Gh-WordsAuthor(s): Emily PopeSource: Linguistic Inquiry, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Winter, 1972), pp. 125-130Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4177694 .

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SQUIBS AND DISCUSSION

must find a context which factors out the fully grammatical reading. Such a context was proposed in Lakoff (I970).

(ii) ?Max finally liquefied the metal, but it would have taken Sam a year to bring it about.

In (II), the italicized it is understood as referring to the object complement in (7'), that is, it is understood as meaning bring it about that the metal liquefy. Note that, as predicted by Principle II, we cannot find such a sentence with kill.

(i 2) *Max finally killed Boris, but it would have taken Sam a year to bring it about.

For most speakers, the underlined it in (I2) cannot mean bring about Boris's death. The existence of cases like (i I) sup- ports the causative analysis given above. The lack of similar support in cases like kill is predicted by Principle II, and thus cannot be taken as a counterargument to the causative analysis, contrary to Fodor's claim (cf. Fodor I970).

References

Fodor, J. A. (I970) "Three Reasons for Not Deriving 'Kill' from 'Cause to Die'," Linguistic Inquiry I, 429-438.

Lakoff, G. (I970) Irregularity in Syntax, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, New York, N.Y.

McCawley, J. D. (I968) "Lexical Insertion in a Trans- formational Grammar Without a Deep Structure," in Papers from the Fourth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Binnick, Davison, Green, Morgan, eds., Linguistics Department offset, Uni- versity of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.

Postal, P. M. (I969) "Anaphoric Islands," in Papers from the Fifth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Binnick, Davison, Green, Morgan, eds., Linguistics Department offset, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.

Ross, J. R. (I97I) "The Superficial Nature of Anaphoric Island Constraints," Linguistic Inquiry 2, 599-600.

GH-WORDS

Emily Pope, MIT The segment written gh appears to be an anomaly in English orthography. In most cases it has evidently no re- flex in the word as spoken. Taught sounds as if it should be spelled taut or tot. When the segment does have a consonantal reflex, the sound is one which is most commonly represented with a different symbol. It would seem more natural to spell draught as draft and ghastly as gastly. However, there are a few arguments against doing away with gh-arguments

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126 SQUIBS AND DISCUSSION

that it represents, at least in words with two or more related forms (fly-flight, teach-taught, and so forth), an underlying consonant, with no other unique orthographic form, which affects the way the words it appears in are realized phone- tically. Two arguments to this effect appear in Chomsky and Halle (I968, 233-234).

The third argument concerns an English noun-forming suffix -th -t, not to be confused with the past tense dental suffix relating leave and left nor with the ordinal number- forming suffix -th relating five and fifth. The noun-forming suffix usually has the form -th, for example, following words ending in voiced or voiceless stops (broad-breadth, deep- depth), liquids (steal-stealth, dear-dearth), nasals 1 (warm- warmth), and (NB) vowels (true-truth, grow-growvth, slow-sloth 2).

The suffix has the form -t only following fricatives (thieve, thief-theft, cleave-cleft, heave-heft, weave-weft, give-gift, drive- drift; -th, no examples; -s, -z, two possible examples, freeze-frost, -crease-crest) and following gh (high-height, fly- flight, weigh-weight, and so forth). We can preserve the pre- dictable nature of the form of this suffix only if we postulate that high, and so forth, have an underlying form ending not in a vowel, but rather in a fricative, namely the velar fricative which has a voiced form represented by y and a voiceless form represented by x.

There is a straw man objection to this claim which I would like to discuss because it brings up some interesting data. It involves the inchoative suffix -en. When this suffix follows a fricative-stop cluster, the stop is deleted (haste- hasten, moist-moisten, list-listen, fast-fasten, soft-soften, and, with a different suffix of the same form, oft-often). The objection is that if height ends in a fricative-stop cluster, we would expect the -t- to delete in heighten, and it does not. This objection can be avoided simply by ordering the rule de- leting -gh- preceding -t before the rule deleting the -t- in soften. But then another interesting question arises, namely, why is there the form heighten rather than highen (or no form at all) ? For the -en suffix usually attaches to adjectives, not nouns. The answer may be sought in the phonological con- straints on this suffix. It does not attach to adjectives of more than one syllable (*morosen), nor to adjectives ending in nasals (*greenen, *youngen), vowels (or glides) (*bluen,

1 Actually, the situation with nasals is more complex than I have indicated. The suffix is -th in a few words (warm-warmth, moon-month), -t in a few others (contain-content, restrain-restraint, complain-complaint), and in a few (now probably completely suppletive) pairs, the nasal is deleted before -th (ten-tithe, sun-south).

2 Growth and sloth, like complaint and content, would have to have #

and + boundaries, respectively, before the noun-forming suffix, in order to account for the difference in vowel tenseness.

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SQUIBS AND DISCUSSION

*slowen), liquids (*soren, *tallen), or nongeminate clusters (*littlen, *blinden), with the exception of -rC (darken, harden, sharpen) and a few others. It is interesting that the rule deleting -t in soften, and so forth, has the same effect as, and somehow supports, the constraint against -en after clusters. It is also interesting that -en attaches to the noun, rather than to the adjective, only when the adjective form would be unacceptable. For instance, *highen would be unacceptable after -gh- deleted, since the adjective then ends in a vowel, so instead we get heighten (cf. roughen). Similarly, *longen would violate either the nasal or the cluster constraint, so we get lengthen and strengthen (apparently -ngth- is one of the acceptable clusters). But since widen and broaden violate no constraint, we find those forms instead of *widthen and *breadthen. And of course, -t -th is the only noun-forming suffix which can be used in getting around the -en con- straints, because it is the only one that consists only of a con- sonant (and hence that adds no syllables to the adjective) to violate the syllabic constraint.

The fourth argument against doing away with gh is quite similar to the third. It was pointed out to me by Morris Halle, and concerns the family-member suffix -ther -ter. This suffix has the form -ther following vowels, as in mother, father, and brother. It has the form -ter following fricatives, as in sister and in daughter. Since we have no examples of the suffix following a stop consonant, we cannot argue that it is -ter only after fricatives. However, we can say that it is -ter only after certain consonants, and hence that there is an underlying consonant which has been deleted before the suffix in daughter. Since we must have, on independent grounds, a rule deleting the velar fricative before t, and since we know from sister that the class of consonants condition- ing -ter contains fricatives, it would hardly seem surprising if the consonant in daughter were a velar fricative.

The fifth argument concerns verbs whose past tense forms are spelled with gh's. We have teach-taught, think- thought, seek-sought, bring-brought, catch-caught, buy-bought, and so forth. Most English verbs form the past tense either by changing their vowel while keeping their consonants con- stant (for example, steal-stole, sit-sat, take-took), or by taking a dental suffix -ed -d - -t. The form of the suffix is predictable, with -t following all and only the voiceless consonants except t itself.3 The suffix does not affect the stem vowels or consonants.

However, the verbs which have gh in the past tense not

3 It is possible to analyze some forms as having a -t suffix following a verb ending in -t, with null effect (for example, fit-fit, hit-hit, beat-beat, thrust-thrust).

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I28 SQUIBS AND DISCUSSION

only change vowels and take a dental suffix, they also lose one or more consonants. Furthermore, the suffix takes the form -t, while there is apparently no voiceless consonant to cause it. The segment immediately preceding the suffix phonetically is always a vowel, and vowels should cause the suffix to take the form -d.

There are three reasons why the suffix might have the form -t instead of -d. In the first case, the verb would end in some voiceless consonant which would condition the form -t in the usual way and later be deleted. In the second case, the verb would end in a voiced fricative (followed by + in- stead of the usual A), which would condition the form -d. A linking convention would later devoice both members of the cluster (Chomsky and Halle I968, 2Io). The existence of this possibility is borne out by examples like leave-left, lose- lost. But in the cases we are considering, the first member of the cluster would again later be deleted. Sincef and s both show up phonetically in comparable forms, we will postulate that the consonant in question is some other fricative-say, the velar fricative. In the third case, we would postulate that whenever a verb ends in a + boundary, it automatically takes the -t suffix. The existence of this possibility is borne out by the ten verbs which lax a tense e (by the two con- sonant laxing rule, hence the need for a + boundary) and always take -t in the past tense (sleep-slept, and so on). Four of these ten end in voiced consonants to which, since they are sonorants, the cluster devoicing rule does not apply (feel-felt, deal-dealt, mean-meant, kneel-knelt). Here, since there is no rule to devoice the -t, we must postulate that it is the original form of the suffix.

The second and third possibilities have the advantage that they require these verbs to have a + boundary, rather than #, in front of the past tense morpheme. This boundary provides a marker (though perhaps a somewhat ad hoc marker) of the irregularity of these verbs, which can be used to limit the applicability of the rules describing their other irregular properties. For instance, we will need a rule changing k (seek-sought), g (bring-brought), c (catch-caught), and perhapsy and w (depending on what the correct under- lying representation is of verbs such as buy and owe) to velar fricatives. Since such changes are not normal in the past tense, we can use the + boundary to limit the applica- tion of this simple rule.

_r-cor (I) a _ V + cont]/ + Past

(vAcl oftee-i + consi

(All of the e-laxing verbs end in [ +ant] consonants, so this

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SQUIBS AND DISCUSSION

rule will not apply to them. k and c will change directly to the voiceless velar fricative, which will take the past tense morpheme -t in any case, so the cluster devoicing rule is not needed for those examples). This rule accounts both for the loss of the stem-final consonants in the past tense of verbs such as teach and for the origin of the fricatives that condition the form of the past tense morpheme and are later deleted (by Rule (40), Chomsky and Halle I968, 244). We also need a rule deleting nasals before velar fricatives, in the environment of past tense.

Explaining the vowels of gh words is the most difficult part of their analysis, partly because some of the vowels in question fall into a phonetically hazy region where they are hard to distinguish, making it difficult to say when their underlying representations differ and what those represen- tations are. OED says caught, cough, nought, moss, and maudlin have five phonetically different vowels. They all sound the same to me. But even according to OED, all the past tense gh words (for example, caught, thought, sought) have the same vowel, and it is not a diphthong. This indicates that it is either Y or a < d (by Rule (36), Chomsky and Halle I968, 244). These verbs have various vowels in the present tense (J seek, teach; i think, bring; ' catch; i buy, and so on). The vowel shift rule does not handle such a many-one correspondence naturally. McCawley (I 970, IO-I i), in his forthcoming review of Chomsky and Halle, also finds the vowel shift rule inadequate for certain present-past alterna- tions, and suggests that instead of case (b) of the vowel shift rule, what is needed is a minor rule

+ syll -

(2) a low > [[-a low]. [Past]

This rule does not work very well either (it does not handle switches in the feature [back]), but it is similar to the rule needed for gh words, namely:

(3) Past] [+ back] /--gh,

with laxing being taken care of by the two-consonant laxing rule (Rule 20 III, Chomsky and Halle I968, 241), and rounding specified as + or -, whichever is correct (pro- ducing o or a), in the final version of the rule. This rule precedes Chomsky and Halle's Rule 23 V, which tenses high vowels before gh, thus explaining why gh + t nouns, unlike gh + t verbs and other fricative + t nouns, ap- parently violate the two-consonant laxing rule (cf. cleft, and so forth). This brings me to two unsolved problems, which

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130 SQUIBS AND DISCUSSION

I will mention in conclusion. First, why does the iu in drought not become unrounded by Rule 23 V as does the a of impugn? Second, how or why does the e of weight become or stay tense? If we extended Rule 23 V so that it tensed e, as well as i and u, it would also incorrectly tense the e of draught (/drxft/).4

4Another conceivable explanation of -gh-word vowels, inspired by Hasegawa (I963) is the following. Rule 23 V tenses all vowels before -gh-. The vowels then become diphthongs in the usual way. Instead of Vowel Shift, our minor rule applies; it may now take the form

(i) [+ syll][ + low]/ gh

which is even more similar to McCawley's rule. Backness Adjustment applies. Then, we would have the following rules:

(ii) [glide] [gh] -* obl Past (iii) [gh] -- [glide] [gh] -> f elsewhere.

This explanation is far from elegant, but it makes the minor rule simpler, and it accounts for why f < gh occurs whenever and only when there is a lax vowel, except for the lax vowel of the past tense.

References

Chomsky, N. and M. Halle (I968) The Sound Pattern of English, Harper and Row, New York.

Hasegawa, K. (i963) "On Middle English [uix] -* /f/ and Other Related Changes: Corroboratory Evidence for an Interpretation of Middle English 'Long' Vowels," in Hitotsubashi Journal of Arts and Sciences 3, No. i, Hitotsubashi University, Kunitachi, Tokyo, Japan.

McCawley, J. (I 970) "A Review of Chomsky and Halle's The Sound Pattern of English," unpublished paper.

Oxford English Dictionary (OED), Oxford, I

Two REMARKS ON

DRAGGING

Paul M. Postal, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center

A. Background

I shall use the term dragging to designate what Ross (I967) calls Pied Piping. Familiarity with his discussion is assumed.

Ross claims that a "small" NP which would be subject to movement, according to an unbounded movement rule, drags along some "larger" NP which contains it, subject to various restrictions. These include:

(i) Dragging Restrictions a. the "small" NP node (henceforth: the dragger)

cannot be separated by any coordinate nodes from the "large" NP node (henceforth: the draggee) along the branch(es) which separate them; and

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