Alignment: the third kind of constraints

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Alignment the third kind of constraints

• Today we will look at three alignment effects.
• 1. Separation of domains syllabification.
• 2. Concatenation of constituents
• Simple illustration of alignment effects on word
  order
• Simple illustration of other structural effects
  of alignment
• Discussion of fin-second effects in the spirit of
  Legendre
• 3. Falling together of different kinds of
  entities position of heads in phonology.
• 4. Positional faithfulness

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The third kind of constraintsAlignment

• Alignment constraints are different from both
  markedness and faithfulness.
• They require 1) that edges of constituents are
  clearly separated, 2) that constituents appear in
  a certain order and 3) that constituents fall
  together or that they appear in certain specified
  positions.
• The constituents are generally assumed to be
  morphological, syntactic or phonological
  (prosodic).

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Definition of alignment

• (1) Generalized Alignment
• Align (Cat1, Cat2, Edge)
• Cat1 and Cat2 are prosodic and grammatical
  categories. Edge is Left or Right.
• In order for (1) to be true, the edge of Cat1
  must fall together with the edge of Cat2.
• For all Cat1 there is a Cat2 so that

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Definition of alignment

• Another possibility
• Align (Cat1, Cat2) (no mentioning of edge)
• In this case, all that is required is that two
  categories coincide
• Examples stress with a syllable or a vowel, tone
  with a syllable

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First effect of alignmentboundaries1.
Syllabification in German

• The first effect of alignment and the most
  well-known in phonology is the requirements that
  constituents have clear boundaries.
• That morphemes should end in a syllable is the
  prototypical example.
• Some languages blurr their morpheme edges in
  having domains of syllabification larger than the
  morpheme French for example les-enfants
  sont-allés nager.
• German is a good example of clear syllable
  boundaries.

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1. Syllabification in German

• In compounds and prefixed words, there is no
  resyllabification across the morphemes
• Prefixation (CV)
• unartig un.aáªtç u.naáªtç naughty
• verärgern váª.áª.gáªn v\.ëáª.gáªn to
  annoy
• Compounding
• Stockente ?tøk.ent\ ?tø.kent\ mallart
• Riesenaffe ëizn.åf\ ëiz\.nåf\ ape

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1. Syllabification in German

• The constraint responsible for the clear (crisp)
  syllabification is
• ALIGN(stem, syllable, L)
• The left edge of each stem falls together with
  the left edge of a syllable.
• This constraint is undominated in German.

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1. Syllabification in German

• In suffixation, things are different
• When the stem ends with a C and the suffix begins
  with a C, the syllabification corresponds to the
  morpheme structure. The same is true for the
  sequences VV and VC.
• CC faul/Fául-heit fauªl.haiªt lazy-ness
• VV Ruhe/rúh-ig ëu.ç quiet
• VC froh/fröh-lich fëø.lç joyful

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1. Syllabification in German

• In the case of Faulheit, ruhig and fröhlich,
  ONSET and the new constraint do not conflict.
• ALIGN(stem, syllable, R)
• (The right edge of each stem falls together with
  the right edge of a syllable)
• In ruhig, there is no onset, but syllabification
  separates the morphemes. In Faulheit and
  fröhlich, morpheme structure and syllabification
  fall together.

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1. Syllabification in German

• BUT when the stem ends in a consonant and the
  suffix begins with a vowel, things are different
• CV Kind/kínd-isch kn.d? childish
• In kindisch, sonnig sunny, Ladung cargo,
  lachen to laugh and so on, there is a conflict
  between ONSET and ALIGN(stem, syllable, R). ONSET
  ranks higher than ALIGN.

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1. Syllabification in German

• Conclusion
• In suffixation, the need to satisfy the unmarked
  syllable structure (onset) is higher than the
  need to separate morphemes.
• ONSET gtgt ALIGN-R

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1. Syllabification in German

• /kindisch/ ONSET ALIGN-R
• kin.disch
• kind.isch !

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1. Syllabification in German

• /unartig/ ALIGN-L ONSET ALIGN-R
• un.ar.tig
• u.nar.tig !
  
• un.art.ig !

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Side effectsNo coalescence

• Two adjacent vowels, that would fuse together in
  a diphthong refrain from doing so because of
  morpheme edges.
• German ruhig, prosaisch (u.i and a.i vs.
  Fleisch meatai or Pfui boo)
• The same is true in French anti-alcoolique
  (i.a vs. piano ja) which is remarkable, since
  French resyllabifies across morpheme and word
  boundaries.

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Side effectsGlottal stop epenthesis

• At the beginning of a foot, an onset is
  obligatory in German. If the input does not
  provide any, a glottal stop is inserted that
  functions as the onset of the syllable falling
  together with the left edge of the foot
• (?Eule) owl, Be(?amte) civil servant,
  Cha(?ot) chaotic person, ver?ärgern, Stock?ente
• ALIGN(Foot, C, L) gtgt DEP

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Side effectsLaryngeal constraint

• Inside of a foot, that is before an unstressed
  syllable, an onset is not obligatory. No glottal
  stop is inserted.
• (And at lower levels of the prosodic hierarchy,
  some potential onsets are even deleted, like h
  and g after a nasal.)
• Ehe e\ marriage(but Mahagoni), Zunge tsu\
  (but Tango)
• ALIGN(Foot, C, L) gtgt DEP gtgt ALIGN(s(V), C, L) gtgt
  h, g gtgt ALIGN(s,(\) C, L)

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Domain of syllabification summary

• In German, the domain of syllabification is the
  Prosodic Word.
• In French it is the Phonological Phrase
• Alignment effects are usually not felt below the
  PhPh, but recall the anti-coalescence effect
  (biannuel, antialcoolique, transatlantique).

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Alignment in Syntax

• In syntax, one tends to focus on linear order
  when one talks about alignment.
• We begin with a very simple example, discuss
  fin/clitic second effects, and turn to possible
  non-linearization effects of alignment finally.

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A Simple Example

• A simple linear example
• Head Left! (a generalization of LEFT)
• Head Right!
• SpecFirst!
• With these three principles, we can derive the
  basic word order typology

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SpecFirst gt Head Left
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Head Left gt Spec First

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Spec First gt Head Right
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Head Rightgt Spec First
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Domain of Application

• The result follows if we apply headleft to all
  intermediate projections
• VP he saw Mary 1 violation
• VP he Mary saw 2 violations

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Word Order Alignment

• The principles Head Left and Head Right can be
  formulated in terms of alignment
• Head Left
• Align (Phrase, Head, Left)
• Each phrase has a head at its left edge
• Align (Phrase, Head, Right)
• This implies
• Cross-Categorial Harmony

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Constraints with more details

• Align (Verbphrase, Verb, Left)
• Align (Phrase, Head, Right)
• This is a language in which verb phrases are
  headinitial, while other categories are headfinal
• Recall we discussed a similar specialization of
  principles last time (Econ, LexEcon, Gov, LexGov)
  

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Constraints with more details

• Align (V1, V, Left) X
• Align (VP, V(1), Right) Y
• In such a language, the verb precedes the
  objects, but follows other VP material
• Chinese?
• Subj . Advs . V . Objects

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Reinterpreting SpecFirst

• SpecFirst
• Align (XP, specifier, left)
• There appears to be no SpecLast e.g. for
  wh-phrases
• (perhaps in one or two languages ...)
• One needs to decide what to do about VOS and OVS
  languages

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Reinterpreting SpecFirst

• SpecFirst thus does not appear to have a
  mirror-constraint
• Likewise, LEFT does not really seem to have a
  mirror-constraint
• (These facts can be due to positional
  faithfulness effects, see below.)

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More examples for alignment

• V-to-I movement
• Jean embrasse souvent Marie
• Align (Infl, Verb, left)
• If (1) gt (2), we predict that Focus goes to the
  slot immediately preceding the verb in German
• (1) Align (v-P, Head, right)
• (2) Align (CP, Focus, right)

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A Standard Example Finiteness-Alignment

• The head of a clause comes first in a language
  like Irish
• D'eirigh Ciaran
• rose-3sg Ciaran
• duirt Seán go-bhfuil Cathal ag rince
• said John that-is Charles ing dance

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A Standard Example Finiteness-Alignment

• In Legendres terms
• Edgemost (Fin, LEFT)
• Align (clause, head, left)
• Align (IP, head, left)
• clause VP/IP ....
• Turkish ranks the mirror-constraint higher ...

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Breton 1a

• Breton does not differ from Irish in an embedded
  clause
• Kredin ran en deus aret Yann e bark
• believe do-I 3sg has ploughed Y. his field
• but in main clauses ...

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Breton 1b

• But the situation is different in the matrix
  clause
• Yann en deus aret e bark
• JOHN has ploughed the field
• subject focus
• e bark en deus aret Yann
• object focus
• en deus aret Yann e bark
• FOC FIN VSO

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Breton 1c

• Align (Focus, root clause, left) A
• Align (clause, head, left) B
• Apparently A gt B
• But we also find structures like
• Lennet en deus Yann al levr
• read 3-have John the book
• and NEVER
• En deus lennet Yann al levr

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Breton 1d

• Legendres proposal
• NONINIT (Infl, root clause)
• No Infl must be initial in a root clause
• If
• NONINIT (Infl, root clause) gtgt Align (clause,
  head, left)
• the finite element goes to SECOND postion

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Breton 1e

• NONINIT (Infl, root clause)
• can trigger verb movement that has no pragmatic
  etc. side-effect ...

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Non-Initiality

• Non-Initiality is a fairly funny alignment
  constraint that is of some importance for wide
  areas of syntax.

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German

• In German, the finite verb must be leftmost in
  root clauses, but non-initial if the root clause
  is a declarative or a wh-question
• das Buch liest der Mann
• the book reads the man
• was liest der Mann
• what reads the man

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German

• Non-Initiality is guaranteed by
• Expletive insertion
• es kommt jemand
• there comes someone
• Eocus/wh-movement
• Movement of first element of clause
• der Mann vergisst seinen Text
• the man forgets his text

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Topic Drop

• Topic-Drop overrides Non-Initiality
• Hab ich schon gesehen
• (E) have I already seen
• gefällt ihm nicht
• pleases him not

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Basque

• Jonek hori daki
• John that knows
• Align (clause, head, right)
• nork daki hori
• who knows that
• JONEK daki hori
• Align (focus/wh, clause, left) A
• Align (wh-clause, head, left) B
• A gt B or NonInit (no evidence for latter)

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Icelandic/Yiddish

• Align (Clause, head, left)
• NonInit (Fin, clause)
• Generalized Verb-Second-Effect
• az morgn vet dos yingl oyfn veg zen a kats
• That tomorrow will the boy on the way see a cat

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Icelandic/Yiddish

• Stylistic movement/expletive insertion to fulfill
  NonInit
• Fram hefur komidh adh fiskadh hefur veridh í
  leyfisleysi
• forth has come that fished has been illegally
• Fram hefur komidh adh thadh hefur veridh fiskadh
  í leyfisleysi
• forth has come that it has been fished illegally

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English

• Align (Phrase, Head, Left)
• Align (Fin, ROOT ,Left)
• Verb-Second-Effect in Questions only
• Who did you see?
• I think that Bill, he likes
• Again, alignment of wh-phrases would be sufficient

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Croatian Clitics

• All clitics appear in a cluster
• tko li mu ga je dao bez pitanja
• who-L-him-it-is given without question?
• Clitics appear in second position
• Ivan mu je jucer dao auto
• Ivan him-be yesterday give car

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Some surprises

• Names can be split up
• Lava sam Tolstoja citao
• Lew am-I Tolstoy read
• Lav je Tolstody citao knjigu

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Prosody

• The relevance of prosody
• e.g. parentheticals .
• oni su ja tako mislim nazvali ga jucer
• they be I so believe called him yesterday

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Prosodically triggered movement

• Apparently, the cluster must not be initial in
  any intonation phrase
• Align (clause, Agr, left)
• NonInit (Agr, IntonPhrase)
• Prosodic Triggern of movement
• dao mu ga je Ivan
• given him.it.is Ivan

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Clitic Placement in Polish

• My znowu wczoraj poszli smy do parku
• We again yesterday went are to park
• My znowu wczoraj smy poszli do parku
• My znowu smy wczoraj poszli do parku
• My smy znowu wczoraj poszli do parku
• smy my znowu wczoraj poszli do parku
• In Polish, only the non-initiality constraint has
  a high rank!

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Other effects of alignment

• The EPP
• NonInit (Fin, Z)
• This seems to be true for languages in which
  anything may precede the finite element.
• Z root clauses in German, Scandinavian and
  Breton
• Z IP
• English type languages ....

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Some possible consequences

• We would thus be able to derive the various
  versions of the EPP from Non-Init.
• This would explain why there are no systematic
  object expletives
• This would explain (hopefully) why
• there is normally just ONE expletive position
• But why is Non-Init restricted to finite
  elements?

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The Alternative

• Align (IP, specifier, left)
• This alignment principle guarantees that each IP
  begins with a specifier.
• This also looks like the EPP!

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Other Implications

• One may wonder, however, why there seems to be no
  mirror-constraint
• Align (IP, specifier, right)
• OV languages do not seem to respect the EPP at
  all.

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Headedness

• Headedness, however, may be understood as a
  consequence of the alignment principles (this
  could replace OblHd)
• This presupposes traces, or a cyclic version of
  OT

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Second effect of alignment 2. Place of affixes

• In German, English, as well as in all languages
  without infixation, the alignment constraint
  responsible for the positioning of prefixes and
  suffixes are always higher-ranking than all
  prosodic constraints that could trigger an affix
  shift.
• Instrument-al, instrument-less
• Ge-länd-e, kind-isch, un-art-ig

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2. Place of affixes Infixation in Tagalog

• In Tagalog (McCarthy Prince 1993b) the infix
  -um- is located after the onset of the first
  syllable, if there is one.
• Root um Root
• aral um-aral to teach
• sulat s-um-ulat to write (um-sulat)
• gradwet gr-um-adwet to graduate

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2. Place of affixes Infixation in Tagalog

• It is more important to fulfill the constraint
  against codas than to align a prefix with the
  left edge of a word.
• NOCODA gtgt ALIGN(Prefix, PW, L)
• Violations of Align-constraints are gradient, but
  as always violations are minimal.

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Infixation in Tagalog

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Infixation in Tagalog

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Infixation in Tagalog

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3. Stress

• The third effect of alignment is the falling
  together of different kinds of constituents.
• Stress is aligned with syllables, feet, prosodic
  words etc.
• At the interface with syntax, stress can be
  asociated with lexical elements or with XPs, etc.

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Third effect of alignment 3. Stress

• At the interface with semantic, stress is
  associated with the scope of focus operators, for
  instance
• John only sees his OWN reflection.
• John only sees his own REFLECTION.
• John only SEES Mary (but does not hear her).

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Third effect of alignment 3. Stress

• Stress is often peripheral final, penultimate or
  initial, which speaks for an analysis in terms of
  alignment.
• Stress is grouping of constituents. At the lower
  level, syllables are grouped into feet.
• Feet are trochaic (left-headed) or iambic
  (right-headed). This alignment is trivial, since
  feet consist of two syllables.

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3. Stress

• More interesting is what happens at higher
  levels, in a prosodic word or a phrase. There,
  too, stress can be interpreted as standing for
  groupings of constituents, and there, too, it is
  peripheral. But, since feet are the relevant
  constituents, when feet are trochaic and stress
  final, stress is penultimate.

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3. Stress

• English stress (McCarthy Prince 1993b)
• ALIGN(PrWd, Ft, L) all Prosodic Words start with
  a left-aligned foot
• ALIGN(Ft, PrWd, R) all feet are right-aligned
  with the right edge of the word
• (Tàta)ma(góuchee) Ta(tàma)(góuchee)
• Main stress is determined independently.

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German stress

• German stress
• ALIGN(PrWd, Ft, R) all Prosodic Words end with a
  right-aligned foot.
• ALIGN(PrWd, Ft, R) all Prosodic Words start with
  a left-aligned foot.
• These two constraints give a stress pattern with
  exactly two stresses, one initial (if possible)
  and one final. The final one is the main stress.

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4. Positional faithfulness

• Positional faithfulness has been recently
  introduced into OT phonology by Beckman and
  Steriade.
• Its effects are often comparable with the effects
  of alignment, though the basic idea is
  different.
• It says that some positions are more prominent
  than others in terms of perception, and that
  prominent positions allow more contrasts.

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4. Positional faithfulness

• As an example, consider Final Devoicing in German
• loben lo.bn to praise Lob
  lop praise, N.
• b. Hände d hands Hand t hand
• c. kluge g clever, infl. klug k
  clever, uninfl.
• d. brave v good, infl brav f good,
  uninfl.
• e. niesen z to sneeze nies s sneeze,
  imp.
• f. OrangeoËã?\ orange, N. orange oËã?
  adj.

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4. Positional faithfulness

• Lombardis explanation of FD
• Voiced obstruents are allowed only before
  tautosyllabic sonorants.
• Standard explanation It is an active process
  taking place at the end of syllables.

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4. Positional faithfulness

• VDOBSTR Obstruents are voiceless.
• Faithfulness constraint (Beckman 199838)
• IDENT(voice)
• For all segments x, y, where x Î Input and y Î
  Output,
• if xRy, then y is voice iff x is voice.
• Correspondent segments must agree in voicing.

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4. Positional faithfulness

• Positional faithfulness constraint (Beckman
  199838)
• IDENT(voice)Onset
• For all segments x, y, where x Î Input and y Î
  Output
• and y is syllabified in onset position, if xRy,
  then y is voice iff x is voice.
• Onset segments and their input correspondents
  must agree in voicing.

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4. Positional faithfulness

• Exercise
• Show how these three constraints interact to
  deliver the difference in voicing in Lob/loben.