Analyzing strings into Morphemes

1 Finding a common morph—the Present Tense.

Note: The symbol ‘¢’ may occuyr in play of esh [ʃ]

The first step is to find a common morph in a paradigm. The best way is to attempt to find the stem if that is possible. We will work with Russian. Consider the following paradigm, prearranged in person and then number: The paradigm is of the verb nesti, ‘to carry (by foot).’ Note: the phoneme /ö/ is always stressed:

Table 1

nesti glossnisú first person singularNisöʃ second person singularnisöt third person singularnisöm first person pluralnisöti second person pluralnisút third person plural

Look for common form of stem and add tentative morpheme there. After examining the paradigm, one should determine that the morph /nis/ forms the root/stem:1

1 See the file on Root, Base, and Stem.

Table 2

nesti glossnis+ú first person singularnis+öʃ second person singularnis+öt third person singularnis+öm first person pluralnis+öti second person pluralnis+út third person plural

Next consider the present tense conjugation of vezti ‘to carry (by conveyance).’

Table 3

vezti glossvizú first person singularVizöʃ second person singularvizöt third person singularvizöm first person pluralvizöti second person pluralvizút third person plural

As in the morph /viz/ is determined, since it is common to all the forms:

Table 4

vezti glossviz+ú first person singularviz+öʃ second person singularviz+öt third person singularviz+öm first person pluralviz+öti second person pluralviz+út third person plural

Next, try find some more paradigms that are similar to the one above. For example, vezti ‘to lead:’

Table 5

nesti glossvidú first person singularVidöʃ second person singularvidöt third person singularvidöm first person pluralvidöti second person pluralvidút third person plural

Similarly, the morph Table 6

nesti glossvid+ú first person singularvid+öʃ second person singularvid+öt third person singularvid+öm first person pluralvid+öti second person pluralvid+út third person plural

/vid/ is determined:

We have now analyzed three stems: /nis/, /viz/, /vid/, each set has a single morph which may now consider an allomorph. But, there is more to come.

1 The Past Tense

Next we will look at the past tense paradigm of all three stems. In the past tense, number is not marked, but the opposition gender is marked. Gender is not marked in the plural:

Table 7

nesti vezti vesti glossnös vös völ past masculine singularnislá vizlá vilá past feminine singularnisló vizló viló past neuter singularnislí vizlí vilí past pluralcarry convey lead gloss

Let’s start with the second row, the past feminine singular. We find ‘lá’ in all three columns. We fin ‘lö’ in all three columns of the third row, the past neuter singular, and we find ‘lí’ in all three columns of the fourth row, the past plural. Note also that /l/ occurs in the forms except the past tense masculine of nesti and vezti. This wide distribution should lead us to hy-pothesize that /l/ is the default marker for the past tense. That leaves us to explain the absence of /l/ in those two forms. Assuming this, we will show the morphological analysis of in :

Table 8

nesti vezti vesti glossnös vös vö+l past masculine singularnis+l+á viz+l+á vi+l+á past feminine singularnis+l+ó viz+l+ó vi+l+ó past neuter singularnis+l+í viz+l+í vi+l+í past pluralcarry convey lead gloss

Next we should observe that the hypothetical stem /nis/ occur in three rows of the four rows. In the first row, the past masculine singular, there is a phonological change in the tentative stem vowel. The past tense forms shares /n/ and /s/ with the tentative stem, the only change is in the vowel. It is rather reasonable to assume that there are two morphs: /nis/ and /nös/. Although there is not enough information to attempt to account for this alternation now, it is worth noting that it was said above that /ö/ occurs in stressed positions only. Here, the feature [-Stress] is in the same column as /ö/; the rule says to replace /ö/ with /i/ if it occurs with the feature [-Stress]. and are notational variants, because the rule will predict true results for either or .2 /s/ is consistent for the final consonant of the root/stem. We may hypothetically propose that the underlying form for nesti is 2 For a proof of this, we need to go into deep logic.

{nös}.

Now let us consider the second column. We find a similar pattern, except we encounter a second morph /vös/. The voicing on the stem changes. We now have two allomorphs /viz/ and /vöz/. If we selected /z/ as the underlying form of the root/stem, we can easily predict that /z/ becomes voiceless at the end of a word: {vöz}

In the third column we find that /v/ is consistent in the onset position, and we find the familiar alternation of /i/ and /ö/ in the peak position of the syllable: /vö/ and /vi/. In order to properly analyze the underlying form for vesti, we must include the present tense allomorph /vid/. Note that /vid/ occurs when the following segment is a vowel. Note that /d/ does not occur in the past tense, which is always marked with /l/. And we find the expected alternation of /i/ and /ö/. We are certain about the first two segments (the onset and peak of the morpheme): /vöÚ/. Is /d/ inserted epenthetically, or is it deleted? Arguments epenthetic insertion include:

(1 /d/ insertion is odd and rarely if ever found. ) a.

b. syllable-final consonantal deletion is not uncommon (the coda weakens).

c. Historically, Russian went through an open syllable phase: every syllable had to end in a vowel; this included diph-

thongs.

d. assume the underlying past tense feminine form: ##vöd+l+á##.

e. The old and perhaps the modern rule for syllabification is to start the syllable immediately after the vowel within a word:

##$ vö $ dlá $##.

d. There was a constraint in Indo-European that blocked an initial syllable cluster of a dental or alveolar stop plus /l/:

*$ {d,t}lV Ú$.

b. this constraint forced /d/ to be deleted. An epenthetic vowel could have been inserted, but the Slavic languages did not take this route.

c. The morphotactic structure of a root in nearly every Russian verb is monosyllabic and closed—i.e. it has a coda. Most polysyllabic roots were borrowed. However, stems that in ended in /er/ and /el/. Roots of this sort added an epenthetic vowel.

None of these arguments prove that there is an underlying /d/ in the root, but they constitute strong evidence for it plus deleting /d/ when it immediately precedes /l/ in syllable initial position. The three stem/roots for these three verbs are now:

(2) {nös, vöz, vöd}/.

What is the morpheme representing the past tense in the

masculine singular word forms? /l/ occurs in /vö+l/, so there is no problem here. What about the past masculine forms /nös/ and /vös/? There are a number of linguistics who abhor ‘º’ as a morpheme. This used to include me. These days I am getting more and more interested in set theory. Set theory permits sets with small bits of information which cannot be pronounced. We will write the set as ‘{f}’, where ‘f’ stands for a feature. The feature in this text is either [+Past] (for past tense) or [-Fem, -Pl]. For reasons I cannot get into, ‘{f}’ is not the same thing as ‘{º}’. Here the set has one member—’º’. When a form is deleted, I will assume the result is a phonologically empty set ‘{}’. Thus, the past tense has two allomorphs: {/l/}, and {[+Past]}. The morphological past tense masculine of the three verbs is now written as:

(2) nös+{[+Past]}, vöz+{[+Past]}, vö+{[+Past]}.3

In the past tense masculine, if /l/ follows an obstruent in word final position, /l/ must be deleted, has Russian has no other alternative: there is no syllabic /l/, and stops with a lateral release (tl, dl) are not permitted in syllable final position. The derivation of the 1st person singular and the masculine and feminine past tense word forms is shown in the following table:

Table 9

3 Similarly, when a phonological segment is deleted, the result is an empty set in syllable position of the deleted segment. Below we show that /d/ is deleted before /l/. This would yield the past tense form of vesti: vi{}+l. I won’t push this analysis here, however.

nös vöz vöd root/stemnös+ú vöz+ú vöd+ú underlying Pres. 1st Pers. Sing.nis+ú viz+ú vid+ú vowel reduction = final form

nös+l vöz+l vöd+l underlying Past Masc. Sing.--- --- vö+l delete /d/ before /l/nös+{f} vöz+{f} --- delete final l after obstruent--- vös+{f} ---nös vös völ final phonemic form: ‘+’ and ‘{f}’

erased.

nös+l+á vöz+l+á vöd+l+á underlying Past Fem. Sing.nis+l+á viz+l+á vid+l+á vowel reduction--- --- vi+l+á delete /d/ before /l/

note that /d/ was deleted before /l/-Deletion. If the final /l/ were deleted before /d/-Deletion, the wrong from would be the result:

(2) vöd+l --> *vöd --> *vöt (word final devoicing.).

This is an example an extrinsically ordered set of rules. While intrinsically ordered rules are natural — a rule cannot apply until its structural description is met — extrinsically ordered rules are arbitrary as they can occur in either order. I will introduce an alternative to extrinsically ordered rules in Section below. Devoicing depends on the existence of a word boundary, which is not phonetic.

This leaves us with three tasks. Accounting for the morphophonemic changes that do occur, and how to analyze the past masculine singular., and finally, how to analyze the present tense endings. We will start with the obvious morphophonemic alternations.

On the one hand, we could list the distribution of the allomorphs in very general terms. Sometimes, that has to be done. But, recall, we have already noted that there are phonological conditioning rules, whether the be derived from an underlying form, or whether they are selected from a set based on phonological contexts. If a phonological context can be found, we should take advantage of it. One of the objectives linguists try to do is find an explanation for the things that happen. That isn’t always possible, but if we can, we want to maintain our goal.

First, we will give the stress reduction rule for /ö/ in Russian as the fol-lowing phonological rule of Russian (which we give for convenience):

(2) Stress Reduction I (Russian)

/ö/ --> /i/ / {_______, [-Stress]}.

Here the form enclosed in parentheses indicates a feature and the position where the feature occurs. This notation is used on computers and typewriters where vertical writing is difficult.4 Often, you will find the feature and the feature written one over the other (vertical). This is a notational variant of the one in . A notational variant refers to rule writing such that if one variant is true, then the other variant must also be true, and if one is false, the other must be false. This is a premise from logic.5 Another notational variant is the following

(2) Stress Reduction I (alternative, Russian)

{/ö/, [-Stress]} -->/i/††/ ______.

Here, only the relative set of features changes in the context given. If we combine the two ways of writing (horizontally and vertically) and the two

4 Chinese must be difficult to write on a typewriter as their system is traditionally vertical

5 There are many notational variants used in various logical systems.

was of writing , we get four notating variants of writing a phonological rule. There are other ways, but we need not go any further into this here. Stress rules are morphophonemic in nature: Devoicing depends on the existence of word boundaries: only one stressed syllable per word. See the following section.

Let us return to . There are two allomorphs for the morpheme {NESTI}:6 /nös/ and /nis/. In all forms except the past tense masculine, the wordforms for this paradigm are bisyllabic and the stress occurs on the final syllable. In the underlying morpheme hypothesis, suppose we write the underlying first person singular as ##{nös}+(ú}##.7 The stress reduction rule is applied:

(2 ##{nös}+{ú} ) c.

d. ##/nis/+/ú/##.

Each form is enclosed in curly brackets: ‘{’ and ‘}’. The curly brackets represent an underlying morphophonemic form. Applying the stress reduction rule here creates a phonemic string, with the curly brackets replaced by the slants.

In the following section we will show that there are two allomorphs of the past tense morpheme: {/l/, {}†}.

2 Morphophonemic Rules and Phonetic Rules

There was a successful attempt to merge morphophonemic rules from phonetic rules. There former deals with rules that are affected by

6 We use caps to write the morpheme for the verb and use the infinitival form to represent the particular verb.

7 ‘##’ represents a word boundary. This form may be and is often shortened to ##nös+u##.

morphological considerations. The latter are phonetic by phonetic rules with no reference to morphological considerations. In Russian consonants with exception of palatal sibilants are palatalized before front or palatal vowels:

(2) C -> Cj / ____ jV.

We can rewrite fronts as jV: ji = /i/, je = /e/, jo = /ö/, ju. = /ü/, ja = /ä/.

(2) /njisú/ -> [njjisú]

This transcription system is certainly not standard. It based on a system used by Dr. Ross Saunders, now retired from S.F.U. [n j] and [ji] are each distinct segments. This system clearly shows the assimilative nature of the Palatalization Rule (). This rule applies unconditionally in reference to morphological properties.

A morphophonemic rule deals with an alternation of forms that is partly or completely dependent on morphological information. For example, the ‘D-Deletion’ rule can occur only if /l/ marks verbal inflection:

(2) /d/ --> {} / ____ + [/l/, verbal inflection]

The L-Deletion rule also depends on morphological information: /l/ must be the verbal inflection marker:

(2) [/l/, verbal inflection] --> {} / [+Obstruent] + ____##

Phonetic rules do not depend on morphological information. The Assimilation Rule is one such example. Assimilation must apply. The only apparent exception is not really an exception. The palatal consonants in Russian /ß/ and /dz/ cannot be palatalized. The vowel becomes the unfronted counterpart of a fronted vowel when there is one. I will now propose a filter:

(2) */CjV/.

Referring back to example and the following paragraph the ‘ j’ either marks frontedness or the palatal feature of front vowels or it marks palatalized consonants. It can be segmented with the vowel or with the consonant:

(2) /C//jV/ or /Cj//V/.

The filter refers ti either segmented version in . Russian chose to avoid the filter by palatalizing a preceding consonant as in . In the case of the palatal sibilants, the palatal sibilant cannot be assimilated. In order to avoid violating Filter:

(2) /ʃje/ --> /ʃe/.

For example, /ßjitj/ ‘to sew’ becomes [ʃit] (or [ʃyt] in the other transcription). [y] is normally written as the Russian letter jery ( ы).

2 An alternative to Extrinsically Ordered Rules

Here I will propose an alternative to extrinsically ordered rules (for Russian, at least). Suppose we start the derivation at the stem and work outwards in both directions. Here I will discuss the deletion of dental stops before /l/ and the deletion of /l/ after obstruents and before the empty set {}. I will start with the past of the lexeme VÖD: (2) VÖD+[+Past]+[Masc. Sing. Agr]: ##vöd+ l + {}##.

Start with the stem and apply. Check to see if there is a rule that deletes /d/ before /l/ + {}. There is. Delete /d/:

(2) ##vö{}+l+{}##

Note that the first empty phonological set {} has no function. It can be erased. The second one marks masculine singular agreement. This one should not be erased since it has a function:

(2) ##vö+l+{}##

There is a rule that deletes the phonological content of the past tense marker, but it must follow an obstruent. It does not. Therefore /l/ remains. This results in the broad phonetic transcription:

(2) [völ].

In a somewhat narrower transcription, may be rewritten as:

(2) [vjowl].

The vowel is a closed mid vowel with initial fronting (this causes palatalization of the preceding consonant) and is labialized before /l/, which in inherently labialized.

Now consider the masculine singular past tense of the stem NÖS:

(2) ##nös+ l + {}##.

Starting with the stem there exists no rule which deletes /l/ under any condition. No change. Next move to the next morpheme /l/. There does exist a rule which deletes /s/ after an obstruent across a morpheme boundary. Delete the /l/:

(2) ##nös + {} + {}##.

Therefore

(2) [njos].

The above can be revised in set theory.

2 Simplified Set Theory Approach

In the simplified set theory approach, there is no underlying forms but

a set that contains at the moment two allomorphs: {/nis/ and /nös/}. In some sense, we have two sets in a string; the first set includes the verb stem allomorphs and the second one the first person singular (allo)morph:

(2) {/nis/ and /nös/}+{/ú/}.

Another fact about Russian. Only syllable in a word can be stressed.8

(2) Basic Stress Pattern of Russian Word

Only one syllable of a word may be stressed.

Now, we have to pick on the two allomorphs in the first set. In the second there is but one allomorph. We select that one first. Now we return to the first set. In view of Rule , we must select the unstressed allomorph. If we select the stressed allomorph, then the word will have two stressed syllables in violation of Rule . Therefore we get:

(2) ##/nis/+/ú/##.

Using set theory in this way, we don’t have to make a claim that there is an underlying morphophonemic form which is never pronounced.

Now let us try to determine the allomorphs of the past tense. Note that /l/ is common to all but two of the past tense forms; /l/ does not occur in the past masculine singular of nesti and vezti: /nös/ and /vös/. There are two allomorphs for vesti: {viz, vös}. /s/ occurs in this paradigm in word-final position. With a larger corpus it can be shown that voiced obstruents never occur in word final position.Let us propose that voiced obstruents become voiceless in word final position. The proposed rule is:

8 Both parts of a compound word can be stressed, one stronger than the other.

(2) Word Final Obstruent Devoicing

[+Obstr] --> [-Voice] / _____ ##.

It turns out that this rule is found not only in Russian, but in several Slavic languages, German, and other languages in the world. As a matter of fact, partial obstruent devoicing occurs in English. For many speakers the devoicing process starts during the production phase of the final obstruent. For some speakers it starts a little sooner. However, the rule that lengthens a vowel before voiced segments in English remains. In this way the dis-tinction between voiced and voiceless obstruents in word final position is maintained even though the vocalic lengthened bears the function now.

In terms of set theory we have two allomorphs for vezti mentioned above. Because of the constraint against voiced obstruents in word final position, the allomorph with the voiceless obstruent is selected when no suffixes follow:

(2) {/vöz/, /vös/}##.

Select the voiceless one:

(2) /vös/##.

The analysis of the past tense ending presents a bigger problem. In as we have noted /l/ does not occur in the masculine singular forms of two verbs, though /l/ occurs in the past tense of vesti. Note that there are three allomorphs:

(2) {/vid/, /vö/, /vi/}.

Let us start with the first segment. Note that it is consistently /v/. We may

posit /v/ in the underlying form. In the vowel position we find /ö/ and /i/, which is unstressed. Based on the alternations discussed above, we may posit /ö/ in the underlying form.

The fact that we are claiming that there are two past tense allomorphs: /l/ and [+Past] shows that the phonological approach to morphology is less than ideal. But we will have to let it stand for the moment.

2 The Present Tense Morpheme

Now I turn our attention to the present tense morpheme. Note that the endings for the 2nd person singular, third person singular, first person plural, and the second person plural all share the phoneme /ö/. Since there is a slot for the past tense, it is not unreasonable to look for one in the present tense. /ö/ is a reasonable candidate for this position. The four forms may be analyzed as:

2

nesti vezti vestinis+ö+ʃ viz+ö+¢ vid+ö+¢ 2nd pers. sing.nis+ö+t viz+ö+t vid+ö+t 3rd pers. sing.nis+ö+m viz+ö+m vid+ö+m 1st pers. pluralnis+ö+ti viz+ö+ti vid+ö+ti 2nd pers. plural

1.5 Another Approach to Eliminating Extrinsically Ordered Rules

2 The First Person Singular and the Third Person Plural Ending

The endings /ú/ and /út/ marking the first person singular and the third person plural, respective, are the same for all three verbs. Here, an empty set is not the best analysis for these endings. The approach which I favour is to assume that there is but one morpheme here and that this morpheme contains the features marking present tense, first person singular or the third person singular:

2

nesti vezti vestinis+ú viz+ú vid+ú 1st Person Singular nis+út viz+út vid+út 3rd Person Plural

We will analyze the past tense and non-progressive participles of English in a similar fashion.9

A morpheme contains a bundle or set of grammatical features. Grammatical features may occur anywhere in the word or even in a clitic. We won’t cover clitics until later. First, let us suppose that in the first morpheme following the verb in the first person singular and the third person plural forms contain the features [-Past], [-2nd], +[Pers], [-Pl]. This bundle of features is a set, and it is spelled out as the phoneme /ú/:

(2) {[-Past], [-2nd], [+Pers], [-Pl]} = /ú/.9 in set theory two sets overlap, some members of each set are shared by both sets. If

both sets complete overlap, then the members of each set belong to both sets simultaneously. This is in effect one set. This is what is happening here.

A similar set (morpheme) exists for the third person plural ending /út/:

(2) {[-Past], [-Pers], [-Pl]} = /út/.

Let us number the position for the stem as ‘1’, and the suffix that immediately follows it as ‘2’. /ú/ and /út/ both occupy position 2.

Now let us suppose the feature bundles split into two morphemes or sets in the remaining forms of the present tense. We will assign tense to position ‘2a’ and agreement to ‘2b’. Agreement includes those features which are subject to agreement rules with the subject of the sentence: person, number, and gender:

(2) Splitting in the Russian Verb

[2 Tense, Agreement] --> [2a Tense] + [2b Agreement].

Note that all the past tense endings split this way into two morphemes via Rule : {nös+l+{}}. {nös+l+a}, and so forth. Let us now do a sample derivation of the second person singular form /nisö¢/. First we start with the underlying form:

(2) {nös+[2 [-Past], [+2nd], [+Pers], [-Pl]]}

The splitting rule applies here creating two morphemes, the first for tense, the second for agreement:

(2) {nös+[2a [-Past]] + [2b [+2nd] [+Pers], [-Pl]]}

The first morpheme is spelled out as /ö/ and the second morpheme as /¢/ or /S/.

2 Sets and Filters--Optimality Theory?

Let me turn our attention to sets. Just a few words on sets. A set may contain one or more members. There is no limit. And combinations of

objects may form a set, though many of these would be rather useless. In morphology we will limit the sets to morphological grammatical features and to phonological features. Phonological sets are similar to phonological rules, but without abstract underlying forms. What I am doing appears to be a variant of Optimality Theory. I return to this below.

This is one of the problems we run into when we try to define morphemes in terms of phonemes rather than as bundles or sets of grammatical features. Applying the splitting rules and then the spell-out rules as indicated. We won’t go into doing the above rules here as a class exercise. What we will do is set up an equivalence relation:

(2) Correspondences for the Russian Verb

{[-Past], [-2nd], [+Pers], [-Pl]} _ /ú/

{[Past], [+Pers], [-Pl]} _ /út/.

{2b [-Past], [+2nd, [+Pers], [-Pl]} _ ö+/ʃ/

{2b [-Past], [-Pers], [-Pl]} _ /ö+t/

{2b [-Past], [-2nd], [+Pers], [-Pl]} _ /ö+m/

{2b [-Past], [+2nd], [+Pers], [-Pl]} _ ö+/ti/

The first correspondence that the first person singular is spelled out as /ú/, and the second as /út/.

These correspondences also work in reverse. If you find {/ú/}, then you know you have the first person singular form. Things get more complicated as more text comes in, but we needn’t worry about it now. Correspondences are simpler than a rule format which I won’t cover here at this time.

Now I will focus on sets and how they the analysis may be a form of Optimality Theory. Let us start with the past tense morpheme {l} which has two allophones:

(2) {/l/, {}} = P

P is a set containing two allomorphs, which form the set [+Past]

(2) {/l/, {}} ¯_ [+Past]

The grammatical feature [+Past] corresponds with the set P.

(2) {[+Past], [-Past]} = T(ense)

The two members of Tense, abbreviated to ‘T’, are [+Past] and [-Past].

We now need That is true, because of the distributional constraint:/l/ can occur almost anywhere, but {} word final position—specifically when it follows a consonant. Let us set up constraint or filter for the empty allomorph:

(2) Final ‘d+l’ Filter

*/d+l/ _____ ##.

This filter is similar to the rule which deletes /d/ after ‘C+’ before a word boundary:

(2) ‘D’-Lateral Deletion

d_{} / ____ + /l/ ##

What about the deletion of the lateral? It is deleted after an obstruent:

(2) Lateral Deletion

/l/ _ {} / [+Obstr] ____ ##

The equivalent filter is:

(2) Final Lateral Filter

*/l/ / [+Obstr] ____ ##

Now, let us see how the filter works. Remember, we are assume the variant of Optimality Theory which permits morphemic sets and the selection of an allomorph. There are three allomorphs for the verb vezti ‘to lead’:

(2) {vö, vid, vi}.

Before we can analyze this, we also have to consider phonemic sets and their filters. Of concern to us here is the alternation of /ö/ and /i/. Recall that the former may occur only in stressed positions. We have, therefore, the phonological alternation set:

(2) {ö, i}.

These used to be called morphophonemes. Let us redefine the morphophoneme:

(2) Morphophoneme

An morphophoneme is a set of two or more phonemes which predictably alternate in a lexeme.

Let us represent the morphophoneme in CAPS, and select the allomorph which is unique. /ö/ occurs only in . /i/ occurs in other morphophonemes: {é,

i}, {ä’, Å} (ä’ is stressed). Let us abbreviate the set to be written as {Ó}.

(2) Ö = {ö, i}.

In a similar fashion we can write the morphophoneme {d, {}} as {D}, and morphophoneme {l, {}} as:

(2) D = {d, {}}.

L = {l, {}}.

/v/ so far has no alternate phonemes. We will write as {V}.

V = {v}.

No morphophoneme is complete until all the data is in.

Another filter is required. Only one syllable may be stressed in the Russian word.10

Now we can set up the lexeme for the Russian verb under consideration: VöD. /v/ is the only member V, /ö/ is the unique member of {Ó}, and /d/ is the unique member of {D}.

Table 10

{VÓD + L+ ‘A}

The morphophonemes of the lexeme + tense + agreement

vÓD + L + ‘A}

intermediate stage, /v/ is selected from V (first cycle)

10 Compounds are made out of two word. Each part of a compound may be stressed, one stronger than the other.

viD+ L + ‘A}intermediate stage, /i/ is selected from Ó (first cycle)

*vöD+L+’A

vi + L+ ‘Aintermediate stage, /{}/ is selected from D (first cycle)

*vid+L+’A

vi + l + áintermediate stage, /l/ and /á/ are selected from L and A

vilá erase ‘+’.

all the above rules are morphophonemic rules.

vjilá assimilatory palatalization, phonetic rule.

The above represents an over simplification that is not so simple as it appears. As it stands, the selection of the correct phoneme has to be selected in a certain order. For example, in the past singular masculine, ordering is crucial. If /l/ is selected from {L}. first before Final Lateral Filter applies, then /l/ is deleted because it follows /d/ at the end of the word: /vid/. This is the incorrect outcome. The elimination of ordered selection is undesirable. Furthermore, the rule is not truly phonologically conditioned because the syllable initial sequence in Russian is now permitted as in dlja ‘for.’

Recall that there is morphological conditioning. In English the feature [+Past] conditions certain alternations of irregular verbs. Let us see if the same might hold in Russian. The only place where we find the morphophoneme D is in the past tense alternations. Suppose we replace the /l/ in D-Lateral Deletion with the feature [+Past]:

(2)D-Selection (replaces D-Lateral Deletion)

*{D} +[+Past]

First, note that the context for the rule simplified. We need specify the grammatical feature [+Past] only for the context of the alternation. Note that the grammatical feature is always present when generated. The set which includes [+Past] includes phonemic and morphological information:

Table 11: The Grammaticon of Russian Entry [+Past]

properties types[+Past] conceptual

+Suffix, position 2 morphological{L = /l/, {}} morphophoneme

The conceptual box directly relates to the semantic field (the eventuality takes place before the speech event). The morphological field marks its form: a suffix which occurs in position 2 (position 1 is for the lexeme, position 2 for inflectional affixes). The morphophonemic field contains the appropriate phonological information of the form.

The for selecting the appropriate phoneme of [+Past] is revised:

(2) {L} Selection (replaces Lateral Deletion)

*{[+Obstr]}+{/l/}##.

If the morphophoneme D is present, /l/ cannot be selected. The rule is based on the morphophoneme D, not on its phonemic members. This rule will not block the existence of /dl/ in dlja, since there is no morpheme boundary between /d/ and /l/. In a cyclical application, start with phonemes in the stem. The rules can look outward, but not inward. {D/º}-Selection applies in the first cycle since {D} occur in the first cycle, the stem, and it can look

outward to {/l//, [+Past]}.

It is also possible to write the rule such that {L} must occur in a suffix, but not {D}. This is tantamount to the above rule, since the morpheme boundary ‘+’ ensures that the two morphophonemes are not in the same morpheme. The way it is written above in is a simpler notational variant.

Now we can claim that D-Past Selection is now unordered with respect to L-Selection. D-Past Selection is dependent on the feature [+Past], which is always there, while the choice of /l/ in L-Selection is dependent on a stem final obstruent and a word boundary. This does represent another alternative besides cyclical application. Which method is correct remains to be seen.

Let us perform some tests to see whether these filters really work. Suppose we generate */vöd/ or */vöt/ (applying the Final Obstruent Voicing Filter. If this form is interpreted as a past tense masculine singular, it is rendered ungrammatical by the D-Past Selection filter. Should there happen to be a noun #/vöt/11, it would not violate the D-Past filter, since nouns cannot be marked with the grammatical feature [+Past].

Definitions

Analysis and Rules 1

Analysis and Rules 3

This page last updated 8 MR 2005

11 The ‘#’ is used to here to indicate that such a noun does not exist in the standard literary language.