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Plural exponence in the Nez Perce DP: a DM analysis

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Abstract

This paper analyzes two patterns of number marking in the DP in Nez Perce (Sahaptian) within the framework of Distributed Morphology. The first involves under-realization of plural on nouns. Number has classically been understood as a feature inherent to nouns, rather than to adjectives that modify them. In Nez Perce, however, only a small set of nouns show number morphology, whereas number morphology is highly productive on adjectival modifiers. Adjectives in fact may realize the plural more than once per word—an instance of multiple exponence. I show that the puzzle of under-realization for nouns can be solved through conditioned allomorphy, providing new evidence for the presence of gender features on n (Lowenstamm 2007; Kramer 2014). The puzzle of multiple exponence (over-realization) for adjectives can be solved through Local Dislocation (Embick and Noyer 2001) combined with very late insertion of reduplicative content (Haugen 2008, 2011), demonstrating one way the DM architecture may produce multiple exponence without recourse to dedicated mechanisms.

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Notes

  1. Nez Perce lacks vowel-initial words, so words in this class always begin with a non-glottal consonant.

  2. Lexical data in this paper draws primarily from the extensive Nez Perce dictionary, Aoki (1994); references to this work are given as [An], where n is a page number. All data not credited to a published source comes from fieldwork conducted on the Nez Perce reservation in Lapwai, ID, 2006–2015, with four native speaker consultants. In some cases, data from fieldnotes is given the tag [fn]. Transcriptions are based on the Aoki 1994 system. Note that e = IPA æ, y = IPA j, x̂ = IPA χ, c = IPA ts, and that main stress is indicated with an acute accent. Transcriptions here depart from Aoki in marking vowel length with digraphs, and glottalization with an apostrophe just after the glottalized consonant. They depart from transcriptions used in Deal (2010a,b) and following work in marking the glottal stop with ʔ instead of an apostrophe.

  3. For discussion and references, see Sect. 2.

  4. See for instance Corbett’s (2000, p. 2) fifth “reasonable but incorrect assumption” about number: “Number is a nominal category.” The Nez Perce pattern in (6)–(7) is also relevant to the second reasonable but incorrect assumption Corbett discusses: “all relevant items (nouns, for instance) will mark number.”

  5. Note that Nez Perce generally does not tolerate post-consonantal glottal consonants. Singular form ʔilpʔilp ‘red’ (8d) is exceptional in this regard.

  6. See Deal (2015) for paradigms and discussion.

  7. This form is used in pedagogical materials circulated by the Nez Perce tribe. Aoki (1994) reports that there is no specialized human form for this numeral.

  8. The derivation of this form is presumably ʔoymata + wa > ʔoymatoo. Coalescence of awa to oo is frequent in Nez Perce; see Crook (1999, Chap. 3).

  9. Aoki records both this form and initial-stress variant píilepuʔ.

  10. This generalization may not be fully universal; see Vázquez Rojas Maldonado (2012) and Dalrymple and Mofu (2012) for discussion.

  11. This list is drawn from unpublished work by Harold Crook.

  12. Aoki (1994) records a small number of exceptions to this pattern: (mi)méex̂sem ‘mountain(s)’ [A437], (pi)póhol ‘ravine(s)’ [A555], (si)sáqan ‘canyon(s)’ [A623], (he)ʔískit ‘road(s)’ [A1078]. My consultants report a varying degree of familiarity with the plurals of these words, but are not comfortable using them in sentences. They are comfortable with plural forms only for human-class nouns.

  13. The concord process itself may be understand in a variety of ways; I leave this question open here. See Baker (2008), Carstens (2001), and Toosarvandani and van Urk (2014) for discussion of Agree-based concord, and Norris (2012, 2014) for discussion of concord via morphological feature copying.

  14. The appearance of /n/ is conditioned by the class of the root. Root class is syntactically determined in Nez Perce (Deal and Wolf 2015).

  15. On the case system of Nez Perce, see Deal (2010a, 2010b).

  16. No examples of this type have been located in Aoki and Walker (1989), the source of examples (45) above, and speakers generally reject these forms in elicitation.

  17. In view of the separate exponence of number and case in examples like (47), I assume that these features are fissioned at the point of Vocabulary Insertion. On fission, see Noyer (1992), Halle (2000).

  18. CVC words sis ‘navel’, pis ‘drizzle’ and tit ‘tooth’ are potential exceptions. Harold Crook (p.c.) reports final consonant lengthening in these forms, however, in keeping with the hypothesis that true CVC words are sub-minimal. I am not aware of any potential CV content words.

  19. Recall that this structure represents only constituency, not linear order; it is fully equivalent to the structures discussed in Sect. 3, where Agr was displayed to the right of its sister.

  20. This view may be contrasted with rule-based phonological approaches advocated by Embick 2010 and (with particular emphasis on reduplication) by Raimy 2000a, 2000b and Frampton 2009.

  21. The major alternative is to treat Agr as an adjunct to the complex a head. If this is so, then Lowering ipso facto cannot bring Agr into the desired configuration (61), as Agr has no complement that it may be lowered to.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Linguistics, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, USA

    Amy Rose Deal

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Correspondence to Amy Rose Deal.

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I’d like to thank audience members at Allomorphy: its logic and limitations, along with Harold Crook, Kathryn Pruitt, Maziar Toosarvandani, and two anonymous Morphology reviewers. A special thanks is due to Bessie Scott and Florene Davis for teaching me so much about their beautiful Nez Perce language over the years. And thanks to Noam Faust for organizing the Jerusalem workshop that eventually led to this paper being written.

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Deal, A.R. Plural exponence in the Nez Perce DP: a DM analysis. Morphology 26, 313–339 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11525-015-9277-9

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