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Linguistics Seminar Series: Hannah Sande

Event Type
Lecture
Sponsor
Department of Linguistics
Location
LCLB Lucy Ellis Lounge
Date
Oct 7, 2024   4:00 pm  
Views
9
Originating Calendar
Linguistics Event Calendar

Join us for this entry in the Linguistics Seminar Series. Refreshments will be provided. 

  • Talk Title: Discontinuous harmony in Guébie: Consequences for cyclic spell out

  • Abstract: This talk presents a puzzling case of discontinuous harmony in Guébie (Kru, Côte d'Ivoire), where the target and trigger of vowel harmony are separated by intervening non-harmonizing words. Discontinuous harmony presents a challenge for existing phonological models of harmony, which predict that harmony should be local, at least within a given tier. In Guébie, root-controlled ATR harmony affects vowels of prefixes and suffixes. In particle verb constructions, when the particle is a verbal prefix in [S Aux O Part-V] clauses, it unsurprisingly harmonizes. When the verb moves away from the particle in [S V O Part] clauses, there is no harmony. The surprising facts are found in verb focus constructions, where focusing a particle verb results in the particle surfacing at the left edge of the clause: [Part S Aux O V] or [Part S V O]. In [Part S Aux O V] contexts (but not [Part S V O] contexts) the verb triggers harmony on the particle, despite being on the opposite end of the clause. Specifically, in exactly the same clause structure where the particle and verb harmonize locally in non-focus constructions, they also harmonize--despite apparent non-locality--in focus constructions. The Guébie data suggests an analysis where phonology applies to a subset of syntactic structure (containing the verb and particle in [S Aux O PART-V] constructions, but only the particle in [S V O PART] constructions) prior to syntactic focus movement, resulting in a configuration where the target and trigger of harmony are discontinuous. Such an analysis requires interleaving of phonology and syntax and a relaxed notion of phase impenetrability.

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