| ROA: | 468 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Existential Faithfulness: A study of reduplicative TETU, feature movement, and dissimilation |
| Authors: | Caro Struijke |
| Comment: | Files removed at author\'s request. |
| Length: | 234 |
| Abstract: | The main thesis of this dissertation holds that faithfulness regulates preservation, and faithfulness constraints require input elements be present in the output. They do not demand identity of input and output strings, and are therefore existentially quantified. Preservation is less stringent than identity: only one output correspondent of an input segment needs to reflect the input segment’s feature specifications. Thus, in segmental fission, where an input segment has multiple output correspondents, only one correspondent need resemble the input segment. Other correspondents are free to respond to markedness constraints without violating faithfulness requirements. The dissertation investigates three empirical domains, all of which constitute ways to improve or satisfy markedness requirements while preserving underlying information. They are reduplicative TETU, feature movement, and dissimilation. Reference is also made to 'distributing diphthongization,' in which different features of a single input segment are preserved on two different output segments. The dissertation includes three in-depth case studies. The case study of Kwakwala reduplicated words shows that TETU alternations can affect either the reduplicant or the base. The case studies of Sanskrit and Cuzco Quechua show that feature movement and dissimilation often converge to result in a single alternation, and I claim that these two patterns are formally identical. Chapter 2 argues that reduplication involves segmental fission. Both members of the base-reduplicant pair relate to segments in the input via a general Input-Output faithfulness relation, dubbed 'Broad IO.' The base is in no sense prior to the reduplicant. The strings are of equal status with respect to IO faithfulness, and the existential definition of faithfulness allows TETU alternations affecting either member of the base-reduplicant pair. The proposed theory makes strong predictions as to which member is affected, depending mostly on the size of the domain evaluated by the emerging markedness constraint. Chapter 3 deals with both dissimilation and feature movement. I argue that both involve segmental fission where features of an input segment are distributed between two output correspondents. The correspondent preserving the 'moving' or 'dissimilating' marked feature coalesces with another segment. This research is in accord with recent work on dissimilation holding that it is driven by markedness requirements. However, existential faithfulness allows an account in which independently needed markedness constraints are at work, rather than constraints specifically banning multiple instances of a given marked feature (see also de Lacy and Struijke 2000). Throughout the dissertation I assume that features are attributes of segments, not independent entities. Chapter 4 compares these different approaches with respect to Correspondence Theory. Since E-IDENT[F] constraints of the first approach and MAX[F] constraints of the second approach are existentially defined, unidirectional, and feature value specific, both can account for the presented phenomena. |
| Type: | Dissertation |
| Area/Keywords: | Phonology |
| Article: | This article has been withdrawn. |