Germanic Verbal Ablaut and Optimality Theory

Germanic Verbal Ablaut and Optimality Theory PDF Author: Julie McFarland Goldmann
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description

Germanic Verbal Ablaut and Optimality Theory

Germanic Verbal Ablaut and Optimality Theory PDF Author: Julie McFarland Goldmann
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description


Derivations and Evaluations

Derivations and Evaluations PDF Author: Hans Broekhuis
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110207206
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
This study shows that Scandinavian object shift and so-called A-scrambling in the continental Germanic languages are the same, and aims at providing an account of the variation that we find with respect to this phenomenon by combining certain aspects of the Minimalist Program and Optimality Theory. More specifically, it is claimed that representations created by a simplified version of the computational system of human language CHL are evaluated in an optimality theoretic fashion by taking recourse to a very small set of output constraints.

Optimality Theory and Language Change

Optimality Theory and Language Change PDF Author: D.E. Holt
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401001952
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 490

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Book Description
This work discusses many optimization and linguistic issues in great detail. It treats the history of a variety of languages, including English, French, Germanic, Galician/ Portuguese, Latin, Russian, and Spanish and shows that the application of Optimality Theory allows for innovative and improved analyses. It contains a complete bibliography on OT and language change. It is of interest to historical linguists, researchers into OT and linguistic theory, and phonologists and syntacticians with an interest in historical change.

Phonology and Morphology of the Germanic Languages

Phonology and Morphology of the Germanic Languages PDF Author: Wolfgang Kehrein
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110919761
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
The papers collected in this volume apply principles of phonology and morphology to the Germanic languages. Phonological phenomena range from subsegmental over phonemic to prosodic units (as syllables, pitch accent, stress). Morphology includes properties of roots, derivation, inflection, and words. The analyses deal with language-internal and comparative aspects, covering the whole (European) range of Germanic languages. From a theoretical perspective, most papers concentrate on constraint-based approaches. Crucial to those theories are principles of the phonology-morphology interaction, both within and between languages. The well documented Germanic languages provide an excellent field for research and almost all papers deal with aspects of the interface.

The Germanic Strong Verbs

The Germanic Strong Verbs PDF Author: Robert Mailhammer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110198789
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
As a contribution to the ongoing discussion of the genesis of the Germanic language, this book investigates the strong verbs of Proto-Germanic using a new approach that combines historical and typological morphology with quantitative etymology. It reveals that the morphological peculiarities and the etymological problems of the strong verbs have been considerably underestimated. The first part of the book explains how drastically the inherited verb system was transformed when it was uniformized and simplified around a functionalized verbal ablaut. In particular, it is shown that the systemic position of ablaut is typologically different from that in the verb morphology of the Indo-European parent language. Moreover, the origin of the lengthened grade preterits and other well-known morphological problems of the strong verbs are discussed. After developing a methodological framework, the second part of the book presents a quantitative analysis of the etymological situation of the strong verbs. It demonstrates that the etymological relations of the strong verbs are significantly less clear than commonly assumed, as almost half of them have no accepted etymology. A comparative quantification of the primary verbs of Sanskrit and Ancient Greek, both of which possess much better etymological connections within the Indo-European language family, underlines the significance of the Germanic data and the validity of the analytical framework. Taken together, the investigations presented in this book put the Germanic strong verbs in a new and markedly different light. Their largely obscure etymological situation in combination with their far-reaching morphological restructuring has telling implications for the prehistory of the Germanic languages and suggests new pathways for future research.

"Umlaut" in Optimality Theory

Author: Thomas B. Klein
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Chamorro language
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this first book-length study of synchronic umlaut, a comprehensive comparative analysis of the phonology and morphology of the umlaut alternation in present-day German and the Austronesian language Chamorro is presented in the framework of Optimality Theory. Umlaut in German and Chamorro is local and noniterative vowel fronting at the edge of a morphological base. Umlaut in German is stress-insensitive, morphologically conditioned, and takes place at the right edge of words, whereas Chamorro umlaut interacts significantly with stress, is phonologically and morphologically conditioned and takes place at the left edge of words. The account of German and Chamorro umlaut presented in this book results in a fresh perspective of the phonology-morphology interface and the interaction between segmental and metrical structure with wide cross-linguistic implications. A new conception of morphological conditioning based on morphological faithfulness and Representation as Pure Markedness is developed. Given this approach, I propose that the requirement that there is no back vowel at the edge of the morphological base plays a fundamental role in German and Chamorro umlaut. It is demonstrated how the interaction of Pure Markedness desiderata and alignment, faithfulness and markedness constraints accounts for German and Chamorro umlaut without floating autosegments. Moreover, a careful analysis of Chamorro stress is able to explain the umlaut-stress interaction without the previously necessary, yet problematic transderivational correspondence relation. The Chamorro data collected for this study through extensive field research on Guam and Saipan contribute significantly to the documentation of this endangered language.

Scandinavian Object Shift and Optimality Theory

Scandinavian Object Shift and Optimality Theory PDF Author: E. Engels
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137431644
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
This book presents an account of object shift, a word order phenomenon found in most of the Scandinavian languages where an object occurs unexpectedly to the left and not to the right of a sentential adverbial. With new and original observations, it is an important addition to the fields of phonology, optimality theory and theoretical syntax.

Optimality Theory

Optimality Theory PDF Author: Joost Dekkers (linguiste)
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 9780198238447
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 656

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Book Description
Optimality theory has revolutionized phonological theory, and its insights are now being applied to other central aspects of language. This book presents the results of research as applied to syntax/language acquisition, as well as considering the main lines of attack by rule-based grammarians.

Optimality Theory - An Introduction

Optimality Theory - An Introduction PDF Author: Patrick Schmitz
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3656150885
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 29

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,0, RWTH Aachen University, language: English, abstract: The linguistic model Optimality Theory was for the first time proposed by the linguist Alan Prince (Rutgers University, New Jersey) in cooperation with his colleague Paul Smolensky (John Hopkins University, Baltimore) in the year 1993. This representational model has – since then – been constantly expanded for instance owing to the work of John J. McCarthy (University of Massachusetts Amherst) and other scholars such as René Kager in the Netherlands or Caroline Féry in Germany. The studies conducted in this term paper are primarily based upon the work of the aforementioned scholars with a particular focus on the examinations by the three ‘fathers’ of Optimality Theory, viz. Prince, Smolensky and McCarthy. Another fact revealing that this model is a current and productive one – i.e. beside the spreading and development of Optimality Theory all over the linguistic world – is its applicability to different subfields of linguistics, namely phonology, syntax and morphology. With reference to its wide use, it should be said that this term paper predominantly examines the phonological applicability of this linguistic model. The theory itself borrows fundamental aspects from Generative Grammar such as the role of Universal Principles in language, which will be pointed out as one of the most important pillars of Optimality Theory in the course of this paper. In addition to explaining the fundamental principles and processes in Optimality Theory such as the roles of constraints and various other functions as for example GEN or EVAL in a general introduction (chapter 2), I will also report on two case-studies (chapter 3): one on Tagalog prefix infixation already examined by Prince and Smolensky and one on German Final Devoicing worked upon by Féry. The examination of these particular case-studies shall prove that Optimality Theory is helpful when it comes to scrutinizing certain grammatical phenomena either in well-known languages such as German or less known and used languages such as Tagalog, an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines. Finally, I want to point out the advantages and disadvantages of this linguistic model by focussing on the set of the following questions: why do scholars employ the strategies of Optimality Theory and how do these strategies support linguists in coming to their respective results? What actually is Optimality Theory good for and in which respect does it prove inadequate for studying languages and grammatical systems?

Whose German?

Whose German? PDF Author: Orrin W. Robinson
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027237156
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
The author addresses a number of issues in German and general phonology, using a specific problem in German phonology (the ach/ich alternation) as a springboard. These issues include especially the naturalness, or lack thereof, of the prescriptive standard in German, and the importance of colloquial pronunciations, as well as historical and dialect evidence, for phonological analyses of the “standard” language. Other important topics include the phonetic and phonological status of German /r/, the phonetic and phonological representation of palatals, the status of loanwords in phonological description, and, especially as regards the latter, the usefulness of Optimality Theory in capturing phonological facts.The book addresses itself to scholars from the fields of German and Germanic linguistics, as well as those concerned more generally with theoretical phonology (whether Lexical or Optimal). It may even appeal to the orthoëpists and lexicographers of modern German.