Dittongo mobile and g infixation: reducing root allomorphy in Italian verbs

A seminar on Dittongo mobile and g infixation with Edoardo Cavirani

In human languages, one and the same meaning can be expressed by different forms depending on the context in which it occurs. In generative linguistics, this phenomenon is accounted for as much as possible by postulating the existence of a single morpheme and a set of phonological rules that modify the phonological shape of such a morpheme in specific contexts. When this does not seem to be plausible, namely when there seem to be no reasonable phonological rules deriving the observed allomorphs, one is forced to assume that the relevant allomorphs are stored in the lexicon as different objects.

In this seminar, Edoardo Cavirani shows that the plausibility of a purely phonological solution heavily depends on the phonological toolkit one works with: once you get the right tools, there is no need to give up and store the allomorphs as different objects.