Cyclically Conditioned Prosodic Constituents in Gyalsumdo (and beyond)

Cyclically Conditioned Prosodic Constituentsin Gyalsumdo (and beyond)J. Joseph Perry, University of CambridgeOCP12, Barcelona28th January 2015

1.Approaches to Prosodic Structure

Current approaches to phonology-syntax interface (very) broadly divisible into two groups:

Cyclic Approaches: e.g. Kahnemuyipour 2003, 2009, Pak 2008, Scheer 2008, 2012, D’Alessandro and Scheer forthc.

Prosodic Approaches: e.g. Selkirk 2009,2011, Elfner 2013, Cheng and Downing forthc.

Cyclic approaches: Dispense with the prosodic hierarchy Suppose that the role of delimiting phonological processes is played by cyclic SPELLOUT of the syntactic derivation (Chomsky 2000 et. seq.)

Prosodic approaches: Assume the traditional prosodic hierarchy of Nespor and Vogel (1986), perhaps as amended by Ito and Mester (2013)

Assign only an incidental role in mapping to the syntactic cycle.

1.Approaches to Prosodic Structure

The assumptions of Distributed Morphology present problems for the simplest pure cyclic approaches.

In particular, if we suppose (with Marantz 1997 et seq.) that lexical items are bipartite, consisting of root and categoriser…

… and (with Marantz 2001 et seq.) that the categoriser is a phase head:

Then we expect the root to be a phase domain. If phonological domains coincide with phase domains, there should be a boundary between root and categoriser.

2. Phases and Domains in Gyalsumdo

But this is not the case – consider Gyalsumdo (Tibetan; Manang District, Nepal).


Gyalsumdo has a tone-deletion process (among other processes) applying to all non-initial members of a certain domain (TDD – Tone Deletion Domain)

All adjectives (and most nouns) in Gyalsumdo are overtly bipartite, consisting of a root (which may be independently used verbally) and a categoriser:

There is never a TDD boundary between the root and categoriser, and the root and categoriser form a smaller Metrification Domain (MD) to the exclusion of material in the same phase as the categoriser.

kjí-bu ‘happy’

ʤàŋ-gu ‘green’

bò-mo ‘girl’

jér-ga ‘summer’

làn-di ‘thin’ gjàk-pa ‘fat’

ʃàŋ-ma ‘day’

rà-∅ ‘goat’


[TDD(MDòdi)][TDD (MDbò mo)][TDD(MDkjí bu) go la] ‘for that happy girl’

KP

KDP

DʹDem

DnP

nP aP

òdi

bò √girl n

mo kjí√happy a

bu

go

la



KP

KDP

DʹDem

DnP

nP aP

òdi

bò √girl n

mo kjí√happy a

bu

go

la

Phase Heads



KP

KDP

DʹDem

DnP

nP aP

òdi

bò √girl n

mo kjí√happy a

bu

go

la

Phase Domains



KP

KDP

DʹDem

DnP

nP aP

òdi

bò √girl n

mo kjí√happy a

bu

go

la

TDDs


Gyalsumdo TDDs do not correspond to phases, phase domains, or even syntactic constituents.

But phases certainly do seem to have some effects – consider the TDD corresponding to the nominal phase here.

All the phonological domains that do not end at a phase head end at an edge defined by some following phase domain.


This is where purely prosodic approaches (e.g. Cheng and Downing forthc.) get into trouble.

In these approaches, generally embedded in OT of late, prosodic mapping operates over entire derivations.

As such there is no real reason for phases to influence prosodic constituents – any effect must be stipulated, and does not follow from the cyclic nature of syntax.

3. Phasal Spellout and Prosodic Constituents

My Proposal: Prosodic constituents are built up in the course of the syntactic cycle, but are not identical with cyclic units.


An informal intuition: As in syntax, a phase head acts as a kind of ‘escape hatch’, allowing prosodic units to span phases.

Why should this be so? The ‘escape hatch’ property in syntax follows from the fact that the phase head is not spelled out with the rest of the phase.

Can we find a similarly natural (and formally adequate) way of capturing this intuition in phonology?


Perhaps… Arregi and Nevins (2012) suppose that Vocabulary Insertion is preceded by a number of other morphophonological operations, including impoverishment and linearization.

Suppose that prosodification is included among these operations (perhaps with linearization as part of a general restructuring operation).

Then suppose the phase head does not undergo Vocabulary Insertion or subsequent operations, leaving its syntactic features visible in the next phase…

…but that it does undergo earlier SPELLOUT operations, including prosodification.


The phase head, then, is prosodified, but has not undergone VI .

This is in contrast to a phase domain, which has had both operations applied to it.

We can consequently define some important notions: the interior of a prosodic unit, where VI has applied, and its exterior, where it has not.

We can capture our earlier informal intuition by stating that the exterior of a prosodic unit is modifiable, but the interior is not.


More formal definitions:

VisibilityVocabulary Insertion renders objects invisible. All other objects are visible.

EdgeIf an object K contains linearly ordered objects (o1, o2, … , on), the left edge of K is identical with the left edge of o1, and the right edge of K is identical with the right edge of on. If K is atomic, the left and right edges of K are identical to K.

Constraint on ModificationIf an invisible object O is a (left/right) edge of another object K, it must remain a (left/right) edge of K throughout the derivation.

4. Applying the Model to Gyalsumdo

Let’s see how this works in a Gyalsumdo example. Take the nominal phrase òdi bò-mo=go=la ‘to/for that girl’. Recall that this has the following structure:

[KP [DP òdi [nP bò mo] go] la] that √girl n(FEM) DEF DAT

Now, our constraint on modification needs to be supplemented by an operation which constructs prosodic constituents. Identifying the TDD with the phonological phrase, let us assume a very simple rule:

Phrase Mapping Rule (PMR)i. Associate syntactic objects with a phonological phrase. ii. If no modifiable phrase exists for the purposes of (i.), insert a new one.


The derivation proceeds as follows: Inner Phase (nP)[nP √girl n] (Input)(φ)[nP √girl n] (PMR [ii.])(φ[nP √girl n]) (PMR [i.])(φ[nP bò n]) (VI – invisible objects italicised)

Outer Phase (KP)[KP [DP Dem (φ[nP bò n]) D ] K] (Input)[KP [DP Dem (φ[nP bò n] D ] K)] (PMR [i.])[KP [DP(φ)Dem (φ[nP bò n] D ] K)] (PMR [ii.])[KP [DP(φDem) (φ[nP bò n] D ] K)] (PMR [i.])[KP (φòdi) (φ bò mo go K)] (VI)

Output: (φòdi) (φ bò mo go la)


This approach straightforwardly recovers the distribution of TDDs in Gyalsumdo.

It explains, among other things: the fact that verbs phrase with tense heads and complementisers with which they do not share a phase, but not with objects, which lie in the same phase:

(khjé) (tó) (sè na) …2SG rice eat COND‘if you eat rice…’

And the fact that possessors and demonstratives don’t phrase with following nouns:

(khjé gi) (tó) 2SG GEN rice ‘your rice’

5. Wider Implications

But what about more widely? This model makes two predictions that otherwise have been stipulated:

Lexical Category Condition (Truckenbrodt 1999: 226)“Constraints relating syntactic and prosodic categories apply to lexical syntactic elements and their projections, but not to functional elements and their projections….”

Follows here from the fact that lexical roots lie in the interior of phases and consequently tend to define edges of prosodic constitutents

Directionality Condition (Nespor and Vogel 1986: 168)“The domain of φ consists of a C[litic group] which contains a lexical head and all Cs on its nonrecursive side…”

That is, on the side corresponding to the branching direction of heads in the language.

This follows from the fact that phase heads (the escape hatch) will generally fall on the same side of a root as other heads.

5. Wider Implications

Many questions remain – how do we capture linguistic variation in prosodic phrasing, for instance?

For example, lexical categories seem to define domain boundaries very rigidly in certain languages (e.g. for tone sandhi in Shanghainese – Selkirk and Shen 1990) but not in others (e.g. liaison in French, raddoppiamento sintattico in Italian).

Perhaps a good deal of this variation can be accounted for in the syntax :

E.g. As being due to variation in whether roots undergo head-movement to their categorisers (which French and Italian roots certainly do).

Note the this predicts a relation between the delineation of prosodic constituent and the domain of suppletive allomorphy (at least if we follow Marantz 2013)

6. Remaining Issues

This model, like all models which make use of prosodic constituents, has a number of problematic features, as outlined by Scheer (2012).

For instance, given that the syntactic cycle already provides us with a mechanism for breaking up (‘chunking’) the syntactic derivation, why should we do it all over again?

Why do prosodic trees look so different from syntactic ones? (All prosodic categories are assumed to be exocentric – in stark contrast to syntactic constituents).

If empirical evidence drives us to accept the reality of prosodic constituents, resolving these questions may give us deep insights into the structure of the language faculty.

References

ARREGI, Karlos and NEVINS, Andrew. 2012. Morphotactics: Basque Auxiliaries and the Structure of Spellout. Dordrecht: Springer. CHENG, Lisa and DOWNING, Laura. forthcoming. “Phasal syntax=cyclic phonology?”, Syntax.CHOMSKY, Noam. 2000. “Minimalist inquiries: the framework”, in Roger Martin, David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka (eds.) Step by Step: Essays in Minimalist Syntax in Honour of Howard Lasnik, pp. 89-155. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CHOMSKY Noam. 2001. “Derivation by Phase”, Michael Kenstowicz (ed.) Ken Hale: A Life in Language, pp. 1-52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.D’ALESSANDRO, Roberta and SCHEER, Tobias. forthcoming. “Modular PIC”, Linguistic Inquiry.MARANTZ, Alec. 1997. “No Escape from Syntax: Don’t Try Morphological Analysis in the Privacy of your own Lexicon”, University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 4.2: 201-225.

References

MARANTZ, Alec. 2001. Words, ms.Marantz, Alec. 2013. “Locality Domains for Contextual Allomorphy across the Interfaces”, in Ora Matushansky and Alec Marantz (eds.) Distributed Morphology Today: Morphemes for Morris Halle. Cambridge,MA: MIT Press.MARVIN, Tatjana. 2002. Topics in the Stress and Syntax of Words, PhD Thesis, MIT.PAK, Marjorie. 2008. The Postsyntactic Derivation and its Phonological Reflexes. PhD Thesis, University of Pennsylvania.SCHEER, Tobias. 2008. “Why the Prosodic Hierarchy is a diacritic and why the Interface must be Direct”, in Jutta Hartmann, Veronika Hegedüs and Henk van Riemsdijk (eds.) Sounds of Silence: Empty Elements in Syntax and Phonology, pp. 145-192.Leiden: BrillSCHEER, Tobias. 2012. Direct interface and One-Channel Translation. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter .SELKIRK, Elisabeth. 2009. “On clause and intonational phrase in Japanese: The syntactic grounding of prosodic constituent structure.”, Gengo Kenkyu 136:1-39.SELKIRK, Elisabeth. 2011. “The Syntax-Phonology Interface”, in John Goldsmith, Jason Riggle and Alan Yu (eds.). The Handbook of Phonological Theory, pp. 435-484. Oxford: Blackwell.

Appendix: Why not just assume Tone Deletion is Strictly Cyclic?

Do we really need prosodic constituents here? Why don’t we just assume that tone deletion is a strictly cyclic process? i.e. it fails to apply to the root (e.g. bò-) alone, where its SD is not met, and cannot apply in subsequent cycles due to strict cyclicity. This would give us much the same distribution of toneless syllables, without the need for a special domain within which it occurs

Point 1: TDDs are not just domains for tonal deletion: they also serve as domains within which interpolation to boundary tones conditioned by information structure may take place. Interpolation is a late quasi-phonetic process – i.e. non-cyclic.

Point 2: Even if we did accept that tone deletion is a cyclic process, we’re still unable to explain domains like the Metrification Domain which group root and categoriser together to the exclusion of other objects.

Cyclically Conditioned Prosodic Constituents in Gyalsumdo (and beyond)

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