X-Bar Theory and Morphological Juncture PDF

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O rd e r N u m b e r 9129663
X -b a r th eo r y and m o rp h olo g ica l ju n ctu re
Bralich, Philip Andrew, Ph.D.

University of Hawaii, 1991
C o p y rig h t © 1 9 9 1 b y B r a lic h , P h ilip A n d rew . A ll rig h ts reserv ed .
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X-BAR THEORY A N D M ORPHOLOGICAL JUNCTURE
A DISSERTATION SUBM ITTED TO THE GRADUATE D IVISIO N OF THE
U NIVERSITY OF H A W A II IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
IN
LINGUISTICS
M A Y 1991
By
Philip A. Bralich
Dissertation Com m ittee:
Derek Bickerton, Chairperson

Kenneth Rehg
Byron Bender
David Stam pe
Raymond G. Nunn
W e certify th a t w e have read this dissertation and th a t, in our opinion, it is
satisfactory in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy in Linguistics.
DISSERTA TIO N C O M M ITTEE
S '/ Chairperson
° Copyright by Philip Andrew Bralich 1991
All Rights Reserved
D EDICATIO N.
This thesis is dedicated to my mother and to my tw o sisters,
to my late w ife Debora,
and to my muse.
v
ACKNOW LEDGEMENTS
The idea for a theory of morphological juncture cam e to me originally 12
years ago when I attended a conference at the University of M innesota w hen I w as
an undergraduate in linguistics at the University of Wisconsin at M ilw aukee. While
listening to a paper on English morphology it occurred to me that it might be
possible to explain morphological variation in terms of w hether or not a category
changed. W hile I began playing w ith this idea w ith some of the data of SPE I was
only able to w rite a paper on English inflectional endings for a class w ith Fred
Eckman before the financial realities of m y life forced me to w ith draw from school.
During the ten years it took me to return to do an advanced degree in
linguistics I alw ays thought it would be interesting to pursue this idea. W hen I
began my studies at the University of Haw aii I w as surprised to discover th at this
idea had not been investigated. I investigated it myself and w as able to w rite the
dissertation presented here. There are a number of people w ho have supported,
encouraged, and guided my efforts along the w ay and I would like to acknowledge
them here.
I w as originally inspired to pursue linguistics by classes w ith Fred Eckman at
the University of Wisconsin in M ilw aukee. His presentation of the material made
the subject seem both fascinating and approachable. A fter my eight year hiatus
from university w ork, Ken Rehg, here at the University of Hawaii w as the first to
w ork with me on this project, encouraging me to continue when others said the
idea th at a graduate student could propose a replacem ent for the theory of juncture
w as at best presumptuous. His com m ents and suggestions have been invaluable at
all levels of this project. Later W illiam O'Grady provided his insights, and
suggestions. His w ide ranging knowledge of the field of linguistics and an uncanny
facility for finding counterexam ples helped me hone the ideas and pursue directions
th at I would not have considered on m y ow n. A t the LSA Summer Institute in
Tucson M ark A ronoff very generously took time from his schedule to discuss this
w o rk w ith me. This discussion provided m e w ith a better understanding of
morphology and the w ays in which m y ideas fit into current theories.
Finally, working w ith Derek Bickerton as the UH working papers editor and
the chairman of m y com m ittee has been invaluable in bringing this w o rk to its
present stage. D erek's comm and of linguistic theory and understanding of the
nature of language provided me w ith experience and insight th at has added
precision and depth to the ideas I am trying to express. Besides the benefits
provided by his linguistics skills Derek w as also able to com m unicate important
insights into and explanation of the technicalities of professional writing.
The other members of my com m ittee, David Stam pe and Byron Bender have
also been valuable sources of com m entary on this project.
Classes and discussion w ith Stan Starosta here at the University of Hawaii
has been instrumental in dem onstrating the boundaries and limitations on particular
theories and has sharpened my understanding of linguistic theory.
ABSTRACT
Since early structuralist linguistics, theorists have postulated segment-like
elem ents called boundaries or junctures between words and morphemes to explain
the variable application of phonological rules in identical strings of segm ents across
the junctures formed by the concatenations of different sorts of morphemes. Later
w o rk in linguistics argues th at it is possible to avoid the use of these segment-like
boundaries by using the theory of a multistratal lexicon to explain the facts of the
relevant rule applications. W hile these theories provide adequate accounts of the
relevant data they can be criticized on theoretical grounds.
This dissertation proposes a theory of morphological juncture th at is based
on the extension of phrase-level X-bar theory to word-level and that accounts for
the facts of the variable application of morphologically sensitive rules w ith out
succumbing to the criticisms of the other theories.
Other theorists a tte m p t to extend the theory of X-bar theory to word-level
but are hindered by the asymm etrical distributions of the Class I and Class II
affixes. Because of these ordering asymmetries the theories of X-bar theory at
word-level are significantly different from phrase-level X-bar theory and can only
account for the distribution of affixes. This dissertation demonstrates th at it is
possible to account for the distribution of the Class I and Class II affixes
independently of X-bar theory w ith a slight modification in the principle of locality in
viii
morphology. Once the distribution of the Class I and Class II affixes is accounted
for it becomes a simple manner to extend phrase-level X-bars to word-level. Using
data from past analyses of English (Chomsky and Halle 1 9 6 8 ) and M alayalam
(Mohanan 1 9 8 6 ) it is demonstrated th at this word-level X-bar system accounts for
the facts of morphological juncture w ithout the use of segment-like boundaries or
lexical strata.
T he first chapter of this dissertation reviews the literature of juncture. The
second chapter discusses the facts of the distribution of the Class I and Class II
affixes and proposes the new principle of locality. Chapter three demonstrates the
extension of phrase level X-bars to word level and chapter four introduces the
theory of X-bar juncture. Chapter five compares this theory to the other theories of
juncture and the final chapter illustrates the ability of this theory to account for the
facts of a the phonology of a language other than English. The language chosen is
Malayalam .
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S .................................................................................. v
A B S T R A C T ..................................................................................................... vii
LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................... xii
PREFACE ..................................................................................................... xiii
CHAPTER ONE .... REVIEW OF LITERATURE .................................... 1
1.1. INTRO DUCTIO N ................................................................................. 1

1 .1 .1 . The Facts of Morphological Juncture ...................... 3
1 .1 .2 . Theoretical Preliminaries ................................................. 4
1 .1 .3 . Stress Rules 5
1 .1 .4 . Morphophonemic Rules ................................................. 6
1 .1 .5 . Morphological Rules ....................................................... 8
1.2. HISTORY OF THEORIES OF JUNCTURE ................................ 12

1 .2 .1 . The Early Structuralists ............................................... 12
1 .2 .2 . The Generativists .......................................................... 14
1 .2 .2 .1 . The W ord Boundary Theory ................................. 14
1 .2 .3 .1 .1 . Chomsky and Halle 1 9 6 8 14
1 .2 .3 .1 .2 . Stanley ....................................................... 19
1 .2 .3 .1 .3 . Siegel .......................................................... 22
1 .2 .3 .1 .4 . Allen ............................................................ 23
1 .2 .3 .1 .5 . Aronoff ....................................................... 26
1 .2 .3 .1 .6 . Criticisms of the SPE Theory .............. 27
1 .2 .3 .2 . GLOBAL CONSTRAINTS ....................................... 28
1 .2 .3 .2 .1 . Pyle ............................................................ 28
1 .2 .4 . LEXICAL PHONOLOGY .............................................. 29
1 .2 .4 .1 . Mohanan .......................................................... 29
1 .2 .4 .2 . Criticisms of Lexical Phonology Theory 34
1 .3 . SU M M A R Y AND CONCLUSIONS ........................................... 35
CHAPTER TW O ... THE IM M EDIATE DOM INANCE C O N D ITIO N A ND

LOCALITY IN MORPHOLOGY ................................................. 39
2 .1 . INTRO DUCTIO N ............................................................................ 39
2 .2 . LOCALITY RESTRICTIONS ......................................................... 46
2 .3 . CLASS I A N D CLASS II AFFIXES .............................................. 4 8
2 .4 . THE IM M EDIATE DOM INANCE CONDITION ........................ 51
2 .5 . EVIDENCE FROM OTHER AFFIXES ......................................... 59
2 .6 . COUNTEREXAMPLES ................................................................. 64
2 .7 . COM PARISON W ITH OTHER T H E O R IE S ................................ 70
2 .8 . S U M M A R Y AND CONCLUSION ................................................ 75
X
CHAPTER THREE ... THE EXTENSION OF X-BAR

THEORY TO M O R P H O L O G Y ....................................................... 76
3 .1 . IN TR O D U C TIO N ............................................................................ 76
3 .2 . THE EXTENSION OF X-BAR THEORY TO W O RD LEVEL . . 79
3 .3 . HEADEDNESS .................................................................................. 93
3 .4 . OTHER THEORIES ......................................................................... 102
3 .5 . S U M M A R Y A N D CONCLUSIONS ........................................ 103
CHAPTER FOUR ... M ORPHOLOGICAL JUNCTURE A N D

X-BAR B R A C K E T S ........................................................................ 104
4 .1 . IN TR O D U C TIO N ......................................................................... 104
4 .2 . X-BAR N O TA TIO N FOR M ORPHOLOGICAL JUNCTURE . 105
4 .3 . APPLICATIO N OF THE THEORY ........................................... 116

4 .3 .1 . The Morphological Rules ......................................... 116
4 .3 .2 . Stress Rules ............................................................... 120
4 .3 .2 .1 . The Main Stress Rule .............................. 120
4 .3 .2 .2 . The Alternating Stress Rule ................... 123
4 .3 .2 .3 . Compound, Nuclear Stress,
Stress Adjustm ent ......................................... 124
4 .3 .3 . The Phonological Rules ............................................ 126
4 .3 .3 .1 . Rule #1: Assibilation o f / t / ...................... 127
4 .3 .3 .2 . Rule # 2 : /g /D e le tio n I .............................. 129
4 .3 .3 .3 . Rule #3: /g / Deletion II ......................... 132
4 .3 .3 .4 . Rule #4: /n / Deletion .............................. 134
4 .3 .3 .5 . Rule #5: Syllabification of Sonorants . 138
4 .3 .3 .6 . Rule #6: Intervocalic s-voicing ........... 141
4 .3 .3 .7 . Rule #7: Velar Softening ...................... 142
4 .3 .3 .8 . Rule #8: Nasal Assimilation ................ 145
4 .3 .3 .9 . Rule #9: Stress Retraction ................... 148
4 .3 .3 .1 0 . Rule # 1 0 : Trisyllabic Laxing ................. 149
4 .3 .3 .1 1 . R u l e # 1 i : t - z ............................................ 150
4 .3 .4 . S U M M A R Y ..................................................................... 151
CHAPTER FIVE ... COM PARISON W ITH OTHER THEORIES ... 152
5 .1 . IN TR O D U C TIO N ......................................................................... 152

5 .2 . ABILITY TO A C C O U N T FOR THE D A TA ............................. 153
5 .2 .1 . SPE ................................................................................ 154
5 .2 .2 . Mohanan ....................................................................... 154
5 .2 .3 . X-bar Brackets ............................................................. 157
5 .3 . THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS ..................................... 157
CHAPTER S IX ...X -3 A R BRACKETS AND M A LA YA LA M 169
6 .1 . M A L A Y A L A M PHONOLOGY ................................................... 169
6 .2 . LEXICAL PHONOLOGY OF M A L A Y A L A M ........................... 169

6 .2 .1 . The Postlexical Level ............................................. 170
6 .2 .2 . The Strata in M alayalam ........................................ 172
6 .2 .3 . Cocompounds and Subcompounds ..................... 172
6 .3 . X-BAR BRACKETS IN M A LA Y A LA M ................................... 175
6 .4 . THE RULES OF M A L A Y A L A M ................................................ 181

6 .4 .1 . Introduction ................................................................. 181
6 .4 .2 . R u le # 1 : Nasal Spreading ...................................... 182
6 .4 .3 . Rule # 2 n —* n and Rule ft3: ny —* n i
[ + DravidianJ w o r d s .................................................... 184
6 .4 .4 . Rule #4: Stem -final Schwa Insertion ................... 185
6 .4 .5 . Rule #5: Sonorant Degemination ........................ 191
6 .4 .6 . Rule #6: Stem-initial Gemination ........................ 193
6 .4 .7 . Rule #7: Postsonorant Gemination ...................... 196
6 .4 .8 . Rule ft8: Nasal Deletion ........................................... 198
6 .4 .9 . Rule tt9: Vow el Lengthening ................................ 199
6 .4 .1 0 . Rule # 1 0 : Vow el Sandhi ....................................... 201
6 .5 . S U M M A R Y A N D CO NCLUSIONS ........................................ 204
REFERENCES ............................................................................................. 205
LIST OF TABLES
Table (1) Class I and Class II Affixes in Unanalyzable words . . . . 4 9
Table (2) Class I and Class II affixes in Analyzable W ords . . . . . . 5 0
xiii
PREFACE
The proposal put forth in this thesis presents a new analysis for an old
problem in linguistics. Particularly, this thesis proposes a n ew theory of
morphological juncture to replace theories such as the word boundary theory of
Chom sky and Halle (1 9 6 8 ) and the theory of Lexical Phonology of Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ).
In order to arrive at this new analysis of morphological juncture it is necessary to
reconsider the treatm ent of several aspects of the theory of morphology. This
reconsideration of the components of morphology involves the various theories of
morphological juncture, the X-bar theory and the order of attachm ent of the
different kinds of affixes. Currently held attitudes about these m atters are
questioned and a new analysis is proposed. This new analysis makes it possible to
form ulate a theory of juncture th at does not require segment-like boundaries or a
subdivision of the lexicon. H ow ever, to arrive at this theory of juncture it is
necessary to discuss the distribution of affixes, the X-bar theory, and previous
theories of juncture. This becomes a rather complicated task which requires the
discussion of several major issues and a number of different theories. In order to
clarify this, this preface outlines the basic problems and theories to be addressed in
this thesis and the organization of th at discussion.
The new theory of juncture proposed here accounts for the facts of variable
rule applications at morphological junctures based on the extension of X-bar theory
to morphology. More precisely, this thesis proposes a theory to replace the
theories of morphological juncture of the structuralists, the theory of word
boundaries of Chomsky and Halle (1 9 6 8 ) and the theory of Lexical Phonology of
M ohanan (1 9 8 6 ). All of these previous theories have been w idely criticized yet no
alternative has been proposed th a t can successfully avoid the theoretical
difficulties.
The theory of morphological juncture in this thesis avoids the criticism s of
other theories by isolating and solving a problem in the data th a t other theorists
have been forced to include in their accounts of juncture. Particularly, this theory
claims th a t in previous theories the organization of the morphology mistakenly
included an account of the order and distribution of the subgroups of English affixes
(the Class I and Class II affixes) as part of the theory of morphological juncture. It
w as assumed th a t since the morpheme junctures formed by the addition of these
affixes contribute to the variations in rule application, then the theory of juncture
should also account for the order and distribution of these affixes.
The present proposal explains the order and distribution of the Class I and
Class li affixes outside the theory of juncture by demonstrating th a t these facts are
best explained by the principle of locality in morphology. By removing this problem
from the description of juncture it is possible to simplify other aspects of the
phonology. Specifically, it is possible to extend the X-bar theory to morphology in a
form th a t is consistent w ith phrase-level X-bar theory. This extension of phrase-
level X-bars to word-level m akes it possible to improve the generality and precision
of the word form ation rules th at attach affixes. Furthermore, it is possible to use
the word-level X-bar theory to predict the application of the various, phonological.
XV
morphological and morphophonemic rules that require information about the
morphological junctures.
This dissertation then actually makes three proposals: it proposes a new
analysis for the facts of the distribution of the Class I and Class II affixes; it
extends the X-bar theory to morphology; and finally, it presents a theory of
morphological juncture based on the word-level X-bar theory. The last of these
proposals is the m ost important and the focus of this dissertation, but it crucially
depends on the successful im plementation of the first tw o . The extension of X-bar
theory is not possible w ithout the reanalysis of the Class I and Class II affixes, and
the new theory of juncture depends on the new version of word-level X-bar theory.
Previous attem p ts to extend X-bar theory to word level are either significantly
unlike the phrase-level version (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 , Selkirk 1 9 8 2 ) due to their efforts to
include a description of the Class I and Class II affixes, or they do not address the
issue of the Class I and Class II affixes at all (Walinska de Hackbeil 1 9 8 5 , Jensen
1 9 8 1 ) thereby adding extra theoretical machinery to the theory of grammar without
accounting for a large amount of the data; that is, they arrive at a description of
some miscellaneous problems of morphology but these theories still require some
apparatus to explain the Class I and Class II facts.
In order to present this three-step proposal properly it is necessary to review
the literature and theories of these three distinct areas. Thus the discussion of the
relevant literature and pertinent theories becomes a bit cumbersome. The
organization w e have chosen for this thesis begins w ith a presentation of the data
and the history of the discussion of morphological juncture. This first chapter
describes the theoretical preliminaries of the present thesis and gives a history of
the three theories th at seek to explain the facts of morphological juncture. Much of
the history of the treatm ent of the Class I and Class II affixes is mixed in w ith the
treatm ent of morphological juncture, but w e felt it w as necessary to include a
description of the history of this problem at the end of this chapter. In the
following chapter w e present the analysis of the Class I and Class II affixes and
propose a new version of the locality principle that accounts for the order and
distribution of these affixes independently of the theory of juncture and the X-bar
theory. Once the Class I and Class II affixes are described, the next chapter
demonstrates the extension of the theory of phrase-level X-bars to morphology
w ithout morphologically specific modifications. In the fourth chapter w e propose a
theory of morphological juncture based on the distribution of the Class I and Class II
affixes. The last tw o chapters of this thesis present a discussion of the different
theories of juncture and an analysis of the facts of M alayalam to demonstrate that
this theory is capable of describing the facts of at least one language other than
English.
CHAPTER ONE
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
1 .1 . INTRO D UCTIO N
This thesis proposes an alternative theory to account for the facts of
morphological juncture. Current theories such as the theory of word boundaries of
Chom sky and Halle (1 9 6 8 ) and the theory of Lexical Phonology of Mohanan (1 9 8 6 )
account for this data a t a rather high cost to the theory of grammar and are subject
to considerable criticism. The proposal presented in this thesis can account for the
facts of morphological juncture w ithout succumbing to the criticisms of earlier
theories and w ith o u t the addition of complex theoretical mechanisms. In fact, the
theory proposed here actually lessens the amount of formalisms that are required.
The new theory of juncture proposed in this theory is based on the extension
of X-bar theory to morphology. Other theories have proposed X-bar fram ew orks for
morphology but w ere either unable to formulate an X-bar fram ew ork th at was
consistent w ith phrase-level X-bar theory or w ere unable to account for all the facts
of morphology. The X-bar fram ew ork presented in this thesis is both consistent
w ith phrase-level X-bars and able to account for all the morphological facts.
This presentation requires three preliminary steps: first, it is necessary to
review the theory of juncture; second, it is necessary to discuss the facts of English
affixation in order to illustrate and solve the main problem in formulating a theory of
juncture; and third, it is necessary to discuss the extension of X-bar theory to
2
morphology. Once these preliminaries are dispensed w ith , it is possible to
form ulate a theory of morphological juncture based on the X-bar theory.
There are tw o main problems to formulating a theory of morphological
juncture: the first, is the problem of the status of the different elem ents placed
within the phonemic string to serve as markers of morphological boundaries.
Theorists object to the notion of elements in the phonemic string th at have no
phonetic realization, but have been unable to avoid them except w ith the equally
unacceptable notion of a subdivided lexicon. The second problem posed by the
asym m etrical distribution of the tw o subgroups of affixes in English (the Class I and
Class II affixes). Specifically, there is an overlap in the distribution of these affixes
that makes it very difficult to predict their distribution. The Class I affixes attach to
both bound stem s and free stem s while the Class II affixes attach only to free
stems. The overlap of distribution of the tw o groups of affixes in the case of free
stems m akes a simple characterization of their distribution impossible. Other
theories have discussed the account of the Class I and Class II affixes, but they
have not noted th at the asym m etrical distribution com plicates the formulation of a
theory. This problem is brought out more clearly in the review of the previous
literature w hich follow s this section.
This first chapter outlines the data to be considered, review s the literature,
and describes the obstacles to the formulation of a theory of juncture. In the last
part of this chapter it is possible to discuss the facts of the Class I and Class II
3
affixes in a m anner th at illuminates the difficulties these affixes pose for the theory
of juncture.
1 .1 .1 . The Facts of Morphological Juncture. This section is organized into
three parts; 1) an overview of the phenomena to be considered, theoretical
assumptions, and preliminary definitions, 2) a review of the literature, and 3) a
discussion of the problems that prevent a simple formulation of a theory of
morphological juncture. Before preceding to a discussion of the history of the
theories, it m ay be useful to present a set of examples of the phenomena to be
considered and the sort of data th at must be accounted for in a theory of
morphological juncture. These examples provide a short overview of the
phenomena th a t lead linguists to conclude th at it is necessary to allow certain rules
to be sensitive to different sorts of morphological juncture. The motivation for this
conclusion comes from the fact th at certain phonological, morphophonemic, and
morphological rules are either triggered or blocked by the presence or absence of
different concatenations of different classes of morphemes. The study of the types
of morpheme concatenations th at can occur is the study of morpheme junctures.
One of the m ost common examples used to illustrate the influence of
morphological junctures on phonology is the contrast betw een night rate, nitrate
and nye-trait (Trager and Smith 1 9 5 6 , Aronoff and Kean 1 9 8 0 , Stanley 1 9 7 3 , etc.).
There is a difference in the pronunciation of the phoneme /t / in these three forms
th at cannot be described in terms of the phonemes in the environment, but can be
described in term s of the different kinds of morphemes th at are concatenated. In
4
order to encode these differences theorists posited elements called boundaries or
junctures at the edges of morphemes. These elements have no phonetic
characteristics of their own but are signalled phonetically only by their effect via
the phonological rules' (Stanley 1 9 7 3 ). As linguistic investigations broadened in
scope from structuralism through the American Descriptivists to the most current
theories of generative linguistics, theorists demonstrated that these boundary
elem ents influenced the applications of a variety of different phonological,
morphological, syntactic and even semantic rules.
W hile the theories of the structuralists and of generativists like Chomsky and
Halle (1 9 6 8 ) used phoneme-like elements called either boundaries or junctures, tw o
theories attem pted to account for this data w ithout the use of boundaries or
junctures. Pyle (1 9 7 2 ) proposed that Global Constraints on phonological rules
could replace boundaries and Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) argued that dividing the lexicon into
multiple levels could explain the facts. W e return to a discussion of these theories
in 1 .2 .2 .2 and 1 .3 .2 .0 .1 .
1 .1 .2 . Theoretical Preliminaries. This thesis is conceived within the
fram ew ork of the theory of generative linguistics. The work presented here is
consistent w ith the theory of generative linguistics currently being investigated at
M IT and other institutions. H ow ever, the formulations provided here are also
compatible w ith other theories that use the X-bar fram ew ork such as Lexical
Functional Grammar or Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar.
This thesis accepts the w ork of Aronoff (1 9 7 6 ) as the basis of the theory of
morphology. Particularly, w e adopt his conception of the W ord Based Hypothesis
(W BH), and the notions of base, stem , and W ord Formation Rule (W FR). These are
defined in Chapter 2 as they are not directly relevant to the present discussion.
There are three sorts of morphologically conditioned phenomena that any
theory m ust account for; 1) the application of stress rules, 2) the application of
other morphophonemic rules at varying boundaries, and 3) the application of the
morphological rules th a t attach affixes and form compounds and the correct
distribution and order of the different types of affixes w ith the different kinds of
stem s. Some theorists argue th at certain rules of syntax and sem antics also need
to refer to these same boundaries, but the use of boundaries by these components
of the grammar is not w idely accepted and is also of a rather limited nature. For
reasons of length this thesis is limited to a discussion of the problems that occur in
morphology and phonology. This thesis also limits itself to a discussion of English
and M alayalam examples. Of course, w e assume that the theory is applicable to all
languages. The examples w e use to illustrate the three types of morphologically
sensitive rules are chosen primarily from the discussions of Chomsky and Halle
(1 9 6 8 ) and Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ). The three kinds of rules referred to are described
next.
1 .1 .3 . Stress Rules. Stress rules frequently need to refer to the facts of
hierarchical morphological information. For example, stress rules must be sensitive
to different classes of affixes. English affixes can be separated into tw o groups
based on w hether or not certain rules are either triggered or blocked by their
presence. These are the Class I and Class II affixes. Typical examples of Class I
affixes are: in-, -ity, -ic; typical examples of Class II affixes are: un-, -ness, -less
(Siegel 1 9 7 4 , Selkirk 1 9 8 2 , and Mohanan 1 9 8 6 ). One exam ple of this is the w ell-
known rule of stress shift in English. Example (1) below illustrates the fact that
stress shift occurs in words w ith Class I affixes but not in words w ith Class II
affixes. The affix -ity is a Class I affix and the a ffix -ness is a Class II affix.
(1) (From Scalise 1 9 8 6 :8 1 )
/
. *. / .
curious curiosity curiousness
lucid luc/dity lucidness
In these form s stress shifts to the right in the presence of the Class I affix -
ity, but stress does not shift to the right in the presence of th e Class II a ffix -ness;
th at is, the rule th at shifts stress to the right only operates w hen Class I affixes are
present. Thus the application of the stress rules needs to refer to different classes
of affixes. Other rules of stress also need information about the hierarchical
structure of words in order to apply correctly.
1 .1 .4 . Morphophonemic Rules. Morphophonemic rules and some
phonological rules need to refer to the hierarchical structure of words in order to be
correctly triggered and blocked. In some cases the rules are sensitive to differing
morphological structures and in others the beginnings and ends of words are
relevant to the application of a particular rule. These are illustrated in (2) and (3).
7
(2) The assibilation of Itl. (Chomsky and Halle 1 9 6 8 :8 6 , Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :5 )
Rule 1 I I I - > /s/ / ___ + i
In this rule the /t / in words affixed w ith Noun-forming -y undergo a change
to Is/. W ords affixed w ith A djective- forming -y do not.
Class I - + y Class II- # y
president - presidency chocolate - *choclacy
The rule of /g / deletion is also conditioned by the type of affix th at is
attached. (Chomsky and Halle 1 9 6 8 :2 3 4 , Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :2 3 ). This rule explains
the variable deletion of the stem final /g / in pairs like, loq ~ loqger, and log ~
logiq.
(3) Rule 2 /g / deletion,
g - > 0 1 ___#
loQg logg + er lorjg If igg
R2 R2
lorj lorjg er lorj ig
1 .1 .5 . Morphological Rules. Morphological rules also need to be sensitive to
morphological juncture. This is discussed in some detail in Chapter 2 , but for the
present, it is enough to point out that the morphological rules that attach affixes
require junctural information to account correctly for their distribution (Aronoff
1 9 7 6 , Allen 1 9 7 8 ). For instance, affixes need to know a t least the category of the
word to which they attach and inflectional affixes need to distinguish the difference
betw een ends of words internal to compounds from ends of words. This is
necessary to insure th at the truck of firetruck not the fire receives a plural marker
when these forms are used in the plural.
The discussion of the phenomena of boundaries and junctures reaches back
to the 1 9 4 0 s ' structuralist researches through several major changes in linguistic
theory to the present. There are a number of terminological issues th at could be
confusing since the theories define these terms differently. The terms in question
are: juncture, boundary, form ative, morpheme, and morph. I begin w ith a
discussion of the words juncture and boundary.
There is some ambiguity and overlap that has occurred in the literature
regarding the terms juncture and boundary. The ambiguity and overlap result from
the interaction of the different assumptions and goals of different theories of
grammar. In early structuralist explanations of the junctural data the structuralists
posited elements called junctures at the edges of morpheme concatenations
(Aronoff 1 9 8 0 :3 0 ). The rigid separation of the components of grammar required in
the structuralist fram ework compelled the structuralists to treat junctures as
9
phonemes (Aronoff 1 9 8 0 :3 1 ). In fact, in some structuralist works they are
included in the list of phonemes. Later linguists (Chomsky and Halle 1 9 6 8 , Stanley
1 9 7 3 , Siegel 1 9 7 4 , etc.) used the term boundary to refer to their conception of this
phenomena. For these authors, boundaries are introduced either in the lexicon or
by rules w hich operate on the surface structure syntactic string. Chomsky and
Halle (1 9 6 8 ) actually use the term s juncture and boundary synonymously (Chomsky
and Halle 1 9 6 8 :3 6 4 ), but they generally use the word boundary.
This paper uses the term juncture to refer to the shared edges of
concatenated morphemes; that is, I simply use the term to refer to the meeting
place of any tw o morphemes of any sort. The word boundary is used to refer to
units postulated as markers of these junctures and inserted in those positions
(either in the lexicon, the syntax, or the morphology).
These term s are more precisely defined in (4) and (5).
(4) Juncture - the meeting point of any tw o morphemes.
(5) Boundary - a boundary is a nonphonetic unit th at is inserted into the
phonological string to represent the facts of morpheme junctures.
Both term s are used in order to discuss the different w ays of describing the
phenomena th at occur at morpheme junctures such as; boundaries (Chomsky and
Halle 1 9 6 8 ), Global Constraints (Pyle 1 9 7 2 ), strata (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 ), or labeled
10
brackets (this thesis). Thus, in this thesis, the term juncture is used to refer to the
overall phenomena th at are described in (1 .1 .3 ) through (1 .1 .5 ) while the term
'boundary' is used to refer to the particular theoretical construct that has been
offered by Chomsky and Halle (1 9 6 8 ) and other similar theories.
The term s morph, m orphem e, and form ative all occur throughout the
literature and require a statem ent as to their use in this thesis. From the tim e of
the early structuralists the term s morph and morpheme referred to the minimal units
of word structure. M orphem e is used as the morphological equivalent of phonem e
and morph is used as the morphological equivalent of a/lophone. For exam ple, the
plural markers Iz l, is/, and Idzl are morphs of the plural m orphem e /z/. In later
discussions the term a/lomorph is used. Chomsky and Halle introduce the term
form ative which is equivalent to m orphem e. This thesis refers to the term
morpheme as in conventional use. This thesis uses it throughout and avoids use of
the term form ative.
Finally, the term s 's te m ', 'bound stem ', 'free s te m ', and 'w o rd ' are used
frequently in this in chapter and need a formal definition. Chapter T w o introduces
terminology th at is specific to the proposal of this thesis but in this chapter it is
necessary to be precise about the terminology th at is used to discuss the literature.
The term 'stem ' refers to any morpheme that a word form ation rule can a ffe c t. A
'bound stem ' refers to stems th at cannot stand as words in the syntax. This
includes words like to/er- of tolerable and requite of requited. A 'free stem ' refers
to any morpheme that can stand as a word in the syntax. This refers to both
11
simple, monomorphemic items such as table or sw im and com plex words such as
tolerable or theatricality. W ord and 'free stem ' are coterm inus but the term 'free
stem ' is used w hen a morphological process is being discussed such as 'the prefix
un- attaches only to free s te m s ...' The word 'w ord' is used in all other
circum stances. Later in Chapter T w o the term 'fragm ent' is introduced to
distinguish 'bound stem s' which are potential words, such as requite of unrequited,
from 'bound stem s' w hich are not potential words, such as to/er- of tolerable. This
distinction is not relevant to the discussion of the history of the theories of
morphological juncture.
Throughout this thesis the term segment-like boundaries is used to refer to
the boundaries provided by certain theories; this is because in some theories these
boundaries are thought to share only a fe w properties of phonemes, while other
theories (m ost notably the Descriptivist school of Am erican linguistics) conceive of
the boundaries as phonemes. The term segment-like is used to prevent the
assumption th a t properties of the boundaries should parallel the properties of other
segm ents, w hile at the same tim e indicates that these boundaries are seen as
elem ents th a t are sufficiently 'existent' to be inserted in a word string or to be
present in such a manner th at rules can refer to them . Segm ent-like is formally
defined in (6).
(6) Segm ent-like - an item , particularly an elem ent postulated as a
representative of a particular concatenation of morphemes is said to be segm ent-
12
tike w hen it has the property of being a unit of structure but lacks any phonetic
characteristics of its ow n.
1 .2 . HISTO RY OF THEORIES OF JUNCTURE.
This history of the literature traces the developments of the different
theories of morphological juncture from the earliest structuralist writings to the
present. This section is divided into three subsections: 1) the structuralists, 2) the
generativist word boundary theory, and 3) the generativist alternatives to word
boundaries. W ithin each of these subsections the theories discussed are ordered
chronologically.
1 .2 .1 The ta rly Structuralists. The early structuralists w ere aware of the
influence of morphological junctures and described those influences in their
morphological analysis (Harris 1 9 4 2 , Hockett 1 9 4 7 ). How ever, early analyses did
not attem p t to explain these phenomena and simply introduced the junctures as
parts of the phonemic string. Throughout the history of this discussion linguists
have regularly pointed to one main obstacle to the formulation of a theory of
morphological juncture. Specifically, these linguists argued that the nature of the
theory required that the different components of the grammar be rigidly separate
(c.f. Aronoff and Sridhar 1 9 8 3 ). Thus in order to allow the phonology access to
the relevant morphological information, the theories of juncture encoded
morphological information in segment-like elements inserted in the phonological
string.
13
Pike (1 9 4 7 ) is the first to describe junctural phenomena. On the state of the
art at the tim e of his writing he said,
I cannot recall a careful discussion of th e problem . I am under the impression,
h o w e v e r, th a t som e w orkers in th e field are tending to w a rd the conclusion th a t
junctures are phonem es of som e sort.
Pike w as referring to the writings of Z.S . Harris, C. G. Hodge and others.
M oulton (1 9 4 7 ), and Stockw ell, Bowen, and Silva-Fuenzelida (1 9 5 6 ) also proposed
structuralist descriptions th at regarded junctures as phonemes.
Pike (1 9 4 7 ) then raised the questions th a t underlie any discussion of this
phenomena; 1) are these junctures segments of some sort, and if they are, why
do they have no phonological characteristics of their ow n, and 2) are these elements
a part of the phonology, morphology, or syntax.
Aronoff (1 9 8 0 ), discussing the developm ent of these ideas among the American
Descriptivists of the 19 4 0 s and 19 5 0 s , offered a discussion of the main problems that
faced linguists who sought to formulate an account of morphological juncture.
According to Aronoff the Descriptivists adopted the idea th at boundaries were
phonemes because they had no alternative. Their theory of linguistics rigorously
insisted th a t the different components of gram m ar w ere separate and therefore
anything th at could a ffe c t the phonology had to be part of the phonological string.
This w as their working assumption but also 'their greatest problem' (Aronoff
1 9 8 0 :3 1 ). The junctures had an obvious connection w ith the morphology and syntax
but they w ere unable to express this. This forced the conclusion that the boundaries
14
w ere phonemes of some sort even if they did not have any phonetic features of their
ow n.
This problem of the phonemic notion of the junctures persisted until Chomsky
and Halle (1 9 6 8 ) rejected the strict notion of autonom y of the com ponents and simply
w rote a rule th at inserted boundaries in the morphological string based on the
categories of the syntactic tree structure and the labeled brackets of the phonemic
string. This is discussed in the following section.
1 .2 .2 . The Generativists. This section discusses the developm ent of the theory
of juncture w ithin the theory of generative linguistics. There are three proposals that
seek to explain these phenomena in generative linguistics: 1) the word boundary theory
of Chomsky and Halle (1 9 6 8 ), 2) the Global Constraint theory of Pyle (1 9 7 2 ), and 3)
the theory of a multistratal lexicon of Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ). These theories are presented
in th at order.
1 .2 .3 .1 . THE W O R D BOUNDARY THEORY
1 .2 .3 .1 .1 . Chomsky and Halle (1 9 6 8 ). Chomsky and Halle (1 9 6 8 ), (henceforth
SPE) w ere the first to propose a theory of word boundaries in generative linguistics.
Their theory has been used in the majority of generative studies since it w as first
proposed. It presented an analysis of morphological juncture th at treated the junctures
as boundaries of varying, hierarchically organized strengths. These boundaries were
introduced either by a series of insertion rules or in the lexicon, and w ere then modified
15
or reassigned by readjustm ent rules. SPE began w ith a discussion of segments,
phonology and the structure of sentences. In the course of this discussion it
developed the theory of word boundaries.
Preliminary to an outline of this theory it is necessary to outline SPE's concept
of a surface structure. For SPE the surface structure
... of a sentence is precisely the proper bracketing of a string of fo rm a tiv e s w ith the
bracketed substrings (the phrases assigned to categories selected fro m a certain fixed
universal set of categories).
(SPE:8). The exam ple th ey gave is repeated here as (6).
(6)
s
i
—I
VP
I
i
V NP
if
JL
I r
STEM
I I
+we+ +establish+ +pa&t+ +tele+ +graph+ +ic+ +communic ate+ +ion+
(6) illustrates the principle of bracketing that is assumed in SPE and this
labeled string served as the basis for the rule th a t inserts the word boundaries. The
' + ' boundaries w ere present in the lexicon. The boundaries w ere later inserted
by a rule th at places a on either side of every lexical and phrasal category.
16
(7)
# # ft + w e + # # # # # + establish + # + p a s t+ # # # # + te le + + g ra p h + #
+ ic + # # # + communicate + # + io n + # # # #
SPE (p. 13) defines word as (8),
(8)
... a string of form a tiv e s (one or m ore) contained in th e c o n tex t tttf # # and
containing no occurances o f # # .
SPE theory uses three boundaries; and ' = '. These boundaries are
hierarchically ranked (p. 3 7 1 ) {SPE frequently refers to the terminus of a word as
##).
The word boundary ('# ') is assigned to,
... each lexical category (e.g. noun, verb, adjective) and each category th a t dom inates
a lexical categ ory (e.g. sentence, noun phrase, verb phrase) au to m atically carries a
boundary sym bol # to th e le ft and to the right of the string th a t belongs to it (i.e ., th a t
it dom inates, in tree representations such as (4), or th a t it brackets, in bracket
representations such as (5)) (p. 1 2 -1 3 ).
SPE's (4) and (5) are repeated here above as (6) and (7). Later (p. 3 6 1 ) they
reformulated this definition but its consequences remained the same. The
morpheme boundary (' + ') (formative boundary in SPE terms) w as a part of the
entry in the lexicon.
The + sym bols represent form ative boundaries w h ic h , by convention, auto m atically
m ark the beginning and end of a fo rm ative, (p. 9).
17
The equals boundary (' = ') w as proposed to prevent the application of an
instance of the main stress rule of SPE in words such as: p erm it (N or V ), concur,
com pel and deter. This boundary w as of rather limited use and w as criticized as ad
hoc (Aronoff and Kean 1 9 8 0 :3 6 ), so it will not be discussed here.
These three boundaries had features specifications which kept them
separate from one another and from phonemes. Thus all boundaries w ere distinct
from phonemes because of the feature [-segm ent]. The features for formative
boundary [ + FB] and word boundary [ + WB] distinguished the different boundaries:
tt w as [-segment, -FB, and + W B ], + was [-segm ent, -WB and + F B ], and = w as [-
segm ent, -FB and -WB] (SPE:67).
These boundaries could be modified by a set of 'readjustm ent rules' that
w ere largely unspecified and undefined. One of the fe w readjustment rules
mentioned in SPE deleted the occurrences of the boundaries before the phonetic
output of the string (SPE: 10),
... the "readju stm en t rules" relating sy n ta x and phonology m ake various other
m odifications in th e surface structures. It see m s th a t in general these m odifications
involve elim ination of structure, th a t is, deletions of nodes in representations such as
(4) [6]o r of paired b rackets in representations like (5) [7].
This passage is cited here not only to illustrate the nature of readjustment
rules but also to give some indication of the level of psychological reality these
gram m atical devices had in the theory of SPE. They also state that there are rules
th at convert '# ' to ' + ' (p. 3 6 8 ). The need for deletion rules indicates, that the
18
structures, nodes, and boundaries w ere taken as units even if they w ere specified [-
segm ent]; th at is, they had some kind of psychological reality as elem ents in the
string. This point becomes more im portant later in the critique of the different
theories of morphological juncture.
Some insight into the possible power of the readjustm ent rules is given when
they stated, '... replacing some occurrences of # by + (p. 1 3 ). This possibility
is also refereed to in a later discussion of boundaries (p. 3 6 8 ). It is further stated
(p. 3 6 7 ),
In addition to convention (1 1 5 ) [the boundary a s sig n m ent convention) there are
language specific rules governing the presence of # . C o nceivab ly, th e re m ay be rules
th a t introduce tt in various positions not specified by convention (1 1 5 ) , although w e
k n o w of no clear exam p les of this; but there are as w e shall see, rules th a t delete # in
various places.
These quotes indicate the excessively powerful nature of the readjustment
rules. It w as a simple m atter to w rite any kind of readjustm ent rule given these
fe w precedents. Boundaries could be replaced, rew ritten, deleted or added w ithout
hesitation.
On the nature of the boundaries them selves SPE stated (p. 3 7 1 ), 'In our
treatm en t, boundaries are units of a string, on a par in this sense w ith segm ents.'
H ow ever they continued.
Boundaries fun ctio n rather d ifferently fro m th e d iffe re n t ty p e s of c o n s titu e n t m arkers
(labelled brackets) in th a t they play a role in determ ining the application of the
phonological rules of the transform ational cycle.
19
The rules of phonology in SPE were applied cyclically in complex words; that
is, all rules w ere allowed to apply within every occurrence of '# # ' and '# # '
beginning w ith the innermost and continuing outward until the outer limits of the
word w as reached (p. 2 6 ). The application of rules in this cyclic manner w as
required for predicting the application of the stress rules of English.
1 .2 .3 .1 .2 . S tanley. Stanley (1 9 6 9 ) and Stanley (1 9 7 3 ) added more detail
to the theory presented in SPE. Stanley (1 9 6 9 ) demonstrated th at Navajo requires
at least six hierarchically ordered boundaries. Stanley (1 9 7 3 ) proposed a 'n ew
approach' to word boundaries based on his investigation of the facts. Stanley first
investigated tw o things: 1) 'the nature of the principles th at assign boundaries to
the underlying phonological representation on the basis of the surface structure',
and 2) 'the w ays in which the phonological rules are sensitive to these boundaries'.
Stanley isolated three possible w ays th a t rules might be influenced by
boundaries; 1) a rule could be blocked by a particular boundary, 2) a rule could be
w ritte n to require a particular boundary, and 3) a rule could be w ritten to require a
particular boundary or any stronger boundary. These three types of boundary
interactions are called, blocking, ranking, and delineating respectively. W e continue
to use these term s throughout this paper.
The need for boundaries to be ranked in strength from higher to lower w as
m entioned in SPE for the three boundaries of th a t theory. Stanley (1 9 7 3 ) proposed
20
th a t the six different boundaries posited in his 1 9 6 9 w ork on Navajo must also be
ranked hierarchically.
Stanley's approach to the assignment of boundaries took three steps; 1) for
lexical items w ith complex internal structure, boundaries w ere listed in the lexicon
w ith the word (the only boundaries assigned in the lexicon in SPE are the form ative
boundaries); 2) as in SPE, Stanley assigned all other boundaries by insertion rules
based on the surface structure of the sentence (though his rules differed from those
of SPE1; and 3) Stanley, again like SPE, had an elaborate set of adjustm ent rules to
w eaken various occurrences of
While S tanley's paper added much needed theoretical detail to the theory of
word boundaries proposed in SPE, it also suffered from some of the same problems
as SPE. Particularly, the readjustment rules w ere remarkably powerful and made
the theory unfalsifiable. Stanley's decision to limit the insertion of word boundaries
to lexical categories but not to phrases probably made this theory incapable of
dealing with certain rules of stress, but it would have been easy enough to reextend
the word boundary insertion rule to include phrasal categories w ithout damaging
Stanley's approach. Actually, the only substantive changes Stanley made in the
SPE formulation were; 1) the addition of word boundaries in the lexicon for words
w ith complex internal boundaries (this may actually have been SPE's original
1 Actually, he differs by not assigning word boundaries on either side of the higher
level categories such as NP and AP. This is sufficient for the data covered in Stanley's
paper: how ever there are stress rules that need to refer to the NPs as opposed to N's
and these require boundaries
21
intent), 2) limiting word boundaries to lexical categories, and 3) deriving the
difference betw een Class I and Class II affixes w ith readjustm ent rules (this w as
probably necessary for an account of these affixes in SPE as w ell, but they did not
go into this problem in detail).
Stanley's treatm ent of the Class I and Class II affixes represented an
important departure from the SPE theory. SPE recognized the role these affixes
played in the application of rules, but the method of assigning boundaries to the
tw o subgroups of affixes w as determined haphazardly. W henever the Class I
affixes w ere attached to a bound stem the appropriate ' + ' boundary would be
present from the lexicon and the rule that inserts '# ' would not apply because
bound stems do not receive category labels. The Class II affixes w ere preceded by
a '# ' in all cases because they always attached to free stem s (not bound stems).
H ow ever, in those cases where the Class I affixes w ere attached to free words
they would be preceded by the '# ' boundary just like the Class II affixes. This was
not explicitly discussed in SPE and there were some problems w ith it, but the
readjustm ent rules could presumedly be used to avoid problematic cases. The
problem cases would have been those words that were made up of a Class I
morpheme and free stem . These pose a problem because they overlap w ith the
Class II affixes which also attach to free stems. This is discussed thoroughly in
Chapter 2. Stanley's main contribution was his description of the w ays th at rules
can interact w ith boundaries.
22
1 .2 .3 .1 .3 . Siegel. Siegel (1 9 7 4 ) investigated tw o aspects of the theory of
morphology; the theory of case in English and the nature and distribution of word
boundaries. The form er does not concern the present thesis and is not discussed,
the latter is important in the history of the developm ent of the theory of
morphological juncture.
In Siegel (1 9 7 4 ) and siegel (1 9 8 0 ) she argued that the ' = ' boundary of SPE
could be eliminated by reanalyzing the rules of stress in the case of lexically derived
words. A fter establishing th at there are only tw o types of boundaries, she argued
th at the Class I and Class II affixes w ere marked as such in the lexicon by the
inclusion of the ' + ' boundary w ith Class I affixes and the boundary w ith the
Class II affixes (Siegel 1 9 7 4 :1 5 1 ).
The nature of the Class I and Class II affixes is thoroughly discussed in
Chapter 2; for present purposes, it is enough to note that this is a departure from
the SPE treatm ent of ' + ' and that leads to a simpler account of the stress rules
of English.
There w ere three reasons that Class I and Class II affixation needed to be
separated: 1) the affixes separated into tw o groups based on the facts of their
subcategorization (Class I affixes attached to both free words); and bound stems
while Class II affixes attached only to free words. 2) the Class I affixes w ere never
found outside of Class II affixes, which suggested that all Class I affixes w ere
attached prior to all Class II affixes. 3) certain phonological rules w ere either
23
triggered or blocked depending on which of the tw o groups of affixes w as attached
to a w ord. Thus, in order to account for the distribution of these affixes, Siegel
(1 9 7 4 ) suggested that it w as necessary to divide the operation of morphological
rules into ordered levels.
Siegel pointed out th a t Class II affixes w ith certain exceptions did not attach
to stem s, w hile Class I affixes attached to either stems or words. She says.
T o s ta te th e distributional fa c ts in a condition on w o rd fo rm a tio n is to claim th a t the
distribution of the tw o typ e s of a ffix e s is totally arbitrary. W h e n faced w ith a situation
like this, one a lw a y s w a n ts to discover deeper principles of g ram m atical organization
w h ic h could predict the observed fa c ts .
She therefore presented the first proposal for the reordering of the lexicon
into ordered sections. This proposal is repeated in (9).
(9)
A. In English, Class I a ffix a tio n precedes Class II a ffix a tio n .
B. T h e cyclic stress assignm ent rules fo llo w Class I a ffix a tio n and precede Class II
a ffix a tio n .
1 .2 .3 .1 .4 . Allen. Allen (1 9 7 8 ) presented a study of the principles of word
form ation in morphology and the manner in which these principies interact with
other components of the grammar. Allen's thesis presented four proposals for
morphology: 1) a constraint on the application of phonological and semantic rules
called the 'Strong Boundary Condition;' 2) a principle for the ordering for
24
morphological rules called the 'Extended Ordering Hypothesis,' 3) a characterization
of the notion 'possible w ord' called 'Overgenerating Morphology'; 4) a condition on
the application of word form ation rules called, the 'Adjacency Condition'. While
the notions expressed in (3) and (4) are pertinent to the discussion of morphology
in Chapter 2 of the present thesis, they do not contribute to the discussion of the
description of morphological juncture. Numbers (1) and (2) how ever, are of
relevance to the present discussion. In particular, the Extended Ordering
Hypothesis provided some of the groundwork for dividing the lexicon into strata as
in M ohanan (1 9 8 6 ) (discussed in 1 .3 .2 .1 0 ). The extended ordering generalization
w as proposed to extend the affix ordering generalization of Siegel (1 9 7 4 ) so as to
include compounds. It is illustrated in (10).
( 10 )
1. Level I: Class I ( + ) affixation.
2. Level II: Class II (#) affixation.
3. Level III: Compounding.
The Strong Boundary Condition merits equal concern in a discussion of
morphological juncture; how ever, it m erely proposed a constraint on boundaries as
proposed in SPE and developed in Stanley (1 9 7 3 ) and Siegel(1 9 7 4 ). This
constraint insured th at phonology and semantics w ere able to refer to the same sort
of boundary phenomena. A ffixation in Allen's theory introduced boundaries in a
manner that w as slightly more constrained than readjustment rules of SPE (p. 7 5 ).
W e say 'slightly' more constrained because the rules of affixation had to be applied
25
in a similar manner in each instance that they w ere applied, how ever, there w as
little independent motivation for the type or number of boundaries that w ere
introduced. Allen's statem ent (96 ) is repeated here as (1 1 ).
(11)
'T h e outputs of jrv, un-. and non- p refixation are;
#[in + l [X] #; # [u n 0] [X] 0; # |# n o n # l [tTK» ]#
Concerning the Strong Boundary Condition for Negative Prefixes Allen says
7 4 -5 :
...it is necessary to m ake a th re e -w a y distinction b e tw e e n the n eg ative prefixes 'in -',
'u n -', and 'n on -' in each of three com ponents of the g ram m ar; th e phonology, the
morphology, and th e sem antics. I have pointed o ut th a t th e necessary distinctions could
be m ade simply by listing inform ation about the phonological, m orphological and
sem an tic behavior of each p refix. H o w ev e r, if this analysis w e re correct, th e n w e
w ould not expect to find any sys te m atic correlations b e tw e e n th e d iffe re n t aspects of
th e behavior of each prefix. But w e do find s y s te m a tic ity ... C o nsequently, I claim th a t
a single structural property is responsible for th e m u lti-fa ce te d behavior of each
prefix...B oundaries seem to be good candidates for th e d istinctive 'stru ctu ral p ro p erty'
of negative p refixes...
Thus she proposed (12)
( 12)
T h e Strong Boundary Condition fo r N egative Prefixes. In the m orphological structure
X B SY , no rule m ay involve X and Y so as to change any ele m e n t of X or Y ; w h e re Bs is
a strong boundary (3 S is a lw a ys interpretable as tttt, som etim es as #).
26
Thus while Allen did not replace any of the theoretical mechanisms
developed in SPE, Stanley (1 9 7 3 ), or Siegel (1 9 7 4 ) she added substance and detail
to the earlier theory.
1 .2 .3 .1 .5 . A ronoff. Aronoff (1 9 7 6 ) presented a form alization of the
principles of word form ation. He described the facts of morphology in English and
proposed a theory to account for them . His theory did not accept the description of
word boundaries in Siegel (1 9 7 4 ) and sought to form ulate the definition of word
boundaries on the basis of his own w ork on WFRs.
(13) (Aronoff 1 9 7 6 :8 2 )
(A) T here are as m any types of boundaries as there are points in phonological
derivation at w h ic h W F R 's m ay operate.
(B) T h e boundary is determ ined by the point of th e operation.
(C) T h e phonological cycle is determ ined by + boundary W FR s: there is a
cycle fo r every such W FR .
(D) T h e re are no global phonological conditions on W FR s.
Besides these four points Aronoff (1 9 7 6 ) also improved the description of
the affixes. For exam ple, he argued that there must be tw o affixes in -able one
associated w ith the ' + ' boundary and the other associated w ith the boundary.
The evidence cited in Aronoff is too complicated and lengthy to be repeated here,
h ow ever, he used evidence from stress, allomorphy, and truncation to support the
analysis of tw o -able affixes. In the allomorphy evidence he cited he clearly
27
dem onstrated th a t the differences betw een the tw o -able's is not 'one of kind but
of degree', and therefore th at the 'sound and the meaning of the boundaries are not
arbitrarily but system atically linked.' (Aronoff 1 9 7 6 :1 2 9 ). Based on this distinction
he concludes, 'Boundaries are therefore part of linguistic structure or theory, and
have no substance.' For a detailed discussion of this data the reader is referred to
A ronoff (1 9 7 6 ).
Thus A ronoff disagreed com pletely w ith the structuralists w ho thought that
these item s w ere phonemes and it seems th at he disagreed w ith the SPE position
th a t these elem ents are [-segment] units th at are present in the phonological string.
If I interpret A ronoff correctly he seems to say th at the boundary elem ents placed
in the string are m erely useful mnemonic devices for the linguist to encode w h at a
speaker knows about the degree of strength of particular concatenations of
m orphemes.
Aronoff and Kean (1 9 8 0 ) edited a volume of articles devoted to the
investigation of m atters of juncture. Articles th at are relevant to this w ork are cited
in other sections of this paper.
1 .2 .3 .1 .6 . Criticisms of the SPE theory. The SPE treatm ent of word
boundaries w as w idely used but it w as not w idely accepted. The main complaints
people had about this theory w as th at it w as excessively pow erful, unfalsifiable, ad
hoc, and counterintuitive. The possibility of counterevidence was completely
removed by the power of the readjustm ent rules and the segment-like nature of the
28
boundaries w as an un avoidable jerry-rigging th a t most theorists would have
preferred to avoid. Stanley (1 9 7 3 ), Siegel (1 9 7 4 ) and Allen (1 9 7 8 ) improved the
theory of w ord boundaries of SPE but none of them w ere able to replace the
readjustm ent rules or the problems caused by the segment-like nature of the
boundaries.
1 .2 .3 .2 . GLOBAL CONSTRAINTS
1 .2 .3 .2 .1 . Pyle (1 9 7 2 ). In this paper the author claimed th a t there were
fundam ental problems w ith the system of segment-like boundaries and proposed an
account of juncture based on the addition of Global Constraints on phonological
rules which allowed phonological rules to look back at the derivation. Specifically,
Global Constraints w ere rule specific statem ents about the morphological structure
of the words being affected by the phonological rule. This ability to look at the
derivation (the tree structure) gave the phonological rules the same information that
the boundaries did, but it avoided the problems of the w ord boundaries.
According to Pyle the use of Global Conditions avoided all of the above
problems and still accounted for all of the relevant data. W hile Pyle raised some
interesting questions about the nature of boundaries as segments these arguments
in them selves w ere not sufficient to dismiss boundaries and adopt Global
Constraints. Particularly, since the notion of Global Constraints w as equally as
undeveloped and overpowerful as the readjustment rules of SPE.
29
1 .2 .4 . LEXICAL PHONOLOGY
1 .2 .4 .1 . Mohanan. Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) presented a theory of juncture that
com pletely diverged both from the word boundary fram ew ork as described in the
previous three sections and from the junctures of the structuralists.
Mohanan began his book w ith a discussion of the order of attachm ent of
affixes in English. He accepted the division of the lexicon into ordered levels as in
Siegel (1 9 7 4 ) and Allen (1 9 7 8 ) but he took it one step farther.
On the earlier work on this m atter Mohanan (1 9 8 6 :5 1 ) said;
Recall th a t th e original m o tivation fo r stra tu m ordering in Lexical Phonology w a s
th e discovery th a t asym m etries in m orphological distribution (e.g. class 2 derivations
can be attached to strings containing class 1 derivation, b ut n ot vic e versa) correlated
w ith differences in the behavior of phonological rules w ith respect to these
morphological process....
Mohanan sought to explain the distribution of the Class I and Class II affixes,
and its relation to compounding and inflection by dividing the morphology into four
levels. In particular this theory proposed that the rules of morphology w ere divided
into four blocks of application represented as the four strata of the lexicon and that
these four blocks were sequentially ordered. A fter motivating the first tw o strata
based on the facts of the Class I and Class II affixes, Mohanan then demonstrated
that it w as possible to account for all the distribution and ordering facts of English
morphology using stratal theory. Mohanan also claimed that the word boundary
30
system of SPE can be eliminated by assigning the application of the relevant
phonological rules to different blocks. Part of the motivation for replacing the
theory of word boundaries w ith the theory of Lexical Phonology w as the fa c t that
the word boundary system of SPE w as unacceptable on theoretical grounds, the
segment-like nature of the boundaries seemed counter-intuitive to m any linguists
and their insertion by rules and their rearrangement by readjustm ent rules appeared
ad hoc and unm otivated. Mohanan claimed th at the ordering of the rules into the
different strata avoided these problems. Mohanan, like SPE, assumed th at bound
stem s, w ords, and affixes all received individual listings in the lexicon and th at the
Class I and Class II affixes w ere marked as such. A fter the application of all the
rules of a particular stratum have applied, the brackets w ere erased; that is,
structural information from previous strata w as not available at later strata.
Mohanan posited four strata and a postlexical level for the rules of English
(Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :2 8 ).
(14)
Stratum 1: Class I affixation +
Stratum 2: Class II affixation #
Stratum 3: Compounding ##
Stratum 4: Inflection ## ##
There w as aiso a postlexical-level in this theory which refers to rules that
applied any tim e the phonemes of their structural description w ere present
31
regardless of w h eth er or not any boundaries w ere or were not present. This level is
not generally listed w ith the strata.
The strata of Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) roughly corresponded to the word boundaries
of SPE as in the right column in (1 4 ). SPE did not accept the notion of a
postlexical-level. T hey state.
T h e term "m orphophonem ic representation seem s to us appropriate only if there is
another linguistically significant level of re p resentatio n, interm ediate b e tw e e n lexical
(phonological) and phonetic and m eeting th e conditions placed on "phonetic
rep resentations" in m odern structural linguistics.
The correct order of the Class I and Class II affixes w a s guaranteed by the
attach m en t of all Class II affixes after all Class I affixes. M ohanan's four strata are
given in (1 5).
( 15)
Stratum 1: Class I affixation (e.g. in-, -ity, -ian, etc.)
Stratum 2: Class II affixation (e.g. un-, -ness, -less, etc.)
Stratum 3: Compounding (e.g. blackboard, doorbell)
Stratum 4: Inflection (e.g. plural, past, etc.)
In a review of this theory (Hargus 1 9 8 9 ), it w as pointed out th at Mohanan
did not justify these levels, he merely accepted them on the basis of Siegel's
original suggestion. Siegel's argum ent in favor of this division was solely based on
the fa c t th at the order and distribution of the Class I and Class IIaffixes was
32
predictable. She fe lt that by merely noting this she missed a generalization about
the grammar; consequently, she claimed that this predictable order of the affixes
w as the result of the organization of the lexicon.
Mohanan accepted Siegel's analysis and separated Class I and Class II
affixation into the first tw o strata. Since Class I derivational affixes do not attach
to compounds and since a number of Class II affixes do not a ttach to compounds
Mohanan (following Siegel 1 9 7 4 and Allen 1 9 7 8 ) separated compounding into the
third stratum . Also the rule of 'stem final tensing' (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :2 6 ) in some
Am erican dialects needs to be ordered a t stratum 3. Finally, inflection w as listed in
the fourth stratum because inflectional endings attach to all words of all previous
levels (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :4 0 ). Thus, just like Siegel (1 9 7 4 ) and Allen (1 9 7 8 ),
Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) correctly accounted for the main facts of the distribution of the
Class I and Class II affixes, compounds, and inflectional affixes. Later it is
demonstrated th at there are some counterexamples to this th a t question the entire
notion of lexical divisions.
Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) w e n t beyond Siegel (1 9 7 4 ) and Allen (1 9 7 8 ) by removing
the word boundaries com pletely. In order to account for the application of the
morphophonemic rules that needed to refer to these boundaries, Mohanan argued
th at the application of all morphophonemic rules occurred in the lexicon. The
application of these rules within the lexicon was accomplished by assigning the
different phonological rules to particular strata as their 'dom ain' of application. The
33
assignment of the morphophonemic rules to the lexicon in this manner made it
possible to eliminate the word boundaries.
The theory of Lexical Phonology required th at each stratum be autonomous.
T hat is, all words had to pass through all strata in sequential order, and further,
once a word had passed through one level it could no longer return to th at level.
Mohanan states (1 9 8 6 :4 8 );
... a form is scanned fo r rule application a t every lexical s tra tu m , independently of the
num ber of brackets it contains. Thus, even a m onom orphem ic form in English passes
through fiv e cycles of rule application, four lexical and one postlexical.
This principle had some counterexamples in cases w here some compounds
(attached at stratum 3) are affixed w ith Class II affixes (attached at stratum 2). In
order to account for these problematic cases Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) used a device called
the loop (originally proposed in Mohanan 1 9 8 2 ) which connects strata 2 and 3.
Mohanan described the loop as, 'A loop is a device that allows the output of
stratum n to move back to stratum n -1 .' He does limit looping to adjacent strata
but he leaves open the possibility of more powerful looping if the evidence should
require (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :5 2 ).
One of the most notable of the counterexamples is the word
ungram m aticality (Selkirk 1 9 3 2 , Aronoff and Sridhar 1 9 8 3 ). In this word the Class
I affix -ity has been attached after the Class II affix un- . Since Class I affixes are
attached at Stratum One and Class II affixes are attached at Stratum T w o it is
impossible for this to occur. Since there is nothing unusual about the attachm ent
34
of -ity to ungram m atical this is a clear counterexam ple to the claims of Lexical
Phonology. It is impossible to argue th at the un- w as attached to gram m aticality
since un- does not attach to nouns.
1 .3 .3 .4 . Criticisms of this theory. The fact th at segment-like word
boundaries could be eliminated in Mohanan w as a point in its favor. W hile the word
boundaries presented in SPE w ere useful to account for the data, they were
theoretically problematic; they w ere ad hoc, counterintuitive, and unfalsifiable (see
A ronoff and Kean 1 9 8 0 for discussion). W hile the theory of Lexical Phonology
enjoyed some popularity because it replaced the segment-like boundaries, it had
some rather serious problems of its own. Specifically, critics have charged that the
subdivision of the lexicon into different levels w as ad hoc and counterintuitive. The
addition of the notion of the loop made the theory unfalsifiable.
In sum m ary, the main reason for the separation of the lexicon into the four
strata w as the facts of the distribution of the different kinds of affixes w ith respect
to the sorts of stems they affected and the rules th at applied to them . Particularly,
the contrastive distribution of the Class I and Class II affixes and the predictable
order of attachm ent of these tw o affixes motivated the first tw o strata. The latter
tw o strata w ere m otivated by the facts of compounding and inflection. In the
cases where the strata theory broke down (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :5 0 ), the device of the
loop allowed a return to earlier levels. Finally, there w as also a postlexical level that
contained all the phonological rules that did not refer to morphological information.
35
This level w as necessary for the application of rules th a t do not refer to
morphological structure.
1 .3 . S U M M A R Y A N D C O NCLUSIO NS
1 .3 .1 . Discussion o f the Class I and Class II affixes. In the course of the
discussion of the developm ent of the theories of morphological juncture, the central
role of the Class I and Class II affixes became apparent. The discussion of the
different groups of affixes goes back to the structuralist days, but it w as not until
Siegel (1 9 7 4 ) th at they w ere specifically referred to as the Class I and Class II
affixes. Before this they w ere merely referred to as the stress neutral and stress
nonneutra! affixes. Their role in the application of the different rules w as
recognized, but early structuralist accounts did not need to consider them since the
junctures they postulated w ere phonemes th at could be posited whenever the rules
indicated. SPE assumed th e readjustment rules would take care of any difficult
cases th a t might occur and thus did not discuss them . Siegel (1 9 7 4 ) fixed the
boundaries of these groups and proposed a partial listing of them . She also
proposed the first division of the lexicon based on the behavior of these affixes.
Besides playing a role in the application of phonological rules, the attachm ent
of these affixes raises questions about the nature of the word formation rules and
the nature of their order and distribution.
There are three main theories th at seek to explain the distribution of the
affixes. The proposals take three different approaches. SPE sought to explain the
data as a function of segmental boundaries introduced by the word tree structures
betw een the various morphemes. In the SPE theory the fact th at there w ere tw o
separate groups of affixes is simply stipulated. The order of the tw o groups w as
not discussed in SPE, but Siegel (1 9 7 4 ), working within the SPE fram ew ork,
argued th at the order needed to be described. This resulted in the first subdivision
of the lexicon.
Selkirk (1 9 8 2 ) explained word formation using phrase structure rules and X-
bar theory. In her theory the separation of the affixes into tw o groups w as simply
stipulated, but she claims that the order of the tw o Classes of affixes relative to
one another follows from her theory. In Selkirk's theory morphemes are divided
into 'roots' and 'w ords' and 'affixes'. The Class I affixes attach to 'roots' and
Class II affixes attach to 'w o rd s'. The fact that Class I affixes never attach outside
of Class II affix is thus a result of the fact that the attachm ent of Class II affixes
alw ays creates a word which creates a form that is unacceptable for the Class I
rules. For Selkirk all the 'w ords' which take Class I affixes are simply converted to
'roots' by a rule. This rule which converts words to 'roots' is circular and ad hoc.
In a word like lucidity (see exam ple (1) above) the word lucid has undergone the
'w o rd ' to 'root' in order to be available for the attachm ent of -ity. In the case of
lucidness the word lucid has not undergone the 'w o rd ' to 'root' rule. The 'w o rd ' to
'root' rule does generate the correct results, but it is clearly ad hoc and circular.
37
The theory proposed in this paper does not have this problem, since the attachm ent
of the affixes is not dependent on the operation of a rule.
The theory proposed in Chapter T w o predicts the facts of the Class I affixes
w ithout either a rule like the 'w ord' to 'root' rule of Selkirk (1 9 8 2 ), or the need to
subdivide the application of the rules into sequential strata. The facts of
distribution and order, follow as a consequence of the subcategorizations that are
made possible by the Im mediate Dominance Condition.
From the preceding discussion it is apparent that the role of the distribution
of the Class I and Class II affixes has been discussed but the details of the problem
have not received much attention. The facts of the Class I affixes are the main
difficulty to formulating a theory of morphological juncture. In fa c t, none of the
theories proposed so far has satisfactorily accounted for the data. The SPE
fram ew ork w as able to account for this data but it did so w ith the overly powerful
readjustment rules. Siegel (1 9 7 4 ), Allen (1 9 7 8 ), and Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) claimed to
have solved the problem w ith the different strata, how ever, there w as problem with
these theories th at renders them useless. Specifically, I am referring to the fact
that besides marking all affixes as to the stratum at which they attach, these
theories had to also mark all words; that is, the words th at are affixed with Class II
affixes had to be marked in some w ay to prevent them from being affixed at the
first level (the Class i level). If the words that take Class II affixes must be marked
anyw ay, it would be better just to mark all words as to which class of affixes they
take rather than subdivide the lexicon. In a theory th at does not subdivide the
38
lexicon the affixes are in competition for any one form and thus the need to mark
the w ords does not occur. How ever, in the theories w ith the divided lexicon all the
Class II affixes are unavailable at the first level, so some kind of marking is required
to m ake sure those th at do not take Class I affixes do not. The words must be
marked for particular strata in order to prevent their affixation at level one.
In conclusion, this chapter has illustrated three things; 1) the data to be
accounted for and 2) the history of the theories that are form ulated to account for
these phenomena, and 3) the tw o major obstacles to the formulation of a theory of
morphological juncture; the problem of the segment-like nature of boundaries and
the asym m etries in the distribution of the Class I and Class II affixes.
CHAPTER T W O
THE IMMEDIATE DOMINANCE CONDITION

AND LOCALITY IN MORPHOLOGY
2 .1 . INTRODUCTION
The discussion in the previous chapter indicated that the major obstacle to
the formulation of a theory of morphological juncture is the asym m etrical
distribution of the Class I and Class II affixes. This chapter presents an analysis of
the Class I and Class II affixes th at is independent of the theory of juncture and
thus simplifies the form ulation of a theory of morphological juncture. Specifically,
this chapter proposes th at w ith a slight modification in the theory of locality in
morphology it is possible to explain the fact that the English affixes separate into
tw o groups and th at the order of these tw o groups of affixes relative to each other
is predictable. This modification in the theory of locality also indicates th a t it is
possible to account for the variable application of phonological rules at morpheme
junctures w ithout the use of segmental boundaries (SPE) or the reorganization of
morphological rules into ordered levels (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 ).
Particularly, this chapter argues th at in order for W FRs to attach affixes to
words, the WFRs must be sensitive to the category of the word to w hich it
attaches, and to the categories im m ediately dominated by th a t category. Evidence
from the distribution of the affixes un-, in-, -m ent, -ary and noun forming -al
indicate th at current theories of locality such as Siegel (1 9 7 7 ) and W illiam s (1 9 8 1 )
miss a generalization about the distribution of these affixes. Since the iocality
40
condition proposed here is based on the notion of im m ediate dominance, the
condition is called the 'Im m ediate Dominance Condition'.
This analysis builds on the morphological fram ew ork developed in Aronoff
(1 9 7 6 ). The terms 's te m ', and 'b ase', and the notion of the 'W ord based
hypothesis' are accepted w ithout modification. These term s are repeated here as
(1) - (3) below.
(1) The W ord Based Hypothesis (Aronoff 1 9 7 6 :2 1 ).
All regular w o rd -fo rm a tio n processes are w ord based. A n e w w o rd is form ed
by applying a regular rule to single already existing w o rd s . Both the n e w w o rd and the
existing one are m em bers of m ajor lexical categories.
(2) Base (Aronoff 1 9 7 6 :2 6 ).
The base of any word is the w ord from which it is derived. (Emphasis
added.)
(3) Stem (Aronoff 1 9 7 6 :1 2 5 ).
For any word, th at which consists of the word minus the affix is the
stem.
In addition this paper introduces the term 'fragm ent' to distinguish a bound
'stem ' that is not a potential word from a bound stem which is a potential word.
An example of a bound stem that is a potential word is requite of requited; an
41
example of a bound stem that is not a 'potential w ord' is toler- of tolerable. A
'potential w ord' is assigned a category in the lexicon, while the bound stems that
are not 'potential w ords' are not assigned a category. I take the term 'potential
w ord' from Mohanan (1 9 8 6 :1 7 ), w ho makes a similar distinction. The term
'fragm ent' is defined in (4).
(4) Fragment.
Those stems which have neither a meaning nor a lexical category as in (5).
(5)
toler able
in im it able
sub m it
serendip ity
T w o other term s that are required are 'unanalyzable' (synonymous with
simple) and 'analyzable' (synonymous w ith complex). These are defined in (6) and
( 8 ).
(6) Unanalyzable or Simple W ords.
An unanalyzable or simple word is one which has no internal morphological
structure. That is, it is monomorphemic. It has no internal boundaries or brackets.
42
(7) Simple Word Examples.
clear
even
fair
W innebago
W eyauw ega
secure
(8) Analyzable or Complex Words.
An analyzable or complex word is one which has an internal morphological
structure. It is polymorphemic and has internal brackets or boundaries.
(9) Complex Word Examples.
toler able
sens itive
w ait ed
black board
dis band ed
In a theory th at accepts the W BH, words made up of a fragm ent and an affix
such as tolerable are entered into the lexicon in tw o w ays. In some cases these
43
words are borrowed into the language from French or Latin. In other cases WFRs
operate on the borrowed forms and are followed by truncation. For example,
assuming th a t tolerate is the form that is borrowed from Latin, the word tolerable is
created by the WFR th at attaches -able operating on tolerate and follow ed by the
truncation of -ate. (10 ) from Aronoff (1 9 7 6 :8 8 ) describes this process.
( 10 )
A tru ncatio n rule d eletes a m orphem e w h ic h is internal to an a ffix , in th e follow ing
general m anner:
[ [root + A (affix)) X + B (affix)] Y
1 2 3 ==>
1 J6 3
w h e re X and Y are m ajor lexical categories.
All th e rules of truncation w hich I have found in English apply e x a c tly like the
abo ve schem a; th a t is, they apply before su ffixes, and only w ith + boundary affixes.
I k n o w of no general reason w h ic h w ou ld explain this, and th e restrictions m a y w e ll be
accidental as far as I am concerned, and as fa r as our theo ry predicts.
The introduction of the notion 'fragm ent' along w ith the Im m ediate
Dominance Condition permits WFRs to predict the distribution of affixes more
accurately then current theories. The separation of affixes into Class I and Class II
can be explained in term s of a restriction on the subcategorization of Class II affixes
which the Class I affixes do not have. The order of the tw o groups of affixes can
also be predicted using independently required principles.
Class I affixes are those affixes which can be attached to w ords th at are
made up of either a fragm ent and an affix, or words th at are made up of a stem
and an a ffix as illustrated in (11 ) and (1 2 ).
(11) ( 12 )
/
F
A\ af af N af af
mitig ate ed learn abil ity
Class II affixation is illustrated in (13)a and (13)b . (13)a gives an example of
the attach m en t of a Class II affix, (13)b illustrates the affects of the Class II
restriction and (1 3)c dem onstrates a WFR that attaches un-. This WFR includes the
Class II restriction that prevents a WFR from attaching the affix to a word
(adjective) whose category im m ediately dominates a noncategory.
(1 3)a (1 3)b
un believe able *un tang ible
(1 3)c un- - - > [A [x

(X 4 fragment)
45
(14 ) - (1 7 ) provide some examples of Class I and Class II affixes. This list is
partially taken from Siegel (1 9 7 4 :1 0 7 ) and Selkirk (1 9 8 2 :9 4 )'. The suffix un- is
included in the Class II affixes in this list. Siegel and Selkirk do not include this
affix in their lists.
(1 4 ) Prefixes
Class I: [in-]2, [de-], [para-], [con-], ...
Class II: [ex-], [un-], [non-], [pro-], [anti-], ...
(1 5 ) Suffixes
Class I: l-ary], [-al], [-m ent], [-ous], [-ity], [-ive], [-ate], [-ory].
[-al], [-ify], [-ate], -ion], [-ic], [-able]3, noun forming [-y] ...
' There is some disagreement about these affixes. For this thesis I accept these
as a starting point. I am aw are of no w ork that makes an exhaustive and definitive list
of either of the tw o groups of affixes.
2 These exam ples are listed in conventional English orthography. The brackets are not
m eant to indicate a transcription.
3 Following A ronoff (1 9 7 6 ) w e separate the affix -able into tw o . One which is Class I and
the other Class II. The argum ent for this separation is quite com plicated but is not crucial to
the present discussion. The reader is referred to A ronoff (1 9 7 6 ) for a complete discussion.
46
Class II: [-less], [-ness], [-er], [-ize], [-ish], [-ly], [-able],
adjective forming [-y] ...
(16) and (1 7) give some examples.
(16) Prefixes
Class I Class II
in’ veter a te ’ anti2 commercial
de' em phas ize’ pro2 abortionist
(17)
Class I Class II
habitu a te ’ hope less2
felic ity ’ happy ness2
Before discussing the distributions of the affixes in detail, the principle of
locality needs to be discussed more fully.
2 .2 . LOCALITY RESTRICTIONS
Principles of locality are designed to restrict the ability of rules to refer to the
internal structure of the items they affect. A principle of strict locality is one which
prohibits a rule from referring to any internal structure. Thus, in morphology, a
principle of strict locality would prevent a WFR from referring to any of the
47
information contained in the internal structure of a complex w ord. (1 8 ) and (19)
illustrate this principle:
(18)
u n ^ J^likeJ^] able ] ]
A V V af af A
(19)
in [ [ comprehense ] [ible] 1
af A
In a theory th a t accepts a principle of strict locality, W FRs can not refer to
any of the information that is contained in the internal brackets. For exam ple a rule
which attaches the affix un- to a word can only state that this affix attaches to
adjectives4. The WFR th at attaches the affix in- also can only refer to the fact that
the word to which in- attaches is an adjective. While this characterization is
correct it does not allow one to capture all the facts about the regularities of the
distribution of un- and in-. The information th at (19) is a latinate w ord and thus is
negated by in- rather than un-is not available in a word like incomprehensibility
because the principle of strict locality prevents the WFR from referring to the word
internal feature [ + latinate] of the word comprehend. The type of affix which
4 I am only discussing un- which negates an adjective. The un- which contradicts the word
to which it attaches as in unbind and attaches to a variety of categories is n o t being considered
here.
48
creates the adjective (in com plex words) can not be relevant information for the
W FR nor can the category of the word contained within the complex word nor any
other information contained inside the outermost brackets. The only information
th at is available to the WFR in a theory that assumes strict locality is the outermost
category and the features associated w ith the complex w ord.
Using examples similar to the case of un- and injust discussed, authors
have demonstrated th at this version of locality is too strict and th at ft fails to
correctly predict the distribution facts. Siegel (1 9 7 7 ) and W illiam s (1 9 8 1 ) propose
conditions on the principle of locality that allow morphological rules to refer to a
limited amount of internal structure. These theories are discussed in section 2 .7 .
2 .3 . CLASS I AND CLASS II AFFIXES
As stated earlier the theory I propose here claims th a t it is necessary to
allow WFRs to refer to tw o levels of structure rather than just one. In this theory a
W FR is allowed to refer to the category of the word to be affected and to the
categories th at are im m ediately dominated by th a t category. This principle is called
the Im m ediate Dominance Condition. In order to m otivate this condition it is
necessary to review the facts of Class I and Class II affixation.
The main problem th a t prevents a simple description of the facts of the
distribution of the Class I and Class II affixes is the fact th a t the Class I affixes
attach to both fragments and stems. Class II affixes attach only to words. If Class
49
I affixes attached only to fragm ents and Class II affixes attached only to stems the
explanation could be w ritten using one rule which referred to 'fragm ents' (in the
case of Class I affixes) and one rule which referred to 'stem s' (in the case of Class
II affixes). Since this is not the case it is necessary to find a means of writing rules
for the overlapping environments.
Tables (1) and (2) illustrate the distribution of the Class I and Class II affixes.
Table 1 Class I and Class II affixes in unanalyzable words
Fragments Words
Class I YES YES
felic ity 1 timid ity1

spuri ous1 splendor ous1
NO YES
Class II *felic ish2 green ish2

‘ toler ize2 stabl ize2
In analyzable words the affixes are sensitive to immediate dominance. Table
(2) shows w hether or not the category of the word to which an affix can attach is
allowed to im m ediately dom inate a word or fragment. The Class I affixes are
divided into Class la and Class lb to portray a variation in distribution that forms a
subclass of the nonneutral affixes. This is discussed in the next section of this
chapter.
50
Table 2 Class I and Class II affixes in analyzable words.
Fragment + af W ord + af
(noncategory) (category)
Class la YES YES

toler able ity learn able ity
Class lb YES NO
orna m ent al *em ploy ment al
Class II NO YES
*un toler able un stop able
The separation of Class ! into la and lb does not change the membership of
Class I. Class II affixes (the stress neutral affixes) can still be described as those
affixes which have a restriction which prevents them from attaching to a word
whose category immediately dominates a noncategory. Class I affixes can still be
described as 'all others', but now this group includes tw o types. Class lb affixes
are those which have a restriction that prevents them from applying to words
whose category immediately dominates another category as in (2 2 ) above. The
Class la affixes are the affixes which have no such restriction. Since the fact that
the subclasses within Class I do not change the distribution of affixes in terms of
stress shift and other phonological rules, the major distinction betw een Class I and
Class II is maintained.
51
2 .4 . THE IM M E D IA TE D O M IN A N C E C O N DITIO N
In order to account for the distribution of the Class I and Class II affixes as
illustrated above, I propose the 'Im m ediate Dominance Condition', as a replacement
for the earlier locality restrictions. The Im m ediate Dominance Condition allows the
affixes to be sensitive to information of more than one level of structure by
allowing them to refer to the categories im m ediately dominated by the category of
the word being affixed. The separation of affixes into tw o classes is a result of the
different possible subcategorizations th at are allowed by this condition.
(23) The Im m ediate Dominance Condition.
A WFR can refer to the lexical category to which it attaches plus the tw o
nodes immediately dominated by th at category.
For exam ple, in the case of the Class II affixes there is a stipulation th at says
th at these affixes cannot attach to a category th at dominates a noncategory.
(24) af - > [ [
X Y
(W here Y must be a category)
(25) and (26) illustrate this principle;
52
(25) (26)
\A
af V
' \ af af
I I I
un2 believe able *u n 2 toler able
un- cannot attach to tolerable because in this word the 'A ' node immediately
dom inates a noncategory. In these examples the Immediate Dominance Condition
plus the stipulation for Class II affixes prevents a Class II affix from being attached
in a form such as (2 6 ) where the 'A ' to which it attaches im m ediately dominates a
noncategory5.
The Class lb affixes are those which have a restriction th a t prevents them
from attaching to a word whose category immediately dominates a category. A
good exam ple of a Class lb affix involves words ending in -m ent and followed by --
at, (e.g. ornamental) and words ending in -m ent and followed by -ary, (e.g.
docum entary) discussed in Siegel (1 9 7 7 ). Siegel cites these examples as possible
problems for her theory, since the notion of adjacent elements does not allow for an
explanation of the variable attachm ent of -al. This is because the affix -m ent is the
adjacent elem ent to -a l in all cases. These affixes, however, provide a very clear
exam ple of Class lb affixation. Examples are provided in (27) a -d.
5 T h e a ff ix in - c a n n o t a tta c h t o t h e fo r m in ( 2 5 ) b e c a u s e , in g e n e r a l, in - c a n n o t a tta c h to
a w o r d w h o s e c a te g o r y im m e d ia te ly d o m in a te s a c a te g o r y .
53
(27)
a b
orna m ent al •em ploy ment al
regi m ent al •discern ment al
supple m ent al •contain ment al
instru m ent al •derange ment al
c d
testa m ent ary •em ploy ment ary
docu m ent ary •discern ment ary
comple m ent ary •contain ment ary
sedi m ent ary •confine ment ary
In (a) through (d), note th a t -ary and -al can attach to some but not all words
ending in -m ent. Particularly, w h a t w e find is that -ary and -al can attach to words
m ade up of a fragm ent plus -m ent as in (a) and (c), but they cannot attach to words
th a t are made up of stem s plus -m ent as in (b) and (d).
In order to account for this variation, Siegel (1 9 7 4 ) proposes that the
attachm ent of these affixes must be extrinsically ordered to prevent the generation
of the forms in b and d. The Im m ediate Dominance Condition makes it possible to
include a restriction on the WFRs that attach -ary and -al to forms like F]m ent]N that
states th at these affixes cannot attach to words whose category immediately
dominates a category (as in [N[v employ ]v [„, -ment]a,]N. Thus examples that are
54
counterexamples for Siegel (1 9 7 7 ) are actually support for the theory proposed
here. Also the need to order the affixes is unnecessary in this theory.
Given th at the different groups of affixes are distinguished by the differences
in subcategorization, w e can now explain their order relative to one another. As
w as stated before, the Class I affixes are rarely found outside of Class II affixes.
Forms like ungram m aticality make it difficult to say that all Class I affixation
precedes all Class II affixation since in these cases the affix -ity, a Class I affix, is
attached after un- which is a Class II affix. Since un- attaches only to adjectives it
must have been attached to grammatical. It is therefore necessary to conclude that
-ity attached after un-.
These forms are actually correctly predicted by the proposal put forth in this
paper, un- correctly attaches to gram m atical and -ity can be attached to
ungram m atical because it is not prevented from applying by strictly ordering all
Class I affixes after all Class II. The affix -ity is a Class la affix in the theory
proposed here; th at is, it attaches to both fragm ents and words. It is thus not
blocked from attaching to a word like ungrammatical.
There is some question as to w hether or not the form gram m at of
ungram m atical is a fragment or a rephonologized word; thus it is necessary to ask
w hether or not gram m at should be treated as a fragm ent separately from the word
gram m ar or w hether gram m at should be treated as the form gram m ar th a t has had
the /r/ changed to a It/ by an idiosyncratic phonological process. For this exposition
55
g ram m at is listed as a word. Since this paper accepts the W ord Based
Hypothesis, claiming th a t gram m at is a fragm ent requires th a t the word
gram m atical be listed as a separate entry in the lexicon along side gram m ar. This is
impossible in a theory th a t accepts the W ord Based Hypothesis because fragm ents
cannot receive a separate listing in the lexicon. This also opens the door to claims
th a t many other rephonologized forms are also fragm ents such as sensu- of
sensual. In th at case sensual would also have to be given a separate lexical entry
from sense. Thus in keeping w ith the W BH w e argue th at sensu- and gram m at- are
rephonologized forms and the lexical entries are gram m ar and sense.There is little
danger of fragments being mixed in w ith these rephonologized words because there
is no lexical entry in such cases; that is, forms such as toler- do not have lexical
entries. This is illustrated in (28) below.
(28)
/\
un2 gram m at ical ity 1
(29) illustrates the order of affixes. In general class I affixation precedes
Class II affixation (even though forms like ungram m aticality m ake it impossible to
state this categorically).
56
(29)
fear less2 ness2 *fe a r less2 ity1
green ish2 ness2 *green ish2 ity1
This has caused linguists (Siegel 1 9 7 4 , Selkirk 1 9 8 2 , Mohanan 1 9 8 6 , etc.) to argue
th at there m ust be some explanation of this almost universal constraint on the order
of affixes in English. They therefore argued th a t the order of attachm ent of the
affixes m ust be fixed.
Given the theory proposed here, how ever, the fact that Class I affixes
seldom occur outside of Class II affixes can be shown to follow from the
differences in their subcategorizations. This explanation requires tw o steps; first
the Class II affixes (those w ith the restriction on noncategories) apply before all the
Class I affixes th a t have no such restriction as a result of the 'Elsewhere Condition'
of Kiparsky (1 9 7 3 ). It is not possible to account for the facts of the relative order
of the Class I and Class II affixes w ithout the Elsewhere Condition because of
contrasts like fearlessness - *fearlessity. Both -ity a Class I affix and -ness a
Class II affix both can attach to adjectives, the fact th at ity cannot attach to
fearless is generally explained as a result of the fact th at Class I affixes cannot
attach outside of Class II affixes. Since affixes are allowed to attach to adjectives
there m ust be some other principle that predicts their attachm ent. The Class II affix
-ness has the restriction th at prevents it from being attached to adjectives which
are made up of a fragm ent and affix. The Class II affix therefore has a structural
description th a t is more detailed than th a t of -ity and the Elsewhere condition
predicts th at in such situations the rule w ith the more detailed structural description
should be applied first. The Elsewhere Condition is repeated in (30) below.
(3 0 ) (from Kiparsky 1 9 7 3 :9 4 ):
T w o a d ja c e n t rules o t th e form
A -> B / P _ Q
C -> D / R_ S
are disjunctively ordered if and only if:
•A. T h e set of strings th a t f it P A Q is a subset of the s e t of strings th a t

fit RCS; and
B. T h e structural changes of th e tw o rules are either identical or

incom patible.
Since the attachm ent of Class II affixes specifies a more particular structural
description than the attachm ent of affixes w ithout such a restriction, the Class II
affix must be attached first. The examples in (29) above illustrate this. In the
exam ples in (2 9 ) the suffix -ness subcategorizes for tw o levels of structure and the
suffix -ity does not. Thus the suffix -ness has a more specific subcategorization
than -ity.
Simply restated, the Elsewhere Condition states that if tw o rules are in
com petition for application on one form, the rule w ith the more specific structural
description will take precedence over the other. This explains w hy Class II
affixation, which refers to tw o levels of structure, applies before all those Class I
affixes th at refer to only one level of structure. This is a w idely accepted principle
58
in phonology and there seems no logical reason w h y its application should be
restricted to phonology.
The second step in predicting the order of the affixes involves the Class lb
affixes like -merit, and -a!. The Elsewhere Condition does not predict th a t the Class
II affixes will be attached before the Class lb affixes because, rather than being less
specific than the Class II affixes, these Class lb affixes are equally as specific as the
Class II affixes. Class lb affixes refer to a restriction on w h a t the category of the
word to which they attach can dominate just like the Class II affixes. Thus, in
these cases both the Class II affixes and the Class lb affixes are referring to tw o
levels of structure. The Elsewhere Condition is therefore not applicable. In the
examples in (27) above it is illustrated th at the Class lb affixes have a restriction
that prevents them from applying to a word whose category immediately dominates
another category (e.g. *em ploym ental contrasts w ith ornamental).
In these cases the Class lb affixes do not follow the Class II affixes because
the attachm ent of a Class II affix creates the structure th at is forbidden in the Class
I affix.
(31)
-al,b attaches to ] ] (where X category)

X N
-ness2 attaches to ] ] (where X ^ noncategory)

X A '
Any attachm ent of a Class II affix creates the forbidden ]x ]Y structure,
where the category im mediately dominates a category. Since Class II affixes never
59
attach to a fragm ent there will also never be a word made up of a noncategory
followed by a Class II affix. One hypothetical case would be a word like to/erness.
2 .5 . EVIDENCE FROM OTHER AFFIXES
The Im m ediate Dominance Condition can also be adopted to explain other
phenomena as w ell. There are a number of affixes in English th at are sensitive to
the same sort of internal structure as demonstrated above. One such example is
noun forming -a / which attaches only to fragm ent plus affix combinations. I have
only found tw o counterexam ples to this (from W illiam O 'G rady personal
com m unication), these are urinal and trial.
(32)
dis pose al
re fuse al
re verse al
pro pose al
com m it al
be tray al
re triev al
Aronoff (1 9 7 6 :1 1 6 -1 7 ), discusses some verb/noun pairs ending in -m ent
((33)a). These words contrast w ith a number of other Ns in -m en t that cannot have
a verb counterpart ((33)b).
60
(33)
3 b
V or N N not V
orna m ent employ m ent
imple m ent discern ment
comple m ent contain ment
supple m ent confine ment
frag m ent derange ment
seg m ent abut ment
aug m ent inter ment
regi m ent
supple m ent
Although A ronoff's reason for citing these differences is to investigate
w hether the V or the N is basic, for this theory it does not m atter which is basic,
the words in (a) are made entirely of fragm ents plus -m ent, while those in (b) are
m ade of verbs plus -m ent. It does not m atter which form is chosen as the basic
form (either N or V ), w h a t m atters is that the W FR that derives one from the other
needs to be sensitive to exactly the same sort of internal structure th at in-, un-, -
ary, -a I w ere sensitive to (see (34) below).
(34) ] m ent] -- > V

F N
61
It might be argued th at verbs in (33) are actually generated, but they are
blocked or filtered out due to the existence of verbs such as employ or contain.
This, how ever, implies th at words like em ploym ent are actually generated and then
filtered out. The mechanism proposed in the Im m ediate Dominance Condition is
simpler, since there is no reason to consider overgeneration and filters. Only the
correct forms are generated in the first place. The rule of verb formation is blocked
in cases w here there is a full w ord, but allowed in a word m ade up of a fragm ent
plus a suffix. The N - - > V word form ation rule needs to distinguish betw een the
tw o structures illustrated in (35):
(35)
a b
1I I ]
F N X N
(where X f noncategory)
The facts of the distribution of un- and in- can also be explained by the
Im m ediate Dominance Condition. One point th at is often not clearly made is that
these prefixes are in com plem entary distribution in most situations6.
Un- appears either on adjectives that are unanalyzable native roots as in
(3 6)a or on analyzable adjectives th a t are derived words as in (36)b.
6 There are a fe w exceptions to this, such as inhuman — unhuman or immoral - unmoral

(M archand 1 9 6 9 ) or pairs such as indispensable — undispensab/e b ut these are quite rare and
th ey generally exhibit a meaning difference and it is thus possible some other principle such
as com positionality is in operation here.
62
(36)
a b
un clear un bear able
un afraid un believe able
un fit un bend ing
un fair un relent ing
un buri ed
un wound ed
un health y
In unanalyzable words in- is attached to fragm ents, and to some borrowed
adjectives (e.g. from Latin and French) as in (37)a. In analyzable words, in
attaches to words made up of a fragm ent plus an affix as in (37)b.
(37)
a b
in ept in tang ible
in sipid in toler able
in ert in judi cious
in pure in numer able
in human in fidel ity
in firm in filic ity
63
The facts above can be restated in terms of restrictions on attachm ent. In
unanalyzable words the prefix un- cannot attach to borrowed simple words or to
fragm ents. In analyzable w ords, un- cannot attach to words that are made up of a
fragm ent plus an affix.
In unanalyzable words the prefix in- cannot attach to native words. In
general, in analyzable w ords, in- cannot attach to derived words. W ords borrowed
from Latin and French regularly take in- regardless of w hether or not the word is
made up of a fragm ent or a stem 7.
As w ith Class I affixes, the distribution of un- and in- can be described in
one statem ent by allowing the rules to refer to the category of the word to which
the affix attaches and to the category immediately dominated by th a t category.
This distribution can be stated as w ith other Class II affixes; 'The prefix un- cannot
attach to a word whose category im m ediately dominates a noncategory'. This is
illustrated in (3 8 ).
(38)
*u n 2 ordinF ate
7 The form unintelligent comes to mind as a possible counterexample but as Marchand

(1 9 6 9 ) points out, the prefix un- is chosen over in- to prevent an unacceptable double in-
sequence.
64
The 'A ' node in the square is the node to w hich un- or in- will attach . The
underlined nodes are those im m ediately dominated by the squared 'A 's '. I use the
term 'im m ediately dom inates' because I specifically w a n t to exclude the possibility
th at th e W FRs see still deeper levels of morphological structure. That is, when the
affix attaches to the w ord, it sees only the previous derivation. Thus, in the word
intolerable, the in- is correctly chosen for intolerable because the 'A ' to which in
attaches im m ediately dom inates a fragm ent plus a suffix as in (3 9 ). In the word
unm itigated, how ever, un- is correctly chosen as the negative form because the 'A '
of m itig ated im m ediately dom inates a verb plus an adjective-deriving suffix as in
(4 0 ). Thus even though the first morpheme of the word is a fragm ent in both
cases, it is not the adjacent elem ent th at is the determining factor here, but w hat
the boxed 'A ' im m ediately dom inates.
(3 9 ) (40)
in toler ant un mitig ate ed
2 .6 . COUNTEREXAMPLES
Possible counterexam ples to the explanation offered for the distribution and
order of English affixes would be forms in which a Class II affix attached to a word
65
whose category dom inated a noncategory. I am not aw are of any such
counterexam ples to this part of the principle. H ow ever, there are some
counterexam ples to the principle th at describes those Class I affixes th a t are
restricted from applying to a word whose category im m ediately dom inates a
category as in the -m ent plus -at examples.
The first counterexam ples are from the prefix in-. This form behaves like an
ordinary Class lb affix in th at it usually attaches to fragm ents and to words whose
category dominates a fragm ent. H ow ever, unlike -m ent, and -al, and other Class I
affixes this affix can in some cases attach to words whose category immediately
dominates a category. Thus it is best to assume th at in- is a Class la affix.
in- constitutes som ew hat of a special case among the affixes because many
of the words th at take in- w ere borrowed with the affix; th at is at the tim e of the
introduction of the word into English it w as regularly negated w ith in-. The
counterexam ples w ith in- are the result of the preservation of the historical term.
To support this the examples below are sighted which have changed from taking in
to un- in order to conform to the patterns presented here.
W ords th at have changed from in- to un- to conform to this pattern: (from
Marchand 1 9 6 9 ).
66
(41)
in profitable is now un profitable
in changeable un changeable
in pleasing un pleasing
in popular un popular
in charitable un charitable
in certain un certain
in chaste un chaste
in ceremonious un ceremonious
in com fortable un comfortable
in imaginable un imaginable
in utterable un utterable
in organical un organical
Also in this list are illimited, inconfused, inexhausted, ine/aborated,
inextended, inedited, incircumsized, incivilised, incompared, incomposed,
inconcerned, inconnected, incu/tivated, indigested, indisputed, insuspected,
incontrolled, indiscussed, inexpected, inequal, inable, injust, instable.
There w ere some counterexamples to un- in the past as well. These too
have changed to conform to the pattern discussed in this dissertation.
67
(42)
un credible is now in credible
un effable in effable
un perfect in perfect
un possible in possible
un dubitable in dubitable
Thus the counterexam ples w ith in- are archaic preservations and are not
available for Class I affixation. I am not aw are of other counterexamples to the
principles th at predict the contrastive distribution of the tw o groups of affixes, but
if such exam ples exist they could probably be explained in a similar manner.
There is one apparent counterexample to the generalization th a t explains the
order of the tw o groups of affixes. This is the case of words like m onstrosity and
* monstrousness discussed in Selkirk (1 9 8 2 ) (p. 1 1 4 ). In the theory of this
dissertation the form m onstrosity is correctly predicted to be well-form ed. The
word monstrousness, how ever, is not precluded. The theory proposed in this paper
claims th at the fact th at Class I affixes never occur outside a Class II affix is
explained in tw o w ays; 1) Class II affixation precedes all Class la affixation as a
result of the 'Elsewhere Condition' Kiparsky ( 1 9 7 6 )8, 2) Class II affixation precedes
8 T h is m e a n s t h a t un- c a n n o t b e a tta c h e d t o grammaticality, h o w e v e r , th is t h e o r y d o e s n o t

-ity c a n a tta c h to ungrammatical. T h is tu r n s
re q u ir e s tr a ta l o rd e r in g s o o u t to be a c o u n te r
e x a m p le f o r t h e t h e o r ie s t h a t re q u ire s tr a ta l o rd e r in g , b e c a u s e t h e a t t a c h m e n t o f a ff ix e s m u s t
be d o n e in r ig o r o u s ly s e p a r a te le v e ls . In th e p r e s e n t th e o r y all a ff ix e s a re a v a ila b le fo r
a t t a c h m e n t a t t h e s a m e t im e th u s o n c e un- is a tt a c h e d to grammatical it d o e s n o t p re c lu d e th e
68
Class lb affixation because the attachm ent of a Class II affix creates the structure
th a t is forbidden in the Class lb subcategorizations. The attachm ent of -ity to
m onstrosity follow s from the subcategorization of a Class la affix, w hich states th a t
Class I affixes attach rather generally (see Table (2 1 )). H ow ever, the form
* monstrousness is not precluded in this case. Since -ness is a Class II affix it is
subject to the restriction th a t states th a t it cannot attach to a word w hose category
im m ediately dom inates a noncategory. T he word m onstrous does not obviously
violate that restriction since the word m onster is not a fragm ent.
(43)
m uiisu us ny uiuiisu uus ness2
A closer look at the data indicates that form s in -ous take either -ity or -ness.
In general the choice of -ity or -ness depends on the Class II and Class lb
restrictions as described earlier. (44) gives exam ples of this.
a tta c h m e n t o f -ity in a subsequent W FR.
69
(44 )a (typical of Class II)
furi ous1 ness2 •furi os' ity 1
danger ous1 ness2 •danger os1 ity 1
(4 4 )b (Class la)
lumin ous1 ity 1 •lum in os1 ness2
(44 )c (takes both)
religi ous1 ness2 religi os1 ity1
sensu ous1 ness2 sensu os1 ity 1
?egregi ous1 ness2 egregi os1 ity 1
•lum in ous1 ness2 lumin os1 ity1
?curi ous1 ness2 curi os1 ity 1
(44)d (counterexamples)
*m onstr ous1 ness2
*spuri os1 ity 1
It also seems th at the rephonologization of m onster into monstr- could
account for the fact th at -ness cannot attach to monstrous. T h at is, if monstr- is
viewed as some kind of fragm ent it can block the attach m ent of -ness. However,
this would require that monstrous be given its own lexical entry in order to
70
differentiate the fragm ent monstr- from the word monster. This extra complication
of the lexical entry only helps w ith a fe w counterexamples, so w e are unwilling to
accept this measure.
W hile in general forms in -ous conform to the patterns predicted in this
theory as in (44) a and b, there are some counterexamples. The existence of these
counterexamples follows from the fact that words ending in -ous take either -ness
or -ity; the overlapping of forms can be explained as a result of analogy. The
underlying pattern conforms to the principles discussed in this theory, but the
actual forms are often determined by analogy with -osity or -ousness. This could
also be explained as a case of the affix -ness changing its class membership. There
is no reason to believe th at class membership should be unchangeable. It seems
likely th a t the fa ct th at -ness and -ity are both applicable after -ous has opened the
door for -ness to begin to lose the Class II restriction and become more like a Class
la affix. W hile it is likely that the explanation for this is due to class change,
theories th a t explain aw a y counterexamples as arising from class change should be
avoided. How ever, it is safe to predict that Class change, if it occurs, is going to
go from the more specific to the more general as in the case of -ness.
COM PARISON W ITH OTHER THEORIES
T w o other conditions on locality have been proposed to allow morphological
rules limited access to the internal structure of the words they affect. These
conditions w ere proposed in Siegel (1 9 7 7 ) and Williams (1 9 8 1 ).
71
M ore specifically, the first condition that w as proposed is the 'Adjacency
Condition' of Siegel (1 9 7 7 ) which prevents W FRs from referring to internal
structure by restricting their access to only 'm aterial im m ediately adjacent to the
a ffix '. Th at is, a WFR can refer to information th at is separated from the affix by
no more than one bracket (45a and b below). W FRs are prevented from 'seeing'
any other information. For exam ple, Siegel (1 9 7 7 ) states th a t there is a condition
on un- attachm ent th a t says th at un- cannot attach to words that contain negative
content in the next syllable but only if this negative content is 'im m ediately
adjacent to the a ffix' (as in 4 5 below )9. Siegel (1 9 7 7 :1 9 1 ):
(45) a b
*[un [dis [honest]]] *[un [discrete]]
*[u n [dislcourteouslll *[un [dis sonnant]]
*[un [dis [loyal]]] *[un [dis tinct]]
[un [[dis tracking]]
[un [[distinguishled]]
[un [[discoverable]]
[un [[dis may] ed]]
[un [[dis put] ed]]
[un [[dis [ heartenled]]
9 The bracketing o f these forms is in accordance with Siegel (1977) who follows Chomsky and Halle (1968).
D ifferent bracketing conventions make this principle fail. See Chapter Four o f this thesis for a discussion of
different forms o f bracketing.
72
She pointed out th at the forms in a, b, and c are ail generated by a WFR in
A ronoff (1 9 7 6 ) and th at the form s in a and b are then filtered out by her adjacency
condition.
H ow ever, given the theory proposed here, only the correct forms are
generated in the first place. Since un- is a Class II a ffix it is restricted from
attaching to a word whose category im m ediately dominates a noncategory. In (45)
a and b the category im mediately dominates a noncategory (the dis-). Thus in (4 5 )a
and b it cannot be attached. In (45)c the category im m ediately dom inates a
category and thus it can apply. The trees in (46) and (47) illustrate this..
(4 6) (47)
un dis honest discover
The W FR w ith the locality condition is sufficient to generate not only the
forms in un- plus dis-, but also forms of un- and in- and other affixes, un- cannot
attach to the form s in (4 5)a and (45)b because the category of these words
im m ediately dominates a noncategory. Thus the 'Adjacency Condition' prevents
un- from attaching to words like those in (45)c but could not prevent un- from
attaching to the words in (4 5 )a and b, as the dis- is not 'im m ediately adjacent to
the a ffix '. These notions are given more precision in Chapter Three.
73
The second principle of locality from W illiam s (1 9 8 1 ), is the 'A tom
Condition', w hich also serves to restrict the am ount of word internal structure that
a WFR can refer to. For W illiam s, though, a W FR can refer only to the lexical node
to w hich it will attach an affix. H ow ever, this node can carry information th at has
percolated up from the low er lexical nodes. W hile he sets no theoretical guidelines,
he points out th a t the material th at can percolate is restricted to a relatively limited
set of features. Thus, he limits the WFRs while still generating the correct output
below , as in (4 8 ), and (49) is an example where percolation allow s the feature [ +
ablaut] to percolate.
(4 8)
a b
f
[stand] (jf stood P
[ + abl]
[standHed]])
(4 9)
a b
prep V V pst
i
[under] [stand] [[under] [stood] </
[ + abl]
(*[under][stand]edl)
74
I believe the formalizations of these tw o conditions on locality in Scalise
(1 9 8 6 ) provide a useful definition, repeated here as (50) and (51) (Scalise
1 9 8 6 :1 7 0 -7 2 ).
(50 ) The 'A tom Condition'
A restriction on th e a tta c h m e n t of a ffix to Y can only
refer to features realized on Y .
(51 ) The 'Adjacency Condition'
No W FR can involve X and Y , w h e re X is an a ffix

unless Y is uniquely contained in the cycle adjacent
to X .
... w h e re X and Y are cyclic nodes w ith in th e w ord,
an a ffix (X) has access to Y but not Z.
1 1 I
Z Y X
Both principles recognize the fact that WFRs need to refer to or recognize
some but not all, internal structure. Scalise (1 9 8 6 ) points out that these tw o
principles m ake different predictions and, as yet, there is not sufficient evidence to
decide betw een them . This paper argues that neither is sufficient to account for
the facts of the distribution of the English affixes illustrated in this paper.
Generalizations about the distribution of the affixes -un, -in, -al, -ary, and -m ent
discussed above can not be captured by the notions of percolation or adjacency.
75
2 .8 . CONCLUSION
This chapter dem onstrates that w ith a slight modification in the theory of
locality it is possible to predict the contrastive distribution of the English Class I and
Class II affixes. This same theory also makes it possible to explain the order of the
tw o groups of affixes relative to each other w ithout extrinsic ordering statem ents or
ordered levels in the lexicon. It is no longer necessary to include the Class I and
Class II affixes in the discussion of the theory of juncture.
CHAPTER THREE
THE EXTENSION OF X-BAR THEORY TO M O RPHO LO G Y
3 .1 . INTRODUCTION
Chapter T w o dem onstrated th at the facts of the distribution of the Class I
and Class II affixes are best explained in terms of a new principle of locality in
morphology, the Im m ediate Dominance Condition. This chapter demonstrates th at
once the distribution of the Class I and Class II affixes is described in terms of the
principle of locality, it is possible to extend X-bar theory to morphology in a
straightforward manner. Since the facts of the English affixes are described
independently of the X-bar fram ew ork, it is necessary to question whether or not
there is still enough motivation for a word-level X-bar theory. T h at is, previous
theories (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 and Selkirk 1 9 8 2 ) that seek to extend the X-bar theory to
word level do so simply in order to describe the facts of th e Class I and Class II
affixes. Now th at these facts are dealt w ith by the Im m ediate Dominance
Condition, there is reason to question w hether or not there is enough morphology
th a t needs description to justify the use of the X-bar theory at word level.
In order to be of value to the theory of morphology the X-bar theory must be
able to capture generalizations about the structures of words and the rules of word
formation. A WFR creates new words from existing w ords by processes of 1) zero
derivation (as in [N table ]N -* [v table ]v i.e. 'table a m otion'), 2) affixation (category
-* categorize or belief -* disbelief), and 3) compounding (door and knob -* doorknob
77
or d e a f and m ute -* deafm ute). A ffix subcategorizations describe the range of
possible words to which an affix can attach and WFRs express the processes of
word form ation. The theory of gram m ar also needs to encode this morphological
information into the phonemic string so th a t the relevant rules of phonology can
apply correctly.
In morphology there is actually not much difference betw een an affix
subcategorization and its W FR. A W FR just describes the attachm ent of an affix to
the appropriate sort of w ord, while the subcategorization states exactly w h a t
constitutes the type of w ord. This results in a duplication; the subcategorization of
the affix and the structural description of the WFR are identical. The morphology
would be simplified if there w ere simply one W FR, such as A ttach o, and the
subcategorizations determined the application of that rule.
Thus in order to be of value to morphology the X-bar theory must capture
generalizations about the application of the processes just described. Furthermore,
the X-bar theory is designed to capture cross-categorial generalizations in syntax
and this should also hold for morphology.
This chapter dem onstrates that it is possible to extend the phrase-level X-bar
theory to morphology and th a t this extension captures generalizations about WFRs
and affix subcategorizations. Further, it is demonstrated th at the extension of
X-bar theory to word-level captures enough generalizations about morphology to
make this extension of positive value. Specifically, the theory of word-level X-bars
78
presented here improves affix subcategorizations and the description of W FRs,
accounts for the facts of headedness in morphology, and serves as the basis for a
theory of morphological juncture that does not require segment-like boundaries or a
subdivided lexicon. Since this theory merely extends phrase level X-bar theory to
word level, this is not only done w ithout an extra cost to the grammar; it actually
lessens the am ount of theoretical machinery that is required and removes an
unexplained gap, the gap being th at there is no principled explanation for the fact
th at phrase level X-bar theory does not extend to words.
If X-bar theory is a truly general principle of organization in the grammar it
should be able to represent facts of categorial organization both within words and
in the syntax. This is especially true since both morphology and syntax represent
components of the grammar th at are based on the organization of lexical items into
hierarchical groups. It is also possible to argue that the fact that X-bar theory in
morphology is significantly different from phrase-level X-bars simply underlines the
fact th a t morphology and syntax are indeed different components of the grammar.
H ow ever, if phrase-level X-bar theory could be demonstrated to capture
crosscategorial generalizations and other generalizations about lexical categories in
morphology, and further, if it captures the relevant facts of word formation, then
this would be a strong argum ent in favor of X-bar theory in general and of the value
of X-bar theory for morphology. It would also be intellectually satisfying, as it
would simplify the grammar by replacing theoretical mechanisms that are particular
to morphology w ith theoretical mechanisms that are required elsewhere. W e also
claim th at the extension of X-bar theory to words provides significant insight into
79
and theoretical explanation of the problems of morphology discussed here, such as
affix subcategorization, the order and distribution of affixes, and the variable
application of rules at morpheme junctures.
This chapter first iilustrates the extension of X-bar theory to morphology.
Second, it dem onstrates that this extension of the X-bar theory to morphology can
be used to capture generalizations (particularly crosscategorial generalizations)
about the distribution of English affixes that are otherwise missed. This
demonstration amounts to an increase in the precision of the Im m ediate Dominance
Condition through the inclusion of X-bar conventions in the formulation of that
condition; how ever, the subcategorization frames of affixes and the WFRs are also
improved by this extension of X-bar theory to morphology. The third part of this
chapter dem onstrates th at the principles of headedness in syntax can be used to
explain headedness in morphology w ithout the problematic counterexamples of
W illiams (1 9 8 1 ). Previous theories (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 , Selkirk 1 9 8 2 , Walinska de
Hackbeil 1 9 8 3 , Di Sciullo and W illiams 1 9 8 7 , Jensen 1 9 8 1 ) attem p t to provide an
X-bar fram ew ork for morphology, but these theories are either significantly different
from the phrase-level theory or they are not capable of handling all the facts.
These theories are discussed in the last section of this chapter.
3 .2 . THE EXTENSION OF X-BAR THEORY TO W O R D LEVEL
In order to claim th at this theory is an extension of phrase-level X-bar theory,
it is necessary to adopt the principles of phrase-level X-bars to determine the facts
80
of the word-level theory. If the same principles do not apply a t word-level w e
cannot say th at this theory is an extension of phrase-level X-bar theory.
Specifically, this theory adopts the principles of X-bar theory presented in
Kornai and Pullum (1 9 9 0 )1. Kornai and Pullum define seven basic principles to
which any well-form ed X-bar theory in a context free gram m ar (CFG) must
conform. These are: Lexicafity, Succession, M axim aiity, Uniform ity, Centrality,
Optionaiity. and Periphera/ity.
Uniform ity is the principle which states th at '... the maximum possible bar
level is the same for any preterterm inal.' Since this holds of preterterminals it has
no affe ct on morphology which involves terminals and preterminals.
Optionaiity states th a t nonheads are only optionally present. This holds in
morphology but it is not obvious because in most cases heads are bound forms
such as en- of enrich, if morphemes like en- w ere allowed to be optionally present it
would mean th a t en- could stand as a word on its own. H ow ever, cases of
category change such as [N perm itlN —*• [V perm itlV indicates a case w here a head
is not present.
1 W h ile th e K o rn a i a n d P u llu m a rtic le u s e s th e s e p rin c ip le s t o p o in t o u t s h o r tc o m in g s i i h e X -b a r

th e o r y , t h e p rin ic ip le s t h e m s e lv e s d o s e rv e as r e a s o n a b le m e a s u re s b y w h ic h to c o m p a re X -b a r
f o r m u a la t io n s . It is in th is lig h t t h a t w e a c c e p t t h e s e p rin c ip le s . K o rn a i a n d P u llu m c o n c lu d e t h a t it
is p o s s ib le to r e fr o m u la te X - b a r t h e o r y w it h o u t t h e n o tio n o f b a r -le v e l. H o w e v e r , s in c e o u r in t e n t is
to d e m o n s tr a te t h a t th e u s e o f c a te g o r ie s in m o r p h o lo g y p a ra lle ls th e t h e o r y o f c a te g o r ie s in s y n t a x ,
w e c o n tin u e w it h t h e o ld e r m o re w id e ly r e c o g n iz e d t h e o r y w it h b a r -le v e ls .
81
Centrality concerns the 'start symbol' (such as the 'S ' for sentence of SPE)
of a sentence and is not relevant to morphology, though its existence at sentence
level is not disputed.
Periphera/ity repeated in (1) below states th at the head of X '... alw ays
appears adjacent to one of the boundaries of X .'
(1) Peripherality (Kornai and Pullum 1 9 9 0 :3 6 ).
Definition: A Lexicality-observing CFG observes Peripherality iff in any rule rew ritin g X ’
as Y X °Z , e ith e r Y = e or Z = e.
Peripherality obtains in morphology but is tautological because the operation
of any WFR takes one lexical item (complex or otherwise) attaches it to another
lexical item , and creates a new lexical item made up of tw o parts. The one is
alw ays peripheral to the other and thus the head is alw ays peripheral to the X. In
cases of zero derivation since there is only one elem ent Peripherality is meaningless.
The principles which determine the shapes of X-bar structures in the present
theory are: Lexicality, Succession and M axim ality. Lexicality as a principle in
syntax ' ... requires all phrasal categories be projections of lexical categories' Kornai
and Pullum (1 9 9 0 :2 5 ). In morphology, how ever, WFRs do not project phrasal
categories, they operate on lexical categories and create other lexical categories
(not phrasal categories), so the principle of Lexicality needs to be rew ritten to
82
require th at W FRs operate only on lexical categories and produce only lexical
categories. Since fragments are not lexical categories the principle of lexicality
predicts th at W FRs cannot operate on fragm ents. This is essentially a restatem ent
of the W BH; th at is the W BH requires th at rules refer to categories (not fragments)
and the principle of Lexicality requires th at X-bars project only lexical categories
from only lexical categories. The W BH requires that fragm ents be entered in the
lexicon either as forms borrowed from another language or they are formed from
these borrowed forms by the operation of a WFR followed by truncation. For this
reason the words which contain the fragm ents not the fragm ents them selves, are
involved in word formation and thus the fragm ents are not counterexamples to
Lexicality.
(2) Lexicality.
Definition: A CFG observes Lexicality iff every nonterm inal is X 1, w h e re X
G V T and i ) 0 .
M axim ality and Succession are more directly pertinent to the assignment of
labeled trees. These principles are repeated here as (3) and (4). Kornai and Pullum
1 9 9 0 :2 8 -3 0 ).
(3) M axim ality.
Definition: A CFG observing Lexicality and Succession observes
Maximality iff for every rule X" — ►Y X"-' Z, the strings Y and Z are in V M', w h e re V M
= {xm | x e V ).
83
In order for the theory of morphology to be consistent w ith the principle of
M axim ality, all lexical categories must be introduced at their highest possible bar
level. Item s listed in the lexicon w ith a category are given a 0 as their maximal bar
level. A ffixes that assign categories are also introduced a t the 0 level but the facts
of their subcategorizations m ake them heads of the word th at cause them to be
assigned a -1 . Those affixes th a t are not category assigning are assigned a -2.
In morphology there are tw o possible maximal bar levels, 0 and -2 . 0 is the
m aximal bar level assigned to all lexical entries th at have a category (words and
category-assigning affixes). -2 is the maximal bar level assigned to all morphemes
th at do not have a category (fragments and noncategory-assigning affixes). It is
rather easy to decide th at words and category-assigning affixes should be given Os
as their maximal level because they serve as elem ents of the syntactic string.
H ow ever, for fragm ents and noncategory-assigning affixes it is necessary to decide
betw een the -1 and -2 levels for their maximal level. The -2 level is chosen as the
m axim al bar level for these noncategory morphemes because the -1 level generally
marks the head of a word and there is no clear reason to allow the noncategories to
serve as heads of words. Certainly, a head of a word must be a category.
(4) Succession.
Definition: A Lexicality observing CFG observes Succession iff every rule
rew ritin g som e nonterm inal X" has a daughter labeled X"'1.
In morphology Succession operates on categories th at are reiterated in a
word. An X immediately dominated by an X will be an X - 1 . Succession only
84
requires th at one daughter be labeled X"'1. In morphology there are forms w here
tw o daughter nodes are both of the same category as the whole word as illustrated
in (5) and (6). In these words it is not im m ediately apparent if one or both
morphemes should be affected by Succession.
(5) (6)
door bell employ ment
This thesis argues that the morpheme which determ ines the category of the
entire word should be X"'1 while the morpheme which does not should remain
unaffected by Succession2. A t this point in the discussion it is not possible to
provide evidence for this but section 3 .3 of this chapter on Headedness, and
Chapter Six on the discussion of Malayalam indicates that there are empirical
consequences in applying Succession in this manner. Thus in (5) the noun door is
the modifier of the noun 6 e //th u s cannot determine the category of the entire word.
The noun bell m ust determine the category of the entire word and is affected by
2 This also applies in words made up of tw o different categories as in overw ork. Sine the
compound overw ork is a verb the item th at gives the entire word its category must be work.
Therefore the priciple of Succession operates on the verb but not the preposition as in (A).
(A)
Pj° V;1
over w ork
[0 [0 over ]0 [-1 w ork ]-1 ]0
85
succession. In (6) the category is assigned by the affix thus succession determines
this should be the X n' \ The discussion on headedness in section 3 .3 of this chapter
dem onstrates th a t there are cases in w hich Succession applies to both members of
some compounds and both members of some cases of affixation when both
m em bers are of the same category and the assignment of the category is
ambiguous. This is more appropriately discussed in th at section. The application of
Succession in com plex words results in trees such as (7).
(7)
0
I I
un believe able
[0 [-1 un ]-1 [0 believe ]0 [-1 able ]-1 ]0 ]0
Since all of the morphemes in this example are assigned categories in the
lexicon, the principle of m axim ality requires that they all are entered as '0 's 3. The
'A ' node of believable is not demoted to -1 by Succession because it does not
assign the category to unbelievable. W ithin the word unbelievable how ever, the
affix -able assigns the category to believable and thus the affix is demoted to -1 by
the principle of Succession. The 'V ' node above believe is not affected by
3 C a t e g o r y a s s ig n in g a ffix e s a re lis te d in t h e le x ic o n a s O 's , h o w e v e r , th e f a c t s o f th e ir

s u b c a te g o r iz a t io n r e q u ir e m e n ts re s u lt in t h e ir a lw a y s b e in g re a liz e d a s a - 1 . If t h e y c o u ld s e rv e
a s s y n t a c t ic ite m s w it h o u t b e in g a tta c h e d t o a w o r d t h e y w o u ld h a v e to b e O’ s.
86
Succession because it plays no role in assigning the category to the entire word.
This is discussed again in section 3 .3 of this chapter.
Given the Kornai and Pullum (1 9 9 0 ) restrictions on the form of an X-bar
theory it is possible to discuss the formulation of the word-level X-bar theory.
Following Selkirk (1 9 8 2 ) w e adopt the form at of phrase-structure rules to illustrate
the range of possible X-bar configurations.
The rules of this theory th a t assign the bar levels are phrase structure rules
similar to those of Selkirk (1 9 8 2 ), but should not be taken as replacem ents for the
W FRs presented so far. They should be seen instead as well formedness conditions
on trees th at m ust be m et by any word formation rules. Further, they provide a
convenient means by which to describe the X-bar formulation in morphology. The
rules are:
(8)
X0
a. X 1 a f:
V
1
l
O
X
b. X 1 af*
A
1
1
■<
O
o
X
c.
■ ti
X
A
0)
1
1
d. x ° --> af'2 X
o
X
e. af*'1 X '1
A
l
l
0
f.
X
a f 1 Y°
1
1
87
The theory proposed here has three bar levels as represented in (9).
(a). 0 w ords (simple and complex as defined in
Chapter T w o ) and category assigning affixes.
(b). -1 categories im m ediately dominated by
identical categories.
(c). -2 fragm ents and noncategory-assigning
affixes.
Rules (8) (a) - (c) above are the rules of suffixation, while rules (8) (d) -(f) are
the rules of prefixation. There are three kinds of prefixation and suffixation:
noncategory-assigning (as in (a) and (d)) is the first, and the second and third are
both category assigning, one in w hich the category assigned is the same as the
word affixed (as in (8) (b) and (e)) and the other when the category assigned is
other than the category of the category that is affixed (as in (8) (c) and (f)).
Rule (8) (a) describes a non-category assigning suffix as in (1 0 ).
( 10 )
NT1 a f2
king dom
88
Rule (8) (b) describes a category assigning suffix attaching to a word of the
same category as itself (as in (1 1 ) below).
(11)
A '1 afA-1
I I
[ [green] [ish] ]
Rule (8) (c) describes a category assigning suffix attaching to a word of a
different category (as in (12):
(12)
A0
N° afA-1
I 1
[ [monkl [ish] ]
Rule (8) (d) describes a non-category assigning prefix attaching to word (as
in (1 3 )):
89
(1 3 )
I I
[ [counter] [exam ple] ]
Rule (8) (e) describes a rule th at attaches a category assigning prefix to a
word of the sam e category (as in (14) unattested in English).
[0 [-1 ]-1 [-1 ]-1 ]0
Rule (8) (f) describes a rule th at attaches a category assigning prefix to a
word of another category (as in (15):
( 15 )
a fv-1 A0
I I
[ [en] [rich] ]
(1 6) - (18 ) describe the assignment of bar levels.
90
(16)
The 0 level is assigned to every category th at is introduced into the string in
accordance w ith the principle of m axim ality. Since some affixes assign the
category of the word that is created by their attach m ent these must have
categories in the lexicon as w ell.
(17)
The -1 level is assigned by succession to all 0 's immediately dominated by a
0 of the same category.
(18)
The -2 level is assigned to bound forms th at do not assign or possess
categories such as noncategory-assigning affixes and fragments. This is to indicate
th at these morphemes cannot serve as heads and th at they cannot serve as input
to the syntax. The -2 level is the maximal bar level of these morphemes and the
principle of m axim ality requires th at they be introduced at th at level.
W e argue th at the -2 level is appropriate for fragm ents rather than -1
because the -1 level is created by the interaction of the X-bar principles on Os and
because -1s can be construed as heads and neither fragm ents nor noncategory-
assigning affixes can be heads of a word.
91
These rules indicate the different sorts of structures th at result from the
application of the WFRs. Rules (8) (a), (b), (d), and (e) indicate cases where a WFR
creates a word of the same category as the word it affects. In cases (8) (a) and (d)
this is brought about by an affix that is not category assigning. Noncategory-
assigning affixes (such as counter- of counterexam ple and counterintuitive) are
marked as 'a f'2'. In other cases ((8) (b), (c), (e), and (f)) the affix determines the
category of the word it creates. Category assigning affixes are marked as 'af*'1'.
The 'Y 0/ indicates that a category has been changed by the operation of a WFR as
in (8) (c) and (e). In those cases where a category assigning affix is attached to a
word of the same category as the category it creates, the principle of Succession
requires th a t the category is -1 rather than a 0 . This follow s from the fact th at the
category is determined by the affix.
Tense inflections, which are discussed in Chapter Four are given a 0 bar
level because of their status as lexical entries in the syntax. T h at is because the
tense marker must be introduced into the string as independent item . It is given a
'0 ' bar level like any other item of the syntactic string. A later process of
encliticization attaches the tense marker to the verb. In these cases the tense
marker does not assign the category to the word and therefore it cannot be
demoted to a -1 by Succession. For example, in the tense affix such as the
agreem ent marker /z/ of the third person present indicative of regular verbs (as in
(1 9)). The tense marker in (1 9 ) is originally an elem ent of the syntactic string under
an 'infl' node and a later process of encliticization attaches it to the verb quit.
92
Since the category of quit is not determined by the tense m arker, it is not demoted
to a -1 by Succession.
(19)
NP -V°
V°
\ af°
he quit s
Much of the discussion above illustrates th a t one of the main properties of
morphological operations th at determines the variable application of rules that are
sensitive to morphology is the notion of changed category versus unchanged
category. T hat is, in the theory of X-bar brackets the main function that
distinguishes one word from another is the difference betw een internal junctures
created in the case of the operation of a category assigning WFR ( ]0 [-1 or ]-1 [0)
or a noncategory assigning WFR (]-2 [-1 or ]-1 [-2). All -1 's are created by the
operation of Succession. The assignment of brackets by the X-bar theory makes
different predictions about the application of morphologically sensitive rules than
theories th at use other criteria to distinguish junctures. This is discussed in Chapter
Five.
93
3 .3 . HEADEDNESS
If the theory of word-level X-bars is consistent w ith the theory of
phrase-level X-bars it should also be possible to determine headedness in
morphology in the sam e m anner as in syntax. On the subject of headedness
W illiam s (1 9 8 1 :2 4 8 ) states th at,
In X -b a r s y n ta x , fo r exam ple, N is th e head of N '; here, c ateg o ry N m em bership
is shared by both. In s y n ta x the head of a phrase is im m e d ia tely identifiable: it is the
subphrase having all the sam e category fe a tu re s , but one bar level fe w e r.
W illiam s (1 9 8 1 ) first dem onstrated th at in the words instruction, reinstruct,
and reeducation, the head of the phrase must be the one which determines the
category as a w hole. This turns out to be the righthand m em ber in every case (20
a-c).
(20)
a. N b. V c. N
V
/\ A N -af af V af N
• I t • 1
[[instruct] [ion]] [[re] [instruct]] [[re] [education]]
In (21 a-c) w e see the same words w ith the bar levels assigned according to
the X-bar theory outlined here. Here it is clear that the head is determined by X-bar
theory in exactly the manner th at W illiams predicts.
1 1 I r I I
[[instruct] -ion]] [[re] [instruct]] [[re] [education]]
Using the examples in (d), W illiams points out that suffixes generally
determ ine the category of the word they form.
(22)
X + -ism - - > N
X + -able - - > A
Prefixes, how ever, ordinarily do not determine the category of the word they
form . In order to account for this, he extends category membership to suffixes.
Prefixes, he says, are not given category membership because they are not heads.
W illiam s (1 9 8 1 ) says:
In m orphology w e define the head of a m orphologically com plex w o rd to be the right hand
m em ber of th a t w o rd .
This he calls the Righthand Head Rule (hereafter RHR).
95
The theory proposed here agrees th at suffixes should be assigned categories
and th at prefixes in general should not, but in this theory this is a fact that follows
from the nature of the affixes and not from specific statem ents about prefixes or
suffixes. Instead w e can state th at all category assigning affixes have categories,
while others do not. Noncategory-assigning affixes and fragm ents are never heads.
This then allows for the possibility th at some suffixes do not determine the
category of the word while some prefixes do. Both such possibilities will contradict
W illiam s' claim th at suffixes determine categories while prefixes do not. The prefix
e/7- seems to be one such counterexample, en-, W illiams adm its, is a counter
exam ple and must for him be listed as exceptional to the RHR (see (23) below):
(23)
en rich
In words like enrich or ennoble, then, en- is clearly determining the category
and must be the head. While the example w ith en- is a counterexample for
W illiam s, it is actually further support for the X-bar theory presented here. For this
theory, heads are those categories that share the same features as the syntactic
node but are one bar level lower. This is precisely the X-bar relation that exists for
en- in enrich. Thus, given the notion of headedness provided by X-bar theory it is
possible to account for the counterexamples to W illiams (1 9 8 1 ).
96
Di Sciullo and Williams (1 9 8 7 ) claim th at the RHR of W illiam s (1 9 8 1 ) is only
partially correct and claim th at the evidence from Spanish diminutive forms
presented in Jaeggli (1 9 8 0 ) indicates that there are some forms in which the RHR
fails to account for headedness. In forms like (17) the diminutive prefix -ita can be
attached to adjectives, nouns or adverbs. Clearly the suffix plays no role in
determining the category of the derived word and cannot be the head.
(2 4 ) Di Sciullo and W illiam s (1 9 8 7 :2 6 ).
Adjective: poco 'little' poquita
Noun: chica 'girl' chiquita
Adverb: ahora 'n o w ' ahorita
In order to account for this difference Di Sciullo and W illiams (1 9 8 7 ) argues
th at the notion head needs to be relativized as in (2 5 ).
(2 5 ) Definition of "headF" (read:head w ith respect to the feature F): The
headp of a word is the rightmost element of the word marked for the feature F.
They explain this as follows.
Because the left-hand elem ents of th e form s in (9) ((2 4 ) above] are (by d efault)
the rightm ost elem ents of th e form s marked for category specification, th e y are the
"headcolooofv" (head w ith respect to categ ory), and so the w h o le m u st agree w ith th e m
in categ ory.
97
H ow ever, in the present thesis it is possible to describe headedness in exactly
the same term s as in phrase level X-bar theory but with none of the counterexamples
of W illiam s (1 9 8 1 ) or Di Sciullo and W illiams (1 9 8 7 ).
There is a parallel b etw een headedness in syntax and headedness in

morphology. In syntax and in morphology a head can be identified as the elem ent in
a com plex form (phrases in syntax and words in morphology) th a t is the same category
as the entire containing form (phrase or word) but is one bar level lower. Thus in
morphology all category assigning affixes are the heads o f the forms they create.
Fragments and noncategory-assigning affixes can not be heads because their lack of
category m akes it impossible for them to fit the definition of head. Compounds are
either coordinate compounds such as d e a f m ute or they are head/modifier constructions

such as redhead or doorbell. In the latter the modifier should not be the head and the
modified should. This follow s autom atically in adjective noun compounds such as
redhead or bluebeard but in noun - noun combinations this is less obvious. For
exam ple, the means by w hich w e determ ine the head in words w here the dominating
node and the tw o dominated nodes are of identical categories as in (26) below needs
to be described.
(26)
N '1
book shelf
Since the first noun of such a noun/noun compound is a modifier like the
adjectives in compounds like redhead ideally the X-bar fram ew ork should assign the
same bar level to these modifying nouns as to the adjectives. As described so far the
principle of Succession determ ines th at only one morpheme in every word is demoted
to a -1 . Since the first noun in a form like (26) is modifying the second it is odd to
claim that the category of the compound is being assigned by that noun. Thus it is
plausible to argue th at the second noun of such a compound assigns the category to
98
the entire compound and thus should be affected by the principle of Succession. Thus
book in bookshelf is not affected by Succession and remains a 0 . This parallels
syntactic phrases such as Jo h n ’s book w here the noun Jo hn's is treated as a modifier
rather than a NP.
(27)
door bell
(28)
head
Clearly, the noun in (27) and (28) share the same head-modifier relation as the
adjective noun compounds and this is reflected in the tree structure by the principle
of Succession. H ow ever, there are cases in English and other languages w here a
noun/noun compound is not in a modifier/modified relation. Mohanan (1 9 8 6 )
dem onstrates th a t the language of Malayalam makes such a distinction betw een tw o
types of noun compounding. Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) argues th a t it is necessary to
distinguish 'subcompounds' from 'cocompounds' in M alayalam . In M alayalam there
are tw o kinds of compounds th at are made of identical lexical categories, those which
have a specifier/head relation between the tw o elements (29) and those which do not
(3 0 ). (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :8 3 ).
(30)
N° NT’ N -’ N '1 i
I I I ]
tree horse father mother
'wooden horse' 'parents'
99
Sub-compounds have the common head + modifier structure as in the English
compound colourblind, w hile co-compounds (dwanda compounds in Sanskrit) have the

structure head + head + head as in the English compound deaf-m ute.
In (2 9) the principle of Succession correctly determines that the noun horse is -1 as
the morpheme th at determines the category of the word. In (30) however both words are
taken together to form a noun as a kind of coordinate structure. Both the right and left
m ember of the word contribute to making the entire category similar to a coordinate
structure in syntax. Thus Succession determines th at both must be -1 . This leaves a
difference in the tw o structures, but this is good because, as Mohanan points out, there
are phonological rules which apply to one type of compound but not to the other. Thus
the facts of Malayalam subcompounding and cocompounding provide us w ith support for
this use of the analysis proposed here.
W hile there is not a large selection of examples of this sort in English, one exam ple
(M . Franklin personal communication) illustrates that there is a need in English to
distinguish such forms. In the compound insect predator it is possible to get tw o
interpretations and the interpretations are of either exocentric or endocentric nature,
corresponding to cocompound and subcompound of Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ), refers to an insect
th at is a predator while the other refers to a predator of insects. These are illustrated in
(31) and (3 2 ). (31) represents the predator th a t preys on insects (sparrow) whereas (32)
illustrates the predator that is some kind of insect (praying mantis).
(31) (32)
insect predator insect predator
A similar situation obtains when an adjective determining affix attaches to an
adjective. For example, w hen the adjective determining affix -ish attaches to a noun the
tree created is similar to a modifier head combination such as redhead in (28) above.
W hen the affix -ish is attached to an adjective however, the tree created in this case is
100
similar to the adjective-adjective combination b/uegreen. This is illustrated in (33) and

(3 4 ).
(3 3 ) (34)
A"1 afA-’
i t
monk green ish
There are tw o possible explanations of the trees in (33) and (3 4 ). The first is that
one of the tw o -1 categories is the head and the second is that the addition of -ish to an
adjective creates a coordinate type form similar to a word like bluegreen. In bluegreen the
principle of succession creates tw o -1 categories as in greenish, since it is unclear that

these should be taken as modifier/head or coordinate structure in this theory w e assume
th at it is best to take these as coordinate like structures as determined by the X-bar

theory.
(3 5 ) (36)
/A 0 A \
/ \ / \
A '1 A '1 A '1 a f'1
I t
blue green green ish
Finally, the notion of headless words needs to be discussed. Unanalyzable words
are their ow n heads but in words such as perm it and rem it (the words which were
assigned the ' = ' boundary in SPE) there is no -1 as required by the definition of
headedness. This means these forms must be headless. This would seem to be incorrect
except for the fact th a t these words are not created by W FRs. Since these words are
made up of a fragm ent plus a noncategory-assigning affix, the only w ay they could have
been brought into English is as borrowed forms. Thus the fact that they are headless is
not problematic. Rather w e can claim that these words are their own heads just as
unanalyzable words are.
101
Thus in this theory there are three kinds of heads: 1) unanalyzable words are their
ow n heads, 2) analyzable words w hich are not created by WFRs (such as perm it) are their
ow n heads, and 3) analyzable words w hich are created by WFRs

have a head as determ ined by X-bar theory. These are illustrated in (3 5 ), (3 6 ), and (37)
respectively.
(35)
N°
table
[0 table ]0
(36)
af'2 F'2
I I
per m it
[0 [-2 per ]-2 [-2 m it ]-2 ]0
(37) ^ A ° ^
V° a f'1
r i
believe able
[0 [0 believe ]0 [-1 able ]-1 ]0
In some cases there are words w ith tw o heads. These forms occur in exocentric
compounds and in the case of category assigning affixes th a t are attached to words of the
same category they create. These form s are dual headed because both elem ents of the
word contribute to the category of the entire w ord. These are illustrated in (38) and (39).
102
(3 8 ) In this case the compound refers to an insect th at happens to be a predator.
/ N° \
N '1 N '1
. I I
insect predator
[0 [-1 insect ]-1 [-1 predator ]-1 ]0
(39)
A
A- r
green ish
[0 [-1 green ]-1 [-1 ish ]-1 ]0
3 .4 . OTHER THEORIES
Besides Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) Selkirk (1 9 8 2 ), and Di Sciullo and W illiams (1 9 8 7 ) there
are tw o other papers (Jensen 1 9 8 1 , W alinska de Hackbeil 1 9 8 5 ) which attem p t to use X-

bar theory in morphology.
W alinska de Hackbeil (1 9 8 5 ) proposes a version of X-bar theory for morphology,

but it is only worked out on a small subset of the phenomena. Her formulation m akes no
attem p t to account for the facts of the Class I and Class II affixes or of headedness.
Jensen (1 9 8 1 ) proposes a theory of word-level X-bar th at makes Latinate verb

bases a -2 stem , and their first level derivation a -1 and any later derivations 0. This
schema is only worked out on a very small subset of Latin verbs. T h at is, basing the
assignment of bar I levels on differing kinds of affixes can not conform to the principles of
phrase-level X-bar theory as established in Kornai and Pullum (1 9 9 0 ). M oreover, such a
theory can not conform to the principles of X-bar established in Kornai and Pullum (1 9 9 0 ).
103
3 .5 . CONCLUSION A ND S U M M A R Y
The theory of X-bar thus is very simply applied at word level. The complications of
this theory caused by the distributions of the affixes are avoided in this theory by the
Im m ediate Dominance Condition presented in Chapter T w o . The X-bar theory presented
here conforms to phrase level X-bar theory in these points; 1) the use of M axim ality and
Succession, 2) the description of headedness, 3) the ability to capture cross categorial
generalizations. The extension of X-bar theory to word-level captures generalizations

about affix subcategorizations, word formation, headedness, and morphological juncture.
Finally, this theory makes it possible to formulate an account of morphological

juncture w ith o u t reference to segment-like boundaries or a stratified lexicon. This is
achieved by allowing the morphologically sensitive rules to refer to the labeled brackets of
the phonological string which have been marked w ith category and bar-level information.
This theory of morphological juncture is taken up in the next chapter. The next chapter
presents the theory of morphological juncture called 'X-bar Brackets.'
CHAPTER FOUR
MORPHOLOGICAL JUNCTURE AND X-BAR BRACKETS
4 .1 . INTRODUCTION
Chapter Three demonstrated th a t it is possible to extend the phrase-level X-
bar theory to word level in a straightforward manner once the problem of the Class
I and Class II affixes is resolved. This chapter argues that it is possible to use the
X-bar theory to account for all the facts of the variable application of morphological
and phonological rules at morpheme junctures w ithout the addition of segment-like
boundaries as in SPE or the subdivision of the lexicon into different strata as in
Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ). The theory of juncture proposed here is able to account for all
the data of the other theories of juncture w ithout the addition of any new
theoretical apparatus. In fact it actually reduces the amount of theoretical apparatii
required for the theory of grammar. T h at is, it is possible to account for all the
facts of morphological juncture by allowing the relevant phonological,
morphophonemic, and morphological rules to be sensitive to the X-bar levels of the
tree structure; these bar levels simply have to be included on the labelled brackets
of the phonological string. Since, the X-bar fram ew ork developed here is m erely an
extension of phrase-level syntax as defined in Kornai and Pullum (1 9 9 0 ) (see
Chapter Three for a full discussion) no new theoretical apparatus is added to the
gram m ar and the boundaries and strata can be eliminated. The X-bar bracket
theory of morphological juncture is a monostratal, nonsegmental theory of word
structure. T hat is, the lexicon consists of just one level and the brackets that are
105
marked w ith the X-bar levels are not taken as segm ents in the string; the brackets
are m erely a notational device included just like the brackets in syntactic
derivations, simply to represent the category and hierarchical strength of the word
in question. A theory of nonsegmental juncture also claims th a t there are no
phonetically unrealized segm ents (like ' + ' and ' = ') placed betw een morphemes
by the gram m ar. Thus, in the present thesis, the labeled brackets replace segment
like boundaries by predicting the application of rules in term s of the categories of
the w ords rather than by positing boundary units in the phonetic string.
4 .2 X-BAR N O T A T IO N FOR M O RPHO LO G ICAL JUNCTURE
This chapter illustrates the ability of the theory of X -bar brackets to account
for the data, but the analyses of other theorists are not discussed (the next chapter
discusses the relative merits of the different theories in some detail). The present
chapter is divided into four sections: 1) introduction, 2) explanation of the use of
theory of X-bars for juncture, 3) illustration of the application of rules, and 4)
sum m ary.
A s in Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) this thesis adopts the convention that all morphemes
are listed in the phonological string with a bracket to its left and to its right. This
deviates from the usage of brackets in SPE and later authors. In SPE brackets w ere
placed to the left and right of every category node of the syntactic tree beginning
w ith the low est and continuing to the highest. They did not bracket formatives
such as affixes or stems th at did not receive a lexical category. This difference is
106
illustrated in (1) and (2). (1) gives an example of SPE style bracketing and (2) gives
an exam ple of the same word bracketed according to Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) and this
theory.
(1) [ [ re [ organ ize ] ] ation ]
(2) [ [ re [ [ organ ] ize ] ation ]
This regularization of the bracketing prevents the possibility th at boundaries
might reenter the theory by default; th at is, if some morphemes are bracketed while
others are not, it is possible to refer to the differences in structure in term s of the
presence or absence of a bracket. Such a contrast causes the brackets to be
treated as segm ents. In order for the brackets to represent only categorial
hierarchical information it is necessary for them to indicate the category and level of
every item in the string. In the present proposal the brackets are used simply to
reflect the category of the word being affected and its hierarchical strength (bar
level). By bracketing every morpheme in the string there is no danger of the
brackets being used as segments.
Aronoff (1 9 7 6 ) and Aronoff and Sridhar (1 9 8 3 ) base bracketing on
describing successively larger domains. For exam ple the bracketing of
reorganization in Aronoff's theory (Aronoff and Sridhar 1 9 8 3 :3 6 1 ) is described in
(3). The bracketing of the present thesis is illustrated in (4).
107
(3) [ [ re [ [ organ ] ize ] ation ]
(4) [ [ re ] [ [ [ organ ] [ ize ] ][ ation ] ] ]
The manner of bracketing illustrated in (3) describes successively larger
domains. The bracketing in (4) includes the individual morphemes as w ell. (3)
illustrates the organization of words in terms of the application of WFRs but it does
not give brackets to the affixes. This implies that a speaker knows nothing about
the'category of the affixes.
The insight th at is expressed w ith the method of labeling brackets of this
thesis (as in (4)) is th at speakers of a language apply the morphologically sensitive
rules according to w h a t they know about the categories of the words they are
using and the hierarchical strengths of these categories. This parallels a speakers
awareness of the hierarchical relations among the phrasal categories in syntax.
The theory of X-bar brackets reflects the insight presented in Aronoff
(1 9 7 6 :1 2 9 ) where he says, 'Boundaries are therefore part of linguistic structure or
theory, and have no substance.' The theory proposed in this thesis agrees w ith
Aronoff on this, but the state of the theory at the time of A ronoff's comments
unavoidably required segment-like elements subject to all the criticisms. The
manner of bracketing of Aronoff (1 9 7 6 ) and Aronoff and Sridhar (1 9 8 3 ) (illustrated
in (3) above) does not reflect w h at Che speaker knows about the category of the
morphemes; it represents w hat the speaker knows about successive applications of
WFRs.
108
The rules selected for discussion in this chapter form a representative subset
of the full range of rules th a t are sensitive to morphological juncture. The
application of the theory of X-bar brackets requires tw o steps; first, it is necessary
to include the appropriate bar level assigned by the theory of X-bars on the labeled
bracket, and second, it is necessary to allow the relevant rules to refer to these
more detailed labeled brackets. (5) repeats example (4) w ith the brackets labeled in
this manner.
(5)
[N° [af'1 re Jaf'1 [N'1 [V° [N° organ] N° [af'1 ize] af'M V0 [af'1 ation laf'1 JN'1 ]N°
(6) illustrates a rule th at uses a bracket as part of its structural description in
order to refer to morphological juncture.
(6) P - > Q / ___ ]0 [-1
W ithin the present theory as in past theories of morphological juncture, the
junctures them selves are also hierarchically ranked. Stanley (1 9 7 3 ), in his
discussion of SPE style boundaries demonstrated th at there are three w ays in which
rules refer to junctures. These are referred to by us as 'ranking', 'requiring', and
'delineating' are accepted for this theory as well except they are applied to brackets
rather than boundaries. Stanley (1 9 7 3 :1 8 6 ) states:
109
...three formally quite distinct sorts of interactions between boundaries and phonological
rules can be distinguished: (a) a rule may apply generally except when blocked by a
strong boundary in the interior of its environment; (b) a rule may apply only when a
particular boundary is present; and (c) a rule may apply only when boundary of a certain
type or stronger appears at the (right or left) end point of the environment of the rule.
In S tanley's term inology (a) above describes a rule that is 'ranked' by a
boundary, (b) above describes a rule th a t 'requires' a particular boundary, and (c)
above describes a rule th at is 'delineated' for a particular boundary. In S tanley's
theory and in this thesis each rule requires a statem ent th at indicates w hether the
bracket in the rule is ranked, delineated, or required by the rule.
These principles predict the hierarchical arrangem ent of junctures relative to
each other as determined by X-bar brackets. The hierarchical order of the brackets
arranges them from 'strongest' to 'w e a k e s t' w here the 0 is strongest, -1 is
interm ediate and -2 is the w eakest. If rule (6) is 'ranked' for -1, it applies a t -1
and -2 , but is blocked by 0 . A rule 'requiring' -1 applies only if a -1 bracket is
present, and a rule 'delineated' for -1 applies at -1 and 0 , but not at -2.
In order to capture the facts of the morpheme junctures in the m ost general
fashion it is also necessary to replace the particular category label (e.g. N, V , or A)
w ith the variable 'X '. This illustrates that the main function of X-bar theory, which
is to capture cross-categorial generalizations, is relevant in morphology as w ell.
This paper does not actually specify the variable 'X ' in every rule. Instead just the
bracket plus the bar level is listed in the rule (]X ° is replaced by ]0 or IX '1 is replaced
1 1 0
by ]-1 ). H ow ever, if a particular category is required (as in the stress rules), this
category label of course is explicitly mentioned.
Examples (7) and (8) illustrate the actual set of possible boundaries.
(7)
internal1
10 [-1
1-1 [0
] 0 [-2
] -2 [0
]-2 [-1
1-1 [-2
1-2 [-2
(8) W ord boundaries3.
]0 [0
A '0 ' bracket is stronger or higher than a -1 , a -1 is stronger or higher than a
-2 , and a -2 is low est or w eakest of all.
1 Since morphem es th at are marked -2 are bound form s th e y never occur in initial or final
position. The fa c t th a t th ey are bound implies th a t th ey are contained by a higher category.
2 This typ e of boundary is rather rare in English. It occurs only w hen a noncategory
assigning affix is attached to a fragm ent as in reserve or permit.
3 No W FRs create a ]0 [0 bracket, how ever, the attachm ent of a tense marker to a verb
m ay actually create a 10 [0 bracket. This is discussed in the section on g deletion I, but for
n ow it is sufficient to point o u t this possibility. Since regular processes of word form ation do
not form a ]0 [0 bracket it is not nentioned in (7).
I l l
The bracketed pairs in (a), (b), and (c) above seem to be of the same
strength in th at they have the same boundaries but in reverse order. It is
conceivable th at languages might refer to boundaries as groups such as (a), (b), and
(c) how ever, none of the data considered in this paper refers to brackets in that
manner. In general, rules are w ritten for a pair of brackets (one left facing and one
right facing). This pair of brackets describes the juncture of tw o morphemes. Any
reference to more than one bracket type is done in term s of the principles boundary
interactions of Stanley (1 9 7 3 ). This thesis assumes that the principles of Stanley
(1 9 7 3 ) are the sole determiners of multiple bracket interactions. In the discussion
of M alayalam the use of these principles is more detailed than in English. In a rule
th at refers to a pair of brackets both brackets must be considered when deciding
whether or not a word can be affected by a particular rule. For example, a rule that
requires a 1-1 [-2 can apply in a word w ith a ]-1 [-2 bracket but it cannot apply in a
word w ith a 1-2 [-1 bracket. Also, when considering rules th at are ranked or
delineated for particular brackets, both brackets of the juncture must be compared
w ith both brackets of the words being affected. A rule that is delineated for ]-2 (-1
can apply at ]-2 [-1 but it cannot apply to any form where the right facing bracket
(]) is low er than -1 .
]0 [0 brackets are not listed above because these never occur word
internally. The principles of X-bar theory m ake this impossible since it is not
possible to have a word made up of tw o categories th at are not the same as the
category of the entire word. Thus the ]0 [0 brackets are a natural representative of
112
word terminus. The notion of 'external bracket' is refers to word initial and word
final w hich is illustrated in (8).
As m entioned earlier, if a category is not explicitly mentioned this means
th at the 'X ' variable is being assumed. The brackets in (7) indicate that a rule may
refer to a leftm ost elem ent, rightmost elem ent, or internal bracket (as in SPE and
Stanley 1 9 7 3 ). The facing boundaries indicate that there are seven possible types
of internal boundaries. H ow ever, it is more accurate to say th a t there are three
bracket strengths w ith the possibility of three possible directions; left, right and
internal and each juncture requires tw o brackets. The left-facing ([) and right-facing
(]) brackets indicate th a t it is possible to refer to morpheme initial and morpheme
final position. W hether or not rules need to refer to morpheme initial and
morpheme final position is an open question for any language. The distinction
betw een morpheme initial and morpheme final seems to be unimportant in English,
how ever, Stanley (1 9 6 9 ) demonstrates that the Navajo language requires at least
six boundaries and th a t some of these refer to morpheme initial or morpheme final
position. The boundaries in Stanley (1 9 6 9 ) are assigned according to the position
they occupy in the word and it is not possible to give a one-to-one correspondence
of his boundaries w ith those of this theory. This theory provides a means to refer
to these notions w ithout multiplying boundaries (such as #, + , = ! % etc. posited
in Stanley (1 9 6 9 )).
The underlined sections in (9) indicate that this method of bracketing might
actually allow rules to refer to sequences of three or four brackets. In these strings
113
it is necessary to ask w h a t influence the multiple brackets have on the application
of rules.
(9)
[N° fA° faf'1 un la f'1 fA '1 IN 0 gram m at ]N° [af'1 ical la f'1 1A'1 IA° [af'1 ity ]af_1 ]N°
The notion of 'juncture' can be represented minimally by a pair of adjacent,
facing left and right brackets (][). Thus in this theory any rule th at refers to a
juncture minimally requires tw o brackets, a pair of facing brackets (][) labeled in
accordance w ith the principles of X-bar theory. The possibility that a rule might
refer to more than one bracket on either side of the adjacent ][ pair, needs more
research. In general it is not necessary for a rule to refer to more than the pair of
facing brackets at any one tim e. H ow ever, there are tw o possibilities for citing
junctures in the environment of a rule: 1) a rule can have a pair of brackets at the
end of the preceding environm ent, or 2) a rule can have a pair of brackets at the
beginning of the following environment.
This theory assumes th at brackets to the left and right of the tw o brackets
th at are required to define a juncture are irrelevant to a rule's application unless
specifically mentioned. Since there are some rules th at do require more than the
tw o boundaries th at define the juncture it is necessary to provide some principled
means of determining w hen a rule can refer to more than one bracket.
114
Examples where a rule m ay involve more than one bracket can be motivated
w ith affixes th a t look at tw o levels of structure due to the influence of the
Im m ediate Dominance Condition. For exam ple, in rules like trisyllabic laxing, stress
retraction, and nasal assimilation it is necessary for these rules to be sensitive to
the distinction betw een Class I and Class II affixes. The only property that
distinguishes these tw o affixes is the fact th at un- needs to use the Im m ediate
Dominance Condition for its attachm ent while in- does not. These rules are
described in the last section of this chapter but w e mention them here to point out
th a t these rules illustrate cases in which it is necessary to allow rules to refer to
more than one bracket. Particularly, it is possible to predict the application of rules
th at distinguish between Class I and Class II affixes by allowing those affixes that
require the IDC to link tw o brackets together as in (10)
( 10 )
[ [ un ] n believe ] [ able ] ] ]
un- is a Class II affix and requires the Im m ediate Dominance Condition to
determ ine w here it can attach. In the rules th at distinguish betw een Class I and
Class II affixes it is possible to refer to this distinction by allowing the attachm ent
of such an affix to link the tw o brackets it requires for its attach m ent, and then
allow the rules to refer to this distinction. Thus where the juncture of an ordinary
affix is defined as tw o brackets, an affix that uses the Im m ediate Dominance
Condition will have three.
115
The inclusion of the category 'F' also needs some discussion. The category
'F ' refers to 'fragm ents' as defined in Chapter T w o . These fragm ents are excluded
from ordinary X-bar labeling because of the interaction of X-bar theory and the
W B H . Given the W B H , fragm ents do not receive their own listing in the lexicon.
As stated in Chapter T w o , words w ith fragments are entered into the lexicon by
borrowing or they can be created by the operation of a WFR on a word followed by
truncation. For instance, the word tolerable can be formed from the word tolerate
by the operation of the WFR th at attaches -able followed by the truncation of -ate.
Since the fragm ents do not have a category or a listing they cannot be assigned a
category label. Thus they are given the 'F' label to indicate that a speaker is aw are
of these morphemes as items but there is no means to assign them a category;
their exact nature in gram matical term s cannot be determined. Incidentally, the
m anner of bracket assignment of this theory predicts that truncation removes the
brackets as well as the phonemes of the item truncated, if it also deletes the node.
T h at is, in this theory it is possible to determine if brackets are deleted or not by
rules of truncation or other rules that might delete a morpheme by determining
w hether or not the rule deletes the node. In the case of truncation it is likely that
the affix node is deleted thus the brackets must go as well since the only function
of the brackets is to encode categorial information and the rule is w ritten to operate
on the affix. It is also possible to imagine phonological rules that cause a
morpheme to be phonetically unrealized but leave the node unaffected. Thus it
would be reasonable to assume that the brackets could be maintained in the string
to represent the fact th at the category node w as not deleted. The facts of English
116
and M aiayalam discussed in this thesis do not refer to any such phenomena but the
question is raised by the notion of truncation rules.
4 .3 . APPLICATION OF THE THEORY
This section demonstrates how these labeled brackets can be used to
improve the application of rules of phonology and morphology. Im provem ents in
W FRs and affix subcategorizations are presented first and the ability of the X-bar
brackets to account for the application of morphologically sensitive phonological
rules is dem onstrated second.
4 .3 .1 . The Morphological Rules. The extension of X-bar brackets to
morphology also improves the generality and precision of the W FRs. For example,
it is possible to improve the accuracy of the WFRs by adding the X-bar levels to the
labeled brackets as in (10).
(10) affix A — [X [X
becomes ...
affix A - * [XO [X-1
(1 0) describes an affix th a t can attach to a tree like (11) but not like (1 2 ).
One practical exam ple of this is th at it is possible to improve the description
of the distribution of the affix un- The facts of the distribution of un- discussed in
this section are taken from W alinska de Hackbeil (1 9 8 3 ). She points out th at un-,
which attaches to adjectives quite productively, can never attach to adjectives
derived from adjectives by the suffix -ish as in (1 3 ).
( 13)
*unyoungish
‘ uncleanish
*unslowish
*unoldish
The interesting point is th at un- can appear on adjectives that have been
derived from nouns by -ish (W alinska de Hackbeil 1 9 8 3 :3 0 7 as in (1 4 ).
(14)
ungirlish
unmannish
unmonkish
unstylish
118
By the addition of X-bar levels to the brackets of the W FR for unit is
possible to account for both facts: th at un- cannot attach to adjectives th at have
been formed from adjectives w ith -ish, and that un- can attach to an adjective
derived from a noun w ith -ish.
The WFR for un- as presently stated cannot describe these facts. This WFR
is repeated in (1 5 ).
(1 5 ) un— ► [A [X (where X ^ noncategory)
The discussion of the distribution of un- in Chapter T w o demonstrates that
un- has a stipulation using the Im mediate Dominance Condition th at states that un-
cannot attach to an adjective whose uppermost node im m ediately dominates a
noncategory. This prevents un- from attaching to adjectives such as tolerable
which are made up of a fragm ent (a noncategory) and an affix. The tree for
tolerable is repeated in (16 ).
F'2 af"1
r *
toler able
Th at is, the current stipulation on the affix un- is that it cannot attach to an
adjective if the 'A ' node of the affix to be affixed im m ediately dominates a
noncategory. Formulated like this it is not possible to capture the facts illustrated
119
in (1 3 ) and (14 ) above. H ow ever, if the stipulation is reworded to state th at the
affix un- can attach only if the 'A ' node of the adjective to which it attaches
dom inates an 'X 0' it is possible to do so. The trees in (1 7 ) and (1 3 ) illustrate this.
(1 7 )
young ish
[° I'1 un ]•’ [ 1 young r 1 I ’1 ish ]•’ ]°
(18)
un monk ish
1° [° un I'1 [° monk ]° C1 ish r 1 ]°
Thus changing the WFR that attaches un- as in (19) below captures these
facts.
(19) WFR of un- attachm ent = un— » [A [°
The WFR in (19) indicates that un- requires a bar level of [0 [0 in order to be
attached. In the cases described in (13) and (14) the structures have a -1 where
the WFR requires a 0 and thus un- cannot attach. Given the hierarchical order of
12 0
brackets presented in the first section of this chapter this rule is also not applicable
in the presence of the -2 in a word like [° ['2 toler ]'2 I'1 able ]'1 ]°.
4 .3 .2 . Stress Rules. SPE (p. 2 4 0 ) summarizes the stress rules proposed to
account for the facts of English stress. While the facts of stress are actually quite
complex it is possible to describe those aspects of the stress rules th at are
pertinent to juncture w ithout lengthy discussion of the phonemic environments of
the stress rules. In this discussion w e merely accept the stress rules as proposed in
SPE and dem onstrate how the theory of juncture proposed here can be used to
account for the junctural facts expressed in these rules. The rules th a t account for
stress in SPE are: 1) the main stress rule, 2) the alternating stress rule, and 3) the
Compound, Nuclear Stress, Stress Adjustm ent rule.
4 .3 .2 .1 . The Main Stress Rule. The main stress rule assigns primary stress
to nouns, verbs and adjectives and is modified by the application of the other tw o
stress rules. The main stress rule places primary stress on unanalyzable words (see
definition of analyzable and unanalyzable in Chapter Tw o). The rule is very complex
because of the fa c t th at primary stress in English is dependent on both the category
of the word and on the syllable structure. SPE (p. 70) gives a prose statem ent of
the basic facts which is repeated in (20) below.
(2 0 ) Assign main stress to
(i) the pen ultim ate vow el if the last v o w e l in the string under consideration is nontense
and is follo w ed by no more than a single consonant;
1 2 1
(ii) th e last v o w e l in the string under consideration if this v o w e l is ten se or it is fo llo w e d
by m ore than one consonant.
(2 1 ) SPE {p.6 9 -7 1 )
Verbs Nouns Adjectives

s ✓
astonish America solid
/ / y
maintain aroma supreme
coll/pse veranda absurd

✓ / <• \
edit cinema m anifest
/
erase balalatka handsome
/ / /
torm ent agenda secure
W e do not discuss this in detail because w e simply w a n t to discuss the
manner in w hich SPE allows the rule to be sensitive to morphological information.
Stress rules need to refer to tw o aspects of morphology; 1) the categories of the
words it affects and 2) the junctures of the words it affects.
The main stress rule needs to mention the category labels of phonetic strings
and it also needs to stipulate th at there are no internal occurrences of '# ' in the
string. The main stress rule is repeated as (2 2 ). In this rule and in rules (25) and
(26) the boundaries and boundary features are indicated by double underlining.
122
(22)
-tense I avocIv
V — ► [latresa] / £x_ yatreaal CJ0 ( aeons I>
V J -ant _J
r ^ r
-stress
(v
/ —
/ \ (fjJc)At
( < )< r
< l+ c > ‘
n
-tense
-cons _
[■fconsjgj V
Y
' [[ + D ]C °
I £&B>^Pc° r-stress ic ° < 2v°c °>2 1
conditiona: 0
YL 2
X contains no internal
\ -back I+voc) / C_
\ +high r +cor "y
j -cons [-voc] / C \
The category labels such as N , A , and V are treated in exactly the same
m anner in both the SPE theory and th e present thesis.
The stipulation 'contains no internal is m eant to prevent the rule from
applying across the junctures formed by compounding and Class II affixation
(category assigning affix in this theory) as in black it Hboard or fear/essttness. This
prevents the compound blackboard from being accented like the NP black board and
it insures th a t the accent is in the same place in fearlessness as it is in fearless
(This is typical of words affixed w ith Class II affixes and gives them the name
'stress neutral').
123
(23 )
Ni
/
A0
\
N '1
I I
black board
[0 [0 black ]0 [-1 board ]-1 ]0
(24)
soliloquiz ing
[0 [-1 soliloquiz ]-1 [-1 ing ]-1 ]0
In the terminology of X-bar brackets this can be restated by stating th at X
contains no internal occurrence of ]-1 [-1 or stronger. This allows the rule to apply
across a fragm ent but blocks it in all other cases. Of course, the double 0 brackets
th a t are linked by the Im m ediate Dominance Condition block the application of this
rule as w ell.
4 .3 .2 .2 . The Alternating Stress Rule. The alternating stress rule needs to
mention the possibility that ' = ' could optionally be present and it needs to mention
the category of the string. This rule is m eant to apply after the main stress rule to
assign stress to the antepenultim ate vowei in words of three or more syllables.
This is repeated in (25 ).
124
(25) Alternating stress.
V — [1 stress] / C° i = l C°VC° [1 stress]C°]NAV
The only boundary mentioned in this rule is the ' = ' boundary and this can be
optionally present. This will allow this rule to apply in the case of the words w ith
' = ' such as p er = m it or trans = fer. In the terminology of X-bar brackets it is
possible to capture this fact by replacing the optional ' = ' boundary w ith an optional
]-2 [-2 bracket. The ]-2 [-2 bracket only occurs in a word when a noncategory
assigning affix is attached to a fragm ent. This actually predicts the forms are
headless but this is not problematic since these forms are entered into the language
by borrowing rather than by the operation of WFRs. This is discussed in Chapter
Three and is an autom atic consequence of the word based hypothesis. This ]-2 [-2
bracket predicts the fact that these forms could be affected as a group but unlike
the unmotivated ' = ' of SPE these brackets are assigned by the same methods that
determine all brackets. Following SPE this thesis accepts that there is WFR rule
th a t converts these forms from verbs to nouns w ithout adding an affix.
4 .3 .2 .3 . Compound, Nuclear Stress, Stress Adjustm ent. The stress
adjustm ent rule needs to refer to brackets and category labels. This rule is
repeated as (2 6).
125
(26) Compound, Nuclear Stress, Stress Readjustment
V — [1 stress] / f tt # X Y < # # Z > # #1< >

1 stress
w here Y = ... [1 stress] ...; Z = ... # # ...
This rule needs to mention terminus of the word on either side of the
environm ent and it needs to specify th at if there are no internal '# # ' boundaries the
w hole word must be either a noun, adjective, or verb as specified by the N A V at
the end of the rule. This is m eant to ensure that the rule can distinguish
compounds from separate words. T h at is, it is m eant to apply in the compound
blackboard but not in the phrase black board.
(27) NP (28) N
A N A
/ N\
' i 1
black board black board
The theory of X-bar brackets can w rite this rule w ith a slight variation. W ith
X-bar brackets it is possible to achieve the same a ffe c t by using 10 [0 to indicate
word terminus and replace the stipulation 'Z = ... # # ... ' with 'Z = ... ]0 [0 ...'
W ith X-bar brackets a word terminus alw ays has a sequence of tw o adjacent Os as,
]0 0[. This should not be confused w ith a pair of Os which face the same direction
as [0 [-1 un ]-1 (OA [QV believ ] ]0 V [af'1 able la f'1 10A. In the case of compounds
there is never a double 0 bracket.
126
4 .3 .3 . THE PHONOLOGICAL RULES
This section illustrates the application of morphophonemic rules using the X -
bar brackets. The rules th at are illustrated here are taken from SPE and Lexical
Phonology, though the mode of presentation is particular to this thesis. The
analysis from the other tw o theories is not discussed, but the page references are
given. Rules from SPE and M ohanan (1 9 8 6 ) th a t are not relevant to juncture are
not included. The rules of M alayalam presented in Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) are presented
separately in Chapter 6. For convenience sake (2 3 ) repeats the hierarchical order of
the brackets and Stanley's principles of hierarchical orders.
(2 9 ) ]0 [0 W ord terminus
] 0 or [ 0
]-1 or [-1
1-2 or [-2
A rule 'ranked' for -1 applies at -1 and -2 , but is blocked by 0 . A rule
'requiring' -1 applies only if a -1 bracket is present, and a rule 'delineated' for -1
applies at -1 and 0 , but not at -2.
The application of these ruies indicates th at the property of changed
category versus nonchanged category (caused by the various interactions of
category assigning and noncategory assigning affixes) as reflected in the X-bar rules
provides an accurate account of the application of these rules. Chapter Five
127
provides evidence th at this distinction actually predicts facts about the application
of morphologically sensitive rules that other theories cannot. This remains the main
distinction by which this theory might be falsified. If it can be dem onstrated that
the bar levels of changed category versus nonchanged category can not predict the
application of rules this theory will have to be reevaluated.
4 .3 .3 .1 . Rule # 1 : Assibilation of Itl (SPE:86). The rule of assibilation of /t/
describes the variations betw een /t / and /s / th at occur before the noun forming affix
-y in w ords such as president — presidency. Forms such as chocolate ~ choclatey
(*chocolacy) which are derived by adjective forming -y illustrate that the rule must
be morphologically constrained (SPE:86).
(3 0 )
president presidency chocolate chocalaty
bankrupt bankruptcy brat bratty
insolvent insolvency flight flighty
dem ocrat democracy heart hearty
aristocrat aristocracy haste hasty
In the case of noun forming -y, the rule of 'Assibilation of /t/' is applicable
but in the case of adjective forming -y it is blocked. In terms of this theory, the rule
of 'assibilation of it /' requires a ]-1 ]-2 and it applies correctly in words taking the
noncategory assigning noun-forming -y, however, it is blocked by the stronger 0] [-
128
1 bracket, which is formed by the category assigning adjective-forming -y (see
(31)):
(3 1).
\
af'2
president y
[° [° president y I 2 1°
(32) A0
N °/ a f'1
C
chocolate I
[° [° chocolate J^J'1 y I'1 ]°
'Assibiliation of /t/': The rule 'requires' this bracket.
(33) Assibilation of It/. This rule requires this bracket.
t--> s / ]-1 [-2 /i/
This rule requires the ]-1 [-2 bracket and is blocked by the ]0 [-1 of words
like chocalatey. The /i/ surrounded by [-2 1-2 brackets indicates the -y affix.
This rule is meant to apply at -1 brackets and is blocked by the '0 ' bracket
of adjective forming -y.
129
4 .3 .3 .2 . Rule # 2 Ig l Deletion I. There are actually tw o rules of Ig l deletion.
The other rule of /g / deletion deletes /g / before certain boundaries as in forms like
log ~ logger. One deletes /g/s before nasals th at precede certain junctures as in
sign — signature. Rule # 3 discusses /g / deletion before nasals.
This illustration begins w ith facts of Ig l deletion in an adjective like long.
(3 4 ) through (40) provide some examples w ith the trees th at determine their bar
levels.
(34) A0 (35) A0
A° a f1
Iorj lor^g er
[0 lorjg ]0 [0 [-1 long ]-1 [-1 er ]-1 ]0
(36) A0
A '1 a f'1
lorjg est
[0 [-1 lonp ]-1 [-1 est ]-1 ]0
Given these facts it is possible to w rite the rule of Ig l deletion for a ]0 [-1
bracket as in (37) and this generates the correct results.
(37) g deletion I. This rule is delineated for this bracket.
g —* 0 r + nas] ____ 10 [-1

-pVelarJ
130
The rule in (3 7 ) can apply in (34) but the ]-1 bracket of (35) and (36) does
not m atch the required ]0 bracket and hence does not apply. Examples (38)
through (4 0 ) illustrate the application of this rule w ith the verb to long which
presents a larger range of possible boundaries. (4 0 ) below , how ever seems to be a
counterexam ple. In this exam ple the inflectional affix -ing creates a ]-1 bracket like
the com parative and superlative in (35) and (3 6 ) which predicts th a t /g / deletion
should be inapplicable, yet it applies.
(3 7 ) V° (38)
V° a f’1
I I
lorj log er
1° log ]° [° [° log ]° C1 er ] ]0
(39 ) /N (40 )
V°
I
/ v. af'
I I
A
V '1 af°
I
lorj ig lot) •a
[° [° log ]° C1 ig J'1 ]° [° I' 1 log I' 1 [° ig ]° ]°
Given the bracketing as in (40) this example is a counterexam ple. H ow ever,
it actually raises an interesting point about the distinction betw een inflectional and
derivational endings. Inflectional affixes like genitive case marking and plural seem
to act just like noncategory assigning affixes and thus should be assigned a -2 as
their basic level. Tense how ever poses a different problem in that it is a category in
its ow n right and is introduced by the syntax. Therefore tense cannot be given a -
2. Tense must be given 0 level as its maximal level in the lexicon because it is
131
assigned by the syntax. Further, since tense does not play a role in the assignment
of the category to the verb to which it is attached, it cannot be the head and thus
the -1 level would also be inaccurate. Based on the fact that tense is not a head
and also cannot be given a -2 w e assume these affixes m ust remain a 0 . Also
since the process of encliticization rather than a W FR creates this rule it is not
possible to say th a t sing contributes to the creation of the category and thus the
morpheme sing is also exem pt from Succession. This actually w orks to the
advantage of this theory in th a t the difference in boundaries actually predicts that
Ig i deletion can apply before the inflectional ending -ing as in (4 1 ).
(4 1 )
V 1 af°
I
I
sig '3
[° [- sir} ]' if ) 1°0 l)O
W hile space limitations prevent a thorough investigation of the influences
inflectional endings have on junctures, it is clear this distinction should be m ade and
that it has an a ffe c t on the junctures. Inflectional endings for plural and genitive
m ust also be attached at a level higher than other noncategory assigning affixes as
indicated in (4 2 ).
(42 ) th e king of W i n d s o r 's h o u s e
*th e king's of W indsor house
132
H ow ever, since they do not play an independent role in the syntactic string
and since they do not assign categories the best analysis for these kinds of
inflections is to give them a -2 like other noncategory assigning affixes w ith a
subcategorization th at allows them to attach higher than 0. This predicts that the
/z / ending of the third person present indicative of regular verbs should also be
assigned a 0 , while the /z / of the plural and the genitive should be assigned a -2.
The trees in (43) and (44) illustrate this.
(43) (44)
NP
/ \ VP
I I
N .V N
I / \ /\
V af N af
1 I I I i
he long s song s
The rule of g deletion as w ritten indicates that it applies before the verb
marker /z /, but not before the plural or genitive. However, the /g / is deleted in all of
these cases, thus it seems th a t the /g / is deleted by some general phonetic process
that simplifies /ngz/ to /n z/ word finally. Certainly, it seems difficult to pronounce
such a sequence.
4 .3 .3 .3 . Rule # 3 : /g / Deletion II. In this rule /g/'s are deleted before nasals
which precede a ]° [0 juncture. The examples in (45) illustrate that the rule of /g/
deletion II applies in a similarmanner to Igl deletion I. This ruleis delineated for a )°
[0 That is, the rule istriggered if the In / isfollowed by a ]“ [0 bracket and
133
inapplicable before the w eaker ]a [-1. Also words that end in inflectional ending -
ing appear as counterexam ples if they are attached by WFRs at the 0 level,
how ever if they are treated as independent lexical items (as is discussed above) the
juncture cannot be a -1 but m ust be a 0 and thus the rule should and does apply as
in rule # 2 above. As per the above the discussion the base is also not affected by
succession. This is because the principle of Succession cannot apply in morphology
in these form s because they are separate elem ents at the morphological level. A t
the syntactic level the principle of Succession does not apply because syntactic
processes are blind to the internal structure of words.
(45)
sign signature signing
signal
signify
resign resignation resigned
malign malignant maligning
design designate designs
(46) (47)
N°
N'1 af'2
sign sign ature
0 sign ]0 [° [-1 sign ]’’ I'1 ature I'1 ]°
134
(48) (49)
,V ° V°
v
/1
1 \ a f -l
a f1 v A
f> a f o
1 I
1 1 I I
sign ify sign ing
[° I'1 sign ] 1 [ 1 ify ]
(50 )
/N °
/ \
V° a f’
r I
assign ation
[° [° assign ]° t'1 ation I'1 ]°
The exam ples above illustrate th a t all the cases of g deletion can be
explained in term s of the ]0 bracket. In (49) the word signing does not allow the
application of g deletion because the -ing is a tense marker and receives a 0 level
bracket as discussed earlier.
(51) g deletion II. This rule requires this bracket,
g —- / f / / r j / l a [0
4 .3 .3 .4 . Rule # 4 In i Deletion. Mohanan (1 9 8 6 :2 2 ). The rule of In i deletion
works in the same manner as the rule of g deletion II. It applies at a ]“ [0 bracket
and it
accounts for variations such as hymn — hym nal and condemn - condem nation.
135
(52 ) n deletion. This rule requires this bracket.
n — 6 / ___[ + nasal] ]° (0
(53 ) solemn solemnity
damn dam nation damning
hymn hymnal hymning
condemn condemnation condemning
(54) (55)
A0
A0 a f'1
I I
solemn solemn ity
[0 solemn ]0 [0 [0 solemn ]0 [-1 ity ]-1 ]0
(56) (57)
V°
\
I V°
I
a f'1
1
damn damn ation
[0 damn ]0 [0 [0 damn ]0 [-1 ation ]-1 10
136
(58)
V°
A af°
r i
damn ing
[0 [0 damn ]0 [0 ing 10 10
(5 9 )
V°
/ N\
V° af'1
I i
hymn hymn al
[0 hymn ]0 (0 [0 hymn ]0 [-1 al ]-1 ]0
(60)
I 1
hymn ing
[0 [0 hymn 10 [0 ing ]0 10
There might seem to be reason to object to the above example on the
grounds that hym nal is derived from the noun hymn rather than the verb hymn.
H ow ever, the affix -a /a tta c h e s to verbs not nouns (Marchand 1 9 6 9 :1 8 1 ).
The examples in (61) through (65) are accounted for w ith the same rule.
137
(61)
N°
I
column
[0 column ]0
(62)
N° a f1
1
cofumn
<
ar
[0 [-1 column ]-1 [-1 ar ]-1 ]0
(63) (64)
V° N°
V af
I l
condemn condemn ation
[0 condemn ]0 [0 [0 condemn ]0 [-1 ation ]-1 ]0
(65)
I I
column s
[0 [-1 column ]-1 [-1 s ]-1 ]0
138
(6 5) is an apparent counterexam ple, but it seem s to be explained in term s of
an impossible sequence of phonemes. It is doubtful th a t English can be said to
allow /m n z/ as a sequence of consonants and the In i in such form s is deleted to
prevent th at.
4 .3 .3 .5 . Rule # 5 : 'Syllabification of Sonorants.' This rule is discussed in
detail in Mohanan (1 9 8 6 :3 2 ). It accounts for variations in syllabic and nonsyllabic,
I, m , and r in words such as burgle/burglar, prism /prism atic, and cylinder/cylindrical.
(66) (67)
Adv°
A \
A0 a f1
i I
simple simpl ly
[0 simple ]0 [0 [0 simpl ]0 [-1 ly ]-1 ]0
(68)
A a f'1
simpl ify
[0 [0 simpl ]0 [-1 ify 1-1 ]0
139
(69) (70)
V° Adv°
/ \
V° a f1
I I
double doubl ly
[0 double 10 [0 [0 doubl]0 [-1 ly -1 10
(71)
N
/ \
N'1 V1
[
doubl et
[0 [-1 doubl ]-1 [-1 et ]-1 ]0
(72) (73)
V° No
V' V I
[
burgle burgl ar
[0 burgle ]0 [0 [0 burgllO [-1 ar ]-1 ]0
(74) (75)
V° A0
/ \
V° a f1
I I
wrinkle wrinkl y
[0 w rinkle ]0 [0 [0 wrinkl ]0 [-1 y 1-1 10
140
Mohanan points out an especially interesting variation in twinkling (N) and
twinkling (V) w here the I optionally is syllabified in verbs case but not in forms
derived from verbs. This alternation illustrates a distinction between -ing used as a
tense marker or -ing used as a category assigning affix. In the former the affix gets
a 0 as explained above in the discussion of rule # 2 . In the latter since the affix is
being used as a category changing affix it should not receive the 0 bracket of a
tense marker but should be treated the same as other category assigning affixes,
by assigning boundaries in this manner it is possible to predict the facts of the rule
of sylabification of sonorants.
(76) (77)
a f'1
tw inkle tw inkl ing
[0 twinkle ]0 [0 [0 twinkl ]0 [-1 ing ]-1 ]0
(78)
/ \
af°
tw inkl ing
[0 [-1 twinkl ]-1 [0 ing ]0
141
The rule is repeated in (79 ).
(79) Syllabification of sonorants. This rule requires this bracket.
[ + son] — [ + syl] / V [0
4 .3 .3 .6 . Rule # 6 Intervocalic s-voicing (SPE:47). The rule of intervocalic s-
voicing accounts for alternations in pairs such as resent — consent, resist —
consist. In the terminology of this proposal these variations occur only w hen the
rule of intervocalic is/ voicing occurs at junctures which begin a fragm ent and are
preceded by a noncategory changing affix. This is simple enough to describe. If
the rule is w ritten for a ]-2 [-2 the rule will apply correctly.
These are contrasted w ith the a noncategory assigning affix and a
phonetically identical free form as illustrated in the pair reserve (meaning 'to serve
again') and reserve (meaning 'to holof for someone'Jthe ]0 bracket of the reserve
form blocks the application of the rule (SPE: 9 5 ).
(80)a
resent consent resist consist
resent dissent resemble dissemble
(80)b
reserve reserve resolve resolve
142
(81) (82)
A
a f'2 F2 af'2
A V '1
re serve re serve
[° I 2 re ]’2 [-2 serve ]-2 ]° [° [ 2 re ]'2 [-1 serve ]-1 ]°
(8 3 ) s voicing. This rule requires this bracket.
/s / - * ( Voice) / V ]-2 1 -2 V
These examples are accounted for simply be writing the rule of s voicing to
be sensitive to 1-2. This rule is ranked for ]-2 [F and is blocked by all stronger
brackets.
4 .3 .3 .7 . Rule # 7 : Velar softening (Mohanan 1 9 8 2 , S P E :219 -2 2 3 ). This rule
converts /g / to /j/ and /k / to /s / before high front vowels as in words like critic -
criticism and analogous - analogy. W hile this rule seems w ell m otivated in the /k /
to Is/ examples the Ig l to /]/ examples require a rather abstract underlying
representation; th at is, SPE argues th at the underlying forms for pairs like
courage—courageous and a lle g e -a lle g a tio n involves an underlying Ig l. W hile w e
recognize the excessively abstract nature of some of SPEs analyses are quite
questionable, the rule of velar softening is included here w ith this analysis because
it is a well known rule th at refers to morphological juncture. W ithout the abstract
analysis the facts of the Ig l to l]l sub rule are quite unpredictable. W ith the
143
abstract representation it is possible to state that the /g / becomes l]l before [-low]
and [-back] vow els and word finally.
(84)
analogous analogy
reciprocity reciprocal
allege allegation
rigid rigor
regicide regal
(85) Velar softening. Tnis rule requires this bracket.
k - s / _ ]a [-1 V
[£ * J
g—i /_ -1 v
; bck]
(8 6 ) (87)
.0
N°
N'1 a f1
critic
t
critic
r
ism
[0 critic ]0 [0 [-1 critic ]-1 [-1 ism ]-1 ]0
144
(88)
a f1
critic
[0 [0 critic ]0 [-1 ize 1-1 ]0
There does seem to be one counterexample however. The rule of velar
softening should be applicable to the affix -al as before the affix -ine as in (8 9 ).
H ow ever, it does not apply in m edical and medicate. There seems to be no clear
explanation for these tw o forms and they must be listed as counterexamples.
H ow ever, of all the rules considered here the rule of velar softening is the least well
m otivated. The theory of X-bar brackets is no more nor no less able to arrive at a
satisfactory account of these data.
(89) (90)
t
medic ine medic al
[0 [-2 medic ]-2 [-1 ine ]-1 ]0 [0 [-2 m edic ]-2 [-1 al ]-1 ]°
(91) Velar softening. This rule is ranked for this bracket.
k —> s / ]-2 [-1
145
4 .3 .3 .8 . Rule # 8 Nasal assimilation. This rule is w ritten to describe the
variable pronunciation of the /n / of the affix in- in words such as inedible —
impossible — illegal — irrespective. It is difficult to describe the application of this
rule because it does not operate on the nasal in words w ith un- as in unpassable or
unclear.
(92) un believe able im possible
un law ful il legal
un reliable ir respective
As (93 ) indicates the trees for the words w ith un- and in- are identical and
thus it is predicted th a t nasal assimilation should apply in both.
(93)
un believe able
[0 [-1 un ]-1 [0 [0 believe ]0 [-1 able ]-1 ]0 ]0
146
(9 4 )
af'1 V° a f'1
in pass able
[0 [-1 in 1-1 [0 [0 pass 10 [-1 able 1-1 10 10
In order to w rite this rule it is necessary to find a means to allow the rule to
be sensitive to the difference betw een un- and in-. It is necessary for the rule of
nasal assimilation to be sensitive to the distinction betw een Class I and Class II
affixes. This is best described in term s of the property which distinguishes the tw o
classes of affixes and there is only one property th a t distinguishes these tw o
affixes; the ability to see limited amounts of internal structure due to the Immediate
Dominance Condition. In order to reflect this in the rule w e simply allow the
operation of WFR w hich involves the Im m ediate Dominance Condition to link tw o
brackets together to reflect the fa ct that both are relevant to the affix. The rules
are then w ritten to be either triggered or blocked by this double bracket. This
linking reflects the fac t th at the Im m ediate Dominance Condition involves tw o levels
of morphological structure. This is illustrated in (9 5 ).
un believe able
[° I'1 un r 1 I'1 1° believe J'1 I'1 able I'1 I’1 1°
147
(96)
toler
[° r in J l £ l I'2 toler ]'2 [’’ able I'1 I'1 ]°
The facts of the distribution of un- and in- are discussed at length in Chapter
T w o , briefly restated, un- has a restriction on its attachm ent th at states that it
cannot attach to an adjective th a t immediately dominates a noncategory. Thus in
order to be aw are of the internal information the Immediate Dominance Condition
allows the W FR th at attaches un- to be sensitive to tw o levels of structure. This is
illustrated by the dotted line in (9 6 ). This information can also be indicated on the
phonetic string by indicating th at un- is sensitive to both the first and the second
bracket of the word. This is indicated by the underlining in (9 6 ). Since the facts of
the distribution of affixes like un- can be indicated in the phonetic string it is also
possible to allow the rules to refer to this distinction simply by allowing the rules to
use the double bracket in the place of other brackets. This distinction then makes
it possible to w rite rules th a t predict the application of rules th at refer to the
distinction betw een Class I and Class II affixes such as: nasal assimilation, stress
retraction, and trisyllabic laxing. This is the only property that can be found that
characterizes the difference betw een these affixes and also the means by which to
m ark the rule's sensitivity to the Class I and Class II affixes.
148
(97) Nasal assimilation. This rule requires this bracket.
n - * [ct place] /]-1 ___ [0
This rule requires the ]-1 [0 bracket and is blocked by the ]-1 [0 [0 of words
derived in un-.
The double [0 [0 of un- created by the operation of the Immediate
Dominance Condition blocks the application of nasal assimilation because it is a
stronger bracket. Thus nasal assimilation can apply in [0 [-1 in ]-1 [0 (0 pass ]0 [-1
ible ]-1 ]0 but not in [0 1-1 un ]-1 [0 [0 believe ]0 [-1 able ]-1 ] (see trees in (95)
and (96)). It does not apply in passable because this word has not been affected
by the Im m ediate Dominance Condition and therefore the brackets do not get
linked.
4 .3 .3 .9 . Rule # 9 Stress retraction. This is the w ell-know n rule which
causes stress to retract one syllable to the right in the presence of a Class I affix as
in (98).
(98)
lucid luclclity lucid ness

/ . y . S'.
curious curios ity curious ness.
Since this rule is triggered in words w ith Class I affixes and blocked by the
presence of Class II affixes it is necessary to characterize the difference in the
application of this rule in terms of the affix classes. As w ith nasal assimilation and
149
trisyllabic laxing this rule can be correctly formulated in terms of the Im m ediate
Dominance Condition and a double bracket. (99) states the rule and it is blocked by
the linked brackets of Class II affixation.
(9 9 ) Stress retraction. This rule is requires this bracket.
V —* [ + stress] / _____ ]0 ... V ... V ...
This rule can apply across the bracket of [N ° [A0 divine ]A° [afN'1 ity ]afA'1 ]N°
but not in [N° [ N 1 maid IN '1 (af0-1 en l a f 1 IN '1 [af'2 hood ]af'2 ]N°.
4 .3 .3 .1 0 . Rule # 1 0 : Trisyllabic laxing. This rule is also sensitive to the
presence and absence of Class I and Class II affixes and is applied in a manner
similar to that of nasal assimilation and stress retraction. It is w ritten to describe
variations such as profane ~ profanity and serene ~ serenity (SPE:54). This rule
does not operate before Class II affixes as in maiden ~ maidenhood.
( 100 )
divine divinity
sane sanity
This rule can be w ritten as (1 0 1 ) and like nasal assimilation and stress
retraction this rule is blocked by the doubled bracket that is linked by the
application of the Im mediate Dominance Condition.
150
(1 0 1 )
V —» [-tense] / _____ ... ]0 V ... V ...
Thus this rule is w ritten for the ]0 bracket and is blocked by the double
bracket th at is created by the operation of the Im m ediate Dominance Condition of
th e Class II affixes.
4 .3 .3 .1 1 . Rule #11 t - z. Aronoff and Sridhar (1 9 8 3 ) discusses the rule
th a t changes the Latin root vert to vers ' ... when followed by the suffixes + ive,
+ ion, + o ry as in inversion and subversive' (Aronoff and Sridhar 1 9 8 3 :3 6 4 ). He
dem onstrates th at this change only occurs w ith this fragm ent (as in insertion) and
not w ith all Class I affixes (as in convertible).
Given the theory of X-bar brackets, this one exam ple of an allomorphy rule
can be correctly predicted. If the rule of it /— ►Iz l is w ritten w ith an adjacent ]-2
bracket the other configurations block the application of the rule.
(1 0 2 ) t ~ z. This rule requires this bracket.
-ory
M — >/z/ / ___ 1-2 ]0 1-1 -ive
-ion
151
(1 0 3 )
/•-
af'2 r\ >2
in vert ion
[° [° in I'2 vert ]’2 ]° ['1 ion ]"’ ]°
(1 0 4 )
V° af
af'2 F'2
I I ‘
con vert ion
[° [° con I 2 vert \ 2 ]° F’ ion I'1 ]°
4 .3 .4 . Sum m ary. This Chapter demonstrated th a t the theory of X-bar
brackets is capable of accounting for the facts of the variable application of
morphological, morphophonemic and phonological rules th a t require information
about the hierarchical constituent structure of words. This is an im provement over
past theories because the theory of X-bar brackets reduces the am ount of
theoretical machinery th at is required in the grammar. The next chapter compares
the three theories of morphological juncture th at w e have been discussing.
CHAPTER FIVE
COMPARISON WITH OTHER THEORIES
5.1. INTRODUCTION
This chapter evaluates the merits of the three different theories th at have
been proposed to account for the facts of morphological juncture: the boundary
theory of SPE, the strata theory of Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) and the theory of X-bar
brackets presented in this thesis. This chapter is necessary to dem onstrate that
these theories are not merely notational variants of one another and that there are
clear reasons to prefer the theory of X-bar brackets over the others. This
comparison is organized into three sections: the first describes the ability of these
theories to account for the data, the second compares them on theoretical grounds,
and the third investigates the different predictions made by these three theories.
Particularly, this third section investigates the ability of the basic mechanisms of
these theories to account for the data. In Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) the main mechanism is
the division of the lexicon into strata and stratal ordering. In X-bar brackets the
main mechanism is the X-bar theory which is affected by the morphological notions
of category assigning and noncategory assigning. The third section discusses the
examples that are counterexamples for Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) but are predicted by this
theory.
153
5 .2 . ABILITY TO AC C O U N T FOR THE D A TA
This discussion illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of these theories in
their ability to account for the data. Number (1) illustrates in a general sense the
w ay these three theories account for the data.
(1)
SPE LP X-bars
a. Class I + Strata 1 ]F ]0
or]-1 ]0
b. Class II # Strata 2 ]0 ]0
c. Compounds ## Strata 3 ]0 [-1
or ]-1 [-1
Inflections N /A Strata 4 ]-1 [0
(2) illustrates the different w ays these theories refer to junctures in rules,
using a rule w ritten for a Class I affix.
a. P Q / + ___
b. P —►
Q / [strata one]
c. P - - * Q / ] . , __ 1
'T h is ' - 1 ' w o u ld a ls o in c lu d e 'F ' b y ra n k in g th is ru le f o r ' - 1 ' .
154
5 .2 .1 . SPE. This discussion begins w ith the boundary theory of SPE. All
three theories claim to account for all the data. The SPE theory accounts for all of
the data w ith o u t counterexamples; how ever, the theory itself falls to criticisms of
being far too pow erful, ad hoc, and unfalsifiable. This is discussed more completely
in the section on theory (5 .2 .2 .).
The SPE theory; 1) assigns the ' + ' boundary to form atives, 2) it assigns
on either side of every lexical category in the syntactic string, and 3) it assigns '# # '
in compounds and betw een words. Siegel (1 9 7 4 ) amended this theory by
proposing t h a t ' + ' and be inserted in the lexicon w ith the appropriate affixes.
Siegel (1 9 7 4 ) dem onstrates th a t the ' = ' boundary can be eliminated by reanalyzing
certain aspects of the stress rules (as discussed in Chapter One). In general the
SPE fram ew ork correctly generates the sorts of boundaries th a t are required for the
application of the relevant rules. Any problems or paradoxes th at arise are handled
by the special boundary ' = ' or by readjustment rules (as discussed in Chapter One).
5 .2 .2 . Mohanan. The theory of Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) accounts for the same
d ata w ith the exception that Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) does adm it to some serious
counterexam ples (discussed later in this section).
Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ), following Siegel (1 9 7 4 ) and Allen (1 9 7 8 ), argues th a t the
lexicon must be divided into a series of ordered strata to account for the order and
sequence of English Class I and Class II affixes. Mohanan further argues th at it is
possible to account for the facts of morphological juncture by ordering the
155
application of the morphologically sensitive rules to the different strata (this is
discussed in Chapter One). In M ohanan's theory the rules that apply to Class I
affixes apply have strata one as their domain of application, the same strata in
which the Class I affixes are attached. Rules th a t affect Class II affixes are applied
at the level in w hich these affixes are attached, strata tw o . Rules th a t a ffe c t
compounds are applied at strata three, the compound strata. Finally, the rules th at
a ffe c t inflectional affixes are applied at strata four.
Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) clearly indicates that this theory is adequate to account for
most of the data but there are tw o types of counterexamples that get in the way;
the mixed strata affixes like 'un-' and derived forms like ungram m aticality and
reorganization. The mixed strata affixes w eaken the stratal uniqueness hypothesis
and open the possibility th a t stratal boundaries can just be ignored.
The subdivision of the lexicon into ordered strata m akes some rather strong
predictions w hich can be checked for counterevidence. The strongest prediction
th at this theory m akes is th a t the strata are necessarily sequential. W ithout this
there would be no point in dividing the lexicon. One consequence of this is th at
there should never be an instance of a Class I affix appearing outside of a Class II
affix. Stratal ordering requires th at all Class I affixation precede all Class II
affixation. H ow ever, there are some counterexamples to this. Discussions of
counterexam ples to the theory of ordered strata in the lexicon begin in Aronoff
(1 9 7 6 ) in his criticisms of the A ffix Ordering Generalization of Siegel (1 9 7 4 ) and
continue through to present criticisms of Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ). The most famous of
156
these counterexamples are words like ungrammaticality and reorganization as
discussed in Strauss (1 9 8 2 ), Aronoff (1 9 7 6 ), and Aronoff and Sridhar (1 9 8 3 ). In
these examples the Class II affixes re- and un- must have been attached before the
Class I affixes -ation and -ity because the Class I affixes are not subcategorized to
attach to the earlier forms. T hat is, re- attaches only to verbs and thus it must
have been attached to organize not organization. Similarly, the un- affix of
ungram m aticality cannot attach to gram m aticality because un- attaches only to
adjectives. (3) and (4) below illustrates this.
un gram m at ical ity re organize ation
Aronoff and Sridhar (1 9 8 3 ) point out that all potential words of the form
Xttabiiity, Xttistic, and Xttization are counterexamples to the A ffix Ordering
Generalization. Aronoff and Sridhar (1 9 8 3 ) mention that Selkirk (1 9 8 2 ) is able to
explain aw ay a small subset of the counterexamples but these forms are actually
quite productive and explaining a fe w as instances of decay or reanalysis is not
very convincing. SelkirK (1 9 8 2 ) disputes some of Aronoff's counterexamples, but
on rather spurious grounds.
157
Thus Aronoff (1 9 7 6 ), Strauss (1 9 8 2 ), and Aronoff and Sridhar (1 9 8 3 ) have
clearly established th at the A ffix Ordering Generalization (and Lexical Phonology)
have too many counterexamples to be acceptable.
5 .2 .3 . X-bar Brackets. The theory of X-bar brackets accounts for the data
presented in Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) and SPE, and it does so w ithout succumbing to the
criticisms of those theories. Particularly, the theory of X-bar brackets avoids the
criticisms of being ad hoc and counterintuitive because all of the theoretical
mechanisms used in this theory (X-bar theory, labeled brackets, the locality
condition in morphology) are all independently m otivated. The acceptance of the
Im m ediate Dominance Condition m akes it possible to predict the order and
distribution of the tw o classes of affixes w ithout resorting to the division of the
lexicon. It also predicts the correct attachm ent of the affixes in the
counterexamples to Lexical Phonology. Chapter Four illustrates in detail the
manner in which X-bar brackets predict the correct application of rules that refer to
juncture. Chapter Six gives further evidence of the ability of X-bar brackets to
account for the relevant data. To date there are no clear counterexamples to the
theory of X-bar brackets.
5 .3 . THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS
This section investigates the advantages and disadvantages of these three
theories on theoretic grounds. As stated earlier, SPE theory requires the theoretical
mechanisms in (5) and accounts for all the data.
158
(5)
1. A class of non-phoneme segments.
2. A rule to insert boundaries.
3. The inclusion of form ative boundaries in the lexicon.
4. A rule for the insertion of ' = '.
5. A series of readjustment rules.
Mohanan requires the mechanisms in (6) and has some counterexamples.
(6)
1. A subdivided lexicon.
2. Rules need to be marked for their domain (the strata in which they
apply).
3. The 'loop' (discussed in # 2 of this section).
X-bar brackets uses the mechanisms in (7) (all of which are independently
m otivated in other components of the grammar) and has no counterexamples.
(7)
1. The X-bar theory.
2. The X-bar level marked on the labeled bracket.
3. The relevant rules need to be allowed to refer to the labeled bracket.
159
The notions of the SPE theory in (5) are not independently m otivated and are
ad hoc. The nature of the boundaries them selves are not discussed and the rules
th at insert them are unm otivated. The readjustm ent rules th at form a crucial part of
the theory are extrem ely pow erful and m ake the theory unfalsifiable. The
boundaries have a semi-physical existence in their status as members of a phonetic
string, which seems counterintuitive to many linguists. Even if this is acceptable a
theory th at did not need to posit such extra phonemic elem ents would be preferred.
Thus SPE can only account for all the data because of its excessive power.
As for Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) the division of the lexicon into ordered strata is the
m ost controversial aspect of this system . M any linguists have found this to be
counterintuitive, but it has been tolerated because of its aoparent effectiveness in
describing both the facts of affix distributions and the facts of morphological
juncture. The motivation for the strata comes from the distributions of Class I and
Class II affixes, and from the distributions of rules that refer to cocompounds and
subcompounds in M alayalam . As stated earlier the Class I affixes are those which
attach to both fragm ents and words and the Class II affixes are those th a t attach
only to w ords. On this m atter M ohanan (1 9 8 6 :5 1 ) says;
Recall th a t the original m o tiv a tio n for stra tu m ordering in Lexical Phonology w a s the
discovery th a t a s y m m etrie s in m orphological distribution (e.g. class 2 d erivatio ns can
be a tta c h e d to strings containing class 1 d erivation, but not vice versa) correlated w ith
d iffe re n c e s in the behavior of phonological rules w ith respect to these m orphological
p ro ce s s e s ....
The main objections to this theory are these; 1) the separation of the rules
into different domains of application subdivides the lexicon in a manner that is ad
160
hoc and counterintuitive and a complication th at should be avoided if possible, 2)
the loop th at allows rules to violate the principle of stratal uniqueness causes the
theory to be too pow erful, and unfalsifiable, 3) the W ord Based Hypothesis (Aronoff
1 9 7 6 ) cannot be maintained, 4) the facts of the distribution and order of the Class I
and Class II affixes cannot be predicted and m ust be stipulated, 5) the comparative
and superlative affixes -est and -er w hich are generally classified as inflectional
endings m ust be listed a t stratum one w ith the Class I derivational affixes, because
of facts of the application of certain phonological rules which concerns these tw o
affixes.
# 1 . T h e subdivision of the lexicon. Allowing rules to be applied at different
strata has been demonstrated to be effective in predicting the distribution of the
affixes and the application of morphophonemic rules; how ever, its theoretical cost
is high. The assignment of rules to different domains of application (the strata)
allow s for the replacem ent of word boundaries, but the problems w ith word
boundaries are replaced by the problems w ith strata (outlined here). Hargus (1 9 8 9 )
points out th at Mohanan does not justify these levels; he merely accepts this notion
of a subdivided lexicon from Siegel (1 9 7 7 ). This m ight be preferable to a theory of
word boundaries such as is found in SPE, but the division of the lexicon is still ad
hoc and counterintuitive. A theory th a t could account for the same facts w ithout
dividing the lexicon would be preferable.
# 2 . The loop. W hile the notion of stratal ordering requires that all rules that
apply at later strata should not be able to affect forms that are created at lower
161
levels. T hat is, a rule that applies at stratum 2, for instance, should not be able to
apply to forms created at a later level. This is does not actually hold in all cases
and so Mohanan introduced the notion of a 'loop' to allow certain rules to loop back
to an earlier stratum in order to apply to earlier forms. For exam ple, compounds are
created at stratum 3 in English but they can be affixed w ith Class II affixes which
are attached at stratum 2. Since stratum 2 affixation takes place before
compounding compounds have to be allowed to loop back to strata 2 to get the
Class II affixes. Thus the word frogman is created at strata 3 and then it loops
back to strata 2 in order to receive the affix ex- to form exfrogman. Mohanan
proposes one rather loose constraint on this (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :5 2 ).
I assume, in the absence of counterevidence, that the loop is a device
th at allows a morphological form to move from stratum n to stratum

n -1 . That is to say, a loop cannot connect nonadjacent strata.
The loop that Mohanan uses to allow compounds to be affixed w ith Class II
affixes violates the concept of stratal uniqueness. This raises the question of
w hether or not the theory is falsifiable. The loop is also used in the Mohanan
(1 9 8 6 ) discussion of M alayalam (page 1 0 9 ) to account for certain counterexamples
and for stress assignment (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :1 2 0 -1 2 4 ). If the device of the loop can
be brought into play any tim e counterexamples are found then the theory is no
longer falsifiable. So far the loop has only been used in cases referring to
connecting levels, but Mohanan proposes no theoretical constraints on the loop and
he does not address the question of falsifiability. Even if there are w ays by which
162
it is possible to falsify the concept of stratal divisions, the devise of the loop is still
excessively powerful.
# 3 . The word based hypothesis. In Aronoff (1 9 7 6 ) a theory of morphology
is presented th a t requires th at all items listed in the lexicon be words w ith a
category and a meaning (Aronoff 1 9 7 6 :2 1 ). This theory claims th at fragm ents
such as toler- of tolerable can not be listed in the lexicon w ithout an affix to make
them into a full word. A theory that subdivides the lexicon in order to describe the
facts of the Class I and Class II affixes must give all bound stems individual listings
in the lexicon in order to have them available at the first level for Class I affixation.
W ithout the W B H , fragm ents like toler- can be listed in the lexicon as lexical
entries th at are merely strings of phonemes w ithout definition or category. Siegel
(1 9 7 4 ), Allen (1 9 7 8 ) and the researchers w ho accept the theory of lexical
morphology must maintain th a t stems are given individual listings in order to predict
the order of attachm ent of Class I affixes before Class II affixes. If the bound
stem s are not given individual lexical entries it is not possible to m otivate the
required first level for Class I affixation. Theories that do not adhere to the WBH
such as Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) need to allow fragm ents to have lexical entries in order to
g et the correct distribution of the Class ! and Class II affixes. H ow ever, this has
the unfortunate consequence th at these theories must also mark all words in the
lexicon in some manner to make sure they take affixes at the appropriate level. If
all words are not individually marked as to which class of affixes they take then
those that take Class II affixes would erroneously be available for Class I affixation
163
as th ey pass through the different layers of the lexicon. In a theory that does not
divide the lexicon both the Class I and the Class II affixes are in com petition and
th ey do not need to marked as to which sort of affix th ey take. A theory th at
requires the listing of bound stem s is a w eaker theory and is counterintuitive. Most
theories assume it is necessary to give bound stems an individual listing because of
th e distribution of the affixes. Theories w hich accept the WBH do not allow the
fragm ents to have their own listing, thus for them the level ordering hypothesis
cannot hold. None of the researchers w ho assume th at fragm ents should be given
lexical entries provide any arguments for it (See Scalise (1 9 8 6 ) for a discussion of
this). A ronoff (1 9 7 6 ) argues th a t the W ord Based Hypothesis is preferable as it is
the more restrictive theory and it is in keeping w ith the subjective judgements of
speakers.
#4. The fa c t th a t English affixes separate into the Class I and Class II
subgroups cannot be predicted in the theory of Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) and must be
stipulated, as described in Chapter T w o the theory of X-bar brackets can predict
th a t the affixes separate into different groups based on their different
subcategorizations. In Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) the distribution of these affixes is simply
stipulated. Chapter T w o demonstrated that the facts of the distribution and order
of attach m en t of the Class I and Class II affixes can be predicted using the
Im m ediate Dominance Condition. Thus in stipulating these facts lexical morphology
is missing a significant generalization about English affixation.
164
# 5 . The split of -er. In Halle and Mohanan (1 9 8 5 ) it is demonstrated that
the fa c ts of the application of the rule of /g/-deletion in words w ith the com parative
affix -e r and the superlative affix -est indicate th a t listing these affixes at strata four
w ith other inflectional affixes gives the wrong results. In English /g/s are ordinarily
deleted w hen a strong juncture is present ('# ' in SPE or strata 2 in Lexical
Phonology). The rule is not applicable in the presence of w eaker boundary such as
a Class I affix. Thus following the terminology of Stanley (1 9 7 3 ) this rule is
delineated by (8) - (10) illustrates this.
(8) (9) (10)
A N
/ \
A af af
Ion long er long mg
The rule of g-deletion is assigned to strata tw o . If -er and -est are attached
a t strata four the rule is no longer availableso can not apply. This predicts that the
/g / should appear in the surface structure which is clearly false. Since -er and -est
are inflectional endings they should be attached at stratum 4 w ith all other
inflectional endings. Chapter Four of this thesis provides a description of these
form s using X-bar brackets th at does not require such a reanalysis of the affixes.
The fa ct th at Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) is forced to place the superlative and
com parative affixes w ith the Class I affixes indicates that the theory is not actually
165
able to reflect the facts of English affixation. The ordinary analysis of -er and -est
m ust be dropped in favor of a proposal designed simply to get them to fit into the
stratal organization of the lexicon.
W hile SPE rejects the notion that morphophonology constitutes a separate
level of phonology, Ford and Singh (1 9 8 3 ) point out that many theorists such as
Hooper (1 9 7 6 ), LeL>en and Robinson (1 9 7 7 ) Donnegan and Stam pe (1 9 7 9 ) and
Bybee and Brewer (1 9 8 0 ) argue th at such a distinction is necessary and provide
empirical support for the notion of the morphophonemic level. SPE says of such a
level.
T h e term 'm orphophonem ic representation' seem s to us appropriate only if there is
another linguistically significant level of representation, interm ediate in 'a b s trac tn e s s '
b e tw e e n the lexical (phonological) and phonetic and m eeting the conditions placed on
'p honem ic representation' in m odern structural linguistics. W e fee l, h o w ever, th a t th e
existence of such a level has not been d em on strated and th a t there are strong reasons
to doubt its e x iste n c e .'
By accepting the Im m ediate Dominance Condition it is no longer possible to
m otivate the separation of the lexicon into separate strata. W ithout the subdivision
of the lexicon it is not clear w h y there should be a separation of rules into lexical
and postlexical, but if the postlexical level should be required on independent
grounds it is possible to represent these levels by allowing one set of rules to be
sensitive to morphological structure and another which is not.
Theoretically, X-bar brackets represent an improvement over previous
notations in that: 1) it lessens the amount of theoretic apparatus required for the
166
gram m ar, 2) all the theoretical mechanisms it uses are independently m otivated, 3)
it accounts for more data than M ohanan, 4) it improves affix subcategorizations, 5)
it can predict the counterexamples of other theories, 6) it does not require segm ent
like elem ents to be inserted into the phonological string, and 7) it does not require
the subdivision of the lexicon.
The system of X-bar brackets is completely made up of theoretical
mechanisms th a t are independently motivated in other parts of the grammar. In
particular, the X-bar theory is a w ell-know n component of syntax. Besides the fact
th at this theory is well established and describes crosscategorial and hierarchical
arrangem ents of lexical categories, it is logical that this theory should also account
for crosscategorial generalizations at word level as w ell. The theory of X-bar
brackets uses the labeled brackets of the phonological string as the markers of the
morphological information in the rules. The labeled brackets are required for the
syntax, morphology, and phonology and some version of a locality condition like the
Im m ediate Dominance Condition is needed to account for the distribution of affixes.
For Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ), the differences in hierarchical relationships th at occur
in morphology and phonology are the result of the fact that word formation acts in
blocks in different levels of the lexicon. For the theory of X-bar brackets these
hierarchical differences are the result of the operation of the X-bar principles.
In m any cases, all these theories make exactly the same predictions.
H ow ever, there are cases w here the evidence illustrates that the predictions of one
167
of the theories are preferable to those of the others. T h at is, the fact th at the
theory proposed here refers to structural relationships within the word rather than
different lexical strata constitutes a different empirical claim. Thus, the theory of
juncture presented here is going to m ake different predictions than Lexical
Phonology. Particularly, it predicts th a t X-bar configurations are the basis for
attach m en t, not the organization of the lexicon. Further, the morphological function
th at determ ines the differences in X-bar configurations is th at of category assigning
versus noncategory assigning. This prediction is borne out in those cases w h ere X-
bar brackets account for the counterexam ples to stratal ordering such as
ungram m aticality and reorganization. The theory of X-bar brackets distinguishes
junctures in term s of the X-bar levels. The notions of category assigning and
noncategory assigning are the underlying notions that determine the bar levels and
the distinctions betw een inflectional and derivational affixation. The fact that this
theory predicts the correct application of the rules that generate the forms th a t are
counterexam ples to M ohanan (1 9 8 6 ) indicates that this distinction is better able to
account for the facts of juncture than the division of the lexicon.
T h a t is, w here Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) predicts that the operation of these rules
will depend on the strata (as determ ined by their domain of application), the theory
of X-bar brackets predicts that these rules will apply according to w hether or not a
category has been changed as reflected in the bar levels. This is discussed
thoroughly in Chapter Five. The Chapter Five discussion dem onstrates that the
diferent predictions made by these theories are illustrated w ith exmples that are
counterevidence to the theory of Lexical Phonology, but support the theory of X-bar
168
brackets. The notion of category assigning and noncategory assigning determines
the facts of the application of these rules in all cases. The notions of class
membership and inflectional and derivational affixation must be determined in X-bar
term s. This results in explanatary descriptions of m any of the problems th a t have
not been captured by the notions of class membership and the distinction between
derivational and inflectional afixation. These points are illustrated w ith th e relevant
rules in Chapters Four and Six. For instance. Chapter Four dem onstrates that the
varibale application of the rules of g deletion and syllabifiaction of sonorants can be
captured by the distinction of the bar levels caused by category assignment.
This particular formulation of X-bar theory provides solutions for all the
morphological phenomena cited in this paper w ithout resorting to ordered strata, ad
hoc features such as [ + Latinatel or [ + Class I] e tc ., segmental boundaries, or
extrinsic ordering statem ents for the order of affixes. Before demonstrating the
usefulness of this theory for the problems of morphological structure, how ever, the
notion of headedness needs discussion.
CHAPTER SIX
X-BAR BRACKETS A ND M A LA Y A LA M
6 .1 . MALAYALAM PHONOLOGY
This chapter illustrates the ability of the theory of X-bar brackets to account
for the junctural phenomena of a language other than English. The language chosen
for this demonstration is M alayalam , as described in Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ). Since the
previous tw o chapters illustrate the implementation of the theory of X-bar brackets
and discusses the relative merits of the different theories, this chapter merely
illustrates the application of the theory of X-bar brackets w ith the facts of
Malayalam . For a thorough discussion of the facts of Malayalam phonology the
reader is refereed to Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ).
6 .2 . LEXICAL PHONOLOGY OF MALAYALAM
M alayalam phonology and morphology is less complicated than English in
th at it does not involve tw o sets of affixes with an overlapping distribution.
H ow ever, in M ohanan's analysis Malayalam does require four strata: one each for
derivation and inflection and then tw o for compounding. Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) argues
that the tw o different kinds of compounding that are required to explain the facts of
M alayalam support the overall theory cf Lexical Phonology. He claims that the
facts cannot be explained w ithout stratal divisions of the lexicon, because SPE
boundary assignment cannot distinguish tw o kinds of compounding. This chapter
170
dem onstrates th at the theory of X-bar brackets, however, can account for this data
w ithout strata and thus this argument for stratal ordering can be dismissed.
Three aspects of Lexical Phonology in Malayalam need to be mentioned in
order to begin this demonstration. First, it is necessary to describe the interaction
of the lexical and postlexical levels, second the organization of the four strata of
M alayalam needs to be described, and finally, the tw o kinds of compounding in
Malayalam need to be described.
The details of the basic phonology of Malayalam are described in Mohanan
(1 9 8 6 ). The rules and data presented in this chapter do not question Mohanan's
basic analysis and the reader is referred to this for a full discussion. The phonemes
of M alayalam required in this discussion can all be represented by an ordinary
typew riter keyboard except for the schwa (for a mid lax vow el) and /n / (for a velar
nasal) which are represented as 'E' and 'N ' respectively. The nasals In i and Ini
refer to a palato-alveolar nasal and a dental nasal respectively. In i refers to an
alveolar nasal.
6 .2 .1 . The Postlexical Level. The theory of lexical phonology separates
phonological rules into tw o groups: lexical and pcs tlexical. Lexica! rules are all
those rules th a t are sensitive to morphological structure. These rules are applied in
the lexicon and are assigned to particular morphological strata. The second group
of rules is the postlexical level. This level involves the application of all the rules
th at apply generally w henever their structural description is m et, irrespective of the
171
boundaries th at do or do not intervene. These rules apply a fte r the application of all
the lexical rules. W hile this separation of rules into lexical and postlexical accounts
for the facts of the application of these rules it requires th a t there be still another
level of rule application after how ever many strata are required and it also requires a
separate level of phonetic representation. Thus w ithin lexical phonology there is a
level of basic phonemic representation that is part of the lexical entry, then there
are interm ediate levels of representation at each strata and finally there is the
postlexical level. Thus in the description of any language w ith Lexical Phonology
there are at least three levels of representation (assuming a minimum of one strata
for any language); the phonemic level, the stratal level and the phonetic level.
A ctually, the easiest solution to this is available to any theory, monostratal
or m ultistratal. T hat is, it is possible to claim th at there are tw o types of
phonological rules, phonemic and phonetic. Phonemic rules are those th at are
sensitive to morphological structure. A phonemic rule th a t does not mention a
juncture specifically is blocked by the presence of boundaries. The phonetic level is
independent of the morphology and phonetic rules apply w hether or not a juncture
intervenes. This corresponds to the natural phonology distinction of rules and
processes. Mohanan does not have the option of explaining this phenomena in
term s of rule type because these phonetic rules must apply after all of the rules that
are ordered in the lexicon. This forces Mohanan to include yet another level of
representation in phonology.
172
6 .2 .2 . The S trata in M alayalam . Mohanan posits four strata in the lexicon
and the postlexical level for his description of Malayalam phonology. The strata are
repeated in (1) (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :6 8 ).
(1)
stratum 1: derivation
stratum 2: compounding type I (subcompounding)
stratum 3: compounding type II (cocompounding)
stratum 4: inflection
Unlike English, M alayalam does not distinguish betw een tw o types of
affixation such as the Class I and Class II affixes, so one level for derivational
affixation is sufficient. M alayalam does how ever require tw o strata for the
compounds: one for cocompounds and one for subcompounds. This difference in
compounding is exactly the same as the differences in compounding described for
English insect predator (for an animal that preys on insects) and insect predator (for
an insect which preys on something) which motivated the use of ]0 bar level for
nouns used as modifiers in Chapter Three. In M alayalam , phonological rules need
to distinguish betw een these tw o sorts of compounding. This is discussed in the
following section.
6 .2 .3 . Cocompounds and Subcompounds. The tw o types of compounding
provide an interesting test of the ability of X-bar brackets to account for the data.
The tw o types of compounding are distinguished by the differences in the functions
173
of the elements th at are compounded. If the words compounded are in a
modifier/head relation the compound is a subcompound.
(Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :8 3 ):
Subcom pounds have th e com m on head and m odifier structure, as in the English
com pound colourblind, w h ile cocom pounds (dw anda com pounds in Sanskrit) have the
structure head head + head .... as in th e English com pound d e a f-m u te .'
If the words compounded are used in a coordinate sense, the words are
cocompounds. As demonstrated below different rules apply to the different sets of
compounds so Mohanan argues that they must be separated into tw o strata. In
this chapter it is demonstrated that the theory of X-bar brackets can predict these
different rule applications w ithout separating the tw o kinds of compounds into
different strata as illustrated in (2) and (3). The X-theory formulation presented in
Chapter Three assigns different bracket to labels to these tw o kinds of compounds
as illustrated w ith the examples in (2) and (3). The cocompounds have an internal
]-1 [-1 juncture because both words of the compound contirbute to the category of
the entire word. In the subcompounds only the righthand member is demoted to -1
by Succession because it alone creates the category of the compound.
(2) Subcompounds
a. taara kaantan taaraa kaantanmaafc?
'Tara' 'husband' 'Tara's husband'
174
b. maTam kutira maTakkutifa
'tree' 'horse' 'w ooden horse'
c. /N °
X '
N N '1
I I
tree horse
[0 [0 tree ]0 [-1 horse ]-1 ]0
(3) Cocompounds
a. acchan am m a acchanam m am aar^
'fath er' 'm other' 'parents'
b. mahaa ausadham
• « mahausadham
•
'great' 'm edicine' 'great medicine'
c. N
N°
\
N'1
1 I
mahaa ausadham
*
[0 [-1 mahaa ]-1 [-1 ausadham ]-1 ]0
Mohanan gives evidence th a t morphophonemic rules must be able to
distinguish these tw o kinds of compounds. He then shows that Lexical Phonology
is capable of making this distinction by giving each kind of compounding its own
175
strata. These rules and the other rules of Malayalam phonology pertinent to a
discussion of juncture are discussed in section 6 .4 .1 . Before discussing the actual
rules it is necessary to outline the technicalities of the application of X-bar theory in
Malayalam .
6 .3 . X-BAR BRACKETS IN M A L A Y A L A M
The X-bar theory assigns bar levels to the different sorts of derived words as
illustrated in (4) - (8). Throughout this illustration of the use X-bar brackets for
M alayalam phonology, it is necessary to refer to these trees.
(4) Subcompound (5) Cocompound
/ \ / \
X° X '1 X '1 X '1
I I I I
[0 [0 !0 [-1 1-1 10 [0 [-1 ]-1 [-1 1-1 !0
(6) Inflection1
/ XKX°
°
f'
X-1
/ \af o *0
I '
[0 [-1 ]-1 [-2 ]-2 10
' A ll o f t h e e x a m p le s o f in fle c tio n in M o h a n a n ( 1 9 8 6 ) a re c a s e m a r k e r s , g e n itiv e , o r p iu ra ls

w h ic h a re all t r e a te d as n o n c a te g o r y a s s ig n in g a ff ix e s a s in E n g lis h . T h e r e a re n o e x a m p le s
o f te n s e m a r k e rs , b u t if th e r e w e r e th e s e w o u ld h a v e to b e g iv e n t h e 0 b a r le v e l a s in E n g lis h .
176
(7) Derivation 1 (8) Derivation 2 2
category assigning noncategory assigning
X° X°
/\
X° af*'
/\
X '2 a f'1
10 [0 ]0 [-1 ]-1 ]0 [0 [-2 ]-2 [-1 ]-1 ]0
The principles of hierarchical ranking of rules of Stanley (1 9 7 3 ) are referred
to throughout this discussion as w ell, they are repeated in (9) for convenience.
(9) The hierarchical order of the brackets arranges them from 'strongest' to
'w e a k e s t' w here the 0 is strongest, -1 is interm ediate and -2 is the w eakest.
A . A rule 'ranked' for ]-1 can apply ]-1 and at 1-2 but is blocked by ]0.
B. A rule 'requiring' ]-1 can apply only when this bracket is present.
C. A rule 'delineated' for ]-1 the rule can apply at ]-1 and 10 but not at 1-2.
In M alayalam m ost rules require a double bracket. The principles of ranking
and delineating become a little more complicated in these instances. For exam ple a
2 T h e e x a m p le s in ( 7 ) a n d (8 ) illu s tr a te th e s e k in d s o f d e r iv a tio n w ith s u f f ix a t io n . In

p r e fix a t io n t h e lo w e r e le v e l m o rp h e m e s a re re v e r s e d a n d re s u lt in m ir ro r im a g e b r a c k e ts to
r e p r e s e n t th e in te rn a l ju n c tr u e s . T h u s t h e in te rn a l b r a c k e ts f o r s u f f ix a t io n in ( 7 ) a n d ( 8 ) a re 10
[-1 a n d 1-1 [ - 2 re s p e c tiv e ly a n d f o r s u f f ix a t io n t h e y w o u ld b e 1-1 [ 0 a n d 1-2 [ - 1 .
177
rule th a t is delineated for ]-2 [-1 will apply a t ]-2 [-1, ]-1 [-1, and ]0 [-1. This rule is
only blocked in those cases w here the right hand bracket is lower than -1 as in ]X [-
2. Thus both brackets in a juncture need to be considered w hen ranking,
delineating and requiring a double bracket. If delineated for a particular juncture the
rule m ust consider the left hand bracket as the low est possible left bracket and the
right hand bracket as the low est possible right hand bracket. A clear case of this
occurs in M alayalam w hen a rule applies at strata 1, 2, and 3. That is a rule that
applies in derivations, subcompounding and cocompounding, but not in inflection.
To state this in X-bar bracket terms, it is necessary to delineate the rule for a 1-2 [-1
bracket. It will not apply in inflections because the left hand bracket of an
inflectional juncture is a -2 and is thus too w eak.
(10 ) indicates the parallels betw een these tw o theories.
(1 0 ) strata 1 derivation 1-2 1-1
strata 2 ]0 [-1
strata 3 1-1 [-1
strata 4 1-1 t-2 3
3 T h e X - b a r b r a c k e t v e rs io n o f s tr a ta 1 h e re is f o r n o n c a te g o r y a s s ig n in g p r e fix e s . These
f o r m t h e m a jo r ity o f t h e e x a m p le s in t h e M a la y a la m d a t a . A c a te g o r y a s s ig n in g a ff ix w o u ld
c r e a t e a ]-1 [0 b r a c k e t f o r p re fix e s a n d ] 0 - 1 [ f o r a u ffix e s . T h e t h e o r y o f X - b a r b ra c k e ts
p r e d ic ts t h a t th e s e c a s e s w o u ld n o t p a ra lle l t h e n o n c a te g o y r a s s ig n in g a ff ix e s . T h is is an
e n tir e ly e m p iric a l m a t t e r b u t t h e d a ta in M o h a n a n ( 1 9 8 6 ) d o e s n o t p ro v id e e x a m p le s t h a t w ill
d e m o n s tr a te th is .
178
As indicated in (4) - (8) there are tw o kinds of junctures created by
derivations, category assigning and noncategory assigning. The form er creates a 1-
1 [0 (in prefixation) !0 [-1 (in suffixation); while a noncategory assigning affix
creates a ]-2 [-1 (in prefixation) ]-1 [-2 (in suffixation). Since category assigning
affixes create a 10 [-1 internal bracket, this predicts that category assigning affixes
would group w ith subcompounds rather than derivations. This is an entirely
empirical m atter, unfortunately, Mohanan gives no evidence th a t would indicate if
category assigning affixes group w ith subcompounds (as predicted by X-bar
brackets or w ith derivations (as predicted by Lexical Phonology). All the examples
of affixation in Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) appear to be of the noncategory assigning variety,
if there are category assigning affixes in Malayalam the theory of X-bar brackets
predicts th at they create junctures like compounds as in English.
Some of the interactions of these brackets and the Stanley principles of
ranking, delineating and blocking are less than obvious in some cases. Particularly,
it is necessary to point out th at w henever one of the three principles is chosen it
must rank, delimit or require both brackets of a juncture. For exam ple, of a rule
requires a 1-1 [-1 bracket no other bracket will trigger the application of th a t rule. If
a rule is delimited for a 1-1 [-1 bracket it will apply at 1-1 [-1, 1-1 (0, 1-1, 1-1 [0 or ]0
[0. If a rule is ranked for a 1-1 [-1 it will apply at 1-1 [-1, ]-2 [-1 , 1-1 [-2 or 1-2 [-2.
This is further complicated when a rule cites tw o different brackets in its structural
description. For exam ple, if a rule is delimited for a 1-2 [-1 it will be delimited for -2
and higher on the left side of the bracket and -1 on the right side. Thus it will apply
in 1-2 [-1 but it will not apply in a 1-1 [-2. This is because the rule is delimited for [-
179
1 on the right side and the 1-2 is too w eak for this designation. This w as not too
important in the discussion of English juncture but it is crucial to an understanding
of the explanations of the Malayalam discussion. Particularly it is necessary to
distinguish between derivational affixation and inflectional affixation. This is
accomplished by distinguishing between a bracket 1-2 [-1 bracket and ]-1 [-2
bracket. This becomes more apparent in the discussion of the rules.
Given the examples provided in Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) it is difficult to determine
whether or not the affix nir- is a category assigning affix or not since tw o of the
translations look like a category change while tw o others do not. These are
repeated in (11) (p. 93).
(1 1 )
a. gunam nirggurjam
quality' 'w ithout quality'
b. aasa Diraasa
'hope 'disappointment'
c. bhayam nirbbhayam
'fear' fearless
d. laija nirllajiam
'shame' 'shameless'
18 0
e. / N°
x \
a f2 N'1
I
nir aasa
[0 1-2 nir ]-2 [-1 aasa 1-1 ]C
(a) and (b) above indicate th a t nir- attaches to nouns form ed from nouns,
w hile (c) and (d) indicate th a t a word derived from nir- is an adjective. A check
w ith a native speaker of M alayalam confirms th a t the item s derived from nir- are
nouns. The discussion w ith this inform ant asked originally if a word derived by nir-
is a noun, he w a s not sure since the translation seems to be 'fearless'. H ow ever,
w h en asked to use this form in a sentence (1 2 ) w as produced. In (10) the form
nirbhayam is clearly a noun and 'fearlessness' is the better translation.
( 12 )
naayakam kandapo:l aya:lude nirbhayam ellavarum kandu
hero w h en seen his fearlessness everyone w as seen
everyone could see the fearlessness of the hero
W e therefore argue th at all the examples w ith nir- are nonclass changing
affixes. In general, in order to determine that an affix is category assigning it is
necessary to find a form th a t starts as one category and the w ord formed by the
application of a W FR is of another category. All of the examples of derivation given
in M ohanan (1 9 8 6 ) derive nouns from nouns and thus it must be assumed that
181
these affixes are not category assigning but are like English -hood as in parenthood
or a- meaning not as agram m atism or re- meaning 'again' as in review . The
derivational affixes of Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) are repeated in (13). They all attach to
nouns to create nouns.
(13)
ati- extrem e, too much
sa- w ith
an- negative
cem - red
sam- together
anu- together
prati- against
upa- sub-
6 .4 . THE RULES OF M A LA YA LA M
6 .4 .1 . Introduction. The first rules he discusses are all rules of the
postlexical level. These are 'the voicing of stops' and 'the lenition of stops'. As
stated above, in the theory of X-bar brackets it is possible to account for such rules
by making a stipulation that some rules apply irrespective of the boundaries that
m ight be in the string. These rules are also not presented here because the
application of these postlexical rules by definition does not involve junctures.
Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) also discusses tw o rules that are conditioned by syllable structure
182
(glide form ation and schw a insertion). These rules are not discussed because they
have no direct bearing on the theory of morphological juncture.
Som e of the rules of M alayalam also need to be sensitive to the origin of the
word to w hich it applies. Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) posits the features [ + Sanskrit] and
[ + Dravidian] to account for this.
N ext ha discusses five rules for nasals. These are; 1). 'the assimilation of
nasal to place of following stop', 2). 'the assimilation of post nasal stop to manner
of articulation', 3). 'spreading of nasality', 4 ). 'the n - - > n rule, and 5). 'the ng ~ >
n in [ + Dravidian] words rule'. The first tw o rules of nasal assimilation are
postlexical and are therefore not included in the discussion. The last three rules are
discussed in order.
6 .4 .2 . Rule # 1 : Nasal Spreading (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :7 0 -1 ). This rule nasalizes
postnasal stops as in bhaNgi ~ bhaNNi. Mohanan assigns this to strata 1, the
strata for derivational affixation. The rule he gives is repeated in (1 4 ). As a
stratum 1 rule this rule can not apply in either kind of compound nor in inflection4.
4 T h is ru le a n d s e v e ra l o th e rs t h a t f o llo w a re w r it t e n in t h e m a n n e r o f a u to s e g m e n ta l
ru le s . T h is s h o u ld p o s e n o p ro b le m s f o r th e d is c u s s io n h e re a n d it s h o u ld b e in te rp re te d as is
c u s to m a r y f o r t h a t f r a m e w o r k .
183
(14) Nasal Spreading.
I+ r son 1
r -son "I (domain: stratum 1)
-cont
] + voice]
Mohanan places this rule a t stratum 1 because it applies across junctures
created by derivational affixation as in (1 5 ) but it does not apply across junctures
created by compounds as in (1 6 ). This rule is also blocked in inflectional affixation
but M ohanan provides no exam ples of this. M ohanan does not provide an example
of a subcompound for this rule. Examples (5) and (6) above provide representative
exam ples of such form s. The rule of nasal assimilation applies to m ake the /m / of
sam - an /N / before nasal spreading applies.
(1 5 ) sam - giitam saNNiitam
'to g eth er' 'song' 'm usic'
sam giitam
[0 [-2 sam 1-2 [-1 giitam 1-1 10
(1 6 )a . miin buddhi miimbudbhi ( “ miimmuddhi)
'fish' 'brain' 'fish brain'
184
r
r
miin buddhi
[0 [0 miin 10 [-1 buddhi 1-1 10
W ithin the theory of X-bar brackets the rule is w ritten as (17).
(17) Nasal Spreading. THis rule is ranked for this bracket.
[ + nasal] 1-2 [-1 -son^

l \ j-co nt \
I x |_+voice y
This rule is ranked for the 1-2 [-1 juncture of noncategory assigning
derivational affixation. This rule is therefore blocked by the stronger brackets of
compounding and inflection. In the terminology of Stanley (1 9 7 3 ), the rule of nasal
spreading 'requires' this particular juncture marker and thus can not apply in other
forms.
6 .4 .3 . Rule # 2 : n —* n [ and Rule # 3 : ny —» n in [ + Dravidian] rules
(Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :7 1 -3 ). These rules are also assigned to strata 1 and they account
for the variation betw een /n / - In i in words like naayakan 'hero' and upanaayakan
'secondary hero' or the variation betw een ny and n in words of Dravidian origin.
Mohanan claims that the Dravidian subset of vocabulary has the ny as underlying
segm ents but rule # 3 changes them to n which accounts for the fact that Dravidian
185
vocabulary has no /ny/s. Thus the word for 'Sunday' is nyaayar underlyingly but
after the application of rule #3 it is naayar. Giving this rule a domain of strata 1
m eans it applies in derivational affixation but is blocked in compounds. Mohanan
(1 9 8 6 ) provides no examples to illustrate this but the solution described for rule #1
is the same. Thus like rule #1 these rules are ranked for a J-2 [-1 bracket and are
blocked in compounding and inflection. The internal brackets formed by
derivational and inflectional affixation are superficially the same in th at both contain
a -1 and a -2 bracket, how ever these brackets are in opposite order in the different
kinds of examples provided by Mohanan. Inflectional affixes are alw ays suffixes
and derivational affixes are always prefixes. Thus in the case of derivations (with
prefixes) the internal bracket that is created is a 1-2 [-1 while the internal bracket
created by inflections (w ith suffixes) is a ]-1 [-2. It is possible to predict th at
noncategory assigning suffixes will a c t like inflections in M alayalam . This would go
com pletely against the predictions of Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ). Rules that are w ritten for a
]-2 {-1 juncture can not apply at a ]-1 [-2 juncture.
6 .4 .4 . Rule # 4 : Stem -final S chw a Insertion (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :8 4 -5 ). This rule
applies across words to insert a schw a after word final consonants other than /m /
or /n / before a word th a t begins w ith a consonant. This rule also applies in
subcompounds, cocompounds, and inflection as indicated by the fact that Mohanan
assigns this a domain of strata 2 ,3 , and 4. M ohanan's examples are repeated
below in (1 8) and (19 ). (18) gives examples of cocompounds and (19) gives
examples of subcompounds (from Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :8 5 ). The schwa appears in the
compound (the 'b' example).
186
Mohanan does not explicitly state th a t the rule applies in citation form s as
w ell but Mohanan includes the inserted schwa (the 'E') in the underived word as
w ell as in the derived word as in (18)a waa/E. W hile this is a bit confusing w e
reproduce this in this description.
(18) Cocompounds.
a. waa/E uiak'ka parica
's w o rd ' 'pounding s tic k ' 'shield'
b. waa[alak'k'aparkakalka
'sw ord, pounding stick, and shield'
c.
waalE ulak'ka parica
(0 [0 waalE 10 [-1 [0 ulak'ka 10 [-1 panca ]-1 ]-1 ]0
a. aane pennE wyatyaasam
'm an ' 'w om an' 'difference'
b. aanEpennEwyatyaasam
difference between men and wom en
aanE pennE w yatyaasam
[0 [0 aanE 10 [-1 [0 pennE 10 [-1 w yatyaasam 1-1 1-1 10
In subcompounds the rule does not apply to nongeminate sonorants.
(19) Subcompounds.
a. kaatE puucca kaattEpuucca
'forest' 'c a t' 'w ild c at'
b. wirakE kolli
•*
wirakEkolli
• •
'firew ood' 'tw ig ' 'tw ig for firew ood'
/ N° \
N° N '1
I 1
kaatE puucca
10 [0 kaatE 10 [-1 puucca J-1 10
188
M ohanan's rule of stem -final schwa insertion is repeated as (20) below.
(2 0 ) Stem -final schw a insertion (p. 7 9 ).
f t —* E / j+ s o n t [C (domain: strata 2 ,3 , and 4)

L+na§
T he theory of X-bar brackets can account for these facts by delineating the
rule for a ]-1 [-2 bracket as in (2 1 ). By delineating this rule for the ]-1 [-2 bracket,
this rule is not applicable a t the ]-2 [-1 juncture of derivational prefixation but it can
apply at the ]-1 [-2 juncture of inflectional suffixation and the junctures of
cocompounding and subcompounding. Since this rule is delineated for ]-1 [-2 it can
apply at any juncture th a t is the same or higher than both. Thus the ]-2 [-1 of
derivational prefixation is low er than the bracket cited in the rule. Examples (18)
and (19) illustrate this rules application in sbucompounds and cocompounds, (22)
and (23) provide trees for inflectional and derivational affixation.
(2 1 ) Stem -final schwa insertion. This rule is delineated for its bracket.
flf —* E /p -s o n *1 __ ]-1 [-2 C

I -t-nasl
This rule cannot apply in derivations because the 1-2 [-1 bracket cf a
derivation as in (2 2 ) below has the brackets in a reverse order from th at required by
the rule.
189
(22)
/N \
N'2 N'1
[ I
nir bhayam
[0 [-2 nir ]-2 [-1 bhayam ]-1 ]0
There are some interesting exceptions to this rule th at Mohanan claims
support the theory of Lexical Phonology. In subcompounds when the first word of
a subcompound ends in a nongeminate sonorant the rule does not apply. Mohanan
claims th a t this is because the rule of onset fusion fuses stem-final sonorants w ith
the onset of the following syllable thus blocking the application of schw a insertion
as in (2 3 ).
(23)
a. tala wallE
• •
w aalttala *w aalE tta
'head' 'sw o rd ' 'swordpoint'
N°
A N '1
1 I
wallE
•»
tala
[0 [0 wallE 10 [-1 tala ]-1 ]0
Given that onset fusion is limited to subcompounds (domain stratum 2)
.M ohanan makes the prediction that w ith respect to onset fusion, derivational
190
affixation will pattern like cocompounding and inflectional affixation will pattern like
subcompounding based on the order of the strata. This is borne out in the data as
illustrated in (24 ) and (2 5 ) (from Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :8 6 ).
(24) Inflections
a. awalE awalEkkE
♦
'she' 'to her'
b. awarE awarEkkE
'th e y ' 'to them '
awalE kE
[0 [-1 aw alE ]-1 [-2 kE ]-2 ]0
(25) Derivations
a. akal- akalcca
to recede distance
b. pakar- pakarca
'to spread' 'spreading'
191
pakar ca
[0 [0 pakaT ]0 [-1 ca ]-1 ]0
The theory of X-bar brackets can account for this data as w ell, if the rule of
schw a insertion is w ritten for a ]-1 [-2 juncture the rule will apply correctly in the
cases of subcompounding, cocompounding, and inflection but it will not apply to
the juncture formed in derivation. By writing the rule of onset fusion to require the
]0 [-1 bracket of subcompounds it will apply only in subcompounds. In order to
predict that onset fusion bleeds schwa insertion in subcompounding the theory of
X-bar brackets orders the rule of onset fusion before the rule of schw a insertion.
Schw a insertion does not occur in derivations because derivations do not have the
right bracket. The fact th at schwa insertion does not occur in subcompounds is
due to the fa c t th a t onset fusion is ordered before schwa insertion.
6 .4 .5 . Rule # 5 Sonorant Degemination (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :8 6 -7 ). The rule of
sonorant degemination accounts for the variations illustrated in (26) below.
(26)
a. nellE waya|E nelwayajE
'paddy' 'field' 'paddy field
192
b. kallE pratima kal pratima
'stone' 's ta tu e ' 'stone statue'
c. N°
N° N’1
kallE pratima
[0 [0 kallE ]0 [-1 pratim a ]-1 ]0
It does not apply before vowels:
(2 7)
a. ara kallara
'room ' 'stone room'
b. amm a pennE pennamma
'm o th er' 'w ife ' 'w ife 's m other'
c.
N° N'1
1 I
amma pennE
[0 [0 am m a ]0 [-1 pennE ]-1 ]0
The rule is repeated as (28)
193
(28) Sonorant degemination (p. 8 7 ).
C (domain: strata 2)
[ + son!
Since the rule is w ritten for strata 2 it must be blocked from applying in
derivations but still be allowed to apply in subcompounds. In the theory of X-bar
brackets if the rule is w ritten for a ]0 [-1 bracket it will apply correctly.
(29) Sonorant degemination. This rule requires this
bracket.
C — $ / ]0 1-1 C . C
[ + son]
(30)
—* E / O N O 0
i i 1
X (X ) X (X) X X (XI
[ + son] [ + son]
6 .4 .6 . Ruie # 6 Stem-initial Gemination (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :8 8 -9 0 ). Stem-initial
gemination '... applies to stops that are preceded by a single nonnasal sonorant
consonant, but it does not apply if the nonnasal sonorant is double...'(M ohanan
1 9 8 6 :8 9 ). Examples of the application of this rule are provided in (31).
194
(31)
a. —
tii katta tiikkatta
i« —
'fire' 'lum p' 'lump of fire'
b. swarnnam pazam swarnnappazam
'gold' 'fruit' 'fruit of gold'
/ N\
N° N°
I I
swarnnam pazam
•* ?
[0 [0 swarnnam ]0 [-1 pazam ]-1 ]0
The rule Mohanan gives is repeated here as (32)
(32) Stem initial gemination (p. 9 0 ). (domain: stratum 2)
C -» C C / X ] [
V
v ' I — If
+so n j Is -son “1
[ -nas > I+ D r a v j
Giving examples as in (3 3 ) and (34) Mohanan says that stem-initial
gemination never applies in cocompounds but it does apply in subcompounds and
must be given a domain of stratum 2.
195
(33 ) Subcompounds
a. petti pattaayam pettippattaayaNNalE5
'box' 'grain bin' 'grain bins used as boxes'
N° N'1
I 1
petti pattaayaNNalE
[0 [0 petti ]0 [-1 pattaayaNNalE ]-1 ]0
(3 4 ) Cocompounds.
a. pettipattaayaNNalE
'boxes and grain bins'
petti pattayaNNalE
[0 [-1 petti 1-1 [-1 pattayaNNalE 1-1 10
For X-bar brackets it is possible to describe these facts by writing the rule to
require a 10 [-1 bracket. No other word formation process creates that particular
juncture.
5 The - N N a l e is an in fle c tio n a l e n d in g .
196
(3 5 ) Stem initial gemination This rule requires this
bracket.
10 [-1
+sortj r-s o n ‘j
fnas J [fD ravJ
The rule of stem -final gemination applies in exactly the same domain as stem
initial gem ination and can be accounted for w ith X-bar brackets exactly as for stem-
initial gem ination. T h e rule of stem-final gemination is not discussed here.
6 .4 .7 . Rule # 7 : Postsonorant Gemination (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :9 3 -5 ). This rule
describes '... an alternation betw een geminate and nongeminate consonants that
arises exclusively from derivational concatenation in M alayalam ' (Mohanan
1 9 8 6 :9 3 ). This rule accounts for the gemination of voiceless stops th a t occurs
afte r sonorants in derivational processes as illustrated in (3 6 ).
(36)
a. gunam nirgunnam
'quality' 'w ith o u t quality'
b. bhayam rnrbbhayam
'fe a r' 'fearless'
c. lajja nirllajjam
'sham e' 'shameless'
197
\ I
.nir bhayam
[0 [-2 nir ]-2 [-1 bhayam ]-1 ]0
Mohanan w rites the rule as in (37) and assigns these to domain strata 1.
(37) Postsonorant Gemination (p. 9 4 ). (domain strata 1)
C — C C C V
i i i
i i i
[-cont] [-cont] r+ sonA
L -nas)
X-bar brackets w rites these rules for ]-2 (-1 bracket and these will apply
correctly. As stated before this assumes that the derivational affixation being
discussed is noncategory assigning. Category assigning affixation creates either a
10 [-1 or 1-1 [0 bracketing. Mohanan provides no examples of this sort of
affixation, but this is an entirely empirical m atter.
(38) Postsonorant gem ination. This rule requires this bracket.
C -* C C C ]-2 [-1 V
i i i
i i i
____
1
198
6 .4 .8 . Rule # 8 : Nasal Deletion (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :9 5 -8 ). This rule deletes
nasals in stemfinal position preceding a noun. Some examples of this are given in
(3 9 ).
(39)
a. malsyam canta malsyaccanta
'fish' 'm arket' 'fish m arket'
b. manusyan kutti m anusyakkutti
'hum an' 'child' 'human child'
c.
malsyam canta
[0 [0 malsyam ]0 [-1 canta ]-1 ]0
The rule Mohanan formulates is repeated in (4 0 ).
(40) Nasal deletion (p. 9 5 ). (domain: 2 ,3 )
N O N
[ + nasal] —* ] N[
199
In the theory of X-bar brackets the rule needs to be delineated for ]-1 [-1
juncture. The -2 th at occurs in both derivational and inflectional affixes is not
sufficiently strong for the application of this rule.
In stating th at this rule applies at domains 2 and 3 , Mohanan indicates that
this rule applies in subcompounds and cocompounds but it does not apply in
derivational or inflectional affixation.
Since the inflections discussed in the rule of nasal deletion are of the case
marking and plural sort these are assigned -2 and thus the rule of nasal deletion can
be ranked for ]-1 [-1 and the rule will apply in only subcompounding and
cocompounding. The -2 is assigned for these inflectional affixes because they do
not serve as an elem ent in the syntax like the tense markers of English. This
predicts that the rule of nasal deletion will actually apply before inflections that are
more tense-like. This is an entirely empirical m atter but the data in Mohanan
(1 9 8 6 ) does not provide the necessary evidence.
(41) Nasal Deletion. This rule is delineated for this bracket.
NON
[ + n a s a l]—* I I ’ / ____]-1 [-1
6 .4 .9 . Rule # 9 : Vow el Lengthening (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :9 9 -1 0 0 ). Vow el
lengthening is a rule that lengthens stem-final vowels which precede a [ + Sanskrit]
stem as in (42).
200
(42) V o w el Lengthening (p. 1 0 0 ).
N —* N / ] [ (dom ain:2,3)
X
J /I X X [ + Sanskrit]
I V
This rule, like nasal deletion, applies in subcompounds and cocompounds but
not in derivational or inflectional affixation. In this rule the sort of inflection that is
discussed is of the same sort as in nasal deletion and thus it is possible to w rite the
sam e sort of bracketing. This rule is delineated for ]-1 -(-1 and will apply only in
cocompounding and subcompounding.
(43) Subcompounds.
a. taa"ra kaantan taaraakaantan
'T a ra' 'husband' 'T ara's husband'
b. Tab jdeew i ratiidjeewi
'ra ti' 'goddess' 'goddess rati'
c. / N -X
N° N '1
1 I
rati deew i
[0 [0 fiiti ]0 [-1 deew i ]-1 ]0
201
(44) Cocompounds.
a. baalik'a baalan baalik'aabaalanmaarE
'girl' 'boy' 'boys and girls'
b. bhaarya bharttaaw E bhaaryaabhaTttakkanmaarE
'w ife ' 'husband' 'husband and w ife '
c. /N ° .
N-1 V1
I 1
bhaatya bharttaawE
[0 [-1 bhaarya ]-1 [-1 bharttaaw E ]-1 ]0
X-bar brackets w rites the rule as below.
(45) Vow el lengthening. This rule is delineated for this bracket.
N —* N / 1-1 [-1
'X X X _ [ + Sanskrit!
The -2 brackets th at occur both inflectional and derivational affixation (see
(6) and (8) above) is too w eak for the application of this rule.
6 .4 .1 0 . Rule # 1 0 : V ow el Sandhi (Mohanan 1 9 8 6 :1 0 0 -4 ). This rule
describes the process which merges adjacent vowel nuclei into a single one in
202
[ + Sanskrit] w ords.' This rule applies at strata 1-3: derivation, cocompounding, and
subcompounding, but not inflection. Some of M ohanan's examples are repeated in
(46) - (4 8 ).
(4 6 ) Subcompounds.
a. mahaa indrSn maheendran
'g reat' 'indra' 'the great Indra'
b. mahaa ausadham mahausadham

I - * —*
'g reat' 'm edicine' 'great medicine'
mahaa indran
[0 mahaa ]0 [-1 indi'an ]-1 ]0
(4 7) Cocompounds.
a. w eedam itihaasam weedeetihaasaNNalE
'scripture' 'epic' 'scripture and epic'
b. sukham asukham sukhamaasukhNNIE
'health' 'ill health' 'health and illness'
sukham asukham
[0 1-1 sukham ]-1 [-1 asukham ]-1 ]0
(4 8 ) Inflections
a. taaTa taarayaal
'Tara' 'T a r a + In str'
b. tala talayil
'head N o m ' 'head Loc'
c. N°
N N'2
I \
tala yil
[0 [-1 tala ]-1 [-2 yil ]-2 ]0
The rule of vowel sandhi in Mohanan (1 9 8 6 ) is given a prose statem ent
which is presented here in (49).
(49) Mohanan (1 9 8 6 :1 0 1 )
V o w e l Sandhi (domain: strata 1 -3 , in [ + Sanskrit] forms)
a. if tw o nuclei in a sequence are separated by an em pty onset, d elete the first nucleus
node and the onset node.
204
b. If th e rem aining nucleus N is n ot branching, link th e unsyllabified X on th e le ft to the
N on th e right.
In X -bar bracket terminology the statem ent 'domain: strata 1 -3 ' is replaced
w ith the s ta tem en t 'this rule is delineated for a 1-2 [-1 bracket'. It will thus apply in
derivational affixation (]-2 [-1), in subcompounding (]0 [-1), and cocompounding (]-1
[-1) since all of these brackets are stronger than the others. The ]-1 [-2 bracket of
inlectional affixation (strata 4) is too w eak (on the right hand bracket) for the rule to
apply.
6 .5 . S U M M A R Y A N D CO NCLUSIO NS
This chapter dem onstrated th at the theory of X-bar brackets is capable of
accounting for the facts of morphological juncture in the language of M alayalam .
This dem onstration illustrates th at the theory of X-bar brackets is not a one
language theory and predicts th a t X-bar brackets will be useful in predicting the
application of morphologically sensitive rules in other languages as w ell.
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INFORMATION TO USERS

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the

Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by

Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced

U nive rsity M icro film s In te rn a tio n a l

X -b a r th eo r y and m o rp h olo g ica l ju n ctu re

Bralich, Philip Andrew, Ph.D.

C o p y rig h t © 1 9 9 1 b y B r a lic h , P h ilip A n d rew . A ll rig h ts reserv ed .

A DISSERTATION SUBM ITTED TO THE GRADUATE D IVISIO N OF THE

U NIVERSITY OF H A W A II IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE DEGREE OF

Dissertation Com m ittee:

Derek Bickerton, Chairperson

satisfactory in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of

DISSERTA TIO N C O M M ITTEE

All Rights Reserved

This thesis is dedicated to my mother and to my tw o sisters,

to my late w ife Debora,

The idea for a theory of morphological juncture cam e to me originally 12

years ago when I attended a conference at the University of M innesota w hen I w as

an undergraduate in linguistics at the University of Wisconsin at M ilw aukee. While

listening to a paper on English morphology it occurred to me that it might be

possible to explain morphological variation in terms of w hether or not a category

During the ten years it took me to return to do an advanced degree in

began my studies at the University of Haw aii I w as surprised to discover th at this

dissertation presented here. There are a number of people w ho have supported,

I w as originally inspired to pursue linguistics by classes w ith Fred Eckman at

th at I would not have considered on m y ow n. A t the LSA Summer Institute in

w o rk w ith me. This discussion provided m e w ith a better understanding of

nature of language provided me w ith experience and insight th at has added

insights into and explanation of the technicalities of professional writing.

also been valuable sources of com m entary on this project.

theories and has sharpened my understanding of linguistic theory.

Since early structuralist linguistics, theorists have postulated segment-like

the junctures formed by the concatenations of different sorts of morphemes. Later

w o rk in linguistics argues th at it is possible to avoid the use of these segment-like

relevant data they can be criticized on theoretical grounds.

This dissertation proposes a theory of morphological juncture th at is based

succumbing to the criticisms of the other theories.

Other theorists a tte m p t to extend the theory of X-bar theory to word-level

affixes. Because of these ordering asymmetries the theories of X-bar theory at

account for the distribution of affixes. This dissertation demonstrates th at it is

independently of X-bar theory w ith a slight modification in the principle of locality in

for it becomes a simple manner to extend phrase-level X-bars to word-level. Using

(Mohanan 1 9 8 6 ) it is demonstrated th at this word-level X-bar system accounts for

the facts of morphological juncture w ithout the use of segment-like boundaries or

T he first chapter of this dissertation reviews the literature of juncture. The

LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................... xii

PREFACE ..................................................................................................... xiii

CHAPTER ONE .... REVIEW OF LITERATURE .................................... 1

1.1. INTRO DUCTIO N ................................................................................. 1

1.2. HISTORY OF THEORIES OF JUNCTURE ................................ 12

1 .3 . SU M M A R Y AND CONCLUSIONS ........................................... 35

CHAPTER TW O ... THE IM M EDIATE DOM INANCE C O N D ITIO N A ND

CHAPTER THREE ... THE EXTENSION OF X-BAR

CHAPTER FOUR ... M ORPHOLOGICAL JUNCTURE A N D

4 .1 . IN TR O D U C TIO N ......................................................................... 104

4 .2 . X-BAR N O TA TIO N FOR M ORPHOLOGICAL JUNCTURE . 105

4 .3 . APPLICATIO N OF THE THEORY ........................................... 116

5 .1 . IN TR O D U C TIO N ......................................................................... 152

6 .1 . M A L A Y A L A M PHONOLOGY ................................................... 169

6 .2 . LEXICAL PHONOLOGY OF M A L A Y A L A M ........................... 169

6 .3 . X-BAR BRACKETS IN M A LA Y A LA M ................................... 175