Action-Sensitive Phonological Dependencies

Abstract

This paper defines a subregular class of functions called the tier-based synchronized strictly local (TSSL) functions. These functions are similar to the the tier-based inputoutput strictly local (TIOSL) functions, except that the locality condition is enforced not on the input and output streams, but on the computation history of the minimal subsequential finite-state transducer. We show that TSSL functions naturally describe rhythmic syncope while TIOSL functions cannot, and we argue that TSSL functions provide a more restricted characterization of rhythmic syncope than existing treatments within Optimality Theory.

Long-distance phonological processes as tier-based strictly local functions

“…The use of such tiers has led to a better understanding of the computational nature of long-distance phonotactic dependencies (modelled as sets of well-formed strings; see McMullin 2016;McMullin & Hansson 2016;Aksënova & Deskmukh 2018;Lambert & Rogers 2020), and this paper explores the computational implications of extending the same idea to functions in order to characterize the types of long-distance processes that result in morphophonological alternations. Formal characteristics of these functions have already been fleshed out (Burness & McMullin 2019;Hao & Andersson 2019;Hao & Bowers 2019;Andersson et al 2020), although to date there has not been a thorough investigation of how well tier-based functions approximate the attested typology of non-local phonological processes. Our endeavour to fill this gap reveals typological predictions that are supported cross-linguistically and offers insights into the computational nature of long-distance phonology.…”

“…Specifically, by incorporating an autosegmental tier (e.g., Goldsmith 1976) into the structure of an SL function, the non-local information crucial for applying longdistance processes can be rendered local. In addition to assessing the typological coverage of these Tier-based Strictly Local functions (Burness & McMullin 2019;Hao & Andersson 2019;Hao & Bowers 2019), we show that they fail to generate two pathological behaviours (minimum distance requirements and modulo counting) that can be accomplished with a subsequential function. We therefore conclude that tier-based computation is a better characterization of long-distance phonology than subsequential computation.…”

Stratal overgeneration is necessary: metrically incoherent syncope in Southern Pomo

“…Recent work has suggested that rhythmic syncope may be particularly prone to restructuring because of the computational complexity induced by alternating deletion (Hao & Bowers 2019; Bowers & Hao 2020). Rhythmic syncope systems in other languages such as Nishnaabemwin (Bowers 2019) and Eastern Slavic (Isačenko 1970, :95–6) are reported to have quickly collapsed.…”

Multi-Tiered Strictly Local Functions

“…Within the subregular hierarchy of formal languages, the class of Strictly Local languages, which model local phonotactic restrictions (Mc-Naughton and Papert, 1971;Rogers and Pullum, 2011;Rogers et al, 2013) have been extended to incorporate the notion of a tier, resulting in the class of Tier-based Strictly Local (TSL) languages (Heinz et al, 2011). Likewise, the Input Strictly Local (ISL) and Output Strictly Local (OSL) functions-which characterize locallybounded phonological processes as subregular maps (Chandlee, 2014;Chandlee et al, 2014Chandlee et al, , 2015-have been generalized to the classes of Input Tier-based Strictly Local (ITSL) and Output Tier-based Strictly Local (OTSL) functions in order to account for non-local phonological processes (Burness and McMullin, 2019;Hao and Andersson, 2019;Hao and Bowers, 2019).…”

“…These TSL formal languages and functions successfully model a wide range of long-distance phonological patterns (McMullin, 2016;Mc-Mullin and Hansson, 2016;Burness and Mc-Mullin, 2019;Hao and Bowers, 2019), and moreover have desirable properties for learnability (Jardine and Heinz, 2016;Jardine and McMullin, 2017;Burness and McMullin, 2019). However, they suffer from a major drawback in that they are restricted to a single tier, and as a consequence are ill-equipped to deal with multiple, simultaneous long-distance dependencies.…”