<OT> New Posting: ROA-647

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ROA 647-0304

Attraction to the unmarked in Old Spanish leveling

Richard E. Morris <rmorris at mtsu.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=647


Abstract:
The Old Spanish verb commonly displayed an alternating stem
segment that was later leveled in favor of one of the alternants.
In some instances, the direction of leveling is toward the
one with the most types (cf. venco reforming on the pattern
of vençes, vençe, vençer, etc.), whereas in others it is
the one displaying a unique phonological alternation (cf.
derived fugio influencing the stem vowel in foges, foge,
fogir, etc.).  This paper aims to account for the two types
of leveling attested in Old Spanish in terms of their phonologica
l - rather than semantic - markedness.  The framework is
McCarthy's Optimal Paradigms (OP) model.  In this model,
an entire verb paradigm is evaluated for satisfaction of
constraints on structure and faithfulness, and violations
are incurred by the paradigm as a whole.  It is shown that
the Old Spanish data illuminate several issues of markedness
in leveling, including identification of the attractor,
Over- and Underapplication of processes, and competition
between output forms.  Shortcomings and limitations of the
OP model are considered.

Comments: 
Keywords: Old Spanish, leveling, analogy, optimal paradigm, markedness
Areas: Historical Linguistics,Phonology
Type: Conference Proceedings Chapter

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=647