The role of phonology in Vata adjectival agreement

Abstract

Abstract In realizational theories of morphology, different opinions exist on the relationship between phonology and Vocabulary Insertion. On the one hand, there are separational theories like Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993), which assume that Vocabulary Insertion does not interact with the phonological component of the grammar. These theories predict that the properties of a language's regular phonology never play a role when vocabulary items (VIs) are inserted. The opposite view is held by integrational theories as, for instance, proposed in Wolf (2008). These theories assume that the general phonology of a language can influence Vocabulary Insertion. Based on adjectival agreement in the language Vata, I propose an integrational model that assumes that Vocabulary Insertion applies in an Optimality-Theoretic (Prince & Smolensky 1993) phonology, where regular phonological constraints are active. I propose that the phonology consists of two levels: one level where VIs are inserted and one level for regular phonology.