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Absolute ill-formedness and other morphophonological effects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2004

Renate Raffelsiefen
Affiliation:
Free University of Berlin

Abstract

In this paper I explore the theoretical significance of phonologically conditioned gaps in word formation. The data support the original approach to gaps in Optimality Theory proposed by Prince & Smolensky (1993), which crucially involves MPARSE as a ranked and violable constraint. The alternative CONTROL model proposed by Orgun & Sprouse (1999) is found to be inadequate because of lost generalisations and technical flaws. It is shown that a careful distinction between various morphophonological effects (e.g. paradigm uniformity effects, phonological repair and ‘stem selection’) is necessary to shed light on the morphology–phonology interface. The data investigated here support affix-specific constraint rankings, but argue against any stratal organisation of morphology.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I thank three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and the editors for their encouragement. Anthony Dubach Green and Curt Rice sent valuable feedback to an earlier version of this paper. Thanks are also due to Mike Brame, Bruce Straub and Caroline Féry. All errors are mine.