Thematic Vowel Research Articles

The Debate of Menaḥem and Dunash and a Frame-work for Non-Triliteral Hebrew Verbal Morphology

Abstract This study presents a new suggestion as to the fundamental disagreement between the morphological theories of Menaḥem b. Saruq and Dunash b. Labraṭ, two tenth-century Hebraists with non-triliteral perspectives of the Hebrew root. A framework detailing the possible analyses of Hebrew verbal morphology without a priori assuming the triliteral perspective is first developed. It is noted that the multiplicity of possible analyses in this framework parallels the ‘Segmentation Problem’ of Romance languages due to thematic vowels. Based on analysis of their treatises it is then argued that Menaḥem generally follows one identified method of analysis, and Dunash another. Finally it is suggested that these different methods of analysis are rooted in two different models of morphology, with Menaḥem holding a morpheme-based model and Dunash holding a word-based model. An English translation of a lengthy relevant section of the introduction to Menaḥem’s treatise is given as an appendix.

Lowest theme vowels or highest roots? An ‘unaccusative’ theme-vowel class in Slovenian

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.

Theme Vowels e and i in Russian: Implementing the Cartographic Approach

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.

A Neo-Constructionist Account of Morphologically Null Deverbal Nominals with Argument Structure in Polish

The data from Polish leaves no doubt as to the licensing of argument structure (AS) by morphologically null deverbal nominals and therefore presents a challenge to the widely held view that argument structure in nominals can only be licensed by an overt nominalizer (Alexiadou 2001, 2009; Alexiadou and Grimshaw 2008; Borer 2003, 2005, 2013). The aim of this paper is twofold: to contribute to the discussion of AS-licensing in nominals by broadening its empirical scope and to demonstrate that syntax-based approaches such as Borer's exoskeletal model can account for the data in question, providing that we allow for the possibility of synthetic spell-out of nominalized verbal stems as put forward in Fábregas 2014 for Spanish. It is demonstrated that his analysis can be extended to Polish notwithstanding its more complex verb morphology, which includes three types of prefixes (lexical, aspectual, and superlexical), secondary imperfective markers, and theme vowels.

Das regelmäßige schwache Verb im Mooringer Friesisch: Zwei Konjugationsklassen oder phonologisch bedingte Allomorphie?

In this article we investigate the historical development of the regular weak verb in Mooring, the most vital Mainland North Frisian dialect. We show that until the first half of the 20th century Mooring still distinguished between the two weak conjugation classes inherited from Old Frisian and typical for most Frisian dialects: Class I without and class II with a theme vowel -e- in the endings of the 2nd and 3rd Person Singular Present, the Past and the Past Participle. From the end of the 19th century onward, a process of deletion of schwa after sonorants gradually caused the fusion of class II weak verbs with a stem-final vowel or sonorant with class I weak verbs. After World War II this process came to its (near) completion and the former morphological division of the weak verbs in two conjugation classes was given up in favour of a phonological distribution of the endings on the basis of the stem-final segment: Endings with e appear after obstruents, endings without e after vowels and sonorants. Although modern grammars in principle recognized this new phonological conditioning of the weak conjugation, they failed to see that there remained a number of exceptions,viz. former class I weak verbs with a stem-final obstruent still taking an eless ending. That one is dealing with exceptions here is clearly shown, however, by the fact that these verbs gradually adapt to the phonological conditioning and assume endings with e in modern Mooring.

Grammaticalia: hommage à Bernard Colombat éd. par Jean-Marie Fournier, Aimée Lahaussois et Valérie Raby

Reviewed by: Grammaticalia: hommage à Bernard Colombat éd. par Jean-Marie Fournier, Aimée Lahaussois et Valérie Raby Bryan Donaldson Fournier, Jean-Marie, Aimée Lahaussois, et Valérie Raby, éd. Grammaticalia: hommage à Bernard Colombat. ENS, 2019. ISBN 979-10-362-0085-4. Pp. 318. The list of Bernard Colombat's publications that opens the volume testifies to his productivity as a scholar, in areas including corpus linguistics, linguistic historiography, historical grammar (and historical grammars, especially of Latin), the diachrony of French, grammatical categories, and translation. To a large degree, these interests are reflected in the contents of this volume, whose 27 contributions center predominantly on French but also discuss other languages, from European languages, like Russian, Portuguese, Sanskrit, and Ancient Greek, to indigenous languages of the Americas. This review is by necessity not exhaustive. If I highlight certain contributions, it is not my intention to marginalize others. Fournier argues that Maupas's grouping of verbs into classes (by thematic vowel), a departure from his models, advanced the treatment of French grammar. Romanelli's discussion of seventeenth-century Italian grammars destined for French speakers reveals the longstanding concern to make language learning as painless as possible. Peters introduces us to the sixteenth-century philologist Conrad Gessner, source of early observations about social correlates of dialects. Kibbee discusses the grammarian Jean de Chabanel, a link between the Latin grammatical tradition and the French tradition instantiated for example by Vaugelas, from whom Chabanel's remarks often differ, reminding us of the artificiality of prescriptive norms. Mazière's contribution provides an introduction to the seventeenth-century grammarian Jean Macé, whose views similarly sometimes diverge from Vaugelas'. A glimpse of historical pedagogy appears in Archaimbault's analysis of Jean Sohier's eighteenth-century Russian method for French learners, with its use of the contrastive method. Clerico's contribution examines methods for teaching French pronunciation, through the intermediary of Latin, to English and German speakers at the end of the sixteenth century, revealing a clear awareness of the role of first-language transfer in language learning centuries before the advent of second language acquisition as a field of inquiry. Relatedly, Caron discusses an early phonetic alphabet and influences of French pronunciation on Latin pronunciation in France (including regional variation). Ayres-Bennett documents rare cases of women authors of grammatical works in the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries and also shows how women are somewhat present in grammatical works, albeit in a far more discrete way, as dedicatees, intended audiences, and sources of bon usage. Overall, the contributions question certain idées reçues in the field, emphasize how grammars and linguistic thought need to be understood in their historical context, remind us of the rich tradition of grammairiens aside from Vaugelas, and offer glimpses of tantalizing observations of—and reactions to—cases of historical linguistic contact. As with other such volumes, the interest of the contributions (admittedly a subjective measure) varies, as do their approaches and objectives. Nonetheless, readers with interests in historical linguistics, the history of linguistics, and socio-historical [End Page 287] linguistics—and especially readers with an interest in historical grammars—will find much stimulating reading. Bryan Donaldson University of California, Santa Cruz Copyright © 2021 American Association of Teachers of French

Ján Horecký and the dynamics within the models of morphology in the example of the thematic verb vowel

Abstract In the beginning of the 1950s, using the thematic vowel as a criterion for dividing verbs into conjugation classes became the topic of a major linguistic discussion, since the historical understanding of the vowel was no longer applicable for the compilation of practical handbooks. Proposals presented in the discussion aimed to discover a functionalistic replacement for the concept of the thematic vowel. Despite this radical attitude, partakers of the discussion were not able to avoid the mixing of contemporary and historical perspectives. The discussion on the nature of this segment found itself in a cul‐de‐sac. What is the segment’s function? Does the vowel represent a part of the stem or a part of the suffix? Or is it autonomous? These dilemmas were solved in 1964 when Ján Horecký proposed new principles for morphematic division in Slovak, which upgraded the then‐existing building of – not only – morphematic models to new qualitative levels.

Remarks on the Role of the Perfect Participle in Italian Morphology and on its History

AbstractSince (Aronoff, Mark. 1994.Morphology by itself. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press), the disparate morphosyntactic roles that past participle forms have in Latin (and Italian) morphology have played a central role in arguing for morphomic approaches. In this article, I will propose an alternative analysis of the special behavior of these participle forms in Distributed Morphology (DM, Halle Morris, & Alec Marantz. 1993. Distributed morphology and the pieces of inflection. In Kenneth Hale & Samuel Jay Keyser (eds.),The view from building 20: Essays in linguistics in honor of Sylvain Bromberger, 111–176. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.). In particular, I will propose that morphological spell-out, as a first stage of the PF derivation, includes morphological repairs triggered by abstract “morphomic” constraints. These repairs can insert “ornamental” pieces – structures that are not motivated syntactically or semantically but only morphologically – to mediate the interface between abstract syntactico-semantic structures and surface PF construction. I will demonstrate the role that these repairs play in accounting for the surface convergence between perfect and passive participle forms, and adjectival stative ones, and for the appearance of past participles in nominalizations. The article ends with an analysis of Latin past participle morphology focusing on its historical development. The first part of this analysis deals with the development of Latin verbal structure from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and in particular with the development of “ornamental” thematic vowels. It then turns to a brief investigation of the historical development of the Latin past participle exponent /-t-/ from PIE adjectival suffix*-tó-,and of the PIE agentive and action/result nominal suffixes*-tér/tor, *-ti-, *-tu, *-men-(to)-.This will lead to a discussion of Latin nominalizations, the supine and the future participle and a possible explanation of why they contain participial morphology.

On the Origin of Gerund and Gerundive in Latin: A New Reassessment

SummaryThis short paper addresses a very vexed issue, to which a huge literature has been dedicated so far: the origin of the so-called gerunds and gerundives in Latin. Any previous attempt has proved un- conclusive, mainly because of the proliferation of ad hoc rules assumed to account for the nd-forms and even more because of the plethora of solutions. Instead of assuming another etymon for the sake of antago- nism, this paper intends to reassess the whole issue within Latin itself: as shown by non-standard syntacti- cal features of Plautinian and Late Latin, there is a morphological relationship between the present parti- ciple and the ndō-gerund, used to express simultaneity. Whereas the previous scholarship has taken for granted the assumption that thematic verbs used to have a *-odno- suffix (cf. OLat. -und-), which led to tautological reconstructions totally unparalleled outside Italic, I would tentatively explain the unexpected o-grade of such forms by a crossing with the old o-grade participles (cf. OLat. *uoluns ‘willing’ reflected by uoluntās). Such an approach vindicates the ancient theory according to which -andus reflects *-ātan-ó- (< PIE *-eh2-t>mṇn-ó-), provided one assumes that a reanalysis of *-ātan-ó- was made as a “suffix” *-tanos following the thematic vowel of the first conjugation, which produced *fer-e-tnó- ‘ferendus’ from thematic *fer-e- ‘to bear’.

Paradigm Structure in French Verbal Inflection

Verb inflectional morphology in French exhibits a range of complexities both in the structure of verb stems (stem-final latent consonant; vowel variation; stem-final nasal vowel ; suppletive forms ; etc.) and the organization of the inflectional system, marked for five grammatical categories: tense, aspect, mode, person and number, which in the majority of cases cannot be identified as a morphological or phonological unit. The main objective of this paper is to show that these morphosyntactic properties should be analyzed as a global affix, which operate within the same space, with no fixed order. This strategy has the advantage to 1) take into account all the verb syntactic properties, 2) avoid multiple zero suffixes, 3) avoid the use of different analyses depending on the verb class, 4) avoid non-productive and phonologically unmotivated rules of insertion of theme vowels as in [dorm-i-r-ons] dormirons, and epenthetic consonants as in [ku-d-r-ons] coudrons, 5) account for French verb inflectional system in a simple and more explanatory way than strictly segmental analyses without "motivated" processes, using massive suppletion and/or stems dependencies, where inflected verbal forms are related by arbitrary implicational associations or quantitative measures based on extensive memorization. This analysis also has the property of explaining by means of a very general principle (the Onset principle) the realization of a stem-final FC in front of the affixes 'ions' and 'iez' as in before any suffix beginning with an empty onset. The verb inflectional paradigmatic structures is captured within Construction Morphology (CxM) as stated in Booij, 2010.

The theme vowels of Latin verbs

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.

Strictly Local Impoverishment: An Intervention Effect

Strictly Local Impoverishment: An Intervention Effect

Lexico-word-forming types of nulsufixal nouns in the Ukrainian language of the XI-XIII centuries (male derivatives)

The relevance of the study of the history of null suffix derivation as an important component of the Ukrainian word-forming system is substantiated. The origin of Proto-Slavic derivatives is revealed with the help of thematic vowels *a, *ŏ, *and, *ŭ, which originally served as a means of noun word formation, their original meaning is no longer restored. It was found that the materially expressed suffixes in the Proto-Slavic language had a specific character, they combined two functions: word-forming and inflectional, which gave rise to call them suffixes-inflections or protonulsuffixal forms. Subsequent common language changes (phonetic, morphological) caused the loss of the material index of origin, while preserving the structural and semantic connections of creative and derivative formations. The description of lexical-word-forming types of null suffix masculine deverbatives in the ancient Russian-Ukrainian language of the XI–XIII centuries is carried out. based on the materials of the first written monuments of the Ukrainian language and lexicographical works that reflect the vocabulary of this period. The selected derivatives have a general word-forming meaning “carrier of a procedural feature” or “objectified action or state”. These groups of derivatives represent lexical-word-forming types of names of persons by permanent or temporary occupation or profession, names of persons-bearers of procedural attribute (behavior, views, family relations, social status, etc.), names of subjects of action as a collective concept. Several attributive names of animals, less often of plants, have been documented. Lexical-word-forming types of null-suffix derivatives in the word-forming field of inanimate objects are described: natural phenomena, natural disasters, names of natural objects, locatives, structures, tools, results of physical or intellectual action, etc. In the group of derivatives with the general word-forming meaning “objectified action or state” groups of derivatives are analyzed, which name the action of greater or lesser intensity as an object, names of human actions (positive or negative) human feelings, desires, inner state, names of intellectual action processes. Selected linguistic facts give grounds to assert that the zero-suffix creation of masculine nouns in the ancient Russian-Ukrainian language was a common phenomenon, which laid a strong foundation for further activation of the zero formant in the noun derivation. Keywords: history of null-suffix derivation, pro-noun suffix formants, general word-forming meaning, lexical-word-forming types, carrier of procedural feature, objectified action or state.

What Is Suppletion? On *Goedand onWentin Modern English

AbstractThe term ‘suppletion’ is appropriate forwent/*goed, but only if that term is taken to be an informal descriptive term that hides a rich set of phonological and morphosyntactic properties that underlie each ofwentand*goedtaken separately. No direct blocking relation betweenwentand*goedis called for. The notion of verbal theme vowel is central.

ABOUT SOME PECULIARITIES OF AFFIXED MORPHEMES OF THE VERB OF THE AVAR LANGUAGE

The article analyzes affixal morphemes of the simple future tense of the verb of the Avar language. Peculiarities of combination of categorical affixal morphemes of the verb are the need for a connective vowel in cases when the root morpheme has a consonant auslaut and affixal morpheme has a consonant anlaut. In such cases, the connecting function is performed by thematic vowels. The peculiarity of the simple future tense forms is that they all have the same thematic vowel - i -, as the corresponding infinitive forms do. The use of the thematic vowel infinitive - i - for the future tense forms seems to be due to the semantic proximity of the infinitive and the Futurum.

Aspects of the Morphophonology of the Verb in Latin and in German and English

Aspects of the Morphophonology of the Verb in Latin and in German and English

An Evaluative Head in Romance

In this work, we analyse the behaviour of a verbal suffix in Palermitan – the Romance language spoken in Palermo, Sicily – expressing an evaluative meaning with sentential scope. The suffix is (V)vu, where V is the thematic vowel of the verb. The Palermitan dialect we study here is the one spoken in the urban area, approximately by 250,000 speakers. This suffix is interesting for several reasons. In the first place, an evaluative morpheme with clausal scope is quite unusual in Romance and to our knowledge it has not been reported outside Sicily. In the second place, as we will illustrate later, its use is spreading among the youngest generation, showing that the dialect is productive and the form under scrutiny is adopted by larger segments of the population, even if it does not exist in Italian.

Accentuation of i-verbs in the Sixteenth-century Chronograph from the E. V. Barsov Collection

The present article describes the accentual system of the verbs featuring the thematic vowel -i- in the late 16th-century Chronograph from the E. V. Barsov collection, held in the State Historical Museum in Moscow, catalogue number 1695. One of the tasks of this article is to show the distribution of the i-verbs in the Barsov Chronograph into three accentual paradigms. A table is presented that renders evident the differentiation in particular sub-paradigms of stress in verbs relating to various accentual paradigms. Particular attention is given to accented word forms of the n-participle. This research project has shown that the i-verbs of the Barsov Chronograph exhibit stress patterns typical for the late sixteenth century, with the exception of three important features, two of which constitute innovations, while the third is an archaism. Firstly, the first-person Present for the accentual paradigm c in the Barsov Chronograph has stress on the ending, like other word forms of the Present tense (in early Old Russian, first person forms are defined as enclinomena, and their transformation into stress-bearing word forms happened in various dialects at various times). Secondly, the l-participle for the accentual paradigm c in the Barsov Chronograph has stress on the suffix (in contrast to the mobile stress that was still broadly present in other texts at that time). Thirdly, the stress in n‑participles of the accentual paradigm b has the same distribution that was reconstructed by A. A. Zaliznyak for early Old Russian, although it has not been observed in a single russian manuscript before.

Stem Formation in French Verbs: Structure, Rules, and Allomorphy

Stem processing is an essential phase in word recognition. Most modern Romance languages, such as Catalan, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish, have three theme vowels that define verbal classes and stem formation. However, French verbal classes are not traditionally described in terms of theme vowels. In this work, stem formation from theme vowel and allomorphic processes was investigated in French verbs. Our aim was to define the verbal stem formation structure processed during mental lexicon access in French. We conducted a cross-modal experiment and a masked priming experiment on different French stem formation processes from the first and third classes. We compared morphology-related priming effects to full priming obtained through identity priming, as well as to no priming obtained through a control condition. Stems from the first and third classes with a theme vowel presented full priming, whereas stems from the third class with allomorphy presented partial priming in both experiments. Our results suggest root-based stem formation for French. Verbs are recognized through word decomposition into stem and inflectional suffixes, and stem processing is based on root, theme vowel, and allomorphic processes. These results support a single-mechanism model with full decomposition and pre-lexical access defined by morphological rules.

From Fusion to Agglutination: The Case of Asia Minor Greek

AbstractThis article examines the nominal inflectional system of a group of Asia Minor Greek dialects (Dawkins , ), which developed, in parallel with the fusional inflectional system, an agglutinative one due to language contact with Turkish. We argue that the ‘old’ fusional ending or the theme vowel was reanalyzed as part of the nominal stem. This novel structure was actualized by means of two competing options: in some dialects, the reanalysis was actualized transparently in all inflectional forms rendering an agglutinative pattern of inflection, whereas in dialects with limited agglutination the actualization took the form of a special type of vowel assimilation. More specifically, as part of the nominal stem, the ‘old’ theme vowel signals its merge with the root by allowing it to absorb some or all of its features. Formally, the phonological process is treated as an instance of indirect licensing (Walker 2011), according to which the theme vowel acts as a trigger due to its privileged position as a segment of the categorizer n, i.e. the head of the stem.