Healey, Alan

Huey, David

English

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Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session Volume 5 Article 9 1961 A problem of morphemic alternation David Huey SIL-UND Alan Healey SIL-UND Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.und.edu/sil-work-papers  Part of the Linguistics Commons Recommended Citation Huey, David and Healey, Alan (1961) "A problem of morphemic alternation," Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session: Vol. 5 , Article 9. DOI: 10.31356/silwp.vol05.09 Available at: https://commons.und.edu/sil-work-papers/vol5/iss1/9 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by UND Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session by an authorized editor of UND Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact und.commons@library.und.edu. SIL-UND Workpapers 1961A PROBLEM OF MORPHEMIC .ALTERNATIONl David Huey and Alan Healey Summer Institute of Linguistics October 1957 1. INTRO DU CTI ON 5. The consonants of Inibaloi belong to three distributional classes2. Class A c·onsonants occur in word-final, pre-consonantal, and intervocalic positions. Class B consonants occur in word-initial, post-consonantal, and intervocalic positions. occur in all five positions. Class C consonants Class A Class B Class C w gw b3 l d p r ... d4 a m y dz n g k t s ng {n) The members of Class C constitute seven consonantal phonemes, and present no problem. On the other hand, if the intervocalic data could be ignored the members of Class A and Class B would be in complementary distribution. Furthermore, in intervocalic positions each consonant of Class A is in allomorphic alternation with the corresponding con-sona.nt of Class Bas tabulated above. The decision as to whether the members of Class A and Class B constitute 5 or 10 consonantal phonemes clearly rests upon an examination of the data for the intervocalie position. 2. SYLLABLE PATT:;]RN CONDITIONING It has been observed that the final syllable, intervocalic consonant, occurring when word bases are suffixed with -yu --dzu •your {pl.)' or-ra --sa •their', shows some correlation with the syllable pattern of the word base. Word bases with the patterns VCVCV, VCCV, CVCCV, and CVCVCCV all take the suffix allomorphs with Class A SIL-UND Workpapers 19616 consonants, whereas word bases with the patterns VCV, VCCVCV, and CVCCVCV all take the suffix allomorphs with Class B consonants .. E.g. asugwafa 'their wives' asugwayu 'your wives' ulsara 'their door' ulsayu 'your door' dangkara 'their jackfruit' danglayu •your jackfruit' kabaydiufa 'their horse' kabaydiuyu •your horse' asusa 'their dog' asudzu 'your dog' espelisa 'their pin' espelidzu •your pin' kalsarasa 'their road' kalsaradzu •your road' However, some word bases of patterns CVOV and CVCVCV take the suff:12. allomorphs with Class A consonants, and other word bases of the same patterns take the suffix allomorphs with Class B consonants. E.g. sedifa 'their lower legs' !m! sa.ngisa 'their teeth' dupara Jtheir faces' ~ matasa 'their eyes' malita!-a 'their bags' ~ katiriia 'their beds' Thus, the occurrence'of Class A versus ·class B consonants in intervecalic position may in certain cases be limited by the syllable pattern of the word base, but not completely conditioned by it. 3. MORPHOLOGICAL CONDITIONING It has been observed that in the intervocalic position of dis-yllabic word bases consonants of Class A and Class B occur in an allomorphi alternation which shows some correlation with the affixes attached to the word base. Word bc.,ses affixed with -~- N • N N .Y!!-, ,!Yl- ~- !!!;-, or nan- take the allomorphic form containing a consonant of Class A, whereas word bases affixed with~-, mengi-. amgi-, ]!!-, or ka- -an take the allomorphic form containing a consonant of Class B. E.g. nanagas 'he took medicine' manakas 'he will take medicine' ·nansagu 'he combed his own mansaku 'he will comb his own hair' hair' nanbagu 'he asked' manbaka 'lie will ask' SIL-UND Workpapers 19617. kimuyud 'he pulled it' mengigudlud 'he will be the one to pull it' timarem ' sharpened' matasem 'become sharp ' -~ 'he gathered' amuras manbusas 'he will gather' However, when affixed with ~-..., ama.m - --amen-. nAn-, -an -en , ~ - _, fur -in- -in-, some disyllabic word bases take an intervocalic con-sonant of Class A, while others take a consonant of Class B. E.g. amantiyid 'he is climbing' 'but a.mantadzab 'he is flying' pansulat ka 'you write' but panbusas ka 'you gather it' Furthermore, all word bases affixed with i- -mu ""i- -m show both intervocalic consonants with contrast of meaning .. E.go isulW!l 'Will you use it isudum 'Use it for for trapping"' trapping!' ibarasmu 'Will y.ou use it for whipping' ipudsasmu 'Use it for whippj_ngt ' :ipuyukmu 'Will ;y;au use it ipudzukmu 'User!tibf:8.f 1' for rubbingr.>' T~us, the occurrence of Class A versus Class B consoma.:.its in the intervocalic position of disyll_ahic word bases may be limited by the praseuce of certain affixes, but cannot said to be morphologically conditioned .. However, for a meaning distinction of this nature which occurs with i- -mu abo~e, it is tempting to suggest the existence of some unrecoi"'ded prosodic (suprasegmental) conditioning factor. 4. ALTERNATING DISTRIBUTION Wards containing two or more intervocalic consonants of Classes A and B provide the most suggestive and intriguing evidence of some prosodic conditioning factor. In most cases it is observed that consona.~ts of one class occur in alternate intervocalic positions with consonants of the other class; and this is true for both allomorphic forms of the word base. E.g. SIL-UND Workpapers 19618. 'B A .Ll idaga.m 'Will you do it' ilaka.m 'Do it t' ikuyudmu 11.Yill you pull it'l' igud~dmu 'Pull it' kisulan 'place of thunder' kagusaban 'very blind' idulan 'place of saliva• salasa 'their blood' sisalentu 'He will destroy sigusa 'their soup' it' sedi!-a 'their lower legs' ngilasa 'their ears' asugwafa 'their wives' tawasa 'their widow' pulusa 'their handles' agisa 'their brother' A-LA kagaduya.n •very muddy' bayusa 'their pestles' u!-isiyan •younger sibling kuwakura 'their pipes• BAB arasura 'their ploughs' badulaki 'young men' In a few words two consonants of the same class occur in successive intervocalic positions. Except for one observed case, both consonants belong to Class B. E.g. BB -ka.masidan makusab kukusa sikliea espekusa 'thickest• 'become blind' 'their fingernails' 'their elbows' 'their mirrors• BB A tukukura ka.kidzewan ABB baludaki i3 A A 'their hate' •very woody' 'young man' •youngest sibling' Many Philippine languages have a prosodic phoneme. It often includes features of both stress and length, and sometimes tone. Frequently such a prosodic phoneme is limited to one occurrence (or sometimes two) within a word. The occurrence of two such prosodic phonemes in two consecutive syllables within a word is relatively SIL-UND Workpapers 19619. infrequent. If it is posited th&t there may be some such unrecorded prosodic phoneme in Inibaloi, then it appears likely that the occurrence of Class A consonants in intervocalic positions would be conditioned by it. 5. STRESS CONDITIONING For the prosodic features of Inibaloi it has proved difficult to identify contrasts. However, a few stress differences have been observed. E.g. imud~ 'Flant it! I im-dlam 'Will you plant it 9 ' ibekwn 'Ask him' 1 ibagam 'Will you ask him9 ' ibeswn 'Wear it! 1 ibarum ll"Till you ear it' balud~i •young man' bad'dlaki' •young men' In these examples Class A consonants only follow stressed vowels, and, except for one word (p_aludaki •young man•), Class B consonants do not follow stressed vowels. To demonstrate that Class A consonants and the corresponding Class B consonants constitute only five phonemes, the variants being conditioned by stress, two steps are necessary. (a) First, that stress is contrastive must be established for words containing only Class C consonants in intervocalic positions. the most likely place to find such a contrast would be in the imperative - interrogative pairs of verbs affixed with 1- -mu Perhaps -· 1- -m. If contrastive stress is not established in this type of word, then the possibility should be considered that Class A and Class B contain ten consonantal phonemes, and that in words where they occur in intervocalic positions stress is conditioned by consonantal class and not vice-versa. (b) Secondly, if phonemic stress is established, then stress must be recorded on a long list of words with Class A and Class B consonants in intervocalic positions, and some stress-conditioning hypothesis be SIL-UND Workpapers 196110. shown to describe all of this data accurately, 6. CONSONANTAL COMPONENTS If the investigation outlined above should demonstrate that stress (and any other prosodic features) are non-phonemic, being conditioned by a combination of word syllable patterns and consonant classes, two phonemic descriptions are possible. As mentioned in section 1, the members of Class A and Class B may be described as ten distinct consonantal phonemes. Alternatively, Class A and Class B may be described as each containing the same five consonantal phonemes, and the members of one class (Class A, say) as each containing a sixth componential phoneme fused with the consonantal phoneme. 5 Under this latter description the allomorphic alternation of "consonants" in intervocalic position would be described as a shift in the placement of the componential phoneme, while the consonantal phonemes remain unchanged. This method of handling the allomorphic alternation would be analogous to the one which would be used if stress should be phonemic. SIL-UND Workpapers 196111. FOOTNOTES 1. Inibaloi is spoken by about 40,000 people in Benguet sub-province, Northern Luzon, Philippines. The dialect described here is that spoken around Daclan, Boked. The first author is responsible for the data, and the second for its analysis. 2. For a description of Inibaloi phonemes see David Huey, "Phonemes of the Inibaloi Dialect", Summer Institute of Linguistics, Manila, 1957, 9 pp. mimeo. Huey there described d, 1, s, f, dz,~ as distinct phonemes, but k and E as allophones, and l!i!J.. and~ as allophones. The present paper is an attempt at re-analysis on the basis of further data. 3. 4. In another dialect of Inibaloi b does not belong to Class C but to Class A, and Class B contains bw as its correspondent. V • r occurs in intervocalic positions and Ji_ in word-final and pre-consonantal positions. In this present paper the d of word-initial, post-consonantal and certain other intervocalic positions is regarded as belonging to another phoneme on the grounds of its allomorphic alternation with 1. These two phonemes overlap phonetically, but there is no ambiguity as to which phoneme any particular phonetic .9:. belongs. 5. Orthographically the componential phoneme could be represented by a diacritic. For a componential treatment of a more complex case (which, hmrnver, does not affect the phonemic analysis). see: Ethel Wallis, 11 Simulfixation in Aspect Markers of Me zqui tal Otomi", Language, 32.453-9 (1956). 

A problem of morphemic alternation

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A problem of morphemic alternation

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