature specification or none. It simply doesn't matter. If non-specification results in higher mnemonic economy, this should be the preferred underlying form of vowels which are harmonic with their contrastively specified neighbour. The assumption that vowel harmony serves a domain-identifying function is compromised by the subtle differences the scope a harmony requirement might have in different languages. As noted in the introduction, the harmonic domain includes the root plus all affixes in Finnish, while all proclitics are excluded. In fast speech, however, proclitics undergo harmony, triggered by the next (i.e., first) vowel of their host. In Turkish, enclitics regularly participate as targets in the vowel harmony pattern, while some affixes are excluded. In Somali, the scope of harmony covers the whole clause. It remains to be examined in future research whether the Somali grammar treats as one word what we would call a clause traditionally. Future research also has to shed light on the structural differences in the clitic phonology of languages such as Turkish and Finnish. For the moment the notion of 'word' to be referred to when talking about the domain of harmony is neither completely consistent with that of the prosodic or phonological word nor with a morphological understanding of this term.

Outlook

261

Finally I would like to come back to an aspect of two of the major concerns of this book. The behaviour of balanced vowels flies in the face of the notion of strict locality, as assumed in Ní Chiosáin and Padgett (1997, 2000). The patterning of a sequence of balanced vowels as one entity in many cases challenges as well the prosodic view of harmony as syllable-tosyllable interaction. To circumvent this problem I assumed in the chapters on balanced vowels in Finnish and on the behaviour and distribution of Trojan vowels in Yoruba that the grammar treats the whole maximally identical articulatory feature span as one unit. Further research has to bring about clarity to the question whether featural nodes, segment positions, prosodic units or articulatorily defined domains are the targets of harmony processes. There is a lively discussion on that issue going on for years in the literature and it is to be hoped that this debate reveals new insights in the near future.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4.

5.

6.

7. 8.

Note that the term 'disharmony' is used here, as in most of the literature, as denoting the absence of harmony, which does not imply active dissimilation of phonological features. Here we run already into the first problem: Do feature bearers actually share a feature or do they just have to be equal? The autosegmental representation in (1b) is meant to leave room for both options. For a further development of an articulator based theory of phonological features see Halle, Vaux and Wolfe (2000). However, the IPA vowel chart does not take tongue root position into consideration, which is to be transcribed by a subscript cross under the vowel for tongue root advancement and a subscript horizontal bar for retraction. In the following I will depart from this convention by simply using distinct symbols from the vowel chart to transcribe vowels differing in tongue root position (such as ( for the retracted and e for the advanced unrounded mid front vowel, or the pair , / i, etc.). The vowel harmony pattern of Yawelmani has been described as roundness harmony by most phonologists (Archangeli 1985, Cole and Kisseberth 1995, Goldsmith 1993, Kisseberth 1969, Kuroda 1967, McCarthy 1999). In the next section and in chapter 6, I will give some arguments why this pattern should rather be regarded as affecting the feature backness instead of roundness. The fact that some languages with an impoverished vowel inventory, such as Warlpiri, which has three vowels only, show vowel harmony (Nash 1980: 65), while some languages with an impressively overcrowded vowel system, such as Alsacian German for example which has 21 vowels (Lass 1988), do not even show a remnant of harmony, runs counter to Kaun's (1994, 1995) generalisation on harmony and vowel systems. Kaun (1994: 86) suggests that 'where a particular contrast is perceptually difficult, that difficulty has as its direct grammatical correlate a constraint of the "Bad Vowels Spread" family.' As an effect, languages with crowded vowel systems should display harmony, those with simple systems should not. There are cases of rounded vowels in affixes, but these do not alternate in assimilation to an adjacent rounded or unrounded vowel, see part II, chapter 4.3 for a detailed discussion of Turkish. The text in round brackets has been added by the author to facilitate comparison with the Wolof case of transparency.

264 9.

10.

11. 12.

13.

14. 15.

Notes However, low vowels do not always behave as blockers when they are excluded from alternation. This can be illustrated with the harmony pattern of Kinande (Schlindwein 1987). Kinande has an ATR harmony pattern. The only vowel which cannot alternate with regard to ATR is the low vowel a, because it lacks a [+ATR] counterpart. In Kinande, the low vowel exhibits the same transparent pattern as do high vowels in Wolof. The terminology is a bit confusing at this point. An opaque vowel is one which does not agree in a certain feature specification with its neighbour to one side and which starts a new harmony domain to the other side. It is phonologically transparent in that there is no different intermediate representation to be assumed which triggers assimilation of the one neighbour or resistance to assimilation to the other during the derivation. A transparent vowel is transparent because the harmony span proceeds through this vowel even though it has an antagonistic feature specification. Such a transparent vowel behaves as phonologically opaque in that an abstract intermediate state of this vowel can be assumed which triggers featural change in the neighbour to its one side. Phonological opacity arises, then, by setting back the feature specification of the transparent vowel to its original state. Thus, the meaning of the labels transparency and opacity depends on the perspective from which the respective vowel is seen. Eastern Cheremis, a Uralic language, displays backness and roundness harmony, and the vowel is transparent to both processes, while the low vowel D behaves opaquely (see the data in Odden, 1991). The only other language I am aware of which displays consistently suffix controlled (height) harmony is the Australian language Jingulu (Pensalfini, 2002). However, in this language only some affixes behave as triggers, while others do not. Stem vowels never cause harmony in adjacent vowels. Pensalfini argues that this must be due to the morpho-syntactic properties of the former affixes. Walker (2002), however, reports that in some words the vowel preceding the stressed vowel is raised as well, as in moménto 'moment' → mumínti 'moments'. That is, the dialect is probably on the border between umlaut or metaphony and harmony. In some cases the process affects the two last low vowels, but never all vowels of a word. The reader may be referred to Grijzenhout (1990) for more details and a prosodic analysis. One might argue, of course, that the umlauting affixes underlyingly contain the umlaut feature specification but cannot realise it themselves due to markedness conditions on affix vowels. This would match the basic idea of Walker's analysis of the vowel alternations found in Veneto Italian. For an analysis of Umlaut in Optimality Theory see also Klein (1995).

Notes

265

16. Dutch, for instance, allows onsetless syllables, as in the word [(;t] 'real/really', while German requires glottal stop epenthesis in the same environment, compare German [(&t] 'real/really'. 17. In the tableaux (43, 44), epenthesised segmental material is indicated by . Consonantal or vocalic quality is determined in maximal satisfaction of the constraint H-NUC and markedness constraints, yielding schwa, e, i in the nucleus position as optimal in most languages and glottal stop or t in onset position as the optimal epenthetic segments. 18. However, the fact that languages with more crowded vowel systems are more prone to introducing front rounded than back unrounded nonlow vowels gives us a hint that maybe we need to assume two distinct constraints *[+round, -back] as well as *[-round, +back] than rather only one which generally outrules vowels with differing feature specifications for roundness and backness. 19. Butska (1998) argues on the basis of data from Ukrainian for an account of voicing assimilation in terms of MAX and DEP feature constraints rather than Identity. Krämer (2000) shows that such an analysis is not appropriate for the voicing phenomena found in Breton. 20. See in this respect as well the discussion in Itô and Mester (1999) and their notion of Crisp Edge. 21. PCat = Prosodic Category, GCat = Grammatical Category 22. In fact Goad assumes the reason for this to lie outside of grammar. 23. The Shona pattern is slightly more complicated. Since the example only serves the general understanding of Beckman's basic idea here, these complications are irrelevant in the current context. 24. Tunen, a Bantu language spoken in Cameroon, reportedly has prefixes that trigger harmony in their following host. The language has dominant-recessive ATR harmony. However, prefixes only trigger agreement in following closed-class items, such as pronouns and numerals. With nouns and verbs prefixes always behave as targets rather than triggers (Mous 1986). 25. In a series of experiments on speech segmentation, Vroomen, Tuomainen and de Gelder (1998) found that Finnish listeners use word stress as well as vowel harmony (i.e., instances of changes from back to non-back spans) as cues to determine word boundaries. 26. An interesting point here is that even though Pulleyblank (1997) proposes Identical Cluster Constraints (ICC), i.e. something very similar to Faithfulness constraints, to handle consonantal assimilation, he formalises assimilation between vowels as featural Alignment. (See section 2.4.1 for a discussion of the Alignment approach to vowel harmony.) 27. In Krämer (1998, 1999), Syntagmatic Identity was labelled 'Surface Identity'. This was ambiguous since Output-Output Correspondence is also a kind of 'surface' relation, though a paradigmatic one. The term 'Syntagmatic Identity' is more appropriate and less confusing.

266

Notes

28. For an exception to the strict segmental locality of voicing assimilation, see the case studies in Walker (2000). 29. The problem is circumvented, of course, under the assumption that the harmonic features are privative. Under this view, nasality can spread from the first underlying element in (69) to all other targets ignoring the absence of nasality in intervening underlying elements. 30. The ban of such a configuration was also referred to as the condition against discontinuous association in Archangeli and Pulleyblank (1987, 1994), van der Hulst and Smith (1986). Odden (1994) proposes two adjacency parameters: syllable adjacency, which requires interacting material to be in adjacent syllables, and root node adjacency, which requires trigger and target of a rule to be in adjacent root nodes. 31. The subscript italic l following the & sign in the definition stands for the local domain, such as 'segment' or 'syllable' etc. 32. For a case study on Diyari see Crowhurst and Hewitt (1997). 33. Note that the implicational coordination does not promote constraint A. It says just that in case A is satisfied, B has to be satisfied as well. In case of violation of A the constraint coordination is not affected at all. Thus, implication does not prefer co-patterns of two distinct phenomena as logical conjunction does. 34. The ranking of INTEGRITYAffix above S-IDENT, whith the latter ranking higher than INTEGRITYStem predicts a pattern in which stems trigger assimilation while affixes fail to do so. This pattern can be found in Yucatec Maya (see Krämer 2001). 35. In (102), o, e, n belong to the [+ATR] set, and (, o, D are their [-ATR] counterparts. 36. Clements is actually very careful in his formulation. Contrasting dominantrecessive and root controlled systems he states "[i]n dominant harmony systems, dominant vowels occur in both roots and suffixes (but rarely in prefixes, at least in Africa)." (Clements, 2000:135) 37. The high vowels in Yoruba and Futankoore Pulaar have no retracted counterpart. Nevertheless they behave as opaque rather than transparent. A closer examination reveals a similar picture for Hungarian. See below in part II on all three cases. 38. For an alternative proposal to formalise the OCP in OT see Alderete (1997). For a similar proposal, i.e., the OCP as discorrespondence see Plag (1998). 39. According to van der Hulst and van de Weijer (1991), the suffix is -va:ri with an invariant disharmonic front i. This poses no problem to the current analysis, since as an Arabic loan, and as a derivational, i.e., stem-forming, affix with potential 'stem' status this morpheme has to be analysed like the other disharmonic loans. See below in this section.

Notes

267

40. Affix glosses in the Pulaar examples are provided by the author and they are to be interpreted as follows. CLASS = noun class marker, AG.NOM = agentive nominaliser, DIM = diminutive, DIM.PL = diminutive plural. Note that Futankoore Pulaar has 21 noun class markers. To save the reader from complete confusion these distinctions are not reflected in the glosses. See Paradis (1992) on the noun class marking system of Futankoore Pulaar. For a survey on Fula morphology see also Breedveld (1995). 41. Instead of being conceived of as a primitve constraint this constraint can also be formalised as a logical implication, such as R-ANCHOR(affix, pwd)IOIDENT(F), which demands that whenever the Anchoring constraint mapping the right edge of affixes with the right edge of a prosodic word is satisfied the Identity constraint has to be satisfied for the affected affix as well. 42. There are alone eight faithfulness constraints of the MAX/DEP type referring to tongue root position: MAXATR, MAXRTR, DEPATR, DEPRTR, MAXPATHATR, MAXPATHRTR, DEPPATHATR, DEPPATHRTR. For other features which are suspected to be privative, such as rounding, of course the same crowded constraint inventory has to be assumed in such an account. Binary features, such as height, have at least an IO-Identity(F) constraint. 43. These data have been provided by Tuulikki Virta, a native speaker of Finnish. Thank you! 44. The presence of disharmonic stems like verolla 'tax-adessive' is an argument to include IO-IDENTstem above the harmony constraint and the BALANCE constraint in the Finnish grammar. Since it does not contribute any insight into the current discussion I skipped this detail in the tableaux to avoid unnecessary complexity; but see Ringen and Heinämäki (1999) or Krämer (2002) for further details of the analysis of disharmonic stems. 45. Finnish confirms this prediction. Compare the data below. i. värttinä-llä-ni-hän 'with spinning wheel, as you know' ii. palttina-lla-ni-han 'with linen cloth, as you know' (van der Hulst and van de Weijer 1995: 499) 46. The symbol indicates the constraint which finally decides between the last two candidates, i.e. the targeted constraint. 47. Walker (1998) proposes a Sympathy account of transparency in nasal harmony, which is extended here to transparency in vowel harmony for the sake of illustration. The acount given here differs from her approach technically in that I assume harmony to be an effect of a correspondence constraint rather than an alignment constraint, and in that I denote the selector constraint as well. She does not explicitly assign selector status to the harmony constraint, but the intercandidate faithfulness constraint is violated by candidates' deviation from the candidate which fares best on the harmony constraint. 48. I would like to thank Thomas Gamerschlag for coming up with this metaphor.

268

Notes

49. The whole issue seems to be more complicated, however. In an informal investigation, I gave disharmonic words which are not yet loans in Hungarian to three native speakers. They had to choose among two inflected forms with a harmonising affix, one form showing the transparent pattern (i.e., back vowel – front vowel – back affix vowel), one the opaque pattern (i.e., back vowel – front vowel – front affix vowel). The result was that the speakers didn't really know which form to choose. When I presented the same set of pairs to two of them two weeks later, they had even changed their minds about some forms which had been judged clearly before. One person told me that when confronted with an unknown word she searched for a known word that looked similar, to find out what to do with the new one. If she didn't find any she was in trouble. A more principled and controlled survey among native speakers is necessary to find out what they do with new words. As long as this is not done I will stick to the analysis developed here on theoretical grounds and on the data available so far. 50. See http://www.uidaho.edu/nezperce/neemepoo.htm. Nevertheless I will refer to the language as Nez Perce here. I will apply the same policy to Yawelmani, which should be properly referred to as Yowlumne. 51. The variety of Yawelmani, or Yowlumne, analysed here and in most of the literature is that reported by Newman (1944). Fieldwork by Hansson (1998) has revealed that present day Yowlumne slightly differs with respect to the harmony patterns. 52. Cole and Kisseberth motivate their constraint on lowering (LOWER: Vµµ → [low]) as strengthening of an element in one dimension (i.e. sonority), which is already strong in another dimension (i.e., weight). 53. Hansson and Sprouse (1999) discuss the variety described by Newman (1944) and Kuroda (1967) in comparison to the Yawelmani as it is spoken today by the last remaining speakers. Interestingly, they have altered exactly this complicated part of the grammar. The result is that harmony has become sensitive to output height for some low vowel affixes rather than input height, while in other low vowel affixes alternation has ceased. This is not surprising since the lack of harmony among lowered stem vowels and low affix vowels constitutes the most complicated part of the Yawelmani harmony grammar. See below. 54. Note, though, that it is not inherent to the local conjunction which constraint acts as the trigger and which one has to be satisfied. These properties are determined by the ranking of other constraints with respect to the local conjunction and with respect to each other. In an implicational constraint coordination, however, satisfaction of constraint number one enforces satisfaction of constraint number two. Here the different functions of the participating constraints are determined by the architecture of the coordination.

Notes

269

55. See Kiparsky (1993), Inkelas (1994, 2000) and Inkelas, Orgun and Zoll (1997) on this notion of underspecification and structural immunity. 56. Even though Prince and Smolensky (1993) also consider a serialist version of Optimality Theory. See the discussion in McCarthy (1999) on this issue. 57. See the proposal in Krämer (1998). He defines the anti-insertion constraint DEP(F) in a rather broad sense, demanding any correspondence relation, not particularly IO correspondence for each feature specification in an output. This allows for feature specifications to be supported exclusively by the syntagmatic correspondence relation. The effect is that it is more economic for epenthesised vowels to take over the feature specifications of the neighbour than to be supplied with the least marked feature specifications 'out of the blue.' 58. This kind of underspecification must be kept strictly separate from cases where underspecification of individual lexical entries (rather than classes of morphemes) is explored by a grammar to establish a three-way phonemic contrast of a binary feature (see, e.g. Krämer 2000).

Appendix I: Constraints In this appendix, the constraints are listed which are relevant in the analysis of vowel harmony provided in this work. Faithfulness constraints {Right, Left}-ANCHOR(S1, S2) (McCarthy and Prince 1999) Any element at the designated periphery of S1 has a correspondent at the designated periphery of S2. Let Edge(X, {L,R}) = the element standing at the Edge = L,R of X. RIGHT-ANCHOR. If x = Edge(S1, R) and y = Edge(S2, R) then x ℜ y. LEFT-ANCHOR. Likewise, mutatis mutandis. R/L-ANCHOR(root, pwd): Any element at the right/left edge of the root has a correspondent at the right/left edge of the prosodic word. DEP: 'A segment in the output has a correspondent in the input.' IO-IDENT(F): Let α be a segment in S1 and β be any correspondent of α in S2. If α is [γF] then β is [γF]. ('Correspondent segments are identical in feature F.') a. IO-IDENT(ATR) 'Correspondent segments in input and output are identical in their specification of [±ATR].' b. IO-IDENT(bk) 'Correspondent segments in input and output are identical in their specification of [±back].' c. IO-IDENT(hi) 'Correspondent segments in input and output are identical in their specification of [±high].'

272

Appendix I: Constraints

d. IO-IDENT(lo) 'Correspondent segments in input and output are identical in their specification of [±low].' e. IO-IDENT(rd) 'Correspondent segments in input and output are identical in their specification of [±round].' f. IO-IDENTstem 'Correspondent stem segments in the input and in the output are identical in feature F.' Edge Identity: a. IO-IDENTLeft: non-existent? b. IO-IDENTRight: The rightmost consonant/vowel in the word is identical to its correspondent in the input. INTEGRITY — "No Breaking" No element of S1 has multiple correspondents in S2. For x ∈ S1 and w, z ∈ S2, if x ℜw and x ℜz, then w = z. i. INTEGRITY(F) — "No assimilation" No feature of S1 has multiple correspondents in S2. ii. Positional Integrity: a. INTEGRITY(F)Affix No feature of an affix in an input has multiple correspondents in the output. b. INTEGRITY(F)Root No feature of a root in an input has multiple correspondents in the output. c. Universally preferred ranking: INTEGRITY(F)Affix >> INTEGRITY(F)ROOT MAX-IO: 'A segment in the input has a correspondent in the output.' MAXµ : 'A mora in S1 has to have a correspondent in S2.'


273

SYNTAGMATIC IDENTITY (S-IDENT(F)): Let x be an entity of type T in representation R and y be any adjacent entity of type T in representation R, if x is [αF] then y is [αF]. Where T is a segment, mora, syllable, or foot. (A segment, mora, syllable or foot has to have the same value for a feature F as the adjacent segment, mora, syllable or foot in the string.) a. S-IDENT(ATR): Adjacent syllables are identical in their specification of [±ATR]. b. S-IDENT(bk): Adjacent syllables are identical in their specification of [±back]. c. S-IDENT(rd): Adjacent syllables are identical in their specification of [±round]. UNIFORMITY — "No Coalescence" (McCarthy and Prince 1995: 371) No element of S2 has multiple correspondents in S1. OCP: *S-IDENTITY(F): Let x be a feature bearing unit in representation R and y be any adjacent feature bearing unit in representation R, if x is [αF] then y is not [αF]. a. *S-IDENT(bk): Adjacent syllables are not identical with respect to the specification of [±back]. b. *S-IDENT(lo): Adjacent syllables are not identical in the specification of the feature [±low]. Markedness constraints *ALIEN: *[, )] or *[-lo, -rd, +bk]. 'No nonlow, back unrounded vowels.' *[+ATR]: 'No vowels with advanced tongue root.' *[+bk]: 'No back vowels.'

274


*COMPLEX: 'No complex onset, no complex coda.' *[+hi]: 'No high vowels.' *[+lo]: 'No low vowels.' *[+rd]: 'No rounded vowels.' *[+hi, -ATR]: 'No high retracted vowels.' *[hi,long]: 'High long vowels are prohibited.' *[+lo, +ATR]: 'No low advanced vowels.' *[-lo, -rd, -bk]: 'No nonlow unrounded front vowels.' *LORO *[+low, +round]: 'No low rounded vowels.' ROBA: *[αround, -αback] 'Vowels have the same specificaton for roundness and backness.' *[+low, +long, +ATR]: 'No long low advanced vowels.' *[µµµ]σ: 'No superheavy syllables.' Complex constraints {R/L-ANCHOR ∧ IO-IDENT(F)}: Complex constraint is violated if at least one of the two constraints is violated by an element, which is subject to both constraints, i.e. in the local domain. Suffixation as LEFT-ANCHORING (i.e. Local disjunction): LEFT-ANCHOR(root, pwd): The leftmost consonant/vowel of the root has an identical correspondent in the leftmost consonant/vowel of the prosodic word. Prefixation as RIGHT-ANCHORING (i.e. Local disjunction):


275

RIGHT-ANCHOR(root, pwd): Any consonant/vowel at the right edge of the root has an identical correspondent in the rightmost consonant/vowel of the prosodic word. BALANCE: *[-low / +high]&lS-ID(F)&l*S-ID(F) BALANCE(ATR): *[+hi] &l S-IDENT(ATR) & l *S-IDENT(ATR) 'A feature bearing domain is not specified as high or it is identical in ATR with its neighbour(s) or it is not identical in ATR with its neighbour(s).' Domain = a) syllable; b) designated maximally homorganic feature span (i.e., a [+hi] span) BALANCE(bk): *[-lo, -rd, -bk] &l S-IDENT(bk) &l *S-IDENT(bk) 'A feature bearing domain is not specified as nonlow unrounded and front or it is identical in backness with its neighbour(s) or it is not identical in backness with its neighbour(s).' Domain = a) syllable; b) designated maximally homorganic feature span (i.e., a [-lo, -rd, -bk] span) *[-lo, -rd, -bk]&*S-IDENT(bk): 'An element should not violate the markedness constraint against nonlow unrounded front vowels and be harmonic with its neighbour.' *[-ATR]&lIO-IDENT(ATR): 'An element is not [-ATR] and unfaithful to its underlying ATR specification.' *[+ATR]&lIO-IDENT(ATR): 'An element is not [+ATR] and unfaithful to its underlying ATR specification.' *[+hi]&lIO-IDENT(rd): 'An element cannot be a high vowel and not be identical to its underlying roundness specification.' *[-hi, -bk]&lIO-ID(hi): 'An element cannot violate the markedness constraint against nonhigh front vowels as well as IO-Identity on the feature height.' Local conjunction TROY(F): *[-low / +high]&lIO-IDENT(F)&l*S-IDENT(F)

276


TROY(ATR) I or *[+hi]&lR-ANCHOR&l*S-ID(ATR): 'High vowels in the rightmost syllable which cannot map their underlying ATR specification to the surface disagree in ATR with their neighbour.' Domain: [αhi] span. TROY(ATR) II or *[+hi, -bk]&lIO-ID(ATR)& l*S-ID(ATR): 'High front vowels which cannot map their underlying ATR specification to the surface disagree in ATR with their neighbour.' TROY(bk): *[-lo, -rd, -bk]&lIO-IDENT(bk)&l*S-IDENT(bk) UNIFORMVH: S-IDENT(F1)&l*S-IDENT(F2) *[-lo]&lUNIFORMITY: 'Do not violate *[-lo] and UNIFORMITY in the same instance.' IO-IDENT(lo)&lS-IDENT(bk): 'Elements are not unfaithful to their height specification as well as unfaithful to their neighbour with regard to backness.' The four-party constraint conjunction: IO-ID(lo)&l*[+lo, +bk]&l*S-ID(lo)&l*S-ID(bk)

Appendix II: Languages In this appendix you find the languages analysed in this book listed in alphabetical order and accompanied by their main characteristics with regard to their vowel system and affixation. Dҽgҽma (section 4.4)

West African language, Niger-Congo family root controlled ATR harmony; affixation to both sides of the root; symmetric vowel system (all vowels have ATR and RTR variant) Dҽgҽma vowel inventory front back advanced i u high retracted , 8 advanced e o mid retracted ( o advanced low retracted a

Diola Fogni (4.5)

Northern Atlantic branch of Niger-Congo languages dominant-recessive ATR harmony; affixation to both sides of the root; symmetric vowel system (all vowels have ATR and RTR variant) Diola Fogni vowel inventory front back advanced i u high retracted , 8 advanced e o mid retracted ( o advanced ) low retracted $

278

Appendix II: Languages

Finnish (5.1)

Finno-Ugric language root controlled backness harmony; suffixation; asymmetric vowel system: no backness contrast in unrounded nonlow vowels; these vowels show balanced behaviour Finnish vowels

high mid low

front unrounded rounded i y e ö

ä

back unrounded rounded u o a

Futankoore Pulaar (4.6)

(member of Western group of Fula/ Peule/ Fulfulde dialects) Kordofanian language, West Atlantic branch of NigerCongo family, spoken in West and central Africa affix controlled ATR harmony; suffixation; asymmetric vowel system: ATR contrast only in mid vowels in the last syllable of the word Pulaar vowel inventory front back advanced i u high retracted advanced e o mid retracted ( o advanced low retracted a

Hungarian (6.1)

Finno-Ugric language root controlled backness harmony; suffixation; asymmetric vowel system: backness contrast of unrounded high vowel underlyingly only


279

Hungarian vowel inventory front unrounded rounded short long short long high i [i] í [i:] ü [ü] Ħ [ü:] mid (ë [e]) é [e:] ö [ö] Ę [ö:] low e [(]

back unrounded rounded short long short long u [u] ú [u:] o [o] ó [o:] á [a:] a [o]

Nez Perce (6.3)

(Nee-Mee-Poo) Sahaptian language of Idaho dominant-recessive ATR harmony; extremely reduced surface vowel system; two types of i , one behaves dominant, one recessive Nez Perce harmony series Dominant [-ATR] Recessive [+ATR] i i ~u o a 4

Pulaar

See Futankoore Pulaar

Turkish (4.3)

Turkic language root controlled backness and roundness harmony; suffixation; completely symmetric vowel system; o,ö only in leftmost stem syllable (except for loan words); e,a opaque to rounding harmony in noninitial position Turkish vowels front back i Õ [] high round y u e a low round ö o

Wolof (5.2)

Niger-Congo, Senegal root controlled ATR harmony; suffixation; asymmetric vowel system: high vowels are advanced only; high vowels are balanced

280


Wolof vowel inventory high mid low


front i

back u

e (

o o a

Yawelmani (6.4)

(Yowlumne) Valley Yokuts language, southern California root controlled height-uniform backness harmony; suffixation; asymmetric vowel system: no length contrast in high vowels; underlyingly long high vowels are lowered; harmony sensitive to underlying height The Yawelmani vowel system front back high i, i:(e:) u, u:(o:) (mid) (e) low a, a: o, o:

Yoruba (4.2, 6.2)

Niger-Congo, Nigeria root controlled ATR harmony; prefixation; only mid vowels are symmetric with regard to ATR; high and low vowels are opaque; in rightmost root syllable, mid vowels are immune to neighbouring high, low vowels; high vowels are symmetric with regard to ATR underlyingly only; Underlying ATR contrast in high vowels is restricted to rightmost root syllable


Yoruba vowel inventory high mid low


front i

back u

e (

o o a

281

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Index acquisition 194–97, 242 affix control 35, 38, 42, 137–47, 247

Ainu 14, 105 Akan 30 Akinlabi, A. 12 Alderete, J. 80, 266 alignment 57, 62–66, 68, 71, 83, 89, 145, 147–48, 183, 243

generalized 57 Altai 16 anchoring 58, 83, 90, 96–104, 113, 115–23, 133, 140, 206, 248

Anderson, J. 8 Anderson, S. R. 3, 29, 35, 41 Antell, S. 8, 18, 19, 24, 237 Aoki, H. 37, 211 Archangeli, D. 4, 8, 23, 28, 30, 37, 71, 116, 117, 146, 147, 205, 255

archephonemic underspecification 38 articulation 20, 21, 24, 26 asymmetric cooccurrence pattern

102, 115, 124, 135, 149, 182, 183, 189, 202, 210, 244, 247, 252 balance 32, 104–7, 190, 194, 246, 249 Bantu 7, 12, 13, 16, 232, 253 base 39, 42, 50, 58, 90, 149, 252 base-output correspondence 58, 252 Bashkir 22 Beckman, J. 8, 40, 42, 59, 61, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 91, 96, 97, 101, 102, 148, 257, 260, 265 Benua, L. 58, 149, 252 Berry, L. 9, 22 Bodomo, A. 11, 25 Booij, G. 29 bottleneck effect 24, 74 Boyce, S. 43 Braunmüller, K. 40 Breedveld, J. 35, 39, 145, 267 Breton 80, 265 Burzio, L. 58 Butska, L. 265

96

ATR harmony 8, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 27, 28, 36, 41, 104, 115–20, 133–44, 172–81, 200–215, 237, 277, 278, 279, 280

backness harmony 7, 10, 13, 17, 18, 19, 33, 120–33, 158–72, 188– 200, 215, 217–32, 259, 278, 280 bad vowels 263 Bakoviü, E. 29, 31, 35, 36, 38, 42, 62, 65, 68, 69, 80, 87, 89, 91, 95,

Cahill, M. 25 Calabrese, A. 29, 43 Campbell, L. 43, 165, 166 Canclini, E. 224, 243 Castilian Spanish 41 Chadic 8 Chamorro 6 Cherono, G. 8, 18, 19, 24, 237 Chomsky, N. 5, 6, 150, 211 Chulym Tatar 16 Chumburung 11

300

Index

Clements, G. 3, 5, 6, 10, 17, 22, 23, 30, 37, 63, 64, 102, 122, 126, 266 Clements, N. 43 clitic group 25 cluster 61, 64, 70, 74, 223, 232 coalescence 93, 95, 223, 224, 235 coda 51, 60, 64, 81, 86, 103, 223, 233 Coeur d'Alene 22 Cole, J. 4, 9, 15, 29, 62, 75, 89, 216, 217, 218, 232, 233, 237, 238, 239, 240, 242, 263, 268 consonant harmony 65 constraint conjunction 78, 81, 82, 84, 95, 135, 165, 166, 168, 213, 227, 232, 238, 245, 249, 253 constraint coordination 77–88, 98–110, 178, 187, 203, 229, 230, 245, 250, 256–58 constraint disjunction 77, 98, 101, 274 containment 55, 238 contrast 59, 60, 81, 99, 104, 106, 108, 110, 119, 146, 182, 194, 200, 205, 215, 226, 237, 238, 251, 258, 260 co-phonologies 231 co-relevance 87 correspondence 54, 55, 58, 62 counterbleeding opacity 250 counterfeeding opacity 251 Crowhurst, M. 77, 84, 85, 90, 109, 245, 266 Cushitic 8 cyclic derivation 28, 42 cyclicity 42, 49, 82, 89, 150, 202, 250

Dagaare 11, 12, 17 Dҽgҽma 64, 96, 113, 115, 133–35, 277

Dell, F. 4 derived environment effect 82, 253

Diola Fogni 8, 96, 115, 135–37, 152, 277

directionality 28, 63, 97, 113, 117, 148

disharmony 3, 13, 47, 97, 105, 107, 109, 118, 122, 126, 158, 169, 176, 202, 204, 227, 249 Diyari 266 Doak, I. 22 dominance 35, 37, 42, 48, 96, 135– 37, 209–15 Donnelly, S. 16, 108 Duke-of-York-Gambit 31, 240, 251 Durand, J. 8 Dutch 26, 64, 129, 265

Eastern Cheremis 11, 17 Eastern Mongolian 16 Eastern Ojibwa 103 Enarve Vepsian 170, 171 epenthesis 52, 53, 55, 57, 64, 68, 216, 223, 231, 232–36

faithfulness 55 feature binary 36, 37, 43, 56, 267, 269 floating 34, 45, 47, 89, 145, 187, 189, 243 non-equipolent 48 privative 36, 37, 43, 56, 68, 146, 183, 243 ternary 43 unary 37, 44, 47 feature geometry 6, 17, 23, 24, 71, 76

Féry, C. 80 final devoicing 59, 61, 80–82, 86

Index

301

Finnish 6, 7, 17, 25, 26, 30, 32, 76,

height uniformity 15, 215, 216,

104, 113, 141, 155, 157, 158–72, 182, 188, 189, 190, 195, 255, 260, 261, 265, 267, 278 Finno-ugric 278 foot 72, 73, 160 formant 21 Fortune, G. 67 free variation 26, 199 French 26, 209

217, 218, 219, 232, 233, 234, 240, 249 Heinämäki, O. 159, 166, 182, 186, 267 Hewitt, M. 77, 84, 85, 90, 109, 245, 266 Hixkaryana 16 Hockett, C. 4 Hulst, H. van der 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 21, 22, 26, 27, 30, 37, 38, 43, 44, 45, 46, 68, 72, 121, 127, 128, 266, 267 Humbert, H. 72 Hume, E. 6, 23, 37, 43 Hungarian 30, 33, 34, 46, 89, 96, 107, 108, 113, 157, 182, 187, 188–200, 202, 203, 204, 210, 211, 212, 213, 216, 243, 244, 255, 259, 266, 278, 279 hybrid 26, 34, 199 Hyman, L. 13, 14, 232

Fula See Futankoore Pulaar Fulfulde See Futankoore Pulaar Futankoore Pulaar 8, 38, 96, 103,

113, 114, 137–47, 150, 152, 153, 247, 266, 278, 279

Gafos, D. 66 Gelder, B. de 26, 43, 265 German 3, 57, 59, 60, 61, 80, 81, 82, 86, 263, 265

Gnanadesikan, A. 70, 71, 194 Goad, H. 17, 65, 265 Goldsmith, J. 4, 45, 105, 218, 223, 235, 237, 238, 263

Golston, C. 72 Grijzenhout, J. 40, 63, 64, 129, 194, 264

grounded phonology 71 Hall, B. 8, 18, 19, 24, 189, 209, 211, 237 Hall, R. 8, 18, 19, 24, 189, 209, 211, 237 Halle, M. 5, 6, 29, 43, 150, 211, 263 Hansson, G. 231, 268 Harrison, K. 38, 147, 255, 256, 260 height harmony 8, 11, 17, 20, 41, 61, 66, 148, 232

height uniform harmony See height uniformity

Icelandic 40, 41 Igbo 11 implication 77, 85, 220, 267 Inkelas, S. 9, 38, 62, 141, 142, 254, 259, 269

intermediate representation 31, 58, 77, 237

inventory, phonemic 104 inventory, vowel 107, 115, 133, 134, 135, 137, 172, 174, 188, 190, 201, 209, 212, 215, 219, 259 Italian 39, 243 Itô, J. 14, 60, 65, 75, 78, 80, 105, 265

Jacobsen, W. 211 Jiang-King, P. 62, 133 Jingulu 264 Joppen, S. 194

302

Index

Ka, O. 29 Kabak, B. 25, 75, 127, 128, 130 Kachin 16 Kager, R. 58, 252, 253 Kàlo¼1 17, 232 Kalabari 17 Kalenjin 8, 36, 135 Karakalpak 16 Karvonen, D. 160 Kaun, A. 7, 16, 21, 38, 62, 108, 219, 237, 247, 255, 256, 260, 263 Kaye, J. 6, 37, 44, 132 Kenstowicz, M. 4, 58, 252 Khalkha-Mongolian 7 Kikongo 17, 72 Kikuyu 7 Kim, C. 211 Kimatuumbi 12, 13, 17 Kinande 107, 264 Kiparsky, P. 6, 7, 29, 31, 32, 77, 160, 162, 166, 170, 211, 218, 250, 269 Kirchner, R. 43, 62, 63, 89, 121, 131, 253 Kirghiz-B 16 Kisseberth 4 Kisseberth, C. 9, 15, 29, 62, 75, 89, 216, 217, 218, 232, 233, 237, 238, 239, 240, 242, 263, 268 Klao 13 Klein, T. 264 Kordofanian 278 Krämer, M. 14, 23, 43, 62, 63, 64, 69, 71, 74, 76, 80, 93, 105, 125, 129, 224, 247, 265, 266, 267, 269 Kuroda, S-Y. 4, 11, 218, 223, 233, 263, 268 Küspert, K.-C. 40 Kyzyl Khakass 16

labial harmony See roundness harmony Lakämper, R. 98

Lakoff, G. 4 Lamba 72 Lamontagne, G. 92, 96 Leben, W. 45, 105 Leitch, M. 62, 133 levels of representation 44, 77, 218, 238

Lewis, G. 127, 132 lexical representation 189, 194, 198

lexicon optimization 38, 141, 252, 254, 255, 256

local conjunction 78, 81, 96, 106, 108, 109, 135, 136, 163, 164, 186, 189, 190, 192, 203, 206, 212, 213, 218, 220, 223, 224, 227, 228, 230, 231, 238, 245, 249, 253, 257 locality 29, 30, 44, 45, 71, 73, 75, 76, 157, 159, 160, 178, 182, 183, 186, 261

locality (of constraint coordination) 85 Lombardi, L. 59, 61, 63, 64, 65, 69, 70, 80, 95

Lowenstamm, J. 6, 37, 44 lowering 4, 22, 177, 204, 216, 218, 219, 222, 225, 226, 234, 236, 237, 240, 241 àubowicz, A. 80, 82, 83, 84, 87, 98, 253 Luo 8

Maasai 8 markedness 54 McCarthy, J. 4, 31, 35, 41, 45, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 62, 70, 89, 92, 105, 114, 124, 125, 142, 154, 185, 216, 218, 223, 224, 240, 241, 242, 244, 247, 248, 251, 252, 253, 263, 269, 271, 273 Mester, A. 60, 65, 75, 78, 80, 265

Index

metaphony 40, 264 meta-ranking 35, 78, 96, 154, 247 Mithun, M. 22 mora 3, 23, 40, 72, 73, 74, 105, 109, 147, 180, 181, 222, 223, 236

morphological control 42, 44, 48, 96, 247 Mous, M. 265 Murut 16

nasal 8, 17, 70, 71, 72, 74, 160 nasals 71, 103 Nash, D. 9, 259 Nee-Mee-Poo See Nez Perce Nespor, M. 25 Newman, S. 4 Nez Perce 8, 37, 187, 189, 209–15, 244, 279

Ní Chiosáin, M. 24, 71, 74, 182, 261

Niger-Congo 8, 11, 12, 277, 278, 279, 280

Nilo-Saharan 8 non-surface-apparent opacity 240 non-surface-true opacity 240 Noske, M. 35 Noske, R. 4 Obligatory Contour Principle See OCP OCP 45, 46, 105, 163, 168, 170, 172, 178, 190, 193, 199, 200, 203, 204, 218, 219, 227, 229, 230, 249 Odden, D. 6, 11, 13, 16, 17, 21, 23, 43, 65, 71, 76, 264, 266 Ola, N. 62, 133 Olsson, M. 34, 192, 196, 198, 199 opaque vowel 26, 27, 30, 32, 34, 35, 44, 46, 48, 90, 91, 92, 97, 113, 114, 120, 149, 154, 162,

303

172, 180, 185, 186, 198, 200, 218, 225, 244 Orgun, O. 269

Padgett, J. 24, 43, 62, 65, 71, 74, 75, 182, 261

Päkot 8 palatal harmony See backness harmony Pam, M. 8, 18, 19, 24, 237 Paradis, C. 35, 38, 39, 137, 138, 139, 145, 146, 267

Pasiego Montañes 41 pathological ranking 154, 248 Paulian, C. 13 Pensalfini, R. 264

Peule See Futankoore Pulaar phonological opacity 31, 48, 77, 84, 89, 186, 218, 240, 242, 244, 245, 247, 249, 250, 251, 253 Phuthi 16, 108 Piggott, G. 9, 72, 103, 160 Plag, I. 266 Polgárdi, K. 132 Polish 83, 84 Popescu, A. 224 positional faithfulness 59, 61, 66, 68, 86, 90, 91, 93, 97, 99, 102, 109, 140, 148, 204, 247, 253, 256 Prince, A. 4, 35, 49, 50, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 62, 70, 78, 92, 98, 114, 123, 124, 125, 142, 154, 194, 224, 238, 247, 248, 252, 255, 269, 271, 273 Pulleyblank, D. 8, 23, 28, 29, 30, 33, 36, 37, 62, 66, 70, 71, 72, 89, 115, 116, 117, 133, 147, 172, 173, 180, 183, 205, 206, 243, 265, 266 Pullum, G. 31, 240

Rice, K. 92, 96

304

Index

richness of the base 50, 123, 194, 255

Rigsby, B. 211 Ringen, C. 7, 29, 34, 62, 89, 159, 166, 182, 186, 188, 189, 243, 267 root control 247 roundness harmony 7, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 20, 108, 113, 120–33, 215, 219, 232, 237, 238, 279

Sagey, E. 9 Sahaptian 279 Schlindwein, D. 107, 264 selector 185, 241 Sezer, E. 10, 22, 63, 64, 122, 126 shared argument criterion 85, 87 Shona 7, 8, 17, 61, 66, 67, 96, 102, 113, 148, 265

Silverstein, M. 211 Skousen, R. 25 Smith, N. 9, 30, 37, 43, 44, 45, 46, 68, 266

Smolensky, P. 29, 42, 49, 50, 52, 54, 62, 78, 89, 98, 123, 194, 238, 252, 255, 269 Somali 8, 18, 19, 24, 25, 260 Southern-Payute 7 Spencer, A. 29 Sprouse, R. 231, 268

Stem-Affixed-Form-Faithfulness 42, 90, 124, 253

Steriade, D. 4, 29, 37, 255 structure preservation 104, 162, 213

Suzuki, K. 4 syllable 3, 23, 40, 47, 51, 59, 62, 72, 73, 75, 109, 117, 148, 167, 216, 218, 225 sympathy 31, 89, 157, 185, 202, 216, 240, 241, 242, 244, 253 syntagmatic correspondence 70, 71, 73

Tamil 96 Tangale 8, 27, 28, 32 targeted constraint 31, 90, 183–85, 186, 211, 215

Tesar, B. 194 tone sandhi 24 tongue root harmony See ATR harmony Touretzky, D. 4 transparent vowel 29, 48 Trojan vowel 26, 34, 44, 46, 48, 107–8, 172, 187–237, 242, 249, 259, 261 Tsou 16 Tunen 265 Tungusic 16 Tunica 11, 16, 23 Tuomainen, J 26, 43, 265 Turkana 35, 38, 253 Turkic 6, 7, 10, 96, 279 Turkish 7, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 25, 32, 63, 64, 68, 69, 75, 96, 113, 114, 120–33, 141, 149, 152, 153, 161, 190, 200, 252, 253, 254, 255, 260, 263, 279

umlaut 3, 15, 40, 41, 264, 289 underspecification 37, 38, 46, 89, 123, 142, 157, 231, 254

underspecification, contrastive 255

underspecification, radical 255 Ussishkin, A. 247 Uyghur 29, 170, 171, 172 vacillating stems See hybrid Vago, R. 29, 34, 62, 89, 182, 188, 189, 192, 243

Välimaa-Blum, R. 166 Vaux, B. 29, 43, 263 Veneto Italian 39 Vergnaud, J. 6, 37, 44

Index

305

Vogel, I. 25, 75, 127, 128, 130 voicing assimilation 24, 61, 64, 71 Vroomen, J. 26, 43, 265

Yakut 16 Yawelmani 4, 6, 9, 11, 15, 34, 89,

Walker, R. 9, 39, 40, 264, 266, 267 Warlpiri 9, 10, 17, 18, 22, 259, 263 Weijer, J. van de 6, 7, 9, 11, 13,

Yokuts See Yawelmani Yoruba 8, 17, 30, 34, 97, 102, 103,

21, 22, 26, 27, 38, 72, 121, 127, 128, 266, 267 Wheeler, D. 4 Wilson, C. 90, 106, 182, 183 Wolfe, A. 29, 43 Wolof 8, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 45, 97, 155, 157, 158, 172–81, 183, 184, 263, 264, 279, 280 Wunderlich, D. 98

108, 109, 172, 187, 215–42, 244, 245, 251, 257, 263, 268, 280 108, 113, 115–20, 134, 137, 141, 148, 150, 151, 152, 153, 183, 187, 189, 209, 200–209, 243, 244, 248, 252, 253, 261, 266, 280

Yowlumne See Yawelmani Yucatec Maya 14, 17, 22, 69, 74, 105, 266 Zoll, C. 269

Zwicky, A. 211

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