The reduplicative template in Tonkawa

Abstract

Generalised Template Theory holds that templatic restrictions on reduplicative morphemes follow from independent, general principles. Under lexically indexed constraint theory, however, reduplicants are in no way special – morpheme-specific constraints may apply just to reduplicants. This article presents reduplication patterns in Tonkawa, which are argued to require reduplicant-specific constraints. In Tonkawa, the reduplicant is limited in size to CV, and is usually syllabified as a light syllable. Even though the language typically prefers heavy syllables word-initially, they are light if the syllable is a reduplicative prefix. This size restriction is backcopied onto the first syllable of the base. In the context of the prosodic phonology of Tonkawa, this pattern can only be understood if there is a reduplicant-specific prohibition against heavy syllables. This prohibition is formulated in terms of lexically indexed constraints on the reduplicant, which allows for a nuanced understanding of the emergent CV template.

Disjunctive Lexical Stratification

“…Indexed markedness constraints have been previously proposed for exceptional morphology by Pater (2000Pater ( , 2007, to appear), Flack (2007), and Gouskova (2007). For example, Flack (2007) shows that nuclei in Dinka verbal roots are maximally bimoraic, while in morphologically complex verbs they may also be trimoraic, requiring the ranking of Max-µ above the constraint against trimoraic nuclei in verbal roots (*V µµµ ).…”

Source-Oriented Generalizations as Grammar Inference in Russian Vowel Deletion

“…More recent work shows that both faithfulness and markedness need to differ in ranking/weighting between subgrammars (Pater 2000(Pater , 2006Gouskova 2007Gouskova , 2012Flack 2007;Jurgec 2010, and others), as we propose here.…”

“…In our approach, changes from input to output are done in the grammar proper only, while the gatekeeper only vacuously maps forms to themselves. An alternative to co-phonologies is constraint indexation, in which there is only one constraint hierarchy for the language, but it contains duplicate constraints that apply only to individual morphemes or morpheme classes (Ito & Mester 1999;Fukazawa 1999;Pater 2000Pater , 2006Pater , 2008Kawahara et al 2002;Flack 2007;Gouskova 2007;Becker 2009;Becker et al 2011, and others). Compared to these frameworks, our approach differs in using two grammars in each sublexicon, with one grammar serving as a gatekeeper and another grammar serving to derive outputs.…”

Templatic Morphology and Indexed Markedness Constraints

“…The absence of this apparently unattested pattern prompted the elimination of indexed markedness constraints within GTT, thus eliminating the prediction of backcopying. Given the evidence in favor of such constraints presented here, this resolution must be reconsidered: either the claim that back-copying does not exist is wrong (see Gouskova (2006) for a potential example from Tonkawa), or else a new theoretical explanation for its absence is required.…”