Dissertation - Michael Becker

As for finding a constraint ranking for the two languages, it again emerges that the“surface” language is easier to analyze, and is thus expected to be easier to learn: Inthe “surface” language, nouns that have an [o] in their plural stem always select –ot, soLOCAL(o) can be uniformly ranked over φ-MATCH. Nouns that have [i] in their plural stemalways select –im, which is compatible with a uniform ranking of φ-MATCH over *´σ/HIGH.Under this view, the “surface” language is just a simpler, more extreme expression of actualHebrew. The single constraint ranking in (131) can be successfully used to provide thecorrect choice of plural affix for the “surface” language.(131) LOCAL(o) ≫ φ-MATCH ≫ *´σ/HIGHIn the “deep” language, speakers cannot find a single constraint ranking for the languagethat uses the markedness constraints that are active in the plural allomorph selection ofactual Hebrew.Since nouns with [i] in their plural stems always take –ot, a speakercould rank *´σ/HIGH over φ-MATCH, but that would entail selection of –ot for all nouns,contrary to overt evidence. Nouns with [o] in their plural stems always take –im in the“deep” language, which would imply ranking φ-MATCH over LOCAL(o). This rankingleaves LOCAL(o) completely inactive in the artificial language, and attributes all of the otselectionof the language to *´σ/HIGH, contrary to the situation in real Hebrew, where mostot-selection is due to LOCAL(o). Finding a grammar for the “deep” language would requireconstraint cloning, as shown in (132). The nouns that have a known plural will be dividedbetween the two clones of *´σ/HIGH.(132) *´σ/HIGH {aSiv, axis, amig, azix, adic} ≫ φ-MATCH ≫ *´σ/HIGH {agof, apoz, acok, aboS, alod} ,LOCAL(o)While the grammar in (132) allows the participant to correctly select a plural affix oncethey have heard the correct plural form, it does not allow them to generalize correctly toforms that were only given in the singular. While the nouns with [i] and the nouns with[o] are neatly divided between the clones of *´σ/HIGH, they are listed under a constraint133