Conclusion
In this article, I have provided support for a skeletal core independent of any phonemic material. This is not a new theoretical claim, but rather adds to a small but growing literature (McCarthy 1979, 1981, Halle and Vergnaud 1980, Harris 1980, Marantz 1982, Yip 1982). However, the analysis here is an important addition because the skeleta are added to the grammer in an unfamiliar manner: affixes may determine the skeletal template of a root; if not, a default template is supplied, determined by a lexical diacritic on each verb root. Interestingly, recent work on Norwegian tone by Withgott and Halvorsen (in prep) suggests that when a suffix bears tone in Norwegian, the suffixal tone pattern surfaces on the word. With no affixes or with a toneless suffix, the underlying (or default) tone of the word surfaces. This parallels in tone the example in templates that Yokuts provides.
In section 3, a CV-template pool consisting of the three default templates of verbs in Yawelmani was established. Certain affixes supply templates from this pool, and the phonemic melody of the root associates with the selected template according to universal conventions and the rule of V Spread (43). The assumption of a pool containing only three templates accounts for the pairing of bi- and triconsonantal forms when a template is selected by an affix, that is the CVC–CVCC, CVVC–CVVCC, and CVCVV–CVCVVC pairings. The triconsonantal template is selected in all cases. With biconsonantal roots, the third C-slot of the template has no segment associated with it, and so cannot surface. This explanation is elegant and concise, but is not available without the existence of an independent skeletal tier.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Archangeli, D.: 1983a, ‘Underlying Representations and Syllable Structure in Yawelman,i’ unpublished, MIT.
Archangeli, D.: 1983b, ‘A Note on “Irregular” Affix-supplied Templates’, unpublished, MIT.
Archangeli, D. and D. Pulleyblank: in prep., ‘Default Rules and Vowel Harmony’.
Clements, G. and S. J. Keyser: 1981, A Three-Tiered Theory of the Syllable, MIT Center for Cognitive Science Occasional Paper 19.
Feinstein, M. and S. Lapointe: 1982, ‘The Role of Vowel Deletion and Epenthesis in the Assignment of Syllable Structure,’ in H. v. d. Hulst and N. Smith (eds.), The Structure of Phonological Representations, Foris Publications, Dordrecht.
Gamble, G.: 1978, Wikchamni Grammar, University of California Publications in Linguistics, Berkeley.
Goldsmith, J.: 1976, Autosegmental Phonology, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Halle, M. and J. R. Vergnaud: 1980, ‘Three-dimensional Phonology’, Journal of Linguistic Research 1, 83–105.
Harris, J. W.: 1980, ‘Nonconcatenative Morphology and Spanish Plurals’, Journal of Linguistic Research 1, 15–31.
Harris, Z.: 1944, ‘Yokuts Structure and Newman's Grammar’, IJAL 10, 196–211.
Kaye, J. and J. Lowenstamm: 1981, ‘De la syllabicité’, unpublished.
Kiparsky, P.: 1982, ‘Lexical Phonology and Morphology’, in I.-S. Yange (ed.), Linguistics in the Morning Calm, Seoul, Hanshin.
Kiparsky, P.: 1983, ‘Some Consequences of a Theory of Lexical Phonology’, unpublished, MIT.
Kisseberth, C.: 1969, Theoretical Implications of Yawelmani Phonology, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois.
Kuroda, S.-Y.: 1967, Yawelmani Phonology, Research Monograph No. 43, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Levin, J.: 1983, ‘Reduplication and Prosodic Structure’, unpublished, MIT.
Marantz, A.: 1982, ‘Re Reduplication’, Linguistic Inguiry 13, 435–482.
McCarthy, J.: 1979, Formal Problems in Semitic Phonology and Morphology, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
: 1981, ‘A Prosodic Theory of Nonconcatenative Morphology’, Linguistic Inquiry 12, 373–418.
Mohanan, K. P.: 1982, Lexical Phonology, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Newman, S.: 1944, Yokuts Language of California, The Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology #2, New York.
Pulleyblank, D.: 1983, Tone in Lexical Phonology, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Pulleyblank, D.: in press, ‘Tiv and the Association Conventions’, to appear in the proceedings of NELS XIII, Montreal, Canada.
Schein, B.: 1981, ‘Spirantization in Tigrinya’, MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 3, 32–42.
Steriade, D.: 1981, ‘Parameters of Metrical Harmony Rules’, unpublished MIT.
Steriade, D.: 1982, Greek Prosodies and the Nature of Syllabification, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Williams, E.: 1976, ‘Underlying Tone in Margi and Igbo’, Linguistic Inquiry 7, 463–484.
Withgott, M. and P-K. Halvorsen: in prep., ‘Morphological and Phonological Rules of Scandinavian Tone-accent’.
Yip, M.: 1982, ‘Reduplication and C-V Skeleta in Chinese Secret Languages’, Linguistic Inquiry 13, 637–661.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Archangeli, D. The root CV-template as a property of the affix: Evidence from Yawelmani. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 1, 347–384 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00142470
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00142470