Understanding Allomorphy - Perspectives from Optimality Theory - Eulàlia Bonet

Understanding Allomorphy - Perspectives from Optimality Theory - Eulàlia Bonet

The Prenominal Allomorphy Syndrome

Understanding Allomorphy - Perspectives from Optimality Theory - Eulàlia Bonet

Eulàlia Bonet [+-]
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Eulàlia Bonet is an Associate Professor in the Department of Catalan Philology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and is a member of the Centre de Lingüística Teòrica (CLT) of the same university. She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991. Most of her work focuses on the interactions between phonology, morphology, and syntax, in Catalan, Spanish, and other Romance languages. Her work has appeared in edited books and in journals such as Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, Phonology, Lingua, and Probus.
Maria-Rosa Lloret [+-]
Universitat de Barcelona
Maria-Rosa Lloret is Professor and chair of the Department of Catalan Philology at the Universitat de Barcelona. She completed her Ph.D. in Linguistics at Indiana University in 1988 with a thesis on the morphophonology of Oromo (Cushitic). Her current research focuses on phonology, morphology, and linguistic variation, in Catalan, Spanish, and other Romance languages. In 2002 she was awarded a research prize from the Catalan Government. She has published in a number of journals including Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, Language, Phonology, Lingua, and Probus.
Joan Mascaró [+-]
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Joan Mascaró is full Professor in the Department of Catalan Philology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He is also a member of the Centre de Lingüística Teòrica of this university. He received a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1976), and his areas of research are phonological theory, morphology, and the phonology and morphology of Romance languages.

Description

The prenominal position X and the postnominal position Y within a DP [DPXNY], where N is the head noun, are asymmetric in various respects. Most typically a given category can appear in a given language in one position but not in the other, or can appear only in one or the other under specific regular conditions. In other cases prenominal and postnominal positions give different semantic interpretations of the same element. Allomorphic choice is also affected by position. In this paper we examine some specific cases of Catalan and Spanish in which an asymmetry between prenominal and postnominal elements within the DP arises with respect to inflectional endings. We argue that this kind of asymmetry, present in other languages, is due to postnominal concord taking place in the syntax systematically and prenominal concord being established through constraint evaluation at PF.

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Citation

Bonet, Eulàlia ; Lloret, Maria-Rosa ; Mascaró, Joan . The Prenominal Allomorphy Syndrome. Understanding Allomorphy - Perspectives from Optimality Theory. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 5-44 Jul 2015. ISBN 9781845532970. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=25215. Date accessed: 18 Apr 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.25215. Jul 2015

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