Abstract
In this paper I review the locality domains of contextual allomorphy, contextual allosemy and morphophonology with a special emphasis on compounds. I show that when the applications of these processes within compounds are compared, we observe a distinction between the domain of contextual allomorphy and contextual allosemy, on one hand, and morphophonology on the other. I argue that the mismatches in the domains in question lie in the timing of the operations where operations applying prior to vocabulary insertion are constrained by cycles/phases, whereas operations applying after vocabulary insertion are constrained by the timing of concatenation. Under such approach, all of these processes will make reference to the same morphosyntactic structure although their domains will be marked by different points in that same structure.
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Notes
Note that in what follows I refer to both morphophonological processes and phonological processes sensitive to morphosyntactic structure as morphophonology. Although these two types of processes show some divergent behaviors (see, e.g., Embick 2010; Embick and Shwayder 2018), in terms of the domains under discussion here, both group together in contrast to contextual allotypy.
Here I use the term head referring to the locus inflectionis and/or semantic head, i.e., the element that typically determines the category and class of the compound as a whole, which is modified by the non-head elements regardless of linear order, roughly corresponding to the semantic head (the extended projection of \(\sqrt{\text{\textsc{root}}_{1}}\) in (2)).
Note that this is a left-headed compound (cf. Beard 1995), i.e., lave- corresponds to \(\sqrt{\text{\textsc{root}}}_{1}\) in (2), and vais- corresponds to \(\sqrt{\text{\textsc{root}}}_{2}\). It should also be noted that under the assumption that these are stem compounds, the inflectional node φ will dominate the entire compound. It is linearized with respect to the whole compound stem and can hence follow the non-head, instead of intervening between the two.
I set aside the issue of the precise nature of the vowel -a occurring between the verb and the infinitival affix. The vowel could be considered a theme vowel (cf. Alexander 2006:331–332) or a realization of v. It does not necessarily correspond to the first vowel of the nominalizing suffix, cf. (pro-)žder-a-ti and žder-onja.
Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.
Note that Fenger and Harðarson (2018) do not analyze the interaction in Dutch as contextual allomorphy but as manipulation of the feature content on n. However, the point made by the discussion here remains the same: in order for this type of interaction to take place the non-head element cannot have been spelled-out prior to its merger with the head of the compound, and both elements must be contained within the same cyclic domain.
The compounds in (8) are, in principle, ambiguous between left and right branching structures.
A reviewer points out that this may be a matter of the head creating bias towards one interpretation rather than this being technically a case of contextual allosemy, as the alternative meanings may be available given the proper context, such as a room full of globes with a person trotting all over them. However, even if that were the case, the point remains the same. Under the typical adjunction analysis, the sensitivity to the identity of the head of the compound is not predicted to be possible as the non-head elements would have undergone spell-out and its meaning and phonological form would be fixed at the point of adjunction (cf. Nunes and Uriagereka 2000; Piggott and Travis 2013). In order for any kind of semantic or phonological interaction to be possible, the non-head cannot have undergone spell-out prior to merging with the head of the compound.
It is worth noting, considering that for some speakers the meaning of globe is not fixed at the first categorial node, (11b), but is fixed at the second one, (11c), Moskal’s (2015a, 2015b) approach may have some advantages over the alternatives. Under both Embick (2010) and Bobaljik (2012) the second category node would be excluded from the domain of contextual allosemy of the root, even under domain suspension (cf. Bobaljik and Wurmbrand 2013) whereas Moskal’s proposal might include the second category node, as long as no morpheme intervenes (Moskal remains agnostic in the case of two category nodes of different types).
Note also that this does open up the possibility for \(\sqrt{\text{\textsc {root}}_{2}}\) in (2) to be sensitive to elements beyond n2 under Embick’s locality domain, which is the projection of n1 and may not trigger spell-out of the complement of n2.
Derivations using the affix -/I/ are also very commonly used in compounds referring to a subcategory of the head of the compound, such as skrauthýsi ‘well decorated house/palace’ (lit. ‘decoration house’).
The /YG/∼/k/ alternation can also be observed outside nominalizations, as in the synonymous minimal pair:
∼
, meaning ‘sunny’ (lit. ‘sun rich’).A reasonable question might be whether the sequence -/kI/ is really a realization of the two morphemes -/YG/ and -/I/ and not a single morpheme, the nominalizer -/kI/. It is true that it is not the case that for every -/YG/ adjective there is a corresponding -/kI/ nominalization; however, it is the case that for every -/kI/ nominalization there is an -/YG/ or /k/ adjective. Furthermore, this split seems to correlate with subtle differences in meaning of the adjectivizer, where the -/kI/ nominalizations derived from -/YG/ adjectives seem to denote internal attributes, such as
‘noble’ and 
‘spirited’, and others seem to denote external attributes 
‘dirty’ (lit. muddy) or 
‘smudgy’. The -/k/- form also occurs in verbalizations, such as 
‘rich’ and 
‘enrich’. Hence assuming a distinct nominalizer -/kI/ misses the connection between -/YG/ adjectives and the -/kI/ nominalizations and -/ka/- verbalization.Note that the u-umlaut is less straight-forwardly classified as either readjustment processes or phonological processes in terms of Embick (2010). It applies in many cases arbitrarily and is often without an overt trigger, however, it is applied consistently to all stems in the presence of the dat.pl and 2.pl suffixes -/Ym/ and ignores adjacency (e.g., vak-n-a vs. vök-n-um ‘wake up (inf/1.pl)’). This could be taken to indicate that the u-umlaut in some cases references morphosyntactic identity of the target and phonological identity in others (cf. Shwayder 2015). See Ingason (2016) for an analysis along those lines.
I set aside the question of what mechanism is underlying the umlauts here, as it lies far beyond the scope of this article. It is true, as an anonymous reviewer points out, that the umlaut processes themselves could be analyzed in a number of ways, such as floating features as the reviewer suggested (see, e.g., Gibson and Ringen 2000; Wood 2015; Ingason 2013, 2016). Regardless of how exactly the process occurs, there must be a way to limit the application of this process in a way that allows it to apply throughout a single-stem word but respect the boundaries between two compound elements.
The i-umlaut would presumably require a diacritic identifying the vocabulary item as a potential undergoer.
∼
, meaning ‘sunny’ (lit. ‘sun rich’).
‘noble’ and 
‘spirited’, and others seem to denote external attributes 
‘dirty’ (lit. muddy) or 
‘smudgy’. The -/k/- form also occurs in verbalizations, such as 
‘rich’ and 
‘enrich’. Hence assuming a distinct nominalizer -/kI/ misses the connection between -/YG/ adjectives and the -/kI/ nominalizations and -/ka/- verbalization.References
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Icelandic Research Fund, grant no. 173959-051. For valuable comments, useful discussions, data, and other input on various aspects of this work at various stages, I would like to thank Jonathan Bobaljik, Ksenia Bogomolets, Andrea Calabrese, David Embick, Paula Fenger, Daniel Harbour, Jonas Moody, Beata Moskal, Adrian Stegovec, Aida Talić, and the three anonymous reviewers. I would also like to thank the audiences at PLC 41, LSA 91, LSA 94, and CGG 29, where various aspects and iterations of this work were presented.
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Harðarson, G.R. On the domains of allomorphy, allosemy and morphophonology in compounds. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 39, 1173–1193 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-020-09499-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-020-09499-3