• Vegetation nutrient limitation is essential for understanding ecosystem responses to global change. In particular, leaf nitrogen (N) is known to be plastic under changed nutrient limitation. ...However, models can often not capture these observed changes, leading to erroneous predictions of whole-ecosystem stocks and fluxes.
• We hypothesise that an optimality approach can improve representation of leaf N content compared to existing empirical approaches. Unlike previous optimality-based approaches, which adjust foliar N concentrations based on canopy carbon export, we use a maximisation criterion based on whole-plant growth, and allow for a lagged response of foliar N to this maximisation criterion to account for the limited plasticity of this plant trait. We test these model variants at a range of Free-Air CO₂ Enrichment and N fertilisation experimental sites.
• We show that a model based solely on canopy carbon export fails to reproduce observed patterns and predicts decreasing leaf N content with increased N availability. However, an optimal model which maximises total plant growth can correctly reproduce the observed patterns.
• The optimality model we present here is a whole-plant approach which reproduces biologically realistic changes in leaf N and can thereby improve ecosystem-level predictions under transient conditions.
This article investigates a palatalization process called Surface Velar Palatalization that turns /k g/ into kj gj before the front vowel e. What would appear to be a trivial rule, k g ➝ kj gj /—ε, ...turns out to be a highly complex process. The complexity is caused by several independent factors. First, Surface Velar Palatalization, k g ➝ kj gj, competes with Phonemic Velar Palatalization, k g ➝ ʧ ʤ. Second, some but not all changes are restricted to derived environments. Third, some suffixes appear to be exceptions to one type of Palatalization but not to the other type. Fourth, /x/ behaves in an ambivalent way by undergoing one but not the other type of Palatalization. Fifth, Palatalization constraints interacting with segment inventory constraints yield different results in virtually the same contexts. I argue that the complexity of Surface Velar Palatalization motivates derivational levels in Optimality Theory. Further, the condition of derived environments is expressed as a constraint that is ranked differently at different levels of evaluation. A historical analysis of Surface Velar Palatalization tells the story of how the process came into being and operated for centuries in an unrestricted way. It subsequently became restricted to derived environments, which led to pronunciation reversals of the historical Duke of York type: gε ➝ gjε ➝ gε.
Cantonese substitutes a base tone with either a high-level or high-rising tone in certain derived environments, a kind of process morphology dubbed pinjam (變音) “changed tone”. We develop a ...comprehensive analysis of Cantonese pinjam morphology that predicts this tonal change as the realization of a tonal affix that is shaped by both language particular patterns and universal constraints. The predictions of this core analysis are then used to explore a range of morphological and syntactic constructions that also have a pinjam, but have not been fully analyzed in prior research. This investigation also makes an empirical contribution by showing how the core analysis can extend naturally to many under-studied constructions, as well as documenting some of the limits of this analysis.
In Favour of Layered Feet Violeta Martínez-Paricio; René Kager
Catalan journal of linguistics,
12/2021, Letnik:
20
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
In this response we argue that the factorial typology predicted in Martínez-Paricio & Kager (2015), which representationally relies on the existence of internally layered ternary feet, is complete ...and accurate. We demonstrate it does not suffer from the problematic cases of overgeneration pointed out by Golston (this issue). Additionally, we corroborate the idea that the internally layered ternary foot is a metrical representation that is typologically warranted for stress phenomena as well as for segmental and tonal metrically conditioned distributions. We suggest that Golston’s claim that “no stress system requires internally layered ternary feet” appears to be too strong and is not empirically substantiated.
This paper presents novel data from a Yorùbá language game called Ẹnà, an iterative affixation game that typically involves copying of vowels and tones onto a dummy syllable. Yorùbá VV sequences are ...all analyzed as disyllabic in existing literature, yet we find that Ẹnà treats them differently depending on their provenance: underlying VV sequences, those created from pronouns, and those derived through floating tone are treated as a single locus of insertion, as variably are those that share tone, while VV sequences derived through consonant deletion or compounding are generally treated as two separate loci. We argue that the difference indicates that Yorùbá in fact has long vowels, contrary to previous assumptions. We analyze the pattern in Optimality Theory, following Krämer & Vogt’s (2018) analysis of reduplicative language games but adding a reduplicative template and back-copying, and we consider the implications of the pattern and analysis to the study of Yorùbá and the study of language games.
Liaison is one of the most analyzed phenomena in French phonology. The classic works of P. Delattre (1947, 1955, 1956) and P. Fouché (1959), based on their intuition and intended for the teaching of ...FLE (French Foreign Language), provide ample descriptions for didactic purposes. Their examples have inspired phonological theories for decades, from generative phonology (Schane 1967) to autosegmental phonology (Encrevé 1988) and optimality theory (Tranel 1999) to exemplarist phonology based on usage. (Bybee 2001). For half a century, liaison has been studied in large corpora (Ågren 1973; De Jong 1994), notably that of the international research program Phonology of Contemporary French (pfc) with more than 600 speakers throughout the world (Durand & Lyche 2008; Durand et al. 2011). However, these large-scale empirical studies show above all that we still know very little about the connection.
The Mirror Alignment Principle Zukoff, Sam
Natural language and linguistic theory,
02/2023, Letnik:
41, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
As codified by Baker’s (1985) “Mirror Principle” (MP), the linear order of morphemes within a word generally correlates with hierarchical syntactic structure. While Baker uses morphological ordering ...to demonstrate the inseparability of syntax and morphology, he simply assumes cyclic morphological concatenation as the formal means by which MP-compliance is enacted in the grammar.This paper develops a new framework for morpheme ordering, the Mirror Alignment Principle (MAP), which derives the MP while avoiding some of the shortcomings of cyclic morphological concatenation. The MAP is a morphology-phonology interface algorithm that takes morphosyntactic c-command relations and dynamically generates a ranking of alignment constraints (McCarthy and Prince 1993) in the phonological component. All possible morpheme orders are considered and evaluated by an Optimality Theoretic (Prince and Smolensky 1993 2004) phonological grammar, which selects the optimal surface order through constraint interaction. Even though morpheme order is computed in the phonology, the driving force behind this order is the syntax/morphology. This link between grammatical components generates MP-compliant morpheme orders.This paper focuses on two case studies. First, it will show how the MAP is consistent with the complex interaction between MP-satisfaction and the “CARP template” in Bantu (Hyman 2003). Second, it will show that the MAP can explain intricate ordering alternations within Arabic’s root-and-pattern verbal system. This will demonstrate that MP-behavior can indeed be identified even in nonconcatenative morphological systems.
We develop a novel optimization approach to tone. Its grammatical component consists of the similarity- and proximity-based correspondence constraint framework of Agreement by Correspondence theory ...(ABC). Its representational component, Q Theory, decomposes segments (
) into temporally ordered, quantized subsegments (
), which comprise unitary sets of distinctive features, including tone. ABC+Q unites phonological alternations and static lexical patterns, as we illustrate with a programmatic survey of core tonal phenomena: assimilation, dissimilation, lexical tone melodies, and consonant-tone interaction. ABC+Q surmounts long-standing problems for autosegmental-era, multitiered representational approaches to tone, and unites tonal and segmental phonology under the modern umbrella of correspondence theory.
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