Prosodic Recursion and Syntactic Cyclicity inside the Word
Peter Guekguezian
June 2017
 

This dissertation proposes a model of the syntax-phonology interface within the word; in this model, morphosyntax is cyclic but phonology is parallel. Words that span multiple phases (Chomsky 2000, 2001, Marantz 2001) are transferred from syntax to phonology (“spelled out”) multiple times. The spelled out material is evaluated by a parallel Optimality Theory grammar (OT; Prince and Smolensky 1993/2004), which builds output prosodic structure. The cyclic syntax-parallel phonology model predicts that transferring words from syntax to phonology over multiple phases results in recursion of Phonological Words (PWds) in some languages (Ito and Mester 2009). In these languages, including Chukchansi Yokuts (firsthand fieldwork) and Creek (data from Martin 2011), prosodic recursion reflects cyclic word construction. The input representation of multiphasal verbs and prosodic well-formedness and Match constraints together generate a typology including languages with different recursive PWd structures or no PWd recursion at all. The predicted typology of prosodic structures of multiphasal words closely matches the attested range of language variation. This dissertation brings together insights from several theories in multiple sub-fields of linguistics, including Phase Theory, the Copy Theory of Movement, Distributed Morphology and Match Theory. The cyclic syntax-parallel phonology model provides a tool for assessing the claims of one sub-field using evidence from another sub-field. The prosodic organization of a word can provide insight into its phasal derivation; conversely, the morphosyntactic structure of a word can shed light on the complex prosodic structure it displays.
Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/004053
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: Dissertation, University of Southern California
keywords: morphology-phonology interface; phases; prosody; match theory; prosodic morphology; typology, morphology, phonology
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