{"title":"Sanskrit nominal stem gradation without morphomes","authors":"Brent de Chene","doi":"10.3366/word.2022.0198","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"It is proposed that the alternations ā ∼ a and a ∼ Ø in the stem-final syllable of Sanskrit nominals such as rā´jān- ‘king’ and dātār- ‘giver’ are due to rules of shortening and syncope. If so, those alternations provide no support, contrary to claims in the literature, for a framework in which stem alternants are associated with “morphomic indices” by stem-indexing rules and, more generally, no support for a purely morphological level of representation mediating between morphosyntax and morphophonology. To the contrary, it is claimed, postulation of such a level in the Sanskrit case both complicates the grammatical architecture needlessly and obstructs the statement of phonological generalizations.","PeriodicalId":43166,"journal":{"name":"Word Structure","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7000,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Word Structure","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3366/word.2022.0198","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
It is proposed that the alternations ā ∼ a and a ∼ Ø in the stem-final syllable of Sanskrit nominals such as rā´jān- ‘king’ and dātār- ‘giver’ are due to rules of shortening and syncope. If so, those alternations provide no support, contrary to claims in the literature, for a framework in which stem alternants are associated with “morphomic indices” by stem-indexing rules and, more generally, no support for a purely morphological level of representation mediating between morphosyntax and morphophonology. To the contrary, it is claimed, postulation of such a level in the Sanskrit case both complicates the grammatical architecture needlessly and obstructs the statement of phonological generalizations.