This volume is a collection of original contributions to the study of lexical allomorphy, with a focus on Optimality Theory’s distinctive take on this topic. The chapters provide an up-to-date perspective on the advances in our understanding of allomorphy which Optimality Theory has been able to secure (in comparison with rule-based Generative Phonology). They also consider a number of important allomorphy questions which Optimality Theory has helped raise and address (e.g. the nature of inputs, the role of paradigms, the interaction of phonology with other modules of grammar, lexical storage vs computation, degrees of phonological (ir)regularity, subcategorization vs markedness). The contributors form an international array of linguists from North America and Europe. A broad variety of languages serve as the empirical base for the volume, either in detailed case studies (e.g. Burushaski, Catalan, English, French, Italian, Moroccan Arabic, Sahaptin) or in encompassing typological surveys. The volume is aimed at professional linguists with an interest in phonology, morphology, and the lexicon. With its broad coverage of allomorphy issues, the book’s content will also lend itself to courses in phonology and morphology for advanced undergraduates and graduate students.

The prenominal position X and the postnominal position Y within a DP [DPXNY], where N is the head noun, are asymmetric in various respects. Most typically a given category can appear in a given language in one position but not in the other, or can appear only in one or the other under specific regular conditions. In other cases prenominal and postnominal positions give different semantic interpretations of the same element. Allomorphic choice is also affected by position. In this paper we examine some specific cases of Catalan and Spanish in which an asymmetry between prenominal and postnominal elements within the DP arises with respect to inflectional endings. We argue that this kind of asymmetry, present in other languages, is due to postnominal concord taking place in the syntax systematically and prenominal concord being established through constraint evaluation at PF.

This article deals with a famous case of allomorphy in Italian, the so called mobile diphthongs, a vowel alternation in the roots of inflectionally or derivationally related words. It is argued that the two allomorphs have to be lexically listed. The selection of the right allomorph is performed by the language-specific ranking of a set of universal phonological output constraints, as assumed in Optimality Theory. Proper assumptions about the balance between storage and computation of phonological information, in combination with a model of phonological computation in which allomorphs are listed and a set of ranked output conditions select the optimal allomorph provide an insightful account of the Italian mobile diphthongs, both from a synchronic and a diachronic perspective.

This work describes the morphology of the French adverbs in -ment. Mainly derived from adjectives, these adverbs use various stem allomorphs as their base: most of them are built on a form identical to the adjective feminine form (SEC, fem. sèche: sèchement), but some endings favor the emergence of an /e/ (PROFOND, fem. profonde: profondément), while others select unpredictable allomorphs (BREF, fém. brève: brièvement). Finally, adjectives with -ent and -ant endings give adverbs in -emment and -amment (PRUDENT, fem. prudente: prudemment, ÉLÉGANT, fem. élégante: élégamment), except when an /m/ precedes these endings and the stem switches back to the feminine form (CHARMANT, fem. charmante: charmantement). It would seem futile to try and capture all of this diversity with only universal phonological constraints. A simple reason would be that the same phonemic sequences give rise to different results when constructing an adverb in -ment or a noun for an action from a deadjectival verb (while from INNOCENT and PRÉCIS French derives the adverbs innocemment and précisément, the verbs INNOCENTER and PRÉCISER give innocentement and précisement from the same phonological stems). And, moreover, because the adverbs obtained from nouns do not behave in the same way as the ones constructed on adjectives (for the adjective COLLANT, the adverb is collamment, but for the noun COLLANTS, the adverb is collantement). Our analysis revolves around the hypothesis that, in the lexicon, lexemes do not come equipped with a unique stem but with an indexed set of stems, each associated with specific inflectional cells and derivational constructs. In this framework (which produced new descriptions for the paradigms of adjectives, see Bonami and Boyé 2005, Plénat and Plénat 2011), adverbs are built on a stem inherited from the past or created by analogy (ACCUEILLANT and IMMONDE bring the neological accueillamment and immondément, based on ÉLÉGANT: élégamment and PROFOND: profondément). However, in one particular context, a universal constraint takes precedence over the analogical constraints and selects a different allomorph: this dissimilative constraint holds that a sequence of /m/ is infelicitous for the derivation of adverbs from adjectives in -ment/-mant which never give adverbs in -memment/-mamment but instead select the same stem as the feminine. Thus, adverbs in -ment provide an interesting interplay between parochial morphological stem selection preferences and universal phonological constraints.

Important early work on phonologically conditioned allomorphy in OT argued that suppletive allomorph distribution (SAD) could be seen in terms of the emergence of the unmarked (e.g. Tranel 1994, Mascaró 1996). Later work by Paster (2006) and Bye (2007), however, has provided evidence that at least some cases of SAD are arbitrary. Such cases crucially require encoding the condition into either the lexical specification of the allomorph or the lexically specific constraints that refer to it. The formation of the plural in Burushaski, a language isolate of northern Pakistan, is a case study in arbitrary SAD. The realization of the plural is extraordinarily rich in suppletive allomorphs. To the extent that it is rule-governed, the distribution of these allomorphs may nevertheless be underdetermined by considerations of markedness or, in some cases, even the opposite of what one would expect on phonological grounds. For some suppletive allomorphs, moreover, semantic conditioning is also involved, underscoring the arbitrary nature of the distribution. Plural formation is, further, rich in exceptions, although the exceptionality is clearly patterned (Zuraw 2000). Considerations of markedness, generality of the allomorph, and phonetic similarity between exceptional forms and their ‘attractors’ are shown to play a role in shaping the exceptional patterns.

Sahaptin and Nez Perce, the only two languages of the Sahaptian family, have a cognate obviative prefix with unusual allomorphy, which is argued to have been inherited from Proto-Sahaptian. Morpheme-specific allomorphy in each language is analyzed by positing allomorph sets, the choice among which is determined by phonological constraints. The analysis of Nez Perce relies on constraints on glottalized sonorants, whereas the analysis of Sahaptin makes use of sonority distance constraints and constraints against contiguous glottal stops. The article concludes with a proposed historical scenario for the development of the two languages, and discussion of the role of phonological constraints in the regulation of allomorphy.

Our understanding of phonology-morphology interface is still incomplete with respect to two important questions: What phonological effects are possible in morphology? And how should they be modeled? Some types of phonological effects in morphology have already been subjected to studies involving large cross-linguistic surveys, e.g., reduplication, infixation, affix ordering, and ordering in coordinate compounds. However, phonologically conditioned suppletive allomorphy (PCSA), although it has received some attention in the literature, was not previously the subject of a broad cross-linguistic study. This paper presents an overview of the results of an extensive survey of cases of PCSA in the world’s languages, and it considers how the range of attested examples of PCSA informs the choice among competing theoretical models of the phonology-morphology interface.

This study analyzes a pattern of inflection dependence (Steriade 2008) in the distribution of accentual stem allomorphs in East Slavic, and it explores the significance of this pattern for the analysis of the phonological cycle. Inflected forms in Ukrainian and Russian surface with accented or unaccented stems as a predictable function of their inflectional class, the underlying accent of their root and further phonological factors. The result is that some lexemes possess multiple accentual stem allomorphs, others have invariably accented or invariably unaccented stems in inflection. We show that the derivatives of these lexemes use the full set of accentual stem allomorphs generated in the inflectional paradigm of their base, to optimize satisfaction of markedness and faithfulness conditions. The analysis requires a modification in the theory of Output-to-Output Correspondence (Benua 1998): in computing a derivative, the forms relative to which Faithfulness is assessed consist of the full set of inflected forms of the base item. In terms of the phonological cycle, the input to any cycle is a set of forms rather than just one form.

Paster (2005) presents cases of syllable-counting suppletive allomorphy (SCA) which are not driven by phonological optimization, and argues for an account using morphological subcategorization frames. In this paper, I show that all relevant cases of non-optimizing SCA can be captured by generalizing a prosodic-templatic approach for truncation to allomorphy, implementing templates by indexed constraints (Pater 2007, 2009, Flack 2007) or by affixation of prosodic material (Bermúdez-Otero 2012, Kirchner 2010, 2013). Under this analysis, templatic effects in SCA and truncation are unified and the range of possible SCA effects is substantially restricted.

In many cases, the distribution of competing allomorphs is defined in terms of some phonological property of the surrounding environment. Considerable debate has taken place as to whether such allomorphy is resolved in the phonological or morphological component of the grammar. On the one hand, phonologically conditioned allomorphy often conspires with phonological processes or static phonological restrictions of the language, suggesting that both are driven by the same well-formedness constraints. On the other hand, many cases display a wholly or partially arbitrary character difficult to attribute to plausible phonological constraints. This chapter proposes that the conundrum be resolved by assuming that phonological constraints and morphological constraints on spell-out are integrated into a single grammar. This approach also predicts the existence of a variety of patterns, which the paper argues to be attested, in which the morphologically expected outcome is sacrificed to satisfy a phonological condition.

This volume is a collection of original contributions to the study of lexical allomorphy, with a focus on Optimality Theory’s distinctive take on this topic. The chapters provide an up-to-date perspective on the advances in our understanding of allomorphy which Optimality Theory has been able to secure (in comparison with rule-based Generative Phonology). They also consider a number of important allomorphy questions which Optimality Theory has helped raise and address (e.g. the nature of inputs, the role of paradigms, the interaction of phonology with other modules of grammar, lexical storage vs computation, degrees of phonological (ir)regularity, subcategorization vs markedness). The contributors form an international array of linguists from North America and Europe. A broad variety of languages serve as the empirical base for the volume, either in detailed case studies (e.g. Burushaski, Catalan, English, French, Italian, Moroccan Arabic, Sahaptin) or in encompassing typological surveys. The volume is aimed at professional linguists with an interest in phonology, morphology, and the lexicon. With its broad coverage of allomorphy issues, the book’s content will also lend itself to courses in phonology and morphology for advanced undergraduates and graduate students.