<OT> New Posting: ROA-819

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 819-0406

Accent in Proto-Indo-European Athematic Nouns: Antifaithfulness in Inflectional Paradigms

Melissa Frazier <melfraz at email.unc.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=819


Abstract:
This paper examines four accent patterns displayed by athematic
nouns in Proto-Indo-European.  Each accent pattern is distinguish
ed by either alternating stress or vowel quality between
'weak' forms (nominative, accusative, vocative) and 'strong'
forms.  I argue that surface stress is the result of the
interplay of the lexical accent specifications of the morphemes
that compose the stem.  The strong endings are classified
as dominant and are thus responsible for the accent/ablaut
alternations.


Optimality Theory is used to provide a synchronic phonological
analysis of athematic noun accent.  The weak forms are accounted
for with a ranking of faithfulness and alignment constraints,
including a positional faithfulness ranking in which faithfulness
to roots is preferred over faithfulness to derivational
affixes.  The strong endings, which are dominant, trigger
antifaithfulness constraints (Alderete 1999), and so a new
type of antifaithfulness constraint is introduced that works
within inflectional paradigms, based on the Optimal Paradigms
model (McCarthy 2005).

Comments: 
Keywords: accent, stress, Indo-European, paradigms, dominance
Areas: Phonology,Morphology
Type: Masters Dissertation

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=819