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MORPHOLOGY

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Morphology and Phonology

The interface between phonology and morphology lies in the area covered by the terms morphophonemics, morphophonology or morphonology, and lexical rules. These terms have been used in a variety of ways. The uses all recognize a level of language or analysis of language that differs from pure phonology in that it involves lexical and grammatical information mixed with phonological information. Of modern schools of phonology, only two reject or ignore the signicance of the distinction between pure phonology and morphophonology. The generative phonology represented by Chomsky and Halle 1968 rejected the distinction. Most practitioners of Optimality Theory ignore the distinction, but there is nothing inherent in the theory that makes it impossible. In fact, Kiparsky 2000 suggests the use in that theory of levels similar to those of Lexical Phonology. Different schools that make the distinction draw the boundary in different places. We can illustrate this with concrete examples. (It is helpful to rememberthat the term morphophonemic has been used differently to describe levels of representation and rules.) 1. Types of data. The Russian verb otbivat to beat back is pronounced /adbivat/. The change of t to d before b is the result of a fully automatic regressive assimilation of voice in obstruent clusters. (There is also an automatic change of unstressed o to /a/.) This change is treated as phonological by all modern theories. Trubetzkoy 1934 would call it a neutralization, while Jakobson 1948 called it an automatic alternation, but both treat it as phonological. American descriptivists, however, would label this alternation morphophonemic, because it involves a level more abstract than that of phonemics. The representation ot-bivat is more widely labeled morphophonemic, because to identify the rst two segments as ot we must parse the word and recognize a prex ot- added to a verb bivat. This process is clearly morphological. Only the Moscow Phonological School (cf Avanesov and Sidorov 1970) would call this level of representation phonemic: they dene phonemics as the level from which one can get to phonetics by the application of purely phonological rules. The Russian noun drug friend has a diminutive druz ok, genitive druz ka. The change of g to z (velar palatalization) before the diminutive sufx(o)k is morphologically regular: it is triggered by the sufx. The vowel/ zero alternation in -(o)k- is equally non-phonological. These two alternations were labeled morphophonemic

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by Jakobson and are called morphonological by most European linguists. M[orpho] P[honological] R[ule]s can be dened as rules with lexical or grammatical conditioning. For those who recognize the distinction between MPRs and P[honological] R[ule]s, the only grammatical conditioning allowable for PRs is boundaries. The adherents of Natural Generative Phonology (e.g. Hooper 1976) did not allow even boundaries as positive conditioning factors. An example of extreme lexical conditioning is found in English plurals of the type wife, wives. This also involves grammatical conditioning, since it it specically the plural morpheme that conditions the change of f to v. A common example of grammatical conditioning is the umlaut (vowel fronting) in the plural of German nouns. e.g. Vogel bird pl. Vo gel. It is this mixture of lexical and grammatical conditioning that justies the morpho- in morphophonology. The -phonology is also justied, even for the rules mentioned above: the velar palatalization applies specifically to velars, and umlaut applies specically to back vowels. Kiparsky 1968 showed that in German dialects, when new back vowels are created, there is a tendency to umlaut them, and to adjust the output of umlaut so that there is a simple back/front relationship between the vowels. Other examples of phonological regularization are found in Darden 1979. Among the theoretical issues relevant to morphophonology are (i) the relevance of the distinctions among phonology, morphophonology, and morphology; and (ii) the nature of morphophonological rules and representations. These are discussed below. 2. Distinctions. It is very difcult to justify a separation of phonologically automatic processes from the allophonic processes that all linguists accept as pure phonology. A single process may have both functions. This is true of voicing assimilation in Russian, which sometimes determines allophones of phonemes and sometimes neutralizes oppositions between phonemes (Halle 1959). Because there is no phonemic voiced alveopalatal affricate in Russian, the voicing of c to dz , in alc -ba hunger creates an allophone. However, the voicing of palatalized s to z in pros-ba request neutralizes the opposition between the two phonemes /s/ and /z/. One can argue that phonology and morphophonology are learned in different ways. A child does not learn to perform phonological operations such as the voicing assimilations in Russian, but rather fails to learn to make distinctions of voice in obstruent clusters. The phonological rule is there by default when the underlying forms are mastered. It is therefore difcult for a native speaker consciously to resist the application of a mandatory phonological rule. It is part of his pronunciation habits, and it will affect his attempt to learn a foreign language or to borrow foreign words into his own language. The status of MPRs is different because the child can freely pronounce both alternants in the given phonologi-

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cal environment: there is nothing hard about pronouncing wifes as opposed to wives. Indeed, both pronunciations must be masteredone for the possessive form, the other for the plural. In addition, a child must learn conceptually when to pronounce which conguration. Children may mistakenly produce the plural form without the change. If morphophonological processes apply to borrowed stems, it is because the morphological environment is matched. Thus, the Russian velar palatalization is quite regular when a native sufx that triggers it is added to a stem that ends in a velar. This can happen with foreign stems, as in frac ok, diminutive from frak frock coat. However, since foreign languages have no sufxes that trigger the change, we expect no velar palatalization inside foreign words borrowed into Russian; nor does velar palatalization interfere with Russians learning other languages. The distinction between morphophonology and morphology is harder to draw. When one deals with ablaut systems such as that of Arabic, it is difcult to decide whether to use rules to change base forms into derived forms, or to use nonlinear morphology of the type suggested by McCarthy 1981. Dressler 1985 suggests a third type, which he calls an A[llomorphic] M[orphological] R[ule], and he includes German ablaut among such rules. The distinction between his AMRs and MPRs, however, is not clear-cut. In Lexical Phonology, multiple distinctions within the lexical rules have been proposed (Kiparsky 1983). The application of the rules is interlayered within the morphologyof word-formation, with rules applying as each afx is attached. This seems quite different from other approaches, but it can be seen as more a difference of form rather than of substance. Since the output of each set of processes (and the input to the next set) is supposed to be a word or the inectional stem of a word, this is essentially treating the input of each derivation as a stem, with all the MPRs that formed that stem already having had effect. New MPRs apply if the new afxation triggers them. A great many theories would accept that arrangement. Theories vary in their treatment of the morphological or phonological nature of MPRs. The lexical rules of Lexical Phonology look very phonological, and abstract segments are used to make them even more phonological. Prague School phonologists such as Stankiewicz 1967, as well as Natural Phonologists, deemphasize the phonological nature of MPRs. For them, the resemblance of MPRs to PRs is related to the fact that most MPRs historically were PRs. Any diachronic changes after they become MPRs seem to be based on morphological principles such as regularity, iconicity, transparency, or functional specialization. The phonological adjustments in MPRs may increase surface regularity and transparency, but do not render them more natural in a phonological sense (Dressler 1985, chap. 10). One of Dresslers more interesting observations is that, to be stable, an MPR should parallel the direction of morphological derivation. This is true of the velar pala-

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talization in the example above, where the change can be viewed a part of the process of adding the sufx. However, this is more true of word-formational systems than of inectional systems. In rich inectional systems, we have less reason to consider members of a paradigm to be derived from a single unmarked member. It is often more reasonable to consider the paradigm as having a basic stem. The grammatically unmarked member may then have a form derived by rule. Ukrainian, for instance, has a rule that changes o to i in closed syllables. It operates in the nominative/accusative singular of word like nis nose, genitive nosa. This alternation seems to be very stable in the language. Those who treat MPRs as morphological rather than phonological object to the use of abstract segments to make them appear more phonological. Abstract segments are, however, effective descriptive devices, and the alternative to using them may be to employ powerful formal devices such as transderivational constraints (Darden 1979, 1981).
BIBLIOGRAPHY

194 Avanesov R. I., and V. N. Sidorov 1970. Systema fonem russkogo jazyka. In Iz istorii otec estevennoi fonologii, edited by A. A. Reformatskij, pp. 249277. Moscow: Nauka. Chomsky, Noam, and Morris Halle. 1968. The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper and Row. Darden, Bill J. 1979. On the nature of morphophonemic rules. Chicago Linguistic Society 15.7989. Darden, Bill J. 1981. On arguments for abstract vowels in Greenlandic. Chicago Linguistic Society 17.3137. Donegan, Patricia J., and David Stampe. 1979. The study of natural phonology. In Current approaches to phonological theory, edited by Daniel A. Dinnsen, pp. 126173. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Dressler, Wolfgang U. 1985. Morphonology: The dynamics of derivation. Ann Arbor: Karoma. Halle, Morris. 1959. The sound pattern of Russian. The Hague: Mouton. Hooper, Joan. 1976. An introduction to natural generative phonology. New York: Academic Press. Jakobson, Roman, 1948. Russian conjugation. Word 4.155 167. Kiparsky, Paul. 1968. Linguistic universals and linguistic change. In Universals in linguistic theory, edited by Emmon Bach and Robert T. Harms, pp. 171204. New York: Holt Rinehart & Winston. Kiparsky, Paul. 1983. From cyclic phonology to lexical phonology. In The structure of phonological representations, edited by Harry van de Hulst and Norval Smith, pp. 131 175. Dordrecht: Foris. Kiparsky, Paul. 2000. Opacity and cyclicity. Linguistic Review 17.351366. McCarthy, John J. 1981. A prosodic theory of nonconcatenative morphology. Linguistic Inquiry 12:373418. Stankiewicz, Edward. 1967. Opposition and hierarchy in morphophonemic alternations. In To honor Roman Jakobson: Essays on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, vol. 3, pp. 18951905. The Hague: Mouton. Trubetzkoy, Nikolai S. 1934. Das morphonologische System der russischen Sprache (Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de

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Prague, 5.) Prague.

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