Download Analysis of Mobile Affixes in Western Armenian: Order, Phonology, Syntax, and Prosody and more Lecture notes English Language in PDF only on Docsity! Mobile affixes across Western Armenian: conflicts across modules Keywords: Armenian, mobile affixes, information structure, clitic, prosody, phase Nikita Bezrukov (UPenn) & Hossep Dolatian (SBU) Introduction: In Western Armenian (Vaux, 1998), the indicative is marked by adding an affix to the verb. The affix has different positions in different dialects and contexts. We describe its placement in four Western dialects: Standard Western (SWA), Hamshen (HA), Gyumri (GA), and Akhalkalaki (AA). Across these dialects, we see morphologically-arbitrary affix order (SWA, HA, GA, AA), phonologically-conditioned affix mobility (HA, GA, AA), syntactically-conditioned affix mobility (GA, AA), and prosodically-conditioned clisis (AA). These patterns needs a holistic approach to affix order involving morphological, phonological, syntactic, and prosodic factors (6). We explain some of the data and factors below. (1) SWA a. g-ertas b. g@-khales (2) HA a. g-ertas b. khales-gu (3) GA a. k-ertas b. khelés-g@ (4) AA a. g-ertas b. kheles-g@ (5) Gloss a. ‘you go’ b. ‘you walk’ (6) a. Arbitrary prefixhood (SWA, HA, GA, AA): indc→ indc-/ {_,V} b. Phonological mobility (HA, GA, AA): indc→ indc-/ {_,[+vowel]V} c. Syntactic mobility (GA, AA): indc→ indc-/ [phase ... X ... {_,V} ] d. Prosodic separability (AA): F ... indc → F indc ... e. Suffixation elsewhere (SWA, HA, GA, AA): indc→ -indc elsewhere I. Standard Western: In SWA (1), the indicative affix has two surface allomorphs: [g-] before V-initial bases (1a) and [g@-] before C-initial bases (1b). Underlyingly, the affix is /g/ with schwa epenthesis to repair complex onsets. Complex onsets are banned in Armenian. Although Armenian is primarily suffixing, the affix is arbitrarily a prefix because it originated from the construction kaj ev X ‘I stand and X’. Its arbitrary status as a prefix can be modeled with rule that prefixes it to the verb (6a), while other affixes are suffixes elsewhere (6e). We set aside schwa epenthesis for space. II. Hamshen: For Hamshen (2), the affix is the prefix [g-] before V-initial bases (2a) but a suffix [-gu] (2b) after C-initial bases. For simplicity, let us assume that [g-] and [-gu] are two suppletive allomorphs, not derived from a common UR /gu/.1 The prefix [g-] is used to provide an onset to the V-initial verb; the suffix [-g@] is used elsewhere. This is formalized with a rule placing the affix before a V-initial verb (6b)2. Such phonologically-conditioned mobility is rare but attested, e.g. Huave (Kim, 2010), but still controversial (Paster, 2006) III. Gyumri: Similar to Hamshen, the affix in Gyumri (3) is [k-] before V-initial bases (3a) and [-g@] after C-initial bases (3b). However in Gyumri, a C-initial base is forced to use [g(@)-] as a prefix in specific syntactic contexts. We describe two of these contexts below. In both, underlining marks sentential stress. The phase is vP or FocP and it coincides with the verbal predicate. Specific objects move out of vP (Kahnemuyipour, 2009). 1This is purely for illustrative purposes. There is little empirical evidence for or against having one UR. 2This can alternatively modeled with Onset»Align-L with no change in adequacy. 1
