1. Vowel length alternations in Czech diminutive derivation
The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Vowel length alternations in Czech diminutive derivation
Naoya Watabe
(University of Tokyo / JSPS research fellow)
Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 26
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
May 19-21, 2017

2. The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
1. Introduction

3. The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Vowel length in Czech
Unlike in many other Slavic languages, vowel length is contrastive in Czech.
On the other hand, length alternations are conditioned by various morphological processes.
(Short 1993; Scheer 2003)
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4. Diminutive derivation
The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Diminutive derivation
Vowel length alternations are observed in diminutive derivation.
a. lengthening
list ‘leaf’ li:st-ek (dim.)
ɦlav-a ‘head’ ɦla:v-k-a (dim.)
b. shortening
du:m ‘house’ dom-ek (dim.)
mra:z ‘frost’ mraz-i:k (dim.)
kra:v-a ‘cow’ krav-k-a (dim.)
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5. Diminutive derivation
The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Diminutive derivation
Many exceptions are observed.
oɦon ‘tail’ oɦon-ek (dim.)
brad-a ‘chin’ brad-k-a (dim.)
du:l ‘mine’ du:l-ek (dim.)
ɟi:r-a ‘hole’ ɟi:r-k-a (dim.)
kra:l ‘king’ kra:l-i:k (dim.)
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2015/3/21
In this presentation…
Research questions
How frequent are the length alternations observed?
Why can both lengthening and shortening occur?
What triggers them?
Goal
I argue that while the lengthening is triggered by the affix /-(e)k-/, the shortening is lexically specific to several nouns.
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7. The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Outline
Introduction
Background
Survey
Proposal
Conclusion
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8. The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
2. Background

9. Syllable structure and length exchange
The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Syllable structure and length exchange
Length alternation occurs when the syllable structure changes.
(list) ‘leaf’ (li:)stek (dim.)
(ɦla)va ‘head’ (ɦla:v)ka (dim.)
This also holds true in other alternation patterns.
(mra:z) ‘frost’ (mra)zu (gen. sg.)
(kra:)v-a ‘cow’ (krav) (gen. pl.)
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10. Syllable structure and length exchange
The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Syllable structure and length exchange
Syllable structure itself does not determine the vowel length.
Open syllables
(li:)stek vs. (ɦla)va
Closed syllables
(list) vs. (ɦla:v)ka
 Problematic in terms of output-based phonology
A certain featural exchange rule has been assumed.
(Anderson and Browne 1973)
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11. The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Moraic templates
Scheer (2003) argued that the length of root vowels is determined by the moraic template for a given category.
3 morae are weighed to diminutives.
ɦlav-a ‘head’ ɦla:v-k-a (dim.)
mra:z ‘frost’ mraz-i:k (dim.)
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12. The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Moraic templates
Exceptional patterns
4 morae
oblak ‘cloud’ obla:ʧ-ek (dim.)
2 morae
du:m ‘house’ dom-ek (dim.)
kra:v-a ‘cow’ krav-k-a (dim.)
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13. The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
3. Survey

14. The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Data collection
Source
An online Czech dictionary (Slovník spisovného jazyka českého:
Targets
Diminutive derivation patterns in which affixes /- (e)k-/ and /-i:k-/ are attached to nouns.
Nouns ending in highly frequent suffixes (e.g. /-ost/) were excluded.
 2,258 cases in total
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15. The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Overall results
Lengthening
Shortening
Each process is triggered by the different affixes??
affix
lengthening
no shortening
sum
/-(e)k-/
633 (46.17%)
738 (53.83%)
1371
/-i:k-/
0 (0%)
168 (100%)
168
affix
shortening
no shortening
sum
/-(e)k-/
42 (6.15%)
641 (93.85%)
683
/-i:k-/
16 (44.44%)
20 (55.56%) 36
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16. Lengthening: more detail
The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Lengthening: more detail
Lengthening was observed exclusively before /-(e)k-/.
The frequency varied among genders: the rate was high among masculine and neuter nouns, whereas low among feminine ones.
gender
lengthening
no shortening
sum
masculine
499 (63.65%)
285 (36.35%)
784
feminine
79 (15.31%)
437 (84.69%)
516
neuter
55 (77.46%)
16 (22.54%) 71
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17. Shortening: more detail
The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Shortening: more detail
Shortening seemed to be triggered by /-i:k-/, but the frequency was not so high.
It also occurred before /-(e)k-/ though that was quite rare.
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18. Shortening in nominal declension
The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Shortening in nominal declension
Shortening is observed in the declension also.
(Short 1993 among others)
mra:z ‘frost’ mraz-u (gen. sg.)
kra:v-a ‘cow’ krav (gen. pl.)
This pattern is rare, however.
6.0% for /a:/, 10.8 % for /i:/ in the same dictionary.
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19. The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Interaction
Shortening was more likely to occur among the alternating nouns than others.
Nouns alternating in the declension
Other nouns
affix
shortening
no shortening
sum
/-(e)k-/
22 (59.46%)
15 (40.54%) 37
/-i:k-/
10 (100%)
0 (0%) 10
affix
shortening
no shortening
sum
/-(e)k-/
20 (3.1%)
626 (96.9%)
646
/-i:k-/
6 (23.08%)
20 (76.92%) 26
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20. The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Summary
Lengthening should be triggered by the affix /-(e)k-/ though it tends to be blocked among feminine nouns.
Shortening should be lexically specific: it was almost restricted to the nouns alternating in the declension.
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2015/3/21
4. Proposal

22. Trigger of lengthening
The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Trigger of lengthening
A possible trigger is a floating mora on /-(e)k-/.
MaxFlt: “All autosegments that are floating in the input have output corresponedents.” (Wolf 2006)
oblak
- ek
obla:ʧek μ μ μ μ
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23. Locality of mora realization
The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Locality of mora realization
Only root-final vowels can be lengthened.
oblak ‘cloud’ obla:ʧ-ek (dim.)
/ *u:blaʧ-ek, *oblaʧ-e:k
Wolf (2006) proposed the constraints on realization of floating materials on the same morpheme or non- adjacent segments.
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24. Locality of mora realization
The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Locality of mora realization
I propose the positional faithfulness (Beckman 1997) in non-final positions of roots and in affixes.
Non-final vowels avoids deletion, too.
Affixes do not undergo length alternations in general while can be deleted.
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25. Locality of mora realization
The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Locality of mora realization
Faith-Vnon-final:
‘Non-final vowels in a root in the input must be realized as such in the output.’
Dep-μaffix:
‘Every mora in the exponent of an affix must be present in the input.’
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26. The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Lengthening: summary
/oblak-ek/
Faith-Vnon-final
Dep-μaffix
MaxFlt
Ident
oblaʧ-ek *!
obla:ʧ-ek *
u:blaʧ-ek
oblaʧ-e:k μ
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27. Lexical property related to shortening
The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Lexical property related to shortening
Root-final vowels are underspecified for length, i.e. possess no underlying morae.
Morae are assigned by nominal themes and/or case- number suffixes.
Root-final vowels avoid the alternations if they possess underlying morae.  Faithfulness
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28. Shortening in the declension
The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Shortening in the declension
Masculine nouns: 1 mora
Feminine and neuter nouns: 2morae
mra:z- -∅
mraz- TH -u TH ~ μ μ μ
Additional mora
in nom. sg.
kra:v- -a
krav- -∅ TH TH ~ μ μ μ μ
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29. Declension vs. Diminutive derivation
The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Declension vs. Diminutive derivation
The affix /-(e)k-/ triggers lengthening on vowels with an underlying mora.
MaxFlt should be ranked higher than the faithfulness constraint exclusively for this affix.
MaxFltek >> Ident >> MaxFlt
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30. Diminutives from ‘shortening’ nouns
The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Diminutives from ‘shortening’ nouns
The emergence of short vowels may be conditioned by /-(e)k-/ while cannot by /-i:k-/, which has no floating morae.
General unmarkedness of short vowels?
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31. The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
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Residual issue I
The lengthening can be avoided before /-(e)k-/, especially frequently among feminine nouns.
Some lexical properties may block the alternation.
Lexical exceptions are observed in other sound alternations such as vowel-zero alternation.
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32. The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Residual issue II
Among nouns alternating in the declension, the shortening was avoided before /-(e)k-/ in some cases while never before /-i:k-/.
Among the other nouns, the shortening before /-i:k-/ was not infrequent while rare before /-(e)k-/.
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33. Sequence of long vowels
The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Sequence of long vowels
The shortening occurs in the declension of several nouns when the case/number suffix begins in a long vowel (or a diphthong).
ʧa:r-a ‘line’ ʧar-a:m / ʧa:r-a:m (dat. pl.)
si:l-a ‘power’ sil-a:m / si:l-a:m (dat. pl.)
Sequences of long vowels are disfavored?
If so, the shortening is preferred before /-i:k-/.
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2015/3/21
Residual issue III
If nominal themes and suffixes have morae also in diminutives, root-final moraless vowels should receive them.
Morae may not be inserted to these morphemes in diminutives.
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2015/3/21
5. Concluding remarks

36. The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
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No length exchange
Lengthening is triggered by a floating mora on the diminutive affix /-(e)k-/.
Shortening is lexically conditioned: it results from the absence of underlying morae on root-final vowels.
 These processes are independent: length exchange is not motivated in Czech!
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References
Anderson, S. R., and Browne, W. (1973). On keeping exchange rules in Czech. Papers in Linguistics, 6, 445–482.
Beckman, J. N. (1997). Positional faithfulness, positional neutralization and Shona vowel harmony. Phonology, 14, 1-46.
Gribanova, V. (2015). Exponence and morphosyntactically triggered phonological processes in the Russian verbal complex. Journal of Linguistics, 51(3), 519–561.
Scheer, T. (2003). The key to Czech vowel length: Templates. In Kosta, P., Blaszczak, J., Frasek, J., Geist, L., and Żygis, M. (eds.), Investigations into Formal Slavic Linguistics. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 97–118.
Short, D. (1993). Czech. In Comrie, B., and Corbett, G. G. (eds.), The Slavonic Languages. London: Routledge, 455–532.
Wolf, M. (2006). For an autosegmental theory of mutation. In Bateman, L., O’Keefe, M., Reilly, E., and Werle A. (eds.), University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 32: Papers in Optimality Theory III. Amherst: GLSA, 315–404.
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2015/3/21
Thank you for your attention!
Děkuji vám za pozornost!
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 15J03345.
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39. The 10th meeting of Phonology Festa in Atami
2015/3/21
Future research
/a/ was more likely to be lengthened than the other vowels.
Why did feminine nouns frequently avoid the lengthening?
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