Morphophonological analysis: an artificial example
VERB FORMS:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Present
Perfect
Causative
 ‘reach’
 ‘exceed’
 ‘abound’
 ‘be green’

‘be yellow’
re ‘be blue’
mast ‘have reached’
kett
‘have exceeded’
dipt ‘have abounded’

‘have been green’
lint
‘have been yellow’
rekt ‘have been blue’
mas
ket
dib
lin
re
‘cause to reach’
‘cause to exceed’
‘cause to abound’
er ‘make green’
‘make yellow’
‘make blue’
NOUN FORMS:
Nominative Singular
7. lop ‘fruit’
‘from the fruit’
8. k ‘cat’
‘from the cat’
9.  ‘yew’
‘from the yew’
10. 
‘rock’
rock’
11.  ‘hat’
Nominative Plural
Genitive Singular
Ablative singular
loper
‘fruits’
lepid
‘of the fruit’
lop
ker
‘cats’
kaid
‘of the cat’
kut

‘yews’

‘of the yew’

 ‘rocks’

‘hats’
 ‘of the rock’

1
‘of the hat’


‘from the
‘from the hat’
12.

‘bird’

‘birds’

2
‘of the bird’

‘from the bird’
The object of the exercise is to analyse the data so as to arrive, so far as possible, at (i) a set
of unique underlying representations, one for each morpheme, and (ii) a set of general
phonological processes that would explain the surface irregularities. To take a simple
preliminary example, if (5) [lin] ‘be yellow’ ~ [lint] ‘have been yellow’ represents the regular
way of forming the perfect tense form of verbs (add [t] to the present stem), then (6)
[re] ‘be blue’ ~ [rekt] ‘have been blue’ is irregular in two respects: there is a length
alternation in the vowels and a voicing alternation in the stem-final velar plosives. ‘So far as
possible’ because in real languages there are likely to be exceptions of various kinds and
irregularities that cannot be explained away in these terms.
The first step is to try to separate the words into their component morphemes. We can see
straight away that this seems to be an affixing language: specifically, grammatical
morphemes take the form of suffixes. However, there seem to be no immediately obvious
suffixes in the case of (i) the present form of verbs; (ii) the causative form of verbs; (iii) the
nominative singular form of nouns. The lack of suffix in (i) and (iii) is not necessarily
surprising: affixation systems very often have a default paradigm where the affix is zero,
which in verb tense systems is likely to be the present and in noun case/number systems the
nominative singular. So our initial hypothesis is that in the present and nominative singular
forms of we see the bare stem of the verbs and nouns concerned. However, the lack of any
apparent suffix in (ii) is more unexpected. Setting these causative forms aside for the
moment and looking at the noun forms, we find that all plurals end in –er and all genitives in
–id. We take these endings to be the plural and genitive suffixes.
The ablative forms are somewhat more difficult. All except one ((10)  ‘from the
rock’) end in –t preceded by a vowel. However, since three different vowels appear before t
in the ablative, it is difficult to know which, if any, is the basic one. We tentatively conclude
that the ablative suffix is either –t or –Vt. We now have two possible morphemes with the
same shape: -t. But this need not disturb us: cf. the English –s suffix, which attaches to
genitive nouns, plural nouns and 3sg verbs.
We regard the possible vowel in the ablative morpheme simply as V because at this point it is
hard to see what determines which of the vowels [], [], [] appears before the ablative –t.
There seems to be nothing in the environment of these vowels that can be pointed to as
systematic. The preceding stem vowels do not seem to be relevant, neither is there any
discernible pattern in the preceding consonants.
Our inability to understand the distribution of these vowels suggests that they may belong to
the underlying form of the stem The form (10) , in which no vowel appears at all,
supports the hypothesis that the –t alone is the ablative morpheme. Taking the vowels to be
part of the stem eliminates the need to postulate several different allomorphs of the ablative
suffix, and reflects our understanding that which if any vowel appears depends on the
particular noun concerned.
However, if these vowels are part of the stem, why do they not appear in the nominative
singular forms, which, according to our hypothesis, consist of the bare stem? Two
possibilities: either there is a special morphologically conditioned rule deleting final vowels
in nouns, or else a general phonological rule deleting final vowels. Other things being equal,
the latter is to be preferred: the more general, i.e. the less specifically conditioned, a process
is the easier it is to explain. Why should nouns in particular not allow final vowels? On the
other hand, given that all the disyllabic words here are stressed on their stem syllable, the loss
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of final unstressed vowels is not unusual. So we set up a general rule of apocope, deleting
word-final vowels without exception. NB there are no counterexamples (i.e. final vowels
appearing phonetically) anywhere in the data.
These stem-final vowels would also be expected in the plural and genitive forms. Here the
likeliest reason they don’t appear has to do with the fact that the plural and genitive suffixes
begin with a vowel. On the whole languages tend to avoid vocalic hiatus: deleting the first of
a sequence of two vowels would be a way of doing that. So let’s posit a syncope rule: any
vowel is deleted immediately before another vowel. Once again there are no
counterexamples.
The data of (1), (6) and (10) show a vowel-length alternation. Is it a case of short vowels
lengthening or long vowels shortening? Note that in all three cases of this alternation the
vowel in what we’re taking as the most basic form of the word (present verb or nominative
singular noun) is long. So we assume that long vowels where they occur are lexical (part of
the underlying representation). The short vowel appears where it is followed by a cluster of
two consonants. Shortening in this environment can readily be understood as compensatory
(the vowel shortens to ‘make room’ for the extra consonant). So we set up a rule of
compensatory shortening which says that any long vowel becomes short if immediately
followed by a sequence of two consonants.
The data of (3), (6) and (10) show a consonantal voicing alternation. If the final segments of
(3) , (6) re, (10)  are underlyingly voiced, why do they alternate with forms
showing [p] and [k] respectively? In each case the voiceless plosive is followed by [t]. It
seems like a simple instance of regressive voicing assimilation. The precise scope of the
rule is difficult to determine from such limited data. It seems to apply only to obstruents, as
is expected, but there is no way of telling whether it is restricted to (i) [b] and [], as in the
only actual examples we have; (ii) all voiced plosives; (iii) all voiced obstruents. Information
as to the conditioning environment is similarly scanty. It could be simply __ [t], since the
only instances we have involve a following [t]. Or it could be all voiceless plosives or all
voiceless obstruents. Here we apply the principle that the more general a process the more
readily explicable it is, and make the largest possible assumption which is both phonetically
plausible and consistent with the available data – i.e. that obstruent clusters must agree in
voicing, and that a voiced obstruent immediately before a voiceless one will be assimilated to
the latter.
Next, we need a rule of affrication to deal with the fact that some of the stem-final plosives
in nominative singular nouns become affricates in the plural and genitive singular forms.
This seems to involve non-labial plosives when intervocalic and followed by a front vowel.
…
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