We examine two hypotheses regarding the role of theme vowels (ThVs) in Serbo- Croatian (SC): (i) that the various ThVs attested in SC are markedness-based realizations of the same syntactic feature ...specification, and (ii) that different ThVs carry different syntactic features. We focus on the two SC ThVs occurring with the highest number of bases: <a, a> and <i, i> (the ordered pair specifies the infinitive-stem and the present-tense-stem realization of the ThV). We show that if these ThVs are to be distinguished by feature specification, the best fitting analysis has <a, a> bearing only the categorial verbal feature, while <i, i> is additionally specified for the feature SCALE, which contributes scalarity to the verbal predicate (Hay et al. 1999; Kennedy & Levin 2008). A corpus-based exploration shows that the stronger hypothesis (ii) encounters problems, the most obvious being that the regularities are only tendential, with a significant number of exceptions. If the ThVs carried different features, they would be expected to yield systematic patterns. We conclude that the weaker alternative (i) provides an empirically more accurate account and propose a specific model where at the interface with phonology, the aggregate degree of markedness of the context in which the ThV is realized is computed from a set of markedness hierarchies of the relevant phonological and semantic properties of that context (the latter mediated by the corresponding syntactic features). A mapping of the aggregate degree of markedness onto the morphological markedness hierarchy of ThVs determines the realization.
The paper deals with the Russian theme vowels that can be regarded as derivational suffixes, in particular, with e- and i-vowels. The former derives emission verbs or inchoative verbs, whereas the ...latter derives causatives (both dynamic and stative), unergative behaviour-related verbs, and some others. I propose a uniform explanation of the fact that the same theme vowel can give rise to different structural types of verbs. I argue that, semantically, the best way to capture the differences between the two vowels is to implement the Ramchand’s model of predicate decomposition, where e-vowel encodes the process sub-event and i-vowel the initial sub-event.
The decompositional, non-lexicalist, approach to word-structure and the theory of roots have proven highly rewarding. One grey area, however, comes from Romance since, rather than roots, the word ...structure primitive appears to be the stem: root + ‘stem-formative/theme vowel’. Regardless, there have been perspicacious decompositional accounts of Italian, however these are still marred by the large number of morphological/item-specific irregularities, motivating arbitrary noun classes. Additionally, there are roots that do not inflect: consonant-final and vowel-final forms when these are oxytonic or loanwords. Given these irregularities, previous analyses in Italian have included the use of lexical exceptions and class features. We challenge the use of class features in generating the attested patterns (and their exceptions). Instead, we propose a new categorisation of root-shapes, which, when combined with the exponents of nominal inflection, produce the correct surface pairings, as well as the non-alternating forms. In our analysis, there is no diacritic or special marking of lexical exceptions, all forms inflect regularly in accordance to their phonological shape. This requires the innovation of one new mechanism (Inhibition), but we back it up by showing that it leads to an unexpected beneficial prediction that solves a long-standing problem associated with Raddoppiamento Sintattico (RS).
This paper focuses on the e/i theme vowel class of verbs in Slovenian to bring together two seemingly unrelated debates: (i) the debate on the correlation between theme vowel classes with certain ...argument structures and (ii) the debate on the status of derivational affixes within the framework of Distributed Morphology. Our core data come from a list of 108 unaccusative verbs obtained using the adjectival active l-participles as an unaccusativity diagnostic. We show that (i) no unaccusative verbs belong to the two largest theme vowel classes in Slovenian (a/a and i/i), whereas (ii) the two big theme vowel classes tend to get accusative arguments quite frequently. Most importantly, (iii) the e/i-class stands out since more than one half of the unaccusative sample falls into it. The e/i-class is furthermore exceptional in that its theme vowel surfaces in adjectival l-participles, it is the theme vowel class to which inchoatives in inchoative-causative pairs belong and it behaves uniformly with respect to stress. Based on this behavior which sets the e/i-class apart from other theme vowel-classes, we argue that the morpheme e/i is better analyzed as a derivational affix. We further argue, following Lowenstamm (2014), that derivational affixes are transitive roots rather than categorizers and propose detailed PF and LF instructions for the root under consideration.
This article argues in favour of a view of the Spanish Theme Vowel (ThV) as the direct spell out of an identifiable syntactic head, specifically Ramchand's (2018) Event head, responsible for tagging ...lexical verbs with world and time parameters. I will argue that several apparent cases of verbal irregularity related to the conjugation of 1sg forms can be related to each other, and can receive a principled explanation once one adopts this view of Spanish ThVs. An approach where ThVs are post-syntactic morphemes that idiosyncratically tag the functional structure of verbs, or where they are syntactically inert morphemes, can only treat these facts as accidental and cannot provide an account of their mutual interconnection.
•The Latin mixed conjugation is a subset of the 4th conjugation, not the 3rd.•The theme vowel of the third conjugation can be analysed as simply /i/.•Conditioning of functional morpheme variants is ...phonological not morphological.•Three of the four traditional conjugations have cophonologies associated with them.
Latin verbs are traditionally divided into four conjugations, three of which can be readily identified by the terminal vowels of their stems – the so-called ‘theme vowels’. The identification of the theme vowel of the third conjugation is a more controversial matter. This article presents an analysis of the conjugation of regular Latin verbs, in terms of the framework of Distributed Morphology. The analysis departs from earlier analyses in two notable respects: first, following Sommer (1948), the so-called ‘mixed conjugation’ verbs are taken to form a subset of the fourth conjugation, rather than the third, which means that underlyingly their stems end on the theme vowel /iː/; and second, the stems of third-conjugation verbs are analysed as ending on the theme vowel /i/. The earlier part of the article presents the analysis, while the later part argues for those aspects of the analysis that differ from earlier analyses like those of Allen and Greenough (1903), Lieber (1981), Embick (2015) and Halle (2019). As some of the phonological rules postulated apply only to a single conjugation, the idea is briefly explored that the behaviour of Latin theme vowels can be analysed in terms of cophonologies.
This paper discusses verbal stem allomorphy in Romance within the framework of Distributed Morphology (DM). We will present several technical instruments provided by the framework, applying them to ...an analysis of Romance verbal forms, with a particular focus on stem suppletion with the verb go. We conclude that the best solution to the problem of form–function discrepancies, as they appear in suppletion (but not only), is a spanning approach. This approach operates at Vocabulary Insertion only, without any need for the assumption of further, often critically discussed, morphological processes, such as fusion or pruning.
Slovenian verbs have been analyzed as displaying non-local root allomorphy which gets triggered across the theme vowel (Božič 2016; 2019). We reevaluate the data (using a larger set of verbs) and ...reconsider the structure of the verb in Slovenian (focusing primarily on the position of the theme vowel). We show that root allomorphy in Slovenian only occurs in a very limited number of theme-vowel classes, making the inventory of theme-vowel classes crucial for the correct analysis of root allomorphy. We further show that an overwhelming majority of verbs with root allomorphy is ambiguous in that these verbs can be analyzed as belonging to different theme-vowel classes. We propose a way of resolving the ambiguity and present an analysis of root allomorphy in terms of phonologically conditioned allomorph selection. In the proposed model, which combines Distributed Morphology and Optimality Theory, a single Vocabulary Item with a complex phonological representation gets inserted and then phonological constraints select the final shape of the exponent (Kager 2008). We show that all root allomorphy is triggered locally and restricted to the phase in which the root gets spelled out.
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