Cover not available

In:Morphological Metatheory
Edited by Daniel Siddiqi and Heidi Harley
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 229] 2016
► pp. 303–342

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Readjustment: Rejected?

 | Oberlin College
Published online: 29 June 2016
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.229.11hau
This paper raises the metatheoretical question of whether readjustment (i.e. the alteration of stem or affix phonology after lexical insertion) is needed for morphological theory. Domains investigated include: (i) the employment of readjustment rules as “secondary exponence” in Distributed Morphology; (ii) verb stem allomorphy in the Uto-Aztecan languages Hiaki (Yaqui) and Classical Nahuatl; and (iii) verb stem allomorphy concurrent with reduplication in the Oceanic language Sye (Erromangan). A cogent argument in favor of readjustment rules over stem-listing approaches invokes frequent phonological regularity of stem alternants (e.g., Harley and Tubino Blanco’s 2013 analysis of stem form alternations Hiaki). I adopt an alternative, “amphichronic” (Kiparsky 2006) approach whereby such regularities can be just as felicitously explained by appealing to historical linguistic processes.
References (44)
References
Aronoff, Mark. 2012. Morphological stems: What William of Ockham really said. Word Structure 5(1): 28–51. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Arregi, Karlos & Nevins, Andrew. 2012. Morphotactics: Basque Auxiliaries and the Structure of Spellout. Dordrecht: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bermúdez-Otero, Ricardo. 2012. The architecture of grammar and the division of labor in exponence. In The Morphology and Phonology of Exponence [Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics 41], Jochen Trommer (ed.), 8–83. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. The Spanish lexicon stores stems with theme vowels, not roots with inflectional class features. Probus 25(1): 3–103.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Amphichronic explanation and the life cycle of phonological processes. In The Oxford Handbook of Historical Phonology, Patrick Honeybone & Joseph C. Salmons (eds), 374–399. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bobaljik, Jonathan David. 2012. Universals in Comparative Morphology: Suppletion, Superlatives, and the Structure of Words. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bye, Patrik & Svenonius, Peter. 2012. Non-concatenative morphology as epiphenomenon. In The Morphology and Phonology of Exponence, Jochen Trommer (ed.), 427–95. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carochi, Horacio S.J. 1645/2001. Grammar of the Mexican Language with an Explanation of Its Adverbs (James Lockhart (ed.) and trans.) [UCLA Latin American Series 89]. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1973. Conditions on transformations. In A Festschrift for Morris Halle, Stephen R. Anderson & Paul Kiparsky (eds), 232–86. New York NY: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam & Halle, Morris. 1968. The Sound Pattern of English. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam & Lasnik, Howard. 1977. Filters and control. Linguistic Inquiry 8: 425–504.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crowley, Terry. 1998. An Erromangan (Sye) Grammar [Oceanic Linguistics Special Publications 27]. Honolulu HI: University of Hawai’i Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Embick, David. 2010. Localism versus Globalism in Morphology and Phonology [Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 60]. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. On the targets of phonological realization. Talk given to the MSPI Workshop at Stanford University, 13 October 2012.
& Halle, Morris. 2005. On the status of stems in morphological theory. In Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2003 [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 270], Twan Geerts, Ivo van Ginneken & Haike Jacobs (eds), 37–62. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Frampton, John. 2009. Distributed Reduplication [Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 52]. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halle, Morris. 1990. An approach to morphology. In Proceedings of NELS 20, 150–84. Amherst MA: GLSA.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halle, Morris & Marantz, Alec. 1993. Distributed morphology and the pieces of inflection. In The View from Building 20: Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger, Kenneth Hale & Samuel Jay Keyser (eds), 111–176. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harley, Heidi. 2014. On the identity of roots. Theoretical Linguistics 40(3–4): 225–276. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harley, Heidi & Noyer, Rolf. 2000. Licensing in the non-lexicalist lexicon. In The Lexicon/Encyclopedia Interface, Bert Peeters (ed.), 349–374. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harley, Heidi & Tubino Blanco, Mercedes. 2013. Cycles, Vocabulary Items, and stem forms in Hiaki. In Distributed Morphology Today: Morphemes for Morris Halle, Ora Matushansky & Alex Marantz (eds), 117–134. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harley, Heidi, Tubino Blanco, Mercedes & Haugen, Jason D. 2012. Locality conditions on suppletive verbs in Hiaki. Poster presented at the Workshop on the Morphosyntax-Phonology Interface (MSPI); Stanford University.
Harris, Alice C. 2009. Exuberant exponence in Batsbi. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 27: 267–303. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haugen, Jason D. 2011. Reduplication in Distributed Morphology. In Proceedings of the 4th Arizona Linguistics Circle Conference (ALC 4). Coyote Papers, Vol. 18. Tucson AZ: Department of Linguistics, University of Arizona. <[URL]>Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haugen, Jason D. & Siddiqi, Daniel. 2013. Roots and the derivation. Linguistic Inquiry 44(3): 493–517. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Inkelas, Sharon & Zoll, Cheryl. 2005. Reduplication: Doubling in Morphology. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Karttunen, Frances E. 1992. An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl. Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul. 2006. The amphichronic program vs. Evolutionary Phonology. Theoretical Linguistics 32(2): 217–36. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Langendoen, D. Terence. 1975. Finite-state parsing of phrase-structure languages and the status of readjustment rules in grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 6(4): 533–54.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Launey, Michel. 2011. An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl (Christopher Mackay, Trans). Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liberman, Mark. 2011, December 12. Vocal fry: “creeping in” or “still here”? Language Log <[URL]>Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liberman, Mark & Prince, Alan. 1977. On stress and linguistic rhythm. Linguistic Inquiry 8(2): 249–336.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Merchant, Jason. 2015. How much context is enough? Two cases of span-conditioned stem allomorphy. Linguistic Inquiry 46(2): 273–303. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Noyer, Rolf. 1997. Features, Positions, and Affixes in Autonomous Morphological Structure [Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics]. New York NY: Garland.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pullum, Geoffrey K. & Zwicky, Arnold M. 1992. A misconceived approach to morphology. In Proceedings of WCCFL 10, 387–98. Palo Alto CA: CSLI.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raimy, Eric. 1999. The Phonology and Morphology of Reduplication [Studies in Generative Grammar 52]. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rothenberg, Miriam & Haugen, Jason D. 2014. Allomorphy in the Classical Nahuatl ‘nonactive’. Paper presented at the SSILA Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN. January 4.
Sapir, Edward. 1913. Southern Paiute and Nahuatl: A study in Uto-Aztekan. Journal de la Société des Américanistes 10(2): 379–425. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Siddiqi, Daniel. 2006. Minimize Exponence: Economy Effects on a Model of the Morphosyntactic Component of the Grammar. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arizona.
. 2009. Syntax within the Word: Economy, Allomorphy, and Argument Selection in Distributed Morphology [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 138]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stainton, Robert. 2006. Words and Thoughts. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Svenonius, Peter. 2012. Spanning. Ms, CASTL, University of Tromsø. <[URL]>Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Travis, Lisa deMena. 2003. Reduplication feeding syntactic movement. In Proceedings of the Canadian Linguistics Association (CLA), S. Somesfalean, (ed.), 236–47. Université du Québec à Montréal.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zuraw, Kie Ross. 2000. Exceptions and Regularities in Phonology. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
Cited by (12)

Cited by 12 other publications

Paparounas, Lefteris
2024. Visibility and Intervention in Allomorphy: Lessons from Modern Greek. Linguistic Inquiry 55:3 ► pp. 537 ff. DOI logo
Alqarni, Muteb
2022. Word-formation and reduplication in standard Arabic: A new distributed morphology approach. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 58:3 ► pp. 381 ff. DOI logo
Bembridge, Gavin
2022. ASL negative incorporation as negative suppletion. Sign Language & Linguistics 25:2 ► pp. 135 ff. DOI logo
Sande, Hannah
2022. Is grammatical tone item-based or process-based?. Phonology 39:3 ► pp. 399 ff. DOI logo
Dolatian, Hossep
2021. Cyclicity and prosodic misalignment in Armenian stems. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 39:3 ► pp. 843 ff. DOI logo
Dolatian, Hossep
2023. Output-conditioned and non-local allomorphy in Armenian theme vowels. The Linguistic Review 40:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
DOLATIAN, HOSSEP
2024. Fluctuations in allomorphy domains: Applying Stump 2010 to Armenian ordinal numerals. Journal of Linguistics 60:3 ► pp. 563 ff. DOI logo
Kiparsky, Paul
2021. Phonology to the rescue: Nez Perce morphology revisited. The Linguistic Review 38:3 ► pp. 391 ff. DOI logo
Ganenkov, Dmitry
2020. Missing Elsewhere: Domain Extension in Contextual Allomorphy. Linguistic Inquiry 51:4 ► pp. 785 ff. DOI logo
Revithiadou, Anthi, Giorgos Markopoulos & Vassilios Spyropoulos
2019. Changing shape according to strength: Evidence from root allomorphy in Greek. The Linguistic Review 36:3 ► pp. 553 ff. DOI logo
Bermúdez-Otero, Ricardo
2018. In defence of underlying representations: Latin rhotacism, French liaison, Romanian palatalization. Probus 30:2 ► pp. 171 ff. DOI logo
Kilbourn-Ceron, Oriana, Heather Newell, Máire B. Noonan & Lisa deMena Travis
2016. Phase domains at PF. In Morphological Metatheory [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 229], ► pp. 121 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue