Alignment: the third kind of constraints

04/22/23 1

Alignment: the third kind of constraints

Today we will look at three alignment effects.1. Separation of domains: syllabification. 2. Concatenation of constituents:Simple illustration of alignment effects on word orderSimple illustration of other structural effects of alignmentDiscussion of fin-second effects in the spirit of Legendre3. Falling together of different kinds of entities: position of heads in phonology. 4. Positional faithfulness

04/22/23 2

The third kind of constraintsAlignment

• Alignment constraints are different from both markedness and faithfulness.

• They require 1) that edges of constituents are clearly separated, 2) that constituents appear in a certain order and 3) that constituents fall together or that they appear in certain specified positions.

• The constituents are generally assumed to be morphological, syntactic or phonological (prosodic).

04/22/23 3

Definition of alignment

(1) Generalized AlignmentAlign (Cat1, Cat2, Edge)

Cat1 and Cat2 are prosodic and grammatical categories. Edge is Left or Right.

In order for (1) to be true, the edge of Cat1 must fall together with the edge of Cat2.

For all Cat1 there is a Cat2 so that …

04/22/23 4

Definition of alignment

Another possibilityAlign (Cat1, Cat2) (no mentioning of edge)

In this case, all that is required is that two categories coincide

Examples: stress with a syllable or a vowel, tone with a syllable …

04/22/23 5

First effect of alignment:boundaries1. Syllabification in German

The first effect of alignment and the most well-known in phonology is the requirements that constituents have clear boundaries. That morphemes should end in a syllable is the prototypical example.Some languages blurr their morpheme edges in having domains of syllabification larger than the morpheme: French for example: les-enfants sont-allés nager.German is a good example of clear syllable boundaries.

04/22/23 6

1. Syllabification in German

In compounds and prefixed words, there is no resyllabification across the morphemes:•Prefixation (…C+V…)un+artig [un.aáªtˆç] *[u.naáªtˆç] ‘naughty’ver+ärgern [váª.áª.gáªn] *[v\.ëáª.gáªn] ‘to annoy’ •CompoundingStock+ente [∫tøk.ent\] * [∫tø.kent\] ‘mallart’ Riesen+affe [ëi:zn.åf\] *[ëi:z\.nåf\] ‘ape’

04/22/23 7


The constraint responsible for the clear (crisp) syllabification is:

ALIGN(stem, syllable, L)The left edge of each stem falls together with the left edge of a syllable.

This constraint is undominated in German.

04/22/23 8

1. Syllabification in GermanIn suffixation, things are different:

When the stem ends with a C and the suffix begins with a C, the syllabification corresponds to the morpheme structure. The same is true for the sequences V+V and V+C.

• C+C: faul/Fául-heit fauªl.haiªt ‘lazy-ness’• V+V: Ruhe/rúh-ig ëu:.ˆç ‘quiet’• V+C: froh/´fröh-lich fëø:.lˆç ‘joyful’

04/22/23 9


In the case of Faulheit, ruhig and fröhlich, ONSET and the new constraint do not conflict. ALIGN(stem, syllable, R)(The right edge of each stem falls together with the right edge of a syllable) In ruhig, there is no onset, but syllabification separates the morphemes. In Faulheit and fröhlich, morpheme structure and syllabification fall together.

04/22/23 10


BUT when the stem ends in a consonant and the suffix begins with a vowel, things are different:

C+V: Kind/kínd-isch kˆn.dˆ∫ ‘childish’

In kindisch, sonnig ‘sunny’, Ladung ‘cargo’, lachen ‘to laugh’ and so on, there is a conflict between ONSET and ALIGN(stem, syllable, R). ONSET ranks higher than ALIGN.

04/22/23 11


• Conclusion:In suffixation, the need to satisfy the unmarked syllable structure (onset) is higher than the need to separate morphemes.

ONSET >> ALIGN-R

04/22/23 12


/kind+isch/ ONSET ALIGN-R

kin.disch *

kind.isch *!

04/22/23 13


/un+ar+tig/ ALIGN-L ONSET ALIGN-R

un.ar.tig ** *

u.nar.tig *! * *

un.art.ig ***!

04/22/23 14

Side effects:No coalescence

•Two adjacent vowels, that would fuse together in a diphthong refrain from doing so because of morpheme edges.•German: ruhig, prosaisch ([u.i] and [a.i] vs. Fleisch ‘meat’[ai] or Pfui ‘boo’)The same is true in French: anti-alcoolique ([i.a] vs. piano [ja]) which is remarkable, since French resyllabifies across morpheme and word boundaries.

04/22/23 15

Side effects:Glottal stop epenthesis

• At the beginning of a foot, an onset is obligatory in German. If the input does not provide any, a glottal stop is inserted that functions as the onset of the syllable falling together with the left edge of the foot:(?Eule) ‘owl’, Be(?amte) ‘civil servant’, Cha(?ot) ‘chaotic person’, ver?ärgern, Stock?ente

• ALIGN(Foot, C, L) >> DEP

04/22/23 16

Align (Ft, C, L) DEP

(÷Eule) *! (Eule) * (Krähe) (Krä÷e) *!

04/22/23 17

Side effects:Laryngeal constraintInside of a foot, that is before an unstressed syllable, an onset is not obligatory. No glottal stop is inserted.(And at lower levels of the prosodic hierarchy, some potential onsets are even deleted, like [h] and [g] after a nasal.)Ehe [e:\] ‘marriage’(but Mahagoni), Zunge [tsu˜\] (but Tango)

ALIGN(Foot, C, L) >> DEP >> ALIGN((V), C, L) >> *[h], *[˜g] >> ALIGN(,(\) C, L)

04/22/23 18

Domain of syllabification: summary

•In German, the domain of syllabification is the Prosodic Word.

•In French it is the Phonological PhraseAlignment effects are usually not felt below the PhPh, but recall the anti-coalescence effect (biannuel, antialcoolique…, transatlantique).

04/22/23 19

Alignment in Syntax

In syntax, one tends to focus on linear order when one talks about alignment.

We begin with a very simple example, discuss fin/clitic second effects, and turn to possible non-linearization effects of alignment finally.

04/22/23 20

A Simple Example

A simple linear example:

Head Left! (a generalization of LEFT)Head Right!SpecFirst!

With these three principles, we can derive the basic word order typology

04/22/23 21

SpecFirst > Head Left

SpecFirst Head Left

SVO *

VSO *!

SOV **!

04/22/23 22

Head Left > Spec First

Head Left Spec First

SVO *!

VSO *

SOV *!*

04/22/23 23

Spec First > Head Right

SpecFirst Head Right

SVO *!

VSO *!

SOV

04/22/23 24

Head Right> Spec First

Head Rt SpecFirst

SVO *!

VSO *! *

SOV

04/22/23 25

Domain of Application

The result follows if we apply headleft to all intermediate projections

[VP he [saw Mary]] 1 violation

[VP he [Mary saw]] 2 violations

04/22/23 26

Word Order & Alignment

The principles Head Left and Head Right can be formulated in terms of alignment

Head LeftHead LeftAlign (Phrase, Head, Left)Each phrase has a head at its left edge

Align (Phrase, Head, Right)This implies„Cross-Categorial Harmony“

04/22/23 27

Constraints with more details

Align (Verbphrase, Verb, Left)Align (Phrase, Head, Right)

This is a language in which verb phrases are headinitial, while other categories are headfinalRecall we discussed a similar specialization of principles last time (Econ, LexEcon, Gov, LexGov)

04/22/23 28

Constraints with more details

Align (V1, V, Left) XAlign (VP, V(1), Right) Y

In such a language, the verb precedes the objects, but follows other VP material Chinese?Subj . Advs . V . Objects

04/22/23 29

Reinterpreting SpecFirst

SpecFirstAlign (XP, specifier, left)

There appears to be no SpecLast e.g. for wh-phrases(perhaps in one or two languages ...)One needs to decide what to do about VOS and OVS languages

04/22/23 30

Reinterpreting SpecFirst

SpecFirst thus does not appear to have a mirror-constraint

Likewise, LEFT does not really seem to have a mirror-constraint

(These facts can be due to positional faithfulness effects, see below.)

04/22/23 31

More examples for alignment

V-to-I movementJean embrasse souvent MarieAlign (Infl, Verb, left)

If (1) > (2), we predict that Focus goes to the slot immediately preceding the verb in German (1) Align ([+v]-P, Head, right)(2) Align (CP, Focus, right)

04/22/23 32

A Standard Example: Finiteness-Alignment

The head of a clause comes first in a language like Irish:

D'eirigh Ciaranrose-3sg Ciaranduirt Seán go-bhfuil Cathal ag rincesaid John that-is Charles –ing dance

04/22/23 33

A Standard Example: Finiteness-Alignment

In Legendre’s terms: Edgemost (Fin, LEFT)

Align (clause, head, left)Align (IP, head, left)clause = VP/IP ....

Turkish ranks the mirror-constraint higher ...

04/22/23 34

Breton 1a

Breton does not differ from Irish in an embedded clause: Kredin ran en deus aret Yann e bark believe do-I 3sg has ploughed Y. his field

but in main clauses ...

04/22/23 35

Breton 1b

But the situation is different in the matrix clause: Yann en deus aret e barkJOHN has ploughed the field

subject focuse bark en deus aret Yann

object focus*en deus aret Yann e bark

FOC FIN VSO

04/22/23 36

Breton 1c

Align (Focus, root clause, left) AAlign (clause, head, left) B

Apparently: A > B But we also find structures likeLennet en deus Yann al levrread 3-have John the bookand NEVER*En deus lennet Yann al levr

04/22/23 37

Breton 1d

Legendre’s proposal:

NONINIT (Infl, root clause)No Infl must be initial in a root clause

If NONINIT (Infl, root clause) >> Align (clause, head, left)the finite element goes to SECOND postion

04/22/23 38

Breton 1e

NONINIT (Infl, root clause)

can trigger verb movement that has no pragmatic etc. side-effect ...

04/22/23 39

Non-Initiality

Non-Initiality is a fairly funny alignment constraint that is of some importance for wide areas of syntax.

04/22/23 40

German

In German, the finite verb must be leftmost in root clauses, but non-initial if the root clause is a declarative or a wh-question

das Buch liest der Mannthe book reads the manwas liest der Mannwhat reads the man

04/22/23 41

German

Non-Initiality is guaranteed byExpletive insertiones kommt jemandthere comes someoneEocus/wh-movement

Movement of first element of clauseder Mann vergisst seinen Textthe man forgets his text

04/22/23 42

Topic Drop

Topic-Drop overrides Non-Initiality

Hab ich schon gesehen(E) have I already seengefällt ihm nichtpleases him not

04/22/23 43

Basque

Jonek hori dakiJohn that knows

Align (clause, head, right) nork daki horiwho knows that

JONEK daki horiAlign (focus/wh, clause, left) AAlign (wh-clause, head, left) BA > B or NonInit (no evidence for latter)

04/22/23 44

Icelandic/Yiddish:

Align (Clause, head, left)NonInit (Fin, clause)

Generalized Verb-Second-EffectGeneralized Verb-Second-Effectaz morgn vet dos yingl oyfn veg zen a katsThat tomorrow will the boy on the way see a cat

04/22/23 45

Icelandic/Yiddish:

Stylistic movement/expletive insertion to fulfill NonInit

Fram hefur komidh adh fiskadh hefur veridh í leyfisleysiforth has come that fished has been illegally

Fram hefur komidh adh thadh hefur veridh fiskadh í leyfisleysiforth has come that it has been fished illegally

04/22/23 46

English:

Align (Phrase, Head, Left)Align (Fin, ROOT* ,Left)

Verb-Second-Effect in Questions only:Who did you see? I think that Bill, he likes

Again, alignment of wh-phrases would be sufficient

04/22/23 47

Croatian Clitics

All clitics appear in a cluster

tko li mu ga je dao bez pitanjawho-L-him-it-is given without question?

Clitics appear in second positionIvan mu je mu je jucer dao autoIvan him-be yesterday give car

04/22/23 48

Some surprises

Names can be split up:Lava sam sam Tolstoja čitao Lew am-I Tolstoy readLav je Tolstody citao knjigu

04/22/23 49

Prosody

The relevance of prosody

e.g. parentheticals .oni su su ja tako mislim nazvali ga ga jucerthey be I so believe called him yesterday

04/22/23 50

Prosodically triggered movement

Apparently, the cluster must not be initial in any intonation phrase

Align (clause, Agr, left)NonInit (Agr, IntonPhrase)Prosodic Triggern of movementdao mu ga je mu ga je Ivangiven him.it.is Ivan

04/22/23 51

Clitic Placement in Polish:

My znowu wczoraj poszli smy do parkuWe again yesterday went are to park

My znowu wczoraj smy poszli do parkuMy znowu smy wczoraj poszli do parkuMy smy znowu wczoraj poszli do parku**smy my znowu wczoraj poszli do parkuIn Polish, only the non-initiality constraint has a high rank!

04/22/23 52

Other effects of alignment

The EPPNonInit (Fin, Z)This seems to be true for languages in which anything may precede the finite element.Z = root clauses in German, Scandinavian and BretonZ = IP English type languages ....

04/22/23 53

Some possible consequences

We would thus be able to derive the various versions of the EPP from Non-Init. This would explain why there are no systematic object expletivesThis would explain (hopefully) whythere is normally just ONE expletive positionBut why is Non-Init restricted to finite elements?

04/22/23 54

The Alternative

Align (IP, specifier, left)

This alignment principle guarantees that each IP begins with a specifier.

This also looks like the EPP!

04/22/23 55

Other Implications

One may wonder, however, why there seems to be no mirror-constraint: Align (IP, specifier, right)

OV languages do not seem to respect the EPP at all.

04/22/23 56

Headedness

Headedness, however, may be understood as a consequence of the alignment principles (this could replace OblHd)

This presupposes traces, or a cyclic version of OT

04/22/23 57

Second effect of alignment: 2. Place of affixes

• In German, English, as well as in all languages without infixation, the alignment constraint responsible for the positioning of prefixes and suffixes are always higher-ranking than all prosodic constraints that could trigger an affix shift.

• Instrument-al, instrument-less • Ge-länd-e, kind-isch, un-art-ig

04/22/23 58

2. Place of affixes: Infixation in Tagalog

• In Tagalog (McCarthy & Prince 1993b) the infix -um- is located after the onset of the first syllable, if there is one.Root um + Rootaral um-aral ‘to teach’sulat s-um-ulat ‘to write’ (*um-sulat)gradwet gr-um-adwet ‘to graduate’

04/22/23 59

2. Place of affixes: Infixation in Tagalog

• It is more important to fulfill the constraint against codas than to align a prefix with the left edge of a word.NOCODA >> ALIGN(Prefix, PW, L)

Violations of Align-constraints are gradient, but as always violations are minimal.

04/22/23 60

Infixation in Tagalog

•Candidates NOCODA ALIGN-L

um.sulat **

su.mu.lat * *

su.um.lat ** **

su.lu.mat * ***

04/22/23 61



u.ma.ral *

a.um.ral **! *

a.ru.mal * *!*

a.ra.uml * *!**

04/22/23 62



um.grad.wet ***!

gum.rad.wet ***! *

gru.mad.wet ** **

grad.wu.met ** ***!**

04/22/23 63

3. Stress

• The third effect of alignment is the falling together of different kinds of constituents.

• Stress is aligned with syllables, feet, prosodic words etc.

• At the interface with syntax, stress can be asociated with lexical elements or with XPs, etc.

04/22/23 64

Third effect of alignment: 3. Stress

• At the interface with semantic, stress is associated with the scope of focus operators, for instance

• John only sees his OWN reflection.• John only sees his own REFLECTION.• John only SEES Mary (but does not hear her).

04/22/23 65

Third effect of alignment: 3. Stress

• Stress is often peripheral: final, penultimate or initial, which speaks for an analysis in terms of alignment.

• Stress is grouping of constituents. At the lower level, syllables are grouped into feet.

• Feet are trochaic (left-headed) or iambic (right-headed). This alignment is trivial, since feet consist of two syllables.

04/22/23 66

3. Stress

• More interesting is what happens at higher levels, in a prosodic word or a phrase. There, too, stress can be interpreted as standing for groupings of constituents, and there, too, it is peripheral. But, since feet are the relevant constituents, when feet are trochaic and stress final, stress is penultimate.

04/22/23 67

3. Stress

English stress (McCarthy & Prince 1993b)• ALIGN(PrWd, Ft, L): all Prosodic Words start with

a left-aligned foot • ALIGN(Ft, PrWd, R): all feet are right-aligned with

the right edge of the word(Tàta)ma(góuchee) *Ta(tàma)(góuchee)Main stress is determined independently.

04/22/23 68

German stressGerman stress• ALIGN(PrWd, Ft, R): all Prosodic Words end with

a right-aligned foot. • ALIGN(PrWd, Ft, R): all Prosodic Words start with

a left-aligned foot. • These two constraints give a stress pattern with

exactly two stresses, one initial (if possible) and one final. The final one is the main stress.

04/22/23 69

/kÁá•bˆs/FOOT-

FORM(TRO)FT-BIN

ALIGN- FOOT -RIGHT

ALIGN-FOOT -LEFT

PARSE-SYLLABLE

a. ( x . ) Kürbisb. ( x ) Kür bis

*! * *

c. ( x ) Kür bis

*! * *

d. ( . x ) Kürbis

*!

04/22/23 70

/zek¨nd\ /NO

CLASHFOOT-FORM(TRO)

NONHEAD(\ )

FT-BIN

ALIGN-FOOT -RIGHT

ALIGN-FOOT -LEFT

PARSE-SYLLABLE

a. ( x .) Se kunde

* *

b. (x)( x .) Se kunde

*! *

c. ( . x ) Sekun de

*! * *

d. (x . ) (x) Sekun de

*! *

e. ( x) Se kun de

*! * * **

f. (x . ) Sekun de

*! *

04/22/23 71

4. Positional faithfulness

Positional faithfulness has been recently introduced into OT phonology by Beckman and Steriade. Its effects are often comparable with the effects of alignment, though the basic idea is different.

It says that some positions are more prominent than others in terms of perception, and that prominent positions allow more contrasts.

04/22/23 72


As an example, consider Final Devoicing in German

loben [lo:.bn] ‘to praise’ Lob [lo:p] ‘praise, N.’ b. Hände [d] ‘hands’ Hand [t] ‘hand’c. kluge [g] ‘clever, infl.’ klug [k] ‘clever, uninfl.’ d. brave [v] ‘good, infl’ brav [f] ‘good, uninfl.’e. niesen [z] ‘to sneeze’ nies [s] ‘sneeze, imp.’ f. Orange[oËãΩ\] ‘orange, N.’ orange [oËã∫] ‘adj.’

04/22/23 73


Lombardi’s explanation of FD:

Voiced obstruents are allowed only before tautosyllabic sonorants.

Standard explanation: It is an active process taking place at the end of syllables.

04/22/23 74


*VDOBSTR: Obstruents are voiceless.

Faithfulness constraint (Beckman 1998:38)

IDENT(voice)For all segments x, y, where x Input and y Output, if xRy, then y is [voice] iff x is [voice].”Correspondent segments must agree in voicing.”

04/22/23 75


Positional faithfulness constraint (Beckman 1998:38)

IDENT(voice)Onset

For all segments x, y, where x Input and y Output and y is syllabified in onset position, if xRy, then y is [voice] iff x is [voice].

”Onset segments and their input correspondents must agree in voicing.”

04/22/23 76


Exercise:Show how these three constraints interact to deliver the difference in voicing in Lob/loben.

Documents

Alignment: the third kind of constraints