Explorations in Integrational Linguistics
AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE General Editor E.F.K. KOERNER (Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung, Berlin) Series IV – CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY Advisory Editorial Board Lyle Campbell (Salt Lake City); Sheila Embleton (Toronto) Brian D. Joseph (Columbus, Ohio); John E. Joseph (Edinburgh) Manfred Krifka (Berlin); E. Wyn Roberts (Vancouver, B.C.) Joseph C. Salmons (Madison, Wis.); Hans-Jürgen Sasse (Köln)
Volume 285
Explorations in Integrational Linguistics Four essays on German, French, and Guaraní Edited by Robin Sackmann
Explorations in Integrational Linguistics Four essays on German, French, and Guaraní
Edited by
Robin Sackmann
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
4-
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Studies in Integrational Linguistics Edited by Robin Sackmann. Volume 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Explorations in integrational linguistics : four essays on German, French, and Guaraní / edited by Robin Sackmann. p. cm. -- (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series IV, Current issues in linguistic theory, ISSN 0304-0763 ; v. 285) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Grammar, Comparative and general. 2. Linguistic analysis (Linguistics) I. Sackmann, Robin, 1962P151.E97 2008 410.18--dc22 2007043431 ISBN 978 90 272 4800 8 (Hb; alk. paper) © 2008 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 36224 • 1020 ME Amsterdam • The Netherlands John Benjamins North America • P.O.Box 27519 • Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 • USA
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I would like to dedicate this book to my friends and students at the University of Rangoon, Burma, to whom my thoughts and deepest sympathy go in these sad times. Hong Kong, September 2007
Editor’s Foreword The present volume contains four essays using the general linguistic framework of Integrational Linguistics (henceforth: IL)1 as originating from work done by the German linguist Hans-Heinrich Lieb, preceded by an “Introduction to Integrational Linguistics”. Readers unfamiliar with IL may also consult the list of further basic readings at the end of the “Introduction”. More generally, readers are referred to the Homepage of Integrational Linguistics available on the internet.2 IL as developed during the past few decades by Lieb and others offers a comprehensive theory of language integrating all levels of linguistic description, from phonetics to sentence semantics, and claims applicability to arbitrary languages, regardless of language type. Both features are represented by the present Explorations. Whereas the typological differences between German and French may be small, this is not true of those two languages and Guaraní; and the four essays chosen for the present volume cover, in one way or another, nearly all levels: phonetics and phonology (“The Case for TwoLevel Phonology” by Hans-Heinrich Lieb, on German obstruent tensing and French nasal alternation), morphology (“Form and Function of Verbal Ablaut in Contemporary Standard German” by Bernd Wiese), morphology and syntax (“Inflectional Units and Their Effects” by Sebastian Drude, on the person system in Guaraní), and syntax and sentence semantics (“Topic Integration” by Andreas Nolda, on ‘split topicalization’ in German). Each one of the four essays is preceded by an abstract, to which the reader is here referred for a more detailed characterization of its content. The present volume is planned to be the first one of what I hope will develop into a series of Studies in Integrational Linguistics embedded within Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (CILT).3 1
It is unfortunate that a different linguistic approach, entirely unrelated and incompatible in basic outlook, should also go by the name of ‘Integrational Linguistics’: an approach developed by Roy Harris. For whatever it is worth, ‘Integrational Linguistics’ as used by Lieb since the 1970s may claim priority over use by Harris for his own approach. At any rate, it is important that the two frameworks be kept strictly apart. 2 URL: 〈http://www.germanistik.fu-berlin.de/il〉. 3 Further volumes are intended to appear at irregular intervals. They would be devoted to applications of IL in language description and would include both monographs and collective volumes. For an up-to-date overview, see 〈www.germanistik.fu-berlin.de/il/sil.html〉.
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EDITOR’S FOREWORD
I am grateful to the publisher for their positive response when the idea to publish a series of books on applications of Integrational Linguistics first came into being a decade ago. My deepest gratitude goes to the general editor of CILT, Professor E.F.K. Koerner, and to the persons responsible at John Benjamins Publ. Co., especially to Ms Anke de Looper, for their patience and unfailing support that were essential to the first SIL volume’s becoming a reality. Both Professor Koerner and Ms de Looper read large parts of the manuscript and provided many helpful criticisms and suggestions. The layout of the present volume owes a lot to Professor Koerner’s immense experience and expertise in making books. I am also grateful to my friend and teacher for many years, Hans-Heinrich Lieb, who always stood by me in word and deed. Finally, I owe thanks and apologies to the contributors of this volume, who have remained faithful to this project during its long gestation period. Hong Kong, January 2008
R. S.
Contents An Introduction to Integrational Linguistics
1
Robin Sackmann The Case for Two-Level Phonology
21
Hans-Heinrich Lieb Form and Function of Verbal Ablaut in Contemporary Standard German
97
Bernd Wiese Inflectional Units and their Effects
153
Sebastian Drude Topic Integration
191
Andreas Nolda Index of Names
221
Index of Subjects and Terms
224
An Introduction to Integrational Linguistics Robin Sackmann Hong Kong
Contents 1 Introductory remarks 2 General features 3 The Integrational Theory of Language 3.1 The Integrational Theory of Linguistic Variability 3.2 The Integrational Theory of Language Systems
4 The Integrational Theory of Grammars
1
Introductory remarks*
Integrational Linguistics (IL) is a general, non-generative approach to linguistics that aims at providing a comprehensive theoretical framework for the description of arbitrary languages. The approach has been developed by the German linguist Hans-Heinrich Lieb and others, starting with work done by Lieb alone in the second half of the 1960s, who was joined by other linguists from the early 1970s onwards. The name ‘Integrational Linguistics’ has been used regularly in publications since 1977, antedating the use of the same name for an entirely unrelated approach originating from the work of Roy Harris. Over the past three decades, IL has developed (i) a general theory of language (Integrational Theory of Language) that covers both the systematic features of language systems and the phenomenon of language variability in a unified way, and (ii) a theory of grammars (Integrational Theory of Grammars), understood as part of a theory of linguistic descriptions. The separation of a theory of language from a theory of grammars is a major feature of IL by which it differs from approaches with a generative orientation. *
This is a slightly expanded version of an article published in Encyclopedia of language and linguistics, 2nd edition, ed. by Keith Brown et al., vol. 5, 704–713. © Elsevier (2006). Published by permission.
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After an initial emphasis on the Integrational Theory of Grammars, work in IL has been characterized by a steady and continuous refinement of the Integrational Theory of Language based on empirical data from typologically diverse languages, avoiding basic revisions as they occurred in Chomskyan Generative Grammar. 2
General features
The term ‘integrational’ is motivated by the following ‘integrative’ features of the approach as a whole: 1.
2.
3.
4.
Linguistics is construed as a well-defined discipline in its own right but is also placed within a wider system of interrelated disciplines. Contrary to the conceptions proposed by Noam Chomsky, which reduced linguistics first to psychology and later to biology, IL adopts a non-reductionist stance: such disciplines as biology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology are conceived as neighbouring disciplines of linguistics, disciplines that each share a branch with linguistics (biolinguistics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, etc.); and linguistics itself is construed as a branch of (human) semiotics. A broad view of linguistic subject matter is taken: linguistics deals with all aspects of natural languages that are directly or indirectly relevant to their use. This includes not only systematic aspects of languages, i.e., aspects related to structural properties of ‘linguistic systems’ in a traditional sense, but also the internal variability of languages; the relationship between languages and the structure of the societies in which they are used; the relationship between communication in a language and actions by, or psychological processes in, a speaker; the neurophysiological and psychological foundations for learning and mastering a language; and aspects of the development and decline of languages. It is assumed that each major aspect of natural languages (the morphological, the syntactic, the semantic, etc.) must be characterized in its own right, which includes showing its interrelations with other aspects. This is achieved in IL by developing separate but interrelated theories for each major aspect (Integrational Morphology, Integrational Syntax, etc.) that form coherent parts of a larger ‘Integrational Theory of Language Systems’ (see below). A non-linguistic theory (e.g., a psychological or sociological theory) may be integrated with a theory of language, and relevant parts of a general theory of language are, as a rule, integrated with each language description (itself a theory of one or more individual languages or language varieties): the language description is formulated ‘in terms of’ a theory of
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language, that is, it incorporates and employs terms, definitions, assumptions, and theorems from the underlying general theory. This idea of ‘theory integration’ is made precise in the Integrational Theory of Grammars. IL is opposed to basic assumptions that characterize linguistic cognitivism in its ‘non-intentionalist’ varieties: the objects of linguistics are construed not as mental or neurophysiological mechanisms or corresponding ‘representations’, but as natural languages conceived as abstract, extramental entities; a grammar of a language is an empirical theory (ideally, an empirical axiomatic theory) of that language, in a sense of ‘theory’ that requires sets of statements among the theory’s components (see Lieb 1974, 1976). Hence, the traditional generative as well as the more recent cognitive conceptions of grammars as algorithms are rejected: from the very beginning, grammars were construed in IL not as algorithms but as ‘declarative’ theories (theories that make claims formulated as statements, and carefully keep apart a description from the entities described), a position that is currently been seriously considered also in other approaches. Natural languages are seen to arise from abstract, extramental objects (such as phonetic sounds). However, these objects are associated with concrete physical events (such as utterances of phonetic sound sequences) and are involved in the content of mental states or events that are connected with language use and knowledge. IL is thus compatible with a noncognitivist, ‘intentionalist’ mentalism that may be proposed as typical of a ‘New Structuralism’ (see Lieb 1992a, b, for a more detailed discussion). Given these characteristics, the common but rather constrained distinction between ‘formalist’, ‘functionalist’, and ‘cognitivist’ schools of linguistics does not apply to IL, which exhibits features of all three kinds of approaches. Major advantages of IL may be seen in (i) the fact that it was developed in view of the full spectrum of linguistic diversity from the outset, (ii) its integration of all levels of linguistic description (from phonetics to sentence semantics) within a unified theoretical framework, (iii) its inclusion of both systembased and non-system-based properties of languages, (iv) its development both of a theory of language and a theory of linguistic descriptions, and (v) the ontological explicitness and consistency of all its theories, making it a framework suitable for the description of individual languages as well as for contrastive linguistics, linguistic typology and universals research. IL adopts a positive and constructive attitude toward Western linguistic tradition and regards itself as a part of this tradition. In syntax and morphology, the Integrational Theory of Language centres around a formally explicit, consistent, and vastly enriched version of theoretical conceptions underlying actual grammar writing since antiquity, embedding them in a broader scientific context that comprises linguistics and its neighbouring disciplines; and the
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Integrational Theory of Grammars applies modern means to account for the intricacies of actual descriptive work. Integrational Linguistics strives for logical soundness even in informal descriptions and makes extensive use of naive set theory in formulating its theories in order to achieve explicitness and clarity. 3
The Integrational Theory of Language
The Integrational Theory of Language contains two major subtheories: (i) the Integrational Theory of Linguistic Variability, which is ‘conflated’ with (ii) the Integrational Theory of Language Systems. One of the most distinctive features of the Integrational Theory of Language is its adherence to ontological explicitness and constructiveness: the ontological status of every linguistic entity postulated by the theory is clearly determined (explicitness), and every entity is a logical or set-theoretical construct ultimately related to a small number of sets of basic entities that include, in particular, objects and events in space-time (constructiveness). 3.1 The Integrational Theory of Linguistic Variability From its inception, IL has regarded linguistic variability, i.e., the changeability of languages along dimensions such as time, geographical space, social stratification etc., as an essential property of natural languages that has to be treated in any realistic theory of language; certain idealizations, such as Chomsky’s ‘completely homogeneous speech-community’, are rejected. The Integrational Theory of Linguistic Variability thus aims at providing a theoretical framework for variation research (including studies in sociolinguistics, dialectology, and historical linguistics) and a basis for a realistic theory of language systems. The theory centres around the notion of ‘idiolect’, in a specific sense of the term that avoids traditional problems: an idiolect is a homogeneous part of an individual speaker’s share of a language (a speaker’s total share of a language, called a ‘personal variety’, is not an idiolect in this sense but is a set of idiolects). Such an idiolect, understood as an individual (linguistic) means of communication of a person during a certain period of time, simultaneously belongs to a certain period of the language, to a certain dialect, sociolect, register, medial variety, etc. A natural language (understood as a historical language during the entire span of its existence, or a period — a major temporal part — of a historical language) is construed as a set of idiolects, and each variety of the language is a subset of the language. Sets of idiolects (such as languages and their varieties) are called ‘communication complexes’. The varieties of a language are given through its ‘variety structure’: a classification system whose source is the language itself.
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Ontologically, an idiolect is construed as a (possibly infinite) set of abstract ‘phonetic sentences’: form-meaning pairs consisting, in the case of a spoken rather than a written or signed idiolect, of a structured phonetic sound sequence (called a ‘phonetic sentence form’) and a meaning of this sequence. For each idiolect in a language, there is a system (idiolect system) that determines which form-meaning pairs are elements of the idiolect. Every idiolect system consists of (technically: is an n-tuple whose components are) a phonetic and a phonological part, and a variant relation connecting those two parts; a morphological, a syntactic, a lexico-semantic, and a sentence-semantic part; and each part determines a different type of properties that the formmeaning pairs must have in order to belong to the idiolect. In written idiolect systems, the phonetic and phonological parts are replaced by a graphetic and a graphematic part, in signed idiolect systems by a cheremic and a cherematic part. (There may be other components in addition to the ones listed above; the precise structure of idiolect systems is a matter of ongoing research.) The parts of an idiolect system are grouped into the sound system (script system, chereme system), the morpho-syntactic (or grammatical) subsystem, and the semantic subsystem of the idiolect system. There is no pragmatic part or subsystem — ‘pragmatic’ properties of form-meaning pairs, as far as they are determined by the idiolect system itself, are covered by the semantic subsystem, or else indirectly by the idiolect’s place in the variety structure. Finally, a system for a language (or language variety) is a construct of properties shared by every system of every idiolect in the language (or language variety). Idiolects, varieties, languages, and their systems are all construed as extramental and abstract. Systems of idiolects (idiolect systems) and systems for languages differ from each other both ontologically and in their relation to speakers’ minds. Idiolect systems are n-tuples (as specified above) whereas language systems are sets of properties of such n-tuples. Moreover, for every idiolect that is a means of communication for a given speaker, there must be a (psychological and physiological) internal basis in the speaker that corresponds to a system of this idiolect, but there is no such internal basis for entire language systems. From an IL point of view, distinguishing between language systems, idiolect systems, idiolects (themselves no systems), and speaker-internal bases for idiolects is a cornerstone for a realistic theory of natural languages and language use. (For a full representation of the Integrational Theory of Linguistic Variability and discussion of rival theories, see Lieb 1993a; for the conceptions of languages and idiolects, see also Lieb 1983a: Part A.)
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3.2 The Integrational Theory of Language Systems 3.2.1 General features. The Integrational Theory of Linguistic Variability is conflated with the Integrational Theory of Language Systems. The latter is concerned mainly with (i) making general assumptions on the properties of idiolect systems in arbitrary languages and (ii) developing a conceptual framework, and corresponding terminology, for their description. The well-known problems in defining a truly universal terminology (applicable in the description of arbitrary languages) in the face of linguistic diversity are tackled in IL by making a number of essential meta-theoretic distinctions, implicit in linguistic tradition but typically blurred in modern approaches. Most importantly, a distinction is made between the definition of a term and the identification of corresponding linguistic entities in given idiolect systems. For example, terms such as ‘phoneme’, ‘suffix’, ‘verb’, ‘singular’, ‘accusative’, etc. are construed not as categorial terms (denoting sets of linguistic entities) but as names of two-place relations (‘is-a-phoneme-of’, ‘isa-suffix-of’, etc.) between linguistic entities and idiolect systems S (e.g., SLEEP is-a-verb-of SE, SCHLAFEN is-a-verb-of SG, where SE and SG are, respectively, an English and a German idiolect system: one and the same relation [is-a]verb[-of] holds between SLEEP and SE, SCHLAFEN and SG, etc.). Names for categories of a given idiolect system are then derived from such relational terms: the expression ‘verb-of-SE’ denotes the set of all verbs of SE (a category), i.e., denotes the set of all linguistic entities that are related to idiolect system SE by the relation [is-a-]verb[-of]. While the relational term ‘verb’ is defined in the Integrational Theory of Language Systems so as to allow for arbitrary idiolect systems, the corresponding categories (verb-in-SE, verb-inSG, etc.) must be identified in a grammar for individual idiolect systems, and the identifying properties may vary greatly among the systems of idiolects in different languages or even within a single language. It is a task not of a general theory of language but of theories of individual languages or language varieties — e.g., of individual grammars — to formulate identifying properties for the entities (categories, etc.) postulated for the idiolect systems of a given language (or variety). (Consider, for instance, a language in whose idiolect systems S all infinitive forms of verbs — and only such forms — have a certain prefix, giving rise to an identifying property for the category infinitive-in-S in the idiolect systems of this language. Clearly, this criterion should not be used to define the term ‘infinitive’ in a general theory of language.) Given this distinction, a term like ‘verb’ may be defined by means of word- or sentencesemantic criteria; the syntactic nature of the corresponding categories in individual idiolect systems is still guaranteed by the fact that the categories can be identified by resort to the syntactic means of the idiolect systems (morphological marking, word order, intonation) and, possibly, properties of lexical mean-
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ings. Defining a term in a general theory of language does not, however, imply that there are corresponding entities in all idiolect systems (for instance, we can formulate a general definition of ‘adjective’ although there may be languages without adjectives). The elements of a category in a given idiolect system may, and usually will, have additional relevant properties not needed for identifying the category. (In the above example, the infinitive forms may show certain tense distinctions.) Such properties must still be included in a complete characterization of the category. Finally, each entity proposed by a general theory of language or by a theory of an individual language, variety, or idiolect should also be justified by metatheoretic considerations. Consider, for example, the set of all adjective forms of a given English idiolect system whose sound sequences start with /bl/. Such a set should hardly be postulated as a syntactic category of this idiolect system, even though the set would easily be identified, and a corresponding term would easily be defined. From an IL point of view, distinguishing between the definition of a term, the identification and characterization of a corresponding entity in an individual idiolect system, and the justification for postulating such an entity in a theory of a specific language, is a prerequisite both for formulating a general theory of language (one of the main goals of linguistics) and for successfully integrating theories of individual languages or language varieties with such a theory. Integrational Linguistics appears to be the only modern approach to explicitly adopt the fourfold distinction between definition, identification, characterization and justification, implicit in Western linguistic tradition with its insistence on the semantic definition of many general terms used in identifying syntactic entities as described in individual grammars. (For a detailed discussion of the underlying metatheoretic principles, see, in particular, Budde 2000: Chapter 1; for an application in a general theory of parts of speech, using German for orientation, see Budde 2000: Chapters 2–10.) Reflecting the basic structure of spoken idiolect systems (see above), the Integrational Theory of Language Systems comprises Integrational Phonology, Integrational Morpho-Syntax (with Integrational Morphology and Integrational Syntax), and Integrational Semantics (Integrational Lexical Semantics, including morpho-semantics and word semantics, and Integrational Sentence Semantics). For medial types of idiolect systems other than the spoken one, suitable subtheories — corresponding to Integrational Phonology — are provided for but have not yet been worked out in detail (Integrational Graphematics for written, Integrational Cherematics for signed idiolect systems). The most detailed representation to date of the Integrational Theory of Language Systems as a whole (excluding Integrational Phonology) is found in Lieb (1983: parts B to F); for Integrational Syntax see also Lieb (1993b), for
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Integrational Semantics Lieb (1979; 1980; 1992c). Integrational Phonology (the last component of the theory to be developed) is presented in Lieb (1998; 2008). Sackmann (2008) is an introduction to the Integrational Theory of Language Systems, including more recent developments, that contains numerous examples of analyses. For major applications of IL in linguistic description, see, for example, Richter (1988), Moltmann (1992), and Eisenberg (1998/1999), concentrating on German; Sackmann (forthc.) for Mandarin Chinese; see also the contributions in the present volume and the book series Studies in Integrational Linguistics in general. The conception of (morphological and syntactic) paradigms, fundamental in IL, has recently been further elaborated in Lieb (2005). 3.2.2 Integrational Phonology. Integrational Phonology is a ‘declarative’ twolevel phonology that postulates two distinct levels (or ‘parts’) in the sound system of any idiolect system, a less abstract phonetic and a more abstract phonological one. On each of the two levels, there are (phonetic or phonological) base forms, units, categories, structures, and functions. Base forms include phonetic and phonological sounds as segmental entities, and suprasegmental entities such as, in tone languages, tones. Both phonetic and phonological base forms are conceived as sets of auditory (or auditive) features, i.e., functions assigning properties of speech sound events to speakers or, in a simplified version, these properties themselves; the features in a sound are auditive but based on articulatory features of sound events; in a tone, they are auditive features such as pitch or (perceived) length. In either case, the base forms are abstract real-world entities. (Speech-sound events are concrete entities, located in space-time.) Phonological entities differ from phonetic ones by a higher degree of abstraction: While entities on the phonetic level (i.e., part) of an idiolect system contain all features that characterize normal utterances of abstract sentences of the idiolect system, phonological entities contain only those features that are functional in the idiolect system, i.e., are relevant with respect to distinctions in the morphological, syntactic, or semantic parts of the system. Phonetic and phonological units of an idiolect system are sequences of (phonetic or phonological) segmental base forms, i.e., sounds, of the system. Among them, there are all unit sequences of sounds; the syllables of the idiolect system; the sound sequences of morphs and of phonetic and phonological words; and the sound sequences of phonetic sentence forms. (‘Sequence’ is understood in Integrational Linguistics in a specific, set-theoretical sense that allows for the limiting cases of empty and one-member or ‘unit sequences’.) Phonological words and morphs (on the phonological level) as well as phonetic words (on the phonetic level) are construed as ‘structured sound sequences’, that is, ordered pairs consisting of (1) a phonetic or phonological
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unit (called the ‘base’ of the morph or word) and (2) a phonetic or phonological structure of the unit — itself a pair of (2a) a constituent structure and (2b) an intonation structure of the unit. The constituent structure relates parts of the unit to one of the sound categories Vocalic-in-S, Consonantal-in-S, and VocalicGroup-in-S, thereby determining a syllable sequence (possibly empty) for the unit. The sound categories (simultaneously belonging to the phonetic and the phonological level) are uniformly construed as sets not of individual sounds but of sound sequences (phonetic or phonological units) of the idiolect system, allowing a unified treatment of affricates and long consonants (elements of Consonantal-in-S), diphthongs and long vowels (elements of Vocalicin-S) and the like alongside simple vowels and consonants, represented by their unit sequences. The intonation structure assigns sets of ‘auditory values’ (pitches, degrees of loudness, phonation modes etc.) to the syllables of a (syllabic) phonetic or phonological unit identified by the constituent structure. Prosodic phenomena in both accent languages and tone languages are then treated in a unified way: differences of tone or stress are represented through sets of auditory values directly within a specific component of a morph or a phonological word, namely, the phonological intonation structure, which is properly linked to the (syntactic) intonation structures of syntactic units in which the phonological word occurs; and tone languages differ from accent languages mainly in the way phonological intonation structures are ‘processed’ in syntactic intonation structures. The constituents of a structured sound sequence are connected through phonetic or phonological relations. Such relations are the values of functions like p-nucleus, p-complement, or p-modifier, whose arguments are triples consisting, in each case, of the first and second components of a structured sound sequence of an idiolect system, and the system itself. Word accent, too, is construed as a function whose arguments and values involve only phonological entities and the idiolect system. The phonetic-phonological properties of an idiolect system are to a large degree determined by the way sound sequences combine to form more complex ones, and the way phonetic sound sequences are related to phonological ones. There is a ‘connection function’ on the phonological level that takes pairs of structured sound sequences and assigns to each pair another such sequence, and a ‘connection function’ on the phonetic level that takes such pairs and assigns to each pair a set of structured sound sequences. Both levels are connected through a ‘variant relation’ relating structured phonetic sound sequences to structured phonological sound sequences. While the two connection functions jointly represent the ‘phonotactics’ of the idiolect system, the variant relation is only partly analogous to the ‘allophone’ relation in structuralist phonology and avoids its problems (treatment of diphthongs, affricates
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etc.) by connecting structured phonetic with structured phonological sound sequences instead of connecting individual sounds. Phonetic variants of a complex structured phonological sound sequence may be determined not only phonetically but also phonologically, i.e. by conditions on the underlying structured sequences on the phonological level. The variant relation is postulated as a third component of the sound system of an idiolect system, in addition to its phonetic and phonological parts. 3.2.3 Integrational Syntax and Morphology. Integrational Syntax is akin in spirit to Lexical Functional Grammar, notwithstanding basic differences, and includes essential ideas of Valency Grammar. Among modern approaches to syntax, Integrational Syntax may well be closest to the grammatical tradition as it has developed in the West since antiquity. In particular, Integrational Syntax is Word-and-Paradigm, an orientation that has recently been gaining followers also elsewhere in linguistics. Integrational Syntax is a surface syntax: no ‘deep structures’ and no empty syntactic units or categories are allowed; true, an ‘empty phonological word’, properly defined, is assumed for the treatment of phenomena such as ellipsis, and the empty sequence is used to deal with so-called optional complements. Integrational Syntax is also a ‘syntax as a basis for semantics’ in the sense that every meaning of a complex syntactic unit is obtained from the lexical meanings of its primitive meaningful parts on the basis of one of its structures. (The nature of lexical meanings is specified in Integrational Lexical Semantics, while ontological questions regarding syntactic meanings and the details of syntactic-semantic meaning composition are treated in Integrational Sentence Semantics.) Among the syntactic entities postulated in Integrational Syntax for the syntactic part of arbitrary idiolect systems, there are: syntactic base forms, syntactic units, syntactic paradigms, lexical words, syntactic categories (either syntactic unit categories or word categories), syntactic structures, and syntactic functions. A syntactic unit of an idiolect system is a sequence of syntactic base forms. (Again, unit sequences, but not the empty sequence, are allowed as a limiting case of syntactic units, that is, a syntactic unit may contain a single syntactic base form.) In a system of a spoken idiolect, the syntactic base forms are precisely the phonological words occurring in the phonological part of the system (analogously, for systems of written and signed idiolects). It is an essential feature of Integrational Syntax that a clear distinction is made between lexical words and forms of lexical words (called ‘syntactic word forms’ or simply ‘syntactic words’): every lexical word is an ordered pair consisting of a syntactic paradigm or ‘word paradigm’ (the form component of the word) and a concept that is a meaning of the paradigm (the meaning component of the word); a syntactic paradigm is a (non-empty) set of pairs,
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each consisting of a syntactic word form and a ‘categorization’ of the word form, that is, a set of syntactic categories such that the word form is an element of each category in the set; and any syntactic word form is also a syntactic unit, hence, a sequence (possibly, a unit sequence) of syntactic base forms (phonological words in the case of spoken idiolects). A given syntactic word form may combine with several categorizations within a single paradigm (syncretism); and a single paradigm may have a number of different meanings (polysemy), which leads to the same number of different lexical words (identical in their form components). Both the notion of paradigm and the notion of concept are generalized so as to allow for lexical words also where traditionally one would not speak either of a paradigm or of a lexical meaning. Given the distinction between syntactic units (including syntactic word forms) and lexical words, two main types of syntactic categories are postulated for the syntactic part of any idiolect system. Type 1 syntactic categories (also called ‘syntactic unit categories’) are sets of syntactic units of the idiolect system, and include the syntactic constituent categories as well as word form categories like cases, numbers, tenses, and definiteness categories. The type 1 syntactic categories of an idiolect system are given through a classification system (a system of cross- and sub-classifications) on the set of all syntactic units of the idiolect system, called the ‘Syntactic Unit Ordering’. Type 2 syntactic categories (also called ‘word categories’) are sets of lexical words. They include the ‘parts of speech’ of the idiolect system and their subcategories, among them government categories. The type 2 categories are given by the ‘Lexical Word Ordering’, a classification system on the set of all lexical words of the idiolect system. Both the Syntactic Unit Ordering and the Lexical Word Ordering are components of the syntactic part of an idiolect system. Any syntactic unit can be assigned at least one syntactic structure. The syntactic structures of a unit are to jointly represent all formal information (including intonation) that is relevant with respect to the syntactic meanings of the unit. This is achieved by construing the syntactic structures of a syntactic unit as triples consisting of (i) a constituent structure, (ii) a marking structure, and (iii) an intonation structure of the unit. The constituent structure identifies constituents of the unit by associating certain parts of the unit with syntactic constituent categories like Noun form, Verb form, Verb Group etc., and captures the positions of syntactic base forms within the unit. The formal conception of constituent structures developed in IL allows for easy surface treatment of discontinuous constituents (whose proper treatment was a key motivation, in early Generative Grammar, for deep structures) and avoids any restriction to binary branching with its well-known empirical problems. The marking structure contains additional categorial information beyond what is provided by the constituent structure. Each primitive constituent of the syntactic unit, that is,
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each occurrence of a form of a lexical word in the unit, is assigned a ‘marking’: a set of pairs each consisting of two sets of categories. The first set contains syntactic unit categories of which the word form itself is an element; more specifically, the set is identical with a categorization the word form has in the paradigm of a lexical word to which the word form belongs; if the word form has several categorizations in the paradigm, then all these categorizations appear as first components of pairs in the marking of the primitive constituent, thus, the marking has several elements. The second set contains word categories (in particular, government categories) characterizing the lexical word itself. Finally, the intonation structure is a sequence of modified intonation structures of the syntactic base forms occurring in the syntactic unit. The syntactic intonation structure is crucial for syntactic accents and for the distinction of sentence types (as far as this is based on intonation patterns). Traditional grammatical relations such as subject, object, attribute, etc. are reconstructed in Integrational Syntax as functions (‘grammatical functions’) taking ‘syntactic quadruples’ as their arguments. Each quadruple consists of (i) a syntactic unit (or concatenation of units) of an idiolect system, (ii) a syntactic structure the unit or concatenation has in the system, (iii) an assignment of lexical meanings to the primitive constituents contained in the unit given the structure and the system (called a ‘lexical interpretation’), and (iv) the system itself. The values of such grammatical functions are two-(or more)place relations among constituents of the syntactic unit. (Grammatical functions are only one type of ‘constituent functions’, which also include ‘scope functions’ like negation and qualification, and ‘phoric functions’ like antecedent; and there are other types of syntactic functions besides the constituent functions.) Syntactic functions play a central role, via their semantic content, in the composition process by which syntactic meanings of a syntactic unit are constructed from the lexical meanings of its primitive constituents. Incorporating features of Valency Grammar, Integrational Syntax construes subject and object functions as derived from more basic complement functions that simultaneously cover all complements of a single verbal nucleus; it generalizes the notion of valency to arbitrary lexical words, excluding purely auxiliary words. This reconstruction of traditional conceptions, which distinguishes between (universal) syntactic functions on the one hand and their values for individual syntactic quadruples on the other, again allows to formulate general definitions for the names of syntactic functions in the Integrational Theory of Language and to identify their occurrences in the syntactic units of specific idiolect systems by statements in a grammar. Such identification, relative to the syntactic structure and lexical interpretation contained in a given syntactic quadruple, typically depends on the marking structure more than on other components of the syntactic structure, or the lexical interpretation. In particu-
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lar, government categories, given through classifications in the Lexical Word Ordering and contained in the marking structure, are crucial to identifying the values of the complement functions relative to the syntactic quadruple. Type 1 categories, contained in the marking structure, may also play a role in the identification of syntactic function values. For example, the identification of subject constituents as opposed to object constituents may depend on case categories (cf. German Der Kellner [NOM] mochte sie. ‘The waiter liked her.’ vs. Den Kellner [ACC] mochte sie. ‘The waiter she liked.’). Integrational Morphology, concerned with the analysis of phonological words (and other medial types of syntactic base forms) into meaningful parts, is largely analogous to Integrational Syntax. Integrational Morphology is a surface morphology: no ‘deep structures’ and no empty morphological units or categories are allowed; and it is a ‘morphology as a basis for semantics’ in the sense that every meaning of a complex morphological unit is obtained from the lexical meanings of its primitive meaningful parts on the basis of one of its structures. The morphological entities postulated for any idiolect system are morphological base forms, units, paradigms, categories, structures, and functions as well as lexemes. Morphological base forms (morphs) are entities of the same ontological type as syntactic base forms, structured phonological sound sequences in the case of a spoken idiolect; morphological units are sequences of morphological base forms; and ‘lexemes’ are conceived as ordered pairs consisting of a morphological paradigm and a concept that is a meaning of the paradigm, similarly to the lexical words in syntax. For any syntactic base form there is a ‘morphological analysis’: a pair consisting of a morphological unit and a morphological structure of the unit. A morphological unit that is the first component in an analysis of a syntactic base form is a ‘morphological word’. A morphological structure of a morphological unit is a triple consisting of a morphological constituent structure, marking structure, and intonation structure. Two main types of morphological categories are assumed. Type 1 morphological categories (also called ‘morphological unit categories’), given through the ‘Morphological Unit Ordering’ of an idiolect system, are sets of morphological units; they include morphological constituent categories, maximally, Stem form, Affix form, and Stem Group, as well as possible subcategories of Stem form and Affix form. Cross-linguistically, there must be stem forms in the idiolect systems of any language whereas the categories Affix form and Stem Group need not occur. Type 2 morphological categories (‘lexeme categories’) are sets of lexemes and are given through the ‘Lexeme Ordering’ of the idiolect system. They include the top-level lexeme categories STEM and AFFIX (comparable to the parts of speech in syntax) and their subcategories. Morphological functions (e.g., morphological complement, modifier, and nucleus) are comparable to grammatical functions in syntax in
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taking ‘morphological quadruples’ as their arguments and assigning relations among morphological constituents as values. They figure, via their semantic content, in morphosemantic meaning composition. The lexicon of an idiolect system is construed as a pair consisting of the lexeme lexicon and the word lexicon. The former is the set of all lexemes (hence, the source of the Lexeme Ordering), and the latter is the set of all lexical words (hence, the source of the Lexical Word Ordering), of the idiolect system. 3.2.4 Integrational Semantics. Integrational Semantics treats lexical meanings (i.e., meanings of morphological or syntactic paradigms and their forms) as entities entirely different from syntactic meanings (meanings of simple or complex syntactic constituents obtained through syntactic meaning composition). Consequently, meaning composition, too, is construed differently for lexical and for syntactic meanings. Integrational Lexical Semantics (with Integrational Morphosemantics and Integrational Word Semantics as its parts) combines the psychological and the realist traditions in semantics. Lexical meanings are construed as concepts in a psychological sense: an n-place concept (with n > 0) is the property of being a (human) perception or conception in whose content a certain non-empty set of n-place attributes of real-world entities occurs as a subset. The set of attributes is called the (n-place) intension of the concept, and the set of real-world entities that have all attributes is called its (n-place) extension. The extension but not the intension may be empty. In the case of a 1place concept, the attributes in the intension are properties, and the extension is a set of individual real-world objects. If n > 1, the attributes are n-place intensional relations between real-world entities, and the extension is the set of n-tuples of real-world entities among which the n-place relations in the intension hold. Such ‘relational concepts’ typically occur as lexical meanings of verbs and adpositions (prepositions, etc.) but also of other kinds of relational words. The only concept for which the notions of intension and extension are not defined is the (0-place) ‘empty concept’, occurring as the meaning component of lexical words such as auxiliaries and modal particles, and of all affixes, that is, of linguistic entities whose contribution to meaning composition is not based on lexical meanings. Given the notion of empty concept, the IL conception of concepts is both flexible and powerful enough to assign meanings to lexical words of any kind. A conception is a mental state, and a perception a mental event, located in the brain of an individual. By identifying concepts not with such mental entities but with (extra-mental) properties of mental entities, Integrational Lexical Semantics can account for the potential intersubjectivity of concepts, a problem that any psychological meaning conception must face: while percep-
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tions and conceptions are tied to an individual, a concept may well be a property shared by perceptions or conceptions located in different individuals. Lexical meaning composition is based on morphosemantic composition functions whose arguments are (n-tuples of) concepts and whose values are again concepts. Such semantic functions occur in the semantic content of morphological functions such as morphological complement, modifier, and nucleus, and operate on the basis of (morphological or semantic) application conditions. In Integrational Sentence Semantics, sentence meanings are construed as intensional relations between potential utterances and potential speakers. For any syntactic unit that has a sentence meaning, the meanings of the unit jointly represent a necessary condition for successful utterances of the unit. Each (simple) sentence meaning consists of at least (i) a referential part: a set containing exactly one ‘referential meaning’ for each referential expression of the syntactic unit; (ii) a propositional part: a pair consisting of a directive part (determining a speech act type) and a proposition; and (iii) a propositional background, consisting of what the speaker co-expresses with the proposition. The referential part and the propositional background of a sentence meaning may be empty. Syntactic meaning composition is based on semantic composition functions associated with (i) the syntactic functions in an idiolect system, by the ‘syntactic function interpretation’, (ii) with syntactic categories like tense or definiteness categories, by the ‘syntactic category interpretation’ (both are components of the sentence-semantic part of the idiolect system). Syntactic meaning composition starts from the lexical meanings of the primitive constituents in a syntactic quadruple: ‘basic syntactic meanings’ are pairs of a concept, assigned to a primitive constituent by the lexical interpretation, and a ‘contextual embedding’ of the concept that involves potential speakers and utterances. Next, basic syntactic meanings are transformed into ‘intermediate syntactic meanings’ for non-primitive constituents by means of syntacticsemantic composition functions that are associated in the idiolect system with syntactic functions such as complement and modifier. Finally, the intermediate (and, possibly, basic) meanings are further processed by semantic functions that are associated with the syntactic nucleus function, so as to yield ‘complete syntactic meanings’, which are either referential meanings or sentence meanings. It appears that Integrational Sentence Semantics combines the meaningas-use tradition in semantics (relating sentence meanings to speakers and utterances) with features of the psychological tradition (lexical meanings as concepts in a psychological sense, speaker attitudes as essential to sentence meanings) and with features of the realist tradition (e.g., extra-mental status of
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lexical and of syntactic meanings, the compositionality principle for complex meanings). 4
The Integrational Theory of Grammars
Integrational Linguistics emphasizes the distinction between theories of language and theories of language descriptions. A description of a language is understood as a theory (formulated by the linguist) of the language; similarly, for descriptions of varieties or individual idiolects. Traditionally, grammars are most important among such descriptions, which also include descriptions of (parts of) the variety structure of a language, such as a description of a language’s development in time or distribution in geographical space. ‘Grammar’ is here used in a broad sense, covering not only morphological and syntactic but also phonological and semantic descriptions. A description of the lexicon, i.e. a dictionary, is again construed as a theory of its object (see Drude 2004). Since the Integrational Theory of Grammars deals with the relation between language descriptions and their objects, it presupposes both the Integrational Theory of Linguistic Variability and the Integrational Theory of Language Systems. On an IL view, grammars have three fundamental properties: 1.
2.
3.
Ideally, they are empirical axiomatic theories. IL does not propose to replace traditional, non-axiomatic grammars by axiomatic theories. Rather, an axiomatic format for grammars is seen as an ideal referencepoint for non-axiomatic, declarative grammars that allows for a more stringent formulation of such grammars, a formulation that avoids inconsistencies and circularities without having explicit resort to axiomatization. The empirical basis of grammars is ultimately seen in acts of communication on the one hand and mental states and events on the other: it is such acts or states and events that directly or indirectly provide the data for a grammar. Grammars are to be formulated so as to account for language variability both within and between languages, i.e., they must presuppose a theory of linguistic variability. They are formulated ‘in terms of’ a theory of language: a grammar includes terms, definitions, assumptions, and theorems from a theory of language that is presupposed in the grammar. These are used in the grammar (i) to provide descriptive terms for categories and other entities of the language under description, and (ii) to interact with terms, definitions, assumptions, and theorems that are specific to the grammar.
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Typically, the axioms and theorems of a grammar of a language or language variety are formulated as universal implications over the systems of the idiolects in the given language or variety. For example, consider a traditional statement on a language variety, such as ‘hack “taxi” is a noun in Colloquial American English’. This is construed as equivalent to, ‘For all S: If S is a system of some element of Colloquial American English, then 〈hack, ‘taxi’〉 is an element of Noun-of-S’, which may be a sentence of a grammar that contains ‘Colloquial American English’ as an axiomatic constant, denoting a certain subset of English. Generally, an integrational grammar is not an algorithm but a ‘declarative’ theory: its formulas have the form of statements; thus, the grammar’s axioms and theorems can be understood directly as statements on the language, variety, or idiolect described by the grammar. Excepting the language needed for formulating the semantic part of a grammar, integrational grammars may be formulated using an appropriate version of set theory. (For further details, see Lieb 1983: sec. 0.2 and part G, and Lieb 1993a: part V; for a critical evaluation of the Integrational Theory of Grammars from the perspective of the philosophy of science, see Falkenberg 1996.)
REFERENCES Budde, Monika. 2000. Wortarten: Definition und Identifikation. Doctoral dissertation, Freie Universität Berlin. [Published on microfiche.] Drude, Sebastian. 2004. Wörterbuchinterpretation: Integrative Lexikographie am Beispiel des Guaraní. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. (= Lexicographica, Series maior, 120). Eisenberg, Peter. 1998, 1999. Grundriß der deutschen Grammatik. 2 vols. Stuttgart: Metzler. Falkenberg, Thomas. 1996. Grammatiken als empirische axiomatische Theorien. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. (= Linguistische Arbeiten, 346). Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1974, 1976. “Grammars as theories: the case for axiomatic grammar”. Theoretical Linguistics 1. 39–115 (Part I), Theoretical Linguistics 3. 1–98 (Part II). Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1979. “Principles of Semantics”. Syntax and semantics 10: Selections from the Third Groningen Round Table ed. by Frank W. Heny & Helmut Schnelle, 353–378. New York: Academic Press. Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1980. “Syntactic meanings”. Speech act theory and pragmatics ed. by John R. Searle, Ferenc Kiefer & Manfred Bierwisch, 121–153. Dordrecht: Reidel. (= Synthese Language Library, 10). Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1983. Integrational Linguistics. Vol. 1: General outline. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 17). Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1992a. “Prospects for a New Structuralism: Introduction”. Lieb, ed. 1992. 1–13. Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1992b. “The case for a New Structuralism”. Lieb, ed. 1992. 33–72. Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1992c. “Integrational Semantics: An integrative view of linguistic meaning”. Current advances in semantic theory ed. by Maxim Stamenov, 239–268. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 73).
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Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1993a. Linguistic variables: towards a unified theory of linguistic variation. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 108). Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1993b. “Integrational Linguistics”. Syntax: Ein internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung / An international handbook of contemporary research ed. by Joachim Jacobs, Arnim von Stechow, Wolfgang Sternefeld & Theo Vennemann, vol. 1, 430–468. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. (= Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, 9.1). Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1998. “Morph, Wort, Silbe: Umrisse einer Integrativen Phonologie des Deutschen”. Variation und Stabilität in der Wortstruktur: Untersuchungen zu Entwicklung, Erwerb und Varietäten des Deutschen und anderer Sprachen ed. by Matthias Butt & Nanna Fuhrhop, 334–407. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. (= Germanistische Linguistik 141–142). [Published in 1999.] Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 2005. “Notions of paradigm in grammar”. Lexikologie / Lexicology: Ein internationales Handbuch zur Natur und Struktur von Wörtern und Wortschätzen / An international handbook on the nature and structure of words and vocabularies ed. by D. Alan Cruse, Franz Hundsnurscher, Michael Job & Peter Lutzeier, vol. 2, 1613– 1646. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. (= Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, 21.2). Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 2008. “The case for two-level phonology: German obstruent tensing and nasal alternation in French”. This volume, 21–96. Lieb, Hans-Heinrich, ed. 1992. Prospects for a New Structuralism. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 96). Moltmann, Friederike. 1992. Lokalität und Individuation: Studien zur Ereignis- und Nominalphrasensemantik. München: Wilhelm Fink. (= Studien zur Theoretischen Linguistik, 12). Richter, Heide. 1988. Indexikalität: ihre Behandlung in Philosophie und Sprachwissenschaft. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. (= Linguistische Arbeiten, 217). Sackmann, Robin. 2008. “Integrational Linguistics and language description: an introduction”. Published online on The Homepage of Integrational Linguistics 〈www. germanistik.fu-berlin.de/il/〉, Section “Introductory online texts”. Sackmann, Robin. in prep. Numeratives: The syntax and semantics of classifier and measure construction in Mandarin Chinese.
Relevant Website The Homepage of Integrational Linguistics — 〈http://www.germanistik.fu-berlin.de/il〉. Includes a number of introductory texts on IL, a comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography, as well as information on research activities and recent publications.
Further Basic Readings in Integrational Linguistics* A. General surveys of Integrational Linguistics Sackmann, Robin. 2008. “Integrational Linguistics and language description: an introduction”. Published online on The Homepage of Integrational Linguistics 〈www. germanistik.fu-berlin.de/il/〉 (see the section “Introductory online texts”). [A textbook-
*
References to Lieb’s work prevail in the list, due to its foundational nature within IL.
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like introduction to all parts of the Integrational Theory of Language Systems and their application in actual language description; contains numerous examples of analyses.] Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1983. Integrational Linguistics. Vol. I: General outline. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 17). [The most detailed representation of Integrational Linguistics to date, excluding Integrational Phonology.] Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1992. “Integrational Linguistics: Outline of a theory of language”. Prospects for a New Structuralism ed. by Hans-Heinrich Lieb, 127–182. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 96). [A characterization to the Integrational Theory of Language Systems.]
B. Integrational Phonology Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1998. “Morph, Wort, Silbe: Umrisse einer Integrativen Phonologie des Deutschen”. Variation und Stabilität in der Wortstruktur: Untersuchungen zu Entwicklung, Erwerb und Varietäten des Deutschen und anderer Sprachen ed. by Matthias Butt & Nanna Fuhrhop, 334–407. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. (= Germanistische Linguistik 141–142). [A theoretical foundation of Integrational Phonology, using German as an object language; published in German.] Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 2008. “The case for two-level phonology: German obstruent tensing and nasal alternation in French”. This volume, 21–96. [A comprehensive study which applies and further develops Integrational Phonology.]
C. Integrational Syntax and Morphology Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1983 (see above), parts B and C. Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1993. “Integrational Linguistics”. Syntax: Ein internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung / An international handbook of contemporary research ed. by Joachim Jacobs, Arnim von Stechow, Wolfgang Sternefeld & Theo Vennemann, vol. 1, 430–468. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. (= Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, 9.1). [Despite its title, this is a rather detailed summary of Integrational Syntax.] Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 2005. “Notions of paradigm in grammar”. Lexikologie / Lexicology: ein internationales Handbuch zur Natur und Struktur von Wörtern und Wortschätzen / an international handbook on the nature and structure of words and vocabularies ed. by D. Alan Cruse, Franz Hundsnurscher, Michael Job & Peter Lutzeier, vol. 2, 1613– 1646. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. (= Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, 21.2). [A detailed reconstruction of traditional and modern conceptions of paradigms further developing the IL conception, being one of the key notions in Integrational Morphology and Syntax.]
D. Integrational Word Semantics and Sentence Semantics Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1983 (see above), part D (word semantics), parts E and F (sentence semantics). Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1979. “Principles of semantics”. Syntax and Semantics, vol. 10: Selections from the Third Groningen Round Table ed. by Frank W. Heny & Helmut Schnelle, 353–378. New York: Academic Press. [A short introduction to Integrational Semantics, including word semantics and sentence semantics.] Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1980. “Syntactic meanings”. Speech act theory and pragmatics ed. by John R. Searle, Ferenc Kiefer & Manfred Bierwisch, 121–153. Dordrecht: Reidel. (= Synthese Language Library, 10). [An introduction to Integrational Sentence Semantics, giving a detailed account of the various components of sentence meanings.]
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E. The Integrational Theory of Linguistic Variability Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1993. Linguistic variables: Towards a unified theory of linguistic variation. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 108). [A reconstruction of most major approaches to language variability and a detailed account of the integrational treatment of linguistic variation, both languageinternal and between languages.]
The Case for Two-Level Phonology German Obstruent Tensing and Nasal Alternation in French Hans-Heinrich Lieb Freie Universität Berlin
Contents 1 Aims and procedure
A. Integrational Phonology 2 Structured sound sequences in a two-level phonology 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6
Two-level phonology Sound sequences and structured sound sequences Constituent structures Syllables and syllable sequences Intonation structures Notation
3 Connection, variant, and type of structured sequence 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5
Phonological connection Phonetic connection The variant relation Basic classes of structured sound sequences Second-level and third-level classes
B. German Obstruent Tensing (GOT) 4 The framework. Word-final tensing 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5
Introduction Two aspects of GOT Further clarifications Representation. Three notions of variant Word-final tensing
5 Preconsonantal tensing 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7
Motivation The Obstruent Tensing Theorem Comments on the antecedent Comments on the consequent Objections Tensing and schwa: example The interplay of tensing and schwa
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C. Nasal Alternation in Standard French (NAF) 6 The Alternation Theorem 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7
Overview The Nasal Alternation Theorem Paraphrase and examples Examples Further explanations Remarks on the connection functions On the logical form of the Alternation Theorem
7 Defending the Alternation Theorem 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7
The status of nasal vowels Nasal consonants: stable and unstable Dealing with liaison The problem of phonological schwa Empty-Vc sequences: a treatment of schwa Empty-C sequences: a treatment of h-aspiré Scope of the theorem: suppletion
8 Generalizations 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5
The Consonant Alternation Theorem A critical case for the Consonant Alternation Theorem Approaches to consonant alternation Is the phonological level dispensable? Summary and conclusions
Abstract. Two levels for any adequate phonological theory are defended against proposals to do with either fewer or more levels, and the analysis of two seemingly unrelated phenomena, German obstruent tensing and nasal alternation in French, is used to make the case. A phonetic and a phonological level are shown to be necessary and sufficient for a treatment of the phenomena in the two languages that is both adequate and reveals them to be instantiations of essentially the same phonetic-phonological mechanism. A new phonological theory, Integrational Phonology, is used, and characterized in Part A; the German phenomena are analysed in Part B; the French, in Part C. The unifying solution offered for the two languages depends on the use of archiphonemes in a Trubetzkoyan sense and distinguishes two kinds of conditions for variation at the phonetic level: one kind is strictly phonetic, the other consists in phonotactic conditions at the phonological level that still are conditions for variation at the phonetic level. It is existence of conditions of the second type that strongly supports a two-level phonology.
1
Aims and procedure
It is traditional in phonology to postulate at least two different ‘levels’: distinctions between ‘broad’ and ‘narrow transcription’, between a ‘phonemic’ or ‘morphophonemic’ and a ‘phonetic level’, between ‘underlying’ and ‘surface’ forms are ubiquitous. At the same time such distinctions have been notoriously hard to draw in a precise form, so much so that the opposition of, say, ‘broad’ vs. ‘narrow’ may give the impression of being idiosyncratic.
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Recently a tendency towards a one-level phonology has been emerging, or re-emerging. For example, Optimality Theory (as in Prince & Smolensky 1993), while formally two-level, de-emphasizes the distinction between levels; and the most explicit and precise recent proposal for a phonology (Bird 1995) outlines “an intensional, compositional, monostratal and lexicalist phonological framework” (Bird 1995: 27). True, Bird is aware of a number of problems that appear to be difficult to handle in a one-level (monostratal) phonology (1995: Chapter 3) and specifically mentions final obstruent devoicing in languages like German; but he believes that the difficulties can be overcome. In the present essay I argue that an optimal account of so-called final obstruent devoicing in German and similarly of ‘nasal alternation’ in French requires a two-level phonology, which throws into doubt the adequacy of monostratal approaches. It may come as a surprise that the two phenomena are treated jointly; after all, there seems to be no obvious relation. Both can be seen though to exemplify a single relationship between two levels once a suitable phonology is assumed. The phonological framework adopted in this essay is Integrational Phonology (IP). This framework, only recently presented in a comprehensive form (Lieb 1998), will have to be characterized in some detail if informally. IP represents a ‘declarative’, nonalgorithmic approach that uses the language of set theory (alternatively, a suitable higher-order predicate calculus). A more concrete, ‘phonetic’ level is related by a relation is-a-variant-of to a more abstract level determined by the function of sounds. Each level includes ‘structured sound sequences’ — either phonetic or phonological — and a connection function on pairs of sequences. IP agrees with both generative phonology since Chomsky & Halle (1968) (see Kenstowicz 1994) and with classical structuralism — either European or American — in postulating more than one level. Historically, IP is closer in spirit to Prague School phonology (notably, Trubetzkoy 1939) than to generative phonology or to American structuralism, excepting a few isolated proposals such as Hockett (1961). At the same time IP may be included in the axiomatic tradition in phonology (see Bańczerowski et al. 1992), resumed in ‘declarative’ work such as Bird (1995). The aims of this essay may be characterized as follows: using a recent phonological theory, a case is made for two-level as opposed to one-level phonologies through a novel, unified treatment of two different, seemingly unrelated phenomena, final obstruent devoicing — or rather, tensing — in German and nasal alternation in French. The treatment claims independent interest for the study of the two languages.
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The phonological theory is characterized in Part A (Sections 2f.); German obstruent tensing is studied in Part B (Sections 4f.); and nasal alternation in French is investigated in Part C (Sections 6 to 8).
A. INTEGRATIONAL PHONOLOGY 2
Structured sound sequences in a two-level phonology
2.1 Two-level phonology Integrational Phonology is a general phonological theory. It will be characterized here informally and only to the extent that is necessary for the purposes of this essay. A more complete presentation, with special application to German, may be found in Lieb (1998). In conformity to the Integrational Theory of Language (for an introduction, see Lieb 1992), of which it is a part, IP relativizes descriptive terms not to entire languages, or even varieties of languages, but to idiolect systems S; for example, we speak of sounds of an idiolect system S rather than sounds of a language. (See Lieb 1993 for the underlying approach to language variability; in particular, Chapter 6 for the presupposed notion of idiolect system.) Exactly two basic parts are assumed for the sound system that is part of a given idiolect system S; they are informally called the phonological and the phonetic level of S; together, they are the sound levels of S. Both levels account for sound properties of speech events in S, i.e. of acoustic products of speech actions, products that realize linguistic entities — e.g. words — of S; on either level the properties accounted for are ‘determined’ by S. At the phonological level, only properties are considered that ‘have morphological, syntactic, or semantic significance’; at the phonetic level, any sound property is taken into account that is required for a speech event to ‘sound like’ a speech event in S. From the point of view of classical structuralism, the phonological level would be morphophonemic, and the phonetic level narrowly phonetic. It is taken to be an empirical question whether the two levels may ever coincide. The criterion for distinguishing the two levels, however vague, is essentially functional and as such different from the redundancy criteria typically adopted in the various schools of generative phonology, such as Lexical Phonology: by a redundancy criterion, information that can be expressed by phonological rules is considered to be redundant, and no such information is allowed in ‘underlying representations’, i.e. at the level corresponding to our phonological level. This is not a functional but a formal criterion since deriv-
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
25
ability by rules is a formal matter. Functional and formal criteria may lead to different results (for an example from German, see Lieb 1998: Section 4.5a). The phonological and the phonetic level each consist of a number of components. In particular, there is a set of ‘structured sound sequences’ at each level. 2.2 Sound sequences and structured sound sequences The following figure diagrammatically represents a phonological (structured) sound sequence (1a) and a corresponding phonetic one (1b) of Standard German idiolect systems S: (1)
Structured sound sequences a. Phonological VcGr Vc C C
C
1 2 3 4 5
schneid =df
\ "Snai.D\
=
\ S n a
i
D\
H
b. Phonetic VcGr Vc C C
C
1 2 3 4 5 ["SnaI.d]
=
[S n a
I
d]
H
This may be informally explained as follows. A structured sound sequence w consists of three components f p, k p, and p I , called the base, the constituent structure, and the intonation structure, respectively. (The index ‘p’ of the variables is to recall ‘phonological’ and ‘phonetic’.) The base f p is a sequence of sounds in a sense of ‘sequence’ that allows for the empty sequence (the same as the empty set ) and also for unit sequences, i.e. sequences with exactly one member. A unit sequence differs from its only member; for example, \S\ 1, the unit sequence of \S\ , is different from \S\ . — The bases in (1) are the sound sequences \Snai D\ and [SnaId] .
∅
26
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
Both at the phonetic and the phonological level sounds are construed as sets of ‘auditory features’ (in a sense of ‘feature’ here left unspecified). This differs from the most widely adopted type of conception in generative phonology by which a sound is not a set but a hierarchy of articulatory features. I do not assume hierarchies but sets of features: given a hierarchy of features (articulatory or other) from which the features in arbitrary sounds are drawn, a sound may be construed as a simple set of features; the ordering of features in the set can always be specified by reference to the independently given feature hierarchy, and different sounds are rarely if ever assumed to differ only in the ordering of their features. Moreover, I take sounds to be sets of auditory rather than articulatory (or acoustic) features because even in normal sound production it is primarily hearing that controls articulation. Any sound has one or more ‘articulation bases’ (sets of articulatory features) that each uniquely determine this sound. For this reason a sound may be identified by specifying an articulation base (notwithstanding well-known problems in the case of vowels); e.g., \ D\ ' = the sound such that \ D\ = {Apical, Non-Fricative} is an articulation base of the sound. (For a proper reconstruction of the relevant notions, cf. Lieb 1988: Section 1.) For simplicity’s sake I will not in this essay distinguish through notational devices between an articulation base of a sound and the sound itself, e.g., ‘\ D\ ’ will be used ambiguously to denote both the sound \ D\ ' and its articulation base \ D\ ; but this leaves the auditive conception of sounds unaffected. In the sound sequences of (1), there are, for example, the phonological sound \ D\ whose articulation base is {Apical, Non-Fricative} and the phonetic sound [ d] whose base is {Apical, Non-Fricative, Lax}. (I adopt in this essay the articulatory feature analysis for Standard German set forth in Kohler 1995, with only a few modifications. The bracketing — dashes to indicate phonological status and brackets for phonetic status — is part of a sound’s name; thus, \S\ may but need not be identical to [S] . 2.3 Constituent structures The constituent structure k p of a structured sound sequence w is a constituent structure of its base f p. k p allows us to identify those parts of the base which are constituents. Formally, k p is a relation between, on the one hand, sets of numbers and, on the other, constituent categories that belong to the sound system of the given idiolect system S. The constituent structures in (1) are represented by the upper parts of the diagrams, including the digits but excluding names of sounds: the numbers in a constituent structure (named by the digits) represent places at which sounds may appear but the sounds themselves are not part of the structure. Inspection of the diagrams in (1) shows that the two constituent structures are identical.
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
27
Such identity of structures may but need not obtain between a phonological and a phonetic structured sequence. The constituent categories in (1) are C or Consonantal, Vc or Vocalic, and VcGr or Vocalic Group. More precisely, ‘C’ is short for ‘C(−,S)’ or ‘Consonantal-in-S’, where S is a given Standard German idiolect system and C(−,S) or Consonantal-in-S is a certain set of sequences of sounds of S, sequences whose members are ‘consonants’. ‘Vc’ is to be understood in an analogous way with respect to vowels. For example, \S\ 1, \n\ 1, \ D\ 1, and [S] 1, [n] 1, [d] 1 — the unit sequences of the corresponding sounds — are elements of C(−,S), and the (two-member) sequences \ai\ and [aI] belong to Vc(−,S). The example highlights two important assumptions made in IP for arbitrary idiolect systems S: there are exactly the same constituent categories at the phonological level and the phonetic level, and the categories C(−,S) and Vc(−,S) may but need not be restricted to unit sequences of sounds. Indeed, affricates, long consonants, diphthongs, and long vowels are all treated alike formally: as sequences of several sounds such that the entire sequence is assigned to Consonantal-in-S or Vocalic-in-S rather than to Consonantal-Group-in-S (which is excluded as a category by IP for arbitrary S) or Vocalic-Group-in-S. The categories C(−,S) and Vc(−,S) may overlap in a given S. In Standard German idiolect systems S, \n\ 1 and [n] 1 definitely belong to C(−,S). This does not exclude that these sequences also belong to Vc(−,S), as must indeed be assumed for [ n] 1 (but not for \ n\ 1 unless \ n\ = [ n] ): (unit sequences of) phonetic nasals do form syllable nuclei in Standard German idiolect systems, and must therefore be assigned also to Vc(−,S). (For the relation between Vc(−,S) and syllables see below.) ‘VcGr’ is short for ‘VcGr(−,S)’ or ‘Vocalic-Group-in-S’ and denotes a set of sequences of sounds of S such that each sequence has several members and has exactly one greatest part that is a ‘positional variant’ of a sound sequence from Vc(−,S). For example, \Snai\ in (1a) belongs to VcGr(−,S), and there is indeed a single greatest part, viz. \ai\ 3,4, that is a ‘positional variant’ of a sound sequence from Vc(−,S), viz. of the sound sequence \ai\ . (Sequences may occur in sequences, i.e. a ‘positional variant’ of a first sequence may be part of a second. Any sequence is a positional variant of itself.) Returning to the constituent structures — or rather, structure — in (1), we see that {1}, {2}, and {5} each are associated with C(−,S); {3, 4} is associated with Vc(−,S); and {1, …, 4} with VcGr(−,S). Combining the constituent structure with \Snai D\ , we obtain the constituents \S\ 1, \n\ 2, \ai\ 3,4, \ D\ 5, and \Snai\ 1..4 = \Snai\ ; for [SnaId] , the constituents are [S] 1, [n] 2, [aI] 3,4, [d] 5, and [SnaI] 1..4 = [SnaI] .
28
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
2.4 Syllables and syllable sequences Structured sound sequences may but need not have constituents that are syllables. More precisely, the syllables of a structured sound sequence w of an idiolect system S are the greatest constituents of (the basis of) w that are associated in the constituent structure either with Vc(−,S) or with VcGr(−,S). For example, the only syllable of sequence (a) in (1) is \Snai\ = \Snai\ 1,2,3, and of sequence (b), [SnaI] . For any structured sound sequence w the syllable sequence of w is uniquely determined: this is the sequence of syllables, ‘from left to right’, of w. If there are no syllables, the syllable sequence is empty. In (1) the syllable sequences are \Snai\ 1 and [SnaI] 1, the unit sequences of \Snai\ and [SnaI] , respectively. Not every constituent of w need be part of a syllable of w; for example, neither \ D\ 5 nor [d] 5 is part of a syllable of some structured sequence in (1); both are extrasyllabic. Notions of extrasyllabicity are well established in current phonology and play an important part in IP, too. There is another syllable-related notion important to IP that is found in the literature: the concept of syllable joint (Germ. Silbengelenk), also discussed under the heading of ambisyllabic consonants. For example, in Germ. schnitten = \ "Snit ¢ ´ n \ , ‘(they) cut’ (Pret.), the first syllable is \Snit\ 1..4 and the second, \t´n\ 4,5,6, i.e. the constituent \t\ 4 is a shared part of both syllables. Generally, a joint between two different syllables of w is a smallest constituent of w that is shared by both syllables and contains the last sound of the first syllable and the first sound of the second (the two sounds are identical if the constituent contains only a single sound). The syllable sequence of w is closely connected with the intonation structure of w. 2.5 Intonation structures The third component I p of a structured sound sequence w, its intonation structure, is an intonation structure of its base. Formally, I p is again a sequence, which may be one-member or empty. The members of the sequence are sets. Each set consists of so-called ‘auditory values’: pitches, intensities, or others. The intonation structure has the same length as the sequence of syllables of w. The structure is empty if there are no syllables of w; the structure and the syllable sequence then have length zero. In the case of a non-empty syllable sequence, the i-th member of I p corresponds to the i-th syllable of w; very roughly, the i-th member of I p accounts for all relevant non-segmental properties associated with the i-th syllable of w in an utterance of w.
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
29
For example, the (shared) intonation structure of both structured sound sequences in (1) is {H}1, i.e. the unit sequence of the unit set of high pitch, more precisely, of H(S), i.e. high pitch in any Standard German idiolect system S; ‘{H}1’ is abbreviated in (1) as ‘H’. Taking {H}1 as the intonation structure of the phonological structured sequence in (1a) is due to certain assumptions on German morphs (schneid is a stem morph meaning ‘(to) cut’). More generally, it is assumed in construing I p that pitches are essential to the intonation structure of morph and phonological words, not only in tone languages, where they serve morphosemantic purposes, but also in accent languages, where they serve to mark word accent. {H}1 as the intonation structure of the phonetic sequence in (1b) is justified by the correspondence between (1b) and (1a). The syllable sequence is \Snai\ 1 in (1a) and [SnaI] 1 in (1b); and {H}, the only member of I p = {H}1, corresponds to the only syllables of the two structured sound sequences. 2.6 Notation A number of notational conventions have been used in (1) to linearize the diagrammatic names of structured sound sequences: (i)
Sound symbols are in bold-face (rather than in italics, which tends to create typographical problems). (ii) The end of a maximal constituent associated with either Vc or VcGr is indicated by a dot, in keeping with a tradition for marking syllable boundaries. For the sake of clarity, such dots are never omitted, i.e. they are also used to mark a sequence-final syllable. Sound symbols that are not eventually followed by a dot denote extrasyllabic sounds. (iii) High pitch associated with a constituent is indicated by a preposed prime, in keeping with a tradition for marking primary word accent. (iv) Phonological vs. phonetic status is marked in the usual way by slashes vs. brackets. Further conventions may be introduced as we go along. In addition, an orthographic name (schneid) is defined in (1) for the morph \ "Snai. D\ but not for the phonetic structured sequence [ "SnaI.d ] , using italics as customary. Generally, German orthography can be understood to be closely related to the phonological rather than the phonetic level.
30 3
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
Connection, variant, and type of structured sequence
3.1 Phonological connection Consider (2)
Vc C 1 2
er =df \ ´.r\ =
\´
r\
L
(L = L(S) = Low-in-S. In the linearized name, low pitch is indicated by lack of a preposed prime.) er is a grammatical morph in Standard German idiolect systems S that phonologically combines with schneid in (1) through phonological connection: (3)
VcGr
VcGr VcGr
Vc C C
Vc C
Vc C
1 2 3 4 5 \ S
n
a
i
D\
1 2
○
\ ´
H \
C C
r\
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
=
\ S
L
"S n a i . D \
○
schneid
○
\
C Vc C
n
a
H
´.r\
=
er
=
\
i
D ´ L
r\
"S n a i . D ´. r \
schneider
The symbol ‘○’ in (3) must be supplemented by ‘S’ to express relativization to presupposed idiolect systems; an expression of the form w1 ○S w2 = w3 may then be read as ‘w1 phonologically connected in S with w2 is w3’ or ‘the phonological connection in S of w1 with w2 is w3’. Phonological-connection-in-S is a function whose arguments are pairs of phonological structured sound sequences. The empty structured sequence l = 〈 , , 〉 (also ‘the empty word’; ‘l’ from German leer ‘empty’) is an identity element, i.e. for any w, w ○ l = l ○ w = w. Presupposing Standard German idiolect systems S in example (3), ○S takes ordered pairs of sequences such as 〈\ "Snai. D\ , \ ´.r \ 〉 and assigns to each a sequence such as \ "Snai. D´.r \ , whose unit sequence \ "Snai. D´.r \ 1 is both a noun-stem form meaning ‘tailor’ and a verb-stem form meaning, among other things, ‘work as a tailor’. In this example assignment can be broken down into three steps:
∅∅∅
31
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
The bases of w1 = \ "Snai. D\ and w2 = \ ´.r \ are concatenated, in the sense of ‘concatenation of sequences’ (the bases are sound sequences): ∩ \Snai D\ \´r\ = \Snai D´r\ . (ii) The intonation structures are also concatenated (‘H’ is short for ‘{H}1’, ‘L’ for ‘{L}1’; {H}1 ∩ {L}1 = {H} {L}). (iii) The constituent structures of \ "Snai. D\ and \ ´.r \ — see the diagrams in (3) — are first subjected to ‘quasi-concatenation’, i.e. the numbers in the constituent structure of \ ´.r \ are adjusted to the greatest number in the structure of \ "Snai. D\ ; subsequently, a new pair with VcGr(−,S) is introduced: 〈{5, 6}, VcGr(−,S)〉. (i)
The decisive step is (iii). In terms of syllabification, this can be described as follows: the last constituent \ D\ 5 of \ "Snai. D\ , which is consonantal, combines into a new syllable with the first syllable of \ ´.r \ , which begins with, and is actually identical to, a vocalic constituent, viz. \´\ 1. Since \ D\ 5 is extrasyllabic in \ "Snai. D\ , the first syllable \Snai\ remains unchanged: there is no ‘resyllabification’ in the first structured sequence. At the same time, connection is not ‘structure preserving’: while the last constituent of the second sequence, which is extrasyllabic, remains unaffected, the last constituent of the first sequence combines with the first syllable of the second sequence into a new syllable. Connection as here assumed for Standard German thus takes a middle position in regard of the much-discussed problem of ‘resyllabification’ vs. ‘structure preservation’. As a matter of fact, (i) and (ii) generalize to the phonological connection of arbitrary structured sequences in Standard German idiolect systems and may indeed be assumed to hold universally, i.e. in arbitrary idiolect systems: both sound sequences and intonation structures are simply concatenated in phonological connection as long as we do not go beyond phonological words. (Note that any sequence concatenated with the empty sequence is the given sequence, which is important in connection with as the intonation structure of non-syllabic structured sequences.) Not so for (iii): even in German, (iii) is typical only of the connection of a first sequence ending in a consonantal constituent and a second sequence beginning with a vocalic one. In any idiolect system S, phonological connection is defined only for pairs of phonological structured sound sequences of S, but not necessarily for any such pair.
∅
∅
32
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
3.2 Phonetic connection Consider (4) a.
b.
Vc C
Vc
1 2 [´.Â]
1 [Â.]
[´ Â]
=
[Â]
=
L
c.
L
d.
Vc
C
1 [å.]
1 [Â]
[å]
=
[Â]
=
∅
L
(Lack of a preposed prime indicates low pitch in (a), (b), and (c) but indicates lack of pitch — i.e. an empty intonation structure — in (d).) Structured sequences (a), (c), and (d) belong to idiolect systems of both Colloquial and Elevated Standard German; (b) may be restricted to systems of Elevated Standard German, differently from the ‘syllabic nasals’ [ n. ] , [ m. ] , and [ N. ] . Each of the four structured sequences phonetically combines with the structured sequence [ "SnaI.d ] in (1); for reasons to be given presently, the result is not again a structured sequence but is the unit set of such a sequence (braces indicate sets): (5) a.
VcGr
VcGr VcGr
Vc C C
Vc C
Vc C
1 2 3 4 5
1 2
[S n a
I
d]
●
H
[´ Â]
C C
C Vc C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
=
{[ S
L
n a
I
H
b.
d ´ Â]}
L
VcGr VcGr Vc Vc
●
C C
1 [Â]
L
C Vc
1 2 3 4 5 6
=
{[ S
n a
H
I
d Â]}
L
33
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
c.
VcGr VcGr Vc Vc
●
C C
1 [å]
C Vc
1 2 3 4 5 6
=
{[ S
L
n a
I
H
d.
d å]}
L
VcGr Vc
●
C
C C
1
1 2 3 4 5 6
[Â]
{[ S
n a
C C I
∅
=
●
[´.Â]
=
{["SnaI.d´.Â]}
(ii)
●
[Â.]
=
{["SnaI.dÂ.]}
(iii)
●
[å.]
=
{["SnaI.då.]}
(iv)
●
[Â]
=
{["SnaI.dÂ]}
e. (i)
["SnaI.d]
d Â]}
H
As in the case of ‘○S’, an expression of the form w1 ●S w2 is read as ‘w1 phonetically connected in S with w2’ or ‘the phonetic connection in S of w1 with w2’. Phonetic-connection-in-S is a function whose arguments are pairs of phonetic structured sequences of S (but not necessarily arbitrary pairs of such sequences) and whose values are sets of such sequences — see the examples in (5). The empty structured sequence l again serves as an identity element in the sense that for any w, w ● l = l ● w = {w}. Sets instead of sequences are chosen to account for variation internal to the phonetic level, as in (6)
[n]
● [s] = {[ns], [nts]},
to account for an optional epenthetic [ t ] at the phonetic level. As a matter of fact, having sets of phonetic sequences available as the result of phonetic connection will be quite important in this essay in a number of places.
34
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
Phonetic connection shares a number of features with phonological connection, such as taking pairs of structured sound sequences as arguments, or connecting sequences in similar ways (see (5)). There are, however, differences other than in the type of arguments — phonetic vs. phonological sequences — and the kind of values — sets of sequences vs. sequences (cf. statements (i) to (iii) in Section 3.1): (i)
In phonetic connection, the bases of structured sequences — sequences of phonetic sounds — may be actually changed rather than simply concatenated; this is required, in particular, to account for phonetic assimilation processes. (ii) Similarly, intonation structures may be changed by phonetic connection even in cases where we do not go beyond the ‘phonetic word’. (iii) Changes in constituent structures may occur beyond what is allowed for phonological connection; in particular, combining a syllabic with a nonsyllabic sequence may result in a fully syllabic sequence in phonetic but not in phonological connection. I have repeatedly mentioned ‘correspondences’ between phonetic and phonological structured sequences. Such correspondences come about by the relation is-a-variant-of. 3.3 The variant relation The phonetic level is linked to the phonological by a binary relation is-avariant-in-S-of, symbolically S, that relates structured sound sequences of the phonetic level of S to structured sound sequences of the phonological level; for example, if S is any Standard German idiolect system, then
→
[ "SnaI.d ] is a variant-in-S of \ "Snai. D\ , for short: [ "SnaI.d ] is a variant of \ "Snai. D\ .
(7)
(Reference to S is omitted where it can be supplied from context.) The variant relation S is as a rule neither many-one nor one-many; i.e. neither S nor its converse is a function. Table (8) (next page) summarizes and extends examples (2) to (5) from the point of view of the variant relation (the presupposed idiolect systems are from Elevated Standard German). Row 1 represents phonological connection in an obvious way; the remaining rows exemplify phonetic connection (braces for unit sets are omitted). At the same time bracketed entries in any given column (a1, a2, etc.) are variants of the first entry in the column (indicated by ‘ ’). Order of entries in the a-box is as in (2) to (5). Two variants of \ "Snai. D\ have been added in a1
→
→
→
35
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
(8)
Variants and connection: examples a 1
b
2
3
1
2
1
\ "Snai.
D\
○
\ ´.r\
=
\ "Snai.
D´.r\
○
\ ´.\
=
\ "Snai.
2
["SnaI.d]
●
[´.Â]
=
["SnaI.d´.Â]
●
[´.]
=
["SnaI.d´.´.]
3
●
[Â.]
=
["SnaI.dÂ.]
●
=
["SnaI.d墫.]
4
●
[å.]
=
["SnaI.då.]
●
:
not defined
5
●
[Â]
=
["SnaI.dÂ]
●
=
["SnaI.d´.]
6
["SnaI.t]
7
["SnaIt.]
D´.r´.\
(rows 6 and 7) for later reference. The b-box, to be read in conjunction with column a3, shows how connection yields the phonological word schneidere (meaning, among other things, ‘(I) work as a tailor’) and its phonetic variants. Entry 3b2 = [ "SnaI.d¢ ´ . ] is a variant in which [Â] 6 is both syllabic and ambisyllabic, i.e. [Â] 6 is the nucleus of the second syllable [dÂ] 5,6 and the onset of the third syllable [´] 6,7. (Cf. Engl. [:] in words like tunnelling on one of its pronunciations, where the syllables are [tøn] 1,2,3, [n:] 3,4, and [:IN] 4,5,6. To avoid ambisyllabic syllable nuclei, we might consider analyses such as [ "SnaI.dÂ.´. ] , with an epenthetic second [  ] .) Finally, phonetic connection is not defined for the pair 〈[ "SnaI.då. ] , [ ´. ] 〉 simply because it is not defined in Standard German systems for any pair 〈w1, w2〉 such that w1 ends in [å] and w2 begins with [´] . Examples (8) suggest a general relationship between connection and the variant relation: assuming that the phonetic variants of two phonological sequences w1 and w2 are given, the variants of w1 connected with w2 are obtained by phonetically connecting the variants of w1 and the variants of w2. This is indeed correct, with one proviso: some phonetic sequences that result from connecting a variant of w1 with a variant of w2 may still be no variants of w1 connected with w2 — there may be additional ‘variant conditions’ on phonetic variants, as in fact there are in German. Even so, the connection functions play a basic part in determining the variant relation, whereas in structuralist and generative approaches it is the variant relation that is emphasized. There is a second basic difference between the variant relation as here conceived and comparable notions in classical structuralism: the variant rela-
36
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
tion holds not between mere sound sequences of the phonetic and the phonological levels or, even more restrictive, between phonetic and phonological sounds, but holds between structured sound sequences of the two levels; such sequences include a constituent structure (which induces a syllabification) and an intonation structure. This means that syllabification and intonation are directly available for determining the variant relation, rather than being construed as external features of some kind or another. Connection and the variant relation are essential to the following classification system for structured sound sequences. 3.4 Basic classes of structured sound sequences Diagram (9) (next page) represents a system of classifications (each may have overlapping classes) whose origin is the set of all non-empty structured sound sequences of a given idiolect system S. For the purposes of this essay only German and French idiolect systems need be considered but (9) obviously has wider application and may in parts be universal. There are three major points of view for classifying arbitrary structured sound sequences, which yield three independent classifications (sets of classes) on the set of all structured sound sequences: A.
B.
C.
Closure, with the two classes of open sequences [1], containing the sequences whose last constituent is extrasyllabic (such as \ "Snai. D\ ), and closed sequences [2], whose last constituent is not extrasyllabic (e.g. [ "SnaI.då. ] ). Orientation, comprising the classes of word-oriented sequences [3], whose intonation structures do not contain all the suprasegmental detail required for phonological or phonetic sentences (all previous examples), and sentence-oriented sequences [4], whose intonation structures contain the necessary detail for sentences: not only, in the case of German, pitches, but also (perceived) intensities, registers (creaky, smooth) etc. (No examples so far.) Level Status, with the classes of (structured) phonological sequences [5] whose bases are sequences of phonological sounds (row 1 in (8)), and phonetic sequences [6] whose bases are sequences of phonetic sounds (rest of (8)).
These six classes are basic or first-level in the sense of being contained in first-level classifications, i.e. classifications based directly on the origin of the classification system.
closed sequence [2]
structured simple unit [18]
[9]
morph
(9)
structured complex unit [19]
H. Complexity
structured unit unit combination [7] [8]
D. Unit Status
open sequence [1]
A. Closure
simple word [20]
word combination [21]
word combination derivative of derivatives [16] [17]
G. Derivative Status
phonetic sequence [6]
C. Level Status phonological sequence [5]
word word fragment derivate [13] [14] [15]
word
I. Simplicity
morph morph derivate combination [11] [12]
F. Word Status
sentence-oriented sequence [4]
A classification system for structured sound sequences
morph fragment [10]
E. Morph Status
word-oriented sequence [3]
B. Orientation
structured sound sequence
38
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
3.5 Second-level and third-level classes All further classifications are related to the Orientation classes. First, there are three second-level classifications on [3], on the class of word-oriented sequences (restriction to [3] is tacitly assumed in the following formulations): D.
E.
Unit Status, containing the class of structured units [7]: of sequences whose bases are phonological or phonetic units, i.e. elements of constituent categories of S — of C(−,S), Vc(−,S) or VcGr(−,S) (for example the last three variants of \ ´.r \ in (8), or \ ´. \ and [ ´. ] ); and the class of unit combinations [8]: sequences that result from structured units by phonetic or phonological connection (the remaining sequences in (8)). The structured units are classified in H. Complexity into structured simple units [18] (elements of C(−,S) or Vc(−,S)) and structured complex units [19] (elements of VcGr(−,S)). Morph Status. This classification embodies an important idea of the Integrational Theory of Language: morphs in a traditional sense may be construed as structured phonological sequences; morphological units — e.g. stem forms or morphological words — are sequences (possibly onemember sequences) of structured phonological sequences. Some morphological units are directly given by morphological paradigms, e.g. stem or affix paradigms; and morphs in a traditional sense are construed as those structured phonological sequences that are members of morphological units given in this way. For example, \ "Snai. D\ 1 (the unit sequence of 1 \ "Snai. D\ ) belongs to a stem paradigm, and \ ´.r \ belongs to an affix paradigm, which makes \ "Snai. D\ and \ ´.r \ morphs. The two morphs may be connected; this results in a phonological word: \ "Snai. D´.r \ . The two morphological units \ "Snai. D\ 1 (a stem form) and \ ´.r \ 1 (an affix form) may be concatenated; this results in a sequence of two morphs, \ "Snai. D\ \ ´.r \ , which is a morphological word. Morphs in this sense may have phonetic variants, and the concept of a morph is extended to cover such variants (phonetic vs. phonological morphs, or morphs, for short). In phonological connection we may sometimes have to consider not a morph but a morph derivate, a structured sequence obtained from a morph by changing its intonation structure; for example, the morphs haus ‘house’ and tür ‘door’ (here denoted orthographically) have high pitch but this is no longer true of tür in haustür ‘main entrance door of a house’. To obtain the phonological word haustür through connection, we therefore use not the morph tür but a derivate that is determined morphologically not phonologically. This idea carries over to phonetic morphs, i.e. to the variants of (phonological) morphs.
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
F.
39
Morph fragments occur as ‘parts’ of morphs but are not themselves morphs; and morph combinations are obtained from morphs or morph derivates through phonetic or phonological connection. These informal explanations of morph [9], morph fragment [10], morph derivate [11], and morph combination [12] could be replaced by definitions, which here seems unnecessary. Word Status. Just as morphs are given through morphology, phonological and phonetic words are given through syntax, more precisely, through the lexicon construed as a part of syntax. (Words as here understood differ from words as ‘prosodic units’, which is the conception prevalent in recent phonological literature.) Integrational Syntax takes lexical words to be pairs consisting of a word paradigm and a concept; the paradigm — hence, the word — has forms; each form is a sequence (possibly onemember) of structured phonological sequences; (non-empty) phonological words are exactly the structured phonological sequences that occur as members of forms of word paradigms. For example, both \ "Snai. D´.r \ and \ Snai. D´.r´. \ in (8) are phonological words since \ "Snai. D´.r \ 1 is a form of the noun SCHNEIDER ‘tailor’ and \ "Snai. D´.r´. \ 1 is a form of the verb SCHNEIDERN ‘work as a tailor’. In German, phonological words may appear in a truncated form, for example bezweifeln und verzweifeln, ‘doubt and despair’, may appear as be- und verzweifeln, where the word \ b´."tsvai.f´.ln \ is represented only as \ b´. \ . This may be called a word rest. Finally, phonetic words are ‘admissible variants’ of phonological words and word rests. What is admissible depends on the idiolect system. For example, of the four variants of \ "Snai. D´.r \ in (8) only [ "SnaI.då. ] is admissible, and is a phonetic word. Similarly, only the variant [ "bee. ] of \ b´. \ qualifies as admissible in the case of be- und verzweifeln. A word (in the sound system) [13] then is: a phonological word, a word rest, or an admissible phonetic variant of a phonological word or word rest. A word derivate [15] is related to a word as a morph derivate is to a morph. For example, tür is both a morph and a phonological word, which makes tür as used in haustür also a word derivate. Words are classified by I. Simplicity into simple words [20] (which are not obtained through connection from words or word derivates) and word combinations [21] (all others). Finally, word fragments [14] occur as ‘parts’ of words but are not themselves words. It is partly due to the classes of morph fragments and word fragments that Morph Status and Word Status can be independent classifications on the
40
G.
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
same set, the class of word-oriented sequences. The following classification takes the class of sentence-oriented sequences as its base. Derivative Status. Derivatives mustn’t be confused with derivates. Derivatives are sequences that are fully specified suprasegmentally and either ‘derive’ directly from words by operations on their intonation structures: word derivatives [16], or else are obtained from word derivatives through phonetic or phonological connection.
This concludes the outline of the theory that is presupposed in the comparative analysis of German in Part B and French in Part C.
B. GERMAN OBSTRUENT TENSING (GOT) 4
The framework. Word-final tensing
4.1 Introduction In Part B, I restrict myself to idiolect systems that belong to (Modern) Standard German (SG), i.e. to idiolect systems ‘with standard pronunciation’ in the sense of Kohler (1995: 39f.): die dialektneutrale, d.h. die weder spezifisch süd- noch mitteldeutsch, sondern eher norddeutsch geprägte Standardaussprache geschulter oder zumindest geübter deutscher Sprecher in verschiedenen Sprechsituationen aufgrund der Analyseergebnisse, die derzeit zur Verfügung stehen. the dialect-neutral standard pronunciation — neither of a specifically South German nor Central German type but rather, of a North German one — of trained, or at least skilled, German speakers in different kinds of speech situations, taking as a basis what phonetic research has so far made available.
Idiolect systems in SG have the following well-known property: voiced or lax obstruents (i.e. stops or fricatives) of a system do not occur in word-final position, where words correspond to phonetic words in our sense. This may well summarize what is agreed upon in studying German Auslautverhärtung (‘hardening of the final sound’), usually translated as ‘final obstruent devoicing’. For reasons to be discussed in Section 4.3, I prefer ‘tensing’ to ‘devoicing’ and will use ‘German Obstruent Tensing’ (GOT) as a technical term. In addition to word-final tensing, we also have word-internal tensing, which is more complex. Few phenomena of German phonology have generated a comparable amount of scholarly interest, and there is continuing disagreement on
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
41
its proper analysis. (Cf. Brockhaus 1995, esp. Chapter 2, for an extensive discussion of existing research.) The content of Part B is also covered in Lieb (1998: Sections 7 and 10.3), which may be consulted for additional references. Generally, Lieb (1998) contains a systematic discussion of most problems of German phonology and justifies assumptions that will here be simply presupposed, such as the phonemic status of the glottal stop and of schwa, or the placement of wordinternal syllable boundaries. The present treatment of GOT is more detailed than the one in Lieb (1998) and sharpens the focus by reformulations and auxiliary terms (Section 4.4) that allow for easier comparison of German Obstruent Tensing with Nasal Alternation in French. 4.2 Two aspects of GOT I propose to distinguish two different aspects in dealing with Obstruent Tensing in German: (i) GOT as a means of identifying phonetic words (ii) GOT as a phenomenon that occurs at the phonetic level when two (structured) phonological sequences are phonologically connected at the phonological level Two examples will help to clarify the two aspects. (10)
Structured sound sequences a. Phonological VcGr Vc C C
C
1 2 3 4 5
schneid =df
\ "Snai.D\
=
\ S n a
i
D\
H
b. Phonetic VcGr Vc C C
C
1 2 3 4 5 ["SnaI.d]
=
[S n a
H
I
d]
42
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
First example. In connection with the first aspect, I requote (1) as (10) (previous page). Now schneid as defined in (a) is not only a morph but also a phonological word since its unit sequence schneid1 is one of two forms of the lexical word SCHNEIDENW1 ‘to cut’ that are categorized as 2P Sg Imperative Pres Act (the other form is schneide1). ["SnaI.d] is a phonetic variant of schneid, as stated in (7). It may be suggested that ["SnaI.d] , being a variant of a phonological word, should itself be a phonetic word. However, as explained in Section 3.5 under (F), a phonetic word must not only be a variant of a phonological word, it must be an admissible variant. Differently from English, variants of phonological words in Standard German that end in a voiced or rather, lax obstruent are not ‘admissible’; hence, ["SnaI.d] , which ends in the lax obstruent [d] , is not a phonetic word, differently from (11)
VcGr Vc C C
C
1 2 3 4 5 ["SnaIt.]
[S n a
=
I
t]
H
which is another variant of schneid (see (8)) and ends in [t] , a voiceless or rather, tense obstruent. Second example. The second aspect can be clarified by means of schneidbrenner, a phonological word whose unit sequence is a form of W SCHNEIDBRENNER ‘blow torch’ (literally, ‘cut(ting) burner’): (12) 1
2
3
1
\ "Snai.D\
○
\ Æbren¢´.r\
=
\ "Snai.D-Æbren¢´.r\
2
["SnaIt.]
●
[ÆbÂEn¢å.]
=
["SnaIt.bÂEn¢å.]
This diagram reads as explained for (8) in §2.3. (The lowered accent mark indicates {H, T} instead of {H} in the intonation structure; cf. Lieb 1998.) Obviously, occurrence of a tense [t] rather than a lax [d] in 2/1 and 2/3 has nothing to do with the fact that [ "SnaIt. ] is a phonetic word, as argued above; rather, the conditioning factor is the preconsonantal position either of \ D\ in
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
43
1/3 or of [t] in 2/3. I will argue that in such cases it is the preconsonantal position at the phonological level that counts. A number of points must be clarified before the two aspects can be made more precise. 4.3 Further clarifications German ‘Auslautverhärtung’ (‘hardening [strengthening] of the final sound’) vs. English ‘final obstruent devoicing’ points to the following problem: are we confronted with a Tense vs. Lax opposition or with a Voiceless vs. Voiced opposition? The question is extensively discussed in the literature (cf. Brockhaus 1995: 27–31, 116–122, 242–246, on this discussion), and the relevance for German phonology of Fortis vs. Lenis rather than Voiceless vs. Voiced is argued especially by Kohler (1984) (see also Kohler 1995, Yu 1992: 163f.; differently Wiese 1996: 200ff). I follow Kohler in adopting Fortis vs. Lenis (Tense vs. Lax, restricted to consonantal sound events) despite the negative conclusions reached by Braun (1988: 101) in an extensive study of the literature on the Fortis-Lenis opposition (1988: 6–102). Her criticism no longer applies if the articulatory features in question are defined in terms of auditive effect: say, Tense as the property of being a sound event that is produced in a way by which it normally causes a hearing impression of a certain kind. The articulation base of both a phonetic as well as a phonological sound may contain Tense, Lax, or neither. In the first case, the sound itself may be called tense, in the second, lax. Generally, tensing may be understood as the introduction of the feature Tense (possibly, together with other features) into an articulation base of a sound whose bases contain neither Tense nor Lax. This enrichment view is compatible with Trubetzkoy’s conceptions of archiphoneme and neutralization (Trubetzkoy 1939: 70–75). Following Trubetzkoy, the phonetic representative of an archiphoneme need not be identical to the phonetic representatives of either phoneme involved in the neutralization; thus, in tensing we may have features like ‘incomplete voicing’ that are absent from (the articulation bases of) representatives of the tense phonemes (for experimental evidence, see already Port & O’Dell 1985, Port & Crawford 1989). This is not accounted for in my phonetic transcriptions, which, however, should be understood accordingly. The enrichment view is in contrast with two other construals found in the literature, the replacement view (characteristic of pre-OT generative work, e.g. Wiese 1996: 201: roughly, one feature, Lax, or Voiced, is replaced by another feature, Tense, or Voiceless) and the reduction view (Lax is dropped — e.g., Brockhaus 1995: 125f., 171); generally, cf. Brockhaus 1995: 25–36. I consider the enrichment view as superior (for some reasons, see Lieb 1998: Section 7.3).
44
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
Both ‘Auslautverhärtung’ and ‘final obstruent devoicing’ contain a reference to a ‘final’ sound, purposefully not retained in my term ‘German Obstruent Tensing’ (GOT). Two aspects of GOT were distinguished in Section 4.2. The first, identification of phonetic words, involves a clear interpretation of ‘final’ as ‘final sound of a variant of a phonological word’. It is not at all obvious how ‘final’ should be understood in connection with the second aspect of GOT: are we looking for a sound that is syllable-final? morph-final? phonological? phonetic? or maybe, we aren’t looking for an individual sound at all but for a larger part of a sound sequence? Any of these interpretations may be found in the literature. I will argue that the very questions are mistaken: the second aspect of GOT involves certain final sounds in phonological (structured) sequences which may or may not be morphs or phonological words and may or may not end in a syllable; and tensing, in this context, is not due to a sound’s final position. Therefore, ‘final’ no longer occurs in my technical term, ‘German Obstruent Tensing’. Both aspects of GOT involve phonological sequences and their variants. For a more precise treatment of GOT, we need some additional terminology referring to variants. 4.4 Representation. Three notions of variant Consider, once again, the phonological sound \ D\ and the phonetic sound [d] of a Standard German idiolect system. For \ D\ , we have {Apical, NonFricative} as a (or the) articulation base, for [d] , {Apical, Non-Fricative, Lax}. Every element of the former is also an element of the latter. Consider \n\ and [n] : the two sounds should be identical, and this carries over to their articulation bases. Trivially, there are articulation bases of \n\ and of [n] such that every element of the first is also an element of the second. Now compare {Apical, Non-Fricative, Lax} to {Alveolar, Non-Fricative, Lax}. Alveolar implies Apical in the following sense: any sound event that has Alveolar (is caused with involvement of the alveolae) also has Apical (is caused with involvement of the tip of the tongue). Trivially, every feature implies itself. These cases jointly yield a relation of representation between two (phonetic or phonological) sounds that is based on the sounds’ articulation bases and can be defined as follows (for arbitrary idiolect systems S; ‘L’, ‘L1’, … are used for any sounds of any idiolect systems): (13)
Let L1 and L2 be sounds of S. L1 represents L2 iff [if and only if] there is an articulation base for L1 and an articulation base for L2 such that every element of the latter is implied by some element of the former.
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
45
As here defined, the notion of representation applies to arbitrary sounds (phonetic or phonological) of a given idiolect system. Every sound represents itself. Representation requires an articulation base for the represented sound in which each feature is implied by (this allows for identity) some feature in an articulation base of the representing sound. The former base may be a proper or improper subset of the latter. Given this notion of representation, we may now distinguish various concepts of variant (of a phonological sequence). First, we consider any variant whose last sound represents a certain sound L, or L-variant, for short; non-Lvariants are defined analogously. For example, [ "SnaIt. ] is a \ D\ -variant of \ "Snai. D\ in Standard German idiolect systems: it is a variant of \ "Snai. D\ by (12); and its last sound [t] has an articulation base, {Apical, Non-Fricative, Tense}, that is properly related to {Apical, Non-Fricative}, the articulation base for \ D\ , hence, [t] represents \ D\ . More generally, (14)
Let w be a (structured) phonological sequence of S, and L a sound of S. w1 is an L-variant / a non-L-variant of w in S iff a. w1 is a variant of w in S; b. the base of w1 is non-empty; c. the last sound of the base of w1 represents / does not represent L.
(The first case in (c) is spelled out more formally as: for all f p and n, if f p = the base of w1 and n = the length of f p, then f p(n) [i.e. the n-th member of f p] represents L. f p, the base of w1 = 〈f p, k p, I p〉, is the first component of w1, therefore, a sound sequence.) Note that following (14) L need not occur in w, and may even be the phonetic sound that occurs last in the base of w1. We can now state that [ "SnaIt. ] is a \ D\ -variant of \ "Snai. D\ . We cannot yet state that it is a ‘Tense-\ D\ ’ variant, i.e. a variant where the last sound not only represents \ D\ but also has an articulation base that contains Tense as an element. An appropriate concept is easily defined (‘φ’ stands for any articulatory feature): (15)
Let w be a phonological sequence of S, and L a sound of S. w1 is a φ-L variant of w in S iff a. w1 is an L-variant of w in S; b. φ is an element of some articulation base of the last sound of the base of w1.
Given this notion, we identify [ "SnaIt. ] as a Tense-\ D\ variant of \ "Snai. D\ and, more simply, as a ‘Tense-variant’ of \ "Snai. D\ since there is some L, viz. \ D\ ,
46
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
such that [ "SnaIt. ] is a Tense-L variant of \ "Snai. D\ . More generally, we introduce the following concept: (16)
Let w be a phonological sequence of S. w1 is a φ-variant of w in S iff there is an L such that a. L is a sound of S; b. w1 is a φ-L variant of w in S.
Given this terminology, I now consider GOT under its first aspect, as a means for identifying phonetic words. In Section 5 I turn to the second aspect: GOT is dealt with by a general theorem interrelating phonological connection, phonetic connection, and the variant relation. 4.5 Word-final tensing As stated in Section 3.5 (F), phonetic words are the ‘admissible variants’ of phonological words and word rests, and it depends on the idiolect system what variants are admissible. Word rests will here be disregarded. Admissible variants may then be informally characterized as follows: in case a phonological word has both Tense-variants and Lax-variants, it is the Tense-variants that are admissible; in a case of [Â] -variants and [å] -variants, or [N] -variants and [k] -variants, it is the second type of variants that are admissible; and finally, syllables of a variant must be properly related to syllables of the phonological word. More precisely, I assume that the following is true (what follows is no definition, not even a conditional one, but should be derivable as a theorem in an axiomatic theory of German): (17)
Variant admissibility in Standard German Let S be any Standard German idiolect system and w a phonological word in S. w1 is an admissible variant of w in S if and only if: a. w1 is a variant of w in S; b. if there are Tense-variants and Lax-variants of w in S, then w1 is a Tense-variant of w in S; c. if there are [Â] -variants and [å] -variants of w in S, then w1 is an [å] -variant of w in S; d. if there are [N] -variants and [k] -variants in S, then w1 is a [k] -variant of w in S; e. each part of the base of w1 that ‘corresponds to’ a part of a syllable of w, is part of a syllable of w1.
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
47
Assuming a restriction to phonological words, condition (b) is the contribution of GOT to the identification of admissible variants: if a variant can end either in a tense or a lax obstruent, it must end in a tense one. (b) is only a necessary condition supplemented by two other conditions of a similar type. Condition (c) is exemplified by (8): there are four variants of the phonological word \ "Snai. D´.r \ , three [Â] -variants and one [å] -variant, [ "SnaI.då. ] ; only the latter is an ‘admissible’ variant — the others are, of course, perfectly good variants though not admissible in a technical sense. (For the meanings of ‘[Â] -variant’ and ‘[å] -variant’, see (14). Condition (c) does not imply that [Â] and [å] also occur in the base of the phonological word w; indeed, this is impossible for [å] , which is only a phonetic but not a phonological sound.) Condition (d) covers cases like [ "zaN. ] and [ "zaN.k ] as variants of \ "zaN. \ in Non-Elevated Standard German idiolect systems of the Northern variety (the unit sequence of \ "zaN. \ is a form of SINGENW1 ‘sing’ categorized as 1P/3P Sg Ind Pret Act). In other systems, the [k] -variants do not occur, and (d) applies vacuously. Condition (e) takes account of certain cases of so-called e-elision. For example, the phonological word \ "han. D´.l \ (whose unit sequence is a form of W HANDEL 1 ‘trade’) has the variant [ "han.dl ] , with extrasyllabic [d] 4 and [l] 5, which by (e) is not admissible ([d] 4 corresponds to \ D\ 4, which is part of a syllable); and has the variant [ "han.dl. ] , where [dl] 4,5 is a syllable with nucleus [l] 5, a variant that does satisfy (e) and is admissible. Conditions (b), (c), and (d) can be abbreviated as follows: (b): ‘if relevant, w1 exhibits obstruent tensing w.r.t. w in S’ (c): ‘if relevant, w1 is an [å] -variant of w in S’ (d): ‘if relevant, w1 is a [k] -variant of w in S’ Using these abbreviations, we derive the following theorem from the admissibility claim (17) and the definition of ‘phonetic word’ (phonetic words are the admissible variants of phonological words and word rests): (18)
Word Theorem for Standard German Let S be any Standard German idiolect system; suppose that w1 is not a variant of a rest of a phonological word in S. w1 is a phonetic word of S iff there is a w such that: a. w is a phonological word of S; b. w1 is a variant of w in S; c. if relevant, w1 exhibits obstruent tensing w.r.t. w in S; d. if relevant, w1 is an [å] -variant of w in S; e. if relevant, w1 is a [k] -variant of w in S;
48
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
f.
each part of the base of w1 that ‘corresponds to’ a part of a syllable of w, is part of a syllable of w1.
The word theorem precisely explicates the first aspect of GOT, its role in the identification of phonetic words. I now turn to the second aspect distinguished in Section 4.2. 5
Preconsonantal tensing
5.1 Motivation For orientation, I once again use the schneidbrenner example (12), here quoted as (19) 1
2
3
D\
○
\ Æbren¢´.r\
=
["SnaIt.]
●
[ÆbÂEn¢å.]
=
\ "Snai.
1
2 \ "Snai.
D-Æbren¢´.r\
["SnaIt.bÂEn¢å.]
In order to obtain [ "SnaIt.bÂEn¢ å . ] in 2/3 of (19) as a variant of \ "Snai. DÆbren¢ ´ .r \ in 1/3, the phonetic connection function ● must operate on the Tense-variant [ "SnaIt. ] of \ "Snai. D\ in 1/1 and not on the Lax-variant [ "SnaI.d ] . Why? I will propose the following answer: a Tense-variant of \ "Snai. D\ in 1/1 must be chosen because this phonological sequence is phonologically connected (by ○) with another sequence, \ Æbren¢ ´ .r \ , that begins with a consonant. True, the variant [ ÆbÂEn¢ å . ] of \ Æbren¢ ´ .r \ with which [ "SnaIt. ] is phonetically connected (by ●), also begins with a consonant, and this might be taken as the conditioning factor; tensing would then be triggered at the phonetic rather than the phonological level. Examples of the following kind are, however, sufficient to exclude such a solution: (20) 1
2
3
D\
○
\ Æ/ar.m\
=
2
["SnaI.t]
●
[ÆaÂ.m]
=
["SnaI.tar.m]
3
["SnaIt.]
●
=
["SnaIt.ar.m]
1
\ "Snai.
\ "Snai.
D-Æ/ar.m\
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
49
The unit sequence of schneidarm = \ "Snai. D-Æ/ar.m \ is a form of SCHNEIDW ARM 1 ‘cutting extension’. In Standard German idiolect systems, the glottal stop must count as a normal consonant \ /\ at the phonological level (on this much-debated question, with references to the more important literature, see Lieb 1998: §6.3c). Phonological sequences with \ /\ usually have variants without [ /] , as is the case for \ Æ/ar.m \ . In (20), the corresponding variant [ ÆaÂ.m ] , which begins with a vowel, is phonetically connected with both Tense-variants of \ "Snai. D\ (see (8)), giving rise to two different phonetic words in 2/3 and 3/3 (of course, [ Æ/aÂ.m ] could also have been chosen). The two words differ in syllabification. Segmentally, we may have to replace [t] 5 in each by [t 3 ] 5, where [t 3 ] differs from [t] by having a property of ‘reduced tenseness’ in its articulation bases, still different from Lax. In any case it is the Tense-variants of \ "Snai. D\ not the Lax-variant from which we start despite the fact that vowel-initial [ aÂ.m ] is chosen. Therefore, if a consonant triggers the tensing of \ D\ 5 in \ "Snai. D\ , it can only be \ /\ at the phonological level, as the first consonant of \ Æ/ar.m \ . (A similar case, with conditioning by a phonological vowel, will be discussed in Section 5.6.) Actually, the preconsonantal position that \ D\ assumes through phonological connection remains the only candidate for a conditioning factor. Position of \ D\ at the end of a morph is insufficient for tensing if relevant at all; cf. (21) 1
2
3
1
\ "Snai.
D\
○
\ ´.\
=
\ "Snai.
2
["SnaI.d]
●
[´.]
=
["SnaI.d´.]
D´.\
The prevocalic position that \ D\ acquires through phonological connection forces us to adopt the Lax-variant [ "SnaI.d ] of \ "Snai. D\ for phonetic connection, regardless of the morph-final position of \ D\ . Discussion of these examples should sufficiently motivate the key assumption on tensing. 5.2 The Obstruent Tensing Theorem I suggest that the following assumption should be included as a theorem in an axiomatic grammar of Standard German:
50
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
(22)
Obstruent Tensing Theorem Suppose that a. S is an idiolect system of Standard German; b. wi is a (structured) phonological sequence of S, and wi' is a variant of wi in S, for i = 1, 2; c. w1 ends in L; d. L is an obstruent; e. there are Tense-L variants of w1 in S and Lax-L variants of w1 in S; f. w2 ≠ l; g. ○S is defined for 〈w1, w2〉; h. ●S is defined for 〈w1', w2'〉; i. w3 ∈ w1' ●S w2'. Then j.
w3 is a variant of w1 ○S w2 if and only if (i) or (ii): (i) w2 begins with a consonant in S, and w1' is a Tense-L variant of w1 in S; (ii) w2 begins with a vowel in S, and w1' is a Lax-L variant of w1 in S.
All free variables in (22) may be taken to be bound by theorem-initial universal quantifiers. From the point of view of propositional logic, the theorem has the form of an implication whose antecedent is a conjunction and whose consequent is an equivalence; the right-hand side of the equivalence is an adjunction; symbolically: (23)
a. p → (q ↔ (r ∨ s)) b. “if p, then: q if, and only if, r or s”; where p = (a) and … and (i) q = “w3 is a variant of w1 ○S w2 in S” r = (ji) s = (jii)
The theorem can be rendered informally as follows. Consider a phonological sequence (w1) of a Standard German idiolect system, a sequence that ends in an obstruent and has phonetic variants that end in a tense obstruent and variants that end in a lax obstruent. Connect that sequence with a second non-empty phonological sequence (w2) at the phonological level, and connect a variant (w1') of the first sequence with a variant
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
51
(w2') of the second sequence at the phonetic level. (The connection of the two phonological sequences — w1 ○S w2 — is another phonological sequence, which must be word-oriented; and the connection of the two variants — w1' ●S w2' — is a set of phonetic sequences, possibly, a unit set.) Then a phonetic sequence (w3) arising from the connection of the two variants (w1' ●S w2') is itself a variant of the connection of the two phonological sequences (w1 ○S w2) exactly under one of two conditions: either the second sequence (w2) begins with a consonant and the variant (w1') of the first ends in a tense obstruent; or the second sequence (w2) begins with a vowel and the variant (w1') of the first ends in a lax obstruent. As an example for (ji), take (19) with —
w1
= \ "Snai. D\
—
w2
= \ Æbren¢ ´ .r \
—
w1' = [ "SnaIt. ]
—
w2' = [ ÆbÂEn¢ å . ]
(‘[ "SnaIt.bÂEn¢ å . ] ’ in (19) should be enclosed in braces to indicate a unit set; phonetic connection yields sets of phonetic sequences.) As an example for (jii), take (21) with —
w1
= \ "Snai. D\
—
w2
= \ ´. \
—
w1' = [ "SnaI.d ]
—
w2' = [ ´. ]
Some more detailed comments on the theorem are appropriate. The antecedent and the consequent of the theorem are commented on separately. 5.3 Comments on the antecedent I follow the subdivision in (22). (a) Restriction to (present-day) Standard German (cf. Section 4.1) is important; the theorem does not necessarily hold across all varieties of German (cf. Russ 1982: 37f.) and certainly not for German through time (on the Old High German origins of tensing, see Simmler 1981: esp. 720–722). (c) The expressions ‘ends in’ in (c) and ‘begins with a consonant / vowel in S’ in (j) could be made formally precise — the intended meaning should be clear.
52
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
(d) ‘Obstruent’ in (d) denotes any sound (both phonological and phonetic) with the following property: the sound has an articulation base that contains (has as an element) an articulatory feature that implies the feature Fricative or the feature Non-Fricative, i.e. Stop (implication allows for identity). I here assume the feature analysis of the German consonant system in Kohler (1995: 155f.), adding \ /\ as an obstruent, where Fricative defines the set of fricatives in a traditional sense and Non-Fricative the stops. I take affricates to be not sounds but sequences of sounds: an affricate is a sequence of a stop and a fricative, which either are both tense or both lax, such that the sequence itself is an element of C(−,S), the set of consonantal sequences of S. As a matter of fact, affricates are irrelevant in the context of (22). — \ D\ , \d\ , \t\ , [d] and [t] are all obstruents due to the occurrence of Non-Fricative in their articulation bases. (e) ‘Tense-L variant’ and ‘Lax-L variant’ in (e) is to be understood on the basis of definition (15), as ‘variant whose last sound represents L and has Tense / Lax in some articulation base’. In a case where phonological sequence w1 does not have both Tense-L and Lax-L variants, the theorem is trivially true. (For the pairs of tense and lax obstruents at the phonetic level that qualify as last sounds of Tense-L variants and Lax-L variants, see Brockhaus 1955: 9ff, Wiese 1996: 200.) (f) The first (structured) phonological sequence is not to be connected with the empty word l = 〈∅, ∅, ∅〉; else, the connection of w1 and w2 would be identical to w1, due to the fact that l is the ‘identity element’ for phonological connection. (g) and (h) The two connection functions are not defined for arbitrary pairs of, respectively, phonological or phonetic sequences, i.e. arbitrary pairs do not qualify as arguments of the functions. For example, no pair qualifies where one component is a word-oriented sequence and the other is sentence-oriented. (i) Differently from phonological connection, phonetic connection is a function that assigns to a pair of structured sequences not another structured sequence but a set of such sequences (braces to indicate unit sets are as a rule dropped in examples); hence, the element relation in (i). 5.4 Comments on the consequent A. Phonetic variants conditioned by phonological environments. The crucial question answered by the Tensing Theorem is this: given that certain conditions — (a) to (i) — are satisfied, what is a necessary and sufficient condition for a phonetic sequence (w3) obtained by connecting variants (w1' and w2') of two phonological sequences (w1 and w2) to be a variant of the connection w1
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
53
○S w2 of the two phonological sequences? The question is answered in the consequent of the theorem by referring to the last sound of the variant (w1') of the first phonological sequence (w1) and to the first sound of the second sequence (w2): depending on whether the first sound of w2 is a consonant or a vowel, the last sound of w1' must be tense or lax. We thus have a phonetic variant of a phonological sequence such that a property of this variant is determined not by the phonetic environment of the variant but by the phonological environment of the underlying phonological sequence. B. Sentence-oriented sequences. Our examples so far have been restricted to word-oriented (phonological and phonetic) sequences. Sentence-oriented sequences are, however, also covered by the consequent of the theorem. Let w1 and w2 be such sequences. Then w2 is either a word derivative or the connection of such derivatives. In either case the first sound of w2 is the first sound of a phonological word, therefore, the first sound of a prefix morph or a stem morph. Any such morph in a Standard German idiolect system begins with a consonant: morphs of this kind that might be suggested as vowel-initial begin with \ /\ , which is a consonant (phonetic variants of these morphs may well be vowel-initial since \ /\ is an ‘unstable consonant’; also, there are vowel-initial suffixes at the phonological level: \ /\ is as a rule excluded as the first sound of a suffix). Sentence-oriented sequences are therefore covered by case (i) in (22j): if two such sequences w1 and w2 are connected, then w2 begins with a consonant, and any w3 that results from connecting variants w1' and w2' of w1 and w2 is a variant of the connection of w1 and w2 only if w1' ends in a tense consonant. This is one of the reasons why only Tense-variants are allowed as admissible in (17b) — i.e., in all cases where a phonological word has both Tense- and Lax-variants. Characteristically, languages like English and the Romance languages, which do not exhibit word-final tensing as a systematic feature, also lack a consonant \ /\ at the phonological level and have no problem with vowel-initial phonological words. C. Is word-final tensing ‘pre-consonantal’? It may be suggested that we account for word-final tensing by modifying the Tensing Theorem: the requirement of a non-empty w2 (22f) is dropped and the consequent of the theorem is changed by expanding (ji) to read: ‘w2 begins with a consonant in S, or w2 = l’, i.e. there is tensing also before an empty w2. This corresponds to the traditional idea that ‘word border behaves like a consonant’, where l represents word border. Unfortunately, this makes the Tensing Theorem inconsistent. For suppose that S, w1, w1', w2, w2', and w3 are as required in the antecedent of the modified theorem, and w2 = l. (This assumption is consistent: l is a
54
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
phonological sequence; and l is the identity element for ○S, hence, ○S is defined for 〈w1, w2〉. Moreover, we may assume that l is the only variant of l, either generally or in German idiolect systems; w1' ●S l is then defined, too.) It now follows by the consequent of the modified theorem that w1' is a Tense-L variant of w1 in S. Now w1 has a Lax-L variant, say w1*, by (22e). As just argued, it is true of any w1' such w1, w1', w2 = l, and w2' satisfy the antecedent of the modified theorem that w1' is a Tense-L variant of w1. Hence, w1*, which is a Lax-L variant of w1, is also a Tense-L variant of w1, which is a contradiction. Therefore, the modified Tensing Theorem is inconsistent and has to be rejected — word borders are not ‘consonantal’, and word-final tensing can not be construed as a special case of preconsonantal tensing. 5.5 Objections So far an analysis of GOT as embodied in the Tensing Theorem appears to have been envisaged only once, in Vennemann 1968 (not accessible), where it is rejected because of an objection to be discussed in Section 5.7 (cf. Brockhaus 1995: 38). There is a relevant remark also in Brockhaus (1995: 20) concerning ‘Final Obstruent Devoicing’ (FOD): The lists of those suffixes which trigger FOD and those which do not […] suggest that it is only consonant-initial suffixes which are associated with FOD.
In addition, Laeufer (1995: 109f.) may be compared. However, none of these authors actually formulates a general theorem. There are indeed four major objections (also discussed in Lieb 1998: Sections 7.5 and 10.3) that can be raised against the Tensing Theorem. (i)
The theorem does not cover word-final tensing.
This is correct; indeed, the only way of including word-final tensing should be through treating word borders as ‘consonantal’, which makes the theorem logically inconsistent (see §5.4c); therefore, there is no version of the theorem that may cover word-final tensing. But this only shows that we are dealing with two different phenomena, one to be treated by the Tensing Theorem, the other as part of a theorem identifying phonetic words (18). Therefore, rather than being an objection, (i) supports the approach. (ii) The theorem implicitly involves the last sounds of morphs or of syllables in order to explain a lax obstruent in sequences like [ "dÂaI. ] .
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
55
The sequence [ "dÂaI. ] must be a variant of a phonological word \ "drai. \ not \ " Drai. \ (of a word whose unit sequence is a form of the lexical word DREIW1 ‘three’); otherwise, the Tensing Theorem would incorrectly yield [ "tÂaI. ] , beginning with a tense not a lax obstruent, from w1 = \ D\ and w2 = \ "rai. \ . To deal with this problem we might have to require that tensing applies only to phonological sounds at the end of a morph or a syllable, contrary to the idea of preconsonantal conditioning. This suggestion is, however, incorrect. Rather, the following is true of any sound like \ D\ whose unit sequence \ D\ 1 is the base of a structured phonological unit \ D\ that has both Tense- and Lax-variants: no such sound is allowed in Standard German idiolect systems at the beginning of a phonological word (an apparent exception, \ Z\ with the articulation base {NarrowGroove}, can be dealt with, see Lieb 1998: fn. 63). Hence, the Tensing Theorem does not have to be modified so as to refer to the last sounds of morphs or syllables: it does not have to be changed at all, since phonological words are given through lexical words and their phonological properties are stated outside the Tensing Theorem. (The role of word-initial sounds is apparently also recognized in Lombardi 1991, cf. Brockhaus 1995: 85–88; see also Walther & Wiese 1995: 81.) (iii) The theorem is disproven by phonological words like dogma, where the sound sequence of a variant may be either [dOkmaÚ] , with a tense obstruent, or [dOgma] , with a lax one. (See Brockhaus 1995: 201–206, for discussion.) The objection presupposes that the phonological word underlying both [ "dOg.ma. ] and [ "dOk.maÚ. ] is \ "do G.ma. \ , where \ G\ has the articulation base {Non-Apical, Non-Labial}. However, [ "dOk.maÚ. ] cannot be a variant of \ "do G.ma. \ , for the following reason (there is also a problem of vowel length in the second syllable). A Standard German idiolect system that contains [ "dOk.maÚ. ] as a phonetic word belongs to Colloquial German. In such a system the Tensing Theorem would yield [ "dOX.maÚ. ] not [ "dOk.maÚ. ] , due to so-called spirantization ([X] = the sound whose articulation base is \ G\ ∪ {Tense, Fricative, Uvular} = {Non-Apical, Non-Labial, Tense, Fricative, Uvular}). However, [ "dOX.maÚ. ] does not exist as a variant of dogma. Rather than rejecting the Tensing Theorem, we may assume two different phonological words, \ "dog.ma. \ and \ "dok.maa. \ , which are both unaffected by tensing. Moreover, these words cannot be phonological words of the same Standard German idiolect systems: \ "dok.maa. \ belongs to systems of Colloquial German, and \ "dog.ma. \ to systems of Elevated German. The fourth and last major objection, which caused Vennemann (1968) to reject preconsonantal tensing, is harder to deal with.
56
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
5.6 Tensing and schwa: example The fourth objection to the Tensing Theorem claims that (24)
The theorem is false because it would require tense [t] instead of lax [d] in words such as [ "han.dlUN. ] .
Indeed, corresponding phonetic words with [t] do exist, such as [ "han.tlUN. ] . The problem consists in accounting for the [d] -words. It extends, in principle, to all obstruents, with optional spirantization of the tense consonants where this is possible. (There has been extensive discussion of the problem: in particular, Heike 1992: 31f.; Yu 1992: 194; Vennemann 1982: 301, 1994: 38; Féry 1991: 80–83; Laeufer 1995: 115–117; most detailed: the relevant parts of Brockhaus 1995: 37–88, 185–225.) A solution similar to the [ "dOg.ma. ] / [ "dOk.maÚ. ] problem could be envisaged but soon turns out to be inadequate. Vennemann (1968) appears to be the first to have distinguished two different, non-dialectal varieties of German in dealing with problem (24) (cf. Brockhaus 1995: 40): a southern variety whose idiolect systems allow only variants with [d] , and a northern variety, largely identical to Standard German as here understood, i.e. in the sense of Kohler (1995: 39f.); see Section 4.1. Systems of the northern variety, of which I am a speaker, have variants with [t] — actually have both variants with [d] and variants with [t] in the Colloquial register; similarly, for other obstruents. Therefore, the problem cannot be solved by assuming phonological words with \d\ — or another completely specified lax obstruent — for some systems, and words with \t\ — or another completely specified tense obstruent — for other systems: in idiolect systems of Elevated Standard German, relevant variants of both the tense-type and the lax-type coexist. For such systems the two-word solution might still be suggested. It is, however, excluded by the possibility of spirantization: whereas [ "dOX.maÚ. ] does not exist, we do have [ "zeeç.lå. ] and [ "zee.çlå. ] (tense, fricative) in addition to [ "zeek.lå. ] / [ "zee.klå. ] (tense, non-fricative) and [ "zee.glå. ] (lax, non-fricative). In such cases tensing must have applied, and there must be an underlying word at the phonological level with \ G\ as an obstruent. In summary, the solution to problem (iii) does not apply to (24). I propose a solution that appears from the extended example in (25) (next page, taken over from Lieb 1998: Section 10.3). The diagram reads in the obvious way, e.g., (i)
[ "han.tÓ ] ● [ l ] = {[ "han.tlÓ ] , [ "hantÓ.l ] }
(ii) [ "hantÓ. ] ● [ l ] = {[ "hantÓ.l ] }
57
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
(25) a 2
1
"han.D\
○
\
"han.d]
●
[
1
\
2
[
○
\
"han.d´.l]
●
[
"han.dl]
●
"han.Dl\
○
\
"han.tlÓ]
●
[
"hantÓ.l]
=
\
´.l]
=
[
[ ]
l
=
[
"han.D\
○
\ \
l
=
\
"han.tÓ]
●
[ ]
l
=
[
"hantÓ.]
●
=
[
"han.t]
●
=
[
"hant.]
●
=
[
4
\
5
[
6
[
7
[
8
[
C
l =
[ ]
∅
2
ÆuN.\
=
ÆUN.]
:
\
"han.D´.ÆluN.\ not defined
"han.dlUN.]
=
ÆuN.\ ÆUN.]
[
\
"han.D-ÆluN.\ "han.tlÓUN.]
=
[
●
=
[
"han.tl]
●
=
[
"hant.l]
●
=
[
"hantÓ.lUN.] "han.tlUN.] "hant.lUN.]
C
1 [l]
1
"han.D´.l\
´.l\
●
3
Note.
b 3
;
l =
\ \
1 \ l\
∅
.
—
No words: 2a1; all of a3 excepting 1 and 2.
There are five phonetic words listed in column b2 of the table: [ "han.dlUN. ] with [d] , henceforth the d-word, and four words with [t] or [tÓ] that differ in syllabification or the occurrence or non-occurrence of aspiration or aspiration place, to be called the t-words. There is one phonological word \ "han. D´.ÆluN. \ underlying the d-word, and another, \ "han. D-ÆluN. \ , that underlies all four twords. 5.7 The interplay of tensing and schwa A. Obtaining the d-word. For the d-word we start from the sequence \ "han. D\ (both a stem morph and a phonological word) which ends in extrasyllabic \ D\ and has both a Lax-variant [ "han.d ] and various Tense-variants. For obtaining the d-word, we first connect \ "han. D\ with \ ´.l \ to obtain \ "han. D´.l \ (both a phonological word and a stem morph). \ ´.l \ has two variants, [ ´.l ] and simply [ l ] ; [ l ] exhibits schwa-elision with respect to \ ´.l \ in the sense of being an [´] less variant of \ ´.l \ , which has \´\ . The Tensing Theorem applies, and since \ ´.l \ is vowel-initial, only the [d] -variant [ "han.d ] of \ "han. D\ can be used for phonetic connection, which yields two variants of \ "han. D´.l \ , [ "han.d´.l ] and
58
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
[ "han.dl ] . The first but not the second variant is a phonetic word. The second variant [ "han.dl ] ‘inherits’ schwa-elision from [ l ] . It has [d] not [t] immediately in front of consonant [l] because the underlying \ "han. D\ is connected with \ ´.l \ , a vowel-initial sequence. This is another case that demonstrates the need to assume phonological, not phonetic conditioning for tensing, similar to the case of the consonant \ /\ discussed in Section 5.1. Next, \ "han. D´.l \ is connected with \ ÆuN. \ to yield \ "han. D´.ÆluN. \ . Now there is no phonetic word [ "han.d´.lUN. ] in present-day Standard German. This is accounted for by assuming that phonetic connection in corresponding idiolect systems is not defined for [ "han.d´.l ] and [ ÆUN. ] . Only [ "han.dl ] can be connected with [ ÆUN. ] , and we end up with [ "han.dlUN. ] as a variant of \ "han. D´.ÆluN. \ , which inherits schwa-elision from [ "han.dl ] . Actually, in addition to variants [ ´.l ] and [ l ] of \ ´.l \ , there is a third variant, syllabic [ l. ] = 〈[l] 1, {〈{1}, Vc(−,S)〉}, {T}1〉, not mentioned in the table. [ "han.d ] ● [ l. ] = [ "han.dl. ] (which is both a stem morph and a phonetic word); [ "han.dl. ] ● [ ÆUN. ] = [ "han.dl ¢ U N. ] , a three-syllable not a two-syllable variant of \ "han. D´.ÆluN. \ , again with schwa-elision. B. Obtaining the t-words. For the t-words we also start from \ "han. D\ . This, however, is connected not with \ ´.l \ but with non-syllabic \ l \ , which coexists with \ ´.l \ at the phonological level and has [ l ] as its only variant. There is no schwa-elision in [ l ] with respect to \ l \ , so there is no schwa-elision when the connection functions are applied. Since \ l \ is consonant-initial, the Tensing Theorem allows only the four Tense-variants of \ "han. D\ to be connected with [ l ] , each of which is both a phonetic word and a morph variant; they differ in syllabification or presence vs. absence of aspiration, differences retained in phonetic connection. Four phonetic sequences are obtained, as shown in the table. They are variants of \ "han. Dl \ . Since this is no phonological word (nor a word rest), the four sequences are not phonetic words either. \ "han. Dl \ is now connected with \ ÆuN. \ to yield \ "han. D-ÆluN. \ , and the four variants of \ "han. Dl \ are connected with [ ÆUN. ] to yield the four t-words as the variants of \ "han. D-ÆluN. \ . The example can obviously be generalized. In summary, problem (24) is solved by retaining the Tensing Theorem as it stands and having it interact with so-called schwa-elision in an appropriate way. All major objections that might be raised against the Obstruent Tensing Theorem have now been countered, and the theorem stands vindicated. The Obstruent Tensing Theorem provides a powerful argument for a two-level phonology: the theorem uses the potential of a two-level phonology to solve an important phonetic problem in German by referring to a phonological level; the logical form of the theorem reflects the way in which the phonetic level and the phonological level interact in the solution. I now demon-
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
59
strate how a different problem in a different language is solved in exactly the same way.
C. NASAL ALTERNATION IN STANDARD FRENCH (NAF) 6
The Alternation Theorem
6.1 Overview Standard French has a much discussed characteristic feature: there are morphs and words that appear to have alternating variants at the phonetic level — they end either in a nasal vowel or in an oral vowel plus nasal. “As traditionally described, these alternations fall into the following categories” (Tranel 1981: 85; the following list is adapted, in Tranel’s notation and phonetic transcription, from pages 85–87, keeping the classification labels and some examples): (26)
a. Gender distinctions (i)
Adjectives bon [bO) ] / bonne [bOn] ‘good’ (masc./fem.)
(ii)
Nouns baron [barO) ] / baronne [barOn] ‘baron’ / ‘baroness’
b. Third conjugation verbs (examples given in 3rd person) (i)
Present indicative singular/plural vient [vjE) ] / viennent [vjEn] ‘come’ joint [ wE) ] / joignent [ wan) ] ‘join’ craint [krE) ] / craignent [krEn) ] ‘fear’ prend [pra) ] / prennent [prEn] ‘take’
(ii)
Present indicative/subjunctive vient [vjE) ] / vienne [vjEn] etc. / joigne [ wan) ] / craigne [krEn) ] / prenne [prEn]
c. Derivational morphology (i)
Nouns / First conjugation verbs (zero suffixation) béton [betO) ] / bétonner [betOne] ‘concrete’ / ‘to build with concrete’
60
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
dessin [desE) ] / dessiner [desine] ‘drawing’ / ‘to draw’ parfum [parfE) ] / parfumer [parfume] ‘perfume’ / ‘to perfume’ (not in Tranel’s list) (ii)
Word derivation by non-zero suffixation garçon [garsO) ] / garçonnet (garsOnE] ‘boy’ / ‘little boy’ jardin [ ardE) ] / jardinet [z# a rdinE] ‘garden’ / ‘little garden’ printemps [prE) t a) ] / printanier [prE) t anje] ‘spring’ / ‘springlike’
d. Liaison with masculine singular adjectives un bon vaisseau [E) b O) v eso] ‘a good ship’ vs. un bon amiral [E) b Onamiral] ‘a good admiral’ There are additional subcases in (c) and (d), and word-compounding has to be added; otherwise, the four classes cover the relevant phenomena. From the point of view of morphology and syntax, classes (a) to (d) fall into two major groups: (a) to (c) concern phonetic alternation connected with morphology, and (d) represents alternation related to syntax. Within the morphology group, there are two subgroups: classes concerned with stem formation within a single word paradigm ((ai) and (b)) and classes related to derivation ((aii) and (c)). 6.2 The Nasal Alternation Theorem It is well known, and also supported by the list, that the alternation documented in (26) is closely connected with the consonant/vowel distinction: very roughly, forms ending in a nasal vowel are used ‘before a consonant’, and forms ending in an oral vowel plus nasal appear ‘before a vowel’. Differently from German Obstruent Tensing, where the consonant/vowel alternation was simply not recognized as the major conditioning factor, its role for Nasal Alternation in French (NAF) has never been in doubt (‘nasal alternation’ is to be understood as ‘alternation involving nasals’). Anyway, GOT and NAF appear to share a major conditioning factor, which suggests general similarities that should be exploited. Two major aspects were distinguished for GOT: tensing as a means to identify phonetic words, and preconsonantal tensing independent of word identification. And indeed, these two factors also characterize NAF: nasal vowels turn up both ‘in word-final position’ and ‘before consonants’.
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
61
Following the example of GOT, the appearance of nasal vowels in wordfinal position would have to be treated as a means of identifying phonetic words, on the pattern of Section 4.5 where a theorem on phonetic words (18) is formulated that is based on a statement on ‘admissible’ variants of phonological words (17). Such a treatment does adequately deal with the first aspect of NAF, the appearance of nasal vowels in word-final position. For reasons of space, I will not attempt a demonstration and will in fact concentrate exclusively on the second aspect, nasal alternation conditioned by consonant vs. vowel occurrences. I will argue that this second aspect of NAF may also be treated in a way that is analogous to the treatment of GOT. Suppose we are given a phonological sequence that ends in a nasal consonant and is connected with another phonological sequence, and a variant of the first sequence is to be phonetically connected with a variant of the second. Then, if the second phonological sequence begins with a vowel, we choose for phonetic connection a variant of the first sequence that ends in a nasal (nasal consonant); and if the second phonological sequence begins with a consonant, we choose a variant of the first sequence that ends not in a nasal but a nasal vowel. Nasals in NAF would thus be analogous to tense obstruents in GOT, and lack of nasals in NAF analogous to lax obstruents in GOT. There is, however, a major complication in the French case: whereas GOT applies to all word-oriented and all sentence-oriented sequences, if only trivially so to the latter, sentence-oriented sequences subject to NAF (cf. (26d)) must obey ‘liaison’ rules, a notoriously difficult topic in French phonology. Other problems due to peculiarities of French may be expected when NAF is treated precisely on the analogy of GOT. It is therefore non-trivial to establish a theorem on NAF that is analogous to the Obstruent Tensing Theorem (22) for Standard German. More specifically, I argue for the following assumption on French, formulated within the framework of Integrational Phonology, and to be explained immediately: (27)
Nasal Alternation Theorem Suppose that a. S is an idiolect system of Standard French; b. wi is a (structured) phonological sequence of S, and wi' is a variant of wi in S, for i = 1, 2; c. w1 ends in L; d. L is a nasal; e. there are non-L-variants of w1 in S and L-variants of w1 in S; f. w2 ≠ l;
62
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
g. ○S is defined for 〈w1, w2〉; h. ●S is defined for 〈w1', w2'〉; i. w3 ∈ w1' ●S w2'. Then j.
w3 is a variant of w1 ○S w2 in S iff (i) or (ii): (i) w2 begins with a consonant in S, and w1' is a non-Lvariant of w1 in S; (ii) w2 begins with a vowel in S, and (α) or (β): α. w1 ○S w2 is word-oriented in S, and w1' is an Lvariant of w1 in S; β. w1 ○S w2 is not word-oriented in S, and (β1) or (β2) or (β3): β1. w1 and w2 require liaison for L in S, and w1' is an L-variant of w1 in S, and any last syllable of w1' is also a syllable of w3; β2. w1 and w2 exclude liaison for L in S, and w1' is a non-L-variant of w1 in S; β3. w1 and w2 allow liaison for L in S, and w1' is a variant of w1 in S.
In a more complete description of the phonology of Standard French, assumption (27) will eventually be derivable (hence, ‘alternation theorem’); actually, (27) will be shown already in this essay (Section 8, below) to be a special case of a more general assumption. 6.3 Paraphrase and examples The Alternation Theorem may be informally rendered by the following (partial) paraphrase. Consider a Standard French idiolect system and two phonological sequences w1 and w2 of the system, with variants w1' and w2', where w2 is nonempty. — Suppose that w1 ends in a nasal consonant and has phonetic variants that do not and variants that do end in a suitable nasal consonant (cf. (14)). — Connect the phonological sequences w1 and w2 to form a new phonological sequence, and their variants w1' and w2' to form a set of new phonetic sequences. Take any sequence w3 in this set. Precisely when is it true of sequence w3 that it is a variant of the phonological sequence that results from connecting w1 and w2? There are two cases to distinguish. w2 may begin with a consonant, and variant w1' of w1 does not end in a nasal: then sequence w3 is a variant of the connection of the two phonological sequences w1 and w2 regardless of whether
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
63
the connection is sentence-oriented or word-oriented. Or else, w2 begins with a vowel. In this case, the distinction between word-oriented and sentenceoriented phonological sequences does matter, due to so-called liaison, which is restricted to sentence-oriented sequences. As a first case (α), w1 connected with w2 is word-oriented, and w1' is a variant of w1 that ends in a nasal. Then w3 is a variant of the connection of w1 and w2. Or else, w1 connected with w2 is not word-oriented, i.e. is sentenceoriented. Then the three traditional subcases of liaison must be accounted for: w1 and w2 may require / exclude / allow liaison, in the following sense (examples are given below, in (29)). Let w1 be any sentence-oriented phonological sequence that ends in an unstable consonant L, i.e. a consonant represented in some but not all phonetic variants of w1. Let w2 be any vowel-initial sentence-oriented phonological sequence that can be connected with w2. w1 and w2 require / exclude / allow liaison for L, if for any variants w1' and w2' and any w3 that belongs to the connection of w1' and w2' (the connection is a set of phonetic sequences) the following is true: w3 is a variant of w1 connected with w2 (the connection is a single phonological sequence) only if w1' does / does not / does or does not end in a sound that represents L. In the context of (27), the phonological sequence w1 must end in an unstable consonant; this follows from (27c) to (27e). Moreover, w1 and w2 must be sentence-oriented if, as assumed in (β) of (jii), w1 ○S w2 is sentenceoriented. Therefore, the various liaison concepts apply in (β). There are three subcases (β1) to (β3) in each of which w3 is a variant of the phonological connection of w1 and w2; each subcase is defined by several subconditions:
β1. First condition w1 and w2 require liaison for L, i.e. for any w3', w4', and w, if w3' and w4' are variants of w1 and w2, respectively, and w ∈ w3' ● w4', and w is a variant of w1 ○ w2, then w3' ends in a consonant representing L. Second condition w1' is a variant of w1 that ends in a consonant representing L. Third condition Any last syllable of w1' is also a syllable of w3. (This excludes non-linking liaison, which following Encrevé 1988 is found only in cases of optional liaison; see also below, Section 7.3.)
64
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
β2. First condition w1 and w2 exclude liaison for L, i.e. for any w3', w4', and w, if w3' and w4' are variants of w1 and w2, respectively, and w ∈ w3' ● w4', and w is a variant of w1 ○ w2, then w3' does not end in a consonant representing L. Second condition w1' is a variant of w1 that does not end in a consonant representing L.
β3. First condition w1 and w2 allow liaison for L, i.e. w1 and w2 neither require nor exclude liaison for L. Second condition w1' is a variant of w1. 6.4 Examples The various cases in (27) are exemplified in (28) and (29) largely by means of (26) (reference to idiolect systems S is omitted; phonological sequences are denoted orthographically, phonetic sequences according to our notational conventions; subscripted ‘d’ indicates sentence-oriented sequences; references in parentheses that lack a number are to (27)): (28)
Before consonant (ji) a. word-oriented w1 = bon w2 = té w1' = [ bO) . ] w2' = [ "te. ]
[ bO) . "te. ] is a variant of bon ○ té ‘goodness’ b. sentence-oriented w1 = bond w2 = vaisseaud w1' = [ bO) . ] d w2' = [ ve."so. ] d
[ bO) . ve."so. ] d is a variant of bond ○ vaisseaud (cf. (26d)) (29)
Before vowel (jii) a. word-oriented (jiiα) w1 = bon w2 = e w1' = [ "bO.n ]
65
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
w2' = l [ "bO.n ] is a variant of bon ○ e (cf. (26ai)) b. sentence-oriented (jiiβ) (i) liaison required (β1) w1 = bond w2 = amirald w1' = [ bO.n ] d w2' = [ a.mi."ra.l ] d [ bO.na.mi."ra.l ] d is a variant of bond (26d)) (ii)
○ amirald (cf.
liaison excluded (β2) w1 = bond ‘voucher’ w2 = énormed w1' = [ bO) . ] d w2' = [ e."nOÂ.m ] d [ bO) . e."nOÂ.m ]d is a variant of bond ○ énormed
(iii) liaison allowed (β3) w1 = l’und ‘one’ w2 = oud ○ l’autred ‘or the other’
α. no liaison
w1' = [ lE) . ] d w2' = [ u."lo.tÂ. ] d [ lE) . u."lo.tÂ. ] d is a variant of l’un ou l’autred
β. linking liaison
w1' = [ lE) . n ]d w2' = [ u."lo.tÂ. ] d [ lE) . nu."lo.tÂ. ] d is a variant of l’un ou l’autred
γ. non-linking liaison
w1' = [ lE) . n ] d w2' = [ u."lo.tÂ. ] d [ lE) n .u."lo.tÂ. ] d is a variant of l’un ou l’autred
6.5 Further explanations Theorem (27) requires a number of explanations beyond the ones already included in the paraphrase or those which carry over from the Obstruent Tensing Theorem (cf. Section 5.3 (c), (f), (g), (h), (i)). A. Standard French. I here assume a delimitation in purely phonetic and phonological terms. Standard French is to be that part of present-day French
66
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
whose idiolect systems phonetically and phonologically conform to Léon (1972) (disregarding any prescriptive features of this book) with the following qualifications: the nasal o-vowels are taken to be [O) ] and \O) \ , rather than [o) ] and \o) \ as in Léon (1972) (who uses [o) ] “pour des raisons pédagogiques”, 14; on the problem, see, for instance, Eggs & Mordellet 1990: 33, and most recently Hansen, who continues to find [O) ] rather than [o) ] in a majority of cases: Hansen 1998: 316) (ii) only systems are allowed that replace [{) ] by [E) ] (following Hansen 1998: 314, this development is anything but terminated) (iii) there may be differences of phonological analysis, i.e. analysis at the phonological level (i)
Delimiting Standard French in this way means, in particular, that long vowels are allowed only at the phonetic but not the phonological level. The closed and open varieties of the phonetic e-, o-, and a-sounds are separately represented at the phonological level; a more careful analysis may have to introduce archiphonemes for joint representation of such sounds in some environments. A major problem is the phonetic and phonological treatment of schwa; this will be discussed separately (below, Section 7.5). B. Nasals and nasal vowels. ‘Nasal’ in (d) may be understood on the pattern of ‘obstruent’ in Section 5.3 (d): ‘nasal’ denotes any sound (both phonological and phonetic) with the following property: the sound has an articulation base that contains an articulatory feature that implies the feature Nasal (implication allows for identity). If features are understood as properties of sound events, then Nasal is the property of being a sound event produced with release of all air through the nose. The phonological nasals of Standard French are \n\ , \m\ , \≠\ or \n) \ , and \N\ in English loan words ending in \iN\ . Given our definition of the feature Nasal, the nasal vowels are not nasals: their articulation bases do not contain any feature that implies the feature Nasal. The articulation bases do contain the feature Nasalized, which on a property conception of features may be defined as: the property of being a sound event produced with release of some but not all air through the nose. It follows that neither does Nasal imply Nasalized nor does Nasalized imply Nasal. Moreover, given any nasal L1 and any nasalized vowel L2, the only element of any articulation base of L2 that could possibly imply Nasal is Nasalized. Hence, no nasal vowel represents a nasal, by Def. (13). C. L-variants and non-L-variants. The notion of L-variant is to be understood as defined in (14): an L-variant of w in S is a variant of w in S with a non-
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
67
empty base such that the last sound of the base represents L. Correspondingly, a non-L-variant of w in S is a variant of w in S with a non-empty base such that the last sound of the base does not represent L. For example, if w = bon, which ends in \n\ , then [ "bO.n ] is an \n\ -variant of bon (in any Standard French idiolect system S), and [ "bO) . ] is a non-\n\ variant: [n] represents \n\ (and we may even have [n] = \n\ ), but [O) ] does not represent [n] (see (13) for ‘represent’: there is no feature in the articulation base of [O) ] that implies the feature Apical in the articulation base of [n] ). It is an empirical fact about Standard French that for any phonological sequence ending in an unstable nasal L, the non-L-variants end in a nasal vowel; see the examples in (26), (28), and (29). This is a phonetic fact; for example, (30)
[ "bO. ] [ "mO) . ] [ "i. ] [ "y. ]
● [n] ● ● ●
= = = =
{[ "bO.n ] , [ "bO) . ] } {[ "mO) . n ] , [ "mO) . ] } {[ "i.n ] , [ "E) . ] } {[ "y.n ] , [ "E) . ]}
etc. If L is a nasal, L-variants may exhibit an oral vowel before the phonetic nasal as in examples (26), (28), and most of (29); l’un ou l’autre in (29), however, is sufficient to demonstrate that this is no general rule. As a matter of fact, it has become customary to distinguish ‘words of the bon-type’ (phonetically, oral vowel before nasal) from ‘words of the mon-type’ (phonetically, nasal vowel before nasal), e.g. Encrevé (1988: Section 4.4). True, this distinction refers to liaison behaviour, i.e. to sentence-oriented sequences. The same difference does, however, also turn up in word-oriented sequences, where the prefix in- (the prefix figuring in productive in-derivations) behaves like a bonword (with [in V] - vs. [E) C] -variants), and the prefix en-like a mon-word (with [A) n V] - vs. [A) C] -variants): [ i.nu.bli."ja.bl. ] inoubliable ‘unforgettable’ vs. [ A) . nEÂ."be. ] enherber ‘cover with grass’ (for discussion, see Hannahs 1995: Chapter 2). The only general difference, then, is between L-variants that do, and Lvariants that do not end in a nasal; empirically, the latter end in a nasal vowel. D. The status of schwa and glottal stops. It will turn out that schwa as traditionally assumed — and much disputed — in Standard French phonology should be represented by an empty vowel at the phonological level and by [{] or [P] at the phonetic level; some schwa occurrences at the phonetic level are purely epenthetic. As a major deviation from German, we do not have \ /\ at the phonological level; the glottal stop does occur, but as a purely phonetic consonant [ /] .
68
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
6.6 Remarks on the connection functions No attempt will be made to characterize in detail the phonological and phonetic connection functions for Standard French idiolect systems. The pairs 〈w1, w2〉 for which ○S or ●S are defined will not be specified; on the contrary, this essay is meant to provide some evidence on the pairs that may or may not be included. By and large, the effect of each connection function is the same in both Standard German and Standard French. In particular, phonological connection leaves the sound sequences unaltered except for concatenating them (in agreement with a general requirement on phonological connection), while phonetic connection may introduce additional changes. The effects on constituent structures are essentially the same, too, at least in the case of word-oriented sequences: when single consonants are added to w1 in phonological connection, they may remain extrasyllabic, and a final consonant of w1 joins the onset of an initial syllable of w2. Phonetic connection, however, is always such that the connection of w1 and w2 has at most one final extrasyllabic consonant. French, too, allows us to stay with the general assumption that phonological connection does not change intonation structures except for concatenating them: when a phonological word is formed on the basis of morphs through phonological connection, morphology has already determined which morphs may be used directly and which appear only as morph derivatives. This is compatible with the view that the location of primary word accent in French can be determined without referring to morphological structure, in purely phonological terms as in Latin. It is a defensible assumption that in French, too, high pitch identifies primary word accent, and low pitch lack of word accent, notwithstanding the important role played, at the phonetic level, by quantity; I am not sure about high pitch / low pitch as a mark of secondary word accent. For simplicity’s sake I only assume primary word accent since my arguments nowhere involve secondary word accent. (I consider as sufficiently disproven the view that French has no word accent.) 6.7 On the logical form of the Alternation Theorem From the point of view of propositional logic, the Alternation Theorem has the following form (‘(a)’ etc. refer to (27); all free variables in (27) may be taken to be bound by formula-initial universal quantifiers): (31)
a. p → (q ↔ (r ∨ s)) b. “if p, then q if, and only if, r or s”; where
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
69
p = (a) and … and (i) q = “w3 is a variant of w1 ○S w2 in S” r = (ji) s = (jii) Given the interpretation of (31a) in (31b), formula (31a) is logically equivalent to any of the following: (32)
a. (p ∧ q → r ∨ s) ∧ (p ∧ r → q) ∧ (p ∧ s → q) b. “if p and q, then r or s; and if p and r, then q; and if p and s, then q” c. (i)
If conditions (27a) to (27i) are satisfied and w3 is a variant of w1 ○S w2 in S, then (ji) or (jii) in (27) is satisfied; and (ii) if conditions (27a) to (27i) and (ji) are satisfied, then w3 is a variant of w1 ○S w2 in S; and (iii) if conditions (27a) to (27i) and (jii) are satisfied, then w3 is a variant of w1 ○S w2 in S.
The paraphrase (in Section 6.3) of the Alternation Theorem was based on (32) not (31) and restricted to cases (ii) and (iii) in (32c); for this reason, it was only a partial paraphrase. Now consider the Obstruent Tensing Theorem (22) for Standard German. Comparison of (27) and (31) with (22) shows that the two theorems have exactly the same logical form, with one difference: formula s = (jii) is more complex in the Nasal Alternation Theorem than in the Tensing Theorem, due to the fact that there are no vowel-initial phonological words in Standard German, hence, no vowel-initial sentence-oriented phonological sequences. The Nasal Alternation Theorem may indeed be obtained directly from the Tensing Theorem by making the following changes: (33)
a. b. c. d. e.
‘Standard German’ is replaced by ‘Standard French’ ‘obstruent’: ‘nasal’ ‘Lax-L variant’: ‘L-variant’ ‘Tense-L variant’: ‘non-L-variant’ (jii) in (22): (jii) in (27)
We thus obtain the following result. Consider a phonological sequence in Standard French that ends in a nasal and has variants in which the nasal is, and variants in which it is not represented. Consider, on the other hand a phonological sequence in Standard German that has both Fortis and Lenis (Tense and Lax) variants. How do we know what kind of variant to choose when a
70
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
variant is to be connected with some other sequence at the phonetic level? The answers are analogous for the two languages: a variant without nasal is chosen in French, and a Fortis variant in German, if the second phonetic sequence corresponds to a phonological sequence that begins with a consonant; otherwise a variant with nasal / a Lenis variant is selected (with some qualifications in French due to liaison effects). This is true, of course, only if the Nasal Alternation Theorem can be successfully defended; possible objections and apparent problems will now be considered. It will then be argued that the Nasal Alternation Theorem is only a special case of a more general Alternation Theorem for Consonants, which further strengthens the case for a two-level phonology. 7
Defending the Alternation Theorem
7.1 The status of nasal vowels I deliberately left a gap in Section 6.4 that must now be filled: phonological sequences were given in orthographic notation, allowing for different interpretations. What interpretation is intended? I begin by explaining my position with respect to a basic problem of French phonology, the treatment of nasal vowels. There can be no doubt that there are nasal vowels in Standard French at the phonetic level. Their appearance at the phonological level has not remained undisputed. Indeed, the standard generative analysis of French in the sixties and seventies (in particular, Schane 1968, 1973; Dell 1970, 1973; Selkirk 1972), inspired by Chomsky & Halle (1968), restricted nasal vowels to the phonetic level; as summarized by Tranel (1981: 13): The standard generative analysis of French vowels assumes that nasal vowels and sequences of oral vowel plus nasal consonant are to be related uniformly by means of a system of purely phonological rules deriving surface nasal vowels from underlying /VN/ sequences. The problem posed by contrasts like bon ami [bOnami] / mon ami [mO) n ami] is the main cause for the formal variations in the analysis.
Mainly due to the impact of Tranel’s penetrating criticism (1981: Chapters 2f.), this analysis was on the whole given up (it persists, as late as in 1990, in the didactic introduction to French phonology by Eggs & Mordellet). While Tranel’s arguments are, in my view, cogent, the alternative analysis of nasality proposed in Tranel (1981) is subject to the criticism levelled by Encrevé (1988: 119) against another aspect of Tranel (1981), its treatment of liaison:
].O ) b[
L
] O) b [
1 2
C Vc
VcGr
]n.Ob[
L
]n O b[
1 2 3
●
●
\n.Ob \
C Vc C
H
1 2
C Vc
=
: H
1 2 3
L
(34)
H
L
Nasal vowels: phonological and phonetic
H
1 2
C Vc
VcGr
1 2
C Vc
VcGr
L
1 2 3 4
C Vc C Vc
VcGr VcGr
n.d.
C Vc C
VcGr
H
].et".O ) b[
VcGr
H
].O)m"[
] e t O) b [
].et"[
]e t [
\n O b\
VcGr
L
].)Om[
] O) m[
=
] )O m [
H
]n.O)m"[
] n O) m[
\.et" \
○
L
1 2
C Vc
1 2 3
C Vc C
1 2 3 4 5
C Vc C C Vc
\et"-n.Ob \
\e t \
1 2
\n.O)m" \
\e t n O b\
C Vc
VcGr
\.)Om \
\ n O) m \
1 2 3
VcGr
\ )O m \
C Vc C
VcGr
●
VcGr
H
1 2
C Vc
VcGr
H
1 2
C Vc
VcGr
].et"[
]e t [
○
VcGr
=
= L
H
1 2 3 4
C Vc C Vc
VcGr VcGr
L
H
1 2 3 4
C Vc C Vc
VcGr VcGr
].et".)Om[
] e t O) m[
\.et" \
\e t \
VcGr
\.et".)Om \
\ e t O) m \
72
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
[…] ses solutions formelles […] souffrent de l’inadéquation fondamentale de SPE: l’incapacité à reconnaître le rôle des structures non segmentales et notamment, s’agissant de la liaison, syllabiques.
(This is of course no longer true of Tranel’s later work.) My own analysis of nasal vowels in Standard French appears from the examples in table (34) (previous page), in particular: (i)
Where there is no nasal alternation at the phonetic level, there is a nasal vowel and no nasal at the phonological level: \ mO) . \ , connected with \ "te. \ to yield \ mO) . "te. \ . (ii) In case of nasal variation, there is a nasal at the phonological level, preceded by an oral vowel or a nasal vowel depending on whether the variants-with-nasal have an oral or a nasal vowel. This distinguishes bon-type phonological sequences from mon-type sequences, which otherwise agree in their structural properties: \ "bO.n \ or \ bO.n \ vs. \ "mO) . n \ or \ mO) . n \ . My analysis is similar to the treatment proposed in Encrevé (1988: Section 4.4) in a different framework, for dealing with nasal alternation in liaison; for (i), see (84) in (1988: 211); for (ii), (81) vs. (82) in (1988: 209f.). An ‘outline of the literature on the treatment of bon’ has recently been given by Tranel (1992: 288–290); my solution is of Tranel’s type (24A). Tranel’s only objection to Encrevé (“no explanation is available within this treatment for why the trend seems to be toward nasal liaison”, Tranel 1992: 293) may be countered by pointing to the prevalence of nasal vowels over VNcombinations at the phonological level; see (i), above. 7.2 Nasal consonants: stable and unstable The final nasal in both bon-type and mon-type sequences is taken to be extrasyllabic. This is motivated by the existence of words like FEN (an acronym denoting the French teachers’ union, which has come to be quoted regularly in the present context): their variants end in an oral vowel plus nasal, and this cannot be explained in one of the standard ways (by postulating a word-final schwa at the phonological level or treating these words as ‘exceptions to vowel nasalization’ — see Tranel 1981: 68f.). However, the following analysis may be proposed (see (35), next page). There is no variant [ "fE) . ] of \ "fEn. \ because differently from \ "bO.n \ , the final nasal in \ "fEn. \ is not extrasyllabic. In other words, stable consonants (consonants at the end of a phonological sequence that must be phonetically realized) are distinguished from unstable consonants (consonants at the end of a phonological sequence that may or
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
(35)
73
VcGr C Vc C 1 2 3 \ "fEn.\
=
\ f
E
n\
H VcGr C Vc C 1 2 3 ["fEn.]
=
[f
E
n]
H
may not be phonetically represented) by being construed as intrasyllabic vs. extrasyllabic (cf. Tranel 1995 for the various proposals made to account for stable vs. unstable consonants). Moreover, syllables ending in a stable consonant and their representations at the phonetic level are given in the idiolect system; they are not obtained through phonological or phonetic connection — differently from syllables with an unstable consonant. The final nasal is construed as a stable consonant in FEN-type sequences and as an unstable one in both bon-type and mon-type sequences. Substituting ‘stable consonant’ and ‘unstable consonant’ for Encrevé’s ‘consonne fixe finale’ and ‘consonne de liaison’ and their English translations, I follow Encrevé (1988) in treating as unstable consonants the nasals that underlie nasal alternation at the phonetic level, extending this approach from liaison (Encrevé’s topic) to word-oriented sequences. ‘Stable consonants’, then, are phonologically integrated into a syllable. This creates ambisyllabic consonants — or rather, constituents — at the phonological level: (36)
\
SEr.\ d ○ \ a."mi.\ d = \ SEr¢a."mi\ d
where 〈3, \ r\ 〉 is an element of both the first and the second syllable. Unstable consonants do not give rise to ambisyllabicity: (37)
\
bO.n\ d ○ \ a."mi.\ d = \ bO.na."mi.\ d
It is exactly this phonological analysis that is supported by the experimental results reported in Laeufer (1989): it was found that ambisyllabic consonants occur in slow speech at the phonetic level in cases like (36) but not (37).
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HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
Assuming that slow speech variants retain phonological syllabification, (36) and (37) are supported, at least for sentence-oriented phonological sequences. Distinguishing stable from unstable consonants as above takes up a suggestion first made in Clements & Keyser (1983: 102). (The suggestion, although made in a discussion of French liaison, is not applied by these authors to cases of nasal alternation.) The Clements-Keyser proposal, and subsequent adaptations in the generative literature, have recently been criticized by Tranel (1993: 99–104). I will now argue that the criticism does not apply to my variant of the proposal. 7.3 Dealing with liaison Consider, once again, the liaison examples given in (29b) and presented more explicitly in table (38) (next page; ‘∋’ means ‘contains as an element’ — the converse of the element relation). In a regular case of obligatory liaison (A), the unstable nasal of w1 and the vowel-initial first syllable of w2 combine into a new syllable and the prefinal vowel remains oral, when w1 and w2 are phonologically connected. Whether such a combination is or is not required depends on conditions on w1 and w2 that may be phonological, morphological, syntactic, or semantic. These conditions do not define ‘obligatory liaison’ (for the defining conditions of ‘require liaison’, see Section 6.3); they only serve to identify relevant cases. Tranel (1992: Section 4) discusses a syntactic construction of a highly specific kind where the vowel may be nasal, or the nasal following an oral vowel does not resyllabify. This creates no problem since obligatory liaison was defined in Section 6.3 irrespective of such empirical details. In cases of excluded liaison (B) and optional liaison (C), no new syllable is created at the phonological level; the extrasyllabic nasal of w1 remains extrasyllabic. Again, cases like B and cases like C are each identified by specific conditions on w1 and w2, not to be confused with the defining conditions for ‘exclude liaison’ and ‘allow liaison’ in Section 6.3. If the conditions for cases B are satisfied, it follows that w1' ● w2' yields variants of w1 ○ w2 only if the last sound of w1 is not represented in w1'. Similarly, both representation and non-representation will do in cases C. Following Encrevé (1988: 75), non-linking liaison occurs only in cases of optional liaison, and in his vast corpus, optional liaison with nasal was observed only in three expressions, un à un, l’un et l’autre, and l’un ou l’autre, with non-linking liaison restricted to the last two; (Encrevé 1988: 203f.). However, due to observations made by Tranel (1992: Section 4), non-linking liaison — i.e. phonetic representation of an unstable consonant without resyllabification — must also be allowed in special cases of obligatory liaison. This is quite unproblematic since non-linking liaison is not defined by reference to
(38) ]d
[ ]d
]d
[ ’
[ ’
= ]d* ]d
[
[ ]d
]d
[ d
[
[ d
]d
]d
Liaison: examples
For an explanation of the apostrophe, see Sec. 7.5, below. ]d ’
[
’
’ d**
**
d
Not a variant of the relevant phonological sequence.
’
]d
[
[
]d
C
*
]d
[
]d
[
.E)l
n.E)l
n.E). l \
\
.O)b
n.Ob
\n.Ob \
]d
●
●
○
.Ât.ol".u
. rt.o". l.u \ \
●
●
○
.laÂ".im.a
\.lar".im.a \
[
∋ .Ât.ol".u.nE)l
∋
.Ât.ol".u.E)l
.Ât.ol".un.E)l
∋
. rt.o". l.u-n.E). l \ \
.laÂ".im.a.O)b [ .laÂ".im.a.nOb
∋
.laÂ"im.an.O)b .laÂ".im.an.Ob
=
.O)b
n.Ob
\.lar".im.an.Ob \
d
]d
’
[
●
●
\n.Ob \
d
d
B
]d*
]d [ [
]d* ’ d**
]d*
[
=
∋
○
m.ÂOn".e
\. m.rOn".e \
A
m.ÂOn".e.O)b [
m.ÂOn".en.)Ob m.ÂOn"e.nOb
∋
m.ÂOn".en.Ob
\. m.rOn".e-n.Ob \
76
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
optional liaison; it is simply a generalization made by Encrevé that has to be qualified. Liaison phenomena, even in the special case of nasals, can obviously be dealt with in a principled way if my version of the Clements-Keyser idea is adopted. Tranel’s criticism (1993: 99–104) is directed against marking unstable phonological consonants by a specific ‘feature’ [extrasyllabic] (or, in a different but related approach, [−Code Formation]: 104f.) to ensure that they are actually treated as extrasyllabic in a syllable assignment process. My own account is non-generative; therefore, no such feature is needed, and Tranel’s criticism does not apply. The problems of nasal alternation are known to be tied up with another notorious problem of French phonology, the status of schwa. (For a descriptive account, see Tranel 1987: Chapter 6, also, Noske 1992: Section 6.2; for a critical evaluation of some other generative treatments, Tranel 1981: Chapter 8, also, Encrevé 1988: Chapter 3. Encrevé 1988: 212–231 and Noske 1992: Chapter 6 propose their own solutions, each within some version of non-linear phonology. More restricted problems are discussed in Verluyten (ed.) 1988, also in Hannahs 1995: 36–43.) 7.4 The problem of phonological schwa Consider, once again, example (29a), here rewritten as (39)
○ e = bonne [ "bO.n ] ● l = [ "bO.n ] bon
The upper line is orthographic. There is no problem in identifying bon with \ "bO.n \ , but what does ‘e’ denote? For the Nasal Alternation Theorem to work, e must be a vocalic phonological sequence. On a traditional interpretation, the vowel involved would be \´\ (phonological schwa), and the sequence might be (40)
Vc 1
e = \ ´.\ =
\ ´\
=
〈\ ´\
1
, {〈{1}, Vc(−,S)〉}, {L(S)}1〉
L
The main arguments that are given in the literature in support of \´\ as the sound of e can be summarized as, ‘\´\ is structurally necessary’ (structure argument). The main arguments against \´\ are phonetic (phonetic counterarguments):
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
77
(i)
with certain qualifications (see, for example, Tranel 1987: Section 6.3.2), \´\ is never represented phonetically when it occurs in word-final position after a single consonant (ii) phonetic sounds representing \´\ are hard to distinguish from, and may actually be identical to, representations of \{\ or, possibly, \P\ (cf. Verluyten 1988: 3f.) It may therefore be argued that either (iii) or (iv): (iii) on the basis of (i): \´\ has no feature content but e may still have variants whose only sound does have content (such variants are allowed to cover occurrences in positions other than word-final) — an apparent absurdity (iv) on the basis of (ii): \´\ is the same as \{\ In either case, there is no separate phoneme \´\ in addition to the usual vowel phonemes. (While it is true that neither (iii) nor (iv) are logical consequences of (i) or (ii), they are still supported by them.) I subscribe to the structure argument in support of \´\ if it is put as follows: something like \´\ is necessary for an optimal account of morphological and syntactic paradigms. (This differs from the structure argument used in the standard generative treatment of French phonology and rejected in Tranel 1981: 293.) I must therefore deal with the phonetic counterarguments. Position (iv) (which is actually taken in Verluyten 1985) leads to a wellknown difficulty: some occurrences of \{\ would be stable (always represented by a phonetic sound), others would be unstable (sometimes but not always represented by a phonetic sound). Assuming two phonemes instead of one provides a natural explanation, which otherwise would not be available (cf. the list of heterogeneous factors for l’effacement de schwa in Verluyten 1988: 4–11). (iv) should therefore be rejected. Surprisingly, position (iii) turns out to be tenable. 7.5 Empty-Vc sequences: a treatment of schwa Sounds were construed as sets of features. I now allow the empty set as a sound, introducing the apostrophe between slashes as another name of the empty set (this makes for more readable phonological transcriptions): (41)
\ ’\ =
∅
We may then introduce the following general notion of a ‘sequence with empty sounds’, such as ‘empty-Vc Low-sequence’:
78
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
(42)
Suppose that a. S is an idiolect system; b. \ ’\ is a phonological sound of S; c. R(−,S) is a sound constituent category of S; d. the unit sequence of \ ’\ 1, i.e. 1 = {〈1, 〉} = the unit sequence of the empty set, is an element of R(−,S); e. (i) or (ii): (i) p = p0 (where p0 is the function that assigns the empty set to any S), and p(S) is an intonation structure of 1 \ ’\ ; (ii) p is a pitch function (a function like Low that assigns to any S a pitch: L(S) = Low-in-S), and {p(S)}1 is an intonation structure of \ ’\ 1.
∅
∅
∅
Then the empty-R p-sequence of S = the triple 〈\ ’\ 1,{〈{1}, R(−,S)〉},I p〉 such that (i) or (ii): (i) p = p0, and I p = p(S); (ii) p ≠ p0, and I p = {p(S)}1. For example, if (a) to (e) are met for S, if R = Vc, and if p = Low, then (43)
the empty-Vc Low-sequence of S = 1 1 〈\ ’\ , {〈{1}, Vc(−,S)〉}, {L(S)} 〉, abbreviated as Vc 1
’
\ .\
=
\
’\ L
I now assume that conditions (42a) to (42e) are indeed satisfied for Standard French idiolect systems S, Vc, and Low; i.e. the notion of empty-Vc Lowsequence is well-defined for such systems. (43) may then be used to interpret (40) (replace ‘´ ’ by the apostrophe, and ‘´ ’ by bold-face apostrophe), and (39) may be rewritten as (44)
\
"bO.n \ ○ \ ’. \ = \ "bO.n ’. \
[
"bO.n ] ● l = [ "bO.n ]
∅∅∅
Following (44), l = 〈 , , 〉 must be a variant of \ ’. \ . We may actually require in the general phonological theory that for any S, p, and R, if condi-
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
79
tions (42a) to (42e) are met, then l is a variant of the empty-R p-sequence in S, and some w' ≠ l also is. In case of \ ’. \ in Standard French idiolect systems, [ {. ] may be assumed as a second variant of \ ’. \ . (The idea of using an ‘empty sound’ in dealing with French schwa can be traced back at least to Anderson 1982; cf. Encrevé 1988: 123f.) l is the identity element for phonetic connection; therefore, if [ "bO.n ] is connected with l, we obtain {[ "bO.n ] }, and [ "bO.n ] may be taken to be a variant of \ "bO.n ’. \ . Indeed, we must assume a theorem for Standard French that tells us when a phonetic variant of w1 connected with a phonetic variant of \ ’. \ will result in a variant of the connection of w1 and w2. In a situation like (44), l is permitted as a variant of \ ’. \ . It is less clear whether [ {. ] is actually excluded (cf. Encrevé 1988: 225f.). — It turns out, then, that (i)
counterargument (i) in Section 7.4 against force against \ ’\ .
\ ´\
as the sound of e has no
Now consider the variants of \ ’. \ other than l. There is nothing in the general theory that prevents these variants from involving only phonetic sounds in their sound sequences that also represent phonological sounds other than \ ’\ , in particular, represent \ {\ . On the contrary, the very fact that \ ’\ has no feature content of its own may favour such a situation. It is an empirical question if, or to what extent, this situation obtains in Standard French. Therefore, (ii) counterargument (ii) in Section 7.4 against force against \ ’\ .
\ ´\
as the sound of e has no
Rejecting the phonetic arguments against \ ´\ as arguments against \ ’\ does not mean that we subscribe to \ ’\ wherever \ ´\ is postulated in the literature (for example, Tranel 1981: Chapter 8 attacks ‘three protective morphological schwas’, only one of which is reconstructed in (44)). By and large, the proposed analysis covers the cases where there is an alternation between l and [ {. ] that can be connected with a traditional \ ´\ . Empty-sound sequences also play a role in solving another problem of French phonology, the proper treatment of so-called h-aspiré words. 7.6 Empty-C sequences: a treatment of h-aspiré Following Tranel (1987: 93), H-aspiré words can be defined as words which, even though they begin with a vowel phonetically, prevent the realization of phenomena such as liaison and elision.
80
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
(For a list of such words, see op. cit. Appendix E. — ‘h-aspiré’ may also occur word-internally, as in rehausser ‘make higher’.) Treatments during the period from 1965 to 1984 are characterized in Encrevé (1988: Chapter 3), as part of a report on liaison research, see also Tranel (1981: Chapter 9); more recently, Tranel (1995: 65–67). I take as a starting-point the proposal for h-aspiré words made in Clements & Keyser (1983: 108) and exemplified for héros ‘hero’ as in σ
(45)
σ
C
Vc
C
Vc
e
r
o
Differently from Clements and Keyser, I introduce \ ’\ at the segmental level: (46)
VcGr VcGr C Vc C Vc 1 2 3 4
\ ’e."ro.\ =
\ ’ e r o\ L H
What is used in (46) is the empty-C p0-sequence, or empty-C sequence, for short. By definition (42), this is
(47)
C 1
\ ’\ =
\ ’\
∅
= 〈\ ’\ 1, {〈{1}, C〉},
∅
〉
Reference to idiolect system S is omitted in (46) and (47). — Use of an ‘empty sound’ to distinguish h-aspiré words from ‘true vowel-initial’ words can be traced back at least to Piggott & Singh (1985); cf. Tranel (1995: 67), who correctly remarks of such proposals that they […] do not actually exploit the resources of nonlinear phonology to represent h-aspiré words. In fact, they are similar in spirit to the earlier linear treatments which provided for these words some sort of abstract initial
81
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
consonant (cf. Schane 1968, Dell 1970, Selkirk 1972, Selkirk & Vergnaud 1973; see Tranel 1981a for discussion).
As noted by Tranel (1981 = 1981a: 295), “the nature of this consonant is uncertain”, and (page 303) […] contrary to the traditional descriptive claim made about h-aspiré words, these items do not behave like consonant-initial words in all respects.
However, inspection of Tranel’s subsequent discussion (303ff, see also Tranel 1995: 71–75) shows that practically all deviant behaviour is explained on the assumption, not made in pre-1981 generative work, that the word-initial consonant is empty. The empty-C analysis is therefore superior to both the standard generative treatment and the no-consonant analysis exemplified by (45), which has no satisfactory explanation for the appearance of [ /] in connection with the phonetic variants of h-aspiré words. In his short report on previous research, Tranel (1981: 310f.) states that / [ ] has been shown to appear ‘before’ the phonetic variants of both h-aspiré words and regular vowel-initial words. However, The function of the glottal stop may be different when it occurs [311] before h-aspiré words from when it occurs before regular vowel-initial words. In the latter case, its function is generally “contrastive, emphatic, or citational” (Freeman 1975), whereas in the former case, it is not necessarily so.
(“Freeman 1975”: reference to an unpublished manuscript.) This is most naturally interpreted as signifying representation of an underlying consonant in the first case and a truly epenthetic phonetic sound in the second; it is quite unwarranted that Tranel should go on to claim that “From a phonological perspective […] the source of these glottal stops can be considered to be the same […]”, namely, epenthesis. (Cf. Encrevé 1988: 229, who in the analogous case of [´] as a potential representation of a traditional \ ´\ is led to distinguish a ‘fausse’ épenthèse from a ‘vraie’ épenthèse.) I will indeed assume that (48)
’ (the empty-C sequence) has at least the variants l and / 1 , {〈{1}, C〉}, 〉 in Standard French idiolect systems.
\ \
〈[ ]
∅∅∅
∅
[/]
=df
Whereas l = 〈 , , 〉 is a variant of both the empty-Vc Low-sequence \ ’. \ and the empty-C sequence \ ’\ , [ {. ] is a variant only of the former, and [ / ] only of the latter. As an example, \ ’e."ro. \ and its variants may now be obtained as follows:
82
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
(49)
○ l ● [/] ● \ ’\
\ e."ro. \
= \ ’e."ro. \
[ e."Âo. ]
= [ e."Âo. ] = [ /e."Âo. ]
Since the second variant begins with a consonant, it can only behave like a consonant-initial not a vowel-initial sequence. The ‘consonantal’ behaviour of the first variant, which is vowel-initial, is exemplified for a certain derivative of the variant in (50)
\ mO) . n \ d [ mO) . ] d
○ \ ’e."ro.\ d = ● [e."Âo.]d =
\ mO) . n- ’e."ro. \ d [ mO) . e."Âo. ] d
The example is covered by the Nasal Alternation Theorem since w2 = \ ’e."ro. \ d begins with a consonant (case (ji) in (27)); it is immaterial that w2' = [ e."Âo. ] d begins with a vowel. On the other hand, \ ’\ = has no feature content, and is therefore easily lost. This would result in w2 = \ e."ro \ d, which is vowel-initial, and w1 and w2 in (50) would then require liaison, i.e. phonetic connection would be defined only for w1' = [ mO) . n ] . The Nasal Alternation Theorem would now yield [ mO) . ne."Âo. ] as the only variant of \ mO) . ne."ro. \ . Generally, if in a single idiolect system a vowel-initial variant of a potential h-aspiré word sometimes does and sometimes does not behave like a consonant-initial sequence, then it is a shared variant of two analogous phonological sequences only one of which begins with \ ’\ . In all cases, h-aspiré words are accommodated by the Nasal Alternation Theorem. Notorious problem cases, viz. onze ‘eleven’, huit ‘eight’, and ouest ‘west’, are accounted for by construing the first as an h-aspiré word and the other two as beginning with a non-empty consonant (\ Á\ and \ w\ ) already at the phonological level.
∅
7.7 Scope of the theorem: suppletion Examples (26) delineate a maximal range of phenomena that may be covered by the Nasal Alternation Theorem. So far we have been concerned mainly with (ai) in (26), gender distinctions for adjectives, and (d), liaison with masculine singular adjectives, which jointly provide the traditional centre of interest. In addition, the theorem also covers the following cases in (26): —
Gender distinctions for nouns ((aii) in (26)): baron ‘baron’ and baronne ‘baroness’ are reconstructed as \ ba."rO.n \ and \ ba."rO.n ’. \ , with a single stem morph \ ba."rO.n \ which happens to be identical to the phonological word constituting the singular form of the masculine noun.
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
—
83
Derivational morphology ((c) in (26)): (i) Nouns / first conjugation verbs (zero suffixation) béton ‘concrete’ and bétonner ‘to build with concrete’ are reconstructed as \ be."tO.n \ and \ be.tO."ne. \ , with a single stem morph \ be."tO.n \ whose variants are [ be."tO.n ] and [ be."tO) . ] . (In any of the verb forms this morph is followed by a morph beginning with a vowel, be it only \ ’\ . Therefore, the non-\ n\ -variant is never used in building up the phonetic variants of the verb forms — or rather, of the phonological words that constitute the verb forms.) Dealing with word derivation of this type (‘conversion’) is known to be a minefield both from a morphological and a semantic point of view but assuming a single stem morph in these cases is defensible. (ii) Word derivation by non-zero suffixation (Productive prefixation with in- was shown to be covered.) béton ‘concrete’ and bétonnière ‘concrete mixer’ are reconstructed as \ be."tO.n \ and \ be.tO."njEr. \ with a single stem morph \ be."tO.n \ .
This leaves us with (26b), third conjugation verbs; for a complete list of relevant verbs, see Tranel 1981: 98. It was suggested already in Tranel l.c. as the most plausible solution that both sets of allomorphs are listed in the lexicon and that rules distribute them in the correct grammatical contexts.
This can be understood as a proposal for suppletion within a stem paradigm. I follow the proposal and treat these verbs on the following pattern. (51)
Third conjugation verbs: example venir There are three stem morphs: a. \ "vjE) . \ , with variant [ "vjE) . ] , cf. viens, vient, viendra b. \ "vjEn. \ , with variant [ "vjEn. ] , cf. vienne, viennent c. \ v ’n. \ with variants [ v{n. ] and [ vn ] , cf. venir = \ v ’n¢ i r. \ , with variants [ v{"n¢ i Â. ] and [ "vniÂ. ] (syllabification is debatable)
None of these morphs ends in a nasal L such that there are both L- and non-Lvariants of the morph. Existence of both types of variants is required by the antecedent of the Nasal Alternation Theorem. Therefore, group (26b) is outside the scope of the theorem in the sense that the relevant phonological sequences do not satisfy its antecedent. This leaves the truth of the theorem unaffected: if the antecedent of an implication is false, the implication is true.
84
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
A similar pattern of stem morphs, to be evaluated in the same way, underlies l / [ E ] alternation for first conjugation verbs (for the factual basis — without syllabification — see Tranel 1988, esp. 117f.; Morin 1988, esp. 149f.; Tranel’s analysis is similar to mine): (52)
First conjugation verbs: example acheter ‘buy’ There are two stem morphs: a. (cf. (51b)): \ a."SEt. \ , with variant [ a."SEt. ], cf. achète = \ a."SEt ¢ ’. \ , phonetically [ a."SEt. ] achèteriez = \ a.SEt ¢ ’.ri."e.z \ , with two types of variants: [ a.SEt ¢ { ."Âje.z ] [ a.SEt ¢ Â i."je.z ]
b. (cf. (51c)): \ a.S ’t. \ with variant [ a.St ] but not [ a.S{t. ] (syllabification debatable), cf. achetez = \ a.S ’"t ¢ e .z \ , with variants like [ a."Ste.z ] achèteriez = \ a.S ’t ¢ ’.ri."e.z \ , with two types of variants: [ a.St{."Âje.z ] [ a.StÂi."je.z ]
There is a further case where suppletion should be assumed, if for different reasons: this is the case of the indefinite article un / une (analogously, the numeral meaning ‘one’ and the pronoun chacun / chacune). I assume a stem paradigm with the following stem morphs (differently from the morphs associated with the numeral, the article morphs all have inherently low pitch): (53)
a.
\ y.n \
with the variants [ y.n ] and [ E) . ]
b.
\ E) . n \
with variants [ E) . n ] and [ E) . ]
In the case of venir, none of the three stem morphs was in the scope of the Alternation Theorem; in the case of un / une, both stem morphs are. \ y.n \ is the morph that is used word-internally in inflexion: une = \ y.n ’. \ (the numeral but not the article also allows for derivation: unifier, with \ "y.n \ as a startingpoint). \ E) . n \ is the morph that underlies the word derivative \ E) . n \ d, with variants [ E) . n ] d and [ E) . ] d which figure in liaison. No suppletion is needed for the other ‘mon-type words’ (rien etc.: Encrevé 1988: 204f.); for each one there is only a single stem morph, which ends in a nasal vowel plus nasal, as in (53b). In short, then, suppletion may but need not take us outside the scope of the Alternation Theorem.
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
8
85
Generalizations
8.1 The Consonant Alternation Theorem The Nasal Alternation Theorem takes a phonological sequence w that ends in a single extrasyllabic nasal L and deals with the L- and non-L-variants of the sequence. The non-L-variants all end in a nasal vowel. This is due to the fact that there may be an underlying nasal vowel already in w, or else a nasal vowel — more or less closely related to the phonetic oral vowel from which we start in phonetic connection — is introduced only at the phonetic level, cf. (53a). The essential phonological fact is the extrasyllabic character of the phonological nasal L, which marks its status as an unstable consonant. The connection between nasal alternation and unstable consonants is, as a matter of fact, also made in the literature; for example, Tranel (1981), who advocates consonant insertion for most cases of unstable consonants (cf. 275f.), also does so for the nasals in nasal alternation (117ff); and Encrevé (1988) includes them among his ‘liaison consonants’ (“Nous avons vue que les consonnes de liaison nasales se comportent comme les autres […]”, 203). We may therefore consider the following theorem, of which the Nasal Alternation Theorem is a special case: (54)
Consonant Alternation Theorem [= (27), substituting “L at the end of w1 is a consonant in S” for “L is a nasal” in (27d); spelled out as:] Suppose that a. S is an idiolect system of Standard French; b. wi is a (structured) phonological sequence of S, and wi' is a variant of wi in S, for i = 1, 2; c. w1 ends in L; d. L at the end of w1 is a consonant in S; e. there are non-L-variants of w1 in S and L-variants of w1 in S; f. w2 ≠ l; g. ○S is defined for 〈w1, w2〉; h. ●S is defined for 〈w1', w2'〉; i. w3 w1' ●S w2'.
∈
Then j.
w3 is a variant of w1 ○S w2 in S iff (i) or (ii): (i) w2 begins with a consonant in S, and w1' is a non-Lvariant of w1 in S; (ii) w2 begins with a vowel in S, and (α) or (β):
86
HANS-HEINRICH LIEB
α. w1 ○S w2 is word-oriented in S, and w1' is an Lvariant of w1 in S;
β. w1 ○S w2 is not word-oriented in S, and (β1) or (β2) or (β3): β1. w1 and w2 require liaison for L in S, and w1' is an L-variant of w1 in S, and any last syllable of w1' is also a syllable of w3; β2. w1 and w2 exclude liaison for L in S, and w1' is a non-L-variant of w1 in S; β3. w1 and w2 allow liaison for L in S, and w1' is a variant of w1 in S. Condition (d) is to be understood as follows. w1 is a triple 〈f p, k p, I p〉. Let n be the length of the base f p, which is a sound sequence. (c) then implies that 〈n, L〉 f p. (d) says that {〈n, L〉} is associated with C(−,S) in the constituent structure k p. In contradistinction, “L is a nasal” simply means that some feature in some articulation base of L implies the feature Nasal. “L is a nasal” cannot simply be replaced by “L is a consonant” because no feature Consonant is assumed. Otherwise, all of Sections 6 and 7 generalize to an explanation and a defence of the Consonant Alternation Theorem. There is, however, at least one case covered by the general theorem that does not simply generalize from the special case of nasals.
∈
8.2 A critical case for the Consonant Alternation Theorem An unstable nasal is always preceded by a vowel but this is not true for arbitrary consonants; cf. court ‘short’, with an unstable \ t\ preceded by \ r\ . Such words are notorious for causing problems in connection with liaison: court entracte ‘short interlude’, whose phonetic sound sequence is [kuÂA) t Âakt] , without a [t] after the first [Â] despite a following vowel; at the same time, there is a plural [z] in courts entractes: [kurzA) t Âakt] (cf. Tranel 1995: 70). Table (55) (next page) indicates how such cases relate to the Consonant Alternation Theorem (courte interaction ‘short interaction’; the sets of phonetic sequences that result from phonetic connection are incompletely specified): a. court entracte. This is covered by (β2) in (jii) of (54): (i) w2 begins with a vowel (ii) w1 ○ w2 is sentence-oriented (iii) w1 and w2 exclude liaison for \ t\ (w3 in (a1) is no variant of w1 ○ w2 because w1 ○ w2 ‘phonologically represents a singular A+N construction’ and \ t\ is preceded in w1 by an intrasyllabic consonant)
87
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
(55)
a.
w1
\
A)."trak.t'.\ d
w1'
w2'
kuÂ.t]d ● [kuÂ.]d ●
a1. a2.
A)."tÂak.t]d
[
[
b.
w1
kur.tz\ d ○
\
[
=
\
kur.t-A)."trak.t'.\ d w3
∋ ∋
kuÂ.tA)."tÂak.t]d* [ku¢A)."tÂak.t]d
[
w1 ○ w2
w2 \
A)."trak.t'.z\ d
w1'
b1. b2.
w1 ○ w2
w2
kur.t\ d ○
\
w2'
kuÂ.z]d ●
A)."tÂak.t]d
[
=
\
kur.t-zA)."trak.t'.z\ d w3
∋
kuÂ.zA)."tÂak.t]d
[
= (a2)*
c.
w1
\
w1'
kuÂ.t]d ●
c1.
[
d.
w2'
E).tE¢ak."sjO).]d
[
w1
\
w1 ○ w2
w2
kur.t'.\ d ○ \ E).tEr¢ak."sjO.n\ d =
∋
\
kur.t'.E).tEr¢ak."sjO.n]d w3
kuÂ.tE).tE¢ak."sjO).]d
[
w2
w1 ○ w2
w2'
w3
kur.t'.z\ ○ \ E).tEr¢ak."sjO.nz\ d = \ kur.t'.zE).tEr¢Ak."sjO.nz\ d
d
w1'
d1 . d2 .
kuÂt.z]d ●
[
E).tE¢ak."sjO).]d
[
∋
kuÂt.zE).tE¢ak."sjO).]d
[
= (c1)*
* Not a variant of the relevant sequence
(iv) w1' = [ kuÂ. ] d is a non-\ t\ -variant of w1 There is nothing unusual about court entracte except that addition of a phonological condition in (iii) (preceding intrasyllabic consonant) changes a set of conditions for required liaison to a set for excluded liaison. (Note that the syntactic condition in (iii) is needed to account for obligatory liaison in cases like court-il? and for optional liaison in cases like fort intéressant — cf. Tranel 1995: 70f.) b. courts entractes. This is covered by (β1) in (jii) of (54): (i) w2 begins with a vowel (ii) w1 ○ w2 is sentence-oriented (iii) w1 and w2 require liaison for \ z\ (w3 in (b2) is no variant of w1 ○ w2 because w1 ○ w2 ‘phonologically represents a pluralic A+N construction’
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and w2 begins with a vowel; it should also be noted that [ kuÂt.z ] d is no variant of \ kur.tz \ d to begin with) (iv) w1' = [ kuÂ.z ] d is a \z\ -variant of w1 (v) syllable [kuÂ] of w1' is also a syllable of w3 in (b1) c. courte interaction. This example is not in the scope of the theorem, hence, does not contradict it: (54d) is not satisfied since w1 ends in \ ’\ = and \ ’\ at the end of w1 is a vowel in S, i.e. {〈5, \ ’\ 〉} is associated with Vc(−,S) in the constituent structure of w1:
∅
(56)
VcGr VcGr C Vc C C Vc 1 2 3 4 5
\ kur.t’.\ d = [ k u r t ’ ] {L, …} {L}
True, the extrasyllabic [t] of [ kur.t ] d becomes the onset of the initial syllable of w2' when phonetic connection is applied but this is a normal result of the connection function. d. courtes interactions. This again is covered by (β1) in (jii) of (54), by an argument strictly analogous to (b); w1' = [ kuÂt.z ] d, where [t] represents a syllable-initial \ t\ . The problem discussed in this section is the only one not raised by the more restricted Nasal Alternation Theorem. (The ‘eccentric’ behaviour of words like huit = \ "Ái.t \ , with non-\ t\ -variants ‘before consonant’ and \ t\ variants ‘in isolation’, is easily explained by assuming three not two phonetic variants: [ "Ái. ] , [ "Ái.t ] , and in addition, [ "Áit. ] . That’s all there is to it — explanations from the point of view of Optimality Theory, as attempted by Tranel 1996, strike me as vacuous.) I conclude that the generalization to arbitrary consonants — the Consonant Alternation Theorem — is tenable. This does not mean that there are no alternative ways to deal with the facts. 8.3 Approaches to consonant alternation The following types of proposals can be considered in order to cover consonant alternation at the phonetic level: (57)
a. Level involvement (i) Alternation is described by also referring to a phonological level.
THE CASE FOR TWO-LEVEL PHONOLOGY
(ii)
89
Alternation is described without referring to a phonological level.
b. Alternation type (i) Alternation is described as a form of consonant elision. (ii) Alternation is described as a form of consonant epenthesis. (iii) Alternation is described as a form of suppletion. (iv) Alternation is described by choosing several of (i) to (iii) simultaneously. All proposals so far that have been worked out in any detail — including my own — are of type (a.i), i.e. make use of a phonological level, and of type (b.iv), i.e. mix two or more of the elision, epenthesis, and suppletion approaches. My own proposal is predominantly elision: the Consonant Alternation Theorem allows for non-representation of consonants that are present at the phonological level. The proposal assigns a secondary role to suppletion (cf. Section 7.7) and epenthesis (e.g., [ /] in front of a phonetic vowel is epenthetic). Tranel (1981) is predominantly epenthesis (with a secondary role assigned to suppletion). This allows a unified treatment of all (non-suppletive) zero/consonant alternation as epenthetic and is supported by the fact that in the vast majority of liaison cases only four consonants are involved: [z] , [t] , [n] and [r] (see, for instance, Léon 1972: 123). However, as already remarked by Noske (1992: Section 6.2.2, fn. 3, on Tranel’s (1981) treatment of the feminine forms of adjectives): This entails a considerable extension of the information included in the lexicon because the quality of the final obstruent is not predictable. For this reason, Tranel’s account is rejected by most phonologists.
More recently, Tranel (1992) has argued that (269) […] syllabification properties of liaison allomorphs motivate a suppletive analysis, for a subset of the adjectives often considered to warrant unique lexical representations.
He distinguishes (271ff) “clear suppletive cases”, e.g. beau / bel, “clear nonsuppletive cases”, e.g. des enfants, nous chantons ensemble, il faut arriver, and “uncertain cases”, e.g. bon with / without nasal, referring to the relevant literature for each group. The second group appears to be treated by a kind of elision (cf. 1992: 282) but part of the third group, in particular, ‘bon-type
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words’, are to be treated by suppletion — by assuming several phonological words, on our account. Tranel (1992) may therefore be classified as predominantly suppletion, with elision (and epenthesis) in a secondary role. He summarizes his arguments as follows (304f.): The advantage of the suppletive treatment is that it explains (i) the distribution between leftward and [305] rightward syllabification for the final consonants of liaison allomorphs [phonetic variants of word derivatives, on our account, H. L.] and (ii) the trend toward the occurrence of nasal vowels in liaison.
Reason (i) refers to a special ‘syntactic test for deletion’, whose results (1992: Section 4) are, however, just as easily explained on our own account (by properties of phonetic connection of sentence-oriented sequences — see Section 7.3); and the trend towards nasal vowels (reason (ii)) can be explained as follows: firstly, there are contexts of obligatory and optional liaison in which nasal vowels occur even in the case of an underlying oral vowel; secondly, only nasal vowels occur for excluded liaison; thirdly, only nasal vowels occur for underlying nasal vowels, and underlying nasal vowels should be more frequent than combinations of an oral vowel and a nasal — a ‘trend toward the occurrence of nasal vowels in liaison’ may well be inevitable. 8.4 Is the phonological level dispensable? No proposal of type (a.ii), i.e. a proposal to describe zero/consonant alternation in Standard French without referring to a phonological level, has ever been seriously developed. I do not claim that such a description is impossible. It would, however, meet with serious difficulties of the following type. Given an adjective like the lexical word — not the word form — bon, we would certainly continue to postulate a single root morph for all its forms. The most defensible choice would be [ "bO.n ] . The phonetic words that would now constitute the forms of the lexical word bon either are identical to the root morph or are obtained by adding inflectional endings. The most defensible choice for the paradigm of forms is as in (58) (next page). (Since no phonological level is assumed, the forms are syntactic units, i.e. sequences of phonetic words; hence, the superscript ‘1’ meaning ‘the unit sequence of’.) Additional phonetic sequences like [ "bO) . ] are taken to be variants of one or several of the words in the paradigm (in a sense where the variant relation may now hold between phonetic sequences) and are excluded from the paradigm.
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(58) Sg
Pl
"bO.n]1
m
[
f
[
"bO.n]1
"bO).z]1
[
"bOn.z]1
[
Now consider phonetic connection. We cannot demand that connecting a sequence like [ "bO.n ] with a consonantal sequence invariably leads to a nasal vowel, as in (59)
[ "bO.n ]
● [z] = {["bO).z], ["bO).]}
This is incompatible with the existence of [ "bOn.z ] , which must also result from connecting [ "bO.n ] with [ z ] . Put differently, it is no longer true that ‘oral vowel plus nasal’ turns into a nasal vowel ‘before consonant’: if we restrict ourselves to the phonetic level and adopt (58), the change may or may not occur; it is phonetically unpredictable. It is exactly such problems, for which a solution in purely phonetic terms has never been offered, that motivate enriching the phonology by a phonological level: ‘before consonant’ may then be interpreted to mean ‘before a consonant on the phonological level’. Our example now takes the following form. The root morph is \ "bO.n \ . The paradigm is not as in (58) but as in (60) Sg m f
\
\
Pl
"bO.n\ 1
"bO.n’.\ 1
\
\
"bO).z\ 1
"bO.n’.z\ 1
The phonetic words in (58) — and other relevant phonetic sequences — are obtained as variants of the phonological words in (60), and (59) may be replaced by a formulation that is true: ‘nasalization’ at the phonetic level is now triggered by a consonant at the phonological level, in agreement with the Nasal Alternation Theorem or, more generally, the Consonant Alternation Theorem. Thus, we obtain [ "bO) . z ] but not [ "bOn.z ] as a variant of \ "bO.nz \ , because of \ "bO.n \ ○ \ z \ ; and [ "bOn.z ] but not [ "bO) . z ] as a variant of \ "bO.n ’.z \ , because of \ "bO.n \ ○ \ ’.z \ .
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8.5 Summary and conclusions A fundamental feature of Standard German, obstruent tensing, and an equally fundamental feature of Standard French, nasal alternation, were analysed within the framework of a two-level phonology, Integrational Phonology as recently developed. As already suggested in part of the literature, nasal alternation was found to be a special case of consonant alternation (the phenomenon of ‘unstable consonants’) so that obstruent tensing could be compared not only to nasal alternation but, more generally, to consonant alternation in French. It was argued for German that word-final tensing should be kept apart from all other obstruent tensing, whose true nature as preconsonantal tensing is not recognized in the literature. Correspondingly, word-final tensing was shown to be just one of several conditions identifying phonetic words, whereas preconsonantal tensing was covered by the Obstruent Tensing Theorem. This theorem shows interrelations between phonological connection, phonetic connection, and the variant relation. The crucial point is the fact that a phonetic variant of a certain phonological sequence ends in a tense or a lax obstruent depending on the beginning of another phonological sequence with which the first is connected: tense, if the second sequence is consonant-initial, lax, if it is vowel-initial. In short, the occurrence of phonetic sounds may be conditioned by phonological environment — a statement impossible by definition in a one-level phonology. It was then argued for French that there is a largely analogous situation in the case of nasal alternation or, more generally, consonant alternation. Leaving the word-identification aspect undiscussed, I formulated the Nasal Alternation Theorem and subsequently, the Consonant Alternation Theorem, to account for the appearance vs. non-appearance of certain consonants at the end of a variant when a phonological sequence is connected with a vowel-initial vs. a consonant-initial phonological sequence. Differently from German, liaison phenomena had to be taken into account; but just as in the case of German, it proved necessary, in defending the theorem, to confront other basic phonological problems of the language, which were solved by applying the tools of a two-level phonology. Both the Obstruent Tensing Theorem for Standard German and the Nasal and Consonant Alternation Theorems for Standard French were eventually upheld. We thus provided solutions to two fundamental, much-discussed phonological problems of, respectively, German and French phonology that eventually draw on the means provided by a two-level as opposed to a onelevel phonology. Moreover, it was shown — for the first time, if I am correct — that German Obstruent Tensing and French Consonant Alternation (in particular, Nasal
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Alternation), two seemingly unrelated phenomena that lack any historical connection, each exemplify precisely the same phonological-phonetic mechanism, to the extent that the theorem on German and the theorems on French have identical logical structure (with a single qualification) and are obtained from each other by interchanging different linguistic terms that have the same, or very similar, theoretical status. In summary, nobody so far has given a serious account in a one-level phonology either of German Obstruent Tensing or of Nasal or Consonant Alternation in French. I do not claim that such an account is impossible in principle; it is just unlikely that it can be given. My own analysis, on the other hand, has the following merits: (i) in either language, it completely covers all phenomena (ii) in either language, it would easily become part of a more comprehensive theory of the sound system (iii) it exhibits a single phonological-phonetic mechanism at work in both languages, a mechanism for which even greater generality across languages may be suspected My analysis uses the means of Integrational Phonology, a ‘declarative’ phonology of considerable power. It may well be that any such analysis requires two-level phonologies comparable in power to Integrational Phonology, phonologies where the traditional emphasis on sound and sound sequences is shifted to structured sound sequences. In any case my analysis of the phenomena does support a two-level phonology: anybody who still prefers a monostratal approach will now have to pick up the ball in his or her own court.
REFERENCES* Anderson, Stephen R. 1982. “The analysis of French schwa: or, how to get something for nothing”. Language 58. 534–573. Bańczerowski, Jerzy, Jerzy Pogonowski & Tadeusz Zgółka. 1992. “A new structuralism in phonology”. Lieb, ed. 1992. 185–224. Bird, Steven. 1995. Computational phonology: a constrained-based approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Studies in Natural Language Processing). *
The relevant literature was systematically checked up to 1995, more superficially until 1999. Post-1995 phonological literature is characterized by a growing influence of Optimality Theory. Application of OT, barely touched upon in this essay, has not, in my view, resulted in a superior treatment of the problems that are studied here. I have therefore decided to leave the text unchanged, rather than further add to its size by explicitly updating the literature.
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Braun, Angelika. 1988. Zum Merkmal “Fortis/Lenis”: Phonologische Betrachtungen und instrumentalphonetische Untersuchungen an einem mittelhessischen Dialekt. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. (= Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik. Beihefte, 55). Brockhaus, Wiebke. 1995. Final devoicing in the phonology of German. Tübingen: Niemeyer. (= Linguistische Arbeiten, 336). Chomsky, Noam A. & Morris Halle. 1968. The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper and Row. Clements, George N. & Samuel Jay Keyser. 1983. CV phonology. A generative theory of the syllable. Cambridge, MA, etc.: The MIT Press. (= Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, 9). Dell, François. 1970. Les règles phonologiques tardives et la morphologie dérivationnelle du français. Ph.D. diss., MIT. Dell, François. 1973. “Two cases of exceptional rule ordering”. Generative grammar in Europe ed. by Ferenc Kiefer & Nicolas Ruwet, 141–153. Dordrecht: Reidel. Eggs, Ekkehard & Isabelle Mordellet. 1990. Phonétique et phonologie du français. Théorie et pratique. Tübingen: Niemeyer. (= Romanistische Arbeitshefte, 34). Eisenberg, Peter, Karl Heinz Ramers & Heinz Vater, eds. 1992. Silbenphonologie des Deutschen. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. (= Studien zur deutschen Grammatik, 42). Encrevé, Pierre. 1988. La liaison avec et sans enchaînement. Phonologie tridimensionnelle et usages du français. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Féry, Caroline. 1991. “German schwa in prosodic morphology”. Prosodische Phonologie ed. by Karl-Heinz Ramers & Richard Wiese, 65–85. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. (= Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 10:1). Hannahs, Stephen J. 1995. Prosodic structure and French morphophonology. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Hansen, Anita Berit. 1998. Les voyelles nasales du français parisien moderne. Aspects linguistiques, sociolinguistiques et perceptuels des changements en cours. Copenhague: Museum Tusculanum Press. (= Etudes Romanes, 40, Institut d’Etudes Romanes, Université de Copenhague). Heike, Georg. 1992. “Zur Phonetik der Silbe”. Eisenberg, Ramers & Vater, eds. 1992. 1– 44. Hockett, Charles F. 1961. “Linguistic elements and their relations”. Language 37. 29–53. Kenstowicz, Michael. 1994. Phonology in generative grammar. Cambridge, MA etc.: Blackwell. (= Blackwell Textbooks in Linguistics, 7). Kohler, Klaus J. 1984. “Phonetic explanation in phonology: the feature Fortis/Lenis”. Phonetica 41. 150–174. Kohler, Klaus J. 1995. Einführung in die Phonetik des Deutschen. 2., überarb. Aufl. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag. (= Grundlagen der Germanistik, 20). Laeufer, Christiane. 1989. “French linking, English flapping, and the relation between syntax and phonology”. Studies in Romance linguistics. Selected proceedings from the XVII Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages ed. by Carl Kirschner & Janet DeCesaris, 225–247. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 60). Laeufer, Christiane. 1995. “Morphology and syllabification domains”. Lingua 97. 101–121. Léon, Pierre R. 1972. Prononciation du français standard. Aide-mémoire d’orthoépie à l’usage des étudiants étrangers. 2nd revised and enl. ed. Paris: Didier. Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1988. “Auditives Segmentieren: eine sprachtheoretische Grundlegung”. BEVATON — Berliner Verfahren zur auditiven Tonhöhenanalyse ed. by HansHeinrich Lieb, 147–194. Tübingen: Niemeyer. (= Linguistische Arbeiten, 205). Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1992. “Integrational Linguistics: outline of a theory of language”. Lieb, ed. 1992. 127–182.
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Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1993. Linguistic variables. Towards a unified theory of linguistic variation. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 108). Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1998. “Morph, Wort, Silbe: Umrisse einer Integrativen Phonologie des Deutschen”. Variation und Stabilität in der Wortstruktur: Untersuchungen zu Entwicklung, Erwerb und Varietäten des Deutschen und anderer Sprachen ed. by Matthias Butt & Nanna Fuhrhop, 334–407. Hildesheim: Olms. (= Germanistische Linguistik 141–142). [Published in 1999]. Lieb, Hans-Heinrich, ed. 1992. Prospects for a New Structuralism. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 96). Lombardi, Linda. 1991. Laryngeal features and laryngeal neutralization. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts. [Phil. diss., not accessible]. Morin, Yves-Charles. 1988. “L’ajustement du schwa en syllable fermée dans la phonologie du français”. La phonologie du schwa français ed. by Paul S. Verluyten, 133–189. Noske, Roland Gabriël. 1992. A theory of syllabification and segmental alternation. With studies on the phonology of French, German, Tonkawa and Yawelmani. Ph.D. dissertation, Amsterdam. Tübingen: Niemeyer. (= Linguistische Arbeiten, 296). [Published in 1993.] Piggott, Glynn L. & Rajendra Singh. 1985. “The phonology of epenthetic segments”. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 30. 415–451. Port, Robert F. & Penny Crawford. 1989. “Incomplete neutralization and pragmatics in German”. Journal of Phonetics 17. 257–282. Port, Robert F. & Michael L. O’Dell. 1985. “Neutralization of syllable-final voicing in German”. Journal of Phonetics 13. 455–471. Prince, Alan & Paul Smolensky. 1993. Optimality theory. Constraint interaction in generative grammar. Piscataway: Rutgers University. (= RuCCSTR, 2). [Published as a Technical Report.] Russ, Charles V. J. 1982. Studies in historical German phonology. A phonological comparison of MHG and NHG with reference to modern dialects. Bern etc.: Lang. Schane, Sanford A. 1968. French phonology and morphology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (= Research monographs / Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 45). Schane, Sanford A.. 1973. “The treatment of phonological exceptions: the evidence from French”. Issues in linguistics: papers in honor of Henry and Renée Kahane ed. by Braj B. Kachru et al., 822–835. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Selkirk, Elisabeth. 1972. The phrase phonology of English and French. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT. Selkirk, Elisabeth & Jean-Roger Vergnaud. 1973. “How abstract is French phonology?” Foundations of Language 10. 249–254. Simmler, Franz. 1981. Graphematisch-phonematische Studien zum althochdeutschen Konsonantismus, insbesondere zur zweiten Lautverschiebung. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. (= Monographien zur Sprachwissenschaft, 12). Tranel, Bernard. 1981. Concreteness in generative phonology. Evidence from French. Berkeley etc.: University of California Press. Tranel, Bernard. 1987. The sounds of French. An introduction. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press. Tranel, Bernard. 1988. “A propos de l’ajustement de E en français”. Verluyten, ed. 1988. 89–131. Tranel, Bernard. 1992. “On suppletion and French liaison”. Romance languages and modern linguistic theory. Papers from the 20th linguistic symposium on Romance languages (LSRL XX), Ottawa, 10–14 April 1990 ed. by Paul Hirschbühler & Konrad
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Koerner, 269–308. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 91). Tranel, Bernard. 1993. “Moraic theory and French liaison”. Linguistic perspectives on the Romance languages: Selected papers from the 21st Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL XXI), Santa Barbara, California, 21–24 February 1991 ed. by William J. Ashby, Marianne Mithun, Giorgio Perissinotto & Eduardo Raposo, 113–126. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 103). Tranel, Bernard. 1995. “The representation of French final consonants and related issues”. Contemporary research in Romance linguistics: papers from the 22nd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages El Paso/Cd. Juárez, February 1992 ed. by Jon Edward Amastae, Grant Goodall et al., 53–78. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Tranel, Bernard. 1996. “Exceptionality in Optimality Theory and final consonants in French”. Grammatical theory and Romance languages. Selected papers from the 25th Linguistic Symposium on Romance languages (LSRL XXV), Seattle, 2–4 March 1995 ed. by Karen Zagona, 275–291. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 133). Trubetzkoy, Nikolaus S. (41967) [1939]. Grundzüge der Phonologie. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Vennemann, Theo. 1968. German phonology. Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA. [Unpublished; not accessible.] Vennemann, Theo. 1982. “Zur Silbenstruktur der deutschen Standardsprache”. Silben, Segmente, Akzente. Referate zur Wort-, Satz- und Versphonologie anläßlich der vierten Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft, Köln, 2. – 4. März 1982 ed. by Theo Vennemann, 261–305. Tübingen: Niemeyer. (= Linguistische Arbeiten, 126). Verluyten, S. Paul. 1985. “Prosodic structure and the development of French schwa”. Papers from the VIth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Poznań, 22– 26 August 1983 ed. by Jacek Fisiak, 549–559. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 83). Verluyten, S. Paul. 1988. “Introduction”. Verluyten, ed. 1988. 1–14. Verluyten, S. Paul, ed. 1988. La phonologie du schwa français. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (= Lingvisticae Investigationes: Supplementa, 16). Walther, Markus & Richard Wiese. 1995. “Deklarative versus prozedurale Modellierung von Konsonantenalternationen im Deutschen”. Linguistische Berichte 157. 175–185. Wiese, Richard. 1996. The phonology of German. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (The Phonology of the World’s Languages). Yu, Si-Taek. 1992. “Silbeninitiale Cluster und Silbifizierung im Deutschen”. Eisenberg, Ramers & Vater, eds. 1992. 172–207.
Form and Function of Verbal Ablaut in Contemporary Standard German Bernd Wiese Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim
DEDICATED TO PETER EISENBERG ON THE OCCASION OF HIS SIXTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4
Umlaut and e/i-alternation Ablaut patterns Morphological models Stems and stem forms
2 Forms of ablaut 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7
Vowel alternations Expression types Change of quality type and change of complexity type Ablaut vowels Change of quantity type Simple ablaut and full ablaut Special present tense formations
3 Functions of ablaut 3.1 Functional types 3.2 Syncretisms 3.3 Form-function-relation
4 Inflectional classes 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5
Ablaut classes Ablaut class membership Ablaut class markedness I-base stems and ablaut classes Non-I-base stems and ablaut classes
5 Ablaut: an integrated view 6 Conclusion
Abstract. The multiple gradations of German strong verbs are but manifestations of a rather uncomplicated system. There is a small number of ways to make up ablaut forms;
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these types of formation are identifiable in formal terms and, what is more, they have definite functions as morphological markers. Using classifications of stem forms according to quality, complexity and quantity of vowels, three types of operations involved in ablaut formation are identified. Ablaut always includes a change of quality type or a change of complexity type, and in addition it may include a change of quantity type. Ablaut forms are clearly distinguished as against bases (and against each other): their vocalism meets a defined standard of dissimilarity. On this basis, gradations are collected into inflectional classes that are defined in strictly synchronic terms. These classes continue the historical seven classes known from reference grammars. For the majority of strong verbs, membership in these classes (and thus ablaut) is predictable.
1
Introduction*
1.1 Umlaut and e/i-alternation Stem changes that function as morphological markers play an important rôle in the grammar of Contemporary Standard German (henceforth, ‘German’ for short). German verbs may have up to five stems exhibiting different stem vowels. As for ‘strong’ verbs such as SPRECHENW, traditional custom distinguishes three primary tense stems (primäre Tempusstämme, cf. FabriciusHansen 1977: 194). Forms that show these stems are (among others) the infinitive (sprech-en), the form of the 1st person singular indicative of the past (sprach) and the past participle (ge-sproch-en), respectively.1 In descriptive grammars, these three verb forms are used as ‘principal parts’; as a rule, these forms should suffice to enable users to derive all forms of the verb under discussion. It is implied that the derivation of additional stems conforms to regular patterns. As exemplified by the secondary stems of SPRECHENW (viz. the secondary present tense stem sprich, which occurs in the 2nd and 3rd person singular indicative of the present and in the imperative, and the secondary past tense stem spräch, which occurs in the subjunctive of the past), these regular patterns of stem formation are e/i-alternation and umlaut. Umlaut may be construed as form alternation (“Formabwechslung”, Kruszewski 1881: 19) between basic forms in back vowels and derived forms in front vowels (hence the involved vowel change is characterised as “front*
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung (ZAS), Berlin, in November 1997, and at the Generative Grammatik des Südens (GGS) 2004 conference, Mannheim, in May 2004. Special thanks to Kate Chapman for stylistic help. Author’s address: Bernd Wiese, Institut für Deutsche Sprache, R5, 6–13, 68161 Mannheim, Germany. E-mail:
[email protected] 1 Forms of words (and forms of stems) are given in standard orthography using lowercase letters. Names of words and lexemes appear in small capitals and are superscripted with ‘W’ and ‘L’, respectively. In tables, superscripts may be dropped for readability.
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ing”, Zwicky 1967). As every vowel or diphthong that allows umlaut has a unique umlauted counterpart (and vice versa) there is no need to list umlauted secondary stems. Given that the primary present and past tense stems of, say, W FAHREN are fahr and fuhr, and provided that secondary stem formation is regular, it is derivable that the secondary stems are fähr and führ. As concerns primary stems in vowels that cannot undergo umlaut (as exemplified by sprech), secondary stems may be formed by means of e/ialternation. e/i-alternation is similar to umlaut as it constitutes a change ‘towards i’, too. In the case of umlaut it is back vowels (i.e., ‘i-distant vowels’) that alternate with the related front vowels (‘i-close or i-like vowels’); in the case of e/i-alternation it is front vowels (viz. e or, in rare cases, ö or ä) that alternate with i. The ‘target’ of the change is again unique.2 It is true, some verbs lack one or both of the secondary stems. However, if secondary stems are formed at all, their formation for the most part conforms to a uniform and predictable pattern.3 1.2 Ablaut patterns While formation of secondary stems conforms to regular patterns, vowel alternations between primary stems do not seem to fit into a comparably systematic picture. Traditionally, these alternations are taken care of in terms of ablaut patterns or gradations (‘Ablautreihen’). The verb SPRECHENW would be a member of the fourth class of strong verbs, the gradation of which is e–a–o (which provides the principal parts sprechen–sprach–gesprochen). If each and every variant of vowel change between the three primary stems of German verbs is to be taken into account, nearly forty patterns have to be established, many of which are found with one verb only. In addition, there are a number of irregular verbs (‘anomalies’, Grimm 1870: 908, Paul 1917: 259–276) that show vowel alternations. Excluding these, by strong verb I shall refer to any verb that has stem formation by vowel change but does not have past tense and/or past participle stem formation by means of a dental suffix (as do the weak verbs).4 Lists of (stems of) strong verbs are given in Sections 4.4 and 4.5, infra. 2
The target vowel of e/i-alternation is short ‘if possible’ (cf. Section 2.6, infra). On the formation of secondary past tense stems see Eisenberg (1997). There are some deviations in subjunctive formation; details and conditioning factors are discussed in Paul (1920: 211–212). 4 This also excludes the past-present verbs (WISSENW, DÜRFENW, KÖNNENW, MÖGENW, W W W MÜSSEN , SOLLEN , and in addition WOLLEN , which, from a synchronic point of view, belongs to this group), the irregular weak verbs (‘Rückumlautverben’), and the so-called ‘mixed verbs’, which show partly strong forms and partly weak forms. SEINW ‘to be’, 3
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Table 1 (next page) displays the ablaut patterns that are assumed in the Duden-grammar (Drosdowski et al. 1995: 125, anomalies excepted). The vowels are listed in standard order (infinitive – past indicative – past participle). Numbers in parentheses after the infinitives of the verbs refer to the number of (non-derived) verbs that select the respective ablaut pattern (according to the Duden-grammar).5 However, in contrast to the practice in the Duden-grammar, which arranges patterns according to frequency, gradations in Table 1 are collected into seven classes, which will be defined in strictly synchronic terms below. These classes continue the historical seven classes known from reference grammars (e.g., Paul 1989; Curme 1922); the usual numbering is kept in order to facilitate simple and intuitive references. Vowel notation follows Kohler (1995: 169–175, ‘phonetic-phonematic transcription’). Such an arrangement highlights certain patterns that go beyond single gradations. Not less than twelve gradations exhibit /o/ or // in both the past indicative and the past participle. It is mainly the verbs of the historical second class that follow this pattern, but many have joined this class in Modern German. Moreover, this o-o-pattern is only one among others that transcend single gradations; other classes, too, show notable uniformities (which are made to stand out in Table 1 by bold face). Order according to frequency (as in the Duden-grammar) obliterates the class-related conformities beyond recognition. (The twelve gradations that exhibit the o-o-pattern are listed as the 4th, 5th, 7th, 13th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 22nd, 28th, 36th, 37th and 38th gradation, respectively!) Similar treatments are even found in work that is explicitly theoretical in orientation. The resulting complete disfigurement often serves as a basis for denying the existence of a system of ablaut in German. Richard Wiese (1996: 113), who presents ablaut patterns in alphabetical order by the stem vowels of infinitives, arrives at the conclusion that ablaut “is, synchronically, a totally unpredictable vowel change […].” This opinion is quite common and may well be addressed as the received view. Even standard reference grammars now tend to treat strong verbs as ‘irregular verbs’, thus returning to a position W ‘to become’, HABENW ‘to have’, TUNW ‘to do’, GEHENW ‘to go’ and STEHENW ‘to stand’ are among the anomalous verbs. Furthermore, there are doublets of strong and weak W verbs (like WEBENW 1 : weben/wob/gewoben vs. WEBEN 2 : weben/webte/gewebt), which may differ in their syntactic, semantic and/or stylistic properties. See Curme (1922: 315–318) and Helbig & Buscha (1987: 46–49) for details. 5 Prefixed and compound verbs are not counted, excepting cases that no longer correlate with simple strong verbs. Note, however, that the huge class of prefixed and compound strong verbs is a major factor that contributes to the importance of strong verbs in German; see Griesbach & Uhlig (1994).
WERDEN
101
FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
I
II
example (number of verbs)
/a / /a i i/
reiten (23) bleiben (16)
III
/ /
schinden (1) glimmen (2) fechten (7) erlöschen (1) erschallen (1) saufen (1) fließen (11) biegen (11) lügen (3) heben (5) gären (3) schwören (1) saugen (2)
IV
/ / /œ /a /a
/i /i /y /e / /ø /a
o o o o o o
/ / / / / / o/ o/ o/ o/ o/ o/
V
pattern / / / / /e /e / / /e / / /i /
a a a a a a a a a a a a a
/ / / / / o/ o/
example (number of verbs)
binden (19) spinnen (6) bergen (9) sprechen (5) nehmen (1) stehlen (3) gebären (1) / messen (5) e/ geben (6) / sitzen (1) e/ bitten (1) e/ liegen (1) / kommen (1)
Class
pattern
Class
Class
entertained by linguists of the 17th century like Schottelius (1663:549, 569– 603).
VI
VII
pattern
example (number of verbs)
/a u a/ schaffen (4) /a u a/ fahren (6) /u /o /a
/ /a /a /a /a
i i i i i i
u/ o/ a / a/ a/ a/ a/ a/
rufen (1) stoßen (1) laufen (2) hängen (1) fangen (2) fallen (3) blasen (4) heißen (1)
Table 1. Ablaut classes and ablaut patterns (gradations)
In this paper I shall take issue with the view that there is no system of verbal ablaut in Contemporary Standard German. It is true, there is no unique ‘operation’ (comparable to ‘fronting’ in the case of umlaut) that ablaut could be reduced to; but certainly this does not imply that ablaut is ‘totally unpredictable’. More importantly, it does not follow that ablaut is a matter of mere lexical idiosyncrasy that has to be listed on an item-by-item basis. As will be shown there is a small number of ways to make up ablaut forms; these types of formation are identifiable in formal terms and, what is more, they have definite functions as morphological ‘markers’. The seven classes of verbs referred to above are definable on this basis. As a matter of fact, for the majority of strong verbs membership in these classes (and thus ablaut) is indeed ‘predictable’. Note, however, that predictability in this sense is not crucial to the assumption that ablaut is not random. Membership in a certain inflectional class is sometimes predictable from other properties of lexemes, sometimes it is not; but then, this is the raison d’être of inflectional classes, not a reason to dispense with them. (You would not specify the endings of Latin noun forms on a word-
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by-word basis only because membership in declensions is not always predictable.) The thesis of complete synchronic unpredictability of ablaut clashes with the results of traditional grammar; furthermore, it does not take into account the existence of generalisations that were covered by the rule systems in early generative grammar (Ross 1967; Wurzel 1970). To be sure, recent treatments still recognise the existence of (sub-)regularities; an example is: if the past is in o, then the past participle is in o, too (Wunderlich & Fabri 1995: 254, note 16; 256). But more often than not such observations are relegated to footnotes or ignored altogether. The reason may be that known regularities apparently do not ‘make sense’: from a synchronic point of view they appear to be arbitrary. However, the present paper is intended to show that the apparently so confusingly multiple gradations of German strong verbs are but manifestations of a rather uncomplicated system; as I will show, ablaut in German is characterised by strict regularities and a simple form-function relation. In what follows I shall discuss first (in Section 2) the form of ablaut (What is ablaut?). The rest of the investigation is concerned with the function of ablaut (What is ablaut for?) and moreover the form-function-relation (How does ablaut work?). The rest of the present section serves to address questions of conceptual background and terminology. 1.3 Morphological models The notions used so far have been taken from the traditional word-andparadigm-approach (to use the division of ‘models’ of grammatical description well-known from Hockett 1954), for which the distinction between words and forms of words is pivotal. Within such an approach it is the formation of forms of verbs that provides the dominant perspective on ablaut (as far as morphology is concerned). Consequently, gradation classes are conceived of as classes of verbs. A verb such as SPRECHENW is classified as a member of the fourth class of strong verbs. Forms of verbs (here: spreche, sprichst, …) are characterised in terms of morpho-syntactic classifications (with respect to person, number, mood, tense and voice), and on this basis they are arranged into paradigms. As an outgrowth, often ablaut alternations are recorded by listing verb forms, namely, the so-called principal parts. Given this starting point, the internal make-up of word forms comes into focus only in the second place. But, of course, verb forms are dissected into stems and endings. Moreover, complex stems are assumed and their formation is investigated. Paul (1917: 189) refers to ablaut, reduplication and suffixation as means of tense stem formation. Nevertheless, stems are usually characterised by recourse to the functions of word forms of which they are parts (e.g., as present tense stem, past tense stem), not in terms of their formal make-up.
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On the other hand, it is precisely the occurrence of certain stems that codetermines to which categories a verb form belongs. Consider past tense stems (past stems, for short). From a morphological point of view, past forms of a verb are what they are for the reason that they are built on past stems. Hence one would want to know what it is that makes a stem a past stem (but taking recourse to its occurrence in certain verb forms would obviously lead into a circle).6 What, then, are the formal (expression-related) properties that distinguish past stems? It was with the advent of structuralism that such questions became a special focus of attention. The analysis of past stems that are, traditionally speaking, formed by adding tense suffixes did not seem to pose problems for an item-and-arrangement-morphology. A past stem such as lobt (of the weak verb W LOBEN ) could be analysed as combining two morphemes, lob and t, the latter having the meaning ‘past’; hence the stem lobt is a past stem because it contains a morpheme with the meaning ‘past’. However, the problems encountered by such an approach are notorious (cf. Robins 1959, Matthews 1970, 1972), and it was through the treatment of internal inflection that they became particularly obvious. Past stems of strong verbs such as band (of BINDENW) would not lend themselves to segmentation easily, and various treatments were discussed as to how this could be dealt with (see Harris 1942, Bloch 1947, Nida 1948, and, again, Hockett 1954). The basic problem is that a form such as band simply does not contain a past tense marker comparable to the ‘dental suffix’ in lob-t. Since band differs from the present tense stem bind only with respect to vocalism, the stem vowel would be the only reasonable candidate. But there are other strong verbs that have stems in a that happen to be no past stems (but present and/or past participle stems as in the case of FANGENW or HÄNGENW), and these verbs in their turn have past stems (fing, hing) that show vowels which appear in present or past participle stems of the former ones or still other verbs (cf., e.g., BINDENW, present stem bind; REITENW, past and past participle stem ritt). Thus even if you convince yourself that a stem such as ritt may be segmented (say as r…tt + i), it would still be questionable to address the vocalic ‘infix’ as a tense marker.7 The rival approach, item-and-process, as presented by Hockett, would conceive of markers as being constituted by differences between forms (cf. 6
Note that the problem of circularity, which has been made to stand out clearly by Lieb (1983: 173, 178f.), is not restricted to ablaut — characterisations such as ‘the genitive ending -(e)s’ pose similar problems. For further discussion, see Section 5, infra. 7 Matthews (1970: 107) formulates this argument using vocalic suffixes of Italian nouns; the problem is not peculiar to internal inflection.
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also Anderson 1992: 61–62). If it is assumed that present tense stems are basic as compared to derived past tense stems, then a process of past stem formation may be identified that derives ritt from reit; the past tense marker is, then, a change from ei to i (more exactly, /a/ to //), and indeed, whenever a strong verb in German has a stem in /a/ and another stem in //, the former is a present stem and the latter is a past (and past participle) stem. It would appear, then, that an inspection of relations between stems might open up a viable avenue towards uncovering the system of ablaut. But in general, inspecting relations between a base form and a derived form does not suffice to establish the interpretation of the derived form. The reason is that different derived forms may compete, as it were, for the same range of application; and in this case, the latitude a derived form has may be cut by other more specific derived forms. An example that will be discussed in more detail below is this: in the case of the verb FECHTENW, the alternation // // serves as a general past marker: both the past stem and the past participle stem show // (the principal parts being fechten–focht–gefochten). The same alternation applies to SPRECHENW. But in addition, SPRECHENW (sprechen–sprach–gesprochen) shows another vowel change, // /a/, which marks the stem of finite past forms; in this way the stem in // is restricted to the non-finite past, viz. the past participle. To cope with this situation itemand-process-models have to integrate some paradigm-like mechanism.8 Eventually, the interplay among various forms of a paradigm must not be disregarded if it is to be elucidated how the forms’ interpretations come about. Thus an approach is needed that grants paradigms their due status in language systems. At the same time, simply reappointing the traditional word-andparadigm-model would not do. The ‘structuralist’ insistence on uncovering in detail how forms are made up in order to clarify how form signals function must not be abandoned. An adequate analysis of ablaut must not be limited to dealing with words and word forms but must also regard sub-word items, stems in particular. What is needed, then, is an item-and-paradigm-model or stem-and-paradigm model (cf. Blevins 2003). An approach to morphology (and syntax) that meets these requirements is part and parcel of the larger framework of Integrational Linguistics (Lieb 1983, Eisenberg 1998). Some relevant concepts that are used in the following will now be introduced.
→
→
8
Cf. complex rules or disjunctively ordered sets of rules as in Bierwisch (1967) and in Anderson’s ‘Extended Word and Paradigm Morphology’ (Anderson 1982). As Bierwisch (1967: 267, cf. 270) says, “We may conceive of a disjunctively ordered set of inflectional rules as displaying an inflectional paradigm.”
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1.4 Stems and stem forms An analysis of ablaut must set out to clarify the relations that hold between items that are often referred to as ‘tense stems’ of strong verbs (‘present stems’, ‘past stems’, ‘participle stems’); usually, ‘primary present stems’ are taken to be basic while stems of other types are assumed to be derived. Attempts at grasping the alleged derivational relations in syntagmatic terms (by reference to combinations of morphemes) have turned out to be inadequate. A paradigmatic treatment would appear to be more promising. From this vantage point, a past stem is not construed as a ‘combination’ of a basic form and an item that signals tense, but as an ‘alternative’ to the basic form (that occurs in lieu of the latter under certain conditions). This change of viewpoint brings with it a change in terminology. So far I have followed the older tradition in using terms like ‘past stem’ and ‘participle stem’ when referring to morphological ‘items’ such as sprach, sproch. Another practice that would seem more suitable for a paradigmatic approach treats such items as ‘alternants’ or ‘alternating variants’; from this angle, strong verbs “have more than one form of the stem” (Halle 1953: 46).9 As words (such as the verb SPRECHENW) are to be distinguished from their forms (sprechen, spricht, sprach, …), so, by this approach, stems — that is, stem lexemes — are to be distinguished from stem forms. Consequently, Lieb (1976: 21) introduced the notion of morphological paradigm: as word forms may be put into word-paradigms, stem forms may be put into stem-paradigms (cf. also Lieb 1983: 169, Eisenberg 1998: 29). The relationship between stems and stem forms may be construed analogously to the relationship between words and word forms, as illustrated by the following comparison (see table on next page). As the example indicates, word-paradigms may be construed as sets of, traditionally speaking, ‘grammatical words’, a ‘grammatical word’ being an ordered pair comprising (i) a syntactic unit and (ii) a set of categories to which this unit belongs (this set is called a categorisation); thus spreche is the form of the 1st person singular indicative of the present of the active of SPRECHENW. Likewise stem-paradigms may be construed as sets of pairs, each of which combines (i) a morphological unit and (ii) a set of categories to which this unit belongs; e.g., sprech (a stem form) is a form of SPRECHL (a stem lexeme).
9
Halle decides to adopt the term stem alternant and uses the term ‘stem form’ (1953: 47) only informally.
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Here it is still open which categories will serve to categorise stem forms (as indicated by the dots). They will be identified in Section 5.10 a stem-paradigm (of SPRECHL)
a word-paradigm (of SPRECHENW) { 〈spreche, {1P, Sg, Ind, Pres, Act} 〈sprichst, {2P, Sg, Ind, Pres, Act} 〈spricht, {3P, Sg, Ind, Pres, Act} 〈sprechen, {1P, Pl, Ind, Pres, Act} …
123 144424443
syntactic units
sets of syntactic categories
〉, 〉, 〉,
〉,
}
{ 〈sprech, 〈sprich, 〈sproch, 〈sprach, 〈spräch,
{ { { { {
… … … … …
} } } } }
123 1442443
morphological units
〉, 〉, 〉, 〉, 〉
}
sets of morphological categories
What are (in traditional terminology) strong verbs’ tense stems are thus construed as forms of stems. Of course, traditional terms may be used wherever this seems convenient; however, I shall put them in single quotation marks as in: ‘past stem’; that is, ‘past stem’ is short for past tense stem form. Stem forms that occur in principal parts (thus ‘primary tense stems’) will be referred to as primary forms (of stem lexemes); e.g., sprech, sprach, sproch are the primary forms of SPRECHL. Likewise I shall use secondary form to refer to stem forms that are, in traditional terms, ‘secondary stems’; e.g., sprich and spräch are the secondary forms of SPRECHL. Primary present forms will be referred to as base forms (or bases, for short); other primary forms may be referred to as ablaut forms. Thus sprech is the base of SPRECHL and sproch and sprach are the ablaut forms of SPRECHL.11 All morphological items that will be assumed are surface entities, and morphological categories will be based on surface entities: the treatment of ablaut to be proposed will be couched in a surface morphology that does not
10
Cf. also Eisenberg (1998: 213). For Lieb’s explication of the concept of paradigm see Lieb (1975, 1980), and in particular Lieb (1992). Cf. also Zwicky’s notion of form list (Zwicky 1990: 218). Stems are assigned a major rôle also in Anderson (1992), Aronoff (1994), Stump (2001), and Blevins (2003). Anderson’s distinction between stem sets and stems may be compared to Lieb’s distinction between stem-paradigms and stem forms. 11 (An alternative terminology has major/minor instead of primary/secondary, cf. Halle 1953: 46). Base forms of stems must not be confused with morphological base forms (morphs); morphological units, including forms of stems, are conceived as sequences of morphs (Lieb 1983: 157). For convenience, in the present paper, morphological and syntactic units are referred to by orthographic names in lowercase letters (thus sprech for {〈1, sprech〉}, versprech for {〈1, ver〉, 〈2, sprech〉} etc.).
FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
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countenance ‘underlying’ forms (and hence no rules which turn underlying forms into surface forms).12 2
Forms of ablaut
2.1 Vowel alternations In synchronic treatments, descriptions of ablaut in terms of gradations (ablaut patterns) often differ from those of umlaut in two ways: first, the determination of what umlaut is (‘fronting’) remains independent of considerations of particular uses that umlaut is put to (e.g., plural marker); on the other hand, setting up ablaut patterns involves reference to the particular functions of stem forms; for instance, a certain gradation may be specified as (Curme 1922: 304): Pres. ei
Past ie
Perf. Part. ie
I shall not adopt this practice; rather I shall investigate the formal and functional sides of ablaut separately. The present section focuses on the formal side. Second, umlaut is conceived of as a two-place relation; on the other hand, it is three — for older language states: four — vowels that are put into relation in ablaut patterns. Once more I shall break with tradition. I shall argue that ablaut in German should be treated as a two-place relation between base forms and derived forms (or their vowels, for that matter). In the Duden-grammar, a verb such as FECHTENW is assigned to the gradation //–//–//. As it happens, two out of three vowels of the principal parts are identical. Put differently, the stem FECHTL has two, not three primary forms, viz. a base in // (fecht) and an ablaut form in // (focht). Likewise, the stem MESSL (which belongs to gradation //–/a/–//) has two primary forms, viz. a base in // (mess) and an ablaut form in /a/ (maß), the use of which is — differently from the ablaut form of FECHTL — restricted to the past indicative. Thus these two stems show two distinct two-place alternations (// // and // /a/, respectively). Now consider SPRECHENW with the gradation //–/a/–// (sprech, sprach, sproch). Gradations that comprise three different vowels might be
→
12
→
Surprisingly, underlying forms of a pseudo-historical type (as had been introduced in early generative treatments) have been revived in a recent approach to ablaut by Ségéral & Scheer (1998). They assume, for instance, that the infinitive of the strong verb STOSSENW, viz. /tosn/, has “the synchronic structure /stAUsen/” (Ségéral & Scheer 1998: 54, italics in the original!), a form that shows a diphthong (as assumed for Common Germanic), long o being a surface product of merging its components. This hardly calls for comment.
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taken to require a treatment of ablaut as a three-place relation between forms (or their vowels). However, I shall assume that the stem SPRECHL exhibits two alternations (two-place each); in fact, SPRECHL has // /a/-alternation and // //-alternation. The decomposition of three-place ablaut patterns into two-place relations is an important step towards uncovering the system of ablaut in German. As will be shown, the two alternations exhibited by L SPRECH are the same (formally as well as functionally) as those alternations that apply separately to MESSL and FECHTL; assuming two separate alternations (that may combine) is a precondition for understanding how ablaut works.
→
→
2.2 Expression types Not infrequently, forms of strong verbs may be distinguished only by their stem vowels. E.g., the forms versprechen, versprachen, versprochen (of the verb VERSPRECHENW) differ formally only in terms of the stem forms they contain, which in their turn differ only with respect to their stem vowels. Thus, to tell the difference between the verb forms in question it is differences between vowels that one has to rely on, and as far as these are concerned Martinet wrote in a classic contribution to the Manual of Phonetics (Martinet 1957: 263):13 The first thing, we might even say the only thing, we should expect from the distinctive elements of a language is that they should not get confused with one another. We may therefore suppose that they will tend to become as different from one another as the speech organs involved, will allow; if a language has only three vocalic phonemes, it is likely that the normal, out of context, performance of these three phonemes will be close to i, u, and a respectively, i.e. close to the most different vocalic sounds that the organs of speech can produce.
Building on Martinet’s suggestion, one expects that such a triad of optimally discernible vowels would be highly welcome when there are three forms to be distinguished in terms of their vowels (as happens with the primary forms of many strong verb stems), and indeed, the most frequent type of a three-vowelablaut pattern in German is precisely //–/a/–// (exemplified by binden in Table 1).14 That this is hardly an accident is confirmed by comparing so-called 13
Based on Martinet (1955); see there, page 62, Section 2.30, and page 151, Section 4.75, on the ‘principle of maximal differentiation of phonemes’. Compare also Lindblom’s theory of adaptive dispersion (Liljencrants & Lindblom 1972; for a summary see Lindblom & Engstrand 1989: 112–114, with references). 14 Barnes & Esau (1973: 29) refer to “the need to maximize the contrast between the past and present tenses” as a factor in the diachrony of ablaut. See also Ross (1967: 69) and
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onomatopoetic ablaut as it occurs in such double or triple forms as ritschratsch or bimbambum (cf. Dt.Wb., s.v. “I”; Paul 1920: 180–181); some are related to verbs, but not necessarily to strong verbs, cf. Mischmasch, Singsang. Forms that combine reduplication with vowel alternation are often considered so obviously prototypical for ablaut (or ‘apophony’) that they are used in introducing the term itself (as in Hock & Joseph 1996: 169). Double forms in German usually have i-a-alternation, triple forms are rare but usually conform to the ideal case;15 the special position of the //–/a/–//-ablaut pattern fits into the picture. As regards the remaining three-vowel ablaut patterns of the third and fourth class, the situation is not too different (see Table 1). All of these have bases in front vowels (‘i-like vowels’, viz. //, //, /e/, //), which alternate with forms in open vowels (‘a-vowels’, /a/, /a/), and forms in rounded back vowels (‘u-like vowels’, viz. //, //, /o/). It seems appropriate, then, to distinguish types of stem forms on this basis. I shall refer to stem forms such as bind, sprech, stehl etc. as I-forms, and more generally I shall distinguish I-forms, U-forms, and A-forms. Thus I introduce a classification of stem forms according to vocalism, more specifically, according to vowel quality; diphthongs are integrated into qualitatively determined vowel series adapting the analysis in Kohler (1995: 172). The classification is presented in Table 2 (next page). These types of stem forms are defined in formal (expression-related) terms, not in functional terms, and hence will be called expression types. In addition, Table 2 introduces two more classifications that will be needed in the following, namely a classification according to complexity (monophthongal vs. diphthongal stem forms, i.e., stem forms containing monophthongs and diphthongs, respectively) and a classification according to vowel quantity: stem forms containing long vowels or diphthongs are long stem forms, stem forms containing short vowels are short stem forms.16 Ramat (1987: 324), with reference to Lejosne (1982), on ‘changes of polarity’ as a characteristic of ablaut, and Kuryłowicz on “[l]e principe de polarisation ou de distances maximum” (Kuryłowicz 1956: 10 et passim). Cf. also Hansen (1964: 21). 15 With respect to German see Fleischer (1974: 235), for general discussion Mayerthaler (1977: 46–53), and references listed there. 16 This is a system of classifications for stem forms based on stem vocalism (prefixes are not relevant), not a classification of vowels. True, to propose such a system of classifications implies the assumption that the classifications relate in a reasonable way to properties of vowels. However, no particular theory of (German) vocalism is presupposed. Consider for instance the distinction between long forms (forms that show long vowels such as bieg, fuhr, etc.) and short forms (forms that show short vowels such as ritt, bund etc.). Whether these expression types are eventually defined in terms of vowel length, vowel tenseness or even syllable cut may be left open in the present context. Likewise a decision upon the
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Given a stem vowel, membership of the respective stem form in three classes can be read off Table 2. For instance, sproch (in //) is a short monophthongal U-form. If I wish to refer to subclasses that are defined by the occurrence of a specific vowel, I shall use expressions such as //-form. If the differentiation in terms of length is to be neglected, I shall use expressions with orthographic vowel names such as o-form (stem form in /o/ or //). The terms I-base, A-base, U-base refer to bases that are I-forms, A-forms, and U-forms, respectively. complexity types monophthongal
quality types
diphthongal
I-form
/ œ/
/i y e ø /
/a /
U-form
/ /
/u o/
/a /
A-form
/a/
/a/
short
stem vocalism
long quantity types
Table 2. Expression types of forms of strong verb stems: stem vocalism
The three classifications that have been introduced serve to define the types of alternations (or ‘operations’) that are basic constituents of ablaut in German, viz. change of quality type, change of complexity type, and change of quantity type. 2.3 Change of quality type and change of complexity type As noted above, the stems of verbs of the third and fourth class (such as L BIND ) each have as their primary forms three forms of distinct quality types (I-form, A-form, U-form). This observation may be generalised. It holds of stems of strong verbs that have a monophthongal base: distinct primary forms of a given stem belong to different quality types; in this case ablaut is change status of diphthongs need not be made here. The chosen notation meets the necessity to make it clear which stem forms belong to which classes.
FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
111
of quality type (or qualitative ablaut, for short). If there is no change of quality type (as with stems of verbs of the first class), there is a change of complexity type: a diphthongal base alternates with a monophthongal ablaut form. On the other hand, mere change of length is not sufficient for ablaut in German: a change of quantity type cannot occur on its own but must be at the same time a change of quality type or complexity type. Stems of strong verbs have two or three primary forms, and there are three quality types. Thus there are six ways of combining two primary forms (a base and an ablaut form) of different quality types; all of these occur in German as the examples show, cf.: base-form, ablaut-form
examples gieß–goss schind–schund mess–maß fall–fiel schaff–schuf ruf–rief komm–kam
I-form, U-form I-form, A-form A-form, I-form A-form, U-form U-form, I-form U-form, A-form
There are two complexity types but there are no diphthongal A-forms. Ablaut forms are never diphthongal in German, thus there are only two ways of combining two primary stem forms of identical quality types, cf.: reit–ritt sauf–soff
I-form, I-form U-form, U-form
There is only one way of combining three primary stem forms of different quality types in German, cf.: sing–sang–sung sprech–sprach–sproch
I-form, A-form, U-form
No other combinations are allowed in German. Stems with diphthongal bases usually do not exhibit a change of quality type between their forms. The large majority of these stems (viz. the stems of verbs of the first class) have ei i-alternation (thus alternation between I-forms).
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In Contemporary Standard German, ablaut is change of quality type or change of complexity type. 17 Thus ablaut forms are clearly distinguished as against bases (and against each other): their vocalism meets a defined standard of dissimilarity. The proposed characterisation of ablaut excludes a considerable number of conceivable vowel alternations (e/i-alternation in particular), but, of course, it does not yet define the limits of ablaut. After all, umlaut involves a change of quality type, too (though the direction of umlaut, back front, is inverted as compared to the most prominent cases of ablaut and, moreover, umlaut vowels are not allowed in ablaut forms). In order to approach a more decisive demarcation of ablaut, the particular vowels that occur in ablaut forms have to be considered (the ‘ablaut vowels’).
→
2.4 Ablaut vowels The inventory of ablaut vowels is heavily restricted. An approach that characterises alternations in terms of types of forms can account for such restrictions in a natural way. Consider some change of quality type, A Ι-alternation for instance (as in fall fiel), thus ablaut forms that are I-forms. This characterisation is rather unspecific and in itself does not fix the ablaut form’s vowel. But among I-forms, i-forms (i.e., forms in /i/ or //) enjoy a special status: i-forms are, as it were, ‘prototypical’ members (or ‘best exemplars’) of the larger class of I-forms. Hence, if the regularities of ablaut demand an I-form (without imposing any more specific requirements), it may be expected that an i-form is called for. Otherwise there should be an additional stipulation to the contrary. Vice versa, a specific regulation has to be assumed to be effective only if the form in question does not belong to the expected prototype. I take it, then, that, in the general case, the particular vowel of an ablaut form need not be specified. To know the quality type and the quantity type will do. Pending any specifications to the contrary, ablaut forms that are I-forms or U-forms are iforms or u-forms, respectively; and trivially, A-forms are a-forms. (Actually, this ‘default rule’ might be adopted quite independently of any considerations specific to ablaut.) There are six ways of changing between quality types, viz. I U-, I A-, A I-, A U-, U I-, and U A-alternation. As may be gathered from the examples given in Section 2.3, only I U-alternation requires a supplementary regulation; in all of the remaining cases of qualitative ablaut, ablaut forms are invariably i-forms, a-forms or u-forms and thus specification of the ablaut form’s quality type is indeed sufficient to fix the ablaut vowel (except for its length).
→
→
→
17
→
→
→
→
For a discussion of apparent counter-examples see Section 2.7, infra.
→ →
FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
113
→
Mostly, ablaut forms due to I U-alternation do not conform to the default rule. As ablaut forms are never diphthongal and as there are two subtypes of monophthongal U-forms, viz. u-form and o-form, this means that the forms in question are o-forms (cf. sprech sproch). However, there is a minority of stems like BINDL, SINGL, and TRINKL that are not subject to this special treatment. The default rule takes over again, and I U-alternation results in u-forms (bund, sung, trunk, which are ‘participle stems’). This applies to stems in which the stem vowel is followed by nd/ng/nk. As for these ‘nasal+consonant-stems’ (or ‘NC-stems’, for short), the special regulation that requires o-forms is suspended. Its results would not fit into German phonotactics.18 As regards stems that show change of complexity type, ablaut forms due to U U-alternation join the pattern of I U-alternation. In sum, ablaut forms due to I U-alternation or U U-alternation do not conform to the default rule if possible; they are, as a rule, o-forms. (Here the proviso ‘if possible’ accounts for the exclusion of NC-stems.) No other special stipulations concerning ablaut vowels are needed. Given this, it suffices to specify the quality type and the quantity type of an ablaut form in order to fix its stem vowel.
→
→
→
→
→
→
2.5 Change of quantity type Quantitative ablaut (i.e., change of quantity type between stem forms) in German is a poorly understood phenomenon. Reference grammars record patterns of quantitative ablaut on a case-by-case basis (e.g., Curme 1922: 302, 305) but no uniform overall picture emerges (cf. Ségéral 1995: 80–84). Generative rules have also been proposed but the systematic rôle of quantitative ablaut has remained obscure.19 As a first step towards uncovering the regularity of quantitative ablaut, two kinds of quantitative change may be distinguished:
18
With these stems, the vowel is followed by a nasal+consonant-cluster or by the velar nasal (which, from a phonotactic point of view, ‘counts’ as a nasal+consonant-cluster in German) but // hardly ever occurs in this context, at least in ‘native’ stems. Hence the ‘aberrant’ ablaut formation (that is, the appearance of / / ‘instead of’ //) found with NCstems is regarded as an interference crossing the proper regularities of ablaut (Durrell 1980: 21, Barbour 1982: 343). 19 See Wurzel (1970); Bittner (1995: 191) offers an amended version of Wurzel’s rule (as regards descriptive adequacy) but he does not arrive at a clarification of the relationship between qualitative and quantitative ablaut, let alone of the function of quantitative ablaut.
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→
Short long-alternation. A short base alternates with a long ablaut form.
→/i/ (fall–fiel), //→/a/ (sprech–sprach), /a/→/u/ (schaff–schuf)
Examples: /a/
→
Long short-alternation. A long base (i.e., a diphthongal or a long monophthongal base) alternates with a short ablaut form.
→// (gieß–goss), /a /→// (sauf–soff), /a/→// (reit–ritt)
Examples: /i/
(For convenience, I shall also use the terms lengthening and shortening.) The majority of stems do not allow a change of quantity between their forms, that is, long bases correspond to long ablaut forms (e.g., bleib–blieb; stehl–stahl– stohl); and short bases correspond to short ablaut forms (e.g., bind–band– bund). The question arises, which types of stems do allow quantitative change at all? In forms of strong verb stems, short vowels are not allowed to appear before voiced obstruents.20 To be sure, this fact does not constitute a peculiarity of verbal stem formation. As is well known, sequences of short vowel plus voiced obstruent are highly marked in German from a phonotactic point of view (Heidolph et al. 1981: 980, 985).21 When they do occur at all (e.g., in forms of nouns such as EBBEW, FLAGGEW) this usually points to non-native origin (Paul 1916: 273, 301, from Low German). It does not come as a surprise, then, that strong verb stems such as SCHIEBL, HEBL, LIEGL, or GRABL do not allow quantitative change. In their forms, vowels are long throughout as they are followed by voiced obstruents.22 Thus stems are exempt from quantitative ablaut if ablaut vowels are immediately followed by voiced obstruents. The same holds when stem forms end in a vowel (cf. SEHL). On the other hand, stem vowels may be either long or short when they are followed by voiceless consonants; cf., e.g., bases in short vowel plus / /, /f/, /s/ (sprech, stech, treff, schaff, ess, mess etc.) and in long vowel or diphthong plus / /, /f/, /s/ (kriech, riech, trief, schlaf, lauf, ruf, gieß etc.). In fact, it is stems that have forms such that the segment immediately following the stem 20
I follow a traditional practice in using the distinction voiced/voiceless, which might be replaced by lenis/fortis (Kohler 1995: 157). Nothing depends on a specific analysis of German consonantism in the present context. 21 Not only in German, of course; see Kohler (1995: 159 et passim) and, in particular with respect to diachrony, d’Alquen (1979), and the literature quoted there. 22 This assumes a phonological level where ‘final obstruent devoicing has not yet applied’. The final obstruents in question may be voiceless due to final devoicing when stem forms such as schob of SCHIEBL appear in verb forms such as schob, schobt, schobst. However, final devoicing is not relevant to ablaut regularities (Halle 1953: 46). (No specific account of final devoicing need be presupposed in the present context.)
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FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
→
→
vowel is a voiceless consonant which make up the proper domain of quantitative ablaut: long short-alternation (e.g., gieß–goss) as well as short longalternation (e.g., schaff–schuf) can be found.23 Not all alternations that apply to these stems do involve a change of quantity type (cf. stech–stoch; brat– briet), but, in principle, stems of this type are subject to quantitative ablaut. Finally, consider sonorant stems, i.e., stems such that vowels are followed by sonorants (/r/, /l/, /n/, /m/, //). Stems with long bases ending in liquids (like FRIERL, STEHLL) behave like those with bases ending in voiced obstruents. Otherwise, change of quality type may be accompanied by change of quantity type. If the sonorant is a nasal, both long short-alternation (cf. L L NEHM : /nem/ /nm/) and short long-alternation (cf. KOMM : /km/ /kam/) are possible. If it is a liquid, there may be short long-alternation (FALLL: /fal/ /fil/). But mostly, sonorant stems do not permit a change of quantity type. The most outstanding group of sonorant stems (including, e.g., L L SING , TRINK ), which forms the core of the traditional third class, is excluded from quantitative ablaut, since long vowels are not allowed before // in German. Actually, all sonorant stems that have short I-bases (not only the ones from the SINGL-group) are exempted from quantitative ablaut (e.g., SCHWIMML, L HELF ). This may be regarded as a matter of ‘family resemblance’ (cf. Section 4.4, infra). In fact, there are only four sonorant stems in German that show primary forms of different quantity types, viz. NEHML, KOMML, FALLL, HALTL; these may be listed as lexically marked cases. Thus two classes of stems of strong verbs can be distinguished: those that do permit quantitative ablaut and those that do not. Membership is, as a rule, determined on the basis of the consonantism of the stem: stems that have ablaut forms in vowel+voiceless obstruent may undergo quantitative ablaut, others must not; exceptions: NEHML, KOMML, FALLL, HALTL, subject to, and L BIET , exempt from quantitative ablaut (cf. note 25, infra). Given the set of stems that may undergo quantitative ablaut, it remains to be seen what the triggers are for short long-alternation and for long shortalternation, respectively. Prima facie the situation is somewhat confusing. Consider stems that have bases ending in a voiceless fricative. Even with one and the same post-vocalic consonant, long bases may alternate with long or
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23
→
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What is decisive is the consonantism of the ablaut form, which may differ (phonologically, not merely phonetically as in the case of final devoicing) from the consonantism of the base, in particular on account of remaining effects of Verner’s law, cf., e.g., SIEDENW: sieden– sott–gesotten; similarly, SCHNEIDENW, LEIDENW. (Consonantal alternations, which are exhibited by some strong verbs, will not be discussed as they do not affect the regularities of vowel change.)
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short ablaut forms; and short bases may alternate with long or short ablaut forms as well, cf.: L
SCHLAF L
TRIEF
L
TREFF
L
TREFF
→ → → →
/laf/ /lif/ /trif/ /trf/ /trf/ /traf/ /trf/ /trf/
→ → → →
(long long) (long short) (short long) (short short)
→
As will be shown, it is the interrelation of change of quality, change of complexity and change of quantity that answers for the distribution of short longvs. long short-alternations. First, however, note that the two types of quantitative alternation differ drastically as regards their phonotactic effects. Alternation of vowel quantity is regularly found before voiceless consonants (fricatives, in particular); but, by phonotactic preferences, in this context the appearance of short vowels is ‘normal’ or expected while the appearance of long vowels is, as it were, ‘conspicuous’, i.e., marked. Therefore in such contexts long short-alternation results in a phonotactic normalisation of the derived form; for instance, the ablaut form goss /s/ of GIESSL shows normal length as opposed to the base gieß /is/. In contrast, short long-alternation regularly results in a phonotactic marking of the derived form; for instance, the ablaut form maß /mas/ of MESSL shows marked length as opposed to the base mess /ms/. 24 The distinction between length normalisation and length marking provides the key for understanding how quantitative ablaut is put to use for functional purposes (see Section 3).
→
→
→
2.6 Simple ablaut and full ablaut Using classifications of stem forms according to vowel quality, complexity and quantity, I have identified three types of operations involved in ablaut. Ablaut always includes a change of quality type or a change of complexity type, and in addition it may include a change of quantity type. These operations are the constituent parts of two alternation types that make up ablaut in Modern German. I shall look at stems with monophthongal bases first. All stems of strong verbs that have monophthongal bases show ablaut by change of quality type; there are six ways of changing quality types, but, as a matter of fact, the majority of these stems show I U-ablaut. As compared to
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24
Here is how Jacob Grimm put it: “ […] der auslaut sz liebt vor sich kurzes a […], selbst in lasz (sine) und lassen (sinere) fügt diesem gebot sich die organische länge (mhd. lâ lâen). umgekehrt hält in asz aszen, frasz fraszen, vergasz vergaszen, masz maszen, sasz saszen neben der dehnung auch der inlaut sz stand.” (Dt.Wb. s.v. “A”.)
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FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
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other changes of quality type, I U-alternation shows greater variation, ablaut forms being o-forms or u-forms; the remaining types show greater regularity, ablaut forms invariably conforming to the default rule given above. Obviously, among changes of quality type, I U-alternation must be assigned a special status. In fact, given well-known criteria of markedness (Greenberg 1966), these observations indicate that I U-alternation must be considered the unmarked change of quality type. With regard to quantitative ablaut, there are two types to be distinguished, viz. shortening, which provides forms of normalised length, on the one hand, and lengthening, which provides forms of marked length, on the other. The junction between change of quality type and change of quantity type turns out to be straightforward. The unmarked change of quality type (I U-alternation) is coupled with shortening; otherwise change of quality type is coupled with lengthening.25 Remarkably, there is not a single stem that shows I U-alternation combined with lengthening, nor a single stem that shows another change of quality type combined with shortening. We find it confirmed that I U-alternation is opposed to all of the remaining changes of quality type. As it is the unmarked type of qualitative ablaut and combines with normalisation of length, it may be referred to as simple ablaut. Of course, lengthening as well as shortening can apply only if a stem belongs to the class of stems that are subject to quantitative ablaut at all. If a stem from this class shows I U-alternation, then the ablaut form is invariably short. Unless the base is short anyway, there will be a change of quantity type. E.g., the stems FLIESSL (long base, /flis/) and SPRECHL (short base, /pr /) show I U-alternation; as the vowels are followed by voiceless fricatives, these stems are subject to quantitative ablaut; in this case, either both base and ablaut form are short (/pr / /pr /) or a long base alternates with a short ablaut form (/flis/ /fls/). In summary, ablaut forms due to simple ablaut are short if possible.26
→ →
→
→
→
→
→
→
→
25
→
This holds also of the four stems in sonorants that are subject to quantitative ablaut, viz. L , KOMML, FALLL, HALTL. E.g., NEHML with a long base and I U-ablaut shows shortening (nehm nomm), FALLL with a short base and A I-ablaut shows lengthening (fall fiel). As noted above, there is one stem (BIETL) that is exceptionally exempted from quantitative ablaut. BIETL shows I U-alternation (biet bot) but no shortening, which would be expected on account of the post-vocalic voiceless obstruent (cf. Grimm 1870: 903). Incidentally, the preference for short vowels is generally rather weak in the case of /t/ as compared to other voiceless consonants (d’Alquen 1979: 196, with references). On L SIED see note 23, supra. 26 e/i-alternation is coupled with shortening, too. Hence TRETL and NEHML show /e/ //alternation as they are from the class of stems that are subject to quantitative ablaut. Long short-alternation with GEBL (Curme 1922: 253) or even LESL is now considered non-standard; see the pronouncing dictionaries and cf. also Paul (1917: 229): colloquial NEHM
→
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→
→
→ →
→
All of the remaining changes of quality type (I A, A I, A U, U I, U A) trigger lengthening, i.e., ablaut forms are long if possible. If a stem that is subject to quantitative ablaut shows one of these alternations, then the ablaut form concerned is invariably long. Unless the base is long anyway, there will be a change of quantity type. Hence all of the following ablaut forms are long: sprach (from sprech by I A-alternation), briet (from brat by A Ialternation), schuf (from schaff by A U-alternation), rief (from ruf by U Ialternation), and kam (from komm by U A-alternation); the corresponding bases are partly short, partly long. As a result, stem vowels of ablaut forms due to these alternations are, as a rule, so-called point vowels, that is, vowels of extreme qualities, located, as it were, at the points of the vowel triangle (thus maximally differentiated vowels in Martinet’s sense).27 These are /i/, /u/ and the a-vowels, /a/ and /a/ (which, in Standard German, are differentiated only in terms of length, Kohler 1995: 170). This regularity overrides even strong phonotactic preferences (or aversions, cf. Curme 1922: 14–15), producing stem forms like hielt /hilt/, base: halt, and wuchs /wuks/, base: wachs, which have long vowels although the stem terminates in a consonantal cluster; cf. also wusch /wu/, base: wasch, which has a long vowel before //. It is crossed only by the ban on long vowels before //, which rules out quantitative ablaut; only in this extremely rare case, A Ι-ablaut produces an ablaut form in a non-point vowel (cf. L FANG : /fa/ /f/). If ablaut vowels are point vowels, this will tend to maximise formal contrasts between base and ablaut forms. Further, as noted above, lengthening usually produces ablaut forms of marked length; thus in these cases the means available for ablaut are, as it were, made use of in full. Hence I refer to this type, covering all changes of quality type except I U-alternation, as full ablaut. Vowels of ablaut forms due to I U-alternation are invariably non-point vowels (viz. //, /o/, //); thus the ablaut forms concerned cannot be confused
→ →
→ →
→
→ →
→
→
North German. Secondary stem forms that are formed by means of umlaut do not show quantitative change. 27 Cf. Martinet (1957: 264): “[vowels that occupy] the corners of the vocalic triangle”. As has often been noticed, point vowels have a privileged position in vowel systems (cf., in particular, Jakobson 1941), and it is assumed that the preference for point vowels is related to their favourable articulatory and auditive properties (cf. Stevens 1972). Apparently, ablaut forms that show point vowels are optimal if reliable differentiation and salience are ‘desiderata’.
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FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
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with forms due to A U-alternation, which are /u/-forms.28 The special regulation that requires ablaut forms to be o-forms in case of I U-alternation (apart from NC-stems, which, in their turn, allow only short ablaut forms) serves to contribute to the sharp contrast between the two types of ablaut. As summarised in Table 3 (next page), there is a linkage between I U-alternation, shortening, and non-default ablaut vowels on the one hand side, and between the remaining changes of quality type, lengthening, and default ablaut vowels on the other hand side. The combined effect of opposite regulations concerning ablaut vowels’ quality and quantity results in a clearly distinguished vocalism of ablaut forms of stems with monophthongal bases: the sets of ablaut vowels found with simple and full ablaut are disjoint. Thus the two types of ablaut may be conveniently identified by reference to the ablaut vowels involved: simple ablaut is o-ablaut, ablaut forms being o-forms in the regular case. It is to be understood that cases where ‘// substitutes for //’ are included. As for full ablaut, three subcases are to be distinguished in terms of ablaut vowels, viz. i-ablaut, a-ablaut, and u-ablaut, ablaut forms being /i/- or //-forms, /a/- or /a/-forms, and /u/-forms, respectively. The distinction simple ablaut vs. full ablaut is drawn in terms of formal properties of stem form alternations; on the other hand, it is functionally relevant: as will be shown in Section 3, these two types of ablaut correspond to two distinct functions of ablaut. Consequently, simple and full ablaut may combine, i.e., there are stems like SPRECHL that show both simple and full ablaut (sprech sproch, sprech sprach). On the other hand, i-ablaut, uablaut, and a-ablaut, being varieties of full ablaut, cannot combine. Of the five changes of quality type that are covered by full ablaut, A U-alternation is found with a severely restricted group that comprises only nine stems (cf. Section 4.5, infra), U A-alternation is found with one stem only (KOMML). Apart from these, given the quality type of the base, the distribution of varieties of full ablaut is fixed (by the general rule that requires change of quality type): a-ablaut is found only with I-bases (I Α-alternation), i-ablaut is found with other bases (A I-alternation, U I-alternation).
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→
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→
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28
→
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Ablaut forms formed by A U-alternation cannot but be long owing to a restriction on the form of the bases concerned; cf. Section 4.5, infra. (On ERSCHALLL see Section 2.7, infra.)
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qualitative ablaut
quantitative ablaut
ablaut vowels
→U
shortening if applicable
//, /o/ (/ /)
→ → → → →
lengthening if applicable
/i/, /a/, /a/, /u/ (//)
Ι
Α U I A, U A A I, U I
simple ablaut full ablaut
( ) : occurs only in ablaut forms of NC-stems Table 3. Simple vs. full ablaut (monophthongal bases)
Ablaut as applied to stems that have diphthongal bases differs from ablaut as found with stems that have monophthongal bases only in one respect: usually, there is no change of quality type. Apart from this, the characterisations of simple and full ablaut given above carry over to stems with diphthongal bases. As for stems with monophthongal bases, simple ablaut has been characterised as combining I U-alternation with shortening. As regards diphthongal bases, in the absence of a change of quality type, there are two cases of simple ablaut to be distinguished. (i) The base is an I-form, as usual; the ablaut form belongs to the same type. This is I I-alternation. (ii) The ablaut form is a U-form, as usual; the base form belongs to the same type. This is U Ualternation. Type (i) is the majority case, type (ii) is the minority case. As is characteristic of simple ablaut, length alternation is shortening, i.e., ablaut forms are short if possible, and again ablaut forms that are U-forms are oforms. Of course, if quantitative ablaut is not applicable, ablaut forms are long, diphthongal bases being long. Cf.:
→
→
— — — —
L
→ → →
→
, I-base, subject to quantitative ablaut, the ablaut form is a short iform (reiß riss /rs/), L REIB , I-base, not subject to quantitative ablaut, the ablaut form is a long i-form (reib rieb /rib/), L SAUF , U-base, subject to quantitative ablaut, the ablaut form is a short oform (sauf soff /zf/), L SAUG , U-base, not subject to quantitative ablaut, the ablaut form is a long o-form (saug sog /zo/). REISS
→
With monophthongal bases, simple ablaut is o-ablaut, and, naturally, ablaut found with SAUFL and SAUGL can be subsumed under this type. As regards
FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
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I I-alternation, a second variety of simple ablaut has to be recognised, which may be referred to as i-monophthongisation. The two subtypes of simple ablaut are in complementary distribution: i-monophthongisation is restricted to ei-bases; otherwise simple ablaut is o-ablaut. Stems that have diphthongal bases rarely show full ablaut: there are only two or three such stems. They are recognisable by having long ablaut forms while being subject to quantitative ablaut. Change of quality type is possible. L L HEISS (ablaut form: hieß /his/) and LAUF (ablaut form: lief /lif/) are cases in point. (Of course, the ablaut forms cannot be due to simple ablaut, as they had to be short in this case.) As for LAUFL, ablaut is full ablaut also on account of the change of quality type (U I-alternation).29 In both cases, it is i-ablaut. In sum, diphthongal bases may show ablaut formations familiar from stems that have monophthongal bases, viz. o-ablaut and i-ablaut. But the majority of stems with diphthongal bases show neither o-ablaut nor a variety of full ablaut, but i-monophthongisation (that is, I I-alternation coupled with shortening).30
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2.7 Special present tense formations As has been pointed out, there are a few cases of o- and i-ablaut where bases belong to the quality type that is characteristic of the corresponding ablaut forms, e.g., SAUFL and HEISSL. However, this is attached to the condition that there be a change of complexity type and the formation of ablaut forms is in conformance with the general patterns. The base forms are peculiar but the alternations still fit into the system of ablaut. There are a few more cases that show, traditionally speaking, ‘special present tense formation’ (“besondere Art der Präsensbildung”, Paul 1917: 200; cf. also Wurzel 1970). Consider the traditional fifth class. As a rule, bases are e-forms and there is a-ablaut; in addition, there are ‘secondary stems’ formed by e/i-alternation and umlaut, respectively; cf., e.g., TRETL: tret trat, tret tritt, trat trät. The ‘secondary present tense stems’ formed by e/i-alternation occur in verb forms of the 2nd/3rd person singular present indicative and in the imperative; this conforms to the standard use of
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29
→
→
Another case is HAUL provided its choice-language past form hieb is still considered standard. It has been widely replaced by the weak form haut (Paul 1917: 241). 30 This is reflected in the usual classification of strong verbs, where verbs that show imonophthongisation make up the first class while verbs like SAUFENW and LAUFENW are put into the second and seventh class, respectively. SCHEIDL, formerly also in the seventh class (compare the adjective BESCHEIDENW), is not subject to quantitative ablaut. Hence, in this case, length of the ablaut form (/id/) fails to signal full ablaut. Consequently, it is now treated as a case of i-monophthongisation, and accordingly SCHEIDENW is in the first class.
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e/i-alternation. But there are three stems, viz. BITTL, LIEGL, SITZL, that are special. True, they show the same repertoire of forms as other stems of the same class. Compare, e.g., TRETL and BITTL:
L
TRET : L BITT :
/e/-form
//-form
/a/-form
//-form
tret bet
tritt bitt
trat bat
trät bät
What is different in the case of BITTL (as compared to TRETL) is that the //form is used in all present tense forms of the verb. (Each of the three special stems has an I-form in // or /i/ that occurs in the infinitive — bitten, liegen, sitzen — and another I-form in // or /e/ that occurs in the participle — gebeten, gelegen, gesessen. Hence the Duden-grammar lists three gradations that are idiosyncratic to these verbs: //–/a/–/e/, /i/–/a/–/e/, and //–/a/–//, cf. Table 1). But evidently, the difference does not pertain to the make-up of stem forms but to their function. From a synchronic viewpoint, BITTL, LIEGL, L SITZ may be taken to exhibit what may be called extended application of e/i-alternation. At all events, the particularity found with these stems does not pertain to ablaut; there is no ‘i e-ablaut’ (Wurzel 1970: 77).31 W HÄNGEN (cf. Paul 1917: 239f.) provides another case where the ‘secondary present tense stem’ is used in all present tense forms, though in this case it is formed by means of umlaut. As concerns the make-up of forms, HÄNGL (hang, häng, hing) is not different from FANGL (fang, fäng, fing), which shows ablaut (/a/ //-alternation) as well as umlaut. Again, there is no exception to the above finding that, as far as monophthongal bases are concerned, ablaut requires a change of quality type. Two more cases have to be mentioned. U-forms may be due to either simple ablaut (o-ablaut) or full ablaut (u-ablaut). Typical examples are:
→
→
→ →
→
→
fließ floss (I U-alternation, shortening, ablaut form: o-form) schaff schuf (A U-alternation, lengthening, ablaut form: u-form) L
SCHWÖR is W SCHWÖREN
a stem that shows o-ablaut, the principle parts of the verb being schwören–schwor–geschworen. But dictionaries and grammars still list the past tense form schwur, usually adding a qualification such as ‘obsolete’, cf. Drosdowski et al. (1995: 139), or ‘elevated’, cf. Paul (1917: 235). On account of its vowel, /u/, schwur must be due to full ablaut. 31
See also Paul (1917: 219, 229) and compare Paul’s comments on cases where i-forms have spread to the whole present tense, e.g., WIEGENW vs. BEWEGENW/ERWÄGENW.
FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
123
Yet the base, which is an I-form, not an A-form, does not fit into the pattern. Moreover, if schwur (‘past stem’) and schwor (‘participle stem’) are assumed to coexist as ablaut forms of SCHWÖRL in the standard language, then this is a case where two distinct ablaut forms belong to the same quality type, viz. U-form — contrary to the general pattern.32 However, this virtually unique situation, if it exists, must be ascribed to a (not yet complete) changeover from one class to another. In Old High German, the verb in question is in the sixth class, but it shows a special present tense formation (Paul 1917: 200). The modern /u/-form goes back to the sixth class pattern, but the aberrant base vocalism has caused the verb to leave this class. In Contemporary German, it is in the second class, i.e., it shows o-ablaut, in conformance with its base vocalism. The old ablaut form has survived for a long time, significantly in the case of a verb that, owing to its meaning (‘swear, vow’), may be expected in solemn or ceremonial speech. However, its being abandoned or becoming out of date evinces the efficacy of the synchronic regularities.33 While an /u/-form is an irregular ablaut form if the base is an I-form, o-ablaut requires an I-base (unless the base is diphthongal). But again there is one anomalous case. ERSCHALLL is a stem with an A-base and yet it has the ablaut form erscholl, which, on account of its vowel, //, must be due to o-ablaut. The make-up of the ablaut form is inconspicuous, following the model of verbs of the second class (like QUELLL; cf. Middle High German L SCHËLL ). Again, the base does not fit into the pattern. Actually, the present tense form is taken over from the corresponding weak verb (see Dt.Wb s.v. W SCHALLEN ); this is a case of suppletion. Moreover, the simple verb SCHALW LEN usually shows weak forms; the strong past participle is practically missing. As for ERSCHALLENW, grammars recognise both weak and strong forms as being customary. Diachronically, at least, it is a case of a mixed verb. The present approach discloses and locates its synchronic anomaly (which concerns the present tense form, not the ablaut form). At all events, (ER)SCHALLL
32
A stem that has a U-form as a primary form may still have an umlauted subjunctive form, the non-umlauted counter part of which would be another U-form (STERBENW: stürbe vs. gestorben). 33 See Forssman (1999) on the diachrony of SCHWÖRENW, and also Theobald (1992: 103– 108, 136–139, with references). In the case of SCHWÖRENW, past indicative forms in /u/ are sometimes listed as the only or as the preferred or more common forms (Curme 1922: 313). Some grammars (e.g., Drosdowski et al. 1995: 135) also list /u/-forms of the obsolete verb W W ANHEBEN ‘begin’, but usually not in the case of (AN)HEBEN ‘lift’, and subjunctive forms in /y/. Basically, the situation is the same as with SCHWÖRENW, but in this case the /u/forms (and /y/-forms) are definitely archaic.
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is not a ‘normal’ strong verb stem. On account of its marginal status, it will be disregarded in the following. Finally, the verb KOMMENW is usually assigned to the fourth class of strong verbs (gradation e–a–o, cf. NEHMENW) although its ‘principal parts’ are kommen–kam–gekommen.34 Its base vocalism would have to be regarded as deviant. By the present synchronic approach, however, the stem KOMML shows ordinary a-ablaut (komm kam): it has one (and only one) ablaut form (kam), which is an A-form, and there is short long-alternation. However, KOMML is the only stem that shows U A-alternation.35
→ →
3
→
Functions of ablaut
3.1 Functional types It is customary to distinguish what may be called functional types of stem forms. Usually, these are referred to as ‘present stem’, ‘past stem’ and ‘participle stem’. In terms of the present approach, the differentiation of functional types constitutes a classification of stem forms (i.e., forms of stem lexemes), namely, a classification that accounts for the stem forms’ functions. Of course, these are related to the (functional) categorisations of the forms of verbs that contain the stem forms in question (cf. Lieb 1983: Section 11.3, 1992). In addition to the named three primary types there are the so-called ‘secondary present tense stems’ and ‘secondary past tense stems’. The differentiation of primary and secondary stem forms is a matter of subclassifying the sets of present and past tense stem forms, respectively. The received terminology (primary–secondary) obviously reflects the assumption that secondary forms are derived from their primary counter-parts. It also points to the observation that this subdifferentiation does not always apply, that is, there are stems such that one or both secondary forms are missing. No doubt, the primarysecondary-differentiation imposes an order of markedness on functional types. An order in terms of markedness may also be established among primary stem forms. The traditional differentiation of three ‘primary stems’ tends to give the impression that these three types were on an equal footing, but they
34
In particular in historical grammars but also in reference grammars of Contemporary German; see, e.g., Curme (1922: 311). 35 It may be noted that some of the forms of anomalous verbs conform to standard ablaut patterns. WESL functions as a suppletive stem of SEINW used in past tense forms; it has aablaut, wes war (and consonantal change); cf. LESL. Similarly, the past forms of GEHENW are built on GANGL, which shows i-ablaut (gang ging); cf. FANGL. WERDL has an o-ablaut form word; cf. WERBL.
→
→
FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
125
are positively not.36 Stem forms must not be classified into three types of equal rank; such a classification would be inhomogeneous, a mixing of two criteria that interact in the differentiation of the three functional types, viz. tense and finitude. The traditional three-element classification should be replaced by a system of two classifications: a basic classification according to tense as proposed by Lieb (1978) and a sub-classification in terms of finitude.37 I assume, then, a classification into non-past and past forms as a first functional classification on the set of stem forms of strong verbs.38 This is in accordance with a traditional line of thought that ranks past participles — as the name says — among past forms. The set of past tense forms is subclassified according to finitude: this subclassification sets apart stem forms that occur in finite past verb forms (the ‘primary and secondary past tense stems’) from those that occur in non-finite (or ‘infinite’) past verb forms (the latter being tradition’s ‘participle stems’, of course). In its turn, the primary/secondary-distinction imposes a subclassification on the set of finite past tense stem forms in terms of mood. Accordingly, I distinguish between finite past non-subjunctive forms (‘primary past stems’) and finite past subjunctive forms (‘secondary past stems’). To complete the classification system the traditional distinction between ‘primary and secondary present tense stems’ would have to be accounted for. However, as ablaut concerns the formation of past forms only, this part of the classification system may be left without analysis for purposes of the present investigation.39 The proposed system of classifications may be presented by means of a classification tree that is given in Figure 1 (next page). The basic set strong is the set of forms of stems of strong verbs; tense, finitude and mood are the names of the three classifications introduced above. Names of classes are obvious abbreviations. The subclassification of non-past forms is left out. For 36
Compare, for instance, Augst (1975: 251), who assumes that in Modern German a formerly given discrepancy between four ‘ablaut grades’ and three ‘tense grades’ (“4 Ablaut- aber 3 Tempusstufen”) has been remedied. This would seem to imply that the three ‘primary stems’ are differentiated solely in terms of tense (cf. 266: “[…] wird der Vokalwechsel allein mit der Tempusunterscheidung belastet.”). 37 Cf. also Halle & Marantz (1993), who assume two features, [± past] and [± participle], and see Wunderlich & Fabri (1995) on the feature [± AGR]. For discussion of the nonmorphemic character of notions such as ‘past stem’ see Blevins (2003). 38 Significantly, in the case of ‘tense stems’ of weak verbs, this distinction is the only one that applies, cf. lob (non-past) vs. lobt (past). 39 Lieb (1978: 206) distinguishes three types of present tense stem forms because there are two varieties of ‘secondary present tense stems’; those that show umlaut are restricted to the 2nd/3rd person singular present indicative while those that show i/e-alternation are used with imperatives in addition.
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convenience, I have put the usual names of functional types below the endpoints of the classification system.40 strong
tense
non-past
past
finitude
non-fin-past
fin-past
mood
(‘present stems’)
(‘participle stems’)
fin-past-non-subj
fin-past-subj
(‘primary past stems’)
(‘secondary past stems’)
Figure 1. Functional types of forms of stems of strong verbs
As usual, the marked terms of the classifications are put on the right-hand side. The classification system establishes an order of markedness among the classes it provides — from the unmarked (primary) present tense forms to the most highly marked secondary past tense forms. 3.2 Syncretisms Among the three ‘primary stems’ of a strong verb, two may be identical in expression form. Three types of strong verbs may be distinguished in terms of the identity or non-identity of the vowels of their ‘principal parts’ (in the order of diminishing number of pertinent verbs):41
40
In a more explicit account categories would have to be relativised to idiolect systems; category names such as ‘strong’ would have to be replaced by ‘strong(−,S)’; see Lieb (1983). The presentation in the present paper is simplified in a number of ways. 41 This classificatory criterion is found already in grammarians of the 17th and 18th century, in particular in Adelung (see Adelung 1782: 803). More recently, it has been used by Grebe
FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
127
Type A. ‘Participle stem’ and ‘primary past stem’ are identical. Type B. Three distinct ‘primary stems’. Type C. ‘Primary present stem’ and ‘participle stem’ are identical. Very often this classification is regarded as basic; it is less often analysed or discussed in any detail. However, a closer investigation of the foundation of syncretism patterns turns out to be revealing. The number of patterns of syncretism is multiplied if syncretisms of primary and secondary forms are also taken into account; still, the rationale of syncretisms is simple. Any marked stem form (i.e., any stem form apart from the base) may be ‘missing’; if so, the next less specific (i.e., the next less marked) form takes over its office. As regards secondary forms this is obvious from traditional treatments and even from the terminology. Secondary stem forms may be missing, in particular since the vocalism of the relevant primary forms may exclude the possibility of forming them, and it is understood that the primary forms will substitute for them: if a verb stem has no secondary present form the primary present form applies throughout the present tense; likewise, if a verb stem has no secondary past form the primary past form applies throughout the past tense. It turns out that the same ‘logic’ applies in case of syncretism between primary stem forms. Consider the stems FECHTL, SPRECHL and MESSL: Table 4 (next page) lists their primary forms. These are ordered from left to right according to increasing markedness (as established before, cf. Figure 1). Note that the ‘participle stems’ are put into the middle for this reason (different from the usual listing of principal parts).42 The three rows that are preceded by the lexemes’ names show the distribution of forms among functional types. At the bottom the expression types are indicated (//-form, //-form, or /a/-form). Table 4 also points out the functional values of the alternations that are involved; this will be explained immediately. What the table says may be detailed as follows.
et al. (1959), Jung (1966), Ross (1967), and Wurzel (1970), among others. Cf. also Ulvestad (1956). And, of course, the syncretisms at issue have not been neglected in historical grammars. Wilmanns (1906) for one uses formal differentiation as his basic classificatory criterion opposing “Verba mit voll entwickeltem Ablaut” (25) and “Verba mit schwächer entwickeltem oder fehlendem Ablaut” (32). 42 But Adelung (1782: 803) used this order in presenting his classification of strong verbs (and in particular in introducing mnemonic names for the classes of strong verbs), certainly because (non-)identity of the vowels of principal parts is his superordinate criterion. It is also adopted (and again in order to take care of syncretisms) in Johnston (1997).
128
BERND WIESE ‘primary present stem’
‘participle stem’
A. FECHTL
fecht
focht
B. SPRECHL
sprech
sproch
functional type:
C. MESSL
mess
expression type: functional value:
‘primary past stem’
sprach
maß
//-form
//-form
–––
past
/a/-form finite past
Table 4. Syncretisms among primary stem forms
The three verbal stems FECHTL, SPRECHL and MESSL each have a base in // (thus an I-base). In addition, FECHTL has an o-ablaut form (i.e., an ablaut form formed by o-ablaut, vide supra, Section 2.6). The o-form appears in the past participle and in the finite past (the shaded box indicates the range of application). o-ablaut thus functions as a general marker of past tense; put differently, the functional value of o-ablaut is past. MESSL has (in addition to its base) an a-ablaut form (i.e., an ablaut form formed by a-ablaut, vide supra, Section 2.6). The a-form appears only in the past indicative; again the box indicates the range of application. The functional value of the a-ablaut form is finite past, that is, a-ablaut serves to mark finite past forms only. L SPRECH has (in addition to its base) an o-ablaut form and an a-ablaut form. The a-form appears in the past indicative; again, a-ablaut marks finite past. The o-form appears in the remaining past tense verb forms, viz. in the past participle; again, o-ablaut marks past tense. In this case the o-form is restricted to the participle since SPRECHL has an a-form that functions as a finite past form. The existence of this more specific form excludes the appearance of the o-form of SPRECHL in finite past forms of the verb SPRECHENW.43 The bases are found in the domains that are not covered by ablaut forms. Secondary forms further limit the range of application of primary forms; e.g., See Kiparsky (1973) on the ‘Elsewhere-principle’ or ‘Pāinian principle’; for discussion of its rôle in morphology see, among others, Anderson (1992) and Halle & Marantz (1993). 43
FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
129
the past form sprach is limited to the indicative of the past on account of the existence of the more highly specialised past subjunctive form spräch. The patterning of syncretisms between primary forms turns out to be due to the functional values of ablaut. o-ablaut forms are general past forms while a-ablaut forms are finite past forms. If a stem does not have a separate finite past form (as is the case with FECHTL), then the general past form takes over; if a stem does not have a general past form (as with MESSL), then the base substitutes for it. 3.3 Form-function-relation Inspection of the three example stems FECHTL, SPRECHL and MESSL has revealed that a-ablaut (a variety of full ablaut) serves as a marker of finite past tense, whereas o-ablaut (a variety of simple ablaut) serves as a general (unspecific) marker of past tense. These observations may be generalised. It holds not only of these three stems, but also in general: simple ablaut serves as a general past marker; full ablaut serves as a specific finite past marker. I provide another synopsis of ablaut patterns (Table 5, next page), which is designed to demonstrate these findings. Roman numbers in the first column refer to ablaut classes, i.e., classes of stem lexemes (CLASS I etc.; they will be defined in Section 4.1). The adjacent column lists example stems (as before, stem forms that occur in infinitives are used as citation forms). The next three columns from left to right list the vowels found in ‘(primary) present stems’, ‘participle stems’ and ‘(primary) past stems’, respectively. If no vowel is given, the one found in the left neighbouring column substitutes for it. For instance, in the case of stems of CLASS I (listed at the top), it is the vowels given for the ‘participle stem’ that appear in the ‘past stem’ (thus in the past indicative); with stems of CLASS VI (listed at the bottom), it is the vowels noted under ‘present stem’ that appear in past participles. The presentation should be self-explanatory. Indeed, it is basically the same as in Table 4. Shaded boxes indicate ranges of application of ablaut forms. Instances of i-monophthongisation are given at the top. The first example stem (REITL) is one that undergoes a change of quantity type, namely long short-alternation. The minus sign put into the ‘participle stem’-column is to draw attention to this fact. There are three more gradations that involve long short-alternation between base and ablaut form, and they are marked in the same way. Similarly, plus signs indicate short long-alternation between base and ablaut form.
→ →
→
130
BERND WIESE functional type: REIT BLEIB
I
II
III
IV
V
SCHIND GLIMM FECHT ERLÖSCH SAUF FLIESS BIEG LÜG HEB GÄR SCHWÖR SAUG BIND SPINN BERG SPRECH NEHM STEHL GEBÄR MESS GEB SITZ BITT LIEG KOMM RUF STOSS LAUF
VII
VI
HÄNG FANG FALL BLAS HEISS SCHAFF FAHR
functional value:
‘present stem’
‘participle stem’
/a/ // I-form, /i/ /a/ diphthongal // // // // / / // /œ/ // (/a/) // /i/ // /i/ /o/ /o/ /y/ /e/ /o/ / / /o/ /ø/ /o/ /o/ (/a/) // // I-form // // // / / / / // /e/ // /o/ /e/ /o/ / / / / /e/ // / / e/i// /e/ alternation /e/ /i/ // /u/ U-form /o/ /a/ / / umlaut /a/ /a/ /a/ /a/ A-form (/a/) /a/ /a/
–––
–
‘past stem’
I-form
– –
U-form o-form
–
past
/a/ /a/ /a/ /a/ + /a/ /a/ /a/ /a/ + /a/ /a/ + /a/ /a/ /a/ + /i/ /i/ /i/ // // /i/ + /i/ /i/ /u/ + /u/
A-form
I-form
U-form
finite past
Table 5. Synopsis of ablaut patterns in Contemporary Standard German
131
FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
Below that, stems are listed that exhibit only o-ablaut followed by stems that show o-ablaut and a-ablaut. Underneath come gradations that involve only a-ablaut, i-ablaut or u-ablaut. The general arrangement accords with the traditional order of ablaut classes of strong verbs, but VII has been placed between V and VI. Names of the pertinent expression types of ablaut forms have been put into the boxes, thus I-form, U-form, A-form; the same procedure applies to the domain of base forms (unshaded area). The arrows are drawn in in order to illustrate clearly the six types of change of quality type there are. If a base does not belong to the class indicated, the vowel sign is put between parentheses. This concerns only a few diphthongal bases. As stems with diphthongal bases ordinarily do not undergo a change of quality type, these bases belong to the same quality types as do their ablaut forms. Three stems of CLASS V and one of CLASS VII have an alternation form in the whole of the present tense that is not due to ablaut. This is indicated by the dotted boxes. In these cases it is the forms occurring in the ‘participle stems’ that figure as bases for ablaut. (Cf. supra, Section 2.7, on ‘special present tense formations’.) In other cases, vowels of ‘secondary stems’ are not listed. An uncomplicated picture emerges: —
Simple ablaut serves to mark general past forms. Bases are I-forms; stems undergo monophthongisation if diphthongal (ablaut forms are i-forms) or o-ablaut if monophthongal (ablaut forms are o-forms or, in the case of NC-stems, u-forms). Ablaut forms are short if possible.
—
Full ablaut serves to mark finite past forms. There is a change of quality type; ablaut forms are a-forms, i-forms or u-forms, and they are long if possible.
In addition, there are two or three stems that have diphthongal U-bases and show o-ablaut, and one stem with a diphthongal I-base that shows i-ablaut. In the light of these results, it should be obvious that any approach that derives ‘past participle stems’ from ‘primary past stems’ must do violence to the structure of the German ablaut system. The usual order of listing forms of strong verbs must not be misconstrued as a derivational scheme. An attempt to treat ablaut in German as a two-step derivational process (present past past participle) as proposed in Ségéral & Scheer (1998) is bound to fail. By their approach, Ségéral and Scheer are lead to assume that verbs like BIEGENW (biegen–bog–gebogen) have distinct underlying stem forms for past participles and finite past forms. But, as a matter of fact, stems of the first and second class conform to the normal pattern that is also found with the weak verbs: they employ one and the same stem form for all (non-subjunctive) past forms,
⇒
⇒
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BERND WIESE
including past participles. Even in the case of verbs like STOSSENW (stoßen– stieß–gestoßen), Ségéral and Scheer maintain that vowels in past participles are derived from finite past vowels by ablaut. But, as a matter of fact, the verbs of the fifth, sixth and seventh class do not employ ablaut in past participle formation at all, participles showing the base forms of the stems. It must be recognised that the primary forms of a German strong verb stem mostly include just one ablaut form; only stems of the third and fourth class have two of them. The form-function-relation found with ablaut in German is straightforward and rigid: this is the pay-off of a strictly ‘surfacist’ approach to morphology. Its surface orientation sets the present analysis apart from those approaches that try to grasp ablaut in terms of rules that apply to ‘underlying’ forms. Taking recourse to underlying forms only clouds the actual regularities.44 A further study of the foundations on which ablaut is built would surely be worthwhile. Here I confine myself to pointing to the rôle of iconicity as a basis for quantitative ablaut. Change of quantity type that produces forms of normalised length is used as a component of simple ablaut, which has the rather unspecific functional value of general past marking. On the other hand, change of quantity type that produces forms of marked length is used as a component of full ablaut, which has the more specific functional value of finite past marking. The diagrammatic correspondence between form and function is patent. The preference for bases in front vowels as opposed to ablaut forms in back vowels is another iconic aspect of ablaut, which, however, I cannot go into here.45 4
Inflectional classes
4.1 Ablaut classes The traditional division of strong verb classes, each distinguished by a particular overall ablaut pattern, is not an antiquated descriptive tool of nineteenth century linguistics; nor is its relevance restricted to diachronic matters or to 44
Ségéral & Scheer freely use non-surface ‘lexical’ forms (cf. note 12, supra) in order to defend their claim that German gradations are instantiations of a certain, allegedly universal pattern (the ‘apophonic path’). But even so, by their own count, only 59 percent of German strong verbs fit into the scheme; the remaining ones are, in their terms, only ‘halfapophonic’ or even ‘non-apophonic’. 45 For some hints see already Adelung (1782: 785 et passim); cf. Tanz (1971: 269) and Plank (1979: 144–145) with reference to English, and see Stedje (1987) on ‘mentalistic theories’ of ablaut. On iconicity of quantitative ablaut see also Mayerthaler (1981: Section 5.2.3) with reference to Gothic.
133
FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
older forms of German or Germanic. Rather, it is particularly appropriate to the system of strong verbs of Contemporary Standard German — in spite of widely accepted claims to the contrary. This, too, may be read off Table 5. A division that is very close to the traditional one arises from a strictly synchronic analysis of the ablaut system when stem lexemes are classified according to the types of alternations exhibited by their forms (cf. also Fourquet 1970: 61). Only, the division is simplified in Contemporary German since the historical third class and the historical fourth class have become one as regards qualitative ablaut. NO-FULL-ABL
a-ABL
i-ABL
u-ABL
I
V
VII
VI
SCHLAF NO-o-ABL
KOMM REIT
U-base
A-base
TRAG
RUF
LES
I-base BIEG
SPRECH
o-ABL II
III/IV
Table 6. Stem lexemes: ablaut classes
As the above analysis has revealed, change of quality type is a fundamental of ablaut in German; two types have been distinguished: full ablaut (comprising i-ablaut/a-ablaut/u-ablaut) and o-ablaut (a variety of simple ablaut). Accordingly, stems may be classified into those that show both o-ablaut and full ablaut (cf. SPRECHL), only the one or the other (cf. LESL and BIEGL) or neither (cf. REITL, which has i-monophthongisation, a second variety of simple ablaut). (In addition, there are a few stems with diphthongal bases that show o-ablaut or i-ablaut but no change of quality type, cf. Section 2.6.) I assume, then, a cross-classification on the set of strong verb stem lexemes based on two criteria, viz. ‘o-ablaut: yes/no’ and ‘full ablaut: yes/no’ (in the affirmative case: i-, a- or u-ablaut). As full ablaut has three subtypes, the system allows eight types of stems, as illustrated in Table 6. The rows represent the classification according to o-ablaut; the columns represent the classification according to full ablaut. The heads of rows and columns introduce names for the classes that are distinguished; for instance, o-ABL is the set of verb stems that exhibit o-ablaut — an alternation pattern identified in Sec-
134
BERND WIESE
tion 2. Names of example lexemes are put into the boxes; the quality types to which the pertinent bases regularly belong are noted. The cross-classification provides six stem classes that correspond to traditional classes of strong verbs (as indicated by the Roman numerals that are put into the boxes). Formally, these stem classes are identified as the following intersections of classes: CLASS I CLASS II CLASS III/IV CLASS V CLASS VI CLASS VII
=df NO-o-ABL ∩ NO-FULL-ABL =df o-ABL ∩ NO-FULL-ABL =df o-ABL ∩ a-ABL =df NO-o-ABL ∩ a-ABL =df NO-o-ABL ∩ u-ABL =df NO-o-ABL ∩ i-ABL
The defined classes of stem lexemes will be referred to as ablaut classes.46 The two combinations that remain (o-ABL ∩ i-ABL and o-ABL ∩ u-ABL, cf. the darkly shaded boxes in Table 6) do not correspond to traditional verb classes, and in fact, by the regularities of ablaut in German discussed above these intersections should be empty.47 Ablaut classes may be more or less similar; e.g., by the usual numbering, CLASS III/IV is placed between CLASS II and CLASS V, and rightly so, as it shares o-ablaut with the former and a-ablaut with the latter. Since ablaut classes are introduced as derived classes, their (dis-)similarities are accounted for in a straightforward manner. The apparent diversity of present stem vocalism as well as particularities of ‘present stem formation’ should not detract from the high degree of regularity of ablaut patterns. Quite generally, inflectional classes are to be defined in terms of the formation of derived forms, not in terms of the make-up of base 46
In addition, minor classes may be identified if necessary: for instance, CLASS III and are subclasses of CLASS III/IV. CLASS III stems have short, sonorant I-bases (cf. Section 2.5, supra); these stems have /a/-ablaut forms. CLASS IV comprises the remaining bases; these stems have /a/-ablaut forms. Similarly, CLASS VII may be divided into CLASS VIIb (stems that have U-bases) and CLASS VIIa (the remaining ones), cf. Paul (1989: 251). Classes of verbs may be introduced as derived classes (Lieb 1983: 173); a verb of the first class of strong verbs is a verb the stem of which belongs to CLASS I etc. 47 The first ‘case vide’ (o-ABL ∩ i-ABL) is indeed empty. o-ablaut as a rule requires monophthongal I-bases, which, in German, do not permit i-ablaut. o-ABL ∩ u-ABL should be empty, too, since in German distinct ablaut forms ordinarily belong to distinct quality types. However, if SCHWÖRL and perhaps ANHEBL are exceptions to this rule (cf. Section 2.7), then they belong here; though exceptional, gradations involving both o-ablaut and u-ablaut would not break the system. CLASS IV
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FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
forms (Wurzel 1984b: 68). Ablaut classes make no exception, pace Hook (1968) and others. 4.2 Ablaut class membership Statements that assign stems to ablaut classes may be understood as elementary characterisations. From this vantage point, the stem SPRECHL has the ablaut forms sproch and sprach because it belongs to CLASS III/IV. On the other hand, knowledge of a stem’s primary forms is usually sufficient to determine its ablaut class even if their functional types are not given: as a rule, assigning a stem to an ablaut class does not presuppose that its forms’ functions are taken into consideration. Consider the stem FECHTL and its primary forms fecht and focht. On account of its vowel, fecht is not a possible ablaut form; so it must be a base form, and consequently, the o-form focht is an ablaut form, and the only one at that. Thus this stem exhibits o-ablaut and only o-ablaut; consequently it belongs to CLASS II. However, Wurzel (1984a: 661) points to cases of ‘inverse alternations’. Both /i/ /o/ and /a/ /i/ are inconspicuous alternations (viz. cases of oablaut and i-ablaut, respectively), but Wurzel cites STOSSENW and LIEGENW, which apparently show the inversions of these patterns: STOSSENW has present forms in /o/ and past forms in /i/ and LIEGENW has present forms in /i/ and past forms in /a/. Richard Wiese (1996: 130), who adduces STOSSENW and W BIETEN , even maintains that “all types of bidirectional relations between vowels” are to be found with ablaut in German. As Table 5 shows this is not the case. As a rule, ablaut patterns are not reversible. The examples to prove the opposite are not typical, to say the least. As for LIEGL, by the above account (which adapts a proposal of Wurzel 1970: 77), ablaut proceeds on the basis of leg (giving lag by /e/ /a/alternation) while lieg is due to (exceptional) e/i-alternation. Whatever analysis is espoused, LIEGL shows aberrant present tense formation and is, at best, an exception but does not provide evidence for arbitrary inversions of ablaut. The comparison of BIETL and STOSSL also draws on rather peripheral cases. (STOSSL is the only stem that has an o-base and an i-ablaut form; on BIETL see note 25, supra.) Even if these exceptions stand up to scrutiny, it is significant that it holds good (at least for the overwhelming majority of strong verb stems, allowing for one or two exceptions, if any): given a stem’s primary forms, its ablaut class is fixed, that is, only expression-related properties of stem forms have to be resorted to in order to determine a stem’s ablaut class.
→
→
→
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4.3 Ablaut class markedness In the majority of cases knowledge of the base form alone suffices to determine to which ablaut class a stem belongs. Usually, there are two or at most three classes that have to be taken into account. Let me refer to stems that have I-bases as I-base stems, to stems that have not as non-I-base stems. Similarly, I will use the terms A-base stem and U-base stem. Now consider stems with monophthongal bases: I-base stems belong to CLASS II, III/IV, or V; A-base stems belong to CLASS VI or VII, and U-base stems belong to CLASS V or VII (cf. Table 6). Stems with diphthongal I-bases belong to CLASS I; only one /a/-base stem is in CLASS VII. Stems with diphthongal U-bases belong to CLASS II or CLASS VII. These assignments derive from the general formal characteristics of ablaut in German, which have been discussed in Section 2. Moreover, the ablaut classes to be considered are not of the same rank. They differ with respect to inflectional class markedness (Wurzel 1989; cf. also Durrell 2001). With I-base stems, the major division is whether a-ablaut is applicable or not. Membership in a-ABL is the marked option. Note that: —
—
—
The majority of I-base stems do not show a-ablaut; they belong to NOFULL-ABL and thus to CLASS I or II according as the base is diphthongal or monophthongal. The internal variability of the class NO-FULL-ABL is much greater than that of the class a-ABL. a-ablaut is not found with bases that show ‘conspicuous’ vocalism, to wit, (i) with diphthongal bases, (ii) with bases in rounded front vowels, or (iii) with bases that have long vowels before voiceless consonants (other than /t/). But all types of front vowels that occur in bases of strong verb stems at all appear in bases of NO-FULL-ABL stems, cf. BIEGL (/i/), SCHINDL (//), HEBL (/e/), FECHTL (/ /), GÄRL (/ /), L L L L LÜG (/y/), SCHWÖR (/ø/), ERLÖSCH (/œ/), and REIT (/a/); there are no bases in / / or //. On the other hand, if I-base stems show a-ablaut, the base vowel is i or e.48 A considerable number of stems have abandoned a-ABL for NO-FULLABL.
An argument against the unmarked status of NO-FULL-ABL might be based on the fact that it is only CLASS III/IV stems that take advantage of the full potential of form differentiation. Only these stems show double ablaut (that is, simple and full ablaut): only these stems employ two distinct ablaut alterna48
It is i if, and only if, it is short and followed by a nasal (thus //). Otherwise it is e (i.e., /e/ or //); in addition there is one //-base stem (GEBÄRL). For SITZL, BITTL, and LIEGL, cf. Section 2.7.
FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
137
tions in forming ‘past participle stems’ and ‘primary past stems’, respectively. But then having this property means not to conform to the pattern of stem form distinctions found with weak verbs (whereas the unmarked status of NO-FULLABL is confirmed as it is precisely the stems in this class that follow the model of the productive, weak class in as far as they do not show a distinction between ‘past participle stems’ and ‘primary past stems’). As regards non-I-base stems, by similar considerations the unmarked option is i-ablaut (i.e., membership in CLASS VII, cf. Wurzel 1970: 79) while u-ablaut or, again, a-ablaut are the marked options. The majority of non-I-base stems belong to CLASS VII; as regards u-ablaut, there are rigid restrictions on the make-up of the bases that will be noted below. I take it, then, that membership in NO-FULL-ABL and in i-ABL are the standard (unmarked or ‘default’) options for I-base stems and non-I-base stems, respectively. Thus, in order to determine ablaut class membership all that has to be done is to single out those stems that take the marked option. But, membership in non-default-classes is subject to rather restrictive conditions. The majority of stems that meet these conditions do belong to these classes indeed; only minority groups belong to one of the default-classes nevertheless, and it is only the latter groups that set bounds to an attempt to derive ablaut class membership from the make-up of bases. 4.4 I-base stems and ablaut classes In the unmarked case, I-base stems belong to NO-FULL-ABL. The marked option is to have a-ablaut. It is true, there are two subclasses of NO-FULL-ABL (CLASS I and CLASS II) but the division in terms of the diphthongalmonophthongal-distinction is straightforward. All /a/-, /i/-, /y/-, /ø/-, and L 49 /œ/-base stems are in NO-FULL-ABL (except HEISS , CLASS VII); these are: —
49
-bases, CLASS I: L L L L L L SCHEIN , (ER/VER)BLEICH , GLEICH , STREICH , WEICH , SCHLEICH , L L L L L L L L SCHWEIG , STEIG , GREIF , KNEIF , PFEIF , SCHLEIF , BLEIB , REIB , L L L L L L L L SCHREIB , TREIB , PREIS , WEIS , BEISS , REISS , SCHEISS , SCHMEISS , L L L L L L L L LEID , SCHNEID , MEID , SCHEID , GLEIT , REIT , SCHREIT , STREIT , L L L L L GEDEIH , LEIH , SCHREI , SPEI , ZEIH /a/
The following lists cannot be definite as there are a few borderline cases. With a number of verbs, judgements concerning acceptability of strong forms do not coincide, cf. (BE)DINGL, KÜRL/(ER)KIESL, MELKL, SCHLEISSL, SPLEISSL; see reference grammars for details, e.g., Curme (1924: 300–315); cf. also Aldenhoff (1961). However, even these peripheral cases, if included, fit into the classes as characterised in the text.
138 —
BERND WIESE
-, /y/-, /ø/-, or /œ/-bases, CLASS II: L L L L FRIER , VERLIER , KRIECH , RIECH , L L L L SCHIEB , STIEB , FLIESS , GENIESS , L L L L SPRIESS , VERDRIESS , SIED , BIET , L L SCHWÖR , VER/ERLÖSCH /i/
L
L
L
L
BIEG , FLIEG , WIEG , TRIEF , L L L GIESS , SCHLIESS , SCHIESS , L L L L FLIEH , ZIEH , LÜG , TRÜG ,
The remaining I-base stems (viz. stems with bases in /e/, / /, / /, or //) usually have a-ablaut. The majority belong to CLASS III/IV, that is, they show a-ablaut and o-ablaut; a minority have a-ablaut but lack o-ablaut (that is, they are in CLASS V). The distribution is controlled by both the quantity type and the consonantism of the base. Two classes may be singled out: sonorant bases, the segment immediately following the vowel is a sonorant, and s-bases, the segment immediately following the vowel is an alveolar fricative (i.e., /s/ or /z/). Given that an I-base stem has a-ablaut (thus is a member of a-ABL) and given the consonantal structure of its base, its ablaut class is fixed as shown in Table 7.
long base
L
SING
(other bases) L
BRECH
L
STEHL
L
GEB
s-base L
MESS
L
LES
CLASS V
short base
CLASS III/IV
sonorant base
Table 7. a-ablaut stems with o-ablaut (CLASS III/IV) and without o-ablaut (CLASS V)
Members of a-ABL with short bases have o-ablaut (with the exception of sbase stems); members of a-ABL with long bases do not have o-ablaut (with the exception of sonorant base stems). Evidently, stems of CLASS III/IV and CLASS V are rather different as regards their vocalic and consonantal structure, cf.: —
short I-base stems, CLASS III/IV: L L L L L L L L SINK , TRINK , STINK , SING , RING , DRING , WRING , SPRING , GE/MISSL L L L L L L L LING , KLING , SCHLING , SCHWING , ZWING , BIND , (EMP)FIND , WIND , L L L L L L L SCHWIND , SINN , SPINN , RINN , GEWINN , BEGINN , SCHWIMM , L L L L L L L L SCHELT , GELT , HELF , BERST , BERG , VERDERB , WERB , STERB , L L L L L L WERF , BRECH , SPRECH , ERSCHRECK , TREFF , STECH
—
long I-base stems, CLASS III/IV: L L L L BE/EMPFEHL , STEHL , GEBÄR , NEHM
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FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
—
short I-base stems, CLASS V:50 L L L L L ESS , FRESS , MESS , VERGESS , SITZ
—
long I-base stems, CLASS V: L L L L L L L L SEH , GESCHEH , LES , GENES , BITT , TRET , LIEG , GEB
Finally, there are a number of stems that have bases in /e/, //, // or // and thus would ‘qualify’ for a-ablaut as regards their base vowels but which are in CLASS II nevertheless: —
/e/-, //-, //-, or //-bases, CLASS II: L
L
L
L
L
L
SCHIND , GLIMM , KLIMM , SCHMELZ , QUELL , SCHWELL , SCHER L L L L L L L L GÄR , DRESCH , FECHT , FLECHT , HEB , WEB , BEWEG , WÄG
L
,
Even membership in this special group is not random, but a detailed discussion would be beyond the scope of this paper. Suffice it to note that there are at least two relevant factors:51 (i)
‘Family resemblance’. I-base stems are invariably in CLASS III/IV if the vowel is followed by a velar nasal. Stems of this type (e.g., SINGL, L 52 TRINK ) are, then, among the ‘best exemplars’ of this class. On the other hand, it is a sufficient condition for membership in CLASS V for a stem to have an e-base such that the vowel is followed by nothing but an alveolar obstruent (if anything); thus LESL is a ‘prototypical’ member of CLASS V. The tendency to leave CLASS III/IV or CLASS V is the stronger the less prominent the family resemblance to the best exemplars of those classes is.53 (ii) ‘Phonotactic en-/discouragement’. Consider WIEGL/WÄGL/BEWEGL and L WEB , which come from CLASS V. It is assumed that these stems developed o-forms under the influence of the initial /v/ (Paul 1917: 230); moreover, they lost a-ablaut and are now in CLASS II (in as far as strong 50
The bases of SITZL, LIEGL AND BITTL are sess /zs/, leg /le/ and bet /bet/, respectively (cf. Section 2.7). 51 Another possible factor is confusion with weak causatives (Paul 1917: 219). 52 See the analysis by Bybee & Slobin (1982) of the cognate class in English for a discussion of the rôle of prototypes, schemes and family resemblance; cf. also Bybee & Moder (1983) and Köpcke (1999). 53 This applies to stems without a post-vocalic sonorant (e.g., FLECHTL, FECHTL, DRESCHL) that have left CLASS III/IV and to stems ending in non-alveolar obstruents that have left L L CLASS V (e.g., BEWEG , WEB ), thus stems with ‘other bases’ by the classification presented in Table 7.
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forms are still in use). The vowel occurs in a context that favours rounded vowels (Paul 1989: 78); presumably, such a context may encourage o-ablaut and may discourage a-ablaut (in particular when //- and /a/forms compete). Similar remarks may apply to most of the other stems that have lost a-ablaut; e.g., those where the vowel appears side by side with / /. The largest group of apostates comprises SCHMELZL, QUELLL, L L L SCHWELL , GLIMM , and KLIMM , the bases being schmelz / mlts/, quell /kvl/, schwell / vl/, glimm /lm/, and klimm /klm/, respectively; cf. also MELKL, melk /mlk/. In these bases, the vowels occur between a voiced labial (/v/ or /m/) on the one hand and a lateral (/l/) on the other; no such stem allows a-ablaut in Contemporary German. Bases with initial labial+lateral-cluster (FLECHTL; PFLEGL, strong forms now obsolete) belong here, too.54 Summing up, the unmarked option for I-base stems is NO-FULL-ABL. However, stems with e-bases or short i-bases have as a rule a-ablaut, though a number of stems that do not fit neatly into a-ABL have moved into NO-FULL-ABL, adopting the unmarked option. I-base stems that have a-ablaut belong either to CLASS III/IV (a-ablaut and o-ablaut) or to CLASS V (only a-ablaut); membership is determined in terms of the quantity types and the consonantal structures of the bases. 4.5 Non-I-base stems and ablaut classes As for non-I-base stems, i-ablaut is the unmarked option. A-base stems belong to CLASS VII (i-ablaut) or CLASS VI (u-ablaut): —
A-bases, CLASS VII: (EMP)FANGL, HÄNGL, LASS
—
HALT
L
,
L
FALL
,
SCHLAF
L
,
BRAT
L
, (GE)RATL,
BLAS
L
,
L
A-bases, CLASS VI: L L WACHS , WASCH , FAHR
L
BACK
,
SCHAFF
L
,
L
SCHLAG
,
L
TRAG
,
L
GRAB
,
L
LAD
,
L
For a stem to be in CLASS VI, its base must meet a severe condition of ‘normalcy’: short vowels must be followed by voiceless consonants, long vowels 54
Cf. Ségéral & Scheer (1998: 50), who, however, maintain that the verbs in question do have (underlying) a-forms in the finite past (which surface as o-forms) — an untenable position that mixes up synchrony and diachrony. For an overview of the diachronic development see Solms & Wegera (1993: 270–278), for details Solms (1984) and Chirita (1988).
FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
141
must be followed by voiced consonants. (Consequently, ablaut forms due to u-ablaut are invariably long.) Moreover, as in the case of CLASS III/IV, s-bases are not admitted. Stems are in CLASS VI if, and only if, their bases conform to one of the following two patterns: /a/ + voiceless consonant (≠ /s/) /a/ + voiced consonant (≠ /z/)
The remaining A-base stems are in CLASS VII. (The bases are fang /fa/, hang /ha/, halt /halt/, fall /fal/, schlaf / laf/, brat /brat/, rat /rat/, blas /blaz/, and lass /las/, respectively.) As regards the small set of stems that have monophthongal U-bases, ablaut class membership is straightforward given the above observations on ‘conspicuous’ vocalism. RUFL and STOSSL show marked base vocalism: the vowels are long although followed by voiceless obstruents; they are in CLASS VII (the unmarked option for non-I-base stems). There is only one more U-base stem, namely KOMML, which is in CLASS V. Likewise, stems with diphthongal U-bases would not qualify for the marked option a-ablaut. Two such stems are in CLASS II (SAUFL, SAUGL), which agrees with the disposition of diphthongal bases not to show change of quality type;55 LAUFL and HAUL show i-ablaut as expected in the case of U-base stems. The distribution apparently does not correlate with synchronically determinable properties of the stems.56 5
Ablaut: an integrated view
Any adequate analysis of ablaut should uncover how ablaut contributes to the categorisation of verb forms. Consider, e.g., VERSPRECHENW with its forms versprechen (infinitive or 1st/3rd person plural of the present), versprachen (1st/3rd person plural past indicative), and in particular versprochen (past participle). Obviously, it is attributable to the occurrence of the stem form versproch that the verb form versprochen functions as a past participle. To grasp this fact, one might be inclined to resort to functional types of stem forms: versproch is a ‘participle stem’ and t h e r e f o r e versprochen is a participle form. However, as noted in Section 1.3, supra, an account like this would be liable to circularity. After all, a stem form would qualify as a ‘parti55
Sometimes SCHNAUBENW is mentioned as having a ‘poetic’ form schnob. Diachronically, the distribution corresponds to the distinction between ‘old diphthongs’ and ‘new diphthongs’ (diphthongs going back to the so-called New High German diphthongisation). Stems with bases in ‘new diphthongs’ show simple ablaut, stems with bases in ‘old diphthongs’ show full ablaut (but SCHEIDL has changed classes, cf. note 30, supra). 56
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ciple stem’ only b e c a u s e it occurs in a participle. Furthermore, since ablaut is a relational phenomenon it is, in general, not possible to determine a stem form’s membership in a functional category such as ‘participle stem’ on the basis of its expression related properties alone. A formal determination would have to include reference to properties of stem lexemes.57 The present morphological approach avoids a vicious circle, based as it is on morphological categories that are determined in formal (expression-related) terms. The present section will be devoted to a demonstration of how functional categorisations of verb forms relate to formal categorisations of stem forms. To this end I shall fit together the major components of the account of ablaut that have been developed in the preceding. Discussion focuses on a single example, which, however, should suffice to illustrate how the proposed ‘item-and-paradigm-model’ works. strong
quality I-form
A-form
complexity U-form
monophthongal
diphthongal
quantity short
long
Figure 2. Expression types of forms of stems of strong verbs
In Section 2, I have established a system of classifications of forms of stems (of strong verbs) that is based on the forms’ vocalism (cf. Table 2, page 110); it may be represented by means of a classificatory tree as in Figure 2. The basic set strong is the set of forms of stems of strong verbs. There are three simultaneous classifications on strong that supply the expression types (such as I-form etc.) that have been discussed. On this basis, categorisations, i.e., sets of morphological categories, may be assigned to stem forms. The primary forms of the stem lexeme VERSPRECHL are categorised as follows: 〈versprech,
{I-form, monophthongal, short, …}〉 {U-form, monophthongal, short, …}〉 〈versprach, {A-form, monophthongal, long, …}〉
〈versproch,
57
For example, the set of stem forms that occur in participles of strong verbs is the union of (i) the set of ablaut forms of stems of CLASS I, (ii) the set of o-ablaut forms, and (iii) the set of base forms of stems of CLASS V, VI, and VII. This complex roundabout identification presupposes both the classification systems for stem forms and for stem lexemes. — Similarly, the class of ‘past stems’ could not be construed as a ‘pure form class’ (in the sense of Blevins 2003): there is more than one ‘form class’ that includes ‘past stems’.
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FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
These are three pairs of morphological units and sets of categories that contain the respective units. The morphological paradigm of the stem VERSPRECHL is a set of such pairs. To complete the paradigm, pairs that account for ‘secondary stems’ would have to be added; the classification system would have to be extended in order to take care of their specific characteristics. Hence additional categories would have to be incorporated into the categorisations as indicated by the dots. As these are not relevant to ablaut, they have been omitted. In Section 4, I have established a system of classifications of stem lexemes of strong verbs that is based on the types of alternations among stem forms (cf. Table 6, page 133); it may be represented by means of a classificatory tree as in Figure 3.58 The basic set STRONG is the set of stem lexemes of strong verbs. There are two simultaneous classifications on STRONG that supply the classes (such as o-ABL, etc.) on which ablaut classes (CLASS I, etc.) are based. The example stem VERSPRECHL belongs to the classes o-ABL and a-ABL and thus, by definition, to CLASS III/IV. The set {o-ABL, a-ABL, …} provides a morphological characterisation of the stem VERSPRECHL. STRONG
o-ablaut NO-o-ABL
full ablaut o-ABL
NO-FULL-ABL
a-ABL
i-ABL
u-ABL
Figure 3. Types of stem lexemes of strong verbs
Derivatively, the characterisation of the stem VERSPRECHL also provides for a characterisation of its forms. As VERSPRECHL is a stem of CLASS III/IV, so versproch is a form of a stem of CLASS III/IV. There are, then, two sets of categories that have to be taken into account to obtain a complete morphological characterisation of the stem form versproch, viz. (i) the set of categories that it is contained in (viz. {U-form, monophthongal, short, …}) and (ii) the set of categories that the lexeme of which it is a form is contained in (viz. {o-ABL, a-ABL, …}). The pair of these sets provides the starting point for determining
58
The classification systems displayed in figures 2 and 3 are assumed to be part of the morphological unit ordering of German idiolect systems and the lexeme ordering of German idiolect systems, respectively (cf. Lieb 1983: 168, 171).
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the functional contribution of the stem form versproch to the verb form versprochen:59 〈{U-form,
monophthongal, short, …},{o-ABL, a-ABL, …}〉
All in all, versproch is characterised as a short, monophthongal U-form of a stem lexeme that exhibits both o-ablaut and a-ablaut. All the categories involved are defined in formal (expression related) terms. Now consider versproch as it occurs in versprochen. Given the above findings on the formfunction-relation, the (formal) morphological characterisation of the stem form is sufficient to determine the (functional) categorisation of the verb form versprochen (which is a past participle). This may be shown as follows.60 (i) (ii)
(iii) (iv)
(v)
59
As has been established in Section 3, simple ablaut serves to mark past forms, full ablaut serves to mark finite past forms. versproch is characterised as a U-form and also as a form of a lexeme that belongs to o-ABL (a class of stem lexemes) and to CLASS III/IV in particular. It follows that versproch is an ablaut form (and not a base form) and, moreover, that it is an o-ablaut form. From (i) and (ii) it follows that versprochen is a past form. versproch is characterised as a form of a lexeme that belongs to a-ABL (a class of stem lexemes). This means that the stem lexeme of which versproch is a form has an a-ablaut form as well. By (i), ablaut forms that exhibit a-ablaut (thus full ablaut) serve to mark finite past forms. Moreover, because of the priority of more specific markers, the finite past forms of the verb of which versprochen is a form cannot fail to show the specific marker (viz. a-ablaut). It follows that the stem form versproch is prevented from occurring in finite past forms. From (iii) and (iv) it follows that, due to the occurrence of versproch, the verb form versprochen qualifies as a non-finite past form, which is to say, as a past participle.
Such pairs (or rather sets containing such pairs) are called morphological markings by Lieb (1983: 179). 60 A discussion of the theoretical status of form-function-relations is well beyond the scope of the present paper. It may be suggested, however, that in inflectional morphology ‘interpretative functions’ associated with morphological functions should be recognised (analogous to semantic functions associated with morphological functions in derivational morphology, Lieb 1983: 241). For a different approach see Lieb (1992); Lieb accounts for form-function-relations by means of ‘system links’ (“Systemverbindungen”) between expression-related and functional systems of morphological categories and in addition between expression-related and functional systems of syntactic categories.
FORM AND FUNCTION OF VERBAL ABLAUT
6
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Conclusion
Ablaut has been apostrophised as “one of the classic chestnuts of morphological analysis” (Anderson 1988: 157); certainly, ablaut — and, more generally, ‘internal inflection’ — has turned out to be a hard nut to crack for many a morphological theory. However, an analysis based on an item-and-paradigmmodel may go a long way towards overcoming those problems that have hampered earlier analyses. In this paper, I hope to have shown that the model’s application to ablaut in German turns out to be rewarding. Many studies of ablaut in German have focused on the question of how the forms of a strong verb can be derived if a certain distinguished (basic) form (usually the infinitive) is given. But again and again, the outcome of such attempts has been found to be unsatisfactory (for critical retrospect see Augst 1975, and, most recently, Köpcke 1999). Since attempts at providing a systematic account of ablaut failed, the contention won ground that there is no system of ablaut in Modern German. Negative results may partly be blamed on the theoretical approaches that have been employed, but also partly, on the way the task to be accomplished had been construed. For languages like German, it is in general not possible to ‘predict’ the inflectional forms of a word given only its base form. As regards nouns, dictionaries have to add information on declension class membership (as well as on gender) notwithstanding the fact that the make-up of a word’s base form may sometimes provide more or less reliable hints as to what inflectional class the word belongs to. But by no means does it follow that there are no regularities underlying the formation of inflectional forms (cf. B. Wiese 2000). The situation found with verbs, and with strong verbs in particular, is not basically different. Accordingly, the present account proposes a system of six inflectional classes (‘ablaut classes’, CLASSES I, II, III/IV, V, VI, VII) that reconstructs the traditional system of gradation classes but is defined on a purely synchronic basis. If there is something special about strong verb stems’ membership in inflectional classes, then it is the high degree to which membership is predictable indeed on the basis of expression-related properties of base forms alone. There are general principles of ablaut in Contemporary Standard German (in a nutshell: ablaut is change of quality type or complexity type) that impose heavy restrictions on the selection of ablaut classes. Furthermore, considerations of inflectional class markedness permit it to single out what is the unmarked option given a stem’s base (thus to establish a stem’s ‘default ablaut class’); membership in non-default-classes is subject to rigorous restrictions,
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and the stems that belong there invariably show bases of a characteristic make-up.61 What may be more of a surprise are the rigid principles of ablaut that show when alternation types and their functional values are inspected: there is simple ablaut (including o-ablaut and i-monophthongisation) and there is full ablaut (i-ablaut/u-ablaut/a-ablaut). Simple ablaut and only simple ablaut serves as a general past marker; full ablaut and only full ablaut serves as a special finite past marker. There are no exceptions to this correlation. The findings presented in detail in the body of this paper need not be repeated (cf. Table 5 for a graphic illustration). But assume it were true that, in ablaut alternations, vowels change more or less arbitrarily, as has been claimed so often in the literature. For instance, as there is a gradation /i/–//–// (kriechen–kroch– gekrochen), what about a (fictitious) gradation /i/–//–/i/? As there is a gradation //–/a/–// (sprechen–sprach–gesprochen), what about such (fictitious) gradations as, say, //–//–/a/, or //–/a/–/o/, or /e/–/a/–//? Are all of these ‘possible gradations’ in German? I would argue that there are countless nonexistent gradations that are not missing by chance but would break the system of ablaut in German. As for the exclusion of the above counterfactual examples, it should now be easy to point out what it is that makes them impossible.62 Rigidity of ablaut regularities may come as a surprise, mainly because it is common knowledge that original gradations have been deranged, disintegrated or even destroyed by a multitude of diachronic developments, sound changes in particular; and of course, these diachronic facts cannot be denied. On the other hand, opposite compensating and reorganising developments such as Early New High German ablaut levelling, to name but one, are also well known (cf. Augst 1975, Born 1980, Chirita 1988). Thus it would be a mistake to assume that synchronic regularities are mere remnants of a once well-behaved system. From a morphological perspective the opposite view would seem to be nearer to the truth. This is not the place to go into the diachrony of ablaut, but, given the results of the present synchronic analysis, I 61
For details see Section 4, supra. The ‘default-classes’ are CLASS I (for stems with diphthongal I-bases), CLASS II (for stems with monophthongal I-bases), and CLASS VII (for nonI-base stems). 62 Pertinent regularities that have been detailed above are: first, o-ablaut is a general past marker; thus if it is used in the finite past it has to be used in the non-finite past a fortiori. Second, separate finite past ablaut stem forms invariably require full ablaut (and hence must be i-, a-, or u-forms). Third, short→long-alternation invariably implies full ablaut (hence finite past marking); long→short-alternation invariably implies simple ablaut (hence general past marking).
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cannot help agreeing with Hermann Paul’s famous dictum, according to which, at long last, ablaut has attained true functional validity in Modern German.63
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Inflectional Units and their Effects The Case of Verbal Prefixes in Guaraní Sebastian Drude Freie Universität Berlin Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Belém
Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 Aims and general strategy 1.2 Guaraní 1.3 Theoretical background
2 The verbal personal system of Guaraní 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4
The personal prefixes Reference hierarchy Conjugational classes Other prefixes
3 An integrational analysis of the personal system of Guaraní 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4
Traditional conceptions based on Latin grammar Beyond Latin grammar Transitive verbs Reflexive, reciprocal, desiderative, and command
4 Structural and functional systems, and the system link 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4
The structural system The functional system The system link From the description of structures to a description of units
5 Inflectional units contained in forms 5.1 Inflectional units 5.2 An example 5.3 Being contained
6 The functional effects of inflectional units 6.1 Containing sets and inflectional-unit categories 6.2 Marking pairs of inflectional units and their description 6.3 Marking effects and specificity of inflectional units, and language types
Abstract. This article principally aims at presenting a coherent account of the person system of intransitive and transitive verbs in Paraguayan Guaraní that may overcome shortcomings of traditional descriptions based on European categories. At first, a concise
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introduction into the integrational conception related to paradigms is given. In this theory, the specification of the functional categories a given form belongs to is based on its internal composition, especially the occurrence of forms of inflexional affixes and of other inflexional units. Accordingly, the conception used here is a basis for a formal explanation of the ‘grammatical meaning’ of inflexional units. This is exemplified by a Guaraní person prefix. In the concluding sections, an expansion of the theory is proposed in order to allow for an analogous treatment of inflexional affixes and auxiliaries in arbitrary languages.
1
Introduction*
1.1 Aims and general strategy With the present essay I pursue a threefold aim as explained in the following paragraphs. Since I cannot expect my readers to be familiar with the language studied, Guaraní, more information about this language will be given in the next subsection. During the past years I tried to develop an adequate description (especially a lexicographic description) of the Guaraní prefixes that are used with verbal stems in predicative expressions to ‘cross-reference’ the semantic agent and/or patient of the activity or state being expressed by the predicate. In doing so I eventually achieved a new categorial structuring of the personal system of this language. The (practical) main purpose of the present essay is to present this new structuring to readers who are studying this language or other languages with similar conditions. In the theoretical field I developed definitions of concepts that may be useful for describing inflectional affixes and auxiliaries in arbitrary languages. Presentation of these concepts is the second major aim of the present paper. Since these concepts as well as the new analysis presuppose the Integrational Theory of Language that is being developed in the general framework of Integrational Linguistics (IL), I will first give a brief introduction to those parts of this theory that are relevant for understanding the subsequent sections of my paper and go beyond the introductory texts to IL (see also the “Introduction to Integrational Linguistics” on pages 1–20, this volume). Furthermore, this overview is justified by the fact that H. Lieb’s (1992b) essay on the concept of
*
I would like to thank Monika Budde and Robin Sackmann for valuable comments on earlier drafts and especially Robin Sackmann for his exceptional work as a careful editor. Both helped to improve my work a great deal, and whatever remains erroneous remains my responsibility.
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paradigm has been published in German.1 This paper is of significant importance in more than just the area of interest of the present essay. After giving a brief general description of Guaraní in Section 1.2, the last subsection of this introduction establishes a basis for the subsequent ones and will be of minor interest to readers familiar with IL. In the next sections I describe the relevant facts of Guaraní (Section 2) and try to outline an integrational account of these facts (Sections 3 and 4). They should mainly be of interest to linguists who investigate Tupí-Guaranían and similar languages but also show the concepts of Section 1.3 ‘at work’. Finally, the last two sections (Sections 5 and 6) extend the theory in order to facilitate the description of inflectional affixes and auxiliary words within the framework of IL. In this third part (with a higher level of technicality), data from the previous sections is used by way of example but no new facts nor new accounts of facts are introduced. Therefore, readers with an interest in Guaraní only may safely omit reading this part. 1.2 Guaraní With ‘Guaraní’ I refer to modern Paraguayan Guaraní, an official language in Paraguay, which is one of the largest indigenous languages of South America. It is the only one that is spoken by the vast majority of a non-indigenous society (only 5–10% of the population of Paraguay are native speakers of Spanish). Together with some minority Guaranían languages spoken by native groups (Mby’á, Kaiwa, Chiriguano, etc.) it forms one of eight subgroups in the large Tupí-Guaraní family of languages (Rodrigues 1985/86). All other subgroups have been and still are located in the Amazonian basin and almost everywhere along the Brazilian coast. For this and for other historical reasons, Tupí-Guaraní languages were among the first to be studied and used as linguae francae by the Europeans and are nowadays the best studied language family of the lowland part of South America, mainly due to the work of Aryon dall’Igna Rodrigues and his followers. Guaraní, like other Tupí languages, is most often considered to belong to the agglutinative type of languages. Normal ‘units of speech’ — which can be word forms or more complex entities, so-called ‘macrosegments’ in the terminology of Gregores & Suárez (1967) — usually consist of a stem surrounded by a few prefixes and many suffixes. The prefixes are more paradigmatic and 1
In 2005, Lieb presented an advanced version of the conception of paradigms. This seminal article has not been taken into account in the present article. By and large, the views presented here are compatible with the 2005 framework.
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mostly serve as person markers. The verbal prefixes are the subject matter of the present paper. The suffixes are more freely combinable and are used as markers for tense (even with substantives), mood and other pragmatically determined features. There is no obligatory order of the main parts of a clause, but subject–predicate–object is a very frequent type, maybe due to the influence of Spanish; and subordinating particles such as postpositions are found at the end of the subordinated constituent. In this paper I will use the excellent grammar by Emma Gregores and Jorge A. Suárez (Gregores & Suárez 1967) as a basis and even use their examples. However, I adapted them to the modern Paraguayan orthography although this continues to differentiate between allophones of certain phonemes, which is avoided in the phonemic orthography of Gregores and Suárez. For the convenience of the reader I will separate different morphemes by a hyphen as in a-guata instead of the usual aguata. The pronunciation rules are as follows (all letters not listed here are pronounced the same way as the corresponding IPA symbols): 〈Y〉 represents a high unrounded central vowel, varying between [È ~ ˝· ~ ¨™] . All six vowels \i, È, u, e, a, o\ and many consonants have nasal allophones that occur inside a ‘nasal span’ (see below). The apostrophe 〈’〉 represents the glottal stop [/] , the pronunciation of 〈H〉 varies between [ h] , [ x] and [ ç] . m 〈M〉 and 〈MB〉 represent two allophones [ m] and [ b] , respectively, of a single phoneme \m\, and the same holds analogously for the phonemes \n\ and n \Z\: 〈N〉 stands for [ n] and 〈ND〉 for [ d] , both allophones of \n\; 〈Ñ〉 represents d [≠] and 〈J〉 the phones [ Z] and [Z] , all allophones of \Z\. The first allophones of each pair are used in nasal spans, the other one(s) in oral surroundings. \N\ has two allophones [N] (nasal) and [ Ng] (oral), too, but it is represented by 〈NG〉 everywhere. 〈V〉 varies between [ v] and [√] (both also occur in nasalized variants), 〈R〉 represents a single flap [|] (possibly also nasalized), and 〈G〉 is pronounced as (nasal/oral) [V] or [˜] . Finally, 〈CH〉 stands for the alveolar fricative [S] , not for the corresponding affricate (as in Spanish). A major systematic feature in Guaraní is nasality. It is a ‘long component’ that stretches from the ‘core’ (a nasal consonant or a stressed nasal vowel) mostly to the left over several syllables. In each of the affected nasal syllables any vowel or sonorant is represented by its ‘nasal’ allophone. As Gregores and Suárez (1967: 65–69) put it, such a sequence of nasal syllables is either a nasal span, caused by a nasal accent (that has the nasalized syllables as its domain), or it is caused non-phonemically by one of the nasal consonants \n, m, N, Nw\ (no matter whether these occur as an oral or nasal allophone). The domain of the long component is limited to the left by a different accent group (that may be nasal or oral), or by a word boundary. Usually the
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stressed nasal vowel that is the core of the nasal span is its last vowel, but if the nasal span is the last accent group of a word, nasality may spread to unstressed syllables to the right up to the end of the word. In writing, a nasal accent is represented by a tilde 〈~〉 above the core vowel of the span. The stressed vowel of an oral accent group will be marked by an acute 〈´〉 if it is not the last vowel of the word. In the latter case it is not indicated at all. That means that all words without a graphical accent have their main stress on the last syllable. 1.3 Theoretical background 1.3.1 Bases for paradigms. It is a characteristic feature of Integrational Linguistics that it is based substantially on linguistic tradition by attempting to reconstruct traditional conceptions in a formally consistent way. One central concept of traditional grammar, widely ignored in many current linguistic approaches, is the concept of paradigm. On an IL perspective, (syntactic) paradigms contain all forms of a lexical word and assign each of them to functional categories. Technically they are construed as sets of pairs, where each first component is a word form such as comes1 or has come, and each second component is a set of functional categories such as ‘3. Person’ or ‘Singular’, which are sets of word forms. All word forms are conceived as sequences of phonological words — even simple forms like the form comes1, which is a unit sequence (sequence with only one member, comes, from which it is still ontologically different, hence the index ‘1’). Lexical words themselves consist of a word paradigm and a concept which is the lexical meaning of the word. The functional categories are given by the syntactic unit ordering (SUO), a system of classifications that classify and sub-classify the set of all syntactic units, in particular, word forms, yielding functional categories such as cases or tenses but also formal (or structural) categories. In order to account for the overall internal structure of the paradigms in an idiolect system S, we need paradigm bases as introduced in Lieb (1992b), consisting of eight components. These may very briefly be characterized as follows (see Lieb 1992b for details): —
— —
The starting set is a basic constituent category (typically, Noun form(−,S) or Verb form(−,S)) that is the source of two proper parts of the SUO, viz. the functional and the structural classification systems. The functional classification system yields the functional categories mentioned above as its endpoints. The structural system on a category determines formal or structural subcategories, that is, sets of forms that share a property of their internal
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composition, such as containing a certain affix or auxiliary word, or a form of a stem lexeme that belongs to a certain morphological category (lexemes, i.e., stems and affixes, are the morphological counterpart of lexical words, they consist of a morphological paradigm — where morphological forms are assigned to morphological categories such as ‘derivative stem form’ or ‘past tense stem form’ — and a concept). The system link ensures that each form of a paradigm is assigned to the right functional categories.
The two systems and their link take care of the right composition of each pair that is an element of a paradigm. The last four components of bases for paradigms have to ensure that only formally and semantically related forms are actually put together in a single paradigm. —
—
For the formal aspect we need three components providing a basis for compatibility that ensures that complex forms (sequences of more than one member) can be reduced to their main parts and that these main parts can be compared with each other with respect to occurrence of — possibly different — forms of the same stem. For the semantic aspect we need an external relation between lexical meanings and forms. Only forms with the same lexical meaning will actually appear in a given paradigm.
I will now discuss one of the components, the system link, in greater detail. 1.3.2 The system link. The formal representation of the interaction between the structural and the functional systems is provided by the system link (Systemverbindung in German), a relation between sets of structural categories and sets of functional categories. It allows (i) determination of each functional category by reference to form categories, and (ii) to answer the question whether a given form (built in a certain manner) combines with a given set of functional categories (see Lieb 1992b: 10). Note that the system link relates sets of formal categories to sets of functional categories. This is because a single formal property of a form often doesn’t allow one to determine whether the form belongs to a certain functional category, whereas a combination of properties is sufficient. Take, for instance, the case of three German analytical forms in (1). (I was unable to find an easy example in English, where not much of inflexion is found; categorial names which are not needed in the subsequent discussion are abbreviated.)
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(1)
159
a. wird sehen (‘will see’): 3Ps, SgVf, Active, Ind, Future I b. wird gesehen (‘is seen’): 3Ps, SgVf, Passive, Ind, Present c. hat gesehen (‘has seen’): 3Ps, SgVf, Active, Ind, Perfect
Now consider the following two structural categories of German idiolect systems in (2). (2)
a. [werdenVerb] = the set of all verb forms that contain a form of the auxiliary WERDENW b. [Participle] = the set of all verb forms whose main part is the participle perfect (the main part is that part of a form in which a form of the stem occurs)
The second form wird gesehen belongs to the functional category Passive, cf. (1). This fact cannot be accounted for by referring to the membership of wird gesehen in [werdenVerb] alone: the active form wird sehen (Future I) also belongs to this class. Neither is it sufficient to point out the membership of wird gesehen in the class [Participle], since the same holds true of the active perfect form hat gesehen. Thus, a set containing at least both structural categories is needed to be able to assign the functional category Passive. (In fact, not even these two categories are sufficient since wird gesehen haben (‘will have seen’) belongs to both categories and still is an active form.) Even with these scant explanations it seems reasonable to state that the system link plays a key role in construing proper paradigms and should figure, in one form or another, in the description of any language. 2
The verbal personal system of Guaraní
2.1 The personal prefixes The following presentation of the facts in Guaraní is based on the grammar of E. Gregores and J. Suárez (Gregores & Suárez 1967). They set up three major classes of prefixes for the personal system proper, that is, prefixes that ‘crossreference’ or express the grammatical subject or object of the predicate — as -s is used for ‘cross-referencing’ the third person singular in English. (Sometimes, ‘indicate’ or ‘mark’ are used for the same relation.) In doing so we are confronted with a terminological problem: In describing the characteristics of these prefixes, we are forced to use either terms for grammatical relations such as ‘subject’ or ‘object’, or terms for semantic roles such as ‘agent’ and ‘patient’. Some authors even use both. Since I am not in the position to offer any better terms I will use ‘subject’ and ‘object’, too. Consequently, in this article these terms do not (or only indirectly) refer to the
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grammatical relations but to the categories of verb forms that stand in agreement to the corresponding external constituents. It should be clear, though, that the prefixes themselves do not stand in the subject or object relation to the verb stem as may be seen in (3). (3)
a. che che-mandu’a I
1Sg-remember
‘I remember’
b.
ha’e
o-guata
he/she/they 3-go
‘he/she/they go(es)’
In (3a) the free form che — a pronoun meaning ‘I’ — is the (external) subject of che-mandu’a, and in (3b) ha’e ‘he/she/they’ is the subject of o-guata. The subject constituent is most often omitted; occurrence of the subject constituent has an emphasizing effect. The first of the three major classes is called personal reference by Gregores and Suárez (1967: 130f.) and contains six prefixes that belong to the following ‘categories’ (as they put it), given in (4). (4)
a. speaker (first person singular, 1Sg) — cheb. addressee (second person singular, 2Sg) — nde-/nec. neither speaker nor addressee (third person, 3 — which is unspecific with respect to number distinction) — i-, with many allomorphs: i-, h-, ij-, iñ-, hid. speakers and others including addressee (first person plural inclusive, 1Pli) — ñande-/ñanee. speaker and others excluding addressee (first person plural exclusive, 1Ple) — oref. addressee and others (second person plural, 2Pl) — pende-/ pene-
The prefixes of this set (which I will call ‘Set One’ in the following) are used in the forms of a certain group of intransitive verbs, few in number and often called ‘chendal verbs’ in studies on Guaraní, such as MANDU’AW ‘(to) remember’. They are identical with the set of possessive noun-prefixes and are a subset of the prefixes of Set Three, below (with the exception of I-L that does not occur in Set Three). In our analysis, each prefix exists only once but has different effects when used with forms of stem lexemes that belong to different classes. The same six ‘categories’ are described for the second set, called ‘subject’ by Gregores and Suárez (1967: 131): (5)
1Sg: a-, 2Sg: re-, 3: o-, 1Pli: ja-/ña-, 1Ple: ro-, 2Pl: pe-
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The prefixes of this class (Set Two, for short) occur with the majority of stems of transitive and intransitive verbs: a-guata ‘I walk’ (GUATAW ‘(to) walk’). The third class is Set Three, or ‘object’, and it “has seven specific categories, four of which express also person of subject” (Gregores & Suárez 1967: 131f.): (6)
1Sg: che-, 2Sg with subject=3: nde-/ne-, 2Sg with subj=1: ro-, 1Pli: ñande-/ñane-, 1Ple: ore-, 2Pl with subj=3: pende-/pene-, 2Pl with subj=1: po-.
Examples. che-juhu ‘he (she, it, they, you) meet(s) me’; pende-juhu ‘he (she, it, they) meet(s) you(pl)’; po-juhu ‘I (we excl.) meet you(pl)’. Quite obviously, five of these prefixes also figure in the first set (put differently: all prefixes of Set One except i- reappear in the ‘object’ set). The remaining two, ro- and po-, both involve the speaker as subject and the addressee as object. (In the case of ro-, addressee is the only object, in the case of po-, together with others. Number of subject is irrelevant.) This is no coincidence: In many Tupí-Guaraní languages we find a phenomenon called ‘reference hierarchy’. 2.2 Reference hierarchy 2.2.1 Prefixes of transitive verbs. In their instructive article “Hierarquia Referencial em Linguas Tupí”, R. Monserrat and M. F. Soares (1983) show that in many languages of this language family, especially in the Tupí-Guaraní branch, transitive verbs may take a prefix that cross-references the subject or cross-references the object, but not two such prefixes at a time (the ‘mixed prefixes’ ro- and po- and their equivalences will be discussed below). Thus, there has to be a criterion for selecting one of the two possible prefixes in each pragmatical situation. This criterion is called the reference hierarchy. In the reference hierarchy, the speaker takes precedence over the addressee, and the addressee over others. Spelled out: If the speaker is involved, alone or with others, in the course of events expressed by the verb, a first person prefix will go with the verb stem. If the speaker is subject, a-, ja-, or ro- will be chosen, if he is object, either che-, ñande-, or ore- will occur. (From here on, morphemes with a nasal and an oral written form will be represented by the oral written allomorph, as in ja- (ñ/ja-) or ñande- (ñan(d)e-).) A second person prefix from either set may only occur if the speaker is not involved but the addressee is. If the addressee is subject, re- or pe- is chosen, if he is object, nde- or pende-. If neither the speaker nor the addressee are involved, the third person prefix o- is chosen to go with the verb stem. For this reason, the third person
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prefix i- of Set One is not included among the prefixes for transitive verbs. In the context of reference hierarchy, this is regarded by some authors (but not by Gregores and Suárez) to be an additional rule of reference hierarchy, determining that in case of equal ranking of subject and object, the subject prefix will be employed. In fact, in case of reflexivity or reciprocity only Set Two prefixes are found (see below, Section 2.4.). 2.2.2 Mixed prefixes. Monserrat and Soares argue (1983: 164f.) that a nonoverlapping prefix system specifying only either subject or object in accordance to reference hierarchy had been present in the protolanguages which are still being reconstructed, that is, in proto-Tupí-Guaraní and probably also in much earlier proto-Tupí. (In turn, A. Rodrigues and his follower Ch. Jensen (1998) reconstruct mixed prefixes for proto-Tupí-Guaraní.) If we encounter exceptions from the above stated rules (as is the case in virtually all Tupí-Guaraní languages), according to Monserrat and Soares it should be analyzed as a dissolution rather than an incomplete development, of reference hierarchy — a dissolution that started with a competition between first and second person when the former was subject and the latter object. For this case, they postulate a stage in which both prefixes were present and assume that the new (combined) prefixes have undergone functional and sound changes that lead to the additional portemanteau forms ro- and po- of the third set (item (6), ‘object’ in the grouping of Gregores and Suárez). 2.3 Conjugational classes The reference hierarchy is obviously relevant only in the case of transitive verbs. Put differently, a certain set of stems occurs with prefixes of both Set Two and Set Three (a morphological criterion), and this set coincides with the set of stems of transitive verbs (a criterion based on syntactic facts). Intransitive verbs (more exactly, their stems) are divided in two classes: most take the prefixes of Set Two (a-, re-, etc.), but an important class of socalled quality verbs (cf. Gregores & Suárez 1967: 137) take the prefixes of the first class only (che-, nde-, etc.). The resulting predicate constituents of the second class show a certain similarity with nominal constructions: chemandu’a nde-rehe (mandu’a ‘(to) remember’/‘memory’, with the postpositional group nde-rehe) could be translated as ‘my memory of you’ or as ‘I remember you’. Still, the difference between nominal and verbal constructions exists as becomes apparent when different temporal suffixes are added, when the predicate is negated by the circumfix n(d)a-…-i, or when the verbal desiderative prefix ta- (several allomorphs) stands before the verb, which is impossible with the noun. This leads us to the remaining four prefixes that will be discussed in the present article.
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2.4 Other prefixes As shown above, all prefixes introduced so far are mutually exclusive. Instead of one of these, the prefix for command, e-, may go with the verb stem: eguata ‘walk!’; e-juhu ‘meet (it/him/her/them)!’. A prefix with a similar but somewhat ‘softer’ meaning, called ‘desiderative’ by Gregores and Suárez (1967: 132), is ta- (it has many allomorphs due to a kind of vowel harmony with the following prefix). Differently from all other prefixes mentioned up to now, ta- may stand additionally in front of any of the personal prefixes (except e-), as may be seen in the examples in (7). (7)
a. toguata to- guata
b.
tachemandu’a tache- mandu’a
(desid) he go
(desid) I
remember
‘May he go!’
‘I hope I remember!’
The prefix for reflexive and passive, ñe-/je-, enters between a prefix of Set Two and a transitive verb stem: a-ñe-hendu ‘I hear myself’/‘I am heard’; ñañe-hendu ‘we hear ourselves’ (I hear myself and you hear yourself)/‘we are heard’ (somebody/something hears you and me). Finally, the prefix for reciprocity, jo-, occurs between a ‘pluralic’ prefix of Set Two (including third person: ja-, ro-, pe-, or o-) and a transitive verb stem: ja-jo-juhu ‘You and I, we meet (one another)’; o-jo-juhu ‘they meet (one another)’. jo- is mutually exclusive with je-. We see: all prefixes (except ta-) involve subject, and many specify object as well. A unified theoretical description of this system, taking the reference hierarchy into account, will be given in the next two sections. 3
An integrational analysis of the personal system of Guaraní
3.1 Traditional conceptions based on Latin grammar All descriptions of Guaraní that I am familiar with use traditional terminology when describing the personal system. In traditional grammar two classifications on (finite) verb forms are assumed: one (called ‘person’) that yields the three classes 1. Person, 2. Person, and 3. Person, and another one (‘number’) that has as its classes (its elements) SingularVf (‘Singular for verb forms’) and PluralV (in some languages further elements like Dual). From the point of view of Integrational Linguistics, the two classifications are cross-classifications on the set of finite verb forms (or a subset thereof) and may be represented by the graph given in (8):
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(8)
Finite Verb Form Person
1. Person
2. Person
NumberVf
3. Person
SingularVf
PluralV
In the IL framework, these two classifications are elements of the syntactic unit ordering in most if not all European languages. In Guaraní we have two facts that do not fit into this conception: (i) the third person has only one single form for singular and plural (and this does not seem to be due to syncretism), and (ii) the so-called first person plural has two forms: one including and one excluding the addressee. If we tried to include these facts using the traditional classifications, we would have to create a subclassification for inclusivity — but a subclassification on which set? A solution like in (9) may be envisaged.
(9)
Finite Verb Form Person 1. Person
2. Person
1. NumberVf 1. Singular
3. Person
2. NumberVf
1. Plural
2. Singular
2. Plural
Inclusivity
1. Plur. incl.
2. Plur. excl.
However, such a system shows many inadequacies: (i) We would need two analogous classifications for number; (ii) we would gain many classifications, all containing at least one class with forms with only one prefix of each, Set One and Two; (iii) the reference hierarchy couldn’t easily be explained referring to endpoints of the system; and (iv) in general, the resulting system would be ‘deep’ (using three levels of sub-classifications) — an effect of this being usually that we need more classifications. An important advance was made by Gregores and Suárez when they referred to speaker, addressee, and others (1967: 131ff). (Similar ideas are put forward by Rodrigues (1990) in his treatment of the personal system of Tupinambá; the present work is inspired by his approach.) But their further terminology falls back to the traditional system, and no attempt for any internal
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grouping was tried. This approach, represented in (10), is not convincing either.
(10)
Finite Verb Form Person
1. Singular 1. Plur. incl. 1. Plur. excl.
2. Singular
2. Plural
3. Person
Now it is true that many concepts and classifications that were based on traditional (Latin) grammar and that worked reasonably well for European languages had to be changed when languages from overseas were considered (think of the traditional categories of case or of the temporal/aspectual/modal systems). In view of the facts in Guaraní I think it is time to reconsider the analysis of the Guaranían personal system as well in order to avoid inadequate analyses as in (9) and (10) or similar ones that are at least suggested by the terminology. 3.2 Beyond Latin grammar My own proposal assumes three cross-classifications on the set of finite verb forms, one for ‘participation’ of speaker, of addressee, and of others, respectively, allowing for neutral categories.2 This proposal, for the time being restricted to forms of intransitive verbs, is shown in diagram (11).
(11)
Finite Verb Form Involvement of speaker
2
Involvement of addressee
Involvement of others
+1s
−1s
+2s
−2s
+3s
−3s
±3s
cheñandeoreajaro-
ndeipendereope-
ndeñande penderejape-
cheioreaoro-
iorependeorope-
chendeare-
ñande ja-
Neutral categories have shown to be useful by research within the IL framework; consider English forms like good that are neutral — or unmarked — with respect to number, rather than members of both singular and plural. Hence, such forms belong to the category
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Below the names of the classes in (11) I list the prefixes for which each intransitive verb form with this prefix belongs to the class. (For reasons of readability, the superscripts ‘L’ are omitted in the names of the prefixes in (11) and the forms appear in italics. However, from here on the ontological status of all linguistic entities will be indicated in accordance with the IL conventions. In particular, ‘L’ indicates lexemes, ‘LP’ lexeme paradigms, ‘WP’ word paradigms, ‘W’ lexical words, and ‘1’ unit sequences; see above, Section 1.3.1.) This means that the classifications include intransitive verbs of both conjugational classes: normal intransitive verbs (with prefixes of Set Two (5)), and so-called quality verbs (with prefixes of Set One (4)). As we will see in the next subsection, the same classifications (with a minor extension) even apply to the subject-part of transitive verbs. This subsystem of functional classifications in the syntactic unit ordering of Guaraní idiolect systems corresponds to the incompletely characterized part of the paradigm of the intransitive verb MBA’APOW ‘(to) work’ in (12). (12)
a-mba’apo1 ‘I work’: +1s (speaker involved as subject), −2s (addressee not involved as subject), −3s (others not involved as subject)3 1 re-mba’apo ‘you(sg) work’: −1s, +2s, −3s o-mba’apo1 ‘he (she, it, they) work(s)’: −1s, −2s, +3s ña-mba’apo1 ‘we (including you) work’: +1s, +2s, ±3s 4 ro-mba’apo1 ‘we (excluding you) work’: +1s, −2s, +3s pe-mba’apo1 ‘you(pl) work’: −1s, +2s, +3s
3.3 Transitive verbs The three classifications for subject work fine with forms of intransitive verbs. In the case of transitive verbs there are twelve possible forms (not taking into account reflexive, reciprocal, desiderative, or command forms), six with the prefixes of Set Two (5) and six with the prefixes of Set Three (cf. (6), note that RO-L appears twice). Following the description of Gregores and Suárez, we need three analogous classifications for involvement of speaker/addressee/others as object. Only some forms belong to subject and object classes simultaneously. This view, however, does still not seem adequate. UnmNf-Num(−,S) — the set of noun forms of S which are unmarked for noun form number, where S is an English idiolect system. 3 The following abbreviated categorial names are formed analogously. 4 ±3s: ‘neutral with respect to others being involved as subject’.
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Taking into account the reference hierarchy as presented above (Section 2.2), it is in my opinion inappropriate to state that all other but four prefixes (NDE-L, RO-L, PENDE-L, and PO-L) express only one category, subject or object. On the contrary, a form such as a-juhu1 (traditionally glossed as ‘I meet’) indicates explicitly that the addressee is not involved as object: if he was, RO-L or PO-L had to be chosen as prefix. So, a-juhu1 should better be glossed as ‘I meet him (her, it, them)’. This can be said analogously for almost all forms. There seem to be some cases in which a participant excluded by the verb form (in our example a-juhu1, the addressee) is introduced as semantic patient outside the predicate constituent by a postpositional group (such as nde-ve or pende-ve), often called ‘free object’. This might be seen as an objection to my proposal. However, for semantic reasons not to be explained here, I came to the conclusion that these constituents should be analyzed as modifiers, not complements, of the predicate constituent. Thus, every form of a transitive verb may be analyzed in terms of subject and object involvement, and I arrive at the partial and incompletely characterized paradigm of the sample verb JUHUW ‘(to) meet’ in (13). It is partial because other forms would have to be included in the paradigm and incomplete with respect to the categorizations given for each form. (In the glosses, ‘he’ and ‘him’ stand generally for third person and could be replaced by ‘he, she, it, they’/‘him, her, it, them’, respectively. Abbreviations: sg: singular; pl: plural, i: inclusive, e: exclusive. — For two forms, che-juhu1 and ore-juhu1, we had to assume a new neutral category: ±2s — neutral with respect to involvement of addressee as subject.) (13) a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k. l. m.
a-juhu1 ‘I meet him’ +1s, re-juhu1 ‘you(sg) meet him’ −1s, o-juhu1 ‘he meets him’ −1s, 1 ja-juhu ‘wei meet him’ +1s, ro-juhu1 ‘wee meet him’ +1s, pe-juhu1 ‘you(pl) meet him’ −1s, che-juhu1 ‘you/he meet(s) me’ −1s, nde-juhu1 ‘he meets you(sg)’ −1s, ro-juhu1 ‘I/wee meet you(sg)’ +1s, ñande-juhu1 ‘he meets usi’ −1s, ore-juhu1 ‘he/you meets use’ −1s, pende-juhu1 ‘he meets you(pl)’ −1s, po-juhu1 ‘I/wee meet you(pl)’ +1s,
−2s, +2s, −2s, +2s, −2s, +2s, ±2s, −2s, −2s, −2s, ±2s, −2s, −2s,
−3s, −1o, −2o, −3s, −1o, −2o, +3s, −1o, −2o, ±3s, −1o, −2o, +3s, −1o, −2o, +3s, −1o, −2o, ±3s, +1o, −2o, +3s, −1o, +2o, ±3s, −1o, +2o, +3s, +1o, +2o, ±3s, +1o, −2o, +3s, −1o, +2o, ±3s, −1o, +2o,
+3o +3o +3o +3o +3o +3o −3o −3o −3o ±3o +3o +3o +3o
Note. Forms that start with ro- appear twice in this paradigm. This is indeed seen as a real case of syncretism. If we had the ambition to obtain a single unique description for these
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forms, we would have to assume an additional neutral category for addressee being involved as object, too. We would achieve the following paradigm: (13') as (13), but substituting (13e) and (13i) by: ro-juhu1 ‘I/wee meet him/you(sg)’ +1s, −2s, ±3s, −1o, ±2o, ±3o This possibility will not be pursued any further here.
I consider the proposal in (13) to be more adequate than traditional accounts for two main reasons: (i) with intransitive and transitive verbs, it accounts for the absence of the distinction of number within the third person category (in fact, no number classification is assumed at all) as well as presence of an inclusive/exclusive distinction with the ‘first person plural’, and (ii) it avoids double descriptions of the prefixes of Set One and Set Three (they are, in fact, the same prefixes with an expanded functionality in the case of transitive verb forms), especially with respect to ‘mixed forms’. (iii) In this way we take reference hierarchy into account and thus the fact that any finite form of a transitive verb includes information about subject and object. Admittedly, the information about subject is, as an empirical fact, not very specific, at least in the case of forms with CHE-L and ORE-L. I will show the corresponding functional classifications in (15) in the next section after having treated the remaining prefixes. 3.4 Reflexive, reciprocal, desiderative, and command A form of one of the thirteen prefixes treated in the last subsections has to be present with the verb stem in any verbal predicate constituent in Guaraní clauses (there is, to my knowledge, no infinitive form at all in Guaraní). As said above in Section 2.4, there is one more prefix that has this status and could therefore be added to the other ones: the prefix for command (or imperative mood), E-L. Only second person singular can be subject in case of a command form. The other mood-indicating prefix (TA-L, desiderative) has a totally different status: one of its numerous allomorphs stands additionally in front of one of the thirteen personal prefixes (TA-L is not possible with E-L). It “indicates wish, permission, exhortation, command” (Gregores & Suárez 1967: 132). It should be clear that we have to assume a functional classification of mood with at least three categories: command, desiderative, and indicative (neutral mood). More categories might have to be added due to suffixes. The two remaining prefixes only occur in forms of transitive verbs and with prefixes of Set Two (5). JE-L (with the phonetical + orthographical variant ñe-) “indicates that the subject is undergoer, or actor and undergoer simultaneously” (Gregores & Suárez 1967: 132). The resulting forms are sometimes called reflexive and sometimes passive, depending on context and translation,
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I suppose. It can be concluded that the grammatical subject (cross-referenced by the prefixes of Set Two) of a form with JE-L semantically is patient — the agent being either the same person(s) (reflexive) or anybody/anything else (passive). Thus, a-je-hesa1 can be translated as ‘I see myself’ or as ‘They/Someone see(s) me’. The other prefix, JO-L (ño-), has an even more restricted distribution: it occurs only after the ‘pluralic’ prefixes — in our analysis, only in forms that are marked for involvement of others (+3s: with prefixes O-L, RO-L, or PE-L) or forms that are neutral with respect to such involvement (±3s: with prefix JA-L). Forms with JO-L express that subject and object are reciprocally the same. Forms with these two prefixes specify the object by themselves and are therefore incompatible with the object categories as presented above. This has to be taken into account when conceiving the structural and functional systems and their connection, a step that will be undertaken in the next section. 4
Structural and functional systems, and the system link
4.1 The structural system Observing the structural properties of the Guaraní verb forms (i.e., the properties referring to their inner composition) considered so far that might serve as criteria for structural classifications (elements of the structural part of the classification system on Guaraní verb forms), we see that they fall into three types. The first concerns the stem: as shown in Section 2.3 the forms of some stems (stems of so-called quality verbs) occur only with forms of prefixes of the first set (4). I will call these stems CHE-STEMs because labels for these categories are traditionally derived from the first person singular verb forms. (Names of categories of lexemes are given in capitals — as are categories of words — in order to mark their difference to categories of forms.) Other stems (of what traditionally are called regular intransitive verbs) only occur with prefixes of the second set (5) and with E-L. In the following I name them ASTEMs. Finally, a third class of stems (of transitive verbs) may occur with any of these prefixes (except I-L which is restricted to intransitive verbs) and also with PO-L. I will call this last class of stems A-CHE-STEMs. This classification of stems can be used in an intuitively obvious way to define classes of verb forms that ‘contain’ a form of a stem of each respective class: [che-stem], [astem], [a-che-stem]. The second type of criteria is given by the question which of the ‘obligatory’ fourteen prefixes is present in a given form. This yields fourteen corresponding classes. The E-L containing class has a somewhat special status due to non-cooccurrence with TA-L (see Section 2.4).
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Verb Form Type of Stem
[a-che-stem]
[a-stem]
e-Presence
[che-stem]
[N-e-]
[e-]
je-jo-Presence ta-Presence [je-]
[jo-]
[N-je-jo-] [ta-]
[N-ta-]
Obligatory Prefix Type
[che-] [nde-] [i-] [ñande-] [ore-] [pende-] [a-] [re-] [o-] [ja-] [ro-] [pe-] [po-]
Finally, the third type accounts for the presence or absence of the optional prefixes. TA-L may be present with any stem or other prefix except E-L, thus it seems useful to single out all forms not containing E-L first. JE-L and L JO- are mutually exclusive and can both occur only with A-CHE-STEMs. I come to the (incomplete) structural system of verb forms of Guaraní idiolect systems as given in the diagram in (14). As before, brackets indicate structural categories and reference to idiolect systems is omitted. Any category [x] (or [N-x]) may informally be defined as: “the set of all verb forms that (don’t) ‘contain’ a form of a stem of class X or a form of the affix XL”. The notion of ‘containing’ used in the above scheme will eventually be made more precise after the next section. 4.2 The functional system The functional system for verb forms is more complex. The three classifications for involvement of speaker/addressee/others that were shown above in (11) should be renamed to involvement of speaker/addressee/others as subject, abbreviated: ‘Speaker=Subj’ etc. They are cross-classifications on the set of all verb forms — and so is the classification of mood. But not all verb forms are marked for the existence of an object, and thus the three analogous cross-classifications for involvement of speaker/addressee/others as object (‘Speaker=Obj’ etc.) can only be based on the subset of verb forms that are marked for the existence of an object (as opposed to the forms that explicitly can’t have an object, No-Object) and are neither reflexive/passive nor reciprocal, that is, the forms that indicate an object which is not related to the subject, Obj≠Subj. This yields the (incomplete, since no suffixes are considered) functional system for verb forms. Like the structural system it is a subset of the SUO in Guaraní idiolect systems. See the diagram in (15), next page.
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(15)
Verb Form Mood
Existence of Object
Indicative Command Desid.
Speaker=Subj +1s
−1s
No-Object
Addressee=Subj +2s
−2s
±2s
Object
Others=Subj +3s
−3s
±3s
Object-Subject Relation Obj≠Subj
Speaker=Obj
+1o
−1o
Reciprocal
Addressee=Obj
+2o
−2o
Reflexive /Passive
Others=Obj
+3o −3o ±3o
4.3 The system link The combination between the two systems (14) and (15) is provided, as explained above (Section 1.3), by the system link. It is the third and last complex formal entity of Guaraní idiolect systems that is to be presented in this article. It ensures that a given form is assigned to the right functional categories (to which it is related by the paradigm), taking into account the inner composition of forms via their membership of structural categories only. Below I give the relevant elements of the system link for verb forms of Guaraní idiolect systems. Each element is, as explained above, a pair such that the first component is a set of structural categories (endpoints or other) and the second component a set of functional categories (endpoints of the SUO). Any form that belongs to the intersection of the first component (that is: any form that is an element of all elements) also belongs to the intersection of the second. In the names of the sets space has been arranged for easier recognition of relevant elements. Sometimes, one formal property is sufficient to determine the belonging of a given form to one or more functional categories. For instance, occurrence of the ta-prefix indicates desiderative mood without any further conditions. (This is characteristic for ‘agglutinative languages’ such as Guaraní; compare the remarks in the last section.) Compare the case of all prefixes relevant in the following elements of the system link in (16).
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(16)
〈{[a-stem] 〈{[che-stem] 〈{[je-] 〈{[jo-] 〈{[ta-] 〈{[N-ta-]
}, }, }, }, }, },
{No-Object {No-Object {Reflexive/Passive {Reciprocal {Desiderative {Indicative
}〉 }〉 }〉 }〉 }〉 }〉
Some examples may help to understand the functioning of the system link. Consider the form re-guata1 ‘you(sg) walk’. As its stem never co-occurs with the prefixes CHE-L, NDE-L, etc., the form belongs to the structural category [a-stem]. Therefore, the first pair in (16) can be applied. Any form that belongs to the intersection of the first component also belongs to the intersection of the second. Thus, due to the analysis given by the system link, the form reguata1 is an element of No-Object, since it belongs to the intersection of the first component (trivially so, as the first component only has one element, the set [a-stem]). Of course, this statement seems to be true but redundant since it corresponds to the observation that all verbs with A-STEMs are intransitive. Sometimes it is the case that a property of words (intransitive verbs) is reflected by a property of all their forms (belonging to No-Object). However, if an analysis that avoids this doubling could be found, one may consider to replace this point. As another example consider the form ta-ja-jo-juhu1 ‘may we meet one another’. As it belongs to [jo-] and [ta-], we can conclude that the form belongs to the functional categories Reciprocal and Desiderative, referring to the fourth and fifth elements in (16). Note that the structural category [N-ta-] is a subset of [N-e-], so the last pair states efficiently that a form in that neither TA-L nor E-L is present is in Indicative (the ‘neutral’ or ‘unmarked’ mood). We continue with those forms that contain a prefix of Set Two (except forms that contain RO-L, which will be treated separately below). Their subject is well defined no matter whether they are transitive or intransitive. (Note that, according to this analysis, forms with E-L behave identically to forms with L RE- , but are additionally marked for Command mood.) (17)
〈{[a-]
}, 〈{[re-] }, 〈{[e-] }, 〈{[o-] }, 〈{[ja-] }, 〈{[pe-] },
{ +1s, { −1s, { −1s, { −1s, { +1s, { −1s,
−2s, −3s +2s, −3s +2s, −3s , Command −2s, +3s +2s, ±3s +2s, +3s
}〉 }〉 }〉 }〉 }〉 }〉
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173
The functioning of the system link becomes clearer when we observe these somewhat more complex cases. Consider again the form re-guata1 that belongs to [re-]. The second element in (17) says that re-guata1 belongs to all three functional categories in the set which is its second component: (18)
{−1s, +2s, −3s}
This is to say (in traditional terms) that re-guata1 is a ‘second person singular’ form. The traditional categories can be defined as intersections of sets like (18). That is, in this example, ‘second person singular’ is the set of all forms that are elements of every element of set (18). It should be seen as an important result of the account given here that with the suggested interpretation of the traditional categories, it is possible to integrate the results of other, non-IL work into this conception. I will from here on make use of the traditional terms, conceiving them as names of intersection sets in the way described above. The fifth pair in (17) is relevant for our other sample form ta-ja-jo-juhu1. It determines correctly that the form belongs to the three categories +1s, +2s and ±3s (traditionally, the form is ‘first person plural inclusive’) since it belongs to the category [ja-]. We already saw that it belongs also to Desiderative (due to the occurrence of TA-L) and to Reciprocal (due to the occurrence of L JO- ). No more elements of the system link (in the part presented here) concern this form, thus we can conclude that (19) is an element of the paradigm of the verb JUHUW ‘(to) meet’. (19)
1
〈ta-ja-jo-juhu
, {+1s, +2s, ±3s, Desiderative, Reciprocal}〉
This exemplifies how the different elements of the system link work together in the determination of paradigms, especially, in the determination of their elements’ second components, i.e. the categorizations of the forms that are the first components of the elements of the paradigms. Up to now sets of functional categories have been related to sets with only one structural category by the system link. However, in the majority of cases only a combination of formal categories suffices to allocate forms to certain formal categories (compare Section 1.3, page 159). For instance, if a form belongs to [che-] and to [che-stem] it can be assigned to the formal categories +1s, −2s and −3s, but [che-] alone is not sufficient to specify anything. (This may come as a surprise since CHE-L ‘indicates first person singular’, but as shown above, we have to distinguish between ‘first person singular subject’ and ‘first person singular object’.) Consequently, the forms of quality verbs are covered by the pairs in (20).
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(20)
〈{[che-stem],
[che-] [nde-] 〈{[che-stem], [ñande-] 〈{[che-stem], [ore-] 〈{[che-stem], [pende-] 〈{[i-] 〈{[che-stem],
}, }, }, }, }, },
{ +1s, { −1s, { +1s, { +1s, { −1s, { −1s,
−2s, +2s, +2s, −2s, +2s, −2s,
−3s −3s ±3s +3s +3s +3s
}〉 }〉 }〉 }〉 }〉 }〉
For instance, che-mandu’a1 belongs to the categories +1s, −2s and −3s (traditionally: it is a ‘first person singular [subject]’ form) because the stem never co-occurs with A-L, RE-L etc., and because it contains the prefix CHE-L. Since L I- can appear only with forms of CHE-STEMs, it is by itself sufficient for assigning a form such as i-mandu’a1 to the related functional categories of traditional ‘third person’. (That means, [i-] happens to be a proper subset of [che-stem]. This can not be deduced from the functional system (14).) Now elements of the system link of Guaraní idiolect systems that take account of forms of transitive verbs will be observed. In the case of forms with prefixes of Set Two that contain neither JE-L nor JO-L, according to our analysis (compare Sections 3.3 and 3.4) all forms contain information about the object as well. The same holds true for prefixes of Set Three. As the subject-classes of the forms with prefixes of Set Two have been treated already in (17), this is not repeated here. Consider the pairs in (21). (21)
〈{[a-che-stem],
[che-] }, [nde-] }, 〈{[a-che-stem], [ñande-] }, 〈{[a-che-stem], [ore-] }, 〈{[a-che-stem], [pende-] }, 〈{[N-je-jo-], [a-] }, 〈{[N-je-jo-], [re-] }, 〈{[N-je-jo-], [e-] }, 〈{[N-je-jo-], [o-] }, 〈{[N-je-jo-], [ja-] }, 〈{[N-je-jo-], [pe-] },
〈{[a-che-stem],
{ −1s, { −1s, { −1s, { −1s, { −1s, { { { { { {
±2s, −2s, −2s, ±2s, −2s,
±3s, +1o, −2o, −3o } 〉 +3s, −1o, +2o, −3o } 〉 +3s, +1o, +2o, ±3o } 〉 ±3s, +1o, −2o, +3o } 〉 +3s, −1o, +2o, +3o } 〉 −1o, −2o, +3o } 〉 −1o, −2o, +3o } 〉 −1o, −2o, +3o } 〉 −1o, −2o, +3o } 〉 −1o, −2o, +3o } 〉 −1o, −2o, +3o } 〉
Please note that the classes [je-], [jo-] and [N-je-jo-] are proper subsets of [a-che-stem]. Since prefixes of Set Three (not considering RO-L) do not cooccur with JE-L or JO-L, [N-je-jo-] could have been chosen instead of [a-chestem] as well. I am not sure about the criteria to be used in these cases so as to decide which category should actually appear in the system link. Take again as an example two forms of the verb JUHUW ‘(to) meet’: nde1 juhu ‘he meets you(sg)’ and re-juhu1 ‘you(sg) meet him’. All forms of this verb belong to [a-che-stem]. In addition to this, the first form, nde-juhu1,
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175
belongs to [nde-]. Thus the form belongs to all structural categories that are elements of the first component of the second pair given in (21) — and consequently we may conclude that the form belongs to all six categories in the second component. Traditionally speaking, nde-juhu1 is a ‘third person subject’ form (belongs to −1s, −2s, and +3s) and ‘second person singular object’ form (is an element of −1o, of +2o, and of −3o). For a complete characterization of the second sample form, re-juhu1, we have to take in account more than one element of the system link. The form belongs to [N-je-jo-] and to [re-], consequently it belongs to any category in the second component of the seventh pair in (21), that is to say, to −1o, to −2o, and to +3o (traditionally, to ‘third person object’). But its belonging to [re-] suffices to assign the form to the intersection of (18) — just as the form re-guata1 discussed above (page 173). This is due to the second pair in (17) that treats forms of transitive verbs as well as forms of intransitive verbs. Moreover, the last entry in (16) applies, so this form is Indicative. Therefore, we get the pair in (22) as an element of the paradigm of JUHUW. (22)
1
〈re-juhu
, {−1s, +2s, −3s, −1o, −2o, +3o, Indicative}〉
Finally, we have to account for forms with the ‘mixed prefixes’ RO-L and PO-L, cf. (13e, i, m). It turns out that their behaviour is quite different since RO-L appears as a normal prefix with active intransitive verbs, cross-referencing ‘first person plural exclusive’, and as a ‘mixed prefix’ proper, specifying that ‘second person singular’ is object and that speaker participates as subject. This is a case of syncretism. (Syncretism in paradigms can be predicted if in the system link there are two or more elements with identical first components.) The behaviour of PO-L is in a way contrary to that of RO-L: it appears only in forms of transitive verbs and is specific (in a sense that will be clarified in the next section). Consider the entries in the system link in (23). (23)
〈{[po-]
}, }, 〈{[a-stem], [ro-] }, }, 〈{[je-], [ro-] }, 〈{[jo-], [ro-] 〈{[N-je-jo-], [ro-] }, 〈{[N-je-jo-], [ro-] }, 〈{[ro-]
{ +1s, −2s, ±3s, −1o, +2o, +3o } 〉 }〉 { +1s, −2s, { +3s, }〉 { +3s, }〉 { +3s, }〉 { +3s, −1o, −2o, +3o } 〉 { ±3s, −1o, −2o, +3o } 〉
The first pair in (23) describes for instance that po-juhu1 ‘I/we(excl) meet you(pl)’ belongs to all six categories in the second component since po-juhu1 belongs to [po-].
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Considering the second and fourth pair in (23) and the fourth and last pairs in (16), we see that the form ro-jo-juhu1 ‘we(excl) meet one another’ appears in the paradigm of the verb JUHUW as the element in (24). (24)
1
〈ro-jo-juhu
, {+1s, −2s, +3s, Reciprocal, Indicative}〉
The relevant element in the paradigm of (25). (25)
W
GUATA
for ro-guata1 is given in
1
〈ro-guata
, {+1s, −2s, +3s, No-Obj, Indicative}〉
(To arrive at (25), compare the first and last pairs in (16) and the second and fifth pairs in (23).) Finally, the syncretistic form ro-juhu1 ‘we(excl) meet him’/‘I/we(excl) meet you(sg)’ appears twice in the paradigm of JUHUW, cf. (26). In both cases the second pair of (23) is applied, the first time together with the sixth, the second time with the seventh, as well as the last pair in (16). (26)
1
〈ro-juhu
, {+1s, −2s, +3s, −1o, −2o, +3o, Indicative}〉 , {+1s, −2s, ±3s, −1o, +2o, −3o, Indicative}〉
1
〈ro-juhu
The system link can serve as a basis for describing the corresponding prefixes (lexemes) themselves, as will be shown in the last two sections. 4.4 From the description of structures to a description of units The first sections of this article presented a description of a small but essential part of the syntax of Guaraní, using the framework of Integrational Linguistics. The central question was: how is it that verbal paradigms are constructed in this language, as far as the person system is concerned? We saw that it is a small set of prefixes that play a key role in the construction of paradigms (in other languages, there may be suffixes or auxiliary words that serve similar purposes). It can be seen how in this area syntax and morphology are closely interwoven. In descriptions of individual languages, the construction of paradigms is traditionally treated in connection with the language’s morphological units (or auxiliaries), more specifically, with its inflectional affixes. (This is the proceeding chosen by Gregores and Suárez in their 1967 grammar.) In the integrational framework, a method for describing such affixes (beyond stating their forms and morphological combinatory patterns) has apparently not been considered yet. It would be very useful if we had instruments at our hands that would allow for stating the effects of affixes.
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When it comes to the morphological, in particular, to the lexicographical description of inflectional affixes, there has traditionally been no doubt that it is exactly their role in the construction of paradigms (i.e., in syntax, not morphology) that has to be accounted for. This idea should be reconstructed in IL. In comparative studies, especially when comparing the morphology of genetically related languages, such instruments would allow for well-defined statements like “in language A, affix mL serves to mark categories x1 and x2, whereas in language B, the (cognate) affix nL marks the category y”; at the same time, a syntactic comparison of the Syntactic Unit Orderings of both languages and the relevant system links would become possible. The same holds of auxiliary words (diachronically, often the source of later affixes). The complex interplay of syntax and morphology seems to be a first major obstacle for obtaining such instruments. Since my original interest was exactly a lexicographical description of Guaraní, based on the IL framework, as well as a possible comparison with other Tupí languages, I took up the work to fill in this apparent gap in the Integrational Theory of Language. It turned out that the system link can serve as a basis for describing the corresponding prefixes (lexemes), once an adequate concept of ‘containing’ (to be developed in the next section) is on hand, as will be shown in the last section of this paper. Some consequences for the resulting descriptions in Guaraní and other languages are indicated in Section 6.2. It is to be expected that a resulting compact and unified description of the inflectional morphology of individual languages is useful also for typological statements. Some first steps in this direction will be made in the last Section 6.3, illustrating the use of some additional terms developed in this paper by applying them to Guaraní. 5
Inflectional units contained in forms
5.1 Inflectional units Lieb’s (1992b) paper introduces a conceptual framework that can easily be extended in order to describe the marking effects of inflectional units. By inflectional units we understand here all inflectional affixes as well as all auxiliary words of an idiolect system. Therefore, the concept is mixed with respect to the domains of morphology and syntax, but homogeneous with respect to ontology: just as stems and all lexical words, all inflectional units are conceived as pairs of a paradigm P and a concept b that is the meaning of the unit. (For the IL conception of lexical meaning see the references on page 18ff., this volume; also Lieb 1983: Chapter 13.) It is a general property of inflectional units that they do not have a ‘proper’ lexical meaning in a traditional sense — instead, their second compo-
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nent is the empty concept b0 (see Lieb 1992a for details). For this very reason, a grammatical or lexicographical description of inflectional units has to accomplish more than just mentioning their forms: It is precisely their role in the construction of paradigms that has to be accounted for. As we have seen in the last sections, an occurrence of a form of an inflectional unit ‘marks’ syntactic forms and thus provides a criterion for structural categories that, in turn, determine the functional categories the ‘marked’ form belongs to. Given the concept of the system link of an idiolect system, we have the instruments at our hands to make these notions more precise. 5.2 An example Consider the prefix RE-L of a certain idiolect system S of Guaraní. RE-L is an inflectional unit and could be identified as in (27). (In this part, reference to idiolect systems S is reinstalled in the definitions and assumptions.) (27)
L
a.
RE-
b.
RE-
(S) = 〈RE-LP(S), b0〉
LP
(S) = {〈re1, {Affix form(−,S)}〉}
Notes. (i) ‘Affix form’ is the name of a general relation that holds between forms of affixes and idiolect systems (‘f is an affix form of S’). This relation may be defined in a general theory of language, but the category Affix form(−,S) (the set of all affix forms of S) is to be identified in a theory of Guaraní idiolect systems. (ii) In agreement with the IL conception (cf. Lieb 1983: 232, 169), RE-L(S) is a pair of an improper paradigm and the empty concept b0. (iii) re1 is a morph (a morphological form) f, that is, a sequence of morphological base forms w. In the present case, it is the unit sequence of a base form that consists of the phoneme sequence \re\ and a phonological structure of this sequence. (iv) A different theory of Guaraní could evaluate the nasal vowels as phonemes, and thus, re)1 as another allomorph of RE-L. In this case, the paradigm RE-LP would contain two equivalent forms but would still be improper.
Usually, RE-L is called a ‘second person singular prefix’. — How is this to be understood? I think an adequate explication can be given informally as follows: Forms that ‘contain’ RE-L ‘are marked’ by this affix as belonging to the second person singular. Using the concepts presented in the last sections, we can explicate ‘are marked’ as follows: Forms that ‘contain’ RE-L belong to the structural category [re-] (cf. Section 4.1). As [re-] figures as a (in fact, the only) element of a first component of an element of the system link that has the set {−1s, +2s, −3s} as its second component, any form in [re-] belongs to each functional category in that set. Traditionally speaking: it is a ‘second person singular’ form (cf. discussion below (18)). Thus, assigning such forms to these categories is an ‘effect’ of RE-L. In developing a precise concept of such effects (that will eventually be called ‘marking effects’) I proceed as follows: First, a concept of ‘being con-
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tained’ has to be provided for both types of inflectional units (see the rest of this section). In the next section, the relevant structural categories will be singled out and characterized. Finally, the system link will be used to come to a notion of marking effect and some auxiliary concepts. 5.3 Being contained 5.3.1 Being morphologically contained. First, consider the verb form reguata1 ‘you(sg) go’ of Guaraní idiolect systems that ‘contains’ the Guaraní affix RE-L. A precise formulation of the relation R between RE-L and re-guata1 could be stated as in (28). (28)
There is a form f1 (re1) and a syntactic base form w (re-guata) in the idiolect system such that: a. f1 is a form of (the paradigm) of RE-L (in fact, the only form); b. w is a member (i.e., a second component of an element) of re-guata1 (in fact, the only member); c. f1 occurs before a form of the stem of re-guata1 in a first component of a morphological version of w. (A morphological version of a syntactic base form consists of (i) a sequence of morphological base forms and (ii) a morphological structure of the sequence; cf. Lieb 1983: 200.)
R is a relation of ‘being morphologically contained’, to be more precise, the relation of ‘being morphologically contained as a prefix in the main part’ that could be defined using (28). There are many different relations between lexemes (either stems or affixes) of an idiolect system and syntactic word forms of the system that are relations of being morphologically contained. These relations can be defined as in (29). (29)
Definition. Any relation R is a relation of being morphologically contained (is an m-containing relation, for short) with respect to an idiolect system S iff (if and only if): a. R holds between lexemes 〈P, b〉 of S and syntactic word forms f of S; b. for any pair 〈〈P, b〉, f 〉 ∈ R, there is a form f1 and a syntactic base form w such that (i) f1 is a form of P, (ii) w is a member of f, (iii) f1 occurs in the first component of a morphological version of w; c. there is a relation-in-intension R1 between lexemes 〈P, b〉 of S and syntactic word forms f of S such that, for any lexeme
180
SEBASTIAN DRUDE 〈P,
b〉 of S and any syntactic word form of S: if the intensional relation R1 applies to 〈P, b〉, f, and S, then 〈〈P, b〉, f 〉 is in R. Any m-containing relation has to meet the conditions in (29b) and possibly imposes further ones. For instance, it might be required that f1 occurs at a certain position or that w is a specific member (the main, the finite, the second, etc.) of f. Consequently we may need relations of morphological containing as a suffix, infix, prefinal suffix and so on. Which relations are to be used in a description of a language is an empirical question. 5.3.2 Being syntactically contained. In the definition of relations of being morphologically contained we had to cross the border between morphology and syntax. The syntactic equivalent, relations that hold between lexical words (typically, auxiliary words), and word forms, can be defined much easier. Consider the verb form is going that ‘contains’ a form of the auxiliary verb TO BEW. Spelled out: there is a form of the auxiliary verb (is) that occurs in the verb form. Generally we can define the most unspecific relation of being syntactically contained as in (30). (30)
Definition. Let 〈P, b〉 be a word of an idiolect system S and f a form of S. Then 〈P, b〉 is syntactically contained in f with respect to S iff there is a form f1 of S such that: a. f1 is a form of P, b. f1 occurs in f.
Trivially, every word of an idiolect system S is syntactically contained in each of its forms. It is primarily auxiliary words that may also be contained in forms of other lexical words. Generally, the s-containing relations are defined in (31) in strict analogy to morphological ones (substituting ‘syntactic’ for ‘morphological’ in (29) and using the definiendum of (30) instead of (29b)): (31)
Definition. Any relation R is a relation of being syntactically contained (is an s-containing relation) with respect to an idiolect system S iff: a. R holds between lexical words 〈P, b〉 of S and syntactic word forms f of S; b. for any pair 〈〈P, b〉, f 〉 ∈ R, there is a form f1 such that (i) f1 is a form of P, (ii) f1 occurs in f;
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c. there is a relation-in-intension R1 between lexical words 〈P, b〉 of S and syntactic word forms f of S such that, for any lexical word 〈P, b〉 of S and any syntactic word form of S: if the intensional relation R1 applies to 〈P, b〉, f, and S, then 〈〈P, b〉, f 〉 is in R. There may be many different relations of syntactic containing, too, that impose further and different conditions on the form f1 of the lexical word or its place in f. Which specific relation underlies a structural category depends on the facts to be accounted for; often the most general one defined in (30) will suffice. The concept of containing in its morphological variant accounts for the complex connection between morphology and syntax mentioned above (Section 4.4). This is a first important step for describing the effects of inflectional affixes. With the syntactic containing relations we are able to treat auxiliary words in arbitrary languages analogously to inflexional affixes. Together, these concepts are a starting point for describing the contribution of arbitrary inflectional units to the paradigmatic formation of word forms in arbitrary languages. 6
The functional effects of inflectional units
6.1 Containing sets and inflectional-unit categories 6.1.1 Morphological containing sets. Starting from any relation of being morphologically contained in S, say, ‘is morphologically contained as a prefix in the main part’ (m-containedpre) that holds in a certain Guaraní idiolect system S between RE-L and re-guata1 (cf. (28)), we may easily identify the set of syntactic word forms that contain (in the specific manner) RE-L as in (32). (32)
re-formpre(−,S) = {f | RE-L is m-containedpre in f with respect to S}
For idiolect systems S of Guaraní, the forms re-guata1, te-re-je-juhu1 and many others would belong to this class. If RE-L appears as a nominal prefix, nominal forms would belong to this set, too. In languages such as English or German that have RE-L as a derivational affix (given that the morphological paradigms are the same as in Guaraní — which may well be the case) all forms with these prefixes belong to the corresponding classes of English or German idiolect systems (definition (29) is not restricted to inflectional affixes). A category such as (32) may be called an m-containing set for RE-L in S, in the following sense:
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(33)
Definition. Let 〈P, b〉 be a lexeme of an idiolect system S. A set K of word forms of S is an m-containing set for 〈P, b〉 in S iff there is a relation R of being morphologically contained in S such that: K = {f | 〈〈P, b〉, f 〉 ∈ R}.
This and the following definitions are not restricted to inflectional units, so we can speak of m-containing sets for stems, too. This may be useful when considering all words (for instance, compound words) that contain a certain stem in a certain manner (for example, in front of another stem). However, in the following discussion, only the inflectional units will be considered. 6.1.2 Restricted containing sets. In order to be a possible category in the structural classification system on a given basic constituent category (here: Verb form), any set has to be a subset of that basic constituent category. We can meet this further condition by intersecting an m-containing set for an affix with the constituent category. (Such a restriction is indeed necessary since a given affix may play a role in different areas — think of the English suffix -SL that ‘marks plural’ with nominal stems and ‘marks third person singular present tense’ with verb stems.) Thus the structural category [re-] that appeared in Section 4.1 is determined as follows: (34)
[re-](−,S) = {f | f ∈ Verb form(−,S) and RE-L is m-containedpre in f with respect to S}
(This is no definition — what could be defined is a general relation [re-] that holds between forms and idiolect systems.) This set which relies on an m-containing relation should be called an m-containing set for RE-L restricted to Verb form in S. See the general definition in (35). (35)
Definition. For any idiolect system S, lexeme 〈P, b〉 of S and basic syntactic constituent category K0 of S, K is an m-containing set for 〈P, b〉 restricted to K0 in S iff there is a relation R such that: a. R is an m-containing relation with respect to S; b. for every f ∈ K, (i) R holds between 〈P, b〉 and f, (ii) f ∈ K0; c. there is no f ∉ K that satisfies (bi) and (bii).
(Again, this definition is not restricted to inflectional units. An investigation in, say, derivational morphology would make use of the term for dealing with
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derivational affixes 〈P, b0〉.) Restricted m-containing sets for inflectional affixes are one of three major types of structural categories of idiolect systems. Put differently, using occurrence of forms of inflectional affixes (in the way explained here) is one of three main manners for defining structural categories. The second type relies on occurrence of forms of auxiliary words (see below). The third type refers to lexeme categories of stems. It underlies structural categories as [che-stem] and could be made more precise in an analogous way. In the syntactic case, a set of syntactic word forms can analogously be called an s-containing set as in (36), compare (33). (36)
Definition. Let 〈P, b〉 be a lexical word of an idiolect system S. A set K of word forms of S is an s-containing set for 〈P, b〉 iff there is a relation R of being syntactically contained in S such that: K = {f | 〈〈P, b〉, f 〉 ∈ R}.
Analogously to the morphological case we can restrict these syntactic containing sets to a given basic constituent category. Provided that the relevant words 〈P, b〉 are auxiliary words, we again obtain in this way sets that are potentially structural categories. 6.1.3 Inflectional-unit categories. Now consider any inflectional unit that underlies a structural category in an idiolect system. (Note that all terms which are developed in the remaining sections of this paper are only relevant to inflectional units. Therefore the definitions will be restricted in the appropriate way.) We can characterize the structural category in the following way: (37)
Definition. Let S be any idiolect system, 〈P, b0〉 an inflectional unit of S, K a set of syntactic units of S, and K0 a basic constituent category of S. K is a 〈P, b0〉-category for K0 in S iff a. K is a category in the structural system for K0 in the SUO of S; b. (i) or (ii): (i) 〈P, b0〉 is an affix of S and K is an m-containing set for 0 〈P, b 〉 restricted to K0 in S; (ii) 〈P, b0〉 is an auxiliary word of S and K is an s-containing set for 〈P, b0〉 restricted to K0 in S.
For example, given an appropriate idiolect system S of Guaraní, we can say that [re-](−,S) as given in (34) is a re-category for Verb form in S. (This is no tautology despite the contrary impression that might arise from the name chosen for the structural category.) There might be several re-categories in S (differing with respect to K0, the underlying relation R, or both).
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The concept of inflectional-unit category is an important achievement towards defining the marking effects of an inflectional unit. 6.2 Marking pairs of inflectional units and their description Consider an inflectional unit of a given idiolect system, say again, RE-L of an idiolect system S of Guaraní, and a corresponding category for a given basic constituent category of this idiolect system, say, [re-](−,S). We can now observe the system link of the idiolect system and find all elements 〈J1, J2〉 whose first components have the category as an element. — In the case of [re-], we find the two pairs 〈{[re-]}, {−1s, +2s, −3s}〉 (cf. (17)), and 〈{[N-je-jo-], [re-]}, {−1o, −2o, +3o}〉, cf. (21). We will call these elements marking pairs for RE-L relative to Verb form and S. Generally: (38)
Definition. Let S be any idiolect system, 〈P, b0〉 an inflectional unit of S, and K0 a basic constituent category of S. A pair 〈J1, J2〉 is a marking pair for 〈P, b0〉 relative to K0 and S iff a. 〈J1, J2〉 is an element of the system link for K0 in S; b. there is a set K of syntactic units of S such that K ∈ J1 is a 0 〈P, b 〉-category for K0 in S.
We can identify the ‘marking content’ of an inflectional unit with the set of all of its marking pairs: (39)
Definition. Let S be any idiolect system, 〈P, b0〉 an inflectional unit of S, and K0 a basic constituent category of S. The marking content of 〈P, b0〉 relative to K0 and S =df {〈J1, J2〉 | 〈J1, J2〉 is a marking pair for 〈P, b0〉 relative to K0 and S}.
It is the marking content that has to be described when treating an inflectional unit in descriptions of a language. In the case of RE-L, an informal description (using abbreviated traditional terminology for intersections of sets, cf. discussion below (18): ‘second person singular subject’ = {−1s, +2s, −3s} etc.) could be made as follows: (40)
Verb forms with prefix RE-L are always marked for second person singular subject. If RE-L stands in front of a transitive verb stem and neither JE-L nor JO-L are present, the form belongs to third person object also.
A corresponding entry in a lexicon of Guaraní probably has to rearrange things a bit, but is ultimately based on the marking content as well (in case of any doubts, it is indeed a “useful practice”, as Zgusta 1989: 304 puts it, to treat
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affixes as entries of their own in dictionaries). An entry for RE-L may look like in (41). (41)
re- 〈Verb Prefix〉 1. (with intransitive verb stems:) indicates that subject is second person singular 2. (with transitive verb stems but without je- or jo-:) indicates that subject is second person singular and that third person is object.
It can be observed that affixes like English -SL or German -EL, -ENL, -(E)STL etc. have more than one marking content — at least one relative to Verb form and an other one for Noun form. This might have to be indicated by a dictionary as in (42), which is nothing more than a first intuitive approximation. (42)
-s I 〈Verb Suffix〉 indicates third person singular II 〈Nominal Suffix〉 indicates plural
Finally, some affixes have to be accounted for more than once even with the same basic constituent category due to variation of the relation of morphological containing. German -(E)T(-)L, for instance, appears as a suffix immediately after the word stem indicating past tense (forming a so-called ‘inflectional stem’), but as a suffix at the very end of the word form it indicates second person plural (or third person singular in the present tense). In a form such as (ihr) red-et-et (‘you(pl) talked’), it appears twice, to the effect that the difference of the m-containing relations can be seen. 6.3 Marking effects and specificity of inflectional units, and language types 6.3.1 Marking effects of inflectional units. After this brief excursion into the theory of language description, let us consider the functional categories that forms are ‘marked for’ or ‘indicated for’ or ‘cross-referenced for’ by inflectional units. They are the marking effects of the inflectional units, as defined in (43). (43)
Definition. Let S be any idiolect system, 〈P, b0〉 an inflectional unit of S, K a set of syntactic units of S, and K0 a basic constituent category of S. K is a marking effect of 〈P, b0〉 relative to K0 and S iff there is a J1 and a J2 such that a. 〈J1, J2〉 is a marking pair for 〈P, b0〉 relative to K0 and S; b. K ∈ J2.
So, −1s, +2s, −3s, −1o, −2o, and +3o, all are marking effects of RE-L relative to Verb form and Guaraní idiolect systems. Of course, for a form being assigned to −1o, −2o and +3o, a second condition has to be satisfied (viz., being
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a form that contains a verb stem that occurs with both, A-L and CHE-L, and that does not contain JE-L nor JO-L, since the relevant pair in the system link is {[Nje-jo-], [re-]}, {−1o, −2o, +3o}; cf. (21) and Section 4.1) while −1s, +2s and −3s can be ascribed unconditionally to any form that contains RE-L; cf. (17). This leads to two further definitions in (44) (variables introduced in (37a) are presupposed). (44)
Definitions. Let S be any idiolect system, 〈P, b0〉 an inflectional unit of S, and K0 a basic constituent category of S. a. Let K be a marking effect of 〈P, b0〉 relative to K0 and S, and 0 〈J1, J2〉 a relevant marking pair for 〈P, b 〉 relative to K0 and S as required by (43). Any set K1 of syntactic units of S is a cocondition of 〈P, b0〉 for K relative to J1, J2, K0 and S iff (i) K1 ∈ J1; (ii) K1 is not a 〈P, b0〉-category for K0 in S. b. Any set K of syntactic units of S is an unconditional marking effect of 〈P, b0〉 relative to K0 and S iff (i) K is a marking effect of 〈P, b0〉 relative to K0 and S; (ii) for any 〈J1, J2〉 that satisfies (43), there are no coconditions of 〈P, b0〉 for K relative to J1, J2, K0, and S.
Reformulating the above example, we can state that −1s, +2s and −3s (for short: ‘second person singular subject’) are unconditional marking effects of L RE- within Verb form in Guaraní idiolect systems S, while [N-je-jo-] is a cocondition of RE-L for −1o as well as for −2o and +3o relative to the seventh pair in (21) and the set of verb forms in Guaraní idiolect systems. 6.3.2 Specificity of functional categories and of inflectional units. Consider again the system link of Guaraní idiolect systems as given in Section 4.3, and compare functional categories such as +1s or −3o with other ones such as Desiderative or Reciprocal. The first ones figure as marking effects of several inflectional units, whereas the second ones appear only once. They are specific to the inflectional units that underlie the structural categories in the first components of the respective pairs — usually, there is even only one such structural category (this is indeed the case for Desiderative, Command, Reciprocal, etc.). Consider the definition in (45). (45)
Definition. Let S be an idiolect system, 〈P, b0〉 an inflectional unit of S, K a set of syntactic units of S, and K0 a basic constituent category of S. Any K is a specific marking effect of 〈P, b0〉 relative to K0 and S iff
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a. K is a marking effect of 〈P, b0〉 relative to K0 and S; b. there is exactly one 〈J1, J2〉 in the system link of S such that K ∈ J2. Applying this concept to the verb system of Guaraní, we see that Command is a specific marking effect of E-L, and Reflexive/Passive and Reciprocal are specific effects of JE-L and JO-L, respectively, and so is Desiderative of TA-L, since these categories appear only once in the system link presented above, and in the relevant pairs (elements of the system link) categories of E-L (viz., [e-]) etc. are elements in the first components. Finally, we can call an inflectional unit itself specific: the categories of a specific inflectional unit do not occur together with any other structural category in the system link. (46)
Definitions. Let S be an idiolect system, 〈P, b0〉 an inflectional unit of S, and K0 a basic constituent category of S. 0 〈P, b 〉 is a specific inflectional unit relative to K0 and S iff for all 0 〈J1, J2〉 in the non-empty marking content of 〈P, b 〉 relative to K0 0 and S, J1 has exactly one element. 〈P, b 〉 is highly specific if there exists exactly one such 〈J1, J2〉 and also J2 has only one element.
In order to avoid redundancy, it could be required of any system link that there is only one marking pair in the marking content of any specific inflectional unit. This and other practical restrictions of system links have been tacitly accepted in descriptions within the IL framework without being part of the definition of system link. 6.3.3 Inflectional units and language types. In the Guaraní verbal system, we encounter only three specific prefixes: TA-L, I-L, and PO-L. Of these, only TA-L is highly specific. This may be seen as a sign that (as far as the verbal prefix system is concerned) Guaraní is of the inflectional, not agglutinative type of languages (assuming a simple traditional typology), if we accept the following theorem in (47) that aims at reconstructing the intuition behind the traditional typology. (47)
Theorem. The more inflectional units in a language system are specific or have specific or unconditional marking effects, the more the language is of the ‘agglutinative type’ (if the inflectional units are mainly affixes) or of the ‘isolating type’ (if the inflectional units are mainly auxiliaries). The less such inflectional units exist, the more the language tends to the ‘inflectional type’.
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Still, some words must be said about Guaraní: if there were no hierarchy of reference, Guaraní would tend significantly more to the agglutinative language type. Also, if we adhered to the traditional person / number categories (that we have been able to reconstruct as intersections of sets of our categories), the degree of specificity of the personal prefixes would be considerably higher. It might well be said that our somewhat scrupulous analysis gave Guaraní a less agglutinative and more inflecting appearance, but that traditional descriptions of Guaraní which see it as an agglutinating language are also justified. (This is supported by results from analyses of the suffixes and the nominals.) It is interesting that the tendency of dissolving the reference hierarchy appears first with two prefixes, PO-L, that is specific, and RO-L, that is the ‘least specific’ (its structural category appears six times in the system link of Guaraní idiolect systems — more than any category of any other prefix), due to syncretism. If it was not for RO-L, the reflexive and reciprocal marking prefixes JE-L and JO-L would be highly specific prefixes, too. Similar signs of dissolution of the proposed original reference hierarchy of proto-Tupí-Guaraní are found among other Tupí-Guaraní languages, and with the instruments developed here, a comparison might prove useful. Such a comparison could possibly even serve as a type of criterion of its own in genetic language grouping. Due to the space limits of this article, it will not even be commenced at this point.
REFERENCES Gregores, Emma & Jorge A. Suárez. 1967. A description of Colloquial Guaraní. The Hague etc.: Mouton. (= Janua Linguarum, Series Practica, XXVII). Jensen, Cheryl Joyce. 1998. “Comparative Tupí-Guaraní morphosyntax”. Handbook of Amazonian languages ed. by Desmond C. Derbyshire & Geoffrey K. Pullum, vol. 4, 487–618. Berlin etc.: Mouton de Gruyter. Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1983. Integrational Linguistics. Vol. 1: General outline. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (= Current issues in linguistic theory, 17). Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1992a. “Integrational Semantics: an integrative view of linguistic meaning”. Current advances in semantic theory ed. by Maxim Stamenov, 239–268. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. (= Current issues in linguistic theory, 73). Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1992b. “Paradigma und Klassifikation: Explikation des Paradigmenbegriffs”. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 11:1. 3–46. Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1993. “Integrational Linguistics”. Syntax: ein internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung / an international handbook of contemporary research ed. by Joachim Jacobs, Arnim von Stechow, Wolfgang Sternefeld & Theo Vennemann, vol. 1, 430–468. Berlin & New York: de Gruyter. (= Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, 9.1). Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 2005. “Notions of paradigm in grammar”. Lexikologie / Lexicology: ein internationales Handbuch zur Natur und Struktur von Wörtern und Wortschätzen / an international handbook on the nature and structure of words and vocabularies ed.
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by D. Alan Cruse, Franz Hundsnurscher, Michael Job & Peter Lutzeier, vol. 2, 1613– 1646. Berlin & New York: de Gruyter. (= Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, 21.2). Monserrat, Ruth Maria Fonini & Marília Lopes da Costa Facó Soares. 1983. “Hierarquia Referencial am Línguas Tupí”. Ensaios de Lingüística. Cadernos de Lingüística e Teoria da Literatura (Belo Horizonte) 9. 164–187. Rodrigues, Aryon Dall’Igna. 1985/86. “Relações internas na família lingüística TupíGuaraní”. Revista de Antropologia (São Paulo) 27/28. 33–53. Rodrigues, Aryon Dall’Igna. 1990. “You and I = neither you nor I: the personal system of Tupinambá”. Amazonian linguistics: studies in Lowland American Languages ed. by Doris L. Payne, 393–406. Austin: University of Texas Press. Zgusta, Ladislav. 1989. “The influence of scripts and morphological language types on the structure of dictionaries”. Wörterbücher / Dictionaries: ein internationales Handbuch zur Lexikographie / an international encyclopedia of lexicography, 296–304. Berlin etc.: de Gruyter. (= Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, 5).
Topic Integration Syntax and Semantics of German ‘Split Topicalization’ Andreas Nolda Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Contents 1 Introduction 2 Terminological preliminaries 3 Alternative analyses in the literature 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4
Overview The topic expression and the related expression as a discontinuous noun group The related expression as a secondary predicate The topic expression as a syntactically incorporated predicate part
4 An integrational analysis of topic integration instances 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4
Overview Syntax Propositional and referential semantics Semantics of accent occurrences
5 The topic integration construction 5.1 Overview 5.2 Definition of ‘topic integration’ 5.3 Identification of topic integration in German
6 Summary and outlook
Abstract. In this paper, I argue that German topic integration (generally known as ‘split topicalization’) is a syntactic topic-comment construction, where the topic is ‘integrated’ into the ‘prefield’ of the sentence. After discussing and rejecting prominent alternatives for the analysis of German topic integration instances that were proposed by other authors, I present a syntactic and semantic analysis of my own by the example of Rotwein habe ich nur französischen. This analysis presupposes the framework of Integrational Linguistics. Finally, I formulate a tentative definition of the construction name and show how the construction can be identified in German.
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Introduction*
The present paper outlines the syntax and semantics of the German topic integration construction, generally known as ‘split topicalization’.1 (1) and (2) are typical instances of this construction: (1)
Rotwein habe ich nur französischen. red wine have I
only French
‘As for red wine, I have only French.’ (2)
Rotwein habe ich keinen. red wine have I
none
‘As for red wine, I have none.’ In Nolda (2007), a comprehensive study of German topic integration, I argue that certain German idiolects also include topic integration instances such as (3) and (4):2 (3)
Rotwein habe ich noch zwei Liter. red wine have I
still
two litres
‘As for red wine, I still have two litres.’ (4)
Rotwein habe ich nur Bordeaux. red wine have I
only Bordeaux
‘As for red wine, I have only Bordeaux wine.’ For a discussion of type (3) and (4) instances, that will not be considered here, the reader is referred to Nolda (2007). *
This paper reports results from my Ph.D. thesis, supervised by Hans-Heinrich Lieb and published as Nolda (2007). 1 The term ‘split topicalization’ was coined by Riemsdijk (1989). Further terms for this construction used in the literature include ‘split topic’ (Haegeman 1995: Section 4.1.1.2) and ‘DP split’ (Besten & Webelhuth 1990). In Nolda (2007), I propose the term ‘topic integration’ as an alternative to them without derivational connotations. The motivation for this term is twofold. First, virtually all authors agree that one of the two characteristic expressions in topic integration instances (to be called ‘topic expression’ below) functions as a ‘topic’ in some sense. Second, this expression is typically ‘integrated’ into the ‘prefield’ of the sentence (i.e. it immediately precedes the finite part of the predicate constituent); in particular, it is not dislocated into the ‘pre-prefield’. 2 Examples of type (3) are also known as ‘pseudo-partitive splits’ (Pafel 1995).
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I shall proceed as follows. Section 2 distinguishes several readings of the construction term ‘topic integration’ and introduces related terms. In Section 3, I shall discuss alternatives for the analysis of German topic integration instances proposed by other authors. My own syntactic and semantic analysis will be presented in Section 4 by the example of (1). In Section 5, I shall formulate a tentative definition of ‘topic integration’ and show how the construction can be identified in German. The paper concludes with a summary and an outlook in Section 6. The presupposed theoretical framework for the analysis is that of Integrational Linguistics (Lieb 1983b; see also Nolda 2007: Chapter 7; an up-to-date “Introduction to Integrational Linguistics” can be found on pages 1–20, this volume). Familiarity with the framework, however, is not required. All framework-related notions will be introduced as we go along. 2
Terminological preliminaries
Construction terms like ‘topic integration’ can be understood in at least three different ways: 1. 2. 3.
as denoting a syntactic construction as a universal entity; as denoting a syntactic construction in a given linguistic system; as denoting a construction instance in a lexically and structurally disambiguated syntactic expression of a given system.
Using the framework of Integrational Linguistics, these readings of ‘topic integration’ can be formally distinguished in the following way. In Integrational Linguistics, systems of languages and their varieties are ultimately derived from idiolect systems. Commonly, idiolect systems are denoted by variables ‘S’. Every idiolect system S specifies the lexically and structurally disambiguated syntactic expressions that are ‘grammatical’ in S. A lexically and structurally disambiguated syntactic expression of S in turn is conceived as a syntactic triple 〈f, s, e〉 where f is a syntactic unit of S (a sequence of phonological or graphematical words of S), s is a syntactic structure of f in S (consisting of a constituent structure, a categorial marking structure, and an intonation structure), and e is a lexical interpretation of f relative to s in S. Given this conception, a topic integration instance in a syntactic triple 〈f, s, e〉 of an idiolect system S can be identified with a proper or improper non-empty part of f. The topic integration construction in an idiolect system S (topic integration in S) can then be construed as the relation between all topic integration instances in syntactic triples 〈f, s, e〉 of S and the corresponding syntactic triples themselves. In informal contexts, the topic integration con-
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structions in German idiolect systems S will be collectively referred to as ‘the German topic integration construction’ or ‘German topic integration’ for short. Finally, the topic integration construction as a universal entity (topic integration without reference to idiolect systems S) will be taken to be a function c from idiolect systems S to the topic integration construction in S.3 All topic integration instances contain two characteristic subexpressions, which I shall call ‘topic expression’ and ‘related expression’, respectively. In (1), for example, the topic expression is Rotwein and the related expression is französischen.4 I shall assume that a topic integration instance f1 in a syntactic triple 〈f, s, e〉 is the smallest constituent of f relative to the constituent structure component of s containing the topic expression as well as the related expression of f1. In (1), I shall argue below, f1 equals f. 3
Alternative analyses in the literature
3.1 Overview In this section, I shall briefly review three prominent alternatives for the analysis of German topic integration instances that were proposed by other authors: the analysis of the topic expression and the related expression as a discontinuous noun group, the analysis of the related expression as a secondary predicate, and the analysis of the topic expression as a syntactically incorporated predicate part. (A more complete discussion of analyses in the literature can be found in Nolda 2007: Chapters 5 and 6.) For better comparability, the characteristics of the analyses will be presented in a more or less theory-neutral way below. 3.2 The topic expression and the related expression as a discontinuous noun group According to a common analysis of German topic integration instances, the topic expression and the related expression together form a discontinuous noun group with analogous syntactic function occurrences as in a continuous variant thereof (cf., inter alia, Brinker 1972: 121f.; Riemsdijk 1989; Besten &
3
If there is no topic integration construction in S, c assigns the empty set to S. In informal contexts, object-language expressions in italics denote either (parts of) syntactic units or syntactic triples. In particular, German orthography is observed, including rules for capitalization and interpunctation. In formal contexts, a convention of Integrational Linguistics will be applied according to which phonological words and the (parts of) syntactic units build from them are written using small letters only. 4
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TOPIC INTEGRATION
Webelhuth 1990: 79f.; Haegeman 1995: 173–176; Kniffka 1996: 56–67).5 In particular, the related expression is, or includes, a determiner or adjectival modifier of the topic expression’s nucleus. Thus, Rotwein is modified by französischen in (1) as well as in (5) and is determined by keinen in (2) as well as in (6): (5)
Ich habe nur französischen Rotwein. I
have only French
red wine
‘I have only French red wine.’ (6)
Ich habe keinen Rotwein. I
have no
red wine
‘I have no red wine.’ There are, however, topic integration instances without a (literal) continuous variant. For instance, the related expressions keins in (7a) and welchen in (8a) can be used as noun only (cf. Fanselow 1988: 99; ‘S 1’ below refers to the list of sources):6 (7)
a. Geld
fehlte,
wie gesagt, keins […].
money was missing as I said
(S 1: 89)
none
‘As for money, nothing was missing, as I said before.’ b. * Es fehlte, it
c. Es fehlte, it
wie gesagt, keins Geld. none money
was missing as I said
wie gesagt, keins.
was missing as I said
none
‘None was missing, as I said before.’ 5
The equivalent of a discontinuous noun group in a derivational framework like Generative Grammar that does not allow for direct representation of discontinuous constituents is the extraction of a proper part out of a continuous noun group. 6 Note that there is a homonymous interrogative pronoun welchen, which can also be used adjectivally: (i) a. Er hat welchen Schmuck gesehen? he has which
jewellery seen
‘Which jewellery did he see?’ b.
Er hat welchen gesehen? he has which
seen
‘Which did he see?’
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ANDREAS NOLDA
(8)
a. Schmuck hat er welchen gesehen. (Moltmann 1992: 207) jewellery has he some seen ‘As for jewellery, he saw some.’ b. * Er hat welchen Schmuck gesehen. jewellery seen he has some c. Er hat welchen gesehen. he has some
seen
‘He saw some.’ In addition, there are idiolects where a related expression with the meaning ‘one’ does not need to match the topic expression in number. Such topic integration instances do not have a continuous variant either: (9)
a. Hinweise auf den Täterkreis hat es bisher clues PL
on the culprits
erst
has it up to now only
(Westdeutscher Rundfunk, quoted in Müller 1986: 39)
einen gegeben. one SG existed
‘As for clues to the culprits’ identity, only one was given up to now.’ b. * Es hat bisher it
erst einen Hinweise auf
has up to now only one SG clues PL
on
den Täterkreis gegeben. the culprits
existed
What is more, the continuous variant (5) of the topic integration instance (1) is not logically equivalent to the latter. Given a quantificational, non-scalar reading7 of nur with scope over französischen Rotwein,8 the proposition of (5) entails (10): (10)
7
Everything the speaker has is French red wine.
There is also a non-quantificational, scalar reading of nur, involving an ordered scale of ranks (cf. Altmann 1976: 101–107 and König 1991: 99–101). For the scalar reading of nur in (1) and (5), an analogous argument can be made (cf. Nolda 2007: Section 3.1.1). 8 I follow Lieb (1983b: 136, 367–370) and others in assuming that a nur-occurrence — or rather the syntactic function occurrence connected with it — has not only a scope, but also a domain (here: ich habe französischen Rotwein; see Section 4.2 below).
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TOPIC INTEGRATION
From the proposition of (1), however, only the weaker entailment (11) can be derived: (11)
All red wine the speaker has is French red wine.
Here the universal quantifier is restricted to the semantic content of topic expression Rotwein, setting the frame for the interpretation of the remaining part of (1). To this argument, the following objection might be raised. Typically, though not obligatorily, (1) is realized with the accentuation in (12) (‘ ´ ’ and ‘ ` ’ denote occurrences of syntactic rise and fall accents, respectively): (12)
Rótwein habe ich nur französischen.
If (5) is realized with an analogous accentuation as in (13), the scope of nur includes französischen only (cf. Altmann 1976: 137): (13)
Ích habe nur französischen Rotwein.
In this case (11), but not (10), can be derived from its proposition. Thus, the frame-setting semantic effect appears to be a semantic effect of the accentuation. This objection is based on a false empirical hypothesis, though. According to my view, the fall accent on französischen in (13) does not necessarily restrict the scope of nur to französischen — provided that there is a contrasting ‘non-French alternative’ to French red wine in the context: (14)
Da
wir gerade über Getränke sprechen: Háns hat
because we just
nur Sèkt.
about drinks
speak
Hans has
Ótto hat nur spanischen Ròtwein.
only champagne Otto has only Spanish
red wine
(Und) Ích habe nur französischen
Rotwein.
and
red wine
I
have only French
‘Speaking about drinks: Hans only has champagne. Otto only has Spanish red wine. And I only have French red wine.’ By uttering (13) in (14), the speaker can indeed deny that he has any other drinks than French red wine. In other words: given the quantificational nurreading with scope over französischen Rotwein as a whole, the proposition of (13) still entails (10).
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3.3 The related expression as a secondary predicate A further alternative for the analysis of German topic integration instances treats the related expression similarly to ungekühlt in (15) and the ‘floating quantifier’ beide in (16) — viz. as a secondary predicate (a ‘predicative modifier’) relative to the subject or object of the sentence (cf., for instance, Paul 1919: 310): (15)
Der Weißwein wurde ungekühlt serviert. the
white wine was
unchilled
served
‘The white wine was served unchilled.’ (16)
Ihr
wart
beide betrunken.
you PL were 2PS PL both
drunk
‘You were both drunk.’ Thus, according to that analysis, in the topic integration instances (1) and (2), französischen and keinen function as secondary predicates relative to the object constituent Rotwein. Although this appears to be a natural analysis of topic integration instances, there are significant differences between (1) and (2) on the one hand and (15) and (16) on the other hand. For example, ungekühlt and beide can be interchanged with the constituent they are related to: (17)
Ungekühlt wurde der Weißwein serviert. unchilled
was
the white wine served
‘The white wine was served unchilled.’ (18)
Beide wart both
ihr
betrunken.
were 2PS PL you PL drunk
‘You were both drunk.’ In topic integration instances, however, the related expression must not precede the topic expression: (19)
a. * (Nur) Französischen habe ich Rotwein. only
French
have I
red wine
b. * Keinen habe ich Rotwein. none
have I
red wine
In addition, it can be shown that the topic expression does not function as the relevant complement (subject, object, etc.) of the verb. It is well-known
199
TOPIC INTEGRATION
that in German, the predicate constituent agrees with a nominal subject constituent in person and number. Now, in (20a), the predicate ist agrees in number with the related expression eines and not with the topic expression Kopiergeräte; the opposite agreement in (20b) is clearly out (cf. Zifonun et al. 1997: Vol. 2, 1619):9 (20)
a. Kopiergeräte ist
im Moment
nur eines in Ordnung.
photocopiers PL is SG at the moment only one SG in order
(utterance quoted in Müller 1986: 39) ‘As for photocopiers, there is only one all right at the moment.’ b. * Kopiergeräte sind im Moment
nur eines in Ordnung.
photocopiers PL are PL at the moment only one SG in order
It follows that the related expression, and not the topic expression, is to be considered as the complement of the verb in topic integration instances. 3.4 The topic expression as a syntactically incorporated predicate part The third and last alternative for the analysis of topic integration instances to be discussed here assumes that the topic expression is syntactically incorporated into the predicate; the complex predicate then takes the related expression as a complement10 (cf., inter alia, Haider 1985: 237f.; Fanselow 1988; Geenhoven 1998).11 Given this analysis, the topic expression in a topic integration instance is comparable to Zeitung in (21), where Zeitung is a part of the syntactic (i.e. analytic) verbal compound Zeitung lesen: (21)
a. Ich lese nie I
beim Frühstück Zeitung.
read never at the breakfast
newspaper
‘I never read the newspaper at breakfast.’ b. Zeitung
lese ich nie
newspaper read I
beim Frühstück.
never at the breakfast
‘I never read the newspaper at breakfast.’ 9
This observation was confirmed by a questionnaire study of Nolda (2007: Section 2.5.3; Appendix A). Note that in many German idiolect systems, neither topic integration instances of type (20a) nor topic integration instances of type (20b) are grammatical. 10 I use the term ‘complement’ in a broad sense, including subjects. 11 Fanselow (1988) does not use the term ‘incorporation’, though.
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ANDREAS NOLDA
There are several problems connected with an analysis along these lines. For instance, the nominal part in a German compound of this sort is, as a rule, a bare singular noun form. It is true that in topic integration instances such as (1) or (22), the topic expression is indeed a bare singular noun form:12 (22)
Kompressor hatte er keinen […]. compressor
he none
had
(S 2: 57; quoted in Kniffka 1986: 68)
‘As for compressors, he had none.’ In other topic integration instances, however, the topic expression is plural and/or extended by modifiers or complements (cf. (9a) above). There are German idiolects where the topic expression may even include an indefinite determiner: (23)
Eine Anleitung gibt a
’s keine […].
(S 3)
instruction exists it none
‘As for instructions, there are none.’ Another problem for this analysis is the fact that syntactically incorporated predicate parts in German normally cannot be modified, determined, quantified, or negated by an expression external to the complex predicate:13 (24)
* Ich lese keine beim Frühstück Zeitung. I
read none at the breakfast
newspaper
In order to defend the incorporation analysis for German topic integration instances, one would have to assume that an external modification, determination, quantification, or negation is possible if, and only if, the syntactically incorporated predicate part is fronted: (25)
Zeitung
lese ich keine beim Frühstück.
newspaper read I
none at the breakfast
‘As for newspapers, I don’t read one at breakfast.’ From a theory-neutral point of view, this is not a plausible assumption.
12
Note that topic integration instances of type (22) are not grammatical in all German idiolect systems. 13 In languages such as Mohawk or South-Tiwa morphologically (i.e. synthetically) incorporated predicate parts can indeed be externally modified, determined, or quantified (cf. Gerdts 1998: 89f.).
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TOPIC INTEGRATION
4
An integrational analysis of topic integration instances
4.1 Overview Having rejected the analysis of the topic expression and the related expression as a discontinuous noun group, the analysis of the related expression as a secondary predicate, and the analysis of the topic expression as a syntactically incorporated predicate part, I shall now present my own analysis of topic integration instances by the example of (1), given the accentuation specified in (12). As already mentioned, this analysis presupposes the framework of Integrational Linguistics. I shall start with the syntax of (1), continue with the propositional and referential semantics of (1) and conclude with the (nonpropositional) semantics of the accent occurrences in (12). 4.2 Syntax According to my syntactic analysis of (1), the topic expression Rotwein has two syntactic functions. First, it functions as the (syntactic) topic of habe ich nur französischen. Second, it is a (syntactic) antecedent of the related expression französischen, which in turn functions as one of the complements of the verb. This is the basic idea underlying my syntactic analysis of (1), which is given in (26): (26) VGr top
nuc
nuc
VGr
ant
VGr
nuc
qual
comp2
Vf
Nf
1
2
3
4
5
rotwein
habe
ich
nur
französischen
L-H H ˙red wine1˙
HH ˙have1˙
H ˙I˙
H b0
H Hr L Ld ˙French1˙
{NOM+ACC, …}
{1PS, …}
{QUAL-W, …}
{ADJ, …}
{UnmPf}
{Acc, SgNf, Masc, Subst, …}
…
{Acc, SgNf, …}
{1Ps, SgVf, Pres, …} {Nom, SgNf, …} …
{MASS-N, MASC, …}
nuc
Pf
Nf nuc
…
Nf
nuc
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ANDREAS NOLDA
The figure in (26) partly denotes a syntactic triple — to be called ‘〈f, s, e〉’ below — of a certain spoken German idiolect system S, which is left unspecified here. As the reader may recall from Section 2 above, f is a syntactic unit of S, s is a syntactic structure of f in S, and e is a lexical interpretation of f relative to s in S. The syntactic unit f is depicted in the centre of (26) by the pairs of numbers and object-language expressions. Conjunctively, they represent the sequence rotwein1 habe2 ich3 nur4 französischen5. ‘rotwein’, ‘habe’, etc. denote phonological words of S. The constituent structure k is represented by the tree diagram in the upper part of (26). Non-terminal node labels abbreviate the following constituent categories of S: ‘Nf’: ‘Pf’: ‘Vf’: ‘VGr’:
noun form of S (in the broad sense of ‘noun’, covering also pronouns, adjectives, and articles); particle form of S (in the broad sense of ‘particle’, covering also adverbs, adpositions, etc.); verb form of S; verb group of S.
Note that habe2 ich3 französischen5 is a discontinuous constituent of f in k, interrupted by nur4. The marking structure m assigns a set of word categories of S and sets of unit categories of S to the primitive constituents of f in k. Unit categories are categories of syntactic units, including word forms. In the marking structure part of (26), unit categories of S are referred to by the following abbreviations:14 ‘1Ps’: ‘Acc’: ‘Masc’: ‘Nom’: ‘Pres’: ‘SgNf’: ‘SgVf’: ‘Subst’: ‘UnmPf’:
first person verb form of S; accusative noun form of S; masculine noun form of S; nominative noun form of S; present tense verb form of S; singular noun form of S; singular verb form of S; substantival noun form of S; unmarked particle form of S.
In m, the adjective form occurrence französischen5 is marked by the unit category ‘substantival noun form of S’ because it can be — and in fact is — 14
Only the sets of unit categories that are relevant for the present syntactic context are given in (26).
TOPIC INTEGRATION
203
used as noun (see below).15 Word categories in turn are categories of lexical words (‘lexemes’). Lexical words are conceived as pairs consisting of a word form paradigm and a lexical meaning. Abbreviations in (26) for word categories of S read as follows: ‘1PS’: first person substantival pronoun of S; ‘ADJ’: adjective of S; ‘MASC’: masculine substantival word of S; ‘MASS-N’: mass noun of S; ‘NOM+ACC’: verb of S governing an obligatory nominative expression and an obligatory accusative expression; ‘QUAL-W’: qualifier word of S (word of S that can be used as a qualifier; see below). Categories such as ‘verb of S governing an obligatory nominative expression and an obligatory accusative expression’ are called ‘government categories’. By the intonation structure I, the syllables in the members of f are annotated with phonological tones and other auditory values. In (26), only the tones are given, by using the following symbols: ‘H’: ‘Hr’: ‘L’: ‘Ld’: ‘L-H’:
high in S; high-rising in S; low in S; low-descending in S; low to high in S.
The tone sequence of I has the form of a hat contour. It corresponds to the fundamental frequency curve displayed in Figure 1 (next page).16
15
In addition, m assigns to französischen5 also a set containing the unit category ‘adjectival noun form of S’. As this set is not relevant for the present syntactic context, it is left out in (26). 16 Figure 1 was derived, using the phonetics program Praat, from the speech signal of an utterance produced by a native German speaker, who was instructed to read (i) aloud while stressing the underlined syllables: (i) Sie möchten spanischen Rotwein? Rotwein hab’ ich nur französischen. Aber Weißwein hätt’ ich auch anderen. Note that Figure 1 is primarily intended for illustrative purposes.
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ANDREAS NOLDA
Figure 1. Fundamental frequency curve of an utterance of (12)
The lexical interpretation e assigns (potential) concepts to the primitive constituents of f in k. These concepts are the lexical meanings of relevant lexical words. By convention, concepts are denoted by names between dots. For instance, ˙red wine1˙ is a concept with an intension containing the property (27):17 (27)
The property of being an x such that x is a ‘red wine quantity’.
Accordingly, the extension of ˙red wine1˙ is the set (28): (28)
The set of all x such that x has (27).
The extension of ˙red wine1˙ thus contains all ‘red wine quantities’. ‘b0’ names the empty concept, to which the notions of intension and extension do not apply. Syntactic quadruples — i.e. syntactic triples together with the corresponding idiolect system — are the arguments of syntactic functions such as nucleus (‘nuc’ for short). The values assigned to syntactic quadruples 〈 f, s, e, S 〉 by a syntactic function are syntactic relations on f, s, e, and S. The value of nuc(f, s, e, S), for instance, is the syntactic relation in (29):
17
For the presupposed notion of ‘quantity’, cf. Nolda (2007: Appendix B).
TOPIC INTEGRATION
(29)
205
{〈rotwein1, rotwein1〉, 〈ich3, ich3〉, 〈französischen5, französischen5〉, 〈habe2, habe2 ich3 französischen5〉, 〈habe2 ich3 französischen5, habe2 ich3 nur4 französischen5〉, 〈habe2 ich3 nur4 französischen5, f〉}
The elements of (29) are the nucleus occurrences in f, s, e, and S. The first component of a nucleus occurrence is a nucleus constituent; the second component is the related constituent. In (26), the occurrences of syntactic functions are represented by arrows with the following labels: ‘ant’: ‘comp2’: ‘nuc’: ‘qual’: ‘top’:
(syntactic) antecedent; two-place complement (complement pair); (one-place) nucleus; qualifier; (syntactic) topic.
Qualifier values are three-place syntactic relations between a qualifier constituent, a qualifier domain, and a qualifier scope. The qualifier domain and the qualifier scope of the qualifier occurrence in f, s, e, and S are habe2 ich3 französischen5 and französischen5, respectively. The values of two-place complement are again three-place syntactic relations, here between a first complement constituent, a second complement constituent and a common related constituent. In the two-place complement occurrence in f, s, e, and S, ich3 is the first complement constituent and französischen5 is the second complement constituent. The use-as-noun of französischen5 in f, s, e, and S corresponds to the following properties of französischen5: 1.
2. 3.
In m, the nucleus of französischen5 in f, s, e, and S (i.e. französischen5 itself) is marked by the word category ‘adjective of S’ and by the unit category ‘substantival noun form of S’. 〈ich3, französischen5, habe2〉 is a two-place complement occurrence in f, s, e, and S. In m, habe2 is marked by the government category ‘verb of S governing an obligatory nominative expression and an obligatory accusative expression’.
Put differently: französischen5, the nucleus of which is a substantival form of an adjective, functions as the direct object of habe2 in f, s, e, and S. Note that there is a semantic constraint for the use-as-noun of französischen5 in f, s, e, and S. As französischen5 is used as noun in f, s, e, and S without a determiner and is marked by m as ‘singular noun form in S’ and ‘masculine noun form in S’, any entity denoted by französischen5 has to be denotable by a nominal expression with a form of a masculine mass noun as
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ANDREAS NOLDA
its nucleus. Given the antecedent occurrence between rotwein1 and französischen5 in f, s, e, and S, that nominal expression is to be identified with rotwein1 (cf. Section 4.3 below).18 Two alternatives to the use-as-noun analysis of französischen5 in f, s, e, and S may be considered. First, (1) could be taken as an ellipsis of (30), resulting from phonological reduction (Klein 1993: 790) of the second occurrence of Rotwein: (30)
Rotwein habe ich nur französischen Rotwein. red wine have I
only French
red wine
Topic integration instances of type (30), however, are ungrammatical in many German idiolect systems (cf. Nolda 2007: Section 2.2.3). What is more, the related expression in a German topic integration instance cannot consist of an uninflected adjective form such as rosa (cf. Hoof 1997: 11): (31)
a. Stoff habe ich nur rosanen gekauft. cloth have I
only pink INFL bought
‘As for cloth, I’ve only bought pink.’ b. * Stoff habe ich nur rosa. cloth have I
only pink UNINFL
In an ellipsis, inflectedness is not required, though (cf. Klein 1993: 776): (32)
a. Peter sagt, dass Hans rosa Stoff gekauft hat und Otto Peter says that Hans pink cloth bought has and Otto
blauen Stoff gekauft hat. blue
cloth bought has
‘Peter says that Hans has bought pink cloth and that Peter has bought blue cloth.’ b. Peter sagt, dass Hans rosa und Otto blauen Stoff Peter says that Hans pink and Otto blue
cloth
gekauft hat. bought has
18
For the discussion of a different, though untenable, conception of use-as-noun in Integrational Linguistics, cf. Nolda (2007: Section 8.2.1).
207
TOPIC INTEGRATION
Second, französischen5 in f, s, e, and S could be analyzed as a form of a masculine nominalized adjective. As a rule, the lexical meaning of a German masculine nominalized adjective involves the natural gender features ‘person’ or ‘male person’ (cf., inter alia, Fleischer & Barz 1995: 214–216 and Nolda 2007: Section 2.1.3). These features, however, are incompatible with the lexical meaning of the topic expression rotwein1 in f, s, e, and S. The values of the topic function are two-place syntactic relations between a topic constituent and a comment constituent. The topic occurrence in f, s, e, and S therefore induces a syntactic ‘topic-comment articulation’ of f into the topic constituent rotwein1 and the comment constituent habe2 ich3 nur4 französischen5. In German topic integration instances, the topic constituent is typically ‘integrated’ into the ‘prefield’ of the sentence (i.e. it immediately precedes the finite part of the predicate constituent).19 In instances of German left dislocation such as (33), the topic constituent occupies the ‘pre-prefield’ instead (for the analysis of instances of left dislocation and related constructions, cf. Nolda 2004): (33)
Den Rotwein, den habe ich gekauft. the
red wine that have I
bought
‘As for the red wine, I have bought it.’ In (33), the topic constituent is a definite expression. There are also left dislocation instances with non-definite, or even non-nominal, topic constituents: (34)
Einen Spion, den erkennst du an seinem Hut. a
spy
that recognize you by his
hat
(Altmann 1981: 108)
‘A spy you can recognize by his hat.’ (35)
So ständig
jemanden so um
so constantly someone
ich auch nicht. I
also
not
sich
haben, das könnt’
so around oneself have
that could
(utterance quoted in Selting 1993: 296; orthography and punctuation adapted)
‘Always someone being around, I couldn’t stand that either.’ Semantically, the syntactic ‘topic-comment articulation’ is mirrored by a partition of the corresponding part of the proposition (see Section 4.3 below). 19
Oppenrieder (1991: 72), Zifonun et al. (1997: Vol. 1, 518), and Eroms (2000: 365) share the view that in German topic integration instances, the topic expression is a topic constituent that is ‘integrated’ into the ‘prefield’.
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ANDREAS NOLDA
Note that I neither assume a constraint to the effect that a topic constituent always co-occurs with a certain accentuation of the sentence nor a constraint requiring that, in an utterance of the sentence, the speaker always refers by the topic constituent to a discourse topic (for the semantic effects of typical accent occurrences in (1), see Section 4.4; reference to discourse topics by the topic expression of German topic integration instances is discussed in Nolda 2007: Section 4.3). The values of the antecedent function are again two-place syntactic relations. In German, the antecedent constituent and the related constituent agree in certain syntactic properties. In f, s, e, and S, the antecedent constituent rotwein1 and the related constituent französischen5 agree in case, number, and gender. The same holds for the antecedent occurrence in (33) between den Rotwein and the following den. In general, the related constituent is semantically dependent on the antecedent constituent. Prototypically, the semantic dependency is a co-reference relation as in the case of (33). In other cases, one or both of the constituents may be non-referential expressions such as so ständig jemanden so um sich haben in (35). (For the semantic dependency between französischen5 and rotwein1, see Section 4.3 below.)20 4.3 Propositional and referential semantics The propositional and referential semantics I propose for (1), given a nonreferential reading of französischen and a quantificational reading of nur, can be paraphrased as follows: (36)
Let y be the set of all ‘red wine quantities’ the speaker generically refers to by rotwein in his utterance. Then the following holds: 1. The speaker has some French element of y. 2. Every element of y the speaker has is French.
In addition, there is also a non-propositional meaning related to nur: (37)
The speaker believes: the speaker has something French.
These meanings will now be formulated in the framework of Integrational Linguistics. Integrational Linguistics assumes three parts of sentence meanings:
20
Comparable antecedent relations in German topic integration instances are assumed by Fanselow (1993: 58–65, 70f.), Pafel (1995: 169f.), Hoof (1997: 42–46), and others.
TOPIC INTEGRATION
1. 2. 3.
209
a referential part, consisting of referential meanings; a propositional part, consisting of a hearer-oriented propositional attitude (e.g. assertion) and a proposition as its content; a propositional background, consisting of pairs of speaker-oriented propositional attitudes (e.g. believe) and their contents.
Referential meanings, the contents of propositional attitudes, and sentence meanings as a whole are conceived as intensional relations between utterances and speakers, representing conditions for normal utterances of the sentence in question. The referential meaning of the topic constituent rotwein1 in f, s, e, and S is a generic-distributive one (cf. also Moltmann 1992: 207f.):21 (38)
The intensional relation between V and V1 such that, for every x: V1 refers by rotwein1 in V to x iff ‘x is red wine’.
“‘x is red wine’” abbreviates the following conjunction: (39)
1. x is in the reference basis for rotwein1 relative to V, V1, and ˙red wine1˙ and 2. x is in the extension of ˙red wine1˙.
The reference basis for rotwein1 relative to V, V1, and ˙red wine1˙ in turn is the following set: (40)
The set of all x such that V1 is willing at the part of V corresponding to rotwein1 — to assume that x has the property (27) or — to assume that x does not have the property (27).
Thus, the reference basis for rotwein1 relative to V, V1, and ˙red wine1˙ contains all contextually relevant ‘red wine quantities’ as well as contextually relevant ‘alternatives’ to ‘red wine quantities’. Other topic expressions consisting of a mass noun form have a genericdistributive referential meaning, too. Consider, for example, Geld in the topic integration instance (7a): in an utterance of (7a), the speaker refers by Geld to all (contextually relevant) ‘money quantities’ in a distributive way. Outside
21
Note that the topic constituent einen Spion in (34) is interpreted generic-distributively, too.
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ANDREAS NOLDA
topic integration instances, Geld can have an analogous generic-distributive interpretation:22 (41)
Geld
können Sie hier wechseln.
money can
you here change
‘For any ‘money quantity’ usually holds: you can change it here.’ As a consequence of the distributive way of referring, ‘total predicates’ involving a (maximal) kind or the totality of specimen of a kind cannot be applied to Geld in generic interpretation:23 (42)
a. # Die Phönizier
haben Geld
the Phoenicians have
b. Die Phönizier
erfunden.
money invented
haben das Geld
the Phoenicians have
erfunden.
the money invented
(Johann N. Nestroy, quoted at http://de.wikiquote.org) ‘The Phoenicians invented the money.’ Note that there are also topic integration instances such as (22) with a nonreferential topic expression (for their interpretation, cf. Nolda 2007: Section 9.1.3). The proposition of a sentence meaning of f relative to f, s, e, and S with a non-referential reading of französischen5 and a quantificational reading of nur4 is given in (43):24 (43)
22
The intensional relation between V and V1 such that, for every y: if y = the set of all x0 such that V1 refers by rotwein1 in V to x0, then:
The adverb ‘usually’ in the meaning paraphrase in (41) accounts for the fact that the generic-distributive interpretation of Geld here co-occurs with a characterizing or habitual generic interpretation of the sentence as a whole. In (7a), however, the generic-distributive interpretation of Geld is compatible with an episodic, non-generic reading of the sentence. (For the distinction between episodic readings, characterizing generic readings, and habitual generic readings of sentences, cf. Krifka et al. 1995.) 23 This holds at least for Standard German (for English, cf. Krifka et al. 1995: 10). 24 (43) corresponds to the episodic, non-generic reading of (1) (cf. note 22). For the interpretation of topic integration instances with a referential reading of the related expression, cf. Nolda (2007: Section 8.3.2).
TOPIC INTEGRATION
211
1. for every x1, if V1 refers by ich3 in V to x1, then there is an element x2 of y such that: a. ‘x2 is French’ and b. ‘x1 has x2’, and 2. for element x2 of y, if there is an x1 such that: a. V1 refers by ich3 in V to x1, and b. ‘x1 has x2’, then ‘x2 is French’. In (43), “‘x2 is French’” stands for (44) and “‘x1 has x2’” for (45): (44)
1. x2 is in the reference basis for französischen5 relative to V, V1, and ˙French1˙ and 2. x2 is in the extension of ˙French1˙.
(45)
There is an x such that: 1. 〈x, x1, x2〉 is in the reference basis for habe2 relative to V, V1, and ˙have1˙, 2. 〈x, x1, x2〉 is in the extension of ˙have1˙, and 3. x is not earlier than the habe2-part of V.
The intensions of ˙French1˙ and ˙have1˙ contain (46) and (47), respectively: (46)
The property of being an x such that x ‘comes from France’.
(47)
The intensional relation between x, x1, and x2 such that x is a ‘state of possession’ with x1 as ‘possessor’ and x2 as ‘possessed entity’.
Mirroring the syntactic ‘topic-comment articulation’, the proposition (43) is partitioned into a topic part (i.e. the antecedent of the outer implication) and a comment part (the consequent of that implication). This is a semantic effect of the topic occurrence in f, s, e, and S between the topic constituent rotwein1 and the comment constituent habe2 ich3 nur4 französischen5. The comment part — an open sentential formula with the free variables ‘y’, ‘V’, and ‘V1’ — functions as a non-lexical predication over the entity y introduced into the topic part (cf. Budde 1996: 52; for the connection between topic and predication, cf. also Jacobs 2001: 657f.). The predication is non-lexical because y is not (a component of) an element of the lexical meaning ˙have1˙, that e assigns to the predicate constituent habe2 in f, s, e, and S. The comment part in turn is bipartite, too. The predicational part in clause 1 contains the lexical predication (45); it is a semantic effect of the nucleus occurrence in f, s, e, and S between habe2 and habe2 ich3 französi-
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ANDREAS NOLDA
schen5. The non-predicational part in clause 2, on the other hand, is a semantic effect of the qualifier occurrence in f, s, e, and S between the qualifier constituent nur4, the qualifier domain habe2 ich3 französischen5 and the qualifier scope französischen5. 25 Following Lieb (1983a: 30), I assume that the qualifier occurrence has an additional semantic effect in the propositional background of the sentence meaning, viz. the pair 〈believe, (48)〉: (48)
The intensional relation between V and V1 such that, for every x1: if V1 refers by ich3 in V to x1, then there is an x2 such that: 1. ‘x2 is French’ and 2. ‘x1 has x2’.
The restriction of the quantifiers ‘there is an x2’ in the predicational part and ‘for every x2’ in the non-predicational part to elements of y is a semantic effect of the antecedent occurrence between rotwein1 and französischen5. As a consequence of the former quantifier restriction, französischen5 is semantically dependent on rotwein1 in f, s, e, and S. Assume that a speaker V1 asserts (43) in a normal utterance V of f in s, e, and S. Then it holds for every French x: if V1 asserts in V that V1 (i.e. everyone V1 refers to by ich3 in V) has x, then V1 refers by rotwein1 in V to x. Put differently: in a normal utterance of the topic integration instance (1), the speaker can only assert that he has some entity x denoted by the related expression französischen5 if he refers by the topic expression rotwein1 to x. As a consequence, any such French entity has to be red wine. Note that due to the semantic dependency of französischen5 on rotwein1 in f, s, e, and S, the semantic constraint for the use-as-noun of französischen5, mentioned in Section 4.2 above, is observed in any normal utterance of f. The restriction of the universal quantifier in the non-predicational part accounts for the frame-setting effect of the topic constituent rotwein1 in f, s, e, and S, that was identified in Section 3.2. From (43), one can indeed derive the entailment (11), but not the stronger entailment (10). Chafe (1976: 50f.) describes a comparable frame-setting effect of ‘Chinese-style topics’:
25
The existential quantifier ‘there is an x1’ in the non-predicational part in (43) is justified by the analogy with (i): (i) Jeder hat nur französischen Rotwein. everyone has only French
red wine
‘Everyone has only French red wine.’ Here, the non-predicational part of the proposition has to be paraphrased as follows: (ii) Everything that someone has the speaker refers to by jeder is French red wine.
213
TOPIC INTEGRATION
What the [Chinese-style; A.N.] topics appear to do is to limit the applicability of the main predication to a certain restricted domain. […] ‘real’ topics (in topic-prominent languages) are not so much ‘what the sentence is about’ as ‘the frame within which the sentence holds’.
4.4 Semantics of accent occurrences From the Integrational Linguistics point of view, occurrences of syntactic accents typically have semantic effects in the propositional background of the sentence meaning. Syntactic accents, in turn, are conceived as syntactic functions of a special type. The value of the fall accent for f, s, and S, for instance, is the following relation: (49)
{〈französischen5, 5, 2, rotwein1 5, 2, f 〉}
habe2
ich3
französischen5〉,
〈französischen5,
The elements of (49) are the fall accent occurrences in f, s, and S. The first three components determine the accented syllable: it is the second syllable in the member at ‘position 5’ of the primitive constituent französischen5.26 The last component specifies the semantically relevant accent domain. In what follows, I shall discuss only semantic effects of accent occurrences with a narrow domain in f, s, and S, i.e. the fall accent occurrence (50) and the rise accent occurrence (51):27 (50)
〈französischen5,
(51)
〈rotwein1,
5, 2, rotwein1 habe2 ich3 französischen5〉
1, 1, rotwein1 habe2 ich3 französischen5〉
In addition, I shall restrict my attention to those semantic accent effects occurring in the propositional background of a contrastive sentence meaning of f relative to f, s, e, and S, suitable for a contrastive use of the sentence.28 As far as I can see, the accent occurrences (50) and (51) have two alternative semantic effects in the propositional background of contrastive sentence meanings of f relative to f, s, e, and S. Each of the semantic effects involves
26
This conception takes into account that primitive constituents may have more than one member. 27 For the phonological manifestations of the accent occurrences in the intonation structure of f in S, cf. Nolda (2007: Section 4.1). 28 Note that morphologically contrastive sentence meanings of f relative to f, s, e, and S are not considered here. Given such a meaning, the sentence can be used to contrast, for instance, red wine with white wine (for details, cf. Nolda 2007: Section 7.5.1).
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ANDREAS NOLDA
three pairs consisting of a propositional attitude and a content of the attitude. The first semantic effect may be paraphrased as in (52):29 (52)
a. The speaker believes: there is ‘non-French’ red wine of which every hearer considers that the speaker has it. b. The speaker believes: there is no ‘non-French’ red wine the speaker has. c. The speaker believes: there is ‘non-French’ ‘non-red-wine’ the speaker has.
The pairs 〈believe, (53)〉, 〈believe, (54)〉, and 〈believe, (55)〉 are formal versions of (52a), (52b), and (52c), respectively: (53)
The intensional relation between V and V1 such that there is an x2 such that: 1. ‘x2 is not French’, 2. ‘x2 is red wine’, and 3. every hearer of V considers: for every x1, if V1 refers by ich3 in V to x1, then ‘x1 has x2’.
(54)
The intensional relation between V and V1 such that there is no x2 such that: 1. ‘x2 is not French’, 2. ‘x2 is red wine’, and 3. for every x1, if V1 refers by ich3 in V to x1, then ‘x1 has x2’.
(55)
The intensional relation between V and V1 such that there is an x2 such that: 1. ‘x2 is not French’, 2. ‘x2 is not red wine’, and 3. for every x1, if V1 refers by ich3 in V to x1, then ‘x1 has x2’.
Here, “‘x2 is not French’” stands for (56) and “‘x2 is not red wine’” for (57): (56)
29
1. x2 is in the reference basis for französischen5 relative to V, V1, and ˙French1˙ and 2. x2 is not in the extension of ˙French1˙.
I am not sure whether believe is indeed the only permissible propositional attitude for (52c).
TOPIC INTEGRATION
(57)
215
1. x2 is in the reference basis for rotwein1 relative to V, V1, and ˙red wine1˙ and 2. x2 is not in the extension of ˙red wine1˙.
Semantic accent effects are justified in Integrational Linguistics by reference to dialogue schemes such as (58), where (58B) is intended as a proper response to (58A) (for details on the dialogue schema method, cf. Lieb 1984):30 (58)
glaube, dass A: Ich bin neugierig, ob du spanischen Rotwein hast. bezweifle, dass believe that ‘I wonder whether you have Spanish red wine.’ doubt that B: Rótwein habe ich nur französischen keinen spànischen und sonst kèinen . aber Sékt habe ich auch ànderen ‘As for red wine, I only have French no Spanish and no other .’ but as for champagne, I also have other
(59) is a dialogue schema corresponding to the second semantic effect the accent occurrences (50) and (51) can have in the propositional background of contrastive sentence meanings of f relative to f, s, e, and S: (59)
30
glaube, dass A: Ich bin neugierig, ob du spanische Getränke hast. bezweifle, dass believe that ‘I wonder whether you have Spanish drinks.’ doubt that
The paraphrases in English are not part of the dialogue schema.
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ANDREAS NOLDA
B: Rótwein habe ich nur französischen keinen spànischen und sonst kèinen . was ich auch sonst immer an ‚Nicht-Fra nzösischem’ haben mag
‘As for red wine, I only have French no Spanish and no other .’ whatever ‘ non-French ’ I may have or not
Provided that (59B) is a proper response to (59A), (59) establishes the following semantic effect:31 (60)
a. The speaker believes: there is ‘non-French’ ‘non-red-wine’ of which every hearer considers that the speaker has it. b. The speaker believes: there is no ‘non-French’ red wine the speaker has. c. The speaker leaves it open whether there is ‘non-French’ ‘non-red-wine’ the speaker has.
(60a), (60b), and (60c) paraphrase the pairs 〈believe, (61)〉, 〈believe, (54)〉, and 〈leave open, (55)〉, respectively: (61)
5
The intensional relation between V and V1 such that there is an x2 such that: 1. ‘x2 is not French’, 2. ‘x2 is not red wine’, and 3. every hearer of V considers: for every x1, if V1 refers by ich3 in V to x1, then ‘x1 has x2’.
The topic integration construction
5.1 Overview Given a syntactic and semantic analysis of German topic integration instances along the lines of the analysis presented in Section 4, a tentative definition of the construction name now can be formulated. In addition, the construction will be identified in German.
31
I am again unsure about the propositional attitude in (60c).
TOPIC INTEGRATION
217
5.2 Definition of ‘topic integration’ In the theory of language, the construction name ‘topic integration’ can be defined as in (62): (62)
Definition (tentative). Topic integration = that function c such that, for every S: the value of c for S is the set of all 〈f1, f, s, e〉 such that: 1. 〈f, s, e〉 is a syntactic triple of S and 2. there is an f2, f3, and f4 such that: a. 〈f2, f1〉 is a nucleus occurrence in f, s, e, and S, b. 〈f3, f2〉 is a topic occurrence in f, s, e, and S, c. 〈f3, f4〉 is an antecedent occurrence in f, s, e, and S, d. [semantic criteria].
According to clause 2d, topic integration is a syntactic topic-comment construction: it involves a topic occurrence with a topic constituent and a comment constituent. The criteria in clause 2d specify the semantic effects of topic and antecedent occurrences that are specific for the construction. These effects include: — — —
the partition of the proposition into a topic part and a comment part; the introduction into the topic part of the set of all entities that can be denoted by the topic constituent; the restriction of quantifiers in the comment part to elements of that set.
5.3 Identification of topic integration in German Through the identification of topic integration in German — i.e. in German idiolect systems S — the value of topic integration for S will be determined. Recall from Section 2 that this value is the relation between all topic integration instances in syntactic triples 〈f, s, e〉 of S and the syntactic triples themselves. In other words: the value is a set of quadruples 〈f1, f, s, e〉 of S. While the definition of the construction name above partly involves semantic criteria, the identification of the construction will use syntactic criteria only. As all syntactic triples of S are per definitionem grammatical in S, it is not necessary to list all of the syntactic properties of German topic integration instances. Rather, a German grammar can identify topic integration in German idiolect systems by a sentence such as (63), that should be derivable from other sentences of the grammar and the theory of language: (63)
Theorem. For every S: if S is a system of an idiolect of present German, then the value of topic integration for S is the set of all 〈f1, f, s, e〉 such that:
218
ANDREAS NOLDA
1. 〈f, s, e〉 is a syntactic triple of S and 2. there is an f2, f3, and f4 such that: a. 〈f2, f1〉 is a nucleus occurrence in f, s, e, and S, b. 〈f3, f2〉 is a topic occurrence in f, s, e, and S, c. 〈f3, f4〉 is a antecedent occurrence in f, s, e, and S, d. f3 precedes f4 in f1, and e. ‘f3 is not dislocated into the ‘pre-prefield’ in f, s, e, and S’. Clauses 1 and 2a–2c select those quadruples 〈f1, f, s, e〉 of S where f1 has a part that is a topic constituent as well as an antecedent constituent in f, s, e, and S. As far as I can see, this applies only to topic integration or dislocation instances and their corresponding syntactic triples. Quadruples with right dislocation instances are excluded by clause 2d. Clause 2e, finally, eliminates quadruples with left dislocation instances: here, the topic constituent is not an ‘integrated’ one as far as its position is concerned. 6
Summary and outlook
This paper dealt with the syntax and semantics of the German topic integration construction, generally known as ‘split topicalization’. In Section 2, three different readings of construction names such as ‘topic integration’ were distinguished; in addition, the terms ‘topic expression’ and ‘related expression’ were introduced for the two characteristic subexpressions of topic integration instances. Section 3 discussed and rejected prominent alternatives for the analysis of German topic integration instances that were proposed by other authors. In Section 4, I presented a syntactic and semantic analysis of my own of German topic integration instances by the example of (1). Presupposing the framework of Integrational Linguistics, I argued that the topic expression simultaneously functions as a syntactic topic of the remaining part of the topic integration instance and as a syntactic antecedent of the related expression. As for the semantics of topic integration, I identified a frame-setting semantic effect of the topic expression as well as semantic effects of accent occurrences. In Section 5, finally, I provided a tentative definition of the construction name as a name for a topic-comment construction with specific semantics and an identification of the construction in German, where the topic expression is typically ‘integrated’ into the ‘prefield’ of the sentence. In this paper, topic integration instances other than (1) were not analyzed in any detail. In Nolda (2007: Chapter 9), however, I show that the analysis of (1) can be generalized to topic integration instances such as (2)–(4) as well.
TOPIC INTEGRATION
219
REFERENCES Altmann, Hans. 1976. Die Gradpartikeln im Deutschen: Untersuchungen zu ihrer Syntax, Semantik und Pragmatik. Tübingen: Niemeyer. (= Linguistische Arbeiten, 33). Altmann, Hans. 1981. Formen der ‚Herausstellung‘ im Deutschen: Rechtsversetzung, Linksversetzung, freies Thema und verwandte Konstruktionen. Tübingen: Niemeyer. (= Linguistische Arbeiten, 106). Besten, Hans den & Gert Webelhuth. 1990. “Stranding”. Scrambling and barriers ed. by Günther Grewendorf & Wolfgang Sternefeld, 77–92. Amsterdam & Philadelpia: John Benjamins. (= Linguistik aktuell/Linguistics Today, 5). Brinker, Klaus. 1972. Konstituentenstrukturgrammatik und operationale Satzgliedanalyse: methodenkritische Untersuchungen zur Syntax des einfachen Satzes im Deutschen. Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum. Budde, Monika. 1996. “Non-reducible grammatical relations without semantic content: the German prefield-es as a problem of general syntax”. Theoretical linguistics and grammatical description: papers in honour of Hans-Heinrich Lieb on the occasion of his 60th birthday ed. by Robin Sackmann, 45–64. Amsterdam & Philadelpia: John Benjamins. (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 138). Chafe, Wallace L. 1976. “Givenness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view”. Subject and topic ed. by Charles N. Li, 25–56. New York: Academic Press. Eroms, Hans-Werner. 2000. Syntax der deutschen Sprache. Berlin: de Gruyter. Fanselow, Gisbert. 1988. “Aufspaltung von NPn und das Problem der ‚freien‘ Wortstellung”. Linguistische Berichte 114. 91–113. Fanselow, Gisbert. 1993. “Die Rückkehr der Basisgenerierer”. Groninger Arbeiten zur germanistischen Linguistik 36. 1–74. Fleischer, Wolfgang & Irmhild Barz. 1995. Wortbildung der deutschen Gegenwartssprache. 2nd ed. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Geenhoven, Veerle van. 1998. Semantic incorporation and indefinite descriptions: semantic and syntactic aspects of noun incorporation in West Greenlandic. Stanford: CSLI Publications. Gerdts, Donna B. 1998. “Incorporation”. The handbook of morphology ed. by Andrew Spencer & Arnold M. Zwicky, 84–99. Oxford: Blackwell. Haegeman, Liliane. 1995. The syntax of negation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haider, Hubert. 1985. “Über sein oder nicht sein: zur Grammatik des Pronomens sich”. Erklärende Syntax des Deutschen ed. by Werner Abraham, 221–252. Tübingen: Narr. (= Studien zur deutschen Grammatik, 25). Hoof, Hanneke van. 1997. “Split topicalization and ellipsis”. Universität Stuttgart, Universität Tübingen; and Heidelberg: IBM. (= Arbeitspapiere des Sonderforschungsbereichs 340, 112). Jacobs, Joachim. 2001. “The dimensions of topic-comment”. Linguistics 39. 641–681. Klein, Wolfgang. 1993. “Ellipse”. Syntax: ein internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung / an international handbook of contemporary research ed. by Joachim Jacobs, Arnim von Stechow, Wolfgang Sternefeld & Theo Vennemann, vol. 1, 763– 799. Berlin & New York: de Gruyter. (= Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, 9.1). Kniffka, Gabriele. 1986. “Zur Distanzstellung von Quantoren und Qualifikatoren”. Vater, ed. 1986. 57–82. Kniffka, Gabriele. 1996. NP-Aufspaltung im Deutschen. Hürth: Gabel. (= Kölner linguistische Arbeiten – Germanistik, 31).
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König, Ekkehard. 1991. The meaning of focus particles: a comparative perspective. London: Routledge. Krifka, Manfred; et al. 1995. “Genericity: an introduction”. The generic book ed. by Gregory N. Carlson & Francis J. Pelletier, 1–124. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1983a. “Akzent und Negation im Deutschen: Umrisse einer einheitlichen Konzeption (Teil A)”. Linguistische Berichte 84. 1–32. Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1983b. Integrational Linguistics. Vol. 1: General outline. Amsterdam & Philadelpia: John Benjamins. (= Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 17). Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1984. “A method for the semantic study of syntactic accents”. Intonation, accent and rhythm: studies in discourse phonology ed. by Dafydd Gibbon & Helmut Richter, 267–282. Berlin: de Gruyter. (= Research in Text Theory, 8). Moltmann, Friederike. 1992. Lokalität und Individuation: Studien zur Ereignis- und Nominalphrasensemantik. München: Fink. (= Studien zur Theoretischen Linguistik, 12). Müller, Michael. 1986. “Zur Verbindbarkeit der Determinantien und Quantoren”. Vater, ed. 1986. 33–55. Nolda, Andreas. 2004. “Topics detached to the left: on ‘left dislocation’, ‘hanging topic’, and related constructions in German”. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 35. 423–448. 〈http://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/papers/zaspil/articles/zp35/Nolda_6_12.pdf〉 [9/7/2005]. Nolda, Andreas. 2007. Die Thema-Integration: Syntax und Semantik der ‘gespaltenen Topikalisierung’ im Deutschen. Tübingen: Stauffenburg. (= Studien zur deutschen Grammatik, 72). Oppenrieder, Wilhelm. 1991. Von Subjekten, Sätzen und Subjektsätzen. Tübingen: Niemeyer. (= Linguistische Arbeiten, 241). Pafel, Jürgen. 1995. “Kinds of extraction from noun phrases”. On extraction and extraposition in German ed. by Ulrich Lutz & Jürgen Pafel, 145–177. Amsterdam & Philadelpia: John Benjamins. (= Linguistik aktuell/Linguistics Today, 11). Paul, Hermann. 1919. Deutsche Grammatik. Halle: Niemeyer. Vol. 3: Syntax (Erste Hälfte). Riemsdijk, Henk van. 1989. “Movement and regeneration”. Dialect variation and the theory of grammar ed. by Paola Benincà, 105–136. Dordrecht: Foris. Selting, Margret. 1993. “Voranstellungen vor den Satz: zur grammatischen Form und interaktiven Funktion von Linksversetzung und Freiem Thema im Deutschen”. Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik 21. 291–319. Vater, Heinz, ed. 1986. Zur Syntax der Determinantien. Tübingen: Narr. (= Studien zur deutschen Grammatik, 31). Zifonun, Gisela et al. 1997. Grammatik der deutschen Sprache. Berlin: de Gruyter. (= Schriften des Instituts für deutsche Sprache, 7).
List of sources S1 S2 S3
Dürrenmatt, Friedrich. 1955. Der Richter und sein Henker. Hamburg: RowohltTaschenbuch-Verlag. Plenzdorf, Ulrich. 2002. Die neuen Leiden des jungen W. und andere Stücke: Stücke und Materialien. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Schmid, Patrick. 2003. “Schnelle Hüpfer: 3 USB-Speichersticks”. 〈http://tomshardware.thgweb.de/2003/04/26/schnelle_huepfer_3_usb_speichersticks/ page3.html〉 [9/13/2006].
Index of Names A. Adelung, Johann Christoph 126, 127, 132, 147 Aldenhoff, Jules 137, 147 d’Alquen, Robert 114, 117, 147 Altmann, Hans 196, 197, 207, 219 Anderson, Stephen R. 79, 93, 104, 106, 128, 145, 147 Aronoff, Mark 106, 147 Augst, Gerhard 125, 145–147 B. Bańczerowski, Jerzy 23, 93 Barbour, J. S. 113, 147 Barnes, Mervin 108, 147 Barz, Irmhild 207, 219 Besten, Hans den 192, 194, 219 Bierwisch, Manfred 104, 147 Bird, Steven 23, 93 Bittner, Andreas 113, 147 Blevins, James P. 104, 106, 125, 142, 147 Bloch, Bernard 103, 147 Born, Renate 146, 147 Braun, Angelika 43, 94 Brinker, Klaus 194, 219 Brockhaus, Wiebke 41, 43, 52–56, 94 Budde, Monika 7, 17, 154, 211, 219 Buscha, Joachim 100, 148 Bybee, Joan 139, 147 C. Chafe, Wallace L. 212, 219 Chirita, Diana 140, 146, 148 Chomsky, Noam A. 2, 23, 70, 94 Clements, George N. 74, 76, 80, 94 Crawford, Penny 43, 95 Curme, George Oliver 100, 107, 113, 117, 118, 123, 124, 137, 148 D. de Looper, Anke viii
Dell, François 70, 81, 94 Drosdowski, Günther 100, 122, 123, 148 Drude, Sebastian 16, 17, 153 Durrell, Martin 113, 136, 148 E. Eggs, Ekkehard 66, 70, 94 Eisenberg, Peter 8, 17, 97, 99, 104–106, 148 Encrevé, Pierre 63, 67, 70–76, 79–81, 84, 85, 94 Engstrand, Olle 108, 149 Eroms, Hans-Werner 207, 219 Esau, Helmut 108, 147 F. Fabri, Ray 102, 125, 151 Fabricius-Hansen, Cathrine 98, 148 Falkenberg, Thomas 17 Fanselow, Gisbert 195, 199, 208, 219 Féry, Caroline 56, 94 Fleischer, Wolfgang 109, 148, 207, 219 Forssman, Bernhard 123, 148 Fourquet, Jean 133, 148 G. Geenhoven, Veerle van 199, 219 Gerdts, Donna B. 200, 219 Grebe, Paul 126, 148 Greenberg, Joseph H. 117, 148 Gregores, Emma 155, 156, 159–168, 176, 188 Griesbach, Heinz 100, 148 Grimm, Jacob 99, 116, 117, 147, 148 Grimm, Wilhelm 147 H. Haegeman, Liliane 192, 195, 219 Haider, Hubert 199, 219 Halle, Morris 23, 70, 94, 105, 106, 114, 125, 128, 148 Hannahs, Stephen J. 67, 76, 94 Hansen, Anita Berit 66, 94
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INDEX OF NAMES
Hansen, Klaus 109, 148 Harris, Roy vii, 1 Harris, Zellig S. 103, 148 Heidolph, Karl Erich 114, 148 Heike, Georg 56, 94 Helbig, Gerhard 100, 148 Hock, Hans Henrich 109, 148 Hockett, Charles F. 23, 94, 102, 103, 148 Hoof, Hanneke van 206, 208, 219 Hook, Donald 135, 149 J. Jacobs, Joachim 211, 219 Jakobson, Roman 118, 149 Jensen, Cheryl Joyce 162, 188 Johnston, Jason 127, 149 Joseph, Brian D. 109, 148 Jung, Walter 127, 149
M. Marantz, Alec 125, 128, 148 Martinet, André 108, 118, 149 Matthews, Peter H. 103, 149 Mayerthaler, Willi 109, 132, 150 Moder, Carol Lynn 139, 147 Moltmann, Friederike 8, 18, 196, 209, 220 Monserrat, Ruth Maria Fonini 161, 162, 189 Mordellet, Isabelle 66, 70, 94 Morin, Yves-Charles 84, 95 Müller, Michael 196, 199, 220 N. Nida, Eugene A. 103, 150 Nolda, Andreas 191–196, 199, 204–210, 213, 218, 220 Noske, Roland Gabriël 76, 89, 95
K. Kenstowicz, Michael 23, 94 Keyser, Samuel Jay 74, 76, 80, 94 Kiparsky, Paul 128, 149 Klein, Wolfgang 206, 219 Kniffka, Gabriele 195, 200, 219 Koerner, E. F. Konrad viii Kohler, Klaus J. 26, 40, 43, 52, 56, 94, 100, 109, 114, 118, 149 König, Ekkehard 196, 220 Köpcke, Klaus-Michael 139, 145, 149 Krifka, Manfred 210, 220 Kruševskij, Nikolaj V. 98, 149 Kuryłowicz, Jerzy 109, 149
O. O’Dell, Michael L. 43, 95 Oppenrieder, Wilhelm 207, 220
L. Laeufer, Christiane 54, 56, 73, 94 Lejosne, Jean-Claude 109, 149 Léon, Pierre R. 66, 89, 94 Lieb, Hans-Heinrich vii, 1, 5, 7, 8, 17–26, 41–43, 49, 54–56, 94, 95, 103–106, 124–126, 134, 143, 144, 149, 154– 158, 177–179, 188, 192, 193, 196, 212, 215, 220 Liljencrants, Johan 108, 149 Lindblom, Björn 108, 149 Lombardi, Linda 55, 95
R. Ramat, Paolo 109, 150 Richter, Heide 8, 18 Riemsdijk, Henk van 192, 194, 220 Robins, Robert H. 103, 150 Rodrigues, Aryon Dall’Igna 155, 162, 164, 189 Ross, John Robert 102, 108, 127, 150 Russ, Charles V. J. 51, 95
P. Pafel, Jürgen 192, 208, 220 Paul, Hermann 99–102, 109, 114, 117, 121–123, 134, 139, 140, 147, 150, 198, 220 Piggott, Glynn L. 80, 95 Plank, Frans 132, 150 Pogonowski, Jerzy 93 Port, Robert F. 43, 95 Prince, Alan 23, 95
S. Sackmann, Robin 1, 8, 18, 154 Schane, Sanford A. 70, 81, 95 Scheer, Tobias 107, 131, 132, 140, 150 Schottelius, Justus Georg 101, 150
INDEX OF NAMES Ségéral, Philippe 107, 113, 131, 132, 140, 150 Selkirk, Elisabeth 70, 81, 95 Selting, Margret 207, 220 Simmler, Franz 51, 95 Singh, Rajendra 80, 95 Slobin, Dan 139, 147 Smolensky, Paul 23, 95 Soares, Marília Lopes da Costa Facó 161, 162, 189 Solms, Hans-Joachim 140, 150 Stedje, Astrid 132, 150 Stevens, Kenneth N. 118, 150 Stump, Gregory T. 106, 150 Suárez, Jorge A. 155, 156, 159–168, 176, 188
V. Vennemann, Theo 54–56, 96 Vergnaud, Jean-Roger 81, 95 Verluyten, S. Paul 76, 77, 96
T. Tanz, Christine 132, 150 Theobald, Elke 123, 150 Tranel, Bernard 59, 60, 70–90, 95, 96 Trubetzkoy, Nikolaus S. 23, 43, 96
Y. Yu, Si-Taek 43, 56, 96
U. Uhlig, Gudrun 100, 148 Ulvestad, Bjarne 127, 150
223
W. Walther, Markus 55, 96 Webelhuth, Gert 192, 195, 219 Wegera, Klaus-Peter 140, 150 Wiese, Bernd 97, 98, 145, 150 Wiese, Richard 43, 52, 55, 96, 100, 135, 150 Wilmanns, Wilhelm 127, 151 Wunderlich, Dieter 102, 125, 151 Wurzel, Wolfgang Ullrich 102, 113, 121, 122, 127, 135–137, 151
Z. Zgółka, Tadeusz 93 Zgusta, Ladislav 184, 189 Zifonun, Gisela 199, 207, 220 Zwicky, Arnold M. 99, 106, 151
Index of Subjects and Terms A. a-ABL 133, 134, 136, 138, 140, 143, 144 a-ablaut : see ablaut/a-ablaut A-base : see base form (of a strong verb stem)/A-base ablaut 100–125, 129–136, 141–147, see also function of ablaut; vowel alternation –A→ I-ablaut 117–120 –A→ U-ablaut 120 –a-ablaut 119, 121, 124, 128–141, 144, 146 –double ablaut 136 –form-function-relation 129, 132, 144 –full ablaut 118–122, 129–133, 136, 141–146 –I→ A-ablaut 120 –i→ e-ablaut 122 –I→ U-ablaut 116, 117, 120 –i-ablaut 119, 121, 124, 131–137, 140, 141, 146 –o-ablaut 119–124, 128–135, 138–146 –onomatopoetic ablaut 109 –qualitative ablaut 111–113, 117, 120, 133 –quantitative ablaut 113–121, 132 –simple ablaut 117–122, 129–133, 136, 141, 144, 146 –U→ A-ablaut 120 –U→ I-ablaut 120 –u-ablaut 119, 122, 131–134, 137, 140, 141, 146 ablaut class 101, 129–145, see also aABL; i-ABL; NO-FULL-ABL; NO-o-ABL; o-ABL; u-ABL ablaut form (of a strong verb stem) 106, 107, 111–124, 128–135, 142–146 –/a/-form 108, 109, 119, 120, 130, 134, 140, 146 –/a/-form 104, 107–109, 114, 119– 122, 128, 130, 134, 135, 146 –/e/-form 122, 130
–//-form 107, 122, 130 –//-form 122 –//-form 104, 112, 119–122, 130 –/i/-form 112, 114, 119, 120, 130, 135, 146 –/o/-form 109, 120, 135, 146 –//-form 107–110, 120, 140, 146 –/ /-form 108, 109, 120 –/u/-form 119, 120, 123 –long 114–121, 131, 141, 142 –short 114–121, 131, 142, 144 ablaut levelling 146 ablaut pattern 99–102, 107–109, 113, 121–124, 129–135, 141, 146 ablaut vowel 112–114, 118–120 abstraction 8, 23 accent group 156, 157 accent language 9, 29 A-CHE-STEM 169, 170 active 105 actor 168 adaptive dispersion 108 addressee 160, 161, 164–168, 170 Addressee=Obj 171 Addressee=Subj 171 adjective 59, 60, 89, 90, 202, 205, 206 –nominalized 207 adposition 14 Af : see Affix form (Af) affix 14 AFFIX 13 affix (lexeme) 158, 170, 176–179, 182– 187 –derivational 181, 183 –inflectional 176, 177, 181, 183 affix form 169, 170, 183 Affix form (Af) 13, 38, 178 affix paradigm 38 affricate 9, 27, 52, 156 A-form : see strong verb stem form/Aform agent 159, 169
INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TERMS [±AGR] 125 agreement 160, 199, 208 allomorph 160–163, 168, 178 allophone 9, 156 alternation : see consonant alternation; vowel alternation Alternation Theorem : see Consonant Alternation Theorem; Nasal Alternation Theorem Alveolar 44 ambisyllabicity 73, see also consonant/ambisyllabic American structuralism 23 anomaly 99 antecedent 12, 201, 205–208, 211, 212, 217, 218 anthropology 2 Apical 26, 44, 45, 67 apophonic path 132 apophony 109, see also ablaut application condition 15 archiphoneme 43, 66 article morph 84 articulation 26 articulation base (of a sound) : see sound/articulation base aspiration 57, 58 assertion 209, 212 assimilation 34 A-STEM 169, 172 attribute 12 auditory value 9, 28, 203 Auslautverhärtung : see German Obstruent Tensing (GOT) auxiliary 14, 176, 187 auxiliary verb 180 auxiliary word 12, 158, 159, 176, 177, 180–183 B. base –of a strong verb stem : see base form (of a strong verb stem) –of a structured sound sequence : see structured sound sequence/base base form (of a strong verb stem) 104– 124, 127–146 –A-base 110, 123, 133, 140, 141
225
–diphthongal 111, 114, 120–123, 131, 133, 136, 137, 141 –e-base 139 –ei-base 104, 111, 121 –I-base 110, 115, 119, 120, 123, 128, 131–139 –long 114–120, 136–139 –monophthongal 110, 114, 116, 119– 122, 136, 137, 141–144 –short 114–118, 138–143 –U-base 110, 120, 131, 133, 136, 141 being contained 179 –morphologically : see m-containing relation –syntactically : see s-containing relation believe 208, 209, 212–216 binary branching 11 biolinguistics 2 biology 2 C. C : see Consonantal (C) case 11, 13 categorization 11, 12, 42, 47, 105, 124, 141–144, 167, 173 category 6, 7 –morphological : see morphological unit category; lexeme category –neutral 165–168 –phonological : see sound constituent category –syntactic : see syntactic unit category; word category characterization 7 chereme system 5 CHE-STEM 169, 174 Chiriguano 155 circularity 103 circumfix 162 classification 36–40, 98, 102, 109, 110, 116, 124–127, 133, 142, 143, 163– 170 classification system 4, 11, 36, 109, 125, 126, 142, 143, 157, 169, 182 Closure 36, 37 co-condition 186 [−Code Formation] 76
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INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TERMS
cognitivism 3 command 163, 168 Command 171, 172, 186, 187 comment 207, 211, 217 communication complex 4 complement 199 –morphological 13, 15 –optional 10 –syntactic 12, 13, 15, 167, 198–201, 205 complement pair 205 Complexity 37, 38 complexity type : see strong verb stem form/complexity type composition function –morphosemantic 15 –syntactic-semantic 15 compositionality principle 16 concatenation (of sequences) 12, 31 concept 10–15, 39, 157, 158, 177, 204 –empty 14, 178, 204 –extension 14, 204, 209, 211, 214, 215 –intension 14, 204, 211 –relational 14 conception 14, 15 connection 34 –phonetic 9, 23, 32–40, 46–53, 57, 58, 61, 63, 68, 70, 73, 79, 82, 85–92 –phonetic, identity element 33, 79 –phonological 9, 23, 30, 31, 34–41, 46–53, 57, 58, 61–63, 68, 72–74, 79, 92 –phonological, identity element 30, 52 consonant 9, 27, 48–53, 58–64, 67–72, 77, 81, 82, 85–92, 115 –ambisyllabic 28, 35, 73 –empty 81 –extrasyllabic 28, 31, 36, 47, 57, 68, 73, 76, 88 –intrasyllabic 73, 86, 87 –lax 42, 56 –long 9, 27 –nasal : see nasal –nasalized 156 –stable 72, 73, 74 –syllabic 58 –tense 42, 53, 56 –unstable 53, 63, 72–76, 85, 86, 92
–voiced 141 –voiceless 114–117, 136, 140, 141 consonant alternation 88–93 Consonant Alternation Theorem 70, 85– 92 Consonantal (C) 8, 9, 25, 27, 30–33, 38, 41, 42, 52, 57, 73, 80, 81, 86, 88 consonantal cluster 118 Consonantal Group 27 constituent –discontinuous 11, 195, 202 –of a structured sound sequence 26, 27–31, 36, 73 –primitive 11, 12, 15, 202, 204, 213 constituent category –morphological 13 –phonological : see sound constituent category –syntactic 11, 157, 182–187, 202 constituent function 12, see also comment; grammatical function; topic constituent structure –morphological 13 –phonological : see structured sound sequence/constituent structure –syntactic 11, 193, 194, 202 containing 170, 178–182, 186, see also m-containing (relation/set); scontaining (relation/set) containing set 181, see also m-containing set; s-containing set –restricted 182 Contemporary Standard German : see German contextual embedding 15 contrastive linguistics 3 conversion 83 coreference 208 cross-classification 133, 134, 163, 165, 170 cross-referencing 159, 161, 169, 175, 185 D. declension class 145 deep structure 10, 11, 13 definiteness 11, 15 definition 6, 7, 12
INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TERMS derivation 60, 67, 84, see also word derivation Derivative Status 37, 40 description : see linguistic description desiderative 162, 163, 168, 171 Desiderative 171–173, 186, 187 determiner 195, 200, 205 dialectology 4 dialogue schema 215 dictionary 16, 145, 185 diphthong 9, 27, 99, 109, 110, 114, 141 DP split 192, see also topic integration E. e/i-alternation 98, 99, 112, 117, 121, 122, 130, 135 elision 79, 89, 90 –consonant elision 89 –e-elision 47 –schwa-elision 57, 58 ellipsis 10, 206 Elsewhere-principle 128 empty category 10, 13 empty concept : see concept/empty empty sequence : see sequence/empty empty set : see set/empty empty word 10, 30, 52 empty-C sequence 79–81 empty-R p-sequence 78, 79 empty-sound sequence 79 empty-Vc Low-sequence 77, 78, 81 empty-Vc sequence 77 English 42, 53, 159, 181, 182, 185 enrichment view 43 epenthesis 33, 35, 67, 81, 89, 90 e-Presence 170 exhortation 168 Existence of Object 170, 171 existential quantifier 212 expression type : see strong verb stem form/expression type extension : see concept/extension [extrasyllabic] 76 extrasyllabicity 28, 29 F. family resemblance 115, 139 feature –acoustic 26
227
–articulatory 8, 26, 43–45, 52, 66, 67, 77, 79, 82, 86, 118 –auditive 8 –auditory 8, 26, 118 –hierarchy of features 26 –set of features 26, 77 final obstruent devoicing 23, 40, 43, 44, 54, 114, 115, see also German Obstruent Tensing (GOT) Finite Verb Form 164, 165 finitude 125, 126 first person 98, 105, 141, 160–165, 168, 169, 173–175, 202, 203 floating quantifier 198 form –of a stem paradigm : see stem form –of a word paradigm : see word form form alternation 98 form category 157–159, 169–175, 178– 183, 186–188 form component (of a lexical word) 10 formalism 3 Fortis vs. Lenis 43, 114 free object 167 French 23, 59–62, 65–81, 85, 90–93 fricative 40, 52, 56, 116 –alveolar 138, 156 –voiceless 115, 117 Fricative 52, 55 fronting 99, 101, 107 full ablaut : see ablaut/full ablaut function –of ablaut 101, 107, 108, 113, 116, 119, 122, 124, 127–132, 135, 141, 144–147 –of sounds 23 functional category 124, 142, 144, 157– 159, 171–174, 178, 185, 186 functionalism 3 fundamental frequency curve 203, 204 G. gender 145 gender distinction 59, 82 Generative Grammar 2, 11, 102, 195 Generative Phonology 23–26, 35, 43, 70, 74–77, 81
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INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TERMS
German 23–36, 39–58, 61, 67–70, 92, 93, 98–104, 107–118, 123, 130–136, 140, 145–147, 158, 159, 181, 185, 192, 194, 198–202, 206–210, 216, 217 German Obstruent Tensing (GOT) 40– 61, 92, 93, see also Obstruent Tensing Theorem; final obstruent devoicing –conditioning 42, 48, 49, 52–55, 58, 60, 92 –preconsonantal 48, 53–55, 60, 92 –word-final 40, 46, 53, 54, 92 –word-internal 40 Germanic 133 glottal stop 41, 49, 67, 81, 156 government category 11–13, 203, 205 gradation class 145, see also ablaut class grammar 3, 6, 7, 12, 16, 17 grammatical function 12, 13, see also complement/syntactic; modifier/syntactic; nucleus/syntactic grammatical relation 12, 159, 160 grammatical word 105 graphematical word 193 Guaraní 155, 156, 159, 160, 163–171, 174–188 H. h-aspiré word 79–82 high pitch 29, 38, 68 historical linguistics 4 I. i-ABL 133, 134, 137, 143 i-ablaut : see ablaut/i-ablaut I-base : see base form (of a strong verb stem)/I-base iconicity 132 identification 6, 7, 12, 13 idiolect 4, 5, 16 –speaker-internal basis 5 idiolect system 5–15, 24–36, 39, 40, 44– 50, 53–58, 61, 62, 66–68, 73, 78–82, 85, 126, 143, 157, 159, 166, 170, 171, 174, 177–188, 193, 194, 199–206, 217 I-form : see strong verb stem form/Iform
i-monophthongisation 121, 129–133, 146 imperative 98, 121, 125, 168 inclusivity 164 Inclusivity 164 incomplete voicing 43 indefinite article (French) 84 indicative 98, 100, 105, 107, 121, 125, 128, 129, 141, 168 Indicative 171, 172, 175, 176 infinitive 98, 100, 122, 129, 141, 145, 168 infix 103, 180 inflection, internal 103, 145 inflectional class 101, 132–136, 145 inflectional stem 185 inflectional unit 177–187 –highly specific 187, 188 –specific 187, 188 inflectional unit category 183, 184 integrational 2 Integrational Cherematics 7 Integrational Graphematics 7 Integrational Lexical Semantics 7, 10, 14 Integrational Linguistics vii, 1–20, 104, 154, 157, 163–166, 176–178, 187, 193, 194, 201, 206, 208, 213, 215 Integrational Morphology 2, 7, 13 Integrational Morphosemantics 14 Integrational Morpho-Syntax 7 Integrational Phonology 7, 8, 23, 24, 27, 28, 61, 92, 93 Integrational Semantics 7, 14 Integrational Sentence Semantics 7, 10, 15 Integrational Syntax 2, 7, 10–13, 39 Integrational Theory of Grammars 1–4, 16, 17 Integrational Theory of Language 1–15, 24, 154, 177 Integrational Theory of Language Systems 2–16 Integrational Theory of Linguistic Variability 4–6, 16 Integrational Word Semantics 14 intension : see concept/intension intensity 28, 36
INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TERMS intersection (of sets) 134, 171–175, 184, 188 intersubjectivity (of concepts) 14 intonation 11, 36 intonation pattern 12 intonation structure –morphological 13 –phonological : see structured sound sequence/intonation structure –syntactic 9, 11, 12, 193, 203, 213 inverse alternation 135 Involvement of addressee 165, 166 Involvement of object 166 Involvement of others 165 Involvement of speaker 165, 166 item-and-arrangement model 103 item-and-paradigm model 104, 142, 145 item-and-process model 103, 104 J. je-jo-Presence 170 justification 7 K. Kaiwa 155 L. labial 140 –voiced 140 language 3–6 language and society 2 language description : see linguistic description language system : see linguistic system language type 185, 187 –agglutinative 155, 171, 187, 188 –inflectional 187, 188 –isolating 187 language use 2–5 language variability 1–4, 16 language variety 5, 6, 17 lateral 140 Lax 26, 43, 44, 49, 52 lax : see sound/lax leave open 216 left dislocation 192, 207, 218 length 8 length marking 116, 117, 132 length normalisation 116, 117, 132
229
lengthening 114–124, 129, 146 Lenis : see Fortis vs. Lenis Level Status 36, 37 lexeme 13, 14, 98, 158, 166, 176–179, 182, see also affix (lexeme); stem (lexeme) lexeme category 13, 106, 143, 144, 158, 169, 183, see also ablaut class lexeme lexicon 14 lexeme ordering (LO) 13, 14, 143 lexeme paradigm 13, 14, 38, 77, 105, 158, 166, 181, see also affix paradigm; stem paradigm Lexical Functional Grammar 10 lexical interpretation 12, 15, 193, 202, 204 lexical meaning 10–16, 123, 157, 158, 177, 203, 204, 207, 211, see also meaning composition/morphosemantic Lexical Phonology 24 lexical word 10–14, 39, 42, 55, 90, 98, 102–105, 157, 158, 166, 177, 180, 181, 183, 203, 204, see also word form –relational 14 lexical word ordering (LWO) 11–14 lexicography 177, 178 lexicon 14, 16, 39, 83, 89 liaison 60–67, 70–76, 79, 82–92 –excluded 74, 87, 90 –linking 65 –non-linking 63, 65, 74 –obligatory 74, 87 –optional 63, 74, 76, 87, 90 linguistic communication 2 linguistic description 2, 3, 6, 16 linguistic diversity 3, 6 linguistic system 1, 2, 5 linguistic tradition 3, 7, 10, 102, 157, 163, 165 linguistic typology 3 linguistic variability : see language variability linguistics 2, 3, 7 –objects 3, 16 –subject matter 2 liquid 115 LO : see lexeme ordering (LO)
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INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TERMS
long→ short-alternation : see shortening loudness 9 Low 30, 78 low pitch 30, 32, 68, 84 LWO : see lexical word ordering (LWO) M. macrosegment 155 main part (of a word form) 158, 159, 179, 181 markedness 114–118, 124–127, 132, 136, 137, 140, 141, 145 marker, morphological 98, 101, 103 marking 12, 29, 159, 169–172, 177, 178, 182–185 marking content 184–187 marking effect 160, 176–181, 184–187 –specific 186, 187 –unconditional 186 marking pair 184–187 marking structure –morphological 13 –syntactic 11–13, 193, 202 mass noun 201–205, 209 maximal differentiation of phonemes 108 Mby’á 155 m-containedpre 181, 182 m-containing relation 179–182, 185 m-containing set 181, 182 –restricted 182, 183 meaning : see lexical meaning; syntactic meaning meaning component –of a lexeme 13 –of a lexical word 10, 14 meaning composition see also composition function –morphosemantic 14, 15 –syntactic-semantic 10–15 means of communication 4, 5 mentalism 3 modal particle 14 modifier –morphological 13, 15 –syntactic 15, 167, 195, 200 Mohawk 200 mood 102, 125, 126, 168–172 Mood 171
mood marker 156 morph : see morphological base form morph combination 37, 39 morph derivate 37–40 morph derivative 68 morph fragment 37, 39 Morph Status 37–39 morph variant 58 morpheme 103, 105 morphological analysis 13 morphological base form 8, 13, 29, 30, 37–39, 42, 44, 49, 53–55, 59, 68, 83, 84, 106, 178, 179 –phonetic 38 –phonological 38 morphological function 13, 15, 144 morphological marking 144 morphological quadruple 14 morphological structure 13, 179 morphological unit 13, 38, 105, 106, 143, 158, 176 –empty 13 morphological unit category 13, 105, 106, 126, 142–144, 158 –identification 142 morphological unit ordering (MUO) 13, 143 morphological version 179 morphological word 13, 38 morphology 39, 60, 68, 102, 104, 176, 177, 180, 181, see also surface morphology; item-and-arrangement model; item-and-paradigm model; item-and-process model; stem-andparadigm model; word-and-paradigm model –derivational 59, 83, 144, 182 –inflectional 144, 177 morphology as a basis for semantics 13 morphophonemic level 22, 24 morpho-syntactic subsystem 5 MUO : see morphological unit ordering (MUO) N. nasal 27, 59–63, 66–76, 83–86, 89–91, 115, 136, 156 –extrasyllabic 72, 74, 85
INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TERMS –stable 72 –syllabic 32 –unstable 67, 72, 74, 86 Nasal 66, 72, 86 nasal accent 156, 157 nasal alternation 60 Nasal Alternation in French (NAF) 23, 41, 60, 61, 72–76, 85, 92, 93 –conditioning 60, 61, 91 Nasal Alternation Theorem 59–62, 68– 70, 76, 82–85, 88, 91, 92 nasal span 156, 157 nasality 70, 156, 157 nasalization 91 Nasalized 66 NC-stem : see strong verb stem/NC-stem negation 12 neutralization 43 New Structuralism 3 Nf : see Noun form (Nf) NO-FULL-ABL 133–137, 140, 143 nominative 202–205 Non-Apical 55 Non-Fricative 26, 44, 45, 52, 56 Non-Labial 55 non-point vowel 118 NO-o-ABL 133, 134, 143 No-Object 170–172, 176 normal utterance 8, 209, 212 noun 59 Noun form (Nf) 11, 157, 185, 201, 202, 205, 209 noun form, substantival 202, 205 noun group –discontinuous 194, 195 noun stem form 30 n-tuple 5, 14, 15 nucleus –morphological 13, 15 –syntactic 12, 15, 195, 204–206, 211, 217, 218 number 11, 102, 160–164, 168, 188, 196, 199, 208 NumberVf 164 O. o-ABL 133, 134, 143, 144 o-ablaut : see ablaut/o-ablaut
231
≠
Obj Subj 170, 171 object 12, 13, 159–163, 166–170, 173– 175, 184, 185, 198, 205 Object 171 Object-Subject Relation 171 Obligatory Prefix Type 170 obstruent 50, 52, 56, 69, 89, 114, 139 –alveolar 139 –lax 40, 42, 47, 50–56, 61, 92 –tense 42, 47, 50–52, 55, 56, 61, 92 –voiced 40, 114, 115 –voiceless 42, 115, 117, 141 Obstruent Tensing Theorem 50–58, 61, 65, 69, 92 ontological explicitness and constructiveness 4 ontological status 4 Optimality Theory 23, 88 ordered pair 8–15, 23, 30–35, 39, 52, 105, 157, 171, 177, 178, 184, 202, 203, 209, 214 ordered triple 9, 11, 13, 78, 86 Orientation 36, 37, 38 Others=Obj 171 Others=Subj 171 P. pair : see ordered pair; also complement pair, marking pair Paninian principle 128 paradigm 106, 155, 157 –morphological : see lexeme paradigm –syntactic : see word paradigm paradigm base 157, 158 –basis for compatibility 158 –external relation 158 –starting set 157 –system link 144, 158, 159, 169–179, 184–188 Paraguay 155 part of speech 11, 13 [Participle] 159 [±participle] 125 Particle form (Pf) 201, 202 passive 163, 168, 169 past participle 98–104, 122–125, 128– 132, 141–144
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INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TERMS
past participle stem (form) : see strong verb stem form/past participle stem form past stem form : see strong verb stem form/past stem form past tense 98–104, 107, 122–132, 135, 141, 144, 146 past tense stem (form) : see strong verb stem form/past tense stem form [±past] 125 patient 159, 167, 169 perception 14, 15 permission 168 person 102, 161, 163, 188, 199 Person 164, 165 person marker 156 personal reference 160 personal system 159, 163, 165, 176 personal variety 4 Pf : see Particle form (Pf) phonation mode 9 phoneme 43, 77, 108, 156, 178 phoneme sequence 178 phonemic level 22 phonetic base form 8, see also sound/phonetic phonetic function 8 phonetic level 8, 9, 22–29, 33–36, 41, 48, 51, 52, 58, 59, 67–73, 85, 88, 91 phonetic relation 9 phonetic sentence form 8 phonetic structure 9 phonetic unit 8, 9, 38 phonetic word 8, 34, 39–42, 46–49, 55– 58, 61, 90, 91 –identification 41, 44–48, 54, 60, 61, 92 phonetically connected 33, see also connection/phonetic phonological base form 8, see also sound/phonological phonological function 8, 9 phonological level 8–10, 24–29, 34, 36, 41, 43, 48–50, 53, 56, 58, 66, 67, 70– 74, 82, 88–91, 114 phonological relation 9 phonological rule 24, 70 phonological structure 9, 178
phonological unit 8, 9, 38 phonological word 8–13, 29, 31, 35, 38, 39, 42–47, 53–58, 61, 68, 69, 82, 83, 90, 91, 157, 193, 194, 202 phonologically connected 30, see also connection/phonological phonology 22, 23, 28, 62, 91 –axiomatic 23 –declarative 23, 93 –generative : see Generative Phonology –integrational : see Integrational Phonology –non-linear 76, 80 –one-level 23, 92, 93 –Prague School : see Prague School phonology –structuralist : see structuralist phonology –two-level 8, 23, 24, 58, 70, 92, 93, see also phonetic level; phonological level phonotactics 9, 113–118, 139 phoric functions 12 pitch 8, 9, 28, 29, 32, 36, 78, see also high pitch; low pitch pitch function 78, see also Low plural 141, 160, 163–169, 173, 175, 182, 185, 200 –exclusive 164–168 –inclusive 164–168 Plural for verb forms (PlVf) 163, 164 plural marker 107 point vowel 118 polysemy 11 portemanteau prefix 162 positional variant (of a sequence) 27 possession 211 postposition 156 Praat 203 Prague School phonology 23 predicate 159, 162, 167, 168, 199, 200, 207, 211 predication 211 predicative modifier : see secondary predicate prefield 192, 207 prefix 67, 155, 163, 177, 179, 181
INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TERMS –mixed 161, 162, 175 –nominal 160, 181 –personal 159–178, 184, 185, 188, see also Set One; Set Two; Set Three –verbal 156, 162, 163, 168–171, 176, 187 prefix morph 53 prefixation 83 preposition 14 pre-prefield 192, 207, 218 present tense 98, 105, 121–127, 131, 135, 141 primary form (of a strong verb stem) : see strong verb stem form/primary primary tense stem (form) : see strong verb stem form/primary tense stem form principal part 98, 99, 102–107, 122–127 pronoun 160, 202, 203 proper response 215, 216 proposition 15, 196, 197, 207–212, 217 propositional attitude 209, 214 prosodic unit 39 proto-Tupí 162 proto-Tupí-Guaraní 162, 188 prototype 139 pseudo-partitive split 192 psycholinguistics 2 psychology 2 Q. quadruple : see morphological quadruple; syntactic quadruple qualification 12 qualifier 203, 205, 212 –domain 196, 205, 212 –scope 196, 197, 205, 212 qualifier word 203 qualitative ablaut : see ablaut/qualitative ablaut quality type : see strong verb stem form/quality type quality verb 162, 166, 169, 173 quantifier 212, 217 quantitative ablaut : see ablaut/quantitative ablaut quantity 116, 204, 208–210
233
quantity type : see strong verb stem form/quantity type R. real-world entity 8, 14 reciprocal 188 Reciprocal 171–173, 176, 186, 187 reciprocity 162, 163 reduced tenseness 49 reduction view 43 redundancy 24, 187 reduplication 102, 109 reference 208–216 reference basis 209, 211, 214, 215 reference hierarchy 161–164, 167, 168, 188 referential expression 15 referential meaning 15, 209 –generic-distributive 209, 210 reflexive 163, 168, 169, 188 Reflexive/Passive 171, 172, 187 reflexivity 162 register 36 related expression (in topic integration) 194–201, 206, 212, 218 relation of being morphologically contained : see m-containing relation relation of being syntactically contained : see s-containing relation relation, intensional 14, 15, 180, 181, 209–216 replacement view 43 representation 39, 43–45, 52, 63–69, 73, 74, 77–81, 88, 89 resyllabification 31, 74 right dislocation 218 Romance languages 53 root morph 90, 91 S. schwa 41, 56, 57, 66, 67, 72, 76, 77, 79 –phonological 76 s-containing relation 180, 181, 183 s-containing set 183 –restricted 183 scope function 12 script system 5 second person 98, 121, 125, 160–165, 168, 173, 175, 178, 184–186
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secondary form (of a strong verb stem) : see strong verb stem form/secondary secondary predicate 194, 198 semantic function 144 semantic subsystem 5 semiotics 2 sentence form, phonetic 5 sentence meaning 10, 15, 208–213, see also meaning composition/syntacticsemantic –contrastive 213, 215 –propositional background 15, 209, 212–215 –propositional part 15, 209 –referential part 15, 209 sentence type 12 sentence, phonetic 5 sequence 8–13, 25, 28, 31, 33, 38, 39, 52, 106, 157, 158, 178, 179, 193 –empty 10, 25, 28, 31 –one-member : see unit sequence set 9–15, 25–28, 32–36, 51, 52, 62, 63, 77, 86, 105, 106, 119, 124, 125, 133, 142, 143, 157–165, 170–173, 176, 178, 181–186, 202–204, 208–210, 217 –empty 25, 77, 78 Set One 160–169 set theory 4, 17, 23 Set Three 160–162, 166, 168, 174 Set Two 160–169, 172, 174 short→ long-alternation : see lengthening shortening 114–122, 129, 146 simple ablaut : see ablaut/simple ablaut simple word 37, 39 Simplicity 37, 39 singular 98, 105, 121, 125, 159, 160, 164–169, 173–175, 178, 182–186, 200 Singular for noun forms (SgNf) 202, 205 Singular for verb forms (SgVf) 163, 164 sociolinguistics 2, 4 sociology 2 sonorant 115, 139, 156 sound 10, 23–26, 28, 44–46, 66, 77, 93 –articulation base 26, 43–45, 49, 52, 55, 66, 67, 86
–empty 77, 79–82, 88, see also emptysound sequence –lax 43, 53, 56, 92 –phonetic 8, 26, 36, 44–47, 77–81, 92 –phonological 8, 26, 36, 43–45, 55, 78, 79 –tense 43, 53, 56, 92 sound change 146 sound constituent category 8, 9, 26, 27, 38, 78 sound event 8, 43, 44, 66 sound level 24, see also phonetic level; phonological level sound production 26 sound property 24, 43, 49, 66 sound sequence 9, 25–28, 31, 44, 45, 52, 55, 68, 79, 86, 93, see also emptysound sequence; structured sound sequence –empty 25 –phonetic 8, 34, 36, 54, 55, 82, 91 –phonological 8, 30, 36, 57, 58 sound system 5, 8, 10, 24, 26, 39, 93 South-Tiwa 200 Spanish 156 speaker 2, 4, 5, 8, 15, 160, 161, 164– 166, 170, 175, 196, 197, 208, 209, 212–216 –potential 15 speaker attitude 15 Speaker=Obj 170, 171 Speaker=Subj 170, 171 special present tense formation 121, 123, 131 speech act type 15 speech action 24 speech event 24 spirantization 55, 56 split topic 192, see also topic integration split topicalization 192, see also topic integration Standard French : see French Standard German : see German STEM 13, see also A-CHE-STEM; A-STEM; CHE-STEM stem (lexeme) 105, 106, 129, 133, 142– 144, 158–160, 169–174, 177, 179, 182, 183, see also verb stem
INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TERMS stem alternant 105 stem-and-paradigm model 104 stem form 38, 98, 105, 106, 142, 155, 158–160, 169, 170, 179, see also noun stem form; verb stem form stem form (of a strong verb stem) 109, 114 Stem form (Stf) 13 stem form category : see morphological unit category stem formation 60, 98, 99, 102, 104, 114, 134, see also ablaut; e/i-alternation; umlaut Stem Group (StGr) 13 stem morph 29, 53, 57, 58, 82–84 stem paradigm 38, 83, 84, 105, 106, 143 stem set 106 stem vowel 98–100, 103, 104, 107–123, 126, 129–132, 135–141, 146 Stf : see Stem form (Stf) StGr : see Stem Group (StGr) stop 40, 52 Stop 52 stress 9 strong verb stem 105–110, 114–124, 127–136, 139–146, see also strong verb stem form –A-base stem 136 –//-base stem 136 –I-base 146 –I-base stem 136–140 –NC-stem 113, 119, 120, 131 –non-I-base stem 136, 137, 140, 141 –s-base stem 138, 141 –sonorant base stem 115, 117, 138 –U-base stem 134, 136 strong verb stem form 98, 99, 103–110, 113–118, 122–131, 135, 137, 141– 144, see also ablaut form (of a strong verb stem); base form (of a strong verb stem) –a-form 112, 128, 131, 146 –A-form 109–112, 123, 124, 130, 131, 142 –complexity type 110–113, 116, 121, 142, 145 –derived 104–107, 116, 124, 132, 134, 145
235
–e-form 121 –expression type 108–110, 127, 131, 142 –functional type 124–127, 130, 135, 141 –i-form 112, 120, 122, 131, 146 –I-form 109–112, 120–123, 130, 131, 142 –long 109, 110 –non-past stem form 125, 126 –o-form 110, 113, 117–122, 128–131, 135, 139, 140 –past participle stem form 99, 103–105, 113, 123–131, 137, 141, 142 –past stem form 125–129, 131, 144 –past tense stem form 98, 99, 102–106, 121–131, 137 –present tense stem form 98, 99, 102– 106, 121–131, 134, 135 –primary 106–111, 115, 123–132, 135, 137, 142 –primary tense stem form 98, 99, 105, 106, 124–131, 137 –quality type 110–123, 131, 133, 134, 141, 142, 145, see also ablaut/qualitative ablaut –quantity type 110–118, 129, 132, 138, 140, 142, see also ablaut/quantitative ablaut –secondary 98, 99, 106, 118, 121–128, 131, 143 –short 109, 110 –u-form 112, 113, 117, 122, 131, 146 –U-form 109–113, 120, 122, 123, 130, 131, 142–144 structuralism 23, 24, 103, 104 structuralist phonology 9, 23, 35 structure : see phonological structure; morphological structure; syntactic structure structure preservation 31 structured complex unit 37, 38 structured phonological unit 55 structured simple unit 37, 38 structured sound sequence 8, 9, 23–31, 34–41, 93 –base 9, 25–28, 31, 34–38, 45–48, 55, 67, 86
236
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–classification 36 –closed 36, 37 –constituent 9 –constituent structure 8, 9, 25–28, 31, 34, 36, 68, 86, 88 –empty 30, 33, 50, 53, 54, 61, 65, 76– 85 –empty base 25 –empty intonation structure 28, 32 –intonation structure 8, 9, 12, 25, 28– 31, 34–42, 68, 78 –non-syllabic 31, 34 –notation 29, 64 –open 36, 37 –phonetic 5, 10, 25–29, 32–37, 41, 51, 52, 58, 62–64, 70, 86, 90, 91 –phonological 10, 13, 25–31, 34–41, 44–54, 61–64, 67–72, 76, 82–85, 92 –sentence-oriented 36, 37, 40, 52, 53, 61–64, 67, 69, 74, 86, 87, 90 –structure 9 –syllabic 34 –word-oriented 36–40, 51–53, 61–63, 67, 68, 73, 86 structured unit 37, 38 subclassification 125, 164 subject 12, 13, 159–163, 166–175, 184– 186, 198, 199 subjunctive 98, 99, 125, 129 subset 4, 14, 45, 160, 163, 170–174, 182 suffix 53, 54, 155, 156, 162, 168, 176, 180, 182, 185, 188, see also tense suffix –dental 99, 103 suffixation 59, 60, 83, 102 SUO : see syntactic unit ordering (SUO) suppletion 82–84, 89, 90, 123, 124 surface morphology 13, 106, 132 surface syntax 10 syllabification 31, 36, 49, 57, 58, 74, 89, 90 syllable 8, 9, 28–31, 35, 44–48, 54, 55, 62, 63, 68, 73–76, 86, 88, 156, 157, 203, 213 –nasalized 156 syllable boundary 29, 41 syllable cut 109 syllable joint : see consonant/ambisyllabic
syllable nucleus 27, 35, 47 –ambisyllabic 35 syllable sequence 9, 28, 29 –empty 28 syncretism 11, 126–129, 164, 167, 175, 176, 188 syntactic accent 12, 197, 201, 208, 213, 215, 218 –domain 213 syntactic base form 10–13, 179 syntactic category interpretation 15 syntactic function 10–15, 194, 196, 201, 204–208, 213, see also syntactic accent; constituent function syntactic function interpretation 15 syntactic meaning 10–16, see also meaning composition/syntacticsemantic; referential meaning; sentence meaning syntactic quadruple 12, 13, 15, 204 syntactic relation 204–208, 213, see also grammatical relation syntactic structure 10–12, 193, 202, see also constituent structure/syntactic; intonation structure/syntactic; marking structure/syntactic syntactic triple 193, 194, 202, 204, 217, 218 syntactic unit 9–12, 15, 90, 105, 106, 157, 183–186, 193, 194, 202 –empty 10 syntactic unit category 10–13, 15, 105, 106, 202–205, see also constituent category/syntactic syntactic unit ordering (SUO) 11, 157, 164, 166, 170, 177, 183 –endpoints 157, 164, 171 –functional system 157, 158, 166–170, 174 –structural system 157, 158, 169, 170, 182, 183 syntactic word : see word form syntactic word form : see word form syntax 39, 60, 104, 176, 177, 180, 181 –integrational : see Integrational Syntax syntax as a basis for semantics 10 system for a language 5
INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TERMS system link : see paradigm base/system link T. ta-Presence 170 tense 11, 15 Tense (phon.) 43, 45, 52, 55 tense (phon.) : see sound/tense Tense (phon.) vs. Lax 43 tense 102, 125, 126 tense marker 103, 104, 128, 129, 146, 156 tense stem 102, 105, 106, 125, see also strong verb stem form tense suffix 103 tensing 43, 44, see also German Obstruent Tensing (GOT) theory 3, 16 –axiomatic 3, 16 –declarative 3, 8, 17 –empirical 3, 16 theory integration 3, 7 theory of grammars 1 theory of language 1–7, 16, 178 theory of language systems 4 theory of linguistic descriptions 1, 3, 16 theory of linguistic variability 16 third person 98, 121, 125, 141, 159–168, 174, 175, 182–185 tone 8, 9, 203 tone language 8, 9, 29 tone sequence 203 topic 192, 201, 205–213, 217, 218 –Chinese-style 212 topic expression (in topic integration) 192–201, 207–209, 212, 218 –non-referential 210 topic integration 192–201, 206–212, 216–218 –continuous variant 194–196 –definition 217 –identification 217 topic-comment articulation 207, 211 topic-comment construction 217 total predicate 210 transcription, broad vs. narrow 22 triple : see ordered triple; also syntactic triple
237
Tupí-Guaraní 155, 161, 162, 188 type 1 morphological category : see morphological unit category type 1 syntactic category : see syntactic unit category type 2 morphological category : see lexeme category type 2 syntactic category : see word category Type of Stem 170 U. u-ABL 133, 134, 143 u-ablaut : see ablaut/u-ablaut U-base : see base form (of a strong verb stem)/U-base U-form : see strong verb stem form/Uform umlaut 98–101, 107, 112, 118, 121–125, 130 undergoer 168 underlying form 107 underlying representation 24 unit : see phonetic unit; phonological unit; morphological unit; syntactic unit unit combination 37, 38 unit sequence 8–11, 25–30, 38, 39, 42, 47, 49, 55, 78, 90, 157, 166, 178 unit set 29, 32, 34, 51, 52 Unit Status 37, 38 universal quantifier 50, 68, 197, 212 universals research 3 use-as-noun 195, 203–206, 212 utterance 15, see also normal utterance –potential 15 –successful 15 Uvular 55 V. valency 12 Valency Grammar 10, 12 variant 34, 35, 38, 39, 42–74, 77–92 –admissible 39, 42, 46, 47, 53, 61 –Fortis variant 69, 70 –L-variant 45, 61, 62, 66–69, 83–86 –Lax-variant 46–49, 53–57, 69 –Lax-L variant 50–54, 69 –Lenis variant 69, 70
238
INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TERMS
–non-L-variant 45, 61, 62, 66–69, 83– 86 –non-\n\-variant 67, 83 –non-\t\-variant 87, 88 –phonetic 10, 35, 38, 39, 42, 50–53, 62, 63, 79–83, 88–92 –Tense-variant 45–49, 53–58, 69 –Tense-L variant 46, 50–54, 69 –Tense-\D\ variant 45 –\D\-variant 45 –\n\-variant 67 –\t\-variant 88 –\z\-variant 88 –[å]-variant 46, 47 –[A)C]-variant 67 –[A)nV]-variant 67 –[d]-variant 57 –[´]-less variant 57 –[E)C]-variant 67 –[inV]-variant 67 –[k]-variant 46, 47 –[N]-variant 46 –[Â]-variant 46, 47 –φ-L variant 45, 46 –φ-variant 46 variant admissibility 46, 47 variant relation 5, 9, 10, 23, 34–36, 46, 92 variation research 4 variety structure 4, 5, 16 Vc : see Vocalic (Vc) VcGr : see Vocalic Group (VcGr) velar nasal 113, 139 verb 14, 59, 98, see also auxiliary verb; quality verb –chendal 160 –intransitive 160–162, 165–169, 172, 175, 185 –irregular 99, 100 –mixed 99, 123 –past-present 99 –strong 98–111, 115, 116, 121–128, 131–134, 142–145, see also strong verb stem; strong verb stem form; tense stem –transitive 161–163, 166–169, 172– 175, 184, 185
–weak 99, 100, 103, 123, 125, 131, 137 verb form 98, 102, 103, 108, 114, 121, 128, 141–144, 163, 168 Verb form (Vf) 11, 83, 157–160, 164– 186, 201, 202 –finite 163–165 Verb Group (VGr) 11, 201, 202 verb paradigm 176 verb stem 162, 184, 186, see also strong verb stem verb stem form 30, 98, 102–104, 160– 163, 168, 182, see also strong verb stem form; weak verb stem form verbal compound 199, 200 Verner’s law 115 Vf : see Verb form (Vf) VGr : see Verb Group (VGr) Vocalic (Vc) 8, 9, 25–33, 38, 41, 42, 58, 73, 76–80, 88 Vocalic Group (VcGr) 9, 25–33, 38, 41, 42, 73, 80, 88 voice 102 Voiceless vs. Voiced 43, 114 vowel 9, 26, 27, 49–53, 60–64, 70, 74, 76, 79, 82–88, 115, 156, 157, see also point vowel; non-point vowel –back 98, 99, 109, 112, 132 –empty 67 –front 98, 99, 109, 112, 132, 136 –long 9, 27, 66, 109, 114–118, 136, 140, 141 –nasal 59–61, 66, 67, 70–72, 84, 85, 90, 91, 156, 157, 178 –oral 59, 60, 67, 70–74, 85, 90, 91 –phonetic 89 –phonological 49 –short 109, 114–117, 140 –stable 77 –unstable 77 vowel alternation 98–104, 107–112, 115–121, 127, 131–137, 143, 146, see also ablaut; e/i-alternation; imonophthongisation; lengthening; shortening; umlaut –A→ I 112, 118, 119 –A→ U 112, 118, 119, 122 –ei→ i 111
INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TERMS –I→ A 112, 118, 119 –I→ I 120, 121 –I→ U 112, 113, 117–120, 122 –U→ A 112, 118, 119, 124 –U→ I 112, 118, 119, 121 –U→ U 113, 120 –/a/→ // 122 –/a/→ /i/ 114 –/a/→ /u/ 114 –/a/→ /i/ 135 –/a/→ // 114 –/a /→ // 114 –/e/→ /a/ 135 –/e/→ // 117 –//→ /a/ 104, 107, 108, 114 –//→ // 104, 107, 108 –/i/→ /o/ 135 –/i/→ // 114 vowel change : see vowel alternation vowel harmony 163 vowel length 109 vowel nasalization 72 vowel tenseness 109 vowel triangle 118 W. weak verb stem form 103 [werdenVerb] 159 wish 168 word 37, 39, see also empty word; grammatical word; graphematical
239
word; lexical word; morphological word; phonetic word; phonological word; simple word word accent 9, 29, 68 word-and-paradigm model 10, 102, 104 word border 53, 54 word boundary 156 word category 10–12, 169, 202–205, see also government category word combination 37, 39 word derivate 37–40 word derivation 60, 83 word derivative 37, 40, 53, 82, 84, 90 –combination 37 word form 10–12, 39, 42, 47, 49, 55, 82, 98, 102–105, 155–159, 178–185, 202 –analytical 158 –complex 158 word form category 11 word fragment 37, 39 word lexicon 14 word paradigm 10–14, 39, 60, 77, 90, 91, 102–106, 157–159, 166–168, 171– 179, 203, see also verb paradigm –improper 178 word rest 39, 46, 47, 58 Word Status 37, 39 word stem 185 Word Theorem for Standard German 47, 48
CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY
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[email protected] Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (CILT) is a theory-oriented series which welcomes contributions from scholars who have significant proposals to make towards the advancement of our understanding of language, its structure, functioning and development. CILT has been established in order to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of linguistic opinions of scholars who do not necessarily accept the prevailing mode of thought in linguistic science. It offers an outlet for meaningful contributions to the current linguistic debate, and furnishes the diversity of opinion which a healthy discipline must have. A complete list of titles in this series can be found on the publishers’ website, www.benjamins.com 299 González-Díaz, Victorina: English Adjective Comparison. A historical perspective. Expected August 2008 298 Bowern, Claire, Bethwyn Evans and Luisa Miceli (eds.): Morphology and Language History. In honour of Harold Koch. x, 364 pp. Expected July 2008 297 Dossena, Marina, Richard Dury and Maurizio Gotti (eds.): English Historical Linguistics 2006. Volume III: Geo-Historical Variation in English. Selected papers from the fourteenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL 14), Bergamo, 21–25 August 2006. xiii, 194 pp. + index. Expected July 2008 296 Dury, Richard, Maurizio Gotti and Marina Dossena (eds.): English Historical Linguistics 2006. Volume II: Lexical and Semantic Change. Selected papers from the fourteenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL 14), Bergamo, 21–25 August 2006. xiii, 257 pp. + index. Expected July 2008 295 Gotti, Maurizio, Marina Dossena and Richard Dury (eds.): English Historical Linguistics 2006. Volume I: Syntax and Morphology. Selected papers from the fourteenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL 14), Bergamo, 21–25 August 2006. xiv, 259 pp. Expected July 2008 294 Frellesvig, Bjarke and John Whitman (eds.): Proto-Japanese. Issues and Prospects. 2008. vii, 229 pp. 293 Detges, Ulrich and Richard Waltereit (eds.): The Paradox of Grammatical Change. Perspectives from Romance. 2008. vi, 252 pp. 292 Nicolov, Nicolas, Kalina Bontcheva, Galia Angelova and Ruslan Mitkov (eds.): Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing IV. Selected papers from RANLP 2005. 2007. xii, 307 pp. 291 Baauw, Sergio, Frank Drijkoningen and Manuela Pinto (eds.): Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2005. Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’, Utrecht, 8–10 December 2005. 2007. viii, 338 pp. 290 Mughazy, Mustafa A. (ed.): Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XX. Papers from the twentieth annual symposium on Arabic linguistics, Kalamazoo, Michigan, March 2006. 2007. xii, 247 pp. 289 Benmamoun, Elabbas (ed.): Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XIX. Papers from the nineteenth annual symposium on Arabic Linguistics, Urbana, Illinois, April 2005. 2007. xiv, 304 pp. 288 Toivonen, Ida and Diane Nelson (eds.): Saami Linguistics. 2007. viii, 321 pp. 287 Camacho, José, Nydia Flores-Ferrán, Liliana Sánchez, Viviane Déprez and María José Cabrera (eds.): Romance Linguistics 2006. Selected papers from the 36th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), New Brunswick, March-April 2006. 2007. viii, 340 pp. 286 Weijer, Jeroen van de and Erik Jan van der Torre (eds.): Voicing in Dutch. (De)voicing – phonology, phonetics, and psycholinguistics. 2007. x, 186 pp. 285 Sackmann, Robin (ed.): Explorations in Integrational Linguistics. Four essays on German, French, and Guaraní. 2008. ix, 239 pp. 284 Salmons, Joseph C. and Shannon Dubenion-Smith (eds.): Historical Linguistics 2005. Selected papers from the 17th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Madison, Wisconsin, 31 July - 5 August 2005. 2007. viii, 413 pp. 283 Lenker, Ursula and Anneli Meurman-Solin (eds.): Connectives in the History of English. 2007. viii, 318 pp. 282 Prieto, Pilar, Joan Mascaró and Maria-Josep Solé (eds.): Segmental and prosodic issues in Romance phonology. 2007. xvi, 262 pp. 281 Vermeerbergen, Myriam, Lorraine Leeson and Onno Crasborn (eds.): Simultaneity in Signed Languages. Form and function. 2007. viii, 360 pp. (incl. CD-Rom).
280 Hewson, John and Vit Bubenik: From Case to Adposition. The development of configurational syntax in Indo-European languages. 2006. xxx, 420 pp. 279 Nedergaard Thomsen, Ole (ed.): Competing Models of Linguistic Change. Evolution and beyond. 2006. vi, 344 pp. 278 Doetjes, Jenny and Paz González (eds.): Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2004. Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’, Leiden, 9–11 December 2004. 2006. viii, 320 pp. 277 Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa and Lyle Campbell (eds.): Grammar from the Human Perspective. Case, space and person in Finnish. 2006. x, 280 pp. 276 Montreuil, Jean-Pierre Y. (ed.): New Perspectives on Romance Linguistics. Vol. II: Phonetics, Phonology and Dialectology. Selected papers from the 35th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Austin, Texas, February 2005. 2006. x, 213 pp. 275 Nishida, Chiyo and Jean-Pierre Y. Montreuil (eds.): New Perspectives on Romance Linguistics. Vol. I: Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics. Selected papers from the 35th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Austin, Texas, February 2005. 2006. xiv, 288 pp. 274 Gess, Randall S. and Deborah Arteaga (eds.): Historical Romance Linguistics. Retrospective and perspectives. 2006. viii, 393 pp. 273 Filppula, Markku, Juhani Klemola, Marjatta Palander and Esa Penttilä (eds.): Dialects Across Borders. Selected papers from the 11th International Conference on Methods in Dialectology (Methods XI), Joensuu, August 2002. 2005. xii, 291 pp. 272 Gess, Randall S. and Edward J. Rubin (eds.): Theoretical and Experimental Approaches to Romance Linguistics. Selected papers from the 34th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Salt Lake City, March 2004. 2005. viii, 367 pp. 271 Branner, David Prager (ed.): The Chinese Rime Tables. Linguistic philosophy and historicalcomparative phonology. 2006. viii, 358 pp. 270 Geerts, Twan, Ivo van Ginneken and Haike Jacobs (eds.): Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2003. Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’ 2003, Nijmegen, 20–22 November. 2005. viii, 369 pp. 269 Hargus, Sharon and Keren Rice (eds.): Athabaskan Prosody. 2005. xii, 432 pp. 268 Cravens, Thomas D. (ed.): Variation and Reconstruction. 2006. viii, 223 pp. 267 Alhawary, Mohammad T. and Elabbas Benmamoun (eds.): Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XVII–XVIII. Papers from the seventeenth and eighteenth annual symposia on Arabic linguistics. Volume XVII–XVIII: Alexandria, 2003 and Norman, Oklahoma 2004. 2005. xvi, 315 pp. 266 Boudelaa, Sami (ed.): Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XVI. Papers from the sixteenth annual symposium on Arabic linguistics, Cambridge, March 2002. 2006. xii, 181 pp. 265 Cornips, Leonie and Karen P. Corrigan (eds.): Syntax and Variation. Reconciling the Biological and the Social. 2005. vi, 312 pp. 264 Dressler, Wolfgang U., Dieter Kastovsky, Oskar E. Pfeiffer and Franz Rainer (eds.): Morphology and its demarcations. Selected papers from the 11th Morphology meeting, Vienna, February 2004. With the assistance of Francesco Gardani and Markus A. Pöchtrager. 2005. xiv, 320 pp. 263 Branco, António, Tony McEnery and Ruslan Mitkov (eds.): Anaphora Processing. Linguistic, cognitive and computational modelling. 2005. x, 449 pp. 262 Vajda, Edward J. (ed.): Languages and Prehistory of Central Siberia. 2004. x, 275 pp. 261 Kay, Christian J. and Jeremy J. Smith (eds.): Categorization in the History of English. 2004. viii, 268 pp. 260 Nicolov, Nicolas, Kalina Bontcheva, Galia Angelova and Ruslan Mitkov (eds.): Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing III. Selected papers from RANLP 2003. 2004. xii, 402 pp. 259 Carr, Philip, Jacques Durand and Colin J. Ewen (eds.): Headhood, Elements, Specification and Contrastivity. Phonological papers in honour of John Anderson. 2005. xxviii, 405 pp. 258 Auger, Julie, J. Clancy Clements and Barbara Vance (eds.): Contemporary Approaches to Romance Linguistics. Selected Papers from the 33rd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Bloomington, Indiana, April 2003. With the assistance of Rachel T. Anderson. 2004. viii, 404 pp. 257 Fortescue, Michael, Eva Skafte Jensen, Jens Erik Mogensen and Lene Schøsler (eds.): Historical Linguistics 2003. Selected papers from the 16th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Copenhagen, 11–15 August 2003. 2005. x, 312 pp. 256 Bok-Bennema, Reineke, Bart Hollebrandse, Brigitte Kampers-Manhe and Petra Sleeman (eds.): Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2002. Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’, Groningen, 28–30 November 2002. 2004. viii, 273 pp. 255 Meulen, Alice ter and Werner Abraham (eds.): The Composition of Meaning. From lexeme to discourse. 2004. vi, 232 pp. 254 Baldi, Philip and Pietro U. Dini (eds.): Studies in Baltic and Indo-European Linguistics. In honor of William R. Schmalstieg. 2004. xlvi, 302 pp.
253 Caffarel, Alice, J.R. Martin and Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen (eds.): Language Typology. A functional perspective. 2004. xiv, 702 pp. 252 Kay, Christian J., Carole Hough and Irené Wotherspoon (eds.): New Perspectives on English Historical Linguistics. Selected papers from 12 ICEHL, Glasgow, 21–26 August 2002. Volume II: Lexis and Transmission. 2004. xii, 273 pp. 251 Kay, Christian J., Simon Horobin and Jeremy J. Smith (eds.): New Perspectives on English Historical Linguistics. Selected papers from 12 ICEHL, Glasgow, 21–26 August 2002. Volume I: Syntax and Morphology. 2004. x, 264 pp. 250 Jensen, John T.: Principles of Generative Phonology. An introduction. 2004. xii, 324 pp. 249 Bowern, Claire and Harold Koch (eds.): Australian Languages. Classification and the comparative method. 2004. xii, 377 pp. (incl. CD-Rom). 248 Weigand, Edda (ed.): Emotion in Dialogic Interaction. Advances in the complex. 2004. xii, 284 pp. 247 Parkinson, Dilworth B. and Samira Farwaneh (eds.): Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XV. Papers from the Fifteenth Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics, Salt Lake City 2001. 2003. x, 214 pp. 246 Holisky, Dee Ann and Kevin Tuite (eds.): Current Trends in Caucasian, East European and Inner Asian Linguistics. Papers in honor of Howard I. Aronson. 2003. xxviii, 426 pp. 245 Quer, Josep, Jan Schroten, Mauro Scorretti, Petra Sleeman and Els Verheugd (eds.): Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2001. Selected papers from 'Going Romance', Amsterdam, 6–8 December 2001. 2003. viii, 355 pp. 244 Pérez-Leroux, Ana Teresa and Yves Roberge (eds.): Romance Linguistics. Theory and Acquisition. Selected papers from the 32nd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Toronto, April 2002. 2003. viii, 388 pp. 243 Cuyckens, Hubert, Thomas Berg, René Dirven and Klaus-Uwe Panther (eds.): Motivation in Language. Studies in honor of Günter Radden. 2003. xxvi, 403 pp. 242 Seuren, Pieter A.M. and Gerard Kempen (eds.): Verb Constructions in German and Dutch. 2003. vi, 316 pp. 241 Lecarme, Jacqueline (ed.): Research in Afroasiatic Grammar II. Selected papers from the Fifth Conference on Afroasiatic Languages, Paris, 2000. 2003. viii, 550 pp. 240 Janse, Mark and Sijmen Tol (eds.): Language Death and Language Maintenance. Theoretical, practical and descriptive approaches. With the assistance of Vincent Hendriks. 2003. xviii, 244 pp. 239 Andersen, Henning (ed.): Language Contacts in Prehistory. Studies in Stratigraphy. Papers from the Workshop on Linguistic Stratigraphy and Prehistory at the Fifteenth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Melbourne, 17 August 2001. 2003. viii, 292 pp. 238 Núñez-Cedeño, Rafael, Luis López and Richard Cameron (eds.): A Romance Perspective on Language Knowledge and Use. Selected papers from the 31st Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Chicago, 19–22 April 2001. 2003. xvi, 386 pp. 237 Blake, Barry J. and Kate Burridge (eds.): Historical Linguistics 2001. Selected papers from the 15th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Melbourne, 13–17 August 2001. Editorial assistance Jo Taylor. 2003. x, 444 pp. 236 Simon-Vandenbergen, Anne-Marie, Miriam Taverniers and Louise J. Ravelli (eds.): Grammatical Metaphor. Views from systemic functional linguistics. 2003. vi, 453 pp. 235 Linn, Andrew R. and Nicola McLelland (eds.): Standardization. Studies from the Germanic languages. 2002. xii, 258 pp. 234 Weijer, Jeroen van de, Vincent J. van Heuven and Harry van der Hulst (eds.): The Phonological Spectrum. Volume II: Suprasegmental structure. 2003. x, 264 pp. 233 Weijer, Jeroen van de, Vincent J. van Heuven and Harry van der Hulst (eds.): The Phonological Spectrum. Volume I: Segmental structure. 2003. x, 308 pp. 232 Beyssade, Claire, Reineke Bok-Bennema, Frank Drijkoningen and Paola Monachesi (eds.): Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2000. Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’ 2000, Utrecht, 30 November–2 December. 2002. viii, 354 pp. 231 Cravens, Thomas D.: Comparative Historical Dialectology. Italo-Romance clues to Ibero-Romance sound change. 2002. xii, 163 pp. 230 Parkinson, Dilworth B. and Elabbas Benmamoun (eds.): Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics. Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics. Volume XIII-XIV: Stanford, 1999 and Berkeley, California 2000. 2002. xiv, 250 pp. 229 Nevin, Bruce E. and Stephen B. Johnson (eds.): The Legacy of Zellig Harris. Language and information into the 21st century. Volume 2: Mathematics and computability of language. 2002. xx, 312 pp. 228 Nevin, Bruce E. (ed.): The Legacy of Zellig Harris. Language and information into the 21st century. Volume 1: Philosophy of science, syntax and semantics. 2002. xxxvi, 323 pp.
227 Fava, Elisabetta (ed.): Clinical Linguistics. Theory and applications in speech pathology and therapy. 2002. xxiv, 353 pp. 226 Levin, Saul: Semitic and Indo-European. Volume II: Comparative morphology, syntax and phonetics. 2002. xviii, 592 pp. 225 Shahin, Kimary N.: Postvelar Harmony. 2003. viii, 344 pp. 224 Fanego, Teresa, Belén Méndez-Naya and Elena Seoane (eds.): Sounds, Words, Texts and Change. Selected papers from 11 ICEHL, Santiago de Compostela, 7–11 September 2000. Volume 2. 2002. x, 310 pp. 223 Fanego, Teresa, Javier Pérez-Guerra and María José López-Couso (eds.): English Historical Syntax and Morphology. Selected papers from 11 ICEHL, Santiago de Compostela, 7–11 September 2000. Volume 1. 2002. x, 306 pp. 222 Herschensohn, Julia, Enrique Mallén and Karen Zagona (eds.): Features and Interfaces in Romance. Essays in honor of Heles Contreras. 2001. xiv, 302 pp. 221 D’hulst, Yves, Johan Rooryck and Jan Schroten (eds.): Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 1999. Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’ 1999, Leiden, 9–11 December 1999. 2001. viii, 406 pp. 220 Satterfield, Teresa, Christina Tortora and Diana Cresti (eds.): Current Issues in Romance Languages. Selected papers from the 29th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Ann Arbor, 8–11 April 1999. 2002. viii, 412 pp. 219 Andersen, Henning (ed.): Actualization. Linguistic Change in Progress. Papers from a workshop held at the 14th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Vancouver, B.C., 14 August 1999. 2001. vii, 250 pp. 218 Bendjaballah, Sabrina, Wolfgang U. Dressler, Oskar E. Pfeiffer and Maria D. Voeikova (eds.): Morphology 2000. Selected papers from the 9th Morphology Meeting, Vienna, 24–28 February 2000. 2002. viii, 317 pp. 217 Wiltshire, Caroline R. and Joaquim Camps (eds.): Romance Phonology and Variation. Selected papers from the 30th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages, Gainesville, Florida, February 2000. 2002. xii, 238 pp. 216 Camps, Joaquim and Caroline R. Wiltshire (eds.): Romance Syntax, Semantics and L2 Acquisition. Selected papers from the 30th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages, Gainesville, Florida, February 2000. 2001. xii, 246 pp. 215 Brinton, Laurel J. (ed.): Historical Linguistics 1999. Selected papers from the 14th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Vancouver, 9–13 August 1999. 2001. xii, 398 pp. 214 Weigand, Edda and Marcelo Dascal (eds.): Negotiation and Power in Dialogic Interaction. 2001. viii, 303 pp. 213 Sornicola, Rosanna, Erich Poppe and Ariel Shisha-Halevy (eds.): Stability, Variation and Change of Word-Order Patterns over Time. With the assistance of Paola Como. 2000. xxxii, 323 pp. 212 Repetti, Lori (ed.): Phonological Theory and the Dialects of Italy. 2000. x, 301 pp. 211 Elšík, Viktor and Yaron Matras (eds.): Grammatical Relations in Romani. The Noun Phrase. with a Foreword by Frans Plank (Universität Konstanz). 2000. x, 244 pp. 210 Dworkin, Steven N. and Dieter Wanner (eds.): New Approaches to Old Problems. Issues in Romance historical linguistics. 2000. xiv, 235 pp. 209 King, Ruth: The Lexical Basis of Grammatical Borrowing. A Prince Edward Island French case study. 2000. xvi, 241 pp. 208 Robinson, Orrin W.: Whose German? The ach/ich alternation and related phenomena in ‘standard’ and ‘colloquial’. 2001. xii, 178 pp. 207 Sanz, Montserrat: Events and Predication. A new approach to syntactic processing in English and Spanish. 2000. xiv, 219 pp. 206 Fawcett, Robin P.: A Theory of Syntax for Systemic Functional Linguistics. 2000. xxiv, 360 pp. 205 Dirven, René, Roslyn M. Frank and Cornelia Ilie (eds.): Language and Ideology. Volume 2: descriptive cognitive approaches. 2001. vi, 264 pp. 204 Dirven, René, Bruce Hawkins and Esra Sandikcioglu (eds.): Language and Ideology. Volume 1: theoretical cognitive approaches. 2001. vi, 301 pp. 203 Norrick, Neal R.: Conversational Narrative. Storytelling in everyday talk. 2000. xiv, 233 pp. 202 Lecarme, Jacqueline, Jean Lowenstamm and Ur Shlonsky (eds.): Research in Afroasiatic Grammar. Papers from the Third conference on Afroasiatic Languages, Sophia Antipolis, 1996. 2000. vi, 386 pp. 201 Dressler, Wolfgang U., Oskar E. Pfeiffer, Markus A. Pöchtrager and John R. Rennison (eds.): Morphological Analysis in Comparison. 2000. x, 261 pp. 200 Anttila, Raimo: Greek and Indo-European Etymology in Action. Proto-Indo-European *aǵ-. 2000. xii, 314 pp.
199 Pütz, Martin and Marjolijn H. Verspoor (eds.): Explorations in Linguistic Relativity. 2000. xvi, 369 pp. 198 Niemeier, Susanne and René Dirven (eds.): Evidence for Linguistic Relativity. 2000. xxii, 240 pp. 197 Coopmans, Peter, Martin Everaert and Jane Grimshaw (eds.): Lexical Specification and Insertion. 2000. xviii, 476 pp. 196 Hannahs, S.J. and Mike Davenport (eds.): Issues in Phonological Structure. Papers from an International Workshop. 1999. xii, 268 pp. 195 Herring, Susan C., Pieter van Reenen and Lene Schøsler (eds.): Textual Parameters in Older Languages. 2001. x, 448 pp. 194 Coleman, Julie and Christian J. Kay (eds.): Lexicology, Semantics and Lexicography. Selected papers from the Fourth G. L. Brook Symposium, Manchester, August 1998. 2000. xiv, 257 pp. 193 Klausenburger, Jurgen: Grammaticalization. Studies in Latin and Romance morphosyntax. 2000. xiv, 184 pp. 192 Alexandrova, Galina M. and Olga Arnaudova (eds.): The Minimalist Parameter. Selected papers from the Open Linguistics Forum, Ottawa, 21–23 March 1997. 2001. x, 360 pp. 191 Sihler, Andrew L.: Language History. An introduction. 2000. xvi, 298 pp. 190 Benmamoun, Elabbas (ed.): Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics. Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics. Volume XII: Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, 1998. 1999. viii, 204 pp. 189 Nicolov, Nicolas and Ruslan Mitkov (eds.): Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing II. Selected papers from RANLP ’97. 2000. xi, 422 pp. 188 Simmons, Richard VanNess: Chinese Dialect Classification. A comparative approach to Harngjou, Old Jintarn, and Common Northern Wu. 1999. xviii, 317 pp. 187 Franco, Jon A., Alazne Landa and Juan Martín (eds.): Grammatical Analyses in Basque and Romance Linguistics. Papers in honor of Mario Saltarelli. 1999. viii, 306 pp. 186 Mišeska Tomić, Olga and Milorad Radovanović (eds.): History and Perspectives of Language Study. Papers in honor of Ranko Bugarski. 2000. xxii, 314 pp. 185 Authier, Jean-Marc, Barbara E. Bullock and Lisa A. Reed (eds.): Formal Perspectives on Romance Linguistics. Selected papers from the 28th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL XXVIII), University Park, 16–19 April 1998. 1999. xii, 334 pp. 184 Sagart, Laurent: The Roots of Old Chinese. 1999. xii, 272 pp. 183 Contini-Morava, Ellen and Yishai Tobin (eds.): Between Grammar and Lexicon. 2000. xxxii, 365 pp. 182 Kenesei, István (ed.): Crossing Boundaries. Advances in the theory of Central and Eastern European languages. 1999. viii, 302 pp. 181 Mohammad, Mohammad A.: Word Order, Agreement and Pronominalization in Standard and Palestinian Arabic. 2000. xvi, 197 pp. 180 Mereu, Lunella (ed.): Boundaries of Morphology and Syntax. 1999. viii, 314 pp. 179 Rini, Joel: Exploring the Role of Morphology in the Evolution of Spanish. 1999. xvi, 187 pp. 178 Foolen, Ad and Frederike van der Leek (eds.): Constructions in Cognitive Linguistics. Selected papers from the Fifth International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Amsterdam, 1997. 2000. xvi, 338 pp. 177 Cuyckens, Hubert and Britta E. Zawada (eds.): Polysemy in Cognitive Linguistics. Selected papers from the International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Amsterdam, 1997. 2001. xxviii, 296 pp. 176 Van Hoek, Karen, Andrej A. Kibrik and Leo Noordman (eds.): Discourse Studies in Cognitive Linguistics. Selected papers from the 5th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Amsterdam, July 1997. 1999. vi, 187 pp. 175 Gibbs, Jr., Raymond W. and Gerard J. Steen (eds.): Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics. Selected papers from the 5th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Amsterdam, 1997. 1999. viii, 226 pp. 174 Hall, T. Alan and Ursula Kleinhenz (eds.): Studies on the Phonological Word. 1999. viii, 298 pp. 173 Treviño, Esthela and José Lema (eds.): Semantic Issues in Romance Syntax. 1999. viii, 309 pp. 172 Dimitrova-Vulchanova, Mila and Lars Hellan (eds.): Topics in South Slavic Syntax and Semantics. 1999. xxviii, 263 pp. 171 Weigand, Edda (ed.): Contrastive Lexical Semantics. 1998. x, 270 pp. 170 Lamb, Sydney M.: Pathways of the Brain. The neurocognitive basis of language. 1999. xii, 418 pp. 169 Ghadessy, Mohsen (ed.): Text and Context in Functional Linguistics. 1999. xviii, 340 pp. 168 Ratcliffe, Robert R.: The “Broken” Plural Problem in Arabic and Comparative Semitic. Allomorphy and analogy in non-concatenative morphology. 1998. xii, 261 pp. 167 Benmamoun, Elabbas, Mushira Eid and Niloofar Haeri (eds.): Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics. Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics. Volume XI: Atlanta, Georgia, 1997. 1998. viii, 231 pp.
166 Lemmens, Maarten: Lexical Perspectives on Transitivity and Ergativity. Causative constructions in English. 1998. xii, 268 pp. 165 Bubenik, Vit: A Historical Syntax of Late Middle Indo-Aryan (Apabhraṃśa). 1998. xxiv, 265 pp. 164 Schmid, Monika S., Jennifer R. Austin and Dieter Stein (eds.): Historical Linguistics 1997. Selected papers from the 13th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Düsseldorf, 10–17 August 1997. 1998. x, 409 pp. 163 Lockwood, David G., Peter H. Fries and James E. Copeland (eds.): Functional Approaches to Language, Culture and Cognition. Papers in honor of Sydney M. Lamb. 2000. xxxiv, 656 pp. 162 Hogg, Richard M. and Linda van Bergen (eds.): Historical Linguistics 1995. Volume 2: Germanic linguistics.. Selected papers from the 12th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Manchester, August 1995. 1998. x, 365 pp. 161 Smith, John Charles and Delia Bentley (eds.): Historical Linguistics 1995. Volume 1: General issues and non-Germanic Languages.. Selected papers from the 12th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Manchester, August 1995. 2000. xii, 438 pp. 160 Schwegler, Armin, Bernard Tranel and Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria (eds.): Romance Linguistics: Theoretical Perspectives. Selected papers from the 27th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL XXVII), Irvine, 20–22 February, 1997. 1998. vi, 349 pp. + index. 159 Joseph, Brian D., Geoffrey C. Horrocks and Irene Philippaki-Warburton (eds.): Themes in Greek Linguistics II. 1998. x, 335 pp. 158 Sánchez-Macarro, Antonia and Ronald Carter (eds.): Linguistic Choice across Genres. Variation in spoken and written English. 1998. viii, 338 pp. 157 Lema, José and Esthela Treviño (eds.): Theoretical Analyses on Romance Languages. Selected papers from the 26th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL XXVI), Mexico City, 28–30 March, 1996. 1998. viii, 380 pp. 156 Matras, Yaron, Peter Bakker and Hristo Kyuchukov (eds.): The Typology and Dialectology of Romani. 1997. xxxii, 223 pp. 155 Forget, Danielle, Paul Hirschbühler, France Martineau and María Luisa Rivero (eds.): Negation and Polarity. Syntax and semantics. Selected papers from the colloquium Negation: Syntax and Semantics. Ottawa, 11–13 May 1995. 1997. viii, 367 pp. 154 Simon-Vandenbergen, Anne-Marie, Kristin Davidse and Dirk Noël (eds.): Reconnecting Language. Morphology and Syntax in Functional Perspectives. 1997. xiii, 339 pp. 153 Eid, Mushira and Robert R. Ratcliffe (eds.): Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics. Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics. Volume X: Salt Lake City, 1996. 1997. vii, 296 pp. 152 Hiraga, Masako K., Chris Sinha and Sherman Wilcox (eds.): Cultural, Psychological and Typological Issues in Cognitive Linguistics. Selected papers of the bi-annual ICLA meeting in Albuquerque, July 1995. 1999. viii, 338 pp. 151 Liebert, Wolf-Andreas, Gisela Redeker and Linda R. Waugh (eds.): Discourse and Perspective in Cognitive Linguistics. 1997. xiv, 270 pp. 150 Verspoor, Marjolijn H., Kee Dong Lee and Eve Sweetser (eds.): Lexical and Syntactical Constructions and the Construction of Meaning. Proceedings of the Bi-annual ICLA meeting in Albuquerque, July 1995. 1997. xii, 454 pp. 149 Hall, T. Alan: The Phonology of Coronals. 1997. x, 176 pp. 148 Wolf, George and Nigel Love (eds.): Linguistics Inside Out. Roy Harris and his critics. 1997. xxviii, 344 pp. 147 Hewson, John: The Cognitive System of the French Verb. 1997. xii, 187 pp. 146 Hinskens, Frans, Roeland van Hout and W. Leo Wetzels (eds.): Variation, Change, and Phonological Theory. 1997. x, 314 pp. 145 Hewson, John and Vit Bubenik: Tense and Aspect in Indo-European Languages. Theory, typology, diachrony. 1997. xii, 403 pp. 144 Singh, Rajendra (ed.): Trubetzkoy's Orphan. Proceedings of the Montréal Roundtable on “Morphonology: contemporary responses” (Montréal, October 1994). In collaboration with Richard Desrochers. 1996. xiv, 363 pp. 143 Athanasiadou, Angeliki and René Dirven (eds.): On Conditionals Again. 1997. viii, 418 pp. 142 Salmons, Joseph C. and Brian D. Joseph (eds.): Nostratic. Sifting the Evidence. 1998. vi, 293 pp. 141 Eid, Mushira and Dilworth B. Parkinson (eds.): Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics. Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics. Volume IX: Washington D.C., 1995. 1996. xiii, 249 pp. 140 Black, James R. and Virginia Motapanyane (eds.): Clitics, Pronouns and Movement. 1997. 375 pp. 139 Black, James R. and Virginia Motapanyane (eds.): Microparametric Syntax and Dialect Variation. 1996. xviii, 269 pp.
138 Sackmann, Robin and Monika Budde (eds.): Theoretical Linguistics and Grammatical Description. Papers in honour of Hans-Heinrich Lieb. 1996. x, 375 pp. 137 Lippi-Green, Rosina L. and Joseph C. Salmons (eds.): Germanic Linguistics. Syntactic and diachronic. 1996. viii, 192 pp. 136 Mitkov, Ruslan and Nicolas Nicolov (eds.): Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing. Selected Papers from RANLP ’95. 1997. xii, 472 pp. 135 Britton, Derek (ed.): English Historical Linguistics 1994. Papers from the 8th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (8 ICEHL, Edinburgh, 19–23 September 1994). 1996. viii, 403 pp. 134 Eid, Mushira (ed.): Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics. Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics. Volume VIII: Amherst, Massachusetts 1994. 1996. vii, 261 pp. 133 Zagona, Karen (ed.): Grammatical Theory and Romance Languages. Selected papers from the 25th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL XXV) Seattle, 2–4 March 1995. 1996. vi, 330 pp. 132 Herschensohn, Julia: Case Suspension and Binary Complement Structure in French. 1996. xi, 200 pp. 131 Hualde, José Ignacio, Joseba A. Lakarra and R.L. Trask (eds.): Towards a History of the Basque Language. 1996. 365 pp. 130 Eid, Mushira (ed.): Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics. Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics. Volume VII: Austin, Texas 1993. 1995. vii, 192 pp. 129 Levin, Saul: Semitic and Indo-European. Volume I: The Principal Etymologies. With observations on Afro-Asiatic. 1995. xxii, 514 pp. 128 Guy, Gregory R., Crawford Feagin, Deborah Schiffrin and John Baugh (eds.): Towards a Social Science of Language. Papers in honor of William Labov. Volume 2: Social interaction and discourse structures. 1997. xviii, 358 pp. 127 Guy, Gregory R., Crawford Feagin, Deborah Schiffrin and John Baugh (eds.): Towards a Social Science of Language. Papers in honor of William Labov. Volume 1: Variation and change in language and society. 1996. xviii, 436 pp. 126 Matras, Yaron (ed.): Romani in Contact. The history, structure and sociology of a language. 1995. xvii, 208 pp. 125 Singh, Rajendra (ed.): Towards a Critical Sociolinguistics. 1996. xiii, 342 pp. 124 Andersen, Henning (ed.): Historical Linguistics 1993. Selected papers from the 11th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Los Angeles, 16–20 August 1993. 1995. x, 460 pp. 123 Amastae, Jon, Grant Goodall, M. Montalbetti and M. Phinney (eds.): Contemporary Research in Romance Linguistics. Papers from the XXII Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages, El Paso/Juárez, February 22–24, 1992. 1995. viii, 381 pp. 122 Smith, John Charles and Martin Maiden (eds.): Linguistic Theory and the Romance Languages. 1995. xiii, 240 pp. 121 Hasan, Ruqaiya, Carmel Cloran and David G. Butt (eds.): Functional Descriptions. Theory in practice. 1996. xxxvi, 381 pp. 120 Stonham, John T.: Combinatorial Morphology. 1994. xii, 206 pp. 119 Lippi-Green, Rosina L.: Language Ideology and Language Change in Early Modern German. A sociolinguistic study of the consonantal system of Nuremberg. 1994. xiv, 150 pp. 118 Hasan, Ruqaiya and Peter H. Fries (eds.): On Subject and Theme. A discourse functional perspective. 1995. xii, 414 pp. 117 Philippaki-Warburton, Irene, Katerina Nicolaidis and Maria Sifianou (eds.): Themes in Greek Linguistics. Papers from the First International Conference on Greek Linguistics, Reading, September 1993. 1994. xviii, 534 pp. 116 Miller, D. Gary: Ancient Scripts and Phonological Knowledge. 1994. xvi, 139 pp. 115 Eid, Mushira, Vicente Cantarino and Keith Walters (eds.): Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics. Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics. VolumeVI: Columbus, Ohio 1992. 1994. viii, 238 pp. 114 Egli, Urs, Peter E. Pause, Christoph Schwarze, Arnim von Stechow and Götz Wienold (eds.): Lexical Knowledge in the Organization of Language. 1995. xiv, 367 pp. 113 Moreno Fernández, Francisco, Miguel Fuster and Juan Jose Calvo (eds.): English Historical Linguistics 1992. Papers from the 7th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, Valencia, 22–26 September 1992. 1994. viii, 388 pp. 112 Culioli, Antoine: Cognition and Representation in Linguistic Theory. Texts selected, edited and introduced by Michel Liddle. Translated with the assistance of John T. Stonham. 1995. x, 161 pp. 111 Tobin, Yishai: Invariance, Markedness and Distinctive Feature Analysis. A contrastive study of sign systems in English and Hebrew. 1994. xxii, 406 pp. 110 Simone, Raffaele (ed.): Iconicity in Language. 1995. xii, 315 pp.
