Non-uniformity in phonologizing phase heads: Evidence from Kazakh

Abstract

Typical of a Turkic language, vowel harmony regularly occurs in Kazakh. In this paper, I address the exceptional behavior of the comitative marker in Kazakh regarding palatal harmony, and show that it follows from the K head being phonologized separately from its complement. This is crucial following work on Cophonologies by Phase (CBP), in which phase heads are claimed to be phonologized with their complements (see Sande & Jenks 2018, Sande 2019, Sande et al. 2020, Felice 2022). I argue that CBP can account for the exceptional behavior of the comitative marker by modifying the existing proposal. Specifically, it can model the exceptionality of the comitative marker if it is assumed that some heads (specifically the K head in the case of Kazakh), are phonologized separately from their complements (cf. Newell 2008).