Seenku plural paper - Dartmouth College · 6 Laura McPherson (10) Low vowel stems in singular and...

Noname manuscript No.(will be inserted by the editor)

Featural affixation in Seenku plural formation

Laura McPherson

Received: date / Accepted: date

Abstract Nominal plural formation in Seenku involves two surface changes:fronting of the final vowel and raising of the final tone. I argue that thesechanges are the result of a featural suffix consisting of two features: the fea-ture [+front], resulting in vowel fronting, and the feature [+raised], resultingin tone raising. Given the atomic nature of the morphosyntactic feature plu-ral, Seenku plural formation thus represents an unequivocal case of multiplefeature affixation, lending support to Wolf’s (2007) constraint Max-Flt overRealize-Morpheme (van Oostendorp 2005, Trommer 2012).

Keywords Featural affixation · Plural · Mande · Tone · OT

1 Introduction

Seenku, a Northwestern Mande language of Burkina Faso, has very little ap-parent affixation. The majority of morphosyntactic meanings are conveyedeither synthetically or through what appear to be patterns of base modifica-tion. The nominal plural is, at first glance, no exception. On the surface, theplural is marked by tonal and/or vocalic modifications to the root, as shownin the following singular-plural pairs:1

L. McPhersonDartmouth College, New Hampshire, USATel.: +1-603-646-3403E-mail: [email protected]

1 Data are transcribed largely in IPA but with a few changes designed to bring Seenkuwriting in line with other orthographies in the region. Thus, IPA /j/ is written as <y>; /é/ iswritten as <gy>; /Ã/ is written as <j>; and /c/ and <ky>. The four tones are transcribedin the following ways: e(xtra)L is marked with a double grave accent <‚a>, L with a graveaccent <a>, H with an acute accent <a>, and e(xtra)H with a double acute accent <a>.Common contours include eLeH, marked with a hacek <a>, HeL, marked with a circumflex<a>, and eHeL, marked with an umlaut <a>. Tones are marked only on the initial vowelof a long vowel or diphthong.

2 Laura McPherson

(1) Singular Plural Glossa. b‚EE bEE ‘pig(s)’b. su sui ‘antelope(s)’c. ka kE ‘yam(s)’

In (1a), the sole difference between the singular and the plural is tonal. In(1b), the nucleus of the syllable /u/ in the singular becomes the diphthong ui(pronounced [u

“i]) in the plural, but the tone remains the same. In (1c), there

is both a tonal change from HeL to eH as well as a vocalic change from /a/ to[E].

In this paper, I will argue that these apparent base modification patternsare indeed the result of affixation in Seenku but of phonological features in-stantiating morphosyntactic categories rather than full phonological elements,such as tones or segments. Specifically, the plural consists of two phonologicalfeatures, a vocalic feature [+front] and a tonal feature [+upper]. This pairof features is suffixed to the root, triggering changes in the final vowel andtone. The surface form is chosen by a constraint-based grammar optimizingthe realization of the suffixal features and the preservation of root contrasts.

There are a number of implications of this work. First, it adds to a growingbody of work on featural affixes (McCarthy 1983, Lieber 1987, Wiese 1994,Akinlabi 1996,Wolf 2007, Trommer 2012 etc.), showing that this is a viable andnot uncommon phenomenon cross-linguistically. Second, the tonal patternssupport a system of tone features along the lines of that envisioned by Yip(1980) or Pulleyblank (1986). Though the usefulness of such systems has beencalled into question recently (Hyman 2010, Clements et al. 2010), the Seenkuplural data provide an argument in favor of their retention. Third, given thatboth vocalic and tonal changes result from the affixation of a feature, theplural in Seenku illustrates another case of multiple feature affixation; giventhe atomic nature of the morphosyntactic feature plural, I argue that thesetwo features cannot be decomposed into multiple morphemes, as argued byTrommer (2012) for other cases of putative multiple feature affixation. Thislends support to the constraint Max-Float (Wolf 2007) for the realizationof featural affixes over the constraint Realize-Morpheme (as employed byTrommer 2012). Finally, there is a class of nouns in Seenku with a floatingnasal feature, which is unable to dock tautomorphemically (Wolf 2007) inthe singular; in the plural, the vowel of the root is nasalized, suggesting thatthe docking of a featural affix on a vowel is enough to render that vowel non-tautomorphemic from the standpoint of the floating nasal. These data patternsare discussed in §6.

The paper is structured as follows: In §2, I introduce the language and layout the vowel and tone inventories that provide the relevant background toplural formation. Sections 3 and 4 discuss the data patterns for vocalic andtonal changes, respectively, before the constraint-based analysis is formalizedin §5. Section 6 elaborates on this analysis by bringing in data from stems witha floating nasal feature, §7 discusses the diachrony of the system by comparingSeenku to related languages in the Samogo subfamily, and §8 concludes.

Featural affixation in Seenku plural formation 3

2 Background

2.1 Language and data

Seenku (ISO 639-3 [sos], exonym Sambla or Sembla) is a Northwestern Mandelanguage of the Samogo subfamily spoken by a total of around 17,000 peoplein southwestern Burkina Faso (Lewis et al. 2015). It has two primary dialects,Northern Seenku (endonym Timiku, named for Karangasso, the center of thedialect zone) with 5,000 speakers and Southern Seenku (endonym Gbeneku,named for Bouende, the center of its dialect zone) with 12,000 speakers. Thereexists a sketch grammar of Northern Seenku (Prost 1971) and a master’s thesis(Congo 2013) on aspects of Southern Seenku phonology, but the language isotherwise undescribed.

The data for this paper are drawn from primary field notes on SouthernSeenku gathered with speakers in Burkina Faso and New York City from 2013-2015.

2.2 Vowel inventory

Seenku displays a typical Mande vowel inventory, with a seven-way contrastin quality for oral vowels, shown in (2):

(2)

u

o

O

a

E

e

i

A near minimal set for the seven vowel qualities is given in (3):

(3) Oral vowels/u/ tsu ‘hippo’/o/ t‚o ‘know’/O/ tO ‘leave’/a/ ta ‘fire’/E/ tE ‘who’/e/ te (genitive particle)/i/ tsı ‘unmarried’

Length is contrastive and is preserved under featural affixation in the plural,which I will argue to support a featural rather than vocalic suffix. The followingprovides minimal or near minimal pairs for vowel length in oral vowels:

4 Laura McPherson

(4) Long vs. short oral vowels/u/ su ‘antelope’ /uu/ suu ‘directly’/o/ fo ‘fonio’ /oo/ foo ‘wind’/O/ (mo) d‚O ‘(my) shoulder’ /OO/ d‚OO ‘beer’/a/ ka ‘yam’ /aa/ k‚aa ‘eight’/E/ kyE ‘vagina’ /EE/ kyEE ‘plant sp.’/e/ jıbe ‘clothes’ /ee/ (mo) kyıbee ‘(my) kidneys’/i/ sı ‘tree sp.’ /ii/ s‚ıi ‘water jar’

This seven-way contrast is collapsed to a five-way contrast in nasal vowels;[+ATR] mid vowels have no nasal counterparts. Minimal pairs for nasality aregiven in (5):

(5) Oral vs. nasal vowels/u/ ts‚u ‘thatch’ /u/ (m‚O) ts‚u ‘(person’s) skin’

/O/ (‚a) k‚O ‘(his) bone’ /O/ (‚a) k‚O ‘(his) head’

/a/ b‚a ‘do’ /a/ b˝a ‘hit’

/E/ t@gE ‘chickens’ /E/ t@g˝E ‘cheeks’

/i/ bı ‘goats’ /ı/ bı ‘horn’

For a discussion of vocalic features, see §3.2.

2.3 Tonal inventory

Seenku is a four-tone language, contrasting the levels eL, L, H, and eH. How-ever, as we will see, L is largely confined to derived forms, such as the plural.These tones can also combine into numerous contour tones, including HeL,eHeL, eLeH, eLHeL, eLeHeL, and HeH. The Tone Bearing Unit (TBU) is thesyllable, and each syllable can host up to three tones, though I have onlyseen this latter situation on long vowels. If a rising tone or tritone sequence isapplied grammatically on a light syllable, the vowel often lengthens to accom-modate it.

Examples of minimal pairs for the underlying level tones (eL, H, eH) in-clude:

(6) a. eL ‚a 3sgH a 2sg

b. H mo 1sgeH mı 1pl

c. eL ts‚u ‘thatch’eH su ‘antelope’

Pronominal forms are used to contrast H with both eL and eH, since we finda systematic gap in level H for nouns. In its place, we find a large number ofHeL contour tones. Examples of contrast with HeL include:


(7) a. eL ts‚u ‘thatch’HeL tsu ‘hippopotamus’

b. HeL sı ‘female (cow, etc.)’eH sı ‘tree sp.’

As I will show in §4, the surface HeL singular nouns are best analyzed asH underlyingly, with the eL tone added as a repair for a category-specifictonotactic restriction against final H.

Finally, the following table illustrates contour tones in Seenku. Note thatonly HeL, eLHeL, and eLeH appear to be lexical; all others involve eithergrammatical tone or are derived from coalescence:2

(8) Contour tones

HeL da ‘mouth’eLHeL d‚aa ‘basket hanger’eLeH na ‘future auxiliary’eLeHeL n‚aa ‘have come’ (perfect)

eHeL niO ‘have eaten’ (perfect)HeH moo ‘1sg past’

Asymmetries in tone distribution and featural explanations for them will bediscussed in §4.2.

3 Vocalic changes

I will focus first on vocalic changes in plural formation. Section 3.1 outlinesthe data patterns, while §3.2 proposes a featural affixation account for them.For a formal analysis in OT, see §5.

3.1 Data patterns

In the plural, stems whose final vowel is front (henceforth “front vowel stems”)show no vocalic changes:

(9) Front vowel stems in singular and pluralSingular Pluralbı ‘goat’ bı ‘goats’b‚EE ‘pig’ bEE ‘pigs’ky‚er‚e ‘day’ kyere ‘days’

When the stem-final vowel is /a/ in the singular (henceforth “low vowelstems”), it surfaces as [E] in the plural:

2 For example, eHeL mı‚ı derives from the coalescence of mı l‚E ‘1pl subordinate’. HeH moo

likewise derives from the coalescence of mo lE ‘1sg past’.

6 Laura McPherson

(10) Low vowel stems in singular and pluralSingular Pluralj‚oNwa ‘cat’ j‚oNwE ‘cats’ka ‘yam’ kE ‘yams’

Finally, when the stem-final vowel is a back vowel (“back vowel stems”, all ofwhich are also round in Seenku), we find diphthong formation: a front vowelof the same height and ATR value takes the place of the back vowel, which isrelegated to a non-syllabic glide before the front vowel (the usual realizationof the first vowel of a diphthong). I explicitly mark the non-syllabic nature ofthe diphthong-initial element in this section for clarity:

(11) Back vowel stems in singular and pluralSingular Pluralsu ‘antelope’ su

“i ‘antelopes’

g‚OO ‘field’ gO“EE ‘fields’

s‚o ‘horse’ so“e ‘horses’

It is important to note that these non-syllabic vowels retain the same featuresas the original stem vowel and are not all the high back glide [w]; consultantscorrect my pronunciation when employing [w] across the board. Further evi-dence for this differentiation comes from the fact that high vowels, includingnon-syllabic high glides, palatalize /s/ to [S] (i.e. ‘antelopes’ is pronounced[Su

“i]), which we never see in forms like so

“e ‘horses’.

In sum, front vowels are unchanged, the low vowel becomes [E], and backvowels become back-front diphthongs retaining original specifications of height,ATR, and length.

3.2 Featural affixation: [+front]

The overarching vocalic pattern is that plural forms end in a front vowel. Iargue that this output pattern is achieved through the suffixation of a featuralaffix [+front]. In order to illustrate the effects of [+front] on the singularstem, we first need to establish the feature system for Seenku vowels. I will beassuming a fully specified binary feature system, with high vowels specified as[+ATR] and /a/ as [-ATR], despite the lack of contrast at these heights.3

3 It is also possible to construct an analysis based on privative vocalic features ratherthan binary ones. Under this approach, all vowels marked as [+] in the following table havethe relevant feature present; all features marked as [-] do not. Thus, the vowel /E/ would besimply [front] and /a/ would be simply [low].


(12) Seenku vowel features

[front] [back] [round] [high] [low] [ATR]

i + - - + - +e + - - - - +E + - - - - -a - - - - + -O - + + - - -o - + + - - +u - + + + - +

Henceforth, I will omit the feature [round] as it is redundant with [back].

When affixed to a front vowel stem, the plural feature [+front] simplymerges with the [+front] feature of the stem, resulting in no audible change.This result is illustrated in (13) for the stem bı ‘goat’ (ignoring tone for now):

(13) bı → bı ‘goat(s)’

CV ! CV

| |

+front1

-back

+high

-low

+ATR

[+front]PL,2

+front1/2

-back

+high

-low

+ATR

PL

Modified features are boldfaced in the output. The addition of [+front] doesnot affect any other vocalic feature of the root.

With low-vowel stems, we find a necessary modification triggered by theaffixation of [+front]:

(14) ka → kE ‘yam(s)’

CV ! CV

| |

-front

-back

-high

+low

-ATR

[+front]PL

+front

-back

-high

-low

-ATR

PL

Given the lack of low front vowels in Seenku, the feature [+low] is changed to[-low] when [+front] is added. The result is the vowel [E].

The most complicated case involves back-vowel stems, where diphthongsare created rather than simply fronting the vowel. As seen in (11) above,diphthongs in Seenku involve a non-syllabic vowel (a glide) followed by a fullsyllabic vowel. Since [+front] is incompatible with both [+back] and [+round]

8 Laura McPherson

(the former universally, the latter in terms of Seenku’s vowel inventory), bothof these positive feature values surface only in the glide portion of the diph-thong; all other features of the stem vowel ([ATR], [high], [nasal], etc.) appearin both portions. This result is shown below:

(15) su → su“

i ‘antelope(s)’

CV1 ! CV1 V1

| | |

+syll

-front

+back

+high

-low

+ATR

[+front]PL

-syll

-front

+back

+high

-low

+ATR

+syll

+front

-back

+high

-low

+ATR

PL

The indices on the CV tier show that V in the singular splits into two V el-ements on the surface, the first specified as [-syll] and the latter as [+syll].The original feature specification [+back] surfaces solely on the non-syllabicportion, while [+front] from the plural appears solely on the syllabic portion(triggering a change in [back] to a minus specification). All other vocalic fea-tures appear on both. We know that the glide portion carries more featuresthan just [back] (and [round]), since the feature [high] causes the adjacentalveolar fricative to palatalize, and this palatalization is present in both thesingular as well as the plural; conversely, for [-high] stems like /s‚o/ → [soe],no palatalization takes place.

When the stem vowel is long, the feature [+long] is preserved only onthe second element of the diphthong, since Seenku does not allow [+long] onnon-syllabic elements:

(16) gO:1 → gO“E:2 ‘field(s)’

CV1 ! CV1 V1

| | |

+syll

-front

+back

-high

-low

-ATR

+long

[+front]PL

-syll

-front

+back

-high

-low

-ATR

-long

+syll

+front

-back

-high

-low

-ATR

+long

PL

As we will see in the constraint-based analysis in the next subsection, the non-syllabic nature of diphthong-initial elements allows Seenku to retain a lengthcontrast in vowels while at the same time avoiding superheavy syllables.


While most vocabulary in Seenku is monosyllabic or sesquisyllabic (Mati-soff 1989) those few true disyllabic stems only display a change in the finalvowel, hence providing evidence that this feature is a suffix. For example:

(17) Plural formation on polysyllabic stemsSingular Pluralko-koo ‘rooster’ ko-ko

“ee ‘roosters’

j‚oNwa ‘cat’ j‚oNwE ‘cats’m‚aafO ‘gun’ m‚aafO

“E ‘guns’

The first form in the table is polymorphemic, consisting of the base and areduplicant; both receive stress. Here, we see that only the base undergoesthe fronting effect of the plural. The second form in the table, j‚oNwa ‘cat’,may also polymorphemic, since it too receives stress on both syllables, but itsdecomposition is not clear. Once again, only the second vowel /a/ is affected,fronting to [E]. The last form is a loanword, common across West Africa; onlythe final /O/ is affected, becoming the diphthong [OE] in the plural. As we canthus see, the featural affix is best viewed as a suffix, docking only to the finalvowel, rather than affecting the entire stem or morpheme to which it docks.

An OT analysis of this process of featural affixation will be given in §5.

4 Tonal changes

In addition to the vocalic changes just discussed, plural formation in Seenkualso involves a tone raising process. After a presentation of the data in §4.1,I argue in §4.2 that this too is a case of featural affixation, this time of thetonal feature [+raised].

4.1 Data patterns

The nominal plural is also characterized by a process of tone raising, in whicheL raises to L and H raises to eH; since eH is already the highest tone in thelanguage, singular eH nouns remain eH in the plural.

Examples of eL raising to L include:

(18) a. b‚EE → bEE ‘pig(s)’

b. j‚u → j`uı ‘hill(s)’

c. m‚O → m`OE ‘person(s)’

In (18a), the tonal change is the only audible marker of the plural since thestem ends in a front vowel. In (18b) and (18c), the tone change accompaniesthe vowel fronting process. This plural tone raising of eL to L is the source ofmost surface L tones in the language.

10 Laura McPherson

As I first mentioned in §2.3, there is a systematic gap in level H-tonedsingular nouns. Instead, there is a large number of HeL contours, and thesesingular nouns take eH in the plural:

(19) a. bı → bı ‘goat(s)’

b. ka → kE ‘yam(s)’

c. gOO → gOEE ‘tree(s)’

The theoretical significance of this point will be highlighted in the next sub-section.

Finally, eH in the singular is already as high as a tone can go in Seenku,and thus the plural involves no audible tone change.4

(20) a. gya → gyE ‘cage(s)’

b. m‚aafO → m‚aafOE ‘gun(s)’

c. su → sui ‘antelope(s)’

All of these examples involve low- or back-vowel stems, where vocalic changesresult in an audibly different plural form. For eH-toned front-vowel stems,such as tı ‘mortar’, where neither vocalic nor tonal changes would be audible,speakers report that the word “has no plural”.

4.2 Featural affixation: [+raised]

I propose that these changes too can be understood in terms of featural af-fixation. This relies on the assumption that the four levels of tone in Seenkuare composed of tonal features. In this analysis, I adopt the featural systemof Pulleyblank (1986), adapted from Yip (1980):

(21) Seenku tonal featuresupper - - + +raised - + - +

eL L H eH

The four tone levels are naturally accounted for using two binary features,[upper] and [raised]. The lowest tone, eL, is specified as minus for both fea-tures: [-upper, -raised]. The L tone, derived by plural formation, is [-upper,

4 Occasionally, when giving the singular and plural back-to-back, speakers will pronouncethe plural form even higher than the singular, even though there is no phonemic tone levelat that height. This seems to reflect the speaker’s metalinguistic awareness that the pluralinvolves tone raising. In running speech, I have not noticed such raising, but I would not besurprised to see it used for emphasis or other pragmatic reasons.


+raised]. The H tone shows the opposite specification, [+upper, -raised], whilethe highest tone eH is specified as [+upper, +raised].

As can be seen, plural formation can be understood as the affixation of[+raised]. Added to eL tone, this derives L; added to H, it derives eH; added toeH, there is no audible change, since the tone is already specified as [+raised].This lends support to the analysis that surface HeL nouns are simply H un-derlyingly. Whence, then, the eL tone? It may be tempting to propose thatthe falling contour is simply the phonetic realization of H, but the existenceof level H-toned pronouns, numerals, and verbs shows that this cannot be thecase.5 Instead, we could take eL to instantiate singular, in contrast to the[+raised] instantiating the plural. While this would work for both eL-tonedsingular nouns and H-toned singular nouns, we would then expect to see un-derlyingly eH-toned singular nouns surface as eHeL, an unattested result. Themost straightforward explanation seems to lie in morphologically-conditionedtonotactics (cf. Shih and Inkelas 2016): H is not allowed in word-final positionin nouns. As a repair for the tonotactic violation, eL is epenthesized. Note thatplural formation applies to the underlying H-toned root, not to the result oftonotactic repairs.

As we saw in §3, the vocalic plural feature is a suffix in Seenku; the sameholds true of the tonal feature as well. Thus, only the final tone of the stem israised in the plural. Cases with audible tonal changes include:

(22) Singular Plural Glossa. H-H(eL) ko-koo H-eH ko-koee ‘rooster(s)’

b. eLH(eL) d‚aa eLeH d‚EE ‘hanging basket holder(s)’k‚unu k‚unui ‘stone(s)’

We can see why in these forms the final eL tone of HeL singular forms must notbe present in the base of affixation: [+raised] exerts its influence on [+upper,-raised] H rather than on eL. This is consistent with eL being phonotacti-cally motivated, epenthesized as a last resort if the morphophonology offersno alternative repair.

The featural affixation responsible for the first form in (22b) can be schema-tized as in (23):

5 Further evidence against this position comes from two sources. First, the Sembla have asurrogate language system played on the xylophone that encodes tone. For the purposes ofthe surrogate system, musicians have very good awareness of the tonality of the language,and in working with them, I have been told explicitly that in a word like bı ‘goat’, thereare two tones; the equivalent of H and eL are then played on the xylophone to representsuch words. Second, certain sequences of words in a close syntactic relationship (inalienablepossession, some O+V sequences) form what I call “tonal compounds”, in which the finaltone of the first word spreads onto the second, replacing its lexical tone (McPherson 2015).When a H-toned word like bı ‘goat’ is in initial position in a tonal compound, it spreads eLand not H to the following word (e.g. bı b‚a ‘hit a goat’, cf. /b˝a/ ‘hit’).

12 Laura McPherson

(23) Tonal plural suffixation for bitonal d‚aa ‘hanging basket’

daː ! dɛː

T T T T

| | | |

-upper

-raised

+upper

-raised [+raised]PL

-upper

-raised

+upper

+raised PL

The initial L tone ([-upper, -raised]) is not affected by the affixation of [+up-per].

In other cases, we can tell that the tonal feature [+raised] is a suffix fromthe fact that a final eH tone blocks it from affecting eL or H tones earlier inthe stem:

(24) Singular Plural Glossj‚oNwa j‚oNwE ‘cat(s)’d‚o-do d‚o-doe ‘thigh(s)’

Given the fact that the tonal suffix affects only the final tone, it also providesus with insight into the tonal structure of sesquisyllabic words in which boththe initial ‘half syllable’ and the final full syllable are realized with tone. Inparticular, we see that these sesquisyllabic stems must carry a single underlyingtone linked to both the reduced and full vowel, since both are affected in theplural:

(25) a. j‚@g‚e → j@ge ‘dog(s)’n‚@g‚ı → n@gı ‘cow(s)’

b. t@gE → t@gE ‘chicken(s)’k@rE → k@rE ‘man/men’

The following schematizes this result for the first form ‘dogs’ (25a):6

(26) Tonal plural suffixation for sesquisyllabic j‚@g‚e ‘dog’

jəge ! jəge

T T

| |

-upper

-raised [+raised]PL

-upper

+raised PL

6 I set aside the question of feature geometry for tones here and simply show both tone fea-tures in a feature matrix associated to a tonal node T, which itself interfaces with segmentalmaterial. Nothing in the analysis hinges crucially on this fact.


The [+raised] featural affix docks to the tonal node and overwrites the under-lying [-raised] specification.

5 An OT account of Seenku featural affixation

From an OT perspective, plural forms in Seenku can be understood as opti-mally satisfying a number of morphological and/or phonological constraintson the preservation of features and phonotactic constraints on featural cooc-currence. Foremost in an analysis of featural affixation, we need a constraintor constraints that militate the docking and realization of the floating featureat the possible expense of featural specifications in the root. Since the floatingfeatures are, in this case, the instantiation of a morpheme rather than phono-logical material belonging to the root, this increases the number of possibleanalyses.

Trommer (2012) highlights four approaches to the problem, including Maxconstraints for feature values (Lombardi 1998, 2001, Zhang 2000, Kim andPulleyblank 2004), markedness constraints favoring the floating feature spec-ification, a constraint Max-Flt (Wolf 2005, 2007) penalizing the deletion ofunderlyingly unassociated features, and Realize-Morpheme (van Oosten-dorp 2005) requiring morphemes to be phonologically realized. The first twoapproaches depend on phonological consistency or naturalness, which systemsof featural affixation do not always display. For instance, in Nuer, both [+con-tinuant] and [-continuant] are attested as featural affixes, showing that eitherranking Max[-cont] ≫ Max[+cont] or Max[+cont] ≫ Max[-cont] will runinto trouble (Wolf 2005). Similarly, using markedness constraints to favor thefloating feature presupposes that the floating feature is less marked than theunderlying specification, a fact which may not hold true of the phonology asa whole. In terms of the morphological options, Wolf (2005, 2007) argues thatRealize-Morpheme is not powerful enough, since cases of multiple featureaffixation would need only a single feature to be realized in order to satisfy theconstraint. Trommer (2012) counters this argument by showing that the puta-tive cases of multiple feature affixation are in fact decomposable into multiplemorphemes, each subject to Realize-Morpheme.

Let us first consider the phonological explanations in the context of Seenkuplural formation. For the vocalic changes, we could propose that Max[+front]≫ Max[-front], meaning that the floating [+front] feature will be preservedin the output at the expense of any [-front] in the stem. A look at the mor-phophonological system of Seenku as a whole shows no contradictory evidence,that is, cases where [-front] is preserved at the expense of [+front], whichwould seem to lend support to this analysis. However, the vocalic changes arejust one of two that make up the plural morpheme, and the story is not sostraightforward for the tonal feature [+raised]. The ranking Max[+raised] ≫Max[-raised] would account for the plural, but another case of featural affix-ation involves the feature [-raised], which encodes the perfective (McPherson

14 Laura McPherson

in press); for this morphological category Max[-raised] would need to outrankMax[+raised]. The situation is illustrated in the following mini tableaux:

(27) a. Max[+raised] ≫ Max[-raised] for bı ‘goats’

bi

|

+upper

-raised [+raised]PL

MA

X[+

rais

ed]

MA

X[-

rais

ed]

! a. bi

|

+upper

+raised PL

*

b. bi

|

+upper

-raised

*!

b. Max[+raised] ≫ Max[-raised] for b´a ‘hitpfv ’

bã

|

+upper

+raised [-raised]PFV

MA

X[+

rais

ed]

MA

X[-

rais

ed]

!a. bã

|

+upper

+raised

*

☹ b. bã

|

+upper

-raised

*!

In the case of the plural in (27a), the ranking selects the correct winner, inwhich the floating feature [+raised] replaces the underlying [-raised] specifi-cation on the root. This same ranking in (27b), however, incorrectly selectscandidate (a), in which the perfective affix [-raised] is deleted.

A markedness approach would be problematic for the same reason: [+raised]cannot be less marked in one case (the plural) and more marked in another(the perfective).

Turning to the morphological approaches, we have seen that Seenku is acase of multiple feature affixation, involving the vocalic feature [+front] inaddition to the tonal feature [+raised]. Unlike the cases presented in Trommer


(2012), there is no immediately apparent way to break the morpheme pluralinto smaller morphosyntactic pieces, each realized by one of the features. Thus,as argued by Wolf (2005, 2007), the Realize-Morpheme approach wouldneed to see the docking of only one of the features in order to be satisfied.Consider first the definition ofRealize-Morpheme followed by an illustrativetableau for the plural form kE ‘yams’, differing both tonally and vocalicallyfrom the singular ka:

(28) a. Realize-Morpheme: For every morpheme in the input, somephonological element should be present in the output (van Oost-endorp 2005)

b. Realize-Morpheme approach to plural formation

+upper

-raised

|

ká

+front

+raised PL

|

-front

+low R

EA

L-M

OR

PH

IDE

NT(f

ron

t)

IDE

NT(r

aise

d)

IDE

NT(l

ow

)

!a.

+upper

+raised PL

|

ka

|

-front

+low PL

*

b.

+upper

-raised

|

kɛ

|

+front

-low PL

*

*!

☹ c.

+upper

+raised PL

|

kɛ

|

+front

-low PL

*

*!

*

d.

+upper

-raised

|

ká

|

-front

+low

*!

16 Laura McPherson

Tonal features are shown in the top matrix and vocalic features in the bottom.As we can see, candidates (a-c) all satisfy Realize-Morpheme, since in everycase, either one or both of the features [+front] and [+raised] is present torealize the plural. Thus, the winning candidate will be the one that realizes theplural with the fewest faithfulness violations, in this case candidate (a), whichrealizes only the tone feature; realizing the vocalic feature results in violationsof both Ident(front) and Ident(low) (since the vowel inventory does notcontain [æ]), and the attested surface form, which realizes both features, incursviolations of all faithfulness constraints. Under this approach, candidate (c) isharmonically bounded and will never be selected as optimal.

Thus, the Real-Morph approach is also problematic for Seenku pluralformation.

This leaves the Max-Flt approach argued for by Wolf (2005, 2007), whichrelies on the following constraint:

(29) Max-Flt: All autosegments that are floating in the input have outputcorrespondents (Wolf 2007)

This constraint gives preference to floating features over underlyingly associ-ated features. Thus, there is no need for markedness or phonological principlesdetermining the output: if [+F] is floating, it will take precedence or [-F];conversely, if [-F] is floating, it will take precedence over [+F]. The followingtableaux illustrate how this approach successfully accounts for Seenku pluralformation when combined with Max constraints for other featural specifica-tions.

Let us begin with the case of the front-vowel stem /bı/ ‘goat’, which be-comes eH-toned bı in the plural; in the interest of space, all non-affected vocalicfeatures are omitted:


(30) /bı/ → [bı] ‘goat(s)’

+upper

-raised

|

bi

+front2

+raised PL

|

[ ]+front1

MA

X-F

LT

MA

X(+

rais

ed)

MA

X(-

rais

ed)

MA

X(+

front)

!a.

+upper

+raised PL

|

bi

|

[ ]+front2 PL

*

*

b.

+upper

-raised

|

bi

|

[ ]+front2 PL

*!

*

*

c.

+upper

+raised PL

|

bi

|

[ ]+front1

*!

*

*

d.

+upper

-raised

|

bi

|

[ ]+front1

*!*

*

*

The winning candidate (a) docks both of the floating features [+front] and[+raised] at the expense of the underlyingly associated features [-raised] and[+front]; these delete, violating more lowly rankedMax(-raised) andMax(+front).Candidate (b) realizes only the vocalic feature of the plural, displacing theoriginally associated [+front] specification; the deletion of floating [+raised]triggers a violation of Max-Flt, ruling this candidate out. Candidate (c)illustrates the reverse situation, where the tonal feature is realized but the vo-calic feature is not. As we can see, both candidate (b) and (c) incur a violationof Max(+front), but in candidate (c), the particular [+front] that deletes wasfloating and thus violates Max-Flt in addition to Max(+front). Candidate(d) deletes both floating features and maximally violates Max-Flt.

Plural formation on low-vowel stems requires changes to the vocalic feature[low], given the language’s ban on low front vowels. In the following tableau,I focus only on the more complicated vocalic changes, since the tone changesare the same as those illustrated in (30):

18 Laura McPherson

(31) /ka/ → [kE] ‘yam(s)’

ka1

|

-front

+low [+front]PL

MA

X-F

LT

*a

*æ

MA

X(+

front)

MA

X(-

front)

MA

X (

+lo

w)

DE

P(-

low

)

INT

EG

RIT

Y

!a. kɛ1

|

+front

-low PL

*

*

*

b. ka1

|

-front

+low

*!

*

c. ka1 ɛ1

| |

-front

+low

+front

-low PL

*!

*

*

d. kæ1 |

+front

+low PL

!

"#

*

Candidate (a), the winning candidate, docks the floating [+front] feature atthe expense of underlying [-front]. The feature [+low] is deleted (violatingMax(+low)) and replaced with [-low] (here, violating Dep[-low]). We will seeshortly in the case of back-vowel stems why theMax/Dep approach is superiorto Ident for Seenku. Candidate (b) is ruled out by a Max-Flt violation.Candidates (c) and (d) realize the floating feature, thus satisfying Max-Flt,but markedness violations against non-syllabic low vowels (in a diphthong,created by splitting the underlying vowel into two) and low front vowels rulethese candidates out.

The most difficult case to capture is that of back-vowel stems, where adiphthong is formed to allow the preservation of both [+back] and [+front].As in (31), I focus only on vocalic changes here. In addition, I omit the feature[round], which co-varies with backness in Seenku. Vowel length and syllabicityhere are evaluated with constraints on mora preservation, assuming that a longvowel carries two moras, a short vowel one mora, and a non-syllabic vowel zeromoras.


(32) /gOO/ → [gO“

EE] ‘wood(s)’

gɔː1

|

-front

+back

+long [+front]PL

MA

X-F

LT

MA

X(+

bac

k)

*V

V

DE

P(µ

)

INT

EG

RIT

Y

DE

P(-

bac

k)

MA

X(+

front)

!a. gɔ1 ɛː1

| |

-syll

-front

+back

-long

+front

-back

+long PL

*

*

b. gɔː1

|

-front

+back

+long

*!

*

c. gɛː1

|

+front

-back

+long PL

*!

*

d. gɔ1 ɛ1

| |

-front

+back

-long

+front

-back

-long PL

*!

*

*

e. gɔ1 ɛː1

| |

-front

+back

-long

+front

-back

+long PL

*!

*

*

*

In this tableau, Max-Flt is undominated, meaning that the floating fea-ture [+front] must be realized (which it is not in candidate b). However,Max(+back) is also undominated, meaning [+back] cannot delete (as in can-didate c); since these two featural specifications are at odds with one another,the vowel must split into a diphthong where each element carries one of thefeatures. Diphthongs in Seenku involve a non-syllabic initial vowel, which Icapture with the constraint *VV, which is shorthand for *[+syll][+syll]. Thisconstraint rules out candidates (d) and (e), where the diphthong-initial ele-ment is a syllabic vowel. Candidate (e) is additionally penalized since the sec-ond element retains its specification [+long], resulting in a trimoraic vowel—anaddition of one mora to the underlying form, violating Dep(µ).

With this form, we see why a Max approach to feature specifications issuperior to Ident for Seenku. Consider the following abbreviated tableau forthe same form:

20 Laura McPherson

(33) Tableau using Ident for /gO:/ → [gO“

E:] ‘wood(s)’

gɔː1

|

-front

+back

+long [+front]PL

MA

X-F

LT

IDE

NT

(b

ack)

ID(f

ront)

INT

EG

RIT

Y

☹ a. gɔ1 ɛː1

| |

-syll

-front

+back

-long

+front

-back

+long PL

*

*!

*

! b. gɛː1

|

+front

-back

+long PL

*

*!

c. gɔː1

|

-front

+back

+long

*!

The attested surface form, candidate (a) could never be chosen as winner,since it is harmonically bounded by candidate (b). Both of these candidatesviolate both Ident(front) and Ident(back), since both surface componentsof the diphthong are coindexed to one underlying vowel. By this measure,then, it is better to simply allow the docking of floating [+front] and lose thespecification [+back] altogether while avoiding an Integrity violation thanto form a diphthong. This shows that what matters in Seenku is not featuralidentity between the input and the output but the preservation of certainfeature specifications somewhere in the output. This protects against rampantneutralization of vowel contrasts in the plural.7

In sum, this section has shown that the Max-Flt (Wolf 2007) approach tofeatural affixation is superior to Real-Morph (van Oostendorp 2005, Trom-mer 2012) given the fact that the Seenku plural is an indivisible case of multiplefeature affixation. The presence of a Max constraint for floating features inthe constraint set naturally combines with the use of Max for underlyinglyspecified feature values rather than Ident.

7 An Ident approach may be saved if instead of forming a diphthong through splittingan underlying vowel into two the language instead epenthesized a vowel to act as host forthe floating feature. This vowel, however, would need to take on all of the features of theunderlying vowel besides [back] (and round): it would take on feature values for [long], [high],and [ATR]. Though theoretically possible, the use of Max for feature values provides a muchmore succinct explanation for the facts.


6 Incorporating nasal stems

With the analysis in place, I turn to one final class of nouns: nouns endingin a floating nasal feature. This class is not entirely monolithic in its behav-ior, suggesting a certain amount of lexicalization of irregularity, but the mostcommon pattern (and that which I will address here) involves a singular noun,which has an oral vowel when pronounced in isolation (34a). In a phrase, ittriggers nasalization of initial sonorants and prenasalization of initial stops onthe following word (34b). The corresponding plural of these nouns contains anasal vowel and has no effect on the following word (34c):8

(34) a. ka‘hut’

b. ka mb‚@le‘big hut’

c. k˝E bu-b‚@le9

‘big hut’

As (34c) shows, nasal vowels do not trigger prenasalization of the followingconsonant; this only occurs from the docking of floating nasal features.

We can compare these forms with a minimal pair with no floating nasal:

(35) a. ka‘yam’

b. ka b‚@le‘big yam’

c. kE bu-b‚@le‘big yams’

The following lists the singular and plural forms of stems with floating nasalscurrently attested in the database (setting aside, for now, [+ATR] stems):

8 There is variation (both inter- and intraspeaker) in whether a stem carries a floatingnasal, as shown in this example, or an overt nasal stop even when pronounced in isolation.Thus, while one consultant provided the isolation form ka for ‘hut’ or ‘granary’, anotherpronounced the same words kan. Such variation between the representation of final nasals(floating or overt) in the singular is a topic of ongoing research.

9 Plural adjectives are marked by reduplication.

22 Laura McPherson

(36) (37) Plural formation on floating nasal stemsSingular Plural Gloss

ka k˝E ‘hut(s)’

da d˝E ‘wall(s)’

sa s˝E ‘rabbit(s)’

s‚Onsa s‚Ons˝E ‘enclosure(s)’

kyE ky˝E ‘breast(s)’

dO d˝OE ‘shoulder(s)’

k‚O k`OE ‘head(s)’10

Floating nasals of this sort may be a feature of the Samogo subfamily as awhole, as they are equally attested in the two other languages for which de-scriptions are available, Dzuungoo (Solomiac 2007) and Jowulu (Djilla et al.2004). The behavior we must account for is that the floating nasal featuredocks to the following word or morpheme in the singular but the vowel of thestem itself in the plural. Taking first the behavior in the singular, it is a pat-tern cross-linguistically that floating elements avoid docking to the morphemethat introduces them. For example, Myers and Carleton (1996) propose a con-straint *Domain that penalizes floating H tones from docking within the con-stituent of the auxiliary in Chichewa. Wolf (2007) generalizes this constraintinto NoTautoMorphemicDocking, or NoTauMorDoc, which militatesthe statement above that floating elements do not dock tautomorphemically(i.e. to the morpheme that has introduced them). This constraint captures thebehavior of singular stems:

(38) Docking of [+nasal] on the following word

/sâ [+nas] bəle/ NOTAUMORDOC MAX-FLT

!a. sâ mbəle

b. sã bəle *!

c. sâ bəle *!

In this tableau, NoTauMorDoc outranks Max-Flt (a ranking that will bemotivated shortly). Candidate (b) docks the floating [+nasal] feature to thestem sa that introduces it, and thus is ruled out. Candidate (c) simply deletesthe floating feature, but this violates Max-Flt. Candidate (a) is thus chosenas the winning candidate, since the floating feature is realized on the followingword-initial stop.

The ranking NoTauMorDoc ≫ Max-Flt is motivated by the behaviorof singular stems pronounced in isolation, when there is no morpheme followingthat would allow for non-tautomorphemic docking. In this case, the floatingnasal simply deletes.11 This result is shown in the following tableau:

11 As noted in the last footnote, there is rampant variation both within and betweenspeakers, and within and between stems. For instance, I have heard my main consultantpronounce ‘peanut’ as both ky‚E and ky‚En in isolation. Future analysis (based on more data)


(39) Deletion of [+nasal] in isolation

/sâ [+nas]/ DEP(C) NOTAUMORDOC MAX-FLT

!a. sâ *

b. sã *!

c. sân *! (*)

Candidate (b) is once more ruled out by a violation of NoTauMorDoc.Candidate (c) realizes the floating nasal on an epenthesized consonant, whichviolates Dep(C). If we do not consider this epenthesized consonant as part ofthe same morpheme as the stem, then the variable behavior of floating featurerealization in isolation could be viewed as variable ranking of Dep(C) withrespect to Max-Flt. Assuming, however, that Dep(C) outranks Max-Flt,then the optimal candidate is candidate (a), which simply deletes the floatingnasal feature.

As we have seen, the floating feature [+nasal] never creates a nasalizedvowel on the stem in the singular. In the plural, however, this is the onlyattested outcome. The floating nasal feature is not allowed to dock on thefollowing word in the plural, since this would result in a Linearity violationin which features associated with the morpheme plural surface closer to theroot than elements belonging to the root itself. However, unlike in isolation,[+nasal] does not simply delete, even though the ranking NoTauMorDoc≫ Max-Flt would seem to favor this output. I take this is as evidence that,by virtue of docking floating material associated with another morpheme (inthis case the plural) to the vowel of the root, that vowel can be viewed asnon-tautomorphemic for the purposes of the floating nasal.12 The tableau in(40) illustrates the behavior of the floating nasal feature in the plural:

will focus on what factors influence these isolation pronunciations. In the meantime, it shouldbe remembered that as an SOV language with postpositions, nouns are rarely found in finalposition in natural speech, which surely contributes to the variation on the treatment offloating nasals in isolation.12 The alternative would be to simply reverse the ranking, Max-Flt ≫ NoTauMorDoc.Since Linearity does not allow the floating nasal feature to dock outside of the pluralfeatures, it simply docks tautomorphemically instead of deleting. This leaves us with theproblem, however, of explaining why the feature can delete in singular forms pronounced inisolation.

24 Laura McPherson

(40) Docking of [+nasal] in the plural

/sa[+nas]

+front

+raised PL bú-bəle/

NO

TA

UM

OR

DO

C

LIN

EA

RIT

Y

MA

X-F

LT

MA

X(+

low

)

MA

X(-

fro

nt)

!a. sɛ PL bú-bəle * *

b. sɛPL bú-bəle *! * *

c. sâ mbú-bəle *!*

d. sɛPL mbú-bəle *! * *

e. sã bú-bəle *! **

The least optimal candidate, candidate (e), deletes both features associatedwith the plural, incurring two violations of Max-Flt, then docks the floatingnasal feature onto the stem in violation of NoTauMorDoc. We can contrastthis with the winning candidate (a), which realizes both of the plural features(raising /a/ to [E] and H to eH). Realizing these features marks the stem asalso containing the morpheme pl, hence docking [+nasal] onto this vowel doesnot incur a violation ofNoTauMorDoc; all floating features are realized withonly violations of low-ranked faithfulness constraints. Candidate (b) realizesthe plural features but deletes the nasal feature, and this violates Max-Fltrenders the candidate harmonically bounded by candidate (a). Candidate (c)deletes all of the features of the plural but realizes the floating nasal on thefollowing word, making this candidate more optimal than candidate (e) butstill less optimal than the winning candidate, which does not violate Max-Flt. Finally, candidate (d) realizes the plural features on the noun but thenasal feature on the following adjective. This results in a Linearity violation,since underlyingly, [+nasal] belongs to the noun, which is linearly before thesuffix consisting of [+front] and [+raised].

Before concluding this section, we must address the behavior of [+ATR]stems with a floating nasal. Recall from §2.2 that the seven-way oral vowelcontrast is collapsed to a five-way nasal vowel contrast; in particular, there areno mid [+ATR] nasal vowels in Seenku. Nevertheless, [+ATR] noun stems canalso carry floating nasal features, as illustrated in (41):

(41) a. do mb‚@le‘big child’

b. gy‚o mb‚@le‘big slave’


c. kpoo mb‚@le‘big seat’

There are two strategies for plural formation of [+ATR] stems with a floatingnasal. The noun ‘child’ (and its derivative forms in compounds like bıe-lo

‘baby goat’) allows the floating nasal to dock but also raises the stem vowel to[+high], a (phonetically) [+ATR] vowel that can be nasal in the Seenku vowelinventory:

(42) do(n) → dı ‘child(ren)’

The feature [+back] is also lost in this case. Since this is the only word inSeenku that behaves this way, I assume it is a lexicalized irregular form, whichwould not be unexpected for a high frequency lexical item like ‘child’.

The more common and presumably more productive outcome is to simplydelete the [+nasal] feature in the plural:

(43) gy‚o(n) → gyoe ‘slave(s)’

This indicates that Max[+ATR] and Dep[+high] must outrank Max-Flt;apart from the exceptional stem ‘child’, nowhere else in Seenku do we see aloss of [+ATR] or raising of a mid vowel to high. This outcome is illustratedin the tableau in (44):

(44) Deletion of [+nasal] from a [+ATR] stem

/gyȍ[+nas]

+front

+raised PL/

*ẽ

MA

X(+

AT

R)

DE

P(+

hig

h)

MA

X-F

LT

!a. gyòePL *

b. gyuĩPL *!

c. gyoẽPL *!

d. gyɔɛPL *!

I consider here only candidates that realize the plural feature [+front] and[+raised] and omit constraints that pertain to their realization (e.g. Integrity);see §5 for a general treatment of plural formation on back-vowel stems. In thistableau, we see three new undominated constraints. First, we see *e, whichstands for *[+ATR,-high,+nasal]; this constraint is violated by candidate (c),which realizes the floating nasal on a non-high [+ATR] vowel. Second, we see

26 Laura McPherson

Max[+ATR], which penalizes the loss of the feature [+ATR]; this constraint isresponsible for ruling out candidate (d), which allows the floating nasal to dockby rendering the underlying [+ATR] vowels [-ATR], thus abiding by Seenku’svowel inventory. Finally, we see the constraint Dep[+high], which penalizesthe insertion of a feature [+high], as in candidate (b). Because these threeconstraints outrank the constraint Max-Flt, it is optimal to simply delete[+nasal], as in candidate (a).

In summary, the analysis proposed in this paper can account for not onlyfloating featural affixes but also floating features associated with a stem. Byranking NoTauMorDoc above Max-Flt, we can motivate the deletion ofthe floating [+nasal] feature when it has no other morpheme to dock to. In-terestingly, however, when docking the features of the plural morpheme to thestem, the stem vowel can be viewed as non-tautomorphemic and the feature[+nasal] is allowed to dock. Finally, we have seen that feature docking is struc-ture preserving: if docking [+nasal] would create a vowel that is not part of thephoneme inventory, the nasal feature can simply delete. This result is achievedby prioritizing the retention of [+ATR] and heavily penalizing the insertion of[+high].

7 A diachronic perspective

Before concluding, I will briefly address the diachronic development of thesystem. Though the Mande languages in general are not the most polysyntheticagglutinating languages, Seenku is far to the extreme in lacking clear affixalmorphology. This suggests that the language once had more affixes that haveslowly eroded over time, fusing with the stem or, in the case of the plural,with only floating features remaining.

To get a sense of what the plural suffix may have looked like in Seenkubefore undergoing such reduction, we can turn to its most closely related rel-atives in the Samogo subfamily. Of these languages, only two have any pub-lished descriptions, Jowulu (Djilla et al. 2004) and Dzuungoo (Solomiac 2007).Dzuungoo provides the best clues to the origin of the Seenku plural. This lan-guage has two plural suffixes, a definite plural suffix -ree and an indefiniteplural suffix -ı. I will concentrate on the latter, which shows a greater re-semblance to the Seenku system. Solomiac analyzes the suffix as a L-toned /i/accompanied by a floating H tone.13 Examples of singular/plural pairs include:

(45) a. modzınperson

+ -ıpl.indef

→ modzın-ıperson-pl.indef

‘people’

b. vıdog

+ -ıpl.indef

→ vı-ıdog-pl.indef

13 Dzuungoo is a three-tone language, contrasting L, M and H.


‘dogs’

The floating H tone docks onto the final syllable of the noun, replacing itsunderlying tone; the L-toned suffix -ı then follows.

It is probable that the Seenku system began something like this. First, onthe tonal side, rather than replacing the final tone with H, the floating tonemay have simply raised it one step from its original tone. Through changesin the tonal system that allowed more complex contours, such a raising effectcould no longer be analyzed by learners as the concatenation of full tones; atthis stage, learners arguably reanalyzed tonal changes as being the result offeatures rather than full tones.

In terms of vocalic changes, it is easy to see how an original suffix -i couldproduce the effects seen in Seenku today. The language does not allow thediphthongs /ei, Ei, ai/; in the case of the first two, the -i would be absorbedwith no audible change, while /ai/ fused to [E], a common diachronic path forthe development of mid vowels. Back-front diphthongs, on the other hand, areallowed, though only when they agree in height and ATR value. Thus, we findthe changes *oi > oe and *Oi > OE. In addition to the harmonic changes to[high] and [ATR] and the fusing of vowels to create [E] from /ai/, the suffix -ihad to have lost its property of being a full vowel, since unlike in Dzuungoo(see ‘dog’ above), we do not find lengthening of the vowel in the plural inSeenku.

We could ask whether the lack of lengthening in the plural in Seenku is aphonological fact of hiatus resolution in Seenku, such that we could analyzethe plural suffix as maintaining its status as a full vowel in the synchronicgrammar. This vocalic suffix would undergo vowel harmony to agree with theroot in the features [high] and [ATR], with vowel hiatus resolution (deletionof V1) accounting for the lack of lengthening.14

However, the phonological processes necessary to ensure a lack of length-ening in plural formation are inconsistent with other morphological processesin Seenku. For instance, we see a contrast between plural formation on nounsand the antipassive on verbs, highlighted in (46):

14 This explanation is unproblematic for a case like ka-E → k-E ‘yam(s)’, but it wouldeliminate a long vowel in the case like b‚EE-E → *b-E ‘pig(s)’. The same length problemwould arise when [+long] round vowels become glides, as in gOO-E → *gO

“-E ‘woods’. In

order to overcome this issue, we would either need to propose a rule of “length harmony”,transferring the value of the feature [long] to the suffix, or redistribute the moras of the stemvowel when the vowel is deleted. Neither approach is without problems: I am not aware ofany harmony rules for length in other languages, and in terms of mora preservation, theprocess would have to only reassign one mora of a long vowel to the suffix to create a longvowel; the mora of the short vowel is lost (i.e. suffixed words do not uniformly have longvowels, resulting from the root mora and suffix mora combined), nor do we find extra longvowels when a long vowel in the root is suffixed.

28 Laura McPherson

(46) Plural vs. antipassive formation in Seenkua. ka kE ‘yam(s)’

b˝a b´EE ‘hit (sth.)/do some hitting’

b. n‚@g‚ı n@gı ‘cow(s)’j@gı j@gıi ‘lay (an egg)/do some laying’

In the antipassive, suffixation leads to the creation of long vowels, while inthe plural, the vowel remains short. These differences are best explained ifantipassive suffixation involves a full vowel (either -i or -E that undergoesvowel harmony [ATR] and [high] harmony) while the plural consists of only afloating feature. The two underlying suffixes and their resulting surface formsare illustrated in (47):

(47) a. /j@gı-i/ → [j@gıi] ‘do some laying’

b. /n‚@g‚ı -[+front]/ → [n@gı] ‘cows’

Tonal differences between the regular transitive and antipassive verb can beaccounted for by a featural neutralization rule in the intransitive, which sees[+raised] changed to [-raised] (McPherson, in press); the tonal change in theplural, of course, is derived by the affixation of [+raised], as described in §4above.

In sum, while the plural in Seenku likely developed from a full front vowelsuffix, as is still seen in related Dzuungoo (and in Jowulu, Djilla et al. 2004,where the definite and plural have merged to form the suffix -rı), it can nolonger be analyzed this way synchronically. Seenku has full vowel suffixes, suchas the antipassive, which follow a different pattern of behavior from the plural.

8 Conclusions

This paper has provided an analysis of plural formation in Seenku where bothvocalic and tonal changes are driven by a suffix consisting of two floating fea-tures: a vocalic feature [+front] and a tonal feature [+raised]. Unlike othercases of multiple feature affixation analyzed in Trommer (2012), the pluralin Seenku cannot be effectively decomposed into two morphemes, making theReal-Morph approach to featural affixation problematic, since only one ofthe two features would need to be realized in order to satisfy the constraint.This lends support to Wolf’s (2007) more general Max-Flt approach, wherethe deletion of underlyingly floating material is specifically penalized. Thisconstraint, combined with more general Max constraints on featural specifi-cations, elegantly accounts for the surface forms found in the Seenku plural.

Further, §6 on stems with floating [+nasal] features showed that floatingfeatures will delete in Seenku if their only option is tautomorphemic docking;as seen in the fact that singular stems pronounced in isolation delete the


floating nasal. However, if the features of the plural dock to the stem, thenthe nasal can likewise dock, nasalizing the stem vowel. This indicates that astem vowel carrying featural affixes is treated as non-tautomorphemic for thepurposes of the grammar.

Finally, I showed how the system of featural affixation in the plural devel-oped from a historical full-vowel and full-tone suffix, whose reflex is seen stillin related Dzuungoo. This diachronic path fits the general pattern for Seenku,which has undergone a good deal of reduction and coalescence of morphologicalmaterial, as compared to other Mande languages. We can see that the pluralis no longer a full-vowel suffix in Seenku if we compare the plural formationto the antipassive: in the former, original vowel length of the stem is retained,showing that the affix has no mora or vowel timing slot; in the antipassive,the resulting vowel is always long.

In sum, Seenku provides what appears to be an unequivocal case of multiplefeature affixation. If such a case exists in Seenku, with a clear diachronicexplanation, it would be surprising if true multiple feature affixation werenot attested elsewhere. This calls into question attempts to decompose othercases of putative multiple feature affixation, possible though it may be. Futurework should examine whether there are any consistent patterns underlying thecombination of features in featural affixation (e.g. is it more common to drawfeatures from different inventories, such as vocalic and tonal?), and why thosepatterns might be. Perhaps such investigation could shed light onto the relativerarity of multiple feature affixation, a rarity that led researchers to questionits very existence.

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Seenku plural paper - Dartmouth College · 6 Laura McPherson (10) Low vowel stems in singular and...

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