Phonology question

[Neal Whitman]

I've wondered about this question, too, and have deliberately avoided it
when teaching phonology in an introductory linguistics class. I first
noticed it in 'painstaking,' when I finally realized that it was
morphologically 'pains-taking', not 'pain-staking'. I think it's interesting
that for this word, it wasn't just an /s/ migrating from the end of one
syllable to the beginning of another: it first had to turn from a [z] to an
[s].

Neal Whitman
Email: nwhitman at ameritech.net
Blog: http://literalminded.wordpress.com
Webpage: http://literalmindedlinguistics.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2008 7:35 PM
Subject: Re: Phonology question


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> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Phonology question
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 3:09 PM -0700 3/16/08, David Borowitz wrote:
>>A possible explanation for syllabifying "distaste" as "dis.taste" jumps to
>>mind: s followed by an aspirated t is not a valid onset, and aspiration
>>somehow happens before syllabification. So "di.staste" would need to have
>>an
>>aspirated t, which is not allowed, hence "dis.taste." (Not that I have the
>>energy to reword that in proper OT...)
>
> Not being a phonologist either, my sense has always been that the
> di.sC... is easier in articulatory terms but less transparent in
> preserving morphological integrity. (I guess that is something
> phonologists talk about in terms of faithfulness vs. markedness in
> some guise or other.)  And similarly with "mis-" words.  So in cases
> like "distaste", "mistape", or "mistook", where the compositionality
> has been preserved, the prefix/root break is preserved as well, but
> in cases like "disturb", "distinct", or "mistake", which are no
> longer analyzed as dis + turb or mis + take, the /s/ has migrated to
> the root syllable and the /t/ consequently loses its aspiration.
> Frequency is a factor too; the more frequent words are more likely to
> undergo the resyllabification.  It may be a bit tricky to sort out
> the cause-and-effect, but the correlation is clear:  semantic
> transparency (compositionality)/morphological integrity/no
> resyllabification/ease of discrimination vs. semantic
> opacity/morphological opacity/resyllabification/ease of articulation.
>
> LH
>
>>
>>I don't know that my explanation has to do with certain prefixes per se,
>>except insofar as different prefixes can have different lexical
>>stress-shifting properties, which in turn affects aspiration. Nor am I
>>really claiming the MOP is still popular among phonologists, not being one
>>myself.
>>
>>On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 1:35 PM, Scot LaFaive <scotlafaive at gmail.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>  -----------------------
>>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>  Poster:       Scot LaFaive <scotlafaive at GMAIL.COM>
>>>  Subject:      Re: Phonology question
>>>
>>>
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>  >Where doesn't it work?
>>>
>>>  It seems like the principle doesn't work for some prefixes, such as
>>>  "distaste," but perhaps it isn't supposed to work there. I honestly
>>> know
>>>  some about it, though phonology wasn't a large part of my program and
>>> we
>>>  were merely told about the principle and that it works. Are there more
>>>  intricacies about it?
>>>
>>>  Scot
>>>
>>>  On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 6:58 PM, Dennis Preston <preston at msu.edu>
>>> wrote:
>>>
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>>>  > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>  > Poster:       Dennis Preston <preston at MSU.EDU>
>>>  > Subject:      Re: Phonology question
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>  >
>>>  > Lots of us still like it. Where doesn't it work?
>>>  >
>>>  > dInIs
>>>  >
>>>  > >---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>  > >-----------------------
>>>  > >Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>  > >Poster:       Scot LaFaive <scotlafaive at GMAIL.COM>
>>>  > >Subject:      Phonology question
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>
>>>  >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>  > >
>>>  > >This isn't a dialect question, but I know there are some smart
>>>  > phonologists
>>>  > >on this list who can answer my question. I'm curious if the Maximal
>>>  Onset
>>>  > >Principle is still considered valid in today's linguistics. I ask
>>> this
>>>  > >because sometimes it doesn't seem to be working in speech and I
>>> don't
>>>  > know
>>>  > >if another theory has taken its place. (Or maybe there are certain
>>>  > >environments it doesn't work in that I'm unaware of.)
>>>  > >
>>>  > >Scot
>>>  > >
>>>  > >------------------------------------------------------------
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>>  > >
>>>  >
>>>  > --
>>>  > Dennis R. Preston
>>>  > University Distinguished Professor
>>>  > Department of English
>>>  > Morrill Hall 15-C
>>>  > Michigan State University
>>>  > East Lansing, MI 48864 USA
>>>  >
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>>>  > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>  >
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>It is better to be quotable than to be honest.
>>-Tom Stoppard
>>
>>Borowitz
>>
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>
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