Morphological Markedness in an OT-Grammar: zeros and syncretism

Abstract

In this paper, I propose to extend a model of grammar in which lexical spellout and phonological computation occur in the same component (e.g., serial OT with Optimal Interleaving (Wolf, 2008)) with a family of morphological markedness constraints. These constraints punish realization of morpho-syntactically marked combinations of features. They form a markedness hierarchy in which constraints against more marked feature(s) are ranked higher than constraints against less marked feature(s). Inclusion of such constraints provides a natural way to account for certain cases of non-realization of morphological contrasts in marked contexts (zero marking), as well as cases of syncretism in which a marked paradigm cell in certain contexts becomes occupied by an exponent typically used in less marked cells. Analyses of both types of cases are discussed in this paper. Moreover, this model predicts tradeoffs and interactions between morphological markedness and phonological constraints. Russian Genitive Plural allomorphy, discussed in this paper, provides one example of such interactions.