Stem alternations in Kiranti and their implications for the morphology–phonology interface

Stem alternation is present in the verbal inflection of all documented Kiranti languages, where it ranges from the straightforward phonologically conditioned (e.g. Athpariya and Chintang) to the purely morphological and baroque (e.g. Khaling and Dumi). This paper surveys stem alternation patterns ac...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of linguistics 2021-04, Vol.57 (2), p.321-363
Main Author: HERCE, BORJA
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Affixes
Diachronic linguistics
Inflection (Morphology)
Literary devices
Morphology
Morphophonemics
Phonology
Resilience
Sino-Tibetan languages
Suffixes
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Stem alternation is present in the verbal inflection of all documented Kiranti languages, where it ranges from the straightforward phonologically conditioned (e.g. Athpariya and Chintang) to the purely morphological and baroque (e.g. Khaling and Dumi). This paper surveys stem alternation patterns across the whole family. Its main finding is that, unlike the morphological stem alternations of West Kiranti, the phonologically-conditioned stem alternations of East Kiranti are characterized by a very striking distributional similarity (often identity) across languages, even in the presence of quite drastic affixal changes. This and other findings suggest that these stem alternation patterns should be regarded as a (morphomic) grammatical phenomenon of its own right, despite being derivable from the forms of suffixes. Furthermore, comparison with West Kiranti suggests that this coextensiveness with a coherent phonological environment actually enhances some typically morphomic traits such as diachronic resilience and productivity.
ISSN:0022-2267
1469-7742
DOI:10.1017/S0022226720000341