Phonology question

Dennis Preston preston at MSU.EDU
Mon Mar 17 09:05:20 UTC 2008 

Which shows us very nicely that morphemes are in heads (not books
that list morphemes). Not really a surprise but one we tend to forget
when cutting up words.

dInIs

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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: Phonology question
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>At 10:19 PM -0400 3/16/08, Neal Whitman wrote:
>>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].
>
>And in the other direction, there's "disaster", which (once speakers
>stopped associating it with ill-fortune foretold by the stars)
>shifted from /dIs &st at r/ to /d@ Z&st at r/ (dis-aster > duh-zaster),
>while the still transparent "disable" and "disarm" retain the
>original syllabification and the original /dIs/.
>
>LH
>
>>
>>----- 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
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>>>>>   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:
>>>>>
>>>>>   > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>>   > -----------------------
>>>>>   > 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
>>>>>   > >
>>>>>   > >------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>   > >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>   > >
>>>>>   >
>>>>>   > --
>>>>>   > Dennis R. Preston
>>>>>   > University Distinguished Professor
>>>>>   > Department of English
>>>>>   > Morrill Hall 15-C
>>>>>   > Michigan State University
>>>>>   > East Lansing, MI 48864 USA
>>>>>   >
>>>>>   > ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>   > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>>   >
>>>>>
>>>>>   ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>   The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>--
>>>>It is better to be quotable than to be honest.
>>>>-Tom Stoppard
>>>>
>>>>Borowitz
>>>>
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>>>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


--
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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