Root Suppletion and the Theory of Allomorphic Locality

Abstract

The paper investigates the root suppletion phenomena with its direct relation to the theory of allomorphic locality as it is couched in the Distributed Morphology (DM) framework (Halle & Marantz 1993, 1994) and its recent developments. The paper covers the suppletion phenomena of two varieties, those conditioned by the number of an internal argument and tense-aspect-mood (TAM) features of functional heads merging above roots. The empirical data is brought up to support the main claim that the suppletion of verbal roots can be conditioned not only by the most local elements such as the number of the internal argument, but it can also be triggered by the TAM features of the functional heads which are outside of the XP boundary where the roots are merged (Harley et al. 2009, Bobaljik 2012, Harley 2015 among others). To account for the TAM-conditioned suppletion, the paper is using the phase-theoretic approach following Chomsky (1999) and Embick (2010) by positing a variety of non-cyclic heads merging above roots that render the interaction between TAM features and roots possible even though some of the intervening heads between roots and these features may be overtly realized. The paper arrives at the conclusion that the suppletion can still be triggered by the local material converging with other authors mentioned above.