<OT> New Posting: ROA-856

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ROA 856-0806

Paradigms (Optimal and Otherwise): A case for scepticism

Jonathan David Bobaljik <bobaljik at alum.mit.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=856


Abstract:
This paper aims to contribute to the debate on the status
of inflectional paradigms in grammatical theory, with special
reference to the theory of Optimal Paradigms (OP, McCarthy
2005), a particular version of Paradigm Uniformity. OP proposes
that certain systematic phonological differences between
nouns and verbs should be analyzed as arising from contingent
facts about the individual affixes making up the nominal
and verbal inflectional paradigms. I argue here that the
Arabic data presented in OP does not support the OP model
(as against, for example, cyclic alternatives) and that
consideration of similar phenomena in Itelmen, a language
with richer inflectional paradigms, suggests that it is
morpho-syntactic category and not paradigm properties, that
determine phonological behaviour.

Comments: Presented at MIT Paradigms Workshop 2004, revised 2006
Keywords: paradigms, noun-verb asymmetries, cycle, syllabification, base, morpheme structure constraints
Areas: Morphology, Phonology
Type: Book Chapter

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=856