Process morphology in a realizational theory

This paper provides an analysis of scalar tone shift in Guébie as constraint-driven and morphosyntactically conditioned, rather than triggered by a particular abstract underlying representation. Much recent literature has claimed that all morphology involves affixation of morphemes with underlying (abstract) phonological representations (Benua 1997, Alderete 2001,Wolf 2007, Gouskova & Linzen 2015, Zimmermann 2013, Trommer & Zimmermann 2014, Köhnlein 2016). However, subtractive, scalar, metathesizing, and replacive morphology pose challenges for the item-based view. Hockett (1954), Anderson (1992) famously raise this debate, both coming down in favor of the need for process morphology. Here I look at a novel pattern of scalar tone shift from Guébie (Kru), reraising Anderson (1992)[63]’s question: “Is it possible to reduce all of morphology to affixation [...]? If not, the item-based theory should probably be rejected.” I demonstrate that indeed there is no workable underlying representation of the Guébie imperfective morpheme. On the basis of Guébie scalar tone shift and countless other morphologically conditioned phonological processes across languages, we should give up a purely item-based view of morphology. I propose an alternative solution based in the morphological operations of Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1994) and construction-specific constraint-based phonology.