535 Assignment 9

Halle, Impoverishment & Fission

Due: Tues, Feb. 17

1.    What affix is inserted in the additional slot created by Fission in the Plural Genitive of the Latin 5th Declension?


2.    Why does Halle say at the end of section 4 that "the linear order of the inserted morphemes is not determined by the order of insertion of Vocabulary items"? For which forms does his analysis force him to say this?


3.    What additional linear-ordering convention does Halle introduce to deal with the Semitic conjugations?

4.   What phenomenon in Walbiri does Halle take to be the final justification for Fission as a real phenomenon? That is, what phenomenon can a Fission-based analysis take care of that a less fine-graned analysis cannot? (i.e a proposal that analysed his proposed Fissioned affixes as just phonolgical substrings of a larger affix)