This document provides an introduction to prosodic morphology. It defines prosodic morphology as a theory that posits underlying morpheme representations as templates defined by prosodic units like feet and syllables. The principles of prosodic morphology state that morphological processes involving sound shape are defined by categories in the prosodic hierarchy. Examples are given of reduplication and truncation processes across languages that are explained by prosodic structure. The role of feet, minimal words, and how quantity sensitivity affects word structure are also discussed.

1. Prosodic Morphology
Introduction:
• why Prosodic Morphology?
•Definition
•Principles of Prosodic Morphology
Prosodic Theory within Prosodic Morphology
•Prosodic Theory
•Feet
•Minimal word
•Examples
Created by:Harrif Maroua

2. WHY?
 Reduplication
Some languages have total reduplication like Indonesian Plurals:
Rumah ‘House’ Rumah-Rumah’Houses’
What does the sound shape of this type of word or morpheme look like?
- Not a consistent set of phonemes
- Not a consistent set of CV elements(Marantz)
- Not a consistent X timing units (Levis 1985)
- Its sound shape consists of instructions to copy materials from the base.
All of it .
 ==>Is explained only in terms of the categories of the prosodic hierarchy .
Speakers copy enough material to make a foot, copy enough material to
make a syllable they make the syllable minimal (CV) include as many
segments as possible and respecting the minimality condition.

3.  Trunction
Some morphological processes involve the removal of phonological
material from the base, rather than addition. Example : Moroccan
Nicknames:
Simohammed Simo. Etc
Many truncation processes use the categories of the prosodic
hierarchy to characterize the shape of their forms
 Arabic Verb Paradigm
A salient example of non-concatinative morphological operations is
the Standard Arabic Stated by McCarthy (1979,1981). The derivational
Arabic Verb Paradigm is based on Consonants that are considered as roots.
Since then, the focus of morphology and phonology expanded beyond the
European Languages to the rest of the globe and seek to solve prbms…
WHY?

4. Definition
 Auto-segmental theory (Skeletal): explode the segments by introducing
‘Floating Features ‘ (distinctive) underspecified Timing Units that
morphemes may consist of. It consist of: Autosegmantal tiers of tone, the
obligatory contour principle, and a set of Universal Association
Conventions
 Prosodic Morphology ( templatic Morphology): Takes the representation
of timing units to a new level, enabling a more insightful characterization
of templatic morphological form. This new representational flexibility
enables phonologists to posite( to assume) underlying representations for
Morphemes (or words) that are more general and can be applied to a wide
range of morphophonological patterns.
 A theory of how Prosodic structure impinges on templatic and
circumscriptional Morphology

5. Definition
Morphological
Determinants
of Linguistics
Phonological
Determinants
of Linguistics

6. Principles of prosodic Morphology
 (adapted from McCarthy & Prince 1998)
 (a) Prosodic Morphology Hypothesis When morphological processes
have special annotations concerning sound shape, these conditions are
defined in terms of the units of the prosodic hierarchy
 (b) Template Satisfaction Condition (phonological template) The way
in which prosodically determined units are filled with segmental
material is determined by principles of prosody, general and language-
specific 7 Principles of Prosodic Morphology (adapted from McCarthy
& Prince 1998)
 (c) Prosodic Circumscription The domain to which morphological
operations apply may be defined by prosodic criteria as well as
morphological ones
 The template and Circumscription must be formulated in terms of
Prosodic hierarchy and must respect the well-formedness requirements
in terms of the vocabulary.

7. Example
The following is an example of reduplication from Ilokano. As in many
languages,
reduplication expresses plurality on nouns:
káldíN ‘goat’ kál-káldíN ‘goats’
púsa ‘cat’ pús-pusa ‘cats’
kláse ‘class’ klas-kláse ‘classes’

8. Prosodic Theory within Prosodic
Morphology
 The prosodic Morphology Hypothesis requires that templatic restrictions be
defined in terms of Prosodic units
Intonational Phrase
PrWd
F
σ
µ

10. Feet
 Words are made up of rhythmic units called feet and these
comprise one or more syllables. Feet represent the rhythmic
structure of the word and are the units that allow us to describe
stress patterns.
 FOOT TYPE
Iambic Trochaic Syllabic
LH H, LL σ σ
LL, H
Iambic: Last syllable in the foot is strong erase
Trochaic: First syllable in the foot is strong razor

11. Minimal word
 Foot Binarity: Feet are binaric under syllabic or moraic analysis
 Light syllables are unfooted
 Unfooted syllables are immediately dominated by PrWd
Minimal Word: is a notion or theory that is constituted of both :
The Prosodic Hierarchy (that obliges the existence of one foot)and Foot
Binarity ( every foot must be bimoraic or disyllabic)
Minimal Word = Prosodic Hierarchy+ Foot Binarity
Thus, A prosodic word must contain at least two moras or
syllables.

12. Quantity
sensitive lges
• The minimal
word is
bimoraic
Quantity
insensitive lges
• All syllables
are
monomoraic
and the
minimal word
is disyllabic

13. Example from Darija, Schwa epenthesis
 We can explain the movement of schwa from CVəC to CəVCCVC
by referring to the Minimal Word Hypothesis and the morafication
process in Arabic is a quantity sensitive language. Thus the minimal
word is bimoraic at the masculine case and dissyllabic.

14. Example
 Lardil, indigenous to Australia, is a typical example of a language which
displays the minimal word (MINWD) syndrome. Hale (1973) and Hale,
Farmer, Nash and Simpson (1981) report that content words in this
language never take CV or CVC forms. It actively enforces the restriction.
If an underlying root has such a shape, it must be augmented at the
nominative case , as illustrated:
Underlying Nominative Accusative
peer peer peer-in
wik wika wik-in
ter tera ter-in
mayara mayar mayara-n
yalulu yalul yalulu-n

15. Correlation Properties of PWM
1. Economy: observed word minimality restrictions are the result of the
combination of two requirements: the Prosodic Hierarchy and Foot
Binarity.
2. Role of Quantity: the nature of the smallest prosodic word in any
language is fully determined by its prosody, disyllabic if quantity
insensitive, bimoraic if quantity-sensitive.
3.No iambic minimum: Though LH is a type of foot, no language can
demand a LH minimal word. Even in languages with iambic prosody,
the minimal prosodic word will be the minimal iamb, which is simply
any iamb that satisfies Foot Binarity.
4.Enforcement: as syllabic well formdness requirements may lead to
empenthesis or block syncope.

16. Limitations
 Only possible in cases where the underlying constraints are violated:
Languages with 0 feets( no effect of word minimality)
At which level it PWM is applies ?: stem, morpho word,root,or the
PrWrd
 This observation of interlinguistic variation is expressed by differing
values of Mcat in the following schema( McCarthy and price
1991,1993)
Mcat = PrWrd
Where Mcat = Root, stem, Lexical word, etc

17. Correlation Properties of MCat = PrWd
 Upward inheritance
 Fineness of grain
 Function word escape
 MCat = Pcat
The schema MCat = PrWd provides the interface
between the phonological theory of word minimality (based
on the Prosodic Hierarchy and Foot Binarity) and the
morphology and lexicon of a language.

18. Example
 Diari MinWd Reduplication
Singular Plural
Wila wila-wila ( women)
Nankanti nanka-nankanti (catfish)
Tilparku tilpa-tilparku (birds)
 The underlying reduplicated string in Diari is exactly two
syllables long, in the conformity with the quantity insensitive
prosody of the language. Like any reduplicative word of Diari,
the reduplicative morpheme must be vowel-final.(not the
base).
 Diari reduplicatio consists of compounding a minimal word
with a full one

19.  The template as a base
 The template as Affix
 Prosodic circumscription
 The Prosodic Character of Templates and
Circumscription
 Prosodic Morphology within Optimality Theory