17.290, Review: Morphology/Phonology: Inkelas & Zoll (2005)

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Subject: 17.290, Review: Morphology/Phonology: Inkelas & Zoll (2005)

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1)
Date: 23-Jan-2006
From: Michael Marlo < mmarlo at umich.edu >
Subject: Reduplication: Doubling in Morphology 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 16:40:49
From: Michael Marlo < mmarlo at umich.edu >
Subject: Reduplication: Doubling in Morphology 
 

AUTHORS: Inkelas, Sharon; Zoll, Cheryl
TITLE: Reduplication
SUBTITLE: Doubling in Morphology
SERIES: Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 106
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2005
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-1484.html 

OVERVIEW

Reduplication: Doubling in Morphology, by Sharon Inkelas and Cheryl 
Zoll, presents a new theory of reduplication, Morphological Doubling 
Theory (henceforth MDT), which reanalyzes the fundamental identity 
relation in reduplication as morphosyntactic. Most current theories of 
reduplication, building on McCarthy and Prince (1995) and earlier 
work such as Wilbur (1973), assume some version of Base-
Reduplicant Correspondence Theory (BRCT), which requires surface 
phonological identity between the base and the reduplicant. In MDT, 
reduplicative constructions call for multiple copies of stems, which 
have independent inputs and are subject to independent phonotactic 
and morphotactic requirements. Surface phonological identity between 
the two reduplicative copies, as well as surface phonological non-
identity, is therefore an indirect byproduct of identity of 
morphosyntactic features, as mediated by phonological and 
morphological requirements on each copy and on the entire 
reduplicative construction.

In this book, Inkelas and Zoll bring reduplication within the purview of 
theories of morphologically conditioned phonology, removing it as a 
special instance of phonological correspondence that has powerful 
theoretical machinery unto itself. Inkelas and Zoll reanalyze in MDT 
several examples showing opaque underapplication and 
overapplication interactions between the base and reduplicant that 
have been previously argued to provide the basis for BRCT. In many 
of these reanalyses, Inkelas and Zoll show that on different 
assumptions about the morphological structure of the examples in 
question, the application of the phonological processes is transparent 
and derives from ordering relations inherent in reduplicative 
constructions. In addition to countering the primary arguments for 
base-reduplicant correspondence, this book argues that BRCT 
overgenerates kinds of opacity that are not known to occur in human 
languages and that MDT correctly predicts as impossible.

CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER SUMMARY

1. Introduction
Chapter 1 highlights the main claims of MDT, explicitly details 
differences between MDT and phonological copying theories of 
reduplication, and provides general information about the theoretical 
assumptions of MDT. MDT is couched within Cophonology Theory 
(e.g., Orgun 1996, Inkelas, Orgun & Zoll 1997, Inkelas 1998), in which 
every morphological construction is associated with a separate 
cophonology (constraint ranking), due to the theory's ability to account 
for morphologically conditioned phonology. In the MDT approach to 
reduplication, every reduplicated stem has three cophonologies: one 
for each of the copies of the stem (the 'daughters') and one for the 
entire reduplicated stem (the 'mother'), which dominates the two 
daughter nodes. In this approach, each daughter has an independent 
input, and the output of each daughter serves as the input to the 
mother node, predicting the occurrence of ordering effects. 
Additionally, divergence in the surface form of each copy of the stem 
is predicted, as each cophonology has a potentially different 
constraint ranking.

In MDT, reduplicative constructions call for two daughter nodes that 
are identical in morphosyntactic or semantic features. In addition to 
being able to encode morphologically conditioned phonology, the 
MDT approach can encode idiomatic semantics, since the semantics 
of the mother node can be specified independently of the semantics of 
the daughter nodes. This is important in accounting for reduplication 
whose meaning is non-iconic and, outside of reduplication, for 
exocentric compounds (''pick-pocket''), where the meaning of the 
whole differs from the sum of the meanings of the parts.

2. Evidence for morphological doubling
Chapter 2 discusses the main evidence for MDT. MDT claims that the 
each of the reduplicative copies -- the daughters -- has a 
morphologically and phonologically independent input, which allows 
them to diverge morphologically and phonologically in both the input 
and output. MDT therefore predicts the existence of reduplicative 
constructions in which the two copies are semantically identical but 
differ phonologically due to internal structural differences. Several 
types of phenomena have this characteristic: linking markers, melodic 
overwriting, prosodically beneficial empty morphs, and tier 
replacement.

Two other phenomena that critically support these basic claims of 
MDT, but which are difficult to model in phonological copying theories 
of reduplication, are synonym and antonym constructions and root 
allomorphy. In synonym and antonym constructions, there is a 
requirement that the two copies be semantically identical, similar, or 
different, without any requirement that the copies be phonologically 
identical. The existence of a phenomenon of this sort supports the 
essential claim of MDT that doubling is at an abstract semantic or 
morphosyntactic level. Inkelas and Zoll argue that a grammar that can 
model synonym and antonym constructions already has the power to 
handle reduplication, without recourse to Base-Reduplicant 
Faithfulness or a RED morpheme.

The phenomenon of root allomorphy is characterized by the use of 
different allomorphs of the same root in various morphosyntactic 
constructions. In reduplicative constructions, which have two copies of 
the root, the allomorph of the root that is expected in the particular 
morphosyntactic configuration is used for one of the copies, while the 
morphological ''default'' allomorph occurs in the other copy. 
Phonological copying theories of reduplication cannot derive these 
patterns, since the form of each copy is essentially determined by 
morphological principles.

3. Morphologically conditioned phonology in reduplication: the 
daughters

Chapter 3 investigates two of three main phonological predictions of 
MDT, the ''Generalized Phonology Prediction'', which claims that ''the 
set of phonological effects found applying within reduplication is 
equivalent to the set of morphologically conditioned effects found 
outside of reduplication (69), ''and the ''Independent Daughter 
Prediction'', which claims that ''the phonological effects associated with 
the two copies in reduplication are independent'' (69).

Surveying the typical modifications of either daughter node or the 
mother node in reduplicative constructions, Inkelas and Zoll find cases 
of assimilation, dissimilation, deletion, insertion, truncation, 
augmentation, lenition, fortition, neutralization--essentially the same 
set of phonological input-output modifications that occur outside of 
reduplication, as shown, for example, in the parallel results of surveys 
of neutralizations that occur in reduplicants (Alderete et al. 1999, 
Steriade 1988) and positionally conditioned, non-reduplicative 
environments (Barnes 2002). Supported by these findings, MDT 
argues that reduplicative phonology is not qualitatively different from 
non-reduplicative phonology and that reduplicative phonology can be 
handled within the theory of morphologically conditioned phonology 
that is independently necessary. As a result, Inkelas and Zoll assert 
that there need not be, and therefore should not be, a special theory 
just to handle reduplicative phonology.

The Independent Daughter Prediction, which claims not only that the 
daughters in reduplication have morphologically separate inputs but 
also that the cophonologies of the daughters in reduplication are 
independent of each other, is borne out by cases in which both copies 
in a reduplicated stem are modified. In such phenomena, each copy 
undergoes distinct morphologically conditioned phonology, as in, for 
example, double melodic overwriting, where both copies of the stem 
have an independent, fixed melodic overwrite, and parallel 
modification, where both copies are different, in the same way, from 
their inputs. An interesting corollary of the Independent Daughter 
Prediction is that it excludes 'base-dependence' phenomena in which 
the output form of one copy (the reduplicant) is dependent on the 
other (the base).

4. Morphologically conditioned phonology in reduplication: the mother 
node
Chapter 4 explores the third main phonological prediction of MDT, the 
Mother Node Prediction, which claims that reduplicative constructions 
may be associated, as a whole, with morphologically conditioned 
phonological rules. The types of phenomena investigated here include 
those junctural effects that occur only in reduplication, at the boundary 
between the two reduplicative copies.

Similar to their findings that the phonological alternations that occur in 
either of the daughter nodes are not unique to reduplication, Inkelas 
and Zoll claim that ''the range of junctural alternations in reduplication 
is as broad as the range of junctural alternations generally, including 
epenthesis, lenition, metathesis, coda sonorization, assimilation, 
dissimilation, and syncope (99).'' So, even if some language has a 
phonological process that occurs (or fails to occur) only in 
reduplication, Inkelas and Zoll argue that it can be handled with the 
same kind of technology that is used to account for some alternation 
that occurs (or fails to occur) only in, e.g., pluractional stem formation 
or in the hodiernal perfective tense. Cases of underapplication occur 
not only in reduplication but in other kinds of morphologically 
conditioned phonology, which require reference to constructions, for 
which BR-Faithfulness is insufficient. Cases of non-identity 
reduplicative underapplication are reanalyzed in MDT as non-
application, where ''the cophonology in question does not enforce the 
patterns in question'' (108). While such effects are unexpected in 
BRCT, they are expected in MDT, since the mother node has an 
independent cophonology. At the end of Chapter 4, Inkelas and Zoll 
provide a critical discussion and rejection of a variant of BRCT, 
Existential Faithfulness (Struijke 2000), as a possible means of 
accounting for such phenomena generally.

5. Morphologically driven opacity in reduplication
In Chapter 5, Inkelas and Zoll discuss and reanalyze one of the 
primary pieces of evidence for BRCT and one of the hallmark 
properties of reduplication generally: opacity. Several languages 
appear to show overapplication or underapplication only in 
reduplication, and as a result several theories (Clement 1985, Mester 
1986, McCarthy and Prince 1995) have differentiated reduplicative 
opacity from other kinds of opacity. McCarthy and Prince (1995), 
building on Wilbur (1973), attributes the apparent uniqueness of 
reduplicative opacity effects to identity enhancement between the 
base and reduplicant.

Inkelas and Zoll reject these claims that the opacity effects associated 
with reduplication are unique to it and that they result from an identity 
requirement holding between the two reduplicative copies. Instead, 
they argue that the kinds of opacity effects that occur in reduplication 
derive from the morphological structure of reduplicative constructions, 
which have independent input-output mappings for each of the 
daughter nodes that serve as the input to the mother node, which is 
subject to its own phonotactic and morphotactic requirements. This 
intrinsic layering or ordering, ''gives rise to the cyclic, or stratal, 
interactional effects to which Kiparsky (2000) attributes opacity in 
general (136),'' such that, for example, an alternation triggered at the 
mother node level renders opaque an alternation occurring in one of 
the daughter nodes. In particular, truncation of one of the 
reduplicative copies, common inside and outside of reduplication in 
morphologically conditioned phonology, often renders opaque the 
transparently triggering context. Inkelas and Zoll argue, then, that the 
same kind of approach to opacity generally, often involving 
morphological layering, with possible reranking between levels, 
accounts for reduplicative opacity without further reduplication-specific 
technology.

This chapter also identifies two serious problems with the BRCT 
approach to reduplicative opacity. First, not all cases of reduplicative 
opacity involve identity enhancement, so BRCT is therefore insufficient 
as an explanation for the full range of reduplicative opacity effects and 
requires additional theoretical machinery. Second, Inkelas and Zoll 
point out that BRCT, and other identity-based theories, make incorrect 
predictions about two classes of possible reduplicative opacity effects 
involving internal junctural and external junctural alternations that are 
not known to occur in language and that are impossible within MDT.

Finally, Chapter 5 discusses the question of backcopying -- a kind of 
opacity effect whereby a phonological change in the reduplicant is 
reflected in the base, which MDT predicts impossible, but which is an 
important piece of evidence for BRCT. On closer inspection, Inkelas 
and Zoll find little evidence for backcopying. Their reanalyses take two 
general tacks: either the effect is non-existent, the result of 
morphological misanalysis, as in McCarthy and Prince's (1995) 
analysis of Klamath, or the effect is the result of local phonological 
assimilation of the kind that is found outside of reduplication, as in 
Chaha biliteral roots (Kenstowicz and Petros Banksira 1999). 

6. Case studies
Chapter 6 implements the main ideas of MDT in reanalyses of case 
studies of Tagalog and Chumash reduplication, two examples that 
have been cited in the literature as evidence of backcopying 
overapplication. In each language, prefixal material, assumed by 
McCarthy and Prince (1995) to be outside the domain of reduplication 
which targets morphological roots, is expressed in both reduplicative 
copies. McCarthy and Prince assume morphological structures in 
which reduplication is prefixing and therefore take the doubling of the 
prefixal material as evidence for backcopying from the reduplicant (1st 
copy) into the base (2nd copy).

Inkelas and Zoll reanalyze these phenomena similarly to Downing's 
(1998) approach to prosodic misalignment. Their reanalyses have four 
main components: prefixation precedes (or at least is present in the 
input to) reduplication; reduplication targets not the morphological 
root, but the prosodic root, which minimally incorporates adjacent 
phonological material outside the morphological root, such as, e.g., by 
resyllabification; reduplication is infixing, not prefixing; and the output 
truncates one of the copies, eliminating in one of the copies the 
remainder of the prefixal material that provided the basis for the 
prosodic root. 

7. Final issues
In the final chapter, Inkelas and Zoll tie up a few loose threads by 
addressing the issue of phonological copying, which MDT maintains in 
a restricted way, in addition to morphosyntactic feature doubling. 
Phonological copying, which is constrained to apply locally (unlike 
morphosyntactic doubling, which can result in nonadjacent copies in, 
e.g., opposite-edge reduplication), remains independently necessary 
due to the ubiquity of processes of phonological assimilation. Inkelas 
and Zoll provide criteria for distinguishing phonological and 
morphosyntactic copying but admit that the phenomenon of CV 
reduplication is often difficult to diagnose as the result of phonological 
or morphological copying. Since phonological and morphosyntactic 
copying are formally distinct, some phenomena are predicted to show 
effects of both processes, as seen in, e.g., Hausa pluractional verbs. 
Inkelas and Zoll devote the final pages of the book to critically 
discussing the relationship between reduplication, language games, 
and rhyme; casting doubt on phonological anti-identity effects as 
deriving directly from (anti-) correspondence requirements; and 
identifying avenues for future research within MDT.

CRITICAL EVALUATION

Reduplication: Doubling in Morphology is an extremely important and 
timely contribution to the theoretical discussion of reduplication, a long-
standing and central issue in theories of phonology, morphology, and 
their interaction. This book, which is well written, well edited, and 
readable, advocates an important methodological moral--that 
morphological analysis should precede and guide phonological 
analysis, leveling a nontrivial criticism against some phonological 
theorizing that fails to adequately investigate phonologies in their 
larger morphosyntactic settings. (In fact, the advice has even been 
successfully applied to Inkelas and Zoll's own work, as in Marlo and 
Pharris (2004), which strengthens Zoll's (2002) analysis of Klamath 
reduplication by more fully considering the implications of assumptions 
regarding the directionality of affixation inside and outside of stems in 
reduplication.) The book provides solid conceptual and empirical 
arguments for rejecting reduplication-specific Base-Reduplicant 
Correspondence Theory and for approaching reduplication within the 
general domain of morphologically conditioned phonology. MDT is 
couched within the theories of Sign-Based Morphology and 
Cophonology Theory, but the main results of the book can relatively 
easily be translated into other theories of morphology and approaches 
to morphologically conditioned phonology, such as lexical phonology 
and indexed constraint theory.

While in general the arguments put forth are well argued and 
supported, there are a few places where questions remain. One case 
involves the synonym and antonym constructions discussed in 
Chapter 2. While these examples are quite interesting and appear to 
constitute strong evidence for the claim that grammar must have the 
power to require abstract semantic (or morphosyntactic featural) 
identity and non-identity, there are several lingering uncertainties 
about the grammatical properties of these constructions and their 
productivity. It is not known, based on the discussion in Chapter 2, 
whether these constructions are synchronically productive, and if, for 
example, new synonym constructions can be coined. This is an 
important point in probing the formal properties of the constructions 
and what semantic or morphosyntactic features are involved. In other 
words, what formally, makes two items synonyms, and is synonymy 
the only requirement for participation in reduplication? And several 
other questions arise. Would, for example, 'glance-stare', 'notice-
regard', 'watch-see' be grammatical? What are the relevant semantic 
features? Do the elements have to match for morphosyntactic 
category?

Another question involves the Thesis of Morphological Targets, 
introduced in Chapter 2, which claims that ''a reduplicative 
construction calls for morphological constituents (affix, root, stem, or 
word), not phonological constituents (mora, syllable, or foot) (25)''. 
The issue is that many of the critical MDT analyses, reanalyzing 
opacity effects previously argued to provide evidence for BRCT, 
crucially involve the doubling of prosodic constituents, such as the 
PRoot or the PStem, which are based on but crucially not identical to 
the morphological constituents. These later analyses therefore seem 
to violate the Thesis of Morphological Targets, since the analyses are 
untenable if the reduplicative targets are the morphological roots and 
stems (unless certain other assumptions such as Consistency of 
Exponence are rejected and there is actually no distinction between 
MStems and PStems except the level of derivation at which they are 
inspected).

The gravest concern regarding MDT, in this reviewer's eyes, involves 
the claim that the input to the two copies of the stem in all 
reduplicative constructions is independent. As Inkelas and Zoll point 
out, this makes 'base-dependence' effects, in which the form of the 
reduplicant (in traditional terms) is determined in relation to the form of 
the base, arbitrary properties of the cophonologies of each copy, 
since the two copies are not in a correspondence relation. Inkelas and 
Zoll discuss the base-dependence problem in Section 3.4.1 and 
conclude that the evidence for base-dependence is slim. They look at 
the evidence from cases of CV ~ VC reduplicant allomorphy where the 
reduplicant has a CV shape with C-initial bases and a VC shape with 
V-initial bases and reanalyze the cases as involving infixation, not 
base-dependence, following McCarthy and Prince's (1999) reanalysis. 
Inkelas and Zoll also reject a few other cases of alleged base-
dependence based on the shape of the reduplicant, suggesting that 
such templatic effects can be accomplished at the mother node 
cophonology, without need for correspondence between the two 
reduplicative copies.

There are, however, more serious challenges to the claim that 
phonological or morphological requirements on one copy are 
completely unrelated to the requirements on the other. At least two 
Bantu languages, Kikerewe (Odden 1996) and Lusaamia (Marlo 
2004), have patterns of asymmetric morphological reduplication of the 
verb stem in which the first copy of the stem has all of or a subset of 
the suffixes of the second copy of the stem. When there are multiple 
suffixes in the second copy of the stem, variants of the first copy of the 
stem are possible that have all of, none of, or some subset of the 
suffixes in the second copy. For example, ni-ba-lim-il-an-e-lim-il-án-é, 
ni-ba-lim-il-an-a-lim-il-án-é, ni-ba-lim-il-e-lim-il-án-é, ni-ba-lim-il-a-lim-il-
án-é, ni-ba-lim-e-lim-il-án-é, and ni-ba-lim-a-lim-il-án-é are all possible 
forms of 'they should not cultivate for each other' (-a is a default suffix 
that is essentially the zero equivalent of -e). Odden (1996) shows that 
there is a contiguity requirement in such examples in Kikerewe such 
that examples with discontinuous copying within the derivational stem 
are ungrammatical (e.g., *ni-ba-lim-an-e-lim-il-án-é), although the form 
of the first copy of the stem would be grammatical (if not idiomatic for 
this particular root), outside of reduplication (ku-lim-an-a 'to cultivate 
each other') or inside of reduplication with a different structure of the 
second copy of the stem (ni-ba-lim-an-e-lim-án-é 'they should cultivate 
each other'). Therefore, although these patterns may not necessarily 
be the result of an Identity requirement in the usual sense of BRCT, 
they show that the morphosyntactic and phonological features of the 
first copy (the reduplicant) are dependent on those of the second 
copy (the base), and that the Independent Daughter Prediction does 
not hold in its strongest form.

Despite these possible problems, this book remains a compelling read 
and a significant contribution to the field. 

REFERENCES

Alderete, John, Jill Beckman, Laura Benua, Amalia Gnanadesikan, 
John McCarthy, and Suzanne Urbanczyk. 1999. Reduplication with 
fixed segmentism. Linguistic Inquiry 30:327-64.

Barnes, Johnathan. 2002. Positional neutralization: a phonologization 
approach to typological patterns. Ph.D. thesis, University of California, 
Berkeley.

Downing, Laura. 1998. Prosodic misalignment and reduplication. 
Yearbook of Morphology 1997:83-120.

Inkelas, Sharon. 1998. The theoretical status of morphologically 
conditioned phonology: A case study from dominance. Yearbook of 
Morphology 1997:121-55.

Inkelas, Sharon, Cemil Orhan Orgun, and Cheryl Zoll. 1997. 
Implications of lexical exceptions for the nature of grammar. In Iggy 
Roca (ed.), Constraints and derivations in phonology. Oxford: 
Clarendon Press, 393-418.

Kenstowicz, Michael and Degif Petros Banksira. 1999. Reduplicative 
identity in Chaha. Linguistic Inquiry 30:573-86.

Marlo, Michael R. 2004. Prefixing reduplication in Lusaamia: evidence 
from morphology. In Akinbiyi Akinlabi (ed.), Proceedings of the 4th 
World Congress of African Linguistics. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.

Marlo, Michael R. and Nicholas J. Pharris. 2004. Which wic is which? 
Prefixes and suffixes in Klamath full-root reduplication. Linguistic 
Inquiry 25:639-656.

Marantz, Alec. 1982. Re reduplication. Linguistic Inquiry 13:483-545.

McCarthy, John and Alan Prince. 1995. Faithfulness and reduplicative 
identity. In Jill Beckman, Laura Dickey, and Suzanne Urbanczyk 
(eds.), University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 
18: Papers in Optimality Theory. Amherst, MA: GLSA, 249-384.

McCarthy, John and Alan Prince. 1999. Faithfulness and identity in 
Prosodic Morphology. In Rene Kager, Harry van der Hulst, and Wim 
Zonneveld (eds.), The prosody-morphology interface. Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press.

Odden, David. 1996. Patterns of Reduplication in Kikerwe. Ohio State 
University Working Papers in Linguistics 48:111-148.

Orgun, Cemil Orhan. 1996. Sign-based morphology and phonology: 
with special attention to Optimality Theory. Ph.D. thesis, University of 
California, Berkeley.

Orgun, Cemil Orhan. 1999. Sign-based morphology: a declarative 
theory of phonology-morphology interleaving. In Ben Hermans and 
Marc van Oostendorp (eds.), The derivational residue in phonological 
Optimality Theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 247-67.

Orgun, Cemil Orhan and Sharon Inkelas. 2002. Reconsidering bracket 
erasure. Yearbook of Morphology 2001: 115-46.

Steriade, Donca 1988. Reduplication and syllable transfer in Sanskrit. 
Phonology 5:73-155.

Struijke, Caro. 2000. Existential Faithfulness: A study of reduplicative 
TETU, feature movement, and dissimilation. Ph.D. thesis, University of 
Maryland.

Wilbur, Ronnie. 1973. The phonology of reduplication. Bloomington: 
Indiana University Linguistics Club.

Zoll, Cheryl. 2002. Vowel reduction and reduplication in Klamath. 
Linguistic Inquiry 33:520-27. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Michael Marlo is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Linguistics at 
the University of Michigan, who has published on reduplication in 
Klamath (Penutian, Oregon) and Lusaamia (Bantu, Kenya) and is 
interested generally in phonology, morphology, interactions of the 
components of grammar, and Bantu linguistics. His dissertation is a 
study of verbal tonology in three Bantu languages of the Luyia group 
in western Kenya.





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