Phonological Conditions on Affixation

multiple possible nominal forms (e.g., commission, commital, commitment). In Carstairs’
view, the fact that only meaning-driven derivation obeys the principle of parsimonious
coverage accounts for the fact that cases of phonologically conditioned suppletion are
more often inflectional than derivational. The question is then posed whether we might
find some example of phonologically conditioned suppletion in a type of meaning-driven
derivation, and Carstairs does present one such case from Dutch, where the distribution
of suffixes that create ‘neutral deverbal personal names’ (e.g., terms meaning ‘drummer,’
‘camper,’ etc.) is conditioned by the stem-final segment(s) (1988: 84). Carstairs
concludes by suggesting that the concepts of ‘meaning-driven’ vs. ‘expression-driven’
morphology may turn out to be more useful than inflection vs. derivation. Thus, PCSA is
used to make an argument against the distinction between inflection and derivation.
A second important paper dealing with PCSA is Carstairs 1990. This brief article
outlines some implications of PCSA for phonological and morphological theory. One
primary consequence for phonology, of course, is that ‘the existence of a phonologically
conditioned alternation does not by itself prove the existence of some synchronic
phonological process giving rise to it’ (Carstairs 1990: 19).
Carstairs makes some generalizations about what types of phonological factors
can condition allomorphy. These seem to be based on the set of eleven examples that
Carstairs provides (1990: 18). One generalization is that there are no cases where a
phonological characteristic of a word or morph conditions allomorph selection for a
separate phonological word. A second generalization is that, as predicted by Lexical
Phonology, conditioning is generally ‘outward’, i.e., involving a root or inner affix
conditioning the distribution of allomorphs of an outer affix. There are some apparent
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