Lecture: Stratal Evidence from Downstep in Moro

Downstep is the lowering process of tones and makes a typologically interesting case as it can be triggered by various factors such as course of intonation, phonological high / low tones or morphological tense. In Moro (Kordofanian, Africa) downstep according to Rose & Jenks (2011) marks the edges of the "macro-stem". In this talk I will present a Stratal Optimality Theory (Bermúdez-Otero 1999, Kiparsky 2000) analysis of downstep in Moro by modeling the composition of the verb onto different levels each with distinct morphophonological rules. I ascribe the lowering of high tones as a clash resolution with high tones from an earlier step of the verb building, locating the process of downstep on a higher stratum. My implementation of Moro in Stratal OT reduces the formerly assumed number of levels in the language providing evidence for a stratified structure of grammar and argues that high tones should rather be treated like stress that can be shifted to a secondary stress similiar to German morphophonology.

keywoards: tone, phonology, morphological structure, verb inflection, stratification, Stratal Optimality Theory
Bermúdez-Otero, R. (1999). Constraint interaction in language change: quantity in English and Germanic. The University of Manchester (United Kingdom).
Rose, S., & Jenks, P. (2011). Mobile object markers in Moro: the role of tone. Unpublished ms., UC San Diego and UC Berkeley.
Kiparsky, P. (2000). Opacity and cyclicity. The Linguistic Review, 17(2-4), 351-366.

Info

Day: 2024-05-09
Start time: 14:10
Duration: 00:30
Room: Crab (33.3.088)
Track: Theoretical Linguistics
Language: en

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