<OT> New Posting: ROA-969

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 969-0508

Implications of Katu Nominalization for Infixation Typology

Graham Horwood <gvh at tu.ac.th>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=969


Abstract:
In the Mon-Khmer language Katu (as spoken in the Lao P.D.R.;
Costello 1998), nominalization is marked with a variety
of forms at the leftmost periphery of the root word, and
occasionally as a phonologically reduced infix, /-r-/, appearing
in the coda of the initial syllable of the nominalized word.
This paper will analyze the Katu case as an example of prosodical
ly conditioned allomorphy, resultant in OT from a surface
merger of underlying root and affix segmentism. It will
be shown that segmental default-to-opposite, a phenomenon
predicted but unattested in Katu, must be ruled out in OT
grammars with the Edge Proximity Condition, a strengthening
of the Morphology/Phonology Strict Concordance Condition
(McCarthy and Prince, 1995). The resulting theory makes
a strong prediction: that infixation may only occur where
an affix is dominated by an edge-bound prosodic constituent.
Challenges posed by cases of prosodic subcategorization,
as exemplified in English expletive infixation, will be
considered, along with an alternative prohibition on morpheme
dislocation, the Subcategorization Non-violability hypothesis
of Yu (2003).

Comments: 
Keywords: infixation, prosodic morphology, typology, Katu, Mon-Khmer
Areas: Phonology
Type: Manuscript

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=969