The Phonological Dimension of Grammatical Markedness

In recent years, the phonology - morphology
interface has been a topic of considerable interest
in theoretical linguistics. This book represents a
contribution to the study of this interface. Couched
in the framework of Optimality Theory, it explores
the correlation between grammatical markedness and
the phonological properties of outputs inflected for
morpho-syntactic categories on a grammatical
markedness hierarchy. The main claim made in the
book is that, under otherwise similar phonological
conditions, outputs carrying specifications for a
marked member of a given grammatical category can
license a given type of marked phonological
structure to an extent that is equal or greater than
outputs inflected for the unmarked category.
Illustrations are provided for the morpho-syntactic
categories of case (Old Saxon), number (Romanian)
and voice (Mayak). The book is mainly intended for
theoretical linguists, researchers and graduate
students, but may also present interest for a larger
circle of readers.

Autorentext

Cristian Iscrulescu received a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He has published papers on phonology, morphology and Romance linguistics. Dr. Iscrulescu has taught college-level classes in Linguistics and is currently a linguistic consultant.

Klappentext

In recent years, the phonology - morphology interface has been a topic of considerable interest in theoretical linguistics. This book represents a contribution to the study of this interface. Couched in the framework of Optimality Theory, it explores the correlation between grammatical markedness and the phonological properties of outputs inflected for morpho-syntactic categories on a grammatical markedness hierarchy. The main claim made in the book is that, under otherwise similar phonological conditions, outputs carrying specifications for a marked member of a given grammatical category can license a given type of marked phonological structure to an extent that is equal or greater than outputs inflected for the unmarked category. Illustrations are provided for the morpho-syntactic categories of case (Old Saxon), number (Romanian) and voice (Mayak). The book is mainly intended for theoretical linguists, researchers and graduate students, but may also present interest for a larger circle of readers.