Lexical conservatism and the encoding of declension class membership

Donca Steriade, MIT

This paper documents a pattern of interactions in Romanian between derivational affixation, declension class membership and phonotactic constraints, and discusses its implications for the structure of the lexicon and the phonological component. The finding is this:

(1)
A phonological modification of the stem is avoided when triggered by a derivational affix, unless the relevant modification is independently found in the inflectional paradigm of the stem.
One aspect of this pattern is the different ability of derivational and inflectional affixes to trigger phonological processes. Thus assibilation is automatic before the inflectional suffix –i (plural).
(2)
Assibilation: t -> ts and d -> z/_i, j
By contrast, assibilation before derivational affixes depends largely on the availability of the assibilated stem allomorphs in inflection: stems lacking [z]/[ts]-final alternants in inflection typically fail to assibilate before derivational affixes.
(3)
Assibilation blocked before derivational suffix (verbalizing –i), when absent in inflection
More frequent than the blockage of phonological processes is the avoidance of alternation-inducing derivational affixes. Thus the verbalizing suffix –i seen above can attach to noun stems like (4.a), which undergo assibilation in their plurals, but is avoided on nouns like (4.b) which lack –i plurals and thus have invariant t/d finals in inflection.
(4)
Avoidance of the –i verbalizing suffix in nouns lacking inflectional –i.
Singular Plural: N/Acc-indefinite Plural: G/Dat-definite
part-e ‘share, part’ part-i [pørtsj] part-i-lor [pørtsilor]
verd-e [verde] ‘green’ verz-i [verzj] verd-i-lor [verzilor]
Base noun: singular Base noun: plural Denominal verb: -i
[osÈnd-ø] ‘sentence’ [osÈnd-e] [osÈnd-i!], *[osÈnz-i] ‘to sentence’
[zøpad-ø] ‘snow’ [zøpez-j] [-zøpez-i!], *[-zøped-i!]‘get (un)stuck in snow’
Base noun: sg Base noun: pl Denominal verb: -i Denominal verb: ≠ i
a [sfÈnt] ‘sacred’ [sfints-j] [sfints-i!] ‘make sacred’
b [sfat] ‘counsel’ [sfat-urj] [sføt-ui!] ‘give counsel’

The paper proposes an analysis of the patterns resulting from (1) which relies on two ingredients. First, declension class membership is lexically encoded by listing, in its surface form, a diagnostic form (here the plural). Second, a set of Lexical Conservatism constraints (Steriade 1999 LSRL; 2003 LSRL; cf. Burzio 2000 and Kager 2003 for partly similar proposals) formalize the systematic preference for the use of lexically listed forms, as opposed to the generation of novel stem alternants.