Readjustment: Rejected?

Abstract

This paper raises the metatheoretical question of whether readjustment (i.e. the alteration of stem or affix phonology after lexical insertion) is needed for morphological theory. Domains investigated include: (i) the employment of readjustment rules as “secondary exponence” in Distributed Morphology; (ii) verb stem allomorphy in the Uto-Aztecan languages Hiaki (Yaqui) and Classical Nahuatl; and (iii) verb stem allomorphy concurrent with reduplication in the Oceanic language Sye (Erromangan). A cogent argument in favor of readjustment rules over stem-listing approaches invokes frequent phonological regularity of stem alternants (e.g., Harley and Tubino Blanco’s 2013 analysis of stem form alternations Hiaki). I adopt an alternative, “amphichronic” (Kiparsky 2006) approach whereby such regularities can be just as felicitously explained by appealing to historical linguistic processes.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 15 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.