<OT> New Posting: ROA-885

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 885-1206

Reduplicant placement, anchoring and locality

Anya Lunden <lunden at wm.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=885


Abstract:
This paper investigates Marantz' Generalization in the context
of Optimality Theory (OT). The locality generalization implicit
in Marantz' Generalization, that reduplicants tend to be
adjacent to their corresponding base segments, is drawn
out and focused on. A family of AdjacencyBR constraints
are proposed to motivate this tendency. These constraints
relate a reduplicant's placement to its anchoring, motivated
by the idea that each segment in the reduplicant wants to
be as close as possible to its correspondent in the base.
It is shown how these constraints motivate less than full
reduplication, exemplified by Dobel, Agta and Yidin, as
they are at odds with MaxBR, which requires full reduplication.
They are also shown to predict discontiguous reduplicants
(a rare pattern, found in Marshallese and Mandarin) which
are otherwise mysterious. Claims that the locality generalization
is an absolute rather than a tendency are examined, and
reduplication patterns from Chukchee, Indonesian, Madurese
and others are analyzed. It is shown that a full typology
of reduplication must be made available by the grammar,
including 'opposite edge' reduplication, where the reduplicant
is anchored to one edge but aligned to the opposite edge
as patterns of this sort cannot be otherwise explained.

Comments: 
Keywords: Reduplication, local reduplication, opposite-edge reduplication, Marantz' Generalization
Areas: Phonology,Morphology
Type: Manuscript

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=885