LING 580 E: PROBLEMS IN LINGUISTICS (3 credits)
“Prosodic Morphology and the Phonology-Morphology Interface”
WINTER 2007
Instructor
Office:
Office Hours:
Office Phone:
Email:
Laura W. McGarrity
Padelford A210-B
TTH 11:30a-12:30p
221-7367
lauramcg@u.washington.edu
Classroom:
Meeting time:
Course website:
Smith Hall (SMI) 111
M 3:30 – 5:50pm
http://faculty.washington.edu/lauramcg/courses/ling580/home.shtml
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
Prosodic Morphology is the study of morphological processes that are crucially characterized by a particular
output prosodic shape (defined in terms of moras, syllables, feet, and prosodic words) rather than by a string of
output segments. Examples of Prosodic Morphology include reduplication, infixation, truncation, root-andpattern morphology, and minimal (and maximal) word effects. Assignments will include in-class presentations
on the readings, and a final research paper and paper presentation on a topic within Prosodic Morphology. For
this course, familiarity with Optimality Theory is assumed. (Suggested prerequisite: LING 452)
REQUIRED READINGS:
There is no required textbook for the class. All of the readings for the class will be made available to you ahead
of time either on the course website (as a PDF document), online at the Rutgers Optimality Archive (ROA –
http://roa.rutgers.edu/index.php3), or in hard copy format for you to photocopy.
Students are expected to come to class having read all of the readings assigned for each week.
 Suggested supplementary textbooks:
Downing, Laura. 2006. Canonical Forms in Prosodic Morphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kager, René, van der Hulst, Harry and Zonneveld, Wim. 1999. The Prosody-Morphology Interface.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
ASSIGNMENTS:
1. Reading presentations (25% of course grade)
Each student will be responsible for presenting and leading the class discussion on your choice of three of the
assigned readings. Because each student in the class will have read the assigned readings, these presentations should
not simply regurgitate the content of the readings, but should clearly summarize and present the main points of the
readings as well as generate thoughtful discussion. Use of supplementary materials, such as handouts, prepared
overheads/slides, or group exercises, is highly recommended.
2. Final paper (35% of course grade)
Each student must choose one of the following two options for a final 10-15 page research paper:
i)
Original research: Identify and analyze a prosodic morphology problem from a language that you have worked
with or have researched.
For this paper, the starting point will be data from a language that you research that has not been discussed (or at
least not fully analyzed) in the course readings. Using source material such as a grammar, dictionary,
dissertation, or field notes, you will need to identify, present, discuss, and analyze some aspect of the prosodic
morphological system of the language within a derivational or optimality theoretic framework. The key aspect
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of this paper is for you to present your own analysis of a prosodic morphology problem from this language,
demonstrating that you’ve understood the concepts discussed in class and can apply them to relevant data.
ii) Literature review: Analyze, discuss and critique (at least) two additional readings on a particular topic within
prosodic morphology.
For this paper, you must analyze, discuss, and review the literature on a particular topic of prosodic morphology
using (at least) two additional readings not discussed in class. These readings may either involve two differing
analyses of a prosodic morphology problem with the same language (e.g., a comparison of how Authors X and
Y account for the palatalizing 3rd pers. sg. morpheme in Zoque), or they may involve two readings of the same
type of prosodic morphology within two different languages (e.g., a comparison of infixing reduplication in
Tagalog and Cebuano). You will need to present the facts about the basic problem(s), summarizing the main
points using relevant data and examples, along with a brief description of the different analyses and how they
differ or compare. A good starting point for finding relevant readings for your paper is to mine the reference
pages of the readings from class, or do a keyword search on the topic you are most interested in on the ROA or
the Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA -- on the UW Libraries webpage).
Your final paper topic must be approved by me by the fifth week of the quarter (Jan. 31). Topic approval
requires meeting with me during my office hours. To facilitate the approval process, you should identify a couple of
possible paper topics for me to consider. To help you structure your time on your paper, additional intermediate
deadlines have been set up throughout the quarter.
**The paper is due Wednesday, March 14 following the oral presentation (see below for more on the
presentation requirement). It should include an abstract of no more than 200 words and will be evaluated for its
clarity, organization, data presentation, analytical validity, and professional style (i.e., references, in-text citation,
etc.). This paper does not call for fancy theoretical machinery. Of greater interest is your ability to research, define
and present a problem and to successfully bring data to bear in addressing the problem.
3. Oral presentation of final paper (25% of course grade)
Each student will present a formal (timed), professional-style presentation of their final paper on Wednesday,
March 7, the final day of class. Fifteen minutes will be allotted for each presentation with an additional 10 minutes
for discussion and commentary. A handout (recommended) or powerpoint presentation with relevant examples,
displays, and selected references should accompany the presentation. A preliminary draft of the handout must be
submitted to me for feedback and corrections no later than Friday, March 3 prior to the scheduled presentations.
A good handout should allow audience members to (re)construct the paper on their own, although text should
be kept to a minimum. Headings, displays, and data sets should be numbered, labeled and organized to illustrate
individual points clearly. Students are strongly encouraged to practice their presentations ahead of time. The
presentation will be evaluated for its clarity, organization, speaking style, usefulness of the handout, compliance
with the time limit, and ability to handle questions. Helpful guidelines for giving a presentation and preparing a
handout can be found on the LSA website: http://www.lsadc.org/annmeet/paperguide.html
4. Class participation (15% of course grade)
Students are expected to contribute regularly to class discussions. Completing the reading assignments in
advance will be necessary to facilitate those discussions. In a small seminar class such as this, regular attendance,
while not strictly required, is crucial for productive class discussions. Whenever possible, students should notify the
instructor ahead of time as a courtesy if they must miss a class for any reason.
GRADING
The following grading scale will be used (based on the UW grading scale):
A
AB+
B
BC+
4.0 – 3.9
3.8 – 3.5
3.4 – 3.2
3.1 – 2.9
2.8 – 2.5
2.4 – 2.2
(100 – 94%)
(93 – 90%)
(89 – 87%)
(86 – 84%)
(83 – 80%)
(79 – 77%)
C
CD+
D
DF
2.1 – 1.9
1.8 – 1.5
1.4 – 1.2
1.1 – 0.9
0.8 – 0.7
< .7
(76 – 74%)
(73 – 70%)
(69 – 67%)
(66 – 64%)
(63 – 62%)
(< 62%)
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CALENDAR:
Week Date Topic
1
1/3
Readings
Introduction
Course overview, syllabus
Introduction, basic concepts of prosodic morphology
2
1/10 Introduction to Prosodic Morphology
Continue introduction to prosodic morphology
Pre-OT templatic theory
3
1/17 Reduplication
BR-correspondence, over-/underapplication
Case study: Washo
Case study: Maŋarayi
4
McCarthy & Prince 1999
Yu 2005
Kurisu & Sanders 1999
1/24 Infixation
Tagalog um-infixation
Infixation and precedence faithfulness
5
Kager et al. 1999 (intro)
Downing 2006 (chapter 1)
McCarthy & Prince 1994b
Klein 2005
Horwood 2002
1/31 Truncation, subtractive morphology
Truncation
Subtraction
Benua 1995, Sanders 1999
Horwood 2001
 Topics for research paper must be approved by this date
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2/7
Nonconcatenative Morphology
Featural affixation (from Akinlabi 1996):
Chaha Labialization
Nuer Mutation
Zoque Palatalization
Terena Nasalization
7
Akinlabi 1996, §3
Akinlabi 1996, §4
Akinlabi 1996, §5
Akinlabi 1996, §7
2/14 Nonconcatenative Morphology
Pre-OT: Templatic morphology in Arabic roots
OT: Optimal Paradigms (revisits Arabic verb paradigms)
McCarthy & Prince 1990
McCarthy 2005
 List of references and paragraph about paper organization due
8
2/21 Word minimality and maximality effects
Word minimality (emergence of the unmarked)
Word maximality (in Maori passives)
Something in between (recursive PrWd)
9
2/28 Dominant affixes / anti-faithfulness
Anti-faithfulness in morpho-phonological operations
10
McCarthy & Prince 1994a, §4-5
de Lacy 2004
Kager 1996
3/7
Alderete 2001
Conclusions/Presentations
Oral presentations of final projects
Course evaluations
 Draft of presentation handouts must be emailed to me by Monday 3/5
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3/14  Wednesday -- Final papers due
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ASSIGNED READINGS:
The following assigned readings are/will be made available online, either on the course website, through the
UW library, or as a download from the Rutgers Optimality Archive (ROA) http://roa.rutgers.edu/index.php3.
AKINLABI, AKINBIYI. 1996. Featural affixation. Journal of Linguistics 32. 239-289. [ROA-185]
ALDERETE, JOHN. 2001. Dominance effects as transderivational anti-faithfulness. Phonology 18.201-253.
[ROA-407].
BENUA, LAURA. 1995. Identity effects in morphological truncation. In Jill Beckman, Laura Walsh Dickey, &
Suzanne Urbanczyk, eds., University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 18: Papers in
Optimality Theory. Amherst, MA: Graduate Linguistic Student Association. Pp. 77-136. [ROA-74].
DOWNING, LAURA. 2006. Canonical Forms in Prosodic Morphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
HORWOOD, GRAHAM. 2001. Anti-faithfulness and subtractive morphology. Unpublished manuscript. Rutgers
University, New Brunswick, NJ. [ROA-466]
HORWOOD, GRAHAM. 2002. Precedence faithfulness governs morpheme position. In Proceedings of the West
Coast Conference of Formal Linguistics 21, ed. by L. Mikkelsen and C. Potts. Somerville, MA:
Cascadilla Press. [ROA-527]
KAGER, RENÉ. 1996. Stem disyllabicity in Guugu Yimidhirr. In Dam Phonology: HIL Phonology Papers II, ed.
by M. Nespor & N. Smith, 59-101. Den Haag: Holland Institute of Generative Linguistics. [ROA-70]
KAGER, RENÉ, VAN DER HULST, HARRY and ZONNEVELD, WIM. 1999. The Prosody-Morphology Interface.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
KLEIN, THOMAS. 2005. Infixation and segmental constraint effects: UM and IN in Tagalog, Chamorro, and Toba
Batak. Lingua 115.959-995. [ROA-659]
KURISU, KAZUTAKA and SANDERS, NATHAN. 1999. Infixal nominal reduplication in Maŋarayi. In Phonology at
Santa Cruz 6, ed. by Adam Ussishkin, Dylan Herrick, Kazutaka Kurisu, and Nathan Sanders, 47–56.
(http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=lrc)
DE LACY, PAUL. 2004. Maximal words and the Maori passive. In Optimality Theory in Phonology: A Reader, ed. by
John McCarthy, 495-512. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
MCCARTHY, JOHN. 2005. Optimal paradigms. In Paradigms in Phonological Theory, ed. by Laura Downing,
Tracy Alan Hall and Renate Raffelsiefen, 170-210. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [ROA-485]
MCCARTHY, JOHN J. and PRINCE, ALAN. 1986/1996. Prosodic Morphology 1986. Technical Report no. RUCCSTR-32, Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
Center for Cognitive Science. [ROA-]
MCCARTHY, JOHN J. and PRINCE, ALAN. 1990. Prosodic morphology and templatic morphology. In Perspectives
on Arabic linguistics II: Papers from the Second Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics, ed. Mushira
Eid and John J. McCarthy, pp. 1-54. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
(http://people.umass.edu/jjmccart/template.pdf)
MCCARTHY, JOHN J. and PRINCE, ALAN. 1994a. The Emergence of the Unmarked. In Proceedings of NELS 24,
ed. by M. Gonzàlez , 333-379. [ROA-13]
MCCARTHY, JOHN J. and PRINCE, ALAN. 1994b. Prosodic Morphology. In A Handbook of Phonological Theory,
ed. by John Goldsmith, 318–366. Oxford: Blackwell. (http://people.umass.edu/jjmccart/handbook.pdf)
MCCARTHY, JOHN J. and PRINCE, ALAN. 1999. Faithfulness and Identity in Prosodic Morphology. In The
Prosody-Morphology Interface, ed. by René Kager, Harry van der Hulst and Wim Zonneveld, 218-309.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [ROA-216]
SANDERS, NATHAN. 1999. Intra-representational correspondence and truncation. Unpublished manuscript,
Universtiy of California, Santa Cruz. [ROA-394]
YU, ALAN C. L. 2005. Quantity, stress, and reduplication in Washo. Phonology 22.437-475.
(http://home.uchicago.edu/%7Eaclyu/papers/Phonology22.pdf)
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES:
Students are encouraged to consult the following readings in the course of your research for further details and
background relating to course topics.
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ALDERETE, JOHN D. 1999. Morphologically Governed Accent in Optimality Theory. Doctoral dissertation,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst. [ROA-309]
GNANADESIKAN. AMALIA. 1997. Phonology with Ternary Scales. Doctoral dissertation, University of
Massachusetts, Amherst. [ROA-195]
KURISU, KAZUTAKA. 2001. The Phonology of Morpheme Realization. Doctoral dissertation, University of
California, Santa Cruz. [ROA-490]
LOMBARDI, LINDA and JOHN MCCARTHY. 1991. Prosodic circumscription in Choctaw morphology. Phonology
8, 37-71. (http://people.umass.edu/jjmccart/choctaw.pdf)
MCCARTHY, JOHN J. 1981. A prosodic theory of nonconcatenative morphology. Linguistic Inquiry 12, 373-418.
[Excerpts reprinted in John Goldsmith, ed., Essential Readings in Phonology. Oxford: Blackwell. Pp.
162.184, 1999.]
MCCARTHY, JOHN J. 2002. A Thematic Guide to Optimality Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
MCCARTHY, JOHN J. (ed.) 2004. Optimality Theory in Phonology: A Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
MCCARTHY, JOHN J. and PRINCE, ALAN. 1993. Prosodic Morphology I: Constraint interaction and satisfaction.
Technical Report no. RUCCS-TR-3, Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science. New Brunswick,
NJ: Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science. [ROA-482]
MCCARTHY, JOHN J. and PRINCE, ALAN. 1995. Faithfulness and reduplicative identity. In University of
Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 18: Papers in Optimality Theory, ed. by Jill Beckman,
Suzanne Urbanczyk and Laura Walsh Dickey, 249-384. Amherst: GLSA. [ROA-60]
PRINCE, ALAN and SMOLENSKY, PAUL. 1993/2004. Optimality theory: Constraint interaction in generative
grammar. Malden, MA: Blackwell. [ROA-537]
SPAELTI, PHILIP. 1997. Dimensions of variation in multi-pattern reduplication. Doctoral Dissertation, University
of California, Santa Cruz. [ROA-311]
WOLF, MATTHEW. 2005. For an autosegmental theory of mutation. Proceedings of the 24th West Coast
Conference on Formal Linguistics, ed. by John Alderete, Chung-hye Han, and Alexei Kochetov.
Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. [ROA-754]
YU, ALAN C. L. 2003. The morphology and phonology of infixation. Doctoral Dissertation, University of
California, Berkeley.