Re: Moraic codas [was Re: 'Yemls Morphology]

Nik Taylor wrote:

> "Thomas R. Wier" wrote:
> > > So, if I understand you correctly, in those languages, one cannot
> > > predict if a word like, say, _kasta_ would be two or three morae?  Is
> > > that correct?
> >
> > Right.  Looking at a single word like this one, you can tell extremely little
> > about the moraicity
>
> I think you misunderstood my question.  What I meant was, would a
> knowledge of the language's structure allow you to predict whether
> _kasta_ would be two or three morae?  In other words, would a speaker of
> this language know whether it would be two or three morae?
Oh, well, you didn't say that a speaker's intuitions are being called into
play. I thought (based on what you wrote) that you were asking whether
someone sitting outside the system, so to speak, analyzing the language
from a theoretical point of view, would be able to predict the moraicity
I would still say "no", however, because first of all, moraicity is a theoretical
construct, and is not something that you can just sense with a native speaker's
intuition:  it needs to be there to explain the data, but that is sensed only after
much analysis of the language.  Secondly, and relatedly,  my original points
still hold true:  because underlying representations are themselves also theoretical
constructs, like moraicity, most people cannot just sense them.   They are derived
within a theoretical framework because they're needed to explain the data, not
because they are themselves data.  This means therefore that you still have to look
at a variety of words, and that one individual word will not be able to tell you
how many moras a particular word has:  you have to look at the whole system
before you can make any judgements.

===================================
Thomas Wier | AIM: trwier

"Aspidi men Saiôn tis agalletai, hên para thamnôi
  entos amômêton kallipon ouk ethelôn;
autos d' exephugon thanatou telos: aspis ekeinê
  erretô; exautês ktêsomai ou kakiô" - Arkhilokhos

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