When size matters in infix allomorphy: A unique window into the morphology-phonology interface

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

This paper presents a case study of morphophonology in Nancowry, a dialect of Nicobarese (Austroasiatic; Mon-Khmer; Radhakrishnan 1981). In Nancowry, there are several affixal morphemes with exponents that are distributed based on the prosodic size of the stem they combine with, and some of these exponents are infixal, appearing in positions where they create opacity. I show that Nancowry provides evidence for (i) the bottom-up cyclicity of exponent choice, infixation, and prosodification, (ii) the serial ordering of these processes within each cycle, and (iii) the largely arbitrary (non-optimizing) nature of exponent choice and infixation. The findings point to a separation of morphology from phonology (in line with, e.g., Halle & Marantz 1993, 1994, Trommer 2001, Paster 2006, Yu 2007, Embick 2010, Bye & Svenonius 2012, Pak 2016, Dawson 2017, Kalin 2020, Rolle 2020, Stanton 2022), and are consistent with the results from investigating interactions between allomorphy and infixation in a sample of 42 languages (Kalin 2022).

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationThe Size of Things II
Subtitle of host publicationMovement, Features, and Interpretation
PublisherLanguage Science Press
Pages269-296
Number of pages28
ISBN (Electronic)9783961103423
ISBN (Print)9783985540389
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 27 2023

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Arts and Humanities
  • General Social Sciences

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