A diachronic analysis of the interaction of syllabification and jer vocalization

A Diachronic Analysis of the Interaction of Syllabification and Jer Vocalization

Jeanette Suzanne Koenig

A dissertation presented to the faculty of Princeton University in candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Recommended for acceptance by the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

June 2004

UMI Number: 3123437

________________________________________________________ UMI Microform 3123437

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© Copyright by Jeanette Suzanne Koenig, 2004. All rights reserved.

ABSTRACT Vowel/zero alternations in the modern Slavic languages are commonly assumed to be represented by underlying vowels called jers (M-jers), in reference to their historical predecessors (H-jers). It is concluded that the correct representation makes use of a autosegmental model with material on both the skeletal and the melodic tiers that is not linked prior to vocalization. This configuration accounts for the following properties of M-jers: any vowel can potentially participate in alternations; they prevent the tautosyllabic parsing of the consonants adjacent to them; they themselves do not participate in syllabification before vocalization. Vocalization (YVoc) occurs when a M-jer is followed by an unlicensed consonant, causing the feature melody and skeletal slot to link up. This rule is cyclic in the modern grammars. Unlinked M-jers are summarily deleted post-cyclically by a separate rule (Y-Del). It is argued that the only difference between M-jers and H-jers is the component of the grammar in which YVoc occurs. Historically, new surface constraints in feature melodies caused delinking at the post-cyclic level, so YVoc was necessarily post-cyclic. It operated in conjunction with syllabification rules to license the stray consonants left behind after the H-jers delinked; syllabification proceeds directionally in Slavic from right to left. The coda position, made available only at the close of the Late Common Slavic period, allowed YVoc to apply to alternating H-jers in accordance with the pattern described by Havlík’s Law. In the modern languages, the delinked configuration has been lexicalized as a phoneme, so YVoc is cyclic. This causes M-jers to be vocalized as soon as new morphemes are

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attached, eliminating the alternating pattern. Finally, it is argued that as the delinked configuration became lexicalized, other instances of epenthesis were reanalyzed as M-jers. With increased M-jer productivity comes increased predictability, which leads in turn to ambiguity with epenthesis.

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Acknowledgments I am deeply indebted to the following people, without whom this dissertation would not have been possible. First, I would like to thank my committee members, Maggie Browning, Leonard Babby, Rolf Noyer, and Mirjam Fried, for their guidance, wisdom, and time. I am grateful to the following people for their time spent reading my drafts and offering feedback: my advisor, Maggie Browning, particularly for her ability to ask exactly the right questions to get me out of whatever rut I was in; Rolf Noyer, who got me started with a reading list and then offered extensive comments when I had finally written something; Christina Bethin, who also was available for numerous questions and who generously provided much valuable feedback to my drafts; Mirjam Fried, who let me spend hours in her office bouncing ideas off her and who could be counted on for almost immediate feedback on my work; and finally, Laura Davies, who offered helpful comments and kept me honest with my Polish examples. All errors are my own. I am especially grateful to Michael Launer, my former advisor from Florida State University, first, for being the one who instilled in me a fascination with linguistics, and second, for his willingness to read through anything that came out of my printer and to offer his feedback and advice. I am grateful to my professors at Princeton: Leonard Babby, Maggie Browning, Edwin Williams, and Bob Freidin, for sharing their knowledge. In

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particular, I must thank Charles Townsend for all that he taught me and for introducing me to the field of historical phonology. Thanks also to Wayles Browne, Henning Andersen, and Loren Billings for helping me get started with a reading list. Loren is responsible for giving me the idea of coming to Princeton in the first place. I am grateful to the department managers Christine Alito, Fran Carrol, Gabrielle Eggers, and Kate Fischer, for helping with all the nuts and bolts of grad school over the years. Immense thanks go to my classmates, particularly Eric Komar, Edit Jakob, Jim Lavine, Abby Konopasky, Stephanie Harves, Brian Stimmler, and most especially, the Fellowship of the Dissertation: Laura Davies and Elena Chernishenko for all their support and advice over the long years. I am grateful for the companionship of my friends, particularly to Wei Ding, Ellen Thorington, and Mollie the Border Collie, who kept me sane and once in a while even managed to get me to not take myself seriously. I would like to thank my family for their love and support and for putting up with my perpetual student-hood; specifically, my parents, Walt and Genelle Koenig; and my brothers and sister-in-law, Kurt, Eric, and Heather. Even though he can’t read, I should acknowledge my dog, Maverick, who endured endlessly delayed walks and suppers. In turn, in the way only dogs can, he replaced the self-esteem that dissertations suck out of a person.

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Finally, I must make special mention of my brother Kurt, who played the part of Samwise Gamgee though this process and who has been my best friend. Without his example and encouragement, I would never have made it through the writing stage. He was always there for me when things got tough and made me focus on my successes rather than my failures. He taught me the importance of refusing to give in to doubt or despair, even when impossibly surrounded by orcs, especially when the battle seems hopeless. This dissertation is for him.

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In Memory of Susie Atefat Peckham and Cyrus Atefat-Peckham

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Table of Contents Abstract Acknowledgments Table of Contents

iii v ix

Chapter One: Vowel/Zero Alternations in Slavic 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3

1.4 1.5

Introduction. Problems in representation. Predictability of jer reflex. History of vowel/zero alternations. 1.3.1 Havlík’s Law. 1.3.2 Marked feature combination. M-jers in the modern grammar—absolute neutralization. Organization of thesis.

Chapter Two: Properties of M-Jers 2.0 2.1 2.2

2.3 2.4 2.5

28

Problems with linear representation. Slovak Rhythmic Law and Polish Comparative Allomorphy Conditions for vocalization and deletion. 2.2.1 M-jers in consecutive syllables 2.2.2 Unsyllabified consonants. Ability to interfere with syllabification. 2.3.1 Evidence from Russian verb prefixation. Domain of application. 2.4.1 Cyclic status of YVoc. Summary.

Chapter Three: Autosegmental Representations of the M-jers 3.0 3.1

3.2

1

Autosegmental representations. Possible configurations. 3.1.1 Redundant (rule-derived) skeletal tier. 3.1.1.1 Zero-root node analysis. 3.1.1.2 Underspecified root node analysis. 3.1.2 Pre-specified skeletal tier. 3.1.2.1 Empty skeletal slot. 3.1.2.2 Floating feature melody. 3.1.2.3 Conjointly-floating melody/X-slot. Summary.

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63

Chapter Four: Syllabification and Vocalization 4.0

4.1

4.2

4.3

4.4

4.5

Syllabification implications. 4.0.1 Cyclicity of syllabification. 4.0.2 Extra-metrical consonants within a cycle. Syllabification and the Fall of the H-jers. 4.1.1 Delinking at the surface level. 4.1.2 Lexicalization: Differences between historical and modern grammars. 4.1.3 Directionality of syllabification. Theoretical implications. 4.2.1 YVoc: Phonological rule or prosodic rule? 4.2.2 Rule-driven vs. templatic syllabification. The Syllable Structure Algorithm and YVoc 4.3.1 Syllabification of H-jers and non-liquid consonants. 4.3.2 Summary of syllabification and YVoc. Syllabification of H-jers and liquids. 4.4.1 The South Slavic and South-Central Slavic dialects. 4.4.2 The Northwest Slavic dialects. 4.4.3 The Northeast Slavic dialects. 4.4.4 Summary of H-jers and liquids. Summary.

Chapter Five: Issues in Ambiguity 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3

5.4

101

175

Defining a M-jer: Structure vs. Behavior. Ebb and flow of phonemicity. Stress and H-jers. Cases of ambiguity. 5.3.1 Imperative endings. 5.3.2 Nominal zero-endings. 5.3.3 Stress shift in nouns with obstruent-sonorant stems. Conclusion.

References

207

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Chapter One Vowel/Zero Alternations in Slavic 1.0

Introduction. One of the most interesting phenomena in the study of Slavic phonology is a

series of vowel/zero alternations, in which a vowel may exist in some forms of a given word’s paradigm but not in the others. The alternations are most commonly found in nouns, short form adjectives, and a few past tense verbs. For the short form adjectives and verbs, the alternation is between the masculine, which contains the vowel, and the other forms, which do not. For the nouns, the alternation occurs when a vowel is present in the masculine nominative singular or the feminine or neuter genitive plural but is absent in the other forms of the paradigm. These alternations are commonly referred to as jers, in reference to a pair of high, lax vowels from which they are historically derived (see Section 1.3). Not all nouns, short form adjectives, or verbs exhibit any vowel/zero alternation. Examples of the alternations, or jers, in Russian are given in (1) below.1 (1)

a. otec otca

masc. nom. sg. masc. gen. sg.

‘father’

b. lodka lodok

fem. nom. sg. fem. gen. pl.

‘boat’

c. kreslo neut. nom. sg. kres’ol neut. gen. pl.

1

‘armchair’

Examples are all Russian, unless otherwise stated.

1

d. bolen bol’na

masc. short form adj. fem. short form adj.

‘sick’

e. žog žgla

impfv. past masc. sg. impfv. past fem. sg.

‘burn’

The nature of the vowel in the alternation varies with the language: in Russian, /e/ and /o/ regularly participate in vowel/zero alternations; in Polish and Czech, the alternating vowel is /e/; in Slovak, /e/ and /o/ alternate; in Bulgarian, /e/ and / / alternate; and in Serbo-Croatian, the alternating vowel is /a/. This is shown in (2) below. (2)

Reflexes of vowel/zero alternations in major modern Slavic languages Russian [e]/[o] d’en’ dn’a otec otca ugol ugla ogon’ ogn’a zamok zamka

Polish [e] den’2 dn’a ojtec ojca3 w g’el w gla ogen’ ogn’a zamek zamka

Czech [e] den dne otec otce uhel uhla ohen’ ohne zamek zamku

Slovak [e]/[o] den dn’a otec otca uhol uhla ohen’ ohna zamok zamku

Serbo-Croatian [a] no alt. otac oca ugal5 ugla oganj ognja zamak zamka

Bulgarian [e]/[ ] den dni otec otci4 g l gli og n ogn’ove no alt.

2

Note on transcription: Polish orthography and pronunciation are complex and tend to obscure underlying phonemic relationships. Here, in order to normalize underlying segments to their correspondents in the other Slavic languages, I use the following system: /c/ = voiceless alveolar affricate; / / = voiceless postalveolar affricate (spelled “cz” in Polish); /š/ = voiceless postalveolar fricative (spelled “sz”); /ž/ = voiced postalveolar fricative (spelled “ ”); /l’/ = soft lateral liquid; /l/ = labiovelar glide (pronounced [w], spelled “ł”); / / = voiced postalveolar fricative (pronounced [ž], spelled “rz”); /t’/ = voiceless prepalatal affricate (spelled “ci” before vowels and “c” elsewhere); /d’/ = voiced prepalatal affricate (written “dzi” before vowels and “dz” elsewhere); / / = front nasal vowel; / / = back nasal vowel. 3 /tc/ [c] 4 Archaic. 5 In Serbo-Croatian, /l/ [o] at word-end.

2

In addition to the forms represented in (1), many vowel/zero alternations can be found elsewhere, though their distribution is less systematic than that described above, and they are not universally considered to be jers. For example, vowel/zero alternations exist in some prepositions and verb prefixes, as in (3) and (4) below, respectively. In (3), the noun also has a vowel/zero alternation; the same is true for the verbal root in (4). (3)

v rot vo rtu

masc. nom. sg. masc. prep. sg.

‘into the mouth’ ‘in the mouth’

(4)

s- est so- tu s- ol so- la

pfv. infin. pfv. 1st sg. non-past pfv. past masc. sg. pfv. past fem. sg.

‘count’

For a given preposition or verb prefix, the vowel or lack of it is often consistent throughout a single word’s paradigm but variable if a different word or root is used, shown below in (5) and (6). For prepositions, the vowel is more likely to appear if the preceding consonant shares features with the initial consonant of the following noun. For example, in (5-a) below, the /v/ has only the feature [+labial] in common with the following /m/, and the vowel allomorph does not appear. In (5-b), /v/ and /f/ are both labiodental fricatives, and the [vo] allomorph is used. A similar situation occurs in (5-c & d). (5)

a. v Moskv’e ‘in Moscow’

c. s utra do ve era

b. vo Florid’e ‘in Florida’

d. so storony

3

‘from morning till night’ ‘on the part of’

Similarity of features plays little role in choice of verb prefix allomorph, however, as shown in (6) below. Both the [-o-] and the [-∅-] allomorphs appear, independent of whether the surrounding consonants are alike, and in (6-e), the [vo-] allomorph appears even though the following element is an identical /o/. (6)

a. v-xodit’ b. v-vodit’

‘to enter’ ‘to lead into’

c. vo-dvor’at’ d. vo-vlekat’ e. vo-obražat’

‘to settle’ ‘to draw in’ ‘to imagine’

In addition, sometimes a given stem will take the [-o-] allomorph (e.g., [so-], not [s-]) of one prefix, but the [-∅-] allomorph (e.g., [iz-], not [izo-]) of a different prefix, even though both variants exist elsewhere (e.g., [s-padat’] ‘to fall down’, but [izo-šol] ‘he came from’). For example, with the root /-b#r-/ in (7) below (which itself exhibits a vowel/zero alternation), the following variants are found: (7)

s-bor (⊗so-bor)6 ‘collection,’ so-bir-at’ ‘to gather’ (impfv.) so-br-at’ ‘to gather’ (pfv.)

iz-birat’ (⊗izo-bir-at’) ‘to select’ (impfv.) iz-brat’ (⊗izo-br-at’) ‘to select’ (pfv.)

Given that a form exhibiting a vowel/zero alternation usually yields the vowel if the following syllable also has a vowel/zero alternation (see discussion below), it is surprising to see the form izbrat’ in (7) above, rather than ⊗izobrat’. Other roots, however, are consistent in which prefix variant they take, regardless of whether they themselves have a vowel/zero alternation, as in (8) below: (8)

so-jti so-šol so-šla

‘to go down’ ‘he went down’ ‘she went down’

izo-jti izo-šol izo-šla

‘to come from’ ‘he came from’ ‘she came from’

The symbol ⊗ is used here to mark incorrect or unattested forms, rather than the usual asterisk (*), as the latter is used to denote unsyllabified consonants. 6

4

As shown in (7) above, vowel/zero alternations can also be seen in the roots of some perfective/derived imperfective infinitive verb pairs. A three-way alternation frequently exists between the perfective and imperfective infinitives and the finite forms of the perfective, as in (9) below. This alternation involves the back vowels /y/, /o/, and /∅/, or the corresponding front vowels /i/, /e/, and /∅/. (9)

a. na-zv-at’ na-zov-u na-zyv-at’

‘to call’ (pfv.) ‘I will call’ (pfv.) ‘to call’ (impfv.)

c. u-mer-et’ u-mr-u u-m’ir-at’

‘to die’ (pfv.) ‘I will die’ (pfv.) ‘to die’ (impfv.)

b. za-stl-at’ ‘to cover’ (pfv.) za-st’el’-u ‘I will cover (pfv.) za-st’il-at’ ‘to cover’ (impfv.)

Some of the Slavic languages show other types of segment/zero alternations. For example, in Polish, the choice between the comparative allomorphs /-š(i)/ and /-ejš(i)/ usually depends on whether the stem ends in a syllabified consonant (as in (10) below) or not (as in (11) below). (See 2.1 of Chapter Two and 4.0.2 of Chapter Four for further discussion.) Here, the alternation is between /ej/ and ∅, rather than between a single vowel and ∅ (examples from Szpyra (1992: 286)). (10) (11)

tward-y ‘hard’ m dr-y ‘wise’

tward.7- ši ‘harder’ m d. -ej- ši8 ‘wiser’

(Polish)

Slavic vowel/zero alternations are partially productive with foreign borrowings, as in the Polish examples in (12) below, but they are not fully productive, as in (13) (examples from Szpyra (1992: 279)).

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Here, the /d/ is ultimately syllabified with the following syllable as part of a complex onset: [twar.dši] (Bethin (1992)). 8 The /r/ is palatalized by the front vowel in the comparative ending.

5

(12)

rober robr-a

nom. sg. masc. gen. sg. masc.

‘rubber’

(13)

rower rower-u

nom. sg. masc. gen. sg. masc.

‘bicycle’

(Polish)

The vowel/zero alternations illustrated in this section, summarized below in (14-a-e), are caused by a variety of factors. Some appear to be connected with syllabification (14-a & b), while others serve to break up consonant clusters sharing one or more feature (14-c). Vowel/zero alternations in some verbal roots are morphologically conditioned (14-d). The phonetic environments of the alternations are identical: vowels precede the /b/ and follow the /r/, yet among the three forms a different vowel appears between the consonants (or no vowel at all). What differs is aspect and whether the verb is finite. Finally, vowel/zero alternations in prefixes oftentimes appear arbitrary, as in (14-e), in which the phonetic environment is the same (/v/ __ /v/), and both verbs are imperfective infinitives. The only thing that differs is the root itself. (14)

a.

lodk-a lodok

fem. nom. sg. fem. gen. pl.

b.

twar.d-ši m d. -ejši

‘harder’ ‘wiser’

c.

v Moskv’e vo Florid’e

‘in Moscow’ ‘in Florida’

d.

so-br-at’ so-ber-u so-bir-at’

e.

v-vodit’ vo-vlekat’

pfv. pfv. impfv.

‘boat’

‘to gather’ ‘I will gather’ ‘to gather’ ‘to lead into’ ‘to draw in’

6

(Polish)

It is beyond the scope of this work to consider in detail every vowel/zero alternation and the causes behind them. To be discussed here are primarily the vowel/zero alternations most commonly derived from historical jers and triggered by consistent phonological processes involving syllabification (to be discussed). As a starting point, the alternation appears dependent on whether or not an overt vowel is present in the following syllable. These include the alternations found in nouns, short-form adjectives, and past tense verb forms illustrated in (1-a-e) (also (14-a) above). Brief mention of the other types of alternations will be made when relevant to the discussion. 1.1

Problems in representation. Although these vowel/zero alternations have been widely studied, there is no

consensus on how they should be represented in the grammar and whether a unified account can be presented for them all. About the only thing that can be agreed upon is how they should not be represented. For example, it becomes clear upon examination that the alternations in (1-a-e) cannot be represented as /∅/ underlyingly, with an epenthetic vowel appearing under certain conditions. Although these vowel/zero alternations frequently break up consonant clusters, they cannot be accounted for as instances of epenthesis. For one thing, the nature of the vowel is not predictable in all Slavic languages (see Section 1.2). For another thing, not all clusters are broken up by an “epenthetic” vowel, as in the following well-known Russian examples in (15): (15)

a. lask-a/lasok-∅ b. lask-a/lask-∅

fem. nom. sg./gen. pl. fem. nom. sg./gen. pl.

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‘weasel’ ‘caress’

If the vowel/zero alternation is represented as ∅ underlyingly, with epenthesis under certain conditions, then the stems in (15-a) and (-b) above would be the same: /lask-/. In (15-a), the cluster /sk/ is broken up by an /o/ in the genitive plural form, which has a zero ending. The same cluster in (15-b) is not broken up, even though the ending is the same. If the alternating vowel is indeed due to epenthesis, we must wonder why the two seemingly identical stems /lask-/ differ in its application. The only difference between (15-a) and (-b) is lexical: the form with the alternating vowels refers to a mammal; the other refers to a gesture. This indicates the stems in (15-a) and (-b) are not identical after all; the former must contain something additional to allow the vowel to appear. The unpredictable manner in which the vowel appears shows that the vowel/zero alternations cannot be represented as /∅/ underlyingly with epenthesis; however, examples (16) and (17) below show that the vowel cannot underlie the alternation, with deletion occurring under certain conditions, either. (16)

a. oz’or-o/oz’or (not ⊗oz’r-o) b. r’obr-o/r’ob’or

neut. nom. sg./gen. pl. neut. nom. sg./gen. pl.

‘lake’ ‘rib’

(17)

a. jezdok/jezdok-a (not ⊗jezdk-a) b. pojezdk-a/pojezdok

masc. nom. sg./gen. sg. fem. nom. sg./gen. pl.

‘rider’ ‘trip’

Although the phonological environments in (16-a) and (-b) are alike (CVRV),9 the vowel deletes in one but not the other. In (17-a) and (-b), the segments

9

C = Consonant; V = Vowel; R = Liquid; S = Sonorant; N = Nasal consonant; G = Glide.

8

surrounding the vowel are identical (/zd__k/), and again, deletion does not occur in the former, even though it is clear from (17-b) that the cluster /-zdka/ is perfectly acceptable. Thus, the alternation cannot be a case of deletion under certain conditions, unless the vowel is specially marked in the lexicon as [+delete]. This essentially requires that deletable /e/ and /o/ be phonemes separate from nondeletable /e/ and /o/. However, this putative feature [+delete] is stipulative; it tells us nothing illuminating about the vowel/zero alternations, and there is no evidence that this feature exists in other grammars. 1.2

Predictability of jer reflex. It appears that the distribution of Slavic vowel/zero alternations in the modern

languages, although increasing in productivity, is too idiosyncratic to be regarded as a case of epenthesis or deletion. In addition, it is a matter of dispute whether or not the nature of the vowel reflex (that is, its feature composition) is predictable. Bulgarian and Slovak each have two vowel reflexes, whose distribution is lexically determined. In Russian, both [e] and [o] alternate with zero, but because these two phonemes occur in mutually exclusive environments ([e] occurs between soft consonants; [o] occurs elsewhere), it can be argued that one underlying jer is involved, and whether it becomes [e] or [o] is determined by default rules. Polish is also disputable as one-jer or two-jer. The only vowel that alternates is /e/, but because underlying front vowels cause palatalization of preceding consonants, and the consonant preceding the jer is idiosyncratically palatalized, some people have argued that Polish is a two-jer language (one front and one back) (e.g.,

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Gussmann (1980); but see Bethin (1992) for a different view). Even in the other socalled one-jer languages, a number of lexical exceptions exist. For example, Russian has the alternations zajac/zajca (‘rabbit’) , involving /a/, and odin/odna (‘one’), involving /i/. Rubach (1993) shows that virtually every vowel in Slovak participates in alternations with zero, though [e] is by far the most frequent. For example, alternating with doska (‘board’) are the forms dosiek10∼dosa:k. The preposition k ‘to’ alternates with ku. In addition, even when the phonetic nature of the vowel is predictible, one should not be cavalier in positing “default” feature fill-in rules. Rules that automatically fill in unspecified feature values (that is, everything that is not predictable) would be expected to fill in the unmarked values. To suppose that default rules would fill in the marked value of a feature is like expecting a ball to roll uphill on its own. The feature combination [-high] [-low] is more marked than either [+high] or [+low]. In three-vowel systems it is the mid-vowels that are excluded from the inventory, not the high or low ones (see also Calabrese (1988)). It is then somewhat surprising that the default features would result in /e/ as the alternating vowel in some of the languages. Because epenthesis and deletion are both unpredictable in application, as well as the reflex of the vowel itself, there clearly must still be something present in the underlying form of these alternations, some relic of the jers that vocalizes under

10

[ie] is a reflex of long /e:/ by a diphthongization process, according to Kenstowicz and Rubach (1987).

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certain conditions and deletes under others. The nature of this phoneme (or phonemes) is under dispute and will be examined here. To begin, a brief history of the jers must be presented. 1.3

History of vowel/zero alternations. The vowel/zero alternations in the modern Slavic languages are relics of a

pair of relatively short-lived high, probably lax, vowels called jers, which themselves had descended from Early Proto-Slavic (EPSl) short /i/ and /u/. At some point in the Late Common Slavic (LCS) period, phonemic length was exchanged for other features, in the case of the jers, possibly [tense] (see discussion below in Section 1.3.2). The so-called “fall of the jers” marked the end of the late LCS period, but it did not happen at the same time over the entire Slavic speaking area. It began in the southwest (i.e., Serbo-Croatian) around the 10th century and reached the northeast (Russian) around the 12th century.11 The jers merged with other vowels or deleted entirely, and, although there are exceptions in some dialect areas, the tendency was for this to be determined by their position relative to each other within a word. 1.3.1 Havlík’s Law. Jers that merged with other vowels are referred to as “strong” jers; the jers that deleted are called “weak.” The weakness or strength of a jer was usually determined by its position relative to another jer. Scholars12 typically define strong jers as those that are immediately followed by a syllable containing a weak jer. Weak jers are thus found when they are (1) at word-end (because they are not

11

Some accounts (e.g., Timberlake (1983) believe the fall of the jers began in the more central Slavic regions. 12 E.g., Shevelov (1965), Bethin (1988), Townsend (1996).

11

followed by any jer at all, strong or weak), (2) isolated, that is, in a syllable in which the syllables preceding and following contain full vowels (for the same reason as (1)), and (3) odd-numbered jers in a series of successive syllables, counting backwards from the right-most jer. This alternation of weak-strong jers is referred to as Havlík’s Law.13 A jer at word-end or preceding a syllable with a full vowel is weak, so a jer in the syllable preceding that would be strong. A jer in the syllable before the strong one would then be weak. This means that generally there are never consecutive syllables with both strong or both weak jers. The actual vowel or vowels that the strong jers merged with became a characteristic feature in the development of each Slavic language. In Russian, for example, strong back jers became /o/ and strong front jers became /e/. (This /e/, in turn, participated in a later change in which /e/ under certain conditions became /o/.) Strong jers preceding a /j/, which are called tense jers, behaved slightly differently for most Slavic languages. Tense back jers raised to /y/ (an unrounded high back vowel), and tense front jers raised to /i/. Russian is an exception; tense jers usually give the same reflexes as the other jers for this language. This is illustrated in (18) below. (18)

LCS mUj-

Rus14 moj-u

Cz myj-i

Pol myj-em

13

SC mij-em

Bg mij-a

Havlík’s Law should not be regarded as absolute—there are many exceptions to it at the time of the fall of the jers, and its application can be influenced by factors such as stress, syllabification, and morphological leveling. This will be examined in further detail in Chapters Four and Five. 14 Abbreviations used here are: Rus=Russian; Cz=Czech; Pol=Polish; SC=SerboCroatian Bg=Bulgarian.

12

The alternating pattern of weak/strong jers is the predecessor of the vowel/zero alternations in the modern languages. If an inflectional ending contained a jer, any jer in the stem (immediately preceding the ending jer) would be strong and thus would merge with another vowel. (Henceforth, the term vocalize shall be used to refer to a jer that merged with a vowel rather than delete.) If the inflectional ending was a non-jer vowel, however, the preceding jer would be weak and would delete. This is illustrated in (19) and (20) below. Front jers are transcribed here as /I/; back jers are transcribed as /U/, in reference to their EPSl predecessors. (19)

(LCS) s

U n- U

(Mod Rus) son

nom. sg. masc.

‘dream’

(Mod Rus) sna

gen. sg. masc.

‘dream’

∧ ∧ | | | weak strong (20)

(LCS) s

U n-

a

∧ | | weak The word-end jer in (19) was a nominative singular masculine ending, which corresponded to other endings in other cases. Here, according to Havlík’s Law, this jer, which is the right-most one, is weak and deletes. The jer to the immediate left is therefore strong and vocalizes, resulting in Modern Russian [son]. In (20), the genitive singular ending is not a jer; the root jer, which was strong in the nominative singular, is now isolated and is thus in weak position. Hence, it deleted, resulting in Modern Russian [sna].

13

The alternating pattern of weak/strong jers leads scholars to posit a bi-syllabic requirement for jer vocalization; that is, for a jer to vocalize, there must be a second jer in the immediately following syllable. When successive jers occurred in more than two syllables, it was possible to obtain multiple vowel/zero alternations, as in (21) and (22) below. (21)

(22)

LCS

Old Rus

S m o l U n I s k- U ^ ^ ^ | | | weak | weak strong

Smolnesk masc. nom. sg. (name of a Russian city)

S m o l U n I s k- a ^ ^ | | strong | weak

Smolenska

masc. gen. sg.

Modern Russian no longer has these alternations because paradigmatic leveling caused the Old Russian nominative form Smolnesk to reformulate the stems on the basis of the oblique forms. This yielded Modern Russian Smolensk/Smolenska, with no vowel/zero alternations. Multiple vowel/zero alternations are fairly rare in the modern Slavic languages. In Modern Russian, they exist only in some prepositional phrases and prefixed verbs, such as (3) and (4) above, respectively. Usually, however, when a string contains multiple syllables of adjacent jers in derivational morphology, many of the modern Slavic languages (e.g., Russian, Polish, Slovak) vocalize all but the right-most jer (e.g., Polish /cukUr-Ik-U/

14

[cukerek];

/cukUr-Ik-a/

[cukerka], ‘candy’ masculine nominative/genitive singular).15

A notable exception to Havlik’s Law is where jers occur adjacent to liquids (see Section 4.4 of Chapter Four). Here, we find great variation within and among the Slavic dialects, although some general tendencies can be found. The South Slavic regions (Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian) eliminated the jer regardless of its strength or position relative to the liquid (preceding or following), as in (23) below. This resulted in a syllabic liquid, which since has, in many cases, decomposed into a vowel or vowel/liquid combination. For instance, Bulgarian has inserted a mobile vowel whose position is syllable dependent: [pr v.]/[p r.va] ‘first’ (masculine/feminine singular short form). (23)

LCS vIlkU vIlka krUvI krUvi

Serbo-Croatian vuk16 vuka k v17 k vi

The Northeast Slavic regions replaced the jer with a non-alternating vowel, also without regard to strength or position relative to the liquid, as in (24) below.

15

This statement has been simplified for ease of exposition and is based on the traditional approaches to jer vocalization, with which the reader is more likely to be familiar: a jer is said to vocalize if the following syllable contains a jer. This approach therefore assumes that the so-called zero-endings (masculine nominative singular and feminine/neuter genitive plural) are actually jers. However, Chapter Two will argue that jers vocalize when followed by unsyllabified consonants, and Chapter Five will argue that the zero-endings are indeed zero-endings, not jers. 16 A later change in SC: (syllabic) / / u 17 Here, the symbols / / and / / are used for syllabic liquids.


15

(24)

LCS vIlkU vIlka krUvI krUvi

Russian volk volka krov’ krovi


Thus, in both of these extreme regions, Havlik’s Law does not apply for jers adjacent to liquids. The middle regions, which include the Northwest Slavic areas (Polish, Polabian) and Czech, show variable applicability depending on position relative to the liquid. If it preceded the liquid (25-a), it was replaced by a non-alternating vowel in the Northwest Slavic areas and a syllabic liquid (with no alternating vowel) in Czech. If the jer followed the liquid, however, Havlik’s Law did apply (25-b) for both Northwest Slavic and Czech. (25)

LCS a. vIlkU vIlka b. krUvI krUvi


Polish vilk vilku krev krvi

Czech vk v ka krev krvi

At this point, it is necessary to distinguish historical jers (henceforth termed H-jers) from modern jers (henceforth termed M-jers), which underlie the vowel/zero alternations under study here. Not all modern vowel/zero alternations come from Hjers (e.g., LCS ogn’I/ogn’a


Modern Russian ogon’/ogn’a), and not all H-jers

yielded vowel/zero alternations (e.g., (23) and (24) above). That is, H-jers and M-jers, while overlapping to a significant degree, are not completely congruent. When the distinction between historical and modern jers is ambiguous or not important, the term jer will be used by itself.

16

1.3.2 Marked feature combination. What was it about the H-jers that caused them to stop being realized in surface form? As nearly a thousand years have passed since the fall of the H-jers from Slavic vowel inventories, it obviously is impossible to know their feature specifications with any certainty. However, some reasonable conclusions can be drawn from the modern Slavic languages. The H-jers, which existed for a relatively brief time in LCS, came from the EPSl short [+high] vowels /i/ and /u/. At some point in the development of LCS, the length feature lost its phonemic status and became redundant. Short /i/ and /u/ are believed to have lowered (precisely how much lowering, and whether or not they merged into one vowel, depends on the dialect); it may have been this difference in height that became distinctive. However, Lightner (1972) suggests the new distinctive feature was [-tense] (or [-ATR]), with loss of height being phonetically redundant. This proposal allows us to avoid having to postulate four levels of height in order to distinguish the LCS vowels. The [+high] vowels would have been the only vowels for which the feature [tense] was contrastive, as illustrated below in (26). It is not unheard of for a feature to operate distinctively over only part of the vowel inventory; in LCS, the feature [labial] has contrastive function only among the [+back] vowels, for instance; that is, /u/, which is [+back] [+high], contrasts with /y/ [+back] [+high] by the feature [round]. Although there is no phonemic distinction among [-high] vowels for the feature [tense], the unmarked value is [-tense]. (In Modern Russian, the vowel /e/ becomes [+tense] in certain phonetic environments, but this occurs only in surface form.)

17

(26)

LCS Vowels and Their Posited Feature Specifications18

i y u I U

e o a 20

high + + + + + ?

low + -? -? ?

back + + + + + + -?

tense + + n/a (+) n/a (-) n/a (-) n/a19 n/a n/a n/a

labial n/a (-) + n/a (-) n/a (-) + ?

nasal + + -

The Slavic vowel inventory underwent a collapse from eleven vowels at the beginning of the LCS period to five or six vowels at the end. If a grammar is decreasing the number of distinctive vowels in its inventory, it seems natural that the most marked vowels would be the first to go. Vowels that are both [+high] and [-tense] are relatively rare among languages and generally exist only in languages with larger vowel inventories (see Calabrese (1988) for a hierarchy of marked feature combinations). Thus, it is not surprising that the H-jers, with their unstable feature combinations, were short lived.

18

Vowel inventory taken from Townsend (1996). Lightner (1972) considers this vowel [+tense], assuming long tense in all cases. Although the combination [+low] [+tense] is marked, this assumption does not crucially affect the analysis here. 20 The precise feature specifications for the nasal vowels is uncertain. Similarly, the features of / /, whose modern reflexes range from /i/ (Cz), /ie/ (SC), /e/ (Rus, Pol, Cz), /a/ (Bulg, Cz), cannot be established with any reliability. 19




18

1.4

M-jers in the modern grammar—absolute neutralization. It is tempting to use the historical features [+high] [-tense] to explain the

vowel/zero alternations in the modern Slavic grammars. For example, one might suggest (see, e.g., Lightner (1972); Gussmann (1980)) that a [+high] [-tense] vowel is underlying, but some constraint prevents these features from appearing together in surface form. This proposal entails a process of absolute neutralization, in which the distinction between two underlying phonemes is neutralized in all contexts. An abstract phoneme /z/ that never appears as such in surface form is posited to explain an alternation between [x] and [y], where neither underlying /x/ or /y/ will adequately account for the facts. Under this proposal, vocalization would occur when one of the features [+high] [-tense] is changed, either in response to an appropriate phonetic environment or, possibly, to some morphophonemic rule. This would result in an [α high] [α tense] configuration.21 Deletion would occur if none of the vocalization rules could apply. See, for example, the Polish and Russian examples below in (27) and (28), respectively. The conditions under which some M-jers vocalize while others delete will be discussed in Chapter Two. As a starting point, it will be assumed, in keeping with traditional analyses (e.g., Lightner (1972); Gussman (1980); Bethin (1992); Rubach (1993)), that M-jers vocalize when immediately followed by a syllable containing another M-jer. (Vocalization is not necessarily

21

Thanks to Michael Launer, personal communication, for pointing this out.

19

limited to this environment, however—it can possibly be triggered by morphological rules as well.) The [±high] [±tense] features of the alternating vowels in the Polish examples in (27) below are in complementary distribution ([+high] [+tense] before /j/, [-high] [-tense] elsewhere).22 It is thus perfectly natural to consider the same underlying phoneme to be operating in both contexts. Lightner (1972) and Gussmann (1980) propose the M-jer vocalizes if another M-jer is present in the following syllable. Whether it vocalizes as [+high] [+tense] (e.g., [i]) or [-high] [-tense] (e.g., [e]) depends on whether it immediately precedes a /j/. (27) 23 Tense Lower Delete Surface:

nom. sg. fem. (noun) /policIj-a/ --∅ [policja]

nom. sg. masc. (adj.) /policIj-In-y/ y --- --- ∅ [policyjny]

nom. sg. masc. (adj.—s.f.) /vin’-In-U/ -- -e --- ∅ [vin’en]

Lightner (1972) and Gussmann (1980) also assume a single [+high] [-tense] M-jer underlies the three-way alternation seen in Russian perfective and imperfective infinitives and non-past perfective verbs such as those in (28) below. Here, vocalization, as well as whether it is Tensing or Lowering that applies, is conditioned by morphological, rather than phonological, rules. This proposal allows the threeway alternation to be collapsed into one underlying vowel. 24

22

An exception is in Russian, which has [-high] [-tense] nearly everywhere. Data and derivations from Gussmann (1980: 55). 24 An alternative for morphologically conditioned vowel/zero alternations it to represent them as separate but related roots. Vowel alternations within a root, though not productive, are very common in Slavic for all parts of speech, again largely due 23

20

(28)25 Tense Lower Delete Surface:

Pfv. Inf. 1sg prfv. /nazUvat’/ /nazUvu/ ---o ∅ -[nazvat’] [nazovu]

Der. Impfv. /nazUvat’/ y --[nazyvat’]

Pfv. Inf. /stIlat’/ --∅ [stlat’]

1sg prfv. Der. Impfv. /stIl’u/ /stIlat’/ -i e ---[stel’u] [stilat’]

A feature combination for the M-jers such as [+high] [-tense] is appealing. Both features exist in other phonemes (just not with opposite +/- specifications), e.g., /o/ is [-high] [-tense], /i/ is [+high] [+tense],26 so the grammar does not have to be weighed down with extra stipulative features to mark the deletable vowels. Furthermore, the surface constraint against [+high] [-tense] together is plausible, since it is a marked combination for such a small vowel inventory. It may well be that these features do indeed underlie the vowel/zero alternations, at least for some of the Slavic languages. (This may in part be dependent upon what alternations are admitted into the inventory of M-jers.) However, absolute neutralization is controversial; critics claim that it violates the “naturalness condition,” which states that all underlying phonemes must be such that they exist in some surface form without the intervention of phonological rules. In addition, a number of scholars (e.g, Rubach (1986, 1993); Bethin (1992); Szpyra (1992)) have shown that this feature combination alone is insufficient to account for vowel/zero alternations. This will be discussed in Section 2.1 of Chapter Two.

to the relics of ablaut. E.g., Russian vzirat’ ‘to look at’; zerkalo ‘mirror’; vzor (noun) ‘look, gaze’; obozrenije ‘review, survey.’ 25 Data from Lightner (1972: 32). Derivations from Lightner (1972: 34-35). 26 Note that [tense] is not necessarily contrastive elsewhere in the grammar. For /o/, [-tense] is a redundant feature associated with [-high].

21

1.5

Organization of thesis. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate under the framework of

Lexical Phonology the differences in jer vocalization patterns at the time of their fall from LCS and in the modern languages. Focus is given primarily to the North and Central Slavic regions (late LCS usually will be compared with Modern Russian, although reference to some of the other modern languages will be made as well). It is generally accepted that M-jers are still present in some form in the modern languages, and recent work (e.g., Szpyra (1992); Cresti (1994)) ties vocalization to the presence of unsyllabified consonants (but see Kenstowicz and Rubach (1987); Rubach (1993); etc. for a different view). Vocalization of H-jers, on the other hand, because of their alternating pattern, is frequently assumed to be connected with a bisyllabic trochee (Bethin (1998)). In such an analysis, the H-jers categorically dissociated from their morae. It is suggested that an overarching prosodic reshaping of the Slavic languages, which favored a bisyllabic trochee in terms of syllable prominence, also governed the relinking of the H-jers to their morae, parsing from the right edge of the word to the left. This would have occurred on a plane separate from the one on which syllable prominence was determined. Non-H-jer vowels, which remained linked to their morae, would reset the prosodic count on the relinking plane. Although syllable repair may have been the triggering factor in Bethin’s analysis, it is not considered to play an integral role in the relinking. Thus, the analysis requires one to consider vocalization in the modern and historical grammars to be governed by separate

22

phenomena, that is, in the historical grammars, it is the trochaic foot that determines vocalization, whereas in the modern grammars, it is unlicensed consonants that determine it. The bisyllabic trochee also provides no account for the behavior of H-jers adjacent to liquids. I propose instead that vocalization is and was a part of syllabification, and that the difference between the modern and historical patterns is due to the component of the grammar where it occurs. I suggest, using an autosegmental model that assumes feature matrices on one tier are linked to skeletal timing slots on a separate tier, that at the time of the fall of the H-jers, they categorically dissociated from their skeletal slots at the post-cyclic (i.e., word) level. This occurred as a result of new constraints prohibiting the realization of their feature matrices, which were highly marked, in surface form. The dissociation of the H-jers destroyed their syllabic nuclei, which resulted in the adjacent consonants to their left becoming unsyllabified. (Syllables in LCS had been predominately open, so the delinking of a given H-jer did not result in an unsyllabified consonant to its right.27) If a string contained multiple H-jers, this meant multiple unsyllabified consonants appeared simultaneously. H-jer vocalization, which relinked the H-jers to their skeletal slots and changed one or more of their melodic features (e.g., lowering), repaired the problem. It occurred in conjunction with resyllabification, which in Slavic proceeds

27

Liquids, which frequently closed H-jer syllables, were an exception to this. Such an H-jer would have an unsyllabified obstruent to its left and an unsyllabified liquid to its right when delinked. See Chapter Four for more discussion. Also, an unsyllabified consonant would exist to the right of an H-jer, of course, if an H-jer was present in the immediately following syllable.

23

from right to left (See Chapter Four). The conditioning environment for vocalization was an unsyllabified consonant to the right of the H-jer. An isolated H-jer did not meet this condition, as the unsyllabified consonant would be to its left and would resyllabify as the coda of the preceding syllable. As H-jers vocalized, they projected nuclei with which to syllabify the adjacent stray consonants on either side, ending the dominance of the open syllable. This bled the conditioning environment for vocalization if an H-jer was present in the immediately preceding syllable, resulting in the alternating pattern of weak and strong H-jers. In most of the modern languages, I believe the M-jers are dissociated from their skeletal slots, but this configuration has been lexicalized; that is, it has been incorporated into the phonemic inventories of the Slavic languages. Thus, vocalization occurs at the cyclic level, as new morphemes are added to the string and are consequently syllabified. Many scholars assume that M-jers vocalize as long as another one is present in the next syllable. This requires positing a M-jer in the nominative masculine singular and feminine/neuter genitive plural endings, which deletes at the end of the derivation. The motivation for this word-end M-jer is solely to provide a consistent analysis for the vocalization of stem M-jers. Furthermore, stress patterns in Russian cast serious doubts on their existence. This will be argued in Chapter Five. In reality, I believe, it is simply that morphemes containing M-jers bring unsyllabified consonants into the derivation, which, unlike in many other languages, may not wait until the post-cyclic step to be prosodically licensed (see Ito (1988, 1989) for a discussion of a different situation in Arabic). It is the need to

24

syllabify these consonants, cycle by cycle, that accounts for the difference in vocalization patterns between late LCS and the modern languages. The organization of this dissertation is as follows: In Chapter Two, Section 2.1 presents the evidence Rubach provides to argue that no linear representation of M-jers is adequate, specifically, the Slovak Rhythmic Law and Polish comparative allomorphy. Section 2.2 discusses the conditions for vocalization, which in recent times has been tied to syllabification. Section 2.3 presents evidence that M-jers prevent consonants on either side of them from being tautosyllabic. I show that Mjer vocalization (under certain conditions) and deletion (elsewhere) must be separate rules. Section 2.4 discusses the domains of application of vocalization and deletion and presents Rubach’s evidence justifying why the M-jer-vocalization rule should be considered cyclic. Section 2.5 gives a summary of what needs to be accounted for in the distribution and representation of M-jers: they do not participate in syllabification if they are not vocalized, they prevent the consonants on either side of them from being tautosyllabic, and the vowel reflexes are not always predictable. Chapter Three summarizes the main proposals for representing M-jers autosegmentally. Section 3.0 gives a brief discussion of autosegmental theory. Section 3.1 discusses the possible configurations and the advantages and disadvantages of each. I conclude that M-jers are represented on both the skeletal and melodic tiers, and I use data from Sloan’s (1991) dissertation to show that material can exist on both tiers without being linked. I then demonstrate that the vocalization of M-jers in Slavic can be characterized by a rule which links material

25

on the skeletal and melodic tiers when these tiers are followed by an unsyllabified consonant. Chapter Four discusses the nature of syllabification, a process central to my analysis of jers. Section 4.0.1 argues that syllabification is cyclic, and Section 4.0.2 shows why it is necessary to assume that morpheme-final consonants are ignored by the syllable parse until the next cycle, as well as the problems this assumption may create. Section 4.1 of Chapter Four is my extension of my analysis so far to the historical grammars. Section 4.1.1 discusses delinking of H-jers at the surface structure. Section 4.1.2 compares the differences in distribution patterns between H-jers and M-jers, claiming these differences are due to where in the grammar vocalization takes place. Section 4.1.3 shows that H-jer vocalization during the “fall of the jers” indicates syllabification is directional. Section 4.2 illustrates the interaction of syllabification and YVoc over a string. Finally, in Section 4.3, I discuss the problems of H-jers adjacent to liquids and argue that the varied distribution of vocalization across the dialects (e.g., vocalization in all positions, deletion in all positions yielding syllabic liquids, normal treatment of H-jers) is a function of each dialect’s syllable type—how readily the dialect accepts syllabic liquids and whether extrametricality of consonants is restricted. Chapter Five discusses the implications of a M-jer’s structure on its behavior in a string and in surface form. In Section 5.1, I suggest that as the H-jer’s structural configuration at surface form is lexicalized and becomes phonemic, it should become

26

increasingly productive, incorporating other vowel/zero alternations not due originally to H-jers. M-jers have also spread to other strings containing *C. As M-jers become increasingly productive, the emergence of vowel/zero surface alternations becomes more predictable. The more predictable the alternation, the more likely it is to be reanalyzed as epenthesis or deletion in the grammar. The spread of M-jers is illustrated with Russian “secondary jers” and the replacement of the LCS imperative ending /-i/ with a M-jer. In Section 5.2, the effect of stress on Hjer vocalization is considered. In Section 5.3, three cases of M-jer ambigity are considered: verb imperative endings, noun case endings, and Russian secondary jers in obstruent-sonorant stems.

27

Chapter Two Properties of M-Jers 2.0

Problems with linear representation. In Section 1.1 of Chapter One, it was shown that epenthesis and deletion are

unable to account for vowel/zero alternations; rather, something must be present in underlying form. However, attempts to represent the alternation by the feature combination [+high] [-tense], which never manifests itself in surface form (i.e., absolute neutralization), have been shown by a number of scholars to be insufficient (e.g, Rubach (1986, 1993); Bethin (1992); Szpyra (1992)). The controversy over absolute neutralization aside, certain phenomena demonstrate the inadequacy of any linear analysis of M-jers at all because of rule-ordering contradictions that arise. To be discussed here are two of these phenomena: the Slovak Rhythmic Law and Polish comparative allomorphy. The basic properties of both will be given first, and then the problems that arise for linear representations of M-jers within their context. 2.1

The Slovak Rhythmic Law and Polish Comparative Allomorphy. Consider first the Slovak Rhythmic Law (see Rubach (1986); Kenstowicz and

Rubach (1989); Rubach (1993)), which forbids two consecutive long syllables in Slovak to appear in surface form. If two long syllables occur consecutively, the second is shortened. Thus, when the locative plural desinence /-a:x/ is added to a stem, we find: (1) (2)

mest-a:x dla:t-a:x





mesta:x (desinence vowel remains long) dla:tax (Rhythm Rule applies and shortens desinence vowel)

28

However, an underlying M-jer in an intervening syllable does not block the Rhythmic Law, as in (3) below. From a syllabic point of view, the two long vowels appear to be adjacent. (Where front/back distinctions are neutralized or not important to the discussion, M-jers for now will be represented linearly as /Y/, following Kenstowicz and Rubach (1989).) (3)

pi:sYm-a:x


pi:smax

Now consider another phenomenon involving the formation of the comparative in Polish (Rubach and Booij (1990); Bethin (1992); Szpyra (1992)). The normal ending is /-š(i)/, but after an unsyllabified consonant, the allomorph /-ejš(i)/ is used. In (4) below, the /d/ in tward- can be syllabified as part of the coda of the root syllable, triggering the standard ending /-ši/. In (5), however, the /r/ cannot be syllabified without causing a sonority violation. It would either form a coda of increasing sonority if it were syllabified with the root syllable (⊗m dr.), or else it would create an onset of decreasing sonority if it were to syllabify with the standard comparative suffix (⊗-.rši). The /-ejš(i)/ allomorph allows the /r/ to become the onset of a well-formed syllable. (4) (5)

tward-y ‘hard’ m dr-y ‘wise’

tward.- ši ‘harder’ m d. -ej- ši ‘wiser’





Stems with an underlying M-jer take the /-ejš(i)/ form: (6)

pev’Yn-i ‘certain’


pevn’ejši, not ⊗pevnši

‘more certain’

The M-jer, although vocalic, is unable to provide a nucleus for the /n/ to syllabify with and as a result, adding the suffix /-ši/ would lead to the same sonority violation as the example in (5).

29

Thus the Slovak Rhythmic Law and Polish Comparative Allomorphy both indicate that M-jers are invisible to syllabification. One could simply claim the underlying M-jer is deleted before the suffixes and endings are added, as in (7) below. (7)

Slovak Stem M-jer deletion Add ending Rhythmic Law Surface

/pi:sYm-a:x/ pi:sYmpi:smpi:sm-a:x pi:sm-ax [pi:smax]

Polish Stem M-jer deletion Add suffix

/pevYn-(ej)ši/ pevYnpevnpevn-ejši

Surface

[pevnejši]

Rubach claims this presents a problem within the theoretical framework of Lexical Phonology. Here, rules fall under three types: cyclic, post-cyclic, and postlexical. The first two apply in the domain of the word and occur in the lexicon. Post-lexical rules apply in the syntax and are of less importance here. In lexical phonology, cyclic rules refer to a class of rules that apply only to derived, not underlying, strings. A derived environment refers to a given structure arising from a morphological addition or a phonological change from an earlier stage within that cycle. A cyclic rule applies to a given string derived within that cycle but cannot apply to underlying strings or strings derived from previous cycles. This is known as the Strict Cyclicity Condition (Mascaró (1976)). Put another way, a rule applying over a broad scope cannot subsequently apply to a narrower scope. It must start with the narrow scope and increase its domain of application in conjunction with the word formation rules (WFRs) of a given language. Post-cyclic rules, on the other hand, are context free and apply over the entire string. A derived environment is not necessary for them to apply. All that is required is that all the cycles have been completed.

30

Rubach claims that M-jer vocalization (from here abbreviated as YVoc) is a cyclic rule, whereas M-jer deletion (for here on abbreviated as YDel) is post-cyclic. Although he finds no real positive evidence that YVoc requires a derived environment, Rubach notes it must be ordered before other rules that are demonstrably cyclic. This will be discussed in further detail in Section 2.4.1. In addition, in his analysis, a M-jer vocalizes only in the context of another M-jer in the immediately following syllable. This occurs only when derivational suffixes and inflectional endings are added, themselves part of the cyclic component. (M-jers in adjacent syllables within a single morpheme or root do not exist.) The strong dependence of YVoc on the addition of other morphemes makes its cyclic status very likely. On the other hand, Rubach correctly points out that YDel is a post-cyclic rule because it occurs context-freely. M-jers in isolation within a root, suffix, or inflectional ending delete without exception at the end of a derivation. In (8) below are derivations in Russian illustrating the cyclic and post-cyclic nature of YVoc and YDel, respectively (Ms = masculine; Nm = nominative; Gn = genitive; sg = singular; dim = diminutive):

31

(8) ‘day’ Cyclic component Cycle 1 YVoc Cycle 2 Add suffix YVoc Cycle 3 Add infl. ending YVoc Post-Cyclic component YDel Surface

Ms Nm sg /dYn’-Y/ dYn’-

Ms Gn sg /dYn’-a/ dYn’-

Ms Nm sg dim Ms Gn sg dim /dYn’-Yk-Y/ /dYn’-Yk-a/ dYn’dYn’-

-dYn’--dYn’dYn’-Y e den’Y ∅ [den’]

-dYn’--dYn’dYn’-a -dYn’a ∅ [dn’a]

-dYn’dYn’-Yke den’Ykden’Yk-Y o den’okY ∅ [den’ok]

-dYn’dYn’-Yke den’Ykden’Yk-a -den’Yka ∅ [den’ka]

Here, M-jers from morphemes added within a cycle do not vocalize, but they do create the appropriate context for vocalization of any M-jers present in the immediately preceding syllable. In Cycle 1, none of the M-jers vocalize because no M-jers occur in the following syllable. In Cycle 2, vocalization of the root M-jer occurs for den’ok and den’ka because the addition of the morpheme /-Yk-/ has derived the environment required for vocalization. In the third cycle, the addition of inflectional ending /-Y/ derives the appropriate environment for M-jer vocalization for den’ and den’ok. Once all cycles of the derivation have been completed, that is, once all derivational and inflectional endings have been added, whatever M-jers remain in the word are summarily deleted. Deletion occurs context freely within roots, suffixes, and inflectional endings and does not rely on a derived environment. It is thus considered a post-cyclic rule. Cyclic rules interact with WFRs; post-cyclic rules apply after all the cycles have been completed, over the scope of the entire word, when all morpheme boundaries have been erased.

32

Let us return now to the problems encountered in the Slovak Rhythmic Law and Polish Comparative Allomorphy. Rubach demonstrates that the Rhythmic Law, as well as the addition of derivational and inflectional endings, all apply within the cyclic component of the grammar. YDel, however, is a post-cyclic rule and hence must apply after these other rules. In (7) above, however, YDel has been ordered before them. This presents a rule ordering paradox that cannot be resolved as long as a linear representation is used. Even if one is unconvinced of Rubach’s claim that YDel is post-cyclic while the other rules are cyclic, the data still presents difficulties. Let us return to the rule ordering given in (7) (in which YDel precedes addition of the suffix or inflectional ending), which is required to get the M-jers out of the way in order to provide the appropriate contexts for the Rhythmic Law and use of the [-ejši] comparative suffix. If the M-jer is deleted this early in the derivation, the appropriate context for M-jer vocalization will never be generated, particularly in any analysis in which M-jer vocalization depends on a M-jer present in the immediately following syllable. In such an analysis, the neuter genitive plural (required by the Slovak neuter noun /pi:sYm-/) and the masculine singular short-form adjective (required by Polish /pev’Yn-/ are such endings, and the derivations are as follows: (9) Add ending M-jer vocalization M-jer deletion

Slovak a. pi:sYm-Y pi:sem-Y pi:sem

Polish b. pev’Yn-Y pev’en-Y pev’en

In (9) above, M-jer deletion happens after the inflectional endings (genitive plural in (9-a), masculine singular in (9-b)) are added, whereas in (7) above, it needed

33

to happen before the inflectional endings (Slovak locative plural and Polish comparative) were added. Even if one makes the ad hoc claim that M-jer deletion occurs after the addition of some inflectional endings but precedes the addition of others, it still cannot occur before derivational suffixes are added. Many of those derivational suffixes can be shown to contain M-jers (e.g., /-Yk-/, /-Yn-/), which cause the vocalization of any M-jers in the preceding syllable, (e.g., Polish mgla/mg’el ‘fog’; mg’elka/mg’elek ‘mist’; mg’el’ny ‘foggy’). Therefore, it is hard to argue that M-jer deletion occurs before the comparative suffix is added without making, again, an ad hoc stipulation that M-jer deletion occurs before the addition of some derivational suffixes but not before others. This, taken with the fact that inflectional endings are considered to be ordered after derivational suffixes, makes it difficult to imagine that M-jer deletion occurs anywhere but after all derivational and inflectional morphemes have been attached. Granted, Rubach’s analysis assumes M-jers vocalize when another M-jer is present in the following syllable, whereas several more recent analyses dispense with the notion and suggest it is an unsyllabified consonant that causes vocalization. One might argue that in such a case, the proper results can be obtained with YDel still ordered before the inflectional ending, so long as YVoc precedes YDel, as in (10):

34

(10)

YVoc YDel Add ending

/pi:s.Ym-/28 | * pi:sem-pi:sem-Y

Note, however, that if YVoc applies this early, it will over-generate and apply for all case endings, including the locative plural. Not only would this cause vocalization to occur inappropriately, it would also bleed the Rhythmic Law. This is illustrated in (11) below. (11) YVoc YDel Add ending Rhythmic Law Surface

/pi:sYm-/ e -pi:sem-a:x -[⊗pi:sema:x]

The YVoc rule cannot precede attachment of the next morpheme (in this case, the genitive plural ending), or else it will apply in all cases. Put another way, it cannot apply to an underived string, a hallmark characteristic of cyclic rules. The YVoc rule must also precede YDel, or else vocalization will never occur. This means that YDel cannot apply until after the inflectional genitive plural ending /-Y/ is attached.29 However, for the Rhythmic Law to apply properly, YDel must occur before the inflectional locative plural ending /-a:x/ is attached.

28

It will be argued in Chapter Four that morpheme-final consonants remain extrametrical until the next cycle, which would prevent vocalization from operating in the current cycle. This claim is disregarded for this particular derivation for the sake of argument. 29 That is, the genitive plural /-Y/ must precede YVoc of the M-jer in /pisYm-/. YVoc must precede YDel. Therefore, the genitive plural must precede YDel.

35

In sum, a contradiction exists in which a M-jer must be present in the underlying representation but still fail to block application of certain rules, such as the Slovak Rhythmic Law. None of the linear approaches to representing M-jers, deletion, epenthesis, or absolute neutralization, can account for this. What is needed is to be able to have it both ways: to claim that the M-jer is present when it is convenient for our analysis but keep it safely out of the way when it proves to be inconvenient. A multi-tiered, autosegmental approach, exploited by a number of scholars and discussed in Chapter Three, provides such a mechanism. A M-jer is posited to have some representation on one tier but not necessarily on another, thus accounting for its “there but not there” properties. 2.2

Conditions for vocalization and deletion. Before delving into the possibilities of such a representation, however, two

questions must first be addressed regarding vocalization as a phonological rule: 1) Under what conditions does a M-jer vocalize, and 2) What happens to the unvocalized M-jer? To be more specific, does it delete as a subcomponent of the vocalization rule (12) or separately as a later rule (13)? Also, in what component of the grammar do vocalization and deletion occur? From here on, the symbol /•/, following Szpyra (1992), shall be used to represent M-jers when no specific claim is made about feature composition or which tier(s) they might occupy. This is to distinguish M-jers from linear representations, in which the symbol /Y/ has been used. It also helps illustrate orthographically that M-jers get in the way of the

36

surrounding segments for syllabification (see Section 2.3 below) but themselves provide nothing with which to syllabify. (12)

(13)

• •

YVocDel

• •

YVoc YDel

V / __ Context t.b.d. ∅ / Elsewhere













V / __ Context t.b.d. ∅ / Context free, but ordered later

There is no agreement on this issue. Rubach treats YVoc and YDel as separate rules (where YVoc is cyclic and dependent on another M-jer in the next syllable; YDel is post-cyclic and context free). Szpyra (1992: 306), on the other hand, sees no evidence that unvocalized M-jers serve “any phonological function after the operation of [YVoc].” She therefore treats both as subcomponents of one rule called Lower, which she argues is post-cyclic. 2.2.1 M-jers in consecutive syllables. Let us turn to the first question above, that of the phonetic environment that triggers vocalization. Traditional approaches to M-jer vocalization (e.g., Lightner (1972); Gussmann (1980); Rubach (1986 et seq.), Szpyra (1989); Bethin (1992)) assume the rule is triggered when another M-jer is present in the immediately following syllable: (14)

•


V / __ C •

There are two problems with this approach. First, it requires the stipulation that a M-jer is present in the masculine nominative singular and feminine genitive plural endings: (15)

ot•c-• ot•c-a





otec otca

masc. nom. sg. masc. gen. sg.

37

‘father’

(Russian)

(16)

lod•k-a lod•k-•





lodka lodok

fem. nom. sg. fem. gen. pl.

‘boat’

This idea could be justified as an extension of the so-called zero ending, which is used in Slavic morphology in order to unify declension patterns. For example, in the Russian masculine nominal declension, the nominative and inanimate accusative both have no overt ending (e.g., stol ‘table’), whereas the animate accusative and oblique cases do (e.g., stolu (dative)). Rather than claiming that the oblique cases are composed of root + ending, whereas the direct cases30 are composed of a bare root (or, more awkward, the (feminine) a-declension and (neuter) o-declension consist of bare root in the genitive pl and root plus ending elsewhere), we unify the declension by saying that all cases are formed by root + ending; it just happens that some of the endings are phonetically null. It is perhaps no great leap to replace the zero ending with a M-jer which, because the conditions for its own vocalization will never be realized, will also remain phonetically null. If the learner interprets one of the properties of M-jers to be that they vocalize M-jers in preceding syllables, then one would expect him to analyze ∅ endings as M-jers. (See Chapter Five for discussion on the ambiguity of which segments really constitute M-jers.) Furthermore, the occurrences of zero endings in Russian (masculine nominative singular, feminine genitive plural, masculine singular past tense) all historically come from H-jers. The H-jers at word-end position eventually fell out, leaving a zero (that is, unpronounced) ending. However, from a synchronic

30

That is, the nominative and inanimate accusative.

38

standpoint, the only reason to claim such endings as the masculine nominative singular and feminine genitive plural are actually M-jers and not simply zero-endings is to provide a consistent environment for M-jer vocalization: it occurs when a M-jer is present in the following syllable. As there is no positive evidence apart from this for word-end M-jers, their presence is highly suspect. For the sake of argument, however, it will be assumed henceforth that zero-endings are indeed M-jers. Chapter Five raises serious doubts about this assumption, but because the present work does not assume (__ C •) as the conditioning environment for YVoc, none of the discussion here depends on it. A more serious problem with the analysis in (14) above is that it is descriptive only, with no motivation for this particular environment. What is it about a M-jer that it requires the presence of another M-jer in the following syllable in order to vocalize? Rubach (1993) shows it is impossible to try to claim that M-jers are perhaps super-short vowels and that deletion of one M-jer causes compensatory lengthening in the previous M-jer, enabling it to vocalize.31 He gives the Polish example, shown in (17) below, in which a chain of four consecutive syllables contain M-jers, and all but the final M-jer vocalize. Loss of the word-end M-jer might lengthen the previous one, but what lengthens the others? (17)

cuk•r• •k•


cukere ek

‘candy’

2.2.2 Unsyllabified consonants. More recent studies (Bethin (1992); Szpyra (1992); Cresti (1994)) make use of the observation that M-jer vocalization not only

31

See Timberlake (1983) for such an analysis in the historical grammars.

39

breaks up consonant clusters, but provides needed syllable nuclei for consonants that would otherwise be unsyllabified, as in the Polish example in (18) below:32 (18)

Syllabification YVoc Other rules

nom. sg. masc. /cuk•r-•k-•k-(•)/ \|/ σ *r *k *k e e e k’ [cuk’ere ek]

gen. sg. masc. /cuk•r-•k-•k-a/ \|/ \| σ *r *k σ e e k’ [cuk’ere ka]

Such an approach provides more motivation for why vocalization takes place at all: it is not so much an arbitrary response to M-jers in other syllables, but a repair strategy for ill-formed syllables. M-jer vocalization thus is better described by the rule: (19)

•


V / __ *C, where *C is an unsyllabified consonant.

Admittedly, rule (19) is somewhat descriptive in that there is no explanation for why vocalization occurs when the unsyllabified consonant is to the right of the M-jer and not to the left.33 The fact that an unsyllabified consonant to the left of the M-jer will not trigger vocalization is easily demonstrated by the Russian example in (20) below where, despite the sonority violation, the segments /l’/ and /n/ are eventually brought together as a complex onset in a single syllable: 34

32

Example taken from Szpyra (1992: 306). See Chapter Four for a counterexample in Old Russian, which vocalized H-jers to the right or unsyllabified (tautomorphemic) liquids. See also Chapter Five for discussion of another counterexample (i.e., Imperative Allomorphy in Russian, Polish, and Slovak), where morphophonemic rules cause vocalization to the right of * C. 34 It might be more appropriate to consider the /l’/, which is at a word edge, to be extrametrical rather than unsyllabified. That is, it is ignored by the syllable parse until the end of the derivation, where it is picked up at the word node. See Chapter Four for further discussion, also Rubach and Booij (1992). 33

40

(20)

l’•n-a | \| * σ


≠


l’na \\| σ

‘flax’ (masc. gen. sg.)

⊗l’ona

For the Russian alternation laska/lasok (‘weasel,’ feminine nominative singular/genitive plural), however, one might ask why the /k/ is unsyllabified in the genitive plural form, particularly given the pair laska/lask (‘caress,’ feminine nominative singular/genitive plural). This can be explained if we agree with Szpyra’s (1992) claim that M-jers exhibit a second peculiar property: not only do they escape syllabification (shown in Section 2.1 above), but they also interfere with it as well, preventing the consonants on either side from parsing into the same syllable. In the laska/lasok alternation, it might be possible to claim the M-jer somehow prevents the final /k/ from syllabifying with the root, triggering vocalization. In the laska/lask alternation, where no M-jer is present, the final /k/ is free to syllabify with the root. (21)

a. l a s • k-(•) \ | / | σ * [lasok] ‘weasel’ fem. gen. pl.

b. l a s • k- a \ | / \ | σ σ [laska] ‘weasel’ fem. nom. sg.

c. l a s k-(•) \ | / / σ [lask] ‘caress’ fem. gen. pl.

In (21-a) above, let us assume for the moment that something about the M-jer prevents its surrounding consonants from syllabifying with each other (this will be explored in Section 2.3 below). The genitive plural form, which has no overt ending (crucially, no vocalic ending that can provide a syllable nucleus), leaves the /k/

41

unsyllabified, which we claim triggers vocalization of the M-jer. Vowel-initial endings, e.g., the feminine nominative singular /-a/ in (21-b), provide a nucleus for the /k/ to syllabify with, and so the M-jer does not vocalize. In (21-c), the same genitive plural ending fails to provide a nucleus for the /k/, but there is nothing to block it from syllabifying with the rest of the stem /las/. However, the reasoning here is somewhat circular, because in (21-c), it is irrelevant whether the /k/ can or cannot syllabify with the rest of the root: either way, there is no M-jer to vocalize. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate Szpyra’s claim in more detail. 2.3

Ability to interfere with syllabification. Consider the Polish alternation [ko.za]/[kus] ‘nanny goat’ (feminine

nominative singular/genitive plural). Polish has a rule that sometimes raises /o/ to [u]. The conditions governing application of this rule are complicated, but it is generally agreed that a tautosyllabic voiced consonant following /o/ is required for it to apply. In the nominative singular form, o-raising fails because the syllable in which it occurs is open, /z/ forming the onset of the following one. The genitive plural, which has no overt vocalic ending, however, allows the /z/ to close the syllable containing the /o/, allowing raising to occur. (It subsequently undergoes word-final devoicing.) This is shown in (22) below: (22) UR Syllab. o-raising Devoicing Surface

fem. nom. sg. /koz-a/ ko.za --[koza]

fem. gen. pl. /koz-(•)/ koz. u s [kus]

42

Now consider the diminutive alternation [kuska]/[kuzek] (nominative singular/genitive plural), which contains a M-jer. The underlying form is /koz-•k-/. The M-jer in the diminutive suffix is unable to provide any kind of nucleus for the preceding /z/ at the time o-raising applies, resulting in a closed syllable. O-raising appears to have preceded vocalization, and as discussed in Section 2.1, unvocalized M-jers are invisible to syllabification. Szpyra (1992: 291) argues that if unvocalized M-jers do not take part in syllabification, we might expect them not to interfere with it either. In the nominative singular /koz•ka/, the consonant /z/ preceding the M-jer should therefore be free to syllabify either with the first syllable as a coda (koz.ka) or with the second syllable as a complex onset (ko.zka). Polish syllabification patterns would favor the second possibility (complex onsets are preferable to codas, so long as they obey sonority sequencing constraints), but this is clearly not what happens, as evidenced by the fact that the /o/ raises to [u].35 From this, Szpyra (1992) concludes that something must be present on the skeletal tier to prevent the /z/ from syllabifying with the /k/ without actually taking part itself in syllabification. However, this example is not conclusive: Szpyra (1992) fails to note that no mechanism is needed for the M-jer to block syllabification, because the Lexical Phonology framework itself accounts for the /o/-raising. Recall that Lexical Phonology distinguishes between rules that apply to derived strings (cyclic) and rules 35

The surface form is [ku.ska], but syllabification of /z/ as an onset occurs near the end of the derivation.

43

that apply context freely (post-cyclic). If /o/-raising is a cyclic rule, it cannot apply to underlying /koz-/ (that is, in Cycle One); otherwise, it would apply everywhere. Often the nature of the derived environment required for a given rule is not clear,36 but because it is ordered before some other rule that is easily demonstrable as cyclic, the cyclicity of the rule in question is taken as a matter of logic. Here, however, the derived environment is not so obscure: /o/-raising simply requires another morpheme or a word boundary to the right of /-oC-/37 before it is applicable.38 In other words, the syllable is not actually closed until the next morpheme has been attached (see Chapter Four for more discussion).39 If the next morpheme begins with a vowel, such as the nominative singular /-a/, the syllable remains open and /o/-raising fails. When the diminutive suffix /-•k-/ is added, raising is free to apply because the morpheme boundary fulfills the required environment. The suffix contains a M-jer, which projects no syllable nucleus, and thus the root /koz-/ forms a closed syllable. Note that it is immaterial whether the M-jer actually blocks syllabification or not; all that is important is the /-•k-/

36

See Rubach (1993) for a discussion of the properties of cyclic rules. Here, “o” refers to the phoneme /o/; “C” is a consonant. 38 What constitutes a word boundary is subject to debate. See, e.g., Borowski (1986) for discussion regarding a word-level cycle between Level 1 and Level 2 affixes in English to account for such phenomena as deletion of /n/ in /damn/ and /damning/ but not in /damnation/. The point here is that as a cyclic rule, Polish /o/-raising would not apply to the bare stem /CoC-/ but must wait until the next cycle when additional information crucial to the rule’s structural description is added; that is, whether the morpheme-final consonant will syllabify as an onset (bleeding the rule) or a coda (feeding it). 39 See Borowski (1986) for discussion of morpheme-final consonant extra-metricality for English; see also Rubach and Booij 1992 for Slovak. 37

44

morpheme provides nothing for the /z/ to form an onset with. The /z/ must therefore close the preceding syllable at this stage of the derivation. This is illustrated in (23) below: (23) Cycle 1 Syllab. YVoc41 Raising Cycle 2 Syllab. YVoc Raising Cycle 3 Syll. YVoc Raising Post-Cyclic Syll. YDel Other rules Surface

/kus•k-a/ k o z-40 \ | σ --k o z- • k\ | / σ -u k u z • k- a \ | / | / σ σ --k u z•ka \ | / \ | σ σ ∅ s [kuska]

/kuz-•k-(•)/ k o z\ | σ --k o z- • k\ | / σ -u k u z • k- (•) \ | / | σ * e -k u z e k (•) \ | \ | / σ σ ∅ [kuzek]

/koz-a/ k o z\ | σ --k o z- a \ | \ | σ σ ---

/koz-(•)/ k o z\ | σ --k o z- (•) \ | / σ -u

k o z a \ | \ | σ σ --

k u z (•) \ | / σ ∅ s [kus]

[koza]

Szpyra, however, argues that o-raising and YVoc are post-cyclic, with oraising ordered first. Furthermore, she considers YVoc and YDel to be components of the same rule. As a non-cyclic rule, o-raising would not be prevented by Lexical

40

Syllabification is assumed to be cyclic, and morpheme-final consonants are considered extra-metrical, that is, they are ignored by the syllable parse. These claims are supported in Sections 4.0.1 and 4.0.2 of Chapter Four, respectively. 41 The relative order of YVoc and o-raising cannot be established in this derivation. It is assumed that YVoc precedes o-raising for reasons discussed in Chapter Four, but it does not affect the outcome here.

45

Phonology from over-applying, because such rules are context free. Her derivation would be as follows: (24)

UR /koz•k(•)/ Post-cyclic \|/ | Syllabification σ * o-raising u YVocDel e ∅ Other Surface [kuzek]

/koz•ka/ \|/ \| σ σ u ∅ s [kuska]

In such an analysis, it is crucial that the M-jers can interfere with the syllabification of the surrounding segments in order to prevent /koz•ka/ from syllabifying as /⊗ko.z•ka/. However, her reason for claiming YVoc and o-raising are post-cyclic is strictly to prevent over-application of both rules. I have shown that the LP framework itself can do that for o-raising. A similar argument exists for YVoc (see Section 2.4). Therefore, they are not necessarily post-cyclic. Furthermore, Rubach (1993) argues convincingly that YVoc must in fact be cyclic. This will be summarized in Section 2.4.1. At this point, let it suffice that the /koz•k-/ example is not entirely convincing in supporting Szpyra’s claim that M-jers interfere with syllabification, because it relies on the dubious assumption that o-raising and YVoc are both post-cyclic. 2.3.1 Evidence from Russian verb prefixation. A more conclusive example can be taken from Russian, in which a M-jer-containing prefix is attached to a verbal root also containing a M-jer. Consider the past tense forms in (25) below, which show vowel/zero alternations in the root and prefix:

46

(25)

a. s ol /s•- •t-l-(•)/ ‘he counted’ b. so la /s•- •t-l-a/ ‘she counted’ (/s•-/ =prefix; /- •t-/ = root; /-l-/ = past tense; /-(•), -a/ = gender) The vowel/zero alternations in verbs and prefixes are very complicated (see

Section 1.0 of Chapter One for examples). The presence or absence of a vowel is dependent not only on the phonetic environment but also on morphological (e.g., perfective vs. imperfective) and lexical considerations; that is, some verbal roots select the prefix with the [-o] variant (e.g., soputstvovat’) and some select the prefix without it (e.g., spadat’). It is far from clear that all these alternations are in fact due to M-jers,42 and determining so is beyond the scope of the present work. However, the alternations in (25) behave exactly as other M-jers do. The roots, aspect, and tense are the same, isolating the variable of phonetic environment from those of morphology and lexical selection. The root /- •t-/ shows an alternation identical to that found in nouns and short-form adjectives: [- ol]/-[ la] (cf. [son]/[sna]). That is, when the inflectional ending contains a M-jer (or no vowel), the root shows a vowel, and when the inflectional ending has a vowel, the root shows zero, indicating a M-jer. Similarly, the alternation in the prefix [s(o)-] is dependent on whether the root M-jer vocalizes (yielding [s-]) or not (yielding [so-]). Therefore, without taking a firm position regarding all verbal roots and prefixes, I conclude the root and prefix in (25) both contain M-jers.

42

Another possibility is, for example, that they constitute allomorphs including a full vowel, a M-jer, and zero: [so-], [s•-], [s∅-].

47

For the class of verbs whose roots end in d/t, to which (25) belongs, the past tense forms truncate the d/t for all genders. The question is when in the derivation the d/t truncates—before or after attachment of other morphemes. This would affect how vocalization applies on the prefix M-jer (to be explained below). The evidence suggests the /t/ truncates before prefixation. Consider the past tense forms of another verb v’osti ‘to lead’, which belongs to the same class as the one in (25). (26)

a. v’ol / v’od-l-(•)/ b. v’ola /v’od-l-a /

‘he led’ ‘she led’

The masculine form in (26-a) ends with the cluster /dl/, which constitutes a sonority sequencing violation. Truncation of either the /d/ or /l/ seems a reasonable way to resolve this (but cf. rubl’ (‘ruble’ masculine nominative singular), which does permit a sonority sequencing violation involving similar segments). However, there is no phonetic reason for the feminine form in (26-b) above to lose the /d/. The /dl/ consonant cluster as an onset constitutes no sonority sequencing violation (vo.dla), and at any rate, the form could easily have syllabified as /v’od.la/. Nevertheless, the /d/ is deleted in the feminine form as well. The rule in which d/t


∅ in the past

tense, which applies specifically to verbs of this class, is a morphophonemic rule, not a phonetic one. (Cf. verbs with root-final velars, in which it is the past tense /l/ that truncates, rather than the root-final segment (e.g., masculine /p’ok-l-(•)/


[p’ok],

not [⊗p’ol].)) This means it must apply with reference to the morpheme boundary between the root and past tense. Thus, it must apply in the same cycle that the past tense morpheme is added, not later, for instance, after the morpheme boundary has

48

been erased. This is in accordance with the Strict Cyclicity Condition, which prevents rules from applying inward on earlier levels. This is illustrated in (27) below. (27-a) shows application of Truncation correctly, within the same cycle as where the past tense morpheme was attached. In (27-b), it occurs inappropriately in a later cycle, when the morpheme boundary between root and past tense has been erased. (27)

a. /v’od-l-a/ b. /vod-l-a/ Cycle One: v’odv’odCycle Two: v’od-lv’od-l(Truncate)--------- ∅ Cycle Three: v’ol-a v’odl-a (Truncate)----------------------------- ∅ Surface: [v’ola] [v’ola] Although both derivations produce the same surface results, (27-a) shows

Truncation as a morphophonemic rule, whereas in (27-b), Truncation is put off until later, when the morpheme boundary has been erased. A purely phonological rule might be able to apply in such an environment, but not a morphophonemic one. The existence of forms such as [s’odla] ‘she saddled’ makes deletion of the root-final /d/ in (27-b) difficult to motivate on phonetic grounds. Now let us return to the prefixed alternation s ol/so la in (25) above. 



Prefixes in Slavic are ordered last, after the other endings (including the inflectional past tense and gender) have been attached (see Section 2.4.1). This means that at the time when the prefix /s•-/ is attached, the masculine and feminine forms [- ol] and [- la], respectively, have already been derived.

49

The feminine form [so la] vocalizes the prefix M-jer despite the fact that / l/ is acceptable as an onset cluster. Clearly there is something intervening between the / / and /l/, preventing / / from syllabifying as an onset, at the time when YVoc applies to the prefix M-jer. It has already been argued that the root-final segment /t/ has been deleted by this time, so that cannot be what is blocking syllabification of / /. Given that a M-jer was present immediately after the / / at the beginning of the derivation, it is likely that this is what is blocking the syllabification. This also shows, contrary to Szpyra (1992), that unvocalized M-jers must remain until much later in the derivation, where they must delete under a rule separate from YVoc. Were they one rule, the root M-jer would have deleted in Cycle Two, when it failed to vocalize. There would then have been nothing to block syllabification of / /. I therefore agree with Szpyra (1992) that M-jers interfere with syllabification, not because of her evidence from Polish o-raising (e.g., the [kuska] example in Section 2.3), but because of the evidence from Russian verb prefixation. I disagree with her on the issue of whether YVoc and YDel can be treated together as one rule. At this point, I conclude the following: YVoc and YDel are separate rules (the respective components of the grammar are yet to be discussed); and YVoc is triggered by an unsyllabified consonant to the right of the M-jer. This is summarized as (28) below: (28)

YVoc • YDel •





V / __ *C ∅ / elsewhere

50

The reason why M-jers are commonly observed to vocalize when followed by another syllable containing a M-jer is merely because the second M-jer provides nothing with which the intervening consonant can syllabify: (29)

a. las•ka \|/ \| σ σ


laska \|/ \| σ σ

vs.

b. las•k(•) \|/ | σ *

lasok \| \|/ σ σ


≠


⊗las•k \|// σ

Note that it is immaterial whether we claim a M-jer is present at word end in the masculine nominative singular form (29-b). The /k/ is unsyllabified either way, because the preceding M-jer prevents it from syllabifying with the preceding syllable. 2.4

Domain of application. Thus far, the domain of application has not been discussed, although in the

derivations, I have assumed with Rubach (1993) that YVoc is cyclic, YDel is postcyclic, and syllabification is continuous; that is, it applies after every phonological rule and operates in all components of the grammar. I also assume that morphemefinal consonants are not parsed until the next cycle. This section will examine more closely the first two assumptions. The latter two, involving syllabification, will be discussed in Chapter Four. Let us turn first To YDel, whose status is by far easiest to determine. The main reason why it is considered post-cyclic is that it occurs context-freely; that is, YVoc applies under certain environments, and YDel applies elsewhere. This is a hallmark characteristic of post-cyclic rules. The fact that it does not apply to all

51

M-jers, but only to those that have failed to vocalize shows it cannot apply before YVoc, and it was demonstrated in Section 2.3.1 above that it cannot be considered a component of the same rule that governs vocalization; it must remain until late in the derivation if the vocalization of other M-jers in the string is to be appropriately triggered. It might be asked whether M-jers are deleted by a specific rule or by the convention known as Stray Erasure (Ito (1988, 1989)), which deletes any segments that are not prosodically licensed. Because unvocalized M-jers are not part of any syllable or higher prosodic unit, there is no reason, in principle, why Stray Erasure could not remove them. Furthermore, it can be asked whether any mechanism deletes unvocalized M-jers at all, or whether they just remain phonetically null. While I take no strong position on the merits of Stray Erasure over the rule YDel, I believe that something must remove the unvocalized M-jers, because otherwise, they would be expected to interfere with late phonological processes such as voicing assimilations, for example, the ones given in (30) below: (30)

(Old Rus) sI desI (Mod Rus) /lod-•k-a/





(Mod Rus) zdes’ ‘here’ fem. nom. sg. [lotka] ‘boat’ Cf. gen. pl. [lodok]

If the M-jers were still present at the end of the derivation, they ought to prevent the consonants on either side from affecting each other. Because they never receive prosodic licensing, Stray Erasure could remove them, but it would have to occur before the voicing assimilation rule applies. It is beyond the scope of this work to determine from independent evidence when Stray Erasure and voicing assimilation

52

actually apply; it is therefore assumed arbitrarily that the post-cyclic rule YDel is what removes all unvocalized M-jers. The choice between YDel and Stray Erasure is not crucial to this analysis. 2.4.1 Cyclic status of YVoc. The actual status of YVoc is less clear. Rubach (1986 et seq.) argues for cyclic application of YVoc because it must be ordered before certain other rules that are demonstrably cyclic (see below). The fact that cyclic rules can operate only in a derived environment is consistent with his claim for cyclic status, because under his analysis, YVoc can apply only when a second M-jer is present in the following syllable, and this occurs only when another morpheme is attached. This fulfills the requirement for a derived environment. However, Szpyra’s (1992) proposal for *C as the triggering environment for YVoc, rather than a M-jer in the following syllable, may force us to reconsider YVoc as post-cyclic. She claims that the entire word must be available as the input to this rule to prevent vocalization from occurring where it should not. Consider, for example, the alternation Polish kotek/kotka (‘kitten’ nominative singular masculine/genitive singular).43 In the derivations below, we treat YVoc first as a cyclic rule (31), then as a post-cyclic rule (32).

43

Example taken from Szpyra (1992: 309).

53

(31) YVoc Cyclic Cycle 2 Dim. suffix Syllabification YVoc Cycle 3 Infl. ending Syllabification Surface

/kot-/ kot-•k\|/ σ *k e kotek-(•) \| \|/ σ σ √ kotek

/kot-/ kot-•k\|/ σ *k e kotek-a \| \| \| σσ σ ⊗ koteka

(32) YVoc Post-Cyclic Cycle 3 kot•k-(•) Add infl. ending \|/ Syllabification σ *k Post-Cyclic Rules YVoc e Syllabification σ σ Surface √ kotek

kot•k-a \|/ \| σ σ -σ σ √ kotka

Szpyra attempts to argue from (31) above that were YVoc a cyclic rule, the incorrect form ⊗koteka would be generated instead of actual kotka. Rather, she claims M-jers may not vocalize or delete until the post-cyclic component. The above derivations are misleading, however. As discussed earlier, a cyclic rule requires a derived environment in order to operate. It may not apply to underived strings; otherwise, it would apply everywhere, context-freely. If YVoc could apply morpheme-internally to an underived string, then the /-•k-/ suffix, whose /k/ is unsyllabified, would enter the derivation as /-ok-/, and no evidence of a M-jer would exist at all for the speaker. Again, in this instance, it is the addition of a word boundary or another morpheme, which establishes whether a consonant is truly unsyllabified, that is required. Borowski (1986: 199), in discussing final-consonant extrametricality, notes that they appear to be “waiting around in case a nucleus comes

54

along for them to attach to.” In (31) above, YVoc should not apply in Cycle Two. Rather, it should wait until Cycle Three, when the nominative singular ending /-a/ or the genitive plural ending /-∅/ is attached.44 The presence of a vocalic ending provides a nucleus for the /k/, bleeding YVoc, and the absence leaves /k/ unsyllabified, feeding it. Thus, YVoc may very well be cyclic, although postcyclicity is still not ruled out. See Section 4.0.2 below for further discussion. The Russian example in (25) above involving verb prefixation (repeated here as (33)) shows that if YVoc were post-cyclic, it would over-generate vocalization: (33)

UR Truncation Syllabification

/s•- •t-l-(•)/ s• •l(•) * * *

YVoc YDel Surface

s l so ol

⊗so ol

/s- •t-l-a/ s• •la \/ * * s σ so •la ∅ √so la

In the masculine form above, all the consonants are unsyllabified, so all the M-jers vocalize (except the one following the /l/, if a M-jer exists there), generating incorrect ⊗so ol instead of correct √s ol. 



Treating YVoc as a cyclic rule does generate the correct forms, assuming, again, that prefixation is ordered after the inflectional past tense morphemes are added, not before; otherwise, YVoc would over-generate in the prefix since it would always be followed by an unsyllabified consonant. Below, (34-a) shows the

44

By this logic, one might argue that M-jer deletion (if treated as a rule separate from vocalization) is also a cyclic rule; the addition of a given morpheme will establish whether a M-jer in the previous syllable is isolated or not. See Section 2.3.1 above for evidence that unvocalized M-jers must remain until the end of the derivation.

55

derivation where prefixation occurs first; (34-b) shows the correct results with prefixation occurring later. 45 (See Rubach and Booij (1992) for discussion.) (34)

a. Possibility One /[s•-c•t-]-l-(•),a]/ Cycle Two •t•ts•- •tPrefix s•- •t* * * * Syllabify s ts tYVoc so •tso •t\|/ \|/ Syllabify σ σ Cycle Three so •tso •tPast tense/ so •lso •lTruncate/ \|/ \|/ Syllabify σ σ YVoc --Cycle Four so •l-(•) so •l-a Gender/ \|/ | \|/ \| Syllabify σ * σ σ YVoc o -Post-Cyclic so ol so ola YDel --Surface ⊗ so ol ⊗ so ola

b. Possibility Two /s•-[-c•t-l-(•),a]/ Cycle Two Past tense/ Truncate/ Syllabify YVoc Cycle Three Gender/ Syllabify YVoc Syllabify Cycle Four Prefix Syllabify YVoc Post-Cyclic YDel Surface

•t•l| * -•l-(•) | | ** ol \|/ σ s•- ol(•) | \|/ * σ -s• ol ∅ √ s ol

•t•l| * -•l-a | \| * σ -s•- •la | | \| * * σ o so •la ∅ √ so la

I conclude, then, that Rubach is correct in claiming that YVoc is cyclic and YDel is post-cyclic. Example (34-b) above shows that only as a cyclic rule can YVoc obtain the actual surface forms for prefixed verbs in the past tense. If it were to apply with the entire word as its domain, the wrong forms would be obtained for the masculine past tense. YDel, on the other hand, appears to be unambiguously post-cyclic; unvocalized M-jers must remain until the end of the derivation to

45

But see Halle and Vernaud (1987) for an alternative model that allows prefixes to be ordered before past-tense endings.

56

prevent the wrong consonants from syllabifying, which would bleed YVoc inappropriately (see Section 2.3.1). However, Szpyra (1989) suggests that verb prefixes are separate morphological words (they are ordered after inflectional endings, and they are derived historically from prepositions, which are proclitics), and that both YVoc and YDel are post-cyclic rules. She claims YVoc applies over the morphological word and then again over the phonological word, whereas YDel applies only once, over the phonological word, as in (35) below (where square brackets denote morphological words and curly brackets denote phonological words). (35)

Post-cyclic YVoc YVoc YDel

[s•] [ •l(•)] -ol(•) {s• ol(•)} -s ol

[s•] [ •la] --{s• •la} so la so la

If these claims are accepted, then YVoc could still be a post-cyclic rule, but operating over two separate domains. Note this automatically discounts her claim that YVoc and YDel are part of one rule. Rubach (1993), however, presents evidence from Slovak that YVoc is cyclic.46 Slovak has a rule of vowel lengthening

46

It might be argued that YVoc is cyclic in some languages, e.g., Slovak, but postcyclic in others, e.g., Russian. However, the patterns of M-jer behavior discussed here are ones that are consistent for Russian, Polish, and Slovak. The M-jers vocalize under the same phonetic environments for these three languages, so, for them at least, it would be hard to defend the claim that the cyclic status of YVoc varies.

57

under certain environments. According to Rubach (1993: 187), a vowel lengthens when an unvocalized M-jer is present in the following syllable, shown formally in (36) below and illustrated in (37).47 V

V: /__C•48

(36)

Lengthen

(37)

UR (‘forehead’) neut. nom. sg. el-o / el-/ / el-•c-/ (dim.) ielce /pla:ten•c-/ (‘cloth’, dim.) pla:tence




gen. pl. iel49 ielec pla:teniec

The M-jer in the diminutive suffix /-•c-/, although subject to lengthening itself, can be shortened again because of the Rhythmic Law. This happens in the genitive plural diminutive form of / el-•c-/ above. Similarly, the diminutive suffix should trigger lengthening of the preceding syllable in /pla:ten•c-/, but the Rhythmic Law again shortens the syllable. Let us assume that Szpyra is correct in claiming YVoc is a post-cyclic rule; that is, the entire word is available before the rule applies. Rubach points out that

47

Examples from Rubach (1993: 208-09). Rubach represents M-jers with capital letters, e.g., /E/. I continue to use the symbol /•/. 48 The rule as formulated is somewhat dubious, because some exceptions can be found, e.g., /š•v•/ ‘seam’ šev, not ⊗še:v; /kot•l•/ ‘cauldron’ kotol, not ⊗koto:l (examples from Rubach (1993: 139). However, many roots, including the ones presented in this discussion, do follow the Lengthening rule as Rubach proposes it. What might be more correct is that a M-jer is necessary but not always sufficient to lengthen the preceding vowel; that is, a vowel does not lengthen unless a M-jer follows it, but the presence of the M-jer (with or without an intervening morpheme boundary) is still no guarantee of lengthening. Also, because of doubts over the existence of word-end M-jers presented in Chapter Five, it might be more appropriate to reformulate the rule as V V:/[__C] (in a closed syllable). Here, word-end M-jers are assumed in keeping with Rubach’s analysis. 49 Diphthongization of /e:/ [ie] is a later rule.











58

because the M-jer in the diminutive suffix undergoes lengthening if it is vocalized, we would expect YVoc to precede Lengthen. (38)

UR YVoc Lengthen YDel

/pla:ten•c•/ pla:tenec• pla:tene:c• pla:tene:c

Note here that the Rhythmic Law would not have to apply, because the diminutive suffix M-jer vocalizes before it can trigger lengthening of the preceding vowel. However, for the diminutive form / el-•c-/, in which both the root vowel and the diminutive M-jer undergo lengthening, a rule-ordering contradiction appears. If YVoc precedes Lengthen, as it does in (38) above, the proper environment is never realized for the root vowel to lengthen in (39-a); rather, lengthening of the root vowel must occur before vocalization of the diminutive M-jer (39-b). (39)

a. UR / el•c•/ YVoc elec• ele:c• Lengthen Diphthongization/ ⊗ eliec YDel

b. UR / el•c•/ Lengthen e:l•c• YVoc e:lec• Diphthongization/ √ ielec YDel

Rubach claims the paradox can be resolved only by applying YVoc and Lengthen cyclically. Indeed, we can see that Lengthen is evidently a cyclic rule as it is induced by the M-jer in the next morpheme. The fact that M-jers themselves, once vocalized, are also subject to Lengthen (as in (37) above) forces us to accept YVoc as cyclic as well. The correct derivations for /pla:ten•c•/ and / el•c•/ are shown in (40) below.

59

(40)

Cycle One Cycle Two YVoc Lengthen Rhythmic Law Diphthongization Cycle Three YVoc Lengthen Rhythmic Law Diphthongization Post-cyclic YDel

2.5

Summary.

pla:tenpla:ten•c-pla:te:n•cpla:ten•c-pla:ten•c• pla:tenec• pla:tene:c• -pla:teniec pla:teniec• pla:teniec

elel•c-e:l•c-iel•ciel•c• ielec• iele:c• ielec• -ielec• ielec

Vowel/zero alternations are represented in underlying form by some abstract phoneme, which I term M-jers, that cannot be modeled by a linear analysis (e.g, Rubach (1986 et seq.); Bethin (1992); Szpyra (1992)). Vocalization (YVoc) occurs when an M-jer is followed by an unsyllabified consonant (Szpyra (1992); Cresti (1994)). Unvocalized M-jers delete by a separate rule (YDel). This was shown formally in (28) above, repeated below as (41). I conclude, both from evidence from Russian verb prefixation and from Rubach’s (1993) arguments based on Lengthening and the Rhythmic Law in Slovak, that YVoc must be cyclic. YDel, on the other hand, is post-cyclic, as it occurs context freely. (41)

YVoc • YDel •





V / __ *C ∅ / elsewhere

Furthermore, whatever the representation of the M-jer itself, it must be able to account for the following:

60

1)

M-jers do not syllabify while unvocalized (demonstrated with the Slovak

Rhythmic Law and Polish Comparative Allomorphy). 2)

M-jers interfere with the syllabification of surrounding consonants; that is,

they prevent the consonants on either side from being tautosyllabic (demonstrated with Russian verb prefixation). 3)

The vowel reflex of M-jers cannot be shown to be predictable for all

languages. In addition, those languages for which the reflex is predictable have lexical anomalies for some reflexes that must be accounted for. What kind of representation can satisfy the three requirements listed above simultaneously? In a linear representation, it is impossible. An abstract phoneme with no [-cons] specification could account for properties (1) and (2): the lack of a [-cons] specification prevents it from projecting a nucleus and thereby participating in syllabification, but the phoneme itself might be enough to prevent the surrounding consonants from syllabifying with each other. Property (3) would not be satisfied, however, because to do so, at least some of the feature melody must be included in the lexical representation. How can these features exist when the phoneme is not even specified to be a vowel yet? The specification of any vocalic features implies that the phoneme is a vowel, and as such it should project a nucleus and participate in syllabification. A nonlinear, multi-tiered approach offers the mechanism for us to have it both ways, allowing a segment to be vocalic without necessarily being syllabifiable. Over the last decade or so, researchers have adopted this sort of representation for

61

M-jers, although the details and exact configuration are the subject of controversy. In the next chapter, I will provide a brief description of autosegmental theory and then outline the combinations of tiers and elements proposed in the literature, concluding that M-jers must be given representation on both the skeletal and melodic tiers, but the information on these two tiers is not linked (following Sloan (1991); Cresti (1994)).

62

Chapter Three Autosegmental Representations of the M-jers 3.0

Autosegmental representations. Autosegmental theory separates onto different tiers the different types of

information contained in phonemes. For instance, the feature specifications (represented by phonetic symbols) occupy a melodic tier linked to a skeletal core of timing slots (represented by the symbol X). Syllable structure, which reflects the hierarchical relations between onset, nucleus, and coda, is built off the skeletal core, occupying at least one other tier. This is illustrated in (1) below. (1)

σ / | O R / | \ / N C / | \ X- X- X | | | /d/ /o/ /g/

Syllable tier O = Onset; R = Rhyme N = Nucleus; C = Coda Skeletal core Feature melodies

The X-slots in the skeletal core above are ordered linearly (denoted in (1) by the dashes), but not the feature melodies. Each melody thus is potentially free to rotate around the core on its own plane or tier (hence the term autosegment), though most often they do not. For example, in many Semitic languages, consonants tend to exist on one plane and vowels on another, allowing, for example, two vowels to be considered adjacent even when there is an intervening consonant. Syllables are built off the skeletal tier, although there is access to information on the melodic tier (hence, only skeletal slots linked to [-cons] melodies can occupy syllable nucleus positions for most languages).

63

Because the skeletal core and feature melodies are on separate tiers, it is not necessarily so that one is predictable from the other, and as such, it is possible that there will not always be a one-to-one correspondence between the two. For instance, two elements of one tier might link up to a single element of another tier, or none at all. For example, Rubach (1986 et seq.) notes that two adjacent X slots linked to a single vowel melody result in a long vowel (making the feature [long] structural, not qualitative); whereas two adjacent X slots linked to a consonant produces a geminate consonant. Affricates are formed by linking two consonant melodies to one X slot (which eliminates the problem of whether to define affricates as [+continuant] or [-continuant]). Below, the following surface forms are given with their corresponding underlying representations.50 (2)

long vowel [a:] X X \ / a

gem. cons. [nn] X X \ / n

50

affricate [car] X XX | \ | | t s a r

vs.

[kats] X XX X | | | | k a t s

It is beyond the scope of this study to address questions such as why it appears that no more than two elements from one tier can be linked to a single element of another tier, or why two melodies with different [cons] specifications do not seem to link up to a single skeletal slot, e.g., X X X X \ | / /\ [F] CV Also, it appears that for languages with phonemic vowel length or geminate consonants, there are few restrictions on which feature melodies can link up to two skeletal slots; however, it is curious that the converse is highly restricted: doublelinking one skeletal slot to two feature melodies is common among coronals but rare (though not unheard of) elsewhere. Ghost segments, which the present work also accepts as a mismatch between the skeletal and melodic tiers, appear to have restrictions as well on which feature melodies can participate in this configuration.

64

3.1

Possible configurations. Rubach (1986 et seq.) suggests a mismatch could occur in which information

is missing on one tier or the other and is not supplied by linking to the tier of an adjacent phoneme, as illustrated in (3) below, where here, the hyphen (-) denotes a phoneme boundary. (3)

a. X - X ≠> X - X | \ | [F] [F]

b. X ≠> | [F]-[F]

X | \ [F] -[F]

M-jers have been represented as such a mismatch. Rules would supply the information on the necessary tier under certain conditions, causing vocalization. Anything not linked by the end of the derivation would not be pronounced in surface form and would be deleted. 3.1.1 Redundant (rule-derived) skeletal tier. The nature of the skeletal core is somewhat controversial; some researchers (Hayes (1986)) prefer to replace the skeletal core with a moraic model, in which feature melodies are linked directly to the syllabic tier, with only those segments contributing to syllable weight linked to an intervening mora. Others (Szpyra (1992)) accept intervening skeletal slots for all segments but regard the core as lexically redundant and believe it to be generated by predictable rules. Szpyra (1992) tries to argue that because Polish has no long vowels or geminate consonants, the underlying lexical representation of a string is melody driven, and the skeletal tier is redundant. She criticizes proposals representing Mjers as floating feature melodies with no corresponding skeletal slot (discussed

65

below), claiming every feature melody projects a skeletal segment by default rules, and if so, there is no way to keep M-jers as floating segments with no projected X-slot without resorting to ad hoc stipulations. This claim begs the question: if M-jers are floating melodies with no associated X-slot, then whether a feature melody projects an X-slot is not predictable, and the skeletal tier must be included in the lexical representation. In addition, one must address the question of affricates, which in autosegmental theory are generally assumed to be two feature melodies linked to one X-slot. Either this assumption is wrong, or else we have further evidence that the skeletal core is not predictable, at least not in all languages. On the other hand, because most languages restrict affricates to coronals, one might argue that prespecifying the skeletal core for such a tiny number of phonemes is wildly inefficient. If the grammar allows linking two feature melodies to one X-slot, why do we seldom see anything but coronals in this configuration? However, even if skeletal slots are predictable for Polish, they are not predictable for Czech, Slovak, or Serbo-Croatian, where vowel length is phonemic. Because all of these languages exhibit vowel/zero alternations in much the same environments, it would be desirable to come up with a general representation that can be adaptable to all of them. It is not the intention of the present work to make a judgment on which skeletal representation is in fact the best; sometimes reference to a moraic model is

66

more effective, and other times a skeletal core of X-slots is preferred.51 However, I do not believe the skeletal core is derived by default rules for every language; that is, it cannot be claimed that every feature melody automatically projects a skeletal slot. The present work uses a lexically-specified skeletal core of X-slots. For the sake of argument, let us assume for the moment however that the skeletal tier is derived by rules. It is then up to the melodic tier to provide a mechanism to distinguish between M-jers, which alternate with zero, and full vowels, which do not. Two existing proposals can be described as a zero-root node with floating features (Zoll (1993)) and an underspecified [cons] root node (Szpyra (1992)). 3.1.1.1 Zero-root node analysis. Zoll (1993), assuming that the skeletal tier is redundant, proposes an alternative representation based on moraic theory and feature geometry. The notion of feature geometry organizes phonological features into a hierarchical tree-like structure in which major class nodes branch into minor class nodes, which in turn dominate the individual features. An example of such a tree is given in (4) below.52 A root node is the most basic, dominating all the other nodes. It is here that a segment’s specification as vowel, obstruent, or sonorant is located. In other words, the root node determines a segment’s vocalic or consonantal status.

51

Oscillating between two competing models is nothing new; for instance, light is best modeled as a particle to describe some behaviors (e.g., reflection) and as a wave to describe others (e.g., refraction). 52 Taken from Kenstowicz (1994: 146).

67

(4)

/ Labial | [round]

Oral | Coronal | [anter] [distrib]

Root node ([cons], [son]) / | \ Nasal Pharyngeal \ | / \ Dorsal | Radical Glottal | Soft Pal | | [back] | [ATR] [spread gl] [high] [nasal] [RTR] [constr gl] [low] [voiced]

Zoll claims that another of the functions of a root node is to organize the minor class features that it dominates. In addition, it serves to license the segment prosodically, that is, the root node is essentially what the syllable tier looks for when gathering segments up into syllables. Floating features such as tone are too small to be recognized prosodically and must associate themselves with an existing root node in order to be realized phonetically. Zoll proposes that ghost segments (a catch-all term for segment-zero alternations that occur in various languages and cannot be explained by either epenthesis or deletion) are individual features or bundles of minor class features that lack a root node. Therefore their features, like tone, are uninterpretable by themselves, and they are unable to take part in syllabification. A M-jer vocalizes when an epenthetic root node is created, which can organize the features and project a mora, making it visible to the syllabic tier. According to Zoll, an ill-formed syllable repaired by epenthesis first projects a mora, as shown below in (5-a).53 From the mora, a rule adds a root node, and from the root node, the appropriate default features of the epenthetic segment are added.

53

Although this analysis is based on a moraic model, it can be adapted to an X-slot model, where we simply claim that all root nodes project an X-slot.

68

Ghost vowels differ from this in that some of the features already exist and need only for the mora and root node to be added, as she illustrates with the Polish example in (5-b). The remainder of the features are filled in by default rules. (5)54



a. Epenthesis: σ σ / \ add mora / | \ | \ µ | | | | | | | | | | | | l c l c 








= Root node σ add root 






µ | | | | | | | l c 





| | | g E r- a [gra] ‘game’ (fem. nom. sg.)








b. Ghost vowels: σ / \ \ / \ µ | | | 

σ / | \ µ | | | | | l @

add features



| | | c



σ /

\

| | 

σ | µ |

add mora, / | root / | |




| g E



| r

/



| g

\ | | 

| | E r [g’er] (gen. pl.)

This proposal has some theoretical difficulties. The most troubling are a) it relies fundamentally on default rules, which may or may not be able to supply the least marked values of the unspecified features, and b) it is difficult to explain how a feature such as [back], etc., can be specified, since the very nature of feature geometry is that if a given node on the feature tree is unspecified, then everything it dominates is also unspecified. Without discussing these difficulties in depth, let us simply note that without a root node to license the segment prosodically, there is no

54

Derivation from Zoll (1993: 186).

69

way for M-jers to block syllabification, as they are invisible to the syllable tier. For example, in (6) below, nothing prevents / / or even the preceding /s/ from syllabifying with /l/ as part of a complex onset and bleeding any vocalization at all. (6)



* | | |

σ / \ / µ | |



* | | | 



| | | | Ol a s O

σ / \

/ /

/ |

/








\ | µ | |


[⊗s la]



| | | | s O O l a

If a root node controls prosodic licensing, then without one, M-jers should not block syllabification. Put another way, if the M-jer features are too small or disorganized to be recognized prosodically, they should have no effect on the syllabification of surrounding segments. I therefore move on to Szpyra’s proposal, which assumes there is a root node, but it is underspecified. 3.1.1.2 Underspecified root node analysis. Szpyra (1992), following the claim that the X-tier is redundant, assumes that strings are melody driven, and the associated skeletal slots are projected by default rules rather than part of the underlying representation. She then suggests that M-jers exist as underspecified root nodes; without a [± cons] specification, they cannot syllabify or project a nucleus. However, the node still projects a skeletal slot that interferes with the surrounding consonants and can prevent them from being syllabified into the same syllable, because syllable structure is built off the skeletal core. The validity of the assumption that all segments project skeletal slots by default is actually not important. One could simply claim that the root node is prespecified in the lexicon to project an X-slot, just like all

70

the other segments, rather than as a result of a default rule. In fact, this second claim is actually preferable, because if the skeletal tier is automatically projected for all segments, it becomes unclear why it is necessary at all. Regardless of how the skeletal core enters the representation, Szpyra argues that an unsyllabified skeletal slot will prevent the segments on either side of it from being tautosyllabic because, while extrametrical segments are common at word edges and perhaps are permitted even at syllable edges within words (between syllables), it is unlikely they could occur within syllables. This explains why in (7) below, the /z/ must syllabify as the coda of the preceding syllable; the underspecified root node cannot itself syllabify, but its X-slot blocks the /z/ from syllabifying with the following /k/ as a complex onset: (7)

k u | | XX \ | σ

z • k a | | | | X X XX / \ | σ

Here, the root node projects a skeletal slot, which interferes with syllabification of the surrounding X-slots. Without a [cons] specification, it cannot itself become part of a syllable, as there is no information to determine what part of the syllable to join. It prevents the preceding /z/ from joining the onset of the /-ka/ syllable. Otherwise, an extrametrical segment would be contained within the syllable. Thus, the preceding /z/ is interpreted as a syllable coda, providing the proper environment for the /o/ to raise to [u]. This also accounts for comparative allomorphy behavior in Polish. The root node in Polish /pev•n-/ prevents the /n/

71

from syllabifying (not just the sonority sequencing), and the [-ejši] allomorph is used. However, by lacking a [cons] specification of its own, the M-jer cannot project a syllable or participate in syllabification. In Slovak /pi:s•ma:x/, the root node fails to project a nucleus; the bi-segmental nuclei /i:/ and /a:/ are thus adjacent and the Rhythmic Law applies. Vocalization occurs when the root node gains a [-cons] specification. This happens when the M-jer is followed by an unsyllabified consonant. Szpyra proposes that language-specific default rules then provide the actual feature melody of this new vocalic segment (e.g., [-high], [-low], [-back]), for example, in (8) below. (8)

YVoc:

X | •


X | /__*C [-cons]

Default Feature Fill-in Rules:

X | [-cons]


X | [-cons] [-high] [-low] [-back]

Unfortunately, by leaving the specification of the features melody to default rules, we are forced to assume the M-jer’s phonetic nature can be predicted.55 This is likely the case for some but not all of the languages. Szpyra’s proposal addresses only Polish, a language argued to have only one M-jer reflex. It provides no mechanism for exceptional or multiple reflexes. In many cases, then, some way to specify the phonetic nature of the vocalized M-jer lexically will have to be determined. Szpyra (1992) acknowledges as much but does not indicate how this

55

Again, it also forces one to assume that default rules do not provide the least marked feature combination: /e/ ([-high] [-low] is considered more marked than /i/, /u/ [+high] or /a/ [+low]).

72

might be done. Including into the representation the part of the feature melody that is not predictable (e.g., [±high], [±back], etc.) is not an option if the root node is underspecified at the [cons] level. Recall the criticism above of the zero root node proposal: underspecification of a node implies underspecification of everything dominated by that node. Vocalic features such as [back] cannot be specified for a segment if that segment is not even specified as a vowel. Therefore, even if we accept Szpyra’s proposal for Polish, we cannot use it for Slovak or Bulgarian. Furthermore, in Ukrainian (9-a), palatalization of surrounding consonants does not determine the M-jer reflex, as it does in Russian (9-b). Recall that in Russian, [e] is the reflex between soft consonants; [o] is the reflex elsewhere. In the Ukrainian example, the consonants on either side of the reflex are hard, but /e/ appears in one, and /o/ in the other.56 (9)

a. pes/psa rot/rtu

b. p’os/psa rot/rtu

‘dog’ ‘mouth’

Is it necessary to come up with one underlying representation that works for all languages? In other words, could some languages represent M-jers as underspecified root nodes, whereas others represent them in some other way? Perhaps, since the fall of the jers did not happen at the same time or with the same reflexes for each dialect area, so there is no reason to assume the jers were not reanalyzed in different ways for each area. However, if one unifying account can be

56

Thanks to Christina Bethin (personal communication) for pointing this out.

73

found that works for multiple languages, not just one, so much the better, particularly since the distribution of vowel/zero alternations is very similar for these languages. Neither Zoll’s nor Szpyra’s proposal can account for all aspects of M-jer behavior: the zero-root node proposal provides no mechanism for M-jers to block syllabification, and the underspecified root node proposal requires that the vowel reflex of the M-jer be predictable for any given language. Also, both proposals rely on ad hoc assumptions about the nature of default rules, which may not be erroneous, but need further study before they can be accepted. Because the reasoning for assuming a redundant skeletal tier is somewhat shaky to begin with, combined with the fact that neither proposal can provide compelling evidence for accepting this assumption, I shall conclude that the skeletal tier must indeed be pre-specified in the lexicon. 3.1.2 Pre-specified skeletal tier. If the skeletal tier is part of the lexical representation of a phoneme, then three combinations exist for a mismatch between the skeletal and melodic tiers, shown in (10) below: (a) an X slot with no associated feature melody (see Spencer (1986)) (b) a floating feature melody with no X slot to link to it (e.g., Rubach (1986, 1993)), or (c) a conjointly floating skeletal slot and feature melody with no link between them, that is, the information on the one tier does not access the information on the other tier (proposed in Sloan (1991); Cresti (1994)). (10)

a. X


X | [F]

b.


[F]

X | [F]

74

c. X


[F]

X | [F]

3.1.2.1 Empty skeletal slot. The first possibility is an empty skeletal slot with no associated feature melody. This is similar to the empty V-slot proposal in Spencer (1986).57 The floating X-slot does not link up and share the feature melody of an adjacent segment. Given the distribution of M-jers (any adjacent segments are always consonants), attaching to an adjacent feature melody would result in a syllable even more ill-formed than the one that linkage is intended to repair. Instead, an unsyllabified consonant causes a feature melody to be supplied by an epenthesis rule, resulting in vocalization of the M-jer, as shown in (11-a). If no feature melody is supplied, the skeletal segment deletes (11-b). (11)

a. X X X X | | d n’


XX X | | | d e n’ [den’]

b. X X X X | | | d n’ a


XX X | | | d n’ a [dn’a]

The problem with the empty skeletal slot analysis is that there is no mechanism for specifying which vowel feature melody will be supplied; it implies the M-jer reflex is predictable and unmarked. 3.1.2.2 Floating feature melody. The second combination (10-b) assumes a floating vocalic feature melody without an associated X-slot. This is proposed in Rubach (1986); Kenstowicz and Rubach (1987); Rubach and Booij (1990); Rubach (1993). Again, the floater does not attempt to share a skeletal slot with an adjacent feature

57

Spencer’s (1986) proposal makes use of an early version of autosegmental theory, in which the skeletal core distinguishes between C and V slots. This earlier version is automatically rejected, because it provides no principled reason why an empty Vslot would not project a syllable nucleus and participate in syllabification (Szpyra (1992: 294)).

75

melody, since the M-jer is a vowel and the adjacent feature melodies are consonants; feature melodies with different [cons] specifications do not share a single skeletal slot. (12)

a. X X | | d e n’ •


XX X | | | d e n’

b. X XX | | | d e n’ a

[den’]




XX X | | | d n’ a [dn’a]

Because it is the feature melody that is specified, the floating feature melody proposal allows any vowel to potentially participate in vowel/zero alternations. In cases where the inventory of alternating vowels is limited, the floating feature melody might be underspecified to include only that which is not predictable, e.g., [±high], [±back], etc.58 (See Bethin (1992), where the floating vowel is replaced with a floating underspecified [-cons] node, that is, a floating vocalic segment whose exact phonetic features are filled in later by default rules, with the above-mentioned caveat, of course.) However, it would still allow idiosyncratic alternations, such as Russian. zajac/zajca (‘rabbit’), odin/odna (‘one’), and Slovak dosiek∼dosa:k/doska (‘board’) to exist as well; here, the floating feature melody must be fully specified. The floating vowel or root node proposals allow flexibility with regard to how much of the M-jer reflex must be specified in the lexicon. In addition, they explain why M-jers do not participate in syllabification or interfere with the Slovak Rhythmic Law. Syllabification occurs on the skeletal tier; since the M-jer does not

58

[-cons] [+son] is predictable, but still necessary if, e.g., [back] must be specified, since specification of a lower feature implies specification of a higher feature (see above).

76

project a skeletal slot, it cannot project a syllable. It is thus invisible to the Slovak Rhythmic Law. The syllable tier contains two bi-segmental nuclei that are adjacent. The Rhythmic Law is able to apply to the second nucleus and shorten it. However, the floating feature melody analysis encounters the same problem as Zoll’s zero-root node analysis in that it has no mechanism for M-jers to block syllabification. Syllable structure is built off the skeletal tier, so in (13) below, there is nothing to prevent /s/ and / / from syllabifying as complex onsets and thus bleeding vocalization. (13)

σ / / | X X X | | | o l s o [⊗s la]

\ X | a

One then must conclude that neither a floating skeletal slot nor a floating feature melody alone is sufficient to account for M-jer behavior; the former, because the nature of the vocalized M-jer is not always predictable, and the latter, because M-jers can block syllabification of surrounding consonants. A remaining possibility is a configuration in which both the melody (however much specified) and the skeletal slot are present in the lexical representation (10-c), but they are not linked up unless forced to by syllable structure requirements. 3.1.2.3 Conjointly-floating melody/X-slot. The conjointly-floating melody/X-slot configuration, proposed by Sloan (1991) and extended by Cresti (1994)59 to Polish

59

Cresti’s examples are somewhat problematic, so her analysis is not presented here.

77

vowel/zero alternations, seems odd conceptually. If elements on the skeletal and melodic tiers are both present, not linked up to anything else, and apparently in line with each other, why would they not automatically link up? Is the lack of an association line between the two tiers anything more than a notational convention that provides the results we want? On the other hand, just because information is represented on one tier does not necessarily imply that it must access information on another tier. Sloan (1991) uses data from Southern Sierra Miwok (SSM) to demonstrate the independence of the skeletal and melodic tiers. Her analysis indicates that elements on either or both tiers can be present in underlying form without accessing each other. SSM has both long and short underlying vowels and consonants, represented in (14) below. In addition, some vowels and consonants exhibit variable length (long and short), and still other consonants alternate with zero. Sloan shows that these alternations are functions of syllable structure. (14)

X | V Short vowel

X X \ / V Long vowel

X | C Short consonant

X X \ / C Geminate consonant

Sloan argues for a right-to-left syllable parsing in SSM; she further argues that syllabification occurs only in two stages: once at the lexical level and once more at the post-cyclic level. I assume her arguments are correct for SSM.60

60

However, I do not assume that syllabification is restricted to two stages for all languages. This will be discussed with respect to Slavic in Chapter Four.

78

In SSM, only syllables of the type CV, CV:, or CVC are permitted; that is, no super-heavy syllables (e.g., CV:C), complex onsets, or complex codas are allowed. The rhyme can hold at most two segments, whether it is two segments in the nucleus or one in the nucleus and one in the coda. If the addition of morphemes results in structures with unsyllabifiable consonants, an epenthetic vowel is introduced (i.e., (*)

C+(*)C


CVC). SSM also forbids adjacent vowels; all syllables must have an

onset. If the concatenation of morphemes causes two vowels to be immediately adjacent, an epenthesis rule inserts an intervening consonant (i.e., V+V VCV). The


epenthetic vowel and consonant are illustrated in (15)61 and (16)62 below, respectively. Morpheme boundaries are denoted with a hyphen. For the moment, the skeletal tier and the details of syllable structure are omitted for brevity. (15)

/hywa:- -t- -ma:/ [hywa:tyma:] ‘I am running’ σ σ * σ σ σ σ σ /\ /|\ (+) (+) /|\ /\ /|\ /\ /|\ hy wa:-t-ma: hy wa: ty ma: Lexical syllabification; Post-cyclic syllabification; Addition of morphemes Epenthesis





In (15) above, the suffix /-t-/ is not syllabified at the lexical level, since there is no syllable nucleus present. At the post-cyclic level, when all morphemes are present and morpheme boundaries are erased, syllabification occurs again. The /-t-/ is still unable to syllabify, because the preceding syllable contains a long vowel and thus the rhyme is at full capacity. The syllable following the /-t-/ contains an onset,

61 62

Example from Sloan (1991: 40). Ibid: 43.

79

preventing syllabification. An epenthetic /y/ is inserted, providing a nucleus for the /-t-/ to syllabify with. (16)

[lotuksy?i:] ‘habitual holder’ /lotu- -ksY- -i(:)/ σ σ σ σ σ σ σσ σ σ σ σ /\ /\ (+) /\ (+) | /\ /|\ /\ |\ /\ /|\ /\ /|\ lo tu-ksY- -i(:) lo tuk sy i: lo tuk sy ?i: Lexical syllabification; Post-cyclic Epenthesis, Addition of morphemes syllabification Resyllabification








In (16) above, the combination of the morphemes /-ksY-/ and /-i(:)/ results in a structure with adjacent vowels. This results in an onsetless syllable, which is resolved with the epenthesis of a glottal stop. In addition to underlying long and short vowels and consonants, SSM has a third set: variable-length consonants and vowels that Sloan demonstrates to surface as long only if the existing syllable structure accommodates it; otherwise, they surface as short. Variable length is shown to be an underlying feature. (In a linear representation, it is denoted here with the symbol (:).) In (17) below, the morphemefinal /u(:)/ surfaces as long because nothing is competing for the rhyme slot. In (18), /j/ can syllabify only as a coda, since the onset of the following syllable is already occupied. By taking up the coda position, it suppresses the length in /u(:)/.63 (17)

/haja:pu(:)- -ni- -?/ [hajaapuuni?] ‘you are a chief’ σ σ σ σ * σ σ σ σ /\ /|\ /| (+) /| (+) /\ /|\ /|\ /|\ ha ja: pu(:)- -ni-? ha jaa puu ni?





(18)

[hajaapujni?] /haja:pu(:)- -j- -ni- -?/ σ σ σ * σ * /\ /|\ /| (+) (+) /| (+) ha ja: pu(:)-j-ni-?





63

Ibid: 93.

80

‘you will be a chief’ σ σ σ σ /\ /|\ /|\ /|\ ha jaa puj ni?

Because variable length is subject to syllable structure, it might be asked whether it is predictable and therefore not phonemic. Sloan shows that variable length contrasts with underlying length in that the former surfaces as long only if there is room in the existing syllables, whereas the latter always surfaces as long; if the existing syllables cannot accommodate the segments, new syllables are created by epenthesis. Given that a segment is variable, its length is predictable from syllable structure; what is not predictable (and is therefore phonemic) is whether it can vary at all. This is shown below in (19) - (21).64 (19)

Constant length long /?is:ak- -N:- -?/ [?issakyNNy?] ‘all of us’ σ σ * * σ σ σ σ /|\ /| /|\ /|\ /|\ /|\ (+) (+) ?is:ak-N:-? ?is sa kyN Ny?








(20)

Variable length long /?yw:y- -N(:)e- -ha(:)k- -to- -?/ [?ywwyNNehakto?] ‘to the feast’ σ σ * σ σ * σ * σ σ σ σ σ /|\ /| (+) | (+) /\ (+) /\ (+) /|\ /|\ /| /|\ /|\ ?yw:y- -N(:)e-ha(:)k- -to-? ?yw wyN Ne hak to?








(21)

Variable length short /hela(:)j- -N(:)e- -ha(:)k/ [helajNehak] ‘being afraid’ σ σ * σ σ σ σ σ σ /| /| (+) | (+) /|\ /| /|\ /| /|\ hela(:)j- -N(:)e-ha(:)k he laj Ne hak








In (19), the segment in /N:/ is always geminate; the first part of it must syllabify as a coda to the preceding syllable, and the second must become an onset. However, no part of the /N:/ can syllabify. The following morpheme /?/ has nothing

64

Ibid: 74.

81

with which to form a legitimate syllable, so an epenthetic [y] is inserted, yielding an onset position for part of the /N:/. However, the preceding morpheme ends in a consonant, which means the coda position is filled, so the first part of the /N:/ geminate also has nowhere to syllabify. Again, an epenthetic vowel solves the problem. A variable-length segment would not have triggered epenthesis twice; it simply would have surfaced as short. This is what we see in (20) and (21). In the former, the syllable preceding the /N(:)/ has an available rhyme slot, and a geminate surfaces. In the latter, no such slot is available, and a short consonant appears instead. There is a final segment type in SSM to be considered—one in which certain consonants alternate with zero. Again, Sloan shows this alternation to be a function of syllable structure. This is illustrated in (22) and (23) below.65 (22)

(23)

/?yw:y- -(j)a:/ σ σ σ /|\ /| (+) |\ ?yw:y-(j)a:


[?ywwyjaa] ‘go and eat (whenever you want)!’ σ σ σ /|\ /| /|\ ?yw wy jaa


/he:l- -(j)a:/ [heelaa] ‘go and fight!’ σ * σ σ σ /|\ (+) |\ /|\ /|\ he:l-(j)a: hee laa





In (22), the /(j)/ can syllabify as an onset to the following syllable since there are no competing segments for that position. In (23), however, the /l/ in the preceding syllable takes priority for the onset position. It cannot syllabify as a coda because the rhyme is already filled with a long vowel. Therefore, one must

65

Ibid: 65.

82

distinguish segments that always receive a syllable position, no matter what, from segments that receive a position only if there is room. Finally, SSM has many suffixes that can induce length in the final segment of the preceding morpheme, even if that segment is underlyingly short. This is provided, again, that the syllable structure can accommodate it. In (24) below, the syllable preceding the /-(:)meti?/ morpheme is light, so its final segment can lengthen; in (25), however, both rhyme positions are filled, so the final segment cannot geminate and still be fully syllabified.66 Note that no epenthetic vowel arises to make the option of gemination possible. (24)

(25)

/law:a:ti- -(:)meti?/ σ σ σ σ σ /|\ /|\ /| (+) /| /|\ law:a:ti-(:)meti?

[lawwaatiimeti?] ‘there are several snakes’ σ σ σ σ σ /|\ /|\ /|\ /| /|\ law waa tii me ti?




/his:ik- -(:)meti?/ σ σ σ σ /|\ /|\ (+) /| /|\ his:ik- -(:)meti?





[hissikmeti?] ‘several skunks’ σ σ σ σ /|\ /|\ /| /|\ his sik me ti?


Sloan proposes that most of the alternations occur when information is present on one tier but missing on the other. For example, a vowel that alternates long and short is represented as (26-a) below. If the syllable can, it incorporates the floating skeletal slot into its structure, and the vowel links up to the no-longerfloating X-slot via a spreading rule (melodic features appear to spread to the right, not to the left.). A floating skeletal slot at the beginning of a suffix will also induce length in a preceding consonant or vowel by spreading. This is schematically shown

66

Ibid: 47, 48.

83

in (26-b) and illustrated by example (27), below (where the symbol R refers to rhyme). (26)

(27)

a. σ | X X | V


σ |\ XX | V


σ | \ XX | / V

b. X XX | | [F]- -[F]


X X X | / | [F]- -[F]

[law:a:ti:meti?] ‘there are several snakes’ /law:a:ti- -(:)meti?/ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ / | / | /| / | / | / | / | / | / | / | / R / R / R / R / R / R / R / R / R / R | | \ | /\ | | | | | | \ | | \ | /\ | /\ | | | | \ X X XX XX X X XX X X X X X X XX XX X XX X X X X X | | \/ \/ | | (+) | | | | | | | \/ \/ | \/ | | | | | l a w: a: t i- -(:)m e t i ? l a w: a: t i: m e t i ? Lexical syllabification Post-cyclic syllabification, Feature spreading





The floating X-slot can be incorporated into the preceding syllable because there are no other segments competing for position in the rhyme. Feature spreading thus occurs via the melody linked to the left of the floating X-slot, in this case, the /i/. Feature spreading is contingent on an X-slot being incorporated into the syllable; incorporation of the X-slot into the syllable is contingent on there being an available position for it. Below in (28), the same suffix fails to double the preceding segment; the rhyme is already full and cannot accommodate the floating X-slot. Feature spreading does not occur, and the floating X-slot is eventually deleted.

84

(28)

/his:ik- -(:)meti?/ [his:ikmeti?] ‘several skunks’ σ σ σ σ σ σ / | /| / | / | / | / | / R / R / R / R / R / R | | \ | |\ | | | | \ | | \ | | \ X X XX X X XX X X X X X X XX X X | | \/ | | | | \/ | | (+) | | | | | h i s: i k- -(:)m e t i ? h i s: i k





σ / | / R | | X X | | me

σ / | / R | | \ X XX | | | t i ?

The fact that this spreading is not automatic gives reason to suppose that information on one tier should not necessarily link up to information on another tier, just because both positions are available. Rather, the linkage occurs only when sanctioned by the syllable structure. This is important because below, I will claim with Cresti (1994) that M-jers are conjointly floating feature melodies and skeletal slots. The fact that both tiers are represented by material does not in itself imply that this material will link up; linking occurs only when required by the syllable. This is further corroborated by the effect of a length-inducing suffix beginning with a consonant (i.e., /-(:)C…/) on a morpheme ending in a consonant (i.e., /…C-/). The resulting epenthetic vowel surfaces as long.67 (29)

/?opa:- -t- -(:)me?/ [?opa:ty:me?] ‘it is clouding up on us’ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ / | / | / | / | / | / | / | / R / R * / R / R / R / R / R | | | /\ | | \ | | | /\ | /\ | | \ X X X XX X XX X X X X X XX XXX X X X | | | \/ (+) | (+) | | | | | | \/ | \/ | | | ? o p a:- -t-(:)m e ? ? o p a: t y: m e ? Lexical syllabification Post-cyclic syllabification; Epenthesis, spreading





67

Ibid: 40.

85

The unsyllabified /-t-/ triggers epenthesis of the vowel [y], one that is already linked to a skeletal slot. This vowel spreads its features to the adjacent floating X-slot, resulting in a long epenthetic vowel. This is a little surprising, as it would seem more efficient to simply fill in vocalic features for the floating X-slot and use that to syllabify the /t/, rather than inserting a whole new segment and then spreading its features. This further indicates that the skeletal and melodic tiers are independent and do not necessarily access each other all the time. We have just witnessed elements of the skeletal tier existing in underlying form independent of the melodic tier. That the reverse occurs (where melodic elements exist with no regard for the skeletal tier) is evidenced by the consonants that alternate with zero, which Sloan suggests are floating feature melodies (with no associated skeletal slot). If the syllable structure permits, the floating melody is incorporated via an epenthetic X-slot.68 (30)

[?yw:yja:] ‘go and eat (whenever you want)!’ /?yw:y- -ja:/ σ σ σ σ σ σ / | /| | / | /| /| / R / R R / R / R / R | | \ | | /\ | | \ | | / |\ X X XX X XX X X XX X X XX | | \/ | (+) \/ | | \/ | | \/ ? y w: y-j a: ? y w: y j a:





68

Ibid: 65.

86

(31)

/he:l- -ja:/ [he:la:] ‘go and fight!’ σ σ σ σ | | / | / | R * R / R / R /\ /\ | | \ | | \ XX X XX X XX XXX | \/ | \/ \/ | (+) \/ e: l-j a: h e: l a:


/ / | X | h




In (30), the /j/ can occupy the onset position (in fact, this is obligatory to prevent adjacent vowels from occurring), so it projects an X-slot and takes its place. In (31), the /l/ is forced to fill the onset position because there is no space for it in the preceding syllable rhyme. The floating /j/ thus fails to receive an X-slot and eventually deletes. The fact that floating X-slots and floating feature melodies both exist in SSM would naturally lead to the question of whether they can exist together. What would happen if a morpheme ending in a variable-length vowel were followed by a morpheme with a floating consonant, e.g., (32)

X X X | | C V-

(+)

XX \/ -j a:

The most natural assumption would be that the floating skeletal slot of the one would link up to the floating melody of the other, producing: (33)

σ σ / | / | / R / R | | | /\ X XX XX | | | \/ C V j a:

87

However, this ignores the fact that feature spreading in SSM appears to be right-ward (from the vowel to the floating skeletal slot), so the answer is not so obvious. It is equally likely that the morpheme-final vowel would spread its features to the floating X-slot, and the floating /-j-/ would generate an epenthetic skeletal slot of its own: (34)

σ / | / R | /\ X XX | \/ C V

σ / | / R | /\ X XX | \/ j a:

Unfortunately, Sloan does not discuss this very question. However, evidence for simultaneously floating skeletal slots and feature melodies can be found elsewhere. Sloan proposes that variable-length consonants are represented, not by a linked consonant with a floating X-slot to the right, as are vowels (35-a), but by a conjointly floating skeletal slot and feature melody, as in (35-b). (35)

a. X X | C

b. X C

Sloan claims (I believe correctly) that at the lexical stage of syllabification, only fully-linked phonemes are syllabified (that is, no floating segments are incorporated.) The fact that floating feature melodies or skeletal slots are not syllabified until the post-cyclic level is evident from the fact that they are syllabified only if there is room for them, and this cannot be determined until all the morphemes are present. During parsing, a syllable cannot skip over an unsyllabified segment to

88

pick up the next qualified one. That is, unsyllabified segments exist between syllables but not within them. During post-cyclic syllabification, when all morphemes are present, unsyllabified segments and (if possible) floating skeletal slots are incorporated. Skeletal slots linked to feature melodies are parsed into syllables no matter what; if necessary, epenthetic vowels are added to provide the required nuclei. Empty skeletal slots (slots not linked to feature melodies) are parsed only if there is room for them in the existing syllables. As already mentioned, parsing occurs from right to left. This means that in (36) and (37) below, the floating skeletal slot is the first unsyllabified segment encountered and is incorporated into the onset position. The floating /t/, however, does something unexpected: rather than simply linking its features up to the empty X-slot, it attempts to first generate its own X-slot and link up to the coda of the preceding syllable if possible. (It cannot become the onset to the following syllable since that position is already occupied by the empty X-slot.) In (36), there is no competition for the coda position. The floating /t/ thus generates an X-slot, incorporates itself as a coda, and then spreads its features to the empty X-slot on its right. In (37), there is no available coda position, so as a last resort, it links to the floating segment and syllabifies as an onset.69

69

Ibid: 79.

89

(36)

/?oka- -t(:)o?/ [?okat:o?] ‘to the same place’ σ σ σ σ σ σ / | / | | / | / | / | / R / R R / R / R / R | | | | | \ | | | | | | \ X XX X X XX X XX X XX X | | | | | | | | | | (+) | | ? o k a-t(:) o ? ? o k a t(:) o ? Lexical syllabification Post-cyclic syllabification (part one)








σ σ σ σ / | / | / | /| / R / R / R / R | | | | \ | | \ | | X XX XX XX X X X | | | | | | | | | ? o k a t(:) o ? ? o Post-cyclic syllabification (part two)


(37)

σ σ / | / | / R / R | | \ | | \ X XX XX X | | | / | | k a t: o ? Spreading

/hol:op- -t(:)o?/ [hollupto?] ‘in the hole’ σ σ σ σ σ σ / | / | | / | / | /| / R / R R / R / R / R | | \ | | \ | \ | | \ | | \ | | \ X X XX X X X XX X X XX X X X X X | | \/ | | (+) | | | | \/ | | | | h o l: o p-t(:) o ? h o l: o p t(:) o ? Lexical syllabification Post-cyclic syllabification








σ σ σ / | / | / | / R / R / R | | \ | | \ / | \ X X XX X X X X X | | \/ | | | | | h o l: o p t o ? Linking At first glance, this appears to be a very inefficient mechanism. Rather than have a floating consonant try to insert a seemingly unmotivated epenthetic X-slot in addition to linking up to the already-existing empty one, why not represent variable-

90

length consonants in the same way as variable-length vowels, as (26-a) above? Sloan does not explicitly address this issue, and the answer can be seen only through a derivation. Let us suppose for the moment that variable-length consonants are fullylinked to a skeletal slot, with a second floating skeletal slot to the right (just like the variable-length vowels), as shown in (38) and (39) below. (38)

(39)

σ /| / R | | X X | | ? o

σ /| / R | | X X | | (+) k a-

σ | R | \ XX X X | | | -t(:) o ?

σ σ / | /| / R / R | | \ / | \ X X XX X X X X | | \/ | | (+) | h o l: o p-t(:)

σ | R | \ XX | | o ?

σ / | / R | | X X | | ? o







/ / | X | h

σ σ / | / | / R / R | | | | \ X XX XX X | | | | | [?okatto?] k a t(:) o ? ‘to the same place’

σ σ σ | / | / | R / R / R |\ | | \ | | \ X XX X X X X X X | \/ | | | | | o l: o p t(:) o ?







[hollupto?] ‘in the hole’

The problem occurs when post-cyclic syllabification begins, which is a rightto-left operation. The first unsyllabified segment to enter the parse is the floating X-slot. Let us assume it is incorporated as a syllable onset. The next segment encountered is the /t/, which is unsyllabified but linked to a skeletal slot. In (38), it can enter the coda of the preceding syllable, but not in (39). It would then either have to delete (deletion of fully-linked segments apparently does not happen in SSM), or it would have to generate an epenthetic vowel to provide a syllable nucleus of its own. This does not happen. Perhaps one could claim that it then goes back to

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the syllable to the right and forces the newly-incorporated empty X-slot to vacate, but nothing seems to be gained anything in efficiency by doing this. Alternatively, one might claim that when the post-cyclic syllabification begins, the unsyllabified linked /t/ and the empty X-slot compete for onset position, and the /t/ wins out because linked segments take priority over unlinked segments (as they undoubtedly do at the lexical stage). However, there is no mechanism to insure this would happen only when the coda position of the preceding syllable is unavailable; that is, the linked-/t/ must be an onset at the expense of the empty X-slot in (39), but not in (38). Syllabification is a right-to-left operation here, so it would be hard to claim the /t/ in (39) tries to syllabify as a coda, fails, and then backtracks and claims onset position in the syllable on the right.70 We are then left with Sloan’s proposal, which is the only configuration that works. Variable-length consonants in SSM are best represented by conjointlyfloating skeletal slots and feature melodies. Having information on both tiers does not imply that they link up automatically. Rather, the X-slot does what empty Xslots do: it tries to incorporate into a syllable and gain features by spreading from a

70

Note it is not a problem to represent variable-length vowels as in 26-a, because any vowel linked to a skeletal slot would automatically be parsed during lexical syllabification. Syllabification is easy for vowels, because they automatically project their own syllable. Consonants, on the other hand, do not have this assurance. For variable-length vowels, the vowel/X-slot component provides a syllable nucleus, so the only position the floating X-slot will attempt to occupy during postcyclic syllabification is within that rhyme. The only competition for this position comes from segments to its right. If there is no competition, it syllabifies and gains vocalic features by spreading, resulting in a long vowel; if the segment to the right takes the coda position instead, the vowel simply surfaces as short.

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preceding segment. Similarly, the floating consonant does what all floating consonants do: it tries to generate its own X-slot and incorporate into a syllable. If successful, it then spreads its features to the neighboring empty X-slot. If unsuccessful, it links up to the empty X-slot rather than delete. This indicates a certain independence between the two tiers. They do access each other, but not necessarily immediately and only when forced to by the surrounding syllable structure. Now let us extend this autosegmental combination to Slavic and suppose that M-jers are to be represented as floating skeletal slots in conjunction with floating feature melodies (fully- or partially-specified, depending on the language). We have already shown this combination to be the only logical possibility: the vowel-zero alternations often involve unpredictable vowel reflexes, so at least some of the feature melody must be specified; on the other hand, the underlying phonemes are not syllabified until they are vocalized, suggesting the melody is not linked to the tier where syllabification occurs (i.e., the skeletal tier); however, these phonemes still somehow manage to block syllabification, so something must be present on the skeletal tier. Taken together, this points to a jointly floating skeletal slot and feature melody. The evidence from SSM shows this configuration not to be far-fetched at all. There are some major differences between the structures in Slavic and SSM, however. In Slavic, M-jers behave as a unit; that is, their skeletal slots and feature melodies are not off trying to do their own things independently of each other, whereas in SSM, they are. This is due to another difference: in SSM, the floating

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skeletal slots and feature melodies are each trying to incorporate into the surrounding syllables and will do so if the available syllable structure lets them. Both tiers try very hard to avoid deletion. In Slavic, the floaters on both tiers seem to stay inert, making no attempt to be parsed with anything. It is only if syllable requirements demand so that they link up and are parsed. If not, they simply delete. The fact that they act as a unit then stems from the fact that neither the skeletal slot nor the feature melody has its own agenda to pursue.71 Slavic M-jers are vocalized according to rule (40) below. The amount of feature melody that must be specified is language specific and depends on how much is predictable. In the derivations below, the entire feature melody is represented with a capital letter, with the disclaimer that this is for ease of exposition only and may not reflect exactly what is contained in the grammar (that is, whether or not it is underspecified). Whenever the skeletal tier is omitted or the feature melody is unknown, M-jers are still abbreviated as /•/. Also, the ∅ endings (e.g., gen. pl.) are still assumed (for the sake of argument) to be M-jers, in keeping with traditional assumptions (but see Chapter Five for further discussion). (40)

YVoc

X


V

X | V

/ __ *C

71

Put another way, in Slavic, the floaters are lazy; in SSM, they just have bad communication skills.

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Giving the feature melody representation on the melodic tier captures rogue alternations such as Russian odin/odna ‘one’ or zajac/zajca ‘rabbit,’ as well as alternations such as [e] or [o] that are predictable but marked. Where the reflexes are predictable, particularly Serbo-Croatian, which has only [a], the information on the melodic tier might be reducible to [-cons] and perhaps one or two other features. However, an ad hoc appeal to redundancy feature fill-in rules is not appropriate without further study, which extends beyond the scope of the present work. I therefore leave to future research the exact nature of the feature specifications and the corresponding default rules. Representation of the M-jer on the skeletal tier prevents surrounding consonants from being parsed into the same syllable. Example (41) below, involving Russian verb prefixation, illustrates this. Prefixes are assumed to be ordered after past tense (see Chapter Two).

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(41)

a.

masc. past tense b. fem. past tense /s•-[ •t-l-a]/ [so la] /s•-[ •t-l-•]/ [s ol]


Cycle One Cycle Two Past tense/ Truncate

Syllabify72 YVoc/ Syllabify Cycle Three Gender

Syllabify

YVoc/ Syllabify




•t-

•t-

•t-l-

•t-l-

O l| | X XX | *

O l| | X XX | *

--

--

O l- (•) | | X XX X | | * *

o | | X X | | \ N \ | σ

O l- a | | | X XX X | \ | * N | σ --

l (•) | X X | /

72

I assume with Rubach and Booij (1990), Rubach (1993) that syllabification occurs continuously: it begins in the lexicon and continues through the cyclic and postcyclic components, occurring before and after every rule. See Chapter Four for discussion. For brevity, it is omitted when it has not changed. Also, N” and N’ levels are omitted. Also, morpheme-final consonants are considered extrametrical until the next cycle (see Chapter Four for details). This prevents YVoc from applying in this cycle and overgenerating in the feminine form ([⊗ otla]).

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Cycle Four Prefix

Syllabify

YVoc

s O- o l (•) | | | | X XX XX X | | | | * \ N/ \ | σ

s O- O | | X XX X | | * *

--

l | X \ \

a | X | N \ | σ

s | X | \

o- O l a | | | | XX XX X | / \ | N/ \ N \ | \ | σ σ

Syllabify

s ∅ o l ∅ | | | | X ∅X X X ∅ \ | | | \ \ N/ \ \ | σ

s | X | \

o ∅l a | | | | X X ∅X X | \ \ | N \ \ N \ | \ \ | σ σ

Surface

[s ol]

[so la]

Syllabify

Post-Cyclic YDel

Because M-jers contain a skeletal slot, the root M-jer can prevent the / / from syllabifying as a complex onset with the feminine past tense ending. Therefore, in Cycle Four when a M-jer-containing prefix is attached, the unsyllabified consonant can trigger vocalization, yielding [so la]. Finally, lack of an association line between the skeletal and melodic tiers is what prevents M-jers from projecting a nucleus on the syllable tier. Long vowels on either side, then, are seen as adjacent on the syllable tier, allowing the Slovak Rhythmic Law to apply. This is illustrated in example (42) below.

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(42)

a.

loc. pl. /pi:s•m-a:x/ [pi:smax] p i s E m| /\ | | X XX X X X | \/ | \ N/ \ | σ


Cycle 1:

Syllabification

Cycle 2: Infl. ending

Syllabification

YVoc73

gen. pl. /pi:s•m-•/ p i s E | /\ | X XX X X | \/ | \ N/ \ | σ


[pi:sem] m| X

p i s E m- -a x | /\ | | /\ | X XX X X X XX X | \/ | \ \/ \ N/ \ N \ | \ | σ σ

p i s E m- -(•) | /\ | | X XX X X X X | \/ | | \ N/ * \ | σ

Does not apply

p i s e m- -(•) | \/ | | | X XX X X X X | \/ | | / \ N/ N \ | | σ σ Does not apply

Syllabification

Rhythmic Law

b.

p i s E m- -a x | \/ | | | | X XX X X X X X | /\ | \ | \ N/ \ N \ | \ | σ σ

73

Because the Rhythmic Law and M-jer Vocalization occur in different contexts here, the relative order of the two rules is not established, although Rubach (1993) argues for the order given for independent reasons. This will be discussed in more detail below.

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Post-Cyclic: YDel

Syllabification

Surface form:

p i s∅m a x | \/ | | | | X XX X ∅ X X X | \/ | \ | / \ N/ \ N / \ | \ |/ σ σ [pi:smax] (loc. pl.)

p i s e m ∅ | \/ | | | X XX X X X ∅ | \/ | | | \ N \ N / \ | \ | σ σ [pi:sem] (gen. pl.)

In (42) above, the root M-jer contains a skeletal slot, but because it is not linked to any vocalic features, the X-slot is unable to project a nucleus. When the loc. pl. ending /-a:x/ is added then (42-a), the syllable tier shows two adjacent long nuclei, and the Slovak Rhythmic Law is able to apply even though the M-jer is still present at that time. For the purpose of the skeletal tier, the M-jer is invisible. The derivation above shows that the proposed conjointly floating skeletal slot/feature melody configuration reflects the M-jers’ inability to participate in syllabification. In the gen. pl. (42-b), the root M-jer vocalizes in order to provide a nucleus for the consonant /m/ to syllabify with. It does so by linking up to the available skeletal slot. During the post-cyclic component, any unlinked segments are deleted. We also see here that the M-jer’s floating X-slot, unlike in SSM, cannot attempt to incorporate into the syllable structure on its own, as there is nowhere for it to go. 3.2

Summary. Because M-jers block syllabification and their phonetic nature is

unpredictable, I conclude that they must be represented on both the skeletal and melodic tiers. However, because they are invisible to syllabification and do not interfere with such operations as the Slovak Rhythmic Law, the two tiers must not be linked in the underlying representation. Because the skeletal tier does not access the

99

melodic tier, it cannot project a nucleus, rendering it invisible to the syllable tier. In the next chapter, I discuss several implications about the nature of syllabification that are made evident by the behavior of M-jers, specifically, that syllabification is cyclic (and possibly continuous); that morpheme-final consonants are ignored by the syllable parse until the next cycle; and that the syllable parse is directional, proceeding from right to left. This third observation is made apparent from the behavior of Slavic jers at the close of the LCS period, when, I suggest, they first began to detach from their skeletal slots at the post-cyclic level. I argue that it is the different components of the grammars in which jers and M-jers are dissociated from their skeletal slots (i.e., the post-cyclic and cyclic components, respectively), that accounts for the difference in distribution of YVoc in the two periods. I also discuss whether YVoc is a phonological or prosodic process, and whether syllabification is better modeled by rules or template. Finally, I discuss the behavior of H-jers adjacent to liquids, which varies across the different Slavic-speaking regions and appears to defy canonical analysis of YVoc. I argue that vocalization or deletion of these H-jers is dependent on the different constraints in syllable structure that have evolved in the various regions.

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Chapter Four Syllabification and Vocalization 4.0

Syllabification implications. In Chapter Two, I assumed that M-jers are vocalized not when followed by

another M-jer (which requires stipulating otherwise unmotivated word-end M-jers for certain noun forms), but rather, when followed by an unsyllabified consonant (Szpyra (1992), Cresti (1994)). In addition, I discussed whether M-jer vocalization and deletion were separate rules or whether they could be considered parts of one rule and concluded that they are indeed separate rules. I presented evidence from Rubach (1993) showing that YVoc is cyclic, whereas YDel is post-cyclic. In Chapter Three, I discussed recent work on the best form of representation of M-jers. Following a similar proposal from Sloan (1991) for Southern Sierra Miwok, I believe M-jers must be represented on both the skeletal and melodic tiers, but the information on the tiers is unlinked. Below, I shall discuss implications that jer (both modern and historical) behavior has for the nature of syllabification; specifically, that syllabification is part of the cyclic component, that morpheme-final consonants are extrametrical until the next cycle, and that syllabification is directional. The directional nature of syllabification, while not readily apparent in the modern grammars, is clearly evident in the grammars of the Slavic dialects at the end of the Late Common Slavic period, when the H-jers began to fall out of the vowel inventory. I propose that the difference in distribution of vocalized M-jers and H-jers falls out from the fact that delinking of the skeletal and melodic tiers was a surface structure innovation at the

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end of the LCS period, a structural configuration that over time became lexicalized and is now present at the morpheme level. The difference in jer treatment in the modern and historical grammars, then, is due not to differences in representation or conditions for vocalization, but simply to the component of the grammar where relinking occurs. Relinking, or YVoc, during the late LCS period occurred postcyclically, whereas in the modern grammars it is cyclical. I further argue that the special treatment accorded to H-jers when adjacent to liquids is a consequence of the differing syllable types evolving in the Slavic dialects (see Bethin (1998) for a similar view) and was subject to how well the dialects accepted syllabic liquids and whether multiple extrametrical consonants were accepted at word boundaries. To begin, I assume the Sonority Sequencing Generalization as stated in Selkirk (1984: 116) holds as a basic principle of syllabification: “In any syllable, there is a segment constituting a sonority peak that is preceded and/or followed by a sequence of segments with progressively decreasing sonority values.” Although there is little agreement on the relative sonority values for the different types of segments (or even on a precise definition of what is meant by sonority), it is well accepted that vowels are the most sonorous of segments, obstruents are the least, and sonorants are in between. 4.0.1 Cyclicity of syllabification. Some attention must be given to syllabification and to the component of grammar in which it operates. The question really amounts to whether rules of prosody are applied continuously or in stages, and, if the latter, then when. Ito (1988, 1989) assumes syllabification operates post-cyclically; Sloan

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(1991) provides convincing arguments for two-staged syllabification in Southern Sierra Miwok: once at the morpheme level and once more at the word level. Rubach (e.g., 1993), on the other hand, assumes not only that syllabification applies in all components of the grammar but also that it is continuous, i.e., that it applies before and after every phonological and morphological rule. However, his argumentation is dependent upon a number of posited complex phonological processes, the validity of which may or may not be generally accepted. I will show that M-jer behavior indicates syllabification in the Slavic languages is most likely cyclic, if not continuous. First, note that if syllabification is post-cyclic only, then YVoc would have to be a post-cyclic-only operation as well, contrary to what was established in 2.4.1 of Chapter Two. This is because YVoc requires *C to be triggered, and this cannot be determined until syllabification has occurred. Similarly, Polish o-raising, which is triggered by a closed syllable (when it occurs at all), of necessity could not occur until the post-cyclic level as well (and would, in all likelihood, need to be ordered before YVoc so as not to be bled by it.)74 This is illustrated in (1-a) below, where syllabification is assumed to be post-cyclic. The final consonant in each cycle is assumed to be extrametrical (that is, it does not enter the syllable parse). This will be discussed in the next section.

74

However, claiming that YVoc could bleed o-raising implies that resyllabification of /z/ from coda to onset occurs immediately after YVoc, which is itself a tacit assumption that syllabification is continuous.

103

(1)

a. Post-cyclic syllabification Cycle 1 kozkozCycle 2 koz-•k- koz-•ko-raising75 --YVoc --Cycle 3 koz•k-(•) koz•k-a o-raising --YVoc ---Post-cyclic koz•k(•) koz•ka \|/ | \|/ \| Syllab. σ * σ σ o-raising u u YVoc e --YDel ∅ ∅ Other s Surface ku.zek ku.ska

b. Two-stage syllabification Cycle 1 kozkoz\| \| σ σ Cycle 2 koz-•k- koz-•ko-raising --YVoc --Cycle 3 koz-•k-(•) koz-•k-a \| \| | σ σ σ o-raising --YVoc -- --Post-cyclic koz•k(•) koz•ka Syllab. \|/ | \|/ \| σ * σ σ o-raising u u YVoc e --YDel ∅ ∅ Other s Surface ku.zek ku.ska

In two-staged syllabification (1-b) above), proposed in Sloan (1991), syllabification occurs once at the morpheme level and again at the word level. (A final pass at syllabification would also be required for both post-cyclic and twostaged syllabification, after the other phonological rules have been applied, in order to prevent onsetless syllables.) Again, YVoc would not be able to occur until the post-cyclic level. This is because a morpheme-final consonant must be assumed to be extrametrical to prevent both o-raising and YVoc from over-applying. This will be further explained in the next section. For now, note simply that if morpheme-final C is extrametrical, then two-staged syllabification, like post-cyclic syllabification,

75

The relative order of o-raising and YVoc is simply for the sake of argument and is not one I support.

104

forces one to consider o-raising and YVoc both to be post-cyclic, with o-raising ordered before YVoc, in order for them to apply at all. What if one abandons the claim that YVoc is triggered by *C and instead reverts to Rubach’s claim that a M-jer in the following syllable triggers it? This allows YVoc to be triggered at the cyclic level, but because there is still no mechanism to apply o-raising cyclically, o-raising would be inappropriately bled. This is shown in (2) below, where two-staged (lexical and post-cyclic) syllabification is assumed (the same arguments would hold for syllabification that is post-cyclic only). Until the /z/ is syllabified as a coda, o-raising cannot occur. In (2-a) below, the vocalized M-jer makes post-cyclic syllabification of /z/ too late to raise the preceding /o/. The /z/ must be syllabified as a coda before YVoc occurs. (2)

Cycle 1

a. koz\| σ Cycle 2 koz-•k\| σ YVoc -Cycle 3 koz•k-(•) \| σ YVoc e Post-cyclic kozek(•) Syllab. \| \|/ σ σ o-raising -YDel ∅ Other Surface ⊗kozek \| \|/ σ σ

b. koz\| σ koz-•k\| σ -koz•k-a \| | σ σ -koz•ka \|/ \| σ σ u ∅ s √kuska \| \\| σ σ

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Thus, no matter how YVoc is triggered, unless syllabification is cyclic, YVoc must be post-cyclic in Polish. In section (2.4.1) of Chapter Two above, evidence was shown from Rubach (1993) that YVoc is necessarily cyclic in Slovak. This would force YVoc to operate in different components of the grammar for the two languages even though the distribution of vocalized M-jers is the same. Assuming that syllabification is cyclic is the only way that allows us to claim YVoc is cyclic for all the languages under study here. The next question to ask is whether syllabification occurs only once per cycle or continuously, and if only once per cycle, then when in the cycle does it occur. Unfortunately, there is no concrete evidence to show that it occurs continuously, because within a cycle, there are not enough syllable-structure-dependent rules applying in conjunction with the addition of new syllabifiable material to make any evaluation. For example, in the Polish example [kusek], does the /z/ resyllabify as an onset as soon as the M-jer is vocalized, or does it wait until the next cycle? The application of o-raising sheds no light here, because that rule already applied in the previous cycle, before YVoc occurred. In (3) below, whether syllabification occurs only once per cycle or applies again immediately after YVoc has absolutely no impact on the surface form.

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(3)

Cycle 1 Syllab.

koz\| σ Cycle 2 koz-•kSyllab. \|/ σ YVoc -o-raising u Cycle 3 kuz•k-(•) Syllab. \|/ | σ * YVoc e It is apparent here that syllabification is immediate as soon as the next

morpheme is attached (which initiates the next cycle). For example, in Cycle Two above, if syllabification did not occur until the end of the cycle, o-raising would not occur until Cycle Three, because the relevant syllable would not yet be closed. Theoretically, it might be argued that syllabification occurs only at the end of the cycle, and as such, o-raising would not successfully occur until Cycle Three. This would force YVoc not to occur until the post-cyclic component for this example, because /k/ would not attempt and fail to enter the parse in time to vocalize the M-jer. However, YVoc would also retain its cyclic status; in a chain of syllables containing M-jers, e.g., Polish /cuk•r• •k(•)/, the leftward M-jers would be vocalized during the cyclic components. This means some cyclic rules would end up applying in both the cyclic and post-cyclic components of the grammar, and the context-free post-cyclic rules would be ordered later.76 Occam’s Razor suggests

76

Admittedly, positing one final cycle that attaches not phonological material, but rather a word boundary, could solve this problem.

107

syllabification is the first thing that happens within a cycle: as soon as new phonological material is added, it enters the parse. This allows one to preserve a sharp distinction between the cyclic and post-cyclic components of the grammar. Given that syllabification occurs when the new cycle introduces new material, it is reasonable to assume that it is continuous; whenever a change occurs that can impact syllable structure, another syllable parse is initiated. However, the present work does not depend on whether syllabification is continuous or staged; but it does depend on the claim that syllabification occurs in all components of the grammar (cyclic, post-cyclic, and post-lexical), and that it occurs specifically at the beginning of the cycle. 4.0.2 Extrametrical consonants within a cycle. That new phonological material initiates another syllable parse comes with a caveat: within a cycle, if the final segment is a consonant, it is extrametrical until the next cycle; that is, it is ignored by the syllable parse (e.g., Borowski (1986), Ito (1988, 1989), Rubach (1992)). The word-final consonant can be picked up at the post-cyclic component, when a word boundary is encountered (or, often, it is syllabified in the post-lexical component as an onset in the following word). First, at the morpheme level, the extrametricality of morpheme-final consonants must be assumed; otherwise, morphemes such as /-•k-/ would enter the derivation with the M-jers already vocalized. Even if the morpheme could somehow enter the derivation with the M-jer unvocalized, that is, if the /k/ immediately entered the parse and became unsyllabified, YVoc should apply regardless of the ending.

108

Also, without extrametricality of the morpheme-final consonant, o-raising would apply in the root /koz-/ in all cases. A distinction must be made between /koz-/ which undergoes o-raising in the gen. pl. [kus], vs. /koz-/ that does not undergo raising in the nominative singular [ko.za]. Because o-raising and YVoc are considered cyclic rules, it can be claimed, as above, that they cannot apply until the next morpheme has been added because cyclic rules require a derived environment to apply, whether that be by the addition of another morpheme or the output of another phonological change. This claim alone, however, is merely stipulative, particularly because Strict Cyclicity (Mascaró (1976)) restricts application of rules inwardly on strings derived in earlier cycles. Under Strict Cyclicity, a rule is allowed to apply on such a string only when addition of the new morpheme supplies information crucial to obtaining the structural conditions necessary for the rule to apply. Given the string [[A-]n-B]n+1, where A and B are morphemes and n is a cycle, a cyclic rule X can effect a change on [A-] during cycle n+1 only if B supplies new information that obtains the environment necessary for X to apply. In the case of o-raising and YVoc, it is not that a derived environment is required for its own sake; it is that the position of a final consonant within a syllable is not determined until either a word boundary or another morpheme is encountered; that is, depending on what follows, the consonant could be a coda, an onset, or unsyllabified. Theoretically, there is no reason why a final consonant within a morpheme could not be syllabified as the coda or rendered unsyllabified, and then when the next morpheme is attached, its status could be changed by resyllabification.

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However, the behavior of YVoc (and o-raising) indicates this does not occur in the Slavic languages. Because the Slavic languages favor complex onsets over codas, this should hardly be surprising from a speaker’s point of view: why apply a rule of coda formation that is only going to be undone by complex onset formation in the next cycle? Rubach and Booij (1992: 712) illustrate this point with a different phenomenon, the behavior of liquid syllabification in Slovak. Here, liquids can be syllabic and occupy a nucleus position, e.g., [k k] ‘neck,’ [p t] ‘fence,’ or they can be nonsyllabic and occupy the onset or coda: [smrek] ‘spruce,’ [alarm] ‘alarm,’ [mlie.ko] ‘milk,’ [film] ‘film.’ Rubach and Booij (1992) show that the syllabicity of liquids is not lexically determined; it is entirely predictable and is dependent on whether or not they can be syllabified as onsets or codas. In the absence of a more sonorous segment, liquids are called into service as the syllable nucleus through a rule called Liquid Syllabification,77 but otherwise, they occupy the onset or coda, as shown below in (4) (Rubach and Booij (1992: 712)): (4)

mu.d c mu.drak

‘sage’ ‘wise guy’ (pejorative)

The interaction of Liquid Syllabification with the Rhythmic Law indicates that liquids become syllabic at the cyclic, not the post-cyclic level, according to

77

Note here syllabification means ‘becoming syllabic,’ not ‘being parsed into a syllable’!

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Rubach and Booij (1992). In (5) below, the presence of a long liquid in the root causes the dative plural ending /-a:m/ to shorten: (5)

v :b-a v :b-am

fem. nom. sg. fem. dat. pl.

‘willow’

Rubach and Booij (1992) point out that if the liquid were assigned to nucleus position at the post-cyclic level, it would not act as a long vowel in time to trigger the Rhythmic Law when the dative plural ending is attached (the Rhythmic Law is shown elsewhere to be cyclic). However, if Liquid Syllabification is cyclic, the question arises as to what prevents the /r/ from becoming syllabic in /mu.dr-ak/. In the stem /mudr-/ the /r/ is not able to become part of the coda because it is of greater sonority than the /d/. Therefore, it should project its own nucleus, but it does not. Instead, it syllabifies as an onset in the next cycle. Rubach and Booij (1992) resolve this problem by invoking final consonant extrametricality, proposed in Borowski (1986). The assumption is that in Cycle One, the /r/ in /mudr-/ is not parsed and thus, it escapes Liquid Syllabification. The nature of the morpheme in Cycle Two determines the fate of the liquid: if it begins with a consonant, the liquid becomes syllabic; if a vowel, it does not. This is illustrated in (6) below:

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(6)

Cycle One

mudr\|/ Syllabification σ Liquid Syl. -Cycle Two mudr-c \|/ | Syllabification σ * Liquid Syl. r | N Post-Cyclic mudrc \| \|/ σ σ

mudr\|/ σ -mudr-ak \|/ \|/ σ σ

mudrak \| \\|/ σ σ

To repeat, the notion of extrametricality is also needed to make the distinction between /koz-/ (where final /z/ is extrametrical; no raising occurs), /koz•k-/ (where /z/ is a coda, /k/ is extrametrical; o-raising occurs, YVoc does not occur), and /koz•k•/ (where /z/ is a coda, /k/ is unsyllabified; o-raising and YVoc occur). The claim for extrametricality does not hold for morpheme-final vowels. If it did, then in /koza/, the /a/ would not be able to syllabify with /z/ as its onset, and oraising would illegally occur. Vowels (fully-linked ones, that is) are assumed to be syllabified immediately, because they can occupy no position in the syllable other than the nucleus. The fact that M-jers require a consonant firmly established as unsyllabified to follow before they link up their skeletal slots and feature melodies appears to be an economy measure: if /-•k-/ is followed by a morpheme that will provide a nucleus for /k/ to syllabify with, e.g., /a/, then there is no need for the M-jer

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to vocalize. It is only if /-•k-/ is followed by no suitable nucleus that the M-jer vocalizes, in order to rescue the unsyllabified /k/.78 Polish Comparative Allomorphy appears to raise a problem for the claim that morpheme-final consonants are extrametrical until the next cycle. Recall that the Polish comparative has two allomorphs, /-ejši/ and /-ši/, the choice of which depends on whether the final consonant in the stem is syllabified or not: /tward.-ši/ ‘harder,’ but /m d. -ejši/ ‘wiser.’ The problem is that if the final consonant in the stem is 

extrametrical until the next cycle (and therefore is not considered unsyllabified by the grammar), how is the choice to be made between the two allomorphs? The question is even more perplexing if the stem contains a M-jer, such as /pev•n-/. How does the derivation choose between using the /-ejši/ allomorph, on the one hand, or vocalizing the M-jer and using the standard /-ši/ allomorph (i.e., [√pevnejši], not [⊗pevenši])? Bethin (1992) suggests one underlying form for the two allomorphs, in which a morphophonemic (or, perhaps, morpho-prosodic) rule (which I name comparative epenthesis) inserts /ej/ by epenthesis after *C, shown below: (7)

Comparative epenthesis:

∅ 

ej

/ *C __ ši]comp

Bethin does not admit the alternation between /ej/ and ∅ into the inventory of M-jers, asserting rather that this is a true instance of epenthesis, not vocalization.

78

Again, M-jers are lazy; they vocalize only when absolutely necessary.

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The alternation is entirely predictable in its distribution, so there is no need to represent anything as underlying in this alternation.79 The comparative epenthesis rule is illustrated in (8) and (9) below. In the first case, the stem-final consonant is syllabifiable; in the second, the stem-final consonant is not syllabifiable because of sonority sequencing violations. The derivations begin here in Cycle Two, with the attachment of the comparative morpheme. Both the root and the comparative morpheme have already been partially syllabified at the morpheme level. (8)

/tward-ši/ [twardši] ‘harder’ t w a r d- -š i | | | | | | | X XX XX XX | | | | | | \ | N | | N \ \ | / \ | \ \ N’ \ N’ \ \| \| N” N” 

Cycle Two

79

By this logic, it might be possible to argue that many of the suffixes argued to contain M-jers (e.g., /-•k-/) actually do not have them, because the alternation between /-ok-/ and /-k-/ is entirely predictable from syllable structure. This may well be the case; as vowel/zero alternations become more and more productive, it is expected that M-jers will be replaced with /∅/ for the underlying form and an epenthetic vowel when followed by *C. Note, however, that even if it can be successfully argued that M-jers are not part of the underlying representation of suffixes, they still are present in roots, where the distribution of vowel/zero alternations is not predictable.

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Syllab.

t wa r d š i | | | | | | | X XX XX X X | | | | \ | | \ | N | \ | N \ \ | / \ \ | \ \ N’ \ \ N’ \ \| \ \| N” N”

In (8) above, as soon as the comparative morpheme is attached, the /d/ enters the metrical parse and syllabifies, according to Bethin (1992), as a complex onset. Comparative epenthesis does not apply because the appropriate condition never arises. (9)

/m dr-ši/ [m d ejši] ‘wiser’ m d r-š i | | | | | | X XX X X X | | | | | | N/ | N \ |/ \ | \ N’ \ N’ \| \| N” N” 

Cycle Two

Syllab.







m d | | | X XX | | | | N/ \ |/ \ N’ \| N” 

r | X | *

š | X | | \ \

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i | X | N | N’ \| N”

Epenthesis/ Syllab./ Other

m d - -e j | | | | | | X XX X XX | | | \ | | | N/ \ N/ \ |/ \ |/ \ N’ \ N’ \| \ | N” N” 

š | X | | \ \

i | X | N | N’ \| N”

In (9) above, the /r/ enters the metrical parse in Cycle Two, but it is unable to be incorporated into either the previous or the following syllable without violating sonority sequencing restrictions. Epenthesis of /ej/ occurs, syllabifying the /r/.80 What is peculiar is what happens when the comparative is attached to a stem that contains a M-jer, as in (10) below. When the morpheme attaches, the stem-final /n/ is unsyllabified, providing the appropriate environment for the preceding M-jer to vocalize. However, vocalization does not occur. Instead, the epenthesis rule applies and syllabifies the /n/, bleeding YVoc and yielding [√pevnejši], not [⊗pevenši]. (10)

/pev•n-ši/ p e v E | | | X XX X | | | | N/ \ | / \ N’ \| N” 

Cycle Two

[pevnejši] ‘more certain’ n-š i | | | X XX | | | N \ | \ N’ \| N”

80

Whether the final stage of syllabification here occurs during Cycle Two, immediately after epenthesis (arguing for continuous syllabification), or during the post-cyclic component (arguing for staged syllabification) cannot be determined from this derivation.

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Syllab.

p | X | | \ \

e v E n | | | XX XX | | | N/ * | / N’ \| N”

š | X | | \ \

i | X | N | N’ \| N”

Epenthesis/ Syllab.

p | X | | \ \

e v E n- -e j | | | | | XX XX XX | | \ | | N/ \ N/ | / \ |/ N’ \ N’ \| \| N” N”

š | X | | \ \

i | X | N | N’ \| N”

It might seem odd for the syllable parse, which moves from right to left (see below), to provide nuclei to the right of the unsyllabified consonant instead of to the left, as this might involve “backtracking.” Also, given the competition of two syllable-repair strategies, what determines which one is selected? Bethin’s (1992) analysis does not consider this an issue, because it assumes YVoc is triggered by the presence of a M-jer in the following syllable, not by an unsyllabified consonant. Accordingly, in Bethin’s analysis, YVoc cannot apply in cases such as (10) above because the right environment has not been met. However, as discussed in Chapter Two, criticisms have been leveled against this as the conditioning environment because of its lack of explanatory adequacy. There is no principled reason why an unlinked vowel should vocalize simply because another unlinked vowel is present in the following syllable, with prosodic licensing of the

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intervening *C as a happy by-product. Furthermore, the bisyllabic analysis depends crucially on the presence of word-end M-jers in certain noun case endings which, because they are never phonetically realized, cannot be shown to exist on independent grounds. In Chapter Five I shall discuss this matter further, casting serious doubt on the existence of word-end M-jers in the nominal forms. Instead, I believe this simply illustrates how the different domains of the grammar interact. YVoc is a rule that has effects in the phonological and prosodic domains—that is, prosodic constraints serve as the input, causing a segment to be phonetically realized. Comparative epenthesis shows the interaction on three different levels: morphological, phonological, and prosodic. Prosodic constraints, as with YVoc, trigger application of the rule, with phonetically-realized segments serving as the output; however, overseeing all of this is the morphological domain. The glide in epenthetic /ej/ is unmotivated on phonological grounds; the epenthetic /ej/ as a whole is a part of the comparative’s morphology, whose application takes precedence over the phono-prosodic rule YVoc. Just as morphological rules can trigger M-jer vocalization without regard to syllable structure (e.g., imperfective derivation), so can they also override vocalization, creating their own effects on syllable structure. YVoc, which applies without respect to the morphological domain, does so only if the output of the morphological rules has not bled it. 4.1

Syllabification and the Fall of the H-jers. Thus far, I have discussed reasons for assuming that syllabification is cyclic

(possibly continuous) and that morpheme-final consonants are ignored by the

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metrical parse until a word boundary or another morpheme is encountered. Below, I shall discuss another property of syllabification in the Slavic languages: the parse is directional, in this case beginning from the right edge of the word and moving left (see, e.g., Ito (1988, 1989), Dell and Elmedlaoui (1985), Sloan (1991), Cresti (1994) for similar discussion). Because syllabification operates cyclically, and morphemes in Slavic are rarely more than one syllable, this property is not apparent in the modern languages. Instead, one must turn to the late LCS period, during the socalled fall of the H-jers, to examine this fact. 4.1.1 Delinking at the surface level. Bethin (1998) suggests that the H-jers differed somehow from the other LCS vowels in their major class features and were categorically delinked from their morae.81 She points out that the H-jers lost the ability to carry stress (for northern dialects) or tone (for southern dialects) prior to the fall of the H-jers, and Bethin believes this may indicate a change in the H-jers’ ability to carry a mora (Bethin (1998: 212)). While she is not specific on what caused the delinking, it is important to remember that the H-jers came from EPSl short /i/ and /u/. These phonemes, in turn, are generally considered to be distinguished from glides only by syllable position; when part of the syllable nucleus, they are manifested as the vowels /i/ and /u/, but when part of the onset or the coda, they are the glides /j/ and /w/. If this is true, then either /i/ and /u/ do not differ from glides in terms of class features, or else class features are dependent upon syllable position.

81

Or skeletal slots, depending on the model.

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Keeping this in mind, then, the ability for /i/ and /u/ to detach from their associated morae is not unprecedented. According to Bethin, coda glides (and also nasals) lost their ability to carry a mora very early (between the 4th and 6th centuries for glides; between the 7th and 9th centuries for nasals).82 The constraint that syllables must end in a mora was what, in her opinion, caused diphthongs ending in glides or nasals to monophthongize. In the case of the H-jers, /i/ and /u/ detach from their morae not when they are part of the syllable coda, but when they are part of the syllable nucleus. However, not all [+high] vowels detached from their morae, just the [+high] and [-long] ones, whose LCS reflexes are the H-jers. The assumption here would be that the extra mora enabled the [+long] vowels /i:/ and /u:/ to retain their moraicity. Granted, it is not certain exactly when length ceased to be contrastive, and whether short and long vowels differed in mora count at the underlying level at the time of the fall of the H-jers. However, it seems plausible that the H-jers had some feature combination that is very marked (possibly [+high] [-tense]).83 The [+high] [+long] vowels at some point in history exchanged their (phonemic) feature [long] for [+tense] and were not marked. During the late LCS period, the entire Slavic vowel inventory underwent a series of changes, which resulted in a collapse from eleven to five or six vowels (depending on the dialect). I suggest that during this

82

The H-jers fell between the 10th and 12th centuries. Curiously, liquids, which are generally considered intermediate to glides and nasals in terms of relative sonority, did not lose their moraicity until much later, when LCS had already broken up into distinct dialects. 83 See Chapter One above.

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restructuring, the H-jer feature [+high] [-tense] combinations were no longer permitted to exist in surface form. One possible resolution might have been to change a feature and merge the H-jers with other vowels. For the most part, this did not happen, although it might have been the case in Polabian, where Townsend (1996: 74) notes that only word-final H-jers deleted; other etymologically weak Hjers vocalized: (11)

tIma kUto 



Rus: t’ma Rus: kto

Pb: t’åm Pb: kåtü

‘darkness’ ‘who’

For the vast majority of Slavic languages, it appears the H-jers delinked from their morae or skeletal slots. It must be born in mind that the loss of the H-jers was a gradual phenemenon. It is not believed that the H-jers in all positions of the word fell out at the same time in the same dialect areas. Vlasto (1986: 51-52) claims that the most reliable sources show that the earliest H-jers to fall out were word-medial H-jers in pre-tonic position (e.g., Old Russian kto < kUto); next to be lost were isolated post-tonic H-jers (Old Russian utka < utUka). Such a situation would cause only a single unsyllabified consonant, not a string of them, which appears to have resyllabified as a coda rather than causing the H-jer to change its features and relink. If Vlasto’s claim is true, it would seem likely that the addition of the coda as an allowable syllable position happened gradually and was in place by the time the H-jers fell out categorically. Also, the fact that delinking was initially a function of stress, that is, at first it was pretonic H-jers that delinked, indicates that delinking was a surface phenomenon occurring at word level, not the lexical level.

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Eventually the H-jers did delink in most positions. If stress fell on a syllable containing a H-jer, it generally retracted one syllable and the H-jer deleted (see Chapter Five for further discussion). This summarial delinking occurred contextfreely at the post-cyclic (word) level, preserving both the skeletal slots and the feature melodies of the H-jers but destroying their syllable structure: if a skeletal slot is not associated with a feature melody, it is unable to project a nucleus. The consonant immediately preceding the delinked H-jer, initially a syllable onset, then resyllabified as a coda, as shown in the Russian example in (12) below: (12) / X | s

/ X | t

σ | X | o

/ X | l

σ | X | 

U

σ * / / | / X XX XX | | | | s t o l U De-linking 

σ / / | \ X XX XX | | | | s t o l U Resyllabification ‘table,’ masc. nom. sg.

For H-jers in adjacent syllables, resyllabification is blocked by the skeletal slots of the H-jers, as shown in the Russian example in (13) below, where only the stray /t/ can be resyllabified. The /c/ has no neighboring nucleus to syllabify with; an intervening H-jer prevents it from attaching to the preceding syllable, and so it is prosodically unlicensed.

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(13)

σ | X | o

σ / | XX | | t I

σ / | XX | | c U 

σ * * | / / X XX XX | | | o t I c U Delinking 

σ * | \ / X XX XX | | | | o t I c U ‘father,’ masc. nom. sg.

Ito (1988, 1989) claims that all segments must be prosodically licensed, that is, they must be parsed into syllables. Unlicensed segments can be deleted by Stray Erasure or rescued by a device she calls Stray Epenthesis, in which an epenthetic vowel provides a nucleus that the unlicensed segment can syllabify with. I propose the rule YVoc as a variant of Stray Epenthesis: the already-existing skeletal slots and H-jer feature melodies link up again, allowing syllabification of stray consonants. Because [+high] and [-tense] can no longer exist simultaneously in surface form, one of the features changes, usually [+high]. (The particulars for the features would vary with dialect.) Apart from the feature changing operation, which is a secondary effect, YVoc works exactly as it is proposed in Sloan (1991) and Cresti (1994): (14)

YVoc: X 

[-cons] [+high] [-tense]

X |

/__ *C,

where *C is not syllabified.

[-high]

H-jers that never relink in the derivation do not receive prosodic licensing and are deleted, either by Stray Erasure or by a rule (YDel). The process is illustrated in (15) below.

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(15)

σ | X | o

σ / | XX | | t I

σ / | XX | | c U 

σ * * | / / X XX XX | | | o t I c U De-linking 

σ σ | / | \ X XX XX | | | | o t e c U Resyllab., Relinking 

σ σ | / | X XX | | | o t e YDel

\ X | c

In (15) above, the H-jers delink at the word level. The right-most H-jer /U/ is not followed by any unsyllabified material and therefore does not relink. The wordmedial H-jer /I/ is, however, followed by a stray /*c/, so it relinks with its skeletal slot and changes its features to [-high]. Relinking provides a syllable nucleus for both /c/ and the preceding /t/ to syllabify with. 4.1.2 Lexicalization: Differences between historical and modern grammars. The rule YVoc, which relinks the conjointly floating feature melody and skeletal slot, operates exactly as it does in the modern grammars: it is triggered by an unsyllabified consonant to the right of the H-jer. The crucial difference is the component of the grammar in which the rule operates. In the LCS grammars, delinking of the H-jers happened mainly at the word level, in the post-cyclic component. The autosegmental combination of simultaneously floating melodies and skeletal slots, in which information existed on both tiers but was no longer associated, was a surface structure innovation to satisfy some sort of constraint on surface melody features. Over time, the delinking became more and more lexicalized as the grammar accepted this tier combination as a new phoneme, just as a single vowel linked to two skeletal slots (i.e., length) gains and loses phonemicity during the progression of a language’s development. As the conjointly floating combination was accepted as a phoneme, it

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became more and more lexicalized, up to the point where the H-jers were delinked at the morpheme level. This is their state in the modern languages, where they have been joined by new vowel-zero alternations, resulting in more M-jers. Because delinking occurs in different components of the modern and historical grammars, the domain where relinking occurs is also different. For the Hjers, relinking necessarily happens post-cyclically, and the domain is over the entire word. For modern M-jers, which are lexically delinked, relinking happens in the cyclic component; the domain is across a single morpheme boundary. This explains why the distribution of vocalized H-jers is different from that of vocalized M-jers. A modern M-jer vocalizes as soon as a new morpheme is added, ensuring that all but the right-most M-jer will vocalize.84 A H-jer is vocalized as part of the word-level syllabification, but economy prevents categorical relinking. The addition of the coda into Slavic syllable structure, also a fairly recent innovation, ensured that categorical relinking would not need to happen. The difference in domain of application between the modern and historical grammars will be illustrated in the next section. Below is a further discussion of how syllabification works in the Slavic languages. A final possible difference between the historical and modern grammars is in the nature of the delinked feature melodies. I believe that the features of the H-jers were fully specified, possibly [+high] [-tense], before relinking but changed after relinking. I have no strong position on the features of the modern M-jers, whether

84

This statement must be modified if the existence of word-end M-jers is not accepted.

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they are fully- or only partially-specified, or whether they undergo any featurechanging rule when they relink. Part of this would depend upon which vowel/zero alternations are admitted to the inventory of M-jers. 4.1.3 Directionality of syllabification. Above, I discussed the following implications regarding syllabification in Slavic: 1)

Syllabification is cyclic, possibly continuous.

2)

If the final segment in a cycle is a consonant, it is considered extrametrical

and does not enter the syllable parse until the next morpheme is added. The wordfinal consonant can be picked up at the post-cyclic component, when a word boundary is encountered. To this is added another, following Ito (1988, 1989): 3)

Syllabification is directional in Slavic, proceeding from right to left. The question of whether syllabification occurs directionally or in parallel over

a given domain is not new. For example, Rubach assumes that syllabification occurs in parallel; within a domain, all vocalic segments project nuclei at the same time, and then the surrounding segments are syllabified according to other rules (see below for a brief discussion). Others (e.g., Ito (1988, 1989), Sloan (1991)) assume that syllabification is directional, and that languages vary according to whether it occurs from right-to-left or left-to-right. If syllabification occurred in parallel over the domain (i.e., the word), it would over-generate relinking, because all the stray onsets would appear unlicensed (*C) at once. In (16) below, /n/, /s/, and /k/ would be simultaneously unsyllabified

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and all the H-jers would have relinked, yielding unattested ⊗Smolenesk, rather than historically correct √Smolnesk (Old Russian). (16)

Parallel application of YVoc: σ * * * / / | / / / / X XX XX XX XX X | | | | | | | s mo l I n I s k U 

/ X | s

⊗Smolenesk σ σ σ / | / | / | \ X XX XX XX | | | | | | | mo l e n e s

\ XX | k U

If syllabification is directional, the parse recognizes unlicensed segments only one at time. Accordingly, relinking occurs only one H-jer at a time, in conjunction with the parse. Relinking of a H-jer rescues not only the unlicensed segment to its right, but also the segment to its left (which the parse has not even recognized yet as licensed or not). Syllabification of that leftward segment bleeds relinking of the preceding H-jer if there is one. This is illustrated below in (17). (17)

Directional application of YVoc: σ * * / / | / / / X XX XX XX XX X X | | | | | | | | s mo l I n I s k U s 1 2 3 

/ X | s

/ X | m

σ | X | o

\ X | l

/ X | n

σ | X | e

\ X | s

σ / | X XX X | | | mo l I

/ X | n

σ | X | e

\ X | s

\ XX | k U 

\ X | k

If the syllable parse in (17) above begins at the right edge of the string and moves left, the historically correct √Smolnesk is obtained. The /s/ and /k/ fail to

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syllabify, so the preceding H-jer (jer 2 above) links up, providing a nucleus and allowing /s/ and /k/ to parse as a coda. The consonant /n/ preceding the vocalized H-jer resyllabifies as its onset, following an apparent language universal that …CV… is always tautosyllabic. The /n/ is preceded by a H-jer, but because the /n/ is now part of a syllable, nothing happens to that H-jer. The syllable parse continues on and joins /l/ to the coda position of the preceding syllable. Finally, the remaining unlinked H-jers (1 and 3) are deleted. This yielded the historical form Smolnesk. At the lexical and cyclic levels, directionality is unnoticeable in Slavic, because very few morphemes are more than one syllable long. I assume that each syllabification pass starts at the right edge of the string and parses left. It repairs any unsyllabified consonants it finds along the way but preserves original syllable structures as much as possible. This results in different relinking patterns in the historical and modern grammars. Compare below the diminutive of dom ‘house’ from two stages of Slovak (data from Pauliny (1963: 81)). The derivation on the left (18-a) is from a very early stage of Slovak, when H-jers were still linked in the underlying representation, and delinking was still post-cyclic. The derivation on the right (18-b) is from a later stage of Slovak, when the delinked configuration had been lexicalized into M-jers, causing relinking to be a cyclic operation. (Rubach notes that Slovak has since replaced the later dome ek/dome ka alternation with steady 



dom ek/dom eka. Many words with multiple vowel/zero alternations generalize one 



of the forms throughout the entire paradigm, eliminating all the alternations.) Here, syllabification is assumed to have already begun at the morpheme level, so the

128

vowels already project a nucleus. Morpheme-final consonants are extrametrical. Because syllabification is directional, when a H-jer delinks, the consonant onset it left behind is not instantaneously marked unsyllabified. This marking occurs when the syllable parse reaches the consonant; this is the whole point of directionality. Otherwise, YVoc would be triggered for all the H-jers at the same time. Note that the difference between H-jers and M-jers is represented structurally; that is, /I/ and /U/ are linked or unlinked with their skeletal slots, respectively. (18) UR

a. Post-LCS Sk /dom- -Ik- -Ik- -U/ ||| || || | XXX XX XX X Cycle One σ / | X XX | | | d o m-

b. Later Sk /dom- -Ik- -Ik- -(U)/ ||| | | XXX XX XX X σ / | X XX | | | d o m-

/ X | d

σ σ | | XX X X | | | | o m- -I k-

/ X | d

σ | XX X X | | | o m- -I k-

/ X | d

σ | X | o

/ X | m

/ X | d

σ | \ XX X X | | | o m I k-

/ X | d

σ | X | o

σ σ / | | X XX X X | | | | m I k- -I k-

/ X | d

σ * | \ | XX XX X X | | | | o m I k- -I k-

Cycle Two

(Resyllab.)

Cycle Three

σ | X X | | I k-

129

/ X | d

σ | X | o

σ / | / X XX | | | m I

/ X | d

σ | X | o

/ X | m

/ X | d

σ | X | o

σ σ σ / | / | / | X XX XX X | | | | | | I k U m I

(Resyllab.)

Cycle Four

(Resyllab.)

Post-cyclic

(Resyllab.) YVoc

σ | X X | | I k-

σ σ σ | / | | XX XX X | | | | | I I k- -U

σ / | X XX XX XX X | | | | | d o m I I k U (Delinking)

/ X | d

σ * | / XX XX XX X | | | | | o m I e k U

/ X | d

σ σ | \ / | \ XX XX XX X | | | | | o m I e k U

(Resyllab.)

130

/ X | d

σ | X | o

/ X | m

σ | \ XX X X | | | e I k-

/ X | d

σ | X | o

/ X | m

σ * | \ | XX XX X | | | e I k- -U

/ X | d

σ | X | o

/ X | m

σ σ | / | \ XX XX X | | | | e e k U

YDel / X | d Surface:

σ | \ XX | | o m

σ / | \ X XX | | | e k

/ X | d

dom. ek

σ | X | o

/ X | m

σ σ | / | \ XX XX | | | | e e k

do.me. ek

During the cyclic level, syllabification generally affects only the new morphemes, because the other segments in the string are already syllabified. In (18-a) above, each instance of resyllabification within a cycle results only in syllabifying a morpheme-final consonant from the previous cycle (which was extrametrical) as an onset. In (18-b), resyllabification establishes that the morphemefinal consonant from the previous cycle is unsyllabified because the new morpheme fails to provide a nucleus for the preceding consonant. This situation is repaired by linking a M-jer with its skeletal slot. (I have abbreviated the above derivation by showing a consonant as unsyllabified (marked with an asterisk) at the beginning of a cycle, as soon as a new morpheme is added. This really should wait until resyllabification, which should be split into two steps.) It is in the post-cyclic level of (18-a) above, after delinking, that the directional nature of syllabification becomes apparent. Here, the categorical delinking of the H-jers causes a chain of stray consonants that must be resyllabified if they are to be realized phonetically. The parse addresses first the right-most consonant and links up the preceding H-jer. The fact that the unsyllabified consonant triggers linking of the H-jer to its left, not its right, must be stipulated but may follow from a reluctance of the parse, which is moving leftward, to backtrack. The H-jer to

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the left, then, is favored over the right-ward H-jer. The relinked H-jer provides a nucleus with which the consonants on either side of it can syllabify. The consonant to the left of the H-jer, now syllabified, does not trigger relinking of the H-jer preceding it. In (18-b), the delinking exists at the morpheme level, so the addition of each new morpheme immediately introduces an unsyllabified consonant that must be dealt with through YVoc. This gives the appearance that vocalization is occurring from left to right and with no alternating pattern of vocalized/unvocalized M-jers— opposite to what happened at the end of the LCS period, when the H-jers fell, whose alternating pattern is determined from right to left. 4.2

Theoretical implications. Stray Epenthesis, according to Ito (1988, 1989), is not so much a

phonological rule as it is a prosodic operation in which a syllable template forces the creation of a new vocalic segment in order to rescue the surrounding unlicensed segments. This leads to the following questions about Slavic: 1) Is YVoc a phonological rule or a prosodic rule, and 2) Is syllabification best modeled by a series of rules that create syllable structure as a function of the existing segments, or by a template (that is, a pre-defined structure) that tries to incorporate the segments into the structure in the most efficient way possible? 4.2.1 YVoc: Phonological rule or prosodic rule? With regard to the first question, I use the term phonological rule to refer to rules applying to the phonemic tiers, that is, rules effecting changes on feature melodies and skeletal slots, and the term prosodic rule to refer to rules affecting syllabification, stress assignment, or

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tone. YVoc straddles both categories: it is a structural rule acting on the phonemic tiers, but it is conditioned by and provides material for the syllable tier, and it affects how surrounding segments will be parsed. The facts that it (a) applies in conjunction with the syllabification process in a directional manner and (b) its sole function is to repair ill-formed syllables may prompt us to consider YVoc as part of the syllabification process, but these alone are not conclusive. Ito (1988: 204) notes “many phonological analyses proposed in the literature contain epenthesis rules applying iteratively in a directional manner….” However, YVoc is not in itself a directional operation. It is a process that occurs in response to *C, and its apparent directionality is a consequence of the directional nature of the syllable parse, which encounters *C one at a time. If YVoc turns out to be a syllabification rule or process, one thing we would not expect to find is other phonological rules intervening between syllabification and YVoc. Recall that the Polish comparative epenthesis rule intervenes between the syllabification parse and the operation of YVoc (bleeding it), but the epenthesis itself is a morpho-prosodic rule, since it, like YVoc, is triggered by unlicensed segments and serves to rescue them. Given that rules of prosody, morphology, and phonology interact and cannot be isolated from each other, it is reasonable for a morphoprosodic rule to interfere with a phono-prosodic rule. Although I consider the question regarding the status of YVoc to be open, I find it interesting that Rubach, who proposes an elaborate set of cyclic phonological rules for modern Slovak and

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Polish, without exception orders YVoc immediately after syllabification, before any other rules apply within a cycle. 4.2.2 Rule-driven vs. templatic syllabification. Regarding the second question, there is no strong agreement on the issue of whether syllabification is governed by rules or a template. For example, Rubach (e.g., 1993) assumes that in Slavic languages syllabification is driven by rules, and Dell and Elmedlaoui (1985) make a case for the superiority of the rule-driven approach for Imdlawn Tashlhiyt Berber. Ito (1988, 1989), however, criticizes syllabification by rules as requiring more stipulations than templatic syllabification. Under the rule-driven approach, the conditioning environment for relinking must state whether it occurs to the right or to the left of the unsyllabified consonant. In addition, direction of the syllable parse must be stated as right-to-left or left-to-right. Ito (1988, 1989) uses data from Iraqi and Cairene Arabic to argue that under the template approach, only direction of parse need be stated. Maximization (the principle requiring as many syllable positions to be filled as possible before parsing a new one) will determine whether the jer to right or left of unsyllabified consonant is relinked. A templatic model of syllabification might seem more compatible with a directional parse than with a parallel parse. Under such a model, it is assumed the grammar has developed a fully-formed syllable structure, whose exact shape is language-specific. Some features appear to be universal: onset positions must be filled before coda positions (again, meaning …CV 

….CV, not ⊗…C.V), and

complex onsets are favored over complex codas. The template moves along a string,

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beginning at one edge and making its way toward the other, gathering as many segments as possible into one syllable without violating universal and languagespecific constraints, such as sonority sequencing. Ito (1989) suggests thinking of the string of segments as on a conveyer belt that carries them to the template, where they are bundled into a syllable and moved along to make room for the next sequence of segments. For further details on templatic syllabification, see Ito (1988, 1989). Under the assumption that syllabification occurs in parallel over a domain, a rule-driven approach would seem more likely. Any segments over a minimum sonority threshold (determined by the language) might project a nucleus automatically, and then the rest of the syllable structure would be projected by further rules, depending on the nature of the surrounding segments. If the minimum sonority threshold of a nucleus is an absolute value, rather than determined relative to other segments (e.g., all vowels automatically project a nucleus, vs. the most sonorous segment in a string projects a nucleus), it might be expected that syllabification would occur in parallel rather than directionally. However, a rule-driven model is by no means barred from a directional parse. Even if vowels automatically project a nucleus, the parsing of the rest of the segments may indeed be directional. Ito (1988, 1989) criticizes the rule-driven approach not only for the dual stipulation of direction of parse and which side of *C the epenthesis occurs, but also for not accounting for the fact that languages with a right-to-left parse have stray epenthesis to the left of *C (not to the right), and vice versa for languages with a left-to-right parse. However, the nature of this

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distribution might be due to a reluctance of the parse to backtrack; for example, if the parse moves from right to left and encounters *C, epenthesis might be more likely to occur to the left of *C because it is on the way and allows the parse to continue in the same direction uninterrupted. See 4.4.2 and 4.4.3 below, involving H-jers and liquids, which indicates that this distribution is a tendency, not a full-fledged gap as Ito claims. Although I have come to no strong conclusion as to which model is superior, I am assuming for this analysis Rubach’s (1993) Syllable Structure Algorithm (SSA) (to be discussed below). Both approaches to syllabification require certain stipulations. Rule-driven syllabification requires the dual stipulation of direction of parse and that the jer to the left of an unsyllabified consonant links up. Templatic syllabification stipulates only the direction of parse. However, it requires that any CV sequence be parsed together in the same syllable. This means it requires a lookahead mechanism in order to determine in which syllable to fit a given consonant. Without this stipulation, a left-to-right parse coupled with Maximization, the principle requiring all permissible syllable positions to be filled before starting up a new syllable, would predict a CVCV sequence to be parsed as CVC.V. The ruledriven approach has a similar stipulation in that the CV-Rule universally must be ordered before all other rules. However, theoretically, a rule-driven approach to syllabification fits more naturally with a Lexical Phonology framework, which assumes phonological and morphological processes to be the result of ordered rules—so why not prosodic processes as well?

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Another reason for adopting the rule-driven approach is the following: if one accepts the claim that the difference between /i/ and /j/ is syllable position (see, e.g., Selkirk (1984), Townsend (1996), Bethin (1998)), not feature composition, a templatic model has difficulty correctly generating the following Russian forms: (19)

a. p | \ \

i a n i n o | | | | | | NN \ N \ N | | \| \| N” N” N” N” ‘piano’ neut. nom. sg.

b. p’ j | | \ \ \\

a n o | | | N \ N | \| N” N” ‘drunken’ neut. nom. sg.

Under a rule-driven approach, it might be stipulated that certain [-cons] [+high] segments are pre-linked to syllabic nuclei, just as in languages with phonemic length, vowels are lexically linked to one or two skeletal slots.85 (See Levin (1985) for a similar view.) A templatic model, by its very nature, would predict (19-a) above to yield ⊗pjanino. I therefore assume (but am by no means committed to) rule-driven syllabification, with the disclaimer that some instances exist where a template approach appears more efficient, and sometimes the rule-driven one is more appropriate.

85

The templatic model could be resurrected here if a /j/ is claimed to exist between the /i/ and /a/ in (19-a). However, because its presence is predictable, it is hard to defend its existence at the underlying level. A second possibility is to dispute the claim that /i/ and /j/ are the same in terms of feature composition. Defending this widely-accepted assumption is beyond the scope of this work. Note, however, that a similar relationship holds between syllabic and non-syllabic liquids, which are phonetically different, but whose ability to project a nucleus is not necessarily always predictable by the surrounding segments (see Bethin (1998) for examples in LCS).

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4.3

The Syllable Structure Algorithm and YVoc Rubach (1993: 212) proposes a set of syllabification rules, which he calls the

Syllable Structure Algorithm (SSA), shown in (20) below (following the earlier proposal of Levin (1985)). They begin with the syllable nuclei, which are projected simultaneously by vocalic segments, and build up the syllable structure according to the adjacent segments. (20)

N-Placement:

N | X X | | [-cons] [-cons] 

(Complex) Onset Rule: N” N” | X X 

CV Rule: N | (X)X 

N” /| / N / | (X) X

Coda Rule: N” | N’ | N | XX 

N” | N’ |\ N\ | \ X X

Complex Coda Rule: N’ N’ | \ | XX XX 

The N-Placement Rule states that vowels project nuclei, which are syllable heads. The CV Rule requires that a syllable head then has a maximal projection N”, and any segment to the immediate left of the vowel will attach at N” as an onset. The stipulation that the N” projection is ordered before the intermediate N’ projection ensures that a VCV string parses as V.CV, not VC.V, a constraint that appears to be a language universal.86 The other rules syllabify the remaining segments; according to Rubach, their relative order is language-specific, depending

86

Recall that templatic syllabification also requires some sort of CV stipulation.

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on whether the language favors complex onsets over codas (CV.CCV or CVC.CV). However, in a directional parse, the relative ordering of the two rules would have no affect on whether a language prefers codas or complex onsets. It is the direction of the parse itself, not the order of the rules, that determines this preference.87 Rather than assuming that syllabification occurs in parallel, as Rubach does, I suggest thinking of the SSA as a continuously rotating cycle of rules that starts at one end of a string and moves toward the other end (in Slavic, this would be from right to left), searching for appropriate nuclei (syllable heads). When it encounters a full vowel, a head (N) is projected and then, depending on the surrounding segments, more projections are added. YVoc occurs in response to the SSA if it has already encountered a consonant that failed to join the prosodic structure (i.e., a *C to the right of the jer). YVoc must be ordered before N-Placement so that the vocalized jer can be linked up to a syllable nucleus (via N-Placement) within that cycle of the SSA and not have to wait for another pass at syllabification. Once a nucleus is projected, the surrounding segments can be parsed according to the SSA. This requires the SSA to be able to operate over a range of segments, not just one segment at a time. I assume, that this range is limited, ending when the next segment is encountered whose sonority disqualifies it from the current syllable (e.g., a vowel or sonorant to the left of an obstruent), as in (21) below. Also, the SSA is centered around nuclei;

87

Because of some variation in native speakers as to the division of syllables (see, e.g., Rubach (1993) for Slovak, Bethin (1992) for Polish), it is likely the mechanisms for assigning codas and complex onsets is considerably more complex than simply direction or rule-ordering alone, involving, among other things, reference to morpheme boundaries.

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that is, it moves from one syllable head to the next, incorporating as many surrounding segments as possible into that syllable. The SSA’s directional nature prevents it from backtracking to nuclei or potential nuclei (jers) once it has passed over them. However, as will be discussed below in Sections 4.4.2 and 4.4.3, the strength of directionality of the SSA varies with the Slavic dialect; in some instances, the SSA can vocalize a jer that it has already passed over. I further assume that the SSA is oblivious to internal morpheme boundaries, which is why syllable and morpheme boundaries do not coincide in Slavic. As each morpheme is attached, the SSA applies over the entire string, not just the new morpheme. Otherwize, the /z/ in /koz•k(•)/ would not close the preceding syllable in time to feed o-raising: /ko.(z)-/ 

/koz. •(k)-/ 

[kuz. •(k)-] 

[ku.zek], [ku.ska].

Although the /o/ already projects a head from an earlier pass, the SSA operates on it again, giving it a N’ projection to incorporate the /z/, which is no longer extrametrical, into the coda. (21)

N | VR ¦ C R V R ¦ C R V \ / range of SSA within a given cycle

4.3.1 Syllabification of H-jers and non-liquid consonants. Below are examples from Old Russian showing how the SSA and YVoc might work together. Let us begin the derivations at the point when the H-jers have detached from their skeletal slots. At this stage in the historical development of the language, word-end H-jers

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(here, the masculine nominative singular) are assumed to still be present, regardless whether the same can be said for M-jers, though even this assumption is somewhat dubious. A word-end jer (modern or historical) is never going to be pronounced (see Chapter Five for an exception), so there is little evidence for the speaker to posit it in the grammar. Example (22) below involves a chain of H-jers in adjacent syllables. Note that the surface form, Smolnesk, is archaic and has been replaced in Modern Russian by Smolensk, the same stem as that found in the oblique cases, with no vowel/zero alternations at all. Apparently, paradigm leveling has, taken precedence over preserving the M-jers. This must have occurred while dissociation of H-jers from their skeletal slots was still a surface phenomenon, that is, before the configuration became lexicalized; otherwise, the modern form should have been ⊗Smolenesk.88 (22)

/SmolInIsk-U/ S | X \

OR [Smolnesk] (nom. sg.) 

mo l I n I s k U S mo l I n e s k U | | | | | | | | | | | | | | XX XX XX XX X X XX XX XX XX X \ | | | \ | | | | | \ \ N * * \ \ N N * * \ \| \ \ | N” || YVoc N” YVoc, || cannot apply N-Placement YVoc triggered here 









88

Why paradigm leveling occurred more quickly in the Smolensk example than in other strings where sequences of H-jers exist is not clear. Perhaps the fact that it is a city name made it subject to more frequent usage, and as such other solutions to the multiple vowel/zero alternation had not yet had a chance to take effect.

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S | X \

mo l I n e s k U | | | | | | | XX XX XX XX X \ | | | | | \ \ N \ N * * \ \| \ | N” N” 

S | X \ \



CV Rule

S | X \ \

mo l | | | XX X | | | | N / \\ | / \ \ N’ \\| N”

I

X

n | X | | \ \

e s k U | | | X XX X | | | N | / | / / N’ \| N”

mo l I n e s k U | | | | | | | XX XX XX XX X \ | | | | | \ N | N | | \ \| \ | / / N” \ N’ \| N” Coda Rule, Complex Coda Rule 

Old Russian Smolnesk || || || || || || YVoc—does not apply N-Placement, CV—do not apply Coda Rule—applies on /l/ 



In (22) above, the SSA begins with the right-most H-jer and moves left, searching for an eligible segment to which one of the syllabification rules can apply. YVoc cannot operate on the first H-jer because the conditioning environment for relinking is an unsyllabified consonant to the right of the H-jer, not to its left. This is probably more than mere stipulation, because the SSA has not yet encountered any unsyllabified consonants. The SSA cycles through the other rules, each of them failing, and the scan moves to the next segment, the /k/, and then to the /s/. These also fail to be parsed by any of the rules in the SSA. The SSA continues left and encounters a delinked H-jer with two unsyllabified consonants to its right. The H-jer

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is a segment capable of rescuing these consonants, so YVoc applies, which, in turn, creates a segment suitable for the N-Placement Rule. It projects first a nucleus and then a maximal projection N”. The segment to its left, /n/, is then able to participate in the CV Rule. After that, the unsyllabified consonant, /s/, now that it is adjacent to a syllable nucleus, is able to join the coda position N’, according to the Coda Rule. Note that the Complex Onset Rule is unable to apply to /l/, both because of sonority sequencing and because it is blocked by another H-jer. The Complex Coda rule syllabifies the /k/. The parse then continues left, where it encounters another H-jer. The conditioning environment for YVoc has been bled by the earlier CV rule, that is, the lack of unsyllabified material means there is no need for relinking, so the SSA moves on, parsing /l/ as a coda. Finally, the unvocalized H-jer at the end of the word is deleted. Example (23) below shows the same word in an oblique case, where the ending is not a H-jer. This has the effect of giving the opposite vocalization/deletion pattern found in (22) above. (23)

/SmolInIsk-a/ S | X | \ \

m | X | \ \

o l | | X X | N | N”

[Smolenska] (gen. sg.) 

n I s k a | | | | X XX XX X | \ \ | * || σ || || || YVoc—d.n.a. || || || First application of YVoc I







S | X \ \

mo l e n I s k a | | | | | | | | | XX XX XX XX X | | | | | \ \ | | N | N / σ \\ | \ | / \ \ N’ \ N’ Smolenska \\| \| N” N” 



YVoc, N-Placement, CV, Coda

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Unlike in (22) above, we see in (23) that YVoc does not apply to the first Hjer because the consonants to its right, /s/ and /k/, are already syllabified as a complex onset. The parse thus continues leftward until it encounters the next H-jer, which vocalizes due to the unsyllabified /n/ to the right. This time, the CV Rule syllabifies /l/ as an onset this time and /n/ as a coda. It might be asked what would happen if the CC cluster following the H-jer were of equal or decreasing sonority, preventing them from syllabifying together as a complex onset. This would result in *C to the right of the H-jer regardless of what came in the next syllable. Would the preceding H-jer vocalize in violation of Havlík’s Law? My analysis predicts that it would. Although such clusters were restricted in LCS, a language that generally did not permit closed syllables before the fall of the H-jers, liquid-obstruent clusters did exist; liquids were permitted to close syllables containing H-jers all the way up until the end of the LCS period. Liquids have their own effects on syllable structure, however. Slavic languages that do not permit syllabic liquids vocalize the H-jer, as my analysis predicts: LCS /v•l.ka/ 

Russian [volka] ‘wolf,’ masculine genitive singular. Reflexes for H-jers are adjacent to liquids, though, vary greatly for each Slavic language, depending on differences in permissible syllable types. Havlík’s Law is frequently violated. See Section 4.3 for a full discussion. The question then arises: What happens to unsyllabified consonants at word boundaries? In (24-a) below, the unsyllabified /n/ triggers vocalization, but in

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(24-b), the wrong environment is found for YVoc. The /s/ cannot syllabify as a complex onset because the H-jer is blocking it. It should therefore be prosodically unlicensed. (24)

a. s U n U | | X XX X

b. s U n a | | | X XX X \ | \N \| N” 



s U n U | | X XX X | * 

s o n U | | | X XX X | | N * 

s | X | | | | \

o n U | | XX X | | N | | / N’ | N”

s U n a | | | X XX X | \ / * σ

This situation is generally explained by assuming prosodic constraints are relaxed at word boundaries, allowing word-edge segments to remain extrametrical until late in the derivation, where they are adjoined at some higher node (e.g., another maximal projection N” (Levin (1985)), or a phonological word node ω (Rubach and Booij 1992)). That sonority violations frequently occur at word edges further indicates this (e.g., Russian /lIn-a/ 



[l’na] (‘flax’ masculine gen. singular); /kUto]

[kto] (‘who’ (nominative singular); /rublI/ 

[rubl] (‘ruble’ masculine nominative

singular)). Although I take no strong position as to the specific nature of the higher node, I assume that it is a phonological word node ω. The initial consonant can sometimes trigger vowel/zero alternations in prepositions, (e.g., v rot ‘into the

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mouth’ (accusative singular) but vo rty ‘in the mouth’ (locative singular)), indicating that it is extrametrical until the phonological word level, when proclitics are added. In (25) below, the extrametrical /s/ can be syllabified by adjunction after YDel has removed the intervening H-jer. (25)

s U n a | | | X XX X \ | \N \| N” 

s | X \

n a | | XX | | \ \ N \ \ | \ N” \ | ω

4.3.2 Summary of syllabification and YVoc. Thus far, I have discussed how syllabification in Slavic affects jer (both modern and historical) behavior. I adopt a rule-based model, which I believe begins at the right edge of the string and moves left, incorporating segments into syllables as it moves along. When an unsyllabified consonant is encountered, a consequence of the summarial delinking of H-jers from their skeletal slots, the SSA tries to link it up as a coda to the preceding syllable, which is in the direction of its parse. The historical requirement for syllables to be open (excepting liquids—see below) insures that there would be either a fully-linked vowel or a H-jer preceding the consonant. If it was the former, the consonant joined up as a coda to the syllable to its left (e.g., /sto.l-U/ 

/sto.*l-•/ 

[stol.-∅]). If the

latter, the H-jer links up to its skeletal slot, changes one or more of its melodic features, and projects a nucleus. The unsyllabified consonant is then incorporated as the coda (e.g., /sU.n-U/ 

/s•.*n-•/ 

[son.-∅]).

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The *C environment for YVoc predicts that it will occur regardless of whether a weak (deleting) H-jer is present in the next syllable. Because of the LCS open syllable requirement, however, any consonant to the right of a H-jer will have either a full vowel or another H-jer after it. The consonant will be unsyllabified only when followed by a weak H-jer. An exception to this is encountered with liquids, which were permitted to close syllables, particularly ones containing H-jers, quite late. It is therefore possible to encounter combinations such as CUR.CV, 89 in which an unsyllabified consonant (the liquid) exists to the right of the delinked H-jer even when no H-jer follows in the next syllable. Furthermore, liquids could form a complex onset if they were preceded by a segment of sufficiently lower sonority (i.e., an obstruent), making possible the combination CR•.CV, in which two unsyllabified consonants are to the left of the H-jer. If the conditioning environment for YVoc is __C•(weak), the H-jer is not expected to vocalize in CUR.CV strings; the (__*C) analysis predicts that it will, however. This is exactly what occurs in those Slavic dialects that do not permit syllabic liquids. The dialects that do permit them do not vocalize the H-jer (regardless of what follows in the next syllable), either because the SSA has reached the liquid before the H-jer and made it syllabic (Polish, Czech), or because there was no underlying H-jer present to begin with (the South Slavic dialects). In CRU.CV strings, on the other hand, neither analysis predicts vocalization. In reality, the volatile nature of liquids causes vocalization patterns to 89

C = obstruent; R = liquid, U = front or back H-jer. Some descriptive grammars (e.g., Townsend (1996)) use the forms T RT and TR T to represent H-jer-liquid sequences. Syllabic segments are represented as / /, / /.

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vary, depending on the Slavic language, in seeming contradiction to the theoretical predictions. This is discussed in more detail in the next section, where I argue that additional constraints on syllable type, which vary across the Slavic dialects, further influence YVoc. 4.4

Syllabification of H-jers and liquids. The interaction between vocalization and syllable structure is noticable

nowhere better than where liquids are present. None of the Slavic languages give seemingly normal treatment to these H-jers. Not only do some of the languages yield abnormal vowel reflexes, but the distribution of vocalization is different from that which occurs in other environments, often in violation of Havlík’s Law. Furthermore, some of the languages differentiate between whether the H-jer precedes or follows the liquid, whereas others treat both combinations alike. It should be noted that the discussion below speaks in generalities; in virtually every dialect (particularly in the Central and Northwest areas), exceptions are plentiful, both in the modern languages and in their older precursors. Many of the languages have fluctuated greatly in whether they allow syllabic liquids, and if so, under what conditions (e.g., the nature of the surrounding consonants). In addition, reflexes have changed due to paradigm leveling or influence from neighboring regions. Similarly, evidence from historical texts can be sporadic and subject to influences from other regions, so it is difficult, if not impossible, to guess what was permitted in intermediate stages. Below is a discussion of general tendencies, observed in the major dialect areas, that most scholars are able to agree upon.

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Finally, it should be noted that an exhaustive account of the trends in all the Slavic dialects is beyond the scope of the present work. The regions to be highlighted here are the following: 1) South and South-Central Slavic, represented by Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, and Czech, 2) Northwest Slavic, represented by Polish, and 3) Northeast Slavic, represented by Russian. In the transition from EPSl to LCS, a new constraint was added to permissible syllable types in that they had to increase in sonority; that is, the vast majority of syllables could not end in a consonant, and tautosyllabic vowelconsonant combinations were eliminated. Liquids were an exception to this rule, and diphthongs consisting of vowels plus liquids were tolerated all over Slavic for much longer than other (tautosyllabic) vowel-consonant or vowel-sonorant combinations. In all likelihood, this occurred because the difference in sonority between a vowel and liquid was perceived in Slavic to be much less than the difference in other combinations (e.g., vowel + nasal). H-jer-liquid combinations, which may have shared a syllable nucleus, were tolerated even longer than other vowel-liquid combinations; consequently, they still existed in many dialect areas at the time H-jers were already beginning to drop out of the LCS vowel inventory. H-jers preceding a liquid were developed from PIE syllabic liquids. The liquids gradually lost their syllabicity, and /i/ or /u/ was inserted preceding the liquid.90 Like “ordinary” H-jers, pre-liquid H-jers came from /i/ and /u/, but these were not original PIE /i/ and /u/. Shevelov (1965) speculates that pre-liquid H-jers

90

See Shevelov (1965: 81 - 90) for discussion on PIE

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LCS /i/S, /u/S

might have been further behind in their development than other H-jers; and in the southern dialects, which either fully preserved syllabic liquids or reinstated them very quickly, H-jers were likely never present at all in the underlying representation. The northern dialects rejected syllabic liquids, and the inserted /i/ and /u/ developed into underlying H-jers. Whether the peak of sonority remained on the liquid or shifted to the vowel is unclear. H-jers following liquids, on the other hand, were “genuine” H-jers; that is, they came from PIE /i/ or /u/. Whether they were treated as such, or whether they fell in with the H-jers preceding liquids depended on the dialect. H-jers and liquids are interesting because they usually break the alternating pattern of strong and weak jers described by Havlík’s Law. When the H-jer precedes the liquid (CUR.C), an unsyllabified consonant will result when the H-jer delinks, regardless of what follows in the next syllable. If a H-jer follows, the liquid and following consonant will both be unsyllabified, and YVoc is expected to occur in the pre-liquid H-jer. If a non-jer vowel follows, the liquid will still be unsyllabified after the H-jers delink, because it cannot syllabify as a complex onset to the following syllable without violating sonority sequencing. Havlík’s Law predicts that YVoc would not occur, whereas the claim that the conditioning environment is an unsyllabified consonant to the jer’s right predicts that it would. In truth, the fate of the pre-liquid H-jer is dependent on the Slavic dialect, though Havlík’s Law is ignored by all of them; a given dialect will either vocalize or delete the pre-liquid jer in both positions, strong and weak.

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In the South (e.g., Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, Bulgarian) and South-Central (Czech and Macedonian) Slavic dialects, it is believed that no H-jer existed at all underlyingly, and if so, YVoc would not apply because there was nothing to vocalize in the first place. In any event, syllabic liquids were permitted in these dialects, and, regardless of what followed the CUR.C sequence, vowel or H-jer, the unsyllabified liquid became syllabic and projected its own nucleus. Since then, many of these syllabic liquids have decomposed into some form of vowel-liquid or liquid-vowel combination. The Northeast Slavic dialects (e.g., Russian and Ukrainian), which did not allow syllabic liquids, treated the unsyllabified liquid the same as any other unsyllabified consonant and vocalized the pre-liquid H-jer, also regardless of what followed in the next syllable. Modern Polish, in the Northwest Slavic-speaking region, does not allow syllabic liquids and has vowels where the pre-liquid H-jers were. Whether Polish went through an earlier stage that allowed syllabic liquids is in dispute, but in any event, the modern vowel reflexes for the pre-liquid H-jers are not the normal jer-reflexes for Polish. None of the Slavic languages obey Havlík’s Law for the CUR.C sequences. H-jers following liquids also disregarded Havlík’s Law for many Slavic languages.91 In a CRU.C sequence, the liquid would not be able to syllabify with the preceding or following syllable when the H-jers delinked without violating sonority sequencing (also, the H-jer itself would have prevented the liquid from syllabifying

91

Only tauto-morphemic CRU.C sequences are discussed here. For word-end CR-U#, where /-U/ is a case ending, see Chapter Five.

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with the following syllable). Most of the data involving CRU.C sequences occur word-initially, where, because it was at a word edge, the unsyllabified liquid (along with the preceding obstruent) could potentially remain extrametrical until after YDel and then adjoin at a higher projection. Havlík’s Law and the (__*C) analysis both predict YVoc would apply to CRU.C when followed by another H-jer and would fail to apply when followed by a non-jer vowel (because the unsyllabified consonant is to the left, not to the right, of the H-jer). The South and Northeast Slavic languages, again, do not follow Havlík’s Law; in both cases, the former yield syllabic liquids, and the latter, a non-alternating vowel, the same as the normal jer reflex. The SouthCentral and Northwest Slavic dialects followed the normal predicted patterns, vocalizing in strong position and deleting in weak position. This is summarized in (26) below.92 (26) LCS CUR.C CRU.C

vIlkU/vIlka tUrgU/tUrga krUvI/krUvi

SerboCroatian vuk/vuka93 t g/t ga k v/k vi

Czech

Polish

v k/v ka wilk/wilku t h/t hu targ/targu krev/krve krew/krwi

Russian volk/volka torg/torga krov’/krovi

I suggest that these conflicting developments in H-jer treatment are not abnormal at all, but were a natural consequence of the syllable types emerging in the

92

In the following data, H-jers are represented as I/U, but this makes no claim any particular dialect from the LCS period actually had an underlying H-jer, or whether or not it was a fully-developed H-jer. Most of the data here has been drawn from Shevelov (1965) and Townsend (1996), with some supplement from dictionaries. In many cases, data was not available. 93 A later change in SC: u 

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different dialect areas as these languages began to split apart and were subject to constraints such as whether or not syllabic liquids were permitted and whether or not there was a limit on extrametricality. 4.4.1 The South Slavic and South-Central Slavic dialects. Most scholars believe the South Slavic languages had no H-jer adjacent to the liquid by the time of the H-jer fall. The problem with the South Slavic languages is that in this part of the Slavic world, the H-jers fell out so early that it really is impossible to know much about them apart from their modern reflexes, because very few, if any, texts exist from this period. The CUR.C and CRU.C forms produced the same reflexes, yielding syllabic liquids in all positions (which subsequently inserted or substituted vowels in place of the liquids). Whether the CUR.C forms, which developed from PIE syllabic liquids, ever went through a stage where the H-jer did make its way to the underlying form is unknown, but it was short-lived if it did, and many scholars believe, in any event, the peak of sonority rested on the liquid (which is why the Law of Rising Sonority did not eliminate the CUR.C forms along with COR.C). The presence of a H-jer may have been a spelling convention only—just as in English, syllabic liquids are spelled with a vowel on one side or the other, but it is debatable whether that vowel is really phonemic (e.g., burn, little). The CRU.C forms did contain real H-jers underlyingly for a time, but it seems likely that the CRU.C forms quickly joined CUR.C in eliminating the H-jers from underlying representation and developing syllabic liquids well before the H-jer

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fall (which itself took place much earlier in the South Slavic regions than in the other Slavic-speaking regions). Otherwise, the H-jer should have produced normal H-jer reflexes (Shevelov (1965: 481)). Bethin (1998) suggests the H-jer lost its mora, which was essentially transferred to the liquid, and the H-jer subsequently deleted. However, there is no independent evidence to support or undermine this claim. As the reflexes in the modern SSL languages do not discriminate as to which side of the liquid the H-jer was on, there is little reason to believe there was any difference in underlying representation by the time of the H-jer fall; that is, CRU.C had as likely as not joined CUR.C in having no underlying H-jer. There is a fair amount of inconsistency in the texts with regard to the spelling of such forms, indicating confusion over the order of the two segments (Cf. English pretty 

[p .Di] in some dialects).94 Given that no

H-jer was likely to exist phonemically on either side of the liquids in the South Slavic region by the time of the H-jer fall, there is little else to say about it here. The South-Central Slavic dialects Macedonian and Czech, however, serve as notable exceptions because they do make a distinction depending on the location of the H-jer in pre- or post-liquid position. Forms in CUR.C yielded syllabic liquids in all cases, but CRU.C forms did not; instead, strong H-jers vocalized and weak H-jers deleted: (27)

krUvplUt-





kro.vI/k .ve (OMac ‘blood,’ fem. nom. sg./gen. sg.) plo.tI/p .ti (OMac ‘flesh,’ fem. nom. sg./gen. sg.)95

94

The difficulty I have had in keeping these two formulas straight makes me sympathetic to the claim! 95 Koneski (1983: 32).

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In Old Macedonian, this yielded syllabic liquids when the H-jer was weak. In Modern Macedonian, the alternation between V/ has been replaced by

in all

forms. In Old Czech, the liquid was not syllabic, as it is in Modern Czech. In poetry, liquids from CRU.C forms were not assigned a syllable (e.g., krvi ‘blood’ was monosyllabic), whereas liquids from CUR.C forms were (e.g., mrtvy ‘dead’ was bisyllabic) (see Shevelov (1965: 476); Bethin (1998: 72), citing Trubetskoy (1969)). This also indicates that the distinction between syllabic and nonsyllabic liquids is not always environmentally determined, and during some developmental stages of some languages, a distinction must be made at the phonemic level between the two. Czech and Macedonian differed from the other SSL languages in that they did not merge the CUR.C and CRU.C forms; that is, they did not generalize syllabic liquids where-ever H-jers were present. When the liquid preceded the H-jer (it did not share the nucleus position with the H-jer and the H-jer was from PIE i/u, not a syllabic liquid), the H-jers remained until the general fall of the H-jers. Derivations of CRU.C forms for Old Macedonian and Old Czech are shown in (28) and (29), respectively. (28)

OMac a. k r U v I | | | XX XX X | * 

k r | | XX \ \

o v I | | XX X | / σ (MMac k v)

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b. k r U v e | | | | XX X XX | \ | * σ 

k r v e | | | | X XX X \ | \ / σ σ (MMac k .ve)

(29)

OCz a. k r U v I | | | XX XX X | * 

k r | | XX \ \

e | X | σ

v I | X X /

(MCz krev)

b. k r U v e | | | | XX X XX | \ | * σ 

k r v e | | | | X XX X \ | | | \ \ \N \ \ \| \ \ N” \ \ | ω (MCz k .ve)

According to Koneski (1983), the liquid in Macedonian was syllabic when the adjacent H-jer was weak. In the case of the strong H-jer for Macedonian and Czech (28- and 29-a), as the SSA moves along the string, the unsyllabified /*v/ causes the H-jer to vocalize. In (28- and 29-b), the /v/ is not unsyllabified; it is the onset of a syllable, so YVoc is not triggered. The difference between the two languages is that in Macedonian, unsyllabified /*k/ and /*r/ formed a syllable of their own by allowing /r/ to project a syllable nucleus. In Czech, this did not happen. Instead, the /*k/ and /*r/ both remained extrametrical until the end of the derivation, after the unlinked H-jer had been deleted, and then they syllabified at the ω node. Constraints in sonority sequencing are relaxed at this level. Czech had a V/∅ alternation which has since been replaced by V/ . Macedonian had a V/ alternation, which has since been replaced with a steady , eliminating the M-jer entirely. In CUR.C sequences, both languages produced syllabic liquids in all positions. (Metrical patterns in Old Czech poetry show the liquid was accorded a syllable of its own.) It is uncertain whether this was due to the lack of an underlying

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H-jer (that is, the was liquid already syllabic), as in the South Slavic languages, or because the SSA simply reached the unsyllabified liquid first and assigned it a nucleus, bleeding YVoc ((30) below). The /v/, which was at the edge of the word, would have remained extrametrical until the unvocalized H-jer deleted. (30)

a. v I l k U | | * * 

v | | | | | \

l k | | N/ |/ N’ | N” \| ω

b. v I l k a | \ | * σ 

v l k a | | \ | | N σ \ | \ N” \| ω

The South and South-Central Slavic dialects yielded slightly different patterns in H-jer vocalization, depending on the dialect’s willingness to accept syllabic liquids. In the more southern regions (Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, and Old Church Slavonic) syllabic liquids were the norm and either fully overrode H-jer vocalization or facilitated the departure of the H-jers from underlying form before the general fall of the H-jers. Macedonian also allowed syllabic liquids, and most scholars believed that pre-liquid H-jers (CUR.C) did not exist in underlying form but rather served as a spelling convention only. Whether or not this is correct, however, the post-liquid H-jers (CRU.C) did not fall out of the underlying representation; for these H-jers, YVoc was also fully active. Czech, which was further north, accepted syllabic liquids but less readily: an unsyllabified liquid to the left of a H-jer, originally part of an onset rather than a mora-bearing rhyme (as in CUR.C), remained

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extrametrical and eventually adjoined to the syllable at a higher node as a complex onset, rather than accepting a nucleus and forming its own syllable. To sum up, it is dubious that pre-liquid H-jers existed underlyingly for Macedonian and Czech. However, if we assume for the sake of argument that they did, then we can claim that when an unsyllabified consonant was present to the right of adjacent H-jers and liquids, then whether it was the liquid or the H-jer that took the syllable nucleus depended on which one the SSA encountered first; one could bleed the other. In (31-a-b) below, the SSA reaches unsyllabified liquid first and makes it syllabic. In (31-c), the SSA comes to the H-jer first and vocalizes it in order to provide a syllable nucleus for the stranded /*v/. In (31-d), the first consonant that the SSA fails to syllabify occurs to the left of the H-jer, after the SSA has passed it. Rather than backtrack, the SSA makes the liquid syllabic in Old Macedonian but leaves it extrametrical for Old Czech. (31)

a. vI*l*kU c. krU.*vI 



vk krev

b. vI*l.ka d. krU.vi 



v .ka k .vi (OMac,), krvi. (OCz)

4.4.2 The Northwest Slavic dialects. Further north, in the Northwest Slavic regions (Polish, Sorbian, Slovak), a slightly different situation is encountered. The CRU.C sequences produce the same reflexes as Czech (alternating V/∅ with CR extrametrical and seeming to violate sonority sequencing). However, the H-jerliquid diphthongs (CUR.C) have modern reflexes with a steady vowel, whose feature melody is dependent on the surrounding consonants, rather than yielding /e/, the H-jer reflex normal for these languages (see (32) below).

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(32)

LCS vIrba/vIrbU tUrgU/tUrga vIlkU/vIlka pIlndUlgU/dUlga krUvI/krUve

Polish v’erzba (
Lower Sorbian vjerba

E. Slovak verba ~ virba

vjelk polny

vilk polni

Scholars dispute what occurred here. Shevelov (1965) claims that a genuine vowel had developed in underlying form by the time the H-jer fall reached this area, but that it was not a fully-developed H-jer and, as such, its reflexes were influenced by the surrounding consonants. Bethin (1998) believes that the Northwest Slavic syllable rejected syllabic liquids, so the pre-liquid H-jers did not have the opportunity to be eliminated, as happened in the South Slavic regions. Other scholars claim the variable nature of the H-jer reflex in CUR.C sequences indicates that these languages actually did undergo a stage where

was reinstated for a time before being

eliminated entirely. One argument given (Feldstein (1994)) is that after dentals, the modern Polish reflex for a back H-jer and liquid, CUl.C, shows metathesis, ClU.C (e.g., dUlg

dlugi ‘long’), whereas all other reflexes have the vowel preceding the

liquid. There is no principled reason for metathesis after the dentals. Bethin (1998) suggests that a syllabic liquid might have later decomposed into a liquid + vowel combination in which the relative position of the vowel is dependent on the phonetic environment (such as tongue position when pronouncing surrounding consonants). However, the wide variety of reflexes for pre-liquid H-jers is not enough to fully justify either the claim that the H-jers were in an arrested stage of development or that Polish went through a stage of syllabic liquids. Consider the modern Polish

159

form tylko ‘only,’ which Vasmer (1986) claims was formed from the pronoun to- and the particle li (cf. Russian tol’ko, Bulgarian tolko, Serbo-Croatian toliko, Czech tolik). At some stage in the word’s development in some dialects, the /i/ became a front H-jer and eventually deleted, leaving the /l/ to close the preceding syllable. Of note is the fact that a non-H-jer vowel preceded the /l/, and yet the modern Polish reflex is the same as for CUR.C forms. That the modern Polish is tylko and not ⊗tolko indicates that the variable reflexes of the pre-liquid H-jers were due to some sort of influence from the liquid and surrounding consonants, not necessarily any peculiarities of the vowel itself (or lack thereof). It is inconclusive whether the preliquid H-jers were in an arrested stage of development; or whether they, as in the South Slavic languages, dropped out and created syllabic liquids; or whether they were fully-developed H-jers. If Polish had an intermediate

stage, then its early development of H-jers

adjacent to liquids would have been similar to that of Czech. The SSA would travel along the string (right to left), and /*R/ would project a syllable nucleus unless it was at a word edge (meaning no vowels separated it from the word edge), in which case it would remain extrametrical until after YDel and then adjoin at a higher node. Any other unsyllabified consonant would trigger YVoc. Whether the H-jer relinked or the liquid became syllabic would be dependent on which segment the SSA came across first. In CRU.C, the SSA encounters the H-jer first, so it vocalizes if the consonant to the right is unsyllabified (/krU.*vI/ 

[krev]). If the consonant to the right is

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syllabified, then YVoc fails and the preceding CR cluster, as with Czech, remains extrametrical until after YDel, when it adjoins at a higher node (/krU.vi/

[krvi]). 

In CUR.C sequences, the SSA encounters *R first and causes it to project a nucleus, bleeding YVoc (/vI*l*kU/ 

[v k], not [⊗velk]). The consonants to the left

of the H-jer remain unsyllabified (the H-jer blocks them) until the end of the derivation, when they are incorporated into the ω node. At a later stage of Polish development, the grammar rejects , and vowels are inserted (e.g., /v k-/ 

/vilk-/),

usually preceding the liquid but also following it in the case of the dental-back H-jer/l/ combination ( 

VR, lu). (33) below illustrates that likely happened for CUR.C

sequences if a stage of syllabic liquids is accepted. (33)

a. v I l k U | | | X XX XX | | * *

b. v I l k | | | X XX X | \ *

u | X | σ

v I l k U | | | X X XX X | | N/ | / N’ | N”





v I l k u | | | | X X XX X | \ | N σ | N’ | N”

161





v | X | | | | \

l k | | X X | | N / |/ N’ | \ N” \| ω

v | X | | | | \

l k u (OPol) | | | (posited) X XX | \ | N σ | N’ | vilku (MPol) \ N” \| ω 

(OPol) (posited)



vilk (MPol)

In (33-a) above, the SSA fails to syllabify /l/ as an onset or coda, so it allows /l/ to project a nucleus itself, forming a syllable to which /k/ may adjoin as a coda. The SSA moves left, and the /v/ is blocked from syllabification by the H-jer but remains extrametrical until after the H-jer has deleted because it is at the edge of the word. It then adjoins to the ω node. In (33-b), the /l/ still cannot syllabify without violating sonority sequencing restrictions, so again, it projects a nucleus. If the notion of an intermediate stage of

is rejected for the Northwest Slavic

languages, then the CUR.C forms simply yield YVoc (albeit with abnormal melody features) as expected: when an unsyllabified consonant is to the right, shown in (34-a-b) below. In this case, liquids simply are not distinguished from other consonants. The situation for dUlg

dlugi would require a metathesis rule later in

the language’s development for this specific environment. This is stipulative, but so is the posited rule for desyllabicizing , which assigns specific vowels on one side or the other depending on the phonetic environment. In either case, it unifies the behavior of H-jers adjacent to liquids vis-à-vis H-jers in other environments, making the whole phenomenon a property of syllable structure rather than the traditional analyses requiring a bisyllabic environment for normal H-jers and then near chaos for the H-jers adjacent to liquids.

162

(34)

a. v I l k U | | | X XX XX | | * *

b. v I l k u | | | | X XX XX | \ | * σ 



v | X | | \

i l k U | | | X XX X | | / N/ / |/ / \ N’ \| N”

v | X | | \

i l | | X X | | N/ |/ \ N’ \| N”

k u | | X X \ | σ

In (34-a) above, the /l/ and /k/ are unsyllabified, and the H-jer to their left is vocalized. The unsyllabified consonants join the coda position. In (34-b), the /k/ retains its onset position, but the preceding /l/ cannot syllabify without violating sonority sequencing restrictions. It therefore also triggers vocalization of the preceding H-jer. The behavior of CRU.C sequences is shown in (35) below. Just as in the derivations above, in (35-a) below, the unsyllabified /v/ triggers vocalization of the H-jer to its left. All three cases (34-a-b above, 35-a below) involve YVoc as it normally operates. In (35-b) below, the /v/ is syllabified as an onset, so the proper environment for YVoc is not met. To the left of the H-jer, /k/ and /r/ are unsyllabified, but because they are at the word’s edge, they may remain extrametrical until after the H-jer has been deleted, and they adjoin at a higher node. The case for

163

(35-a-b) below holds true regardless of whether it is accepted that Polish went through a syllabic liquid stage. (35)

a. k r U v I | | | X XX XX | *

b. k r U | | X XX | | * *

v | X \

i | X | σ 



k | X | \

r e v I | | | XX XX | | | | N / \ | |/ \ \ N’ \\ | N”

k r v i | | | | X XX X \ | | | \\ | N \\ \ | \ \ \ N’ \\ \| \ \ N” \\| ω

Modern Polish provides an example of word-medial extrametricality: in /jablk-o/ ‘apple’ (neuter nominative singular), the /l/, which is not syllabic, violates sonority sequencing for both the preceding and following syllables. Syllabic liquids are not permitted in this language, but the jer (both modern and historical), which is to the right of the liquid, does not vocalize. Why would the SSA permit a wordmedial consonant to remain in this form but disallow it in forms such as /cuk•r-• -•k-(•)/, which also involves a liquid? I believe the reason is because of the directional nature of the SSA. In /cuk•r-• -•k-(•)/, when the SSA encounters the unsyllabifiable /r/, it vocalizes the M-jer to its left, not to its right. (Vocalization of

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the M-jer to the right of /*r/ is due to another unsyllabified consonant to that M-jer’s right.) In Polish (and, apparently, other West Slavic languages), the SSA appears highly reluctant to backtrack; that is, it exhibits a very strong right-to-left directionality. The SSA moves along a string until it encounters an appropriate syllable head (nucleus) and then gathers as many of the surrounding segments as possible into the syllable. It does not stop at a potential nucleus (i.e., a jer) unless it has already encountered a segment that cannot syllabify with existing material, meaning unsyllabified segments to its right. In the genitive plural form /jabl•k-(•)/, the unsyllabified /*k/ forces YVoc of the leftward jer; but in the nominative singular /jabl•k-o/, there is no need for the jer to vocalize at the time the SSA reaches it, because there are as yet no unlicensed consonants in need of a syllable. Consequently, the parse moves on, looking leftward for the next nucleus. When it encounters the /l/, it is too late for the jer to vocalize. It remains prosodically unlicensed until the word level, where it is adjoined at a higher projection. Bethin (1992: 49) suggests it adjoins at the word node, where it “does not belong to any particular syllable.” However, she notes that the /l/ is not actually pronounced (/jablko/ 

[japko]). This could indicate that the segment does not adjoin at all;

instead, it fails to be licensed prosodically and is deleted at surface structure. In contrast, Czech and Slovak, which allow syllabic liquids, make the /l/ syllabic. Russian, on the other hand, does not allow syllabic liquids, and constraints in extrametricality apparently outrank constraints against backtracking. Put another

165

way, the left-to-right directionality of the SSA is much weaker in Russian than in the West Slavic languages. The SSA vocalizes the rightward H-jer, yielding the form /jablok-o/. Vocalization also occurred as normal in the genitive plural form, whose H-jer ending produced the unsyllabified /*k/, and so Modern Russian, as with all its CRU.C forms, has only a steady vowel, not a M-jer, throughout the paradigm (see Section 4.4.3 below). With the exception of dental and palatal fricatives, which can appear virtually anywhere except the syllable nucleus itself, Russian allows no wordmedial extrametricality and generally only one word-edge extrametrical segment. Polish is much freer, allowing limited word-medial extrametricality and greater word-edge extrametricality than does Russian. 4.4.3 The Northeast Slavic dialects. The Northeast Slavic dialects not only rejected syllabic liquids, they imposed greater constraints on extrametrical segments. Czech and the Northwest Slavic dialects allowed two (or more) extrametrical consonants; Russian tended to allow only one, which is why the range of permissible consonant clusters in Russian is considerably more restricted than in languages like Polish. Because of these two constraints, H-jers vocalized regardless of strength or position relative to the liquid. This is illustrated below in (36) and (37). Several steps of the SSA are omitted for brevity.

166

(36)

a. v I l k U | | | X XX XX | | * *

b. v I l k a | | | | X XX XX | \ | * σ



(37)

a. k r U v I | | | X XX XX | *



b. k r U | | X XX | | * *

v | X \

i | X | σ 



v | X | | \

o l k U | | | X XX X | | / N/ / |/ / \ N’ \| N”

v | X | | \

o l | | X X | | N/ |/ \ N’ \| N”

k | X | \

r o v I | | | XX XX | | | | N / \ | |/ \ \ N’ \\ | N”

k a | | X X \ | σ

k r o v i | | | | | X XX XX \ \ | \ | \ \N σ \ \| N”

In the first three cases ((36-a-b) above and (37-a) below), the SSA encounters unsyllabifiable consonants and triggers relinking of the H-jers, which it encounters next in its pass. The Northeast Slavic dialects do not allow the liquids to become

167

syllabic, so they are seen as a mere *C by the SSA. In the last case ((37-b) below), the unsyllabified consonants are to the left of the only available H-jer. In the southern and western dialects, these consonants remain extrametrical and join at the word node. The Northeast Slavic dialects appear to allow only one word-edge consonant to remain extrametrical and escape licensing constraints. In word-initial consonant clusters in Russian, only the first segment violates sonority sequencing, whereas in Polish, the first two may do so. The /r/ in Russian is prosodically unlicensed and must be dealt with. Two possibilities are available: deleting the /r/ and linking the H-jer. The grammar chooses the latter. This also indicates that it is not a mere accidental gap that YVoc is triggered by __*C, not *C__. It is only that as the SSA proceeds along the string from right-to-left, it is more natural to vocalize the H-jer to the left of *C than to the right since the former is on its path, and the latter would involve backtracking. When no other option is available, vocalization of the right-ward H-jer occurs, rather than leaving the /r/ extrametrical, as Polish and Old Czech do. When only one unsyllabified consonant exists at the word edge, e.g., /*sUna/, /*kUto/, /*l’Ina/, it remains extrametrical and adjoins at the ω node rather than vocalize the H-jer. The result is that H-jer vocalization in Russian occurs in all cases, regardless of relative order with the liquid or strong/weak position. This means that no M-jer exists for form deriving from CUR.C or CRU.C. 4.4.4 Summary of H-jers and liquids. Most of the South Slavic languages had no underlying H-jer present in the CUR.C forms. The ability to retain syllabic liquids in the grammar facilitated or even accelerated the loss of H-jers adjacent to liquids,

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and none of them vocalized. The CRU.C forms likely joined the the CUR.C forms, eliminating the H-jers in favor of syllabic liquids before the general fall of the H-jers; all of the reflexes, regardless of H-jer position relative to the liquid or to each other, are either syllabic liquids or come from syllabic liquids that later decomposed into some vowel or vowel-liquid combination. Macedonian and Czech, however, distinguished between the two forms. The CUR.C forms yielded syllabic liquids, regardless of strength (that is, whether or not they were followed by a non-H-jer vowel). This leads most scholars to believe no H-jer was present in underlying form, although, even if one was present, the reflexes can be explained because the grammars here allowed *R to become syllabic. In CUR.C forms, then, the SSA would have reached the *R before it found the H-jer and simply made the liquid syllabic rather than vocalize the H-jer. Modern Czech and Macedonian thus both have eliminated the M-jer entirely in CUR.C forms in favor of a steady syllabic liquid. The CRU.C forms, however, yielded vowel reflexes for Old Czech and Old Macedonian when in strong position (followed by a H-jer) and zero when in weak (followed by any other vowel). The difference between Czech and Macedonian can be seen when the H-jer was weak: Macedonian made the preceding liquid syllabic, whereas Czech tended to allow it to remain extrametrical and adjoin at the word node. It might be asked why Czech allowed word-edge liquids to remain extrametrical, rather than making them syllabic, since syllabic liquids clearly were allowed in this language. This might further indicate that CUR.C sequences either

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had no underlying H-jer, like the South Slavic languages, or the liquid and H-jer shared a mora, whereas in the CRU.C sequences, with the liquid as part of the onset, they did not. The liquids in these two positions then would have been distinguished at the underlying level: e.g., /t .hu/ vs. /krvi./ in Old Czech. Modern Czech has replaced the extrametrical liquid with a syllabic one; its former vowel/zero alternation for the CRU.C forms has become a vowel/syllabic liquid alternation. Modern Macedonian, on the other hand, has eliminated its former vowel/syllabic liquid alternation in favor of a steady syllabic liquid; it thus has no M-jers adjacent to liquids. It is possible that Polish also went through a syllabic liquid stage, in which case its early development would have paralleled that of Czech. Its syllabic liquids then later decomposed into vowel/liquid or liquid/vowel sequences, where the phonetic nature of the vowel was dependent on the surrounding consonants. If Polish did not go through a period of syllabic liquids, then the reflexes are accounted for by assuming YVoc operated normally: in the CUR.C, the R could not project its own syllable nucleus, so it was seen as *C by the grammar and consequently vocalized the preceding H-jer, regardless of what followed in the next syllable. In the modern grammar, a steady vowel exists, rather than a M-jer, in the CUR.C forms. When no *

C was present, i.e., in the CRU.CV cases, the consonant and liquid remained

extrametrical and adjoined at the word node, as in Czech, after the H-jer deleted. The right-to-left directionality of the SSA is strong in the Northwest and SouthCentral dialects, failing to vocalize the H-jer to the right of the unsyllabified

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consonant. This means that in the modern grammar, a vowel/zero alternation still exists in the CRU.C forms, indicating a M-jer. Finally, Russian, which allowed no syllabic liquids and had tight restrictions on extrametricality, vocalized the H-jers in all forms, eliminating M-jers adjacent to liquids entirely. The only exceptions were word-initial RU.CV forms, where the liquid, as a single segment, could remain extrametrical and adjoin at the word node (e.g., l’na ‘flax’). If another consonant preceded the liquid, e.g., /krUv-/, the obstruent filled up the only permitted extrametrical slot, and the liquid had to be licensed by YVoc. Here, the right-to-left directionality of the SSA is weaker than in the other Slavic languages: at the time of the H-jer fall, Russian, in order to license the obstruent-liquid cluster, allowed the SSA to backtrack and vocalize a H-jer that it had already passed over. The general tendencies for the languages under discussion are summarized in (38) below. (38)

SSl

Macedonian

Czech

Polish

CUR.CU CUR.CV CRU.CU CRU.CV

C C C C

C C. C .CV CRV.C C .C C .CV

C C. C .CV CRV.C CRCV. C .CV

C C. CVRC. C .CV CVR.CV CRV.C CRCV.

C. .CV C. .CV







Russian

CVRC. CVR.CV CRVC. CRV.CV

The alternating pattern of weak/strong H-jers, described by Havlík’s Law, is a natural consequence of syllabification of a language in the process of changing from having only open syllables to permitting closed syllables and can be disrupted by other factors. Liquids presented an exception to the requirement for LCS syllables to be open, because they were allowed to exist either as a diphthong with other vowels

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(sharing nucleus position) or by occupying the coda position. This meant that liquids closing a syllable containing a H-jer (CUR.C) were unsyllabified once the H-jers delinked. The liquid had to be licensed somehow, and in some of the Slavic dialects, this was done by applying YVoc to the preceding H-jer. Whether a delinked H-jer existed to the right of the liquid was immaterial, because there would be an intervening obstruent that would not let the liquid form a complex onset without violating sonority sequencing constraints. Complex onsets involving liquids (CRU.C) also lost their syllables when the H-jers delinked. If the H-jer did not relink due to another unsyllabified consonant to its right, the obstruent-liquid cluster had to be licensed in other ways. A language such as Russian that, unlike Macedonian, did not permit syllabic liquids, and, unlike Polish and Old Czech, placed stronger constraints on extrametricality, resorted to vocalizing the H-jer. This is in contrast to the normal environment for YVoc; the unsyllabified consonant is to the left, not the right, of the H-jer, which means the SSA does have some ability to look in the direction opposite to its normal parsing. Vocalization, however, is still in response to unsyllabified consonants, not a trochaic metrical pattern (frequently presumed for the historical grammars) or the arbitrary requirement for a M-jer to be present in the following syllable (traditionally assumed for the modern grammars). Syllabification, then, serves as a unifying account for jer vocalization both historically and in the modern languages. The difference in vocalization patterns is due to which component of the grammars the jer appears as a feature melody delinked from its skeletal slot. At the end of the LCS period, the H-jers delinked at

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the word level. In the modern grammars, the delinked configuration has been lexicalized and is present at the morpheme level. Relinking in response to stray consonants thus occurred post-cyclically in the historical grammars and cyclically on the modern grammars. 4.5

Summary. In this chapter, I discussed the nature of syllabification in Slavic as evident

from jer behavior. M-jer vocalization, a cyclic process, indicates that syllabification occurs at least once per cycle but leaves morpheme-final consonants extrametrical until the next cycle, when their fate as onset (preferred in Slavic), coda, or unsyllabified is determined. The patterns of H-jer vocalization illustrate the directional nature of syllabification. The differences in distribution of H- and M-jer vocalization are attributed to the component of the grammar in which YVoc operates. YVoc, which works in conjunction with the SSA to repair ill-formed syllables, operated post-cyclically in the historical Slavic grammars, because the delinking of the H-jer feature melodies from their skeletal slots was a post-cyclic process. It began at the surface level, where H-jers, because of their unstable feature combinations, gradually lost their pronunciation. The delinking eventually became lexicalized, so that the M-jers, as they exist in the modern grammars, are already delinked at the morpheme level. This means that YVoc is now cyclic, because unsyllabified consonants result as morphemes containing M-jers are added to a string.

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I also discussed the behavior of H-jers adjacent to liquids, claiming that the dialectal variations of their vocalization patterns, which frequently conflict with Havlík’s Law, result from the different constraints in the syllabification process across the dialects; that is, permissibility of syllabic liquids, restrictions in extrametricality, and the strength of directionality of the SSA. The next chapter examines some residual issues pertaining to jers. I discuss the issues involved in identifying M-jers in terms of structure and behavior. The alternating pattern of weak/strong H-jers is the predecessor of many vowel/zero alternations in the modern languages, but because not all H-jers yielded vowel/zero alternations, nor are all modern vowel/zero alternations derived from H-jers, the presence of M-jers is often ambiguous. Increased productivity of vowel/zero alternations, such as the Russian phenomenon of inserting secondary jers between obstruents and sonorants, heightens this ambiguity. Finally, I discuss the effects of stress on jer vocalization and relate this to ambiguities in representation at the underlying level.

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Chapter Five Issues in Ambiguity 5.0

Defining a M-jer: Structure vs. Behavior. In Chapter Three I argued, following Sloan (1991) and Cresti (1994), that M-

jers are represented as a conjointly floating skeletal slot and feature melody. This configuration is present in the underlying representation only and, by its very nature, is never observable as such in surface structure. It is, in a sense, an example of absolute neutralization, where the underlying representation /X/ is realized phonetically as only [Y] or [Z], never [X] itself. This is because without an association line between the skeletal and melodic tiers, the segment cannot be prosodified; either the material on the two tiers must link up or it must delete. The existence of a M-jer in the underlying representation can only be determined by examining surface behavior; however, the surface forms [∅] and [V] (a fully-linked vowel) themselves exist separately, making it difficult to properly identify a M-jer. Thus far, M-jers have been identified by their vowel/zero alternations in different morphological forms of a string, but this alternation alone does not necessarily imply a M-jer, nor does the absence of an alternation mean there isn’t one. For example, Bethin (1992) argues that there is no discernible reason for considering the alternation in Polish Comparative allomorphy to be anything other than epenthesis. A specific example of a possible M-jer with no alternation is the masculine nominative singular and the feminine/neuter genitive plural of nouns, which is never anything other than ∅ phonetically (never achieving the proper conditions to

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alternate with a vowel) but which is frequently assumed to contain a M-jer (but questioned below). This leaves us with the question: what exactly constitutes a M-jer, from the point of view of the observable behavior of the language in surface form? That is, within a string, which segments are correctly represented at the underlying level by an unlinked melodic segment and skeletal slot? Are all vowel/zero alternations represented by M-jers, and must all M-jers exhibit vowel/zero alternations? Given this structural configuration with linkage between the tiers occurring only when prosodically required, we should expect to observe the following behavior in M-jers. (1)

1.) Vowel/zero alternation 2.) Alternation is idiosyncratic for that phonetic environment 3.) Any vowel reflex (feature melody) can potentially participate in the alternation 4.) Vowel is exempt from syllabification early in the derivation 5.) ∅ interferes with syllabification of surrounding segments 6.) Observable effects on the surrounding segments (e.g., softening/palatalization of preceding consonants), even when surface reflex of M-jer is ∅ Condition (1), as discussed, is a natural consequence of the unlinked material

on the two tiers, which links up only when prosodic conditions require. Condition (2) rules out epenthesis before every *C; only M-jers will provide syllable nuclei. It is not that vocalization (linking) is unpredictable; rather, the appearance of a vowel before *C occurs only if a M-jer is present. Elsewhere, unsyllabified consonants must be deleted or adjoined at the word node. If a M-jer has some representation on the melodic tier, then its vowel reflex may be subject to lexical specification, resulting in Condition (3). The more predictable the reflex, the less information to be

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included on the melodic tier. The fact that the feature melody is unlinked to the skeletal tier, where syllabification takes place, prevents it from participating in syllabification until after it has been linked, as stated in Condition (4). Condition (5) is a result of the M-jer’s skeletal slot preventing the segments on either side from parsing into the same syllable (at least until after YDel), while condition (6) follows from the fact that the feature melody can affect adjacent feature melodies. Failure of any of the above six conditions to apply does not necessarily preclude a M-jer; for instance, a single-segment morpheme consisting of a M-jer would always result in a vowel if followed by *C and ∅ elsewhere, giving much the same appearance as epenthesis. Such a predictable distribution would likely cause the language learner to analyze the alternation as such. However, if other effects, such as interference in syllabification or changes in the feature melodies of the surrounding segments, can be observed, the learner would still interpret the alternation as a M-jer. 5.1

Ebb and flow of phonemicity. As the M-jer configuration moves from a surface form to an underlying form,

that is, as it becomes lexicalized as a phoneme, it is to be expected that it should gradually spread by analogy to other forms with *C and become increasingly productive. However, the more productive it becomes, the more predictable the vowel/zero alternations, until finally it is completely replaced in the grammar by simple epenthesis or deletion. Hence, a certain ambiguity concerning the M-jer in the UR can be expected to exist. In earlier dialects, confusion existed between H-jers

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and other (non-alternating) vowels or H-jers and zero, particularly in environments that did not produce alternations. This is seen in scribal errors, where H-jers are written where full vowels or zero should be (or vice versa). Eventually steady vowels or zero replace H-jers in underlying form when no alternation occurs. Additionally, vowel/zero alternations, which rescued *C, began to be employed to license *C where no H-jer existed originally (called secondary jers). The increased productivity of M-jers as a phoneme can be seen with the emergence of what are known as secondary jers, vowel/zero alternations conditioned by syllable structure where no H-jer was historically present (see Isa enko (1970) for detailed discussion). Though not fully regular, M-jers were often inserted in stems ending in an obstruent and the sonorants {r, l, m, n, v}.96 (2)

uglugl’ogn’rezvrebrkapl’-

ug•lug•l’og•n’r’ez•vr’ob’•rkap•l











‘corner’ ‘coal ‘fire’ ‘frisky’ ‘rib’ ‘drop’

(ugol/ugla, ugolok/ugolka, ugol’noj) (ugol’/ugl’a, ugol’ok/ugol’ka, ugol’noj) (ogon’/ogn’a, ogon’ok/ogon’ka) (rezov/rezva) (r’obro/r’ob’or, r’ob’ornoj) (kapl’a/kap’el’, kap’el’ka/kap’el’ok)

M-jers were also commonly inserted in dental fricative/velar clusters: (3)

d•skrozg



d•s•k- ‘board’ (doska/dosok) roz•g- ‘birch rod’ (rozga/rozog)

Before the fall of the H-jers, these clusters would have syllabified as complex onsets (e.g., u.glU). After the fall, there seemed to be some confusion about what to do with the final consonant before a zero ending, which constituted a sonority

96

Data in (2) and (3) from Isa enko (1970: 80-81).

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violation. In some cases, it was allowed to remain extrametrical and adjoin at the ω node (e.g., rubl’ ‘ruble’ masculine nominative singular). Words with no inserted H-jer were generally borrowings from Old Church Slavonic (OCS), which did not permit secondary jers. This is fully to be expected, as the M-jer configuration of floating skeletal slot and feature melody moves from surface structure to deep structure. The vowel/zero alternations that occur as a function of syllable structure in forms such as otUcU

ot.*c

otec would naturally be extended to other strings

involving unsyllabified consonants (or consonants difficult to syllabify) such as ognU

og*n

ogon, but preserving og.na (that is, no inserted vowel when the

inflectional ending is vocalic). The derived vowel/zero alternations, interpreted as M-jers, remain present when suffixes, such as diminutives or adjectives are added to the string. The fact that this insertion did not happen consistently prevents us from considering alternations in obstruent-sonorant stems to be cases of epenthesis. OCS did not insert secondary jers, and Russian words of OCS origin do not exhibit any alternations. A number of doublets exist in which the root of OCS origin has no alternation while the Russian root does: (4)

pesn’/pesnej ‘hymn, chant’ (fem. nom. sg./gen. pl.) pesn’a/pesen’ ‘song’ (fem. nom. sg./gen. pl.) Very likely, there was a stage in which the wordstock was divided into two

groups: native, which permitted epenthesis before *R, and OCS, which did not. As OCS borrowings became more deeply incorporated into the native wordstock, a distinction between forms that manifested a vowel/zero alternation and those that did

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not would have emerged. The epenthetic vowel/zero alternations would then become reanalyzed as M-jers. Isa enko notes that CSR prefers the OCS form (no M-jer) in many short-form adjectives, but that the vernacular contains the inserted M-jer, indicating its increased productivity. (5)

Vernacular ost’or mokor krugol

CSR ostr mokr krugl

‘sharp’ ‘wet’ ‘round’

As productivity increases, predictability also increases. As M-jers are employed more and more to rescue unsyllabified material, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish them from epenthesis. Thus, as the distribution of M-jers becomes more predictable, the floating segment configuration becomes weakened in favor of epenthesis or deletion. For example, the predictability of the vowel/zero alternation in suffixes such as /-•k-/ gives reason to suppose the M-jer has already been replaced by epenthesis.97 The main reason for assuming a M-jer in this suffix was for traditional analyses claiming the environment for vocalization was another M-jer in the following syllable. By asserting instead that it is *C that vocalizes the M-jer, the suffix could simply be represented as /-k/ with epenthesis occurring if the /k/ cannot be syllabified. To show conclusively that a M-jer is present, it would be necessary to demonstrate that material on either tier is affecting the surrounding

97

A non-productive suffix /-ok-/ that does not alternate with zero does exist: igrok/igroka ‘player.’ (See Townsend (1968: 179).) This contrasts with the suffix in question, represented ambiguously as either /-k-/ or as /-•k-/.

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segments. Failure to do this does not mean a M-jer is not present, but if we assume the grammar contains only idiosyncratic, unpredictable information in the lexicon and everything else is derived by rules, then a M-jer in the diminutive suffix /-k-/ seems unlikely, at least for some of the modern languages. On the other hand, the alternation in Russian kusok/kuska ‘piece’ (masculine nominative/genitive singular) and kuso ok/kuso ka (dim.) is difficult to explain 



without positing a M-jer for two reasons. The first is that something is causing the mutation of /k/ to [ ] in the diminutive. This is not crucial, because there is no reason for the grammar not to have a morphophonemic rule in which the suffix /-k-/ itself (rather than a M-jer) causes the mutation of preceding velars (see Bethin (1993)). The second reason is more problematic: given the plentiful existence of words ending in dental fricative plus velars (e.g., mosg ‘brain,’ blesk ‘luster,’ vosk ‘wax,’ pisk ‘squeak,’ visg ‘scream,’ l’azg ‘clank’),98 it must be explained why /kus*

k-∅/ (nominative singular) does not simply syllabify as [⊗kusk]. Thus, it seems

likely that the presence of a M-jer in /-•k-/, though somewhat ambiguous, is still a valid hypothesis. In sum, to distinguish between M-jers and epenthesis or deletion, it is necessary to consider not only whether the vowel/zero alternation is predictable, but also what effects on the surrounding segments and syllable structure can be observed. It is also possible for other alternations that did not arise from H-jers to be reanalyzed in the grammar of the modern speaker as M-jers. For example, scholars 98

Data from Isa enko (1970: 82).

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(e.g., Gussmann (1980), Rubach (1986 et seq.)) frequently consider vowel/zero alternations in many verbal paradigms to be M-jers. (6)

br-a-t’ br-a-l ber-u bir-a-t’

infinitive past tense masc. 1st sg. non-past derived imperfective infinitive

‘to take’

Historically, these alternations /∅/, /e/, /i/ came from vestiges of proto-IndoEuropean ablaut. In the modern languages, ablaut has long since lost productivity, but the vowel alternations remain. The reflexes of the alternations, that is, the specific feature melodies, are predictable: for example, in Russian non-syllabic roots with two consonants, they are [e]/[o] in non-past (e.g., beru), [∅] in the infinitive (brat’) and past tense (bral), and [i]/[y] in the derived imperfective (birat’), where the feature [back] is determined by whether the surrounding consonants are soft or hard. The alternations are caused by morphological, not prosodic rules (e.g., there is nothing preventing prosodification of the root consonants in the hypothetical form [⊗br-u], but a vowel is inserted nonetheless). If a M-jer is simply an unlinked feature melody and skeletal slot, there is nothing that requires it to remain unlinked until prosodic conditions warrant; that is, there is no reason why morphological rules cannot trigger linking as well (with additional lowering/raising to account for the alternation [e] in the perfective non-past and [i] in the derived imperfective) If the alternations occur for some roots only, the M-jer distribution would remain unpredictable, which would reinforce the M-jer configuration of floating segments. However, if the alternation is completely predictable, and we assume the lexicon

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contains only idiosyncratic information, the alternation might well be represented as epenthesis. Evidence of influence on the surrounding segments would need to be discovered to show the alternation is indeed a M-jer. I leave the question open to future research. 5.2

Stress and H-jers. We have seen how *C will cause jers to relink and vocalize. Another

prosodic factor is stress (in the northern dialects) or tone (in the southern dialects), which in Slavic was an underlying feature. A precursor to the general fall of the Hjers was the loss of their ability to carry stress. Shevelov (1965) claims that in the rare cases where stress fell on the initial syllable and that syllable contained a H-jer, the stress shifted forward: (7)

kU'n zI mU'linU

kUn 'zI mUli'nU



kn’az’ mly:n mlyn



‘prince’ MR ‘mill’ Cz Pol

Elsewhere (i.e., in non-initial syllables), stress retracted by one syllable (referred to as the neo-acute retraction). It did not retract from non-H-jer vowels: (8)

stolU' stola'

sto'lU stola'



sto'l stola'



masc. nom. sg. masc. gen. sg.

‘table’ MR

Stress retracted by no more than one syllable, even if the preceding syllable also contained a H-jer. If stress fell on a H-jer and the adjacent syllable also had a Hjer, the first of the two H-jers retained the ability to bear stress: (9)

konIcI' sU'gUn tU



konI'cI so'gnut

kone'c

183

‘end’ ‘bent’

MR MR

The historical record seems to show that stress shift preceded (or enabled) Hjer loss. When stress was forced to remain on a H-jer, delinking was prevented. For example, the conjunction nU ‘but’ carried its own stress. Because it was monosyllabic, there was nowhere for its stress to shift. Delinking did not occur, and the modern reflexes have a full vowel. (10)

nU

no

‘but’ MR, Bulg

Shevelov (1965) points out that the fact that the Bulgarian reflex has an /o/ rather than / / (the normal reflex for back H-jers) gives further evidence to the claim that the H-jer did not delink at all, but simply underwent lowering instead. This word has no alternation patterns (it is a conjunction and therefore has no declensional paradigm), so over time, the H-jer would simply have been reinterpreted as a steady vowel. The demonstrative pronoun tU received similar treatment: (11)

tU

tâ toj tâj

Slvn BR, Ukr SC

Shevelov (1965) claims the /j/ in the Byelorussian, Ukrainian, and SerboCroatian forms is a secondary development that occurred well after the H-jer lowered. Otherwise, a tense H-jer would have been obtained, and the reflexes should have been Byelorussian, Ukrainian ⊗tyj, Serbo-Croatian ⊗tij. Examples (10) and (11) support the contention that loss of stress was a precursor to loss of the H-jers (delinking) rather than a consequence. That is, delinking did not cause stress to shift; rather, shift of stress enabled delinking. If

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stress was unable to shift from the H-jer syllable to a non-H-jer syllable, the H-jer could not delink and simply lowered instead. The ability for stress to prevent delinking is significant because it disrupts the alternating pattern of weak/strong H-jers. Differences in the Slavic regions in the Hjer’s ability to retain stress might result in different vocalization patterns. For example, there is a class of verbs in which the present-tense root contained a H-jer followed by a /j/.99 Most of the Slavic languages preserve the H-jer even though it is in weak position. Very likely, the infinitive stem (which contained /i/ or /y/ rather than a H-jer) was generalized through the rest of the paradigm (Shevelov (1965)). (12)

pIj

Pol pij , LS, US piju; Sk pijem, Cz piji, Sn píjem, SC pìj m, M pijam, Bg pija

The Eastern Slavic dialects (e.g., Russian), however, treated these verbs differently. In some cases, the H-jer deleted; in others, it was vocalized. Though it is far from clear what really happened, this difference has been attributed to stress, following the pattern of the past tense (Townsend (1996)). When stress was on the ending, the H-jer deleted (13); when it was on the stem, the H-jer vocalized (14). (13)

pIj ' pila'

(14)

mU'j my'la



p’ju

lI j ' lila'

moju

krU'j kry'la





l’ju

vIj ' vila'

kroju

vU'j vy'la

v’ju (fem. past tense)



voju (fem. past tense)

However, Shevelov (1965) points out that even stressed H-jers of this verb type could fall out, as indicated by (15) below, where stress is fixed on the root.

99

The infinitive, past tense, and some other forms contained /i/ or /y/ followed by /j/.

185

(15)

šI'j ši'la

šju

bI'j bi'la

b’ju

He notes that in this verb type, it is the front H-jers that delete and the back H-jers that are preserved. The one exception is LCS /brI'j- /

Modern Russian

/bre'j-u/, but this involves an onset cluster (recall in the previous chapter that I suggest that Russian places fairly strict limits on extrametricality). Shevelov then modifies the claim that stress patterns determine H-jer vocalization or deletion in this verb class and suggests that all front H-jers in /j/-root verbs first lost the ability to carry stress and fell out (i.e., delinked and deleted), whereas the back H-jers were somehow able to hold onto it and were retained (i.e., they undergoing lowering rather than delinking). This is significant because the reverse must be true for modern Slavic: stress does not prevent delinking; it induces relinking. In the modern languages, the delinked configuration has been fully integrated into the grammar as a part of the phonemic representation; that is, delinking is completely lexicalized and already exists at the morpheme level. Given a situation where stress lands on a M-jer, relinking occurs, even if the syllable structure does not require it (to be discussed below). 5.3

Cases of ambiguity. Although many of the particulars of H-jer delinking with regard to stress are

not clear, it does appear that it was necessary for stress to be removed from the H-jer before delinking could occur. The interaction of M-jers and stress is active in the modern languages as well and points to ambiguities in the underlying representation

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with respect to vocalization, epenthesis, deletion, or a zero ending. To be examined below are three phenomena. The first involves vowel/zero alternations in verbal imperative endings in Russian, Polish, and Slovak, which could be represented as either vowel deletion (Townsend (1968)) or M-jer vocalization. Evidence presented by Bethin (1992) and Rubach (1993) indicates that the alternations are due to the latter. Next to be discussed are the so-called zero-endings (Townsend (1986 et seq.)) in the masculine nominative singular and the feminine and neuter genitive plural of nouns, which are sometimes assumed to be M-jers.100 Finally, idiosyncrasies in stress shift in Russian nouns whose stems end in obstruent-sonorant clusters points to the ambiguity between M-jer vocalization and epenthesis. 5.3.1 Imperative endings. Historically, the 2nd person singular imperative ending was /-i/. In the modern languages, [-I] alternates with zero. This should raise suspicions that it has been replaced with a M-jer (see Condition (1) in (1) above), although epenthesis or deletion are also possible. Czech and Slovak, in which stress is fixed on the initial syllable, and Polish, in which stressed is fixed on the penultimate syllable, show ∅ for the imperative singular except when preceded by an unsyllabified consonant. Russian, which, unlike Czech, Slovak, and Polish, has lexical stress, has a similar distribution for the imperative singular ending, except that it is also [-i] if the verb is end-stressed.101 In (16-a) below, end stress triggers [i] in the imperative ending. The root-final unsyllabified consonat in (16-b) also

100 101

E.g., Lightner (1972), Gussmann (1980), Rubach (1986 et seq.). Townsend (1968: 96-97).

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results on [-i]. The verbs in (17) are not end-stressed, and their stem-final consonants are able to syllabify as codas, so the imperative ending is [∅]. (16)

a. živ-i' govor-i' b. po'mn-i

(17)

ita'j-∅ ma'ž-∅ Exceptions to this rule include verbs whose stems end in /j/, where the

historic /-i/ was deleted categorically. The Modern Russian imperative singular ending is ∅ even if the other forms of the paradigm are end-stressed. (18)

kova't’ kuj-u't kuj-∅ (not ⊗kuj-i )

infinitive 3 pl. imper.

(19)

p’jut102 pij-u't pej-∅ (not ⊗p’j-i')

3 pl. imper.

(20)

poj-u't poj-∅ (not ⊗poj-i')

3 pl. imper.

(21)

stoj-a't’ stoj-a't stoj-∅ (not ⊗stoj-i')

infinitive 3 pl. imper.





Verbs with roots ending in /j/ but having the verbal suffix /-i-/ follow normal patterns for imperatives; that is, the ending is [-i] if stressed or preceded by *C. (22)

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ij

taj-i't’ taj-a't taj-i'

infinitive 3 pl. imper.

‘j / __ V' in Rus.

188

‘conceal, hide’

Leaving out the class of verbs whose stems end in /j/, which have no alternation, the question arises of how to represent the imperative ending. The ending did not historically come from a H-jer, but the alternation between a vowel and zero makes it tempting to claim it has been replaced by a M-jer in the modern languages, with [i] as the feature melody. The fact that the choice of [i] or [∅] is determined by prosodic factors is certainly consistent with H-jer/M-jer behavior. However, because the distribution is completely predictable, it could be just as well argued that the ending is either underlying /i/ or /∅/, with subsequent deletion or epenthesis, respectively, depending on the environment (see Townsend (1968), which considers the basic ending to be /-i/ with deletion under certain conditions). Recall that one of the key reasons for positing M-jers as a distinct phoneme was the unpredictability in distribution for identical environments (Condition (2) in (1)), as in (23): (23)

lasok lask

‘weasel’ ‘caress’

gen. pl. gen. pl.

There does not exist a situation for the imperative ending in which identical environments will trigger different results. Given a verb with ending stress or a final unsyllabified stem consonant, the imperative will always yield /i/. Bethin (1992) shows for Polish, and Rubach (1993), for Slovak, that the imperative cannot be underlyingly null with the ending [i] derived. They observe, first, that verbs resulting in ∅ for the imperative ending undergo certain kinds of

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softening in stem-final velars and dentals, shown in (24) below.103 It is a general phonetic rule in the languages that velars and dentals soften when followed by front vowels. (24)

a. klad-u klad’!

‘they put’

b. tiek-l-a te !

‘she flowed’

In Russian, /i/ also softens preceding consonants (if a soft variant exists). The imperatives show softening of the stem consonant, even when the ending is phonetically ∅. (25)

a. d’en-ut d’en’!

‘they put’

b. l’ez-ut l’ez’!

‘they climb’

Clearly something is present in the underlying form: in Polish and Slovak, a front vowel, and in Russian, /i/. That observable effects on the adjacent segments are present even when the surface form of the imperative ending is [∅] is consistent with expected M-jer behavior (Condition (6) in (1)). Further evidence comes from verbs with the formants ROOT-VERBALIZING SUFFIX-ENDING.

The Slavic languages have a strong tendency for segments with

same [cons] specifications and across morpheme boundaries to abhor each other and delete the first of the segments, that is, (26)

…C1-C2… …V1-V2…



…C1C2--…V1V2…



…C2… …V2…

This is particularly true for vocalic segments involved in verb formation.

103

Data from Rubach (1993: 222).

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(27)

pros’-i-at pros’at ‘they beg’ pros’-i-t’ pros’it’ ‘to beg’ 104 pis-a-ut pišut ‘they write’ pis-a-t’ pisat’ ‘to write’ Bethin and Rubach note for Polish and Slovak (respectively) that these







vocalic suffixes are deleted in the imperative, regardless of whether the ending is /i/ or /∅/. The same is true for Russian: (28)

piši'! ma'ž!

pis-a'-i ma'z-a-i



‘write!’ ‘smear!’

Again, something vocalic must be present to force the verbalizing suffix to delete, ruling out the possibility that the ending is ∅ in the underlying representation and /i/ is inserted if the verb is end-stressed or the stem ends in *C. Some representation is therefore required on the melodic tier. However, it might still be claimed (as in Townsend (1968)) that fully-linked /i/ is initially present in the underlying form to soften the preceding consonant and then later deletes if it is not prosodically required (i.e., unstressed and not preceded by *C—see Townsend (1968)). Rubach (1993: 223) counters this by making a further claim for Slovak that a certain rule causes /j/ to delete when followed by a consonant. Without committing to the validity of this claim as a general phonological rule, it can at least be observed that Russian verb stems ending in /j/ delete the /j/ when a consonant follows:105 (29)

duj-ut duj-t’



dujut dut’

‘they blow’ ‘to blow’

104

Mutation of the stem consonant occurs throughout the present tense for this verb class. 105 In Russian, at least, /j/ truncation seems merely to be a specific instance of a general rule that consonants across verbal morpheme boundaries result in deletion of the first consonant (see above).

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The 2nd person plural imperative ending is the same as the singular but with /te/ added on; that is, it alternates between /-ite/ and /-te/. (30)

živ-i'te ‘live!’ po'm.n-ite ‘remember!’

cita'j-te ma'ž-te

‘read!’ ‘smear!’

Verb stems in /j/ do not undergo truncation in the imperative plural, yielding duj.te! not ⊗du.te!. This clearly indicates, again, that something is intervening between the /j/ and the /t/ on the melodic tier. Possibly, one could claim there is a fully-linked vowel preventing the truncation, but that it deleted after the truncation rule had already tried (and failed) to apply. However, while insertion of a segment only when prosodically required has a high degree of plausibility (but was ruled out for Slavic imperatives), deletion of an existing segment that is prosodically superfluous (it is licensed and is not violating any discernible constraints) is completely unmotivated. In fact, deletion of the /i/ in the plural imperative endings creates a situation with two adjacent consonants, something the general consonant truncation rule attempts to prevent. Further evidence comes from Polish o-raising (see Bethin (1992)) that the feature melody /i/ cannot be linked to its skeletal slot in the underlying representation (as opposed to being a fully-linked vowel and then deleting). If the imperative ending were a fully-linked vowel, we would expect a preceding consonant to syllabify as an onset, opening the preceding syllable. (This follows from the language universal that …CV… is always tautosyllabic.) This would bleed o-raising,

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which requires a closed syllable. However, this is not what happens; on the contrary, o-raising does occur:106 (31)

robi rób!

‘I do’ [rup] ‘do!’

The imperative /i/ provides no nucleus for the preceding /b/, so the /b/ must syllabify as a coda to the preceding syllable, closing it and allowing o-raising. This can be explained only if the /i/ is not linked to its skeletal slot, providing no vocalic features to enable it to project a nucleus (Condition (4) in (1) above). This means /b/ can syllabify only with the preceding syllable, illustrated in (32) below.107 (32)

r o b| | | X XX \ | σ

r o b -i | | | XX XX \ | σ Add imperative

r o b i | | | XX XX \ | / σ Syllabification

r u p | | | XX X \ | / σ o-raising; YDel; devoicing

Notice it is not possible to claim the imperative ending is fully-linked but that it deletes before o-raising can occur. This would require a complicated process in which the ending is attached and then deletes as soon as it sees that the /b/ can syllabify as a coda to the preceding syllable. A single consonant between two vowels

106

Data from Bethin (1992: 211). Here, one could argue against the necessity for a skeletal slot in the representation, claiming only a floating feature melody exists. The actual existence of the skeletal slot is impossible to prove, because it has no segments following it. There is no way to show it prevents the preceding consonant from syllabifying with the following syllable. The behavior of post-lexical syllabification could not shed any light, because by this stage, the M-jer has been deleted. However, omitting the skeletal slot from the representation further complicates the grammar by positing still one more phonemic combination between the tiers. While I do not discount this possibility, I see no overwhelming need to assume it at this time. 107

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universally syllabifies as the onset to the second syllable. For the /b/ to syllabify with the stem syllable would require that either we arbitrarily stipulate that this constraint is violated with the imperative ending, or else a very complicated set of rules involving attachment of the imperative ending, syllabification of /b/ as an onset, failure of o-raising, deletion of the ending, and resyllabification of the /b/ as a coda. In sum, the fact that the imperative ending provides nothing with which to open the stem syllable and bleed o-raising indicates that its /i/ feature melody is unlinked to a skeletal slot. This is consistent with the configuration of a M-jer. In addition, if the ending is indeed a M-jer, then its presence or absence phonetically in conjunction with stress and syllable structure is understood ((33) below). (33)

a. p | X \

o' | X | σ

m | X /

b. p | X \

r o | | XX \ | σ

n -i | XX | * s | X \

-i'- -i | X X / σ

p o' m n i | | | | | XX XX X \ | / \ / σ σ



p | X \

r | X \

o s i' | | XX X | σ

p r | | XX \ \

o s i' | | | XX X | \ / σ σ

In (33-a) above, the M-jer vocalizes to rescue the preceding unlicensed consonant (a hallmark characteristic of M-jer behavior). In (33-b), the M-jer relinks because it is under stress. Interestingly enough, Czech and Slovak, in which, unlike Russian, stress is fixed on the initial syllable, shows /-i/ for the imperative ending only when the stem ends in *C ((34) below).

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(34)

Sk ne's-u ne's!

Rus nes-u't nesi'!

‘they carry’ ‘carry!’

Polish has a similar situation, but where stress is on the penultimate syllable. I conclude with Rubach and Bethin, then, that even though the presence and absence of a vocalic ending in phonetic form is predictable, its representation as a Mjer is still required because of the effect it has on the surrounding segments. 5.3.2 Nominal zero-endings. The fact that stress appears to induce M-jer relinking raises the question whether nouns have word-end M-jers in the masculine nominative singular and feminine genitive plural, as well as the masculine singular of the past tense and the short-form adjectives. Recall that these endings are all zero in surface form but are frequently posited to be M-jers. The motivation for this is to provide a consistent account for M-jer vocalization in analyses that claim it occurs when a M-jer is present in the following syllable (see Chapter Two above). For example, in the diminutive /cuk•r-• -•k/

[cukere ek], the M-jers can be said to

vocalize when preceding a M-jer syllable only if an abstract M-jer is posited at wordend. As noted earlier, this analysis is descriptive only, and positing a phoneme whose presence cannot be verified or shown to be required on independent grounds leaves great reason to doubt its existence. Obviously, because of its position, a word-end M-jer in nouns would be unable to manifest the hallmark traits of M-jers—a vowel/zero alternation, idiosyncratic or otherwise. Other effects due to its structure are also difficult to observe. For example, the behavior of o-raising in Polish is not helpful here; it can

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rule out fully-linked vowels that project syllable nuclei, but if a nucleus is lacking in the underlying representation, there is nothing to indicate whether that is because a vowel is not linked to its skeletal slot or because there is nothing there at all. Effects on the melodic tier (Condition (6) in (1)) shed very little light here as well. Consider, for example, Polish, which has phonetic palatalization of consonants when followed by front vowels. In (35) below, are two different suffixes, each containing M-jers. The one in (35-a) palatalizes the root consonant even when the M-jer is not vocalized, whereas the one in (35-b) does not: (35)

a. m•gl-•nb. m•gl-•k



mg’el’ny mg’elka/mg’elek

masc. nom. sg. adj. fem. nom. sg./gen. pl.

‘foggy’ ‘mist’

Gussmann (1980) attributes the difference in (35-a-b) above to the suffix Mjers; the one in (35-a), he claims, is a front M-jer, whereas the one in (35-b) is a back one. Unfortunately, palatalization of preceding consonants is inconsistent. In the unprefixed noun form of the same root, palatalization of the consonant preceding the M-jer /g/ occurs only when the M-jer is vocalized, as in (36) below. (36)

a. mgla b. mg’el

fem. nom. sg. fem. gen. pl.

‘fog’

Furthermore, the root-final consonant in (37) below is soft regardless of whether it is followed by [∅] or a front vowel, making it difficult to claim the softness is due to a front M-jer. (37)

a. den’ b. dn’a

masc. nom. sg. masc. gen. sg.

‘day’

The effects on adjacent feature melodies tells very little, then, about whether or not nouns have word-end M-jers. It appears, then, that Condition (6) in (1) above

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is not always born out, and that M-jers do not always affect adjacent segments. It is possible that in examples like (35-a-b) above, it is the following suffix as a whole that palatalizes the preceding consonant (Bethin (1992)). The effect of stress in Russian provides evidence against the existence of word-end M-jers in nouns, however. If stress can induce relinking, as it does in Russian verbal imperatives, why does it not do so in nouns with stress on the inflectional ending? Russian nouns have a number of different stress patterns throughout the declensions. For some, stress is fixed on a stem syllable; for others, it is fixed on the case ending. Sometimes there is a shift from stem to ending between singular and plural, or vice versa. For some nouns, more complicated patterns arise, such as stress on the ending for the plural oblique cases but the stem elsewhere, or stress on the nominative plural and acc. singular but ending elsewhere. Of interest are nouns where stress is on the ending everywhere except when there is a zero ending, when it shifts to a stem syllable. This is illustrated in (38) below, where (a) shows a noun with stress on the declensional ending except in the nominative singular, which has a zero ending, and (b) shows a noun with stress on the stem in the singular and the ending in the plural, except for the genitive plural, which has a zero ending. (38)

a. nom. sg. acc. gen. loc. dat. instr.

bogaty'r’-∅ pl. bogatyr’-i' b. sg. me'st-o pl. mest-a' bogatyr’-a' bogatyr’-e'j me'st-o mest-a' bogatyr’-a' bogatyr’-e'j me'st-a me'st-∅ bogatyr’-e' bogatyr’-a'x me'st-e mest-a'x bogatyr’-u' bogatyr’-a'm me'st-y mest-a'm bogatyr’-o'm bogatyr’-a'mi me'st-om mest-a'mi

197

Feldstein (1979) argues strongly that the stress shift from ending to a stem syllable when there is a zero-ending is a surface pattern, and that underlyingly, the stress is still on the ending (e.g., /bogatyr’-∅'/

[bogaty'r’]).108 For nouns such as

(38-a-b) above, this fact seems obvious, unless one claims that zero-endings are actually M-jers. If they are, and if stress induces relinking, why would these endings not vocalize as shown by the incorrect derivation (39) below?109 (39)

m e s t- ' | | | | XX XX

m e s t- -o' | | | | XX XX X

⊗m e s t o' | | | | | X XX XX

The fact that there is no *C here does not rescue the claim, because even nouns such as /rubl’-'/ are also end-stressed, with a stem-final *C. These still do not vocalize anything at word-end. (40)

a. nom. sg. acc. gen. loc. dat. instr.

ru'bl’-∅ ru'bl’-∅ rubl’-a' rubl’-e' rubl’-u' rubl’-o'm

pl. rubl’-i' rubl’-e'j rubl’-e'j rubl’-a'x rubl’-a'm rubl’-a'mi

To preserve the notion of a word-end M-jer here, one would have to claim the underlying stress pattern is not fixed on the ending, but, rather, is on the stem syllable in the masculine nominative singular and on the ending elsewhere. Nouns of type (38-b) (mesto) above would be even more complicated: stress on the stem throughout the singular and in genitive plural, but on the ending elsewhere. Alternatively, one 108

See also Townsend (1993). The feature melody of the supposed M-jer is arbitrarily specified here as /o/, because that is the normal reflex in Russian. Note there is no way to know this for certain. 109

198

could stipulate that stressed M-jers vocalize in verbal imperatives but not in noun endings. If, on the other hand, endings that are phonetically zero and thus never alternate with anything regardless of stress pattern or syllable structure (masculine nominative singular, feminine/neuter genitive plural, masculine singular past tense, masculine singular short-form adj.) are indeed zero-endings rather than M-jers, the underlying stress pattern is simplified. It is on the first desinence syllable if one exists; when there is no such ending, it goes elsewhere (usually the immediately preceding syllable). If M-jers are vocalized when another one is in the next syllable, the speaker finds evidence for word-end M-jers in nouns when the M-jer in the preceding syllable is vocalized. If instead, __*C is what triggers YVoc, then other evidence must exist for the speaker, since a word-end jer by its position cannot be followed by *

C. As other positive evidence is absent, it is unlikely that the masculine nominative

singular and feminine and neuter genitive plural nominal case endings consist of Mjers. 5.3.3 Stress shift in nouns with obstruent-sonorant stems. The ambiguity between M-jers and epenthesis is illustrated in end-stressed nouns and short-form adjectives that have a M-jer in the final stem syllable followed by a sonorant. When the ending is zero, the stress usually falls on the M-jer syllable (41), but occasionally it retracts to the syllable preceding the M-jer (42). (41)

a. [os’o'l-∅] b. [osl-a']

masc. nom. sg. masc. gen. sg.

199

‘donkey’

(42)

a. [u'z’ol-∅] b. [uzl-a']

masc. nom. sg. masc. gen. sg.

‘knot’

Feldstein (1979) points out that this behavior is due to the development of secondary jers. When stress retracted from the desinential H-jer, it landed on the next available vowel. If that vowel was a H-jer, delinking was prevented and the Hjer, which was strong anyway, lowered instead, as in (43) below. Nouns with the stress pattern in (41) above come primarily from this type. (43)

o.sI.l-U'

o.sI'l



o.s’o'l

‘donkey’

However, many stems ended with an obstruent followed by a sonorant, with no intervening H-jer. This consonant cluster simply formed a complex onset to the desinence syllable, which always began with a vowel. If the desinence ending was a H-jer, stress simply shifted back one syllable. Later, a secondary jer was inserted, but by that time, the pattern of shift to the first110 syllable had already been established, as in (44) below. Nouns with the stress pattern in (42) above generally come from this type. (44)

u.zl-U'

u.zlU'

u'z.*l

u'.z’ol

This means that in modern times, there are two subtypes of surface stress patterns for underlyingly end-stressed nouns. When the ending is zero, stress can retract one syllable (to stem-final), or it can retract two syllables (stem penultimate). Since the fall of the H-jers, nouns belonging to these subtypes have exchanged categories. For example, [o.go'n’/o.gn’a'] has the stress pattern of etymological H-jer

110

More accurately, “stem-penultimate,” once jer insertion has occurred.

200

nouns even though its M-jer is a secondary development. In addition, nouns with etymological H-jers have crossed over to the secondary-jer stress pattern, e.g., [po.lot.no'/ po.lo'.ten] (not [⊗po.lo.te'n], even though a H-jer was present originally to receive the stress). The cross-over involves only nouns whose stems are of shape obstruent-sonorant, indicating confusion over whether a M-jer is actually present between the two segments in the underlying representation. Feldstein (1979) claims that nouns in Modern Russian with stress retraction to the stem penultimate syllable still, like their historical forms, have no M-jer in the underlying representation at the time of stress retraction. That is, if stress falls on a zero ending, it retracts one syllable, and then after the retraction, a M-jer is inserted between the obstruent and unsyllabified sonorant, as in (45) below. (45)

uz.l-'

uz.*l-∅'

u'z.*l-∅

u'z.•*l

u'.z’ol

This proposal, though attractive, has some problems. First, M-jer insertion does not happen to all stem-final obstruent-sonorant nouns. Feldstein (1979) answers this criticism by pointing out that the words failing to insert secondary jers were of Old Church Slavonic (OCS) origin, which did not have this phenomenon. Essentially this amounts to claiming the insertion rule is not fully productive and is limited to words fully accepted into the Russian word-stock. This claim, though generally true, is subject to doubt because of the existence of forms such as /os’otr/ ‘sturgeon’ < LCS /osetr/. The word-medial /o/ in the modern form was originally /e/, but it changed to /o/ in the well-known “/e/-to-/o/ shift,” a Russian phonological change in which /e/ shifted to /o/ except when it preceded a soft consonant. This

201

change did not occur in OCS or to words borrowed from OCS into Russian. Modern Russian has numerous doublets showing this contrast, for example, n’ebo ‘sky, heaven,’ but n’obo ‘palate.’ The form /os’otr/ then requires explanation: its participation in the /e/-to-/o/ shift indicates that it was not of OCS origin; nevertheless, it does not have a secondary jer. However, this example alone is not conclusive; just as the etymological jer and secondary jer stress patterns have had cross-overs, there is no reason why the OCS/native Russian classes could not also have cross-overs or partial cross-overs such that a given word would participate in one phonological change (the /e/-to-/o/ shift) but not another (secondary jer insertion). Over time, this OCS/native Russian distinction could have evolved into Class One, where M-jer insertion occurs late, after the stress shift, and Class Two, where it does not occur at all. These two classes would be in addition to the large class of obstruent-noun stems that already have a M-jer in their underlying representation. Feldstein’s proposal has some merit in that words belonging to the [-jer insert] class do tend to have a bookish or church association (though not all of them do, e.g., os’otr ‘sturgeon,’ rubl’ ‘ruble’). Restriction of jer insertion to words of a specific class would also imply dialectal variation on which words apply the rule, which is exactly what occurs (c.f. above, CSR ostr ‘sharp,’ vernacular ost’or). A more serious problem with the proposal of a M-jer insertion rule is that it means there is no need for the segment to be a M-jer. The reason for positing a Mjer in Russian obstruent-sonorant stems is to account for the idiosyncratic distribution

202

of a vowel before the sonorant, e.g., /rubl’/

[rubl’] vs. /ug•l/

[ugol’]. If the

insertion rule’s application itself is idiosyncratic, why not assume the rule to be epenthesis of a fully-linked vowel? In fact, if class membership determines whether a segment (vowel or M-jer) is inserted after stress shift, one might as well reduce all Russian vowel/zero alternations to class membership. For example, one could claim the alternation laska/lasok ‘weasel’ belongs to a class that permits epenthesis, whereas the alternation laska/lask ‘caress’ does not. The particular class would determine whether epenthesis occurred before or after the stress shift. Another problem with Feldstein’s proposal is that it results in a very serious rule-ordering contradiction when the diminutive suffix /-•k-/ is involved. Stress shift is almost certainly a post-cyclic operation; it does not occur until after the inflectional endings have been attached. However, the epenthetic [o] is present in the diminutive forms uz’olok/uz’olka, making its insertion during the cyclic component unquestionable. Addition of the diminutive suffix /-•k-/ sometimes affects the stress pattern; in this example, stress alterates between the desinence and the diminutive suffix (when the ending is [∅]) (46-a), not the initial syllable, as it does in the nondiminutive form (46-b). (46)

a. u.z’o.lo'k / u.z’ol.ka' b. u'.z’ol / u.zla'

masc. nom. sg. masc. nom. sg.

‘knot’ (dim.) ‘knot’

The problem is that the stress shift in (46-b) must precede epenthesis in order to account for [u'.z’ol] and not [⊗u.z’o'l]. However, YVoc in the diminutive suffix

203

/-•k-/ must precede the stress shift in order to provide the proper landing site for stress, generating correct [u.z’o.lo'k], not [⊗u'.z’o.lok]. The proper order of rules, then, is the following: 1) YVoc, 2) stress shift, 3) epenthesis. Epenthesis, however, occurs only when the sonorant is not syllabified. Note that it does not occur in the non-diminutive forms that have vocalic endings: [uzla], not [⊗uz’ola]. If YVoc has already applied in the nominative singular diminutive, the /l/ is syllabified as an onset and should incorrectly bleed epenthesis, yielding [⊗uz.lok]. It is therefore not possible to accept Feldstein’s proposal that insertion (of a M-jer or a steady vowel) occurs after the stress shift for a specific class of nouns. The dilemma is how to present an adequate model that can represent the three situations below: (47)

a. os’o'l, osla' b. u'z’el’, uzla' c. os’o'tr, os’otra' In (47-a), a M-jer vocalizes to provide a nucleus for the unsyllabified /*l/.

This vocalized M-jer is an acceptable landing site for stress when the desinence is ∅. In (47-b), a vowel appears, also providing a nucleus for /*l/, but this vowel does not appear to be visible to the stress retraction. If a M-jer is present in its UR, what distinguishes it from the one in (47-a) that causes the different surface stress? An alternative is to posit vowel epenthesis after the stress retraction, but this is inadequate, because it does not occur in forms such as (47-c), in addition to the other problems cited above. No vowel appears to syllabify the /*r/, even though the word seems to be fully within the Russian word stock (as evidenced by the /o/ preceding

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the hard consonant, which remained /e/ in OCS). Obviously, since no vowel appears before the /r/, no landing site for stress appears as well. Forms such as in (47-b), in which stress placement and vocalization are idiosyncratic, must be distinguished from (47-a), where the M-jers can receive stress, and from (47-c), where epenthesis does not always occur. It is possible the location of stress shift has nothing to do with the presence or absence of an underlying M-jer, but rather, these nouns, which are relatively few in number, are lexically marked to shift surface stress to the initial syllable in correspondence with established patterns. This would simply be a vestige from when nothing existed between the stem-final obstruent and liquid. No satisfying solution to the problem has been found. I believe this is precisely because of ambiguity between M-jers and epenthesis. It is important to note that the cases where crossovers occurred between the two surface stress patterns (stem-final vs. stem-penultimate) involved obstruent-sonorant stems. Essentially two possibilities exist: (1) nothing exists between the root obstruent and sonorant in the underlying representation in both (47-b -c), and epenthesis is idiosyncratic, or (2) a M-jer does exist in (47-b) as well as (47-a), but surface stress placement with ∅ desinences is idiosyncratic. This indicates that obstruent-sonorant stems are ambiguous at the underlying level as to whether a real M-jer exists, particularly for the (47-b) types. Forms that adopt the stem-final stress pattern resolve the ambiguity in favor of an underlying M-jer, whereas forms that adopt stem-penultimate may favor epenthesis implemented after the stress shift. As M-jer productivity increases

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to rescue word-final obstruent-sonorant combinations, the ambiguity will increase until finally M-jers are reanalyzed in the grammar as epenthesis. 5.4

Conclusion. M-jers are largely unchanged from their late LCS predecessors. The main

difference is that their structural configuration, which began at the surface level in Hjers, has been lexicalized. Vocalization is a strategy to license unsyllabified consonants and operates in conjunction with syllabification, which also is largely unchanged in Slavic. While syllable shape (phonotactics and the permissibility of codas) has evolved over the development of the Slavic languages, the application on syllable-building rules in a cyclic right-to-left parsing operates in much the same way in the modern languages as it did at the close of the LCS period. Increased productivity of M-jers has led to increased predictability of their associated vowel/zero alternations as a solution to unlicensed consonants. This in turn has led to ambiguity between YVoc and epenthesis. In addition, when syllable structure does not condition a surface vowel/zero alternation in a M-jer, the M-jer is replaced by a steady vowel or zero. The combination of these two factors makes it likely that the structural configuration of m-jers will eventually lose its phonemic status.

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