91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳

Grammatical tone and a theory of bipartite morphemes

Nicholas Rolle

Princeton University

Lattimore 201

Bipartite morphemes are well-known in the morphological literature, the most famous being circumfixes of the German participle type (i.e. ge-…-t), but also Athabaskan ‘discontinuous morphemes’, African ‘splitting verbs’, Semitic ‘templates’, and ‘synaffixes’ (i.e. combinations of affixes). This talk seeks to incorporate grammatical tone into the theory of bipartite morphemes, specifically those where a grammatical category is expressed by a tone change and an overt segmental affix simultaneously. Based on a cross-linguistic survey of such patterns, I show that the two ‘co-exponents’ exhibit distinct morphological behavior despite their co-occurrence, and conclude that they always constitute two separate exponence rules. Such findings support a restriction on exponence at the morphosyntax-phonology interface I call the ‘no underlying gaps hypothesis’ (NOUGH, [nʌf]): all phonological components of an exponent must be local to each other, either in a contiguous string on a single phonological tier, or connected via association lines across tiers. Prima facie counter-examples will be examined if time permits.