Two words in syntax; one word in phonology: Zapotec adjectives

Monday, 31 January 2011, Colloquium

George Aaron Broadwell, University at Albany.

Abstract

Zapotec is an Otomanguean language spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico. In Zapotec, an attributive adjective forms a single compound-like phonological word with the noun that it modifies. Nevertheless, the noun and adjective behave as if they were two words in syntax. This kind of mismatch can be successfully captured in a theory that allows lexical sharing (Wescoat 2002), where there may be a many-to-one correspondence between terminal nodes in syntax and lexical items.